of all Duties of Subjects and particularly of Non-resistance saying They that resist shall receive Damnation as resisting the Powers that be of God and the Ordinance of God and requiring Subjection out of Conscience because they are Gods Ministers So that as to matter of Resistance any other King has the conscionable Bar against it as much as a King of Gods own naming if he be but Gods Minister and Ordinance But now the Power of Kings by humane Titles is Gods Power and God owns this way of coming in and empowers them as much as those that come in by his own personal Nomination declaring that their Power is his Power and that they are his Ministers and Ordinance All which S. Paul says as expresly of the Roman Emperor as he could have said of any Prince immediately call'd out and commission'd by God himself The seditious Jews I conceive were of this Opinion that the Heathen Powers not set up by any Revelations but left to humane Claims were not Kings of Gods making And so were wont to despise and speak slightfully of them Despising Dominion and speaking evil of Dignities as S. Jude says of the Seditious Judaizers v. 8. But S. Paul tells such Men that these Powers were as truly of God as any of their own Nation and that Gods Command for obeying Powers was as much for obeying these as it had been for obeying them There is no power saith he but of God And he that resists the Power resists the Ordinance of God 〈◊〉 the Divine Precept viz. the fifth Commandment or other Precepts that oblige Subjects and empower Princes and give as much Duty to these Heathen Powers as they had done to any among the Jews Rom. xiii 1 2. And like to this of the different ways of their coming in making no difference in our Duties to them we find in other instances In point of Property we come into our Lands and Possessions by an humane Law and Allotment but they came into theirs in Canaan by a divine But yet there is as much Stealing and a breach of the eighth Commandment in taking away our things from us as there was in taking away theirs from them And in case of Servitude the Primitive Masters came by their Servants either as their Captives taken in War or as their Purchase bought with money like their Cattle in the Markets but we by Contract all our Servants voluntarily submitting themselves to us and at their own choice Yet for all this different Rise of Masters Powers when once Servants are got under them the same Gospel Precepts of Diligence Fidelity and not answering again c. do equally oblige in both Cases The Duties respecting either Power or Property depend not on the particular manure of coming in but only on the Rightfulness and Degrees of that Power and Property which any Persons are come in to More Power I grant there is in some Princes and more Liberties to some Subjects than to others according to the difference of Civil Governments and Constitutions But since the Power of the Jewish Kings was a Power limited by Laws as ours is an Invasion of Laws and Rights can no more justifie Resistance in our Case than it did in theirs And to say they did not come into this limited and Legal Power the same way makes no difference as to this business The Scriptures of the New Testament likewise they endeavor to turn off by saying they only bind us not to resist when true Religion has Laws against it but for all those Precepts we may resist when it has a Law on its side If we may do thus when we have a Law for Religion then since Law is as good in one Case as in another when we have a Law for Liberty or Property or any thing else But this as I have shewn is contrary to the sense of those Gospel Precepts and to the Belief and Practice of Gospel and Primitive Times Which tied up the Hands of Christians when they suffered illegal things and were treated by their Governors in numerous and most concerning Points against the Laws Again they say those Precepts were directed against Jews who were not for submitting or paying Allegiance to Foreiners or Heathens Admit they had one Eye against these yet at the same time they had as much against any others that would have run into the same Jewish Practice or have been for making Warlike Resistance to those Powers on any other pretences The thing those Precepts are plainly for securing is Non-Resistance to those Powers notwithstanding any thing that could be alledged against them And as the Jews might pretend in those days that they were Foreiners and Heathens so might others and with as much truth too that they were Invaders of Laws of Rights and Liberties And yet for all these or any other pretences Seditious Spirits should start the Apostles peremptorily injoyn all good Christians to own them still as Gods Ordinance and to forbear all warlike Resistance towards them not only for wrath but for Conscience sake And thus in obedience to those injunctions they all practised at that time as their followers did in the succeeding Persecutions And the Scriptures are written for a Rule of Christs Church alike in all times as much to us as they were to former Ages So that these Precepts both of Old and New Testament are as binding upon us as ever they were upon either the Jews or the Primitive Christians And whatever pretences were pleadable in their Case whilst the Inspired Pen-men told them they were bound not to Resist to be sure those same pretences can never Cancel our Obligation more than it did theirs or make it lawful for us do it We must follow them to Heaven in the same way the Apostles taught and they took or else we are not like to get thither at all CHAP. VI. Of the unlawfulness of Resistance on such Invasions of Rights by our own Laws TO all this which I have hitherto Discoursed from the Obligations both of Jews and Christians I shall now Thirdly In the Thrid Place Note from our own Laws how little Ground there is with us in these Realms to take up Arms against our Sovereigns for any Rights because of their being Legal or for Religion because of its being taken into the Law of the Land For those very Laws which establish our Religion and particularly the Act of Uniformity forbid this way of Defence and declare it unlawful on any Pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King This Declaration was made upon occasion of the Great Rebellion begun in 41. and for preventing any ones falling into the like again And therefore by any Pretence whatsoever it must more particularly include all those Pretences which were given out for taking Arms at that time And those Pretences as may be seen from the Votes and Declararations of that Parliament a brief Account whereof is given in the View of the late
Troubles were the Preservation of Liberty and Property of Religion and Laws of the Privileges of Parliament who are the Conservators of all our Rights and for keeping out of Foreign Forces which the King was said to be endeavouring to bring in to inslave this Kingdom Which Pretences are the best that can be invented for Forcible Defence and so as oft as they are bent on change will probably be made use of by Men of like Minds in latter Ages Indeed so far as Words and plain Declarations can do it our Law seems to have taken all the Care the Wit of Man can take before hand to prevent all Recourse to this way of Defence against our Lawful Sovereigns by leaving none in this way to be our Defenders or capable to pretend a Power of making use thereof If any could list Armies against the King not only in Defence of private Rights but of the Laws or the very Constitution it self when the Kings chance to break in upon them It would certainly be the two Houses of Parliament But the Act about the Militia 13. Car. 2. c. 6. and 14. Car. 2. c. 3. declares the Power of the Militia so much contested by the Parliament in King Charles the First 's time yea and that on this very Pretence that they might therewith Defend the Laws and Liberties against him to be solely in the King And that neither one nor both the Houes of Parliament can or lawfully may Levy any War either Offensive or Defensive against him So that take even the most Defensible Rights which seem best to deserve a War and put them into their Hands who have the best Claim to be their Defenders and yet t is plain by this Act that they are not to defend them against the King by Levying War or Listing Soldiers T is true our Parliaments are taken into the Government and have a share in the Highest Acts as making Laws Whence some have argued that upon the Princes Breaking in upon the Legislative Power the Parliament may take Arms against such an Invader as one Sovereign may against another This Inference is directly against the Act last mentioned which declares they have no Power against him either for any Offensive or Defensive War But to clear this Point this Share of theirs in the Legislation as I conceive is not a Sovereign's but a Subject's Part. They are called in to consult and with Authority of Negative upon all Laws to be imposed on them which is a great Security indeed of their being well-governed and bound to nothing but what is for their Benefit no Law being to be made or repealed without their own Consent But this Liberty of consulting and Authority of Negative is still under the King the only Sovereign nor on equal Terms with him as two Independant Sovereigns Agreeably we find the Stile in the Acts so often is Be it enacted by the King our Sovereign Lord with the Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and of the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled and by Authority of the same As 37. H. 8. c. 4. 25. H. 8. c. 11. 19. H. 7. c. 18. 23. 3. Edw. 4. c. 4. 7. Edw. 4 c. 3. passim Or our Lord the King by the Advice and Assent of the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at the Request of the Commons in this Parliament Assembled and by Authority of the same hath Ordain'd and Establish'd c. 12. Edw. 4. c. 8. Tho the King is not Absolute without Rules in Governing nor alone without Partners in Legislation yet is theirs only a Subjects Part not a Coordinate Sovereigns and he alone is Supreme both in Legislation and Execution For our Law and Church too fixes all the Sovereignty of the Realm solely in the King The Kings Majesty hath the Chief Power in this Realm of England c. unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all Causes doth appertain Say the 39. Articles of Religion He is the only Supreme Governor of this and all other his Realms in all Temporal things as well as Spiritual says the Oath of Supremacy His Realm recognizes no Superior under God but only his Grace says Stat. 25. H. 8. c. 21. His Parliaments when they meet both sit and Act only as his Subjects not as his Compere Sovereigns he not having Parem in Regno suo as Bracton says For by order of Law they were to take the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance professing by those Solemnities of Religion that he is the sole Sovereign and that they whilst acting there are only his Subjects When during their Session they make to him any Addresses they Stile themselves his Majesties most Loyal and Dutiful Subjects Yea in Acts and Statutes themselves they have often used the same Stile calling as him their Gracious Leige Lord and Sovereign so themselves his Humble Loving and Dutiful Subjects in those Acts of Legislation In all Humble manner shew unto your most excellent Majesty your Majesties most Dutiful and Loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons c. says Stat. 12. Car. 2. c. 30. We your Majesties most Faithful and Loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons c. says Stat. 1. Jac. c. 1. We your Majesties most Loving Faithful and Obedient Subjects the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons c. representing the three Estates of this Realm so bearing only the Part and Place of Subjects in that Representation says Stat. 1. Eliz. c. 1. and the like may be seen in the Acts under Q. Mary as in Stat. 1. Mar. Sess. 2. c. 1. under King Edward 6. as Stat. 1. Edw. 6. c. 14. and K. Henry 8. as Stat. 37. H. 8. c. 4. c. 17. By all which I conceive it plainly appears that the two Houses sit with the King in Parliament and concur in making Laws not as Coordinate Powers that are equal to him but as Subordinate under him not in Place of Sovereigns but of Subjects under him their sole Sovereign So that if any Parliaments head Insurrections against our Kings they are Wars of Subjects still against their Sovereigns and such as they neither can nor Lawfully may make no not in their own Defence as the Statute says But some Appeal from the Letter of these Laws and Legal Declarations to the Equity of them and think tho the Letter of the Law condemns resisting Subjects that the Equity thereof will acquit and justifie them This Plea of Equity against the Letter of these Laws and Legal Declarations is for excepting some particular Cases from being meant and comprehended in the general Terms used therein and that is by way of Presumption that the Makers of those Laws and Declarations would have excepted them had the Cases been foreseen or particularly put to them But there is no Place for presumptions of a thing against express Declarations to the contrary or for supposing such exceptions
publick Enemies and the like against the now exploded Doctrine of Faith and Patience and Non-resistance under the fiery tryal of the primitive Persecutions But those blessed Martyrs and Confessors had not so learned Christ. These illegal Invaders of Rights and bloody Persecutors of Religion they still own'd and suffer'd as Gods Vicegerents And as our Lord himself and his blessed Apostles taught and practised so these their true Followers took care even in such Violators of Rights never to resist the Ordinance of God which by S. Paul has Damnation annex'd to it but to submit to them not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake They stuck to the Faith and Laws of Christ with Courage and Resoluteness and bore and broke all the unjust violence of the persecuting Powers with Patience and never countenanced or joyn'd in any of the numerous Insurrections made against them tho they had so much Temptation to it for their own fleshly ease as appears from Tertullian Origen Cyprian c. in the forecited Testimonies And the like will be done by all others who are for trusting their Souls with theirs and think them safer in those primitive and first taught ways than in any of the so much fancied and magnified new Inventions CHAP. V. Of passive Obedience under Invasions of Legal Rights among the Jews AGreeable to this belief and practice of the Christians under the New Testament was that also of the Jews under the Old Testament in this case This was seen in their Carriage towards those Kings both in Judah and Israel who introduced and set up an Idolatrous Worship To bring in or to maintain Idolatry was an Invasion upon the Law of their Land as well as upon the Rights of God Yea and that in a point which may seem the very ground and bottom of their Law and among the most fundamental as many now to move Stirs would have taught them in the Jewish Constitution For the Civil State of Jury was at first a Theocracy The true God was not only their God whom they were to observe in regard to another World but their King too under whom they were incorporated and to unite together as a Society of this World As a Polity of this World they were Gods People who modell'd their Constitution and prescribed them their Laws from whom and in whose Name was Legislation and Judicature and who as their supreme Orderer and Director was to be consulted for Peace and War The Law of Moses whom Longinus calls the Legislator of the Jews was the Law of their Land And this Law was a political Covenant betwixt them and the true God all to be observ'd in keeping under him not in Defection from him Hence the going to serve other Gods is by way of eminence call'd working Wickedness in breaking or transgressing his Covenant Deut. 17.2 3 c. And accordingly Moses having the two Tables of the Law in his hands which he calls the Tables of Gods Covenant with the Jews brake both the Tables before their eyes when he saw them fallen from the Worship of God to the Golden Calf Thereby noting the Covenant to be broken by Idol Worship and that these Laws or Tables were a Charter or Covenant to incorporate them under the true God not under Idols Deut. 9.17 And answerably on any such defection such Inquisition and Procedure both towards Seducers and Seduced was appointed thereby without any Allowance of Misprision or Concealment even of the dearest person as is proper for the highest State Crime c. 13. and c. 17. So that for any King to go to set up other Gods in Jury was not only to act illegally or break thro Laws and Statutes among them but to undermine the very bottom of all their Laws and break in upon the main and most important things in the Jewish Law or Constitution Now Ahab suppressed the Worship of the true God in Israel which was the legal and establish'd Religion banish'd and put to death the Prophets extirpated the Professors in Appearance so far as that they seem'd even clean gone to Elijah himself And having pull'd down the Worship of God prescribed by Law set up the Worship of Baal that was forbid by Law and all by his own Authority Here was mere Will and Power over-ruling Laws and illegal Invasion and arbitrary Power in the most tender and fundamental points and all this acted to the highest Extremities and with greatest Outrage But yet all this would not authorize their levying War and rising in Arms against this impious and illegal Invader of Religion and Laws Even Elijah whose Spirit goes further in opposition and return of ill than Christs doth calling down fire from Heaven to consume those that were sent to take him yet opposes all this only by freedom of Confession and saves himself by flight and enjoys his Soul in Patience and seeks Redress by Prayers and Trust in Providence But never sollicits nor seeks to stir up the many Thousands in Israel both Priests and People who possibly might have some Remains of Faith and Zeal for the Lord of Hosts to defend their legal and establish'd Worship and keep out Heathenism against their King by Insurrection and Rebellion But wicked idolatrous and illegally administring Ahab and his House were to hold his Crown till God himself who is the rightful Judge of Princes expresly deposed and disauthorized them and not by mere course of Providence but by particular Nomination and the anointing of a Prophet set Jehu upon his Throne What more common among the Kings of Israel and Judah than to persecute the true Worship of God and to set up and impose a false one in its stead All the Kings of Israel were open and plain Idolaters And so were several of the Kings of Judah Particularly Ahaz shut up the doors of the House of the Lord fell to the Abomination of the Heathen and made him Altars in every corner of Jerusalem And Manasseh brought the Heathen Idols into the very Temple of Jerusalem excluding and banishing the true God whole Worship was setled by Law from his own House and setting up the Abomination of Idols which the Law forbad in the most publick places Here is legal Truth arbitrarily turned out and illegal Error as arbitrarily set up even in the authorized and most publick places the Churches and Temples of the Land And this against all Religion and National Laws even those that in the style of many now to stir up Insurrection would be call'd most essential to the Civil Constitution it self and which were not dependant on the King either to make or to repeal them But Elijah and Elisha Micha and Isaiah and all the other holy Prophets who of all persons were the fittest as the Trump of God to sound to Arms and call men to rise in Gods Cause yet when sent to cry out against this dishonor of God and breach of Laws they did it only as
Confessors not as Ring-leaders to Rebellion They never attempted this course for redress nor stirr'd up the People to defend God and the Laws against their Kings by armed Resistance or by Deposing of those impious and arbitrary Princes To descend now from Religion when taken into the Law and made a Civil Right to Property Saul persecuted David not in any way of Law and Justice but of mere wilful Fury and Cruelty to shed his innocent Blood as he had already done by the Blood of a Number of Priests without any regard either to the Innocence of the Men or the Sacredness of their Function This sure was an Invasion of Rights not only the common Rights of Humanity but of their Civil Rights of the sixth Commandment saying Thou shalt not kill which was not only the Law of God but the Law of their Land or of Jury Now whilst Saul was acting thus against Law and invading Rights doth David think he has lost all claim to his former Submission and may be looked on thenceforward and opposed as a mere unauthorized person No but owns him for the Lords anointed at that very time and thereupon that he could not do against him what was unlawful against one of that Character and Denomination How can I stretch forth my hand against him and be guiltless seeing he is the Lords anointed 1 Sam. xxvi 9 Like as afterwards whilst Pilate was passing an unjust Sentence in a Case of Blood and that against his own Conscience and Confessions our Lord still owns him as one that had Power over him from above Jo. xix 11 Such likewise was the breach of Property when Ahab against all Law and Justice seized Naboth's Vineyard together with his Life which was a much more valuable Freehold And when Jezabel fill'd all places with illegal Executions keeping alive the Priests of Baal whom the Law utterly and inexorably destroy'd and destroying all the Prophets of the Lord she could find good Obadiah venturing his life to hide and maintain an hundred of them by Fifties in a Cave from her fury all whom the Law protected And when the Kings and Princes of Judah and Israel were complained of by Isaiah for Exactions and Oppressions and perverting of Justice As others were by Jeremy Ezekiel Hosea Amos Micha Zephaniah c. for Grinding the Faces of their Subjects shedding innocent Blood and turning aside the Poor in the Gate from their Right But tho here was breach of Laws and legal Properties yet was this never allow'd as a just Pretence for the injured Subjects by force of Arms to do themselves Right and rebel against such invading Princes The holy Prophets talked of no Forfeitures of Crowns or Depositions of Kings or discharge of Duty and Allegiance on these Accounts but refer'd them to God the Supreme Judge to right them against their invading Sovereigns This in those days was their Maxim as it is in the Words of Rabbi Jeremiah No creature may judge the King but the holy and blessed God alone Some indeed think to turn by the Scriptures of the Old Testament forbidding this Resistance among the Jews as of no force with us because they had Kings immediately delegated by God either in Answers from the Cloud of Glory or Unction by Prophets And what was there forbid against such a King they think is only of force under others who come in by like special prophetical Delegation Now as to this it solves not the Argument from the Dueness of Non-resistance to Jewish or Israelitish Kings for that was as due to those that wanted as to those that had these immediate Nominations It was as due to Ahab and all those other Kings of Israel that were such Invaders of Laws and Rights as I observed as to Jeroboam or to Jehu And yet among the Kings of Israel Jeroboam and Jehu alone had this prophetical Nomination all the rest coming in by humane Titles like the Kings of other Nations And as due to Hezekiah and Josiah and all the other Kings of Judah that were Kings by descent as to Saul or David who were set up by immediate Message from God And yet after David and Solomon the Crown in Judah went by the course of Descent in the Royal Blood without any Interposition so far as we can see in Scripture of Gods personal Nomination Even in Joash's Case who was set up against Athaliah after six years possession no such thing was pretended Jehoiada the Priest who managed that Revolution not pretending for young Joash any Message of a Prophet or Answer from the Cloud of Glory which had that been their method of setting up Kings in those days he as chief Priest should have consulted but only his heritable Right according to the Constitution of Jury or being of the House of David Besides Non-resistance and other Duties to Sovereign Governors do not depend upon the method or way of coming into Power but only on that rightful Power and Authority they are come into Honor thy Father obey Magistrates submit to the King as supreme be subject to the Higher Powers and other like Sayings of Scripture requiring these Duties look only at the Authority If a Man is the true Father the rightful Power and the lawful King they ask no more to make all these due to him making no difference whether he comes to have this Right by an Humane Title or by a Divine Now all that Gods personal Nomination doth is as other personal Titles do to fix the Power in a certain person It gives no inlargement of Power or greater extent of Prerogative And not widening or enlarging the Authority it can make or call for no more Duty And accordingly these Duties were as much the due of those Kings that came in by humane Titles among the Jews as of those who were personally named by God himself And they are as due to any Kings of other Nations as they were to Jewish Kings For Government is instituted of God for all Nations as well as Jury And Obedience to Governors is a natural Duty So that Subjects of all Governments are call'd to pay these Duties as much as the Jewish Subjects were Now to bid men be subject and submissive and obedient and not to resist and the like are as plain and full as I noted at first as the most ordinary Understandings need to be taught against all Resistance What said God more than this against Resistance to the Jews when he named any King himself Nay if we come to make Comparisons where are the Sayings against it under any such Kings so numerous and express And these are as plain if Men are willing to understand what God plainly tells them when spoken in case of a Roman Emperor who had a humane Title as they would have been in case of Saul who had a divine Title They are due to any persons as having Gods Authority and being his Vicegerents Thus S. Paul notes
in Laws that say themselves they do not except any Cases And this the foresaid Declarations do in this point of Resistance declaring it to be unlawful to take up Arms against the King on any Pretence whatsoever Yea being made with a particular Eye against these Pretences of Invasion of Laws Religion c. So that they must needs be understood to comprehend and not to except them as I noted before Besides Military Resistance of Sovereign Powers stands forbid by the Letter not only of our Laws but also of Nature and Scripture the Fifth Commandment and other Scripture Precepts calling indispensibly for Subjection and Obedience which bars all such Resistance to Sovereign Princes from all Persons and at all times And there is no pleading Equity to exempt any Cases from the Generality of their Expressions For there is no urging Equity against Natural Duties In mere Positives or in things of mere Human Obligation it may have more Place But in Matters of intrinsick Goodness and Natural Obligation it has none They are standing Rules that admit of no exception and the Plea of Equity must always and only be for the keeping but never for the breaking of them No Man must ever pretend Equity for leave to commit Murder or Adultery or to Steal or to Rebel or to Transgress any other Law of Nature For the main care of Equity is to make these Duties inviolable and so the Argument to be drawn from thence is in every Case to Act according to them but in no Case to Act against them The Pretence for Equities exempting some Cases from the Prohibitions of Resistance is for the safety of Subjects because say some no Man can owe so much Duty to his Prince as not to have a Salve for his Safety especially for his Life But what a Man owes or is oblig'd to by the Law of Nature not only to his Prince but to the meanest Fellow-Subject or to any of Mankind is without any such Salvo even for Life and he may not transgress such Natural Duty towards them tho it were to save his Life It not being lawful to Steal or Murder or commit Adultery or Transgress any other Natural Duties against our Neighbours no not when we are the most put upon it and tempted thereto to save our selves I add whatever People spurr'd on by a desire of Revenge may vainly fancy in Favor of their own Passions that Equity sets more by Submission in all Cases than by this desired Liberty of Resistance Its first Precept about this Matter is whatever the Governor be to have Government kept up which is by holding on Submission that is always cast off by Resisting And this not only in Regard to Gods Authority whereto it calls for Justice and Submission tho in an evil Prince but also in Care of the Subjects own Good Which amidst all the hazards Men may think the Doctrine of Non-Resistance to be attended withal is much more and much safer in this Constancy of Submission and Non-Resistance than it would be in the contrary Liberty of Resisting and running to Arms on the foresaid Pretences Lastly that Equity doth not exempt from this Non-Resistance is plain because it is a general Principle and what exemption it gives would be General under all Governments absolute as well as limited and in all times and Places one having as much Claim to Natural Equity as another has And so there would have been Exemption thereby under the Roman Emperors fancied tho without Ground to have been absolute and arbitrary Governors and in the Primitive Scripture Times as well as under our Kings and in this present or the preceding Age. Whereas our Blessed Saviour and his Holy Apostles and the Primitive Saints plainly admit of no exemption under those Emperors And the Managers of this Plea own there was none nor allow any Liberty of Resisting under any absolute and arbitrary King They appeal likewise from these Declarations of our Laws to the Nature of our Constitution and the end of our Frame and think it will justifie that Resistance which these Sayings and Declarations of Law Condemn But as to our Constitution thereby the Supremacy is fixed solely in the King and therein is an express denyal of all Coercive Power over him and a Declaration or Maxim that he can do no Wrong what he doth being by Ministers and they only and not he being accountable in any Court here for the same All which leaving neither Fault imputable to him to deserve it nor Autority in any others to Try and Judge him for the same must needs bar all Forfeitures of the Crown The whole power of the Militia or of Listing Soldiers the Law declares to be only in him And loudly asserts the unlawfulness and Treasonableness of all Levying War against him Nay that even the Parliament themselves as I noted have no Power to make any War either Offensive or Defensive against him And in a Government of this Frame owning one irresistible Sovereign and thus carefully excluding all taking Arms against him I do not see whence any should hope to fetch this Liberty of Resisting And as for the end of that part of our Constitution which lies in securing our Liberties and Properties that is plainly with limitation and so far only as they can be secured to Subjects continuing Subjects i.e. in Consistence with Submission which is thrown off by Military Resisting They are to be secured thereby to the Subjects of these Realms so far as they can be secured under a Sovereign and irresistible Prince as our Constitution makes ours to be and by Men keeping to their Duty and Obedience CHAP. VII Of Passive Obedience under Invaders of Natural Rights And these as Defensable by Arms as Civil Rights HAving hitherto shewn that the Invasion of Civil Rights and Laws gives no exemption from the Gospel Duties of Obedience and Non-Resistance which I think I have made pretty plain both from the Case of Jews and Gentiles and from our own Laws themselves I now proceed to shew in the Fourth and last place that if this defensibleness of Legal Rights would exempt us a like Defensibleness of Natural Rights would as well have exempted all other Subjects of Sovereign Powers And so contrary to what the Advocates of Resistance themselves affirm would have left no such Duty in the World as Passive Obedience The true Christian and Thank worthy Passiveness as S. Peter observes not being that of Malefactors who suffer for their real Faults but of Righteous Persons and Well-Doers who cannot suffer but by an Invasion of Rights or unrighteous usage All Oppressors invade Mens Natural Rights if they have no Civil Laws to make them Civil Rights That Ruler who has no Civil Laws to guide him is yet bound to guide himself by the Law of Nature and Reason Now Nature makes Right and Wrong and appoints Laws for them Else by the mere Law of Nature there could be no such thing as
mostly not by any written Laws but by their own Reason and Equity yet even then were the Laws of God and Nature always to be a Rule to them in their Administrations Besides all the Power of People and the Liberty of resuming their primitive natural Rights and standing up to right themselves when wrong'd by their Governors is grounded by the Advocates for Resistance on the Original Contract whereby in the first Framing and Constitution of every Government when the People as they say parted each with their native Liberty and set Governors over them they every where made these Reserves for themselves This Original Contract is the last Ground when things are run up to the top of all Peoples rising in Arms against unjust Powers thus reassuming the Autority they had formerly intrusted when they see it misemployed and deposing those Kings who had abused their Trust. Now this Original Contract particularly as to our own Nation will not be pretended I believe to be any where extant upon publick Record And the rather for that in Magna Charta it self the grand Record of our Liberties those Liberties are not fetch'd from the Peoples own Reserves as if originally we came by them that way but from the Kings Grants and Donations Of our free and mere Will we have given and granted to our Bishops c. and to all Free Men of our Realm these Liberties following to have and to hold to them and their Heirs of us and our Heirs for ever says the Charter And much less I think are we to expect any Records of such Reserves under the first and most ancient Governments For under them the People were so far from making or recording any such fancied Reserves of Rights and Privileges that they had not any Record of Laws but what were in their Princes Breasts not so much as stipulating for any Rules whereby they would be govern'd but trusting and submitting themselves to the Justice and Discretion of their Rulers as I have noted of the first Kings But this Contract is fetch'd from the common Reason and Nature of things there being no other way possible as these Men say whereby Civil Government should take Rise Now the Nature of things is one and the same to all Times and Places And common Reason must be as common to East as West to the Persians and Romans under those more absolute Powers as to the Goths or Germans or other Northern Nations who have provided better for popular Liberties And therefore if common Reason and the Nature of things will carry such an Original Contract the ground of Resistance for us it would have done as much for them And if it was not sufficient to authorize Resistance in their Case as these men themselves affirm asserting them to have been under a tye of Conscience to Passive Obedience it cannot suffice any more to do it in ours Common Reason and Nature of Government gives equal provision to all and as much Original Contract to the Subjects of absolute Emperors as to those of legal Monarchs who whatever Liberties and Provisions they have more have them not from common Reason but the special limitations of their own Laws So that on this account we must not take more liberty to our selves or make our Case in point of Resistance different from theirs CHAP. VIII No Resistance on Pretence that acts against Law are inautoritative BUT when our Rulers invade us against Right say some What Authority is there in their Invasions Has any Man Authority to invade our Rights And if our Governors have no Authority for their Invasion since we are to be subject only to Authority is there any Obligation on us for Submission And may we not make Resistance against unautoritative Acts A Liberty for Resistance needs not Superiority but Parity for we may defend our selves against our Equals And when Kings act illegally and invade Rights in those Acts say some they have no Authority and Acts done against Law which are the Rule of the Polity are politically powerless So that we may resist them in such Case as we may our Equals they acting there without Authority which is the same as private Persons No say I under those illegal Actings they are still Kings and Sovereigns Tho there be no Authority derived into the Action which if it be against the Laws of God and the Land is condemn'd and vacated not authorized and enforced by either of them yet the Authority abides still in the Person And as to the dueness of Non-resistance in such illegal Actings the Question is not whether the illegal Act has any Authority but whether the Sovereign that acts so retains his Authority For Passive Obedience is due to the Person in Authority and whatever liberty we might otherwise take to oppose such an Action we must keep passive under such a Person If for all his illegal Act he is still thy Father the fifth Commandment says Honor and obey him If he retains his Authority over us and continues to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Higher Power S. Paul tells us that in Conscience towards God we must needs be subject to him And whilst we are to be subject we must not resist for when once we fall to warlike Resisting there is an end of Subjection So that it is not enough to say the Illegality doth disauthorize the Action or hinder it from being binding unless it also disauthorize the Person and make a Forfeiture of his Authority over us For whilst his Authority lasts we are bound to continue his Subjects and that tyes us to be passive in such Cases Now a King may keep his Autority for all he doth some inautoritative and illegal Actions He doth not lose Power by abusing his Power or stretching to make it more nor make away that real Autority which he has by going beyond it in an unautoritative Act or pretending to some Authority which he has not What Autority have any Sovereign Powers to make Laws against the true Religion If their Autority is from God I am sure he has given them no Commission to forbid what he has commanded They go quite against the Rule of Legislation when they employ it in making Laws against him And those Laws carry no binding Force from God along with them to oblige Subjects to their Observance So that if by inautoritative Acts be meant Acts against the Rule of Administration or without any real Right to warrant the King himself in commanding and to oblige others to obey them all Laws are inautoritative Acts which are made against the true Religion But yet they that urge this Objection will not say that any Kings forfeit their Crowns or ease their Subjects of the Duty of Passive Obedience by making persecuting Laws Nay they say there is a necessity of not resisting but being passive under them because they have such Laws whereby to persecute them What is the real and intrinsick Authority or
Imperial Prerogative more and more till by degrees they had swallowed up most of that which by the allowance of the Lex Regia at first remain'd of the Powers and Prerogatives of the People and Senate Nay not content thus to incroach on all that seemed to carry any competition in point of Power when they had taken from them almost all the Authority of Governors they would not permit them to rest safe in the Rights and Immunities of Subjects or keep in their Administration to the known Laws and Justice of the Empire For they were very heinous and notorious Invaders of the Lives and Properties of the Roman Subjects and those too of highest Dignity as may appear to any that will read the Lives of Tiberias Caligula Claudius Nero who sway'd all in the days of Christ and his Apostles But what say the Prince and the Preachers of the Gospel of Peace to the Subjects of the Empire under these Invaders of Rights and Properties or Ravishers of Liberties as the phrase of some now is Render to Caesar the things which are Caesars says our Saviour to the Jews under Tiberius towards the end of his Reign and in his worst times Mat. xxii 21 Whoever resists resists the ordinance of God and shall receive damnation Wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake says S. Paul to those at Rome Rom. xiii 2.5 And submit for the Lords sake to every ordinance of man whether to the King as supreme or to Governors who are sent by him says S. Peter to the strangers or converted Jews thro Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and those parts 1 Pet. ii 13 14. And this charge he laid on them and was instant in it when their Countrymen were busily meditating a Revolt which was abetted by those in the Provinces as well as acted by those in Judea as Dio says and that from under Nero the worst of invading Tyrants and monster of men this Epistle being writ as Dr. Lightfoot conjectures in the eleventh year of Nero when the Jews had begun those Commotions the factious spirits had been so long driving on it being the year before Cestius Gallus laid siege to Jerusalem which a few years after was taken and destroy'd by Vespasian These were the Rules of Christian Subjection under all the aforesaid Emperors whereby the Christians of that and of the ensuing Ages were to govern themselves And these do not teach taking up Arms against invading Princes but passive Obedience or Non-resistance under them And that at a time when the invasion of Rights was most crying and notorious and in the tenderest points both of Life Power and Fortunes And when they had not merely the nature of Right to plead as implying a power as some say now of forcible Defence even against the Prince himself should he offer to infringe it But when also says the Pastoral Letter tho I think the Lex Regia and the erection of the Empire had taken the force of that off they had the Lex Valeria or Valerian Law to secure those Rights That is a Law of Valerius from this and other such like Laws passed in his Consulship sirnamed Publicola as Livy says who upon the Expulsion of the Kings and change of Government to a popular state enacted That it should be lawful for any one to kill him who took upon him any Magistracy without the Peoples order and consent And indeed the meaning of all the Gospel Precepts of taking up the Cross Patience and Non-resistance must needs be meant of Invaders of Rights whether natural or civil matters not much as I shall shew afterwards For where are the Crosses what place for Patience or what provocation to Resistance under the Maintainers of Rights or righteous Rulers There is difference between the Patience and Non-resistance of Criminals and the Patience and Non-resistance of Christians That is when they suffer according to Right this when against Right that when they suffer for ill this when for good and rewardable things If when ye suffer for your faults ye take that patiently what glory is it to you But if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently that is acceptable with God 1 Pet. ii 19 20. So that to pretend we are for Passive Obedience and yet not to be for suffering but resisting when our Rights are invaded seems as much as to say we are always for it but when we are call'd to use it Good Kings will not punish but reward good men and well-doers and that will afford but very little tryal of their Passive Obedience Under the Successors of these Emperors the Persecutions of the Christians were carried on still by the breach of Rights Not only the Rights of God and Religion as all their Persecutions were a reverse of his Orders and usurping a Power to punish and torment his servants for obeying him But by a breach of the Rights of the Empire too To clear this I observe that though the Roman Emperor had a very large and extensive Power much wider than is injoyed by our Kings and as absolute by the Lex Regia as could well consist with the Government of a Free People yet was this Imperial Power to be administred by stated Laws and to consist with popular freedoms and immunities In several things the Emperor was bound up to the consent of the Subject not having a plenary Power to act alone without the concurrence of the Senate Such was the Consecrating of any new God which as Tertullian notes was not to be done nisi à Senatu probatus without the approbation of the Senate On which account though on the credit of Letters he received out of Palestine declaring his Divinity Tiberius was for it and brought it into the Senate as that Father observes with the prerogative of his Suffrage yet the Senate refusing our Saviour Christ was not admitted into the List of the Roman Deities To say nothing now how by the Original Constitution he was to bring before them several great matters of State as about raising Taxes and Soldiers and answering Ambassadors and the like as I observed before Such also was that Creation of Magistrates reserved at first by the Lex Regia to the Senate and People the Emperor as Head of the Senate giving his Suffrage which Tiberius first took away from the People in the Assembly of their Tribes to restrain it to the Senators as is observed by Tacitus and which Caligula was afterwards for restoring to them as we are told by Suetonius The Imperial Power was Established by Law in Augustus on his Speech to deliver it up to the Senate and People as I shewed before And cannot be thought to have been such a Power as should set aside all their Laws since in that very Speech he exhorted them firmly to retain and make no change in their received Laws as Dio says