A Hind Let Loose

made, to such as are not rightful Possessors of the Government, for justice, or mercy, or redress of some intolerable grievances, without scruple of accepting that which is materially justice or mercy, or seeking them at the hand of any who may reach them out to us, though he that conveys them to us be not interested in the umpirage of them. Thus we find Jeremiah supplicated Zedekiah for mercy, not to return to prison: and Paul appealed to Caesar for justice. But in these Addresses, we may not acknowledge the wicked Laws that brought on these grivances, nor conceal the wickedness no more than the misery of them which we have endured, nor may we own the Legal power of them that we address to take them off, nor signify anything, in the matter or manner of our Representations, that may either import a declining our Testimony for which we have suffered these grievances, or a contradiction to our declinature of their pretended Authority: Only we may remonstrate what cruelties we have endured, and how terrible it will be to them to be guilty of, or accessory to our blood in not pitying us; which was all that Jeremiah did. And as for Paul's appeal, we find he was threatened to be murdered by his Country-men Act. 23. 14. from whose hands he was rescued, & brought before the judicatory of Festus the Roman deputy, not voluntarely; thence also they sought to remand him to Jerusalem, that they might kill him Act. 25. 3. whereupon he demands in justice that he might not be delivered to his accusers & Murderers, but claims the benefit of the Heathens own Law, by that appeal to Caesar. which was the only constrained expedient of saving his own life Act. 28. 19. by which also he got an opportunity to witness for Christ at Rome. But as shall be cleared further afterwards; Caesar was not an Usurper over Judea: which not obscurely is insinuated by Paul himself, who asserts, that both his person, & his Cause Criminal of which he was accused (it was not an Ecclesiastical Cause, & so no advantage hence for the Supremacy ) appertained to Caesars Tribunal, and that not only in fact but of right Act. 25. 10. I stand at Caesars judgment seat where I ought to be judged. We cannot say this of any tribunal, senced in the name of them that Tyrannize over us. 5. I will not stand neither upon the Names & Titles of Kings &c. to be given to Tyrants & Usurpers, in speaking to them or of them, by way of appellation or compellation: for we find even Tyrants are called by these names in Scripture, being Kings de fact • though not dejure, and indeed not impertinently Kings & Tyrants for the most part are reciprocal terms. But in no case can we give them any Names or Titles, which may signify our love to them whom the Lord hates or 〈◊〉 hate the Lord 2 Chron. 19. 2. or which may flatter them, which Elihu durst not give, for fear his Maker should take him away Job. 32. 22. or which may be taken for honoring of them, for that is not due to the vile • of men when exalted never so high Psal. 12. ult: a vile person must be contemned in our eyes Psal. 15. 4. Nor which may any way import or infer an owning of a Magistratical relation between them & us, or any Covenant transaction or Confederacy with them, which in no terms with them as such we will say or own Isa. 8. 12. Hence many sufferers upon this head so bear to give them their Titles.

8. It will be yielded very readily by us, that a Magistrate is not to be disouned merely for his differing in Religion from us, yea though he were a Heathen. We do not disoune our pretended Rulers merely upon that account, but cheerfully do grant & subscribe to that Truth, in our Confession of faith chap. 23. § 4. That Infidelity or difference in Religion, doth not make void the Magistrates just & Legal Authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to him: On which our Adversaries have insulted, as if our Principles & Practices were thereby disproved. But it is easy to answer 1. let the words be considered; and we are confident, that

Though Infidelity or difference of Religion does not make void Authority where it is Lawfully invested; yet it may incapacitate a person, and Lawfully seclude him from Authority, both by the word of God, which expressly forbids to set a Stranger over us who is not our brother Deut. 17. 15. Which includes as well a stranger of a strange Religion as one of a strange Country, and by the Laws of the Land, which do incapitate a Papist of all Authority, Supreme or subordinate. And so if this James the 7/2 had been King before he was a Roman Catholic, if we had no more to object, we should not have quarrelled his succession. 3. We both give & grant all that is in the Confession, viz. Dominium non fundari in gratia, that Dominion is not founded on Grace. Yet this remains evident, that a Prince who not only is of another religion, but an avowed enemy to & overturner of the Religion established by Law, and intending & endeavoring to introduce a false, heretical, blasphemous, & Idolatrous religion, can claim no just & legal Authority, but in this case the people may very Lawfully decline his pretended Authority; Nay they are betrayers of their Country & Posterity, if they give not a timeous & effectual Check to his Usurpings, and make him sensible that he hath no such Authority. Can we imagine, that men in the whole of that blessed work so remarkably led of God, being convocate by a Parliament of the wisest & worthyest men that ever was in England, whom they did encourage, by writing, & preaching, & every way to stand fast in their opposition to the then King displaying a banner for his prerogative (a court dream) against Religion & Liberty; should be so far left, as to drop that as a principle & part of our Religion, which would sacrifice Religion itself to the lust of a raging Tyrant? Must we believe, that a Religion-destroying Tyrant is a righteous Ruler? And must we on him to be a Nursing father to the Church? Shall we conclude that the common bounds & Limits, whereby the Almighty hath bounded & Limited Mankind, are removed by an Article of our confession of faith, which hereby is turned into a Court creed? Then welcome Hobs de Cive, with all the rest of Pluto's train, who would bable us into a belief, that the world is to be governed according to the pleasure of wicked Tyrants. I would fain hope at length the world would be awakened out of such ridiculous dreams, & be ashamed anymore to own such fooleries. And it may be, our two Royal Brothers have contributed more to cure men of this Moral madness, than any who went before them. And this is the only advantage, I know, that the Nations hath reaped by their reign.

9. Though we deny that Conquest can give a just Title to a Croun; yet we grant in some cases, though in the beginning it was unjust yet by the people's after consent it may be turned into a just Title. It is undeniable, when there is just ground of the war; if a Prince subdue a whole Land, who have justly forfeited their Liberties, when by his grace he preserves them, he may make use of their right now forefeited, and they may resign their Liberty to the Conqueror, and consent that he be their King upon fair & Legal & not Tyrannical conditions. And even when the war is not just, but successful on the invading Conquerors side, this may be an inducement to the Conquered, if they be indeed free and uningaged to any other, to a submission, dedition, & delivery up of themselves to be the subjects of the victor, and to take him for their Sovereign: as it is like the case was with the Jews in Caesars time, whose Government was translated by dedition to the Roman power; in the translation when a doing there was a fault, but after it was done it ceased; though the beginning was wrong, there was a post-fact which made it right, and could not be dissolved without an unjust disturbance of public order. Whence, besides what is said above, in answer to that much insisted Instance of Christ's paying tribute, and Commanding it to be paid to Caesar, the difficulty of that instance may be clearly solved. That Tribute which he paid, Math. 17. 24. &c. and that about the payment whereof He was questioned Math. 22. 21. seem to be two different Tributes. Many think very probably they were not one & the same Tribute. Its a question, for whom & by whom that of Math. 17. was gathered; its most likely it was gathered by the officers of the Temple for its service: however the payment was made with such caution (tacitly declining the strict right to exact it from him, but to avoid offense, in an act in itself unobliging) that their claim is left as much in the dark, as if the question had never been moved. The other Math. 22. was exacted for Caesar: but to that captious question our Lord returns such an Answer, as might both solve it, and evade the snare of the proponders, giving a general Rule of giving to God & to Caesar each their own, without defining which of them had the right to the payment in question; whether Caesar should have it, or whether it should be paid only for the Temples use: Upon which they marvelled; which they needed not do, if they had understood in His words an express & positive declaration of an obligation to make that payment to Caesar; for then they would have obtained one of their ends, in making Him odious to the people, who were not satisfied with the payment of it. But however, the knot is loosed by considering, that they were now Lawfully subject to the Roman Emperors as their Governors, to whom they were obliged (I do not say Christ was) to pay tribute. For they had yielded themselves unto & owned the Roman Dominion, in Pompey, Caesar Augustus, & Tiberius, ere this question about Tribute paying was proposed to our Savior, and therefore they who stuck at the payment of it were a seditious party dissenting from the body of the Nation: Else it is not supposable readily, that their Dominion in Judea could have been exercised long without some consent, sufficient to legitimate it to the present Rulers, And this is the more likely, if we consider the confession of the Jews themselves, disavowing the power of Capital punishment; It is not Lawful for us to put any man to death, And owning Caesar as their King, with an exclusive a brenounciation of all other, we have no King but Caesar: As Paul also acknowleeges he ought to be judged at Caesars bar, in his appeal to Caesar. It is also acknowledged by very good Authors, that this was the tribute which Judas the Galilean stood up to free the people from, and that the sedition of those Jews that followed him mentioned Act. 5. 37. who mutinied upon this occasion, was according to Gamaliel's speech disallowed by that Sanhedrin or Council of the Jews. And it may be gathered out of Josephus, that the Jews of Hircanus his party came under the Roman power by consent & dedition; while they of Aristobalus his party looked upon the Romans as Usurpers. Which difference continued till our Savior's time, when some part of them acknowledged the Cesarean Authority, some part looked upon it as an Usurpation, and of this generally were the Pharisees. To confirm this, Calvin's Testimony may be adduced, upon Math. 22. who saith,

And

10. As Tyranny is a destructive plague to all the Interests of men & Christians; So Anarchy, the usual product of it, is no less pernicious, bringing a Community into a Paroxysm as deadly & dangerous. We must own Government to be absolutely necessary, for the constitution & conservation of all Societies. I shall not enter into a disquisition, let be determination, of the Species or Kind of Magistracy, whether Monarchy, Aristocracy, or Democracy, be preferable. My dispute at present is not levelled against Monarchy, but the present Monarch: Not against the Institution of the Species (though I believe, except we betake ourselves to the Divine allowance & permission; we shall be as pusled to find out the Divine Original of it, as Cosmographers are in their search of the Spring of Nile or Theologues of the Father of Melchizedek ) but the constitution of this Individual Monarchy established among us; which in its root & branch, Spring & streams, in its Original, Nature, ends, & effects, is Diametrically opposite to Religion & Liberty; And because its Contagion, universally perverting & corrupting all the ends & Orders of Magistracy, doth affect & infect all the subordinate officers, deriving their power from such a filthy fountain; we must also subtract & deny their demanded ackowledgments, as any way due, so long as they serve the pride & projects of such a wicked power: And do not reckon ourselves obliged by Covenant, or any otherways (though in the third Article of the Solemn League, we are bound to preserve the rights & privileges of our Parliaments, & consequently the honor & deference thats due to our Peers, or other Parliament men, acting according to the trust committed to them, but not when they turn Traitors engaged in a Conspiracy with the Tyrant) to own or defend a Soul-less shadow of a Court Cabal, made up of persons who have sold themselves to work wickedness, in conspiring with this throne of iniquity against the Lord, which is all we have for a Parliament, whom we can in no ways own as our Representatives, but must look upon them as perjured & perfidious Traitors to God & their Country, which they have betrayed into the hands of a Tyrant; And therefore divested of that power & Authority, which they had of the people as their Representatives, which now is returned to the fountain. And therefore we must act as we can against them, and also what is necessary for securing of ourselves, Religion & Liberty, without them. We would think Nobles, ennobled with virtue, a great Mercy & encouragement. And if they would concur in the Testimony for Religion & Liberty, we would be glad that they should lead the van and prove themselves to be powers appointed by God, in acting for Him & His Interest. But for the want of their Conduct, we must not surcease from that duty that they abandon, nor think that the Concurrence of Peers is so necessary to legitimate our actions, as that without that formality our resolutions to maintain the Truth of God on all hazards, in a private Capacity, were unlawful in the Court of God & Nature: But on the contrary must judge, that their relinquishing or opposing their duty, which before God they are obliged to maintain, preserve, & promove, is so far from loosing our obligation, or eximing us from our duty, that is should rather press us to prosecute it with the more vigor, without suspending it upon their precedency. For now they can pretend to no precedency, when they do not answer the end of their erection, and do not seek the public good but their own private advantage, they cease to be the Ministers of God & of the people, and become private persons. And reason will conclude, that

Ius popu. vind. cap. 15. pag. 335. 336. Naph. Pag. 151. Prior Edition. I do not assert this for private people's aspiring into the Capacity of Primores or Peers; but that they may do that which the Peers desert, and dare not or will not do, if the Lord put them in a Capacity to do it. And more plainly I assert, that if the Peers of the Land, whose duty it is principally to restrain & repress Tyranny, either connive at it or concur with it, and so abandon or betray their Trust, then the Common people may do it; at least are obliged to renounce, reject, & disoune allegiance to the Tyrant, without the peers. For which I offer these reasons 1. Because all men have as much freedom & Liberty by nature as Peers have, being no more slaves than they; because slavery is a penal evil contrary to nature, and a misery consequent of sin, and every man created according to God's image is res Sacr • a Sacred thing; And also no more subjects to Kings &c. than they; freedom being natural to all, (except freedom from subjection to Parents, which is a Moral duty & most kindly & natural, and subjection of the wife to the husband &c.) but otherwise as to Civil & Politick subjection, man by nature is born as free as beasts; No Lyon is born King of Lions, nor no man born King of men, nor Lord of men, nor Representative of men, nor Rulers of men, either supreme or subordinate; because none by nature can have those things that essentially constitute Rulers, the calling of God, nor gifts and qualifications for it, nor the election of the People. 2. The original of all that power, that the 〈◊〉 or Representatives can claim, is from the people, not from themselves; from whence derived 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 they their being Representatives, but from the people's Commission or Compact? when at the first constit • tion of Parliaments or public Conventions for affairs of State, necessity put the people, who could not so conveniently meet all, to confer that honor & burden upon the best qualified, & who had chief Interest, by Delegation. Hence if the people give such a power, they may wave it when perverted, and act without their own impowered Servants. 3. The people's power, is greater than the power of any delegated or constituted by them; the Cause is more than the effect; Parliament-men do represent the people, the people do no not represent the Parliament: They are as Tutors & Curators unto the people, and in effect their servants deputed to oversee their public affairs, therefore if their power be less the people can act without them. 4. It were irrational to imagine, the people committing the administration of their weighty affairs unto them, did denude themselves of all their radical power; or that they can devolve upon them, or they obtain, any other power but what is for the good & advantage of the people; therefore they have power to act without them, in things which they never resigned to them: for they cannot be deprived of that natural aptitude, & natures birth right, given to them by God & Nature, to provide the most efficacious & prevalent means for the preservation of their Rights & Liberties. 5. As the people have had power before they made Peers, and have done much without them; So these Primores could never do without them, therefore in acts of common Interest, the Peers depend more upon the people than the people does upon them. 6. All these primeve rights, that gave rise to Societies, are equal to both People & Peers, whereof the Liberty to repress & reject Tyranny is a chief one. The People as well as Peers have a hard in making the King, and other Judges also, as is clear from Deut. 17. 14. Judge. 9. 6. 1 Sam. 11. 15. 2 King. 14. 21. therefore they may unmake them as well as they. To seek to preserve the ends of Government, when they are over-turned, is essentially requisite to all Societies, and therefore common & competent to all Constituents of these Societies, Superiors or inferiors. The Glory of God & Security of Religion, the end of all Christian Government, doth concern all equally. As everyone equally is bound to obey God rather than man, so violence in this case, destroys both the Commonwealth, & maketh the end & the means of Government, and the injured persons obligation thereto to cease, and this equally to every man of Private or public Capacity. In the Concern of Religion at least, We must not think, because we are not Nobles or in Authority, that the care of it or Reformation thereof does nothing pertain to us; Nay in that, and carrying on the work thereof, there is an equality; As in the erection of the Old Testament Tabernacle, all the people were to contribute a like, half a shekel Exod. 30. that it might be for a remembrance before the Lord. Hence it follows, if we disoune the Supreme Ruler, and the inferior confederate with him, and cannot have the Concurrence of others; yet, whatever we may do in this case; We are not for presumptuous Assumptions of Authority, which maleversers have forefaulted: Neither are we for new erections of Government, but are for keeping the Society of which we are members entire, in an endeavor to have all our fellow members united unto God & to one another, in Religion & Liberty, according to the bond of the Solemn League & Covenant. Certain it is that Greater Societies under one Government, may in some cases make a Secession, & divide into Lesser without sedition: or else, how would there be now so many distinct Common-wealths in the world? seeing at first all was under one head: and how comes it to pass, that there are so many Kingdoms in Europe, when it can be instanced when all, or the most part, were under on Roman Emperor? But this in our Circumstance is no way expedient, neither was it ever in Projection. But our aim is to abstract ourselves inoffensively, and maintain our rights that remain unrobbed, and to adhere clossly to the fundamental Constitutions, Laws, & Laudable Practices of our native Kingdom.

11. We own the obligation of our Sacred Covenants, unrepealably & indispensibly binding to all the duties of Christian subjection to Magistrates. But we deny, that hereby we are bound either to maintain Monarchy, especially thus perverted; nor to own the Authority of either of the two Monarchs that have Monarchized or Tyrannized over us these 27 years past. For as to the first we assert, that that which is in its own nature Mutable, cannot be simply sworn unto to be maintained & preserved, but Hypothetically it most, else it were simply sinful; since it were to make things, in their own nature and in the Providence of God changable, unchangeable; yea it were a down right swearing not to comply with, but to spurn against, the various vicisitudes of Divine Providence, the great Rector of the Universe. And it is unquestionable, that when things alterable & unalterable are put in the same Oath, to make the Engagment Lawful the things must be understood, as they are in their own nature and no otherwise: else both the Imposer & the Taker grievously transgress; the former, in taking upon him what is in the power of no Morta, and a Contradicton to the Prerogative of the Immorta God; and the other, in owning that power as just. Hence when these two fall to be in the same Oath, they must be so understood as it may not be made a snare to the conscience of the Sweaer. For it may fall so out in the Providence of God, that the Preservation of both is in all respects made impossible: And an adhesion to the one, may so far interfere with the Preservation of the other, as if the Mutable and that which hath no objective obligation be stuck to, the other, which with the loss of all Interests we are to maintain, must be abandoned; yea, that which was sworn to be maintained as a mean only, & a mutable one too, may not only cease to be a mean, but may actually destroy the main end, and then it is to be laid aside, because then it inverts the order of things. Hence also it may be questioned, if it were not more convenient, to leave out those things that are alterable in themselves, out of the same Oath with things unalterable, and put them in a distinct Oaths or Covenant by themselves; as we see Jehoiadah did 2 King. 11. 17. He made a Covenant between the Lord and the King & the people, that they should be the Lord's people; between the King also & the People. Here are two distinct Covenants; the one made with God, about things eternally obligatory, wherein King & people engage themselves upon level ground, to serve the Lord, and Joash the King his treacherous dealing with God in that matter brought the Curse of that Covenant upon him: The other Covenant was Civil, about things alterable, relating to Points of Government & Subjection. And as he, by virtue of that prior Covenant, had obliged himself, under the pain of the Curse thereof, to carry as one Covenanted to God with the people, and so not to Tyrannize over his brethren: So the people, by virtue of that same Covenant, were to yield obedience, but in nothing to acknowledge him as having power or Authority to countermand God's Command; Neither had it been an act of disloyalty, to have broken down his Groves, which he had with the addition of the guilt of Perjurie set up, and to have bound his ungrateful hands from the blood of the Gracious Zechariah: A perfect parallel to our Case under the former dominator, save that it was out-done as to all dimensions of wickedness by him. To speak more plainly, the Religious part of our Covenant is of an Eternal obligation: but as to the Civil part, it is impossible it can ever be so, unless it be well & Cautiously understood, that is, unless instead of any species of Government, as Monarchy, &c. we put in Magistracy itself. For this is that power which is of God: but Monarchy &c. is only a human Creature, about the creation whereof men take a Liberty, according to what suits them best in their present Circumstances. And as to this Species of Monarchy; men are never left at Liberty▪ to clothe therewith any inept or impious Person. And they are perfectly loosed from it. 1. when that Species of Government becomes opposite to the ends of Government, and is turned Tyranny, especially when a legal establishment is pretended; then it affects with its contagion the very species itself: The house is to be pulled down, when the Leprosy is got into the walls & foundation. 2. when as it is exercised, it is turned inept for answering the end of its erection, and prejudicial to the main thing for which Government is given, to wit, the Gospel and the coming of Christ's Kingdom: hence it is promised to the Church, Isai. 49. 23. Kings shall be nursing fathers to the Church —And Isai. 52. 15. It is promised to the Me • iator, that Kings shall shute their mouths —I. e. never a word in their head, but out of reverence & respect to His absolute Sovereignty, they shall take the Law from Him, without daring to contradict, far less to take upon them to prescribe in the House of God, as they in their wisdom think fit. 3. when Providence, without any sinful hand, makes that species impossible to be kept up, without the ruin of that for which it was erected: when things come to this push & pinch, whosoever are clothed with the power are then under an obligation to comply with that alteration of providence, for the safety of the people; else they declare themselves unworthy of rule, and such who would sacrifice the interest of the people to their particular interest; in which case the people may make their Public servant sensible, he is at his highest elevation but a Servant. Hence, now when this species named in the Covenant, viz, Monarchy, is by Law so vitiate, as it is become the mean & instrument of the destruction of all the ends of that Covenant, and now by Law transmitted to all successors as a hereditary, pure, perfect, & perpetual opposition to the coming of Christ's kingdom; So that as long as there is one to wear that Croun (but Iehavah will in righteousness execute Coniahs doom upon the race Ier. 22. ult. write this man childless —) and enter heir to the Government as now established, he must be an enemy to Christ; there is no other way left, but to think on a new Model molded according the true Pattern. As to the Second, we are far less obliged to own & acknowledge the interest of any of the two Monarchs, that we have been Mourning under these many years, from these Sacred Covenants. For as to the first of them, Charles the 2. Those Considerations did cassate his Interest, as to any Covenant obligation to own him. 1. In these Covenants we are not sworn absolutely to maintain the Kings Person & Authority, but only Conditionally, in the Preservation & defense of Religion & Liberties. Now when this Condition was not performed, but on the contrary professedly resolved never to be fulfilled; And when he laid out himself to the full of his power & Authority, for the destuction of that Reformed Religion & Liberties of the Kingdom; which he solemnly swore to defend when he received the Croun, only in the terms that he should be a Loyal subject to Christ, and a true & faithful Servant to the people, in order to which a Magistrate is chosen, and all his worth, excellency, & valuableness consists in his answering that purpose; for the excellency of a mean, as such, is to be measured from the end, and its answerableness thereunto: We were not then obliged, to maintain such an enemy to these precious Interests. 2. Because, as the people were bound to him, so he was bound to them by the same Covenant, being only on these terms entrusted with the Government: All which Conditions he perfidiously broke, whereupon only, his Authority & our Allegiance were founded; And thereby we were loosed, from all reciprocal obligation to him by virtue of that Covenant. 3. Though he and we stood equally engaged to the duties of that Covenant, only with this difference, that the Kings Capacity being greater, he was the more obliged to have laid out that power, in causing all to stand to their Covenant Engagments, as Josiah did 2 Chron. 34. 31, 32, 33. (But alas there was never a Josiah in the race) yet he rose up to the hight of rebellion against God and the people, in heaven-daring insolency, and not only brake but burnt that Covenant, and made Laws to case & rescind it, and made a not-concurring in this Conspiracy a note of incapacity for any Trust, in Church or State. Therefore to plead for an owning of him in this case, were only concludent of this, that the Generation had dreamed themselves into such a distraction, as may be feared will be pursued with destruction, and make such dreamers the detestation of posterity, and cause all men Proclaim the righteousness of God, in bringing ruin upon them by that very power & Authority they owned in such circumstances. 4. It is a known maxim, Qui non implet conditionem a se promissam cadit beneficio; & qui remittit obligationem non potest exigere. He that does not fulfill the conditions falls from the benefit of it, and whoso remitts the obligation of the party obliged upon condition, cannot exact it afterwards. So then it is evident that the subjects of Scotland, were by King Charles the 2 ^de his consent, yea express command, disengaged from so much of that Covenant as could be alleged in favors of himself: So that all that he did, by burning & rescinding these Covenants, and pursuing all who endeavored to ad • ere to them, was a most explicit Liberating his subjects from, & remission of their Allegiance to him (and in this we had been fools, if we had not taken him at his word) yea he rescinded his very Coronation, by an act of his first Parliament after his return, which did declare null & void all Acts, Constitutions, & establishments, from the year 1633 to that present session, not excepting those for his own Coronation, after which he was never recrouned, And therefore we could not own that right, which himself did annul. But as for his Royal Brother, James the 7/2 we cannot indeed make use of the same reasons & arguments, to disoune him, as we have now adduced▪ yet, as we shall prove afterwards, this Covenant does oblige to renounce him. So it is so clear, that it needs no Illustration, that there lies no obligation from the Covenant to own him: And also that for this cause we are obliged not to own him. 1. Because as he is an enemy to the whole of our Covenant, and especially to these terms upon which Authority is to be owned therein: So he will not come under the bond of this Covenant, nor any other compact with the people, but intrude himself upon the Throne, • n such a way as overturns the Basis of our Government, and destroys all the Liberties of a free people, which by Covenant we are bound to preserve, and consequently as inconsistent therewith, to renounce his Usurpation. For, a Prince that will set himself up without any transactions with the people, or conditions giving Security for Religion & Liberty, is an Usurping Tyrant, not bounded by any Law but his own lusts. And to say to such an one, Reign thow over us, is all one as to say, come thow and play the Tyrant over us, and let thy lust & will be a Law to us: which is both against Scripture & Natural-sense. If he be not a King upon Covenant terms, either expressly or tacitly, or general stipulations according to the word of God & Laws of the Land, he cannot be owned as a father, Protector, or Tutor, having any fiduciary power entrusted to him over the Commonwealth, but as a Lawless & absolute Dominator, assuming to himself a power to rule or rage as he lists: whom to own were against our Covenants; for there we are sworn to Maintain his Maj. just & Lawful Authority, and by consequence not to own Usurpation & Tyranny, stated in opposition to Religion & Liberty, which there also we are engaged to maintain. Sure, this cannot be Lawful Authority which is of God, for God giveth no power against Himself; Nor can it be of the people, who had never power granted them of God to create one over them, with a Liberty to destroy them, their Religion & Liberty, at his pleasure. 2. As he is not nor will not be our Covenanted & sworn King (and therefore we cannot be his Covenanted & sworn subjects) So he is not nor cannot be our Crouned King, and therefore we must not be his Liege subjects, owning fealty & obedience to him. For according to the National Covenant; as

Now this Coronation Oath he hath not taken, he will not, he cannot take; and therefore cannot be our Crouned King according to Law. As there be also many other Laws incapacitating his admission to the Croun, being a Professed Papist, and no Law for it at all, but one of his own making by a Pacqued Cabal of his own Complices, a Parliament, wherein himself presided as Commissioner, enacting matterially his succession, and rescinding all these Ancient Laws: which Act of Succession (which is all the legal right he can pretend to in Scotland ) because it cannot be justified, therefore his right cannot be owned, which is founded upon the subversion of our Ancient Laws. But as he cannot be our Legally Crouned King, so he is not so much as formally Crouned. And therefore before his Inauguration, whatever right to be King (whom the Representatives may admit to the Government) he may pretend to, by hereditary Succession; yet he cannot formally bemade King, till the people make a Compact with him, upon terms for the safety of their dearest & nearst Liberties, even though he were not disabled by Law. He might, as they say, pretend to some jus ad rem, but he could have no jus in re. The Kings of Scotland, while uncrouned, can exerce no Royal Government; for the Coronation in Concret, according to the substance of the Act, is no Ceremony (as they, who make Conscience itself but a Ceremony, call it) nor an accidental ingredient in the Constitution of a King, but as it is distinctive, so it is Constitutive: it distinguished Saul from all Israel, and made him from no King to be a King, it is dative & not only Declarative; it puts some honor upon him that he had not before. 3. Though the Laws should not strike against his Coronation, And though the Representatives Legally should take the same measures with him that they took with his brother, and admit him upon the terms of the Covenant; yet after such doleful experiences of such transactions with these Sons of Belial, who must not be taken with hands, nor by the hand, it were hard to trust, or entrust them with the Government, even though they should make the fairest Professions: Since they whose Principle is to keep no faith to Heretics (as they call us) and who will be as absolute in their promises as they are in their power, have deservedly forefeited all Credit & Trust with honest men; so that none could rationally refer the determination of a half Croun reckoning to any of them, far less own them & their Government in the Managment of the weightiest affairs of State, since their Male-versations are written in such bloody Characters, as he that runs may read them. At least it were wisdom, & is our duty, to take our Measures from the General Assemblies Procedure with the other Brother, before his admission to the Government, to suspend our Allegiance to him until Authority be Legally devolved upon him, and founded upon & bounded by terms giving all security for Religion & Liberty.

12. As I said before; wary Prudence, in waving such an impertinent & Ticklish Question, cannot be condemned: since what ever he may be in conscience, no man in Law can be obliged, so far to surrender the common Privilege of all Mankind, to give an account of all his inward thoughts, which are alwise said to be free. And as in nothing they are more various, so in nothing they can be more violented, than to have our opinion & sentiments of the current Government extorted from us; a declining of which Declaration of thoughts, where no overt Act in project or practice can be proven against it, cannot be Treason in any Law in the world: So a Cautelous Answer, in such a ticklish & entrapping imposition, cannot be censured in point of Lawfullnesse of expediency, even though much be concedded, to stop the Mouths of these bloody Butchers, gaping greedily after the blood of the Answerer; if he do not really own, but give them to understand he cannot approve of, this Tyranny. But as these poor faithful Witnesses, who were helped to be most free, have alwise been honored with the most signal Countenance of the Lord in a happy issue of their Testimony: So those that used their Prudentials most, in seeking shifts to sh • n severity, and studying to satisfy these Inquisitors with their stretched Concessions, were ordinarily more exposed to snares, and found less satisfaction in their Sufferings, even though they could say much to justify, or at least extenuate their Shiftings. I knew one, who had proof of this, who afterwards was ashamed of this kind of Prudence. A short account of whose managing of Answers to this Question, because it may conduce somewhat to the explication of it, may here be hinted. The question moved after the usual form, was, Do ye on the Authority of King James the 7? In answer to which, he pleaded first, for the immunity of his thoughts, which he said were not subject to theirs or any Tribunal. When this could not be an evasion from their extortions, he objected the ambiguity of the terms in which the Question was conceived, being capable of diverse senses: And inquired, what they meant by Authority? what by owning Authority? By Authority, whether did they mean the Administration of it, as now improved? if so, then he was not satisfied with it: or the right as now established? if so, then he was not clear to give his opinion of it; as being neither significant nor necessary, and that it was fitter for Lawyers, and those that were better acquaint with the Arcana Imperii, than for him to dispute it. Again he asked, what they meant by owning? either it is Passive subjection; that he did not decline: or Active acknowledgment of it; and that he said he looked upon as all the suffrage he could give to its establishment in his station, which he must demur upon some scruple. The replies he received were very various, and some of them very rare, either for ignorance or imposture. Sometimes it was answered: To own the Kings Authority, is to take the Oath of Allegiance; this he refused. Some answered, it is to engage never to rise in Arms against the King upon any pretence whatsoever; this he refused likewise. Others explained it to be, to acknowledge his right to be King: To this he answered, when the Authority is Legally devolved upon him by the Representatives of both Kingdoms, it was time enough for him to give account of his sentiments. Others defined it, to own him to be Lawful King by succession: To this he Answered, he did not understand succession could make a man formally King, if there were not some other way of Conveyance of it; it might put him in the nearest Capacity to be King, but could not make him King. Some did thus Paraphrase upon it, that he must own him to be his Sovereign Lord under God, and God's vicegerent, to be obeyed in all things Lawful: To this he answered, whom God appoints, and the People choose according to Law, he would own. When those shifts would not do, but from time to time being urged to a Categorical Answer; he told them, he was content to live in subjection to any Government Providence set up, but for owning the present Constitution as of God and according to Law, he durst not acknowledge it, nor own any Mortal as his Lawful Sovereign, but in terms consistent with the Covenant securing Religion and Liberty. This not satisfying, when he came to a more pinching Trial; he declared, he owned all Lawful Authority according to the Word of God, and all Authority that was the Ordinance of God by His Preceptive Will, and he could be subject to any; but further to acknowledge it, he behooved to have more clearness, for sometimes a Nation might be charged with that, ye have set up Kings and not by me &c Further he conceded, he owned his providential Advancement to the Throne; he owned as much as he thought did oblige him to subject himself with patience; he owned him to be as Lawful as providence possessing him of the Throne of his Ancestors, and Lineal succession, as presumed next in blood & line, could make him: But still he declined to own him as Lawful King, and alleged that was all one, whether he was Lawful or not, he refused not subjection, distinguishing it always from Allegiance. But all these concessions did not satisfy them, & they alleged he might say all this of a Tyrant: & therefore commanded him to give it under his hand, to own not only the Lineal but the Legal succession of King James the 7. to the Croun of Scotland: which he did, upon a fancy that Legal did not import Lawful, but only the formality of their Law; withal protesting, he might not be interpreted to approve of his succession. But this was a vain Protestatio contra factum. However by this we see, what is owning this Authority, in the sense of the Inquisitors. The result of all is, to acknowledge Allegiance to the present possessor, and to approve his pretended Authority as Lawful, Rightful, & Righteous: which indeed is the true sense of the Words, and any other that men can forge or find out is strained. For, to speak properly, if we own his Authority in any respect, we own it to be Lawful: for eyery Authority, that is owned to be Authority indeed, is Lawful; Authority always importing Authorization, and consisting in a Right or Call to rule, and is formally & essentially contradistinct to Usurpation: wherever the place of power is merely usurped, there is no Authority but verbo tenu • ; A Style without truth, a barely pretended nominal equivocal Authority, no real denomination: if we then own this Mans Authority, we own it to be Lawful Authority: And if we cannot own it so, we cannot own it at all. For it is most suitable, either to manly ingenuity, or Christian simplicity, to speak properly, and to take words always in the sense that they to whom they are speaking will understand them, without equivacating.

These Preliminaries being thus put by, which do contribute to clear somewhat in this Controversy, and both furnish us with some Arguments for, and solutions in most of the objections against, my Thesis in answer to the Question above stated. I set it down thus. A people long oppressed with the Encroachments of Tyrants & Usurpers, may disoune all Allegiance to their pretended Authority, and when imposed upon to acknowledge it, may & must ratber choose to suffer, than to own it. And consequently we cannot as matters now stand own, acknowledge, or approve the pretended Authority of King James the 7. as Lawful King of Scotland; as we could not as matters then stood own the Authority of Charles the 2. This consequence is abundantly clear from the foregoing deduction, demonstrating their Tyranny & usurpation. In prosecuting of this General Thesis, which will evince the particular Hypothesis: I shall. 1. Adduce some Historical Instances, whence it may be gathered, that this is not altogether without a precedent, but that people have disouned Allegiance to Tyrants & Usurpers, before now. 2. Deduce it from the Dictates of reason. 3. Confirme it by Scripture Arguments.

I. Albeit, as was shown before, this Question as now stated, is in many respects unprecedented; yet the practice, which in our day hath been the result of it, to wit, to disoune or not to own Prevailing Dominators Usurping the Government or abusing it, is not so alien from the examples of History, but that by Equivalency or consequence it may be collected from, & confirmed by instances.

1. To begin at home, besides many Passages related already for confirmation, we may add (1) That for about 1025. years, the people had in their choice whom to own ar admit to succeed in the Government, even though

This continued until the days of Kenneth the 3. who to cover his villanous Murder of his Brothers Son Malcolm, and prevent his and secure his own sons succession, procured this Charter for Tyranny, the settlement of the succession of the next in line from the Parliament: which, as it pretended the prevention of many inconveniences, arising from Contentions & Competions about the succession; So it was limited by Laws, Precluding the succession of Fools or Monsters, and preserving the people's liberty to shake off the yoke, when Tyranny should thereby be introduced: Otherwise it would have been not only an irrational surrender of all their own Rights, & enslaving the posterity, but an irreligious contempt of Providence, refusing & anticipating its Determination in such a case. However it is clear, before this time, that as none but the fittest were admitted to the Government; So if any did usurp upon it, or afterwards did degenerate into Tyranny, they took such order with him, as if he had not been admitted at all; as is clear in the instances of the first Period, and would never own every pretender to hereditary succession. (2) As before Kenneths days, it is hard to reckon the numerous Instances of Kings that were dethroned, or imprisoned, or slain, upon no other account than that of their oppression & Tyranny: So afterwards, they maintained the same power & privilege of repressing them, when ever they began to encroach. And although no Nation hath been more patient towards bad Kings, as well as Loyal towards good ones; yet in all former times, they understood so well their Right they had, and the duty they owed to their own preservation, as that they seldom failed of calling the exorbitantly flagitious to an account. And albeit, instead of condoling or avenging the death of the Tyrannous, they have often both excused & justified it, yet no Kingdom hath inflicted severer Punishments upon the Murderers of just & righteous Princes: And therefore, though they did neither inquire after, nor animadvert upon those that slew James the 3. a flagitious Tyrant, yet they did by most exquisite Torments put them to death who slew James the 1. a virtuous Monarch. Hence, because these & other instances I mind to adduce of deposing Tyrants, may be excepted against, as not pertinent to my purpose, who am not pleading for exauctoration & deposition of Tyrants, being impracticable in our case: I shall once for all remove that, and desire it may be considered. [1] That though we cannot formally exauctorate a Tyrant; yet he may ipso jure fall from his right, and may exauctorate himself, by His Law by whom Kings reign; and this is all we plead for as a foundation of not owning him. [2] Though we have not the same power, yet we have the same grounds, and as great & good if not greater & better reasons to reject & disoune our Tyrant, as they whose example is here adduced had to depose some of their Tyrannizing Princes. [3] If they had power & ground to depose them, then a fortiori they had power & ground to disoune them; for that is less & inculded in the other, and this we have. [4] Though it should be granted, that they did not disoune them before they were deposed; yet it cannot be said that they did disoune them only because they were deposed: for it is not deposition that makes a Tyrant; it only declares him to be justly punished, for what he was before. As the sentance of a Judge does not make a man a murderer or Thief, only declares him convict of these Crimes, & punishable for them; its his own committing them that makes him Criminal: And as before the sentance, having certain knowledge of the fact, we might disoune the Mans innocence or honesty; So a Rulers Acts of Tyranny & Usurpation make him a Tyrant & Usurper, and give ground to disoune his just & legal Authority; which he can have no more than a Murderer or Thief can have innocence or honesty. (3) We find also examples of their disouning Kings undeposed; as King Baliol was disouned with his whole race, for attempting to enslave the Kingdoms Liberties to foreign power. And if this may be done for such an attempt, as the greatest Court parasites & Sycophants consent; what then shall be done for such as attempt to subject the people to Domestic or Intestine Slaverie? Shall we refuse to be slaves to one without, and be, & own our selves contented Slaves to one with in the Kingdom? It is known also that King James the 1. his Authority was refused by his subjects in France, so long as he was a Prisoner to the English there, though he charged them upon their Allegiance, not to fight against the party who had his person Prisoner: They answered, they owned no Prisoner for their King, nor owed no Allegiance to a Prisoner. Hence Princes may learn, though people submit to their Government; yet their resignation of themselves to their obedience is not so full, as that they are obliged to own Allegiance to them, when either Morally or Physically they are incapacitate to exerce Authority over them. They that cannot rule themselves, cannot be owned as Rulers over a people.

2. Neither hath there been any Nation, but what at one time or other hath furnished examples of this Nature. The English History gives account, how some of their Kings have been dealt with by their Subjects, for impieties against the Law & Light of Nature, and encroachments upon the Laws of the Land. Vortigernu • was dethroned for incestously marrying his own Sister. Neither did ever Blasphemies, Adulteries, Murders, Plotting against the lives of Innocents, and taking them away by Poison or Razor, use to escape the animadversion of men, before they were Priest-ridden unto a belief that Princes persons were sacred. And if men had that generosity now, this man that now reigns might expect some such animadversion. And we find also King Edward, & Richard the 2. were deposed, for Usurpation upon Laws & Liberties, in doing whereof the people avowed. They would not suffer the Laws of England to be changed. Surely the people of England must now be far degenerate, who having such Laws transmitted to them from their worthy Ancestors, and they themselves being born to the possession of them without a Change, do now suffer them to be so encroached upon, and mancipate themselves, & leave their Children vassals to Popery, & slaves to Tyranny.

3. The Dutch also, who have the best way of guiding of Kings of any that ever had to do with them (witness their having so many of them in Chains, now in Batavia in the East Indies ) are not wanting for their part to furnish us with examples. When the King of Spain would not condescend to govern them according to their Ancient Laws, and rule for the good of the people, they declared him to be fallen from the Seigniorie of the Netherlands, and so erected themselves into a flourishing Common-wealth. It will not be amiss to transcribe some of the words of the Edict of the Estates General to this purpose.

And with this aggrees the answer of William Prince of Orange to the Edict of Proscription, published against him by Philip. the II. This was the very Argument of the poor suffering people of Scotland, whereupon they disouned the Authority of Charles the Second.

4. The Monarchy of France is very absolute; yet there also the State hath taken order with their Tyrants; not only have we many instances of resistances made against them, but also of disouning, disabling, & invalidating their pretended Authority & repressing their Tyranny. So was the two Childerici served: So also Sigebertus, Dagabertus, and Lodowick the II. Kings of France.

5. The great body of Germany moves very slowly, and is inured to bear great burdens: yet there also we find John • a of Austria Mother of Charles the 5. was put to perpetual 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 sonment: which example is adduced by the Earl of Mortoun, in his discourse to the Queen of England (whereof I rehearsed a part before) vindicating the deposing & disouning Queen Mary of Scotland.

The Duke of Saxon, the Landgrave of Hesse and the Magistrates of Magdeburgh, joined in a war against her Son Charles the 5. and drew up a conclusion by resolution of Lawyers, wherein are these words— Which Opinion is confirmed by some of the greatest Lawyers, and even some who are Patrons of Tyranny, Grotius none of the greatest enemies of Tyrants, de jure belli lib. 1. cap. 4. n: 11. saith out of Barclaius, & with him, that the King doth loss his power when he seeketh the destruction of his subjects. It was upon the account of the Tyranny of that bloody house of Austria over the Helvetians, that they shook off the rule & Government of that family, and established themselves into a Republic. And at this present time, upon the same accounts, the Tyranny & Treachery of this Imperial Majesty, the Hungarians have essayed to maintain & justify a revolt in disouning the Emperor, now for several years.

6. Polland is an Elective Kingdom, and so cannot but be fertile of many instances of casting off Tyrants. Henricus Valesius, disouned for fleeing, and Sigismuadus for violating his faith to the States, may suffice. Lex Rex Q. 24. Pag. 217.

7. In Denmark, we find Christiernus their King, was for his intolerable Cruelty put from the Kingdom, he and all his Posterity, and after twenty years did end his life in Prison.

8. In Swedland, within the Compass of one Century, the people deposed & banished the two Christierns, and dethroned & imprisoned Ericus, for their oppressions & Tyranny, and for pursuing the destruction of their Subjects.

9. The Portugieses, not many years ago, laid aside and confined Alphonsus their King, for his rapines & Murders.

10. Some Dukes of Venice have been so disouned by these Common-wealths men, that laying aside their Royal honors as private men, they have spent their days in Monasteries. Buchan. de jure regni apud Scotos.

11. If we will revolve the old Roman Histories, we shall find no small store of such examples, both in the time of their Kings, Consuls, & Emperors. Their seventh King Tarquinius Superbus, was removed by the people, for his evident Usurpation: Neque enim ad jus regni quicquam praeter vim habebat, ut qui neque populi jussu, neque Patribus Authoribus, regnavit, saith Livius i.e. for he had nothing for a right to the Government, but mere force, and got the rule neither by the people's consent & choice, nor by the Authority of the Senators. So afterwards the Empire was taken from Vitellius, Heliogabulus, Maximinus, Didius Julianus, Lex Rex, ub, supra.

12. But it will be said. Can there be any Instances of the Primitive Christians adduced? Did ever they, while groaning under the most insupportable Tyranny of their Persecuting Emperors, disoune their Authority, or suffer for not owning it? To this I answer. 1. What they did or did not of this Kind, is not of moment to inquire: seeing their practice & Example, under such disavantages, can neither be known exactly, nor what is known of it be accommodated to our case: for (1) they were never forced to give their judgment, neither was the question ever put to them, whether they owned their Authority or not: if they transgressed the Laws, they were liable to the punishment, they craved no more of them. (2) They confess themselves to be strangers, that had no establishments by Law, and therefore they behooved to be passively subject, when in no capacity to resist; there was no more required of them. Yet Lex Rex Quest. 35. pag. 371. cites Theodoret affirming, Th • n evil men reigned through the unmanlyness of the sub • ects. (3) Their examples are not imitable in all things: They were against resistence, which we doubt not to prove is Lawful against Tyrannical vio • ence: Many of them refused to flee from the fury of Persecutors: They ran to Martyrdom, when neither cited nor accused; And to obtain the Croun thereof they willingly yielded up their lives & Liberties also to the rage or Tyrants. We cannot be obliged to all these. 2 Yet we find some examples not altogether unapplicable to this purpose. When Barochbach, the pretended King of the Jews, after the destruction of Jerusalem, set himself up as King in Bitter a City in Arabia; the Christians that were in his precincts, refused to own him as King; which was one great cause of his persecuting them. Its true he persecuted them also for other things, as for their not denying Christ; So are we persecuted for many other things, than for our simple disouning of the King: yet this is reckoned as a distinct cause of their suffering, by Mr Mede on the Revel. Part. 1. Pag. 43. Gees Magist. Origin. ch. 10. Sect. 7. Pag. 361. The same last cited Author shows, that when Albinus, Niger; & Cassius, successively usurped the Empire, having none of them any Legal investure, the Christians declined the recognition of their Claim, and would not own them; and that upon this Tertullian says, Nunquam Albiniani, nec Nigriani, vel Cassiani, inveniri potuerunt Christiani, that is, the Christians could never be found to be Albinians, or Nigrians, or Cassians, meaning they were never ouners of these men for Magistrates. And so may we say, Pudet inveniri inter Carolinianos & Iacobinianos hujus temporis. Not unlike is the passage of Ambrose, who in favors of Valentinia • the rightful Governor, contested against Maximus the Tyrant, and not only disouned him but excommunicated him, for which he was threatened with death. And yet it is observable, that when Maximus offered to interpose his power in defense of Ambrose, that he might not be banished by Iustina the Empress, he would not accept of the help of Maximus, whose power he disallowed & disouned. Whence I observe, that it is not without a Precedent for a Minister to disoune a Tyrant, to refuse favor from him, yea and to excommunicate him, yea even without the concurrence of his fainting brethren; for all which some of our faithful Ministers have been much condemned in our day, especially Mr Donald Cargil for excommunicating Charles the Second & James Duke of York, as if such a thing had never been done before: Whereas we see what Ambrose did to Maximus. And this same faithful Minister Ambrosius Minister at Milan, in Italy, did also hold out of the Assembly of the Christians Theodosius the Emperor though a most virtuous Prince, for that grievous Scandal committed by him, against the innocent people at Thessalonica, in killing so many of them in a Passionate transport. But 3. since this objection of the Primitive Christians is much insisted on, both against this and the head of defensive Arms: I shall further take notice of several distinctions, that do make the difference between their case & Ours very vast. (1) There is a great difference betwixt a Prince of the common Religion of his Subjects, but distinct from some of them, whom yet he does not seek to entice to his Religion, but gives them liberty & the benefit of the Law as other Subjects: (which was the case of many in these primitive times sometimes.) And a Prince by all means, both foul & fair, pressing to a revolt from the true and to embrace a false Religion. In this case (which is ours with a witness) it must be granted we should be wary, that we neither engage with him, nor own Allegiance to him, when he would withdraw us from our Allegiance to God. (2) There is a great difference betwixt a Prince, persecuting the true Religion, which only a few of his subjects here & there did profess, who in regard of their Paucity were never in capacity to be looked upon as the body of the people, impowering him as their public Servant: (which was their case) And a Prince persecuting that Religion • which was professed by the body of the Nation, when they set him up. In this Latter case, men of great sense have denied he should be owned for a Prince, because then he is stated against the Common good. This was our case under the former King, and yet under this, though all Professors be not now persecuted, the public Religion & Ancient Reformation is persecuted in a few, whom he intends to destroy, and in their destruction to bury it. (3) There is a difference, betwixt a Prince Persecuting Religion publicly owned & received of his subjects, yet never approved nor confirmed by Law (as it was not in the primitive times) And a Prince persecuting Religion ratified & established by the Laws of the Land, which is our case. It will seem clear to every soul, not benighted with Court darkness, that he then de • acto and ipso jure falleth from his right in this case, because now he is not only stated against the common good, but against the very Laws by which the Subjects must be ruled. Then he ruleth not as a Prince▪ to whom the Law giveth his Measures & Bounds, but rageth as a Tiger & Tyrant, and ought to be carried towards as such. (4) There is a difference, betwixt a Prince suppressing that Religion established by Law, which he never professed, nor never gave his consent to these Laws (as might be the case of some of the Arian Emperors) though it be unlawful for any people to set up any Mortal over them, who is not in this case bound to the good behavior; And a Prince, opposing, & oppressing that Religion, which himself hath professed and is ratified by Laws with his own consent: which was our case under the former King, who did give the most solemn Ratification of them that ever was given, but afterwards most perfidiously retracted it. As also this Apostate Papist, did sometime profess himself Protestant, and consented to the Laws establishing it, and the Penal Statutes against Papists, though now he is going about to raze all, and ruin that alone valuable Treasure of our Nation, Religion. (5) There is a difference, betwixt a Prince consenting to Laws establishing Religion which he now persecuteth (which might have been the case of Julian the Apostate ) And a Prince who not only consented to these Laws, but who did upon these very terms & no other get & receive his Croun & Scepter, that he should preserve the Religion as Reformed, and protect as a Father the Professors thereof, and maintain the Laws establishing it, which yet he perfidiously & perniciously, being once settled in the Government, Breaks, Casts, Cassats, & Overturns (which was done by Charles ) Or, And a Prince who will neither be bounded by the Laws he consented to, nor be bound to the Observation of any Laws whatsoever; but challenges it as his prerogative Royal, to be absolute above all Laws, and denying all Security upon terms, is free to destroy Religion & Liberty, and all the valuable Interests of the Nation, when he pleases. This is James his Character (6) There is a difference, betwixt a Prince breaking the main & only Article of his Covenant, in a fit of fury & rage, being transported upon some Mistakes (which was the case of Theodosius the Emperor) And a Prince not only violating this upon deliberation, but plainly Declaring, that neither Oath nor Declaration can or will bind him, but these being made void, he will destroy without restraint all these Covenanted privileges (This was the case of Charles ) Or, And a Prince, who, as he never will come under the bond of a Covenant with his people, So though he make never so many fair promises with the greatest Solemnities, maintains a principle that he will keep no promises, but when & with whom he pleases, and can get a Dispensation to break all when he likes. (This is James his Ingenuity.) Sure in this case, Such as are so Characterized Declare themselves so far from being Princes, that they profess before the world, they are no more men to be conversed with: for if neither their words, Writs, vows, promises, Oaths, Declarations, nor Protestations, can bind them; what Society can be had with them? Are they not to be looked upon & carried towards as Common Enemies of Morality, Religion, Righteousness, Liberty, Humanity, yea even of Mankind itself? Now then, let the world be Judge, if the people of Scotland can be judged in Conscience, Reason, Prudence, Policy, or any imaginable way, bound to own their Authority, being so Stated, and by the Act Rescissory all human ground rescinded, that ever it shall be otherwise. let them go seek other slaves where they can find them, for we will not sell ourselves & posterity to Tyrants as slaves, nor give up our Religion and the exercise of it to the Mouldings of the Court.

II. In the Second place: It being clear from these forementioned Instances, that Tyrants & Uusurpers have been disouned; And it being also as clear as light can make any thing, from the foregoing Account of their Government, and all the Characters of Truculency Treachery, & Tyranny conspicuously relucent therein, that these two Gentlemen whose Authority we are pressed to own, were Tyrants & Usurpers: It remains therefore to prove from all dictates of Reason about Government, that their pretended Authority could not nor cannot be owned. For the Argument runs thus; The Authority of Tyrants & Uusurpers cannot be owned: But the Authority of Charles & James was & is the Authority of Tyrants & Usurpers: Ergo their Authority cannot be owned. Now its the Major of this Syllogisim that I under take to prove. The Minor being so clear from their History, that to prove it by witnesses were actum agere.

1. All Authority to be owned of men must be of God, and ordained of God: for so the Apostle teacheth Expressly Rom. 13. 1. &c. Which is the alone formal reason of our Subjection to them, and that which makes it a damnable sin to resist them, because it is a resisting the Ordin • nce of God. The Lord ounes Himself to be the Author of Magistrates, Prov. 8. 15. By me Kings reign and Princes decree Justice. As He is the Author of man and hath made him a sociable Creature so He is the Author of the Order of human Society which is necessary for the Preservation of Mankind He being the God of Order & not of Confusion. And this must hold not only of the Supreme Authority, but of subordinate Magistrates also; for they must be included in the higher Powers to whom we must be subject Rom. 13. And they that resist them resist God's Ordinance too. Their judgment is God's, as well as the judgment of the Supreme Magistrate Deut. 1. 17. 2 Chron. 19. 6, 8. They are called God's among whom the Lord judgeth, Psal. 82. 1. He speaketh not there of a Congregation of Kings. We are to be subject to them for the Lord's sake, as well as to the Supreme Magistrate 1. Pet. 2. 13. Therefore all Magistrates superior & Inferior are ordained of God in the respective Places. Its true, Peter calls every degree of Magistracy, an Ordinance of man, not that he denies it to be an Ordinance of God (for so he would cantradict Paul Rom. 13.) but terms it so Emphatically, to commend the worth of obedience to Magistrates though but men, when we do it for the Lord's sake: Not effectively as an invention of men, but subjectively because exercised by men, & created & invested by human suffrages considered as men in Society, and objectively for the good of man, and for the external Peace & safety of man thereby differenced from the Ministry, an Ordinance of Christ, for the spiritual good of men's souls. Hence, Those Rulers that are not of God nor ordained of God, cannot be owned without sin: But Tyrants & Usurpers are the Rulers, that are not of God nor ordained of God, but are set up and not by Him &c. Hos. 8. 1-4. Therefore they cannot be owned without sin. I refer it to any man of conscience & Reason to judge, if these Scriptures proving Magistracy to be the Ordinance of God, for which alone it is to be owned, can be applied to Tyrants & Usurpers: How will that Rom, 13. read of Tyrants? let every soul be subject to Tyrants, for they are ordained of God as His Ministers of Justice &c. and are a terror to evil works and a praise to the good, would not every man nauseate that as not the Doctrine of God? Again, how would that sound Prov. 8. By me Tyrants reign & Usurpers decree injustice? harsh to Christian ears. Can they be said to be God's among whom the Lord judgeth? If they be, they must be such as the witch of Endor saw, God's coming out of the earth, when she raised the Devil; in a very Catichrestical meaning, as the Devil is called the God of this world. And indeed they have no more power, nor otherwise to be owned, than he hath: for this is a Truth, Tyranny is a work of Satan & not from God; because sin either habitual or actual is not from God; Tyranny is sin in habit & act: Ergo—The Magistrate as Magistrate is good in nature & end, being the Minister of God for good, A Tyrant as a Tyrant is quite contrary. Lex Rex saith well

Hence sin, a Licence to sin, a Licencious sinning, cannot be from God: But Tyranny, Usurpation, absolute power encroaching upon all Liberties, Laws, Divine & human, is sin, a Licence to sin, a Licencious sinning. Ergo—But to make this clear, and to obviate what may be said against this: let it be Considered how the powers that be are of God & ordained of God. Things are said to be of God and ordained of God two ways; by His purpose & providence, and by His Word & Warrant. Things may be of God, either of His Hand working or bringing them about ordaining & ordering them to be to His Glory; either by a holy overruling Providence, as Samsons desire of a wife was of God Judge. 14. 4. and Amaziahs insolent & foolish rejection of Joash his Peaceable overture 2 Chron. 25. 20. Or by a powerful effective providence, So Rom. 11. 36. Of Him & through Him are all things 1 Cor. 8. 6. One God of whom are all things. Or things be of God of His Word warranting & Authorizing. So we are commanded to try the spirits whether they be of God (1 John. 4. 1.) So in this sense, sin, temptation, lust, Corruptions of the world are not of God I am. 1. 13. 1 John. 2. 16. Again, things are ordained of God, either by the order of His Counsel or Providential will, either effectively by way of Production or Direction, or Permissively by way of non-impedition: Or they are ordained by the order of His Word & Preceptive will▪ The former is God's Rule, the latter is ours: The former is alwise accomplished, the latter is often contradicted: The former orders all actions even sinful, the latter only that which is good & acceptable in the sight of God▪ By the former Israel rejected Samuel, by the latter they should have continued Samuel's Government, and not sought a King: By the former, Athaliah usurped the Government, by the latter, she should have yielded obedience & resigned the Government to the posterity of Ahaziah: By the former all have a physical subordination to God as Creatures, subject to His All-disposing will; by the latter, Those whom He approves have a moral subordination to God, as obedient subjects to His Commanding will. Now Magistrates are of God and ordained by Him both these ways, Tyrants but one of them. I say, Magistrates, the higher Powers, to whom we owe & must own subjection are of God both these ways, both by His purpose & Providence, and that not merely eventual but effective & executive of His Word, disposing both of the Title & Right, & Possession of the power, to them whom He approves, and bringing the People under a conscientious subjection, And by His Word & warrant. So Adonijah the Usurper (though he had the pretence of Hereditary right, and also possession by Providence) was forced to own King Solomon in these terms upon which only a Magistrate may be owned: The Kingdom, says he, was mine, and all Israel set their faces on me that I should reign, howbeit the Kingdom is turned about and become my brothers for it was his from the Lord, 1 King. 2. 15. He had both Providence turning about the Kingdom to him, and also the Warrant of the Lord's Approbative & preceptive will. But Tyrants & Usurpers are only of God and ordained of God, by His overruling purpose & permissive Providence, either for performing His holy purpose towards themselves; as Rehoboams professing he would be a Tyrant, and refusing the Lawful desires of the people was of God 2 Chron. 10. 15. Or for a judgment & vengeance upon them that are subject to them, Zech. 11: 6: whereby they get a power in their hand, which is the Rod of the Lord's Indignation, and a Charge & Commission against a Hypocritical Nation Isa. 10. 5. 6. This is all the power they have from God, who gives Jacob to the spoil & Israel to the Robbers, when they sin against Him Isa. 42. 24. This doth not give these Robbers any right, no more than they whose Tabernacle prosper, into whose hand God bringeth abundantly Job. 12. 6. Thus all Robbers, and the great Legal Robbers, Tyrants, and their Authorized Murderers, may be of God, to wit, by His Providence. Hence those that are not ordained of God's preceptive will, but merely by His Providential will, their Authority is not to be owned: But Tyrants & Usurpers are not ordained of God's Preceptive, but merely by His Providential will. The Minor needs no proof: yet will be cleared by many following Arguments. The Major will be afterwards more demonstrated. Here I shall only say, They that have no other ordination of God impowering them to be Rulers, than the devil hath, must not be owned: But they that have no other than the ordination of Providence, have no other ordination of God impowering them to be Rulers than the devil hath: Ergo they that have no other than the ordination of Providence must not be owned.

2. But let us next consider, what is comprehended in the Ordination of that Authority which is to be owned as of God: And it may be demonstrated there are two things in it, without which no Authority can be owned as of God, viz. Institution & Constitution: So as to give him, whom we must own as God's Minister, Authority both in the Abstract & Concrete, that is, that he should have Magistracy by God's Ordination, and be a Magistrate by & according to the will of God. All acknowledge that Magistracy hath God's Institution, for the Powers that be are ordained of God: which contains not only the Appointment of it, but the qualification & form of it. That Government is appointed by Divine Precept all agree, but whether the Precept be Moral Natural, or Moral Positive, Whether it was appointed in the State of Innocency, or since disorder came in the world, Whether it be Primario or Secundario, from the Law of nature is not agreed upon, It may possibly be all these ways; Government in the General may be from the Law and light of Nature appointed in Innocency, because all its relative duties are enjoined in the fifth Command, and all Nations Naturally have an esteem of it, Without which there could be no order, distinction, or Communion in human Societies, But the Specification or Individuation may be by a Postnate Positive & Secundary Law, yet Natural too, for though there be no reason in Nature why any man should be King & Lord over another, being in some sense all Naturally free but as they yield themselves under Jurisdiction: The exalting of David over Israel is not ascribed to Nature, but to an act of divine bounty which took him from following the Ewes and made him feeder of the People of Israel, Psal. 78. 70, 71: yet Nature teacheth that Israel and other People should have a Government, and that this should be subjected to. Next, not only is it appointed to be, but qualified by Institution, and the Office is defined, the End prescribed, and the measures & Boundaries thereof are limited, as we shall hear. Again the forms of it, though Politically they are not stinted, that People should have such a form & not another: yet Morally, at least Negatively, whatever be the form, it is limited to the Rules of equity & justice, and must be none other than what hath the Lord's Mould & Sanction. But there is no Institution any of these ways for Tyranny. Hence, that Power that hath no Institution from God, cannot be owned as His ordinance: But the Power of Tyrants is that Power, being contrary in every respect to God's Institution, and a mere deviation from it, & eversion of it. Ergo —To the Minor it may be replied; Though the Power which Tyrants may exerce & Usurpers assume, may be in Concret • contrary to God's Institution, and so not to be owned: yet in abstracto, it may be acknowledged of God. Its but the abuse of the Power, and that does not take away the use. We may own the Power, though we do not own the abuse of it. I ans. 1. I acknowledge the distinction as to Magistrates is very pertinent: for it is well said by the Congregation in a Letter to the Nobility, Knox Hist. of Scot. lib. 2. That

But the Corrupt Person placed in this Authority may offend—Its certain higher Powers are not to be resisted but some persons in Power may be resisted. The Powers are ordained of God, but Kings commanding unjust things are not ordained of God to do such things. But to apply this to Ty • ants, I do not understand: Magistrates in some Acts may be guilty of Tyranny, and yet retain the Power of Magistracy; but Tyrants cannot be capable of Magistracy, nor any one of the Scripture Characters of Righteous Rulers. They cannot retain that which they have forefeited, and which they have overturned; And Usurpers cannot retain that which they never had. They may act & enact some things materially just, but they are not formally such as can make them Magistrates, no more then some unjust actions can make a Magistrate a Tyrant. A Murderer, saying the • ife of one & killing another, does not make him no Murderer: Once a Murderer ay a Murderer, once a Robber ay a Robber, till he restore what he hath robbed: So once a Tyrant ay a Tyrant, till he make amends for his Tyranny, and that will be hard to do. 2. The Concrete does specificate the Abstract in actuating it, as a Magistrate, in his exercising Government makes his Power to be Magistracy; a Robber in his robbing, makes his Power to be Roberie; an Usurper in his usurping makes his Power to be Usurpation; So a Tyrant in his Tyrannizing can have no Power but Tyranny. As the Abstract of a Magistrate is nothing but Magistracy, So the Abstract of a Tyrant is nothing but Tyranny. Its frivolous then to distinguish between a Tyrannical power in the Concrete, & Tyranny in the Abstract; the power & the abuse of the power: for he hath no power as a Tyrant, but what is abused. 3. They that objects thus, must either mean, that power in its general Notion is ordained of God, but this particular Power ab • sed by Tyrants, and assumed by Usurpers, is not ordained: Or they must mean, that the very Power of Tyrants & Usurpers is ordained of God, but the way of holding & using it is not of God. If the first be said, they grant all I plead for: for though the Power in general be ordained, yet what is this to Tyrants & Usurpers? would not this Claim be ridiculous for any man to say, God hath ordained Governments to be, therefore I will challenge it? God hath ordained Marriage, therefore any may cohabit together as man & wife, without formal Matrimony? If the Second be alleged, that the Power of these prevailing Dominators is ordained, but not their holding & using of it: This is Non-sense, for how can a Power be ordained and the use of it be unlawful? For, the abuse & use of Tyrannical Power is all one and reciprocal: an Usurper cannot use his Power but by Usurpation. Again is it not plain, that the Abstract & the Concrete, the act or habit, and the subject wherein it is, cannot have a contrary Denomination? if Drunkenness and Thieft, Lying or Murder, be of the Devil; then the Drunkard, the Thief, the Lyar, & the Murderer, are of the Devil too: So if Tyranny and Usurpation, or the use or abuse of Tyrants & Usurpers, be of the Devil; Then must the Tyrants & Usurpers also be of him: None can say, the one is of the Devil, and the other of God. Wherefore it is altogether impertinent to use such a Distinction, with application to Tyrants or Usurpers, as many do in their pleading for the owning of our Oppressors: for they have no power, but what is the abuse of power.

3. As that Authority which is God's Ordinance must have His Institution: So it must have His divine Constitution from Himself and by the people. Wherever then there is Authority to be owned of men, there must be these tuo, Constitution from God and Constitution from the people. For the first, God hath a special Interest in the Constitution of Authority, both Immediatly & Mediatly. Immediatly, He declares such & such forms of Government to be Lawful & Eligible, and does order whom & who and how people shall erect Governors. And so, He confers Royal Graces & Enduements & Gifts for Government on them, as on Joshua & Saul: So they become the Lord's Anointed, placed & set on the Throne of the Lord, 1 Chron. 29. 23. and honored with Majesty as His deputies & vicegerents, having their Croun set on by God Psal. 21. 3. But in regard now He doth not by any special Revelation determine, who shall be the Governors in this or that place; Therefore He makes this Constitution by mediation of men; giving them Rules how they shall proceed in setting them up. And seeing by the Law of Nature He hath enjoined Government to be, but hath ordered no particular in it with application to singulars, He hath committed it to the positive transaction of men, to be disposed according to certain General Rules of Justice. And it must needs be so, for 1. without this Constitution, either all or none would be Magistrates: if He hath ordained Civil Power to be, and taken no order in whom it shall be, or how it shall be conveyed, any might pretend to it; and yet none would have a right to it, more than another. If then He • ath affixed it to a peculiar having & holding, by virtue whereof this man is enstated & entitled to the office, and not that man, there must be a Law for Constituting him in Authority, which will discover in whom it is. 2. If it were not so, then a resisting of a particular Magistrate would not be a resisting of the ordinance of God, if a particular Magistrate were not Constitute of God, as well as Magistracy is Institute of God: for still it would be undetermined, who were the Power; and so it would be left as free & Lawful for the resister to take the place, as for the resisted to hold it; the institution would be satisfied if any possessed i • : therefore there must be Constitution to determine it. 3. No Common Law of Nature can be put into practice, without particular Constitution regulating it. That Wives & Children own their superior relations, is the Law of Nature; but there must be such a relation first fixed by human transaction, before they can own them; there must be Marriage Authorized of God, there must be Children begotten, and then the Divine Ordination of these relative duties take place. So the Judges of Israel for 450 years were given of God, Act. 13. 20. not all by an immediate express designation, but a mediate Call from God by men, as Jephthah Judge. 11. 6. 11. Inferior judges also are Magistrates appointed by God, yet they have their Deputation from men. Our Savior speaks of all Magistrates, when he applies that of the 82. Psalm to them, I said ye are God's; and shows how they were God's, because unto them the Word of God came, John. 10. 35. that is, by His Word & Warrant He Authorized them, not by immediate designation in reference to the most of them, but the Word of God comes to them, or His Constitution is past upon them, who are advanced by men according to His Word. When men therefore do act according to the Divine Rule, in the Moulding & Erecting of Government & Governors, there the Constitution is of God, though it be not immediate. And where this is not observed, whatever power (so named or pretended) there may be, or what-soever persons there be that take upon them to be the power, and are not thereto appointed or therein instated, and do exerce such a power as God hath not legitmated, they are not a power ordained of God. Hence, whatsoever power hath no Constitution from God, eather Immediate or Mediate, cannot be owned: But the Authority of Tyrants & Usurpers, is a power that hath no Constitution from God, either Immediate or Mediate: Ergo it cannot be owned. The Major is cleared above. The Minor is also undeniable: For, either they must pretend to an Immediate Constitution by revelation, that James Duke of York, a vassal of Antichrist, had by all his plots & pranks Merited the Crown of Britain, and therefore must be Constitute King: And this I hope they will not pretend to, except the Pope hath gotten such a Revelation from Pluto's Oracle: Or they must have recourse to the Mediate Constitution by men: And if so; Then, either this Mediate Constitution of God is left undetermined, indefinitely & absolutely giving way to any that will assume what power they please & can: And then, I confess, Tyrants may have a Constitution; but this confusion cannot be of God: Or else, it is fixed by a Rule, regulating the succession or Constitution of the Governors, and obliging the people to own the Government so constituted, with exclusion & disallowance of any other. And so, if in that Constitution there be a Substantial Deviation from the Rule, as when incompetent or unallowed persons be the advancers of themselves, or others, into that place by illegal & sinistrous means, in as much as in that case there is the Divine disapprobation, it may be said there is no Ordinance of God, but a Contradiction & Contraordination to God's Order. Gee's Magist. Origin. chap. 5. Sect. 4. subject 3. pag. 135. This will shake off this of ours, and all other Tyrants & Usurpers, that come into the Government, & hold it not according to God's Rule.

4. It is clear also in the second place, that the Authority which we can own out of conscience, must have Constitution by the people. The special way by which men should be called into the place of Sovereign power, may perhaps not be found so expressly defined in Scripture, as men's Call to the other Ordinance of the Ministry is; yet in this two things are essentially necessary to the Constitution of a Magistrate, The people's consent & compact either formal or virtual. And without these we can own conscientious subjection & Allegiance to no man living. That the first is necessary will be evident, from the Law of Nature & Nations, and from Scripture. First the light & Law of Nature dictates, that the Right & Interest of Constituting Magistrates is in the Elective vote or suffrage of the people. This will Appear. 1. If we consider, The Original of Government among men, especially after they were so multiplied, that there was a necessity of a reduction into diverse Communities; which, whatever was before the flood, yet after it, behooved to be by a Coalition with consent under an Elective Government. The Scripture makes it more than probable, that the first partition of Common-wealths was in Pelegs days, in whose time the earth was Divided Gen. 10. 25. occasioned by the Confusion of Languages at Babel which did dissolve their union and scatter them abroad upon the face of all the eath Gen. 11. 9. Then was it that we may conceive, as

But this confusion of Languages, and Communion of Language, in several divided Parcels, could not incorporate these several Parties into Communities; that behooved to be the effect of some other cause: & what should that be, but the joint will, consent & aggreement of the severally Languaged? It could not be by Consanguinity; for there is no direction from Nature for a confinement of that into such & such degrees, to make out the bounds of a Common-wealth, or Possibility of knowing all with in such degrees; besides all within these degrees might not be of the same Language. Now the Scripture says, they were divided everyone after his tongue, after their families, in their Nations Gen. 10. 5. Next it could not be by Cohabitation: for how that must go to be the boundaries of a Common-wealth, inclusively or exclusively, is not defined by nature, nor can it be otherwise determined than by human choice. Then, it could not be by men's belonging to such a Sovereign: for after that Division & Confusion, they could not all be under one Sovereign, nor under the same that they were subject to before; and a Sovereign cannot be before the aggregation of the Subjects whereof he is head, they must first be a Common-wealth before they can belong to it. Again it cannot be founded upon the Right of fatherhood: for in that scattering, such a Right could not be uninterruptedly preserved: And then Noah should also have been the Universal Magistrate, which he could not be in these multiplied secessions. And further if it be refounded on the Right of fatherhood; either every Company had one Common Father over all, or every Father made a Common-wealth of his own Children: The Latter cannot be said, for that would multiply Common-wealts in infinitum: Neither can the first be said, for if they had one Common Father, either this behooved to be the Natural Father of all the Company, which none can think was so happily ordered by Babels confusion: Or else the eldest in age, and so he might be incapable for Government, and the Law of Nature does not direct that the Government should alwise be astricted to the eldest of the Community: Or else finally he behooved to be their Political Father, by consent. For before this consent, they were uningaged as to common order of Government; none of the Community having any legal Claim to Sovereignty more than the rest. When therefore they were forced to conclude upon Association for their Mutual Preservation, they must be thought to act rationally, and not to make their condition worse but rather better by that conclusion, and, if they found it worse, to resume their radical Right which they had conferred upon men, subject to Law not to Tyrannize over them: And in this case, certainly they had the power of choosing what Kind of Government suited most to their advantage, and would best preserve their Liberties, and how far this should be extended, and who should be assumed into this Combination; still with a reservation of the Privilege to their own safety, if their Associates should not do their duty: And so they might also reserve to themselves a Liberty, to alter the form when they found it productive of more prejudice than advantage, and never to leave their condition remedieless; And to pitch upon this way of succession and not another, the way of free election of every successor, or of definite election limited to one line, or to the nearest in line, And e contra with a reserve still of their primeve Privileges, to secure themselves from the inconveniences of that determination, or to change it; And to make choice of such a family & line and not another, and whether the eldest alwise of that family or the fittest is to be chosen: And however it be, yet still by the people's consent: And in all this to have respect to some good, great, & Necessary Ends, which if they should be disappointed of, and find these means useless or destructive to, they were to be loosed from their obligation to use or to own them. See Ius populi vindicate. ch. 5. pag. 80. &c. 2. If we consider how Nature determines the people's Interest in the constitution of Governors: whence comes it that this man and not that man, this race & family and not that, is invested with that Title? It will be found there is no Title on earth now to the Crowns to families, to persons, but the people's suffrage: for the Institution of Magistracy in general does, not make James Stewart a King, no more than John Chamberlain: Neither do qualifications make one, otherwise there might be many better than is this day extant, for there are many men better qualified: And there is no Prophetical or immediate Callings to Kingdoms now: And as for Conquest without consent, and having no more for a Title, it is no better than Royal Latrocinie. It is certain God would not Command us to obey Kings, and leave us in the Dark that we should not know him that hath a real call to 〈◊〉 : And if he have not the people's Call, where shall we find another? It remains therefore they must have it from the people, who have it to give Radically & virtually; having a power to preserve themselves, and to put it in the hands of one or more Rulers, that they may preserve themselves by them. All men are born alike as to Civil power (no man being born with a Croun on his head) and yet men united in Society may give it to this man & not to that man, therefore they must have it virtually; for they cannot give what they have not. And as Cities have power to choose their Magistrates, so many Cities have power to creat an Universal Ruler over them all. The people also have power to Limit the Magistrates power, with conditions; so that the present Ruler shall not have so much prerogative as his predecessor, as Royalists cannot deny, therefore they must have given that power which they can Limit See Lex Rex Quest. 4. pag. 10. &c. Secondly the Scripture also gives Light in this particular. 1. In giving directions & Rules about their Orderly calling their Governors; Impowering them, to take wise men, & understanding, & known among their tribes, to be made Rulers D • ut. 1. 13. To make Judges & Officers in all their gates Deut. 16. 18. To set one among their brethren King over them and not a stranger Deut. 17. 15. To what purpose are these Rules given them, if they had no interest to choose their Magistrates? Would God command them to set a King over them, if they had not power to do it? And to set such a man over them and not such an one, if they had no influence in making one at all? And accordingly that wise Statist says very well 2 Sam. 16. 18. Hushai to A • salem, Nay, but whom the Lard & this people and all the men of Israel choose, his will I be, and with him will I abide. Which will also hold in the Negative, whom the Lord & the people and all the men of the Kingdom do not choose, his we will not be, nor with him will we abide. 2. The Scripture expressly attributeth the making of Kings to the people. All the people of Judah took Azariah and made him King, instead of his Father Amaziah, whom they had executed 2 King. 14. 21. They came with a perfect heart to make David King in Hebron 1 Chron. 12. 38. So they made Joash King 2 Chron. 23. 11. 3. Even these that were particularly designed of God & chosen to be Rulers, yet were not formally invested with power, before the people conferred it upon them. Gideon was called of God to it, but was not Judge till the people said, Rule thow over us, both thow & thy Son, giving him an hereditary right for his Children, Judge. 8. 12. Saal was appointed to be King, and therefore Samuel honored him, because he was marked out of God to be King, 1 Sam. 9. 24. and anointed him with oil 1 Sam. 10. 1. after which he was gifted & qualified for Government, God gave him another heart verse. 9. yet all this did not make him King, till the people met for his inauguration verse. 17. &c. and Crowned him & made him King in Gilgal 1 Sam. 11. ult. David was anointed by Samuel, and yet was a persecuted fugitive for several years, and never acknowledged formally King, till the men of Judah came & anointed him 2 Sam. 2. 4. for if he had been King before, then there were two Kings in Israel at one time, and David failed of his Royal duty in not punishing the Murderer Saul; whereas himself says, he would not touch the Lord's 〈◊〉 . Therefore the people made all these Kings, and that by choice & consent, without which they were no Kings. Hence I argue, If the consent & choice of the people be so essentially necessary to the making of Kings; then they who set up themselves against the consent of the body of the Land, and without the choice of any, must be Usurpers, not to be acknowledged for Lawful Kings: But the former is true as is proven above: Ergo—Now Plain it is that this Duke set up himself against the consent of the body, being excluded from the Government by the Representatives of England, and generally hated of all; who disdaining to wait upon the formal choice of any, but after he had paved his passage to the Throne upon his Brothers blood, did usurp the Title without all Law.

5. The second thing necessary for the Legal Constitution of a King by the people, is their Compact with him: which must either be Express or Tacite, Explicite or Implicite. Two things are here to be proven, that will furnish an Argument for disouning both the Brothers. First, That there must be a Conditional reciprocally obliging Covenant between the Sovereign and the Subjects, without which there is no such relation to be owned. Secondly That when this compact is broken in all or its chiefest conditions by the Sovereign, the people's obligation ceases. The first. I shall set down, in the words of a famous Author, our Renouned Country man Buchanan in his Dialogue de Iure Regni apud Scotos. Mutua igitur Regi cum Civibus est pactio &c. There is then (or there ought to be) a Mutual compact between the King and his subjects &c. That this is indispensibly necessary & essential to make up the Relation of Sovereign & Subjects, may be proved both from the Light of Nature, & Revelation. First it may appear from the Light of Natural reason. 1. From the Rise of Government, and the Interest people have in erecting it by consent & choice (at is shown above) If a King cannot be without the people's making, then all the power he hath must either be by compact or gift: If by compact, then we have what we proposed: And if by gift, then if abused they may recall it or if they cannot recover it, yet they may & ought to hold their hand, and give him no more that they may retain, that is no more honor or respect, which is in the honourer before the honored get it. Can it be imagined, that a people acting rationally would give a power absolutely without restrictions to destroy all their own rights? Could they suppose this boundless & Lawless Creature, left at Liberty to Tyrannize, would be a fit mean to procure the the ends of Government? for this were to set up a rampant Tyrant to rule as he listeth, which would make their condition a great deal worse then if they had no Ruler at all, for then they might have more Liberty to see to their safety. See Ius populi ch. 6. pag. 96. 97. 2. This will be clear from the nature of that Authority, which only a Sovereign can have over his Subjects; which whatever be the Nature of it, it cannot be absolute, that is against Scripture, Nature, & Common sense, as shall be proven at more length. That is to set up a Tyrant, one who is free from all conditions, a roaring Lyon & a ranging Bear to destroy all if he pleases. It must be granted by all, that the Sovereign Authority is only fiduciarie, entrusted by God & the people with a great Charge: A great Pledge is impauned & committed to the Care & Custody of the Magistrate, which he must take special care of, and not abuse; or waste, or alienate or sell (for in that case Royalists themselves grant he may be deposed) He is by Office a Patron of the Subjects Liberties, and Keeper of the Law both of God & Man, the Keeper of both Tables. Sure he hath no power over the Laws of God but a Ministerial power, he may not stop & disable them as he pleases; Of the same nature is it, over all other Parts of his Charge. He is rather a Tutor, than an Inheritor & proprietor of the Common-wealth, and may not do with his pupils interest what he pleases. In a word the Nature & whole significancy of his power lies in this, that he is the Nations public Servant, both Objectively in that he is only for the good of the people, and Representatively in that the people hath impauned in his hand all their power to do Royal Service. The Scripture eaches this, in giving him the Titles of Service, as Watchman &c. allowing him Royal wages for his Royal work Rom. 13. he is God's Minister attending continually on this thing, There is his work, for this cause pay yow tribute also, There is his wages & maintinance. He is called so in that transaction with Rehoboam; The old men advised him to be a Servant unto the People, then they should be his Servants 1 King. 12. 7. There was a conditional bargain proposed: As to be a Servant, or Tutor, or Guardian upon Trust, always implies Conditions & Acconntableness to them that entrust them. 3. It must needs be so otherwise great absurdities would follow. Here would be a voluntary contracted Relation, obliging as to relative duties, to a man that ouwed none correlative to us, and yet one whom we set over us. It were strange, if there were no Condition here; and no other voluntarly suscepted Relations can be without this, as between Man & Wife, Master & Servant &c. This would give him the disposal of us & Ours, as if both we and what we have were his own, as a man's goods are, against which he does not sin whatever he do with them. So this would make a King that could not sin against us; being no ways obliged to us, for he can no otherwise be obliged to us but upon Covenant conditions; he may be obliged & bound in duty to God otherwise, but he cannot be bound to us otherwise: And if he be not bound then he may do what he will, he can do no wrong to us to whom he is no ways bound. This also is point blank against the Law of God, which is the Second way to prove it, by the Light of Revelation or Scripture. 1. In thevery directions about making & setting up of Kings, the Lord shows what conditions shall be required of them Deut. 17. 15. &c. and in all directions for obeying them, the qualifications they should have are rehearsed as Rom. 13. 3, 4. Therefore none are to be set up but on these conditions, and none are to be obeyed but such as have these qualifications. 2. In His promises of the succession of Kings, He secures their continuation only Conditionally, to establish the Kingdom if they be constant to do His Commandments & Judgments 1 Chron. 28. 7. There shall not fail a man to sit upon the Trone yet so that they take heed to their way to walk in God's Law, as David did 2 Chron. 6. 16. Now He was not otherwise to perform these promises, but by the action & suffrage of the people setting him up, (which He had appointed to be the way of calling Kings to Thrones) if therefore the Lord's promise be conditional, the people's actions also behooved to be suspended upon the same conditions. 3. We have many express Covenants, between Rulers & Subjects in Scripture. Jephthah was fetched from the Land of Tob, and made the head of the Gileadites by an explicit mutual stipulation, wherein the Lord was invocated as a Witness, Judge. 11. 6, 8, 9, 10, 11. So all the Elders of Israel came to make David King, and King David made a League with them in Hebron before the Lord, and then they anointed him over Israel 2 Sam. 5. 3. he made there a Covenant with them before the Lord 1 Chron. 11, 3. He was no King before this Covenant, and so it was a Pactional Oath between him & the Kingdom, upon terms according to the Law Deut. 17. he was only a King in fieri; one who was to be King, but now actually inaugurate a Covenanted King upon terms that satisfied them. Its true they came to recognosce his Right from the Lord; But so did they recognosce Rehoboams Right, and came to Shechem to make him King 1 King. 12. 1. and yet when he would not enter in Covenant terms with them, to satisfy their just demands, the people answered the King, saying, what portion have we in David, neither have we inheritance in the Son of Jesse, to your tents O Israel verse. 16. They refused to acknowledge such an Usurper, and we find no Prophets ever condemning them for it. So when Jehoash or Joash was Crowned, Jehoiada made a Covenant between the Lord and the King & the people, that they should be the Lord's people, between the King also and the people 2 King. 11. 17. 2 Chron. 23. 11, 16. From all these Reasons & Scriptures, It is clear there must be a Mutual Compact. between the Subjects and every Sovereign they own subjection to, which if he refuse, and usurp the Sword, they are under an Anterior obligation to subtract their Allegiance, and to make use of their Sword, if they be in capacity, to pull it out of his hands and use it against him. And of this we are put in mind by the Motto of our old Coronation pieces, which have these Words about the Sword. pro me, si mereor in me, that is, for me but if I deserve against me: And surely to him that hath it now in his hands, it may be said, tu meruisti & adhuc meres. We see then, the Allegiance that this Usurper alleges is his due, wants a bottom, to wit a compact with the people. Whence I argue, If there must of necessity be a compact between the King & the people when, he is advanced to the Government; then he that advances himself, without & against this compact, is an Usurper not to be owned: But the former is true: Ergo he that advances himself without & against this compact, is an Usurper not to be owned. And who more Notoriously deserving such a signature, than James the 7/2 who hath made horns of his own strength, or the Popes Biills, to push his Brother out and himself in to the Throne, upon no terms at all, or any security for Religion & Liberty. One Objection is to be removed here: Can the Customs of the Jews be binding to all Nations? The Kings of Judah made such Covenants, shall therefore all Kings do so? Ans. why not this Custom, as well as Crowing, which they used likewise? These Rules are not Typical or Cermonial, nor only so Judicial as to be peculiarly Iudaical, but are matters of moral equity, bearing a standing reason founded upon that Law Deut. 17. 15. &c. Limiting the Prince to stand to conditions. If we cast at Divine Laws for Rules of Government, where will we find better Laws? It is recorded of the first of the British Kings who was Christian, that writing to Eleutherius Bishop of Rome (before Antichrist took that seat) for the Roman Laws, he received this Answer;

And of another, that he began his Laws thus, God speak all these words &c. And so repeated the Laws of God. The Second thing I undertook to prove, is that Assertion of Which is also asserted by the Author of This is so clear that it needs no labor to prove it, that upon this head we were loosed from all Allegiance ro the former Tyrant, who was admitted upon terms of an explicit Covenant, the conditions whereof he did as explicitly break. There are two cases wherein Subjects are loosed from Covenanted Allegiance to their Princes. 1. When the Prince remitts the obligation of the Subjects, and refuses Allegiance upon that basis; then he can no more demand it by virtue of that compact. He that remitts & will not have that Allegiance, that the Subjects Covenanted upon such & such conditions to him, these Subjects should not give it that they so Covenanted, for they should not prostitute it to a Refuser & Remitter: But Charles the Second remitted and would not have that Allegiance, which we Covenanted upon such & such conditions viz. upon the terms of the Covenant, which he cassed, & annulled, and made Criminal to own: Ergo to him we should not have given it, which we so Covenanted. 2. When the Prince did enter into a Mutual Covenant with the people upon Mutual conditions, and does not only cease to perform the conditions, but simply denies all obligation to do it, and makes it a quarrel to insinuate so much, yea persecutes all who dare assert the obligation of that Covenant; and yet demands Allegiance, not upon the obligation of that Covenant which he hath remitted, but absolutely upon the grounds of his prerogative. In this case it will be evident also, the subjects are not bound either to own their formerly Covenanted Allegiance to him, Or that which he demands on other grounds. Grotius de Iure belli is clear as to this Lib. 1. Cap. 4. Num. 12. Si ex Clausula posita in ipsa delatione Imperii, ut si Rex hoc aut hoc faciet subditi omni obedientiae vinculo solvuntur, tunc quoque Rex in privatam personam recidit. If there be such a Clause or condition in the very devolution of the Government upon a Prince, as if he do so & so the subjects shall be loosed from all bonds of obedience, then when he does so he becomes a mere private person. Grotius there supposes the power is transferred upon a resolutive condition, that is if he transgress the condition the power shall be resolved into its first fountain: much more if it be transferred expressly also upon a suspensive condition, that he shall continue to maintain the ends of the Covenant, defend Religion & the Liberties of the Subjects, in the defense whereof we shall own Allegiance to him, otherwise not in that case if he do not maintain these ends, plain it is our obligation ceases; for how can it stand upon a conditional obligation, when his performance of the condition sists? But whatever be the conditions Mutual, it flows Natively from the Nature of a Mutual compact, that qui non praestat officium promissum cadit beneficio hac lege dato, he who doth not perform the conditions aggreed upon hath no right to the benefit granted upon condition of performance of these conditions; especially if he perform not, or violate these conditions upon supposition whereof he would not have gotten the benefit: It were very absurd to say, in a Mutual conditional compact one party shall still be bound to perform his conditions, though the other perform none but break all. Were it the act of rational Creatures to set up a Sovereign, upon conditions he shall not play the Tyrant, and yet be bound to him though he Tyrannize never so much? We have the Nature of Mutual compacts in the Spies Covenant with Rahab Josh. 2. 20. If thow utter this our business, then we will be quite of thine Oath, which thow hast made us to swear: if she should break condition, then the obligation of the Oath on their part should cease. But next all the stress will lie in proving that the Covenant, on such & such conditions between a Prince & Subjects, doth equally & mutually oblige both to each other: for if it equally oblige both, then both are equally disengaged from other by the breach on either side, and either of them may have a just claim in Law against the other for breach of the conditions. But Royalists & Court-slaves allege, that such a Covenant obliges the King to God; but not to the people at all; so that he is no more accountable to them, than if he had made none at all. But the contrary is evident: For [1] If the compact be Mutual, and if it be infringed on one side, it must be so in the other also; for in contracts, the parties are considered as equals, whatever inequality there may be betwixt them otherwise: I speak of contracts among men. [2] If it be not so, there is no Covenant made with the people at all: And so David did no more Covenant with Israel. than with the Chaldeans: for to all with whom the Covenant is made it obliges to them. Otherwise it must be said, he only made the Covenant with God, contrary to the Text; for he made it only before the Lord as a Witness, not with Him as a party. Ioashs Covenant with the Lord is expressly distinguished from that with the people. [3] If it be not so, it were altogether non-sense to say, there were any Covenant made with the King, on the other hand: for he is supposed to be made King on such & such terms, and yet by this after he is made King he is no more obliged unto them, than if there had been no compact with him at all. [4] If he be bound as King, and not only as a man or Christian, then he is bound with respect to the people; for with respect to them he is only King: But he is bound as King, and not only as a man or Christian, because it is only with him as King that the people Covenant, and he must transact with them under the same consideration. Next, that which he is obliged to, is the specifical act of a King, to defend Religion & Liberty, & Rule in Righteousness; And therefore his Covenant binds him as King. Again, if he be not bound as King, then as a King he is under no obligation of Law or Oath, which is to make him a Lawless Tyrant, yea none of God's subjects. It would also suppose that the King as King could not sin against the people at all, but only against God: for as King he could be under no obligation of duty to the people, and where there is no obligation there is no sin; by this he would be set above all obligations to love his neighbor as himself, for he is above all his neighbors, and all mankind, and only less than God; and so by this doctrine he is loosed from all duties of the Second Table, or at least he is not so much obliged to them as others. But against this it is Objected: both Prince & people are obliged to perform their part to each other, and both are obliged to God, but both are not accountable to each other; there is not mutual power in the parties to compel one another to perform the promised duty; the King hath it indeed over the people, but not the people over the King, and there is no indifferent Judge Superior to both to compel both, but God. Ans. 1. What if all this should be granted? yet it doth not infringe the proposition: what if the people have not power to compel him? yet Iure he may fall from his Sovereignty, though de facto he is not deposed: he loses his right to our part, when he breaks his part. 2. There is no need of a Superior Arbiter: for as in contracting they are considered as equal, so the party keeping the contract is Superior to the other breaking it: 3. There may be Mutual Coactive Power, where there is no Mutual relation of Superiority & Inferiority: yea in some cases Inferiors may have a Coactive Power by Law, to compel their Superiors failing in their duty to them; As a Son wronged by his Father may compel him to reparation by Law; And independent Kingdoms, nothing inferior to each other, being in Covenant together, the wronged may have a Coactive power to force the other to duty, without any Superior Arbiter. 4. The bond of suretyship brings a man under the obligation to be accountable to the Creditor, though the surety were never so high and the Creditor never so low: Solomon says in General without exception of Kings, yea including them because he was a King that spake it Prov. 6. 1, 2. My son if thow be Surety for thy friend—thow art snared with the words of thy Mouth. Now a Kings power is but fiduciary; And therefore he cannot be unaccountable for the power concredited to him. And if the Generation had minded this, our Stewarts should have been called to an account for their Stewardship ere now. Hence I argue, If a Covenanted Prince, breaking all the Conditions of his compact, doth forfeit his right to the Subjects Allegiance, then they are no more to own him as their Sovereign: But the former is proved, that a Covenanted Prince breaking all the conditions of his compact doth forfeit his right to the Subjects Allegiance: Ergo—And Consequently when Charles the Second, expressly bound by Covenant to defend & promote the Convenanted Reformation & Liberties of the Kingdom, to whom only we were bound in the terms of his defending & promoting the same, did violently & villainously violate & vilify these conditions, we were no more bound to them. Somewhat possibly may be Objected here. 1. If this be the sense of the Covenant, then it would seem that we were not bound to own the King, but only when & while he were actually promoving & carrying on the ends of the Covenant. Ans. It does not follow, but that we are obliged to preserve his Person & Authority in these necessary intervalls, when he is called to see to himself as a man; for we must preserve him as a mean, because of his aptitude & designation for such an End, albeit not always formally prosecuting it: we do not say, that we are never to own him, but when actually exercised in prosecuting these ends: but we say, we are never to own him, when he is Tyrannically & Treacherously abusing his Authority for destroying & overturning these ends, and violating all the conditions of his compact. It may be Obj. 2. Saul was a Tyrant, and a breaker of his Royal Covenant, and persecutor of the Godly, and Murderer of the Priests of the Lord, usurper upon the Priests Office, and many other ways guilty of breaking all conditions: And yet David and all Israel owned him as the Anointed of the Lord. Ans. 1. Saul was indeed a Tyrant, rejected of God, and to be ejected out of his Kingdom in His own time & way, which David a Prophet knowing would not anticipate. But he was far short, and a mere Bungler in acts of Tyranny in comparison of our Grassators: he broke his Royal Covenant in very gross particular acts, but did not cass & rescind the whole of it, did not burn it, did not make it Criminal to own its obligation, nor did he so much as profess a breach of it, nor arrogate an Absolute prerogative, nor attempt arbitrary Government, nor to evert the fundamental Laws and overturn the Religion of Israel, & bring in Idolatry, as Ours have done: He was a Persecuter of David upon some private quarrels, not of all the Godly upon the account of their Covenanted Religion: He Murdered 85 Priests of the Lord, in a transport of fury, because of their kindness to David; but he did not make Laws adjudging all the Ministers of the Lord to death, who should be found most faithful in their duty to God & His Church, as Ours have done against all Field Preachers: He Usurped upon the Priests Office, in one elicit act of Sacrificing; but he did not usurp a Supremacy over them, and annex it as an inherent right of his Crown. 2. He was indeed such a Tyrant, as deserved to have been dethroned & brought to condign punishment, upon the same accounts that Amaziah & Uzziah were deposed for afterwards: And in this the people failed in their duty, and for it they were plagued remarkably; shall their Omission be an Argument to us? 3. As the question was never put to the people, whether they owned his Authority as Lawful or not? So we do not read, either of their Universal owning him, or their positive disouning him: However, That's no good Argument, which is drawn a non facto ad faciendum; because they did it not, therefore it must not be done. 4. They owned him; but how? as the Minister of God, not to be resisted or revolted from under pain of damnation? (as all Lawful Magistrates ought to be owned Rom. 13. 2, 4.) This I deny: for David & his six hundred men resisted him resolutely; And though the body of the Nation did long Lazily lie & couch as Asses under his burden, yet at length, weary of his Tyranny, many revolted from under him, and adjoined themselves to David at Ziklag, while he kept himself close because of Saul the Son of Kish 1 Chron. 12. 1. who are commended by the Spirit of God for their valor verse. 2. &c. and many out of Manasseh fell to him, when he came with the Philistines against Saul to battle verse. 19. This was a practical disouning of the Tyrant, before the Lord deposed him. 5. David did indeed pay him & his Character some deference, as having been the Anointed of the Lord; yet perhaps his honoring him with that title, the Lord's anointed 1 Sam. 24. 1 Sam. 26. and calling him so often his Lord the King cannot be altogether Justified, no more than his using that same language to Achish King of Gath. 1 Sam. 29. 8. I show before how titles might be allowed: but this so circumstantiate, does not seem so consistent with his imprecatory prayer, for the Lord's avenging him on him. 1 Sam. 24. 12. and many other imprecations against him in his Psalms; in some of which he calls the same man, whom here he stiles the Lord's anointed, a Dog; as Saul & his Complices are called Psal. 95. 6, 14. and the evil violent & wicked man Psal 140. 1, 4. and the vilest of men Psal. 12. ult. However it be, there can be no Argument from hence, to own the Authority of Tyrants & Usurpers.

6. Though this Necessary conditional compact, which must always be in the constitution of Lawfu • Rulers, be not always express & explicit, so that a written Authentic Copy of it cannot be always produced; yet it is alwise to be understood implicitly at least transacted, in the Rulers admission to the Government, wherein the Law of God must regulate both parties; and when he is made Ruler, it must natively be understood that it is upon terms to be a Father, feeder, & Protector, and not a Tyrant, Murderer, & Destroyer. All Princes are so far pactional, that they are obliged, by the high & absolute Sovereign from whom they derive their Authority, to reign for the Peace & profit of the people: this is fixed unalterably by the Laws of the Supreme Legislator, and solemnly engaged unto at the Coronation: and whosoever declines or destroys this fundamental condition, he degrades & deposes himself. It is also not only the Universal practice, but necessary for the Constitution & Conservation of all Common-wealths, to have fundamental Laws & Provisions about Government, both for the upholding & transmitting & transfering it as occasion calls, and preventing & punishing violations thereof, that there be no invasion or intrusion upon the Government, and if there be any entrance upon it not according to the Constitution, that it be illegitimated, and the Nations Liberties always secured. This doeth infer & regulate a conditional compact with all that are advanced to the Government, albeit it should not be expressed. For it is undeniable that in the erection of all Governors, the grand Interests of the Community must be seen to by Legal Securities for Religion & Liberty, which is the end & use of fundamental Laws. Now how these have been unhinged & infringed, by the introduction & present establishment by Law of that Monster of the prerogative, enacted in Parliament Anno 1661. the Apologetic Relation doth abundantly demonstrate, Sect. 10. Concerning the Kings Civil Supremacy, enhancing all the Absoluteness that ever the Great Turk could arrogate, and yet far short of what hath been Usurped since, and impudently proclaimed to the world, especially by him who now domineers, in his Challenges of Sovereign Authority, prerogative Royal, & Absolute Power, which all are to obey without reserve, whereby the whole basis of our Constitution, and Bulwark of our Religion, Laws, & Liberties, is enervated, and we have security of no Law but the Kings lust. Hence I argue, Those Princes, that, contrary to their virtual compact (at least) at their coming to the Crown, have overturned all fundamental Laws, cannot be owned: But our Princes have contrary to their virtual compact (at least) at their coming to the Crown overturned all fundamental Laws: Ergo they cannot be owned.

The Minor is manifest, both from the matter of fact, and the Mischiefs framed into Laws, by the Sovereign Authority, Prerogative Royal, & Absolute Power foresaid: whereby what remains of our fundamental Constitutions, either in Religious or Civil Settlements, unsubverted as yet, may be subverted when this Absolute Monarch pleases. Which Absolute Authority we cannot in conscience own, for these Reasons, taken both from Reason & Scripture. First its against Reason. 1. A power contrary to Nature cannot be owned: Absolute power is such: for that which takes away, and makes the people to give away, their Natural power of preserving their lives & Liberties, and sets a man above all rule & Law, is contrary to Nature; such is Absolute power, making people resign that which is not in their power to resign, an absolute power to destroy & Tyrannize. 2. A power contrary to the first rise of its Constitution cannot be owned: Absolute power is such: for, The first rise of the Constitution is a people's setting a Sovereign over them, giving him Authority to administer justice over them; But it were against this, to set one over them with a power to rage at random, and rule as he lists: Its proven before, a King hath no power but what the people gave him, but they never gave, never could give an absolute power to destroy themselves. 3. That power which is against the ends of Government cannot be owned: Absolute power is such: for, that which will make a people's condition worse then before the Constitution, and that mean which they intended for a blessing to turn a plague & scourage to them, and all the subjects to be formal slaves at the Princes devotion, must needs be contrary to the ends of Government: But Absolute power is such: for, against the exorbitance thereof no means would be left to prevent its obstructing all the fountains of Justice, and commanding Laws & Lawyers to speak, not justice righteousness & reason, but the lust & pleasure of one man, and turning all into Anarchy & confusion: Certainly it could never be the intention either of the work or workers, at the Constitution of Government, to set up a power to enslave the people, to be a Curse to them; but their ends was to get comfort, safety, & Liberty, under the shadow of Government. 4. That power which invalidates, and is inconsistent with the Kings compact with the people, cannot be owned: Absolute Power is such: for, the tenor of that is alwise to secure Laws & Liberties, to rule according to Law; but to be Absolute invalidates & is inconsistent with that: That which were an engagment into Contradictories cannot consist with that compact; but to engage to be absolute, and yet to rule by Law, is an engagment into Contradictories, which no people could admit for a security: Its inconsistent with this compact, to give the King Absolute Power to overturn Religion & Liberty, and to assume it which was never given, were to invalidate this compact, and to make himself no King; but to restore unto the people the power they conferred upon him, for the defense of Religion & Liberty. 5▪ That power which is not from God, nor of God, cannot be owned: But Absolute Power is not of God; because it is a power to Tyrannize & Sin, which if it were of God He should be the Author of Sin; for if the Moral Power be of God, so must the acts be; but the acts of Absolute Power, being Lawless, cannot be from God: Ergo neither the Moral Power to commit these acts. 6. That Ruler who cannot be God's Minister for the people's good cannot be owned: (for that is the formal reason of our consfiencious subjection to Rulers Rom. 13. 4, 5.) But Absolute Sovereigns are such as cannot be God's Ministers for the people's good; for if they be God's Ministers for good, they must administer justice, preserve peace, rule by Law, take directions from their Master; and if so, they cannot be absolute. 7. A Tyrant in actu signato & exercito cannot be owned: But an Absolute Prince is such; being a power that may play the Tyrant if he pleases, and jure as King: And so if Kings be actu primo Tyrants, then people are actu primo Slaves; and so Royal Power cannot be a blessing to them: yea a Lawless breaker of all bonds, promises, & Oaths, cannot be owned as Lawful Power: But Absolute Power is such: for, it cannot be limited by these Obligations, at least people cannot have any seurity by them. 8. A Lawless Power is not to be owned: An Absolute Power is a Lawless power: Ergo not to be owned. The Major is plain. Cicero says Lib. 2. de officio Eadem constituendarum Legum causa fuit, quae Regum The reason of making Laws was the same, as of the creation of Kings. And Buchanan de jure Regni very excellently; If then Laws be necessary for the making of Kings, and more necessary than Kings, And the same cause requirs both, then a King without Laws is not to be owned. Rex must be Lex loquens; a King must be a speaking & living Law, reducing the Law to practice: So much then as a King hath of Law, so much he hath of a King; and he who hath nothing of the Law, hath nothing of a King. Magna Charta of England saith, the King can do nothing but by Law, and no obedience is due to him but by Law. Buchanan rehearses the words of the most famous Emperors, Theodosius & Valentinianus to this effect, Digna vox Majestate regnantis, legibus se alligatum Principem fateri; & revero Imperio majus ost, submittere legibus Principatum. It is, say they, a word worthy of the Majesty of a King, to confess he is a tied Prince to the Laws, and indeed it is more to submit a Principality to the Laws, than to enjoy an Empire. But now that an absolute power must be a Lawless power, is also evident; for thats a Lawless power that makes all Laws void, needless & useless: but such is absolute power: for, it cannot be confined to the observance of Laws. 9. That power which is destructive to the people's Liberties cannot be owned: Absolute power is such: for, such a Licencious freedom as is absolute, cannot consist with the people's Liberties; for these he may infringe when he pleases: Now these, in their own Nature, and in all respects, being preferable to the Kings prerogative, And it being no prerogative which is not consistent with, yea in its own nature adapted to, the precious Interests of Religion & Liberty, when the Kings Absolute Authority is stated in contradictory terms to these, we cannot own that Authority: for now he hath another Authority than could be given him for the preservation of these Interests, in the preservation whereof he can only have an Authority to be owned, seeing he claims a power to destroy them if he please. 10. If we should own Absolute Authority; then we should own a Royal prerogative in the King to make & dispense with Laws: Now that cannot be owned: for, it would infer that the King had a Masterly Dominion over his subjects, to make Laws, & inflict Penalties without their consent. And plain it is, they that make Kings must have a Coordinate power to make Laws also; but the people in their Representatives make Kings, as is proven. Next a prerogative to dispense with Laws, except such Laws as are in their own nature dispensable, without prejudice to any Law of God or Liberties of men, cannot be owned: for any power to dispense with Reason & Law, not grounded on any other reason but mere will & absolute pleasure, is a brutish power. It cannot be jus Coronae, a right annexed to the Crown, to do so: for a King as a King illud tantum potest quod jure potest can do nothing but what he may do by Law. Nay this is not only a Brutish power, but a Blasphemous power, making him a Kind of God on earth illimited, that can do what he pleases: And to dispute it further, were to dispute whether God hath made all under him slaves by their own consent; Or whether he may encroach on the prerogative of God, or not. By this prerogative, he arrogates a power to dispense with the Laws of God also, in pardoning Murderers &c. which no man hath power to do: the Law of God being so peremptorly indispensable Gen. 9. 6. whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed. Numb. 35. 30. 31. Who so killeth any person, the murderer shall he put to death—more over ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, but he shall be surely put to death. These pardons are acts of blood to the Community. If the Judgment be God's, as it is Deut. 1. 17. and not for man but for the Lord 2 Chron. 19. 6. then no King can arrogate a power to dispense with it, no more then an inferior Judge can dispense with the Kings Laws: for the King is but a Minister, bearing the Sword not in vain, but as a revenger to execute wrath upon them that do evil Rom. 13. 4. They are but bastard Kings who give out sentances out of their own mouth, contrary to God's mind. And if he may do acts of grace by Prerogative above Law, then may he also do acts of Justice (so pretended) by the same Prerogative; and so may murder Innocents, as well as pardon Murderers, he may condemn the just as well as justify the wicked, both which are alike abomination to the Lord Pro. 17. 15. This power cannot be owned in any man. 11. To own Absolute power, were to recognosce the King as the proper & sole Interpreter of the Law. This Buchanan shows to be very absurd: Now the Kings absolute pleasure, can no more be the sense of the Law, than it can be the Law it self: He is King by Law, but he is not King of Law: No mortal can make a sense to a Law, contrary to the Law; for it involves a Contradiction; the true meaning is only the Law. This also would take away the use of all Laws; for they could not declare what were just & unjust, but as the King pleased; their genuine sense could not be the rule. 12. If we own the Law to be above the King, then we cannot own the King to be absolute: But the former is true: For, he must be under it several ways: (1) under its Directive power; that will not be denied. (2) under its Constitutive power: he is not a King by Nature, but by Constitution & Law: therefore the Law is above the King; because its only from the Law that there is a King, and that such a man and not another is King, and that the King must be so & so qualified, and they that made him a King may also unmake him by the same Law. (3) under its Limiting & Restrictive power, as a man he cannot be absolute, nor as a King by Law. (4) under its Coactive power. A Law maker, said King James the 6. should not be a Law breaker: but if he turn an overturner of the fundamental Laws, that Law or Covenant that made him King, doth oblige to unmake him. Whatever power he hath it is only a borrowed, fiduciary power, as the Nations Public servant: and that which was lent him in Pledge or paun, may be reclaimed, when abused by him. Especially if he turn parricide, Kill his brother, murder his nobles, burn Cities, then he may & ought to be punished by Law. Otherwise, God should have provided better for the safety of the part, than of the whole, though that part be but a mean for the safety of the whole: for if he turn Tyrant in his absoluteness, the people must be destroyed, if they may not repress him; thus he is secured, and the whole exposed to ruin. Yea, if he be a man as well as a King, he must be under rule of Law; and when he transgresses, either his transgressions are punishable by men, or they are not transgressions with men, See many Arguments to this purpose in Lex Rex Quest. 14. 19. 22. 23. 24. 26. 27. But Secondly I prove it by Scripture 1. Even as King he is regulated by Law, not to multiply horses, nor wives, nor money, but to keep the words of the Law, and not lift up himself above his brethren, Deut. 17. 16, 17, 19, 20. he must observe to do according to the Law, and not turn from it to the right hand or to the left Josh. 1. 7. Ergo he must not be absolute. 2. He is certainly under that Law, Math. 7. 12. what so ever ye would that men should do to yow do ye even so to them: which is the universal fundamental Law. If then he would have us keeping in our line of subordination to him, he must keep his line, and so cannot be absolute. 3. What is God's dwe & peculiar Prerogative, can be owned in no Mortal: But Absolute power is God's due & peculiar Prerogative. He alone does whatsoever pleaseth Him Psal. 115. 3. He alone worketh alle things after the Counsel of His own will Eph. 1. 11. Acts or Commands founded upon the sole pleasure of the Agent, are proper to God. Its God's will and not the Creatures, that can make things good or just. Its Blasphemy therefore to ascribe absolute power to any Creature. 4. That which the spirit of God condemned as a point of Tyranny in Nebuchadnezzar, that is no prerogative to be owned: but the Spirit of God condemned this in him, proceeding from absolute power, that whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive, whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down, And his heart was lifted up Dan. 5. 19. 20. 5. That which God condemns & threatens in Tyrants in the Word in General, cannot be owned: but Absolute power, God condemns & thereatens in the word in general; that they turned Judgment into Gall, and said, have we not taken to us horns by our own strength? Amos. 6. 12. 13. 6. The Word of God speaks nothing of the Kings Absolute prerogative, to make Laws as he will. It is plain the Kings of Judah had it not; but the Sanhedrin had a great part of the Nomothetick power, and of the punitive power in a special manner: the Princes & people had it by Ieremahs acknowledgment Ier. 26. 14. And Zedekiah confesses to them; the King is not he that can do any thing against yow Ier. 38. 5. 7. we find the King in Scripture had not an absolute power, to expone or execute the Law as he would: Saul made a Law 1 Sam. 14. 2 • . Cursed be the man that eats any food until evening. But expening it, & thinking to execute it after a Tyrannical manner, he was justly resisted by the people, who would not let him kill innocent Jonathan. 8. Nor had he the sole power of Interpreting it: for inferior Judges were Interpreters, who are no less essential Judges than the King, who are set to Judge for the Lord, and not for the King 2 Chron. 19. 6. and therefore they were to expone it according to their own conscience, and not the Kings. They were to speak righteousness & Judge uprightly Psal. 58. 1. hence called God's, as well as Kings Psal. 82. 1. There was no essential Difference between a King of God's approving and a Judge; there being but one Law to both Deut. 17. 9. he was subject to judgment as well as others: for being but a brother, even while on the throne, who was not to lift up his heart above his brethren, Deut. 17. ult. When his Cause was to be judged, his person though never so great was not to be respected; nor were they to be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment was God's Deut. 1. 17. therefore the Judges were to give out sentence in judgment, as if the Lord were to give it out: There was no exception of Kings there. Yea, we find according to common Law, they judged & punished offending Kings, as shall be made appear. 10. If they were under Church Censures, then they were not absolute: but we find Kings were under Church Censures; not only rebuked sharply to their face, of which we have many instances; but also subjected to Church discipline, as Uzziah shut up for his Leprosy. And certainly at all times this must be extended to all: for the King is either a brother, or not: If not, then he should not be King, according to the Scripture Deut. 17. 15. then also he is not a Christian, nor can he say the Lord's Prayer: If he be, then if a brother offend, he is subject to the Church Math. 18. there is no exceptions of Kings there. The Objection from Eccles, 8. 3. 4. —he doth whatsoever pleaseth him where the word of a King is there is power, and who may say unto him, what doest thow? is of no significancy here. For. 1. This Argument will enforce absolute obedience, if the power be to be taken absolutely▪ for it is obedience that is there commanded: and so we must not only own the absolute Authority, but obey it without reserve, which never any yet had the impudence to plead for, until James the unjust claimed it in a Scots Proclaimation: but we answer, It is better to obey God than man, 2. If he may do whatsoever pleases him, then he may turn Priest, then he may kill whom he pleases, & take possession; and yet for Saul's Usurpation Samuel could say more than what doest thow? even to tell him, he had done foolishly, and his Kingdom should not continue 1 Sam. 13. 13. 14. And for Ahab's Tyranny, El • ah could tell him, the dogs shall lick thy blood even thine 1 King. 21. 19. And Ezekiel, thow profane wicked-Prince of Israel Ezek. 21. 25. 3. The meaning is then only this; that a righteous King, his just power may not be controlled; he is armed with power that may not be resisted, for he beareth not the Sword in vain, and therefore we must not stand in an evil matter against them I conlude then this Argument, with the words of an Ingenious Author, upon this same subject, both in Thesi & Hypothesi:

7. From what is said this is the result, that it is essentially necessary to a Moral power & Authority, to have a right & title, without which we can own none, but as a Tyrant sine Titulo. For what is Authority, but a right to rule? if then it have not a right, it is not Authority. This will be undeniable, if we consider, that as Private dominon, or Property, consists in a right to enjoy; So Public dominion, in a right to rule. Some things indeed are exposed to the common & arbitrary use of every man, and also at the beginning, by reason of the fewness of mankind, Dominion was not reduced to distinct Property; yet now, upon the Multiplication of Occupants, of necessity it must be stated by peculiar appropriation, from the Law of Nature, and by the Grant of the Supreme King, who hath given the earth to the Children of men Psal. 115. 16, not to be catched up as the food of beasts, which the stronger seise, and the weaker get only what the other leave them, but divided by right as an Inheritance, by Him who separated the Sons of Adam and set the bounds of the People Deut. 32. 8. Especially Public Dominion cannot be without a foundation for its relation to the subjected, and must be so tied up, that it may be said, this man is to command and these are to obey. I show that Authority is from God both by Institution & Constitution; so that the Subjects are given to understand, such an one is singled out by God to sustain this Authority, by prescribing a rule for men's entry into the Authoritative relation, whereby He communicates that power to them which is not in others, and which otherwise would not be in them. Hence it is that Orderly admittance that must give the right, and upon men's having or not having such an entrance to it depends the reality or nullity of the power they challenge. Where therefore there is no Lawful Investure, there is no Moral power to be owned; otherwise John of Leyden his Authority might have been owned: the unlawfulness of such a power consists in the very tenore itself, and if we take away the use or holding of it, we take away the very being of it: it is not then the abuse of a power Lawfully to be used, but the very use of it is unlawful. But in the Usurpation of this Man, or Monster rather that is now mounted the Throne, there is no Lawful investure in the way God hath appointed, as is shown above. Ergo there is no Moral power to be owned. To clear this alitle further, it will be necessary to remove the ordinary Prentences, pleaded for a Title to warrant the owning of such as are in power. Which are three chiefly viz. Possession, Conquest, and Hereditary Succession. The first must be touched more particularly, because it hath been the originate error, & spring of all the stupid mistakes about Government, and is the pitiful plea of many even Malecontents, why this Mans Authority is to be owned, asserting that a person attaining & occupying the place of power (by whatsoever means) is to be owned as the Magistrate. But this can give no right: for. 1. If Providence cannot signify God's approbative ordination, it can give no right; for without that there can be no right: But Providence cannot signify His approbative Ordination: because that, without the warrant of His Word, cannot signify either allowance or dissallowance, it is so various, being often the same to Courses directly contrary, and oftentimes contrary to the same Course: sometimes favoring it, sometimes crossing it, whether it be good or bad: And the same Common Providence may proceed from far different Purposes, to one in Mercy, to another in Judgment; And most frequently very disproportionable to men's ways: Providence places sometimes wickedness in the place of Judgment, and iniquity in the place of righteousness Eccless. 3. 16. that is not by allowance. By Providence it happens to the just according to the work of the wicked, and to the wicked according to the work of the righteous Eccless. 8. 14. No man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them, all things come alike to all, there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked Eccel. 9. 1. It were a great debasing of the Lord's anointed to give him no other warrant then sin hath in the world, or the falling of a Sparrow. 2. Either every Providential Possession, in every ease, gives a title: Or God hath Declared it as a Law, that it shall be so in this particular matter of Authority only. The first cannot be said: for, that would justify all robbery: Nor the second, for where is that Law found? Nay it were impious to allege it; for it would say, there is no unjust Possessor or Disorderly occupant, but if he were once in the Possession, he were right enough: And then Usurpation would be no sin. 3. If none of the Causes of Magistracy be required to the producing of this Possessory power, then it cannot give or have any right; for without the true Causes it cannot be the true effect, and so can have no true right to be owned: But none of the Causes of Magistracy are required to the production of this; neither the Institution of God, for this might have been if Magistracy had never been instituted; Nor the Constitution of men, for this may usurp without that. 4. That which must follow upon the right, and be Legitimated by it, cannot be owned as the right, nor can it give the title: But the Possession of the power, or the Possessory exercise thereof, must follow upon its right, and be legitimated by it. Ergo —A man must first be in the relation of a Ruler, before he can rule; and men must first be in the relation of subjects, before they obey. The Commands of Public Justice, to whom are they given but to Magistrates? They must then be Magistrates, before they can be owned as the Ministers of Justice: he must be a Magistrate before he can have the power of the Sword, he cannot by the power of the Sword make himself Magistrate. 5. That which would make everyone in the Possession of the Magistracy, a Tyrant, cannot be owned: But a Possessory occupation giving right, would make everyone in Possession of the Magistracy a Tyrant, cannot be owned: But a Possessory occupation giving right, would make everyone in Possession a Tyrant; for, that which enervats & takes away that necessary Distinction between the Kings personal Capacity & his Legal Capacity, his natural & his moral power, will make every King a Tyrant (seeing it makes everything that he can do as a man, to be Legally done as a King) But a Possessory occupation giving right, would enervate & take away that distinction: for how can these be distinguished in a mere Possessory power? the man's Possession is all his legal power; and if Possession give a right, his power will give legality. 6. What sort or size of Possession can be owned to give a right? Either it must be partial or plenary possession: Not partial, for then others may be equally entitled to the Government, in competition with that partial possessor, having also a part of it: Not plenary, for them every interruption or Usurpation on a part, would make a dissolution of the Government. 7. Hence would follow infinite absurdities: this would give equal warrant in case of vacancy to all men to step to, & stickle for the throne, and expose the Common wealth as a booty to all aspiring spirits; for they needed no more to make them Sovereigns, and lay a tie of subjection upon the consciences of people, but to get into possession: And in case of Competition, it would leave people still in suspense & uncertainties whom to own, for they behooved to be subject only to the Uppermost, which could not be known until the Controversy be decided: It would cassate & make void all preobligations, Cautions, & restrictions from God about the Government: it would Cancel and make vain all other titles of any, or Constitutions, or provisions, or Oaths of Allegiance: yea to what purpose were Laws, or pactions made about ordering the Government, if possession gave right, & laid an obligation on all to own it? yea then it were sinful to make any such provisions, to fence in & limit the determination of providence, if providential possession may authorize every intruesive acquisition to be owned: Then also in case of competition of two equal pretenders to the Government, there would be no place left for arbitrations: If this were true, that he is the power that is in possession, the difference were at an end; no man could plead for his own right then: In this also it is inconsistent with itself, condemning all resistence against the present occupant, yet justifying every resistence that is but successful to give possession. 8. That which would oblige us to own the Devil & the Pope, cannot be a ground to own any man: But if this were true, that possession gave right, it would oblige us to own the Devil & the pope. Satan we find claiming to himself the possession of the worlds Kingdoms Luk. 4. 6. which as to many of them is in some respect true, for he is called the God of this world, and the Prince of this world John. 14. 30. 2 Cor. 4. 4. Are men therefore obliged to own his authority? or shall they deny his, and acknowledge his lievtenant, who bears his name, and by whom all his orders are execute, I mean the man that Tyranizes over the people of God? for he is the Devil that casts some into prison Revel. 2. 10. Again the Pope, his Captain-General, lays claim to a Temporal power & Ecclesiastic both, over all the Nations, and possesses it over many; and again, under the Conduct of his vassal the Duke of York, is attempting to recover the possession of Britain: Shall he therefore be owned? This Cursed Principle disposes men for Popery, and contributes to strengthen Popery & Tyrannie both on the stage, to the vacating of all the promises of their dispossession. 9. That which would justify a Damnable sin, and make it a ground of a duty, cannot be owned: But this fancy of owning every power in possession would justify a damnable sin, and make it the ground of a duty: for, Resistence to the powers ordained of God is a damnable sin Rom, 13. 2. but the Resisters having success in providence may come to the possession of the power, by expelling the just occupant; and by this opinion that possession would be ground for the duty of subjection for Conscience sake. 10. If a self-created dignity be null and not to be owned, then a mere possessory is not to be owned: But the former is ttue: as Christ saith, John. S. 54. If I honor myself my honor is nothing. 11. That which God hath disallowed cannot be owned: But God hath expressly disallowed possession without right Ezek. 21. 27. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it until He come whose right it is, Hos. 8. 4. They have set up Kings & not by me. Math. 26. 52. All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword; by this the Usurper of the Sword is differenced from the true ouner. 12. Many Scripture examples confut this; showing that the possession may be in one, and the power with right in another. David was the Magistrate, and yet Absalom possessed the place 2 Sam. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. chap. Shebah also made a revolt and Usurped the possession in a great part, and yet David was King 2 Sam. 20. 2. Adonijah got the start in respect of possession, exalting himself, saying, I will be King: yet the Kingdom was Solomon's from the Lord. 1 King. 1. ch. The house of Ahaziah had not power to keep still the Kingdom 2 Chron. 22. 9. and Athaliah took the possession of it, yet the people set up Joash 23. 3. Next we have many examples of such who have invaded the possessor, Witness Jehoram & Jehoshaphat their expedition against Mesba King of Moab, Elisha being in the expedition 2 King. 3. 4, 5. Hence we see the first pretence removed. The Second is no better; which Augustine calls Magnum Latrocinium a Great Robbery; I mean conquest; or a power of the Sword gotten by the Sword: which that it can give no right to be owned, I prove. 1. That which can give no signification of God's approving will, cannot give a Title to be owned: But mere conquest can give no signification of God's approving will, as is just now proven about possession: for then the Lord should have approven all the unjust conquests that have been in the world. 2. Either conquest as conquest must be owned, as a just Title to the Crown; and so the Ammonites, Moabites, Philistines &c. prevailing over God's people for a time; must have reigned by right: or as a just conquest, in this case conquest is only a mean to the conquerors seising & holding that power, which the State of the war entitled him unto, And this ingress into Authority over the conquered is not grounded on conquest but on justice, and not at all privative but Inclusive of the consent of the people; and then it may be owned; but without a compact, upon conditions of securing Religion & Liberty, the posterity cannot be subjected without their consent: for, what ever just quarrel the conqueror had with the present Generation, he could have none with the Posterity, the Father can have no power to resign the Liberty of the Children. 3. A King as King, and by virtue of his Royal Office, must be owned to be a Father, Tutor, Protector, Shepherd, & Patron of the people: But a mere conqueror without consent cannot be owned as such. Can he be a Father & Patron to us against our will, by the sole power of the sword? a Father to these that are unwilling to be Sons? an head over such as will not be members? and a defender through violence? 4. A King as such is a special gift of God, and blessing not a judgment: But a conqueror as such is not a blessing but a judgment, his native end being not Peace but fire & sword. 5. That which hath nothing of a King in it, cannot be owned to make a King: But conquest hath nothing of a King in it; for it hath nothing but violence & force, nothing out what the bloodyest villain that was never a King may have, nothing of God's approving & regulating Will, nothing of Institution or constitution; and a plain repugnancy to the Ordination of God, for God hath said, thow shalt not kill; conquest says, I will kill, and Prosper, & reign. 6. A Lawful Call to a Lawful Office may not be resisted: But a Call to conquest, which is nothing but ambition or revenge, ought to be resisted; because not of God's preceptive will, otherwise He should be the Author of sin. 7. That power which we must own to be the Ordinance o • God, must not be resisted Rom. 13. 2. But conquest may be resisted in defense of our King & Country: Therefore it must no be owned to be the Ordinance of God. 8. That which God condemns in His Word cannot be owned: But Dominion by the sword God condemns in His Word Ezek. 33. 26. ye stand upon your sword —and shall possess the Land, Amos 6. 13. ye rejoice in a thing of naught which say, have we not taken horns to us by our own strength. Habhak. 2. 5, 6—Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his, how long &c. 9. We have many examples of invading Conquerors: as Abraham for the rescue of Lot pursued the Conquering Kings unto Dan. Gen. 14. 14. Jonathan smote a Garison of the Conqueering Philistines 1 Sam. 13. 3. The Lord owning & authorizing them so to do. The people did often shake off the yoke of their Conquerors in the history of the Judges: But this they might not do to their Lawful Rulers. What is objected from the Lord's people Conquering Canaan &c. is no Argument for conquest: for He, to whom belongs the earth and its fullness, disponed to Israel the Land of Canaan for their Inheritance, and ordained that they should get the possession thereof by conquest: It followeth not, therefore that Kings now, wanting any word of promise or divine Grant to any Lands, may ascend to the Thrones of other Kingdoms than their own, by no better title than the bloody sword. See Lex Rex Quest 12. The Third pretence, of Hereditary Succession remains to be removed: which may be thus disproven. 1. This clashes with the former, though commonly asserted by Royalists. For either Conquest gives a right, or it does not: If it does, then it looses all allegiance to the heirs of the Crown dispossessed thereby: If it does not give a right, then no Hereditary Succession founded upon conquest can have any right, being founded upon that which hath no right: And this will shake the most part of Hereditary Successions that are now in the world. 2. If Hereditary Succession have no right, but the people's consent; then of itself it can give none to a man that hath not that consent: But the former is true. For, it is demanded, how doth the Son or Brother succeed? by what right? It must either be by divine promise; Or by the Fathers will; Or it must come by propogation from the first Ruler, by a right of the Primogeniture: But none of these can be. For the first, we have no immediate Divine Constitution tying the Crown to such a race, as in David's Covenant: It will be easily granted, they fetched not their Charter from Heaven immediately, as David had it, a man of many peculiar prerogatives, to whose line the promise was astricted of the Coming of Messias, and Jacob's Prophesy that the Scepter should not depart from Judah until His coming Gen. 49. 10. was restricted to his family afterwards: Wherefore he could say, The Lord God of Israel chose me before all the house of my father to be King over Israel forever, for He hath chosen Judah to be the Ruler, and of the house of Judah the house of my father, and among the sons of my father He liked me to make me▪ King over Israel, and of all my Sons He hath chosen Solomon 1 Chron. 28. 4. 5. All Kings cannot say this; neither could Saul say it, though immediately called of God as well as David: yet this same Promise to David was Conditional, if His Children should keep the Lord's ways 2 Chron. 6. 16. Next it cannot be said this comes from the will of the father; for according to the Scripture, no King can make a King, though a King may appoint & design his son for succession, as David did Solomon, but the people make him. The father is some way a Cause why his son succeedeth, but he is not the Cause of the Royalty conferred upon him by line: for the question will recur, who made him a King? and his father? & grand father? till we come up to the first father. Then, who made him a King? not himself: therefore it must be refounded upon the people's choice & constitution: And who appointed the lineal succession, and tied the Crown to the line, but they? It is then at the best, the Patrimony of the people, by the fundamental Law of the Kingdom, conferred upon the successor by consent. And generally it is granted, even where the succession is lineal, he that comes to inherit, Doth it not jure hereditario but vi legis, he does not succeed by heritage but by the force of Law; the Son then hath not his Kingdom from his father but by Law, which the people made & stand to, as long as it may consist with the reasons of public advantage, upon which they condescended to establish such a family over them. Neither can it be said, It is by a right of Primogeniture propogated from the first Ruler; for this must either be Adam the first of the world; or Fergus v. G. the first of this Kingdom. It could not come from Adam as a Monarch & father of all: For that behooved to be, either by order of Nature, or his volun • ary assignment: It could not be transferred by order of Nature; for besides the difficulty to find out Adams successor, in the universal Monarchy, and the absurdity of fixing it on Cain (who was a Cursed vagabond, afraid of every man, and could not be an universal Monarch yet Adams first born) It will be asked, how this passed from him unto others? whether it went by father-hood to all the Sons, fathers to their Posterity? which would multiply as many Common wealths, as there have been fathers since: Or if it went by Primogeniture only to the first born, that he alone could claim the power which would infer the necessity of an universal Monarchy, without multiplication of Common-wealths. If it was by his voluntary assignment, to whom & in what proportion he pleased; then the universal Monarchy died with himself, and so could not be conveyed at all: for, either he behooved to give each son a share, to be conveyed dounwards to their children in that proportion; or whole & solid to one: So also the former dilemma recurs, for if the first be said, it will make as many little Kingdoms as there have been sons of Adam; if the second, the world should be but still one Kingdom. But however it be, this could never be the way that God appointed, either for raising a Magistratical power where it is wanting, or deriving a right to any in being; Considering the multiplication, division, confusion, & Extinction of families that have been. If it be from Fergus the first of this line; then either it comes from him as a King, or as a Father: not the first, for the reason above hinted: nor as a father; for a father may defraud his son of the heritage, a King cannot deprive his son of the Crown; a father may divide his heritage, a King cannot divide the Kingdom among his sons; It must then be at length refounded on the people's Consent 3. If even where lineal succession is Constituted by Law, for eviting the inconveniences of frequent elections, people are not tied to admit every first born of that line; then that birth righr, where there is no more, cannot make a King: But the former is true; for they are tied only conditionally, so he be qualified, and have a head to sit at the helm, and not a fool or monster, neither are they free to admit Murderers or Idolaters by the Laws of God and of the Land: It is not birth then, but their admission being so qualified, that makes Kings. Hence. 4. That which takes away the people's birth-right, given them of God to provide for their liberties in the fitest Government, that is not to be owned: But to make birth alone a tile to the Crown, takes away the people's birth-right given them of God of providing for their liberties in the fitest Government, and fetters their choice to one destructive to these. Certainly where God hath not bound the conscience, men may not bind themselves nor their posterity: But God hath never fettered men to a choice of a Government or Governing line, which contrary to the intention of the Oath may prove destructive to the ends thereof. Nor can the fathers leave in legacy by Oath, any chains to fetter the after wits of posterity to a choice destructive to Religion & liberty. Israel was bound by Covenant not to destroy the Gibeonites; but if they had risen to cut off Isael, who can doubt but they were loosed from that obligation? for to preserve Cut-throats was contrary to the intention of the Oath: so when either Monarchy, or the succeeding Monarch, proves destructive to the ends of Government, the Choice, Law, or Oath of our fathers, cannot bind us. 5. If we are tied to the hereditary succession, not for the right the successor hath by birth, but for our Covenanted allegiance to them whose successor he is; then cannot his birth-right be the ground of our Allegiance, And consequently hereditary succession cannot make a King: But the former is true; for in hereditary Crowns, the first family being chosen by the suffrages of the people, for that Cause the hereditary Prince comes to the Throne, becanse his first father, and in him the whole line, was chosen: The hereditary successor hath no privilege or prerogative, but from him who was chosen King. Therefore the obligation to the son, being no greater than the obligation to the father, which is the ground of that, if the father then was owned only because he was chosen & qualified for Government, the Son cannot be owned for any other Cause, but as chosen in him, and also qualified and admitted with Consent. We cannot choose the father as qualified, and tie our selves to the Successors, be what they will. 6. If a King be not born heir of a Kingdom, then is he not King by birth; But he is not born heir of a Kingdom: for, a mean cannot be born to inherit the end, the King is but a mean for the Kingdoms preservation. If the Kingdom be his by birth as an inheritance, why may he not upon necessary occasions sell his inheritance? but if he sell it, then all confess he is no more King. 7. If that which makes a King cannot be transmitted from father to son; then succession by birth cannot make a King: But the former is true. The Royal faculty of Governing cannot be transmitted: Solomon asked it from God, he had it not from his father: nor can he be born to the honor of a King, because not born with either the gift or honor to be a Judge. God maketh high & low, not birth. Nor can the Call & Constitution of a King according to the will of God be transferred from father to son, for that cannot be in God's way without the intervening Consent of the people, that cannot make him a born King. 8. If no Dominion can come by Nature, as is proven before, then can no man be a born King: Nature & birth cannot give them a Scepter in their hand; nor Kingly Majesty they must have that alone from God & the people, and may only expect honor from their own good Government: Kings (as Plutarch says) must be like dogs that are best hunters, not these who are born of best dogs. 9. The peculiar Prerogative of Jesus Christ must not be ascribed to any other: But this is His peculiar Prerogative, to be a born King of whom it might be truly said, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? And for this end was He born, who came out of the womb with a Crown on His Head, which no Creature can bear. 10. In Scripture we find that a King was to be so & so qualified, not a stranger, but a reader of God's Word &c. Deut. 17. 15. &c. he was not qualified by naked birth. Hence, if all the qualifications requisite in an heir cannot make a King qualified according to the Institution of God, then his being heir cannot make him King: But the first is true; an heir may be an heir without these qualifications. 11. We find in the Scripture, the people were to make the Kings by that Law Deut. 17. thow shalt choose him whom the Lord chooseth: yea neither Saul nor David were Kings, till the people met to make them: Therefore birth never made them Kings, even though the Kingdom was tied to David's line. That was only a Typical designment by special Promise, because Christ was to come of that line; it was therefore established in David's family for Typical reasons, that cannot be now alleged. 12. We find in the disposal of Government among brethren, this birth-order was not seldom inverted; as when Iacoh was preferred before Esau, Judah before all the elder sons of Jacob. Ephraim before Manasseh, Solomon before Adonijah. Hence if this Gentleman now regnant, have no better pretences than these now confuted, we cannot recognosce his right to reign: yea though this last were valid, yet he cannot plead it, it being expressly provided in our Laws against the succession of a Papist. But there is one Grand Objection against all this. The Jews and other Nations are commanded to bring their necks under the yoke of the King of Babylon and to serve him, and yet he had no other right to these Kingdom, then the Lord's Providential disposal, because the Lord had given all these Lands into his hand, Ier. 27. 6, 7, 12. Ans. 1. He was indeed an unjust Usurper, and had no right but the Lord providential gif • ; which sometimes makes the tabernacles of Robbers prosper into whose hand God bringeth abundantly Job. 12. 6. and gives Iacoh sometimes for a spoil and Israel to the Robbers Isai. 42. 24. and giveth power to the Beast to continue forty & two Moneths, and to have power over all kindreds & tongues & Nations Revel. 13. 5, 7. His Tyranny also was very great extensively, in respect of his oppressions & usurpations by Conquest: but it was not so great intensively, as our Robbers & Spoilers may be charged with; he was never such a Perverter of all the ends of Government, nor a treachrous overturner of all Conditions, he was never a Persecuter of the Jewish Religion, he never oppressed them upon that account, nor endeavored its extirpation, he never enacted such mischiefs by Law. The Lord only made use of him to bring about the holy ends of the Glory of His Justice & Wisdom, in which respect alone he is called His Servant, as else where His • od & hammer, having given him a charge against an Hypocritical Nation to trample them down in His holy Providence, and accordingly there was no resistence could prevail, they must be trampled upon, no help for it; but no subjection was required, acknowledging his Magistratical right by divine Ordinance, but only a submissive stooping to the holy disposal of divine Providence; no owning was exacted either of the equity of that power, or of fealty to the administrator. 2. This behooved to be a particular Command, by Positive Revelation given at that time, not binding to others in the like Condition; which I refer to the judgment of the objectors: put the case, and make it run parallel, If the King of England were in league with the King of France, and breaking that league should provoke that aspiring Prince, growing potent by many Conquests, to discover his designs, make preparations, and give out threatenings for the Conquest of England & all Britain; were the people of England bound to surrender themselves as Servants & tributaries to him, for 70 years or forever, under pain of destruction, if they should not? This were one of the most ridiculous inferences, that ever was pleaded: nay it would make all refusal of subjection to invaders unlawful. 3. I will draw an Argument from this to confirm my Plea: for these Commands of subjection to Babylon, were not delivered until after the King of Judah had surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar, and entered into Covenant with him to be subject to him 2. King. 24. chap. in keeping which Covenant the Kingdom might have stood, and after he had Rebelled against him and broken that Covenant, when lo he had given his hand; after which he could not prosper, or escape, or be delivered, Ezek. 17. 14, 15, 18, 2 Chron. 36. 13. Then the Commandment came, that they should disoune their own King Zedekiah, now forefeiting his right by breach of Covenant, and be subject to Nebuchadnezzar. Whence I argue, If people are commanded to disoune their Covenant-breaking Rulers, and subject themselves to Conquerors; then I have all I plead for: But the former is true, by the truth of this objection: Ergo also the Latter. There is a 2 Obj. from Rom. 13. 1. let every soul be subject to the higher powers, the powers that be are ordained of God: yet the Roman Emperor, to which they were to be subject, was an usurper. Ans. 1. It cannot be proven that the Apostle intendeth here the Roman Emperor as the higher power: There were at this time several Competitions for the Empire, about which Christians might have their own scruples whom to own; the Apostle does not determine their litigations, nor interest himself in parties, but gives the General Standart of God's Ordinance they had to go by. And the best Expositors of the place do alle • ge, the question & doubt of Christians then, was not so much in whom the Supremacy was? as whether Christians were at all bound to obey Civil power, especially Pagan? which the Apostle resolves, in giving general directions to Christians, to obey the ordinance of Magistracy, conform to its original, and as it respects the end for which he had & would set it up, but no respect is there had to Tyrants. 2. It cannot be proven that the Supreme power then in being was usurpative: there being then a Supreme Senate, which was a Lawful power; nor that Nero was then an usurper, who came in by choice & consent, and with the good liking of the people. 3. The Text means of Lawful powers, not unlawful force, that are ordained of God by His Preceptive will not merely by His Providential disposal, and of conscientious subjection to Magistracy, not to Tyranny, describing & characterizing the powers there, by such qualifications as Tyrants & Usurpers are not capable of. But I mind to improve this Text more fully hereafter, to prove the quite contrary to what is here objected.

8. From the Right of Magistracy, flows the Magistratical Relation; which is necessary to have a bottom, before we can build the relative duties thereof. This brings it under the fifth Commandment, which is the Rule of all relative duties between Inferiors & Superiors, requiring honor to be given to Fathers, Masters, Husbands &c. and to rightful Magistrates, who are under such political relations, as do infer the same duties; and prohibiting not only the omission of these duties, but also the committing of contrary sins; which may be done, not only by contrary acts, as dishonoring & rebelling against Fathers, Magistrates &c. but also by performing them to contrary objects, as by giving the Fathers due to the Fathers opposite, and the Magistrates due to Tyrants who are their opposites. Certainly this Command prescribing honor, doth regulate to whom it should be given; And must be understood in a consistency with that duty, and Character of one that hath a mind to be an inhabitant of the Lord's holy Hill Psal. 15. 4. in whose eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoreth them that fear the Lord. So that we sin against the fifth Command, when we honor them that we are obliged to contemn by another Command. Hence I argue, If owning or honoring of Tyrants be a breach of the fifth Command; then we cannot own their Authority: But the former is true: Ergo the latter. I prove the Assumption. A honoring the vile to whom no honor is due, and who stand under no relation of Fathers as Fathers, is a breach of the fifth Command: But the owning of Tyrants Authority is a honoring the vile to whom no honor is due, and who stand under no relation of Fathers, and is yet a honoring them as Fathers: Ergo the owning of Tyrants Authority is a breach of the fifth Command. The Major is clear: for if the honoring of these to whom no honor is due, were not a breach of the fifth Command; that precept conld neither be kept at all, nor broken at all. It could not be kept at all: for, either it must oblige us to honor all indefinitely, as Fathers, and other relations, which cannot be: or else it must leave us still in suspense & ignorance, who shall be the object of our honor; and then it can never be kept: or finally it must astrict our honoring to such definite relations, to whom it is due; & then our transgression of that restriction, shall be a breach of it. Next if it were not so, it could not be broken at all: for if prostituting & abusing honor be not a sin, we cannot sin in the matter of honor at all; for if the abuse of honor be not a sin, then dishonor also is not a sin, for that is but an abuse of the duty, which is a sin as well as the omission of it. And what should make the taking away of honor from the proper object to be sin, and the giving it to a wrong object to be no sin? Moreover if this Command do not restrict honor to the proper object; we shall never know who is the object: how shall we know who is our Father, or what we owe to him, if we may give another his due? The Minor also is manifest: for if Tyrants be vile, then no honor is due to them, according to that Psal. 15. 4. And yet it is a honoring them as Fathers if they be owned as Magistrates; for Magistrates are in a politick sense Fathers: But certain it is that Tyrants are vile, as the Epithets & Characters they get in Scripture prove. But because, in contradiction to this, it may be said; though Fathers be never so wicked, yet they are to be honored because they are still Fathers, And though Masters be never so vile and froward, yet they are to be subjected unto 1 Pet. 2. 18-20. and so of other relations, to whom honor is due by this Command, therefore though Tyrants be never so vile they are to be owned under these relations, because they are the higher Powers in place of Eminency, to whom the Apostle Paul commands to yield subjection Rom. 13. and Peter to give submission & honor 1 Pet. 2. 13, 17. Therefore it must be considered, that as the relative duty of honoring the relations to whom it is due, must not interfere with the moral duty of contemning the vile, who are not under these relations; So this general Moral of contemning the vile, must not ca • sat the obligation of relative duties, but must be understood with a Consistency therewith, without any prejudice to the duty itself. We must contemn all the vile that are not under a relation to be honored, and these also that are in that relation in so far as they are vile. But now Tyrants do not come under these Relations at all that are to be honored by this Command. As for the higher Powers that Paul speaks of Rom. 13. they are not those which are higher in fo • ce, but higher in Power, not in potentia but in potestate, not in a Celsitude of prevalency but in a precellency of dignity, not in the pomp & pride of their prosperity & possession of the place, but by the virtue & value of their office, being ordained of God not to be resisted, the Ministers of God for good, terrors to evil doers, to whom honor is due, those are not Tyrants but Magistrates. Hence it is a word of the same root which is rendered Authority, or an Authorized Power 1 Tim. 2. 2. And from the same word also comes that supreme to whom Peter commands subjection & honor 1 Pet. 2. 13. Now these he speaks of have the Legal Constitution of the people, being the ordinance of man to be subjected to for the Lord's sake. and who sends other inferior Magistrates for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well, who are to be honored as Kings or Lawful Magistrates: this cannot be said of Tyrants. But more particularly, to evince that Tyrants & Usurpers are not to be honored according to this Command, and that it is a breach of it so to do; let us go through all these Relations of Superiority that come under the obligation of this Command, and we shall find Tyrants & Usurpers excluded out of all. First, they cannot come under the Parental relation: We are indeed to esteem Kings as Fathers, though not properly but by way of some Analogy, because it is their office to care for the people, and to be their Counsellers, and to defend them, as Fathers do for Children: but Roaring Lions & Ranging Bears, as wicked Rulers are, Prov. 28. 15. cannot be Fathers. But Kings cannot properly be owned under this Relation, far less Tyrants (with whom the Analogy of Fathers cannot consist) there being so many notable disparities betwixt Kings & Fathers. 1. A Father may be a Father to one Child; but a King cannot be a King or Politick Father to one only, but his Correlate must be a Community; a Tyrant can be a Father to none at all in a Politick sense. 2. A Father is a Father by Generation to all coming out of his loins; a King not so, he doth not beget them, nor doth their relation flow from that; a Tyrant is a destroyer not a Procreator of people. 3. A Father is the cause of the Natural being of his Children; A King only of the Politick well being of his subjects; but Tyrants are he cause of the ill being of both. 4. A Father once a Father, as long as his Children live, retains still the relation, though he turn mad and never so wicked; A King turning mad may be served as Nebuchadnezzar was, at least all will grant in some cases the subjects may shake off th • King; and if in any case, it is when he turns Tyrant. 5. A Fathers relation never ceases, whither soever his Children go; but subjects may change their relation to a King, by coming under another King in another Kingdom; a Tyrant will force all lovers of freedom to leave the Kingdom where he Domineers. 6. A Fathers relation never changes, he can neither change his children nor they change their Father; but a King may naturalize new subjects, and subjects may also change their Sovereign, Royalists will grant a State or Common-wealth way make a King, and there is great reason sometimes that a Monarchy be turned into a Common-wealth; but a Tyrant changes those that are under him, expels the natives, brings in foreigners, and all good Patriots do pant for a Change of him every day. 7. A Father hath no power of life & death over his Children; a King hath it over his subjects according to Law; a Tyrant Usurps it over the innocent against Law. 8. A Father is not a Father by consent of his Childeren; as a King is by consent of his subjects; a Tyrant is neither a Father with it nor without it. 9. A Father is not made by the Children; as a King is by his subjects as was shown; a Tyrant is neither a Natural, nor by compact, but a self created power. 10. A Father is not chosen conditionally upon compact, as a King is by the free suffrages of the Community; A Tyrant in this Differs from a King that he is not chosen, and in Tyranny from a Father. 11. Children wanting a Father cannot choose whom they will to be their Father; as subjects wanting a King may choose whom they will, and what form they please; but though they can, yet if they be rational, they will never choose a Tyrant, nor a Tyrannical form of Government. 12. Children cannot restrict their Fathers power to what degrees they please; as subjects may limit their Kings, at their first erection; but a Tyrant though he ought yet he will not be limited, and if he might he should be restrained. 13. Children cannot set bounds how long they will have their Fathers to continue; Subjects may condescend upon the time, in making Laws how long such an one shall be their Sovereign, ad vitam or ad culpam, according as the fundamental Law is made at first; Tyrants ought every day to be repressed, that they should not continue at all. Yet giving and not granting, that a King were to be owned under the relation of a Father; though every man be bound to own & mantain his Fathers parental Authority, yet let the case be put, that the Father turns a Robber, murderer, an avowed enemy to God and the country, is his person & Authority in that case to be owned, to the dishonor of God, and hurt & hazard of the country? or ought he not rather to be delivered up even by the Son to Justice? Much more then will it follow, that a King who turns the more dangerous because the more powerful Robber, & Legal Murderer, and enemy to God & the country, cannot be owned; seeing the relation betwixt Father & Son is stronger & stricter, as having another Original, than can be betwixt King & subjects, and stands unremoved as long as he is Father, though turning such they ought to contribute (in moral duty, to which their relative duty must cede) that he should no more be a Father, nor no more a living man, when dead by Law. Secondly, They cannot come under the herile or Masterly relation, though Analogically also sometimes they are styled so, and subjects are called Servants, by reason of their subjection, and because it is the Office of Kings to command & subjects to obey, in this there is some Analogy. But Kings cannot properly be owned under this relation, as Masters over either persons or goods of subjects, far less Tyrans, yea Kings assuming a Masterly power turn Tyrants. Now that the Magistratical relation is not that of a Master, is clear from many disparities & absurdities, whether we consider the state of hired Servants or Slaves. For hired Servants, the difference is vast betwixt them & subjects. 1. The hired Servant gets reward for his service, by compact; the subjects none, but rather gives the Royal reward of Tribute to the King for his service; the Tyrant exacts it to maintain his Tyranny. 2. The hired Servant is maintained by his Master; the subjects maintain the King; the Tyrant Robbes it from them by force. 3. The hired Servant bargains only for a time, and then may leave him; the subject cannot give up his Covenanted allegiance, at that rate and for these reasons as the servant may his service; a Tyrant will make nor keep no such bargain. 4. The hired Servant must have his Masters profit mainly before his eyes, and his own only secundarly; but the Magistrates power is primarly ordinated to the public good of the Community▪ and only consequentially to the good of himself. 5. The Master hath a greater power over the hired Servant, to make & give out Laws to him, which if they be Lawful he must obey; than the King hath over the Nation, to which he is not the sole Lawgiver, as is shown. 6. The hired Servant his subjection is Mercenary & servile; but the subjects subjection is civil, free, voluntary, liberal, & • oving to a Lawful King. Again for Slaves, the difference between them & subjects is great. 1. Slavery being against Nature, rational people would never choose that life if they could help it; but they gladly choose Government, & Governors. 2. Slavery would make their condition worse then when they had no Government, for Liberty is alwise preferable; Neither could people have acted rationally in setting up Government, if to be free of oppression of others they had given themselves up to slavery, under a Master who may do what he pleases with them. 3. All Slaves are either taken in war, or bought with money, or born in the house where their parents were slaves, as Abraham & Solomon had of that sort; But subjects are neither captives, nor bought, nor born slaves. 4. Slavery is not Natural, but a penal fruit of sin, and would never have been if sin had not been; But Government is not so, but Natural & necessary. 5. Slaves are not their Masters brethren; subjects are the Kings brethren; over whom he must not lift up himself Deut. 17. 20. 6. Masters might purchase and sell their slaves, Abimelech took sheep & men servants & gave them unto Abraham Gen. 20. 14. Jacob had maid servants & men servants & Asses Gen. 30. 43. no otherwise than other goods, Solomon got to himself servants and maidens, & servants born in his house Eccles. 2. 7. a King cannot do so with his subjects. 7. Princes have not this power to make the people slaves, neither from God, nor from the people: From God they have none, but to feed and to lead them 2 Sam. 5. 2. to rule them so as to feed them 1 Chron. 11. 2. Psal. 78. 71, 72. From the people they have no power to make slaves, they can give none such. 8. Slavery is a Curse: It was Canaan's Curse to be a servant of servants Gen. 9. 25. but to have Magistrates is a promised blessing Ier. 17. 27. 9. To be free of Slavery is a blessing, as the redemption from Egypt's bondage is everywhere called, and the year of redemption was a Jubilee of joy, so the freedom of release every seven years a great privilege Ier 34. 9. but to be free of Government is a judgment Isai. 3. 4, 5. its threatened, Israel shall abide without a King & without a Prince Hos. 3. 4. In the Next place they cannot be owned as Masters or Proprietors over the goods of the subjects; th • in the case of necessity, the King may make use of all goods in common, for the good of the Kingdom: For 1. The introduction of Kings cannot overturn natures foundation; by the Law of Nature property was given to man, Kings cannot rescind that. 2. A man had goods ere ever there was a King; a King was made only to preserve property, therefore he cannot take it away. 3. It cannot be supposed that rational people would choose a King at all, if he had power to turn a greater Robber to preserve them from lesser Robberies & oppressions: would rational men give up themselves for a prey to one, that they might be safe from becoming a prey to others? 4. Then their case should be worse by erecting of Government, if the Prince were proprietor of their goods, for they had the property themselves before. 5. Then Government should not be a blessing but a curse, and the Magistrate could not be a Minister for good. 6. Kingdoms then should be among bona fortunae, the goods of fortune, which the King might sell & dispone as he pleased. 7. His place then should not be a function, but a possession. 8. People could not then, by their removes or otherwise, change their Sovereigns. 9. Then no man might dispose of his own goods without the Kings consent, by buying or selling, or giving alms, nay nor pay tribute, for they cannot do these things except they have of their own. 10. This is the very Character of a Tyrant, as described 1 Sam. 8. 11. he will take your sons &c. Zeph. 3. 3. her Princes are roaring Lions, her Judges are evening Wolves. 11. All the threatenings & rebukes of oppression condemn this, Isai. 3. 14. 15. Ezek. 45. 9. Mic. 3. 2, 3. Ahab condemned, for taking Naboth's vineyard. 12. Pharaoh had not all the Land of Egypt, till he bought it Gen. 42. 20. So the Land became Pharaohs not otherwise. Yet giving and not granting that he were really a Master in all these respects; Notwithstanding if he turn to pursue me for my life, because of my fidelity to my Master & his both, & will withdraw me from the service of the Supreme Universal Master, I may Lawfully withdraw myself from his, and disoune him for one, when I cannot serve two Masters. Sure he cannot be Master of the conscience. Thirdly, They cannot come under the conjugal relation, though there may be some proportion between that and subjection to a Lawful Ruler, because of the Mutual Covenant transacted betwixt them; but the Tyrant & Usurper cannot pretend to this, who refuse all Covenants. Yet hence it cannot be inferred, that because the wife may not put away her husband. Or renounce him, as he may do her in the case of Adultery, therefore the people cannot disoune the King in the case of the violation of the Royal Covenant. For the Kings power is not at all properly a husbands power. 1. The wife by nature is the weaker vessel; but the Kingdom is not weaker than the King. 2. The wife is given as an help to the man; but here the man is given as an help to the Common-wealth. 3. The wife cannot limit the husbands power; as subjects may limit their Sovereigns. 4. The wife cannot prescribe the time of her continuing under him; as subjects may do with their Sovereigns. 5. The wife cannot change her husband; as a Kingdom can do their Government 6. The husband hath not power of life & death; but the Sovereign hath it over Malefactors. Yet giving and not granting, his power were properly Marital; if the case be put, that the man do habitually break the Marriage Covenant, or take another wife, and turn also Cruel & intolerable in compelling his own wife to wickedness; and put the case also, that she should not get a Legal divorce procured, who can doubt but she might disoune him, and leave him? for this case is excepted out of that Command 1 Cor. 7. 10. let not the wife depart from her husband, meaning for mere difference in Religion, or other lesser causes; but Adultery doth annual the Marriage relation, See Pool Synopsis Critic. in Locum. So when a Prince breaks the Royal Covenant and turns Tyrant, or without any Covenant committs a rape upon the Common-wealth, that pretended relation may & must be disouned. Hence we see, there is no relation can bring a King or Ruler under the object of the duty of the fifth Command, except it be that of a fiduciary Patron or Trustee and Public Servant: for we cannot own him properly either to be a Father, or a Master, or a husband. Therefore what can remain, but that he must be a fiduciary Servant? Wherefore if he shall either treacherously break his trust, or presumptously refuse to be entrusted, upon terms & conditions to secure & be accountable for (before God & man) Religion & Liberty, we cannot own his usurped Authority. That Metaphor which the learned Buchanan uses, de Iure Regni, of a Public & Politick Physician, is not a relation different from this of a fiduciary Servant; when he elegantly represents him as entrusted with the preservation & restauration of the health of the politick body, and endued with shill & experience of the Laws of his Craft. If then he be orderly called unto this charge, and qualified for it, and discharges his duty faithfully, he deserves, and we are obliged to give him the deference of an honored Physician: But if he abuse his Calling and not observe the rules thereof, and instead of curing go about willfully to kill the body he is entrusted with, he is no more to be owned for a Physician but for a Murderer.

9. If we inquire further into the nature of this Relation between a King (whose Authority is to be owned) and his subjects; we can own it only as it is Reciprocal in respect of Superiority & Inferiority, that is, whereby in some respects the King is Superior to the people, and in some respects the people is Superior to him. The King is Superior & Supreme as he is called 1 Pet. 2. 13. in respect of formal Sovereignty, and executive Authority, and Majestick Royal dignity, resulting from the people's devolving upon him that Power, and constituting him in that relation over themselves, whereby he is higher in place & power than they, and in respect of his Charge & conduct is worth ten thousands of the people 2 Sam. 18. 3. and there is no formally regal Tribunal higher than his; And though he be Minor universis yet he is Major singulis, greater than any one, or all the people distributively taken; And though he be a Royal Vassal of the Kingdom, & Princely Servant of the people; yet he is not their deputy, because he is really their Sovereign, to whom they have made over their Power of governing & protecting themselves irrevocably, except in the case of Tyranny; and in acts of Justice, he is not countable to any, and does not depend on the people as a deputy. But on the other hand, the people is superior to the King, in respect of their fountain power of Sovereignty, that remains radically & virtually in them, in that they make him their Royal Servant, and him rather than another and limit him to the Laws for their own good & advantage, and though they give to him a Politick Power for their own safety; yet they keep a Natural Power which they cannot give away, but must resume it in case of Tyranny; And though they cannot retract the power of Justice to govern righteously, yet it is not so irrevocably given away to him, but that when he abuseth his power to the destruction of his subjects, they may wrest a sword out of a mad man's hand, though it be his own sword and he hath a just power to use it for good, but all fiduciary power abused may be repealed. They have not indeed Sovereignty or power of life & death formally; yet in respect they may constitute a Magistrate with Laws, which if they violate they must be in hazard of their lives, they have this power eminently & virtually. Hence in respect that the Kings Power is and can be only fiducial, by way of trust reposed upon him, he is not so superior to the people, but he may & ought to be accountable to them in case of Tyranny; which is evident from what is said, and now I intend to make it further appear. But first I form the Argument thus; We can own no King that is not accountable to the people: Ergo we cannot own this King. To clear the Connection of the antecedent & consequent, I add; Either he is accountable to the people, or he is not: If he be accountible to all then he is renouncible by a part, when the Collective body either will not, or cannot exact an account from him, when the Community is defective as to their part, it is the interest of a part, that would but cannot do their duty, to give no account to such as they can get no account from for his Maleversations, This is all we crave: If he be not accountable, then we cannot own him, because all Kings are accountable: for these reasons. 1. The Inferior is accountable to the Superior: the King is inferior, the people superior: Ergo the King is accountable to the people. The proposition is plain; if the Kings superiority make the people accountable to him, in case of transgressing the Laws; then, why should not the people's superiority make the King accountable to them, in case of transgressing the Laws? especially seeing the King is inferior to the Laws: because the Law restrains him, and from the Law he hath that whereby he is King; the Law is inferior to the people, because they are as it were its parent, and way make or unmake it upon occasion: and seeing the Law is more powerful than the King, and the people more powerful than the Law, we may see before which we may call the King to answer in Judgment, Buchan Iure Regni apud Scot. That the King is inferior to the people is clear on many accounts: for these things which are institute for others sake, are inferior to those for whose sake they are required or sought; a horse is inferior to them that use him for victory; A King is only a mean for the people's good; A Captain is less then the Army, a King is but a Captain over the Lord's Inheritance 1 Sam. 10. 1. He is but the Minister of God for their good Rom. 13. 4. Those who are before the King, and may be a people without him, must be superior to him who is a posterior and cannot be a King without them: let the King be considered either Materially as a Mortal man, he is then but a part inferior to the whole; or formally under the reduplication as a King, he is no more but a Royal Servant, obliged to spend his life for the people, to save them out of the hand of their enemies 2 Sam. 19▪ 9. A part is inferior to the whole, the King is but a part of the Kingdom: A Gift is inferior to them to whom it is given, a King is but a gift given of God for the people's good: That which is Mortal & but accidental, is inferior to that which is eternal & cannot perish Politically; a King is but mortal, and it is but accidental to Government that there be a succession of Kings; but the people is eternal, one generation passeth away & another generation cometh Eccles. 1. 4. especially the people of God, the portion of the Lord's inheritance, is superior to any King, and their ruin of greater moment than all the Kings of the world; for if the Lord for their sake smite great Kings, & slay famous Kings, as Sihon & Og Psal. 137. 17-20. if he give kings & famous kingdoms for their ransom Isai. 43. 3, 4. then His people must be so much superior than kings, by how much His Justice is active to destroy the one, and His Mercy to save the other. All this proves the people to be superior in dignity, And therefore even in that respect its frivolous to say, the king cannot be accountable to them, because so much superior in Glory & Pomp; for they are superior every way in excellency; And though it were not so, yet Judges may be inferior in rank considered as men, but they are superior in Law over the greatest as they are Judges, to whom far greater than they are accountable. The low & mean condition of them to whom belongs the power of Judgment does not diminish its dignity: when the king then is Judged by the people, the Judgment is of as great dignity as if it were done by a superior king; for the Judgment is the sentence of the Law, 2. They are superior in power: because every constituent cause is superior to the effect, the people is the constituent cause, the king is the effect, and hath all his Royalty from them, by the Conveyance God hath appointed; so that they need not fe • ch it from Heaven, God gives it by the people, by whom also his power is limited and, it need be, diminished from what they gave his Ancestors: Hence, if the people constitute & limit the power they give the King, then they may call him to an account, and judge him for the abuse of it: But the first is true as is proven above: Ergo —The Major is undeniable, for sure, they may judge their own Creature, and call him to an account for the power they gave him, when he abuses it, though there be no Tribunal formally Regal above him, yet in the case of Tyranny and violating his Trust there is a Tribunal virtual eminently above him, in them that made him & reposed that Trust upon him, as is said. 3. The fountain power is superior to the power derived: The people, though they constitute a King above them, yet retain the fountain power, he only hath the derived power: Certainly the people must retain more power eminently, than they could give to the King, for they gave it, and he receives it, with limitations, if he turn mad or uncapable they may put Curators & Tutors over him; if he be taken captive, they may appoint another to exercise the power, if he die then they may constitute another, with more or less power; So then if they give a way all their power, as a slave selleth his Liberty, and retain no fountain power or radical right, they could not make use of it to produce any of these acts: They set a King above them only with an executive power for their good, but the radical power remains in the people, as in an immortal spring, which they communicate by succession to this or that Mortal man, in the manner & measure they think expedient; for otherwise if they gave all their power away, what shall they reserve to make a new King, if this man die? What if the Royal line surcease, there be no Prophets now sent to make Kings: And if they have power in these cases, why not in the case of Tyranny? 4. If the King be accountable by Law, for any act of Tyranny done against one man, then much more is he accountable for many against the whole state: But the former is true; a private man may go to Law before the ordinary Judges for wronging his inheritance, and the King is made accountable for the wrong done by him. Now shall the Laws be like Spiders webs, which hold flies, but let bigger beasts pass through? Shall Sentence be past for petty wrongs against a man, and none for Tyrannizing over Religion, Laws, & Liberties of the Kingdom? Shall none be past against parricide or fratricide, for killing his Brother, Murdering the Nobles, and burning Cities? Shall petty Thieves be hanged for stealing a Sheep, and does the Laws of God or man give impunity, for robbing a whole Country of the nearest & dearest Interests they have to Crowned heads for the fancied Character of Royalty, which thereby is forfeited? 5. If there be Judges appointed of God independently, to give out & execute the Judgment of the Lord on all offenders, without exception of the highest; then the King also must be subject to that Judgment: But there are Judges appointed of God independently, to give out & execute the Judgment of the Lord on all offenders, without exception of the highest. Two things must be here proved; first, that in giving Judgment they do not depend on the King, but are the immediate vicars of God: Secondly that the King is not excepted from, but subject to, their Judgment, in case he be Criminal. First they cannot depend upon the King, because they are more necessary then the King; and it is not left to the Kings pleasure whether there be Judges or not. There may be Judges without a King, but there can be no King without Judges, nor no Justice but Confusion; no man can bear the people's burden alone