The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates

THE TENURE OF KINGS And MAGISTRATES.

I F Men within themselves would be governed by reason, and not generally give up their understanding to a double tyranny, of custom from without, and blind affections within, they would discern better what it is to favor and uphold the Tyrant of a Nation. But being slaves within doors, no wonder that they strive so much to have the public State conformably governed to the inward vicious rule, by which they govern themselves. For indeed none can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license; which never hath more scope or more indulgence then under Tyrants. Hence is it that Tyrants are not oft offended, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all naturally servile; but in whom virtue and true worth most is eminent, them they fear in earnest, as by right their Masters, against them lies all their hatred and suspicion. Consequentlie neither do bad men hate Tirants, but have been always readiest with the falsifi'd names of Loyalty and Obedience, to color over their base compliances. And although sometimes for shame, and when it comes to their own grievances, of purse especially, they would seem good Patriots, and side with the better cause, yet when others for the deliverance of their Country, endu'd with fortitude and Heroic virtue, to fear nothing but the curse written against those That do the work of the Lord negligently, would go on to remove, not only the calamities and thraldomes of a people, but the roots and causes whence they spring, straight these men, and sure helpers at need, as if they hated only the miseries but not the mischiefs, after they have juggl'd and palter'd with the World, bandied and borne arms against their King, devested him, disanointed him, nay cursed him all over in thir Pulpits, and their Pamphlets, to the engaging of sincere and real men, beyond what is possible or honest to retreat from, not only turn revolters from those principles, which only could at first move them, but lay the stain of disloyalty, and worse, on those proceedings, which are the necessary consequences of their own former actions; nor disllik'd by themselves, were they managed to the entire advantages of their own Faction; not considering the while that he toward whom they boasted their new fidelity, counted them accessory, and by those Statutes and Laws which they so impotently brandish against others, would have doomed them to a traitors death for what they have done already. 'It is true, that most men are apt enough to civil Wars and commotions as a novelty, and for a flash, hot and active; but through sloth or inconstancy, and weakness of spirit either fainting, ere their own pretences, though never so just, be half attained, or through an inbred falsehood and wickedness, betray oft times to destruction with themselves, men of noblest temper joined with them for causes which they in their rash undertakings were not capable of. If God and a good cause give them Victory, the prosecution whereof for the most part, inevitably draws after it the alteration of Laws, change of Government, downfall of Princes with their Families; then comes the task to those Worthies which are the soul of that Enterprize, to be swett and labor'd out amidst the throng and noises of vulgar and irrational men. Some contesting for Privileges, customs, forms, and that old intanglement of iniquity, their gibrish Laws, though the badge of their ancient slavery. Others who have been fiercest against their Prince, under the notion of a Tyrant, and no mean incendiaries of the War against him, when God out of his providence and high disposal hath delivered him into the hand of their brethren, on a sudden and in a new garb of Allegiance, which their doings have long since cancel'd; they plead for him, pity him, extol him, protest against those that talk of bringing him to the trial of Justice, which is the Sword of God, superior to all mortal things, in whose hand soever by apparent signs his testified will is to put it. But certainly, if we consider who and what they are, on a sudden grown so pitiful, we may conclude, their pity can be no true and Christian commiseration, but either levity and shallowness of mind, or else a carnal admiring of that worldly pomp and greatness, from whence they see him fallen; or rather lastly a dissembl'd and seditious pity, feigned of industry to beget new commotions. As for mercy, if it be to a Tyrant, under which name they themselves have cited him so oft in the hearing of God, of Angels, and the holy Church assembl'd, and there charged him with the spilling of more innocent blood by far, then ever Nero did, undoubtedly the mercy which they pretend, is the mercy of wicked men; and their mercies, we read, are cruelties; hazarding the welfare of a whole Nation, to have saved one, whom so oft they have termed Agag, and villifying the blood of many Jonathan's that have saved Israel; insisting with much niceness on the unnecessariest clause of their Covenant; wherein the fear of change, and the absurd contradiction of a flattering hostility had hampered them, but not scrupling to give away for complements, to an implacable revenge, the heads of many thousand Christians more.

Another sort there is, who coming in the course of these affairs, to have thir share in great actions above the form of Law or Custom, at least to give thir voice and approbation, begin to swerve and almost shiver at the majesty and grandeur of some noble deed, as if they were newly entered into a great sin; disputing presidents, forms, & circumstances, when the Common wealth nigh perishes for want of deeds in substance, don with just and faithful expedition. To these I wish better instruction, and virtue equal to their calling; the former of which, that is to say Instruction, I shall endeavor, as my duty is, to bestow on them; and exhort them not to startle from the just and pious resolution of adhering with all their assistance to the present Parliament and Army, in the glorious way wherein Justice and Victory hath set them; the only warrants through all ages, next under immediate Revelation, to exercise supreme power; in those proceedings which hitherto appear equal to what hath been don in any age or Nation heretofore, justly or magnanimouslie. Nor let them be discouraged or deter'd by any new Apostate Scar crows, who under show of giving counsel, send out their barking monitories and momento's, empty of ought else but the spleen of a frustrated Faction. For how can that pretended counsel, be either sound or faithful, when they that give it, see not for madness and vexation of their ends lost, that those Statutes and Scriptures which both falsely and scandalously, they wrest against their Friends and Associates, would by sentence of the common adversary, fall first and heaviest upon their own heads. Neither let mild and tender dispositions be foolishly softn'd from their duty and perseverance with the unmasculine Rhetoric of any puling Priest or Chaplain, sent as a friendly Letter of advice, for fashion sake in private, and forthwith publishit by the Sender himself, that we may know how much of friend there was in it, to cast an odious envy upon them, to whom it was pretended to be sent in charity. Nor let any man be deluded by either the ignorance or the notorious hypocrisy and self-repugnance of our dancing Divines, who have the conscience and the boldness, to come with Scripture in their mouths, gloss'd and fitted for thir turns with a double contradictory sense, transforming the sacred verity of God, to an Idol with two faces, looking at once two several ways; and with the same quotations to charge others, which in the same case they made serve to justify themselves. For while the hope to be made Classic and Provincial Lord's led them on, while pluralities greas'd them thick and deep, to the shame and scandal of Religion, more then all the Sects and Heresies they exclaim against, then to fight against the Kings person, and no less a party of his Lord's and Commons, or to put force upon both the Houses was good, was lawful, was no resisting of Superior powers; they only were powers not to be resisted, who countenanc'd the good and punishit the evil. But now that thir censorious domineering is not suffered to be universal, truth and conscience to be freed, Tithes and Pluralities to be no more, though competent allowance provided, and the warm experience of large gifts, and they so good at taking them; yet now to exclude and seize on impeachit Members, to bring Delinquents without exemption to a fair Tribunal by the common National Law against murder, is now to be no less then Corah, Dathan, and Abiram. He who but erewhile in the Pulpits was a cursed Tyrant, an enemy to God and Saints, laden with all the innocent blood split in three Kingdoms, and so to be sought against, is now though nothing penitent or altered from his first principles, a lawful Magistrate, a Sovrane Lord, the Lord's Anointed, not to be touched, though by themselves imprisoned. As if this only were obedience, to preserve the mere useless bulk of his person, and that only in prison, not in the field, and to disobey his commands, deny him his dignity and office, everywhere to resist his power but where they think it only surviving in thir own faction.

But who in particular is a Tyrant cannot be determind in a general discourse, otherwise then by supposition; his particular charge, and the sufficient proof of it must determine that: which I leave to Magistrates, at least to the uprighter sort of them, and of the people, though in number less by many, in whom faction least hath prevailed above the Law of nature and right reason, to judge as they find cause. But this I dare own as part of my faith, that if such a one there be, by whose Commission, whole massacres have been committed on his faithful Subjects, his Provinces offered to pawn or alienation, as the hire of those whom he had solicited to come in and destroy whole Cities and Countries; be he King, or Tyrant, or Emperor, the Sword of Justice is above him; in whose hand soever is found sufficient power to avenge the effusion, and so great a deluge of inuocent blood. For if all human power to execute, not accidentally but intendedly, the wrath of God upon evil doers without exception, be of God; then that power, whether ordinary, or if that fail, extraordinary so executing that intent of God, is lawful, and not to be resisted. But to unfold more at large this whole Question, though with all expedient brevity, I shall here set down, from first beginning, the original of Kings; how and wherefore exalted to that dignity above their Brethren; and from thence shall prove, that turning to tyranny they may be as lawfully deposd and punishd, as they were at first elected: This I shall do by authorities and reasons, not learnt in corners among Schisms and Herisies, as our doubling Divines are ready to calumniate, but fetched out of the midst of choicest and most authentic learning, and no prohibited Authors, nor many Heathen, but Mosaical, Christian, Orthodoxal, and which must needs be more convincing to our Adversaries, Presbyterial.

No man who knows ought, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were borne free, being the image and resemblance of God himself, and were by privilege above all the creatures, borne to command and not to obey: and that they livd so, till from the root of Adams transgression, falling among themselves to do wrong and violence, and foreseeing that such courses must needs tend to the destruction of them all, they agreed by common league to bind each other from mutual injury, and jointly to defend themselves against any that gave disturbance or opposition to such agreement. Hence came Cities, Towns and Common-wealths. And because no faith in all was found sufficiently binding, they saw it needful to ordain some authority, that might restrain by force and punishment what was violated against peace and common right: This authority and power of self-defense and preservation being originally and naturally in everyone of them, and unitedly in them all, for ease, for order, and least each man should be his own partial judge, they communicated and derived either to one, whom for the eminence of his wisdom and integrity they chose above the rest, or to more then one whom they thought of equal deserving: the first was called a King; the other Magistrates. Not to be thir Lord's and Masters (though afterward those names in some places were given voluntarily to such as had been authors of inestimable good to the people) but, to be thir Deputies and Commissioners, to execute, by virtue of thir entrusted power, that justice which else every man by the bond of nature and of Cov'nant must have executed for himself, and for one another. And to him that shall consider well why among free persons, one man by civil right should bear authority and jurisdiction over another, no other end or reason can be imaginable. These for a while governd well, and with much equity decided all things at thir own arbitrement: till the temptation of such a power left absolute in thir hands, perverted them at length to injustice and partiality. Then did they who now by trial had found the danger and inconveniences of committing arbitrary power to any, invent Laws either framed or consented to by all, that should confine and limit the authority of whom they chose to govern them: that so man of whose failing they had proof, might no more rule over them, but law and reason abstracted as much as might be from personal errors and frailties. When this would nor serve, but that the Law was either not executed, or misapply'd, they were constraind from that time, the only remedy left them, to put conditions and take Oaths from all Kings and Magistrates at their first instalment to do impartial justice by Law: who upon those terms and no other, received Allegeance from the people, that is to say, bond or Covenant to obey them in execution of those Laws which they the people had themselves made or assented to. And this oft times with express warning, that if the King or Magistrate proved unfaithful to his trust, the people would be disingag'd. They added also Counselors and Parliaments, not to be only at his beck, but with him or without him, at set times, or at all times, when any danger threatn • d to have care of the public safety. Therefore saith Claudius Sesell a French Statesman, The Parliament was set as a bridle to the King; which I instance rather, because that Monarchy is granted by all to be a far more absolute then ours. That this and the rest of what hath hitherto been spok'n is most true, might be copiously made appear throughout all Stories Heathen and Christian; eev'n of those Nations where Kings and Emperors have sought means to abolish all ancient memory of the people's right by their encroachments and usurpations. But I spare long insertions, appealing to the German, French, Italian, Arragonian, English, and not least the Scottish Histories: not forgetting this only by the way, that William the Norman though a Conqueror, and not unsworne at his Coronation, was compelld a second time to take oath at S. Albanes, ere the people would be brought to yield obedience.

It being thus manifest that the power of Kings and Magistrates is nothing else, but what is only derivative, transferrd and committed to them in trust from the people to the Common good of them all, in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them, without a violation of thir natural birthright, and seeing that from hence Aristotle and the best of Political writers have defined a King, him who governs to the good and profit of his people, and not for his own ends, it follows from necessary causes that the titles of Sovran Lord, natural Lord, and the like, are either arrogancies, or flatteries, not admitted by Emperors and Kings of best note, and dislikt by the Church both of Jews, Isai. 26. 13. and ancient Christians as appears by Tertullian and others. Although generally the people of Asia and with them the Jews also, especially since the time they chose a King, against the advice and counsel of God, are noted by wise authors much inclinable to slavery.

Secondly, that to say, as is usual, the King hath as good right to his crown and dignity, as any man to his inheritance, is to make the subject no better then the Kings slave, his chattell, or his possession that may be bought and sold, And doubtless if hereditary title were sufficiently inquir'd, the best foundation of it would be found but either in courtesy or convenience. But suppose it to be of right hereditary, what can be more just and legal, if a subject for certain crimes be to forfeit by Law from himself and posterity, all his inheritance to the King, then that a King for crimes proportional, should forfeit all his title and inheritance to the people: unless the people must be thought created all for him, he not for them, and they all in one body inferior to him single, which were a kind of treason against the dignity of mankind to affirm.

Thirdly it follows, that to say Kings are accountable to none but God, is the overturning of all Law and government. For if they may refuse to give account, then all covnants made with them at Coronation; all Oaths are in vain, and mere mockeries, all Laws which they swear to keep, made to no purpose; for if the King fear not God, as how many of them do not? we hold then our lives and estates, by the tenure of his mere grace and mercy, as from a God, not a mortal Magistrate, a position that none but Court parasites or men besotted would maintain. And no Christian Prince not drunk with high mind, and prouder then those Pagan Caesar's, that deifi'd themselves, would arrogate so unreasonably above human condition, or derogate so basely from a whole Nation of men his brethren, as if for him only subsisting, and to serve his glory, valuing them in comparison of his own brute will and pleasure no more then so many beasts, or vermin under his feet, not to be reasond with, but to be injurd; among whom there might be found so many thousand men for wisdom, virtue, nobleness of mind and all other respects, but the fortune of his dignity, far above him. Yet some would persuade us that this absurd opinion was King David's; because in the 51 Psalm he cries out to God, Against thee only have I sin'd; as if David had imagind that to murder Uriah and adulterate his Wife, had been no sin against his neighbor, when as that law of Moses was to the King expressly, Deut. 17. not to think so highly of himself above his Brethren. David therefore by those words could mean no other, then either that the depth of his guiltiness was known to God only, or to so few as had not the will or power to question him, or that the sin against God was greater beyond compare then against Uriah. What ever his meaning were, any wise man will see that the pathetical words of a Psalm can be no certain decision to a point that hath abundantly more certain rules to go by. How much more rationally spake the Heathen King. Demophoon in a Tragedy of Euripides then these interpret • s would put upon King David, I rule not my people by tyranny, as if they were Barbarians, but am myself liable, if I do unjustly to suffer justly Not unlike was the speech of Trajan the worthy Emperor, to one whom he made General of his Praetorian Forces. Take this drawn sword, saith he, to use for me, if I reign well, if not, to use against me. Thus Dion relates. And not Trajan only, but Theodosius the younger a Christian Emperor and one of the best, causd it to be enacted as a rule undeniable and fit to be acknowledged by all Kings and Emperors, that a Prince is bound to the Laws; that on the authority of Law the authority of a Prince depends, & to the Laws ought submit. Which Edict of his remains yet unrepeald in the Code of Justinian. l. 1. tit. 24. as a sacred constitution to all the succeeding Emperors. How then can any King in Europe maintain and write himself accountable to none but God, when Emperors in thir own imperial Statutes have writ'n and decreed themselves accountable to Law. And indeed where such account is not feared, he that bids a man reign over him above Law, may bid as well a savage beast.

It follows lastly, that since the King or Magistrate holds his authority of the people, both originally and naturally for their good in the first place, and not his own, then may the people as oft as they shall judge it for the best, either choose him or reject him, retain him or depose him though no Tyrant, merely by the liberty and right of free born men to be governed as seems to them best. This, though it cannot but stand with plain reason, shall be made good also by Scripture, Deut. 17. 14. When thou art come into the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt say I will set a King over me, like as all the Nations about me These words confirm us that the right of choosing, yea of changing thir own government is by the grant of God himself in the people. And therefore when they desit'd a King, though then under another form of government, and though thir changing displeasd him, yet he that was himself thir King, and rejected by them, would not be a hindrance to what they inended, further then by persuasion, but that they might do therein as they saw good, 1 Sam. 8. only he reserved to himself the nomination of who should reign over them. Neither did that exempt the King as if he were to God only accountable, though by his especial command anointed. Therefore David first made a Covenant with the Elders of Israel, and so was by them anointed King, 1 Chron. 11. And Jehoiada the Priest making Jehoash King, made a Cov'nant between him and the people, 2 Kings 11. 17. Therefore when Roboam at his coming to the Crown, rejected those conditions which the Israelites brought him, hear what they answer him, what portion have we in David, or inheritance in the son of Jesse. See to thine own house David. And for the like conditions not performed, all Israel before that time deposd Samuel; not for his own default, but for the misgovement of his Sons. But some will say to both these examples, it was evilly don. I answer, that not the latter, because it was expressly allowed them in the Law to set up a King if they pleased; and God himself joined with them in the work; though in some sort it was at that time displeasing to him, in respect of old Samuel who had governd them uprightly. As Livy praises the Romans who took occasion from Tarquinius a wicked Prince to gain their liberty, which to have extorted, saith he, from Numa or any of the good Kings before, had not been seasonable. Nor was it in the former example don unlawfully; for when Roboam had prepared a huge Army to reduce the Israelites, he was forbid'n by the Profet, 1 Kings 12.24. Thus saith the Lord ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren, for this thing is from me. He calls them thir brethren, not Rebels, and forbidds to be proceeded against them, owning the thing himself, not by single providence, but by approbation, and that not only of the act, as in the former example, but of the fit season also; he had not otherwise forbid to molest them. And those grave and wise Counselors whom Rehoboam first advised with, spake no such thing, as our old gray headed Flatterers now are wont, stand upon your birth-right, scorn to capitulate, you hold of God, and not of them; for they knew no such matter, unless conditionally, but gave him politic counsel, as in a civil transaction. Therefore Kingdom and Magistracy, whether supreme or subordinate is called a human ordinance, 1 Pet. 2. 13. &c. which we are there taught is the will of God we should submit to, so far as for the punishment of evil doers, and the encouragement of them that do well. Submitt saith he, as free men. And there is no power but of God, saith Paul, Rom. 13. as much as to say, God put it into man's heart to find out that way at first for common peace and preservation, approving the exercise thereof; else it contradicts Peter who calls the same authority an Ordinance of man. It must be also understood of lawful and just power, else we read of great power in the affairs and Kingdoms of the World permitted to the Devil: for saith he to Christ, Luke 4. 6. all this power will I give thee and the glory of them, for it is delivered to me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it: neither did he lie, or Christ gainsay what he affirmed: for in the thirteenth of the Revelation we read how the Dragon gave to the beast his power, his seat, and great authority: which beast so autoriz'd most expound to be the tyrannical powers and Kingdoms of the earth. Therefore Saint Paul in the forecited Chapter tells us that such Magistrates he means', as are, not a terror to the good but to the evil, such as bear not the sword in vain, but to punish offenders, and to encourage the good. If such only be mentiond here as powers to be obeyd, and our submission to them only requird, then doubtless those powers that do the contrary, are no powers ordained of God, and by consequence no obligation laid upon us to obey or not to resist them. And it may be well observd that both these Apostles, whenever they give this precept, express it in terms not concret but abstract, as Logicians are wont to speak, that is, they mention the ordinance, the power, the authority before the persons that execute it, and what that power is, lest we should be deceavd, they describe exactly. So that if the power be not such, or the person execute not such power, neither the one nor the other is of God, but of the Devil, and by consequence to be resisted. From this exposition Chrysostom also on the same place dissents not; explaining that these words were not writ'n in behalf of a tyrant. And this is verify'd by David, himself a King, and likeliest to be Author of the Psalm 94. 20. which saith, Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee. And it were worth the knowing, since Kings, and that by Scripture boast the justness of thir title, by holding it immediately of God, yet cannot show the t • me when God ever set on the throne them or thir forefathers, but only when the people chose them; why by the same reason, since God ascribes as oft to himself the casting down of Princes from the throne, it should not be thought as lawful, and as much from God when none are seen to do it but the people, and that for just causes. For if it needs must be a sin in them to depose, it may as likely be a sin to have elected. And contrary if the people's act in election be pleaded by a King, as the act of God, and the most just title to enthrone him, why may not the people's act of rejection, be as well pleaded by the people as the act of God, and the most just reason to depose him? So that we see the title and just right of reigning or deposing in reference to God, is found in Scripture to be all one; visible only in the people, and depending merely upon justice and demerit. Thus far hath been considerd briefly the power of Kings and Magistrates; how it was, and is originally the people's, and by them conferrd in trust only to be imployd to the common peace and benefit; with liberty therefore and right remaining in them to reassume it to themselves, if by Kings or Magistrates it be abused; or to dispose of it by any alteration, as they shall judge most conducing to the public good.

We may from hence with more ease, and force of argument determine what a Tyrant is, and what the people may do against him. A Tyrant whether by wrong or by right coming to the Crown, is he who regarding neither Law nor the common good, reigns only for himself and his faction: Thus St. Basil among others defines him. And because his power is great, his will boundless and exorbitant, the fulfilling whereof is for the most part accompanied with innumerable wrongs and oppressions of the people, murders, massacres, rapes, adulteries, desolation, and subversion of Cities and whole provinces; look how great a good and happiness a just King is, so great a mischief is a Tyrant; as he the public Father of his Country, so this the common enemy. Against whom what the people lawfully may do, as against a common pest, and destroyer of mankind, I suppose no man of clear judgment need go surder to be guided then by the very principles of nature in him. But because it is the vulgar folly of men to desert thir own reason, and shutting thir eyes to think they see best with other men's, I shall show by such examples as ought to have most weight with us, what hath been don is this case heretofore. The Greeks and Romans as thir prime Authors witness held it not only lawful, but a glorious and Heroic deed, rewarded publicly with Statues and Garlands, to kill an infamous Tyrant at any time without trial; and but reason, that he who trod down all Law, should not be voutsaf'd the benefit of Law. Insomuch that Seneca the Tragedian brings in Hercules the grand suppressor of Tyrants, thus speaking,

But of these I name no more, lest it be objected they were Heathen; and come to produce another sort of men that had the knowledge of true Religion. Among the Jews this custom of tyrant-killing was not unusual. First Ehud, a man whom God had raysd to deliver Israel from Eglon King of Moab, who had conquerd and ruled over them eighteen years, being sent to him as an Ambassador with a present slew him in his own house. But he was a foreign Prince, an enemy, and Ehud besides had special warrant from God. To the first I answer, it imports not whether foreign or native: For no Prince so native but professes to hold by Law; which when he himself overturns, breaking all the Covnants and Oaths that gave him title to his dignity, and were the bond and alliance between him and his people, what differs he from an outlandish King or from an enemy? For look how much right the King of Spain hath to govern us at all, so much right hath the King of England to govern us tyrannically. If he, though not bound to us by any league, coming from Spain in person to subdue us or to destroy us, might lawfully by the people of England either be slain in fight, or put to death in captivity, what hath a native King to plead, bound by so many Covnants, benefits and honors to the welfare of his people, why he through the contempt of all Laws and Parliaments, the only tie of our obedience to him, for his own wills sake, and a boasted praerogative unaccountable, after sev'n years warring and destroying of his best subjects, overcome, and yielded prisoner, should think to scape unquestionable, as a thing divine, in respect of whom so many thousand Christians destroyed should lie unaccounted for, polluting with thir slaughterd carcasses all the Land over, and crying for vengeance against the living that should have righted them. Who knows not that there is a mutual bond of amity and brotherhood between man and man over all the World, neither is it the English Sea that can sever us from that duty and relation: a straiter bond yet there is between fellow-subjects, neighbors, and friends; But when any of these 〈◊◊〉 to another so as hostility 〈…〉 doth the Law decree less against them, then oepn enemies and invaders? or if the Law be not present, or too weak, what doth it warrant us to less then single defense or civil war? and from that time forward the Law of civil defensive Warr differs nothing from the Law of foreign hostility. Nor is it distance of place that makes enmity, but enmity that makes distance. He therefore that keeps peace with me near or remote of whatsoever Nation, is to me as far as all civil and human offices an Englishman and a nighbour: but if an Englishman forgetting all Laws, human, civil and religious offend against life and liberty, to him offended and to the Law in his behalf, though born in the same womb, he is no better then a Turk, a Sarasin, a Heathen. This is Gospel, and this was ever Law among equals; how much rather then in force against any King whatsoever, who in respect of the people is coufessd inferior and not equal: to distinguish therefore of a Tyrant by outlandish, or domestic is a weak evasion. To the second that he was an enemy, I answer, what Tyrant is not? yet Eglon by the Jews had been acknowledged as thir Sovran, they had servd him eighteen years, as long almost as we our William the Conqueror, in all which time he could not be so unwise a Statesman but to have taken of them Oaths of Fealty and Allegeance by which they made themselves his proper subjects, as thir homage and present sent by Ehud testified. To the third, that he had special warrant to kill Eglon in that manner, it cannot be granted, because not expressed; tis plain that he was raysd by God to be a Deliverer, and went on just principles, such as were then and ever held allowable, to deal so by a Tyrant that could no otherwise be dealt with. Neither did Samuel though a Profet, with his own hand abstain from Agag; a foreign enemy no doubt; but mark the reason, As thy Sword hath made women childless; a cause that by the sentence of Law it self nullifies all relations. And as the Law is between Brother and Brother, Father and Son, Master and Servant, wherefor not between King or rather Tyrant and People? And whereas Jehu had special command to slay Jehoram a successive and hereditary Tyrant, it seems not the less imitable for that; for where a thing grounded so much on natural reason hath the addition of a command from God, what does it but establish the lawfulness of such an act. Nor is it likely that God who had so many ways of punishing the house of Ahab would have sent a subject against his Prince, if the fact in it self as don to a Tyrant had been of bad example. And if David refused to lift his hand against the Lord's anointed, the matter between them was not tyranny, but private enmity, and David as a private person had been his own revenger, not so much the people's; but when any tyrant at this day can show to be the Lord's anointed, the only mentioned reason why David with held his hand, he may then but not till then presume on the same privilege.

We may pass therefore hence to Christian times. And first our Savior himself, how much he favourd tyrants and how much intended they should be found or honourd among Christians, declares his mind not obscurely; accounting thir absolute authority no better then Gentilism, yea though they flourishd it over with the splendid name of Benefactors; charging those that would be his Disciples to usurp no such dominion; but that they who were to be of most authority among them, should esteem themselves Ministers and Servants to the public. Matt. 20. 25. The Princes of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them, and Mark 10. 42. They that seem to rule, saith he, either slighting or accounting them no lawful rulers, but ye shall not be so, but the greatest among you shall be your servant. And although he himself were the meekest, and came on earth to be so, yet to a tyrant we hear him not vouchsafe an humble word: but Tell that Fox, Luc. 13. And wherefor did his mother the Virgin Mary give such praise to God in her profetic song, that he had now by the coming of Christ Cutt down Dynasta's or proud Monarchs from the throne, if the Church, when God manifests his power in them to do so, should rather choose all misery and vassalage to serve them, and let them still sit on thir potent seats to be adored for doing mischief. Surely it is not for nothing that tyrants by a kind of natural instinct both hate and fear none more then the true Church and Saints of God, as the most dangerous enemies and subverters of Monarchy, though indeed of tyranny; hath not this been the perpetual cry of Courtiers, and Court Prelates? whereof no likelier cause can be alleg'd, but that they well discerned the mind and principles of most devout and zealous men, and indeed the very discipline of Church, tending to the dissolution of all tyranny. No marvel then if since the faith of Christ received, in purer or impurer times, to depose a King and put him to death for tyranny hath been accounted so just and requisite, that neighbor Kings have both upheld and taken part with subjects in the action. And Ludovicus Pius, himself an Emperor, and son of Charles the great, being made Judge, Du Haillan is my author, between Milegast King of the Vul • zes and his subjects who had deposed him, gave his verdit for the subjects, and for him whom they had chos'n in his room. Note here that the right of electing whom they please is by the impartial testimony of an Emperor in the people. For, said he, A just Prince ought to be preferred before an unjust, and the end of government before the prerogative. And Constantine Leo, another Emperor in the Byzantine Laws saith, that the end of a King is for the general good, which he not performing is but the counterfeit of a King. And to prove that some of our own Monarchs have acknowledged that thir high office exempted them not from punishment, they had the Sword of St. Edward born before them by an Officer who was called Earl of the palace eev'n at the times of thir highest pomp and solemnity, to mind them, saith Matthew Paris, the best of our Historians, that if they errd, the Sword had power to restrain them. And what restraint the Sword comes to at length, having both edge and point, if any Sceptic will needs doubt, let him feel. It is also affirmed from diligent search made in our ancient books of Law, that the Peers and Barons of England had a legal right to judge the King: which was the cause most likely, for it could be no slight cause, that they were called his Peers, or equals. This however may stand immovable, so long as man hath to deal with no better then man; that if our Law judge all men to the lowest by thir Peers, it should in all equity ascend also, and judge the highest. And so much I find both in our own and foreign Story, that Dukes, Earls, and Marqueses were at first not hereditary, not empty and vain titles, but names of trust and office, and with the office ceasing, as induces me to be of opinion, that every worthy man in Parliament, for the word Baron imports no more, might for the public good be thought a fit Peer and judge of the King; without regard had to petty caveats, and circumstances, the chief impediment in high affairs, and ever stood upon most by circumstantial men. Whence doubtless our Ancestors who were not ignorant with what rights either Nature or ancient Constitution had endowd them, when Oaths both at Coronation, and renewd in Parliament would not serve, thought it no way illegal to depose and put to death thir tyrannous Kings. Insomuch that the Parliament drew up a charge against Richard the second, and the Commons requested to have judgment decree'd against him, that the realm might not be endangerd. And Peter Martyr a Divine of foremost rank, on the third of Judges approves thir doings. Sir Thomas Smith also a Protestant and a Statesman in his Commonwealth of England putting the question whether it be lawful to rise against a Tyrant, answers that the vulgar judge of it according to the event, and the learned according to the purpose of them that do it. But far before those days Gildas the most ancient of all our Historians, speaking of those times wherein the Roman Empire decaying quitted and relinquishd what right they had by Conquest to this Island, and resigned it all into the people's hands, testifies that the people thus re-invested with thir own original right, about the year 446, both elected them Kings, whō they thought best (the first Christian British Kings that ever reigned here since the Romans) and by the same right, when they apprehended cause, usually deposd and put them to death. This is the most fundamental and ancient tenure that any King of England can produce or pretend to; in comparison of which, all other titles and pleas are but of yesterday. If any object that Gildas condemns the Britanes for so doing, the answer is as ready; that he condemns them no more for so doing, then he did before for choosing such, for saith he, They anointed them Kings, not of God, but such as were more bloody then therest. Next he condemns them not at all for deposing or putting them to death, but for doing it over hastily, without trial or well examining the cause, and for electing others worse in thir room. Thus we have here both Domestic and most ancient examples that the people of Britain have deposd and put to death thir Kings in those primitive Christian times. And to couple reason with example, if the Church in all ages, Primitive, Romish, or Protestant held it ever no less thir duty then the power of thir Keys, though without express warrant of Scripture, to bring indifferently both King and Peasant under the utmost rigor of thir Canons and Censures Ecclesiastical, eev'n to the smiting him with a final excommunion, if he persist impenitent, what hinders but that the temporal Law both may and ought, though without a special Text or president, extend with like indifference the civil Sword, to the cutting off without exemption him that capitally offends. Seeing that justice and Religion are from the same God, and works of justice ofttimes more acceptable. Yet because that some lately with the tongues and arguments of Malignant backsliders have writ'n that the proceedings now in Parliament against the King, are without president from any Protestant State or Kingdom, the examples which follow shall be all Protestant and chiefly Presbyterian.

In the year 1546. The Duke of Saxony, Lantgrave of Hessen, and the whole Protestant league raysd open Warr against Charles the fifth thir Emperor, sent him a defiance, renounced all faith and allegiance toward him, and debated long in Counsel whether they should give him so much as the title of Caesar. Sleidan. l. 17. Let all men judge what this wanted of deposing or of killing, but the power to do it.

In the year 1559. the Scotch Protestants claiming promise of thir Queen Regent for liberty of conscience, she answering that promises were not to be claimed of Princes beyond what was commodious for them to grant, told her to her face in the Parliament then at Sterling, that if it were so, they renounced thir obedience; and soon after betook them to Arms. Buchanan Hist. l. 16. certainly when allegiance is renounced, that very hour the King or Queen is in effect deposed.

In the year 1564. John Kn • x a most famous Divine and the reformer of Scotland to the Presbyterian discipline, at a general Assembly maintaind op'nly in a dispute against Lethington the Secretary of State, that Subjects might and ought execute God's judgments upon thir King; that the fact of Jehu and others against thir King having the ground of God's ordinary command to put such and such offenders to death was not extraordinary, but to be imitated of all that preferred the honor of God to the affection of flesh and wicked Princes, that Kings, if they offend, have no privilege to be exempted from the punishments of Law more then any other subject; so that if the King be a Murderer, Adulterer, or Idolater, he should suffer not as a King, but as an offender; and this position he repeats again and again before them. Answerable was the opinion of John Craig another learned Divine, and that Laws made by the tyranny of Princes, or the negligence of people, thir posterity might abrogate, and reform all things according to the original institution of Common-wealths, And Knox being commanded by the Nobility to write to Calvin and other learned men for thir judgments in that question refused; alleging that both himself was fully resolved in conscience, and had heard thir judgments, and had the same opinion under hand-writing of many the most godly and most learned that he knew in Europe; that if he should move the question to them again, what should he do but show his own forgetfulness or inconstancy. All this is far more largely in the Ecclesiastic History of Scotland l. 4. with many other passages to this effect all the book over; set out with diligence by Scotchmen of best repute among them at the beginning of these troubles, as if they labourd to inform us what we were to do and what they intended upon the like occasion.

And to let the world know that the whole Church and Protestant State of Scotland in those purest times of reformation were of the same belief, three years after, they met in the field Mary thir lawful and hereditary Queen, took her prisoner yielding before fight, kept her in prison and the same year deposd her. Buchan. Hist. l. 18.

And four years after that, the Scots in justification of thir deposing Queen Mary, sent Ambassadors to Queen Elizabeth, and in a writ'n Declaration alleag'd that they had used towards her more lenity then she deservd; that thir Ancestors had heretofore punishd thir Kings by death or banishment; that the Scots were a free Nation, made King whom they freely chose, and with the same freedom un-Kingd him if they saw cause, by right of ancient laws and Ceremonies yet remaining, and old customers yet among the High-landers in choosing the head of thir Clanns, or Families; all which with many other arguments bore witness that regal power was nothing else but a mutual Covenant or stipulation between King and people. Buch. Hist. l. 20. These were Scotchmen and Presbyterians; but what measure then have they lately offered, to think such liberty less beseeming us then themselves, presuming to put him upon us for a Master whom thir Law scarce allows to be thir own equal? If now then we hear them in another strain then heretofore in the purest times of thir Church, we may be confident it is the voice of Faction speaking in them, not of truth and Reformation.

In the year 1581. the States of Holland in a general Assembly at the Hague, abjured all obedience and subjection to Philip King of Spain; and in a Declaration justify thir so doing; for that by his tyrannous government against faith so oft'n given and broken he had lost his right to all the Belgic Provinces; that therefore they deposd him and declared it lawful to choose another in his stead. Thuan. l. 74. From that time, to this no State or Kingdom in the World hath equally prosperd: But let them remember not to look with an evil and prejudicial eye upon thir neighbors walking by the same rule.

But what need these examples to Presbyterians, I mean to those who now of late would seem so much to abhor deposing, whenas they to all Christendom have given the latest and the liveliest example of doing it themselves. I question not the lawfulness of raising Warr against a Tyrant in defense of Religion, or civil liberty; for no Protestant Church from the first Waldenses of Lions, and Languedoc to this day but have don it round, and maintaind it lawful. But this I doubt not to affirm, that the Presbyterians, who now so much condemn deposing, were the men themselves that deposd the King, and cannot with all thir shifting and relapsing, wash off the guiltiness from thir own hands. For they themselves, by these thir late doings have made it guiltiness, and turned thir own warrantable actions into Rebellion.

There is nothing that so actually makes a King of England, as righful possession and Supremacy in all causes both civil and Ecclesiastical: and nothing that so actually makes a Subject of England, as those two Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy observd without equivocating, or any mental reservation. Out of doubt then when the King shall command things already constituted in Church, or State, obedience is the true essence of a subject, either to do, if it be lawful, or if he hold the thing unlawful, to submit to that penalty which the Law imposes, so long as he intends to remain a subject. Therefore when the people or any part of them shall rise against the King and his authority executing the Law in anything establishd civil or Ecclesiastical, I do nor say it is rebellion, if the thing commanded though establishd be unlawful, and that they sought first all due means of redress (and no man is further bound to Law) but I say it is an absolute renouncing both of Supremacy and Allegeance, which in one word is an actual and total deposing of the King, and the setting up of another supreme authority over them. And whether the Presbyterians have not don all this and much more, they will not put me, I suppose, to reck'n up a seven years story fresh in the memory of all men. Have they not utterly broke the Oath of Allegeance, rejecting the Kings command and authority sent them from any part of the Kingdom whether in things lawful or unlawful? Have they not abjured the Oath of Supremacy by setting up the Parliament without the King, supreme to all thir obedience, and though thir Vow and Covenant bound them in general to the Parliament, yet sometimes adhering to the lesser part of Lord's and Commons that remaind faithful as they term it, and eev'n of them, one while to the Commons without the Lord's, another while to the Lord's without the Commons? Have they not still declared thir meaning, whatever their Oath were, to hold them only for supreme whom they found at any time most yielding to what they petitiond? Both these Oaths which were the straitest bond of an English subject in reference to the King, being thus broke and made void, it follows undeniably that the King from that time was by them in fact absolutely deposd, and they no longer in reality to be thought his subjects, notwithstanding thir fine clause in the Covenant to preserve his person, Crown, and dignity, set there by some dodging Casuist with more craft then sincerity to mitigate the matter in case of ill success, and not taken I suppose by any honest man, but as a condition subordinate to every the least particle that might more concern Religion, liberty, or the public peace. To prove it yet more plainly that they are the men who have deposd the King, I thus argue. We know that King and Subject are relatives, and relatives have no longer being then in the relation; the relatiō between King and Subject can be no other then regal authority and subjection. Hence I infer past their defending, that if the Subject who is one relative, takes away the relation, of force he takes away also the other relative; but the Presbyterians who were one relative, that is to say Subjects, have for this sev'n years taken away the relation, that is to say the Kings authority, and thir subjection to it, therefore the Presbyterians for these sev'n years have removd and extinguish the other relative, that is to say the King, or to speak more in brief have deposed him; not only by depriving him the execution of his authority, but by conferring it upon others. If then thir Oaths of subjection broken, new `Supremacy obeyed, new Oaths and Covnants taken, notwithstanding frivolous evasions, have in plain terms unking'd the King, much more then hath thir sev'n years Warr not deposed him only, but outlawd him, and defi'd him as an alien, a rebel to Law, and enemy to the State. It must needs be clear to any man not averse from reason, that hostility and subjection are two direct and positive contraries; and can no more in one subject stand together in respect of the same King, then one person at the same time can be in two remote places. Against whom therefore the Subject is in act of hostility we may be confident that to him he is in no subjection: and in whom hostility takes place of subjection, for they can by no means consist together, to him the King can be not only no King, but an enemy. So that from hence we shall not need dispute whether they have deposed him, or what they have defaulted towards him as no King, but show manifestly how much they have don toward the killing him. Have they not levied all these Warrs against him whether offensive or defensive (for defense in Warr equally offends, and most prudently before hand) and given Commission to slay where they knew his person could not be exempt from danger? And if chance or flight had not saved him, how oft'n had they killd him, directing thir Artillery without blame or prohibition to the very place where they saw him stand? Have they not converted his revenue to other uses, and detained from him all means of livelihood, so that for them long since he might have perished, or have st rv'd? Have they not hunted and pursued him round about the Kingdom with sword and fire? Have they not formerly denied to Treat with him, and thir now recanting Ministers preached against him, as a reprobate incurable, an enemy to God and his Church marked for destruction, and therefore not to be treated with? Have they not beseig'd him and to thir power forbid him Water and Fire, save what they shot against him to the hazard of his life? Yet while they thus assaulted and endangerd it with hostile deeds, they swore in words to defend it with his Crown and dignity; not in order, as it seems now, to a firm and lasting peace, or to his repentance after all this blood; but simply, without regard, without remorse or any comparable value of all the miseries and calamities suffered by the poor people, or to suffer hereafter through his obstinacy or impenitence. No understanding man can be ignorant that Covnants are ever made according to the present state of persons and of things; and have ever the more general laws of nature and of reason included in them, though not expressed. If I make a voluntary Covenant as with a man to do him good, and he prove afterward a monster to me, I should conceive a disobligement. If I covenant, not to hurt an enemy, in favor of him and forbearance, and hope of his amendment, and he, after that, shall do me tenfould injury and mischief to what he had don when I so Covnanted, and still be plotting what may tend to my destruction, I question not but that his after actions release me; nor know I Covenant so sacred that withholds me from demanding Justice on him. Howbeit, had not thir distrust in a good cause, and the fast and loos of our prevaricating Divines oversway'd, it had been doubtless better, not to have inserted in a Covenant unnecessary obligations, and words not works of a supererogating Allegeance to thir enemy; no way advantageous to themselves, had the King prevailed, as to thir cost many would have felt; but full of snare and distraction to our friends, useful only, as we now find, to our adversaries, who under such a latitude and shelter of ambiguous interpretation have ever since been plotting and contriving new opportunities to trouble all again. How much better had it been, and more becoming an undaunted virtue to have declard op'nly and boldly whom and what power the people were to hold Supreme, as on the like occasion Protestants have don before, and many conscientious men now in these times have more then once besought the Parliament to do, that they might go on upon a sure foundation, and not with a ridling Covenant in thir mouths, seeming to swear counter almost in the same breath Allegeance and no Allegeance; which doubtless had drawn off all the minds of sincere men from siding with them, had they not discerned thir actions far more deposing him then thir words upholding him; which words made now the subject of cavillous interpretations, stood ever in the Covenant by judgment of the more discerning sort an evidence of thir fear not of thir fidelity. What should I return to speak on, of those attempts for which the King himself hath oft'n charged the Presbyterians of seeking his life, whenas in the due estimation of things they might without a fallacy be said to have don the deed outright. Who knows not that the King is a name of dignity and office, not of person: Who therefore kills a King, must kill him while he is a King. Then they certainly who by deposing him have long since taken from him the life of a King, his office and his dignity, they in the truest sense may be said to have killd the King: nor only by thir deposing and waging Warr against him, which besides the danger to his personal life, set him in the fardest opposite point from any vital function of a King, but by thir holding him in prison vanquishd and yielded into thir absolute and despotic power, which brought him to the lowest degradement and incapacity of the regal name. I say not whose matchless valor next under God, lest the story of thir ingratitude thereupon carry me from the purpose in hand, which is to convince them that they, which I repeat again, were the men who in the truest sense killd the King, not only as is provd before, but by depressing him thir King far below the rank of a subject to the condition of a Captive, without intention to restore him, as the Chancellor of Scotland in a speech told him plainly at Newcastle, unless he granted fully all thir demands, which they knew he never meant. Nor did they Treat or think of Treating with him, till thir hatred to the Army that delivered them, not thir love or duty to the King, join'd them secretly with men sentencd so oft for Reprobates in thir own mouths, by whose suttle inspiring they grew mad upon a most tardy and improper Treaty. Whereas if the whole bent of thir actions had not been against the King himself, but against his evil Council, as they faind, and publishd, wherefore did they not restore him all that while to the true life of a King, his Office, Crown, and Dignity, when he was in thir power, and they themselves his nearest Counselers. The truth therefore is, both that they would not, and that indeed they could not without thir own certain destruction, having reduced him to such a final pass, as was the very death and burial of all in him rhat was regal, and from whence never King of England yet revivd, but by the new re enforcement of his own party, which was a kind of resurrection to him. Thus having quitc extinguished all that could be in him of a King, and from a total privation clad him over like another specifical thing with forms and habitudes destructive to the former, they left in his person dead as to Law and all the civil right either of King or Subject the life only of a Prilner, a Captive and a Malefactor. Whom the equal and impartial hand of justice finding, was no more to spare then another ordnary man; not only made obnoxious to the doom of Law by a charge more then once drawn up against him, and his own confession to the first Article at Newport, but summond and arraignd in the sight of God and his people, cutst and devoted to perdition worse then any Ahab, or Antiochus, with exhortation to curse all those in the name of God that made not Warr against him, as bitterly as Meroz was to be cursed, that went not out against a Canaanitish King, almost in all the Sermons, Prayers, and Fulminations that have been utterd this sev'n years by those clov'n tongues of falsehood and dissention, who now, to the stirring up of new discord, acquit him; and against thir own discipline, which they boast to be the throne and scepter of Christ, absolve him, unconfound him, though unconverted, unrepentant, unsensible of all thir precious Saints and Martyrs whose blood they have so oft laid upon his head: and now again with a new sovran anointment can wash it all off, as if it were as vile, and no more to be reckn'd for then the blood of so many Dogs in a time of Pestilence: giving the most opprobrious lie to all the acted zeal that for these many years hath filld thir bellies, and fed them fat upon the foolish people. Ministers of sedition, not of the Gospel, who while they saw it manifestly tend to civil Warr and bloodshed, never ceasd exasperating the people against him; and now that they see it likely to breed new commotion, cease not to incite others against the people that have said them from him, as if sedition were thir only aim whether against him or for him. But God as we have cause to trust, will put other thoughts into the people, and turn them from looking after these firebrands, of whose fury, and sals prophecies we have enough experience; and from the murmurs of new discord will incline them to hark'n rather with erected minds to the voice of our supreme Magistracy, calling us to liberty and the flourishing deeds of a reformed Common-wealth; with this hope that as God was heretofore angry with the Jews who rejected him and his form of Government to choose a King, so that he will bless us, and be propitious to us who reject a King to make him only our leader, and supreme governor in the conformity as near as may be of his own ancient government; if we have at least but so much worth in us to entertain the sense of our future happiness, and the courage to receive what God vouchsafes us: wherein we have the honor to precede other Nations who are now laboring to be our followers. For as to this question in hand what the people by thir just right may do in change of government, or of governor, we see it cleerd sufsiciently; besides other ample authority eev'n from the mouths of Princes themselves. And surely they that shall boast, as we do, to be a free Nation, and not have in themselves the power to remove, or to abolish any governor supreme, or subordinate with the government itself upon urgent causes, may please thir fancy with a ridiculous and painted freedom, fit to coz'n babies; but are indeed under tyranny and servitude; as wanting that power, which is the root and source of all liberty, to dispose and oeconomize in the Land which God hath given them, as Masters of Family in thir own house and free inheritance. Without which natural and essential power of a free Nation, though bearing high thir heads, they can in due esteem be thought no better then slaves and vassals born, in the tenure and occupation of another inheriting Lord. Whose government, though not illegal, or intolerable, hangs over them as a Lotdly scourge, not as a free government; and therefore to be abrogated. How much more justly then may they fling off tyranny, or tyrants? who being once deposed can be no more then private men, as subject to the reach of Justice and arraignment as any other transgressors. And certainly if men, not to speak of Heathen, both wise and Religious have don justice upon Tyrants what way they could soonest, how much more mild and human then is it to give them fair and op'n trial? To teach lawless Kings and all that so much adore them, that not mortal man, or his imperious will, but Justice is the only true sovran and supreme Majesty upon earth. Let men cease therefore out of faction and hypocrisy to make outcrys & horrid things of things so just and honorable. And if the Parliament and Military Council do what they do without president, if it appear thir duty, it argues the more wisdom, virtue, and magnanimity, that they know themselves able to be a president to others. Who perhaps in future ages, if they prove not too degenerate, will look up with honor and aspire toward these exemplary, and matchless deeds of thir Ancestors, as to the highest top of thir civil glory and emulation. Which heretofore in the persuance of fame and foreign dominion spent itself vain-gloriously abroad; but henceforth may learn a better fortitude to dare execute highest Justice on them that shall by force of Arms endeavor the oppressing and bereaving ofReligion and thir liberty at home: that no unbridl'd Potentate or Tyrant, but to his sorrow for the future, may presume such high and irresponsible license over mankind to havoc and turn upside-down whole Kingdoms of men as though they were no more in respect of his perverse will then a Nation of Pismires. As for the party called Presbyterian, of whom I believe very many to be good & faithful Christians, though misled by some of turbulent spirit, I wish them earnestly and calmly not to fall off from thir first principles; nor to affect rigor and superiority over men not under them; not to compel unforcible things in Religion especially, which if not voluntary, becomes a sin; nor to assist the clamor and malicious drifts of men whom they themselves have judged to be the worst of men, the obdurate enemies of God and his Church: nor to dart against the actions of thir brethren, for want of other argument those wrested Laws and Scriptures thrown by Prelates and Malignants against thir own sides, which though they hurt not otherwise, yet taken up by them to the condemnation of thir own doings give scandal to all men and discover in themselves either extreme passion or apostasy. Let them not oppose thir best friends and associates who molest them not at all, infringe not the least of thir liberties; unless they call it thir liberty to bind other men's consciences, but are still secking to live at peace with them and brotherly accord. Let them beware an old and perfet enemy, who though he hope by sowing discord to make them his instruments, yet cannot forbear a minute the op'n threatening of his destind revenge upon them when they have servd his purposes. Let them fear therefore, if they be wise, rather what they have don already, then what remains to do, and be warned in time they put no confidence in Princes whom they have provokd, lest they be added to the examples of those that miserably have tasted the event. Stories can inform them how Christiern the second, King of Denmark not much above a hundred years past, driven out by his Subjects, and receavd again upon new Oaths and conditions, broke through them all to his most bloody revenge; slaying his chief opposers when he saw his time, both them and thir children invited to a feast for that purpose. How Maximilian dealt with those of Bruges, though by mediation of the German Princes reconciled to them by solemn and public writings drawn and seald. How the massacre at Paris was the effect of that credulous peace which the French Protestants made with Charles the ninth thir King: and that the main visible cause which to this day hath saved the Netherlands from utter ruin, was thir final not belei • ing the perfidious cruelty which as a constant maxim of State hath been used by the Spanish Kings on thir Subjects that have taken arms and after trusted them; as no later age but can testify, heretofore in Belgium itself, and this very year in Naples. And to conclude with one past exception, though far more ancient, David after once he had taken arms, never after that trusted Saul, though with tears and much relenting he twice promised not to hurt him. These instances, few of many, might admonish them both English and Scotch not to let thir own ends, and the driving on of a faction betray them blindly into the snare of those enemies whose revenge looks on them as the men who first begun, fomented and carri'd on beyond the cure of any sonnd or safe accommodation all the evil which hath since unavoidably befall'n them and thir King.

I have something also to the Divines, though brief to what were needful; not to be disturbers of the civil affairs, being in hands better able and more belonging to manage them; but to study harder and to attend the office of good Pastors, knowing that he whose flock is least among them hath a dreadful charge, not performd by mounting twice into the chair with a formal preachment huddl'd up at the od hours of a whole lazy week, but by incessant pains and watching in season and out of season, from house to house over the souls of whom they have to feed. Which if they ever well considerd, how little leisure would they find to be the most pragmatical Sidesmen of every popular tumult and Sedition? And all this while are to learn what the true end and reason is of the Gospel which they teach; and what a world it differs from the censorious and supercilious lording over conscience. It would be good also they lived so as might persuade the people they hated covetousness, which worse then heresy, is idolatry; hated pluralities and all kind of Simony; left rambling from Benefice to Benefice, iike ravnous Wolves seeking where they may devour the biggest. Of which if some, well and warmely seated from the beginning, be not guilty, twere good they held not conversation with such as are: let them be sorry that being called to assemble about reforming the Church, they fell to progging and soliciting the Parliament, though they had renouncd the name of Priests, for a new settling of thir Tithes and Oblations; and double lined themselves with spiritual places of commodity beyond the possible discharge of thir duty. Let them assemble in Consistory with thir Elders and Deacons, according to ancient Ecclesiastical rule, to the preserving of Church discipline each in his several charge, and not a pack of Clergy men by themselves to belly cheare in thir presumptuous Zion, or to promote designs, abuse and gull the simple Laity, and stir up tumult, as the Prelates did, for the maintenance of thir pride and avarice. These things if they observe and wait with patience, no doubt but all things will go well without their importunities or exclamations: and the Printed letters which they send subscrib'd with the ostentation of great Characters and little moment, would be more considerable then now they are. But if they be the Ministers of Mammon instead of Christ, and scandalize his Church with the filty love of gain, aspiring also to sit the closest and the heaviest of all Tyrants, upon the conscience, and fall notoriously into the same sins, whereof so lately and so loud they accused the Prelates, as God rooted out those immediately before, so will he root out them thir imitators: and to vindicate his own glory and Religion, will uncover thir hypocrisy to the open world; and visit upon thir own heads that curse ye Meroz, the very Motto of thir Pulpits, wherewith so frequently, not as Meroz, but more like Atheists they have mocked the vengeance of God, and the zeal of his people.