Chapter XV: Part III: The Present testimony stated and vindicated in its principal heads (4)

3. It is confessed, we are under this sad disadvantage besides others, that not only all our brethren, groaning under the same yoke with us, will not take the same way of declining this pretended authority, nor adventure, when called, to declare their judgment about it, (which we do not condemn, as is said, and would expect from the rules of equity and charity, they will not condemn us when we find ourselves in conscience bound to use greater freedom) but also some when they do declare their judgment, give it in terms condemnatory of, and contradictory unto our testimony, in that they have freedom positively to own this tyranny as authority, and the tyrant as their lawful sovereign: and many of our ministers also are of the same mind. And further, as we have few expressly asserting our part of the debate, as it is now stated; so we have many famous divines expresly against us in this point, as especially we find in their comments upon, Rom. xiii. among whom I cannot dissemble my sorrow to find the great Calvin, saying, Saepe solent inquirere, &c. 'Men often enquire, by what right they have obtained their power who have the rule! it should be enough to us that they do govern; for they have not ascended to this eminency by their own power, but are imposed by the hand of the Lord.' As also Pareus saying too much against us. For answer to this, I refer to Mr. Knox's reply to Lethington, producing several testimonies of divines against him upon this very head; wherein he shews, that the occasions of their discourses and circumstances wherein they were stated, were very far different from those that have to do with tyrants and usurpers, as indeed they are the most concerned, and smart most under their scourge, are in best case to speak to the purpose. I shall only say, mens averment, in a case of conscience, is not an oracle, when we look upon it with an impartial eye, in the case wherein we are not prepossessed: it will bear no other value, than what is allayed with the imperfections of fallibility, and moreover is contradicted by some others, whose testimony will help us as much to confirm our persuasion, as others will hurt us to infirm it.

4. But now when tyrants go for magistrates, lest my plea against owning tyranny, should be mistaken, as if it were a pleading for anarchy, I must assert, that I and all those I am vindicating, are for magistracy, as being of divine original, institute for the common good of human and Christian societies, whereunto every soul must be subject, of whatsoever quality or character, and not only for wrath but also for conscience sake (though as to our soul and conscience, we are not subject) which whosoever resisteth, resisteth the ordinance of God, and against which rebellion is a damnable sin, whereunto (according to the fifth commandment, and the many reiterated exhortations of the apostles) we must be subject, and obey magistrates, and submit ourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake, whether it be unto the king as supreme, &c. And we account it a hateful brand of them that walk after the flesh, to despise government, to be presumptuous, self-willed, and not afraid to speak evil of dignities: and that they are filthy dreamers, who despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities: and of those things which they know not. We allow the magistrate, in whatsoever form of government, all the power the scripture, laws of nature and nations, or municipal do allow him; asserting, that he is the keeper and avenger of both the tables of the law, having a power over the church, as well as the state, suited to his capacity, that is, not formally ecclesiastical, but objectively, for the church's good; an external power, of providing for the church, and protecting her from outward violence, or inward disorder, an imperate power, of commanding all to do their respective duties; a civil power of punishing all, even church-officers, for crimes; a secondary power of judicial approbation or condemnation; or discretive, in order to give his sanction to synodical results; a cumulative power, assisting and strengthening the church in all her privileges, subservient, though not servile, co-ordinate with church-power, not subordinate (though as a christian he is subject) in his own affairs, viz. civil; not to be declined as judge, but to be obeyed in all things lawful, and honoured and strengthened with all his dues. We would give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's; but to tyrants, that usurp and pervert both the things of God and of Caesar, and of the peoples liberties, we can render none of them, neither God's, nor Caesar's, nor our own: nor can we from conscience give him any other deference, but as an enemy to all, even to God, to Caesar, and the people. And in this, though it doth not sound now with court-parasites, nor with others, that are infected with royal indulgencies and indemnities, we bring forth but the transumpt of old principles, according to which our fathers walked when they still contended for religion and liberty, against the attemptings and aggressions of tyranny, against both.

5. It must be conceded, it is not an easy thing to make a man in the place of magistracy a tyrant: for as every escape, error, or act of unfaithfulness, even known and continued in, whether in a minister's entry to the ministry, or in his doctrine, doth not unminister him, nor give sufficient ground to withdraw from him, or reject him as a minister of Christ: so neither does every enormity, misdemeanor, or act of tyranny, injustice, perfidy, or profanity in the civil magistrate, whether as to his way of entry to that office, or in the execution of it, or in his private or personal behaviour, denominate him a tyrant or an usurper, or give sufficient ground to divest him of magistratical power, and reject him as the lawful magistrate. It is not any one or two acts contrary to the royal covenant or office, that doth denude a man of the royal dignity, that God and the people gave him. David committed two acts of tyranny, murder and adultery; yet the people were to acknowledge him as their king (and so it may be said of some others, owned still as kings in scripture) the reason is, because though he sinned against a man or some particular persons, yet he did not sin against the state, and the catholic good of the kingdom, subverting law; for then he would have turned tyrant, and ceased to have been lawful king. There is a great difference between a tyrant in act, and a tyrant in habit; the first does not cease to be a king. But on the other hand, as every thing will not make a magistrate to be a tyrant; so nothing will make a tyrant by habit a magistrate. And as every fault will not unminister a minister; so some will oblige the people to reject his ministry, as if he turn heretical, and preach atheism, Mahometanism, or the like, the people, though they could not formally depose him, or through the corruption of the times could not get him deposed; yet they might reject and disown his ministry: so it will be granted, that a people have more power in creating a magistrate, than in making a minister; and consequently they have more right, and may have more light in disowning a king, as being unkinged; than in disowning a minister, as being unministred. It will be necessary therefore, for clearing our way, to fix upon some ordinary characters of a tyrant, which may discrimate him from a magistrate, and be ground of disowning him as such. I shall rehearse some, from very much approved authors; the application of which will be as apposite to the two brothers, that we have been burdened with, as if they had intended a particular and exact description of them. Buchanan de jure regni apud Scotos, shews, 'That the word tyrant was at first honourable, being attributed to them that had the full power in their hands, which power was not astricted by any bonds of laws, nor obnoxious to the cognition of judges; and that it was the usual denomination of heroes, and thought at first so honourable, that it was attributed to the gods: but as Nero and Judas were sometimes among the Romans and Jews names of greatest account, but afterwards by the faults of two men of these names, it came to pass, that the most flagitious would not have these names given to their children, so in process of time, rulers made this name so infamous by their wicked deeds, that all men abhorred it, as contagious and pestilentious, and thought it a more light reproach to be called hangman than a tyrant.' Thereafter he condescends upon several characters of a tyrant. 1. 'He that doth not receive a government by the will of the people, but by force invadeth it, or intercepteth it by fraud, is a tyrant; and who domineers even over the unwilling (for a king rules by consent, but a tyrant by constraint) and procures the supreme rule without the peoples consent, even tho' for several years they may so govern, that the people shall not think it irksome.' Which very well agrees with the present gentleman that rules over us, who, after he was by public vote in parliament secluded from the government, of which the standing laws of both kingdoms made him incapable for his murders, adulteries and idolatries, by force and fraud did intercept first an act for his succession in Scotland, and then the actual succession in England, by blood and treachery, usurping and intruding himself into the government, without any compact with, or consent of the people; though now he studies to make himself another Syracusan Hiero, or the Florentine Cosmo de medices, in a mild moderation of his usurped power; but the west of England, and the west of Scotland both, have felt the force of it. 2. He does not govern for the subjects welfare, or public utility, but for himself, having no regard to that, but to his own lust, 'acting in this like robbers, who cunningly disposing of what wickedly they have acquired, do seek the praise of justice by injury, and of liberality by robbery; so he can make some shew of a civil mind; but so much the less assurance gives he of it, that it is manifest, he intends not hereby the subjects good, but the greater security of his own lusts, and stability of empire over posterity, having somewhat mitigated the peoples hatred, which when he had done, he will turn back again to his old manners; for the fruit which is to follow, may easily be known, both by the seed and by the sower thereof.' An exact copy of this we have seen within these two years, oft before in the rule of the other brother.

After God hath been robbed of his prerogatives, the church of her privileges, the state of its laws, the subjects of their liberty and property, he is now affecting the praise, and captating the applause of tenderness to conscience, and love of peace, by offering now liberty after all his cruelties; wherein all the thinking part of men do discern he is prosecuting that hellish project, introducing popery and slavery, and overturning religion, law, and liberty. 3. The kingly government is according to nature, the tyrannical against it; principality is the kingly government of a freeman amongst freemen; the tyrannical a government of a master over slaves. Tyranny is against nature, and a masterly principality over slaves. Can he be called a father, who accounts his subjects slaves; or a shepherd, who does not feed, but devours his flock? or a pilot, who doth always study to make shipwreck of the goods, and strikes a leak in the very ship where he fails? 'What is he then that bears command, not for the people's advantage, but studies only himself, who leadeth his subjects into manifest snares? He shall not verily be accounted by me either commander, emperor, or governor.' King James VI. also, in a speech to the parliament in the year 1609, makes this one character of a tyrant, when he begins to invade his subjects rights and liberties. And if this be true, then we have not had a king these many years: the foregoing deduction will demonstrate, what a slavery we have been under. 4. What is he then, who doth not contend for virtue with the good but to exceed the most flagitious in vices? 'If you see then any usurping the royal name, and not excelling in any virtue, but striving to exceed all in baseness, not tendering his subjects good with native affection, but pressing them with proud domination, esteeming the people committed to his trust, not for their safeguard, but for his own gain, will you imagine this man is truly a king, albeit he vapours with a numerous levee guard, and makes an ostentation of gorgeous pomp?' The learned Althusius likewise in his politics, chap. 38. Num. 15. (as he is cited by Jus Populi, chap. 16. p. 347.) makes this one character of a tyrant, that 'living in luxury, whoredom, greed and idleness, he neglecteth, or is unfit for his office.' How these suit our times we need not express; what effrontery of impudence is it, for such monsters to pretend to rule by virtue of any authority derived from God, who pollute the world with their adulteries and incests, and live in open defiance of all the laws of the universal king; with whom to exceed in all villanies is the way to purchase the countenance of the court, and to aspire to preferment? No Heligobaldus, &c. could ever come up the length in wickedness, that our rulers have professed. 5. He can transfer unto himself the strength of all laws, and abrogate them when he pleases. King James VI. in that forecited speech saith, a king degenerateth into a tyrant, when he leaveth to rule by law. Althusius also, in the forecited place, saith, 'There is one kind of tyranny, which consisteth in violating, changing, or removing of fundamental laws, specially such as concern religion; such, saith he, Philip the king of Spain, who, contrary to the fundamental Belgic laws, did erect an administration of justice by force of arms; and such was Charles IX. of France, that thought to overturn the Salic law.' All that knoweth what hath been done in Britain these twenty-seven years, can attest our laws have been subverted, the reformation of religion overturned, and all our best laws rescinded; and now the penal statutes against papists disabled and stopped, without and against law. 6. He can revoke all things to his nod, at his pleasure. This is also one part of King James VI.'s character of a tyrant, when he sets up an arbitrary power; and of Althusius, in the forecited place, 'when he makes use of an absolute power, and so breaks all bonds for the good of human society.' We allow a king an absolute power taken in a good sense, that is, he is not subaltern, nor subordinate to any other prince, but supreme in his own dominions: or if by absolute he meant perfect he is most absolute that governs best, according to the word of God; but if it be to be loosed from all laws, we think it blasphemy to ascribe it to any creature. Where was there ever such an arbitrary and absolute power arrogated by any mortal, as hath been claimed by our rulers these years past? especially by the present usurper, who, in this liberty of conscience now granted to Scotland, assumes to himself an absolute power, which all are to obey without reserve, which carries the subjects slavery many stages beyond whatever the grand Signior did attempt. 7. For by a tyrant strangers are employed to oppress the subjects: 'they place the establishment of their authority in the people's weakness, and think that a kingdom is not a procuration concredited to them by God, but rather a prey fallen into their hands; such are not joined to us by any civil bond, or any bond of humanity, but should be accounted the most capital enemies of God, and of all men.' King James, as above says, he is a tyrant that imposes unlawful taxes, raises forces, makes war upon his subjects, to pillage, plunder, waste, and spoil his kingdoms. Althusius as above, makes a tyrant, who by immoderate exactions, and the like, exhausts the subjects, and cites scripture, Jer. xxii. 13, 14. Ezek. xxxiv. 1. Kings xii. 19. Psal. xiv. 4.' It is a famous saying of Bracton, he is no longer king, than while he rules well, but a tyrant whensoever he oppresseth the people that are trusted to his care and government. And Cicero says, he loseth all legal power in and over an army or empire, who by that government and army does obstruct the welfare of that republic. What oppressions and exactions by armed force our nation hath been wasted with, in part is discovered above. 8. Althusius in the place above quoted, makes this another mark, 'When he keepeth not his faith and promise, but despiseth his very oath made unto the people.' What shall we say of him then, who not only brake, but burnt, and made it criminal to assert the obligation of the most solemnly transacted covenant with God and with the people, that ever was entered into, who yet upon these terms of keeping that covenant only was admitted to the government? And what shall we say of his brother succeeding, who disdains all bonds, whose professed principle is, as a papist, to keep no faith to heretics? 9. In the same place he makes this one character: 'A tyrant is he, who takes away from one or more members of the commonwealth the free exercise of the orthodox religion.' And the grave author of the impartial enquiry into the administration of affairs in England, doth assert, p. 3. 4. 'Whensoever a prince becomes depraved to that degree of wickedness, as to apply and employ his power and interest, to debauch and withdraw his subjects from their fealty and obedience to God, or sets himself to extirpate that religion which the Lord hath revealed and appointed to be the rule of our living, and the means of our happiness, he doth by that very deed depose himself; and instead of being owned any longer for a king, ought to be treated as a rebel and traitor against the supreme and universal sovereign.' This is the perfect portracture of our princes; the former of which declared an open war against religion, and all that professed it: and the latter did begin to prosecute it with the same cruelty of persecution, and yet continues without relenting against us; though to others he tolerates it under the notion of a crime, to be for the present dispensed with, until he accomplish his design. 10. Ibid. he tells us, 'That whoso for corrupting of youth erecteth stage plays, whore-houses, and other play-houses, and suffers the colleges and other seminaries of learning to be corrupted.' There were never more of this in any age, than in the conduct of our court, which, like another Sodom, profess it to be their design to debauch mankind into all villanies, and to poison the fountains of all learning and virtue, by intruding the basest of men into the place of teachers, both in church and university, and precluding all access to honest men. 11. Further he says. 'He is a tyrant who doth not defend his subjects from injuries when he may, but suffereth them to be oppressed, (and what if he oppress them himself?)' It was one of the laws of Edward the confessor, if the king fail in the discharge of his trust and office, he no longer deserves nor ought to enjoy that name. What name do they deserve then, who not only fail in the duty of defending their subjects, but send out their lictors and bloody executioners to oppress them, neither will suffer them to defend themselves! But Althusius makes a distinct character of this. 12. Then, in fine he must certainly be a tyrant, who will not suffer the people, by themselves nor by their representatives, to maintain their own rights, neither by law nor force; for, saith my author forecited, 'He is a tyrant who hindereth the free suffrages of members of parliament, so that they dare not speak what they would; and chiefly he who takes away from the people all power to resist his tyranny, as arms, strengths, and chief men, whom therefore, though innocent, he hateth, afflicteth, and persecuteth, exhausts their goods and livelihoods, without right or reason.' All know that our blades have been all along enemies to parliaments; and when their interest forced to call them, what means were used always to paque and prelimit them, and overawe them, and how men, who have faithfully discharged their trust in them, have been prosecuted with the height of envy and fury, and many murdered thereupon; and how all the armed force of the kingdoms have been inhanced into their hand, and the people kept so under foot, that they have been rendered incapable either to defend their own from inrestine usurpers, or foreign invaders. All that is said amounts to this, that when ever men in power to evert and subvert all the ends of government, and intrude themselves upon it, and abuse it, to the hurt of the commonwealth, and the destruction of that for which government was appointed; they are then tyrants, and cease to be magistrates. To this purpose I shall here append the words of that forecited ingenious author of the Impartial Inquiry, pag. 13, 14. 'There can be nothing more evident from the light of reason as well as scripture, than that all magistracy is appointed for the benefit of mankind, and the common good of societies; God never gave any one power to reign over others for their destruction, (unless by his providence when he had devoted a people for their sins to ruin,) but on whomsoever he confers authority over cities or nations, it is with this conditional proviso and limitation, that they are to promote their prosperity and good, and to study their defence and protection; all princes are thus far pactional----And whosoever refuseth to perform this fundamental condition, he degrades and deposes himself; nor is it rebellion in any to resist him; whensoever princes cease to be for the common good, they answer not the end they were instituted unto, and cease to be what they were chosen for.'

6. It will not be denied, but when the case is so circumstantiate, that it would require the arbitration of judgment to determine, whether the king be a tyrant or not, that then people are not to disown him: for if it be a question, whether the people be really robbed of their rights and liberties, and that the king might pretend as much reason to complain of the people's doing indignity to his sovereignty, as they might of his tyranny; then it were hard for them to assume so far the umpirage of their own cause, as to make themselves absolute judges of it, and forthwith to reject his authority upon these debatable grounds. But the case is not so with us; no place being left for doubt or debate, but that our fundamental rights and liberties civil and religious, are overturned, and an absolute tyranny, exactly characterized as above, is established on the ruins thereof. Hence we have not disowned the pretended authority, because we judged it was tyrannical, but because it was really so. Our discretive judgment in the case was not our rule, but it was our understanding of the rule, by which only we could be regulated, and not by the understanding of another, which cannot be better, nor so good, of our grievances, which certainly we may be supposed to understand best ourselves, and yet they are such as are understood every where. To the question then, who shall be judge between these usurping and tyrannizing rulers and us? We answer briefly and plainly. We do not usurp a judgment in the case pretending no more authority over them in our private capacity, than we allow them to have over us, that is none at all? Nor can we admit that they should be both judges and party; for then they might challenge that prerogative in every case, and strengthen themselves in an uncontrollable immunity and impunity to do what they pleased. But we appeal to the fundamental laws of the kingdom, agreeable to the word of God, to judge, and to the whole world of impartial spectators to read and pronounce the judgment. Lex Rex, Quest. 24. pag. 213. saith in answer to this, 'There is a court of necessity no less than a court of justice; and the fundamental laws must then speak, and it is with the people in this extremity as if they had no ruler. And as to the doubtsomeness of these laws, he saith, (1.) As the scriptures in all fundamentals are clear, and expound themselves, and _in the first instance_ condemn heresies; so all laws of men in their fundamentals, which are the law of nature and nations, are clear. (2.) Tyranny is more visible and intelligible than heresy, and it is soon discerned----The people have a natural throne of policy in their conscience, to give warning, and materially sentence against the king as a tyrant;--where tyranny is more obscure, and the thread small, that it escape the eye of man, the king keepeth possession, but I deny that tyranny can be obscure long.'

7. I shall grant that many things are yieldable even to a grassonant dominator, and tyrannical occupant of the place of magistracy; as 1. There may be some cases, wherein it is lawful for a people to yield _subjection_ to a lawless tyrant, when groaning under his overpowering yoke, under which they must patiently _bear the indignation of the Lord, because_ they _have sinned against him, until he_ arise and _plead_ his own _cause, and execute judgment_ in the earth, (Mic. vii. 9.) until which time they must kiss the rod as in the hand of God, and own and adore the holiness and sovereignty of that providence that hath subjected them under such a slavery; and are not to attempt a violent ejection or excussion, when either the thing attempted is altogether impracticable, or the means and manner of effectuating it dubious and unwarrantable, or the necessary concomitants and consequents of the cure more hurtful or dangerous than the disease, or the like. As in many cases also a man may be subject to a robber prevailing against him; so we find the people of Israel in Egypt and Babylon, &c. yielded subjection to tyrants. But in this case we deny two things to them, (1.) Allegiance or active and voluntary subjection, so as to own them for magistrates. (2.) Stupid _passive obedience_, or suffering without resistance. For the first, we owe it only to magistrates, by virtue of the law, either ordinative of God, or constitutive of man. And it is no argument to infer; as a man's subjecting himself to a robber assaulting him, is no solid proof of his approving or acknowledging the injury and violence committed by the robbery, therefore a person's yielding subjection to a tyrant a public robber does not argue his acknowledging or approving his tyranny and oppression. For, the subjection that a tyrant requires, and which a robber requires, is not of the same nature; the one is legal of subjects, which we cannot own to a tyrant; the other is forced of the subdued, which we must acknowledge to a robber. But to make the parallel; if the robber should demand, in our subjecting ourselves to him, an owning of him to be no robber but an honest man, as the tyrant demands in our subjecting ourselves to him in owning him to be no tyrant, but a magistrate, then we ought not to yield it to the one no more than to the other. For the second, to allow them passive obedience is unintelligible nonsense and a mere contradiction; for nothing that is merely passive can be obedience as relative to a law; nor can any obedience be merely passive; for obedience is always active. But not only is the inaccuracy of the phrase excepted against, but also that position maintained by many, that, in reference to a yoke of tyranny, there is a time which may be called the proper season of suffering, that is, when suffering (in opposition to acting or resisting) is a necessary and indispensible duty, and resisting is a sin: for if the one be an indispensible duty, the other must be a sin at the same time, but this cannot be admitted. For, though certainly there is such a season of suffering, wherein suffering is lawful, laudable and necessary, and all must lay their account with suffering, and little else can be attempted, but which will increase sufferings; yet even then we may resist as well as we can: and these two, resistance and suffering, at the same time, are not incompatible: David did bear most patiently the injury of his son's usurpation, when he said, 'Let the Lord do to me as seemeth him good,' 2 Sam. xv. 26. chap. x. 12. and betaketh himself to fervent prayers, Psal. iii. and yet these were not all the weapons he used against him; neither did he ever own him as a magistrate. We are to suffer all things patiently as the servants of the Lord, and look to him for mercy and relief, (Psal. cxxiii. 2.); but we are not obliged to suffer even in that season, as the slaves of men. Again, suffering in opposition to resistance, does never fall under any moral law of God, except in the absolutely extraordinary case of Christ's passive obedience, which cannot fall under our deliberation or imitation; or in the case of a positive law, as was given to the Jews to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, which was express and peculiar to them, as shall be cleared. That can never be commanded as indispensible duty, which does not fall under our free will or deliberation, but the enemies will, as the Lord permits them, as the case of suffering is. That can never be indispensible duty, which we may decline without sin, as we may do suffering, if we have not a call to it; yea, in that case, it were sin to suffer; therefore, in no case it can be formally and indispensibly commanded, so as we may not shift it, if we can without sin. Suffering simply the evil of punishment, just or unjust, can never be a conformity to God's preceptive will, but only to his providential disposal; it hath not the will of the sign for its rule, but only the will of well-pleasing. All the commands that we have for suffering, are either to direct the manner of it, that it be patiently and cheerfully, when forced to it wrongfully, 1 Pet. ii. 19, 20, or comparatively, to determine our choice in an unavoidable alternative, either to suffer or sin; and so we are commanded, rather to suffer, than to deny Christ, Matth. xiii. 33. and we are commanded upon these terms to follow Christ, to take up his cross, when he lays it on his providence, Matth. xvi. 24. See at length this cleared, Lex Rex, Q. 30. page 317-320 otherwise in no case subjection, even passive, can be a duty; for it is always to be considered under the notion of a plague, judgment and curse, to be complained of as a burden, never to be owned as a duty to magistrates.

As we find the Lord's people resenting it as a servitude, under which they were servants even in their own land, which did yield increase unto the kings whom the Lord had set over them, because of their sins, Neh. ix. 36, 37. 2. In divers cases there may be some compliance with a mere occupant, that hath no right to reign; as upon this account the noble marquis of Argyle and lord Warriston suffered for their compliance with the usurper Cromwell. Such may be the warrantableness, or goodness, or necessity, or profitableness of a compliance, when people are by providence brought under a yoke which they cannot shake off, that they may part with some of their privileges, for the avoidance of the loss of the rest, and for the conveniency and profit, peace and safety of themselves and their country, which would be in hazard, if they did not comply; they may do whatsoever is due from them to the public weal, whatsoever is an office of their station or place, or which they have any other way a call unto, whatsoever may make for their own honest interest, without wronging others, or the country's liberties in their transactions with these powers, even though such a compliance may be occasionally to the advantage of the usurpers, seeing good and necessary actions are not to be declined for the ill effects that are accidental to them, and arise from the use which others make of them. But though this may be yielded in some cases to such usurpers, especially conquerors, that have no right of occupying the empire, but are capable of it by derivation from the people's consent: yet it must not be extended to such usurpers as are also tyrants, that have no right of their own, nor are capable of any, and that overturn all rights of subjects. To such we can yield no compliance, as may infer either transacting with them, or owning them as magistrates. We find indeed the saints enjoyed places under these, who were not their magistrates; as Nehemiah and Mordecai and Esther was queen to Ahasuerus. But here was no compliance with tyrants (for these heathens were not such) only some of them were extraordinary persons, raised up by an extraordinary spirit, for extraordinary ends in extraordinary times, that cannot be brought to an ordinary rule, as Esther's marriage; and all of them in their places kept the law of their God, served the work of their generation, defiled not themselves with their customs, acted against no good, and engaged to no evil, but by their compliance promoted the welfare of their country, as Argyle and Warrriston did under Cromwel. Again, we find they paid custom to them, as Neh. ix. 36, 37. and we read of Augustus' taxation universally complied with, Luke ii. 1-5. and Christ paid it. This shall be more fully answered afterwards. Here I shall only say (1.) It can never be proven that these were tyrants. (2.) Christ paid it with such a caution, as leaves the title inflated; not for conscience (as tribute must be paid to magistrates, Rom. xiii. 5, 6.) but only that he might not offend them. (3.) Any other instances of the saints taxations are to be judged forced acts, badges of their bondage, which, if they had been exacted as tests of their allegiance, they would not have yielded. Strangers also, that are not subjects, use to pay custom in their trafficking, but not as tests of their allegiance. 3. There may be also, in some cases, obedience allowed to their lawful commands because of the lawfulness of the thing commanded, or the coincidency of another just and obligging authority commanding the same. We may do many things which a tyrant commands, and which he enforces; and many things also whether he will or not; but we must do nothing upon the consideration of his command, in the acknowledgement of obedience, due by virtue of allegiance, which we own of conscience to a lawful magistrate. We must do nothing, which may seem to have an accessoriness to the tyrant's unlawful occupancy, or which depends only on the warrant of his authority to do it, or may entrench on the divine institution of magistracy, or bring us into a participation of the usurper's sin. In these cases we can neither yield obedience in lawful things, nor in unlawful: 'nor can we own absolute subjection, no more than we can absolute obedience; for all subjection is enjoined, in order to obedience: and to plead for a privilege in point of obedience, and to disclaim it in point of subjection, is only the flattery of such, as having renounced with conscience all distinction of obedience, would divest others of all privileges, that they may exercise their tyranny without controul, Naphtali, p. 28. prior edit.'] 4. There may be addresses 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 grievances, 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 any thing, in the matter and 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 countrymen, Acts xxiii. 14. from whose hands he was rescued, and brought before the judicatory of Festus the Roman deputy, not voluntarily; thence also they sought to remand him to Jerusalem, that they might kill him, Acts xxv. 3. whereupon he demands in justice that he might not be delivered to his accusers and 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, Acts xxviii. 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, and his cause criminal, of which he was accused (it was not an ecclesiastical cause, and so no advantage hence for the supremacy) appertained to Caesar's tribunal, and that not only in fact, but of right, Acts xxv. 10. 'I stand at Caesar's judgment-seat, where I ought to be judged.' We cannot say this of any tribunal; fenced in the name of them that tyrannize over us. 5. I will not stand neither upon the names and titles of kings, &c. to be given to tyrants and 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 in fact, though not by right and indeed not impertinently, kings and 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 who hate the Lord, 2 Chron. xix. 2. or which may flatter them, whom Elihu durst not give, for fear his Maker should take him away, Job xxxii. 22. or which may be taken for honouring of them, for that is not due to the vilest of men, when exalted never so high, Psal. xii. ult. a vile person must be contemned in our eyes, Psal. xv. 4. nor which may any way import or infer an owning of a magistratical relation between them and us, or any covenant-transaction or confederacy with them, which is no terms with them, as such, we will say or own. Isa. viii. 12. Hence many sufferers upon this head forbear to give them their titles.

8. It will be yielded very readily by us, that a magistrate is not to be disowned, merely for his differing in religion from us: yea, though he were a heathen. We do not disown our pretended rulers merely upon that account, but cheerfully do grant and subscribe to that truth in our Confession of Faith, chap. xxiii. sect. 4. That infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrate's just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to him: on which our adversaries have insulted, as if our principle and practice were thereby disproved. But it is easy to answer, 1. Let the words be considered, and we are confident, 'That no sober man will think, the acknowledgement of just and legal authority, and due obedience a rational ground to infer, that tyranny is thereby either allowed or privileged,' Napht. p. 60 prior edition. 2. 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, who is not our brother, Deut. xvii. 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 incapacitate a papist of all authority, supreme or subordinate. And so, if this James VII. II. 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 and grant all that is the confession, to wit, that dominion is not founded in grace: yet this remains evident, that a prince, who not only is of another religion, but an avowed enemy to, and overturner of the religion established by law, and intending and endeavouring to introduce a false, heretical, blasphemous and idolatrous religion, can claim no just and legal authority, but in this case the people may very lawfully decline his pretended authority; nay, they are betrayers of their country and posterity, if they give not a timeous and 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 and worthiest men that ever were in England, whom they did encourage, by writing and preaching, and every way to stand fast in their opposition to the then king displaying a banner for his prerogative (a court dream) against religion and liberty, should be so far left, as to drop that as a principle and 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 own him to be a nursing father to the church? Shall we conclude, that the common bounds and limits, whereby the Almighty hath bounded and 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 babble 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, and be ashamed any more 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 have reaped by their reign.

9. Though we deny that conquest can give a just title to a crown; yet we grant, in some cases, that by the peoples 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 forfeited, and they may resign their liberty to the conqueror, and consent that he be their king, upon fair and legal, and 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 unengaged to any other, to a submission, dedition, and 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 Caesar's 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, Matth. xvii. 14. &c. and that about the payment whereof he was questioned, Matth. xxii. 21. seem to be two different tributes. Many think, very probably, they were not one and the same tribute. It is a question, for whom, and by whom that of Matth. xvii. was gathered; it is most likely, it was gathered by the officers of the temple for its service: however, the payment was made, with such caution (tacitely declining the strict right to exact it from him, but to avoid offence, 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, Matth. xxii. 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 propounder, giving a general rule of giving to God and 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 temple's use: upon which they marvelled, which they needed not do, if they had understood in his words an express and 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, and owned the Roman dominion in Pompey, Caesar Augustus and Tiberius, ere this question about tribute paying was proposed to our Saviour; 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 supposeable 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 abrenunciation of all other, we have no king but Caesar; as Paul also acknowledges, he ought to be judged at Caesar's 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 Acts v. 37. who mutinied upon this occasion, was, according to Gamaliel's speech, disallowed by that Sanhedrim, or council of the Jews. And it may be gathered out of Josephus, that the Jews of Hircanus' party came under the Roman power by consent and dedition, while they of Aristobulus' party looked upon the Romans as usurpers. Which difference continued till our Saviour's time, when some part of them acknowledged the Caesarean 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 Matth. xxii. who saith, 'The authority of the Roman emperors was by common use approved and received among the Jews, whence it was manifest, that the Jews had now of their own accord imposed on themselves a law of paying the tribute, because they had passed over to the Romans the power of the sword.' And Chamiers panstrat. tom. 2 lib. 15. cap. 16. p. 635. 'What then? if Caesar's authority was from bad beginnings, did therefore Christ untruly say it was from above? Can no power, at first unjust, afterward become just? if that were so, then either none, or very few kingdoms would be just.'