Chapter XIX: Part III: The Present testimony stated and vindicated in its principal heads (8)

If this were true, that he has the power that is in possession, the difference were at an end; no man could plead for his own right then; in this also it is inconsistent with itself, condemning all resistance against the present occupant, yet justifying every resistance that is but successful to give possession. 8. That which would oblige us to own the devil and the pope, cannot be a ground to own any man; but if this were true, that possession gave right, it would oblige us to own the devil and the pope. Satan we find claiming to himself the possession of the world's kingdoms, Luke iv. 6. which as to many of them is in some respect true, for he is called the god of this world, and the prince of this world, John xiv. 30. 2 Cor. iv. 4. Are men therefore obliged to own his authority? or shall they deny his, and acknowledge his lieutenant, who bears his name, and by whom all his orders are execute, I mean the man that tyrannizes over the people of God? For he is the devil that casts some into prison, Rev. ii. 10. Again, the pope, his captain-general, lays claim to a temporal power and ecclesiastic both, over all the nations, and possesses it over many; and again, under the conduct of his vassal the duke of York, is attempting to recover the possession of Britain: shall he therefore be owned. This cursed principle disposes men for popery, and contributes to strengthen popery and tyranny both on the stage, to the vacating of all the promises of their dispossession. 9. That which would justify a damnable sin, and make it a ground of a duty, cannot be owned; but this fancy of owning a very power in possession would justify a damnable sin and make it the ground of a duty; for, resistance to the powers ordained of God is a damnable sin, Rom. xiii. 2. But the resisters having success in providence, may come to the possession of the power, by expelling the just occupant; and, by this opinion, that possession would be ground for the duty of subjection for conscience sake. 10. If a self-created dignity be null and not to be owned, than a mere possessory is not to be owned; but the former is true: as Christ saith, John viii. 54. If I honour myself my honour is nothing. 11. That which God hath disallowed possession without right, Ezek. xxi. 27. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, until he come whose right it is, Hos. viii. 4. They have set up kings and not by me, Matth. xxvi. 52. All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword; by this the usurper of the sword is differenced from the true owner. 12. Many scripture examples confute this; shewing that the possession may be in one, and the power with right in another.

David was the magistrate, and yet Absalom possessed the place, 2 Sam. xv. xvi. xvii. xviii. xix. chap. Sheba also made a revolt and usurped the possession in a great part, and yet David was king, 2 Sam. xx. 2. Adonijah got the start in respect of possession, exalting himself saying, I will be king: yet the kingdom was Solomon's from the Lord, 1 Kings 1. The house of Ahaziah had not power to keep still the kingdom, 2 Chron. xxii. 9. and Athaliah took the possession of it, yet the people set up Joash, xxiii. 3. Next we have many examples of such who have invaded the possessor, witness Jehoram and Jehoshaphat's expedition against Mesha, king of Moab, Elisha being in the expedition, 2 Kings, iii. 4, 5. Hence we see the first pretence removed.

The second is no better; which Augustine calls Magnum Latrocinium, a great robbery; I mean conquest, or a power of the sword gotten by the sword; which, that it can give no right to be owned, I prove That which can give no signification of God's approving will, cannot give a title to be owned: but mere conquest can give no signification of God's approving will, as is just now proven about possession: for then the Lord should have approven all the unjust conquests that have been in the world. 2. Either conquest as conquest must be owned, as a just title to the crown, and so the Ammonites, Moabites, Philistines, &c. prevailing over God's people for a time, must have reigned by right, or as a just conquest. In this case, conquest is only a mean to the conquerors seizing and holding that power, which the state of the war entitled him unto; and this ingress into authority over the conquered, is not grounded on conquest but on justice, and not at all privative, but inclusive of the consent of the people; and then it may be owned; but without a compact, upon conditions of securing religion and liberty, and posterity, cannot be subjected without their content; for whatever just quarrel the conqueror had with the present generation, he could have none with the posterity, the father can have no power to resign the liberty of the children. 3. A king as king, and by virtue of his royal office, must be owned to be a father, tutor, protector, shepherd, and patron of the people; but a mere conqueror, without consent cannot be owned as such.

Can he be a father and a patron to us against our will, by the sole power of the sword? A father to these that are unwilling to be sons? An head over such as will not be members? And a defender thro' violence? 4. A king, as such, is a special gift of God, and blessing, not a judgment: but a conqueror, as such, is not a blessing, but a judgment, his native end being not peace, but fire and sword. 5. That which hath nothing of a king in it, cannot be owned to make a king; but conquest hath nothing of a king in it: for it hath nothing but violence and force, nothing but what the bloodiest villain that was never a king may have, nothing of God's approving and regulating will, nothing of institution or constition; and a plain repugnancy to the ordination of God, for God hath said, Thou shalt not kill; conquest says, I will kill, and prosper, and reign. 6. A lawful call to a lawful office may not be resisted; but a call to conquest, which is nothing but ambition or revenge, ought to be resisted; because not of God's preceptive will, otherwise he should be the author of sin. 7. That power which we must own to be the ordinance of God, must not be resisted, Rom. xiii. 2.

But conquest may be resisted in defence of our king and country: therefore it must not be owned to be the ordinance of God. 8. That which God condemns in his word, cannot be owned; but dominion by the sword God condemns in his word, Ezek. xxxii. 26. "Ye stand upon the sword,----and shall possess the land," Amos vi. 13. "Ye rejoice in a thing of naught, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?" Habbak. ii. 5, 6.----"Wo to him that encreaseth that which is not his, how long," &c. 9. We have many examples of invading conquerors; as Abraham, for the rescue of Lot, pursued the conquering kings unto Dan, Gen. iv. 4. "Jonathan smote a garrison of the conquering Philistines," 1 Sam. xiii. 3. The Lord owning and authorising them so to do. The people did often shake off the yoke of their conquerors in the history of the judges: but this they might not do to their lawful rulers. What is objected from the Lord's people conquering Canaan, &c. is no argument for conquest: for he, to whom belongs the earth and its fulness, disponed to Israel the land of Canaan for their inheritance, and ordained that they should get the possession thereof by conquest; it followeth not therefore, that kings now, wanting any word of promise, or divine grant to any lands, may ascend to the thrones of other kingdoms than their own, by no better title than the bloody sword. See Lex Rex, quest. 12. The third pretence of hereditary succession remains to be removed; which may be thus disproven, 1. This classes with the former, though commonly asserted by royalists.

For either conquest gives a right, or it does not; if it does, then it looses all allegiance to the heirs of the crown dispossessed thereby: if it does not give a right, then no hereditary succession founded upon conquest can have any right, being founded upon that which hath no right: and this will shake the most part of hereditary successions that are now in the world. 2. If hereditary succession have no right but the people's consent; then of itself it can give none to a man that hath not that consent; but the former is true. For, it is demanded, how doth the son or brother succeed? By what right? It must either be by divine promise; or by the father's will, or it must come by propagation from the first ruler, by a right of the primogeniture; but none of these can be. For the first, we have no immediate divine constitution tying the crown to such a race, as in David's covenant: it will easily be granted, they fetched not their charter from heaven immediately, as David had it, a man of many peculiar prerogatives, to whose line the promise was astricted of the coming of the Messias, and Jacob's prophecy that the sceptre should not depart from Judah until his coming, Gen. xlix. 10. was restricted to his family afterwards: wherefore he could say, The Lord God of Israel chose me before all the house of my father, to be king over Israel for ever; for he hath chosen Judah to be the ruler; and of the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father, he liked me to make me king over Israel; and of all my sons he hath chosen Solomon, 1 Chron. xxviii. 4, 5. All kings cannot say this; neither could Saul say it, tho' immediately called of God as well as David: yet this same promise to David was conditional, if his children should keep the Lord's ways, 2 Chron. vi. 16. Next, it cannot be said this comes from the will of the father; for according to the scripture, no king can make a king, though a king may appoint and design his son for his successor, as David did Solomon, but the people make him. The father is some way a cause why his son succeedeth, but he is not the cause of the royalty conferred upon him by line: for the question will recur, who made him a king, and his father, and grandfather, till we come up to the first father? Then, who made him a king? Not himself; therefore it must be resounded upon the people's choice and constitution: and who appointed the lineal succession, and tied the crown to the line, but they? It is then, at the best, the patrimony of the people, by the fundamental law of the kingdom, conferred upon the successor by consent.

And generally it is granted, even where the succession is lineal, he that comes to inherit, he does not succeed by heritage, but by the force of law; the son then hath not his kingdom from his father, but by law, which the people made and stand to, as long as it may consist with the reasons of public advantage, upon which they condescended to establish such a family over them. Neither can it be said, it is by a right of primogeniture, propagated from the first ruler; for this must either be Adam the first of the world or Fergus for example, the first of this kingdom. It could not come from Adam as a monarch and father of all: for that behoved to be, either by order of nature, or his voluntary assignment: it could not be transferred by order of nature; for besides the difficulty to find out Adam's successor in the universal monarchy, and the absurdity of fixing it on Cain, (who was a cursed vagabond, afraid of every man and could not be an universal monarch, yet Adam's first born.) It will be asked, how this passed from him unto others? Whether it went by fatherhood to all the sons, fathers to their posterity? Which would multiply as many commonwealths, as there have been fathers since: or if it went, by primogeniture, only to the first-born, that he alone could claim the power which would infer the necessity of an universal monarchy, without multiplication of commonwealths.

If it was by his voluntary assignment, to whom, and in what proportion, he pleased; then the universal monarchy died with himself, and so could not be conveyed at all: for, either he behoved to give each son a share, to be conveyed downwards to their children in that proportion; or whole and solid to one: so also the former dilemma recurs, for if the first be said, it will make as many little kingdoms as there have been sons of Adam; if the second, the world should be but still one kingdom. But however it be, this could never be the way that God appointed, either for raising a magistratical power where it is wanting, or deriving a right to any in being; considering the multiplication, division, confusion, and extinction of families that have been. If it be from Fergus the first of his line; then either it comes from him as a king, or as a father: not the first, for the reason above hinted: nor as a father; for a father may defraud his son of the heritage, a king cannot divide the kingdom among his sons; it must then be length refounded on the peoples consent. 3. If even where lineal succession is constituted by law, for eviting the inconveniencies of frequent elections, people are not tied to admit every first born of that line; then that birth-right, where there is no more, cannot make a king; but the former is true; for they are tied only conditionally, so he be qualified, and have a head to sit at the helm, and not a fool or monster; neither are they free to admit murderers or idolaters by the laws of God, and of the land: it is not birth then, but their admission being so qualified, that makes kings. Hence, 4. That which takes away the peoples birth-right, given them of God to provide for their liberties in the fittest government, and that is not to be owned; but to make birth alone a title to the crown, takes away the peoples birth-right given them of God of providing for their liberties in the fittest government, fetters their choice to one destructive to these. Certainly where God hath not bound the conscience, men may not bind themselves nor their posterity; but God hath never fettered men to a choice of a government or governing line; which, contrary to the intention of the oath, may prove destructive to the ends thereof. Nor can the fathers leave in legacy, by oath, any chains to fetter the after wits of posterity to a choice destructive to religion and liberty. Israel was bound, by covenant, not to destroy the Gibeonites; but if they had risen to cut off Israel, Who can doubt but they were loosed from that obligation? For to preserve cut-throats was contrary to the intention of the oath: so when either monarchy, or the succeeding monarch, proves destructive to the ends of government, the choice, law, or oath of our fathers, cannot bind us. 5. If we are tied to the hereditary succession, not for the right the successor hath by birth, but for our covenanted allegiance to them whose successor he is; then cannot his birth-right be the ground of our allegiance, and consequently hereditary succession cannot make a king; but the former is true; for in hereditary crowns, the first family being chosen by the suffrages of the people, for that cause the hereditary successor hath no privilege or prerogative, but from him who was chosen king: therefore the obligation to the son, being no greater than the obligation to the father, which is the ground of that, if the father then was owned only because he was chosen, and qualified for government, the son cannot be owned for any other cause, but as chosen in him, and also qualified and admitted with consent. We cannot choose the father as qualified, and tie ourselves to the successors, be what they will. 6. If a king be not born heir of a kingdom, then is he not king by birth; but he is not born heir of a kingdom; for, a mean cannot be born to inherit the end, the king is but a mean for the kingdom's preservation. If the kingdom be his, by birth, as an inheritance, why may he not upon necessary occasions sell his inheritance? But if he sell it, then all confess he is no more king. 7. If that which makes a king cannot be transmitted from father to son; then succession, by birth, cannot make a king; but the former is true. The royal faculty of governing cannot be transmitted: Solomon asked it from God, he had it not from his father: nor can he be born to the honour of a king, because not born with either the gift or honour to be a judge. God maketh high and low, not birth. Nor can the call and constitution of a king, according to the will of God, be transferred from father to son, for that cannot be in God's way without the intervening consent of the people, that cannot make him a born king. 8. If no dominion can come by nature, as is proven before, then can no man be a born king: nature and birth cannot give them a sceptre in their hand, nor kingly majesty, they must have that alone from God and the people, and may only expect honour from their own good government: kings (as Plutarch says) must be like dogs that are best hunters, not these who are born of best dogs. 9. The peculiar prerogative of Jesus Christ must not be ascribed to any other; but this is his peculiar prerogative, to be born a king, of whom it might be truly said, Where is he that is born king of the Jews? And for this end was he born, who came out of the womb with a crown on his head, which no creature can bear. 10. In scripture we find that a king was to be so and so qualified, not a stranger, but a reader of God's word, &c. Deut. xvii. 15, &c. he was not qualified by naked birth. Hence, if all the qualifications requisite in an heir cannot make a king qualified according to the institution of God, then his being heir cannot make him king: but the first is true, an heir may be an heir without these qualifications. 11. We find in the scripture, the people were to make the kings by that law, Deut. xvii. 15. Thou shalt choose him whom the Lord chooseth: yea, neither Saul nor David were kings, till the people met to make them: therefore birth never made them kings, even though the kingdom was tied to David's line. That was only a typical designment by special promise, because Christ was to come of that line; it was therefore established in David's family for typical reasons, that cannot be now alledged. 12. We find in the disposal of government among brethren, this birth order was not seldom inverted; as when Jacob was preferred before Esau, Judah before all the elder sons of Jacob, Ephraim before Manasseh, Solomon before Adonijah. Hence if this gentleman, now regnant, have no better pretences than these now confuted, we cannot recognize his right to reign; yea, though this last were valid, yet he cannot plead it, it being expresly provided in our laws against the succession of a papist. But there is one grand objection against all this. The Jews and other nations are commanded to bring their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and to serve him, and yet he had no other right to these kingdoms; than the Lord's providential disposal, because the Lord had "given all these lands into his hand," Jer. xxvii. 6, 7, 12. Ans. 1. He was indeed an unjust usurper, and had no right but the Lord's providential gift; which sometimes makes "the tabernacles of robbers prosper, into whose hand God bringeth abundantly, Job xii. 6. And gives Jacob sometimes for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers, Isa. xlii. 24. And giveth power to the beast to continue forty and two months, and to have power over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations," Rev. xiii. 5, 7. His tyranny also was very great extensively, in respect of his oppressions and usurpations by conquest; but it was not so great intensively, as our robbers and spoilers may be charged with; he was never such a perverter of all the ends of government, nor a treacherous overturner of all conditions, he was never a persecutor of the Jewish religion, he never oppressed them upon that account, nor endeavoured its extirpation, he never enacted such mischiefs by law. The Lord only made use of him to bring about the holy ends of the glory of his justice and wisdom, in which respect alone he is called his servant, as elsewhere his rod and hammer, having given him a charge against an hypocritical nation, to trample them down in his holy providence; and accordingly there was no resistance could prevail, they must be trampled upon, no help for it; but no subjection was required, acknowledging his magistratical right by divine ordinance, but only a submissive stooping to the holy disposal of divine providence; no owning was exacted either of the equity of that power, or of fealty to the administrator. 2. This behoved to be a particular command, by positive revelation given at that time, not binding to others in the like condition; which I refer to the judgment of the objectors: put the case, and make it run parallel, if the king of England were in league with the king of France, and breaking that league, should provoke that aspiring prince, growing potent by many conquests to discover his designs, make preparations and give out threatnings for the conquest of England and all Britain; were the people of England bound to surrender themselves as servants and tributaries to him for 70 years, or for ever, under pain of destruction, if they should not? This were one of the most ridiculous inferences that ever was pleaded; nay, it would make all refusal of subjection to invaders unlawful. 3. I will draw an argument from this to confirm my plea: for these commands of subjection to Babylon, were not delivered, until after the king of Judah had surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar, and entred into covenant with him to be subject to him, 2 Kings xxiv. chap. in keeping which covenant the kingdom might have stood, and after he had rebelled against him, and broken that covenant, "when lo, he had given his hand," after which he could "not prosper, or escape, or be delivered," Ezek. xviii. 14, 15, 18, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 13. Then the commandment came, that they should disown their own king Zedekiah, now forfeiting his right by breach of covenant, and be subject to Nebuchadnezzar, whence I argue, if people are commanded to disown their covenant-breaking rulers, and subject themselves to conquerors, then I have all I plead for; but the former is true, by the truth of this objection: therefore also the latter. There is a 2d Objection from Rom xiii. 1. "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, the powers that be are ordained of God;" yet the Roman emperor, to which they were to be subject, was an usurper. Ans. It cannot be proven, that the apostle intendeth here the Roman emperor as the higher power: there were at this time several competitions for the empire, about which Christians might have their own scruples whom to own; the apostle does not determine their litigations, nor interest himself in parties but gives the general standard of God's ordinance they had to go by. And the best expositors of the place do alledge, the question and doubt of Christians then was not so much in whom the supremacy was, as whether Christians were at all bound to obey civil power, especially Pagan? Which the apostle resolves, in giving general directions, to obey the ordinance of magistracy, conform to its original, and as it respects the end for which he had and would set it up: but no respect is there had to tyrants. 2. It cannot be proven, that the supreme power then in being was usurped, there being then a supreme Senate, which was a lawful power; nor that Nero was then an usurper, who came in by choice and consent, and with the good liking of the people. 3. The text means of lawful powers, not unlawful force, that are ordained of God by his preceptive will, not merely by his providential disposal, and of conscientious subjection to magistracy, not to tyranny, describing and characterizing the powers there, by such qualifications as tyrants and usurpers are not capable of. But I mind to improve this text more fully hereafter, to prove the quite contrary to what is here objected.

8. From the right of magistracy, flows the magistratical relation, which is necessary to have a bottom, before we can build the relative duties thereon. This brings it under the fifth commandment, which is the rule of all relative duties between inferiors and superiors, requiring honour to be given to fathers, masters, husbands, &c. and to rightful magistrates, who are under such political relations, as do infer the same duties; and prohibiting not only the omission of these duties, but also the committing of contrary sins; which may be done, not only by contrary acts, as dishonouring and rebelling against fathers, magistrates, &c. but also by performing them to contrary objects, as by giving the father's due to the father's opposite, and the magistrates due to tyrants who are their opposites. Certainly this command, prescribing honour, does regulate to whom it should be given; and must be understood in a consistency with that duty and character of one that hath a mind to be an inhabitant of the Lord's "holy hill," Psal. xv. 4. "In whose eyes a vile person is contemned, but he honoureth them that fear the Lord." So that we sin against the fifth command, when we honour them that we are obliged to contemn by another command. Hence I argue, if owning or honouring of tyrants be a breach of the fifth command, then we cannot own their authority: but the former is true: therefore the latter. I prove the assumption: a honouring the vile, to whom no honour is due, and who stand under no relation of fathers as fathers, is a breach of the fifth command; but the owning of tyrants authority is a honouring the vile, to whom no honour is due, and who stand under no relation of fathers, and is yet a honouring them as fathers: therefore the owning of tyrants authority is a breach of the fifth command. The major is clear: for if the honouring of these to whom no honour is due, were not a breach of the fifth command, that precept could neither be kept at all or broken at all. It could not be kept at all; for, either it must oblige us to honour all indefinitely, as fathers, and other relations, which cannot be; or else it must leave us still in suspense and ignorance, who shall be the object of our honour; and then it can never be kept: or finally, it must astrict our honouring to such definite relations, to whom it is due; and then our transgression of that restriction shall be a breach of it. Next, if it were not so, it could not be broken at all: for if prostituting and abusing honour be not a sin, we cannot sin in the matter of honour at all; for if the abuse of honour be not a sin, then dishonour also is not a sin: for that is but an abuse of the duty, which is a sin as well as the omission of it. And what should make the taking away of honour from the proper object to be sin, and the giving it to a wrong object to be no sin? Moreover, if this command do not restrict honour to the proper object, we shall never know who is the object. How shall we know who is our father, or what we owe to him, if we may give another his due? The minor also is manifest: for if tyrants be vile, then no honour is due to them, according to that, Psal. xv. 4. and yet it is a honouring them as fathers; if they be owned as magistrates; for magistrates are in a politic sense fathers; but certain it is, that tyrants are vile, as the epithets and characters they get in scripture prove. But because, in contradiction to this, it may be said, though fathers be never so wicked, yet they are to be honoured, because they are still fathers; and though matters be never so vile and froward, yet they are to be subjected unto, 1 Pet. ii. 18-20. and so of other relations, to whom honour is due by this command; therefore though tyrants be never so vile, they are to be owned under these relations, because they are the higher powers in place of eminency, to whom the apostle Paul commands to yield subjection, Rom. xiii. and Peter to give submission and honour, 1 Pet. ii. 13, 17. Therefore it must be considered, that as the relative duty of honouring the relations to whom it is due, must not interfere with the moral duty of contemning the vile, who are not under these relations; so this general moral of contemning the vile, must not cassate the obligation of relative duties, but must be understood with a consistency therewith, without any prejudice to the duty itself. We must contemn all the vile, that are not under a relation to be honoured, and these also that are in that relation, in so far as they are vile. But now tyrants do not come under these relations at all, that are to be honoured by this command. As for the higher powers that Paul speaks of, Rom. xiii. they are not those which are higher in force, but higher in power, not in authority, but in power, not in a celsitude of prevalency, but in a pre-excellency of dignity; not in the pomp and pride of their posterity, and possession of the place, but by the virtue and value of their office, being ordained of God not to be resisted, the ministers of God for good, terrors to evil doers, to whom honour is due; those are not tyrants but magistrates. Hence it is a word of the same root which is rendered authority, or an authorized power, 1 Tim. ii. 2. and from the same word also comes that supreme, to whom Peter commands subjection and honour, 1 Pet. ii. 13. Now these he speaks of have the legal constitution of the people, being the ordinance of man, to be subjected to for the Lord's sake, and who sends other inferior magistrates for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well, who are to be honoured as kings or lawful magistrates; this cannot be said of tyrants. But more particularly, to evince that tyrants and usurpers are not to be honoured according to this command, and that it is a breach of it so to do; let us go through all these relations of superiority, that come under the obligation of this command, and we shall find tyrants and usurpers excluded out of all. First, They cannot come under the parental relation: we are indeed to esteem kings as fathers, though not properly, but by way of some analogy, because it is their office to care for the people, and to be their counsellors, and to defend them, as fathers do for children: but roaring lions and ranging bears, as wicked rulers are, Prov. xxviii. 15. cannot be fathers. But kings cannot properly be owned under this relation, far less tyrants (with whom the analogy of fathers cannot consist) there being so many notable disparities betwixt kings and fathers. 1. A father may be a father to one child; but a king cannot be a king or politic father to one only, but his correlate must be a community; a tyrant can be a father to none at all in a politic sense. 2. A father is a father by generation to all coming out of his loins; a king not so, he doth not beget them, nor doth their relation flow from that; a tyrant is a destroyer, not a pro-creator of people. 3. A father is the cause of the natural being of his children, a king only of the politic well being of his subjects; but tyrants are the cause of the ill being of both. 4. A father, once a father, as long as his children live, retains still the relation, though he turn mad and never so wicked; a king turning mad may be served as Nebuchadnezzar was, at least all will grant in some cases the subjects may shake off the king; and if in any case, it is when he turns tyrant. 5. A father's relation never ceases, whithersoever his children go; but subjects may change their relation to a king, by coming under another king in another kingdom; a tyrant will force all lovers of freedom to leave the kingdom where he domineers. 6. A father's relation never changes, he can neither change his children, nor they change their father; but a king may naturalize new subjects, and subjects may also change their sovereign. Royalists will grant a state or commonwealth may make a king, and there is great reason sometimes that a monarchy be turned into a commonwealth; but a tyrant changes those that are under him, expels the natives, brings in foreigners, and all good patriots do pant for a change of him every day. 7. A father hath no power of life and death over his children; a king hath it over his subjects according to law; a tyrant usurps it over the innocent against law. 8. A father is not a father by consent of his children; as a king is by consent of his subjects; a tyrant is neither a father with it nor without it. 9. A father is not made by the children, as a king is by his subjects, as was shewed: a tyrant is neither a natural, nor by compact, but a self created power. 10. A father is not chosen conditionally upon compact, as a king is by the free suffrages of the community; a tyrant in this differs from a king that he is not chosen, and in tyranny from a father. 11. Children wanting a father cannot choose whom they will to be their father; as subjects wanting a king may choose whom they will, and what form they please; but though they can, yet if they be rational, they will never choose a tyrant, nor a tyrannical form of government. 12. Children cannot restrict their father's power to what degrees they please; as subjects may limit their kings, at their first erection; but a tyrant, though he ought, yet he will not be limited, and if he might, he should be restrained. 13. Children cannot set bounds how long they will have their fathers to continue; subjects may condescend upon the time, in making laws how long such an one shall be their sovereign, during life, or while faultless, according as the fundamental law is made at first; tyrants ought every day to be repressed that they should not continue at all. Yet giving and not granting, that a king were to be owned under the relation of a father; though every man be bound to own and maintain his father's parental authority, yet let the case be put, that the father turns a robber, murderer, an avowed enemy to God and the country, is his person and authority in that case to be owned, to the dishonour of God, and hurt and hazard of the country? or ought he not rather to be delivered up even by the son to justice? Much more then will it follow, that a king who turns the more dangerous, because the more powerful robber, and legal murderer, and enemy to God and the country, cannot be owned seeing the relation between father and son is stronger and stricter as having another original, than can be betwixt king and subjects, and stands unremoved as long as he is father, though turning such, they ought to contribute, (in moral duty, to which their relative duty must cede) that he should no more be a father, nor no more a living man, when dead by law. Secondly, They cannot come under the herile or masterly relation, though analogically also sometimes they are stiled so, and subjects are called servants, by reason of their subjection, and because it is the office of kings to command, and subjects to obey, in this there is some analogy. But kings cannot properly be owned under this relation, as masters over either persons or goods of subjects, far less tyrants, yea kings assuming a masterly power turn tyrants. Now that the magistratical relation is not that of a master, is clear from many disparities and absurdities, whether we consider the state of hired servants or slaves. For hired servants, the difference is vast betwixt them and subjects. 1. The hired servant gets reward for his service, by compact; the subjects none, but rather gives the royal reward of tribute to the king for his service; the tyrant exacts it to maintain his tyranny. 2. The hired servant is maintained by his master; the subjects maintain the king; the tyrant robs it from them by force. 3. The hired servant bargains only for a time, and then may leave him; the subject cannot give up his covenanted allegiance, at that rate and for these reasons as the servant may his service; a tyrant will make nor keep no such bargain. 4. The hired servant must have his master's profit mainly before his eyes, and his own secondarily; but the magistrates power is primarily ordinated to the public good of the community and only consequentially to the good of himself. 5. The master hath a greater power over the hired servant, to make and give out laws to him, which if they be lawful he must obey; than the king hath over the nation, to which he is the sole lawgiver, as is shewed. 6. The hired servant's subjection is mercenary and servile; but the subject's subjection is civil, free, voluntary, liberal, and loving to a lawful king. Again for slaves, the difference between them and subjects is great. 1. Slavery, being against nature, rational people would never choose that life, if they could help it; but they gladly choose government and governors. 2. Slavery would make their condition worse than when they had no government, for liberty is always preferable; neither could people have acted rationally in setting up government, if to be free of oppression of others they had given themselves up to slavery, under a master who may do what he pleases with them. 3. All slaves are either taken in war, or bought with money, or born in the house where their parents were slaves, as Abraham and Solomon had of that sort; but subjects are neither captives, nor bought, nor born slaves.--4. Slavery is not natural, but a penal fruit of sin, and would never have been if sin had not been; but government is not so, but natural and necessary. 5. Slaves are not their master's brethren, subjects are the king's brethren, "over whom he must not lift up himself," Deut. xvii. 20. 6. Masters might purchase and sell their slaves, Abimelech took sheep and men servants and gave them unto Abraham, Gen. xx. 14. Jacob had maid-servants, and men-servants, and asses, Gen. xxx. 43. no otherwise than other goods, Solomon got to himself servants and maidens, and servants born in his house, Eccles. ii. 7. a king cannot do so with his subjects. 7. Princes have not this power to make the people slaves, neither from God, nor from the people: from God they have none, but to feed and to lead them, 2 Sam. v. 2. to rule them so as to feed them, 1 Chron. xi. 2. Psal. lxxviii, 71, 72. From the people they have no power to make slaves, they can give none such. 8. Slavery is a curse: it was Canaan's curse to be a servant of servants, Gen. ix. 25. but to have magistrates is a promised blessing, Jer. xvii. 25. 9. To be free of slavery is a blessing, as the redemption from Egypt's bondage is every where called, and the year of redemption was a jubilee of joy, so the freedom of release every seven years a great privilege, Jer. xxxiv. 9. but to be free of government is a judgment, Isa. iii. 4, 5. 'tis threatened, "Israel shall abide without a king and without a prince;" Hos. iii. 4. In the next place, they cannot be owned as masters or proprietors over the goods of the subjects; though in the case of necessity, the king may make use of all goods in common, for the good of the kingdom; for, 1. The introduction of kings cannot overturn nature's foundation; by the law of nature property was given to man, kings cannot rescind that. 2. A man had goods ere ever there was a king; a king was made only to preserve property, therefore he cannot take it away. 3. It cannot be supposed that rational people would choose a king at all, if he had power to turn a great robber to preserve them from lesser robberies and oppressions; would rational men give up themselves for a prey to one, that they might be safe from becoming a prey to others? 4. Then their case should be worse, by erecting of government, if the prince were proprietor of their goods, for they had the property themselves before. 5. Then government should not be a blessing, but a curse, and the magistrate could not be a minister for good. 6. Kingdoms then should be among the goods of fortune, which the king might sell and dispone as he pleased. 7. His place then should not be a function, but a possession. 8. People could not then, by their removes, or otherwise, change their sovereigns. 9. Then no man might dispose of his own goods without the king's consent, by buying or selling, or giving alms; nay, nor pay tribute, for they cannot do these things except they have of their own. 10. This is the very character of a tyrant, as described, 1 Sam. viii. 11. "He will take your sons," Zeph. iii. 3. "Her princes are roaring lions, her judges are evening wolves." 11. All the threatnings and rebukes of oppression condemn this, Isa. iii. 14, 15, Ezek. xlv. 9. Mic. iii. 2, 3. Ahab condemned for taking Naboth's vineyard. 12. Pharaoh had not all the land of Egypt, till he bought it, Gen. xlii. 20. So the land became Pharaoh's not otherwise. Yet giving, and not granting that he were really a master in all these respects; notwithstanding if he turn to pursue me for my life, because of my fidelity to my master and his both, and will withdraw me from the service of the supreme universal master, I may lawfully withdraw myself from his, and disown him for one, when I cannot serve two masters. Sure he cannot be master of the conscience. Thirdly, they cannot come under the conjugal relation, though there may be some proportion between that and subjection to a lawful ruler, because of the mutual covenant transacted betwixt them; but the tyrant and usurper cannot pretend to this, who refuse all covenants.

Yet hence it cannot be inferred, that because the wife may not put away her husband, or renounce him, as he may do her in the case of adultery; therefore the people cannot disown the king in the case of the violation of the royal covenant. For the king's power is not at all properly a husband's power, 1. The wife, by nature, is the weaker vessel, but the kingdom is not weaker than the king. 2. The wife is given as an help to the man; but here the man is given as an help to the common-wealth. 3. The wife cannot limit the husband's power; as subjects may limit their sovereigns. 4. The wife cannot prescribe the time of her continuing under him; as subjects may do with their sovereigns. 5. The wife cannot change her husband; as a kingdom can do their government. 6. The husband hath not power of life and death; but the sovereign hath it over malefactors. Yet giving, and not granting, his power were properly marital: if the case be put, that the man do habitually break the marriage-covenant, or take another wife, and turn also cruel and intolerable in compelling his own wife to wickedness; and put the case also, that she should not get a legal divorce procured, who can doubt but she can disown him, and leave him? For this case is excepted out of that command, 1 Cor. vii. 10. Let not the wife depart from her husband, meaning for mere difference in religion, or other lesser causes; but adultery doth annul the marriage relation. See Pool's Synopsis critic, in locum. So when a prince breaks the royal covenant and turns tyrant, or without any covenant commits a rape upon the common-wealth, that pretended relation may and must be disowned. Hence, we see, there is no relation can bring a king or ruler under the object of the duty of the fifth command, except it be that of a fiduciary patron, or trustee, and public servant: for we cannot own him properly either to be a father, or a master, or a husband. Therefore what can remain, but that he must be a fiduciary servant? Wherefore if he shall either treacherously break his trust, or presumptuously refuse to be entrusted, upon terms and conditions to secure and be accountable for, (before God and man) religion and liberty, we cannot own his usurped authority. That metaphor which the learned Buchanan uses, de jure regni, of a public and politic physician, is not a relation different from this of a fiduciary servant; when he elegantly represents him as entrusted with the preservation and restoration of the health of the politic body, and endowed with skill and experience of the laws of his craft. If then he be orderly called unto this charge, and qualified for it, and discharges his duty faithfully, he deserves, and we are obliged to give him the deference of an honoured physician; but if he abuse his calling, and not observe the rules thereof, and instead of curing, go about wilfully to kill the body he is entrusted with, he is no more to be owned for a physician: but for a murderer.

9. If we enquire further into the nature of this relation between a king, (whose authority is to be owned) and his subjects; we can own it only as it is reciprocal in respect of superiority and inferiority; that is, whereby in some respects the king is superior to the people, and in some respects the people is inferior to him. The king is superior and supreme as he is called, 1 Pet. ii. 13. In respect of formal sovereignty, and executive authority, and majestic royal dignity, resulting from the peoples devolving upon him that power, and constituting him in that relation over themselves, whereby he is higher in place and power than they, and in respect of his charge and conduct is worth ten thousands of the people, 2 Sam. xviii. 3. and there is no formally regal tribunal higher than his; and though he be lesser than the whole community, yet he is greater than any one, or all the people distributively taken; and though he be a royal vassal of the kingdom, and princely servant of the people; yet he is not their deputy, because he is really their sovereign, to whom they have made over their power of governing and protecting themselves irrevocably, except in the case of tyranny; and in acts of justice, he is not accountable to any, and does not depend on the people as a deputy.