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Chap. II.

The Kings authority restrained, and the obedience of the subject limited within narrow bounds, by H. B. with the removall of those bounds.

The title of the sermon scanned, and the whole divided. H. B. offended with the unlimited power of kings, the bounds by him prescribed to the power of kings, both dangerous and doubtfull. The power of kings how amplified by Jewes, Christians, Heathens. What the King cannot doe, and what power is not in him, by Mass. Burton’s doctrine. The Positive Lawes of the Realme conferre no power upon the King, nor confirme none to him. The whole obedience of the subject restrained by H. B. to the Lawes of the Realme; and grounded on the mutuall stipulation betweene King and people. The dangerous sequells of that doctrine.

A Pravis ad praecipitia. Wee are on the declining hand, out of the Hall into the Kitchin, from an Apologie that was full of weakenesse, unto a Sermon or rather a Pasquill farre more full of wickednesse: yet were we guided either by the Text or Title, we might perswade ourselves there were no such matter, nothing but piety and zeale, and whatsoever a faire shew can promise. But for the Title Sir (I hope you know your owne words in your doughtie dialogue betweene A. and B.) you know the proverbe, Fronti rara fides, the fowlest causes may have the fairest pretences. For whereas you entitle it, for God and the King, you doe therein as Rebells doe most commonly in their insurrections: pretend the safety of the King, and preservation of Religion, when as they doe intend to destroy them both. The civill warre in France, raised by the Duke of Burgundy and Berry against Lewis the eleventh, was christened by the specious name of Le bien Public, for the Common-wealth; but there was nothing lesse intended than the common good. And when the Jewes cryed Templum Domini, Templum Domini, they did but as you doe, abuse the people, and colour their ambition, or their malice, choose you which you will, with a shew of zeale. So that your Title may be likened very fitly, to those Apothecaries’ boxes which Lactantius speakes of, quorum tituli remedium habent, pixides venenum, poysons within, and medecines writ upon the Paper. So for your Text, we will repeat that too, that men may see the better how you doe abuse it. My sonne feare thou the Lord, and the King, and meddle not with them that are given to change; For their calamity shall arise suddenly, and who knoweth the ruine of them both, Prov. 24.21,22. A Text indeed well chosen but not well applied. For had you looked upon yourselfe and the Text together, and followed the direction which is therein given you, you had not so long hunted after innovations, as for these many yeares it is knowne you have; and so might possibly have escaped that calamitie which is now like to fall upon you. But it’s the nature of your humour, as of some diseases, to turne all things unto the nourishment of the part that is ill affected. Meane while you make the Scriptures but a nose of wax, as Pighius once prophanly called it; by wresting it maliciously to serve your turnes; and so confirme the vulgar Papists in contempt of that, which were it not for you, and such as you, they might more easily bee induced both to heare and reverence. Now for the method of your Sermon (I meane to call it so no more) though you observe no method in it, but wander up and downe in repetitions and tautologies, as your custome is: I must thus dispose it. The passages therein, either of scandall or sedition, I shall reduce especially unto these two heads: those which reflect upon the King’s most excellent Majestie, and those which strike directly against the Bishops. That which reflects upon the King, either relates to his authoritie, or his actions. That which doth strike against the Bishops is to be considered as it is referred either unto their place, or to their persons, or finally to their proceedings: and these proceedings are againe to bee considered, either in reference to their Courts, and behaviour there, or to their government of and in the Church, and carriage in that weighty office, wherein you charge them with eight kinds of innovations, most of the generall kinds being subdivided into several branches. For a conclusion of the whole, I shall present unto yourselfe, by way of Corollarie, or resultancie out of all the premisses, how farre you are or may prove guilty of sedition, for that Pulpit pasquill of yours: and so commend you to repentance, and the grace of God. In ripping up whereof, as I shall keepe myselfe especially to your Pulpit-Pasquill: so if I meete with any variae lectiones, in your Apologie, or Epistles, or the Newes from Ipswich, or your addresses to the Lords of the Privie Councell, and my Lords the Judges, I shall use them also either for explication or for application. Such your extravagancies, as cannot easily be reduced to the former heads, I either shall passe over, or but touch in transitu. This is the order I shall use.

First for the King, you may remember what I told you was the Puritan tenet, that Kings are but the Ministers of the Commonwealth, and that they have no more authority than what is given them by the people. This though you doe not say expresly, and in terminis, yet you come very neare it, to a tantamont: finding great fault with that unlimited power which some give to kings, and as also with that absolute obedience which is exacted of the subject. One of your doctrines is, that all our obedience to Kings and Princes and other superiors must be regulated by our obedience to God. Your reason is, because the King is God’s Minister and Vice-regent, and commands as from God, so for God, and in God. Your doctrine and your reason, might become a right honest man. But whats your use?

Your first use is, for reprehension or refutation of those that so advance man’s ordinances and commandements, as though they be contrary to God’s Law, and the fundamentall lawes of the state, yet so presse men to the obedience of them as they hold them for no better than rebells, and to deserve to be hanged drawne and quartered that refuse to obey them, pag. 77. So pag. 88. a second sort come here to be reproved, that on the other side separate the feare of the King from the feare of the Lord: and those are such as attribute to Kings such an unlimited power, as if he were God Almightie himselfe; so as hereby they would seeme to ascribe that omnipotency to the King which the Pope assumes, and his parasites ascribe to his holinesse. So pag. 89. Thus these men crying up, and exacting universall absolute obedience to man, they doe hereby cast the feare of God, and so his Throne, downe to the ground.

Finally you reckon it amongst the Innovations wherewith you charge the Prelats in point of doctrine, that they “have laboured to make a change in the doctrine of obedience to Superiours, setting man so in God’s throne, that all obedience to man must be absolute without regard to God and conscience, whose only rule is the word of God,” pag. 126. In all which passages, however you pretend the word of God, the fundamentall Lawes of state, and conscience: yet clearely you expresse your disaffection unto the soveraignty of Princes, and in effect leave them no greater power than every private man shall thinke fit to give them. Besides there is a tacite implication also, that the King exercises an unlimited power, which cannot possibly consist with the subject’s conscience, the fundamentall lawes of the Kingdome, or the word of God. It had beene very well done of you to have told the people, what were the fundamentall lawes of State, which were so carefully to be preserved; within what bounds and limits the authority of Kings is to be confined, and to have given them a more speciall knowledge of the rule of conscience. For dealing thus in generalls only, (Dolosus versatur in generalibus, you know who said it) you have presented to the people a most excellent ground, not only to dispute, but to disobey the King’s commands.

Now Sir I pray you what are you, or by what spirit are you guided, that you should finde yourselfe agreeved at unlimited power, which some of better understanding than yourselfe have given to Kings: or thinke it any innovation in point of doctrine, in case the doctrine of obedience to our superiours bee pressed more home of late than it hath beene formerly. Surely you have lately studied Buchannan de jure regni, or the vindiciae writ by Beza under the name of Junius Brutus: or else perhaps you went no further than Paraus, where the inferiour magistrates, or Calvin, where the three estates have an authority to controule, and correct the King. And should the King be limited within those narrow bounds which you would prescribe him, had you power; he would in little time be like the antient Kings of Sparta, in which the Ephori, or the now Duke of Venice, in which the Senate beare the greatest stroke: himselfe meanetime, being a bare sound, and an emptie name, Stet magni nominis umbra, in the Poet’s language. Already you have laid such grounds, by which each private man may not alone dispute but disobey the King’s commandements. For if the subject shall conceive that the King’s command is contrary to God’s word, though indeede it be not; or to the fundamentall lawes of state, although hee cannot tell which be fundamentall; or if he finde no precedent of the like commands in holy Scripture, which you have made to be the only rule of conscience: in all these cases it is lawfull not to yeeld obedience. Yourselfe have given us one case in your Margin, pag. 77. We will put the other. Your reprehension is of those, that so advance man’s “ordinances and commandements, as though they be contrary to God’s Law, and the fundamentall lawes of state, yet presse men to obedience to them,” your instance is of one which was shrewdly threatened (how true that is we meane to tell the world hereafter) for refusing to doe that which “was not agreeable to the word of God, viz. for refusing to read the booke of sports, as you declare it in the Margin, pag 26.¹ whether you referre us. So then the case is this. The King permits his people honest recreations on the Lord’s day, according as had beene accustomed, till you and your accomplices had cryed it down: with order to the Bishops to see his declaration published in the Churches of their severall dioceses, respectively. This publication you conceive to bee repugnant to God’s word, (though none but a few factious spirits ever so conceived it, and that your doctrine of the Sabbath be contrary to all antiquity and moderne Churches): and therefore by your rule they doe very well that refuse to publish it. It’s true indeed, in things that are directly contrary to the law of God, and such as carry in them a plaine and manifest impietie; there is no question to be made, but it is better to obey God than man. But when the matter chiefly resteth either in misapplying, or misunderstanding the word of God, (a fault too incident to ignorant & unstable men, & to none more than to your disciples and their teachers too) or that the word of God be made a property like the Pharisees’ Corban, to justifie your disobedience unto Kings and Princes: your rule is then as false, as your action faulty. So for your second limitation, that’s but little better; and leaves a starting hole to malicious persons, from whence to worke on the affections of the common people. For put the case, the King in necessary and emergent causes, touching the safety of the kingdome, demand the present aid of all his subjects; and any Tribunitian spirit should informe them, that this demand is contrary unto the fundamentall lawes of state: according to your rule, the subject is not bound to obey the King, nay he might refuse it, although the businesse doth concern especially his owne preservation. But your third limitation, that of conscience, is the worst of it all. For where you make the word of God to bee the only rule of conscience, you doe thereby conclude expressly that neither Ecclesiasticall or Civill ordinances doe bind the conscience: and therein overthrow the Apostle’s doctrine, who would have Every soule be subject to the higher powers. Not for wrath only, but for conscience sake. So that in case the King command us any thing, for which wee finde not some plaine precept or particular warrant in the word of God; as if the King command all Lecturers to read the Service of the Church in their hoods and surplices, before their Lectures: such his command is plainly against conscience, at least the lecturers are not bound in conscience to submit unto it, because there is no speciall precept for it in holy Scripture. And certainly this plea of Conscience, is the most dangerous buckler against authority, which in these later ages hath been taken up. So dangerous that were the plea allowed, and all the judgments of the king in banco, permitted to bee scanned and traversed in this Court of conscience; there were a present end of all obedience. Si ubi jubeantur, quaerere singulis liceat, pereunte obsequio imperium etiam intercedit, as he in Tacitus. If every man had leave to cast in his scruple, the ballast of authority would be soon weighted down.

Yet since you are so much greived at the unlimited power as you please to call it, which some give to Kings; will you be pleased to know, that Kings do hold their Crownes by no other Tenure, than Dei gratia: and that whatever power they have, they have from God, by whom Kings reigne, and Princes decrees justice. So say the Constitutions ascribed to Clements […]. So Irenaeus also an antient father, Cuius iussu homines nascuntur, eius iussu reges constituuntur.² And Porphirie remembreth it amongst the Tenets of the Essenes a Jewish sect, […], that no man ever did beare rule but by God’s appointment. Holding then what they have from God, whose deputies they are, and of whose power they are partakers, how and by whom doe you conceive they should be limited? Doubtlesse you meane to say by the lawes of the Land. But then if question be demanded who first made those Lawes, you must needes answere, They were made by the King’s authoritie. So that in case the kings, in some particulars, had not prescribed limits unto themselves, and bound their owne hands, as it were, to enlarge the peoples, neither the people, nor any lawes by them enacted, without the King’s consent, could have ever done it. Besides the law of Monarchie is founded on the law of nature, not on positive lawes: and positive lawes I trow are of no such efficacie, as to annihilate anything, which hath its being and originall, in the law of nature. Hence is it, that all soveraigne Princes in themselves are above the lawes, as Princes are considered in abstracto, and extent of power; and how farre that extent will reach, you may see in the first of Sam. and 8 chap. though in concreto a just Prince will not breake those lawes, which he hath promised to observe. Princes are debtors to their subjects, as God to man; non aliquid a nobis accipiendo, sed omnia nobis promittendo,³ as St. Austine hath it. And we may say of them in S. Bernard’s words, Promissum quidem ex misericordia, sed ex justitia persolvendum:⁴ That they have promised to observe the lawes, was of speciall grace; and it’s agreeable to their justice to observe their promise. Otherwise we may say of kings, as the apostle of the just; Iusto lex non est posita,⁵ saith the Apostle, and Principi lex non est posita,⁶ saith the law of nature. Doe you expect more proofe than you use to give? Plutarch affirmes it of some kings, οὐ κατὰ τοὺς νόμους μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν νόμων ἄρχειν, that they did not governe only by the law, but were above it. The like saith Dion of Augustus Caesar, αὐτοτελὴς καὶ αὐτοκράτωρ καὶ ἑαυτοῦ καὶ τῶν νόμων, that he was sure and had an absolute authoritie, as well upon his lawes as upon himselfe. Besides in case the power of kings were restrained by law, after the manner, that you would have it; yet should the king neglect those lawes, whereby you apprehend that his power is limited; how would you helpe yourselfe by this limited power? I hope you would not call a Consistorie and convent him there; or arme the people to assert their pretended liberties: though as before I said, the Puritan tenet is, that you may doe both. Your learned Councell⁷ might have told you out of Bracton, an ancient lawyer of this kingdome, omnem esse sub Rege & ipsum sub nullo, sed tantum sub Deo.⁸ And Horace could have told you, that kings are under none but God. Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis, as he there hath it. You may moreover please to know, what Gregorie of Tours said once to a king of France; Si quis e nobis, O Rex, justitiae tramites transcendere voluerit, a te corripi potest; si vero tu excesseris quis te corripiet? &c. If any of us, O king, offend against the rules of justice, thou has power, “to punish him, but if thou breake those rules, who hath power to doe it? We tell you of it, and when you list, you please to heare us, but when you will not, who shall judge you, but he that tells us of himselfe, that he is justice.”

This was you see the ancient doctrine, touching the power and right of kings, not only amongst Jewes and Christians but in heathen states: whatever new opinion of a limited power, you have pleased to raise.

But you goe further yet, and tell us of some things the king cannot do, and that there is a power which the king hath not; what is it, say you, that the king cannot doe? Marry you say he cannot “institute new rites and ceremonies, with the advise of his Commissioners Ecclesiasticall, or the Metropolitan, according as some pleade from the Act of Parliament before the Communion booke,” pag. 65. Why so? Because, according to your law, this clause of the Act is limited to Queene Elizabeth, and not extended to her successours of the Crowne. This you affirme indeede, but you bring no proofe: only it seems you heard so from your learned councell. You are I see of Calvin’s minde, who tells us in his Commentarie on the 7 of Amos, what had beene said by Doctor Gardiner, after Bishop of Winchester, and then Ambassadour in Germany, touching the headship or Supremacie of the king his master: and closeth up the storie with this short note, inconsiderati homines sunt, qui faciunt eos nimis spirituales, that it was unadvisedly done, to give kings such authority in spirituall matters. But sir I hope you may afford the king that power, which you take yourselves, or which your brethren at the least have tooke before you: who in Queene Elizabeth’s time had their Classicall meetings⁹ without leave or licence, and therein did ordeine new rites, new Canons, and new formes of service. This you may doe, it seemes, though the king’s hands are bound that he may not doe it. And there’s a power too, as you tell us, that the king neither hath nor may give to others. Not give to others certainely, if he have it not; for nemo dat quod non habet, as the saying is. But what is this? You first suppose and take for granted, that the Bishops make foule havocke in the Church of God, and persecute his faithfull servants: and then suppose, which yet you say is not to be supposed, that they have procured a grant from the king to doe all those things which of late they have done, tending to the utter overthrow of religion by law established. And on these suppositions you doe thus proceede. Yet

whatsoever colour, pretext or shew they make for this, the king (to speake with all humble reverence) cannot give that power to others, which hee hath not himselfe. For the power that is in the king is given him by God, and confirmed by the lawes of the kingdome. Now neither God in his law, nor the lawes of the land, doe allow the king a power to alter the state of religion, or to oppresse and suppresse the faithfull ministers of the Gospell, against both law and conscience. For kings are the ministers of God for the good of his people, as wee shewed before. p. 72, 73.

So you, and it was bravely said, like a valiant man. The Brethren now may follow after their owne inventions, with a full securitie: for since you have proclaimed them to be faithfull ministers, no king nor Keisar dares suppresse them; or if he should, the lawes of God, and the law of the land to boote, would rise in judgement to condemne him, for usurpation of a power which they have not given him. But take me with you brother B. and I perhaps may tell you somewhat that is worth your knowledge. And I will tell you sir if you please to hearken, that whatsoever power is in the king, is from God alone, and founded on the law of nature. The positive lawes of the land as they conferre none on him, so they confirme none to him. Rather the kings of England have parted with their native royalties for the people’s good: which being by their owne consent, established for a positive law, are now become the greatest part of the subjects’ liberties. So that the liberties, possessions, and estates of the king’s leige people, are, if you will, confirmed by the lawes of the land; not the king’s authoritie. As for the power of kings which is given by God, and founded on the law of nature, how farre it may extend in the true latitude thereof, we have said already. Whether to alter the state of religion, none but a most seditious spirit, such as yours would put unto the question: his majestie’s pietie and zeale, being too well knowne to give occasion to such quaeres. Only I needes must tell you, that you tie up the king’s hands too much, in case he may not meddle with a company of Schismatickes, and refractarie persons to all power and order, only because you have pronounced them to be faithfull ministers of the Gospell. Such faithfull ministers of the Gospell as you and yours, must bee suppressed, or else there never will be peace and unitie in the Citie of God. And yet I see you have some scripture for it, more than I supposed: king’s being, as you tell us from S. Paul, the ministers of God for the good of their people, and no more than so? I thought S. Paul had also told us, that the King is a minister of God, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evill: yea more than so too brother B. and it may concerne you, viz. if thou doe that which is evill be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vaine. Aut undequaque pietatem tolle, aut undequaque conserva;¹⁰ Take the whole text along good sir, or take none at all: and if you take all be afraid, as you are advised, verbum supienti.

I must goe forwards with you yet from the authoritie of the king, to the obedience of the subject; which you doe presse indeede, but on such false grounds, as in conclusion overthrow the whole frame of government. The absolute obedience of the subject you have dashed alreadie, and reckon it amongst those innovations in point of doctrine, which you have charged upon the Prelates: and in the place thereof bring in a limited or conditionall obedience, of your owne devising. Your first condition or limitation rather, is, viz. that our subjection unto the King, is to be regulated as by God’s law, the rule of universall obedience to God and man, so by the good laws of the king. p. 38. The king as you informe us p. 42. having entered into solemne and sacred covenant with all his people, to demand of them no other obedience, but what the good lawes of the kingdome prescribe & require: as on the other side, the people swearing no other obedience to the king than according to his just lawes, pag. 39. and 40. In which restraint, there are two things to be observed, first that wee are to obey the king no farther than there is law for it, and secondly no farther than that law seemes good. So that in case the king commands his people any thing for which he hath no positive law to warrant his command; and of this sort are many Proclamations, orders, decrees, injunctions, set out from time to time by the king’s authoritie, and Prerogative royall, by brother Burton’s rule the people are at liberty to obey or not. And on the other side, in case the said command bee grounded on some positive law which they like not of, whether it be a penall statute, or some old Act of Parliament almost out of use, by the reviving of the which they may be prejudiced in purse or otherwise: this is no good law in their judgement, and so no more to be obeyed than if the king’s command were founded on no law at all. But your next limitation is farre worse than this, though this bad enough. For in the next place you have

grounded all obedience on the people’s part, upon that mutuall stipulation which the king and his subjects make at his Coronation. Where the king takes an explicite solemne oath to mainteine the antient lawes and liberties of the kingdome, and so to rule and governe all his people according to those lawes established; consequently and implicitely all the people of the land doe sweare fealtie, allegiance, subjection and obedience to their king, and that according to his just lawes, pag. 39. Your inference from hence is this, that if the king so solemnely by sacred oath, ratified againe in Parliament under his royall hand, doe bind himselfe to maintaine the lawes of his kingdome, and therein the rights and liberties of his subjects, then how much are the people bound to yeeld all subjection and obedience to the king, according to his just lawes, p. 40.

So that according to your doctrine, the people is no longer to obey the king, than the king keepes promise with the people. Nay of the two the people have the better bargaine; the king being sworne explicitely and solemnely to maintaine their liberties; the people only consequently and implicitely to yeeld him subjection. Is not this excellent doctrine think you? Or could the most seditious person in a state have thought upon a shorter cut to bring all to Anarchie; for if the subject please to misinterpret the king’s proceedings, and thinke though falsely, that he hath not kept his promise with them: they are released ipso facto from all obedience and subjection, and that by a more easie way, than suing out a dispensation in the Court of Rome. You tell us, p. 129. of the king’s free subjects; and here you have found out a way to make them so: a way to make the subject free, and the king a subject; and hard it is to say whether of the two be the greater Contradiction in adjecto. I have before heard of a free people, and of free states, but never till of late a free subject: nor know I any way to create free subjects, but by releasing them of all obedience to their Princes. And I have read too of Eleuthero Cilices, which were those people of Cilicia that were not under the command of any king: but never reade of an Eleuthero Britannus, nor I hope never shall. I will but aske you one question, and so end this point. You presse the king’s oath very much about maintaining of the lawes of the Kingdom, as pag. 39. 40. and 42. before recited, as also, pag. 72. againe and againe, and finally in your addresse to my Lords the Judges. Is it by way of Commemoration or of Exprobration? If of Commemoration, you forget the Rule; memorem immemorem facit, qui monet quae memor meminit.¹¹ But if of Exprobration, what meant you, when you needed not to tell us, that in a point of Civill Government, it is a dangerous thing to change a Kingdom setled on good lawes into a tyranny; and presently thereon to adde a certaine speech of Heraclitus, viz. That citizens ought to fight no lesse for their lawes, than for their walls. I only aske the question, take you time to answere it.