tyrants and usurpers were ministers for good, then they would restore
the public and personal rights, and rectify all wrongs done by them; but
then they must surrender their authority, and resign it, or else all
rights cannot be restored, nor wrongs rectified. Hence, these that
cannot be owned as magistrates of God for good, cannot be owned as
magistrates; but tyrants and usurpers, (and in particular this man) are
such as cannot be owned as ministers of God for good: Ergo----Again, if
magistracy be always a blessing, and tyranny and usurpation always a
curse, then they cannot be owned to be the same thing, and the one
cannot be owned to be the other; but magistracy, or the rightful
magistrate, is always a blessing; tyranny and usurpation, or the tyrant
and usurper, always a curse: Ergo----That the former is true, these
scriptures prove it. God provides him for the benefit of his people, 1
Sam. xvi. 1. A just ruler is compared to the light of the morning, when
the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds, 2 Sam. xxiii. 4. So the
Lord exalted David's kingdom, for his people Israel's sake, 2 Sam. v.
12. Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he Solomon
king, to do judgment and justice, 1 Kings x. 9. When the righteous are
in authority the people rejoice----The king by judgment stablished the
land,----Prov. xxix. 2, 4. The Lord promises magistrates as a special
blessing, Isa. i. 26. Jer. xvii. 25. And therefore their continuance is
to be prayed for, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all
godliness and honesty, 1 Tim. ii. 2. And they must needs be a blessing,
because to have no ruler is a misery: for when Israel had no king, every
man did that which was right in his own eyes, Judges xvii. 6. And the
Lord threatens it as a curse to take away the stay and the staff----the
mighty man, and the man of war, the judge and the prophet, &c. Isa. iii.
1, 2. &c. And that the children of Israel shall abide many days without
a king, and without a prince, Hos. ii. 4. But on the other hand, tyrants
and usurpers are always a curse, and given as such: it is threatened
among the curses of the covenant, that the stranger shall get up above
Israel very high----and that they shall serve their enemies, which the
Lord shall send against them----and he shall put a yoke of iron upon
their neck, until he hath destroyed them, Deut. xxviii. 43, 48. As a
roaring lion and a ranging bear, so is a wicked ruler over the poor
people, Prov. xxviii. 15. and therefore, when the wicked beareth rule
the people mourn, Prov. xxix. 2. The Lord threatens it as a curse, that
he will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over
them, Isa. iii. 4. And if unqualified rulers be a curse, much more
tyrants. They are the rod of his anger, and the staff in their hand is
his indignation, his axe, and sawe, and rod, Isa. x. 5, 15. It is one
thing to call a man God's instrument, his rod, axe, sword, or hammer;
another thing to call him God's minister; there is a wide difference
betwixt the instruments of God's providence, and the ministers of his
ordinance; those fulfil his promises only, these do his precepts. Such
kings are given in the Lord's anger, Hos. xiii. 11. therefore they
cannot be owned to be ministers of God for good. 6. He beareth not the
sword in vain, for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute
wrath upon him that doth evil, verse 4. The apostle doth not say, He
that beareth the sword is the ruler, but he is the ruler that beareth
the sword. This is not every sword, for there is the sword of an enemy,
the sword of a robber, the sword of a common traveller; but this as a
faculty of political rule, and authoritative judgment. It is not said,
He takes the sword (as the Lord expresses the usurpation of that power,
Matth. xxvi. 52.) but he beareth the sword, hath it delivered him into
his hand by God, by God's warrant and allowance, not in vain; to no end
or without reason, or without a commission, as Paraeus upon the place
expounds it. He is a revenger to execute wrath, not by private revenge,
for that is condemned by Paul before, Rom. xi. 19. not by providential
recompense, for when a private person so revengeth, it is the
providential repayment of God; but as God's minister, by him authorized,
commissionated, and warranted to this work. Now this cannot agree with a
tyrant or usurper, whose sword only legitimates his sceptre, and not his
sceptre his sword, who takes the sword rather than bears, and uses it
without reason or warrant from God, in the execution of his lustful rage
upon him that doth well, and hath no right to it from God. Hence, he
that beareth the sword no other way but as it may be said of a murderer,
cannot be a magistrate bearing the sword; but a tyrant and usurper
beareth the sword no other way but as it may be said of a murderer:
Ergo.----So much for the characters of a magistrate, which are every way
inapplicable to tyrants and usurpers, and as inapplicable to this of
ours as to any in the world.
2. If we consider the scripture resemblances, importing the duty of
magistrates, and the contrary comparisons, holding forth the sin,
vileness, and villainy of tyrants and usurpers; we may infer, that we
cannot own the last to be the first. First, From the benefit they bring
to the commonwealth, magistrates are stiled, 1. Saviours, as Othniel the
son of Kenaz is called, Judges iii. 9. and Jehoahaz in his younger
years, 2 Kings xiii. 5. and all good judges and magistrates, Neh. ix.
27. But tyrants and usurpers cannot be such, for they are destroyers,
whom the Lord promises to make go forth from his people, Isa. xlix. 17.
The Chaldean tyrant is called the destroyer of the Gentiles, Jer. iv. 7.
and the destroyer of the Lord's heritage, Jer. l. 11. where they can no
more be owned to be magistrates, than Abaddon or Apollyon can be owned
to be a saviour. 2. From their paternal love to the people, they are
stiled fathers, and therefore to be honoured according to the fifth
command. So Deborah was raised up a mother in Israel, Judges v. 7. Kings
are nursing fathers by office, Isa. xlix. 23. But that tyrants cannot be
such, I have proved already; for they can no more be accounted fathers,
than he that abuseth or forceth our mother. 3. From the protection and
shelter that people find under their conduct, they are called shields,
Psal. xlvii. ult. The princes of the people, the shields of the earth,
belong unto God. But tyrants cannot be such, because they are the
subverters of the earth. 4. From the comfort that attends them, they are
resembled to the morning light, and fruitful showers of rain, 2 Sam.
xxiii. 4. They waited for me, as for the rain, saith Job xxix. 23. But
tyrants cannot be resembled to these, but rather to darkness, and to the
blast of the terrible ones, Isa. xxv. 4. as a storm against the wall. If
darkness cannot be owned to be light, then cannot tyrants be owned to be
magistrates. 5. From their pastoral care and conduct and duty, they are
feeders. The judges of Israel are commanded to feed the Lord's people, 1
Chron. xvii. 6. David was brought to feed Jacob his people, and Israel
his inheritance, Psal. lxxvii. 71. But tyrants are wolves, not
shepherds. 6. By office they are physicians, or healers, Isa. iii. 7.
That tyrants cannot be such, is proven above. Secondly, On the other
hand, the vileness, villainy, and violence of tyrants and usurpers, are
held forth by fit resemblances, being compared to these unclean
creatures. 1. Tyrants are wicked dogs, as they who compass about Christ,
Psal. xxii. 16, 20. Saul is called Dog there, and in that golden psalm,
Psal. lix. 6. Saul and his accomplices watching the house to kill David,
make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. 2. They are
pushing bulls, Psal. xxii. 12. and crushing kine of Bashan, that oppress
the poor, Amos iv. 1. They have need then to have their horns cut short.
3. They are roaring lions, that are wicked rulers over the poor people,
Prov. xxviii. 15. Zeph. iii. 3. So Paul calls Nero the lion, out of
whose mouth he was delivered, 2 Tim. iv. 17. 4. They are ranging bears,
Prov. xxvii. 15. So the Persian monarch is emblemized Dan. vii. 5. 5.
They are leviathan, the piercing serpent and dragon, Isa. xxvii. 1. and
have great affinity in name and nature with the apocalyptick dragon. So
also, Isaiah li. 9. the Egyptian tyrant is called dragon and
Nebuchadnezzar swallowed up the church like a dragon, Jer. li. 34. See
also Ezek. xxix. 3. 6. They are wolves, ravening for the prey, Ezek.
xxii. 27. Evening wolves, that gnaw not the bones till the morrow, Zeph.
iii. 3. 7. They are leopards; so the Grecian tyrants are called, Dan.
vii. 6. and antichrist, Rev. xiii. 2. 8. They are foxes; so Christ calls
Herod, Luke xiii. 32. 9. They are devils, who cast the Lord's people
into prison, Rev. ii. 10, 13. Now, can we own all these abominable
creatures to be magistrates? Can these be the fathers we are bound to
honour in the fifth commandment? They must be esteemed sons of dogs and
devils that believe so, and own themselves sons of such fathers.
If we further take notice, how the Spirit of God describes tyranny, as
altogether contradistinct and opposite unto the magistracy he will have
owned; we may infer hence, tyrants and usurpers are not to be owned.
What the government instituted by God among his people was, the
scripture doth both relate in matter of fact, and describes what it
ought to be by right, viz. That according to the institution of God,
magistrates should be established by the constitution of the people, who
were to make them judges and officers in all their gates, that they
might judge the people with just judgment, Deut. xvi. 18. But foreseeing
that people would affect a change of that first form of government, and,
in imitation of their neighbouring nations, would desire a king, and
say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are about me,
Deut. xvii. 14. The Lord, intending high and holy ends by it, chiefly
the procreation of the Messias from a kingly race, did permit the
change, and gave directions how he should be moulded and bounded, that
was to be owned as the magistrate under a monarchical form; to wit, that
he should be chosen of God, and set up by their suffrages, that he
should be a brother, and not a stranger; that he should not multiply
horses, nor wives, nor money, (which are cautions all calculated for
the people's good, and the security of their religion and liberty, and
for precluding and preventing his degeneration into tyranny) and that he
should write a copy of the law in a book, according to that which he
should govern, verse 15. to the end of the chapter, yet the Lord did not
approve the change of the form, which that luxuriant people was long
affecting, and at length obtained: for, long before Saul was made king,
they proffered an hereditary monarchy to Gideon, without the boundaries
God's law required: which that brave captain knowing how derogatory it
was to the authority of God's institution, not to be altered in form or
frame without his order, generally refused, saying, I will not rule over
you, neither shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you,
Judges viii. 23. But his bastard, the first monarch and tyrant in
Israel, Abimelech, by sinistrous means being advanced to be king by the
traiterous Sechemites, Jotham, and other of the godly, disowned him;
which, by the Spirit of God, Jotham describes parabolically
significantly holding out the nature of that tyrannical usurpation,
under the apologue of the trees itching after a king, and the offer
being repudiate by the more generous sort, embraced by the bramble:
signifying, that men of worth and virtue would never have taken upon
them such an arrogant domination, and that such a tyrannical government,
in its nature and tendency, was nothing but an useless, worthless,
sapless, aspiring, scratching, and vexing shadow of a government, under
subjection to which there could be no peace nor safety. But this was
rather a tumultuary interruption than a change of the government; not
being universally either desired or owned; therefore, after that the
Lord restored the pristine form, which continued until, being much
perverted by Samuel's sons, the people unanimously and peremptorily
desired the change thereof, and, whether it were reason or not, would
have a king; as we were fondly set upon one, after we had been delivered
from his father's yoke: and the Lord gave them a king with a curse, and
took him away with a vengeance, Hos. xiii. 11. as he did our Charles II.
Yet he permitted it, but with a protestation against and conviction of
the sin, that thereby they had "rejected the Lord," 1 Sam. viii. 7. and
with a demonstration from heaven, which extorted their own confession,
that they "had added unto all their sins this evil to ask a king," 1
Sam. xii. 17, 18, 19. And to deter and dissuade from such a conclusion,
he appoints the prophet to shew them the "manner of the king" that
should reign over them, 1 Sam. viii. 9. to declare before hand, what
sort of a ruler he would prove, when they got him; to wit, a mere
tyrant, who would take their sons and appoint them for himself, for his
chariots, and for horsemen, and to run before his chariots, and make
them his soldiers, and labourers of the ground, and instrument makers,
and household servants, and he would take their fields and
vineyards--the best of them, and give unto his servants. In a word, to
make all slaves; and that in the end, when this should come to pass,
they should cry out because of their king, but the Lord would not hear
them, ver. 11-18. All which, as it is palpable in itself, so we have
sensibly felt in our experience to be the natural description of
tyranny, but more tolerable than any account of ours would amount to. It
is both foolishly and falsely alledged by royalists or tyrannists, that
here is a grant of uncontroulable absoluteness to kings to tyrannize
over the people without resistance, and that this manner of the king is
in the original Mishphat, which signifies right or law; so that here was
a permissive law given to kings to tyrannize, and to oblige people to
passive obedience, without any remedy but tears; and therefore it was
registered, and laid up before the Lord in a book, 1 Sam. x. 25. But I
answer, 1. If any thing be here granted to kings, it is either by God's
approbation, directing and instructing how they should govern; or it is
only by permission and providential commission to them, to be a plague
to the people for their sin of choosing them, to make them drink as they
have brewed, as sometimes he gave a charge to the Assyrian rod to
trample them down as the mire of the streets: if the first be said, then
a king that does not govern after that manner, and so does not make
people cry out for their oppression, would come short of his duty, and
also behoved to tyrannize and make the people cry out; then a king may
take what he will from his subjects, and be approved of God: this were
blasphemy absurd, for God cannot approve of the sin of oppression. If
the second be said, then it cannot be an universal grant, or otherwise
all kings must be ordained for plagues; and if so, it were better we
wanted such nursing fathers. 2. Though Mishphat signifies right or law,
yet it signifies also, and perhaps no less frequently, manner, course,
or custom: and here it cannot signify the law of God, for all these acts
of tyranny are contrary to the law of God; for to make servants of
subjects is contrary to the law of God, Deut. xvii. 20. Forbidding to
lift up himself so far above his brethren; but this was to deal with
them as a proud Pharaoh; to take so many for chariots and horsemen, is
also contrary to the law, Deut. xvii. 15. "He shall not multiply
horses;" to take their fields and vineyards is mere robbery, contrary to
the moral and judicial law, whereof he was to have always a copy, ver.
18. And contrary to Ezek. xlvi. 18. "The prince shall not take of the
peoples inheritance," &c. This would justify Ahab's taking Naboth's
vineyard, which yet the Lord accounted robbery, and for which tyrants
are called "companions of thieves," Isa. i. 23. and "robbers," Isa.
xlii. 24. into whose hands the Lord sometimes may give his people for a
spoil in judicial providence; but never with his approbation and grant
of right: to make them cry out, is oppression, which the Lord abhors,
Isa. v. 7, 8. And if this be all the remedy, it is none; for it is such
a cry, as the Lord threatens he will not hear. 3. It is false, that this
manner of the Lord was registred in that book mentioned, 1 Sam. x. 25.
for that was the law of the kingdom, accordingly the copy of which the
king was to have for his instruction containing the fundamental laws,
point blank contrary to this which was the manner of the king; there is
a great difference between the manner of the kingdom, which ought to be
observed as law, and the manner of the king, what he would have as lust.
Would Samuel write in a book the rules of tyranny, to teach to oppress,
contrary to the law of God? He says himself, he would only teach both
king and people "the good and the right way," 1 Sam. xii. 23, 25. 4.
Nothing can be more plain, than that this was a mere dissuasive against
seeking; for he protests against this course, and then lays before them
what sort of a king he should be, in a description of many acts of
tyranny; and yet in the end it is said, 1 Sam. vii. 19. "Nevertheless
the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and said, Nay, but we
will have a king."
Now, what else was the voice of Samuel, than a dissuasion? I am not here
levelling this argument against monarchy in the abstract, that does not
ly in my road; but I infer from thence, 1. If God was displeased with
this people for asking and owning a king, who was only to become a
tyrant and dissuades from the choice, by a description of his future
tyranny; then certainly he was displeased with them, when they continued
owning, when he was a tyrant indeed, according to that description; but
the former is true, therefore also the latter. The consequence is clear:
for continuing in sin is sin; but continuing in owning that tyrant,
which was their sin at first, was a continuing in sin; therefore----The
minor is confirmed thus: continuing is counteracting the motives of
God's dissuasion, especially when they are sensibly visible, is a
continuing in sin; but their continuing in owning Saul after he became a
tyrant, was a continuing in counteracting the motives of God's
dissuasion, when they were sensibly visible. I do not say, because it
was their sin to ask Saul, therefore it was not lawful to own him, while
he ruled as a magistrate: and so if Charles II. had ruled righteously,
it would not have been sin to own him; but after the Lord uses
dissuasives from a choice of such an one, and these are signally
verified, if it was to make the choice, then it must be sin to keep it.
2. If it was their sin to seek and set up such an one before he was
tyrant, who yet was admitted upon covenant terms, and the manner of it
registred; then much more is it a sin to seek and set up one, after he
declared himself a tyrant, and to admit him without any terms at all, or
for any to consent or give their suffrage to such a deed; but the former
is true, therefore the latter: and consequently, to give our consent to
the erection of the duke of York, by owning his authority, was our sin.
3. If it be a sin to own the manner of the king there described, then it
is a sin to own the pretended authority, which is the exact transumpt of
it; but it is a sin to own the manner of the king there described, or
else it would never have been used as a dissuasive from seeking such a
king. 4. To bring ourselves under such a burden, which the Lord will not
remove, and involve ourselves under such a misery, wherein the Lord will
not hear us, is certainly a sin, ver. 18. But to own or choose such a
king, whose manner is there described, would bring ourselves under such
a burden and misery, wherein the Lord would not hear us: therefore it
were our sin.
4. We may add the necessary qualifications of magistrates, which the
Lord requires to be in all, both superior and inferior: and thence it
may be inferred, that such pretended rulers, who neither have nor can
have these qualifications, and are not to be owned as ministers, who
have no qualifications for such a function. We find their essentially
necessary qualifications particularly described. Jethro's counsel was
God's counsel and command; that rulers must be able men such as fear
God, men of truth, hating covetousness, Exod. xviii. 21. Tyrants and
usurpers have none, nor can have any of these qualifications, except
that they may have ability of force, which is not here meant: but that
they be morally able for the discharge of their duty: surely they cannot
fear God, nor be men of truth; for then they would not be tyrants. It is
God's direction, that the man to be advanced and assumed to rule, must
be a man in whom is the spirit, Numb. xxvii. 18. as is said of Joshua;
what spirit this was, Deut. xxxiv. 9. explains, he was full of the
spirit of wisdom, that is, the spirit of government; not the spirit of
infernal Jesuitical policy, which tyrants may have, but they cannot have
the true regal spirit, but such a spirit as Saul had when he turned
tyrant, an evil spirit from the Lord. Moses saith, They must be wise
men, and understanding, and known among the tribes, Deut. i. 13. for if
they be children or fools, they are plagues and punishments, Isa. iii.
2, 3, 4. &c. not magistrates, who are always blessings. And they must be
known men of integrity, not known to be knaves or fools, as all tyrants
are always. The law of the king is, Deut. xvii. 15. he must be one of
the Lord's chusing. Can tyrants and usurpers be such? No, they are set
up, but not by him, Hos. viii. 4. He must be a brother, and not a
stranger, that is, of the same nation, and of the same religion: for
though infidelity does not make void a magistrate's authority; yet both
by the law of God and man, he ought not to be chosen, who is an enemy to
religion and liberty. Now it were almost treason, to call the tyrant a
brother; and I am sure it is no reason, for he disdains it, being
absolute above all. That good king's testament confirms this, the God of
Israel said, the rock of Israel spake, he that ruleth over men must be
just, ruling in the fear of God, 2 Sam. xxiii. 3. But tyrants and
usurpers cannot be just: for if they should render every one their
right, they would keep none to themselves, but behoved to resign their
robberies in the first place, and then also they must give the law its
course, and that against themselves. These scriptures indeed do not
prove, that all magistrates are in all their administrations so
qualified, nor that none ought to be owned, but such as are so qualified
in all respects. But as they demonstrate what they ought to be, so they
prove, that they cannot be magistrates of God's ordaining, who have none
of these qualifications: but tyrants and usurpers have none of these
qualifications. Much more do they prove, that they cannot be owned to be
magistrates who are not capable of any of these qualifications: but
usurpers are not capable of any or these qualifications. At least they
conclude, in so far as they are not so qualified, they ought not to be
owned, but disowned; but tyrants and usurpers are not so qualified in
any thing: therefore in any thing they are not be owned, but disowned.
For in nothing are they so qualified as the Lord prescribes.
Secondly, I shall offer some reasons from scripture assertions.
1. It is strongly asserted in Elihu's speech to Job, that he that hateth
right should not govern, where he is charging Job with blasphemy, in
accusing God of injustice; of which he vindicates the almighty, in
asserting his sovereignty and absolute dominion, which is inconsistent
with injustice, and shews both that if he be sovereign, he cannot be
unjust: and if he be unjust, he could not be sovereign: which were
horrid blasphemy to deny. And in the demonstration of this, he gives one
maxim in a question, which is equivalent to an universal negative, Job
xxxiv. 17, 18. Shall even he that hateth right govern? And wilt thou
condemn him that is most just? Is it fit to say to a king, thou art
wicked; and to princes ye are ungodly? In which words, the scope makes
it clear, that if Job made God a hater of right, he should then deny his
government; and if he took upon him to condemn him of injustice, he
should blasphemously deny him to be king of the world. For it is not fit
to say to any king, that he is wicked, or so ungodly, as to be a hater
of right; for that were treason, lese majesty, and in effect a denying
him to be king; much less is it fit to say to him that is King of kings.
Here then it is affirmed, and supposed to hold good of all governors,
that he that hateth right should not govern, or bind, as it is in the
margin; for Habash signifies both to bind and to govern, but all to one
sense; for governors only can bind subjects authoratively, with the
bonds of laws and punishments. I know the following words are alledged
to favour the uncontroulableness and absoluteness of princes, that it is
not fit to say to them, they are wicked. But plain it is, the words do
import treason against lawful kings, whom to call haters of right were
to call their kingship in question; as the scope shews, in that these
words are adduced to justify the sovereignty of God by his justice, and
to confute any indirect charging him with injustice, because that would
derogate from his kingly glory, it being impossible he could be king,
and unjust too. So in some analogy, though every and of injustice do not
unking a prince; yet to call him wicked, that is habitually unjust, and
a hater of justice, were as much as to say, he is no king, which were
intolerable treason against lawful kings. But this is no treason against
tyrants; for truth and law can be no treason: now this is the language
of truth and law, that wicked kings are wicked; and they that are wicked
and ungodly ought to be called so, as Samuel called Saul, and Elijah,
Ahab, &c. However it will hold to be a true maxim, whether we express it
by way of negation or interrogation.
Shall even he that hateth right govern? But are not tyrants and usurpers
haters of right? Shall therefore they govern? I think it must be
answered, they should not govern. If then they should not govern, I
infer, they should not be owned as governors. For if it be their sin to
govern (right or wrong, it is all one case, for they should not govern
at all) then it is our sin to own them in their government: for it is
always a sin to own a man in his sinning.
The royal prophet, or whoever was the penman of that appeal for justice
against tyranny, Psal. xciv. 20. does tacitly assert the same truth, in
that expostulation, shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with
thee, that frameth mischief by a law? Which is as much as if he had
said, the throne of iniquity shall not, no, cannot have fellowship with
God; that is, it cannot be the throne of God that he hath any interest
in, or concern with, by way of approbation: he hath nothing to do with
it, except it be to suffer it a while, till he take vengeance on it in
the end. And shall we have fellowship with that throne, that God hath no
fellowship with, and that is not his throne, but the devil's, as it must
be, if God doth not own it? Much may be argued from hence; but in a
word, a throne which is not of God, nor ordained of God, but rather of
the devil, cannot be owned (for that is the reason of our subjection to
any power, because it is of God, and ordained of God, Rom. xiii. 1. And
that is the great dignity of magistracy, that its throne, is the throne
of God, 1 Chron. xxix. 23.) But a throne of tyranny and usurpation, is a
throne which is not of God, nor ordained of God, but rather of the
devil: Ergo----. The minor is proved: a throne of iniquity, &c. is a
throne which is not of God, nor ordained of God, but rather of the
devil; but a throne of tyranny and usurpation is a throne of iniquity:
Ergo, it is not of God, and so not to be owned.
3. The Lord charges it upon Israel as a transgression of his covenant,
and trespass against his law, that they had set up kings, and not by
him, and had made princes and he knew it not, Hos. viii. 4. and then
taxes them with idolatry, which ordinarily is the consequent of it, as
we have reason to fear will be in our case. He shews there the apostasy
of that people, in changing both the ordinances of the magistracy and of
the ministry, both of the kingdom and of the priesthood, in which two
the safety of that people was founded: so they overturned all the order
of God, and openly declared they would not be governed by the hand of
God, as Calvin upon the place expounds it. Whereas, the Lord had
commanded, if they would set up kings, they should set none up but whom
he choosed, Deut. xvii. 15. yet they had no regard to this, nor
consulted him in their admission of kings, but set them up, and never
let him to wit of it, without his knowledge; that is, without consulting
him, and without his approbation, for it can have no other sense. I
know, it is alledged by several interpreters, that here is meant the
tribes secession from the house of David, and their setting up Jeroboam.
I shall confess that the ten tribes did sin in that erection of
Jeroboam, without respect to the counsel or command of God, without
waiting on the vocation of God, as to the times and manner, and without
covenanting with him for security for their religion and liberty; but
that their secession from David's line, which by no precept or promise
of God they were astricted to, but only conditionally, if his children
should walk in the ways of God, or that their erecting of Jeroboam was
materially their sin, I must deny; and assert, that if Jeroboam had not
turned tyrant and apostate from God (for which they should have rejected
him afterwards, and returned to the good kings of David's line) he would
have been as lawful a king as any in Judah, for he got the kingdom from
the Lord the same way, and upon the same terms that David did, as may be
seen expressly in 1 Kings xi. 38. It must be therefore meant, either
generally of all tyrants whom they would set up without the Lord's mind,
as at first they would have kings on any terms though they should prove
tyrants, as we have seen in Saul's case. Or particularly Omri whom they
set up, but not by the Lord; 1 Kings xvi. 16. And Ahab his son, and
Shallum, Menaham, Pekah, &c. who were all set up by blood and treachery,
the same way that our popish duke is now set up, but not by the Lord,
that is by his approbation. Hence I argue, those kings that are not
owned of God, nor set up by him, must not be owned by us (for we can own
none for kings but those that reign by him, Prov. viii. 15. and are
ordained of him, Rom. xiii. 1.) But tyrants and usurpers are not owned
of God as kings, nor are set up by him: Ergo----Again, if it be a sin to
set up kings, and not by God, then it is a sin to own them when set up:
for, that is a partaking of, and continuing in the sin of that erection,
and hath as much affinity with it, as resetting hath with theft; for if
they be the thieves, they are the resetters who receive them and own
them.
4. The prophet Habakkuk, in his complaint to God of the Chaldean
tyranny, asserts that God hath made righteous, as the fishes of the sea,
as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them, Habak. i. 14. Now
how were they said to be without a ruler, when the Chaldean actually
commanded, and absolutely ruled over them? yea, how can the fishes and
reptiles have no ruler over them? If domineering be ruling, they want
not that; when the weaker are over-mastered by the stronger, and by them
made either to be subject, or to become their prey. But the meaning is,
these creatures have no ruler over them by order of nature: and the Jews
had then no ruler over them by order of law, or ordination from God, or
any that was properly their magistrate by divine institution, or human
orderly constitution.
We see then it is one thing for a people to have an arbitrary or
enthralling tyranny; another to have true magistracy or authority to be
owned over them; without which kingdoms are but as mountains of prey,
and seas of confusion. Hence I argue, if the Jews having the Chaldean
monarch tyrannizing over them, had really no ruler over them, then is a
tyrant and usurper not to be owned for a ruler: but the former is true:
therefore also the latter.
5. Our Saviour Christ delivers this as a commonly received, and a true
maxim, John viii. 54. "He that honoureth himself, his honour is
nothing." The Jews had objected that he had only made himself Messias,
ver. 53. To whom he answers, by way of concession, if it were so indeed,
then his claims were void, if I honour my self, my honour is nothing:
and then claims an undubitable title to his dignity, It is my father
that honoureth me. Here is a twofold honour distinguished, the one real,
the other suppositious and null, the one renounced, the other owned by
Christ, self-honour, and honour which is from God. Hence I argue, a
selfcreated dignity is not to be owned; the authority of tyrants and
usurpers is a self created dignity: Ergo----. This was confirmed above.
Thirdly, I shall offer some other considerations confirming this truth,
from those scriptures which I class among precepts. And these I find of
divers sorts touching this subject.
1. I shew before that the greatest of men, even kings, are not exempted
from punishment, if guilty of capital crimes; for where the law
distinguisheth not, we ought not to distinguish. There is one special
and very peremptory law, given before the law for regulating kings,
which, by that posterior law, was neither abrogated nor limited even as
to kings, Deut. xiii. 6-9. If thy brother (and a king must be a brother,
Deut. xvii. 15.)--entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve
other gods--Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him,
neither shall thine eye pity him. How famous Mr. Knox improved this
argument, is shewed in the third period. That which I take notice of
here is only, that kings are not excepted from this law; but if they be
open enticers to idolatry, by force or fraud, persecution or toleration,
as this idolater now reigning is palpably doing, they are obnoxious to a
legal animadversion. As it cannot be supposed, that secret enticers
should be liable to punishment, and not open avouchers of a desire and
design to pervert all the nation to idolatry: that a private perverter
of one man, though never so nearly and dearly related, should be pursued
and brought to condign punishment, and a public subverter of whole
nations, and introducer of a false and blasphemous idolatrous religion,
should escape scot free. Let the punishment inflicted be in a judicial
way, and of what measures it pleases the judge to determine, I shall not
controvert here; only I plead, that idolatrous tyrants are not excepted
from this law: and infer, that if they ought to be punished, they ought
to be deposed; and if they ought to be deposed, they cannot be owned,
when undeniably guilty of this capital crime, as was urged above.
To this I may add that part of that prophetical king's testament; who,
being about to leave the world, under some challenges of
maladministration in his own government, (for which he took himself to
the well ordered everlasting covenant, for pardon and encouragement,)
after he had shewn what rulers should be, he threatens, by antithesis,
tyrannical pretenders, in these severe words, which do also imply a
precept, and a direction how to deal with them, 2 Sam. xxiii. 6, 7. "But
they of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they
cannot be taken with hands, but the man that shall touch them must be
fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear, and they shall be utterly
burnt with fire in the same place." Let these words be understood as a
threatning against all the wicked in general, who are to be quenched as
the fire of thorns; or particularly of the promoters of antichrist's
kingdom, in opposition to Christ's, as some interpreters judge; it will
not weaken, but confirm my argument, if kings who are ringleaders of
that gang be not excepted.
I know some do understand this of rebels against righteous rulers: which
though indeed it be a truth, that they that are such should be so
served, and roughly handled with iron, and the staff of a spear; yet it
is not so consonant to the scope and connexion of this place, shewing
the characters of righteous rulers, and of usurping tyrants, making an
opposition between rulers that are just, ruling in the fear of God, and
those that are rulers of Belial, promising blessing upon the government
of the one, and contempt and rejection to the other, and shewing how
both should be carried towards: neither does it agree with the words
themselves, where the supplement in our translation is redundant; for it
is not in the Hebrew. The sons of Belial, only they of Belial, clearly
relative to the rulers of whom he was speaking before. And indeed the
word Belial, in its etymology is not more applicable to any than to
tyrants; for it comes from beli not, and Hhall above, because they will
have none above them, or from beli not, and Hhol a yoke, because they
cannot suffer a yoke, but cast away the yoke of laws and the yoke of
Christ, saying, Let us burst his bands, &c. Nor is it always agreeable
to truth, to understand it only of rebels against righteous rulers, that
they can never be taken with hands: For as very rarely righteous rulers
have any rebels to be the objects of their rigour and rage; so when
there are any, discreet and wise rulers will find many ways to take and
touch them, and quath or quiet them. But it is always true of tyrants,
for they can never be taken with hands, neither in a friendly manner,
taken by the hand and transacted within any bargain as other men, for
they that would do so, will find them like pricking and jagging briers,
which a man cannot handle without hurt to himself: nor can they be any
other way repressed or restrained, or touched, but by hands fenced with
iron, that is, with the sword of necessity, or axe of justice. And this
is insinuated as duty, so to endeavour to extirpate and eradicate such
thorns, as pester the commonwealth; but if it cannot be done, it must be
duty and wisdom both not to meddle with them, nor own them, no more than
Jotham, who would not subject himself, nor come under the shadow of the
bastard bramble. I confess it is commonly taken as a threatning of the
Lord's judgment against these sons of Belial: And so it is. But it
teacheth also what men are called to, when they have to do with such, to
wit, to take the same course with them as they would to clear the ground
of thorns and briers. And that it is restricted to the Lord's immediate
way of taking them off, is not credible: for, it can have no tolerable
sense to say, they shall be thrust away, because they cannot be taken
with the Lord's hands: neither is there need, that he should be fenced
with iron, &c. And let iron, &c. be taken tropically for the Lord's
sword of vengeance; yet how can it be understood, that he must be fenced
therewith? or that he will thrust them away, as a man must be fenced
against thorns? What defence needs the Lord against tyrants! It is only
then intelligible, that the Lord, in his righteous judgment, will make
use of men and legal means, and of those who cannot take them with
hands, in his judicial procedure against them. Hence I argue, if tyrants
are to be dealt with as thorns, that cannot be taken with hands, but to
be thrust away by violence, then, when we are not in case to thrust them
away, we must let them alone, and not meddle nor make with them, and so
must not own them, for we cannot own them without meddling, and without
being pricked to our hurt; but the former is true: therefore,--Of this
same nature, another threatning confuting the pretence of the prince's
impunity, may be subjoined out of Psal. lxxxii. 6, 7. "I have said, ye
are gods, and all of you are children of the most high, but ye shall die
like men, and fall as one of the princes." From which words the learned
author of the history of the Douglasses, Mr. David Hume of Godscraft, in
his discourse upon Mr. Craig's sermon, upon the words, doth strongly
prove, that the scope is to beat off all kings, princes and rulers, from
the conceit of impunity for their tyrannical dominations; that they must
not think to domineer and do what they list, and overturn the
foundations or fundamental laws of kingdoms, because they are gods; as
if they were thereby uncontroulable, and above all law and punishment:
no, they must know, that if they be guilty of the same transgressions of
the law, as other capital offenders, they shall die like other men, and
fall as princes, who have been formerly punished. It is not to be
restricted to a threatning of mortality; for that is unavoidable,
whether they judge justly or unjustly, and the fear thereof usually hath
little efficacy to deter men from crimes punishable by law: neither can
it be understood only of the Lord's immediate hand taking them away,
exclusive of men's legal punishment; for expressly they are threatned to
die like common men, and to be liable to the like punishment with them:
now, common men are not only liable to the Lord's immediate judgment,
but also to men's punishment. Hence, if tyrants and overturners of the
foundations of the earth must be punished as other men, then when they
are such, they cannot be looked upon as righteous rulers, for
righteous rulers must not be punished; but the former is true:
therefore,--According to these scriptures, which either express or imply
a precept to have no respect to princes in judgment, when turning
criminals, we find examples of the people's punishing Amaziah, &c.
which is recorded without a challenge, and likewise Athaliah.
2. There is a precept given to a humbled people, that have groaned long
under the yoke of tyranny and oppression, enjoining them, as a proof of
their sincerity in humiliation, to bestir themselves in shaking off
those evils they had procured by their sin, Isa. lviii. 6. "Is not this
the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo
the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break
every yoke?" which are all good works of justice and mercy, and more
acceptable to God, than high flown pretences of humiliation, under a
stupid submission, and hanging down the head as a bulrush. We see it
then a duty to relieve the oppressed, and to repress tyranny, and break
its yoke. If it be objected, (1.) That these are spiritual bonds and
yokes, that are here commanded to be loosed and broken; or if any
external be meant, they are only the yokes, of their exactions and
usuries. For Answ. I grant, that it is the great duty of a people
humbling themselves before the Lord, "to break off their sins by
righteousness, and their iniquity, by shewing mercy to the poor," Dan.
iv. 27. but that this is the genuine and only sense of this place,
cannot be proved, or approved by the scope; which is, to press them to
those duties they omitted, whereby the poor oppressed people of God
might be freed from the yokes of them that made them to howl, and to
bring them to the conviction of those sins for which the Lord was
contending with them, whereof this was one, that they exacted all their
labours, or things wherewith others were grieved (as the margin reads)
or suffered the poor to be oppressed. (2.) If it be alledged, that this
is the duty proper to rulers to relieve the oppressed, &c. I answer, it
is so; but not peculiar to them: yet most commonly they are the
oppressors themselves, and cast out the poor, which others must take
into their houses. But the duty here is pressed upon all the people,
whose sins are here cried out against (ver. 1.) upon all who professed
the service of God, and asked the ordinances of justice (ver. 2.) upon
all who were fasting and humbling themselves, and complained they had no
success (ver 3.) the reasons whereof the Lord discovers (ver. 4, 5.)
whereof this was one, that they did not loose those bands, nor break
these yokes, nor relieved the oppressed; and those works of justice
(ver. 6) are pressed upon the same grounds, that the works of mercy are
pressed upon (ver. 7.) sure these are not all, nor only rulers. Hence I
argue, if it be a duty to break every yoke of oppression and tyranny,
then it is a duty to come out from under their subjection; but the
former is true: therefore also the latter.
3. In answer to that grand objection of the Jews subjection to
Nebuchadnezzar, I shewed what little weight or force there is in it. And
here I shall take an argument from that same passage. The Lord commands
his people there, to desert and disown Zedekiah, who was the possessor
of the government at present, and says, it was the way of life to fall
to the Chaldeans, Jer. xxi. 8, 9. which was a falling away from the
present king. Either this commanded subjection to the Chaldeans is an
universal precept; or it is only particular at that time. If it be
universal, obliging people to subject themselves to every conqueror,
then it is also universal, obliging people to renounce and disown every
covenant-breaking tyrant, as here they were to fall away from Zedekiah:
if it be only particular, then the owners of tyranny have no advantage
from this passage. And I have advantage, so far as the ground of the
precept is as moral, as the reason of that punishment of Zedekiah, which
was his perfidy and perjury. Hence, if the Lord hath commanded to disown
a king breaking covenant, then at least it is not insolent or
unprecedented to do so; but here the Lord hath commanded to disown a
king: therefore,--
Fourthly, We may have many confirmations of this truth from scripture
practices approven.
1. I was but hinting before, how that after the death of that brave
captain and judge Gideon, when Abimelech, the son of his whore, did
first aspire into a monarchy, which he persuaded the silly Shechemites
to consent to, by the same argument, which royalists make so much of,
for asserting the necessity of an hereditary monarchy, (whether it is
better for you, either that all the sons of Jerubbaal----reign over you,
or that one reign over you?) and by bloody cruelty did usurp a
monarchical or rather tyrannical throne of domination, founded upon the
blood of his seventy brethren, (as we know, whose throne is founded upon
the blood of all the brethren he had,) Jotham, who escaped, scorned to
put his trust under the shadow of such a bramble, and they that did
submit, found his parable verified, a mutual fire reciprocally consuming
both the usurping king and his traiterous subjects; neither did all the
godly in Israel submit to him. See Pool's Synopsis Critic. on the place,
Jud. ix. Here is one express example of disowning a tyrant and usurper.
2. I shewed before, how, after the period of that theocracy, which the
Lord had maintained and managed for some time in great mercy and majesty
in and over his people, they itching after novelties, and affecting to
be neighbour-like, rejected the Lord in desiring a king; and the Lord
permitting it, gave them a king in wrath, (the true original and only
sanction of tyrannical monarchy,) when the characters of his tyranny,
presaged by Samuel, were verified in his aspiring into a great deal of
absoluteness especially in his cruel persecuting of David, not only the
600 men that were David's followers stood out in opposition to him, but,
in the end, being weary of his government, many brave and valiant men,
whom the Spirit of God commends and describes very honourably, fell off
from Saul, even when he was actually tyrannizing, before he was dead, 1
Chron. xii. 1. &c. They came to David to Ziklag, while he yet kept
himself close, because of Saul the son of Kish, (N.B. now he is not
honoured with the name of king,) they were armed with bows, and could
use both the right hand and the left. And of the Gadites, there
separated themselves unto David men of might, fit for the battle, that
could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were as the faces of lions,
ver. 8. And the Spirit came upon Amasai chief of the captains, saying,
thine are we David, and on thy side, thou son of Jesse. Here was a
formed revolt from Saul unto David before he was king; for after this he
was made king in Hebron, and there could not be two kings at once. Hence
I argue, if people may separate themselves from, and take part with the
resister, against a tyrant; then they may disown him, (for if they own
him still to be the minister of God, they must not resist him, Rom.
xiii. 2.) But here is an example that many people did separate
themselves from Saul, and took part with the resister David:
therefore----Here two of the first monarchs of Israel were disowned,
Abimelech and Saul.
3. The first hereditary successor was likewise disowned, as was hinted
above likewise. The ten tribes offer to covenant with Rehoboam, in terms
securing their rights and liberties. They desired nothing on the matter,
but that he would engage to rule over them according to the law of God;
to which, when he answered most tyrannically, and avowed he would
tyrannize over them, and oppress them more than any of his predecessors,
they fell away from, and erected themselves into a new commonwealth, 1.
Kings xii. 16. So when Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them,
they answered, what portion have we in David? Neither have we
inheritance in the son of Jesse; to your tents, O Israel; now see to
thine own house David, 2 Chron. x. 16. Now, however the event of this
declared revolt proved sorrowful, when they and their new king made
defection unto idolatry, yet if they had stated and managed it right,
the cause was good, justifiable, and commendable. For, (1.) We find
nothing in all the text condemning this. (2.) On the contrary, it is
expressly said, the cause was from the Lord, that he might perform his
saying, which he spake by Ahijah, 1 Kings xii. 15. 2 Chron. x. 15. And
(3.) When Rehoboam was preparing to pursue his pretended right, he was
reproved and discharged by Shemaiah, ye shall not go up, nor fight
against your brethren, for this thing is from me, 1 Kings xii. 24. 2
Chron. xi. 4. (4.) Whereas it is alledged by some, that this was of God
only by his providence, and not by his ordinance; the contrary will
appear, if we consider how formally and covenant-wise the Lord gave ten
tribes to Jeroboam, 1. Kings xi. 35, 37, 38. "I will take the kingdom
out of his son's hand, and I will give it unto thee, even ten tribes;
and I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy
soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel; and it shall be, if thou
wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and
do that which is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and
commandments, as David my servant did, that I will be with thee, and
build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto
thee."
Where we see the kingdom was given unto him on the same terms and
conditions, that it was given to David. He may indeed give kingdoms to
whom he will, by providential grant, as unto Nebuchadnezzar, and others;
but he never gave them a kingdom upon these conditions, and, by way of
covenant, that does always imply and import his word, warrant, and
ordinance. (5.) If we consider the cause of the revolt, we will find it
very just: for after the decease of the former king, they enter upon
terms of a compact with the successor, upon a suspensive condition, to
engage into fealty and allegiance to him as subjects, if he would give
them security for their liberties and privileges. A very lawful,
laudable and necessary transaction, founded upon moral equity, and upon
the fundamental constitutions of that government, and suitable to the
constant practice of their predecessors, in their covenanting with Saul
and David. As for that word, 1 Kings xii. 19. So Israel rebelled against
the house of David: it is no more than in the margin, they fell away or
revolted; and no more to be condemned than Hezekiah's rebellion, 2 Kings
xviii. 7. The Lord was with him, and he rebelled against the king of
Assyria. That was a good rebellion. Hence if it be lawful for a part of
the people to shake off the king, refuse subjection to him, and set up a
new king of their own, when he resolveth to play the tyrant, and rule
them after his own absolute power; then it is a duty, when he actually
plays the tyrant, and by his absolute power overturns laws and religion,
and claims by law such a prerogative; but the former is true:
Ergo----See Jus populi vindic. chap. 3. page 52.
4. This same Jeroboam, when he turned tyrant and idolater, was revolted
from and deserted by the priests and the levites, and after them out of
all the tribes of Israel, by all such as set their heart to seek the
Lord God of Israel; because that king, degenerating into tyranny and
idolatry, had put them from the exercise of their office and religion
(as our Charles did,) and ordained him priests for the devils, and for
the calves: so they returned to Rehoboam, being induced by his
administration of the government, which for a time was better than he
promised, for three years he walked in the ways of David and Solomon, 2
Chron. xi. 13,--17. Hence I argue, if idolatrous tyrants may be
deserted, then they may be disowned abroad, it is the same duty at home,
though may be not the same policy or prudence.
5. Another example of the like nature we have in the reign of Baasha,
who succeeded to Nadab, Jeroboam's son, whom he slew, and reigned in his
stead, (the same way that the duke came to the throne) for he could not
keep his subjects within his kingdom, but behoved to build Ramah, that
he might not suffer any to go out or come in to Asa, king of Judah, a
good prince, 1 Kings xv. 17. yet that could not hinder them, but many
strangers out of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and Simeon, fell to him in
abundance, when they saw that the Lord his God was with him, 2 Chron.
xv. 9. Hence, if people may choose another king, when they see the Lord
is with him, then they may disown their country king, when they see the
devil is with him.
9. When Jeroboam, the son of Ahab, reigned over Israel, we have an
express example of Elisha's disowning him, 2 Kings iii. 14, 15. And
Elisha said unto the king of Israel, what have I to do with thee?----As
the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I
regard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would not look
towards thee, nor see thee. Here he declares so much contempt of him,
and so little regard, that he disdains him a look.
And if he would not regard him, nor give him honour, then he did not own
him as king; for all kings are to be honoured, that are owned to be
kings really. It may be alledged by some, that Elisha was an
extraordinary man, and this was an extraordinary action, and therefore
not imitable. I shall grant it so far extraordinary, that it is not
usual to carry so to persons of that figure, and that indeed there are
few Elishas now, not only for his prophetic spirit which now is ceased,
but even in respect of his gracious spirit of zeal, which in a great
measure is now extinguished: he was indeed an extraordinary man, and
this action did demonstrate much of the spirit of Elias to have been
abiding with him. But that this was was inimitable, these reasons
induce me to deny, (1.) Prophets were subjects to kings, as well as
others, as Nathan was to David (1 Kings i 32, 33.) every soul must be
subject to the higher powers that are of God. (2.) All the actions of
prophets were not extraordinary, nor did they every thing by
extraordinary inspiration; that was peculiar to Christ, that he could
prophesy, and do extraordinary acts when he pleased, because he received
the spirit not by measure, and it rested upon him. (3.) This particular
action and carriage was before he called for the minstrel, and before
the hand of the Lord came upon him, ver. 15. Ergo, this was not by
inspiration. (4.) The ground of this was moral and ordinary, for hereby
he only shewed himself to be a person fit to abide in the Lord's
tabernacle, and an upright walker, in whose eyes a vile person is
contemned, Psal. xv. 4. And a just man, to whom the unjust is an
abomination, Prov. xxix. 29. What further can be alledged against this
instance, I see not. And I need draw no argument by consequence, it is
so plain.
7. This same Jehoram, after many signal demonstrations of the power of
God exerted in the ministry of his servant Elisha, which sometimes did
extort his acknowledgement, and made him call the prophet his father, 2
Kings vi. 21. yet, when in the strait siege of Samaria, he was plagued
with famine for his idolatry, insomuch that the pitiful mothers were
made to eat their own tender children; became so insolent a tyrant, that
being incensed into a madness of outragious malice against the prophet
Elisha, that he sware, God do so to him, and more also, if the head of
Elisha, the son of Shaphat, should stand on him that day, accordingly he
sent a messenger to execute it. But the prophet, from a principle of
nature, and reason, and law, as well as grace, and by the spirit of a
man as well as of a prophet, stood upon his defence and encouraged those
that were with him to keep out the house against him, saying, see ye how
this son of a murderer (a proper stile for such a monster of a king)
hath sent to take away mine head--2 Kings vi. 32. This is a strong
argument for self defence; but I improve it thus; if tyrants may be
opposed as sons of murderers, and murderers themselves, and no otherwise
to be accounted than under such a vile character, then can they not be
owned as kings; but here is an example for the first: Ergo.--
8. This man's brother in law, of the same name, Jehoram the son of
Jehoshaphat, who had the daughter of Ahab to wife, and therefore walked
in the way of the house of Ahab, gives us another instance. He turned
apostate and tyrant, and Abimelech-like (or if you will, York-like) slew
his brethren, and divers also of the princes of Israel; moreover he made
high places in the mountains of Judah and caused the inhabitants of
Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto: for which
cause of his intolerable insolency in wickedness, Libnah one of the
cities of priests in Judah, revolted from him, 2 Kings viii. 22. because
he had forsaken the Lord God of his fathers, 2 Chron. xxi. 10. which was
the motive and impulsive cause of their disowning him, and is not to be
detorted to that restricted cavil of royalists, understanding it only as
the meritorious or procuring cause of his punishment, and loss sustained
thereby; for it is not said of the Edomites, who revolted at the same
time, as it is mentioned in another paragraph; neither of the
Philistines and Arabians, and Ethiopians, whose spirit the Lord stirred
up against him; these were also a punishment to him: nor would it sound
very suitably to be said, that they opposed him, because he had forsaken
the Lord God of his fathers: for that would insinuate some influence
that his apostasy had on them, as certainly it could not but have on the
Lord's priests that dwelt in Libnah, who understood by the law of God,
what was their duty to do with enticers, or drawers or drivers to
idolatry: and when they were not in capacity to execute the judgment of
the Lord, this was the least they could, to revolt. Here then is an
example of a peoples revolt from a prince, and disowning allegiance to
him, because of apostasy and tyranny.
9. In this kingdom of Judah, after long experience of a succession of
hereditary tyranny in many wicked kings, the people, after they had long
smarted for their lazy loyalty, in their stupid abandoning, forgetting
and foregoing this privilege of disowning tyrants, and keeping them in
order, began at length to bestir themselves in their endeavours to
recover their lost liberties, and repress tyrants insolencies on several
occasions; wherein, though sometimes were extravagancies, when
circumstances did mar the justice of the action, and some did go beyond
their sphere in tumultuary precipitations; yet, upon the matter, it was
justice, and in conformity to a moral command. One impregnable witness
of this we have, in the pious plot of Jehoiada the priest, who being but
a subject, as all priests were (as the deposition of Abiathar by king
Solomon, 1 Kings ii. 27. proveth) entered into an association with the
inferior rulers, to choose and make a new king: and notwithstanding that
the idolatress and the tyrant Athaliah, who had the possession of the
government, cried treason, treason at the fact, they had her forth
without the ranges, and slew her, 2 Kings xi. 14, 16. This was according
to the law, Deut. xiii. and approven by all interpreters, even Mr. Pool
in his Synopsis Critic. though otherwise superlatively loyal, yet
approves of this, and says, she was an incurable idolatress, and
therefore deserved to be deposed by the nobles of the kingdom, and
quotes Grotius in loc. saying (she reigned by mere force; for the
Hebrews were to have brethren for their kings, but not sisters, Deut.
xvii. 15.) Hence if tyrants may be forcibly repressed, then may they
peaceably be disowned; but this example confirms that: therefore----
10. The sacred history proceeds in the relation, how this same Joash the
son of Ahaziah, after he degenerated into murdering tyranny, was slain
by Jozachar and Jehozabad, 2 Kings xii. 20, 21. but that was by his own
servants in private assassination: therefore they are called murderers
by Amaziah his son, 2 Kings xiv. 5, 6. but upon the matter it was the
justice of God, which he deserved (if it had been duly execute) for the
blood of the son of Jehoiada the priest, 2 Chron. xxiv. 25. So Amon the
son of Manesseh, for his walking in the way of his father in idolatry
and tyranny, and forsaking the Lord God of his fathers, was slain in his
own house by his servants, who conspired against him; but though this
was justice also upon the matter and consonant to the command for
punishing idolaters and murderers, yet because defective in the manner,
and done by them that took too much upon them in a perfidious way of
private assassination and conspiracy, therefore the people of the land
punished them for it, 2 Kings xxi. 23, 24. But the repressing and
punishing of Amaziah is a more unexceptionable instance.
The people made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to
Lachish; but they sent after him to Lachish, and slew him there, 2 Kings
xiv. 19. after the time that he turned away from following the Lord, 2
Chron. xxv. 27. which was according to the command, Deut. xiii. which
hath no exception of kings in it. This action was not questioned either
by the people or his successor, as the forementioned conspiracies were.
His son Uzziah succeeding, who did right, and consulted the Lord (2.
Chron. xxvi. 4, 5.) did not resent nor revenge his father's death; which
certainly he would have done, by advice of Zechariah, who had
understanding in the visions of God, if it had been a transgression. The
famous and faithful Mr. Knox doth clear this passage beyond
contradiction in his conference with Lethington. Hence I take an
argument a fortiori, if people may conspire and concur in executing
judgment upon their king turning idolater and tyrant, then much more may
they revolt from him; but this example clears the antecedent: therefore.
11. The fame power and privilege of people's punishing their princes,
was exemplified in the successor of him last mentioned, to wit, in
Uzziah the son of Amaziah, called Azariah, 2 Kings xv. when he
degenerated into the ambition of arrogating a supremacy in causes
ecclesiastic and sacred, as well as civil, his heart was lifted up to
his destruction, for he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went
into the temple of the Lord to burn incense. In which usurpation he was
resisted by Azariah the priest, and with him fourscore priests of the
Lord, that were valiant men, who withstood him, and told him, it did not
appertain to him to take upon him so much, and bade him go out of the
sanctuary, or else it should not be for his honour. Which indeed he
stomached at as an affront, to be controuled and resisted; but in
thinking to resent it, he was plagued of the Lord with leprosy; which
the priests looking upon, they thrust him out from thence: and
thereafter sequestred him from all supremacy, both that which he had
before in things civil, and that which he was affecting in matters
sacred; for he was made to dwell in a several house, being a leper, (the
law including, and here execute upon, the king as well as the beggar)
and to resign the government into his son Jotham's hands, 2 Chron. xxvi.
16,--21. where it appears, he was not only excommunicated by a
ceremonial punishment, but also deposed judicially. Whether he
voluntarily demitted or not, it is to no purpose to contend; 'tis
evident, that by the law of God, the actual exercise of his power was
removed, whether with his will or against it, it is all one; and that he
was punished both by God and by men is undeniable. Yea, in this, his
punishment was very gentle, and far short of the severity of the law:
for by the law he should have been put to death, for intermeddling with
these holy things, interdicted to all but to the priests, under pain of
death, Numb. iii. 10. Numb. xviii. 7. The stranger that cometh nigh
shall be put to death. All were strangers that were not priests. Whence
I argue, if a prince, for his usurpation beyond his line in things
sacred, may by the priests be excommunicated, and by the people deposed;
then may a prince, not only usurping a supremacy (as Charles did) but an
absolute power of overturning all things, sacred and civil (as James
doth) and oppressing his subjects in all their liberties, be disowned, a
fortiori, for that is less than deposing or dethroning; but this example
clears the antecedent; therefore----. See Knox's discourse to
Lethington. Lex Rex, quest. 44. sect. 15, p. 461. Jus popul. chap. 3. p.
56.
12. What if I should adduce the example of a king's rebellion against,
and revolt from a superior king, to whom he and his fathers both
acknowledged themselves subject? Surely our royalists and loyalists
would not condemn this; and yet in justifying it, they should condemn
their beloved principle of uncontrouled subjection to uncontroulable
sovereigns possessing the government. Ahaz became servant to the
Assyrian monarch, 2 Kings xvi. 7. yet Hezekiah his son, when the Lord
was with him, and he prospered--rebelled against the king of Assyria,
and he served him not, 2 Kings xviii. 7. Hezekiah was indeed a king; but
he was not Sennacherib's king; he acknowledges himself his vassal, and
that he offended in disowning him, ver. 14. which certainly was his sin
against the Lord, to make such an acknowledgment: for if his father's
transaction with the Assyrian was sin, then it was duty to break the
yoke; if the Lord was with him in that rebellion, then it was sin to
acknowledge it to be his offence: and to make good this acknowledgment,
it was certainly his sin to commit sacrilege, in robbing the house of
God, to satisfy that tyrant. By way supplement, I shall add that
instance of repressing a mad and furious tyrant, which all will
acknowledge to be lawful. Nebuchadnezzar was both stricken of God with
madness, and for that was depelled from the kingdom, according to the
heavenly oracle, The kingdom is departed from thee, and they shall drive
thee from men, Dan. iv. 31, 33. Calvin says upon the place, he was
ejected, as usually is done to tyrants, by the combination of the nobles
and people, Pool's synopsis critic. in locum. Thus he was unkinged for a
time, both by the just judgment of God, and by the intermediation of the
just judgment of men; and could not be owned to be king at that time,
when his nails were as birds claws, and he could not tell his own
fingers: they could not own him to be the governor then of so many
kingdoms, when he could not govern himself. Hence, though this is an
instance of heathens, yet, because they acted upon a rational ground, it
may be argued, If kings, because natural madness, when they cannot
govern themselves, may not be owned; then also, because of moral
madness, when they will not govern but to the destruction of kingdoms,
may not be owned, but the former is true: therefore also the latter. The
same reason against the government of asses, will also militate against
the government of tygers, the first is more eligible than the last.
Fifthly, This may be confirmed from several promises in scripture.
1. There are many gracious and precious promises of reformation of the
magistracy, and restitution of good rulers, as a great blessing from God
to mankind, and to the church, Isa. i. 26. 'I will restore thy judges as
at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning, afterward thou
shalt be called the city of righteousness.' If judges must first be
restored before the city can be a city of righteousness, then they must
be restored before we can own the government thereof: for that
government, under which it cannot be a city of righteousness, cannot be
owned, since it is no government, but a rebellion and combination of
thieves, see ver. 33. I do not here restrict the promise, as it is a
prophecy, to its exact fulfilment, as if no government were to be owned
but what answers this promise, of the restitution of the primitive order
of magistrates; but I plead, that when the princes are rebellious, and
companions of thieves, the government is not to be owned, till judges be
so far restored, as to reduce righteousness in some measure, which
cannot be under tyranny.
And in the general I may plead, that none is to be owned as a
magistrate, but who some way is found in a promise; for there is no
ordinance of God, no duty, no blessing, no good thing, either to be done
or enjoyed, but what is in a promise; but tyranny, or owning of tyrants,
or subjection to usurpers, is not, nor cannot be in a promise. We have
many other promises about magistrates, as, that the Lord will be for a
spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, Isa. xxviii. 6. A
tyrant cannot be capable of this happiness, nor we under tyranny, nor
any while they own them. Kings shall be the church's nursing fathers,
and their queens her nursing mothers, Isa. xlix. 23. Kings are not
always so, but all kings to be owned are such as can be so, at least
they are never to be owned when they turn destroyers of what they should
nourish; but tyrants can never be nourishers. It is promised to the
Lord's people, if they will hearken diligently unto the Lord, and keep
the sabbath, then shall there enter into their gates kings and princes,
Jer. xxiii. 3, 4. But it is never promised, neither doth it come to pass
in providence, that these duties procured tyrants.
There are many other promises to the same purpose: from whence may be
concluded, the Lord will not always leave his people to howl under
uneluctable tyranny, but will accomplish their deliverance in his own
time and way, though we are not to look to miracles. Whence I argue, 1.
Since all the ordinances of God, and rulers in a special manner, are
appointed and promised as blessings, these cannot be owned for his
ordinance, which are not blessings, but curses. 2. That which would
vacate and evacuate all the promises of magistracy, cannot be a doctrine
of God; but this that obliges to own tyrants and usurpers, as long as
they are up, would vacate and evacuate all the promises of magistracy:
for except the Lord work miracles, (which are not in the promise) and do
all without means, they cannot be accomplished. For if any means be
used, they must be such as will infer disowning of tyrants; for
magistrates cannot be restored, except tyrants be removed; and whatever
way they be removed without miracles, by others or their own subjects,
they must still be disowned, and that before they be removed: for if
they be to be owned before their removal, if they exist, cannot make
them to be disowned: dispossession cannot take away their right, if they
have it before.
2. There are many promises of breaking the yoke of tyrants, Isa. x. 27.
"His burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from
off thy neck." And in that promise of the church's deliverance and
enlargement, wherein they are prophetically urged and stirred up to some
activity in co-operating with the providence, Isa. lii. 1, 2. "They are
called to awake, and put on strength and their beautiful garments--and
to shake themselves from the dust--and to rise and to loose themselves
from the bands of their neck," that were captives. Here is not only a
promise of deliverance or a ground of encouragement what the church may
expect, but a promise of, and direction for their being active in
delivering themselves, as men, from the encroachments that were made on
their human liberties, that they should loose themselves from these
bands. Whose bands? from their bands that ruled over them, and made them
to howl, and the Lord's name to be blasphemed, (ver. 5) Here is a
promise of breaking the bands of rulers, by them who howled under their
subjection. And it also includes a precept, that people should not stay
any longer under these yokes, than they can shake them off, or slip from
under them. Hence we see we are not to ly stupidly sleeping, or sinking
in the ditch, expecting the accomplishment of the promise of
deliverance; but are to endeavour actively, in dependence upon the
Lord's assistance, to deliver ourselves. Hence we may argue, 1. A
promise by way of command, that a people under bands of oppressing
rulers shall rouse themselves up to loose themselves from them, implies
and infers a promise and a duty of disowning those rulers (for otherwise
they cannot be loosed from their subjection.) But here is a promise by
way of command, that a people under bands of oppressing rulers shall
rouse themselves up to loose themselves from them: Ergo----2. If the
removal of tyranny and usurpation be promised as a blessing, then those
can never be owned to be the ordinance of God; for the removal of that
can never be a blessing; but in these promises we see the removal of
those is promised as a blessing: therefore they can never be owned.
Sixthly, To the same purpose we may cite some threatnings, that will
confirm the same truth.
1. There are many threatnings against tyrants themselves. There are two
mentioned, Jer. xxii. that seem partly to quadrate, and near of a piece
with our misrulers; both because of the demerit of the threatning, and
the likeness of the judgment threatned. The ground of it was "building
their house by unrighteousness, and their chambers by wrong," ver. 13.
And severally threatned: "Jehoiakim with the burial of an ass
unlamented," ver. 18, 19. Coniah with a life without prosperity, and a
death without issue to succeed, ver. 30. The first of these is verified
in the elder of our royal brothers, the last is like to be of both. But
that which I take notice of is, first, the demerit, building their
house by unrighteousness, on which Whitehall is built with a witness:
and particularly it is noted of Jehoiakim, as his crimson sin (to which
his son Jehoiachin or Coniah served himself heir) that he burnt
Jeremiah's roll, or causes of wrath; so did our dominators burn the
causes of wrath (a book written by the commission of the general
assembly) and the covenants. Then I note these words, ver. 15. "Shalt
thou reign because thou closest thyself in cedar, &c." It is certainly
not fit for us to say, He shall reign, of whom the Lord says, He shall
not reign; but when we own the authority of those whom the Lord
threatens they shall not reign, we say, they shall reign; for we say,
they have a right to reign, and own ourselves obliged to do all that is
required in our capacity to perpetuate their reign. There is a terrible
threatning against Zedekiah, Ezek xx. 25,--27. "Thou profane," or as
some translate it, "thou worthy to be killed," (Pool. synops. crit. in
locum.) "wicked prince of Israel--Thus saith the Lord God, remove the
diadem, take off the crown, this shall not be the same, exalt him that
is low, and abase him that is high; I will overturn, overturn, overturn
it, and it shall be no more until he come whose right it is, and I will
give it him." Than which nothing can be more applicable to our princes,
who are profane, and the patterns and patrons of it, whose diadem the
Lord will remove; and if he threaten it, wo to them that contribute to
hold it on. We see here a profane and wicked prince threatned to be
overturned must not be owned, because he hath no right; but our
excommunicate tyrant is a profane and wicked prince, threatned to be
overturned: Ergo--There is another dreadful threatning against tyrants,
Amos iv. 1, 2. "Hear this word ye kine of Bashan, which oppress the
poor, which crush the needy--The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness,
that lo the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with
hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks." Shall we own these, against
whom the Lord hath engaged his holiness by oath so solemnly, that he
will fish them with hooks? we may fear if there be such a tie as
allegiance between them and us, that that same hook which fishes them
may also catch us; as it is said of Pharaoh and his subjects, when he is
hooked, then his fish stick unto his scales, and he and they are left in
the wilderness, Ezek. xxix. 4, 5. that is, as Grotius expounds it,
whoever are of his community shall be consorts in his calamity, Pool.
Critic. in locum. If we then own them, we must be of their community,
and so partake of their judgments.
2. There are many threatnings against illimited loyalty, and those who
had more of that than religion: for this Ephraim was broken in judgment,
because he walked willingly after the commandment, Hos. v. 11. And
because the statutes of Omri were kept, and the works of the house of
Ahab, therefore the Lord threatens to make them a desolation, Mic. vi.
ult. And among other threatnings against the men of such universal
loyalty, that is notable, Hos. x. 3. "Now ye shall say, we have no king,
because we feared not the Lord, what then should a king do to us?" It is
the just punishment of wicked loyalty, that prefers the fear and favour
of kings to the fear and favour of God, that at length they are brought
to that pass, that either they have no kings at all to look to, or else
they have such of whom it may be said, they are no kings in effect; for
they cannot act the part of kings to them that trust in them. Hence, 1.
If to have really no kings be a punishment. 2. If those that have the
name of kings, that can do no good, be no kings; then tyrants that can
do no good, but a great deal of hurt, must be reckoned no kings also;
but here it is threatned, people that had kings, that had the name, but
could do no good, should reckon they had no kings: therefore much more
may tyrants be reckoned to be no kings, who can do no good, but a great
deal of hurt.
Seventhly, This truth is confirmed from scripture-prayers; whereof there
are many against tyrants, none for them. Hence we argue, If we are not
to pray for tyrants, then we are not to own them; for we are to pray for
all that are in authority, 1 Tim. ii. 2. But we are not to pray for
tyrants; Ergo, we are not to own them. The minor now must be proved. And
this leads me to another subordinate question, which hath also been a
head of suffering to some serious seekers of God in our land of late.
The profane emissaries of this and the late tyrant, sent out with bloody
commissions to hunt after the Lord's hidden ones, in order to murder all
whom they might meet with, that made conscience of adhering to every
part of the present testimony; among other trapping questions to
discover their prey, they used to put this to them as a discriminating
Shibboleth, and tessera of owning the present tyranny, will you say, God
save the king? and for refusing this, many have been cruelly murdered in
the fields; and many before their bloody judicatories, have for this
been arraigned and condemned, and executed to the death. Wherefore to
this somewhat must be said, 1. By way of concession. 2. By way of
vindication, of scrupling it, and suffering upon it.
First, In the general, it will be necessary to premit by way of
concession, 1. It is duty to pray, supplicate and interceed for all
men, 1 Tim. ii. 1. not collectively considered nor distributively
for every one universally without exception, but indefinitely and
indiscriminately, for the kinds of every individual, for all sorts and
sexes, of whatsoever nation or religion, Jew or Gentile, Christian or
infidel, not excluding any for these distinctions: and not only so, but
for every individual of the kinds, also conditionally, if they be among
those all whom the Lord will have to be saved, verse 4. If they be
among those all for whom the mediator gave himself a ransom to be
testified in due time, verse 5, 9. If they have not sinned the sin unto
death, for which we are not bidden pray, 1 John v. 19. Which, because we
know not particularly who are guilty of it, charity will oblige us to
take into our prayers many that may never be the better of them; yet it
is necessary that we pray in faith, for what, or whomsoever we pray, at
least, if I may so call it, we must have a negative faith, a belief that
they have not sinned that sin unto death; which we cannot have at all,
there being some whose demonstrations of desperate displays of affronted
wickedness, and hatred of holiness may give ground to doubt of it, as
Christians had of Julian the apostate. 2. We are obliged to love our
enemies, to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us,
to pray for them that despitefully use and persecute us, Mat. v. 44.
Accordingly our master, who commanded this, did give us a pattern to
imitate, when he prayed, Father forgive them for they know not what they
do, Luke xxiii. 34. And his faithful martyr Stephen, prayed for his
murderers, Lord lay not this sin to their charge, Acts vii. the last
verse. We are to pity them, and not to seek vengeance against them, for
any injuries they can do to us. Yet, as this doth not interfere with a
holy and zealous appeal to God for righting, and resenting, and
requiting, the wrongs done to us, that he may vindicate us and our
cause, and make them repent of their injuries done to us, to the glory
of God, and conviction of onlookers, and confusion of themselves, which
may well consist with mercy to their souls; so all we can pray for them
in their opposition to us, is in order to their repentance, but never
for their prosperity in that course.
And we may well imitate, even against our enemies, that prayer of
Zechariah's, "The Lord look upon it, and require it," 2 Chron. xxiv. 22.
But we are never to pray for Christ's stated enemies, as to the bulk of
them; and under that formality as his enemies: for we must not "love
them that hate the Lord," 2 Chron. xix. 2. but hate them, and hate them
with a perfect hatred, Psal. cxxxix. 21, 22. We are to pray for the
elect among them, but only to the end they may escape the vengeance,
which we are obliged to pray for against them. 3. We are not to execrate
our enemies, or use imprecations against any, out of blind zeal, or the
passionate or revengeful motions of our own hearts: our Lord rebuked his
disciples for such preposterous zeal, Luke ix. 55. "Ye know not what
manner of spirit ye are of;" but against the stated and declared enemies
of Christ, as such and while such, we may well take a pattern from the
imprecatory prayers of saints recorded in scripture; such as do not
peremptorily determine about the eternal state of particular persons:
which determinations, except we be extraordinarily acted by the same
spirit, whose dictates these are, are not to be imitated by us. We find
several sorts of imprecations in the Psalms and other scriptures: some
are imitable, some not; some are prophetical, having the force of a
prophecy, as David's Psal. xxxv. 4. "Let them be confounded--that seek
after my soul.--Let destruction come upon him," Psal. lv. 15. "Let them
go down quick to hell." And Jeremiah, chap. xvii. 18. "Let them be
confounded that persecute me,--destroy them with double destruction."
Without this prophetical spirit, determining the application of these
threatnings to particular persons, we may not imitate this
peremptoriness. Some are typical of Christ's mediatory devoting his
enemies to destruction; who as he interceeds for his friends, so, by
virtue of the same merits (by them trampled upon) he pleads for
vengeance against his enemies; which mediatory vengeance is the most
dreadful of all vengeances, (Heb. x. 29.) So also, Psal. xl. He whose
ears were opened, and who said, "lo I come,"--verse 6, 7. (that is
Christ) does imprecate shame, and confusion, and desolation, ver. 14,
15. As also Psal. cix. the Psalmist personates Christ, complaining of,
and imprecating against his enemies; particularly Judas the traitor,
verse 8. It must be dreadful to be under the dint of the Mediator's
imprecations; and also dreadful to clash with him in his intercessions,
that is, to apprecate for them against whom he intercedes. But some
imprecations against the enemies of God are imitable; such as proceed
from pure zeal for God, and the spirit of prayer, as that, Psal. cix.
last verse, "Put them in fear, O Lord, that the nations, may know
themselves to be but men." Psal. lxxxiii. 16.----"fill their faces with
shame that they may seek thy name." This is to be imitated in general
against all the enemies of God, Psal. cxxix. 5. "Let them all be
confounded that hate Zion;" without condescending on particular persons,
except obviously and notoriously desperate and presumptively Christ's
implacable enemies. 4. Touching magistrates it is a great duty to pray,
that God would give us magistrates, as he hath promised for the comfort
of his church, Isa. i. 26. Isa. xlix. 2. Jer. xxx. 21. Promises should
be motives and foments of prayer. We ought to pray against anarchy as a
plague, and with all earnestness beg of God, that the mercy of
magistracy may again be known in Britain, of which it hath been long
deprived. 5. And when we have them, it is a necessary duty to pray for
them; "For kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a
quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty," 1 Tim. ii. 2.
Where it is specified, what sort we should pray for, and to what end. As
we are not to pray for all men absolutely; for some, as they are
declared to be out of the precincts of Christ's mediation, so they must
be out of our prayers: so there may be some in actual rule, that may be
excepted out of the verge of the Christian prayers, as was said of
Julian the apostate. But he that is a magistrate indeed, and in
authority, the subjects are to pray and to give thanks for him, not as
a man merely, but as a magistrate. Yea, though they be heathen
magistrates, Ezra vi. 10. We may pray for all in authority, two ways; as
men, and as kings. As men, we may pray for their salvation, or
conversion, or taking them out of the way, if they be enemies to
Christ's kingdom, according as they are stated; and upon condition, if
it be possible, and if they belong to the election of grace. Though for
such as are opposites to the coming of Christ's kingdom, as it is a
contradiction to the second petition of the Lord's prayer, (thy kingdom
come.) So, in the experience of the most eminent wrestlers, they have
found less faith, and less encouragement, in praying for them, than for
any other sort of men. It is rare that ever any could find their hands
in praying for the conversion of the rulers. And though we pray that the
Lord would convince them; yea, and confound them, in mercy to their
souls; yet this must never be wanting in our prayers for tyrants, as
men, that God would bring them down, and cause justice overtake them,
that God may be glorified, and the nation eased of such a burden. But if
we pray for them as kings, then they must be such by God's approbation,
and not mere possessory occupants, to whom we owe no such respect nor
duty. For whatever the Hobbists, and the time serving Casuists of our
day, and even many good men (though wofully lax in this point)
homologating both doctrinally and practically their heathenish notions,
say to the contrary; I hope it be in some measure made out, that tyrants
are no more the ordinance of God, nor to be owned as his ministers and
vicegerents, than the devil the prince of this world for the Lord's
anointed, or Baal's priests for true ministers. If we pray for them as
kings, we must pray for their peace, prosperity, and preservation, that
their government may be blessed with success, their designs not
frustrated, nor their desires disappointed. This we cannot pray for
tyrants. 6. Albeit, we may pray for the peace of the nation, and for
the government thereof, so far as it may conduce to our own and the
church's tranquillity, that we may live a peaceable and godly life under
it; yet this cannot be extended to the peace of tyrants, for whom the
best prayer that we can bestow is, that the Lord would bridle and
restrain them, that they may not mar the church's peace. That command,
Jer. xxix. 7. "Seek the peace of the city, whithersoever I have caused
you to be carried captives, and pray unto the Lord for it, for in the
peace thereof shall you have peace," is apparent to have been but of a
temporary nature, upon occasion of their captivity there, until the 70
years should be expired, having it also declared by God, that their own
peace was bound up in that of Babylon's: for after that time they are
taught the contrary carriage towards that city, to depart, and pray
against it, and exult and rejoice in its ruin: "O daughter of Babylon,
happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us, that
dasheth thy little ones against the stones," Psal. cxxxvii. 8, 9. "The
voice of them that flee out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion
the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple," Jer. l. 28. And
Jer. li. 35. "The violence done to me, and to my flesh, be upon Babylon,
shall the inhabitant of Zion say, and my blood be upon Chaldea, shall
Jerusalem say." Certainly this is not the season to seek the peace of
mystical Babylon, but to pray for the destruction thereof, and all its
supporters: which we cannot do, if we pray for them that improve,
employ, and apply all their power to support it, lest we pray
contradictions; as many do, who pray against Babel's brats, and yet pray
for the king; but the comfort is this, that nonsensical prayers will do
little good, little hurt, but to themselves that pray them.
Secondly, To vindicate the scruplers and refusers of such compelled and
extorted devotions in praying for tyrants, I shall offer these
considerations,
1. The imposed form of it (which as it is found in the original from
whence it is taken, is only paraphrastically expounded, God save the
king; and catechrestically applied to tyrants, being in the native sense
of the words of this signification. Let the king live; which is a very
improper wish for men of death, of whom God says they shall die, and the
law says, they should die for their murders and capital crimes) must be
taken either as an adulatory compliment; or a congratulatory honour; or
a precatory benediction. The first as it is extorted most illegally, so
it can be tendered neither civilly, nor sincerely, nor christianly; but
all ingenious men would think it a base imposition, to be forced not
only to subject themselves to their tyrannical oppressors, but to
flatter them as if they were not such. Whatever they may force the mouth
to speak dissemblingly, they can never compel the heart to think such
wishes are due to them; and so they can never be cordial, nor confident
with candor: and to interpose the holy and dreadful name of God, in a
dissembling compliment, to flatter base men, is a horrid mocking of God,
and a heinous taking his name in vain, contrary to the third command. If
it be a congratulation (as always it is used in scripture, and in cases
formerly; being never imposed on men, by way of compulsion, before this
set of tyrants started up, that know they can get no deference of honest
men, but by extortion) it is the more abominable; not only for the
hypocrisy that is in it, but the blasphemy, in giving thanks for the
promoter of the devil's interest, and the destroyer of Christ's, and the
liberties of mankind. What have we to congratulate him for, but for
overturning our laws and liberties, and oppressing us in most grievous
tyranny? Besides, to give the vilest of men, when exalted, any
congratulatory honour, is contrary to the fifth command, as is shewed
above. "And it were a forsaking of the law, thus to praise the wicked,
since they that keep the law, will contend with them," Prov. xxviii. 4.
If it be a benediction, we cannot bestow it upon one whom our father
curses, our mother curses, and all our brethren. It is no less
preposterous to bless whom the Lord declaredly curses, than to curse
whom he blesses. "The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked,"
Prov. iii. 33. we cannot then bless that house. Nor can we bless them
that our mother curses, and cries for vengeance against, as she did
against Nebuchadnezzar, Jer. li. 34, 35. Nor them against whom the blood
of our dead brethren hath a moral cry, "How long, O Lord, holy and true,
dost thou not judge and avenge our blood," Rev. vi. 10. And the vexed
spirits of our brethren, yet howling under the same yoke, are putting up
before the throne of grace, the same continued cry, with incessant
importunity; "How long, how long shall the wicked triumph? How long
shall they break in pieces thy people? O God, to whom vengeance
belongeth," Psal. xciv. 1-4. Yea God hath said it, and we must not
contradict it in our practice, against all tyrants that wrest judgment,
and say unto the wicked, "Thou art righteous, him shall the people
curse, nations shall abhor him," Prov. xxiv. 24. And this must stand
registred, as the everlasting clause of all Zion's haters, to which all
her lovers must say, Amen, that they shall be as the grass upon the
house tops, and never have the benefit of the church's benediction,
Psal. cxxix. 8. "Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the
Lord be upon you; we bless you in the name of the Lord." This one word
may be a sufficient supersede as from blessing any of the enemies of
God; or of the church, while acting in a declared opposition to God for
the destruction of his people and interest.
2. Either this----Save the king, as they mouth it, and demand the
repetition of it, is a prayer, or it is not. If not, it must be a
dreadful profanation of the name of God, to be commanded to speak to
him, and yet not to pray. If it be a prayer, we would expect another way
of dealing with us, if they really desired the benefit of our prayers,
than a threatning us with death, if we did it not. And if they did
desire it, as Darius did, "that we might offer sacrifices of sweet
savour unto the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king and of
his sons," Ezra vi. 10. we could not refuse to pray for him, so far as
might consist with that prayer of the same Darius, in that same decree,
ver. 12. "That God may destroy all kings and people, that shall put to
their hand to alter and destroy the house of God." We can pray no prayer
inconsistent with this; and to pray that God would save this king, and
yet destroy all kings that put to their hand against his house, were to
pray contradictions. But they know they deserve no prayers, and must
force them, if they get them. And all the world knows, that compelled
prayers are no devotion; and if they be no devotion, they must be sin;
imposed prayers are not the prayers that God will hear and accept: and
if we have not the faith of acceptance in them, they must be sin; for
whatever is not of faith is sin, Rom. xiv. last ver. All prayers which
God will hear, must proceed from the heart voluntarily and fervently, in
spirit and in truth, with the whole heart; but imposed and compelled
prayers cannot be such, especially when they are not only by them
imposed, but prescribed as to the form of them: which sets and forms
prescribed by men, and such men as usurp a supremacy over the church,
cannot be subjected to, according to the word of God, and principles of
our reformation.
3. That infallible proposition of the apostle, whatsoever is not of
faith is sin, must be urged yet a little further: and that with a
reference, both to the person required to be prayed for, and to the
matter of the duty more generally. First, if we cannot pray for this
man, neither as a Christian, nor as a king, then we cannot satisfy this
imposed demand; for it will not satisfy for him as a heathen: but we
cannot in faith pray for him, either as a Christian, or as a king. Not
as a Christian, for besides that he is an excommunicate apostate (by a
sentence, which we believe stands yet ratified in heaven, pronounced by
a faithful servant of Christ) and a papist, which, as such, can no more
be prayed for, than the pope as pope; for whom, and all the limbs of
antichrist, the only prayer that protestants can pray, is, that the Lord
would consume him with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the
brightness of his coming, 2 Thess. ii. 8. (we cannot reconcile the
prayers of some, that pray against the pope and his supporters, and
upholders of his tottering kingdom, and yet for this his antichristian
vassal) his rage and resolution in prosecuting a war against Christ and
his followers, is such, that if we may make comparisons, our faith will
have little more ground to pray for James, than Christians of old could
find for Julian the apostate. Nor as a king, for that we cannot do,
because he is none with God's approbation, and may not do, for a very
heathen could teach us to pray, that God would destroy all kings that
put to their hand to alter and destroy the house of God, Ezra vi. 12.
And besides, in the second place, with respect to the matter of the duty
in general; that cannot be, in faith, which wants a warrant in the word,
either by precept, promise, or practice; but to pray for wicked tyrants
and enemies of God, wants a warrant in the word, either by precept,
promise, or practice: there is no precept for it, either general or
particular, neither express, nor any to which this is reducible: and who
dare add without a precept in the worship of God, either for matter,
manner, or end, what he hath not commanded? For such presumption Nadab
and Abihu were destroyed, Levit. x. 1, 2. because they did that which
the Lord had not commanded. What command can there be for praying for
that, which is against the preceptive will of God? But it is against the
preceptive will of God that there should be tyrants: therefore to pray
that these may be preserved in the world, cannot fall under a command of
God. There is no promise for it, which is the foment and foundation of
prayer: we can pray for nothing that we have not a promise for, either
general or particular; but we have none, nor can have any, for the
preservation of a plague to us, as tyrants are.
There is no practice for it in scripture, to pray for kings that put to
their hand to destroy the house of God. Samuel did indeed mourn for
Saul, but the Lord reproved him for it, how long wilt thou mourn for
Saul, seeing I have rejected him from being king over Israel? 1 Sam.
xvi. i. belike this reproof was for his praying for Saul's preservation
as king, for otherwise we may mourn for wicked wretches, for their sin
and misery both. But hence, if the Lord reprove his servant, for
mourning for a king whom he disowned, then we may not pray for such a
king whom the Lord disowns, as he disowns all tyrants, for they are set
up and not by him; but the antecedent is true in that example of Samuel;
therefore also the consequent, that we may not pray for them as kings,
whom the Lord disowns.
4. Moreover, to confirm this yet further; that prayer is not of faith,
and so sin, which is contrary to the precepts of God, and his promises,
and the practices of the saints; but praying for wicked kings, their
preservation, is contrary to these precepts, promises, and practices,
&c. Ergo----. It is contrary to some divine precepts, both affirmative
and negative. There is an affirmative precept, prescribing what prayer
should be used under the domination of tyrants, that they should weep
and say, Spare thy people, O Lord, give not thine heritage to reproach,
that the heathen should rule over them, wherefore should they say among
the people, where is their God? Joel ii. 17. If it be a reproach to be
under heathen rulers, and if we should pray that they may not rule, but
that our God may shew himself where he is, and who he is, in delivering
his people from their domination; then it is contrary to this, to pray
for the preservation of tyrants, that do rule over them to their
destruction and reproach; for it is contradictory to pray, that they may
not rule, and that they may be preserved in ruling. There is a negative
precept, prohibiting the salutation of heretics and enemies of the
gospel, which will condemn this salutation of heretical kings: for, in
the original, God save the king, is no more than a solemn salutation, or
apprecatory wish that he may prosper. 2 Epist. John ver. 10, 11. "If
there come any----, and bring not this doctrine,----neither bid him God
speed, for he that biddeth him God speed, is partaker of his evil
deeds." God speed, in the Greek, is the same with God save, in the
Hebrew. If then we must not say, God save a heretic; neither must we
say, God save an heretical king, or a popish tyrant, a sworn enemy to
the gospel of Christ, and the coming of his kingdom. This is also
inconsistent with that rule and directory of our prayers, commonly
called the Lord's prayer, not only because it cannot be reduced to any
of its petitions, (which are comprehensive of all that we are warranted
to pray for,) but because it is contradictory to the second, which is,
thy kingdom come. The coming of Christ's kingdom in our land cannot
consist with the preservation of the tyrant's reign, which is Satan's
rule, for antichrist's and satan's kingdom, and Christ's, cannot be
promoted both at once. It may be also demonstrated, that it is
inconsistent with all the petitions of that perfect form of prayer. With
the first, hallowed be thy name; for when they who rule over his people
make them to howl, then his name continually is blasphemed, Isa. lii. 5.
Yea much profaned in the frequent repeating that imposition. With the
second, thy kingdom come; for when he takes unto him his great power and
reins, then is the time he will destroy them that destroy the earth,
Rev. xi. 17, 18. It is against the third, thy will be done--for it is
against his preceptive will that there should be a throne of iniquity,
it shall not have fellowship with him; as it would have, if according to
his will. And therefore Habbakkuk pleads from the Lord's holiness and
righteousness against tyrants, Habbak. i. 13, 14. It is against the
fourth, give us this day our daily bread, to pray for them that rob us
of it, whom the Lord hath set over us for a plague, to domineer over our
bodies, and all the means of life, Neh. ix. 37. The saints there make a
complaint of kings, and pray to remove them, not to save them: the
church also prays against base rulers on this account, because under
them they get their bread with the peril of their lives, Lam. v. 8, 9.
It is against the fifth, forgive us our debts or sins; for if we pray
for taking away the guilt of sin, we must also pray for removing the
punishment; whereof this is one, to be under tyrants: and if it be sin
which brings on judgment, then it is sin to pray for the keeping of it
on, and continuing thereof; and though we should forgive their sin
against us, yet we ought to complain against their sins against God, and
the church, in defiling it, and shedding the blood of the saints, Psal.
lxxix. 1-7. It is against the sixth, Lead us not into temptation, and
deliver us from evil: for their government is a continued tract of
temptation, they being a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor,
Hos. v. 1. And if we pray to be delivered from all evil, then we must
pray to be delivered from tyranny, which is a great evil. It is against
the conclusion also, For thine is the kingdom,----and glory: tyrants
being stated in opposition to the glory of God. Again, in the next
place, it is against many promises of giving good rulers, and of
breaking the yoke of tyrants, (as I cited several above;) neither of
which can consist with the preservation of tyrants, if such a prayer
should be answered according to the idol of the heart of the
supplicants: for if God should save this man as long as we may pray for
him as a king, then all the promises of a change and revolution are
precluded. Lastly, It is contrary to the constant tenor of the saints
prayers against the enemies of God. Deborah prayed upon the destruction
of a tyrant, so let all thine enemies perish, O Lord, Judg. v. ult.
Jotham prayed against the bastard king, Let fire come out from Abimelech
and devour the men of Shechem, and--let fire come out from the men of
Shechem and devour Abimelech, Judg. ix. 20. David prays against Saul,
whom he calls Cush the Benjamite in the title of Psal. vii. alluding to
Kish his father, or because he was no better than an Ethiopian, a
Cushite, Amos ix. 7. and could no more change his manners than an
Ethiopian can change his skin, Jer. xiii. 23. See Pool's synops. critic.
in locum. Where it is proven, that this was Saul; against him he prays,
that the Lord would awake to judgment, Psal. vii. 6. and that he would
break the arm of the wicked and the evil man, Psal. x. 15. that he would
not slay them, (to wit, suddenly, or in a common way) lest the people
forget, but scatter, and bring them down, and consume them in wrath,
that they may not be, that it may be known God ruleth in Jacob to the
ends of the earth, Psal. lix. 11, 13. This is a psalm against dogs, ver.
9. what dogs?--Saul and his men watching David. See the title. As also
it is against Saul that he prays, that the Lord would not grant his
desires, nor further his devices, and as for the head of them that
compassed him about, (which was Saul.) Let the mischief of their own
lips cover them, Psal. cxl. 8, 9. There is also a prayer, that the
saints may execute vengeance, and the judgment written upon tyrants, and
bind them with chains, Psal. cxlix. 6, 8, 9. The church is brought in
praying for vengeance against the Babylonian tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar the
king of Babylon hath devoured me,--the violence done to me and my flesh
be upon Babylon shall the inhabitants of Zion say, Jer. li. 34, 35. Paul
imprecates any man that does not love the Lord Jesus, let him be
Anathema Maranatha, 1 Cor. xvi. 22. and sure no tyrant, persecutor,
subverter of Christ's kingdom, can be a lover of Christ. The martyrs,
under the fifth seal slain for the word of God, and the testimony which
they held, are brought in crying against the tyrants that murdered them,
How long! O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our
blood, Revel. vi. 9, 10. Which though it be to be understood of a moral
cry of blood, as Abel's blood cried against Cain: yet ought to be a
pattern of our prayers against such bloody enemies, imbruing their hands
in the blood of our brethren, for which we ought to pray that the Lord
would haste to make inquisition. Durham observes from this place, that
God's people, in a holy way, may pray for vengeance upon persecutors.
5. Let us consider the person and matter, for whom and for what this
prayer is extorted. Either it is for the personal salvation of James the
papist, or the royal preservation of James the tyrant. It will not
satisfy to pray, that if it be possible, and if it were the Lord's will,
he might be taken to heaven, that so we might be quit of him. Neither
were it lawful to pray, that, except we prayed first, that he might
repent of this his wickedness, if perhaps it might be forgiven him, as
Peter directed Simon Magus to pray for himself, Acts viii. 22. for it is
unlawful to pray for the salvation of a papist, except upon supposition
of his repentance and relinquishing popery. We must pray nothing but
according to the will of God; and it is not the will of God, that they
that have and keep, and will not part with the mark of the beast, should
be saved, for he is adjudged of God to drink of the wine of his wrath,
Revel. xiv. 9, 10. So we cannot pray for him as a Christian, which he is
not; nor as a papist, except that he may get repentance. Nor can we
pray for him as a king, which he is not; nor as a tyrant, except that he
may repent of and relinquish his tyranny and usurpation: for tyrants as
such cannot be saved, no more than papists as such; for Tophet is
ordained of old, yea for the king it is prepared,----Isa. xxx. 33. We
cannot then pray for his salvation, except we pray for his repentance,
and relinquishing all his sins, and so we must pray for him
relinquishing his kingship, and that he may cease to be king; for that
is his sin, that he hath made himself king without God, and against the
laws of the land.
And now, while he continues such, we must complain in prayer, not for
his misgovernment only, but for that he governs, and desire to be
delivered from him. See Gee's magistrates original, pag. 258. But now
considering what a man, and what a king he hath been, guilty of murder,
adultery, idolatry, under sentence of the law both of God and man; we
can pray no otherwise for him, than for a murderer, adulterer, or an
idolater. We cannot pray for him as cloathed with authority, or that the
Lord may bless his government, for that is his sin and our misery, that
he is a governor: and his throne is a throne of iniquity, which we dare
not pray may have fellowship with God. Can we pray that God would bless
him on a throne of iniquity? Could we pray, that the Lord would bless a
drunkard in his drunkenness, abusing his enjoyments? Or a thief in his
stealing, though he used his purchase never so soberly? What if
prevailing robbers by land, or pirates by sea, preying upon all
passengers, should require this as the sign of subjection to them, and
only condition whereupon such, as they apprehend and overcame, should be
suffered to live, that they should pray for preservation and prosperity
to them? Would not this be wickedness thus to pray for thieves and
robbers? And are not tyrants the greatest of thieves, that rob and
destroy twenty for one of private robberies? And do they not require
this as such a sign on such a condition?
6. Lastly, Then the plea will be reduced to this, that it is exacted as
a badge of loyalty, and sign, Tessera, Shibboleth of owning the
authority. Which I have at this length endeavoured to prove, cannot be
conscientiously owned by us, in these circumstances. And even by this
argument: that authority which we cannot pray for we cannot own; but we
cannot pray for this tyrannical authority: therefore.--The minor I trust
is in some measure made manifest, by what is said above. And so I
conclude this head, with that form of prayer, that I use for the king. O
Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thy self; lift up thyself,
thou judge of the earth, render a reward to the proud. Lord, how long
shall the wicked? how long shall the wicked triumph? Shall the throne of
iniquity have fellowship with thee, that frameth mischief by a law? The
mighty and terrible God destroy all kings and people, that put to their
hand to alter and destroy the house of God. Overturn, overturn, overturn
this throne of tyranny, and let it be no more, until he come whose right
it is.