CHAPTER XI.
PLACES AND EXAMPLES OF SCRIPTURE OF THE RIGHTS OF GOVERNMENT, AGREEABLE TO WHAT HATH BEEN SAID BEFORE.
1. The beginning of institutive government from the consent of the people. 2. Judicature and wars depend on the will of supreme commanders. 3. That they who have the chief authority, are by right unpunishable. 4. That without a supreme power there is no government, but anarchy. 5. That from servants and sons there is a simple obedience due to their lords and parents. 6. Absolute authority proved by most evident places, as well of the New as the Old Testament.
[Sidenote: The beginning of institutive government from the consent of the people.]
1. We have, in the sixth chapter and the second article, so derived the original of institutive or political government from the consent of the multitude, that it appears they must either all consent, or be esteemed as enemies. Such was the beginning of God’s government over the Jews instituted by Moses, (Exod. xix. 5-8): _If ye will obey my voice indeed_, &c. _Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests_, &c. _And Moses came and called the elders of the people_, &c. _And all the people answered, and said: All that the Lord hath spoken we will do._ Such also was the beginning of Moses’s power under God, or his vicegerency, (Exod. xx. 18-19): _And all the people saw the thunderings and lightenings, and the noise of the trumpet_, &c. _And they said unto Moses, speak thou unto us, and we will hear._ The like beginning also had Saul’s kingdom, (1 Sam. xii. 12, 13): _When ye saw that Nahash king of the children of Ammon came out against you, ye said unto me, nay, but a king shall reign over us, when the Lord your God was your king. Now therefore behold the king whom ye have chosen, and whom ye have desired._ But the major part only consenting, and not all; for there were certain _sons of Belial_, who said, (1 Sam. x. 27), _How shall this man save us? And they despised him_; those who did not consent, were put to death as enemies. And the people said unto Samuel (1 Sam. xi. 12): _Who is he that said, shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men, that we may put them to death._
[Sidenote: The power of judicature, and determination of wars, depend on the will of the supreme officer.]
2. In the same sixth chapter, the sixth and seventh articles, I have showed that all _judgment_ and _wars_ depend upon the will and pleasure of him who bears the supreme authority; that is to say, in a _monarchy_, on a monarch or king; and this is confirmed by the people’s own judgment. 1 Sam. viii. 20; _We also will be like all the nations, and our king shall judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles._ And what pertains to _judgments_, and all other matters whereof there is any controversy, whether they be _good_ or _evil_, is confirmed by the testimony of King Solomon, (1 Kings iii. 9): _Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and evil._ And that of Absolom, (2 Sam. xv. 3): _There is no man deputed of the king to hear thee._
[Sidenote: They who have the supreme authority are by right unpunishable.]
3. That kings may not be punished by their subjects, as hath been showed above in the sixth chapter and the twelfth article, King David also confirms; who, though Saul sought to slay him, did notwithstanding refrain his hand from killing him, and forbade Abishai, saying, (1 Sam. xxvi. 9): _Destroy him not; for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed, and be innocent?_ And when he had cut off the skirt of his garment, (1 Sam. xxiv. 6): _The Lord forbid_, saith he, _that I should do this thing unto my master the Lord’s anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him_. And (_2 Sam._ i. 15) commanded the Amalekite, who for his sake had slain Saul, to be put to death.
[Sidenote: That without a supreme power there is no government, but confusion.]
4. That which is said in the seventeenth chapter of _Judges_, at the sixth verse: _In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes_: as though where there were not a _monarchy_, there were an _anarchy_ or confusion of all things: may be brought as a testimony to prove the excellency of monarchy above all other forms of government; unless that by the word _king_ may perhaps be understood not _one man_ only, but also a _court_; provided that in it there reside a supreme power. Which if it be taken in this sense, yet hence it may follow, that without a supreme and absolute power (which we have endeavoured to prove in the sixth chapter) there will be a liberty for every man to do what he hath a mind, or whatsoever shall seem right to himself; which cannot stand with the preservation of mankind. And therefore in all government whatsoever, there is ever a supreme power understood to be somewhere existent.
[Sidenote: That servants and sons owe their lords and parents simple obedience.]
5. We have, in chap. VIII. art. 7 and 8, said that _servants_ must yield a simple obedience to their _lords_, and in chap IX. art. 7, that _sons_ owe the same obedience to their _parents_. Saint Paul says the same thing concerning servants (Coloss. iii. 22): _Servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God._ Concerning sons (Colos. iii. 20): _Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord._ Now as we by simple obedience understand all things which are not contrary to the laws of God; so in those cited places of St. Paul, after the word _all things_, we must suppose, _excepting those which are contrary to the laws of God_.
[Sidenote: The absolute power of princes proved by most evident testimonies of the Scripture, as well New as Old.]
6. But that I may not thus by piecemeal prove the right of princes, I will now instance those testimonies which altogether establish the whole power; namely, that there is an absolute and simple obedience due to them from their subjects. And first out of the New Testament: Matth. xxiii. 2, 3: _The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat; all therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do. Whatsoever they bid you_ (says Christ) _observe_, that is to say, _obey simply_. Why? Because they _sit in Moses’ seat_; namely, the _civil magistrate’s_, not Aaron, the priest’s. Rom. xiii. 1, 2: _Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God; whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist, shall receive to themselves damnation._ Now because the powers that were in St. Paul’s time, were ordained of God, and all kings did at that time require an absolute entire obedience from their subjects, it follows that such a power was ordained of God. 1 Peter ii. 13-15: _Submit yourselves unto every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of wicked doers, and for the praise of them that do well; for so is the will of God._ Again St. Paul to Titus, (chap. iii. 1): _Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, &c._ What principalities? Was it not to the principalities of those times, which required an absolute obedience? Furthermore, that we may come to the example of Christ himself, to whom the kingdom of the Jews belonged by hereditary right derived from David himself; he, when he lived in the manner of a subject, both paid tribute unto Cæsar, and pronounced it to be due to him, Matth. xxii. 21: _Give unto Cæsar_ (saith he) _the things which are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s_. When it pleased him to show himself a king, he required entire obedience, Matth. xxi. 2, 3: _Go_ (said he) _into the village over against you, and straight-way ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her; loose them, and bring them unto me; and if any man say aught unto you, ye shall say the Lord hath need of them_. This he did therefore by the right of being lord, or a king of the Jews. But to take away a subject’s goods on this pretence only, because _the Lord hath need of them_, is an absolute power. The most evident places in the Old Testament are these: Deut. v. 27: _Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say; and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee, and we will hear it, and do it._ But under the word _all_, is contained absolute obedience. Again to Joshua (Joshua i. 16-18): _And they answered Joshua, saying, all that thou commandest us, we will do; and whithersoever thou sendest us, we will go; according as we hearkened unto Moses in all things, so will we hearken unto thee; only the Lord thy God be with thee, as he was with Moses; whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandment, and will not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him, he shall be put to death._ And the parable of the bramble (Judges ix. 14, 15): _Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou and reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon._ The sense of which words is, that we must acquiesce to their sayings, whom we have truly constituted to be kings over us, unless we would choose rather to be consumed by the fire of a civil war. But the regal authority is more particularly described by God himself, in 1 Sam. viii. 9, &c.: _Show them the right of the king that shall reign over them, &c. This shall be the right of the king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots, &c. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, &c. And he will take your vineyards, and give them to his servants, &c._ Is not this power absolute? And yet it is by God himself styled the _king’s right_. Neither was any man among the Jews, no not the _high-priest_ himself, exempted from this obedience. For when the king, namely, Solomon, said to Abiathar the priest (1 Kings ii. 26, 27): _Get thee to Anathoth unto thine own fields; for thou art worthy of death; but I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou barest the ark of the Lord God before David my father, and because thou hast been afflicted in all wherein my father was afflicted. So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the Lord_; it cannot by any argument be proved, that this act of his displeased the Lord; neither read we, that either Solomon was reproved, or that his person at that time was any whit less acceptable to God.
-------