824.4 MIL, 1847 T ་་ CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. c.d THE TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES: proving that it is lawful, and hath been held so through all Ages, for any who have the Power, to call to Account a Tyrant, or wicked King, and after due Conviction, to depose, and put him to Death, if the ordinary Magistrate have neglected THE PRESENT MEANS AND BRIEF DELINEATION OF A FREE THE READY AND EASY WAY TO ESTABLISH A FREE COMMON- WEALTH, and the Excellence thereof, compared with the Inconveniences and Dangers of re-admitting Kingship in OBSERVATIONS ON THE ARTICLES OF PEACE, between James Earl of Ormond for King Charles the First on the one Hand, and the Irish Rebels and Papists on the other Hand and on a Letter sent by Ormond to Colonel Jones, Governor of Dublin: and a Representation of the Scots Presbytery at Belfast in Ireland. To which the said Articles, Letter, with Colonel Jones's Answer to it, and Representation, &c., are prefixed LETTERS OF STATE to most of the Sovereign Princes and Re- publics of Europe during the Administration of the Com- A MANIFESTO OF THE LORD PROTECTOR to the Common- wealth of England, Scotland, Ireland, &c. Wherein is shewn the Reasonableness of the Cause of this Republic against the Depredations of the Spaniards BRIEF NOTES UPON A LATE SERMON TITLED THE FEAR OF GOD AND THE KING; preached and since published by Matthew Griffith, D.D., and Chaplain to the late King. 106 108 139 200 333 354 OF PREI ATICAL EPISCOPACY, and whether it may be Deduced from the Apostolical Times, by Virtue of those Testi- monies which are Alleged to that Purpose in some late Treatises; one whereof goes under the name of James, 420 438 • CHAP. I.-That Church Government is prescribed in the Gospel; and that to say otherwise is unsound. CHAP. II.-That Church Government is set down in Holy Scripture; and that to say otherwise is untrue CHAP. III. That it is dangerous and unworthy the Gospel, to hold that Church Government is to be patterned by the CHAP. IV.―That it is impossible to make the Priesthood of CHAP. VI.-That Prelaty was not set up for Prevention of Schism, as is pretended; or if it were, that it performs not what it was first set up for, but quite the contrary 459 CHAP. VII.-That those many Scots and Schisms by some sup- posed to be among us, and that Rebellion in Ireland, CHAP. I.—That Prelaty opposeth the Reason and End of the Gospel three Ways: and first, in her outward Form THE CONCLUSION.- -The Mischief that Prelaty does in the State 501 OF TRUE RELIGION, HERESY, SCHISM, TOLERATION; and what best Means may be used against the Growth of Popery 509 A TREATISE OF CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES; THE TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES: PROVING THAT IT IS LAWFUL, AND HATH BEEN HELD SO THROUGH ALL AGES, FOR ANY, WHO HAVE THE POWER, TO CALL TO ACCOUNT A TYRANT, OR WICKED KING, and after DUE CONVICTION, TO DEPOSE, AND PUT HIM TO DEATH, IF THE ORDINARY MAGISTRATE HAVE NEGLECTED, OR DENIED TO DO IT. AND THAT THEY WHO OF LATE SO MUCH BLAME DEPOSING, ARE THE MEN THAT DID IT THEMSELVES. EDITOR'S PRELIMINARY REMARKS. SOON after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell, with the whole army. through the city, in Apirl, 1647, to suppress the insurrection of Brown and Massey, Milton removed to Holborn, where he continued until after the King's death; when, the form of the government being changed to a republic, and the Presbyterians, then out of power, declaring their abhorrence of the Stuart's execution, Milton undertook, in the following treatise, to maintain the right of nations to put a tyrant to death. Wood rightly supposes it was written before the execution of Charles I., though it now contains many passages afterwards inserted ;* but Milton himself assures us it was not published until the transaction had taken place; and even then more with a design to compose the public mind, and reconcile to the existing government such as were disaffected, than to determine anything respecting the late king. From a MS. note found in a printed copy in his possession, Dr. Birch discovered that the work was published in the month of February, 1648-49.† It should be remembered that even in his "Defence of the People of England," when there existed no reasons for suppressing or disguising his sentiments, Milton never exhibited any hatred of just and lawful princes; and here, in advocating tyrannicide, takes the greatest care to distinguish between the king and the tyrant. His opinions, in fact, were those of Buchanan, ("De Jure Regni apud Scotos,") from whom Dryden absurdly accuses him of stealing the whole "Defence of the People of England; " and upon the Revolution of 1688, Locke maintained, with the approbation of King William III., precisely the same proposition. This the reader should constantly bear in mind, as well as that he wrote in a Commonwealth, at a time when the opinions of most learned men were unfavourable to monarchy. * In the second edition, in 1650; for his works had then a rapid sale. + Life of Milton, prefixed to the 4to. edition of the Prose Works, p. xxxii. Preface to the "Medal," which he entitles "An Epistle to the Whigs." VOL. II. B THE # TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES. IF men within themselves would be governed by reason, and not generally give up their understanding to a double tyranny of custom from without, and blind affections within, they would discern better what it is to favour and uphold the tyrant of a nation. But, being slaves within doors, no wonder that they strive so much to have the public state conformably go verned to the inward vicious rule by which they govern themselves. For, indeed, none can love freedom heartily but good men; the rest love not freedom but licence, which never hath more scope or more indulgence than under tyrants. Hence is it that tyrants are not oft offended, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all naturally servile; but in whom virtue and true worth most is eminent, them they fear in earnest, as by right their masters; against them lies all their harted and suspicion. Consequently, neither do bad men hate tyrants, but have been always readiest, with the falsified names of loyalty and obedience, to colour over their base compliances. And although sometimes for shame, and when it comes to their own grievances, of purse especially, they would seem good patriots and side with the better cause, yet when others for the deliverance of their country endued with fortitude and heroic virtue to fear nothing but the curse written against those "that do the work of the Lord negligently," would go on to remove, not only the calamities and thraldoms of a people, but the roots and causes whence they spring; straight these men, and sure helpers at need, as if they hated only the miseries, but not the mischiefs, after they have juggled and paltered with the world, bandied and borne arms against their king, divested him, disanointed him, nay, cursed him all over in their pulpits, and their pamphlets, to the engaging of * * Dr. Zachary Gray, the learned, but partial and prejudiced editor of Hudibras, has, with the diligence of one who performs a labour of love, scraped together in his notes everything the paltry literature of the Restoration could supply against the preachers and soldiers of the Commonwealth. He, however, corroborates Milton's charge against the presbyterians, of sincere and real men beyond what is possible or honest to retreat from, not only turn revolters from those principles, which only could at first move them, but lay the strain of disloyalty, and worse, on those proceedings which are the necessary consequences of their own former actions; nor disliked by themselves, were they managed to the entire advantages of their own faction; not considering the while that he toward whom they boasted their new fidelity, counted them accessory; and by those statutes and laws, which they so impotently brandish against others, would have doomed them to a traitor's death for what they have done already. It is true, that most men are apt enough to civil wars and commotions as a novelty, and for a flash hot and active; but through sloth or inconstancy, and weakness of spirit, either fainting ere their own pretences, though never so just, be half attained, or through an inbred falsehood and wickedness, betray, ofttimes to destruction with themselves, men of noblest temper joined with them for causes whereof they in their rash undertakings were not capable. If God and a good cause give them victory, the prosecution whereof for the most part inevitably draws after it the alteration of laws, change of government, downfall of princes with their families; then comes the task to those worthies which are the soul of that enterprise, to be sweat and laboured out amidst the throng and noses of vulgar and irrational men. Some contesting for privileges, customs, forms, and that old entanglement of having at the outset preached a crusade against royalty; but is far from joining with the poet in reprehending their backwardness to "fight it out, mordicus, to death.” "The presbyterians (many of whom, before the war, had got, he observes, into parish churches) preached the people into rebellion; incited them to take up arms and fight the Lord's battles, and destory the Amalekites, root and branch, hip and thigh, and to root out the wicked from the earth; that was, in their sense, all that loved the king, the bishops, and the common prayer." "It has been fully made out that many of the regicides were drawn into the grand rebellion by the direful imprecations of seditious preachers from the pulpit." Dr. South relates that "he had it from the mouth of Axtell the regicide, that he, with many more, went into that execrable war with such a controlling horror upon their spirits, from those public sermons, especially of Brooks and Calamy, that they verily believed they should have been accursed of God for ever, if they had not acted their part in the dismal tragedy, and heartily done the devil's work.". -(Sermons, i. 513.) He adds, that "it was the pulpit that supplied the field with swordsmen, and the parliament-house with incendiaries."-ED. |