thing, it proveth that it was rebellion in the inferior judges and community of Israel to fight against foreign kings, not set over them by God; and that offensive wars against any kings whatsoever, because they are kings, though strangers, are unlawful. Let Socinians and anabaptists consider if the P. Prelate help not them in this, and may prove all wars to be unlawful. 3. He is so malignant to all inferior judges, as if they were not powers sent of God, and to all governors that are not kings, and so upholders of prelates, and of himself as he conceiveth, that by his arguing he will have all deliverance of kings only, the only lawful means in ordinary providence; and so aristocracy and democracy, except in God's extraordinary providence, and by some divine dispensation, must be extraordinary and ordinarily unlawful. 1. The acts of a state, when a king is dead and they choose another, shall be an anticipating of God's providence. 2. If the king be a child, a captive, or distracted, and the kingdom oppressed with malignants, they are to wait, while God immediately from heaven create a king to them, as he did Saul long ago. But have we now kings immediately sent as Saul was? How is the spirit of prophecy and government infused in them, as in king Saul? or are they by prophetical inspiration, anointed as David was? I conceive their calling to the throne on God's part differs as much from the calling of Saul and David, in some respect, as the calling of ordinary pastors, who must be gifted by industry and learning and called by the church, and the calling of apostles. 3. God would deliver his people from Babylon by moving the heart of Cyrus immediately, the people having no hand in it, not so much as supplicating Cyrus; therefore, the people and peers who made the king cannot curb his tyrannical power, if he make captives and slaves of them, as the kings of Chaldea made slaves of the people of Israel. What! Because God useth another mean, therefore, this mean is not lawful. It followeth in no sort. If we must use no means but what the captive people did under Cyrus, we may not lawfully fly, nor supplicate, for the people did neither.

P. Prelate.-You read of no covenant in Scripture made without the king. (Exod. xxxiv.) Moses king of Jeshurun: neither tables nor parliament framed it. Joshua another, (Josh. xxiv.) and Asa, (2 Chron.

XV.; 2 Chron. xxxiv.; Ezra x.) The covenant of Jehoiada in the nonage of Joash, was the high priest's act, as the king's governor. There is a covenant with hell, made without the king, and a false covenant. (Hos. x. 3, 4.)

Ans. We argue this negatively. 1. This is neither commanded, nor practised, nor warranted by promise; therefore, it is not lawful. But this is not practised in Scripture; therefore, it is not lawful. It followeth it. Show me in Scripture the killing of a goring ox who killed a man; the not making battlements on a house; the putting to death of a man lying with a beast; the killing of seducing prophets, who tempted the people to go a whoring, and serve another God than Jehovah: I mean, a god made by the hand of the baker, such a one as the excommunicated Prelate is known to be, who hath preached this idolatry in three kingdoms. (Deut. xiii.) This is written, and all the former laws are divine precepts. Shall the precept make them all unlawful, because they are not practised by some in Scripture? By this? I ask, Where read ye that the people entered in a covenant with God, not to worship the golden image, and the king; and those who pretended they are the priests of Jehovah, the churchmen and prelates, refused to enter in covenant with God? By this argument, the king and prelates, in non-practising with us, wanting the precedent of a like practised in Scripture, are in the fault. 2. This is nothing to prove the conclusion in question. 3. All these places prove it is the king's duty, when the people under him, and their fathers, have corrupted the worship of God, to renew a covenant with God, and to cause the people to do the like, as Moses, Asa, and Jehoshaphat did. 4. If the king refuse to do his duty, where is it written that the people ought also to omit their duty, and to love to have it so, because the rulers corrupt their ways? (Jer. v. 31.) To renew a covenant with God is a point of service due to God that the people are obliged unto, whether the king command it or no. What if the king command not his people to serve God; or, what if he forbid Daniel to pray to God? Shall the people in that case serve the King of kings, only at the nod and royal command of an earthly king? Clear this from Scripture. 5. Ezra (ch. v.) had no commandment in particular from Artaxerxes, king of Persia, or from Darius, but a

general. (Ezra vii. 23.) "Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven." But the tables in Scotland, and the two parliaments of England and Scotland, who renewed the covenant, and entered in covenant not against the king, (as the P. P. saith,) but to restore religion to its ancient purity, have this express law both from king James and king Charles, in many acts of parliament, that religion be kept pure. Now, as Artaxerxes knew nothing of the covenant, and was unwilling to subscribe it, and yet gave to Ezra and the princes a warrant, in general, to do all that the God of heaven required to be done, for the religion and house of the God of heaven, and so a general warrant for a covenant, without the king; and yet Ezra and the people, in swearing that covenant, failed in no duty against their king, to whom, by the fifth commandment, they were no less subject than we are to our king: just so we are, and so have not failed. But they say, the king hath committed to no lieutenant and deputy under him, to do what they please in religion, without his royal consent in particular, and the direction of his clergy, seeing he is of that same religion with his people; whereas Artaxerxes was of another religion than were the Jews and their governor.—Ans. Nor can our king take on himself to do what he pleaseth, and what the prelates (amongst whom those who ruled all are known, before the world and the sun, to be of another religion than we are) pleaseth, in particular. But see what religion and worship the Lord our God, and the law of the land (which is the king's revealed will) alloweth to us, that we may swear, though the king should not swear it; otherwise, we are to be of no religion but of the king's, and to swear no covenant but the king's, which is to join with papists against protestants. 6. The strangers of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon fell out of Israel in abundance to Asa, when they saw that the Lord his God was with him, (2 Chron. xv. 9, 10,) and sware that covenant without their own king's consent, their own king being against it. If a people swear a religious covenant, without their king, who is averse thereunto, far more may the nobles, peers, and estates of parliament do it without their king; and here is an example of a practice, which the P. Prelate requireth. 7. That Jehoiada was governor and viceroy during the nonage of

Joash, and that by this royal authority the covenant was sworn, is a dream, to the end he may make the Pope, and the archprelate, now viceroys and kings, when the throne varieth. The nobles were authors of the making of that covenant, no less than Jehoiada was; yea, and the people of the land, when the king was but a child, went unto the house of Baal, and brake down his images, &c. Here is a reformation, made without the king, by the people. 8. Grave expositors say, that the covenant with death and hell (Isa. xxviii.) was the king's covenant with Egypt. 9. And the covenant (Hos. x.) is by none exponed of a covenant made without the king. I have heard said, this Prelate, preaching on this text before the king, exponed it so; but he spake words (as the text is) falsely. The P. Prelate, to the end of the chapter, giveth instance of the ill success of popular reformation, because the people caused Aaron to make a golden_calf, and they revolted from Rehoboam to Jeroboam, and made two golden calves, and they conspired with Absalom against David.Ans. If the first example make good any thing, neither the high priest, as was Aaron, nor the P. Prelate, who claimeth to be descended of Aaron's house, should have any hand in reformation at all; for Aaron erred in that. And to argue from the people's sins to deny their power, is no better than to prove Ahab, Jeroboam, and many kings in Israel and Judah, committed idolatry, therefore they had no royal power at all. In the rest of the chapter, for a whole page, he singeth over again his matins in a circle, and giveth us the same arguments we heard before; of which you have these three notes:-1. They are stolen, and not his own. 2. Repeated again and again to fill the field. 3. All hang on a false supposition, and a begging of the question. That the people, without the king, have no power at all.

QUESTION XXVII.

WHETHER OR NO THE KING BE THE SOLE, SUPREME AND FINAL INTERPRETER OF THE LAW.

This question conduceth not a little to the clearing of the doubts concerning the king's absolute power, and the supposed sole no

And I think

mothetic power in the king. it not unlike to the question, Whether the Pope and Romish church have a sole and peremptory power of exponing laws, and the word of God? We are to consider that there is a twofold exposition of laws; 1. One speculative in a school way, so exquisite jurists have a power to expone laws. 2. Practical, in so far as the sense of the law falleth under our practice; and this is twofold, either private and common to all, or judicial and proper to judges; and of this last is the question.

For this public, the law hath one fundamental rule, salus populi, like the king of planets, the sun, which lendeth star-light to all laws, and by which they are exponed: whatever interpretation swerveth either from fundamental laws of policy, or from the law of nature, and the law of nations, and especially from the safety of the public, is to be rejected as a perverting of the law; and therefore, conscientia humani generis, the natural conscience of all men, to which the oppressed people may appeal unto when the king exponeth a law unjustly, at his own pleasure, is the last rule on earth for exponing of laws. Nor ought laws to be made so obscure, as an ordinary wit cannot see their connexion with fundamental truths of policy, and the safety of the people; and therefore I see no inconvenience, to say, that the law itself is norma et regula juduicandi, the rule and directory to square the judge, and that the judge is the public practical interpreter of the law.

Assert. 1.-The king is not the sole and final interpreter of the law.

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1. Because then inferior judges should not be interpreters of the law; but inferior judges are no less essentially judges than the king, (Deut. i. 17; 2 Chron. xix. 6; 1 Pet. ii. 14; Rom. xiii. 1, 2,) and so by office must interpret the law, else they cannot give sentence according to their conscience and equity. Now, exponing of the law judicially is an act of judging, and so a personal and incommunicable act; so as I can no more judge and expone the law according to another man's conscience, than I can believe with another man's soul, understand with another man's understanding, or see with another man's eye. The king's pleasure, therefore, cannot be the rule of the inferior judge's conscience, for he giveth an immediate account to God, the Judge of all, of a just or an unjust sentence. Suppose

Cæsar shall expone the law to Pilate, that Christ deserveth to die the death, yet Pilate is not in conscience to expone the law so. If therefore inferior judges judge for the king, they judge only by power borrowed from the king, not by the pleasure, will, or command of the king thus and thus exponing the law, therefore the king cannot be the sole interpreter of the law.

2. If the Lord say not to the king only, but also to other inferior judges, "Be wise, understand, and the cause that you know not, search out," then the king is not the only interpreter of the law. But the Lord saith not to the king only, but to other judges also, Be wise, understand, and the cause that you know not, search out; therefore the king is not the sole law-giver. The major is clear from Psal. ii. 10, "Be wise now therefore, O ye kings, be instructed, ye judges of the earth." So are commands and rebukes for unjust judgment given to others than to kings. (Ps. lxxxii. 1-5; lviii. 1, 2; Isa. i. 17, 23, 25, 26; iii. 14; Job xxix. 12-15; xxxi. 21, 22.)

3. The king is either the sole interpreter of law, in respect he is to follow the law as his rule, and so he is a ministerial interpreter of the law, or he is an interpreter of the law according to that super-dominion of absolute power that he hath above the law. If the former be holden, then it is clear that the king is not the only interpreter, for all judges, as they are judges, have a ministerial power to expone the law by the law: but the second is the sense of royalists.

Assert. 2.-Hence our second assertion is, That the king's power of exponing the law is a mere ministerial power, and he hath no dominion of any absolute royal power to expone the law as he will, and to put such a sense and meaning of the law as he pleaseth.

1. Because Saul maketh a law, (1 Sam. xiv. 24,)" Cursed be the man that tasteth any food till night, that the king may be avenged on his enemies," the law, according to the letter, was bloody; but, according to the intent of the lawgiver and substance of the law, profitable, for the end was that the enemies should be pursued with all speed. But king Saul's exponing the law after a tyrannical way, against the intent of the law, which is the diamond and pearl of all lawsthe safety of the innocent people, was justly resisted by the innocent people, who violently hindered innocent Jonathan to be killed. Whence it is clear, that the people and

U

princes put on the law its true sense and meaning; for Jonathan's tasting of a little honey, though as it was against that sinful and precipitate circumstance, a rash oath, yet it was not against the substance and true intent of the law, which was the people's speedy pursuit of the enemy. Whence it is clear, that the people, including the princes, hath a ministerial power to expone the law aright, and according to its genuine intent, and that the king, as king, hath no absolute power to expone the law as he pleaseth.

2. The king's absolute pleasure can no more be the genuine sense of a just law than his absolute pleasure can be a law; because the genuine sense of the law is the law itself, as the formal essence of a thing differeth not really, but in respect of reason, from the thing itself. The Pope and Romish church cannot put on the Scripture, ex plenitudine potestatis, whatever meaning they will, no more than they can, out of absolute power, make canonic scripture. Now so it is, that the king, by his absolute power, cannot make law no law. 1. Because he is king by, or according to, law, but he is not king of law. Rex est rex secundum legem, sed non est dominus et rex legis. 2. Because, although it have a good meaning, which Ulpian saith, "Quod principi placet legis vigorem habet," the will of the prince is the law; yet the meaning is not that anything is a just law, because it is the prince's will, for its rule formally; for it must be good and just before the prince can will it,and then, he finding it so, he putteth the stamp of a human law on it.

3. This is the difference between God's will and the will of the king, or any mortal creature. Things are just and good, because God willeth them, especially things positively good, (though I conceive it hold in all things,) and God doth not will things, because they are good and just; but the creature, be he king or any never so eminent, do will things, because they are good and just, and the king's willing of a thing maketh it not good and just; for only God's will— not the creature's- -can be the cause why things are good and just. If, therefore, it be so, it must undeniably hence follow, that the king's will maketh not a just law to have an unjust and bloody sense; and he cannot, as king, by any absolute super-dominion over the law, put a just sense on a bloody and unjust law.

4. The advancing of any man to the

throne and royal dignity putteth not the man above the number of rational men. No rational man can create, by any act of power never so transcendent or boundless, a sense to a law contrary to the law. Nay, give me leave to doubt if Omnipotence can make a just law to have an unjust and bloody sense, aut contra, because it involveth a contradiction;—the true meaning of a law being the essential form of the law. Hence judge what brutish, swinish flatterers they are who say, "That it is the true meaning of the law which the king, the only supreme and independent expositor of the law, saith is the true sense of the law." There was once an animal-a fool of the first magnitude -who said he could demonstrate, by invincible reasons, that the king's dung was more nourishing food than bread of the flour of the finest wheat. For my part I could wish it were the demonstrator's only food for seven days, and that should be the best demonstration he could make for his proof.

5. It must follow that there can be no necessity of written laws to the subjects, against Scripture and natural reason, and the law of nations, in which all accord: that laws not promulgated and published cannot oblige as law; yea, Adam, in his innocency, was not obliged to obey a law not written in his heart by nature, except God had made known the law; as is clear, Gen. iii. 11, "Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" But if the king's absolute will may put on the law what sense he pleaseth, out of his independent and irresistible supremacy, the laws promulgated and written to the subjects can declare nothing what is to be done by the subjects as just, and what is to be avoided as unjust; because the laws must signify to the subjects what is just and what is unjust, according to their genuine sense. Now, their genuine sense, according to royalists, is not only uncertain and impossible to be known, but also contradictory; for the king obligeth us, without gainsaying, to believe that the just law hath this unjust sense. Hence this of flattering royalists is more cruel to kings than ravens, (for these eat but dead men, while they devour living men,) When there is a controversy between the king and the estates of parliament, who shall expone the law and render its native meaning? Royalists say, Not the estates of parliament, for they are subjects, not judges, to the king, and only counsellors and advisers

of the king. The king, therefore, must be the only judicial and final expositor. "As for lawyers, (said Strafford,) the law is not enclosed in a lawyer's cap." But I remember this was one of the articles laid to the charge of Richard II., that he said, "The law was in his head and breast."1 And, indeed, it must follow, if the king, by the plenitude of absolute power, be the only supreme uncontrollable expositor of the law, that is not law which is written in the acts of parliament, but that is the law which is in the king's breast and head, which Josephus (lib. 19, Antiq. c. 2.) objected to Caius. And all justice and injustice should be finally and peremptorily resolved on the king's will and absolute pleasure.

6. The king either is to expone the law by the law itself; or by his absolute power, loosed from all law, he exponeth it; or according to the advise of his great senate. If the first be said, he is nothing more than other judges. If the second be said, he must be omnipotent, and more. If the third be said, he is not absolute, if the senate be only advisers, and he yet the only judicial expositor. The king often professeth his ignorance of the laws; and he must then both be absolute above the law, and ignorant of the law, and the sole and final judicial exponer of the law. And by this, all parliaments, and their power of making laws, and of judging, are cried down.

Obj. 1.-Prov. xvi. 10, "A divine sentence is in the lips of the king; his mouth trangresseth not in judgment;" therefore he only can expone the law.

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Ans.-Lavater saith, (and I see no reason on the contrary,) " By a king he meaneth all magistrates. Aben Ezra and Isidorus read the words imperatively. The Tigurine version,-" They are oracles which proceed from his lips; let not therefore his mouth transgress in judgment." Vatabulus," When he is in his prophecies, he lieth not." Jansenius,-"Non facile errabit in judicando." Mich. Jermine,Mich. Jermine, "If he pray." Calvin,-" If he read in the book of the law, as God commandeth him," Deut. xvii. But why stand we on the place? "He speaketh of good kings, (saith Cornel. à Lapide,) otherwise Jeroboam, Ahab, and Manasseh, erred in judgment." "And except (as Mercerus exponeth it) we under

1 Imperator se leges in scrinio condere dicit. 1. omnium, C. de testam.

Arnisæus perverteth the question; he saith, "The question is, Whether or no the subjects may, according to their power, judge the king and dethrone him; that is, Whether or no it is lawful for the subjects in any case to take arms against their lawful prince, if he degenerate, and shall wickedly use his lawful power."

1. The state of the question is much perverted, for these be different questions, Whether the kingdom may dethrone a wicked and tyrannous prince, and whether the kingdom may take up arms against the man who is the king, in their own innocent defence. For the former is an act offensive, and of punishing; the latter is an act of defence.

2. The present question is not of subjects only, but of the estates, and parliamentary lords of a kingdom. I utterly deny these, as they are judges, to be subjects to the king; for the question is, Whether is the king or the representative kingdom greatest, and which of them be subject one to another? I affirm, amongst judges, as judges, not one is the commander or superior, and the other the commanded or subject. Indeed, one higher judge may correct and punish a judge, not as a judge, but as an erring man.

3. The question is not so much concerning the authoritative act of war, as concern