that act repugnant to law loseth all due claim of actual subjection in that act, and in that act power actual is lost, as is clear, Acts iv. 19; v. 29. The apostles say to rulers, It is safer to obey God than man. What! Were not these rulers lawful magistrates armed with power from God? I answer, habitually they were rulers and more than men, and to obey them in things lawful is to obey God. But, actually, in these unlawful commandments, especially being commanded to speak no more in the name of Jesus, the apostles do acknowledge them to be no more but men; and so their actual authority is as separable from the person, as pride and folly from men.

Symmons.-The distinction holdeth good of inferior magistrates, that they may be considered as magistrates and as men, because their authority is only sacred, and addeth veneration to their persons, and is separable from the person. The man may live when his authority is extinguished, but it holdeth not in kings. King Saul's person is venerable as his authority, and his authority cometh by inheritance, and dieth, and liveth, inseparably with his person; and authority and person add honour, each one to another.

Ans. 1.-If this be true, Manasseh, a king, did not shed innocent blood and use sorcery. He did not these great wickednesses as a man, but as a king. Solomon played the apostate as a king, not as a man, if so, the man must make the king more infallible than the Pope; for the Pope, as a man, can err;—as a pope he cannot err, say papists. But prophets, in their persons, were anointed of God as Saul and David were, then must we say, Nathan and Samuel erred not as men, because their persons were sacred and anointed, and sure they erred not as prophets, therefore they erred not all. A king, as a king, is an holy ordinance of God, and so cannot do injustice, therefore they must do acts of justice as men. 1. The inferior judge is a power from God. 2. To resist him is to resist an ordinance of God. 3. He is not a terror to good works, but to evil. 4. He is a minister of God for good. 5. He is God's sword-bearer. His official power to rule may by as good right come by birth as the crown; and the king's person is sacred only for his office, and is anointed only for his office. For then the Chaldeans dishonoured not inferior judges (Lam. v. 12,) when they

"hanged the prince, and honoured not the faces of elders." It is in question, if the king's actual authority be not as separable from him, as the actual authority of the judge.

Symmons (p. 24).—The king himself may use this distinction. As a Christian he may forgive any that offendeth against his person, but as a judge, he must punish, in regard of his office.

Ans. Well, then, flatterers will grant the distinction, when the king doth good and pardoneth the blood of protestants, shed by bloody rebels; but when the king doth acts of injustice, he is neither man nor king, but some independent absolute god.

Symmons (p. 27).-God's word tyeth me to every one of his personal commandments, as well as his legal commandments. Nor do I obey the king's law, because it is established, or because of its known penalty, nor yet the king himself, because he ruleth according to law, but I obey the king's law, because I obey the king; and I obey the king, because I obey God; I obey the king and his law, because I obey God and his law. Better obey the command for a reverent regard to the prince than for a penalty.

Ans. It is hard to answer a sick man. It is blasphemy to seek this distinction of person and office in the King of kings, because by person in a mortal king, we understand a man that can sin. 1. I am not obliged to obey his personal commandment, except I were his domestic; nor his unlawful personal commandments, because they are sinful. 2. It is false that you obey the king's law, because you obey the king; for then you say but this, I obey the king because I obey the king. The truth is, obedience is not formally terminated on the person of the king. Obedience is relative to a precept, and it is men-service to obey a law, not because it is good and just, but upon this formal motive, because it is the will of a mortal man to command it. And reverence, love, fear, being acts of the affection, are not terminated on a law, but properly on the person of the judge; and they are modifications, or laudable qualifications of acts of obedience, not motives, not the formal reason why I obey, but the manner how I obey. And the apostle maketh expressly (Rom. xiii. 4) fear of punishment a motive of obedience, while he saith, "He beareth not the sword in vain," therefore be subject to

the king; and this hindereth not personal resistance to unjust commandments.

Symmons (p. 27-29).-" You say, 'To obey the prince's personal commandment against his legal will, is to obey himself against himself.' So say I, 'To obey his legal will against his personal will, is to obey himself against himself, for I take his person to be himself.'

Ans.-1. To obey the king's personal will, when it is sinful, (as we now suppose,) against his legal will, is a sin, and a disobedience to God and the king also, seeing the law is the king's will as king; but to obey his legal will, against his sinful personal will, (as it must be sinful if contrary to a just law,) is obedience to the king as king, and so obedience to God. 2. You take the king's person to be himself, but you take quid pro quo; for his person here you must not take physically, for his suppost of soul and body, but morally it is the king, as a sinful man doing his worst will against the law, which is his just and best will, and the rule of the subjects. And the king's personal will is so far just, and to regulate the subjects, in so far as it agreeth with his legal will or his law, and this will can sin, and therefore may be crossed without breach of the fifth commandment; but his legal will cannot be crossed without disobedience both to God and the king.

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Symmons (p. 28).—The king's personal will doth not always presuppose passion; and if it be attended with passion, yet we must bear it for conscience sake.-Ans. We are to obey the king's personal will, when the thing commanded is not sin; but his subjects, as subjects, have little to do with his personal will in that notion. It concerneth his domestic servant, and is the king's will as he is the master of servants, not as he is king in relation to subjects; but we speak of the king's personal will as repugnant to law, and contrary to the king's will as king, and so contrary to the fifth commandment; and this is attended often not only with passion, but also with prejudice; and we owe no subjection to prejudice and passions, or to actions commanded by these disordered powers, because they are not from God, nor his ordinances, but from men and the flesh, and we owe no subjection to the flesh.

Dr Ferne (sect. 9, p. 58).-The distinction of personal and legal will hath place in evil actions, but not in resistance, where we

cannot sever the person and the dignity, or authority, because we cannot resist the power but we must resist the person who hath the power. Saul had lawfully the command of arms, but that power he useth unjustly, against innocent David. I ask, When these emperors took away lives and goods at their pleasure, was that a power ordained of God? No, but an illegal will, a tyranny-but they might not resist; nay, but they cannot resist; for that power and sovereignty employed to compass these illegal commandments was ordained and settled in them. When Pilate condemned our Saviour, it was an illegal will, yet our Saviour acknowledgeth in it, that Pilate's power was given him from above.

Ans.-1. Here we have the distinction denied by royalists, granted by Dr Ferne. But if, when the king commands us to do wickedness, we may resist that personal will, and when he commandeth us to suffer unjustly we cannot resist his will but we must resist also his royal person; what! is it not still the king, and his person sacred, as his power is sacred, when he commandeth the subjects to do unjustly, as when he commandeth them to suffer unjustly? It were fearful to say, when kings command any one act of idolatry, they are no longer kings. If, for conscience, I am to suffer unjustly, when Nero commandeth unjust punishment, because Nero commanding so, remaineth God's minister, why, but when Nero commandeth me to worship an heathen god, I am upon the same ground to obey that unjust will in doing ill; for Nero, in commanding idolatry, remaineth the Lord's minister, his person is sacred in the one commandment of doing ill, as in inflicting ill of punishment. And do I not resist his person in the one as in the other? His power and his person are as inseparably conjoined by God in the one as in the other. 2. In bodily thrusting out of Uzziah from the temple, these fourscore valiant men did resist the king's person by bodily violence, as well as his power. 3. If the power of killing the martyrs in Nero was no power ordained of God, then the resisting of Nero, in his taking away the lives of the martyrs, was but the resisting of tyranny; and certainly, if that power in Nero was Tetayμívn a power ordained of God, and not to be resisted, as the place (Rom. xiii.) is alleged by royalists, then it must be a lawful power, and no tyranny; and if it cannot be re

sisted, because it was a power ordained and settled in him, it is either settled by God, and so not tyranny, (except God be the author of tyranny,) or then settled by the devil, and so may well be resisted. But the text speaketh of no power but of that which is of God. 4. We are not to be subject to all powers in concreto, by the text; for we are not to be subject to powers lawful, yet commanding active obedience to things unlawful. Now subjection includeth active obedience of honour, love, fear, paying tribute, and therefore of need force, some powers must be excepted. 5. Pilate's

power is merely a power by divine permission, not a power ordained of God, as are the powers spoken of, Rom. xiii. Gregorius (mor. 1. 3, c. 11) expressly saith," This was Satan's power given to Pilate against Christ. Manibus Satanæ pro nostra redemptione se tradidit." Lyra," A principibus Romanorum et ulterius permissum a deo, qui est potestas, superior." Calvin, Beza and Diodatus, saith the same; and that he cannot mean of legal power from God's regulating will is evident, 1. Because Christ is answering Pilate, (John xix. 10,) "Knowest though not that I have power to crucify thee?" This was an untruth. Pilate had a command to worship him, and believe in him; and whereas Ferne saith, (sect. 9, p. 59,) "Pilate had power to judge any accused before him;" it is true; but he being obliged to believe in Christ, he was obliged to believe in Christ's innocency, and so neither to judge nor receive accusation against him; and the power he saith he had to crucify, was a law-power in Pilate's meaning, but not in very deed any law power; because a law-power is from God's regulating will in the fifth commandment, but no creature hath a lawful or a law-power to crucify Christ. 2. A lawpower is for good, (Rom. xiii. 4,) a power to crucify Christ is for ill. 3. A law-power is a terror to ill works, and a praise to good: Pilate's power to crucify Christ was the contrary. 4. A law-power is to execute wrath on ill-doing, a power to crucify Christ is no such. 5. A law-power conciliateth honour, fear, and veneration, to the person of the judge, a power to crucify Christ conciliateth no such thing, but a disgrace to Pilate. 6. The genuine acts of a lawful power are law. ful acts; for such as is the fountain-power, such are the acts flowing therefrom. Good acts flow not from bad powers, neither hath

God given a power to sin, except by way of permission.

QUESTION XXX.

WHETHER OR NO PASSIVE OBEDIENCE BE A MEAN TO WHICH WE ARE SUBJECTED IN CONSCIENCE, BY VIRTUE OF A DIVINE COMMANDMENT; AND WHAT A MEAN RESISTANCE IS. THAT FLYING IS RESISTANCE.

Much is built, to commend patient suffering of ill, and to condemn all resistance of superiors, by royalists, on the place, 1 Pet. ii. 18, where we are commanded, being servants, to suffer buffets not only for ill-doing of good masters, but also undeservedly; and when we do well, we are to suffer of those masters that are evil; and so much more are we patiently without resistance to suffer of kings. But it is clear, the place is nothing against resistance, as in these assertions I clear:

Assert. 1.-Patient suffering of wicked men, and violent resisting are not incompatible, but they may well stand together; so this consequence is the basis of the argument, and it is just nothing: to wit, servants are to suffer unjustly wounds and buffeting of their wicked masters, and they are to bear it patiently; therefore, servants are in conscience obliged to non-resistance. Now, Scripture maketh this clear,-1. The church of God is to bear with all patience the indignation of the Lord, because she hath sinned, and to suffer of wicked enemies which were to be trodden as mire in the streets (Micah vii. 9-12); but withal, they were not obliged to non-resistance and not to fight against these enemies, yea, they were obliged to fight against them also. If these were Babylon, Judah might have resisted and fought if God had not given a special commandment of a positive law, that they should not fight; if these were the Assyrians and other enemies, or rather both, the people were to resist by fighting, and yet to endure patiently the indignation of the Lord. David did bear most patiently the wrong that his own son Absalom, and Ahitophel, and the people inflicted on him, in pursuing him to take his life and the kingdom from him, as is clear by his gracious expressions (2 Sam. xv. 25, 26; xvi. 10-12; Psal. iii. 1-3); yea, he prayeth

for a blessing on the people that conspired against him (Psal. iii. 8); yet did he lawfully resist Absalom and the conspirators, and sent out Joab and a huge army in open battle against them, (2 Sam. xviii. 1-4, &c.,) and fought against them. And were not the people of God patient to endure the violence done to them in the wilderness by Og, king of Bashan; Sihon, king of Heshbon; by the Amorites, Moabites, &c.? I think God's law tyeth all men, especially his people, to as patient a suffering in wars. (Deut. viii. 16.) God then trying and humbling his people, as the servant is to endure patiently, unjustly inflicted buffets (1 Pet. ii. 18); and yet God's people at God's command did resist these kings and people, and did fight and kill them, and possess their land, as the history is clear. See the like Josh. xi. 18, 19. 2. One act of grace and virtue is not contrary to another; resistance is in the children of God an innocent act of self-preservation, as is patient suffering, and therefore they may well subsist in one. And so saith Amasa by the Spirit of the Lord, 1 Chron. xii. 18, " Peace, peace be unto thee, and peace to thy helpers, for God helpeth thee." Now, in that, David and all his helpers were resisters of king Saul. 3. The scope of the place (1 Pet. ii.) is not to forbid all violent resisting, as is clear he speaketh nothing of violent resisting either one way or other, but only he forbiddeth revengeful resisting of repaying one wrong with another, from the example of Christ, who, "when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; therefore, the argument is a falacy, ab eo quod docitur xarà rì, ad illud quod dicitur arxas. Though therefore the master should attempt to kill an innocent servant, and invade him with a weapon of death suddenly, without all reason or cause, or unavoidably, Dr Ferne, (p. 3, sect. 2, p. 10,) in that case, doth free a subject from guiltiness if he violently resist his prince; therefore, the servant who should violently resist his master in the aforesaid case should, and might patiently suffer and violently resist, notwithstanding anything that royalists can conclude on the contrary. 4. No prince hath a masterly or lordly dominion over his subjects, but only a free, ingenuous, paternal and tutorly oversight for the good of the people. (Rom. xiii. 4.) The master, especially in the apostle Peter's time, had a dominion over servants as over their proper goods.

Assert. 2.--Neither suffering formally as suffering, and so neither can non-resisting passive fall under any moral law of God, except in two conditions: 1. In the point of Christ's passive obedience, he being the eternal God as well as man, and so lord of his own blood and life, by virtue of a special commandment imposed on him by his Father, was commanded to lay down his life, yea, and to be an agent as well as a patient in dying (Job. x. 18); yea, and actively he was to contribute something for his own death, and offer himself willingly to death (Matt. xxviii. 20); and, knowing the hour that he was to depart out of this world unto the Father, (John xiii. 1,) would not only not fly-which is to royalists lawful, to us a special point of resistance (John xiv. 31; xviii. 4-7)-but upbraided Peter as the agent of Satan, who would dissuade him to die, (Matt. xvi. 22, 23,) and would fight for him. And he doth not fetch any argument against Peter's drawing of his sword from the unlawfulness of self-defence and innocent resistance, (which he should have done if royalists plead with any colour of reason from his example, against the lawfulness of resistance and self-defence,) but from the absolute power of God. 2. From God's positive will, who commanded him to die. (Matt. xxvi. 53, 54.) If therefore royalists prove anything against the lawfulness of resisting kings, when they offer (most unjustly) violence to the life of God's servants, from this one merely extraordinary and rare example of Christ, the like whereof was never in the world, they may, from the same example, prove it unlawful to fly, for Christ would not fly. (Psal. xl. 6, 7; Heb. x. 6-9; John xiv. 31; xviii. 4-7.) 1. They may prove that people sought by a tyrant to be crucified for the cause of God, are to reveal and discover themselves to an army of men who come to seek them. (John xiii. 1, 2; xviii. 4-7). 2. That martyrs are of purpose to go to the place where they know they shall be apprehended and put to death, for this Christ did, and are willingly to offer themselves to the enemy's army, for so did Christ (John xiv. 3; Mark xiv. 41, 42; Matt. xxvi. 46, 47); and so by his example, all the parliament, all the innocents of the city of London, and assembly of divines, are obliged to lay down arms and to go to their own death to prince Rupert, and the bloody Irish rebels. 3. By this example it is unlawful to resist the cut-throats of a king, for

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Cesar in his own royal person the high priest in person, came not out against Christ; yea, it is not lawful for the parliament to resist a Judas, who hath fled as a traitorous apostate from the truth and the temple of Christ. 4. It is not lawful for innocents to defend themselves by any violence against the invasion of superiors, in Dr Ferne's three cases in which he alloweth resistance: (1.) When the invasion is sudden. (2.) Unavoidable. (3.) Without all colour of law and reason. In the two last cases, royalists defend the lawfulness of self-defence. If the example be pressed,-Christ did not this and that, he resisted not with violence, to save his own life, therefore, we are to abstain from resistance and such and such means of self-preservation; then, because Christ appealed not from inferior judges to the emperor Caesar; who, no doubt, would have shown him more favour than the scribes and pharisees did, and because Christ conveyed not a humble supplication to his sovereign and father Cæsar,-then because he proffered not a humble petition to prince Pilate for his life, he being an innocent man, and his cause just, because he neither procured an orator to plead his own just cause, nor did he so plead for himself, and give in word and writ, all lawful and possible defences for his own safety, but answered many things with silence, to the admiration of the judge, (Mark xv. 3-5,) and was thrice pronounced by the judge to be innocent (Luke xxii. 23); because, I say, Christ did not all these for his own life, therefore it is unlawful for Scotland and England to appeal to the king, to supplicate, to give in apologies, &c. I think royalists dare not say So. But if they say he would not resist, and yet might have done all these lawfully, because these be lawful means, and resistance with the sword unlawful,--because "He that taketh the sword, shall perish by the sword,"-let me answer then, 1. They leave the argument from Christ's example, who was thus far subject to higher powers, that he would not resist, and plead from the unlawfulness of resistance; this is petitio principii. 2. He that taketh the sword without God's warrant, which Peter had not, but the contrary, he was himself a Satan to Christ, who would but counsel him not to die; but there is no shadow of a word to prove that violent resisting is unlawful, when the king and his Irish cut-throats pursue us unjustly; only Christ saith, when God may

deliver extraordinarily by his angels, except it be his absolute will that his Son should drink the cup of death, then to take the sword, when God hath declared his will on the contrary, is unlawful; and that is all; though I do not question but Christ's asking for swords, and his arresting all his enemies to the ground (John xviii. 6) backward, is a justifying of self-defence. But hitherto it is clear, by Christ's example, that he only was commanded to suffer. Now the second case in which suffering falleth under a commandment, is indirectly and comparatively, when it cometh to the election of the witness of Jesus, that it is referred to them, either to deny the truth of Christ and his name, or then to suffer death. The choice is apparently evident; and this choice that persecutors refer us unto, is to us a commandment of God, that we must choose suffering for Christ, and refuse sinning against Christ. But the supposition must stand, that this alternative is unavoidable, that is not in our power to decline either suffering for Christ, or denying of Christ before men; otherwise no man is to expect the reward of a witness of Jesus, who having a lawful possible means of eschewing suffering, doth yet cast himself into suffering needlessly. But I prove that suffering by men of this world falleth not formally and directly under any divine positive law; for the law of nature,-whatever Arminians in their declaration, or this Arminian excommunicate think with them, (for they teach that God gave a commandment to Adam, to abstain from such and such fruit, with pain and trouble to sinless nature,)—doth not command suffering, or anything contrary to nature, as nature is sinless: I prove it thus:

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1. Whatever falleth under a positive commandment of God, I may say here, under any commandment of God, is not a thing under the free will and power of others, from whom we are not descended necessarily by natural generation, but that men of the world kill me, even these from whom I am not descended by natural generation (which I speak to exclude Adam, who killed all his posterity) is not in my free will, either as if they had my common nature in that act, or as if I were accessory by counsel, consent, or approbation to that act, for this is under the free will and power of others, not under my own free will; therefore, that I suffer by others is not under my free will, and cannot