of mankind, not proceeding from God, as I have proved it does not, must needs come from the devil; and that it does really so, will appear more clearly hereafter. "By virtue of this liberty," say you," princes may if they will." And for this, you pretend to have Cicero's authority. I am always willing to mention your authorities, for it generally happens, that the very authors you quote them out of, give you an answer themselves. Hear else what Cicero says in his 4th Philippic, "What cause of war can be more just and warrantable than to avoid slavery? For though a people may have the good fortune to live under a gentle master, yet those are in a miserable condition, whose prince may tyrannize over them if he will." May, that is, can; has power enough so to do. If he meant it of his right, he would contradict himself, and make that an unjust cause of war, which himself had affirmed with the same breath to be a most just one. It is not therefore the right of all kings that you describe, but the injuriousness, and force, and violence of some. Then you tell us what private men may do. "A private man," say you, " may lie, may be ungrateful;" and so may kings, but what then? May they therefore, plunder, murder, ravish, without control? It is equally prejudicial and destructive to the commonwealth, whether it be their own prince, or a robber, or a foreign enemy, that spoils, massacres, and enslaves them. And questionless, being both alike enemies of human society, the one, as well as the other, may lawfully be opposed and punished; and their own prince the rather, because he, though raised to that dignity by the honours that his people have conferred upon him, and being bound by his oath to defend the public safety, betrays it notwithstanding all. last you grant, that "Moses prescribes laws, according to which the king that the people of Israel should choose,

VOL. II.

D

ought to govern, though different from this right that Samuel proposes;" which words contain a double contradiction to what you have said before. For whereas you had affirmed, that a king was bound by no law, here you confess he is. And you set up two contrary rights, one described by Moses, and another by Samuel, which is absurd. "But," says the prophet, you shall be

servants to your king." Though I should grant that the Israelites were really so, it would not presently follow that it was the right of their kings to have them so ; but that by the usurpation and injustice of most of them, they were reduced to that condition. For the prophet had foretold them, that that importunate petition of theirs would bring a punishment from God upon them; not because it would be their king's right so to harass them, but because they themselves had deserved it should be so. If kings are out of the reach of the law, so as that they may do what they list, they are more absolute than any masters, and their subjects in a more despicable condition than the worst of slaves. The law of God provided some redress from them, though of another nation, if their masters were cruel and unreasona ble towards them. And can we imagine, that the whole body of the people of a free nation, though oppressed and tyrannized over, and preyed upon, should be left remediless? That they had no law to protect them, no sanctuary to betake themselves to? Can we think, that they were delivered from the bondage they were under to the Egyptian kings, to be reduced into a worse to one of their own brethren? All which being neither agreeable to the law of God, nor to common sense, nothing can be more evident, than that the prophet declares to the people the manner, and not the right of kings; nor the manner of all kings, but of most. Then

you come to the rabbins, and quote two of them; but you have as bad luck with them here, as you had before. For it is plain, that that other chapter that rabbi Joses speaks of, and which contains, he says, the right of kings, is that in Deuteronomy, and not in Samuel. For rabbi Judas says very truly, and against you, that that discourse of Samuel's was intended only to frighten the people. It is a most pernicious doctrine, to maintain that to be any one's right, which in itself is flat injustice, unless you have a mind to speak by contraries. And that Samuel intended to affrighten them, appears by the 18th verse, "And ye shall ery out in that day, because of your king, which ye shall have chosen you, and I will not hear you in that day, saith the Lord." That was to be their punishment for their obstinacy in persisting to desire a king, against the mind and will of God; and yet they are not forbidden here either to pray against him, or to endeavour to rid themselves of him. For if they might lawfully pray to God against him, without doubt they might use all lawful means for their own deliverance. For what nan living, when he finds himself in any calamity, betakes himself to God, so as to neglect his own duty, in order to a redress, and rely upon his lazy prayers only? But be it how it will, what is all this to the right of kings, or to the English people? who neither asked a king against the will of God, nor had one appointed us by God, but by the right that all nations have to appoint their own governors, appointed a king over us by laws of our own, neither in obedience to, nor against any command of God? And this being the case, for aught I see, we have done well in deposing our king, and are to be commended for it, since the Israelites sinned in asking one. And this the event has made appear; for we, when we had a king, prayed

to God against him, and he heard us, and delivered us : but the Jews, (who not being under a kingly government, desired a king), he suffered to live in slavery under one, till, at last, after their return from the Babylonish captivity, they betook themselves to their former government again. Then you come to give us a display of your talmudical learning; but you have as ill success with that as you have had with all the rest. For, whilst you are endeavouring to prove, that kings are not liable to any temporal judicature, you quote an authority out of the treatise of the Sanhedrim, "that the king neither is judged of others, nor does himself judge any." Which is against the people's own petition in Samuel; for they desired a king that might judge them. You labour in vain to salve this, by telling us, that it is to be understood of those kings, that reigned after the Babylonish captivity. For then, what say ye to Maimonides? He makes this difference betwixt the kings of Israel and those of Judah; that the kings of the posterity of David judge, and are judged; but the kings of Israel do neither. You contradict and quarrel with yourself or your rabbins, and still do my work for me. This, say you, is not to be understood of the kings of Israel in their first institution; for in the 17th verse it is said, " you shall be his servants;" that is, he shall use you to it, not that he shall have any right to make you so. Or if you understand it of their king's right, it is but a judgment of God upon them for asking a king; the effects of which they were sensible of under most of their kings, though not perhaps under all. But you need no antagonists, you are such a perpetual adversary to yourself. For you tell us now a story, as if you were arguing on my side, how that first Aristobulus, and after him Jannæus, surnamed Alexander, did not receive that kingly right that they pretended to, from the Sanhe

drim, that great treasury and oracle of the laws of that nation, but usurped it by degrees against the will of the senate. For whose sake, you say, that childish fable of the principal men of that assembly being struck dead by the angel Gabriel was first invented. And thus you confess, that this magnificent prerogative, upon which you seem mainly to rely, viz. " that kings are not to be judged by any upon earth, was grounded upon this worse than an old wife's tale, that is, upon a rabbinical fable." But that the Hebrew kings were liable to be called in question for their actions, and to be punished with stripes, if they were found faulty, Sichardus shows at large out of the writings of the rabbins, to which author you are indebted for all that you employ of that sort of learning, and yet you have the impudence to be thwarting with him. Nay, we read in the scripture, that Saul thought himself bound by a decree of his own making; and in obedience thereunto, that he cast lots with his son Jonathan which of them two should die. Uzzias likewise, when he was thrust out of the temple by the priests as a leper, submitted as every private person in such a case ought to do, and ceased to be a king. Suppose he should have refused to go out of the temple, and lay down the government, and live alone, and had resolved to assert that kingly right of not being subject to any law, do you think the priests, and the people of the Jews, would have suffered the temple to be defiled, the laws violated, and live themselves in danger of the infection? It seems there are laws against a leprous king, but none against a tyrant. Can any man possibly be so mad and foolish as to fancy, that the laws should so far provide for the people's health, as though some noisome distemper should seize upon the king himself, yet to prevent the infection's reaching them, and make no provision for the se