curity of their lives and estates, and the very being of the whole state, against the tyranny of a cruel, unjust prince, which is incomparably the greater mischief of the two?" But," say, you, "there can be no precedent shown of any one king that has been arraigned in a court of justice, and condeinned to die." Sichardus answers that well enough. It is all one, says he, as if one should argue on this manner: The emperor of Germany never was summoned to appear before one of the prince electors; therefore, if the prince elector Palatine should impeach the emperor, he were not bound to plead to it; though it appears by the golden bull, that Charles the fourth subjected himself and his successors to that cognizance and jurisdiction. But no wonder if kings were indulged in their ambition, and their exorbitancies passed by, when the times were so corrupt and depraved, that even private men, if they had either money or interest, might escape the law, though guilty of crimes of never so high a nature. That dudurov, that you speak of, that is to be wholly independent upon any other, and accountable to none upon earth, which you say is peculiar to the majesty of sovereign princes, Aristotle in the 4th book of his Pol. Ch. 10. calls a most tyrannical form of government, and not in the least to be endured by a free people. And that kings are not liable to be questioned for their actions, you prove by the testimony of a very worthy author, that barbarous tyrant Mark Antony; one of those that subverted the commonwealth of Rome and yet he himself, when he undertook an expedition against the Parthians, summoned Herod before him, to answer to a charge of murder, and would have punished him, but that Herod bribed him. So that Antony's asserting this prerogative royal, and your defence of King Charles, come both out of one and the : same spring. "And it is very reasonable," say you, "that it should be so for kings derive their authority from God alone." What kings are those, I pray, that do so? For I deny, that there ever were any such kings in the world, that derived their authority from God alone. Saul, the first king of Israel, had never reigned, but that the people desired a king, even against the will of God; and though he was proclaimed king once at Mizpah, yet after that he lived a private life, and looked to his father's cattle, till he was created so the second time by the people at Gilgal. And what think ye of David? Though he had been anointed once by God, was he not anointed a second time in Hebron by the tribe of Judah, and after that by all the people of Israel, and that after a mutual covenant betwixt him and them? 2 Sam. v. 1 Chron. xi. Now, a covenant lays an obligation upon kings, and restrains them within bounds. Solomon, you say, succeeded him in the throne of the Lord, and was acceptable to all men :" 1 Chron. xxix. So that it is something to be well-pleasing in the eyes of the people. Jehoiadah the priest made Joash king, but first he made him and the people enter into a covenant to one another, 2 Kings xi. I confess that these kings, and all that reigned of David's posterity, were appointed to the kingdom both by God and the people; but of all other kings, of what country soever, I affirm, that they are made so by the people only; nor can you make it appear, that they are appointed by God, any otherwise than as all other things, great and small, are said to be appointed by him, because nothing comes to pass without his providence. I allow the throne of David was in a peculiar manner called "the throne of the Lord" whereas the thrones of other princes are no otherwise God's, than all other things in the world are his; which if you would, you So that might have learnt out of the same chapter, ver. 11, 12. "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, &c. for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all." And this is so often repeated, not to puff up kings, but to put them in mind, though they think themselves Gods, that yet there is a God above them, to whom they owe whatever they are and have. And thus we easily understand what the poets, and the Essenes among the Jews mean, when they tell us, that it is by God that kings reign, and that they are of Jupiter; for so all of us are of God, we are all his offspring. So that this universal right of Almighty God's, and the interest that he has in princes, and their thrones, and all that belongs to them, does not at all derogate from the people's right; but that notwithstanding all this, all other kings, not particularly and by name appointed by God, owe their sovereignty to the people only, and consequently are accountable to them for the management of it. The truth of which doctrine, though the common people are apt to flatter their kings, yet they themselves acknowledge, whether good ones, as Sarpedon in Homer is described to have been; or bad ones, as those tyrants in the lyric pɔet: Γλαῦκε, τίη δὴ τῶι τετιμήμισθα, μαλίσα, c. Glaucus, in Lycia we're ador'd like Gods: What makes 'twixt us and others so great odds? He resolves the question himself: "Because, says he, we excel others in heroical virtues: Let us fight manfully then, says he, lest our countrymen tax us with sloth and cowardice." In which words he intimates to us, both that kings derive their grandeur from the people, and that for their conduct and behaviour in war they are accountable to them. Bad kings indeed, though to cast some terror into people's minds, and beget a reverence of themselves, they declare to the world, that God only is the author of kingly government; in their hearts and minds they reverence no other deity but that of fortune, according to that passage in Horace : Te Dacus asper, te profugi Scythæ, Injurioso ne pede proruas Stautem columnam, neu populus frequens Concitet, imperiumque frangat. "All barb'rous people, and their princes too, "Support the pillar of the Roman state, "Continue us in wealth and peace; "Let wars and tumults ever cease." So that if it is by God that kings now-a-days reign, it is by God too that the people assert their own liberty; since all things are of him, and by him. I am sure the scripture bears witness to both; that by him kings reign, and that by him they are cast down from their thrones. And yet experience teaches us, that both these things are brought about by the people, oftener than by God. Be this right of kings, therefore, what it will, the right of the people is as much from God as it. And whenever any people, without some visible designation of God himself, appoint a king over them, they have the same right to put him down, that they had to set him up at first. And certainly it is a more godlike action to depose a tyrant than to set up one: and there appears much more of God in the people, when they depose an unjust prince, than in a king that oppresses an innocent people. Nay, the people have a warrant from God to judge wicked princes; for God has conferred this very honour upon those that are dear to him, that celebrating the praises of Christ their own king," they shall bind in chains the kings of the nations, (under which appellation all tyrants under the gospel are included) and execute the judgments written upon them that challenge to themselves an exemption from all written laws," Psalm cxlix. So that there is but little reason left for that wicked and foolish opinion, that kings, who commonly are the worst of men, should be so high in God's account, as that he should have put the world under them, to be at their beck, and be governed according to their humour ; and that for their sakes alone he should have reduced all mankind, whom he made after his own image, into the same condition with brutes. After all this, rather than say nothing, you produce M. Aurelius as a countenancer of tyranny; but you had better have let him alone. I cannot say whether he ever affirmed, that princes are accountable only before God's tribunal. But Xiphiline indeed, out of whom you quote those words of M. Aurelius, mentions a certain government, which he calls an Autarchy, of which he makes God the only judge: gl αυταρχίας ὁ Θεὸς μόνος κρίνειν διναται. But that this word Autarchy and Monarchy are synonimous, I cannot easily persuade myself to believe. And the more I read what goes before, the less I find myself inclinable to think so. And certainly whoever considers the context, will not easily apprehend what coherence this sentence has with it, and must needs wonder how it comes so abruptly into |