God only. In Isaiah, chap. xxvi. v. 13. the people in their repentance, complain that it had been mischievous to them, "that other lords besides God himself had had dominion over them." All which places prove clearly, that God gave the Israelites a king in his anger; but now who can forbear laughing at the use you make of Abimelech's story? Of whom it is said, when he was killed, partly by a woman that hurled a piece of millstone upon him, and partly by his own armour-bearer, that "God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech." "This history," say you, " proves strongly, that God only is the judge and avenger of kings." Yea, if this argument hold, he is the only judge and punisher of tyrants, villainous rascals, and bastards. Whoever can get into the saddle, whether by right or by wrong, has thereby obtained a sovereign kingly right over the people, is out of all danger of punishment, all inferior magistrates must lay down their arms at his feet, the people must not dare to mutter. But what if some great notorious robber had perished in war, as Abimelech did, would any man infer from thence, that God only is the judge and punisher of highwaymen? Or what if Abimelech had been condemned by the law, and died by an executioner's hand, would not God then have rendered his wickedness? You never read, that the judges of the children of Israel were ever proceeded against according to law and yet you confess, that "where the government is an aristocracy, the prince, if there be any, may and ought to be called in question, if he break the laws." This in your 47th page. And why may not a tyrant as well be proceeded against in a kingly government? why, because God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech. So did the woman, and so did his own armour-bearer; over both which he pretended to a right of sovereignty. And

what if the magistrates had rendered his wickedness? Do not they bear the sword for that very purpose, for the punishment of malefactors? Having done with his powerful argument from the history of Abimelech's death, he betakes himself, as his custom is, to slanders and calumnies; nothing but dirt and filth comes from him; but for those things that he promised to make appear, he hath not proved any one of them, either from the scriptures or from the writings of the rabbins. He alleges no reason why kings should be above all laws, and they only of all mortal men exempt from punishment, if they deserve it. He falls foul upon those very authors and authorities that he makes use of, and by his own discourse demonstrates the truth of the opinion that he argues against. And perceiving, that he is like to do but little good with his arguments, he endeavours to bring an odium upon us, by loading us with slanderous accusations, as having put to death the most virtuous innocent prince that ever reigned. "Was king Solomon," says he, "better than king Charles the First ?" I confess some have ventured to compare his father king James with Solomon; nay, to make king James the better gentleman of the two. Solomon was David's son, David had been Saul's musician; but king James was the son of the earl of Darnly, who, as Buchanan tell us, because David the musician got into the queen's bedchamber at an unseasonable time, killed him a little after; for he could not get to him then, because he had bolted the door on the inside. So that king James being the son of an earl, was the better gentleman; and was frequently called a second Solomon, though it is not very certain, that himself was not the son of David the musician too. But how could it ever come into your head, to make a comparison between king Charles

and Solomon? For that very king Charles whom you praise thus to the sky, that very man's obstinacy, and covetousness, and cruelty, his hard usage of all good and honest men, the wars that he raised, the spoilings, and plunderings, and conflagrations, that he occasioned, and the death of innumerable of his subjects, that he was the cause of, does his son Charles, at this very time, whilst I am a writing, confess and bewail on the stool of repentance in Scotland, and renounces there that kingly right that you assert. But since you delight in parallels, let us compare king Charles and king Solomon together a little: "Solomon began his reign with the death of his brother," who had justly deserved it; king Charles began his with his father's funeral, I do not say with his murder and yet all the marks and tokens of poison that may be appeared in his dead body; but that suspicion lighted upon the duke of Buckingham only, whom the king notwithstanding cleared to the parliament, though he had killed the king and his father; and not only so but he dissolved the parliament, "Solomon oplest the matter should be inquired into. pressed the people with heavy taxes;" but he spent that money upon the temple of God, and in raising other public buildings: King Charles spent his in extravaSolomon was enticed to idolatry by many gances. wives: this man by one. Solomon, though he were seduced himself, we read not that he seduced others; but king Charles seduced and enticed others, not only by large and ample rewards to corrupt the church, but by his edicts and ecclesiastical constitutions he compelled them to set up altars, which all protestants abhor, and to bow down to crucifixes painted over them on the wall. "But yet for all this, Solomon was not condemned to die." Nor does it follow because he was not, that therefore he ought not to have been. Perhaps

there were many circumstances, that made it then not expedient. But not long after, the people both by words and actions made appear what they took to be their right, when ten tribes of twelve revolted from his son; and if he had not saved himself by flight, it is very likely they would have stoned him, notwithstanding his threats and big swelling words.

CHAPTER III.

HAVING proved sufficiently, that the kings of the Jews were subject to the same laws that the people were; that there are no exceptions made in their favour in scripture; that it is a most false assertion grounded upon no reason, nor warranted by any authority to say, that kings may do what they list with impunity; that God has exempted them from all human jurisdiction, and reserved them to his own tribunal only: let us now consider, whether the gospel preach up any such doctrine, and enjoin that blind obedience, which the law was so far from doing, that it commanded the contrary; let us consider, whether or no the gospel, that heavenly promulgation, as it were, of christian liberty, reduce us to a condition of slavery to kings and tyrants, from whose imperious rule even the old law, that mistress of slavery, discharged the people of God, when it obtained. Your first argument you take from the person of Christ himself. But, alas! who does not know, that he put himself into the condition, not of a private person only, but even of a servant, that we might be made free? Nor is this to be understood of some internal spiritual liberty only; how inconsistent else would that song of his mother's be with the design of his coming into the world, "He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart, he hath put down. the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the hum

ble and meek?" How ill suited to their occasion would these expressions be, if the coming of Christ rather established and strengthened a tyrannical government, and made a blind subjection the duty of all christians? He himself having been born, and lived and died under a tyrannical government, has thereby purchased liberty for us. As he gives us his grace to submit patiently to a condition of slavery, if there be a necessity of it; so if by any honest ways and means we can rid ourselves, and obtain our liberty, he is so far from restraining us, that he encourages us so to do. Hence it is that St. Paul not only of an evangelical, but also of a civil liberty, says thus, 1 Cor. vii. 21. "Art thou called, being a servant? care not for it; but if thou mayst be made free, use it rather; you are bought with a price, be not ye servants of men." So that you are very impertinent in endeavouring to argue us into slavery by the example of our Saviour; who, by submitting to such a condition himself, has confirmed even our civil liberties. He took upon him indeed in our stead the form of a servant, but he always retained his purpose of being a deliverer; and thence it was, that he taught us a quite other notion of the right of kings, than this that you endeavour to make good. You, I say, that preach up not kingship, but tyranny, and that in a commonwealth; by enjoining not only a necessary, but a religious subjection to whatever tyrant gets into the chair, whether he come to it by succession, or by conquest, or chance, or any how. And now I will turn your own weapons against you; and oppose you, as I use to do, with your own authorities. When the collectors of the tribute money came to Christ for tribute in Galilee, he asked Peter, Mat. 17. "Of whom the kings of the earth took custom or tribute, of their own children, or of strangers?" Peter saith unto him, "of