old wife's tale, that is, upon a rabbinical fable." But that the Hebrew kings were liable to be called in queftion ' for their actions, and to be punished with ftripes, if they were found faulty, Sichardus fhows at large out of the writings of the rabbins, to which author you are indebted for all that you employ of that fort of learning, and yet you have the impudence to be thwarting with him. Nay, we read in the fcripture, that Saul thought himself bound by a decree of his own making; and in obedience thereunto, that he caft lots with his fon Jonathan which of them two fhould die. Uzzias likewife, when he was thruft out of the temple by the priests as a leper, fubmitted as every private perfon in fuch a cafe ought to do, and ceafed to be a king. Suppofe he fhould have refufed to go out of the temple, and lay down the government, and live alone, and had refolved to affert that kingly right of not being fubject to any law, do you think the priests, and the people of the Jews, would have fuffered the temple to be defiled, the laws violated, and live themfelves in danger of the infection? It feems there are laws againft a leprous king, but none against a tyrant. Can any man poffibly be fo mad and foolish as to fancy, that the laws fhould fo far provide for the people's health, as though fome noifome diftemper fhould feize upon the king himfelf, yet to prevent the infection's reaching them, and make no provifion for the fecurity of their lives and eftates, and the very being of the whole ftate, against the tyranny of a cruel, unjust prince, which is incomparably the greater mischief of the two?" But," fay you, "there can be no precedent fhown of any one king that has been arraigned in a court of juftice, and condemned to die." Sichardus anfwers that well enough. It is all one, fays he, as if one should argue on this manner: The emperor of Germany never was fummoned to appear before one of the prince electors; therefore, if the prince elector Palatine thould impeach the emperor, he were not bound to plead to it; though it appears by the golden bull, that Charles the fourth fubjected himself and his fucceffors to that cognizance and jurifdiction. But no wonder if kings were indulged in their ambition, and VOL. III. Ꮮ their their exorbitancies paffed by, when the times were fo corrupt and depraved, that even private men, if they had either money or intereft, might efcape the law, though guilty of crimes of never fo high a nature. That VUTEUSULOV, that you speak of, that is to be wholly independent upon any other, and accountable to none upon earth, which you fay is peculiar to the majefty of fovereign princes, Ariftotle in the 4th book of his Pol. Ch. 10. calls a moft tyrannical form of government, and not in the leaft to be endured by a free people. And that kings are not liable to be queftioned for their actions, you prove by the testimony of a very worthy author, that barbarous tyrant Mark Antony; one of those that fubverted the commonwealth of Rome: and yet he himself, when he undertook an expedition against the Parthians, fummoned Herod before him, to answer to a charge of murder, and would have punished him, but that Herod bribed him. So that Antony's afferting this prerogative royal, and your defence of king Charles, come both out of one and the fame fpring. "And it is very reasonable," fay you, "that it fhould be fo; for kings derive their authority from God alone." What kings are thofe, I pray, that do fo? For I deny, that there ever were any fuch kings in the world, that derived their authority from God alone. Saul, the firft king of Ifrael, had never reigned, but that the people defired 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 fo the fecond 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 fecond time in Hebron by the tribe of Judah, and after that by all the people of Ifrael, 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 fay, "fucceeded him in the throne of the Lord, and was acceptable to all men:" 1 Chron. xxix. So that it is fomething to be well-pleating in the eyes of the people. Jehoiadah the prieft made Joafh king, but firft he made him and the people 5 people enter into a covenant to one another, 2 Kings xi. I confefs that thefe kings, and all that reigned of David's pofterity, were appointed to the kingdom both by God and the people; but of all other kings, of what country foever, I affirm, that they are made fo by the people only; nor can you make it appear, that they are appointed by God, any otherwife than as all other things, great and fmall, are faid to be appointed by him, because nothing. comes to pafs without his providence. So that 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 otherwife God's, than all other things in the world are his; which if you would, you might have learnt out of the fame chapter, ver. 11, 12. "Thine, O Lord, is the greatnefs, &c. for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reigneft over all." And this is fo often repeated, not to puff up kings, but to put them in mind, though they think themfelves Gods, that yet there is a God above them, to whom they owe whatever they arc and have. And thus we eafily understand what the poets, and the Effenes among the Jews mean, when they tell us, that it is by God that kings reign, and that they are of Jupiter; for fo all of us are of God, we are all his offspring. So that this univerfal 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 notwithftanding all this, all other kings, not particularly and by name appointed by God, owe their fovereignty to the people only, and confequently 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 defcribed to have been; or bad ones, as thofe tyrants in the lyrick poet : Γλαῦκε, τίη δὴ νῶι τετιμήμισθα, μαλίςα, &c. Glaucus, in Lycia we're ador'd like Gods: He refolves the question himself: Because, says he, we excel others in heroical virtues: Let us fight manfully then, fays he, left our countrymen tax us with floth 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 caft fome terrour 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 paffage in Horace : Te Dacus afper, te profugi Scythæ, Injuriofo ne pede proruas Stantem columnam, neu populus frequens "All barb'rous people, and their princes too, Support the pillar of the Roman state, "Let wars and tumults ever ceafe." So that if it is by God that kings now-a-days reign, it is by God too that the people affert their own liberty; fince all things are of him, and by him. I am fure the fcripture bears witnefs to both; that by him kings reign, and that by him they are caft 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 fome vifible defignation of God God himself, appoint a king over them, they have the fame right to put him down, that they had to fet him up at firft. And certainly it is a more godlike action to depofe a tyrant than to fet up one: and there appears much more of God in the people, when they depofe an unjuft prince, than in a king that oppreffes an innocent people. Nay, the people have a warrant from God to judge wicked princes; for God has conferred this very honour upon thofe that are dear to him, that celebrating the praises of Chrift 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,' Pfalm cxlix. So that there is but little reafon left for that wicked and foolish opinion, that kings, who commonly are the worft of men, fhould be fo 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 fakes alone he fhould have reduced all mankind, whom he made after his own image, into the fame condition with brutes. After all this, rather than fay nothing, you produce M. Aurelius as a countenancer of tyranny; but you had better have let him alone. I cannot fay whether he ever affirmed, that princes are accountable only before God's tribunal. But Xiphiline indeed, out of whom you quote thofe words of M. Aurelius, mentions a certain government, which he calls an Autarchy, of which he makes God the only judge ; περὶ αυταρχίας ὁ Θεὸς μόνος κρίνειν διναται. But that this word Autarchy and Monarchy are fynonymous, I cannot cafily perfuade myself to believe. And the more I read what goes before, the lefs I find myself inclinable to think fo. And certainly whoever confiders the context, will not eafily apprehend what coherence this fentence has with it, and muft needs wonder how it comes fo abruptly into the text; especially fince Marcus Aurelius, that mirror of princes, carried himself towards the people, as Capitolinus tells us, juft as if Rome had been a commonwealth ftill, And we all know, that when it was fo, the fupreme power Ꮮ 3 |