A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics

No doubt but the king is the supreme governor over all the schools, and physicians, and hospitals in the land, that is, he is the supreme in the civil coercive government: he is supreme magistrate over divines, physicians, and schoolmasters; but not the supreme divine, physician, or schoolmaster. When there is any work for the office of the magistrate, that is, for the sword, among any of them, it belongeth only to him, and not at all to them: but when there is any work for the divine, the physician, the schoolmaster, or if you will, for the shoemaker, the tailor, the watchmaker, this belongeth not to the king to do, or give particular commands for: but yet it is all to be done under his government; and on special causes he may make laws to force them all to do their several works aright, and to restrain them from abuses. As (to clear the case in hand) the king is informed that physicians take too great fees of their patients, that some through ignorance, and some through covetousness, give ill compounded medicines and pernicious drugs: no doubt but the king, by the advice of understanding men, may forbid the use of such drugs as are found pernicious to his subjects, and may regulate not only the fees, but the compositions and attendances of physicians. But if he should command, that a man in a fever, or dropsy, or consumption, shall have no medicine, but this or that, and so oft, and in such or such a dose, and with such or such a diet; and the physicians, whom my reason bindeth me to trust, (and perhaps my own experience also,) do tell me that all these things are bad for me, and different tempers and accidents require different remedies, and that I am like to die, or hazard my health, if I obey not them contrary to the king's commands, here I should rather obey my physicians: partly, because else I should sin against God, who commandeth me the preservation of my life; and partly, because this matter more belongeth to the physician, than to the magistrate. Mr. Richard Hooker, Eccles. Polit. lib. viii. p. 223, 224, giveth you the reason more fully.⁷³

Direct. XXV. Give not the magistrate's power to any other; whether to the people, on pretence of their majestatis realis, (as they call it,) or the pope, or prelates, or pastors of the church, upon pretence of authority from Christ, or of the distinction of ecclesiastical government and civil. The people's pretensions to natural authority, or real majesty, or collation of power, I have confuted before, and more elsewhere. The pope's, prelate's, and pastor's power of the sword in causes ecclesiastical, is disproved so fully by Bishop Bilson ubi supra, and many more, that it is needless to say much more of it.⁷⁴ All protestants, so far as I know, are agreed that no bishop or pastor hath any power of the sword, that is, of coercion, or force upon men's bodies, liberties, or estates, except as magistrates derived from their sovereign. Their spiritual power is only upon consenters, in the use of God's word upon the conscience, either generally in preaching, or with personal application in discipline. No courts or commands can compel any to appear or submit, nor lay the mulct of a penny upon any, but by their own consent, or the magistrate's authority. But this the papists will few of them confess: for if once the sword were taken from them, the world would quickly see that their church had the hearts of few of those multitudes, whom by fire and sword they forced to seem their members; or at least, that, when the windows were opened, the light would quickly deliver poor souls from the servitude of those men of darkness. For then few would fear the unrighteous excommunication of mere usurpers.⁷⁵ It is a manifold usurpation by which their kingdom is upheld. (For a kingdom it is rather to be called than a church.) 1. They usurp the power of the keys or ecclesiastical government over all the world, and make themselves pastors of those churches, which they have nothing to do to govern. Their excommunications of princes or people, in other lands or churches that never took them for their pastors, is a usurpation the more odious, by how much the power usurped is more holy, and the performance in so large a parish as the whole world, is naturally impossible to the Roman usurper. 2. Under the name of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, they usurp the magistrate's coercive power in such causes as they call ecclesiastical. 3. Yea, and they claim an immunity to their clergy from the civil government, as if they were no subjects of the king, or the king had not power to punish his offending subjects. 4. In ordine ad spiritualia, they claim yet more of the magistrate's power. 5. And one part of them give the pope directly in temporals a power over kings and kingdoms. 6. Their most eminent divines do ordinarily maintain, that the pope may excommunicate kings and interdict kingdoms, and that an excommunicated king is no king, and may be killed. It is an article of their religion, determined of in one of their approved general councils, (Later. sub. Innoc. III. can. 3,) That if temporal lords will not exterminate heretics from their lands, (such as the Albigenses, that denied transubstantiation, mentioned can. 2,) the pope may give their dominions to others, and absolve their vassals from their fealty. And when some of late would have so far salved their honour, as to invalidate the authority of that council, they will not endure it, but have strenuously vindicated it; and indeed whatever it be to us, with them it is already enrolled among the approved general councils. Between the Erastians, who would have no government but by magistrates, and papists, who give the magistrate's power to the pope and his prelates, the truth is in the middle; that the pastors have a nunciative and directive power from Christ, and a discipline to exercise by the word alone, or volunteers; much like the power of a philosopher in his school, or a physician in his hospital, supposing them to be by divine right.

Direct. XXVI. Refuse not to swear allegiance to your lawful sovereign. Though oaths are fearful, and not to be taken without weighty cause, yet are they not to be refused when the cause is weighty, as here it is. Must the sovereign be sworn to do his office for you, and must he undertake so hard and perilous a charge for you, which he is no way able to go through, if his subjects be not faithful to him? And shall those subjects refuse to promise and swear fidelity? This is against all reason and equity.

Direct. XXVII. Think not that either the pope, or any power in the world, can dispense with this your oath, or absolve you from the bond of it, or save you from the punishment due from God, to the perjured and perfidious. Of this see what I have written before against perjury.

Direct. XXVIII. Do nothing that tendeth to bring the sacred bonds of oaths into an irreligious contempt, or to make men take the horrid crime of perjury to be a little sin. Sovereigns have no sufficient security of the fidelity of their subjects, or of their lives, or kingdoms; if once oaths and covenants be made light of, and men can play fast and loose with the bonds of God, which lie upon them. He is virtually a traitor to princes and states, who would bring perjury and perfidiousness into credit, and teacheth men to violate oaths and vows. For there is no keeping up human societies and governments, where there is no trust to be put in one another. And there is no trust to be put in that man, that maketh no conscience of an oath or vow.⁷⁶

Direct. XXIX. Be ready to your power to defend your governors, against all treasons, conspiracies, and rebellions.⁷⁷ For this is a great part of the duty of your relation. The wisdom and goodness necessary to government, is much personal in the governors themselves; but the strength (without which laws cannot be executed, nor the people preserved) is in the people, and the prince's interest in them; therefore if you withdraw your help in time of need, you desert and betray your rulers, whom you should defend. If you say, it is they that are your protectors. I answer, true; but by yourselves. They protect you by wisdom, council, and authority, and you must protect them by obedience and strength. Would you have them protect you rather by mercenaries or foreigners? If not, you must be willing to do your parts, and not think it enough in treasons, invasions, or rebellions, to sit still and save yourselves, and let him that can lay hold on the crown, possess it. What prince would be the governor of a people, that he knew would forsake him in his need?

Direct. XXX. Murmur not at the payment of those necessary tributes, by which the common safety must be preserved, and the due honour of your governors kept up. Sordid covetousness hath been the ruin of many a commonwealth. When every one is shifting for himself, and saving his own, and murmuring at the charge by which their safety must be defended, as if kings could fight for them, without men and money; this selfishness is the most pernicious enemy to government, and to the common good. Tribute and honour must be paid to whom it doth belong. Rom. xiii. 6, 7, "For they are God's ministers, attending continually on this very thing." And none of your goods or cabins will be saved, if by your covetousness the ship should perish.

Direct. XXXI. Resist not, where you cannot actually obey: and let no appearance of probable good that might come to yourselves, or the church, by any unlawful means, (as treason, sedition, or rebellion,) ever tempt you to it. For evil must not be done that good may come by it: and all evil means are but palliate and deceitful cures, that seem to help a little while, but will leave the malady more perilous at last, than it was before. As it is possible, that lying or perjury might be used to the seeming service of a governor at the time, which yet would prepare for his after danger, by teaching men perfidiousness; even so rebellions and treasons may seem at present to be very conducible to the ends of a people or party that think themselves oppressed; but in the end it will leave them much worse than it found them.⁷⁸

Object. But if we must let rulers destroy us at their pleasure, the gospel will be rooted out of the earth: when they know that we hold it unlawful to resist them, they will be imboldened to destroy us, and sport themselves in our blood; as the papists did by the poor Albigenses, &c.

Answ. All this did signify something if there were no God, that can easilier restrain and destroy them at his pleasure, than they can destroy or injure you. But if there be a God, and all the world is in his hand, and with a word he can speak them all into dust; and if this God be engaged to protect you, and hath told you, that the very hairs of your head are numbered, and more regardeth his honour, and gospel, and church, than you do, and accounteth his servants as the apple of his eye, and hath promised to hear them and avenge them speedily, and forbid them to avenge themselves; then it is but atheistical distrust of God, to save yourselves by sinful means, as if God either could not or would not do it: thus he that saveth his life shall lose it. Do you believe that you are in the hands of Christ, and that men cannot touch you but by his permission; and that he will turn all your sufferings to your exceeding benefit? And yet will you venture on sin and hell to escape such sufferings from men? Wolves, and bears, and lions, that fight most for themselves, are hated and destroyed by all; so that there are but few of them in the land. But though a hundred sheep will run before a little dog, the master of them taketh care for their preservation. And little children that cannot go out of the way from a horse or cart, every one is afraid of hurting. If christians behaved themselves with that eminent love, and lowliness, and meekness, and patience, and harmlessness, as their Lord hath taught them and required, perhaps the very cruelty and malice of their enemies would abate and relent; and "when a man's ways please God, he would make his enemies to be at peace with him;"⁷⁹ but if not, their fury would but hasten us to our joy and glory. Yet note, that I speak all this only against rebellion, and unlawful arms and acts.

Direct. XXXII. Obey inferior magistrates according to the authority derived to them from the supreme, but never against the supreme, from whom it is derived. The same reasons which oblige you to obey the personal commands of the king, do bind you also to obey the lowest constable, or other officer: for they are necessary instruments of the sovereign power, and if you obey not them, the obedience of the sovereign signifieth almost nothing. But no man is bound to obey them beyond the measure of their authority; much less against those that give them their authority.

Direct. XXXIII. No human power is at all to be obeyed against God: for they have no power, but what they receive from God; and all that is from him, is for him. He giveth no power against himself; he is the first efficient, the chief dirigent, and ultimate final cause of all.⁸⁰ It is no act of authority, but resistance of his authority, which contradicteth his law, and is against him. All human laws are subservient to his laws, and not co-ordinate, much less superior. Therefore they are ipso facto null, or have no obligation, which are against him: yet is not the office itself null, when it is in some things thus abused; nor the magistrate's power null, as to other things. No man must commit the least sin against God, to please the greatest prince on earth, or to avoid the greatest corporal suffering.⁸¹ "Fear not them that can kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; but fear him, who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell: yea, I say unto you, fear him," Luke xii. 4. "Whether we ought to obey God rather than men, judge ye," Acts v. 29. "Not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him that is invisible. – Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance," &c. Heb. xi. 27, 35. "Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image," &c. Dan. iii. 18.

Object. If we are not obliged to obey, we are not obliged to suffer; for the law obligeth primarily to obedience, and only secondarily ad pœnam, for want of obedience. Therefore where there is no primary obligation to obedience, there is no secondary obligation to punishment.

Answ. The word obligation, being metaphorical, must in controversy be explained by its proper terms. The law doth first constituere debitum obedientiæ, et propter inobedientiam debitum pœnæ. Here then you must distinguish, 1. Between obligation in foro conscientiæ, and in foro humano. 2. Between an obligation ad pœnam by that law of man, and an obligation ad patiendum by another divine law. And so the answer is this: first, If the higher powers, e. g. forbid the apostles to preach upon pain of death or scourging, the dueness both of the obedience and the penalty, is really null, in point of conscience; however in foro humano they are both due; that is, so falsely reputed in that court: therefore the apostles are bound to preach notwithstanding the prohibition, and so far as God alloweth they may resist the penalty, that is, by flying: for properly there is neither debitum obedientiæ nec pœnæ. Secondly, But then God himself obligeth them not to "resist the higher powers," Rom. xiii. 1-3, and "in their patience to possess their souls." So that from this command of God, there is a true obligation ad patiendum, to patient suffering and non-resistance, though from the law of man against their preaching, there was no true obligation aut ad obedientiam, aut ad pœnam. This is the true resolution of this sophism.

Direct. XXXIV. It is one of the most needful duties to governors, for those that have a call and opportunity, (as their pastors,) to tell them wisely and submissively of those sins which are the greatest enemies to their souls; and not the smallest enemies to their government, and the public peace.⁸² All christians will confess, that sin is the only forfeiture of God's protection, and the cause of his displeasure, and consequently the only danger to the soul, and the greatest enemy to the land. And that the sins of rulers, whether personal, or in their government, have a far more dangerous influence upon the public state, than the sins of other men. Yea, the very sins which upon true repentance may be pardoned as to the everlasting punishment, may yet be unpardoned as to the public ruin of a state: as the sad instance of Manasseh showeth. 2 Kings xxiii. 26, "Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal." Chap. xxiv. 3, 4, "Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight for the sins of Manasseh according to all that he did; and also for the innocent blood that he shed, (for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood,) which the Lord would not pardon." And yet this was after Josiah had reformed. So Solomon's sin did cause the rending of the ten tribes from his son's kingdom: yea, the bearing with the high places, was a provoking sin in kings, that otherwise were upright. Therefore sin being the fire in the thatch, the quenching of it must needs be an act of duty and fidelity to governors; and those that tempt them to it, or soothe and flatter them in it, are the greatest enemies they have. But yet it is not every man that must reprove a governor, but those that have a call and opportunity; nor must it be done by them imperiously, or reproachfully, or publicly to their dishonour, but privately, humbly, and with love, honour, reverence, and submissiveness.

Object. But great men have great spirits, and are impatient of reproof, and I am not bound to that which will do no good, but ruin me.

Answ. 1. It is an abuse of your superiors, to censure them to be so proud and brutish, as not to consider that they are the subjects of God, and have souls to save or lose, as well as others: will you judge so hardly of them before trial, as if they were far worse and foolisher than the poor, and take this abuse of them to be an excuse for your other sin? No doubt there are good rulers in the world, that will say to Christ's ministers, as the Prince Elector Palatine did to Pitiscus, charging him to tell him plainly of his faults, when he chose him to be the Pastor Aulicus.⁸³

2. How know you beforehand what success your words will have? Hath the word of God well managed no power? yea, to make even bad men good? Can you love your rulers, and yet give up their souls in despair, and all for fear of suffering by them?

3. What if you do suffer in the doing of your duty? Have you not learned to serve God upon such terms as those? Or do you think it will prove it to be no duty, because it will bring suffering on you? These reasons savour not of faith.

Direct. XXXV. Think not that it is unlawful to obey in every thing which is unlawfully commanded. It may in many cases be the subject's duty, to obey the magistrate who sinfully commandeth him. For all the magistrate's sins in commanding, do not enter into the matter or substance of the thing commanded: if a prince command me to do the greatest duty, in an ill design, to some selfish end, it is his sin so to command; but yet that command must be obeyed (to better ends). Nay, the matter of the command may be sinful in the commander, and not in the obeyer. If I be commanded without any just reason to hunt a feather, it is his sin that causelessly commandeth me so to lose my time; and yet it may be my sin to disobey it, while the thing is lawful; else servants and children must prove all to be needful, as well as lawful, which is commanded them before they must obey. Or the command may at the same time be evil by accident, and the obedience good by accident, and per se. Very good accidents, consequence, or effects, may belong to our obedience, when the accidents of the command itself are evil. I could give you abundance of instances of these things.

Direct. XXXVI. Yet is not all to be obeyed that is evil but by accident, nor all to be disobeyed that is so: but the accidents must be compared; and if the obedience will do more good than harm, we must obey; if it will evidently do more harm than good, we must not do it. Most of the sins in the world are evil by accident only, and not in the simple act denuded of its accidents, circumstances, or consequents. You may not sell poison to him that you know would poison himself with it, though to sell poison of itself be lawful. Though it be lawful simply to lend a sword, yet not to a traitor that you know would kill the king with it, no nor to one that would kill his father, his neighbour, or himself. A command would not excuse such an act from sin.⁸⁴ He was slain by David, that killed Saul at his own command, and if he had but lent him his sword to do it, it had been his sin. Yet some evil accidents may be weighed down by greater evils, which would evidently follow upon the not doing of the thing commanded.

Direct. XXXVII. In the question, whether human laws bind conscience, the doubt is not of that nature, as to have necessary influence upon your practice. For all agree, that they bind the subject to obedience, and that God's law bindeth us to obey them. And if God's law bind us to obey man's law, and so to disobey them be materially a sin against God's law, this is as much as is needful to resolve you in respect of practice: no doubt, man's law hath no primitive obliging power at all, but a derivative from God, and under him; and what is it to bind the conscience (an improper speech) but to bind the person to judge it his duty, (conscire,) and so to do it. And no doubt but he is bound to judge it his duty, that that is immediately by human law, and remotely by divine law, and so the contrary to be a sin proximately against man, and ultimately against God. This is plain, and the rest is but logomachy.

Direct. XXXVIII. The question is much harder, whether the violation of every human penal law be a sin against God, though a man submit to the penalty. (And the desert of every sin is death.) Master Richard Hooker's last book unhappily ended, before he gave us the full reason of his judgment in this case, these being the last words: "Howbeit, too rigorous it were, that the breach of every human law should be a deadly sin: a mean there is between those extremities, if so be we can find it out – ."⁸⁵ Amesius hath diligently discussed it, and many others. The reason for the affirmative is, because God bindeth us to obey all the lawful commands of our governors; and suffering the penalty, is not obeying; the penalty being not the primary intention of the lawgiver, but the duty; and the penalty only to enforce the duty: and though the suffering of it satisfy man, it satisfieth not God, whose law we break by disobeying. Those that are for the negative, say, That God binding us but to obey the magistrate, and his law binding but aut ad obedientiam, aut ad pœnam, I fulfil his will, if I either do or suffer: if I obey not, I please him by satisfying for my disobedience. And it is none of his will, that my choosing the penalty should be my sin or damnation. To this it is replied, That the law bindeth ad pœnam, but on supposition of disobedience; and that disobedience is forbidden of God: and the penalty satisfieth not God, though it satisfy man. The other rejoins, That it satisfieth God, in that it satisfieth man; because God's law is but to give force to man's, according to the nature of it. If this hold, then no disobedience at all is a sin in him that suffereth the penalty. In so hard a case, because more distinction is necessary to the explication, than most readers are willing to be troubled with, I shall now give you but this brief decision.⁸⁶ There are some penalties which fulfil the magistrate's own will as much as obedience, which indeed have more of the nature of a commutation, than of penalty: (as he that watcheth not or mendeth not the highways, shall pay so much to hire another to do it: he that shooteth not so oft in a year, shall pay so much: he that eateth flesh in Lent, shall pay so much to the poor: he that repaireth not his hedges, shall pay so much:) and so in most amercements, and divers penal laws; in which we have reason to judge, that the penalty satisfieth the lawgiver fully, and that he leaveth it to our choice. In these cases I think we need not afflict ourselves with the conscience or fear of sinning against God. But there are other penal laws, in which the penalty is not desired for itself, and is supposed to be but an imperfect satisfaction to the lawgiver's will, and that he doth not freely leave us to our choice, but had rather we obeyed than suffered; only he imposeth no greater a penalty, either because there is no greater in his power, or some inconvenience prohibiteth; in this case I should fear my disobedience were a sin, though I suffered the penalty. (Still supposing it an act that he had power to command me.)

Direct. XXXIX. Take heed of the pernicious design of those atheistical politicians, that would make the world believe, that all that is excellent among men, is at enmity with monarchy, yea, and government itself; and take heed on the other side, that the most excellent things be not turned against it by abuse.

Here I have two dangers to advertise you to beware: the first is of some Machiavelian, pernicious principles, and the second of some erroneous, unchristian practices.

For the first, there are two sorts of atheistical politicians guilty of them. The first sort are some atheistical flatterers, that to engage monarchs against all that is good, would make them believe that all that is good is against them and their interest. By which means, while their design is to steal the help of princes, to cast out all that is good from the world, they are most pernicious underminers of monarchy itself. For what readier way to set all the world against it, than to make them believe that it standeth at enmity to all that is good. These secret enemies would set up a leviathan to be the butt of common enmity and opposition.

The other sort are the professed enemies of monarchy, who in their zeal for popular government, do bring in all that is excellent, as if it were adverse to monarchy. 1. They would (both) set it at enmity with politicians. 2. With lawyers. 3. With history. 4. With learning. 5. With divines. 6. With all christian religion. 7. And with humanity itself.

Object. I. The painters of the leviathan scorn all politics, as ignorant of the power of monarchs, except the atheistical inventions of their own brains. And the adversaries of monarchy say, The reading of politics will satisfy men against monarchy; for in them you ordinarily find that the majestas realis is in the people, and the majestas personalis in the prince; that the prince receiveth all his power from the people, to whom it is first given, and to whom it may be forfeited and escheat: with much more of the like, as is to be seen in politicians of all religions.

Answ. 1. It is not all politics that go upon those principles: and one mistake in writers is no disgrace to the true doctrine of politics, which may be vindicated from such mistakes. 2. As almost all authors of politics take monarchy for a lawful species of government, so most or very many (especially of the moderns) do take it to be the most excellent sort of unmixed government. Therefore they are no enemies to it.

Object. II. For lawyers, they say, That, 1. Civilians set up reason so high, that they dangerously measure the power of monarchs by it; insomuch, that the most famous pair of zealous and learned defenders of monarchy, Barclay and Grotius, do assign many cases, in which it is lawful to resist princes by arms, and more than so.⁸⁷ 2. And the common lawyers, they say, are all for the law, and ready to say as Hooker, Lex facit regem; and what power the king hath, he hath it by law, The bounds are known, p. 218. He is singulis major, et universis minor, &c.

Answ. 1. Sure the Roman civil laws were not against monarchy, when monarchs made so many of them. And what power reason truly hath, it hath from God, whom none can over-top; and that which reason is abused unjustly to defend, may be well contradicted by reason indeed. 2. And what power the laws of the land have, they have by the king's consent and act: and it is strange impudence to pretend, that his own laws are against him. If any misinterpret them, he may be confuted.

Object. III. For historians, say they, Be but well-versed in ancient history, Greek and Roman, and you shall find them speak so ill of monarchy, and so much for popularity, and liberty, and magnifying so much the defenders of the people's liberty against monarchs, that it will secretly steal the dislike of monarchy, and the love of popular liberty into your minds.⁸⁸

Answ. It must be considered in what times and places the ancient Greek and Roman historians did live.⁸⁹ They that lived where popular government was in force and credit, wrote according to the time and government which they lived under; yet do they extol the virtues and heroic acts of monarchs, and often speak of the vulgar giddiness and unconstancy. And for my part, I think he that readeth in them those popular tumults, irrationalities, furies, unconstancies, cruelties, which even in Rome and Athens they committed, and all historians record, will rather find his heart much alienated from such democratical confusions. And the historians of other times and places do write as much for monarchy, as they did for democracy.

Object. IV. Some of them revile at Aristotle and all universities, and say, That while multitudes must be tasters and pretenders to the learning which they never can thoroughly attain, they read many dangerous books, and receive false notions; and these half-witted men are the disturbers of all societies. Do you not see, say they, that the two strongest kingdoms in the world, are kept up by keeping the subjects ignorant. The Greek and Latin empires were ruined by the contention of men that did pretend to learning. The Turk keepeth all in quiet by suppressing it: and the pope confineth it almost all to his instruments in government, and keepeth the common people in ignorance; which keepeth them from matter of quarrel and disobedience.⁹⁰