Neque vero Cæfarem, &c. "Neither is Cæfar to make war as head of Chriftendom, protector of the Church, defender of the faith; thefe titles being falfe and windy, and moft kings being the greatest enemies to religion.' Lib. de Bello contra Turcas, apud Sleid. 1. 14. What hinders then, but that we may depofe or punish them?

'Thefe alfo are recited by Cochlæus in his Mifcellanies to be the words of Luther, or fome other eminent divine, then in Germany, when the protestants there entered into folemn covenant at Smalcaldia. Ut ora iis obturem, &c. "That I may flop their mouths, the pope and emperor are not born, but elected, and may also be depofed as hath been often done." If Luther, or whoever elfe, thought fo, he could not stay there; for the right of birth or fucceffion can be no privilege in nature, to let a tyrant fit irremovable over a nation freeborn, without transforming that nation from the nature and condition of men born free, into natural, hereditary, and fucceffive flaves. Therefore he faith further; "To difplace and throw down this exactor, this Phalaris, this Nero, is a work pleafing to God;" namely, for being fuch a one: which is a moral reafon. Shall then fo flight a confideration as his hap to be not elective fimply, but by birth which was a mere accident, overthrow that which is moral, and make unpleafing to God that which otherwife had fo well pleafed him? Certainly not: for if the matter be rightly argued, election, much rather than chance, binds a man to content himself with what he fuffers by his own bad election. Though indeed neither the one nor other binds any man, much lefs any people, to a neceffary fufferance of thofe wrongs and evils, which they have ability and ftrength enough given them to

remove.

"Zwinglius, tom. 1, articul. 42.

'Quando vero perfidè, &c. "When kings reign perfidiously, and against the rule of Chrift, they may açcording to the word of God be depofed."

"Mihi ergo compertum non eft, &c. "I know not how it comes to pafs, that kings reign by fucceffion, unlefs it be with confent of the whole people." ibid. VOL. II.

X

'Quum

'Quum vero confenfu, &c. "But when by fuffrage and confent of the whole people, or the better part of them, a tyrant is depofed or put to death, God is the chief leader in that action." ibid.

'Nunc cum tam tepidi fumus, &c. "Now that we are fo lukewarm in upholding public justice, we endure the vices of tyrants to reign nowadays with impunity; juftly therefore by them we are trod underfoot, and fhall at length with them be punished. Yet ways are not wanting by which tyrants may be removed, but there wants public juftice." ibid.

• Cavete vobis ô tyranni. "Beware ye tyrants! for now the gospel of Jefus Chrift, fpreading far and wide, will renew the lives of many to love innocence and jus tice; which if ye alfo fhall do, ye fhall be honoured. But if ye shall go on to rage and do violence, ye shall be trampled on by all men." ibid.

"When

Romanum imperium imò quodque, &c. the Roman empire, or any other, fhall begin to opprefs religion, and we negligently fuffer it, we are as much guilty of religion fo violated, as the oppreffors themfelves." Idem Epift. ad Conrad. Somium.

Calvin on Daniel, c. iv, v. 25.

• Hòdie monarchæ femper in fuis titulis, &c. "Nowadays monarchs pretend always in their titles, to be kings by the grace of God: but how many of them to this end only pretend it, that they may reign without control! for to what purpofe is the grace of God mentioned in the title of kings, but that they may acknowledge no uperior? In the mean while God, whose name they use, to fupport themselves, they willingly would tread under their feet. It is therefore a mere cheat, when they boast to reign by the grace of God."

'Abdicant fe terreni principes, &c. "Earthly princes depose themselves, while they rise against God, yea they are unworthy to be numbered among men: rather it behoves us to spit upon their heads, than to obey them." Q Dan. c. vi, v. 22.

Bucer

Bucer on Matth. c. v.

'Si princeps fuperior, &c. "If a fovereign prince endeavour by arms to defend tranfgreffors, to fubvert those things which are taught in the word of God, they, who are in authority under him, ought firft to diffuade him; if they prevail not, and that he now bears himself not as a prince but as an enemy, and feeks to violate privileges and rights granted to inferior magiftrates or commonalties, it is the part of pious magiftrates, imploring firft the affiftance of God, rather to try all ways and means, than to betray the flock of Chrift, to fuch an enemy of God: for they alfo are to this end ordained, that they may defend the people of God, and maintain thofe things, which are good and juft. For to have fupreme power leffens not the evil committed by that power, but makes it the lefs tolerable, by how much the more generally hurtful. Then certainly the lefs tolerable, the more unpardonably to be punished.”

'Of Peter Martyr we have spoke before.

'Paræus in Rom. xiii.

Quorum eft conftituere magiftratus, &c. "They whofe part is to fet up magiftrates, may reftrain them alfo from outrageous deeds, or pull them down; but all magiftrates are fet up either by parliament or by electors, or by other magiftrates; they therefore, who exalted them, may lawfully degrade and punith them."

"Of the Scots divines I need not mention others than the famouseft among them, Knox, and his fellow la bourers in the reformation of Scotland; whofe large treatises on this fubject, defend the fame opinion. To cite them fufficiently, were to infert their whole books, written purposely on this argument. "Knox's Appeal;" and to the reader; where he promises in a poftfcript, that the book which he intended to fet forth, called "The fecond Blast of the Trumpet," fhould maintain more at large, that the fame men moft juftly may depofe, and punish him whom unadvisedly they have elected, notwithstanding birth, fucceffion, or any oath of allegiance.

X 2

Among

Among our own divines Cartwright and Fenner, two of the learnedeft, may in reason fatisfy us what was held by the reft. Fenner in his book of Theology maintaining, that they who have power, that is to fay a parliament, may either by fair means or by force depofe a tyrant, whom he defines to be him, that wilfully breaks all, or the principal conditions made between him and the commonwealth. Fen. Sac. Theolog. c. 13. And Cartwright in a prefixed epiftle teftifies his approbation of the whole book.

'Gilby de Obedientiâ. p. 25 and 105.

Kings have their authority of the people, who may upon occafion reaffume it to themfelves."

England's Complaint against the Canons. "The people may kill wicked princes as monsters and cruel beafts.'

"Chriftopher Goodman of Obedience.

"When kings or rulers become blafphemers of God, oppreffors and murderers of their fubjects, they ought no more to be accounted kings or lawful magistrates, but as private men to be examined, accufed, and condemned and punished by the law of God, and being convicted and punished by that law, it is not man's but God's doing." c. x, p. 139.

"By the civil laws, a fool or idiot born, and fo proved, fhall lofe the lands and inheritance whereto he is born, because he is not able to use them aright: and efpecially ought in no cafe be fuffered to have the government of a whole nation; but there is no fuch evil can come to the commonwealth by fools and idiots, as doth by the rage and fury of ungodly rulers; fuch therefore, being without God, ought to have no authority over God's people, who by his word requireth the contrary.” c. xi. p. 143, 144.

"No perfon is exempt by any law of God from this punishment: be he king, queen, or emperor, he must

die the death, for God hath not placed them above others, to tranfgrefs his laws as they lift, but to be fubject to them as well as others; and if they be fubject to his laws, then to the punishment also, so much the more as their example is more dangerous." c. xiii, p. 184.

"When magiftrates ceafe to do their duty, the people are as it were without magiftrates, yea worfe, and then God giveth the fword into the people's hand, and he himself is become immediately their head." p. 185.

"If princes do right, and keep promife with you, then do you owe to them all humble obedience; if not, ye are discharged, and your study ought to be in this cafe how ye may depofe and punith according to the law fuch rebels againft God, and oppreffors of their country."

p. 190.

"This Goodman was a minifter of the English church at Geneva, as Dudley Fenner was at Middleburgh, or fome other place in that country. Thefe were the pastors of thofe faints and confeffors, who, flying from the bloody perfecution of queen Mary, gathered up at length their scattered members into many congregations; whereof fome in upper, fome in lower Germany, part of them fettled at Geneva; where this author having preached on this fubject to the great liking of certain learned and godly men, who heard him, was by them fundry times and with much inftance required to write more fully on that point. Who thereupon took it in hand, and conferring with the best learned in thofe parts (among whom Calvin was then living in the fame city) with their fpecial approbation he published this treatife, aiming principally, as is teftified by Whittingham in the preface, that his brethren of England, the proteftants, might be perfuaded in the truth of that doctrine concerning obedience to magiftrates. Whittingham in prefat.

These were the true proteftant divines of England, our fathers in the faith we hold; this was their fenfe, who for fo many years labouring under prelacy, through all ftorms and perfecutions kept religion from extinguishing; and delivered it pure to us, till their arofe a covetous and ambitious generation of divines (for divines they call themselves!) who, feigning on a fudden