The power of judicature, and determination of wars, depend on the will of the supreme officer.
2. In the same sixth chapter, the [sixth] and [seventh] articles, I have showed that all judgment and wars depend upon the will and pleasure of him who bears the supreme authority; that is to say, in a monarchy, on a monarch or king; and this is confirmed by the people’s own judgment. 1 Sam. viii. 20; We also will be like all the nations, and our king shall judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. And what pertains to judgments, and all other matters whereof there is any controversy, whether they be good or evil, is confirmed by the testimony of King Solomon, (1 Kings iii. 9): Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and evil. And that of Absolom, (2 Sam. xv. 3): There is no man deputed of the king to hear thee.
They who have the supreme authority are by right unpunishable.
3. That kings may not be punished by their subjects, as hath been showed above in the sixth chapter and the [twelfth article], King David also confirms; who, though Saul sought to slay him, did notwithstanding refrain his hand from killing him, and forbade Abishai, saying, (1 Sam. xxvi. 9): Destroy him not; for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed, and be innocent? And when he had cut off the skirt of his garment, (1 Sam. xxiv. 6): The Lord forbid, saith he, that I should do this thing unto my master the Lord’s anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him. And (2 Sam. i. 15) commanded the Amalekite, who for his sake had slain Saul, to be put to death.
That without a supreme power there is no government, but confusion.
4. That which is said in the seventeenth chapter of Judges, at the sixth verse: In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes: as though where there were not a monarchy, there were an anarchy or confusion of all things: may be brought as a testimony to prove the excellency of monarchy above all other forms of government; unless that by the word king may perhaps be understood not one man only, but also a court; provided that in it there reside a supreme power. Which if it be taken in this sense, yet hence it may follow, that without a supreme and absolute power (which we have endeavoured to prove in the sixth chapter) there will be a liberty for every man to do what he hath a mind, or whatsoever shall seem right to himself; which cannot stand with the preservation of mankind. And therefore in all government whatsoever, there is ever a supreme power understood to be somewhere existent.
That servants and sons owe their lords and parents simple obedience.
5. We have, in chap. VIII. [art. 7] and [8], said that servants must yield a simple obedience to their lords, and in chap IX. [art. 7], that sons owe the same obedience to their parents. Saint Paul says the same thing concerning servants (Coloss. iii. 22): Servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. Concerning sons (Colos. iii. 20): Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Now as we by simple obedience understand all things which are not contrary to the laws of God; so in those cited places of St. Paul, after the word all things, we must suppose, excepting those which are contrary to the laws of God.
The absolute power of princes proved by most evident testimonies of the Scripture, as well New as Old.
6. But that I may not thus by piecemeal prove the right of princes, I will now instance those testimonies which altogether establish the whole power; namely, that there is an absolute and simple obedience due to them from their subjects. And first out of the New Testament: Matth. xxiii. 2, 3: The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat; all therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do. Whatsoever they bid you (says Christ) observe, that is to say, obey simply. Why? Because they sit in Moses’ seat; namely, the civil magistrate’s, not Aaron, the priest’s. Rom. xiii. 1, 2: Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God; whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist, shall receive to themselves damnation. Now because the powers that were in St. Paul’s time, were ordained of God, and all kings did at that time require an absolute entire obedience from their subjects, it follows that such a power was ordained of God. 1 Peter ii. 13-15: Submit yourselves unto every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of wicked doers, and for the praise of them that do well; for so is the will of God.[God.] Again St. Paul to Titus, (chap. iii. 1): Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, &c. What principalities? Was it not to the principalities of those times, which required an absolute obedience? Furthermore, that we may come to the example of Christ himself, to whom the kingdom of the Jews belonged by hereditary right derived from David himself; he, when he lived in the manner of a subject, both paid tribute unto Cæsar, and pronounced it to be due to him, Matth. xxii. 21: Give unto Cæsar (saith he) the things which are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s. When it pleased him to show himself a king, he required entire obedience, Matth. xxi. 2, 3: Go (said he) into the village over against you, and straight-way ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her; loose them, and bring them unto me; and if any man say aught unto you, ye shall say the Lord hath need of them. This he did therefore by the right of being lord, or a king of the Jews. But to take away a subject’s goods on this pretence only, because the Lord hath need of them, is an absolute power. The most evident places in the Old Testament are these: Deut. v. 27: Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say; and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee, and we will hear it, and do it. But under the word all, is contained absolute obedience. Again to Joshua (Joshua i. 16-18): And they answered Joshua, saying, all that thou commandest us, we will do; and whithersoever thou sendest us, we will go; according as we hearkened unto Moses in all things, so will we hearken unto thee; only the Lord thy God be with thee, as he was with Moses; whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandment, and will not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him, he shall be put to death. And the parable of the bramble (Judges ix. 14, 15): Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou and reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon. The sense of which words is, that we must acquiesce to their sayings, whom we have truly constituted to be kings over us, unless we would choose rather to be consumed by the fire of a civil war. But the regal authority is more particularly described by God himself, in 1 Sam. viii. 9, &c.: Show them the right of the king that shall reign over them, &c. This shall be the right of the king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots, &c. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, &c. And he will take your vineyards, and give them to his servants, &c. Is not this power absolute? And yet it is by God himself styled the king’s right. Neither was any man among the Jews, no not the high-priest himself, exempted from this obedience. For when the king, namely, Solomon, said to Abiathar the priest (1 Kings ii. 26, 27): Get thee to Anathoth unto thine own fields; for thou art worthy of death; but I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou barest the ark of the Lord God before David my father, and because thou hast been afflicted in all wherein my father was afflicted. So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the Lord; it cannot by any argument be proved, that this act of his displeased the Lord; neither read we, that either Solomon was reproved, or that his person at that time was any whit less acceptable to God.