had feen a concubine take his crown from off his head to fet it upon her own: and others befides him have likewife feen the like feat done, and not in jeft. Yet he proved on, and it was fo yielded by the king himfelf, and all his fages, that neither wine, nor women, nor the king, but truth of all other things was the ftrongeft. For me, though neither asked, nor in a nation that gives fuch rewards to wisdom, I fhall pronounce my fentence fomewhat different from Zorobabel; and thall defend that either truth and juftice are all one, (for truth is but justice in our knowledge, and juftice is but truth in our practice and he indeed fo explains himself, in faying that with truth is no accepting of perfons, which is the property of juftice :) or clfe if there be any odds, that juftice, though not ftronger than truth, yet by her office is to put forth and exhibit more ftrength in the affairs of mankind. For truth is properly no more than contemplation; and her utmoft efficiency is but teaching: but juftice in her very effence is all ftrength and activity; and hath a fword put into her hand, to ufe against all violence and oppreffion on the earth. She it is most truly, who accepts no perfon, and exempts none from the feverity of her stroke. She never fuffers injury to prevail, but when faltehood first prevails over truth; and that alfo is a kind of juftice done on them who are fo deluded. Though wicked kings and tyrants counterfeit her fword, as fome did that buckler, fabled to fall from heaven into the capitol, yet the communicates her power to none but fuch as like herself are juft, or at leaft will do juftice. For it were extreme partiality and injuftice, the flat denial and overthrow of herself, to put her own authentic fword into the hand of an unjuft and wicked man, or fo far to accept and exalt one mortal person above his equals, that he alone fhall have the punilhing of all other men tranfgreffing, and not receive like punishment from men, when he himself thall be found the highest tranfgreffor.

We may conclude therefore, that juftice above all other things, is and ought to be the ftrongeft: fhe is the ftrength, the kingdom, the power, and majefty of all ages. Truth, herself would fubfcribe to this, though Darius and all the monarchs of the world fhould deny. And if

by

by fentence thus written, it were my happiness to set free the minds of Englishmen from longing to return poorly under that captivity of kings, from which the frength and fupreme fword of juftice hath delivered them, I fhall have done a work not much inferiour to that of Zorobabel who by well praifing and extolling the force of truth, in that contemplative ftrength conquered Darius ; and freed his country and the people of God, from the captivity of Babylon. Which I thall yet not defpair to do, if they in this land, whofe minds are yet captive, be but as ingenuous to acknowledge the ftrength and fupremacy of juftice, as that heathen king was to confefs the ftrength of truth: or let them but, as he did, grant that, and they will foon perceive, that truth refigns all her outward ftrength to justice: justice therefore muft needs be ftrongeft, both in her own and in the ftrength of truth. But if a king may do among men whatfoever is his will and pleasure, and notwithstanding be unaccountable to men, then contrary to his magnified wifdom of Zorobabel, neither truth nor juftice, but the king is ftrongest of all other things, which that persian monarch himself, in the midft of all his pride and glory durft not affume.

Let us fee therefore what this king hath to affirm, why the fentence of juftice, and the weight of that fword, which the delivers into the hands of men, fhould be more partial to him offending, than to all others of human race. Firft he pleads, that "no law of God or man gives to fubjects any power of judicature without or against him." Which affertion fhall be proved in every part to be moft untrue. The firft exprefs law of God given to mankind was that to Noah, as a law, in general, to all the fons of men. And by that moft ancient and univerfal law, "Whofoever fheddeth man's blood, by man fhall his blood be fhed;" we find here no exception. If a king therefore do this; to a king, and that by men alfo, the fame fhall be done. This in the law of Mofes, which came next, feveral times is repeated, and in one place remarkably, Numb. xxxv. "Ye fhall take no fatisfaction for the life of a murderer, but he shall furely be put to death: the land cannot be cleanfed of the blood that is fhed therein, but by the blood of him

that

that shed it." This is fo fpoken as that which concerned all Ifrael, not one man alone, to fee performed; and if no fatisfaction were to be taken, then certainly no exception. Nay the king, when they fhould fet up any, was to obferve the whole law, and not only to fee it done, but to "do it; that his heart might not be lifted up above his brethren," to dream of vain and reafonlefs prerogatives or exemptions, whereby the law itself muft needs be founded in unrighteoufnefs.

And were that true, which is most falfe, that all kings are the Lord's anointed, it were yet abfurd to think, that the anointment of God fhould be, as it were, a charm againft law, and give them privilege, who punish others, to fin themfelves unpunifhably. The high priest was the Lord's anointed as well as any king, and with the fame confecrated oil: yet Solomon had put to death Abiathar, had it not been for other refpects than that anointment. If God himself fay to kings, "touch not mine anointed," meaning his chofen people, as is evident in that pfalm, yet no man will argue thence, that he protects them from civil laws if they offend; then certainly, though David as a private man, and in his own, caufe, feared to lift his hand againft the Lord's anointed, much lefs can this forbid the law, or difarm juftice from having legal power against any king. No other fupreme magiftrate, in what kind of government foever, lays claim to any fuch enormous privilege; wherefore then hould any king, who is but one kind of magiftrate, and fet over the people for no other end than they?

Next in order of time to the laws of Mofes are thofe of Chrift, who declares profeffedly his judicature to be fpiritual, abstract from civil managements, and therefore leaves all nations to their own particular laws, and way of government. Yet because the church hath a kind of jurifdiction within her own bounds, and that alfo, though in procefs of time much corrupted and plainly turned into a corporal judicature, yet much approved by this king; it will be firm enough and valid againft him, if fubjects, by the laws of church alfo, be "invefted with a power of judicature” both without and against their king, through pretending,

pretending, and by them acknowledged "next and immediately under Chrift fupreme head and governor." Theodofius, one of the beft chriftian emperors, having made a flaughter of the Theffalonians for fedition, but too cruelly, was excommunicated to his face by St. Ambrofe, who was his fubject; and excommunion is the utmoft of ecclefiaftical judicature, a fpiritual putting to death. But this, ye will fay, was only an example. Read then the ftory; and it will appear, both that Ambrofe avouched it for the law of God, and Theodofius confeffed it of his own accord to be fo; "and that the law of God was not to be made void in him, for any reverence to his imperial power." From hence, not to be tedious, I fhall pafs into our own land of Britain; and fhow that fubjects here have exercifed the utmost of spiritual judicature, and more than spiritual againft their kings, his predeceffors. Vortiger, for committing inceft with his daughter, was by St. German, at that time his fubject, curfed and condemned in a british counsel about the year 448; and thereupon foon after was depofed. Mauricus, a king in Wales, for breach of oath and the murder of Cynetus, was excommunicated and curfed, with all his offspring, by Oudoceus bishop of Llandaff in full fynod, about the year 560; and not restored, till he had repented. Morcant, another king in Wales, having flain Frioc his uncle, was fain to come in perfon, and receive judgment from the fame bishop and his clergy; who upon his penitence acquitted him, for no other caufe than left the kingdom fhould be deftitute of a fucceffor in the royal line. Thefe examples are of the primitive, british, and epifcopal church; long ere they had any commerce or communion with the church of Rome. What power afterwards of depofing kings, and fo confequently of putting them to death, was affumed and practifed by the canon law, I omit, as a thing generally known. Certainly, if whole councils of the romifh church have in the midft of their dimnefs difcerned fo much of truth, as to decree at Conftance, and at Bafil, and many of them to avouch at Trent alfo, that a council is above the pope, and may judge him, though by them not denied to be the vicar

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of Chrift; we in our clearer light may be ashamed not to difcern further, that a parliament is by all equity and right above a king, and may judge him, whofe reafons and pretenfious to hold of God only, as his immediate vicegerent, we know how far fetched they are, and infufficient.

As for the laws of man, it would afk a volume to repeat all that might be cited in this point against him from all antiquity. In Greece, Oreftes, the. fon of Agamemnon, and by fucceffion king of Argos, was in that country judged and condemned to death for killing his mother: whence efcaping, he was judged again, though a ftranger, before the great council of Areopagus in Athens. And this memorable act of judicature was the firft, that brought the justice of that grave fenate into fame and high eftimation over all Greece for many ages after. And in the fame city, tyrants were to undergo legal fentence by the laws of Solon: The kings of Sparta, though defcended lineally from Hercules,, efteemed a god among them, were often judged, and fometimes put to death by the moft juft and renowned laws of Lycurgus; who, though a king, thought it moft unequal to bind his fubjects by any law, to which he bound not himself. In Rome, the laws made by Valerius Publicola, foon after the expelling of Tarquin and his race, expelled without a written law, the law being afterward written; and what the fenate decreed againft Nero, that he fhould be judged, and punished according to the laws of their anceftors, and what in like manner was decreed against other emperors, is vulgarly known; as it was known to those heathen, and found juft by nature ere any law mentioned it. And that the chriftian civil law warrants like power of judicature to fubjects against tyrants, is written clearly by the beft and famoufeft civilians. For if it was decreed by Theodofius, and ftands yet firm in the code of Juftinian, that the law is above the emperor, then certainly the emperor being under law, the law may judge him; and if judge him, may punish him, proving tyrannous how elfe is the law above him, or to what purpofe? Thefe are neceflary deductions; and thereafter hath been done in all ages and kingdoms, oftener than to be here recited.

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