for whereas is mentioned the taking of the tenth, it cannot agree well to a tyrant, who observes no proportion in fleecing his people.

Lastly, the taking of their fields, vineyards, and olive trees, if it be by force or fraud, or without just recompense, to the damage of private persons only, it is not to be defended; but if it be upon the public charge and general consent, it might be justified as necessary at the first erection of a kingdom, for those who will have a king are bound to allow him royal maintenance by providing revenues for the Crown, since it is both for the honour, profit, and safety, too, of the people to have their king glorious, powerful, and abounding in riches. Besides, we all know the lands and goods of many subjects may be ofttimes legally taken by the king, either by forfeitures, escheat, attainder, outlawry, confiscation, or the like. Thus we see Samuel's character of a king may literally well bear a mild sense, for greater probability there is that Samuel so meant, and the Israelites so understood it; to which this may be added, that Samuel tells the Israelites: "This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you, and ye shall cry because of your king which ye shall have chosen you"-that is to say, thus shall be the common custom or fashion or proceeding of Saul your king; or, as the vulgar Latin renders it, "This shall be the right or law of your king"not meaning, as some expound it, the casual event or act of some individuum vagum, or indefinite king, that might happen one day to tyrannize over them. So that Saul, and the constant practice of Saul, doth best agree with the literal sense of the text. Now that Saul was no tyrant, we may note that the people "asked a king, as all nations had." God answers, and bids Samuel to "hear the voice of the people in all things which they spake," and "appoint them a king." They did not ask a tyrant, and to give them a tyrant when they asked a king had not been to hear their voice in all things, but rather when they asked an egg to have given them a scorpion, unless we will say that all nations had tyrants. Besides, we do not find in all Scripture that Saul was punished, or so much as blamed, for committing any of those acts which Samuel describes; and if Samuel's drift had been only to terrify the people, he would not have

forgotten to foretell Saul's bloody cruelty in murdering eighty-five innocent priests, and smiting with the edge of the sword the city of Nob, both man, woman, and child. Again, the Israelites never shrank at these conditions proposed by Samuel, but accepted of them, as such as all other nations were bound unto; for their conclusion is: "Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us to fight our battles"-meaning he should earn his privileges by doing the work for them, by judging them, and fighting for them. Lastly, whereas the mention of the people's crying unto the Lord argues they should be under some tyrannical oppression, we may remember that the people's complaints and cries are not always an argument of their living under a tyrant. No man can say King Solomon was a tyrant, yet all the congregation of Israel complained that Solomon made their yoke grievous, and therefore their prayer to Rehoboam is: "Make thou the grievous service of thy father Solomon, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee." To conclude: It is true Saul lost his kingdom, but not for being too cruel or tyrannical to his subjects, but by being too merciful to his enemies. His sparing Agag when he should have slain him was the cause why the kingdom was torn from him.

It

3. If any desire the direction of the New Testament, he may find our Saviour limiting and distinguishing royal power, "By giving to Cæsar those things that were Cæsar's, and to God those things that were God's." "Obediendum est in quibus mandatum Dei non impeditur:" We must obey where the commandment of God is not hindered; there is no other law but God's law to hinder our obedience. was the answer of a Christian to the Emperor: "We only worship God, in other things we gladly serve you." And it seems Tertullian thought whatsoever was not God's was the Emperor's, when he saith: "Bene opposuit Cæsari pecu niam, te ipsum Deo, alioqui quid erit Dei, si omnia Cæsaris Our Saviour hath well apportioned our money for Cæsar, and ourselves for God, for, otherwise, what shall God's share be if all be Cæsar's. The Fathers mention no reservation of any power to the laws of the land or to the people.

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St. Ambrose, in his apology for David, expressly saith: "He was a king, and therefore bound to no laws, because kings are free from the bonds of any fault." St. Augustine also resolves: Imperator non est subjectus legibus, qui habet in potestate alias leges ferre." The Emperor is not subject to laws, who hath power to make other laws. For, indeed, it is the rule of Solomon that "We must keep the king's commandment," and not to say, "What dost thou ?" because "Where the word of a king is there is power," and all that he pleaseth he will do.

If any mislike this divinity in England, let him but hearken to Bracton, Chief Justice in Henry III.'s days, which was since the institution of Parliaments. His words are, speaking of the King: Omnes sub eo, et ipse sub nullo, nisi tantum sub Deo, &c. " All are under him, and he under none but God only; if he offend, since no writ can go against him, their remedy is by petitioning him to amend his fault, which, if he shall not do, it will be punishment sufficient for him to expect God as a revenger; let none presume to search into his deeds, much less to oppose them.

When the Jews asked our Blessed Saviour whether they should pay tribute, He did not first demand what the law of the land was, or whether there was any statute against it, nor inquired whether the tribute were given by consent of the people, nor advised them to stay their payment till they should grant it; He did no more but look upon the superscription, and concluded: "This image you say is Cæsar's, therefore give it to Cæsar." Nor must it here be said that Christ taught this lesson only to the conquered Jews, for in this He gave direction for all nations, who are bound as much in obedience to their lawful kings as to any conqueror or usurper whatsoever.

Whereas, being subject to the higher powers, some have strained these words to signify the laws of the land, or else to mean the highest power, as well aristocratical and democratical as regal. It seems St. Paul looked for such interpretation, and therefore thought fit to be his own expositor, and to let it be known that by power he understood a monarch that carried a sword: "Wilt thou not be afraid of the power?" that is, the ruler that carrieth the sword, for

"he is the minister of God to thee. . . . for he beareth not the sword in vain." It is not the law that is the minister of God, or that carries the sword, but the ruler or magistrate; so they that say the law governs the kingdom, may as well say that the carpenter's rule builds a house, and not the carpenter, for the law is but the rule or instrument of the ruler. And St. Paul concludes: "For this cause pay you tribute also, for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom." He doth not say give as a gift to God's minister, but àridore-render or restore tribute as a due. Also St. Peter doth most clearly expound this place of St. Paul, where he saith: "Submit yourselves to 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." Here the very self-same word (supreme or Veрexovoals) which St. Paul coupleth with power, St. Peter conjoineth with the king, Βασιλεῖ ὡς ὑπερέχοντι, thereby to manifest that king and power are both one. Also St. Peter expounds his own words of human ordinance to be the king, who is the lex loquens, a speaking law; he cannot mean that kings themselves are a human ordinance since St. Paul calls the Supreme Power the ordinance of God, and the wisdom of God saith: "By Me kings reign." But his meaning must be that the laws of kings are human ordinances. Next, the governors that are sent by him, that is, by the king, not by God, as some corruptly would wrest the text, to justify popular governors as authorized by God; whereas, in grammatical construction (him), the relative must be referred to the next antecedent, which is king; besides, the antithesis between "supreme" and "sent" proves plainly that the governors were sent by kings, for if the governors were sent by God, and the king be a human ordinance, then it follows that the governors were supreme and not the king; or if it be said that both king and governors are sent by God, then they are both equal, and so neither of them supreme. Therefore St. Peter's meaning is, in short: Obey the laws of the king or of his ministers. By which it is evident that neither St. Peter nor St. Paul intended other form of government than

only monarchical, much less any subjection of princes to human laws.

That familiar distinction of the Schoolmen, whereby they subject kings to the directive, but not to the co-active power of laws, is a confession that kings are not bound by the positive laws of any nation, since the compulsory power of laws is that which properly makes laws to be laws by binding men by rewards or punishment to obedience; whereas the direction of the law is but like the advice and direction which the king's council gives the king, which no man says is a law to the king.

4. There want not those who believe that the first invention of laws was to bridle and moderate the over-great power of kings; but the truth is, the original of laws was for the keeping of the multitude in order. Popular estates could not subsist at all without laws, whereas kingdoms were governed many ages without them. The people of Athens, as soon as they gave over kings, were forced to give power to Draco first, then to Solon, to make them laws, not to bridle kings but themselves; and though many of their laws were very severe and bloody, yet for the reverence they bare to their law-makers they willingly submitted to them. Nor did the people give any limited power to Solon, but an absolute jurisdiction, at his pleasure to abrogate and confirm what he thought fit, the people never challenging any such power to themselves. So the people of Rome gave to the ten men, who were to choose and correct their laws for the Twelve Tables, an absolute power, without any appeal to the \ people.

5. The reason why laws have been also made by kings was this: When kings were either busied with wars, or distracted with public cares, so that every private man could not have access to their persons to learn their wills and pleasure, then of necessity were laws invented, that so every particular subject might find his prince's pleasure deciphered to him in the tables of his laws, that so there might be no need to resort unto the king; but either for the interpretation or mitigation of obscure or rigorous laws, or else in new cases, for a supplement where the law was defective. By this means both king and people were in many things eased. First, the king, by giving laws, doth free himself of great and