Question XXXVI.



Whether the power of war be only in the king.



It is not hard to determine this question. The sword in a constitute 

commonwealth is given to the judge supreme or subordinate; (Rom. xiii. 

4;) "He beareth not the sword in vain" in the empire. The use of armour 

is restricted to the emperor by a positive law; so the law saith, 

Armorum officia nisi jussu principis sunt interdicta, (lib. de Cod. de 

Lege. 1.) Imperat Valentinian nulli, nobis inconsultis, usus armorum 

tribuatur, (ad 1. Jul. Mai. l. 3.) War is a species and a particular, 

the sword is a general.



Assert. — 1. The power of the sword, by God's law, is not proper and 

peculiar to the king only, but given by God to the inferior judges. 1. 

Because the inferior judge is essentially a judge no less than the king, 

as is proved, therefore he must bear the sword. (Rom. xiii. 4.) 2. Not 

Moses only, but the congregation of Israel, had power of life and death, 

and so of the sword; Num. xxxv. 12, the man-slayer shall not die, "until 

he stand before the congregation in judgment;" ver. 24, "Then the 

congregation shall judge between the slayer and the avenger of. blood;" 

Deut. xxii. 18, "The elders of the city shall take that man and chastise 

him;" ver. 21, "The men of the city shall stone her with stones;" Deut. 

xvii. 5; xix. 12, 13, v. 18-21; xxi. 19, "Then shall his father and his 

mother bring him to the elders of his city;" ver. 21, "And the men of 

the city shall stone him with stones;" 1 Kings xxi. 11. The elders and 

nobles that were inhabitants in his city stoned Naboth. 3. Inferior 

judges are condemned as murderers, who have shed innocent blood, (Isa. 

i. 12; Psal. xciv. 5, 6; Jer. xxii. 3; Ezek. xxii. 12. 27; Hosea vi. 8; 

Zeph. iii. 1-3,) therefore, they must have the power of the sword, 

hence, upon the same grounds.



Assert. 2. — That the king only hath the power of war, and raising 

armies must be but a positive civil law. For, 1. By divine right, if the 

inferior judges have the sword given to them of God, then have they also 

power of war, and raising armies. 2. All power of war that the king hath 

is cumulative, not privative, and not destructive, but given for the 

safety of the kingdom; as therefore the king cannot take from one 

particular man the power of the sword for natural seif-preservation, 

because it is the birthright of life, neither can the king take from a 

community and kingdom a power of rising in arms for their own defence. 

If an army of Turks shall suddenly invade the land, and the king's 

express consent cannot be had, (tor it is essentially involved in the 

office of the king, as king, that all the power of the sword that he 

hath be for their safety,) or if the king should, as a man, refuse his 

consent, and interdict and discharge the land to rise in arms, yet they 

have his royal consent, though they want his personal consent, in 

respect that his office obligeth him to command them to rise in arms. 3. 

Because no king, no civil power can take away nature's birthright of 

self-defence from any man, or a community of men. 4. Because if a king 

should sell his kingdom, and invite a bloody conqueror to come in with 

an army of men to destroy his people, impose upon their conscience an 

idolatrous religion, they may lawfully rise against that army without 

the king's consent; for, though royalists say, they need not come in 

asinine patience, and offer their throats to cut-throats, but may flee, 

yet several things hindereth a flight. 1. They are obliged by virtue of 

the fifth commandment to remain, and, with their sword, defend the 

cities of the Lord and the king (2 Sam. x. 12; 1 Chron. xix. 13); for if 

to defend our country and children, and the church of God, from unjust 

invaders and cut-throats, by the sword, be an act of charity that God 

and the law of nature requireth of a people, as is evident, (Prov. xxiv. 

11,) and if the fifth commandment oblige the land to defend their aged 

parents and young children from these invaders, and if the sixth 

commandment lay on us the like bond, all the land are to act works of 

mercy and charity, though the king unjustly command the contrary, 

except, royalists say, that we are not to perform the duties of the 

second table commanded by God, if an earthly king forbid us; and if we 

exercise not acts of mercy towards our brethren, when their life is in 

hazard, to save them, we are murderers; and so men may murder their 

neighbour if the king command them so to do; this is like the court-

faith. 2. The king's power of wars is for the safety of his people; if 

he deny his consent to their raising of arms till they be destroyed, he 

playeth the tyrant, not the king, and the Law of nature will necessitate 

them either to defend themselves, (seeing flight of all in that case is 

harder than death,) else they must be guilty of self-murder. Now, the 

king's commandment of not rising in arms, at best, is positive and 

against the nature of his office, and it floweth then from him as from a 

man, and so must be far inferior to the natural commandment of God, 

which commandeth self-preservation, if we would not be guilty of self-

murder, and of obeying men rather than God; so Althusius (Polit. c. 25, 

n. 9), Halicarnas. (1. 4, Antiq. Rom.), Aristot. (Polit. l. 3, c. 3). 3. 

David took Goliath's sword and became a captain, a captain to an host of 

armed men in the battle, and fought the battles of the Lord, (1 Sam. 

xxv. 28,) and this Abigail by the spirit of prophecy, as I take it, 

saith, (ver. 29-31; 1 Sam. xxii. 2; 1 Chron. xii. 1-3; xvii. 18, 21, 

22,) not only without Saul's consent, but against king Saul, as he was a 

man, but not against him as he was king of Israel. 4. If there be no 

king, or the King be minor, or an usurper, as Athaliah, be on the 

throne, the kingdom may law. fully make war without the king, as (Judg. 

xx.) the children of Israel, — four hundred thousand footmen that drew 

sword, went out to war against the children of Benjamin. Judah had the 

power of the sword when Josiah was but eight years old, in the beginning 

of his reign, (2 Kings xxii. 1, 2,) and before Jehoash was crowned king, 

and while he was minor, (2 Kings xi.,) there were captains of hundreds 

in arms raised by Jehoiada, and the people of Judah, to defend the young 

king, it cannot be said that this is more extraordinary than that it is 

extraordinary for kings to die, and in the interregnum, wars, in an 

ordinary providence, may fall out in these kingdoms, where kings go by 

election; and for kings to fall to be minors, captives, tyrannous. And I 

shall be of that opinion that Mr Symmons, who holdeth that royal birth 

is equivalent to divine unction, must also hold, that election is not 

equivalent to divine unction; for both election and birth cannot be of 

the same validity, the one being natural, the other a matter of free 

choice, which shall infer that kings by election are less properly, and 

analogically only, kings; and so Saul was not properly a king, for he 

was king by election; but I conceive that rather kings by birth must be 

less properly kings, because the first king by God's institution, being 

the mould of all the rest, was by election (Deut. xvii. 18-20).



5. If the estates create the king, and make this man king, not that man, 

(as 13 clear from Deut. xvii. 18, and 2 Chron. v. 1-4,) they give to him 

the power of the sword, and the power of war, and the militia; and I 

shall judge it strange and reasonless, that the power given to the king, 

by the parliament or estates of a free kingdom, (such as Scotland is 

acknowledged by all to be,) should create, regulate, limit, abridge, 

yea, and annul that power that created itself. Hath God ordained a 

parliamentary power to create a royal power of the sword and war, to be 

placed in the king, the parliament's creature, for the safety of 

parliament and kingdom, which yet is destructive of itself? Dr Ferne 

saith that "the king summoneth a parliament, and giveth them power to be 

a parliament, and to advise and counsel him;" and, in the meantime, 

Scripture saith (Deut. xvii. 18-20; 1 Sam. x. 20-25; 2 Sam. v. 1-4) that 

the parliament createth the king. Here is admirable reciprocation of 

creation in policy! Shall God make the mother to destroy the daughter? 

The parliamentary power that giveth crown, militia, sword, and all to 

the king, must give power to the king to use sword and war for the 

destruction of the kingdom, and to annul all the power of parliaments, 

to make, unmake parliaments, and all parliamentary power, what more 

absurd?



Obj. 1. — (Symmons, p. 57). These phrases, (1 Sam. ix. 1,) "When kings 

go forth to war," and (Luke xiv. 31) "What king going forth to war," 

speak to my conscience, that both offensive and defensive war are in the 

king's hand.



Ans. — It is not much to other men what is spoken to any man's 

conscience by phrase and customs; for by this no states, where there be 

no kings, but government by the best, or the people, as in Holland, or 

in other nations, can have power of war; for what time of year shall 

kings go to war who are not kings? and because Christ saith, "A certain 

householder delivered talents to his servants." will this infer to any 

conscience, that none but a householder may take usury? And when he 

saith, "If the good man of the house knew at what hour the thief would 

come, he would watch;" shall it follow the son or servant may not watch 

the house, but only the good man?



Obj. 2. — (Ferne, p. 95.) The natural body cannot move but upon natural 

principles; and so neither can the politic body move in war, but upon 

politic reasons from the prince, which must direct by law.



Ans. 1. — This may well be retorted, the politic head cannot then move 

but upon politic reasons; and so the king cannot move to wars but by the 

law, and that is by consent of Parliament; and no law can principle the 

head to destroy the members. 2. If an army of cut-throats rise to 

destroy the kingdom, because the king is behind in his place in doing 

his duty, how can the other judges, the states and parliament, be 

accessory to murder committed by them in not raising armies to suppress 

such robbers? Shall the inferior judges be guilty of innocent blood 

because the king will not do his duty? 3. The politic body ceaseth no 

more to renounce the principles of sinless nature in self-defence, 

because it is a politic body, and subject to a king, than it can leave 

off to sleep, eat, and drink; and there is more need of politic 

principles to the one than the other. 4. The parliaments and estates of 

both kingdoms move in these wars by the king's laws, and are a formal 

politic body in themselves.



Obj. 2. — The ground of the present wars against the king, saith Dr 

Ferne, (sect. 4, p. 13,) is false, to wit, that the parliament is co-

ordinate with the king; but so the king shall not be supreme, the 

parliament's consent is required to an act of supremacy, but not to a 

denial of that act. And there can no more (saith Arnisæus, de jure 

majestatis, c. 3; in quo consistat essen. majest. c. 3, n. 1; and an 

jur. majest. separ., &c. c. 2, n. 2) be two equal and co-ordinate 

supreme powers than there can be two supreme Gods; and multitudo deorum 

est nullitas deorum, many gods infer no gods.



Ans. 1. — If we consider the fountain power, the king is subordinate to 

the parliament, and not co-ordinate; for the constituent is above that 

which is constituted. If we regard the derived and executive power in 

parliamentary acts, they make but a total and complete sovereign power; 

yet so as the sovereign power of the parliament, being habitually and 

underived a prime and fountain-power, (for I do not here separate people 

and parliament,) is perfect without the king, for all parliamentary 

acts, as is clear, in that the parliament make kings, make laws, and 

raise armies, when either the king is minor, captived, tyrannous, or 

dead; but royal power parliamentary without the parliament, is null, 

because it is essentially but a part of the parliament, and can work 

nothing separated from the parliament, no more than a hand cut off from 

the body can write; and so here we see two supremes co-ordinate. Amongst 

infinite things there cannot be two, because it involveth a 

contradiction, that an infinite thing can be created, for then it should 

it be finite; but a royal power is essentially a derived and created 

power and supreme, secundum quid, only in relation to single men, but 

not in relation to the community; it is always a creature of the 

community, with leave of the royalist. 2. It is false, that to an act of 

parliamentary supremacy the consent of the king is required, for it is 

repugnant that there can be any parliamentary judicial act without the 

parliament, but there may be without the king. 3. More false it is, that 

the king hath a negative voice in parliament; then he shall be sole 

judge, and the parliament, the king's creator and constituent, shall be 

a cypher.



Obj. 3.. — (Arnisæus, de jur. maj. de potest. armorum, c. 5, n. 4.) The 

people are mad and furious, therefore supreme majesty cannot be secured, 

and rebels suppressed, and public peace kept, if the power of armour be 

not in the king's hand only.



Ans. 1. — To denude the people of armour, because they may abuse the 

prince, is to expose them to violence and oppression, unjustly; for one 

king may more easily abuse armour than all the people; one man may more 

easily fail than a community. 2. The safety of the people is far to be 

preferred before the safety of one man, though he were two emperors, one 

in the east, another in the west, because the emperor is ordained of God 

for the good and safety of the people. (1 Tim. ii. 2.) 3. There can be 

no inferior judges to bear the sword, as God requireth, (Rom, xiii. 4; 

Deut. i. 15, 16; Chron. xix. 6, 7,) and the king must be sole judge, if 

he only have the sword, and all armour monopolised to himself.



Obj. 4. — The causes of war, saith Mr Symmons, (sect. 4, p. 9,) should 

not be made known to the subjects, who are to look more to the lawful 

call to war from the prince than to the cause of the war.



Ans. 1. — The parliament and all the judges and nobles are subjects to 

royalists, if they should make war and shed blood upon blind obedience 

to the king, not inquiring either in causes of law or fact, they must 

resign their consciences to the king. 2. The king cannot make unlawful 

war to be lawful by any authority royal, except he could rase out the 

sixth commandment; therefore subjects must look more to the causes of 

war than to the authority of the king; and this were a fair way to make 

parliaments of both kingdoms set up popery by the sword, and root out 

the reformed religion upon the king's authority, as the lawful call to 

war, not looking to the causes of war.