Question XLIV.



General results of the former doctrine, in some few corollaries, or 

straying questions, fallen off the roadway, answered briefly.



Quest. 1. — Whether all governments be but broken governments and 

deviations from monarchy.



Ans. — l. It is denied: there is no less somewhat of God's authority in 

government by many, or some of the choicest of the people, than in 

monarchy; nor can we judge any ordinance of man unlawful, for we are to 

be subject to all for the Lord's sake. (1 Pet. ii. 13; Tit. iii. 1; 1 

Tim. ii. 1-3.) 2. Though monarchy should seem the rule of all other 

governments, in regard of resemblance of the Supreme Monarch of all, yet 

it is not the moral rule from which, if other governments shall err, 

they are to be judged sinful deviations.



Quest. 2. — Whether royalty is an immediate issue and spring of nature.



Ans. — No; for a man, fallen in sin, knowing naturally he hath need of a 

law and a government, could have, by reason, devised governors, one or 

more; and the supervenient institution of God, coming upon this 

ordinance, doth more fully assure us, that God, for man's good, hath 

appointed governors; but, if we consult with nature, many judges and 

governors, to fallen nature, seem nearer of blood to nature than one 

only; for two, because of man's weakness, are better than one. Now, 

nature seemeth to me not to teach that only one sinful man should be the 

sole and only ruler of a whole kingdom; God, in his word, ever joined 

with the supreme ruler many rulers, who, as touching the essence of a 

judge, (which is, to rule for God,) were all equally judges: some 

reserved acts, or a longer cubit of power in regard of extent, being due 

to the king.



Quest. 3. — Whether magistrates, as magistrates, be natural.



Ans. — Nature is considered as whole and sinless, or as fallen and 

broken. In the former consideration, that man should stand in need of 

some one to compel him with the sword to do his duty, and not oppress, 

was no more natural to man than to stand in need of lictors and hangmen, 

or physicians for the body, which in this state was not in a capacity of 

sickness or death; and so government by parents and husbands was only 

natural in the latter consideration. Magistrates, as magistrates, are 

two ways considered, — 1. According to the knowledge of such an 

ordinance; 2. According to the actual erection of the practice of the 

office of magistrates. In the former notion, I humbly conceive, that by 

nature's light, man now fallen and broken, even under all the fractions 

of the powers and faculties of the soul, doth know, that promises of 

reward, fear of punishment, and the co-active power of the sword, as 

Plato said, are natural means to more us, and wings to promote obedience 

and to do our duty; and that government by magistrates is natural. But, 

in the second relation, it is hard to determine that kings, rather than 

other governors, are more natural.



Quest. 4. — Whether nature hath determined that there should be one 

supreme ruler, a king, or many rulers, in a free community.



Ans. — It is denied.



Quest. 6. — Whether every free commonwealth hath not in it a supremacy 

of majesty, which it may formally place in one or many.



Ans. — It is affirmed.



Quest 6. — Whether absolute and unlimited power of royalty be a ray and 

beam of divine majesty immediately derived from God?



Ans. — Not at all. Such a creature is not in the world of God's 

creation. Royalists and flatterers of kings are parents to this 

prodigious birth. There is no shadow of power to do ill in God. An 

absolute power is essentially a power to do without or above law, and a 

power to do ill, to destroy; and so it cannot come from God as a moral 

power by institution, though it come from God by a flux of permissive 

providence; but so things unlawful and sinful come from God.



Quest. 7. — Whether the king may in his actions intend his own 

prerogative and absoluteness.



Ans. — He can neither intend it as his nearest end, nor as his remote 

end. Not the former, for if he fight and destroy his people for a 

prerogative, he destroyeth his people that he may have a power to 

destroy them, which must be mere tyranny, nor can it be his remote end; 

for, granting that his supposed absolute prerogative were lawful, he is 

to refer all lawful power and all his actions to a more noble end, to 

wit, to the safety and good of the people.



Quest. 8. — Do not they that resist the parliament's power, resist the 

parliament; and they that resist the king's power, resist the king; God 

hath joined king and power, who dare separate them?



Ans. — 1. If the parliament abuse their power, we may resist their 

abused power, and not their power parliamentary. Mr Bridges doth well 

distinguish (in his Annotations on the “Loyal Convert”) betwixt the 

king's power, and the king's will, 2. The resisters do not separate king 

and power, but the king himself doth separate his lawful power from his 

will, if he work and act tyranny out of this principle, will, passion, 

lust; not out of the royal principle of kingly power. So far we may 

resist the one, and not the other.



Quest. 9. — Why, if God might work a miracle in the three children's 

resistance active, why doth he evidence omnipotence in the passive 

obedience of these witnesses? The kingdom of Judah was Christ's 

birthright, as man and David's son. Why did he not, by legions of men 

and angels, rather vindicate his own flesh and blood, than triumph by 

non-resistance, and the omnipotence of glory to shine in his mere 

suffering?



Ans. — Who art thou that disputest with God? He that killeth with the 

jaw-bone of an ass, thousands, and he that destroyed the numberless 

Midianites by only three hundred, should no more put the three children 

to an unlawful act in the one, if they had by three men killed 

Nebuchadnezzar and all his subjects, than in the other. But nothing is 

said against us in a sophism a non causa pro causa; except it be proved, 

God would neither deliver his three children, nor Christ from death, and 

the Jews from bondage, by miraculous resistance, because resistance is 

unlawful. And if patient suffering is lawful, therefore, is resistance 

unlawful? It is a poor consequent, and a begging of the question: both 

must be lawful to us; and so we hold, of ten lawful means, fit to 

compass God's blessed end, he may choose one and let go nine. Shall any 

infer, therefore, these other nine means are unlawful, because God chose 

a mean different from those nine, and refused them? So may I answer by 

retortion. The three hundred sinned in resisting Midian, and defeating 

them. Why? Because it should be more honour to God, if they had, by 

suffering patiently the sword of Midian, glorified God in martyrdom. So 

Christ and the apostles, who could have wrought miracles, might have 

wrought reformation by the sword, and destroyed kings and emperors, the 

opposers of the Lamb; and they did reform by suffering; therefore, the 

sword is unlawful in reformation. It followeth not. The mean Christ 

used, is lawful; therefore, all other means that he used not, are 

unlawful. It is vain logic.



Quest. 10. — Whether the coronation of a king is any other thing but a 

ceremony.



Ans. — In the coronation there is, and may be, the ceremony of a shout 

and an acclamation, and the placing of a sceptre in his right hand who 

is made king, and the like; but the coronation, in concreto, according 

to the substance of the act, is no ceremony, nor any accidental 

ingredient in the constitution of a king. 1. Because Israel should have 

performed a mere ceremonial action on Saul when they made him king, 

which we cannot say; for as the people's act of coronation is 

distinctive, so is it constitutive: it distinguished Saul from all 

Israel, and did constitute him in a new relation, that he was changed 

from no king to be a king. 2. The people cannot, by a ceremony, make a 

king; they must really put some honour on him, that was not put on him 

before. Now this ceremony, which royalists do fancy coronation to be, is 

only symbolical and declarative, not really dative. It placeth nothing 

in the king.



Quest. 11. — Whether subjects may limit the power that they gave not to 

the king, it being the immediate result (without intervening of law or 

any act of man) issuing from God only.



Ans. — 1. Though we should allow (which in reason we cannot grant) that 

royal power were a result of the immediate bounty of God, without any 

act of man, yet it may be limited by men, that it over-swell not its 

banks. Though God immediately make Peter an apostle, without any act of 

men, yet Paul, by a sharp rebuke, (Gal. ii.) curbeth and limiteth his 

power, that he abuse it not to Judaising. Royalists deny not, but they 

teach, that the eighty priests that restrained Uzziah's power “from 

burning incense to the Lord,” gave no royal power to Uzziah. Do not 

subjects, by flight, lay restraint upon a king's power, that he kill not 

the subjects without cause? yet they teach that subjects gave no power 

to the king. Certainly this is a proof of the immediate power of the 

King of kings, that none can fly from his pursuing hand, (Psal. cxxxix. 

1-3; Amos ix. 1-4,) whereas men may fly from earthly kings. 

Nebuchadnezzar, as royalists teach, might justly conquer some kingdoms, 

for conquest is a just title to the crown, say they. Now, the conqueror 

then justly not only limiteth the royal power of the conquered king, but 

wholly removeth his royalty and unkinqeth him; yet, we know, the 

conqueror gave no royal power to the conquered king. Joshua and David 

took away royal power which they never gave, and therefore this is no 

good reason, — the people gave not to the king royal power, therefore 

they could not lawfully limit it and take it away. 2. We cannot admit 

that God giveth royal power immediately, without the intervention of any 

act of law; for it is an act of law, that (Deut. xvii.) the people 

chooseth such a king, not such a king; that the people, by a legal 

covenant, make Saul, David, and Joash, kings, and that God exerciseth 

any political action of making a king over such subjects, upon such a 

condition, is absurd and inconceivable; for how can God make Saul and 

David kings of Israel upon this political and legal condition, that they 

rule in justice and judgment, but there must intervene a political 

action? and so they are not made kings immediately. If God feed Moses by 

bread and manna, the Lord's act of feeding is mediate, by the mediation 

of second causes; if he feed Moses forty days without eating any thing, 

the act of feeding is immediate; if God made David king, as he made him 

a prophet, I should think God immediately made him king; for God asked 

consent of no man, of no people, no, not of David himself, before he 

infused in him the spirit of prophecy; but he made him formally king, by 

the political and legal covenant betwixt him and the people. I shall not 

think that a covenant and oath of God is a ceremony, especially a law-

covenant, or a political paction between David and the people, the 

contents whereof behoved to be de materia gravi et onerosa, concerning a 

great part of obedience to the filth commandment of God's moral law, the 

duties moral concerning religion, and mercy, and justice, to be 

performed reciprocally between king and people. Oaths, I hope, are more 

than ceremonies.



Quest. 12. — Whether or no the commonwealth is not ever a pupil, never 

growing to age, as a minor under nonage doth come not to need a tutor, 

but the commonwealth being still in need of a tutor, a governor, or 

king, must always be a tutor, and so the kingdom can never come to that 

condition as to accuse the king, it always being minor.



Ans. — 1. Then can they never accuse inferior judges, for a kingdom is 

perpetually in such a nonage, as it cannot want them, when sometimes it 

wanteth a king. 2. Can the commonwealth, under democracy and 

aristocracy, being perpetually under nonage, ever then quarrel at these 

governments and never seek a king ? By this reason they cannot. 3. The 

king, in all respects, is not a tutor — every comparison in something 

beareth a leg; for the commonwealth, in their own persons, do choose a 

king, complain of a king, and resist an Uzziah, and tie their elective 

prince to a law. A pupil cannot choose his tutor, either his dying 

father, or the living law doth that service for him; he cannot resist 

his tutor, he cannot tie his tutor to a law, nor limit him, when first 

he chooseth him. Pupillo non licet postulare tutorem suspecti, quamdiu 

sub tutela est, et manet impubes. (I. Pietatis 6, in sin. C. de susp. 

Tutor. l. impuberem. 7, and sect, impuberes. Just. eod).



Quest. 13. Whether or no subjects are more obnoxious to a king than 

clients to patrons, and servants to masters, because the patron cannot 

be the client's judge, but some superior magistrate must judge both, and 

the slave had no refuge against his master, but only flight; and the 

king doth confer infinite greater benefits on the subjects, than the 

master doth on the slave, because he exposeth his life, pleasure, ease, 

credit, and all for the safety of his subjects.[1]



Ans. — 1. It is denied, for to draw the case to fathers and lords, in 

respect of children and vassals, the reason why sons, clients, vassals, 

can neither formally judge, nor judicially punish, fathers, patrons, 

lords, and masters, though never so tyrannous, is a moral impotency, or 

a political incongruity, because these relations of patron and client, 

fathers and children, are supposed to be in a community, in which are 

rulers and judges above the father and son, the patron and the client; 

but there is no physical incongruity that the politic inferior punish 

the superior, if we suppose there were no judges on the earth, and no 

relation but patron and client; and, because, for the father to destroy 

the children, is a troubling of the harmony of nature; and the highest 

degree of violence, therefore one violence of self-defence, and that 

most just, though contrary to nature, must be a remedy against another 

violence; but in a kingdom there is no political ruler above both king 

and people, and therefore, though nature have not formally appointed the 

political relation of a king rather than many governors and subjects, 

yet hath nature appointed a court and tribunal of necessity, in which 

the people may, by innocent violence, repress the unjust violence of an 

injuring prince, so as the people injured in the matter of self-defence 

may be their own judge. 2. I wonder that any should teach, That 

oppressed slaves had of old no refuge against the tyranny of masters, 

but only flight; for, (1.) The law expressly saith that they might not 

only fly but also change masters, which we all know was a great damage 

to the master, to whom the servant was as good as money in the purse.[2] 

(2.) I have demonstrated before, by the law of nature, and out of divers 

learned jurists, that all inferiors may defend themselves by opposing 

violence against unjust violence; to say nothing that unanswerably I 

have proved that the kingdom is superior to the king. 3. It is true, Qui 

plus dat, plus obligat, as the Scripture saith, (Luke vii.,) He that 

giveth a greater benefit layeth a foundation of a greater obligation. 

But, 1. If benefit be compared with benefit, it is disputable if a king 

give a greater benefit than an earthly father, to whom, under God, the 

son is debtor for life and being, if we regard the compensation of 

eminency of honour and riches, that the people putteth upon the king; 

but I utterly deny that a power to act tyrannous acts, is any benefit or 

obligation, that the people in reason can lay upon their prince, as a 

compensation or hire for his great pains he taketh in his royal 

watchtower. I judge it no benefit, but a great hurt, damage, and an ill 

of nature, both to king and people, that the people should give to their 

prince any power to destroy themselves, and therefore that people do 

reverence and honour the prince most, who lay strongest chains and iron 

fetters on him, that he cannot tyrannise.



Quest. 14. — But are not subjects more subject to their prince, (seeing 

the subjection is natural, as we see bees and cranes,) to obey him, than 

servants to their Lord?[3] (C. in Apib. 7, 9, 1, ex Hiero. 4, ad Rustic. 

Monach. Plin. n. 17.) For jurists teach, that servitude is beside or 

against nature, (l. 5, de stat. homi. sect. 2, just, et jur. pers. c. 3, 

sect. et sicut Nov. 89, quib. med. nat. eff. sui.)



Ans. — There is no question, in active subjection to princes and fathers 

commanding in the Lord, we shall grant as high a measure as you desire. 

But the question is, if either active subjection to ill and unjust 

mandates, or passive subjection to penal inflictions of tyranny and 

abused power, be natural or most natural; or if subjects do renounce 

natural subjection to their prince, when they oppose violence to unjust 

violence. This is to beg the question. And for the commonwealth of bees 

and cranes, and crown and sceptre amongst them, give me leave to doubt 

of it. To be subject to kings, is a divine moral law of God; but not 

properly natural to be subject to co-action of the sword. Government and 

subjection to parents, is natural; but that a king is juris natureć 

strictim, I must crave leave to doubt. I hold him to be a divine moral 

ordinance, to which, in conscience, we are to submit in the Lord.



Quest. 15. — Whether king Uzziah was dethroned by the people? 



Ans. — Though we should say he was not formally unkinged and dethroned, 

yet if the royal power consist in an indivisible point, as some 

royalists say, and if Uzziah was removed to a private house, and could 

not reign, being a leper; certainly much royal power was taken from. It 

is true, Arnisćus saith,[4] he neither could be compelled to resign his 

power, nor was he compelled to resign his royal authority; but he 

willingly resigned actual government, and remained king, as tutors and 

curators are put upon kings that are mad or stupid, and children, who 

yet govern all by the authority of lawful kings. But that Uzziah did not 

denude himself of the royal power voluntarily, is clear. The reason (2 

Chron. xxvi. 21) why he dwelt in a house apart, and did not actually 

reign, is, because he was a leper; for, “He was cut off (saith the text) 

from the house of the Lord; and Jotham, his son, was over the king's 

house, judging the people of the land." Whereby it is clear, by the 

express Law of God, he being a leper, and so not by law to enter into 

the congregation, he was cut off from the house of the Lord; and he 

being passive, is said to be cut off from the Lord's house. Whether, 

then, Uzziah turned necessity to a virtue, I know not: it is evident, 

that God's law removed the actual exercise of his power. If we obtain 

this, which God's word doth give us, we have enough for our purpose, 

though Uzziah kept the naked title of a king, as indeed he took but up 

room in the catalogue of kings. Now, if by law he was cut off from 

actual governing, whether he was willing or not willing to denude 

himself of reigning, is all one. And to say, that furious men, idiots, 

stupid men, and children, who must do all royal acts by curators and 

tutors, are kings jure, with correction, is petitio principii; for then 

hath God infused immediately from heaven (as royalists teach us) a royal 

power to govern a kingdom, on those who are as capable of royalty as 

blocks. I conceive that the Lord (Deut. xvii. 14-17) commandeth the 

people to make no blocks kings; and that the Lord hath not done that 

himself in a binding law to us, which we have no commandment from him to 

do. I conceive that God made Josiah and Joash kings typical, and in 

destination, for his promise sake to David, while they were children, as 

well as he made them kings; but not actu completo ratione officii. to be 

a rule to us now, to make a child of six years of age a king by office. 

I conceive children are to us only kings in destination and appointment; 

and for idiots and tools, I shall not believe (let royalists break their 

faith upon so rocky and stony a point, at their pleasure) that God hath 

made them governors of others, by royal office, who can scarce number 

their own fingers; or that God tyeth a people to acknowledge stupid 

blocks for royal governors of a kingdom, who cannot govern themselves. 

But far be it from me to argue with Bellarmine, (de pśnit. l. 3, c. 2,) 

from Uzziah's bodily leprosy to infer that any prince who is spiritually 

leprous and turned heretical, is presently to be dethroned, Nothing can 

dethrone a king but such tyranny as is inconsistent with his royal 

office. Nor durst I infer that kings, now a-days, may be removed from 

actual government for one single transgression. It is true, eighty 

priests, and the whole kingdom, so serving king Uzziah (their motives, I 

know, were divine) proveth well that the subjects may punish the 

transgression of God's express law in the king, in some cases even to 

remove him from the throne; but as from God's commanding to stone the 

man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath-day, we cannot infer that 

Sabbath-breakers are now to be punished with death; yet we may well 

argue, Sabbath-breakers may be punished, and Sabbath-breakers are not 

unpunishable, and above all law; so may we argue here, Uzziah, though a 

king, was punished; therefore kings are punishable by subjects.



Quest. 16. — Whether or no, as the denial of active obedience in things 

unlawful is not dishonourable to the king, as king, he being obliged to 

command in the Lord only, so the denial of passive subjection to the 

king using unjust violence, be also no dishonouring of the king.



Ans. — As the king is under God's law both in commanding and in exacting 

active obedience, so is he under the same regulating law of God, in 

punishing or demanding of us passive subjection, and as he may not 

command what he will, but what the King of kings warranteth him to 

command, so may he not punish as he will, but by warrant also of the 

Supreme Judge of all the earth; and therefore it is not dishonourable to 

the majesty of the ruler, that we deny passive subjection to him when he 

punisheth beside his warrant, more than it is against his majesty and 

honour that we deny active obedience when he commandeth illegally; else 

I see not how it is lawful to fly from a tyrannous king, as Elias, 

Christ, and other of the witnesses of our Lord have done; and, 

therefore, what royalists say here is a great untruth, namely, that in 

things lawful we must be subject actively, — in things unlawful, 

passively. For as we are in things lawful to be subject actively, so 

there is no duty in point of conscience, laying on us to be subject 

passively, because I may lawfully fly, and so lawfully deny passive 

subjection to the king's will, punishing unjustly.



Quest. 17. — Whether the prince may make away any part of his dominions, 

as an island, or a kingdom, for the safety of the whole kingdoms he 

hath; as if goods be like to sink an over-burthened ship, the seamen 

cast away a part of the goods in the sea, to save the lives of the whole 

passengers; and if three thousand passengers being in one ship, and the 

ship in a storm like to be lost, it would seem that a thousand may be 

cast over board, to save the lives of the whole passengers.



Ans. — The kingdom being not the king's proper heritage, it would seem 

he cannot make away any part of his kingdom to save the whole, without 

the express consent of that part, though they be made away to save the 

whole. In things of this kind, men are not as the commodities of 

merchants, nor is the case alike; as when one thousand, of three 

thousand, are to be cast into the sea to save all the rest, and that 

either by common consent, or by lots, or some other way; for it is one 

thing, when destruction is evidently inevitable, as in the casting so 

many men into the sea to save the whole and many passengers, and when a 

king for peace, or for help from another king, maketh away part of his 

dominion. The Lord is here to be waited on in his good providence, and 

events are to be committed to him; but far less, can it be imaginably 

lawful for a king to make away a part of his dominions without their 

consent, that he may have help from a foreign prince to destroy the 

rest: this were to make merchandise of the lives of men.[5]



Quest. 18. — Whether or no the convening of the subjects, without the 

king's will, be unlawful.



Ans. — The convention of men, of itself, is an indifferent thing, and 

taketh its specification from its causes, and manner of convening, 

though some convention of the subjects without the king, be forbidden; 

yet ratio legis est anima legis, the reason and intent of the law, is 

the soul of the law. Convention of the subjects, in a tumultuary way, 

for a seditious end, to make war without warrant of law, is forbidden; 

but not when religion, laws, liberties, invasion of foreign enemies, 

necessitateth the subjects to convene, though the king and ordinary 

judicatures, going a corrupt way to pervert judgment, shall refuse to 

consent to their conventions. Upon which ground, no convention of tables 

at Edinburgh, or any other place, (an. 1637, 1638, 1639,) can be judged 

there unlawful; for if these be unlawful, because they are conventions 

of the leagues, without express act of parliament, then the convention 

of the leagues to quench a house on fire, and the convention of a 

country to pursue a wolf entered in the land to destroy women and 

children, which are warranted by the law of nature, should be lawless, 

or against acts of parliament.



Quest. 19. — Whether the subjects be obliged to pay the debts of the 

king.



Ans. — These debts which the king contracteth as king, in throno regali, 

the people are to pay. For the law of nature and the divine law doth 

prove, that to every servant and minister wages is due. (Rom. xiii. 5, 

6, compared with verse 4, and 1 Cor. ix. 9-12; 1 Tim. v. 18.) If the 

prince be taken in a war, for the defence of the people, it is just that 

he be redeemed by them: so the law saith, (tit. F. et C. de negotiis 

gestis, et F. et C. Manda.) But, Ferdinandus Vasquez (illust. quest. l. 

1, c. 7, n. 6, Vicesimo tertio apparet, &c.) saith, if the prince was 

not doing the business of the public, and did make war without advice 

and consent of the people, then are they not to redeem him. Now certain 

it is, when the king raiseth war, and saith, “God do so to me and mine, 

if I intend any thing but peace,” yet maketh war not only against his 

oath, but also without consent of the parliament, and a parliament at 

that time convocated by his own royal writ, and not raised, and 

dissolved at all, but still sitting formally a parliament; if he borrow 

money from his own subjects, and from foreign princes, to raise war 

against his subjects and parliament, then the people are not obliged to 

pay his debts, 1. Because they are obliged to the king only as a king, 

and not as an enemy; but in so raising war he cannot he considered as a 

king. 2. Though if the people agree with him, and still acknowledge him 

king; it is impossible, physice, he can be their king, and they not pay 

his debts; yet they sin not, but may, ex decentia, non ex debito legali, 

pay his debts, yet are they not obliged by any law of God or man to pay 

his debts. But though it be true, by all law the king is obliged to pay 

his debt, (except we say, that all the people's goods are the king's: a 

compendious way, I confess, to pay all that any voluptuous Heliogabolus 

shall contract,) yet it may easily be proved, that what his subjects and 

foreign princes lent him to the raising of an unjust war are not 

properly debts, but expenses unjustly given out under the reduplication 

of formal enemies to the country, and so not payable by the subjects; 

and this is evident by law, because one may give most unjustly monies to 

his neighbour, under the notion of loan, which yet hath nothing of the 

essence of loan and debt, but is mere delapidation, and cannot properly 

be debt by God's law; for the law regulateth a man in borrowing and 

lending, as in other politic actions. If I, out of desire of revenge, 

should lend monies to a robber to buy powder and fuel to burn an 

innocent city, or to buy armour to kill innocent men, I deny that that 

is legally debt. I dispute not whether A. B., borrowing money formally, 

that thereby he may waste it on debauchery, shall be obliged to repay it 

to C. D. under the reduplication of debt; or if the borrower be obliged 

to pay what the lender hath unjustly lent. I dare not pray to God that 

all our king's debts may be paid; I have scarce faith so to do.



Quest. 20. — Whether subsidies be due to the king as king.



Ans. — There is a twofold subsidy; one debitum, of debt; another, 

charitativum, by way of charity. A subsidy of debt is rather the 

kingdom's due for their necessity than the king's due, as a part of his 

rent. We read of customs due to the king as king, and for conscience 

sake, (Rom. xiii. 5, 6,) never of a subsidy or taxation to the kings of 

Israel and Judah, at any convention of the states. Augustus Cćsar's 

taxing of all the world (Luke ii.) for the maintenance of wars, cannot 

be the proper rent of Augustus, as emperor, but the rent of the Roman 

empire; and it is but the act of a man. Charitative subsidies to the 

king, of indulgence, because, through bad husbanding of the king's 

rents, he hath contracted debts, I judge no better than royal and 

princely begging. Yet lawful they are, as I owe chanty to ray brother, 

so to my father, so to my politic father the king. See Ferd. Vasq. 

(illust. quest. l. 1, c. 8) who desireth that superiors, under the name 

of charity, hide not rapine, and citeth Cicero, gravely saying, (offic. 

l.1,) “Nulla generi humano et justitić major pestis est, quam eorum, 

quidum maxime fallunt, id agunt, ut boni viri esse videantur,” &c.



Quest. 21. — Whether the seas, floods, roadways, castles, ports, public 

magazine, militia, armour, forts, and strongholds be the king's. 



Ans. — All these may be understood to be the king's in divers notions. 

1. They are the king's, quoad custodiam, et publicam possessionem, as a 

pawn is the man's in whose hand the pawn is laid down. 2. They are the 

king's, quoad jurisdictionem cumulativam, non privativam. The king is to 

direct, and royally to command, that the castles, forts, ports, 

strongholds, armour, magazine, militia, be employed for the safety of 

the kingdom. All the ways, bridges, and public roadways, are the king's, 

in so far as he, as a public and royal watchman, is to secure the 

subject from robbers, and to cognosce of unknown murders, by himself and 

the inferior judges; yet may not the king employ any of these against 

the kingdom. 3. They are the kings, as he is king, quoad officialem, et 

regalem, et publicam proprietatem; for he hath a royal and princely 

propriety to all these, as his own, in so far as he useth them according 

to law. 4. And thus they are the king's also, quoad usum, in regard of 

official use. But, 1. They are the kingdom's, quoad fructum, in regard 

of the effect and fruit. 2. They are the kingdom's, finaliter, being 

destinated for the safety and security of the kingdom. 3. They are the 

kingdom's, quoad proprietatem propriam, et legalem stricte sumptam, 

according to the proper and legal propriety; and are not the king's 

proper heritage as he is a man: 1. Because he may not sell these forts, 

strongholds, ports, magazine, bridges, &c. to a stranger, or a foreign 

prince. 2. When the king is dead, and his heirs and royal line 

interrupted, these all remain proper to the kingdom; yet so as the state 

cannot, as they are men, make them away, or sell them, more than the 

king; for no public persons, yea the multitude cannot make away the 

security, safety, and that which necessarily conduceth. to the security 

of the posterity. “The Lord build his own Zion, and appoint salvation 

for walls and bulwarks!” 



                         THE END.







[1] Arnisćus de authorit. princip., c. 3, n.. 6.



[2] Servi indigne habiti confugiendi ad statuas, et dominum mutandi 

copiam habent, 1. 2. De bis qui sunt sui. Item, C. de lat. Hered. toll.



[3] Arnisćus de authorit. princip. in popul c. 3, n. 7. 



[4] Arnisćus de jure Pontif. Rom. in Regna et Princ. c. 5, n, 30.



[5] Ferdinan. Vasquez illust. quest. l. 1, c. 3, n. 8, juri alieno 

quisquam nec in minima. parte obesse potest. l. id quod nostru. F. de 

reg. jur. 1. jur. natu. cod. titul. 1.