1. They say that the king is the supt'eme governor over all i^er- sons whatever within his realms and dominions, none being exempted on any account from subjection unto his regal authority. How well you approve of this proposition in the great assignations you pretend unto kingly power, we shall afterward inc[uire. Protestants found their persuasion in this matter on the authority of the Scripture, both Old Testament and New, and the very principles constituting
882 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
sovereign power amongst men. You speak fair to kings, but at first dash exempt a considerable number of tlieir born subjects, owing them indispensable natural allegiance, from tlieir jurisdiction. Of this sort are the clergy. But the kings of Judah of old were not of your mind. Solomon certainly thought Abiathar, though high priest, subject to his royal authority, when he denounced against him a sen- tence of death, and actually deposed him from the priesthood. The like course did his successors proceed in. For neither had God, in the first provision he made for a king amongst his people, Deut. xvii., nor in that prescription of the manner of the kingdom which he gave them by Samuel, once intimated an exemption of any persons, priests or others, from the rule or authority of the prince which he would set over them. In the New Testament we have the rule, as the practice in the Old, Rom. xiii. 1, " Let every soul be subject to the higher powers," — the power that bears the sword, " the striker.'" And we think that your clergymen have souls (at least " pro sale"), and so come within the circumference of this command and rule. Chry- sostom, in his comment on that place, is of our mind, and prevents your pretence of an exception from the-rule by special privilege, giving us a distribution of the universality of the persons here intended into their several kinds. Anxvug, saith he, on raura hia-rarriTai xaJ /ipivffi xal fMOva^oTg ohyj roTg (SiC/jTizoTg /JjOVOv' ix 'Zpooi/Jjiuv avrh di^Xov s'Toiriffiv, ovTCii XsyuVj Uaffa -^v^yj s^oufflaig v'Ttspiy^ouffciig vrforaesseSu, TLav airoSrokog rjg, xav sua'yyiXiffT^g, xav Tpopjjr^g, zav offrisovV ovdz yap dvocrpsTTsi rriv iijffsQiiav avrr} rj 'v^orayrij xai ovy' airXihg um T/t)s(r^w, aXX' v-iroTasa'iG&ui- — " He .showeth that these things are commanded unto all, unto priests and monks, and not to secular persons only ; which he declareth in the very entrance of his discourse, saying, ' Let every sold be subject to the higher powers,' whether thou be an apostle, or an evangelist, or a prophet, or whatever thou ])e ; for sub- jection overthrows not piety. And he saith not simply, ' Let him obey,' but, ' Let him be subject.' " The very same instances are given by Theodoret, Oecumenius, and Theophylact. Bernard, Epist. 42, ad Archiepisc. Senonens., meets with your exception, which in his days began to be broached in the world, and tells you expressly that it is a delusion. In conformity unto this rule of St Paul, Peter ex- horts all Christians, none excepted, to " submit themselves unto the king, as supreme," 1 Epist. ii. 13. And whatever we conclude from these words in reference unto the king, I fear that if, instead of the king, he had said the pope, you would have thought us very im- pudent if we had persisted in the denial of your monstrous imaginary headship ; but in this principle, on these and the like grounds, do all Protestants concur. And, indeed, to fancy a sovereign monarch with so great a number of men as your clergy consists of in many king-
POWEll or KINGS IN MATTERS ECCLESIASTICAL. 883
doras exempted from his regal authority, is to lay such an axe unto the root of his government, as whereby with one stroke you may hew it down at your pleasm^e.
2. Protestants affirm that " Rex in regno suo," every king in his own kingdom, is the supreme dispenser of justice and judgment unto all persons, in all causes that belong unto or are determinable " in foro exteriori," in any court of judicature, whether the matter which they concern be civil or ecclesiastical. No cause, no difference de- terminable by any law of man, and to be determined by coercive umpirage or authority, is exempted from his cognizance. Neither can any man, on any pretence, claim any jurisdiction over any of his subjects not directly and unmediately derived from him. Neither can any king who is a sovereign monarch, like the kings of this land, yield or grant a power in any other to judge of any ecclesiastical causes among his subjects, as arising from any other spring, or growing on any other root but that of his own authority, without an impeach- ment and irreparable prejudice to his crown and dignity; neither doth any such concession, grant, or supposition, make it indeed so to be, but is a mere fiction and mistake, all that is done upon it being " ipso facto'' null, and of none effect. Neither, if a king should make a pretended legal grant of such power unto any, would any right accrue unto them thereby; the making of such a grant being a matter absolutely out of his power, as are all things whereby his regal autho- rity, wherein the majesty of his kingdom is in\^^rapped, may be diminished: for that king who hath a power to diminish his kingly authority never was intrusted with absolute kingly power. Neither is this power granted unto our kings by the acts of parliament, which you mention, made in the beginning of the Reformation, but was always inherent in them, and exercised in innumerable instances, and often vindicated with a high hand from papal encroachments, even during the hour and power of your darkness; as hath been sufficiently proved by many, both divines and lawyers. Things of mere spiritual order, as preaching the word, administration of the sacraments, and the like, we ascribe not unto kings, nor the communicating of power unto any for their performance. The sovereign power of these things is vested in Christ alone, and by him committed unto his ministers; but religion hath many concernments that attend it, which must be disj)osed of by forensical, juridical process and determinations. All these, with tlie persons of them that are interested in them, are sub- ject immediately to the power and authority of the king, and none other; and to exempt them, or any of them, or any of the like nature which may emerge amongst men in things relating unto conscience and rehgion, whose catalogue may be endlessly extended, from royal cognizance, is to make mere properties of kings, in things which in