A treatise of civil policy

^aHi•rom saith, to punish murderers and sacrilegious persons is not blood-shed, but the ministry and service of good Laws. So if the King be a living law by Office, and the law put in execution which God hath commanded, then as the Moral Law is by divine institution, so must the Officer of God be, who is Custos & vindex legis divinae, the keeper, preserver, and avenger of Gods Law, and ^bBasilius, this is the Princes Office, Ut opem •erat virtuti, malitiam vero impugnet, when Paulinus Treverensis, Lucifer Metropolitan of Sardinia, Dionysius Mediolanensis, and other Bishops, were commanded by Constantine to write against Athanasius, they answered, Regnum non ipsius esse, sed dei, aquo acceperit, the Kingdom was Gods, not his; as ^cAthanasius saith: ^dOptatus Milevitanus helpeth us in the cause where he saith with Paul, We are to pray for heathen Kings. The genuine end of the Magistrate saith ^eEpiphanius, is ut ad bonum ordinem universitatis mundi omnia ex deo bene disponantur atque administrentur. But some object, if the Kingly Power be of divine institution, then shall any other government be unlawful and contrary to a divine institution, and so we condemn Aristocracy, and Democracy as unlawful. Ans. This consequence were good, if Aristocracy and Democracy were not also of divine institution, as all my arguments prove; for I judge they are not Governments different in nature, if we speak Morally and Theologically, only they differ politically and positively; nor is Aristocracy any thing but diffused and enlarged Monarchy, and Monarchy is nothing but contracted Aristocracy, even as it is the same hand, when the thumb and the four fingers are folded together, and when all the five fingers are dilated, and stretched out, and where ever God appointed a King, he never appointed him absolute, and a sole independent Angel, but joined always with him Judges, who were no less to judge according to ⟨p. 8⟩