A treatise of civil policy

Conquest, seeing it is an act of violence, and Gods revenging Justice for the sins of a people, cannot give in Gods Court such a just title to the Throne, as the people are to submit their consciences unto, except God reveal his regulating will by some immediate voice from Heaven, as he commanded Judah to submit to Nebuchadnezzar as to their King by the mouth of Jeremiah; now this is not a rule to us, for then, if the Spanish King should invade this Island, and as Nebuchadnezzar did, deface the Temple, and instruments and means of Gods Worship, and abolish the true worship of God, it should be unlawful to resist him, after he had once conquered the Island, neither Gods Word, nor the Law of nature could permit this; I suppose even by grant of adversaries, now no act of violence done to a people, though in Gods Court they have deserved it, can be a testification to us of Gods regulating Will; except it have some warrant from the Law and testimony, it is no rule to our conscience to acknowledge him a lawful Magistrate, whose sole law to the Throne is an act of the bloody instrument of divine wrath, I mean the sword. That therefore Judah was to submit, according to Gods Word, to Nebuchadnezzar, whose conscience and best warranted calling to the Kingdom of Judah was his bloody sword, even if we suppose Jeremiah had not commanded them to submit to the¹ King of Babylon, I think cannot be said. 3. Naked birth cannot be this external signification of Gods regulating Will to warrant the conscience of any to ascend to the Throne, for the Authors of this opinion make royal birth equivalent to divine unction, for David anointed by Samuel, and so anointed by God, is not King, Saul remained the Lords anointed many years, not David, even anointed by God; the peoples making him King at Hebron founded upon divine unction, was not the only external lawful calling that we read of, ⟨p. 73⟩that David had to the Throne, then royal birth, because it is but equivalent only to divine unction, not superior to divine unction, it cannot have more force to make a King, then divine unction. And if birth was equivalent to divine unction, what needed Joash who had royal birth, be made King by the people? and what needed Saul and David, who had more then royal birth, even divine unction, be made Kings by the people?

Conquest, seeing it is an act of violence, and Gods revenging Justice for the sinnes of a people, cannot give in Gods Court such a just title to the Throne, as the people are to submit their consciences unto, except God reveale his regulating will by some immediate voice from Heaven, as he commanded Iudah to submit to Nebuchadnezer as to their King by the mouth of Ieremiah; now this is not a rule to us, for then, if the Spanish King should invade this Iland, and as Nebuchadnezer did, deface the Temple, and instruments and meanes of Gods Worship, and abolish the true worship of God, it should be unlawfull to resist him, after he had once conquered the Iland, neither Gods Word, nor the Law of nature could permit this; I suppose even by grant of adversaries, now no act of violence done to a people, though in Gods Court they have deserved it, can be a testification to us of Gods regulating Will; except it have some warrant from the Law and testimony, it is no rule to our conscience to acknowledge him a lawfull Magistrate, whose sole law to the Throne is an act of the bloody instrument of divine wrath, I meane the sword. That therefore Iudah was to submit, according to Gods Word, to Nebuchadnezer, whose conscience and best warranted calling to the Kingdome of Judah was his bloody sword, even if we suppose Ieremiah had not commanded them to submit to the