II. BOOK habing tied Himself according to the said commandment, as well to the obedience of the civil magistrate as the obedience which was due to His parents, did not, whilst He lived in 108 the world, fulfil the law wholly concerning them both; or, that He did any way or at any time encourage the Jews, or any other, directly or indirectly, to rebel for any cause what= soeber against the Roman emperor or any of his subordinate magistrates; or, that He did not very willingly, both Himself pay tribute to Cæsar, and also advise the Jews so to do; or, that when He willed the Jews to pay tribute to Cæsar, including therein their duty of obedience unto him, He did not therein deal plainly and sincerely, but meant secretly that they should be bound no longer to be obedient unto him, but until by force they should be able to resist him; or, that He did not utterly and truly condemn all debices, conferences and resolutions whatsoever, either in His own Apostles, or in any other persons, for the using of force against civil authority; or, that it is or can be more lawful for any private persons, either of St. Peter's calling, or of any other profession, to draw their swords against authority, though in their rash zeal they should hold it lawful so to do for the preservation of religion, than it was for St. Peter for the preservation of his master's life; or, that by Christ's 109 words above mentioned, all subjects of what sort soever without exception, ought not by the law of God to perish with the sword, that take and use the sword for any cause against kings and sovereign princes under whom they were born, or under whose jurisdiction they do inhabit; or, that seeing our Saviour Christ would not have the Samaritans to be destroyed with fire from heaven, although they were at that time divided in religion from the Jews and refused to receive Him in person, it is not to be ascribed to the spirit of Satan for any private men to attempt by gunpowder and fire from hell to blow up and destroy their sovereigns, and the whole state of the country where they were born and bred, because in their conceits they refused some parts of Christ's doctrine and government; or, that Christ did not well and as the said fifth II. commandment did require, in submitting Himself as He did BOOK to authority, although He was first sent for with swords and stabes, as if He had been a thief, and then afterwards carried to Pilate and by him, albeit he found no evil in Him, condemned to death; or, that by any doctrine or example, which 110 Christ ever taught or hath left upon good record, it can be proved lawful to any subjects for any cause of what nature soever to decline either the authority and jurisdiction of their sovereign princes, or of any their lawful deputies and inferior magistrates ruling under them, he doth greatly err. CHAPTER III. It is many ways very plain and evident that the Jews did expound all those places of the prophets which do notably set forth the spiritual kingdom of our Saviour Christ, to be meant of a temporal kingdom which He should erect upon the earth. And upon that false ground they did imagine that when their expected Messiah should come into the world, He was to advance them unto a glorious estate here upon earth, and to reign in the midst of them as a most mighty and temporal monarch. Which erroneous conceit, when Herod heard of the birth of Christ, made him to fear lest the new-born babe should deprive him of his kingdom, and induced him thereupon to seek His destruction. Thence also it did proceed, that when the people were so much moved with admiration of one of Christ's miracles, as that they used these words, 'This is of a truth the Prophet that Joh. 6. 14, should come into the world,' they presently devised how they might make Him their king. But Christ perceiving their drift, prevented their purpose by departing from them; as well observing and knowing that their erroneous imagination of Him. Nay, the better sort of those that followed 111 Christ were not free from this erroneous cogitation; as it Mat. 20. appeareth by the petition that the mother of Zebedee's Mark 10. children made unto Christ, saying, 'Grant that these my 35, 41, &c. 15. 21. BOOK two sons may sit, the one at Thy right hand, and the other II. at Thy left hand, in Thy kingdom.' It seemeth, by St. Mark, that her said two sons, James and John, did join with their mother and made likewise the same petition themselves, unto Christ, in their own names. And it is plain that the rest of the Apostles, having aspiring minds to have been great men in the world, as dreaming of a temporal kingdom, that Christ was in time to establish amongst them, when they heard this suit, did begin, as the Evangelists testify, to disdain at James and John for seeking, in that sort, to prefer themselves before them; some of them perhaps thinking themselves more worthy of those two great dignities than either of them were. But our Saviour Christ, finding these carnal imaginations amongst them, did throughly reprove them for those their vain conceits; and did make it well known unto them how far they overshot themselves when they supposed that He should become a temporal king; or that they themselves should be honoured by Him with temporal principalities. Which course also our Saviour Lu. 22. 24. Christ held, when as St. Luke saith, there arose a strife amongst the Apostles, which of them should be the greatest.' For then, they persisting in their former error, He did again renew His reproof, if this were a several contention from the former, saying unto them, 'The kings of the Gentiles reign over them, and they that bear rule over them are called benefactors,' as using to reward their servants with great and extraordinary worldly preferments ;-or, as St. Matthew Mat. 20. recordeth Christ's words, whether upon this or the former occasion mentioned it is not greatly material, because they are all one in sense, 'Ye know that the lords of the Gentiles have dominion over them, and they that are great, exercise authority over them; but,' saith Christ, 'it shall not be so 112 among you. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant; even as the Son of man came, not to be served, but to serve ;' or, as St. Luke hath Christ's words, Ye shall not be so;' that is, You shall not live as kings upon the earth, nor have such worldly estates as that thereby ye might have occasion to vaunt in the world what great benefactors you have been in advancing your followers to this or that dukedom, according as great kings and monarchs 25, 26. [Lu. 22. 26.] II. are accustomed to deal with their servants and principal BOOK subjects; but let the greatest among you be as the least, and the chiefest as he that serveth. For who is greater? he that sitteth at the table, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at the table? and I am among you as he that serveth.' By which words of our Saviour, it is very manifest how far He was from challenging to Himself any worldly kingdom; and how much His Apostles were deceived in apprehending what great men they should becomed in the world by being His followers and disciples. To this purpose much more might be here alleged by us; as also it would not be forgotten what we have before observed in the former chapter, tending to the same effect; [p. 88.] inasmuch as Christ, having made Himself subject to the obedience of the fifth commandment, which tied Him as well to be a subject unto the emperor under whom He was born, as to the obedience of His parents, did thereby shew Himself to be no temporal monarch. Howbeit, all this notwithstanding, there are some so much addicted in these days. unto the said erroneous opinion of the Jews, as for the advancement of the glory of the bishop of Rome, they will needs have Christ to have been here upon the earth a temporal king; affirming that upon His nativity all the kings in the world lost their regal power and authority, all their kingdoms being devolved unto Him; and that they 113 could no longer possess them by any right, interest, or title, until they had again resumed them from Him as He was man, and forsaken their ancient tenures, whereby they had held them of Him as He was God. Insomuch, as some of them say in effect, that neither Augustus Cæsar, nor Tiberius his successor, were lawful emperors, from the time of Christ's birth for above the space of thirty years, until He our Saviour had required the Jews to pay tribute to Cæsar; as if in so doing Tiberius had again received thereby his former right to the empire, and that thereupon he was from that time forward to hold it of Christ, as He was man. In which erroneous conceits these men proceed further than ever the Jews, or the Apostles in their weakness, did; for the Jews never imagined of their Messiah, that when He came into dBecome by being.' D. BOOK the world He should abolish all civil government amongst II. the Gentiles and be a temporal king to rule all nations, or that as many sovereign kings and princes as should from that time forward desire to rule their subjects by any lawful power and authority, must receive and hold the same from their, the said Jews', temporal kinge; but did restrain their conceits within more narrow bounds, thinking that their Messiah should not have such intermeddling with the Gentiles, but only restore the kingdom of Israel which had for a long time been miserably shaken and rent in pieces, and live in that country amongst them in a much more glorious form and state than ever any of their kings before Him had done. And yet notwithstanding, these the said persons, having inconsiderately so far overrun the Jews in their follies, are possessed nevertheless with some imaginations, no doubt, that because the pope doth either applaud or wink at their proceedings, they may in time make it probable to the simpler sort,—who, when force is to be used, do bear the greatest sway, that as all emperors and kings, forsooth, held their kingdoms from Christ, as He then was, and still is 114 man, so ought they now in these days to hold them of the pope, in that, if men might safely believe them, our Saviour Christ did, as they say, after His ascension bestow all such His worldly dominions upon St. Peter, and consequently upon his successors, the bishops of Rome; and that now all worldly principalities are theirs, and must be held of them as they were before of Christ after His incarnation, by as many kings and princes as desire to hold their kingdoms by any right title. But these are men not to be feared; for, to say the truth of them, they are all of them in effect either but gross and unlearned canonists, or else but new upstart and sottish Nerians, and of great affinity with the canonists: who meaning, as it seemeth, to outstrip the Jesuits, do labour as much to make the pope a temporal monarch as the Jesuits have done for his pretended spiritual sovereignty; whose endeavours are altogether, we supposeh, to be contemned, in From (the said Jews) their temporal kings.' D. 'Than any.' D. [See note H.] |