"Then I was asked, if I owned that that article of our confession of faith, that difference in religion or infidelity, could not make void the magistrate's just power or greatness? I said, I did with all my heart. They asked, how I could reconcile that with that principle of resistance? I said, very easily, for, first, though difference in religion did not make void his power, yet it might stop from admitting to that power, where that religion he differed from was established by law. But waving that, at this time, though it did not make void his power, yet his subjects differing from him, might defend theirs. Again, a king might differ in religion from his subjects several ways; some might be obstinate, and always continue in a different religion. Others might fall from that, which sometimes they professed. Some might not only profess the same religion with their subjects, but engage by covenant to maintain it, and on these terms be admitted to the government, and yet fall from it. Some again may not only apostatise, but persecute the faithful professors of it, and go to destroy them and their religion. I think in that case he may be resisted, and they may defend their own, not meddling with his religion. "Another Scripture argument was brought from 1st Peter ii. 13, &c. I answered, I was endeavouring to answer that command now, in this my suffering lot, I must and do submit. They replyed, that is but forced and not conscientious. I said, they would not require active obedience to every pleasure of every ordinance of man. They said, passive, at least, is required. Well, said I, all that is forced, suffering is always forced. But I alleged, that submission there required was very consistent with defensive arms in some cases. They might submit to the government, and yet defend themselves against unjust violence. We had some wrangling about this. "Then they argued, from the example of the primitive Christians, who they could demonstrate were many times in a capacity to resist, and yet did it not. I told them, that was a dispensation of suffering; I could not well tell what capacity they were in sometimes, or whether they did not sometimes resist, but I thought the case was not alike; and if we were stated in the same circumstances, living under the Turk's government, having no vote in the law, nor no privileges of legal land-right to our religion, I could not tell, but we might do as they did, if the Lord spirited us as he did them. Then I offered to prove, it hath been the laudable, at least not condemned practice of many Christian nations. I instanced the carrying on of our work of reformation at home, and the Bohemians, and French, and Hollanders' resistance. They said, these were not so much respected and proposed for imitation as the primitive Christians; and besides, said they, these acted by authority in the subordinate magistrates, as parliaments, &c. I answered, I owned indeed, some of our writers, for defence, did maintain only that carried on by the Ephori, or Premires Regni, but I could not stick there; for I thought that was no authority; but that of subjects resisting their prince, and defence was no act of authority, but a privilege of nature, common to all. They urged much the old saying, preces et lachrymæ, &c. Prayers and tears are the church's arms. I granted they were so, the only best prevailing arms; and without which all others would be ineffectual, and that they were the only ecclesiastick or spiritual arms of a church as a church; but the members thereof were men, and as men they might use the same weapons that others did. "When I offered to plead from the law of nature, as that which could not contradict the revealed law of Christ, and which was not the grant or donative of princes, nor to be dispensed with or abandoned to their pleasure: They had some quibbling sophisms, that if this were the law of nature, then in no case it ought to be laid aside, then a man should resist always, and he can no more part with his resistance than with his life; and therefore, said they, if you were going to be hanged, you ought to fight and resist for your life. I answered, that were not a mean to preserve my life. And besides, it is an affirmative duty, not obliging ad semper, at all times. At which one of them wondered how that could be. I confess, I wondered at that bishop's ignorance. The same man asked, if I thought it were lawful for a man voluntarily to bind himself to slavery, whether that was consistent with the law of nature? I answered, I thought no, where he can have his liberty. Then, said he, how do you read of the Hebrew servant his voluntarily giving his ear to be bored to his master's door. I answered, that was his contentment to be a servant for ever, not his slave, for he could not be sold as such. "Many other things past that have escaped my memory; but I remember, they spoke of hearing my arguments another time. Then fell again exhorting, that I would seriously ponder, whether these things be of such weight, as to lose my life for them. I answered, I reckoned I was a prisoner for conscience, and I was also a prisoner to conscience, bound by the bonds of its authority, to own what I understood to be truth; and if they could loose me from these bonds, I was content to retract and be better informed. "Then they began to make proposals to me, that I might save my life, if I would but engage to live peaceably under the government of church and state. I told them, I was not charged with any unpeaceable practice; yea, but said they, your principles are inconsistent with the peace of the government. I told them, I did not think so, but that they were very consonant with the gospel of peace; but for engaging to live peaceably, I could do it very well in the general, for I am a lover of peace; but I thought it would argue I had been guilty of the breach of it formerly, and suspected they and I would not agree in the explaining of that peace; for I believed, whatever it were, it should be such a living peaceably as would contradict my way of living, and that for which I am a prisoner. They said, by living peaceably, they meant that I would not rise against the king, and submit to the government of church and state. I answered, as for the government of the state in many things, I profess myself a malcontent. Then they made three offers, whereby I might have my life, viz. If I would go and hear the regular incumbent in any parish I pleased to reside in; or next, if I would not do that, if I would engage to forbear preaching; or at least, in the last place, I would engage and give it under my hand never to preach that doctrine, I had maintained even now before them. I refused them all, and to the last I told them I was a prisoner for truth, and though I should die for it, I had rather remain so, and suffer the worst of it, before I kept any truth a prisoner. Then they threatened death, and that within a very short time. Nay, one of them proceeded to threaten damnation for owning such principles, and so went away. "One passage I had forgot, that for a considerable time before I was dismissed, Sir William Paterson, and the clerk of the Justiciary, came in and heard our debates, and before the close, Sir William challenged me for a passage in my letter, where I reported, he confessed, that in some case the king might be resisted. I then affirmed before him it was true, and attested the other clerk, who answered, he did not remember any such thing; then I repeated before them the case that he confessed. If the king were distracted, or came furiously to kill me without a cause, I might defend myself: O! but, said one of the prelates, you indulge yourself in your fanciful suppositions of things that rarely fall out, and are so improbable, that they are next to impossibilities. I answered, it was not impossible but a king might be distracted as well as another man, and that such as had their wits might do, and cause to be done, distracted acts. And, for instance, I told them one story, which I had proper knowledge of, viz. of the young king of Bantam, who, when he got the govern ment in his hands, by his father's resignation, he killed with his own hands many of his subjects, and caused them to be murdered without any cause, which was the reason of his subjects' present revolt, which yet the late King of England justified, by his sending for their relief, ammunition, &c. “I shall here abruptly close this confused relation of that weary conference. I was so weary in the time of it, that I could not stand, and [am] so weary in writing it, that I cannot sit, longer. I was from thence carried back to prison, to the gentlemen's chamber. But before I was taken thither, the prelates departing in a huff, left me alone in the room a pretty space, and forgot to give orders concerning me to the soldiers, who were waiting in the outer-room. After I had stayed so long alone, that I wondered what was intended to be done with me, I came forth of the room, and the soldiers in all civility, and (as I thought), seriously asked me if I was free; for they had no orders about me. I answered, I knew nothing of it, and so I continued talking with the soldiers, until a macer came running in great haste, and no little fray, with an order to take me to prison, which was done as above said."—A True and Faithful Relation of the Sufferings of the Reverend and Learned Mr Alexander Shields, Minister of the Gospel, written with his own hand, pp. 85–94. 4to. Sine Loco, 1715.* Things are often found in odd places. Who would have expected to have met with the doctrine of the supremacy of the people, in the writings of a Lord Chancellor of England, in the days of Henry VIII? Yet so it is. The epigram that follows, by SIR THOMAS MORE, proves, as well as some remarkable passages in his Utopia, that liberal principles in politics, which even yet have but imperfectly established themselves in the public mind of this country, were familiar to that truly great man, of whom Erasmus so beautifully says, "Cui pectus erat omni nive candidius, ingenium quale Anglia nec habuit unquam, nec habitura est, alioqui nequaquam infelicium ingeniorum parens.”—Erasmi Ecclesiastes, Prefat. p. 9. Basil. 1544. POPULUS CONSENTIENS REGNUM DAT ET AUFERT. Quicunque multis vir viris unus præest, Hoc debet his quibus præest: Præesse debet neutiquam diutius, Hi quam volent quibus præest. Quid impotentes principes superbiunt? Quod imperant præcario ?" Thoma Mori Lucubrationes, pp. 215, 216. Basil. 1563. |