God given to mankind was that to Noah, as a law, in general, to all the sons of men. And by that most ancient and universal law," Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" we find here no exception. If a king therefore do this, to a king, and that by men also, the same shall be done. This in the law of Moses, which came next, several times is repeated, and in one place remarkably, Numb. xxxv. "Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, but he shall surely be put to death: the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it." This is so spoken as that which concerned all Israel, not one man alone, to see performed; and if no satisfaction were to be taken, then certainly no exception. Nay, the king, when they should set up any, was to observe the whole law, and not only to see it done, but to "do it; that his heart might not be lifted up above his brethren;" to dream of vain and useless prerogatives or exemptions, whereby the law itself must needs be founded in unrighteousness.

369. And were that true, which is most false, that all kings are the Lord's anointed, it were yet absurd to think that the anointment of God should be, as it were, a charm against law, and give them privilege, who punish others, to sin themselves unpunishably. The high-priest was the Lord's anointed as well as any king, and with the same consecrated oil: yet Solomon had put to death Abiathar, had it not been for other respects than that anointment. If God himself say

to kings, " touch not mine anointed," meaning his chosen people, as is evident in that psalm, yet no man will argue thence, that he protects them from civil laws if they offend; then certainly, though David as a private man, and in his own cause, feared to lift his hand against the Lord's anointed, much less can this forbid the law, or disarm justice from having legal power against any king. No other supreme magistrate, in what kind of government soever, lays claim to any such enormous privilege; wherefore then should any king, who is but one kind of magistrate, and set over the people for no other end than they?

370. Next in order of time to the laws of Moses are those of Christ, who declares professedly his judicature to be spiritual, abstract from civil managements, and therefore leaves all nations to their own particular laws, and way of government. Yet because the church hath a kind of jurisdiction within her own bounds, and that also, though in process of time much corrupted and plainly turned into a corporal judicature, yet much approved by this king; it will be firm enough and valid against him, if subjects, by the laws of church also, be " invested with a power of judicature" both without and against their king, though pretending, and by them acknowledged, "next and immediately under Christ supreme head and governor." Theodosius, one of the best Christian emperors, having made a slaughter of the Thessalonians for sedition, but too cruelly, was excommunicated to his face by St. Ambrose, who was his subject; and excommunion is the

utmost of ecclesiastical judicature, a spiritual putting to death.

371. But this, ye will say, was only an example. Read then the story; and it will appear, both that Ambrose avouched it for the law of God, and Theodosius confessed it of his own accord to be so; "and that the law of God was not to be made void in him, for any reverence to his imperial power." From hence, not to be tedious, I shall pass into our own land of Britain; and show that subjects here have exercised the utmost of spiritual judicature, and more than spiritual, against their kings, his predecessors. Vortiger, for committing incest with his daughter, was by St. German, at that time his subject, cursed and condemned in a British council, about the year 448; and thereupon soon after was deposed. Mauricus, a king in Wales, for breach of oath and murder of Cynetus, was excommunicated and cursed, with all his offspring, by Oudoceus, bishop of Llandaff, in full synod, about the year 560, and not restored till he had repented. Morcant, another king in Wales, having slain Frioc his uncle, was fain to come in person, and receive judgment from the same bishop and his clergy; who upon his penitence acquitted him, for no other cause than lest the kingdom should be destitute of a successor in the royal line.

372. These examples are of the primitive, British, and episcopal church; long ere they had any commerce or communion with the church of Rome. What power afterwards of deposing kings, and so consequently of putting them to death, was as

sumed and practised by the canon law, I omit, as a thing generally known. Certainly, if whole councils of the Romish church have in the midst of their dimness discerned so much of truth, as to decree at Constance, and at Basil, and many of them to avouch at Trent also, that a council is above the pope, and may judge him, though by them not denied to be the vicar of Christ; we in our clearer light may be ashamed not to discern further, that a parliament is by all equity and right above a king, and may judge him, whose reasons and pretensions to hold of God only, as his immediate vicegerent, we know how far-fetched they are, and insufficient.

373. As for the laws of man, it would ask a volume to repeat all that might be cited in this point against him from all antiquity. In Greece, Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, and by succession king of Argos, was in that country judged and condemned to death for killing his mother: whence escaping, he was judged again, though a stranger, before the great council of Areopagus in Athens. And this memorable act of judicature was the first, that brought the justice of that grave senate into fame and high estimation over all Greece for many ages after. And in the same city, tyrants were to undergo legal sentence by the laws of Solon.

374. The kings of Sparta, though descended lineally from Hercules, esteemed a god among them, were often judged, and sometimes put to death, by the most just and renowned laws of Lycurgus; who, though a king, thought it most un

VOL. II.

X

equal to bind his subjects by any law, to which he bound not himself. In Rome, the laws made by Valerius Publicola, soon after the expelling of Tarquin and his race, expelled without a written law, the law being afterward written; and what the senate decreed against Nero, that he should be judged and punished according to the laws of their ancestors, and what in like manner was decreed against other emperors, is vulgarly known; as it was known to those heathen, and found just by nature ere any law mentioned it. And that the Christian civil law warrants like power of judicature to subjects against tyrants, is written clearly by the best and famousest civilians. For if it was decreed by Theodosius, and stands yet firm in the code of Justinian, that the law is above the emperor, then certainly the emperor being under law, the law may judge him; and if judge him, may punish him, proving tyrannous: how else is the law above him, or to what purpose? These are necessary deductions; and thereafter hath been done in all ages and kingdoms, oftener than to be here recited.

375. But what need we any further search after the law of other lands, for that which is so fully and so plainly set down lawful in our own? Where ancient books tell us, Bracton, Fleta, and others, that the king is under law, and inferior to his court of parliament; that although his place" to do justice" be highest, yet that he stands as liable "to receive justice" as the meanest of his kingdom. Nay, Alfred the most worthy king, and by some accounted first absolute monarch of the Saxons here,