Question XII.



Whether or not a kingdom may lawfully be purchased by the sole title of 

conquest.



The Prelate averreth confidently (c. 17, p. 58) that a title to a 

kingdom by conquest, without the consent of a people, is so just and 

evident by Scripture, that it cannot be denied; but the man bringeth no 

Scripture to prove it. Mr Marshall saith, (Let. p. 7,) a conquered 

kingdom is but continuata injuria, a continued robbery. A right of 

conquest is twofold. 1. When there is no just cause. 2. When there is 

just reason and ground of the war. In this latter case, if a prince 

subdue a whole land which justly deserveth to die, yet, by his grace, 

who is so mild a conqueror, they may be all preserved alive; now, 

amongst those who have thus injured the conqueror, as they deserve 

death, we are to difference the persons offending, and the wives, 

children — especially those not born — and such as have not offended. 

The former sort may resign their personal liberty to the conqueror, that 

the sweet life may be saved. He cannot be their king properly; but I 

conceive that they are obliged to consent that he be their king, upon 

this condition, that the conqueror put not upon them violent and 

tyrannical conditions that are harder than death. Now, in reason, we 

cannot think that a tyrannous and unjust domineering can be God's lawful 

mean of translating kingdoms; and, for the other part, the conqueror 

cannot domineer as king over the innocent, and especially the children 

not yet born.



Assert. 1. — A people may be, by God's special commandment, subject to a 

conquering Nebuchadnezzar and a Cæsar, as to their king, as was Judah 

commanded by the prophet Jeremiah to submit unto the yoke of the king of 

Babylon, and to pray for him, and the people of the Jews were to give to 

Cæsar the things of Cæsar; and yet both those were unjust conquerors: 

for those tyrants had no command of God to oppress and reign over the 

Lord's people, yet were they to obey those kings, so the passive 

subjection was just and commanded of God, and the active, unjust and 

tyrannous, and forbidden of God.



Assert. 2. — This title by conquest, through the people's after consent, 

may be turned into a just title, as in the case of the Jews in Cæsar's 

time, for which cause our Saviour commanded to obey Cæsar, and to pay 

tribute unto him, as Dr Ferne confesseth, (sec. vii. p. 30). But two 

things are to be condemned in the Doctor. 1. That God manifesteth his 

will to us in this work of providence, whereby he translateth kingdoms. 

2. That this is an over-awed consent. Now to the former I reply, — 1. If 

the act of conquering be violent and unjust, it is no manifestation of 

God's regulating and approving will, and can no more prove a just title 

to a crown, because it is an act of divine providence, than Pilate and 

Herod's crucifying of the Lord of glory, which was an act of divine 

providence, flowing from the will and decree of divine providence, (Acts 

ii. 23; iv. 28,) is a manifestation that it was God's approving will, 

that they should kill Jesus Christ. 2. Though the consent be some way 

over-awed, yet is it a sort of contract and covenant of loyal subjection 

made to the conqueror, and therefore sufficient to make the title just; 

otherwise, if the people never give their consent, the conqueror, 

domineering over them by violence, hath no just title to the crown.



Assert. 3. — Mere conquest by the sword, without the consent of the 

people, is no just tide to the crown.



Arg. 1. — Because the lawful title that God's word holdeth forth to us, 

beside the Lord's choosing and calling of a man to the crown, is the 

people's election, Deut. xvii. 15, all that had any lawful calling to 

the crown in God's word, as Saul, David, Solomon, &c., were called by 

the people; and the first lawful calling is to us a rule and pattern to 

all lawful callings.



Arg. 2. — A king, as a king, and by virtue of his royal office, is the 

father of the kingdom, a tutor, a defender, protector, a shield, a 

leader, a shepherd, a husband, a patron, a watchman, a keeper of the 

people over which he is king, and so the office essentially includeth 

acts of fatherly affection, care, love and kindness, to those over whom 

he is set, so as he who is clothed with all these relations of love to 

the people, cannot exercise those official acts on a people against 

their will, and by mere violence. Can he be a father, a guide and a 

patron to us against our will, and by the sole power of the bloody 

sword? A benefit conferred on any against their will is no benefit. Will 

he by the awesome dominion of the sword be our father, and we unwilling 

to be his sons — an head over such as will not be members? Will he guide 

me as a father, a husband, against my will? He cannot come by mere 

violence to be a patron, a shield, and a defender of me through 

violence.



Arg. 3. — It is not to be thought that that is God's just title to a 

crown which hath nothing in it of the essence of a king, but a violent 

and bloody purchase, which is in its prevalency in an oppressing Nimrod, 

and the cruelest tyrant that is hath nothing essential to that which 

constituteth a king; for it hath nothing of heroic and royal wisdom and 

gifts to govern, and nothing of God's approving and regulating will, 

which must be manifested to any who would be a king, but by the 

contrary, cruelty hath rather baseness and witless fury, and a plain 

reluctancy with God's revealed will, which forbiddeth murder. God's law 

should say, "Murder thou, and prosper and reign;" and by the act of 

violating the sixth commandment, God should declare his approving will, 

to wit, his lawful call to a throne.



Arg. 4. — There be none under a law of God who may resist a lawful call 

to a lawful office, but men may resist any impulsion of God stirring 

them up to murder the most numerous and strongest, and chief men of a 

kingdom, that they may reign over the fewest, the weakest, and the 

young, and lowest of the people, against their will; therefore this call 

by the sword is not lawful. If it be said that the divine impulsion, 

stirring up a man to make a bloody conquest, that the ire and just 

indignation of God in justice may be declared on a wicked nation, is an 

extraordinary impulsion of God, who is above a law, and therefore no man 

may resist it; then all bloody conquerors must have some extraordinary 

revelation from heaven to warrant their yielding of obedience to such an 

extraordinary impulsion. And if it be so, they must show a lawful and 

immediate extraordinary impulsion now, but, it is certain, the sins of 

the people conquered, and their most equal and just demerit before God, 

cannot be a just plea to legitimate the conquest; for though the people 

of God deserved devastation and captivity by the heathen, in regard of 

their sins, before the throne of divine justice, yet the heathen 

grievously sinned in conquering them, Zech. i. 15, "And I am very sore 

displeased with the heathen that are at ease; for I was but a little 

displeased, and they helped forward the affliction." So though Judah 

deserved to be made captives, and a conquered people, because of their 

idolatry and other sins, as Jeremiah had prophecied, yet God was highly 

displeased at Babylon for their unjust and bloody conquest, Jer. 1. 17, 

18, 33, 34; li. 35, "the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon 

Babylon, shall the inhabitants of Zion say; and my blood upon the 

inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say." And chat any other 

extraordinary impulsion to be as lawful a call to the throne as the 

people's free election, we know not from God's word; and we have but the 

naked word of our adversaries, that William the Conqueror, without the 

people's consent, made himself, by blood, the lawful king of England, 

and also of all their posterity; and that king Fergus conquered 

Scotland.



Arg. 5. — A king is a special gift from God, given to feed and defend 

the people of God, that they may lead a godly and peaceable life under 

him, (Psal. lxxviii. 71, 72; 1 Tim. ii 2;) as it is a judgment of God 

that Israel is without a king many days, (Hos. iii. 4,) and that there 

is no judge, no king, to put evil-doers to shame. (Judg. xix.1.) But if 

a king be given of God as a king, by the acts of a bloody conquest, to 

be avenged on the sinful land over which he is made a king, he cannot be 

given, actu primo, as a special gift and blessing of God to feed, but to 

murder and to destroy; for the genuine end of a conqueror, as a 

conqueror, is not peace, but fire and sword. If God change his heart, to 

be of a bloody devastator, a father, prince, and feeder of the people, 

ex officio, now he is not a violent conqueror, and he came to that 

meekness by contraries, which is the proper work of the omnipotent God, 

and not proper to man, who, as he cannot work miracles, so neither can 

he lawfully work by contraries. And so if conquest be a lawful title to 

a crown, and as ordinary calling, as the opponents presume, every bloody 

conqueror must be changed into a loving father, prince and feeder; and 

if God call him, none should oppose him, but the whole land should 

dethrone their own native sovereign (whom they are obliged before the 

Lord to defend) and submit to the bloody invasion of a strange lord, 

presumed to be a just conqueror, as if he were lawfully called to the 

throne both by birth and the voices of the people. And truly they 

deserve no wages who thus defend the king's prerogative royal; for if 

the sword be a lawful title to the crown, suppose the two generals of 

both kingdoms should conquer the most and the chiefest of the kingdom 

now, when they have so many forces in the field, by this wicked reason 

the one should have a lawful call of God to be king of England, and the 

other to be king of Scotland; which is absurd.



Arg. 6. — Either conquest, as conquest, is a just title to the crown, or 

as a just conquest. If as a conquest, then all conquests are just titles 

to a crown; then the Ammonites, Zidonians, Canaanites, Edomites, &c., 

subduing God's people for a time, have just title to reign over them; 

and if Absalom had been stronger than David, he had then had the just 

title to be the Lord's anointed and king of Israel, not David; and so 

strength actually prevailing should be God's lawful call to a crown. But 

strength, as strength victorious, is not law nor reason: it were then 

reason that Herod behead John Baptist, and the Roman Emperors kill the 

witnesses of Christ Jesus. If conquest, as just, be the title and lawful 

claim before God's court to a crown, then, certainly, a stronger .king, 

for pregnant national injuries, may lawfully subdue and reign over an 

innocent posterity not yet born. But what word of God can warrant a 

posterity not born, and so accessory to no offence against the 

conqueror, (but only sin original,) to be under a conqueror against 

their will, and who hath no right to reign over them but the bloody 

sword? For so conquest, as conquest, not as just, maketh him king over 

the posterity, If it be said, The fathers may engage the posterity by an 

oath to surrender themselves as loyal subjects to the man who justly and 

deservedly made the fathers vassals by the title of the sword of 

justice; I answer, The fathers may indeed dispose of the inheritance of 

their children, because that inheritance belongeth to the father as well 

at to the son; but because the liberty of the son being born with the 

son, (all men being born free from all civil subjection,) the father 

hath no more power to resign the liberty of his children than their 

lives; and the father, as a father, hath not power of the life of his 

child; as a magistrate he may have power, and, as something more than a 

father, he may have power of life and death. I hear not what Grotius 

saith,[1] "Those who are not born have no accidents, and so no rights, 

Non entia nulla sunt accidentia; then children not born have neither 

right nor liberty." And so no injury (may some say) can be done to 

children not born, though the fathers should give away their liberty to 

the conquerors, — those who are not capable of law are not capable of 

injury contrary to law. — Ans. There is a virtual alienation of rights 

and lives of children not born unlawful, because the children are not 

born. To say that children not born are not capable of law and injuries 

virtual, which become real in time, might say, Adam did not any injury 

to his posterity by his first sin, which is contrary to God's word: so 

those who vowed yearly to give seven innocent children to the Minotaur 

to be devoured, and to kill their children not born to bloody Molech, 

did no acts of bloody injury to their children; nor can any say, then, 

that fathers cannot tie themselves and their posterity to a king by 

succession. But I say, to be tyed to a lawful king is no making away of 

liberty, but a resigning of a power to be justly governed, protected and 

awed from active and passive violence.



Arg. 7. — So lawful king may be dethroned, nor lawful kingdom dissolved; 

but law and reason both saith. Quod ui partum est imperium, vi dissolvi 

potest. Every conquest made by violence may be dissolved by violence: 

Censetur enim ipsa natura jus dare ad id omne, sine quo obtineri non 

potest quod ipsa imperat.



Obj. — It is objected, that the people of God, by their sword, conquered 

seven nations of the Canaanites; David conquered the Ammonites for the 

disgrace done to his ambassadors; so God gave Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar 

for his hire in his service done against Judah. Had David no right over 

the Ammonites and Moabites but by expecting their consent? Ye will say, 

A right to their lands, goods and lives, but not to challenge their 

moral subjection. Well, we doubt not but such conquerors will challenge 

and obtain their moral consent. But if the people refuse their consent, 

is there no way, for providence giveth no right? So Dr Ferne,[2] so 

Arnisæus.[3]



Ans. — A facto ad jus non vales consequentia. God, to whom belongeth the 

world and the fulness thereof, disponed to Abraham and his seed the land 

of Canaan for their inheritance, and ordained that they should use their 

bow and their sword, for the actual possession thereof; and the like 

divine right had David to the Edomites and Ammonites, though the 

occasion of David's taking possession of these kingdoms by his sword, 

did arise from particular and occasional exigencies and injuries; but it 

followeth in no sort that, therefore, kings now wanting any word of 

promise, and so of divine right to any lands, may ascend to the thrones 

of other kingdoms than their own, by no other title than the bloody 

sword. That God's will was the chief patent here is clear, in that God 

forbade his people to conquer Edom, or Esau's possession, when as he 

gave them command to conquer the Amorites. I doubt not to say, if Joshua 

and David had no better tide than their bloody sword, though provoked by 

injuries, they could have had no right to any kingly power over these 

kingdoms; and if only success by the sword be a right of providence, it 

is no right of precept. God's providence, as providence without precept 

or promise, can conclude a thing is done, or may be done, but cannot 

conclude a thing is lawfully and warrantably done, else you might say 

the selling of Joseph, the crucifying of Christ, the spoiling of Job, 

were lawfully done. Though conquerors extort consent and oath of 

loyalty, yet that maketh not over a royal right to the conqueror to be 

king over their posterity without their consent. Though the children of 

Ammon did a high injury to David, yet no injury can be recompensed in 

justice with the pressure of the constrained subjection of loyalty to a 

violent lord. If David had not had an higher warrant from God than an 

injury done to his messengers, he could not have conquered them. But the 

Ammonites were the declared enemies of the church of God, and raised 

forces against David when they themselves were the injurers and 

offenders. And if David's conquest will prove a lawful title by the 

sword to all conquerors, then may all conquerors lawfully do to the 

conquered people as David did; that is, they may "put them under saws, 

and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and cause them pass 

through the brick-kilne." But, I beseech you, will royalists say, that 

conquerors, who make themselves kings by their sword, and so make 

themselves fathers, heads, defenders, and feeders of the people, may use 

the most extreme tyranny in the world, such as David used against the 

children of Ammon, which he could not have done by the naked title of 

sword-conquest, if God had not laid a commandment of an higher nature on 

him to serve God's enemies so? I shall then say, if a conquering king be 

a lawful king, because a conqueror, then hath God made such a lawful 

king both a father, because a king, and a tyrant, and cruel and lion-

hearted oppressor of those whom he hath conquered; for God hath given 

him royal power by this example, (2 Sam. xii. 30, 31,) to put these, to 

whom he is a father and defender by office, to torment, and also to be a 

torturer of them by office, by bringing their backs under such 

instrument of cruelty as "saws, and harrows of iron, and axes of iron."







[1] Hugo Grotius de jure belli et pacis, lib. 2, c. 4, n. 10.



[2] Dr Ferne part 3, sect. 3, p. 20.



[3] Arnisæus de authoritat princip. c. 1, n. 12.