Question VIII.



Whether the Prelate proveth by force of reason that the people cannot be 

capable of any power of government.



P. Prelate. — God and nature giveth no power in vain, and which may not 

be reduced into action; but an active power, or a power of actual 

governing, was never acted by the community; therefore this power cannot 

be seated in the community as in the prime and proper subject, and it 

cannot be in every individual person of a community, because government 

intrinsically and essentially includeth a special distinction of 

governors, and some to be governed; and, to speak properly, there can no 

other power be conceived in the community, naturally and properly, but 

only potestas passiva regiminis, a capacity or susceptibility to be 

governed, by one or by more, just as the first matter desireth a form. 

This obligeth all, by the dictate of nature's law, to submit to actual 

government; and as it is in every individual person, it is not merely 

and properly voluntary, because, howsoever nature dictates that 

government is necessary for the safety of the society, yet every 

singular person, by corruption and self-love, hath a natural aversion 

and repugnance to submit to any: every man would be a king himself. This 

universal desire, appetitus universalis aut naturalis, or universal 

propension to government, is like the act of the understanding assenting 

to the first principles of truth, and to the will's general propension 

to happiness in general, which propension is not a free act, except our 

new statists, as they have changed their faith, so they overturn true 

reason. It will puzzle them infinitely to make anything, in its kind 

passive, really active and collative



of positive acts and effects. All know no man can give what he hath not. 

An old philosopher would laugh at him who would say, that a matter 

perfected and actuated by union with a form, could at pleasure shake off 

its form, and marry itself to another. They may as well say, every wife 

hath power to resume her freedom and marry another, as that any such 

power active is in the community, or any power to cast off monarchy.



Ans. — 1. The P. Prelate might have thanked Spalato for this argument, 

but he doth not so much as cite him, for fear his theft be apprehended; 

but Spalato hath it set down with stronger nerves than the Prelate's 

head was able to copy out of him. But Jac. de Almain,[1] and 

Navarrus,[2] with the Parisian doctors, said in the Council of Paris, 

"that politic power is immediately from God, but first from the 

community;" but so that the community apply their power to this or that 

government — not of liberty, but by natural necessity — but Spalato and 

the plagiary Prelate do both look beside the book.[3] The question is 

not now concerning the vis rectiva, the power of governing in the 

people, but concerning the power of government; for these two differ 

much. The former is a power of ruling and monarchical commanding of 

themselves. This power is not formally in the people, but only 

virtually; and no reason can say that a virtual power is idle because it 

cannot be actuated by that same subject that it is in; for then it 

should not be a virtual, but a formal power. Do not philosophers say 

such an herb virtually maketh hot? and can the sottish Prelate say this 

virtual power is idle, and in vain given of God, because it doth not 

formally heat your hand when you touch it 2. The P. Prelate, who is 

excommunicated for Popery, Socinianism, Arminianism, and is now turned 

apostate to Christ and his church, must have changed his faith, not we, 

and be unreasonably ignorant, to press that axiom, "That the power is 

idle that cannot be reduced to acts;" for a generative power is given to 

living and sensitive creatures, — this power is not idle though it be 

not reduced in act by all and every individual sensitive creature. A 

power of seeing is given to all who naturally do, or ought to see, yet 

it is not an idle power because divers are blind, seeing it is put forth 

in action in divers of the kind; so this power in the community is not 

idle because it is not put forth in acts in the people in which it is 

virtually, but is put forth in action in some of them whom they choose 

to be their governors; nor is it reasonable to say that it should be put 

forth in action by all the people, as if all should be kings and 

governors. But the question is not of the power of governing in the 

people, but of the power of government, that is, of the power of making 

governors and kings; and the community doth put forth in act this power, 

as a free, voluntary, and active power; for (1.) a community 

transplanted to India, or any place of the world not before inhabited, 

have a perfect liberty to choose either a monarchy, or a democracy, or 

an aristocracy; for though nature incline them to government in general, 

yet are they not naturally determinated to any one of those three more 

than another. (2.) Israel did of their own free will choose the change 

of government, and would have a king as the nations had; therefore they 

had free will, and so an active power so to do, and not a passive 

inclination only to be governed, such as Spalato saith agreeth to the 

first matter. (3.) Royalists teach that a people under democracy or 

aristocracy have liberty to choose a king; and the Romans did this, 

therefore they had an active power to do it, — therefore the Prelate's 

simile crooks: the matter at its pleasure cannot shake off its form, nor 

the wife cast off her husband being once married; but Barclaius, 

Grotius, Arnisζus, Blackwood, and all the royalists, teach that the 

people under any of these two forms of democracy or aristocracy may 

resume their power, and cast off these forms and choose a monarch; and 

if monarchy be the best government, as royalists say, they may choose 

the best. And is this but a passive capacity to be governed? (4.) Of ten 

men fit for a kingdom they may design one, and put the crown on his 

head, and refuse the other nine, as Israel crowned Solomon and refused 

Adonijah. Is this not a voluntary action, proceeding from a free, 

active, elective power? It will puzzle the pretended Prelate to deny 

this, — that which the community doth freely, they do not from such a 

passive capacity as is in the first matter in regard of the form. 3. It 

is true that people, through corruption of nature, are averse to submit 

to governors "for conscience sake, as unto the Lord," because the 

natural man, remaining in the state of nature, can do nothing that is 

truly good, but it is false that men have no active moral power to 

submit to superiors, but only a passive capacity to be governed. He 

quite contradicteth himself; for he said before, (c. 4, p. 49,) that 

there is an "innate fear and reverence in the hearts of all men 

naturally, even in heathens, toward their sovereign;" yea, as we have a 

natural moral active power to love our parents and superiors, (though it 

be not evangelically, or legally in God's court, good) and so to obey 

their commandments, only we are averse to penal laws of superiors. But 

this proveth no way that we have only by nature a passive capacity to 

government; for heathens have, by instinct of nature, both made laws 

morally good, submitted to them, and set kings and judges over them, 

which clearly proveth that men have an active power of government by 

nature. Yea, what difference maketh the Prelate betwixt men and beasts? 

for beasts have a capacity to be governed, even lions and tigers; but 

here is the matter, if men have any natural power of government, the P. 

Prelate would have it, with his brethren the Jesuits and Arminians, to 

be not natural, but done by the help of universal grace; for so do they 

confound nature and grace. But it is certain our power to submit to 

rulers and kings, as to rectors, and guides, and fathers, is natural; to 

submit to tyrants in doing ills of sin is natural, but in suffering ills 

of punishment is not natural. "No man can give that which he hath not," 

is true, but that people have no power to make their governors is that 

which is in question, and denied by us. This argument doth prove that 

people hath no power to appoint aristocratical rulers more than kings, 

and so the aristocratical and democratical rulers are all inviolable and 

sacred as the king. By this the people may not resume their freedom if 

they turn tyrants and oppressors. This the Prelate shall deny, for he 

averreth, (p. 96,) out of Augustine, that the people may, without sin, 

change a corrupt democracy into a monarchy.



P. Prelate (pp. 95, 96). — If sovereignty be originally inherent in the 

people, then democracy, or government by the people, were the best 

government, because it cometh nearest to the fountain and stream of the 

first and radical power in the people, yea, and all other forms of 

government were unlawful; and if sovereignty be natively inherent in the 

multitude it must be proper to every individual of the community, which 

is against that false maxim of theirs, Quisque nascitur liber. Every one 

by nature is born a free man, and the posterity of those who first 

contracted with their elected king are not bound to that covenant, but, 

upon their native right and liberty, may appoint another king without 

breach of covenant. The posterity of Joshua, and the elders in their 

time, who contracted with the Gibeonites to incorporate them, though in 

a serving condition, might have made their fathers' government nothing.



Ans. — 1. The P. Prelate might thank Spalato for this argument also,[4] 

for it is stolen; but he never once named him, lest his theft should be 

apprehended. So are his other arguments stolen from Spalato; but the 

Prelate weakeneth them, and it is seen stolen goods are not blessed. 

Spalato saith, then, by the law of nature every commonwealth should be 

governed by the people, and by the law of nature the people should be 

under the worst government; but this consequence is nothing; for a 

community of many families is formally and of themselves under no 

government, but may choose any of the three; for popular government is 

not that wherein all the people are rulers, for this is confusion and 

not government, because all are rulers, and none are governed and ruled. 

But in popular government many are chosen out of the people to rule; and 

that this is the worst government is said gratis, without warrant; and 

if monarchy be the best of itself, yet, when men are in the state of 

sin, in some other respects it hath many inconveniences. 2. I see not 

how democracy is best because nearest to the multitude's power of making 

a king; for if all the three depend upon the free will of the people, 

all are alike afar off, and alike near hand, to the people's free 

choice, according as they see most conducive to the safety and 

protection of the commonwealth, seeing the forms of government are not 

more natural than politic incorporations of cities, yea, than of shires; 

but from a positive institution of God, who erecteth this rather than 

that, not immediately now, but mediately, by the free will of men; no 

one cometh formally, and ex natur a rei, nearer to the fountain than 

another, except that materially democracy may come nearer to the 

people's power than monarchy, but the excellency of it above monarchy is 

not hence concluded; for by this reason the number of four should be 

more excellent than the number of five, of ten, of a hundred, of a 

thousand, or of millions, because four cometh near to the number of 

three, which Aristotle calleth the first perfect number, cui additur to\ 

pa~n of which yet formally all do alike share in the nature and essence 

of number. 2. It is denied that it followeth from this antecedent, that 

the people have power to choose their own governors; therefore all 

governments except democracy, or government by the people, must be 

sinful and unlawful. (1.) Because government by kings is of divine 

institution, and of other judges also, as is evident from God's word, 

Rom. xiii. 1-3; Deut. xvii. 14; Prov. viii. 15, 16; 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14; 

Psal. ii. 10, 11, &c. (2.) Power of choosing any form of government is 

in the people; therefore there is no government lawful but popular 

government. It followeth no ways; but presupposeth that power to choose 

any form of government must be formally actual government; which is most 

false, yea, they be contrary, as the prevalency or power and the act are 

contrary; so these two are contrary, or opposite. Neither is 

sovereignty, nor any government, formally inherent in either the 

community by nature, nor in any one particular man by nature; and that 

every man is born free, so as no man, rather than his brother, is born a 

king and a ruler, I hope, God willing, to make good, so as the Prelate 

shall never answer on the contrary. 3. It followeth not that the 

posterity living, when their fathers made a covenant with their first 

elected king, may without any breach of covenant on the king's part, 

make void and null their fathers' election of a king, and choose another 

king, because the lawful covenant of the fathers, in point of 

government, if it be not broken, tyeth the children, but it cannot 

deprive them of their lawful liberty naturally inherent in them to 

choose the fittest man to be king; but of this hereafter more fully. 4. 

Spalato addeth,[5] (the Prelate is not a faithful thief,) " If the 

community by the law of nature have power of all forms of government, 

and so should be, by nature, under popular government, and yet should 

refuse a monarchy and an aristocracy," yet, Augustine addeth.[6] "If the 

people should prefer their own private gain to the public good, and sell 

the commonwealth, then some good man might take their liberty from them, 

and, against their will, erect a monarchy or an aristocracy." But the 

Prelate (p. 97) and Augustine supposeth the people to be under popular 

government. This is not our case; for Spalato and the Prelate 

presupposeth by our grounds that the people by nature must be under 

popular government. Augustine dreameth no such thing, and we deny that 

by nature they are under any form of government. Augustine, in a case 

most considerable thinketh one good and potent man may take the corrupt 

people's power of giving honours, and making rulers from them, and give 

it to some good men, few or many, or to one; then Augustine layeth down 

as a ground that which Spalato and the Prelate denieth, — that the 

people hath power to appoint their own rulers; otherwise, how could one 

man take that power from them? The Prelate's fifth argument is but a 

branch of the fourth argument, and is answered already.



P. Prelate (chap. 11). — He would prove that kings of the people's 

making are not blessed of God. The first creature of the people's making 

was Abimelech (Judg. ix. 22), who reigned only three years, well near 

Antichrist's time of endurance. He came to it by blood, and an evil 

spirit rose betwixt him and the men of Sechem, and he made a miserable 

end. The next was Jeroboam, who had this motto, He made Israel to sin. 

The people made him king, and he made the same pretence of a glorious 

reformation that our reformers now make: new calves, new altars, new 

feasts are erected; they banish the Levites and take in the scum and 

dross of the vulgar, &c. Every action of Christ is our instruction. 

Christ was truly born a king, notwithstanding, when the people would 

make him a king, he disclaimed it — he would not be in arbiter betwixt 

two brethren differing.



Ans. — I am not to follow the Prelate's order every way, though, God 

willing I shall reach him in the forthcoming chapters. Nor purpose I to 

answer his treasonable railing against his own nation, and the judges of 

the land, whom God hath set over this seditious excommunicated apostate. 

He layeth to us frequently the Jesuit's tenets, when as he is known 

himself to be a papist. In this argument he saith, Abimelech did reign 

only three years, well near Antichrist's reign. Is not this the basis 

and the mother principle of popery, That the Pope is not the Antichrist, 

for the Pope haul continued many ages? He is not an individual man, but 

a race of men; but the Antichrist, saith Belarmine, Stapleton, Becanus, 

and the nation of Jesuits and poplings, shall be one individual man — a 

born Jew, and shall reign only three years and a half. But, 1. The 

argument from success proveth nothing, except the Prelate prove their 

bad success to be from this, because they were chosen of the people. 

When as Saul chosen of God, and most of the kings of Israel and Judah, 

who, undeniably, had God's calling to the crown, were not blessed of 

God; and their government was a ruin to both people and religion, as the 

people were removed to all the Kingdoms of the earth, for the sins of 

Manasseh, Jer. xv. 4. Was therefore Manasseh not lawfully called to the 

crown? 2. For his instance of kings unlawfully called to the throne, he 

bringeth us whole two, and telleth us that he doubteth, as many learned 

men do, whether Jeroboam was a king by permission only, or by a 

commission from God. 3. Abimelech was cursed, because he wanted God's 

calling to the throne; for then Israel had no king, but judges, 

extraordinarily raised up by God; and God did not raise him at all, only 

he came to the throne by blood, and carnal reasons moving the men of 

Sechem to advance him. The argument presupposeth that the whole lawful 

calling of a king is the voices of the people. This we never taught, 

though the Prelate make conquest a just title to a crown, and it is but 

a title of blood and rapine. 4. Abimelech was not the first king, but 

only a judge. All our divines, with the word of God, maketh Saul the 

first king. 5. For Jeroboam had God's word and promise to be king, 1 

Kings xi. 34-38. But, in my weak judgment, he waited not God's time and 

way of coming to the crown; but that his coming to the throne was 

unlawful, because he came by the people's election, is in question. 6. 

That the people's reformation, and their making a new king, was like the 

kingdom of Scotland's reformation, and the parliament of England's way 

now, is a traitorous calumny. For, 1. It condemneth the king, who hath, 

in parliament, declared all their proceedings to be legal. Rehoboam 

never declared Jeroboam's coronation to be lawful, but, contrary to 

God's word, made war against Israel. 2. It is false that Israel 

pretended religion in that change. The cause was the rough answer given 

to the supplication of the estates, complaining of the oppression they 

were under in Solomon's reign. 3. Religion is still subjected to policy 

by prelates and cavaliers, not by us in Scotland, who sought nothing but 

reformation of religion, and of laws so far as they serve religion, as 

our supplications, declarations, and the event proveth. 4. We have no 

new calves, new altars, new feasts, but profess, and really do hazard, 

life and estate, to put away the Prelate's calves, images, tree-worship, 

altar-worship, saints, feast-days, idolatry, masses; and nothing is said 

here but Jesuits, and Canaanites, and Baalites, might say, (though 

falsely) against the reformation of Josiah. Truth and purity of worship 

this year is new in relation to idolatry last year, but it is 

simpliciter older. 5. We have not put away the Lord's priests and 

Levites, and taken in the scum of the vulgar, but have put away Baal's 

priests, such as excommunicated Prelate Maxwell and other apostates, and 

resumed the faithful servants of God, who were deprived and banished for 

standing to the Protestant faith, sworn to by the prelates themselves. 

6. Every action of Christ, such as his walking on the sea, is not our 

instruction in that sense, that Christ's refusing a kingdom is directly 

our instruction. And did Christ refuse to be a king, because the people 

would have made him a king? That is, non causa pro causa, he refused it, 

because his kingdom was not in this world, and he came to suffer for 

men, not to reign over man. 7. The Prelate, and others who wore lords of 

session, and would be judges of men's inheritances, and would usurp the 

sword by being lords of council and parliament, have refused to be 

instructed by every action of Christ, who would not judge betwixt 

brother and brother.



P. Prelate. — Jephthah came to be judge by covenant betwixt him and the 

Gileadites. Here you have an interposed act of man, yet the Lord 

himself, in authorising him as judge, vindicateth it no less to himself, 

than when extraordinarily ha authorised Gideon and Samuel, 1 Sam. xii. 

11; therefore, whatsoever act of man interveneth, it contributeth 

nothing to royal authorit[y] — it cannot weaken or repeal it.



Ans. — It was as extraordinary that Jephthah, a bastard and the son of 

an harlot, should be judge, as that Gideon should be judge. God 

vindicateth to himself, that he giveth his people favour in the eyes of 

their enemies. But doth it follow that the enemies are not agents, and 

to be commended for their humanity in favouring the people of God? So 

Psal. lxv. 9, 10, God maketh corn to grow, therefore clouds, and earth, 

and sun, and summer, and husbandry, contributeth nothing to the growing 

of corn. But this is but that which he said before. We grant that this 

is an eminent and singular act of God's special providence, that he 

moveth and boweth the wills of a great multitude to promote such a man, 

who, by nature, cometh no more out of the womb a crowned king, than the 

poorest shepherd in the land; and it is an act of grace to endue him 

with heroic and royal parts for the government. But what is alt this? 

Doth it exclude the people's consent? In no ways. So the works of 

supernatural grace, as to love Christ above all things, to believe in 

Christ in a singular manner, are ascribed to the rich grace of God. But 

can the Prelate say mat the understanding and will, in these acts, are 

merely passive, and contributeth no more than the people contributeth to 

royal authority in the king? and that is just nothing by the Prelates 

way. And we utterly deny, that as water in baptism hath no action at all 

in the working of remission of sins, so the people hath no influence in 

making a king; for the people are worthier and more excellent than the 

king, and they have an active power of ruling and directing themselves 

toward the intrinsical end of human policy, which is the external safety 

and peace of a society, in so far as there are moral principles of the 

second table, for this effect, written in their heart; and, therefore, 

that royal authority which, by God's special providence, is united in 

one king, and, as it were, over-gilded and lustred with princely grace 

and royal endowments, is diffused in the people, for the people hath an 

after-approbative consent in making a king, as royalists confess water 

hath no such action in producing grace.







[1] M. Anto. de domini. Arch. Spalatens.. lib. 6, c. 2, n. 5, 6. Plebs 

potius habet a natura, non tam vim active rectivam aut gubernativam, 

quam inclinationem passive regibilem (ut ita loquar) et gubernabilem, 

qua volens et libens sese submittit rectoribus, &c.



[2] Almain de potest et I. a. 1. q. 1, c. 1, 6, et q. 2, 3, 5.



[3] Nem. don jud. not. 3, n. 85.



[4] Spalatensis, p. 648.



[5] Spalato, 16



[6] August, de lib. arb., lib. 1, c. 6. Si depravatus populus rem 

privatum Reipub. preferat. atque habeat venale suffragium cor ruptusque 

ab iis qui honores amant, regnum in sefactiosis consecleratisque 

committat; non ne item recte, si quis tunc extilerit vir bonus qui 

plurimum possit, adimat huic populo potestatem dandi honores. et in 

paveorum bonorum, vel etiam unjus redregat arbitrium?