Divine right of kings

“ Before the close of the period upon which we here enter, we shall see how this theory of the divine right of kings worked out in practice,—how dear it cost both kings and people, and how the people by the strong logic of revolution demonstrated that they are not children but mature men, and have a divine and inalienable right to govern themselves. ”

“ Hence sprung the doctrine of the divine right of kings to rule independently of their people, and of passive obedience and non‐resistance to their will; under the sanction of which they were encouraged to sport with the lives and happiness of their subjects, and to indulge in the most tyrannical and wanton acts of oppression, without the dread of resistance, or of being called to an account by any power on earth. ”

“ It is sent out to all the Roman Catholics throughout the world, who are required by it to defy the laws of the countries which protect them, because they are mere human laws, and to restore absolute monarchism to the pope, because the divine law provides that mankind shall be ruled by kings and not by themselves. ”

“ DIVINITY OF KINGS Royal absolutism formed a natural development of the old belief in the divinity of kings. Many primitive peoples regard their headmen and chiefs as holy and give to them the control of peace and war, of life and death. Oriental rulers in antiquity bore a sacred character. Even in the lifetime of an Egyptian Pharaoh temples were erected to him and offerings were made to his sacred majesty. The Hebrew monarch was the Lord's anointed, and his person was holy. The Hellenistic kings of the East and the Roman emperors received divine honors from their adoring subjects. ”

“ The right of kings is divine, and to abandon the monarchical principle is to set oneself against God, to compound with revolution, and harbour a monstrous scheme of utilising the madness of men the better to establish one’s power over them. ”

“ Augustine, who says, "In this, kings, in their royal capacity, serve God according to the divine commandment, if they promote what is good, and prohibit what is evil in their kingdoms, not only relating to human society, but also respecting religion." And in another place the same writer says, "How can kings serve the Lord in fear, unless they can prohibit and punish with due severity offences against the law of God? For the capacities in which they serve God, as individuals, and as kings, are43 very different. ”

“ Moreover, since God is the supreme Monarch of the universe, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; since [13] his power alone is unlimited and irresistible; and by consequence, the primary and most proper object of men's fear; it is manifest, that no human laws whatsoever, can bind men to act contrary to the divine. ”

“ The Divinity of the Emperors was a recognition of this fact; and the influence of the Roman law revived the theory as far as possible under the changed conditions, in the form of the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings—a doctrine which was totally alien to the Catholic feudal conception of the Middle Ages. This doctrine, moreover, received added force from the Oriental conception of the position of the ruler found in the Old Testament, from which Protestantism drew so much of its inspiration. ”

“ Because the king hath the supreme power. It is certain, if kings do their duty, they are both patrons of religion, and nurse-fathers of the Church, as Isaiah calls them, Isa. xlix. 23. This, therefore, is principally required of kings, that they use the sword wherewith they are furnished, for the maintaining of God's worship. But in the mean time there are inconsiderate men, that make them too spiritual ”

“ The secular arm must come in aid of the spiritual. The law is necessary to compel the payment of tythes. Kings and conquerors make laws, parcel out lands, and erect churches and palaces for the priests and dignitaries of religion: ‘they will have them to shew their mitred fronts in Courts and Parliaments’; and in return, Priests anoint Kings with holy oil, hedge them round with inviolability, spread over them the mysterious sanctity of religion, and, with very little ceremony, make over the whole species as slaves to these Gods upon earth by virtue of divine right! ”

“ Government by Kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased Kings, and the Christian world hath improved on the plan, by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred Majesty, applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust! ”

“ The authority of Emperors, Kings, and Princes, is human. The authority of Councils, Synods, Bishops, and Presbyters, is human. The authority of the Prophets is divine, and comprehends the sum of religion, reckoning Moses and the Apostles among the Prophets; and if an Angel from Heaven preach any other gospel, than what they have delivered, let him be accursed. Their writings contain the covenant between God and his people, with instructions for keeping this covenant; instances of God's judgments upon them that break it: and predictions of things to come. ”

“ It is religion grafted upon loyalty; and its strength is not in argument, not in fact, not in the unanswerable controversialist, not in an apostolic succession, not in sanction of Scripture—but in a royal road to faith, in backing up a King whom men see, against a Pope whom they do not see. The devolution of its crown is the tradition of its creed; and to doubt its truth is to be disloyal towards its Sovereign. Kings are an Englishman’s saints and doctors; he likes somebody or something at which he can cry, ‘huzzah,’ and throw up his hat. ”

“ The divinity of kings, the God-given right to rule, was shattered for all time. The giant at last knew his strength, and with head erect, and the light of freedom in his eyes, he dared to assert the liberty, equality and fraternity of man. ”

“ It must, then, be the most daring wickedness, and an affronting of the Majesty of Heaven in the highest manner, for an earthly monarch to pretend to enact a toleration of religions, and thereby give a liberty where the divine law has laid a restraint ”

“ If our government wishes to deal with this question first, it has the right to do so; if it wishes to do it, it has the right to do it in the sense that the age regards might greater than right; but we are in the hands of the All-wise and Supreme Ruler of the universe. We are in the hands of Him who setteth up kings and who dethroneth kings; who buildeth up empires and casteth down thrones at His will and pleasure. ”

“ Let secure possession of their own goods return to all, that they may rejoice in possessing without fear what they have acquired without fraud. Let every single person's liberty be now at length restored to each one under the yoke of the holy Empire. For there is this difference between the kings of the nations and the emperors of the republic: the kings of the nations are lords of slaves, but the emperors lords of free men. ”

“ And supposing the senate and people had—as is of course conceivable—reasserted their authority over their 'emperors,' or military officers, the Christian doctrine of divine right would have afforded no guidance as to which of the claimants to authority had the divine will on its side. What is barely asserted is the divine right of the existing civil authority, democratic or regal. ”

“ Let them make use, if they can, of Heaven's authority to create fear in those princes who incessantly desolate the earth; let them deprive them of the right of being unjust; let them recognize that no subject of a State enjoys living under tyranny; let them make the sovereigns feel that they themselves are not interested in exercising a power which, rendering them odious, injures their own safety, their own power, their own grandeur; finally, let the priests and the undeceived kings recognize that no power is safe that is not based upon truth, reason, and equity. ”

“ There are two things by which our empire ought to be ruled, the holy laws of the emperors and the good customs of our predecessors and fathers. We will not and can not go beyond those limits placed for the church; whatever is counter to them we do not receive. We willingly exhibit due reverence to our father; we look upon the free crown of our empire as a divine benefice alone ”

“ Which from offending Heirs their Heads can take;
And a First-born can forfeit Life and Throne,
And all by Law: why not a Crown alone?
Strange-bounded Law-makers! whose pow’r can throw
The deadlier Bolt, can’t give the weaker Blow.
A Treasonous Act; nay, but a Treasonous Breath
Against offended Majesty is Death.
But, oh! the wondrous Church-distinction given
Between the Majesty of Kings and Heav’n!
The venial sinner here, he that intreagues
With Egypt, Babylon; Cabals, Plots, Leagues
With Israels Foes her Altars to destroy,
A Hair untouch’d, shall Health, Peace, Crowns enjoy. ”

“ The sovereigns of this world, by associating the Divinity in the government of their dominions, by proclaiming themselves his vicegerents and representatives upon earth, and by acknowledging they hold their power from him, have necessarily constituted his ministers their own rivals or masters. Is it then astonishing, that priests have often made kings feel the superiority of the Celestial Monarch? Have they not more than once convinced temporal princes, that even the greatest power is compelled to yield to the spiritual power of opinion? ”

“ It must never be forgotten, if we would understand the history of this period, that the truly orthodox members of our Church regarded monarchy not as a human, but as a divine institution, and passive obedience and non-resistance, not as political maxims, but as articles of religion. ”

“ They become tetchy and imperious, and mingle the irritability of self-love with their zeal for the honour of God. They are not backward to call for fire from heaven, and to put down the Atheist and the Schismatic by the strong hand of power. Fear God and honour the King, is the motto of priestcraft; but it is not a sound logical dilemma, for this reason, that God is always the same; but Kings are of all sorts, good, bad, or indifferent—wise, or mad, or foolish—arbitrary tyrants, or constitutional Monarchs, like our own. ”

“ The power of religion to sustain authority against the insurrection and rebellion of subjects, and liberty against the tyranny of the prince, is in her being an organic power in the nation, but independent of the national will, holding from God, not from the nation or its sovereign, and free to declare and apply the divine law alike to prince and people. Nationalized, she has no support outside of the nation, no power not derived from it, and can give the nation only what it already has in itself. ”

“ She opposes them not because they make deadly war on monarchy and aristocracy, and assert the sovereignty, under God, of the people, but because the war against catholic truth, the great eternal, universal, and immutable principles of the divine government, which lie at the basis of all government and indeed of society itself, and of which she is the divinely appointed guardian in human affairs. ”

“ This is reason enough why kings should affect so much state; for if they had none, no one would respect them; this their semblance of power is not in themselves, and their authority must come to them from others. ”

“ And it is rather by religion than reason that man is distinguished from, and dignified above, the beasts; and it is more his honour to be a subject to the supreme Creator than to be lord of the inferior creatures. Note, Kings must know, or shall be made to know, that the most high God rules in their kingdoms (that is an imperium in imperio—an empire within an empire, not to be excepted against) , and that he appoints over them whomsoever he will. As he makes heirs, so he makes princes. ”

“ As citizens of this Republic, our duty in things temporal is owed to our Prince—by right divine; as men, our duty to our Church, by right divine, is in things spiritual alone—which we render; but in things temporal God gave not the Church rule over us. If, at any point, these two dominions may seem to touch and intersect it is our Prince who disentangles, by his decree, the twisted thread. ”

“ For, with piety as well as truth, you think that no one can rule well the things of this world unless he knows how to treat divine things, and that the peace of the human commonwealth depends on the peace of the universal Church. For, most gracious emperor, what power of man, what masterful arm of flesh, would presume to lay unholy hands upon the dignity of your most Christian empire, if the bishops were with one accord of mind to beseech their Redeemer for you by their words, and, if need be, by their deservings? ”

“ All conventions should be thrown off that man might attain the purity which God had originally intended. Kings there should not be to deprive their subjects of all liberty, nor nobles who claimed the earth, which was the inheritance of God's creatures. ”

“ Whatever were the oppressions and ravages of these religious or hypocritical princes, the priests have not failed to preach submission to their subjects: On the other hand, let us not be surprised to see so many weak and wicked princes, support in their turns the interest of a religion, which their false policy judged necessary to the maintenance of their authority. If kings were enlightened, just and virtuous, and knew and practised their real duties, they would have had no need of the aid of superstition in governing nations. ”

“ They are sound and liberal, and based on the great principle of the public good being the end of all government—the principle that kings reign, not for themselves, but for their people; while, in all their administration, they ought to be swayed and regulated by the laws of an authority higher than their own, by a regard to the Will of God as their rule, and the Glory of God, to which all else must ever be subordinate, as their supreme aim. ”