 vast Rate, concerning the divinely inherent Right of Monarchs, implicit Submission, passive Obedience, Non-Resistance, and what not.
Our God, said he, is one God; and the Substitutes of his Mightiness should resemble himself; their Power ought to be absolute, unquestioned, and undivided. The Sun is his glorious Representative in the Heavens, and Monarchs are his Representatives and Mirrors, upon Earth, in whom he is pleased to behold the Reflection of his own Majesty.
Accordingly we find that the Monarchs, over his chosen People, were of his special Appointment, and that their Persons were rendered sacred and awfully inviolable, by Unction or the shedding of hallowed Oil upon them. Many Miscarriages and woful Defaults are recorded of
Saul,
as a Man, yet, as a King, he was held perfect in the Eyes of his People. What an unhesitating Obedience, what a speechless Submission do they pay to all his Behests! Though he massacred their whole Priesthood, to a Man, in one Day, yet no Murmur was heard; no One dared to wag a Tongue, and much less to lift a Finger against the Lord's Anointed.
I own to you, Sir, that this last Argument staggered me; such an express Authority of the sacred Writings put me wholly to Silence. Say then, my dearest Father, give me the Benefit of your enlightening Sentiments on this Head; that I may know, on all Occasions, to give, to all Men,
an Account of the political Faith that is in me.
It is extremely surprizing, rejoined Mr.
Fenton,
that all our Lay and ecclesiastical Champions for arbitrary Power, who have raised such a Dust, and kept such a Coil about the
divine, hereditary,
and
indefeisible Right
of Kings, and the
unconditional Duty
of
Passive Obedience
in the Subject, have founded their whole Pile of Argument and Oratory, on the DIVINE APPOINTMENT of the Regal Government of the
Jews,
as the perfect Model and Ensample whereby all other States are, in like Manner, required to form their respective Governments.
Now, if these Champions had engaged, on the opposite Side of the Question, and had undertaken the Argument against
arbitrary Power,
they could not have done it more effectually, more conclusively, more unanswerably, than by shewing that ARBITRARY POWER was the very EVIL so displeasing to the Nature of God, that he exhibited his Omnipotence, in a Series of public and astonishing Wonders, in order to deliver this very People from the Grievance thereof; and, more especially to proclaim to all Nations and Ages the Detestation in which his ETERNAL
