hey should not walk
in the way of this people. When Jehoshaphat was reproved for helping the
ungodly, were not all his people reproved that went with him? They were
the helpers of the ungodly as well as he. If Amaziah had refused to
dismiss the army of Israel whom God was not with, doubtless it had been
the subject's duty to testify against it, and refuse to concur and act in
such a fellowship.

3. If the association and conjunction with malignants be only the sin of
the parliament, and not the sin of the people, who do upon their command
associate with them, then we cannot see how people can be guilty of
association with malignants at any time, and in any case. To join with
them in an ill cause is not lawful indeed. But neither may we join with
good men in an evil cause. Suppose then the cause be good and necessary
(as no war is just if it be not necessary), in what case or circumstances
shall association with them be unlawful for the people? If it be said, in
case the magistrate command it not, we think that strange divinity, that
the sole command of the magistrate should make that our duty, which in
absence of his command is our sin, and that not because of the absence of
his command but from other perpetual grounds. Certainly, whenever
association with them is a sin, it is not that which makes it a sin,
because the magistrate commands it not, but because God forbids it. And it
is as strange, that the unlawful and sinful resolution of parliament
should make that lawful to me which otherwise had been unlawful. It is
known that human laws oblige not, but as they have connexion with God's
word. Now if that law, enjoining a confluence of all subjects for the
defence of the kingdom, be contrary to the word, in as far as it holds out
a conjunction with malignant and bloody men, how can it be lawful to me,
in obedience to that ordinance, to associate with these men? If it be said
to be lawful in the case of necessity, that same necessity is as strong a
plea for the magistrate's employing them, as for the people's joining with
them, and if it do not justify that, it cannot excuse this. If the
lawfulness of the mean must be measured by the justice and necessity of
the end, then certainly any mean shall be lawful in the case of just and
necessary defence, then we may employ Irish cut throats, then we may go to
the devil for help, if expediency to compass such a necessary and just end
be the rule of the lawfulness of the mean.