delivered you, the first of nations, from
the two greatest miseries of this life, and most pernicious to
virtue, tyranny, and superstition; He has endued you with
greatness of mind to be the first of mankind, who, after having
conquered their own king, and having had him delivered into their
hands, have not scrupled to condemn him judicially, and pursuant
to that sentence of condemnation to put him to death. After the
performing so glorious an action as this, you ought to do nothing
that is mean and little, not so much as to think of, much less to
do, anything but what is great and sublime."

An exhortation to virtue founded on an act of regicide! To such
an issue had come the dispute concerning the Divine Right of
kings; and with such diversity of opinion do different men form
their judgments concerning the leading events of their time!

The House of Commons, reverting for a time to the ancient
procedure in these matters, petitioned the King on June 16th,
1660, to call in these books of Goodwin and Milton, and to order
them to be burnt by the common hangman: and the King so far
assented as to issue a proclamation ordering all persons in
possession of such books to deliver them up to their county
sheriffs to be burnt by the hangman at the next assizes (August
13th, 1660).[122:1] In this way a good many were burnt; but,
happily for the authors themselves, "they so fled or so obscured
themselves" that all endeavours to apprehend their persons
failed. Subsequently the benefits of the Act of Oblivion were
conferred on Milton; but they were denied to Goodwin, who, having
barely escaped sentence of death by Parliament, was incapacitated
from ever holding any office again.

The _Lex Rex_, or the _Law and the Prince_ (1644), by the
Presbyterian divine Samuel Rutherford, was another book which
incurred the vengeance of the Restoration, and for the same
reasons as Goodwin's book or Milton's. It was burnt by the
hangman at Edinburgh (October 16th, 1660), St. Andrews (October
23rd, 1660),[122:2] and London; its author was deprived of his
offices both in the University and the Church, and was summoned
on a charge of high treason before the Parliament of Edinburgh.
His death in 1661 anticipated the probable legal sentence, and
saved Rutherford from political martyrdom.

His book was an answer to the _Sacra Sancta Regum Majestas_, in
which the Divine Right of kings, and the duty of passive
obedience, had been strenuously upheld