The king’s command does not oppose God’s law, and the privilege does not cover the case

Now, that the king’s command in this matter does not oppose God’s lawlex dei / lex Christi / lex evangelica: God's law / the law of Christ / the gospel law, nor the true privileges of Westminster, I show thus.¹ Let a man search the whole of scripture, and he will not find that for debt, for unjust killing, 147indeed in general for any sin whatever, a fugitive ought to have refuge; for then God would cherish his own traitor in his crime, which he cannot do.² Hence in Deuteronomy 19 and Joshua 20, where the law of fugitives is given and the cities of refuge are appointed, it is assignedlimitare; limites: to assign (an office); limits that only those who kill unknowingly and are free of crime ought to have refuge there, lest innocent blood be shed by the kindred of the slain; nor did they dwell there for ever, but the Levites had the custody of the six cities of refuge, and were to accept none but the guiltless who had killed their brother by chance, beyond their intent; and these did not go out of the city, except to clear themselves at the place of the killing [of the charge, showing] that they had killed their brother unknowingly, until the death of the high priest. For then they would return freely to their own house outside the city of refuge; this law is clear in Numbers 35 and Joshua 20.³ If, therefore, in the whole law, new and old (where this matter is touched on at length), the place of refuge is assigned only to the guiltless who have killed their brother by chance, what blind presumption would it be in Christians, under colourcolor (non est color): colour (a plausible ground) of piety, to defend the enemies of God, of the king and of the kingdomregnum: kingdom? By these things the answer is clear to the argument that is founded on the privilege granted by the king to the aforesaid monastery.⁴

And suppose that it has a privilege in this form of words, that it may protect any fugitives whatever for any cause whatever, even in a case of injured royal majesty: still all this is a general grantconcessio: grant; but according to the laws of men a special case never comes under a prince’s general grant, except what would be granted by the prince in a case that has been particularly 148set out.⁵ Since, therefore, it is not in a prince’s power to grant what would tend to the wrong of God, to the destruction of his kingdom, to the enervation of the regality and of the laws by which he should rule his kingdom, it is clear that what is supposed in the case set before us is not included in that general privilege. What, I ask, would be more to the wrong of God than to make his house "a den of thieves"? Or what would be more destructive of kingdoms than to protect, in nests appointed for this, the enemies of God, of the churchecclesia: church and of the kingdom?⁶ In Ecclesiasticus 10:8 it is written: "A kingdom is translated from one people to another, because of injustices, and wrongs, and injuries, and divers deceits." Since, therefore, according to the saints, he who can amend and neglects to do so without doubt makes himself, as such, a sharer in the crime, therefore it is clear how plainly the toleration or defence of such an error would threaten ruin to the kingdom.⁷ Hence it has been shown elsewhere that a monastery that has the power to defend traitors of God, such as every criminal is, does not, as such, have a privilege, but rather a corruption. Hence, just as it does not count as a privilege for Mount Etna that it contains, beyond other mountains, a fire that consumes itself, so neither would it be a privilege for the said monastery to have the power of cherishing a traitor of God, destructive both of itself and of all England.⁸