Romans 13 and Lawful Resistance (The Soldier's Catechism)

Q. How can you that are soldiers for the Parliament answer that place of Paul, Romans 13:1, 2, 3, & etc.

A. 1. That place requires not obedience to any unlawful Commands, neither doth any other place of Scripture, we are no further to obey man, than may stand with the will of God.

2. They are grossly mistaken which say the King is the highest power; Indeed, he is the highest person in his dominions, but the laws and courts of the kingdom are above him in power, and the King himself is limited and subject to the meanest court in the land: Therefore surely the high Court of Parliament must needs be the higher power, which not to obey, is to resist the ordinance of God.

3. Suppose the King were the higher power, yet if he shall intend or permit the ruin of his subjects, both nature and grace allows people to preserve themselves.

4. If the king be the higher power by constitution, yet is his power now in other hands by usurpation. The Queen, Ierman, Bristol, Digby, Cuttington, Windebanke, Porter, and many others, have for a long time, and do still manage the greatest affairs of the kingdom; so that it were a miserable thing to be subjected in conscience (as that text imports, if some men’s exposition might pass for orthodox divinity) to such enemies and incendiaries both of Church and Commonwealth.

The Soldier’s Catechism was a pamphlet issued in 1644 to parliamentarian soldiers—including Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army—during the English Civil War between Parliament and King Charles I.