Known as one of the greatest of all religious orators, Bishop Jacques Bossuet was the man who put forward what is generally considered to be the best defense and explanation of the Divine Right of Kings. He earned the titles of preacher, theologian, and historian. He can also be described as a sort of political theorist, and certainly my favorite as far as his political doctrine went. Whereas other philosophers and political theorists looked to nature and mankind as the source for understanding true government, Bossuet looked to God and made his argument based on the question, "how does God rule"? Others used science and human knowledge as the absolute basis of their understanding but Bossuet used the Bible, the Church and belief in God as the basis for his understanding of the world.
Jacques Benigne Bossuet was born in Dijon, France in 1627. He was ordained priest in 1658 and in 1681 was made Bishop of Meaux. He was a powerful presence at the court of the 'Grand Monarch', King Louis XIV of France. He stressed that the monarch was on the throne, "by the Grace of God" and that the person of the king was not his own but that he was the instrument of the Lord. In 1681 he published the book Discourse on Universal History in which he stated that God was the source of all power and his providence was what shaped the history of the world. God was the King of kings, the earthly monarch was His deputy who administered the nation entrusted to Him in the same way and with the same absolute authority that the Supreme Pontiff ruled the Church in place of God. It was the same system of government used by God, the Church and the family body.
Bossuet is probably best known for his book Politics Taken From the Very Words of Holy Scripture, a must-read for monarchists and for Christians who wish to apply their faith to the political aspect of their life. In this work Bossuet used Biblical evidence to support the idea that the king is God's anointed and that disobedience to a monarch is equivelant to disobedience to God. He laid out a pattern that all power came from the top (from God) down to the people and never from the bottom up, keeping in mind that Christ stated the way of the masses of the world was not His way. Bossuet stressed that people are bound to obey royalty and that a prince's power must be absolute or else he would have no power to do good or repress evil. However, Bossuet also pointed out that the Bible contains many warnings that princes will be harshly judged for their care of God's people and that to use for evil their power which came from God is the greatest sacrilege. He never hesitated from criticizing King Louis when he deserved it but at the same time never budged in his loyalty to him. Bishop Bossuet died in 1704. |
