ABSTRACT
The vast amount of attention Willet allocated to an issue such as the licit absence of pastors from their flock demonstrates that at this point, resistance and self-defence were by no means the most pressing issue for every layman or clergyman. Similar to Luther's and Melanchthon's argument and the later German debate, the dismissal of prophetic allegations for political purposes served as an important argument in favour of the political order and its binding power to submit subjects to the existing secular and ecclesiastical courts of justice. Owen's conclusions tell us hardly anything about the motives of the debate on self-defence in either England or Germany so far, but a whole lot about the perception of these issues in England during the second and third decade of the seventeenth century. In 1610, Owen published a damning attack on Puritans and Papists alike as being similarly responsible for the killing of kings.
