Christians and to avoid Impediments It seems he was afraid even then that the Christians would put a Spoke in his Cart and was so apprehensive of meeting with some dangerous Rubs from them that he slavishly dissembled his Religion The next thing in the Preface worth observing is our Author 's taking offence at my general way of speaking concerning the Behavior of the Christians under Julian that I say they and their when only particular Persons are mentioned I answer Where I have made a general Inference from the Behaviour of particular Persons either those Persons were Fathers themselves who by common Construction are Representatives and deliver to us the Sence of the Church or else the Thing which is done by them is commended and applauded by the Fathers which is the same thing as if they had done it themselves But a great part of the Instances which I give are the general and publick Acts of great Numbers in the Church a Congregation a City or the like not to mention what was done by the whole Church And therefore these Instances ought not to be levell'd with those which our Author produces in Queen Mary's Days of Things which were done but not owned and which as we use to say No-Body did For our Author might have had the Reward of Twenty Marks and Thanks if he could have inform'd who it was that hang'd up the Cat. And as for Wyat's Rebellion it was upon account of the Spanish Match and Religion was only pretended as our Author 's own Quotation from Mr. Bradford does acknowledg I shall overlook the rest till I come to his Discourse about the Bill of Exclusion where in the first place we meet with a subtil Defence for the Addressers For it was not the Popish Successor as Popish but the Succession which they promised to maintain I like the Distinction very well only our Author applies it by the halves for I wonder he does not say that they made this Promise too not as Protestants but as Addressers But it seems the Suffolk-Protestants did thus maintain the Succession of Queen Mary They did so but the Case was very different for then there was no possibility of a Bill of Exclusion Q. Mary by virtue of an Act of Parliament was actually Queen and yet they gave her no assistance but upon her Promise to maintain the established Protestant Religion Which Promise was so well and truly performed that we may well be excused from trusting any Popish Prince as those poor Men did who afterwards had the Opportunity of seeing their Error from the Vantage-Ground of a Pillory and by the Fire-Light in Smithfield As for Archbishop Cranmer's disclaiming and recanting his being concern'd in setting up King Edward's Will against an Act of Parliament it manifestly makes for me and shews what authority Cranmer ascribed to an Act of Parliament which gave Queen Mary all her Title after he himself had been the greatest Instrument of rendring her Illegitimate by causing her Mother's Marriage to be declared null and void from the beginning Tho I might well have taken no notice of it because our Author is pleased to do the same by Bishop Ridley's Sermon at Paul's-Cross where he put by the appointed Preacher only to have an Opportunity of telling the People what Reason they had to put by Queen Mary Would that brave Martyr have been against a Bill of Exclusion who was so zealous for Exclusion without a Bill Presently after we have Objections thick and threefold against the Bishops Reasons in Q Elizabeth's time recorded by Sir Sim. D'Ewes He will not allow the Bishops by any means to be the Authors of them that so he may take the greater Liberty in vilifying and speaking his pleasure of them Just as p. 236. he dissembles his Knowledg of a Book to be my Lord Hollis's which to my knowledg he knew to be his as well as I only that he might the more safely persist in calling it Impious and Treasonable And because he appeals to me whether I think the Bishops of the Church of England could pen such a Popish or Presbyterian Piece I answer 1. That I do verily believe they did pen that Piece and further that there were few others in those Days who were able to pen so learned a Piece And 2. I will join issue with him when he pleases that it is neither a Popish nor Presbyterian Piece but worthy of the zealous Prelates of that Age and agreeable to the Doctrine of the Homilies to which all the Clergy of England have subscribed which is more than can be said of Dr. Hickes's Peculium Dei. First There is no ground in the World to suspect but these Arguments were part of the Reasons presented to the Queen in Parliament because the Title says they were and it is manifest that they are all in the same strain and of a piece and further Sir Simonds says that then which was above fifty Years ago there were written Copies of them remaining in many hands at which time it was very easy if they had been forged to have discovered it 2dly This Paper of Reasons ought not to be called Anonymous for in the Body of it the Bishops are named as the Authors of it whereby the certain Authors of a Book are better known than by a Title or Inscription 3dly There is nothing in those Reasons but what was fit for Bishops in Parliament to urge I say in Parliament where there was full Authority to have enacted all their Conclusions but had been very improper to urge to a Judg at an Assizes which very different Cases I am afraid the Peculium doth not distinguish In short those Reasons are foully misrepresented by this Author and rendred as only fit to proceed from a Scotizing Presbyterian Suppose now I should do the same by Jovian and with more Justice say it was a Book written by the Priests in Newgate as not believing that a Book which manifestly carries on Coleman's Design and is made up of the very Doctrine of his Declaration for dissolving the Parliament could come from a Minister of London This would not be well taken therefore our Author must pardon me if it raises my Indignation to have a Bench of as Reverend Bishops as ever were in the World treated in the same manner And I do again renew my Promise that if he will please to print the Reasons of that Parliament at large as I desired the Reader to peruse them at large and add a Confutation of the Bishops Arguments it shall not want an Answer Is it a Popish Piece because it was for having a Law to put an Idolater to Death Why then our Homilies are Popish too for commending the Christian Iconoclast Emperors who punished Image-worshippers and Image-maintainers with Death Or a Presbyterian Piece Truly that is very notably guessed What because it talks of Godly Bishops where it says We see not how we can be accounted Godly Bishops or faithful Subjects if in
common Peril we should not cry and give warning A Scotizing Presbyterian would as soon have talkt of black Swans Well but according to our Author from excluding the next Heir to the Crown out of the World there is no Consequence at all to excluding him from the Crown I thought there had but this it is not to be skilled in Jewish Learning For he says a rebellious First-born amongst the Jews might be put to Death but not disinherited This is the prettiest Argument in the Book if it were true but it is like the rest and notoriously false For his own Selden whom he quotes for such a Saying as Pax est bona in the 24 th Chap. of the very same Book shews him several ways how the First-born or only Son or any Son might be disinherited and defeated of his Succession I see every Body has not a Petavius to direct him However a Man that could but read the English Translation of the Bible might know that a Jewish Father had power to disinherit because Deut. 21.15 that Power is restrained in one particular Case Grotius upon the place gives the reason of that Restraint says he The Father might for just cause transfer the Right of the First-born to a younger Brother but the Law took away that Liberty from a Man who had two Wives together where there was danger it might be done upon light and trifling Occasions And truly the Case of an Hebrew Heir had been very hard if it had been Neck or nothing if he might by the Law have been put to Death for that for which he might not be disinherited Tho by the way the Rabbins say That Law of putting a Son to Death was never practised no more than that of Retaliation an Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth He falsely and invidiously says I challenge the House of Lords the three Estates of Scotland c. to give but one Reason to prove a Bill of Exclusion to be unlawful I did not look so high nor think of those great Persons but of those whom I have often conversed with and who according to the Character I there gave of them have furiously reproached three successive Houses of Commons upon account of that Bill And I am afraid I shall have occasion to call upon them for their Reasons even after this Author's performance I always meant those Men who have misled too many and too great Persons into a Belief that a Bill of Exclusion is against both Law and Conscience that it is such Injustice as ought not to be done to save the World from perishing And after they have asserted this and laid it down for Gospel are not able to say one wise Word in defence of it and till they do I am sure all the World will give me leave to follow them with this reasonable Demand I. His first Argument is That an Act of Exclusion is void because it tends to the Disherison of the Crown This is so far from being true that an Act of Parliament which should deny the King and Parliament a Power of governing the Succession would be a proper Act of Disherison of the Crown because it would destroy one of the greatest Prerogatives of the Crown and devest the King of such a Power as is part of his Crown and which alone in many Cases can secure the whole to him According to what Serjeant Manwood affirm'd in Parliament 13 Eliz. That as for the Authority of Parliament in determining of the Crown it could not in reasonable Construction be otherwise for whosoever should deny that Authority did deny the Queen to be Queen and the Realm to be a Realm The truth of it is it tears up the very Foundations of our Government For as Bishop Bilson has exprest it The Foundation of all the Laws of our Country is this That what the Prince and most Part of her Barons and Burgesses shall confirm that shall stand for Good. But to come to the Point this unalterable Norman Entail whence is it It was certainly made with hands tho all the Roman Emperors had not the Art of making one Now I assert That the King in his Parliament when ever he pleases to call one has all the Power upon Earth and full as much as ever was upon English Ground and consequently can govern this Norman Entail as shall be most for the Preservation of his Majesty's Sacred Person from Popish Plots and of this Protestant Realm from the Hellish Power of Rome And to deny this were to disherit and disable the Crown and as Mr. Mounson in the 13 th of Eliz. expresses it were an horrible Saying As an Appendix to this first Argument first he asks a shrewd Question If the Acts of Hen. VIII about Succession were valid by what Authority was the House of Suffolk excluded and King James admitted to the Crown contrary to many Statutes against him If our Author will shew me but one of those many Statutes whereby King James stood excluded I will yield him the Cause In the mean time I wonder a Man should offer to make Acts of Parliament no more than waste Paper when he knows nothing of them and to talk of the House of Suffolk's Exclusion when it was never included nor ever had any Title or Pretensions to the Crown and above all to be so very absurd as to quote the Recognition of the High-Court of Parliament 1 Jac. cap. 1. where King James's Succession is owned for lawful when at the same time he is invalidating all Acts of Parliament which limit and determine of the Succession For as the same Mr. Mounson argues It were horrible to say that the Parliament hath not Authority to determine of the Crown for then would ensue not only the annihilating of the Statute 35 Hen. 8. but that the Statute made in the first Year of her Majesty's Reign of Recognition should be laid void a Matter containing a greater Consequent than is convenient to be uttered So that if our Author disables Acts of Parliament which limit and bind the Descent of the Crown he likewise disables that Act of Recognition Our Author's Partner Mr. Long has urged this Act of Recognition 1 Jacobi more strongly than any one Argument in his Book besides for because it was made since the 13 th of Elizabeth he opposeth it to that and gives it all the Power of a last Will. To which I shall only say thus much That the very same Recognition to a tittle might have been made to King James tho Mary Queen of Scots had been still living and had only stood excluded by Act of Parliament For as Mr. Long may see by the Act before the Common-Prayer-Book 14 Carol. 2. the Law can make great Numbers of Men as if they were dead and naturally dead before their Time yea tho many of them had a Jus divinum to preach as being Episcopally ordained and were descended in a right Line from
his Father's stead in Jerusalem Jehoahaz was the younger Brother and yet the People of the Land excluded his elder Brother to make him King. And tho he were the younger Brother by about two Years the Scripture approves the Title and Birth-right which the People of the Land gave him for it allows and records him to be the First-born 1 Chron. 3.15 And the Sons of Josiah were the First-born Johanan the second Jehojakim c. This Johanan is the same with Jehoahaz as all Commentators are agreed such variety of Names being very usual in Scripture for the same Person 2dly That the Government of the Succession in the Roman Empire was in the hands of the Emperor which is the reason that Gregory blames Constantius alone and neither Souldiery nor Senate for Julian's succeeding to the Crown And 3dly That in all Hereditary Kingdoms the Succession has been variously ordered and disposed upon occasion and that justly by those who had the Government of it And therefore Chlorus might do as was most fit to give his Empire to his eldest Son alone and yet Constantine do as well to divide his larger Empire amongst his three Sons Both which ways of inheriting according to the Fathers were still by Divine Right We have a plain Instance of this likewise in the Articles of Philip and Mary's Marriage in the united Kingdoms of those two Princes I shall add by way of Supererrogation that the Empire after Jovian's untimely and sudden Death went on again in a way of Hereditary Succession first in Valentinian's and afterwards in Theodosius's Family Gratian and Valentinian the younger succeeded Valentinian as his lawful Heirs So Symmachus Praefect of Rome expresses it Eum Religionis statum petimus qui divo parenti vestro culminis servavit Imperium qui fortunato Principi legitimos suffecit Haeredes One of them was Emperor when he was a Child but it was all one for that For as St. Ambrose says by Theodosius's young Sons Arcadius and Honorius who likewise succeeded their Father Nec moveat aetas Imperatoris perfecta aetas No-body is to mind their Age for an Emperor is always at Age. The Descent of the Imperial Crown took away all Defects And St. Ambrose exhorts the People and Army to pay the same Duty to these Minors as they would to Theodosius himself or rather more and tells them what Sacrilege it would be to violate their Rights Plus debetis defuncto quà m debuistis viventi Etenim si in liberis privatorum non sine gravi scelere minorum jura temerantur quanto magis in filiis Imperatoris In a word if the Empire were not Hereditary in that period of it which my Discourse led me to speak of and for a long time after the Christians as well as Heathens have not only imposed upon the World but which is far worse have mocked God in their Prayers Firmicus prays the great Sun and Stars together with the most High God to make the Government of Constantine and his Sons perpetual and grant says he that they may reign over our Posterity and the Posterity of our Posterity in a continued Series of infinite Ages Sozomen prays that God would transmit Theodosius's Kingdom to his Children's Children To which Prince Cyrill Archbishop of Alexandria says The Queen glorious in having Children by you gives hope of Perpetuity to the Empire Now from any one of these Expressions it is plain that the Empire was not Elective For every one knows that the present King's Children in an Elective Kingdom are farthest off from succeeding Whoever succeeds they shall not for fear they should alter the Constitution of the Kingdom and make it Hereditary It is indeed otherwise in the Empire of Germany but there is a peculiar Reason for it None but the House of Austria which has so large Hereditary Dominions and Countries and so scituate as to be a Bulwark against the Turk being capable of defending and preserving that Empire After all to shew how much our Author is mistaken in thinking the Stress of my Argument lies upon this Assertion That the Empire was Hereditary in Julian's time which nevertheless I desire him to confute if he can in fourscore Pages more I do assure him that the Conclusions which are drawn from his own Premises will serve my Turn as well Our Author says pag. 51. That the Caesarship only made a Man Candidate and Expectant of the Empire or as he expresses himself afterwards it was a Recommendation to the Augustus-ship Tho by the way Candidate or Expectant is not the English of Spartianus's Latine which he there quotes for designed or appointed Heirs of the Imperial Majesty are more than Candidates and Eumenius who understood the Roman Empire and Language better than any modern Man opposes those two Words to one another Sacrum illud palatium non Candidatus Imperii sed designatus intrasti However to take the Character of a Caesar at the very lowest he was recommended to the Empire and stood fairest for it And because the Empire had generally gone that way he might plead Custom tho not a strict Right and at the least was next to the Chair Nevertheless the Christians were for setting aside one that had these Pretensions to the Empire of the Roman World meerly because he was not of their Religion they would not have a Heathen to reign over them Now I did not go to ask their Opinion concerning the 13 th of Elizabeth and half a dozen Acts of Parliament more or whether our King and Parliament have not equal power to exclude a Popish Successor as Constantius had to degrade a Pagan Caesar Of which I never doubted nor dare our Author deny it But my Enquiry was Whether Paganism was a sufficient Bar to hinder a Man from an Empire and whether it unqualified him from reigning over Christians And their Answer was as I have faithfully reported it that it was a great Sin in those who could prevent such a Person 's coming to the Crown if they did not do it And whether an Act of Parliament cannot govern the Norman Entail we will never ask the Fathers To conclude if my Comparison of Popery and Paganism hold true which this Author has been pleased to grace and fortify with his Approbation then the Case of Conscience is thus resolved by the Fathers That it is not only just to prevent a Popish Successor but that it is a very great Sin in those who can legally prevent him unless they do it Again If Julian's Title were not a Right of Inheritance but lay in the Choice of the Legions then Julian was already lawful Emperor while he was in France as well as Gordianus Philip Decius p. 37. and others in other places of our Author And yet Julian durst not then own himself a Pagan tho he had been so for ten Years but as Ammianus confesses went to Church a long time after to curry Favour with the
Liege People of England contrary to the Political Laws that is the Common and Statute-Laws which declare the Fundamental Propriety that the People of England have in their Lives Liberties and Estates those Forces may not be resisted for they who in their own Defence do resist them with Arms may be legally hanged for it in this World and without Repentance will be damned for it in that which is to come And yet this Author pag. 274. asserts That the Laws of all Governments allow every Man to defend his Life against an illegal Assassin and he that doth not so when he can dies not like a Martyr but a Fool. Now Forces thus employed are no other than illegal Assassins But it may be the Damnableness of resisting lies in resisting them with Arms No it is not that for our Author in the same place says Contra Sicarium quilibet homo est miles Any Man is a lawful Souldier against a Cut-Throat that is may use a Sword against him and not only a Switch Neither is it their being called the King's or Sovereign's Forces which makes them irresistible for p. 280 he allows that a Man may defend himself against an Assassin sent by the King's Order because says he the King's Law which is his most Authoritative Command allows us as I suppose that Benefit And therefore it remains that the Damnableness of resisting them lies in this that they are Forces and murther in Troops So that tho any Man is a lawful Souldier against a Cut-Throat yet no Man is a lawful Souldier against Cut-Throats and indeed this last Particular is the only Thing wherein our Author has not been pleased to answer himself Now in opposition to our Author I hold That if the Sovereign cannot authorize one single Person to do an Act of illegal Violence much less can he authorize Forces or great Numbers of Men to do such illegal Acts And that there is just the same Reason Law and Conscience a thousand times over to resist a thousand Murtherers that there is to resist one His Conclusions I confess are very terrible to Flesh and Blood but I take comfort when I look back upon the Principles from whence he infers them which are absurdly false and so far from supporting that Battery which he raises upon them that they fall with their own Weakness Rottenness and Incoherency His Principles are an unlimited boundless Soveraign Power two Tables of Laws which break one another some Preambles of Statutes which he stifles and will not suffer to speak out and a false Pretence of the Soveraign's Honour First He begins with the Notion of a Soveraign p. 200. by which all the World may see that he no more understands what an English Soveraign is than I know what Prester John is Does not every Body know that the very same Titles of Power and Office have a several Notion in several Countries As to compare great Things with small a Constable in England is conceived under another Notion than a Constable in France And so tho an Assyrian King were conceived under the Notion of Absoluteness whom he would he slew and whom he would he made alive whom he would he set up and whom he would he pulled down and his Will did all Yet this is quite contrary to the Notion of an English King as Bracton tells us Non est enim Rex ubi dominatur Voluntas non Lex Where Will governs and not the Law the Notion of a King is lost Nay the Laws of King Edward confirmed by William the Conqueror and sworn to be kept by all succeeding Kings in their Coronation-Oath have these Words Rex autem quia Vicarius summi Regis est ad hoc est constitutus ut regnum terrenum populum Domini regat ab injuriosis defendat c. Quod nisi fecerit nec nomen Regis in eo constabit verùm nomen Regis perdit These I hope are better Authorities in this Matter than Sam. Bochart our Author's French Oracle who like a Forreigner as he was fetch'd his Notions of our Government from the Motto of the King's Arms Dieu mon droit I need not trouble my self in examining our Author's Scheme of Soveraign Power or the Rights of the Soveraign which is full of Equivocation and Fallacy witness the last particular of it where he attributes to the Soveraign the whole Legislative Power Which methinks he might have left out as well as he has done another main Branch of the Soveraign Power which Writers of Government call Vniversale eminens Dominium or a Power of laying Taxes upon the Subject But therein our Author had Reason for if he had but mentioned that Right of Soveraignty every English-man who had ever read a Subsidy-Act or Money-Bill would immediatly have discovered the fraudulent Contrivance of that whole Discourse And because our Author writes as if he were better studied in the modern French Monarchy than in the ancient equal happy well-poised and never enough to be commended Constitution of this Kingdom as King Charles the First calls it I shall take this occasion to set down these few Words of that wise Prince concerning it There being three Kinds of Government amongst Men absolute Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and all these having their particular Conveniencies and Inconveniencies the Experience and Wisdom of your Ancestors haâ—h so moulded this out of a mixture of thâ—se as to give to this Kingdom as far as humane Prudence can provide the Conveniencies of all three without the Inconveniencies of any one But we have some little People risen up amongst us who with a Dash of their Pen will new-mould the Government endeavouring as much as in them is to dissolve this excellent Frame and to change it into an absolute Monarchy The establish'd Constitution does not agree with the new Models they have seen abroad nor with the new Notions they have got by the end and therefore tho it be the Product of the long Experience of the deepest Insight and of the united Wisdom of a whole Nation yet it must give place to new Inventions and submit to be regulated by an Epistle of a French Author The two Houses of Parliament which have a joint Authority in making Laws as the King expresly says In this Kingdom the Laws are jointly made by a King by a House of Peers and by a House of Commons as also every Act that is made in the very enacting of it tells us shall by the new common Laws of Soveraignty only perform a Ministerial part of preparing Bills and Writings and finding a Form of Words for the Soveraign alone to enact And so likewise the Prerogatives of the King which are built upon the same Law of the Land upon which is built the Propriety and Liberty of the Subject and which is the most firm and stable Bottom in the World shall in this new and treacherous way be founded upon a floating
JULIAN'S ARTS TO Undermine and Extirpate CHRISTIANITY The present Impression of this Book was made in the Year 1683 and has ever since lain Buried under the Ruines of all those English Rights which it endeavoured to Defend But by the Auspicious and Happy Arrival of the Prince of Orange both They and It have obtained a Resurrection JVLIAN's ARTS To Undermine and Extirpate CHRISTIANITY TOGETHER With ANSWERS to Constantius the APOSTATE and Jovian By SAMUEL JOHNSON Licensed and Entered according to Order LONDON Printed by J. D. for the Author and are to be sold by Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown and Jonathan Robinson at the Golden-Lion in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXIX TO THE Ever Glorious MEMORY OF WILLIAM Lord Russel The Author having written this Book in his Lordships Service does most Humbly Offer and Dedicate it The PREFACE BEfore the Reader engages in the perusal of this Book I shall entreat him to take this following Account of what he shall find in it Having given as large an Account in my former Book concerning Julian's Vsage of the Christians and their Behaviour towards him as might satisfy any reasonable Man I have since found it necessary to add some new Matter of Fact upon that Subject both to confirm the old and to free it if it be possible from Wrangling and Dispute And that I might not deliver this fresh Matter in a way of loose and incoherent Quotations which would have been tedious I took a Hint from Gothofredus his Julianus to put it into a Discourse which will at once give an Account of Julian's Devices to worm the Christians out of their Religion and likewise shew how well studied the Papists are in those Arts. My Answerers have been so many that I cannot number them on the sudden and I think it has been Drudgery enough for one Man to read them over but yet because two of them especially have been applauded as the Champions of the Cause I thought my self concerned to give them an Answer not in the least to vindicate my self from their Reflections which I value not tho it were stupidity not at all to resent them but to do what Service I could to Truth and to the Rights of my Native Country for either of which if God will have it so I hope I shall not be unwilling to lay down my Life The Author of Constantius in the late shamming way has set up a Mock-Apostate to give a Diversion and take off the Force of what has been said concerning Julian but I hope it will prove to be with the like Success as the Mock-Plots have had which have always confirmed Men in the Belief of the true one He has likewise abused a great deal of Scripture to expose the Freemen of England and their established Religion to Violence Oppression and Extirpation and if I have rescued those Texts which he has so employed from such mischievous Applications for the future I shall think my Pains well spent The Author of Jovian by coming last has had the Advantage of summing up the Evidence which he has done so faithfully that he has not omitted Heraclitus's Charge against me That I raise an Induction from one Particular which he backs with as true an Observation of his own That I call the few Months of Julian 's Reign an Age p. 139. I say this to shew the Compleatness of this Author's Performance and that in his Answer we read the Substance of all the rest and not to rob him of the Honour of having added many Things of his own as particularly the History of broken Succession in the Empire which may be a true one for ought I know for it is of so small Concernment in this Controversy that I never examined it his Outlandish Notion of a Soveraign which is such a Deceit to a common Reader as a Scale of Dutch Miles would be in a Map of Middlesex and his Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws which is the Master-Piece in his Book This Distinction I am apt to think is his last Refuge and therefore I shall first shew how this Author was driven to it and 2dly How false and groundless it is and 3dly What are the immediate Consequences of it 1. In my former Book I laid down this undeniable Truth That we are bound not to part with our Lives but to defend them unless when the Laws of God or of our Country require us to lay them down Now it is not Death by the Law of God but our Duty to be Protestants and by the Law of the Land it is so far from being Death that on the other hand it is Death to forsake the Protestant Religion and to turn Papist And therefore in case Protestants should be persecuted under a Popish Successor I ask'd by what Law they must die That Question would admit no direct Answer for no Man can say that we ought to die for being Protestants either by the Law of God or the Law of the Land And therefore the Author of Jovian being resolved to cut a Knot which he could not untie has found out the most wretched Expedient of a Distinction that ever was For first he splits and divides one and the same Law of the Land into Imperial and Political and then says that by the Imperial or Prerogative Law we ought to submit to be murthered 2. Now in the second Place there never was a more horrid Slander cast upon the Prerogative than this is For whereas the Law of England says That the King's Prerogative stretcheth not to the doing of any Wrong this Author has found a way to stretch and extend it to the Subversion of all the Laws and to the Destruction of all his Liege Subjects By the Law of England the King is inviolable and by the same Law he can do no Wrong and there is all the Reason in the World that he who is above the doing of any Injury should be placed out of the reach of any manner of Resistance But tho the King can do no Wrong and therefore we can suffer none from him yet to make way for Passive Obedience our Author will have a sort of Subjects call'd the Sovereign's Forces to be irresistible too tho in the most outragious Acts of Destructive Violence That 's too plain a Juggle for as the King can do no Wrong so he can authorize no single Person much less Numbers of Men to do any Wrong Or to borrow the Words of a great Lawyer The King cannot do Injury for if he command to do a Man Wrong the Command is void alter fit Autor and the Actor becomes the Wrong-doer Now whether Men by authorizing themselves to do Mischief and to commit Capital Crimes are thereby entitled to an uncontroulable Imperial Power to the Rights of Sovereignty and to the Prerogative of being irresistible I leave all the World to judg 3. In the last place I shall shew the immediate Consequences of this new
had been utterly unlawful and an horrid Sin to assist Subjects in the Violation of their Duty and Allegiance and to turn at least a whole Years Revenue of all the spiritual Promotions in England into Swords to be employed in resisting the Ordinance of God. Those Men must needs have a great mind to partake of that Damnation wherewith St. Paul threatens this Sin who were willing to purchase it at so dear a rate By which it appears that this modish Passive Doctrine of submitting for Conscience sake to illegal Violence and all sorts of lawless Oppression is all Madness and Innovation and a thing wholly unknown to the Compilers of the Homilies who dream'd as little of it as they did of the late unnatural destructive War which it produc'd And hereby likewise the Reader will be enabled to judg between me and my Adversaries who is truer to the Doctrine of the Church of England They or I and who are really guilty of Apostacy from it they that retain the Primitive Sense of the first Reformers or they that follow the upstart and new-fangled Opinions of a few mischievous and designing Innovators 3. The last thing to be answered are the Religious Pretences which are fetch'd from Scripture for the support of this Passive Doctrine Before I come to examine the particular Texts which this Author has alledged I shall say somewhat in general concerning the great Impertinency of interessing Scripture in this Controversy for this reason because Christ meddles not with the Secular Government of this World as Dr. Hammond infers from the Scripture it self 1 Cor. 7.22 and our Author in his Preface allows that Inference Or as Luther expresses it because The Gospel doth not bar nor abolish any Politick Laws which Position he always held and Bishop Bilson did believe that it could not be refuted the Truth whereof I shall prove both by direct Argument and by parallel Instances 1. The Scripture does not meddle with the Secular Government of this World so as to alter it for to alter Government is to overthrow the just Compacts and Agreements which have been made amongst Men to which they have mutually bound themselves by Coronation-Oaths and Oaths of Allegiance whereby the duties of Governours and Subjects are become the moral Duties of Honesty Justice and righteous dealing which no Man will say it is the work of the Gospel to destroy or abolish 2. If Scripture has made any alteration in the Secular Government of the World then that alteration is Jure Divino and all Governments which are not reformed according to it are unlawful which if it be said concerning our own Constitution is Treason and if it be said of all other Governments in Christendom is very ill manners for none of them pretend much less can be proved to agree exactly with any such Pattern given in the Mount. In the second place therefore Christianity has given no new measures of Rule and Government nor of Obedience and Subjection but on the other hand has forbidden Men to remove the old Land-marks by confirming and re-inforcing the known Duties of Morality in this Case as it has done in like Cases It has charged Masters to be just to their Servants and Servants to be obedient to their Masters whereby it has created no new Right on either side For Masters were always bound to allow their Servants that which is just and equal and Servants to yield Obedience but in what measures or proportions we must not expect to find in Scripture for that is left to be determined by former particular Contracts or by the Laws and Customs of every Country For even those Precepts of absolute Obedience for Servants to obey their Masters in all things and to please them well in all things do not alter any of those measures of Obedience which the Parties themselves shall agree upon or the usage of every Country does prescribe For an English Servant is not bound to obey his Master in all lawful things if they be inconvenient and no part of his Bargain It is lawful for a Servant to obey his covetous Master and to please him well in taking but one half of his Wages in full of all but I presume he may do better to disobey and displease him too in that matter and to insist upon having his whole Due It is certainly lawful according to Mr. Long for an English Servant to obey passively nay suffering tho wrongfully is his calling and yet if he refuse to serve in Chains and to be used like a Gally-Slave and so disobey and displease in that matter it is no breach of his Christianity for St. Paul himself could not abide to be smitten contrary to Law tho it were at the command of the High-Priest Acts 23.3 He presently indeed recalled his reviling Language but he did not correct his sharp Resentment of that Injury If some Men could find such Texts as these for Subjects what Iron Yokes and what heavy Burdens would they not presently lay upon them and yet they would no more bind English Subjects than these Texts which were directed to Roman Slaves are the duty of English Servants I might instance in several other Relative Duties in the same manner if it were needful Accordingly such Precepts as this Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars do not alter or destroy the Laws of our Country but plainly refer us to them for we know not who is Caesar nor who Caesar is but by the Law of the Land. And the things of Caesar or what belongs to him are not whatsoever he may demand for then when we are bid to render all Men their Dues we are as much bound to satisfy their Demands let them be what they will and never so unjust and unreasonable And as for that new Device in Jovian of learning our Allegiance or legal Duty from the Notion of a Soveraign it is a sort of conjuring for I may as well know the just Sum of Money which one Man owes to another meerly from the Notion of a Creditor Having said this in general I shall now particularly examine those Texts of Scripture which this Author alledges he begins with Rom. 13.1 2. Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God The Powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation From which Text Epiphanius proves that the many Magistates under one King are ordained of God and thence our Author infers That the Power of under-Officers since it is the Ordinance of God ought no more to be resisted than the King 's Adding this further Though this may seem harsh in an English-man's Ears who will acknowledg perhaps that the King can do no Injury and is above the Censure of the Law yet he knows his Officers are accountable for any illegal Act and the very Command of the
Prince cannot secure them from being impeach'd by the People granting this to be very true yet I shall still assert that the Inferiour Magistrate though in the Execution of an illegal Act is not to be repelled by Force To this I answer I grant that Inferiour Magistrates rightly constituted and duly executing their Office are the Ordinance of God for Government would be an impracticable thing without them but as you shall see anon the Text it self carries this Limitation in the Bowels of it for it excludes both the Usurpation of an Office and the illegal and malicious Exercise of it If our Translators in this place had rendred the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authorities instead of Powers as they were forced to do 1 Pet. 3.22 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authority that is a just and lawful Power as they have rendred it in other places and as it constantly signifies they had effectually prevented the false Application of this Text. But now it is easy to shelter illegal Commissions unauthoritative Acts and all manner of unlawful and outragious Violence under the word Power for these are Might tho they be not Right However I shall make short work with this Imposture for if these things before-named be really contained in this Text under the word Power and by virtue of this Text are forbidden to be resisted why then let us put them into the Text which is the surest way of trying the Sence of any Scripture and let us see how they will become the place And then it runs thus There is no illegal destructive Commission nor outragious Violence of Inferiour Officers but of God. The Rapines Burglaries Assassinations Massacres which are commited by Inferiour Officers are ordained of God Whosoever therefore withstands these resists the Ordinance of God. What blasphemous stuff is this which Men dare to affix upon a Text of Scripture which is no other than the Voice of God approving all lawful Government and confirming from Heaven those moral Duties of Subjection Obedience and Non-resistance which were always due to lawful Authority but you plainly see are not due to illegal Violence for that is clearly shut out of the Text the Text it self will by no means admit it but spues it out In the same manner you may likewise try whether usurped Power or those that intrude into the Government and get into Office by wicked and undue means be the Ordinance of God. In the next place our Author quotes St. Peter in these words Let 's hear St. Peter 's Opinion in the Case 1 Pet. 2.13 14 15. Submit your selves unto every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake whether to the King as Supream or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for this is the Will of God c. From this 't is plain that we ought to submit to Inferiour Officers for the Lord's sake as well as Supream this subordinate Power being from God tho not immediately I shall hot trouble my self as our Author does about the Question whether the true rendring of this place be submit to every humane Creature meaning Divine Creature or submit to every Ordinance of Man as our Translation has it which he says is an improper Translation and has given occasion to a dangerous Error for let the lawful Government be of what Extraction it will every Subject must submit to it for the Lord's sake The present Question which wants St. Peter's Resolution is Whether we are bound to submit to the illegal Violence of under-Officers which I suppose will prove to be in the Negative For St. Peter plainly limits our Submission to such Governours as are in Subordination to the King and are sent by him and come on this Errand which it was not over honest in our Author to conceal for the Punishment of Evil-doers and for the Praise of them that do well Whereas it is evident that the illegal Violence of Inferiour Governours crosses the very end of their Institution besides they are not in any such Act sent by the King but come of their own Head and which is more they do this in Contradiction to the King 's declared Will and Pleasure which is his Law and against his Crown and Dignity as an Indictment does fully set forth such Offences For I must remember our Author of his Acknowledgment a little before that the King's Officers an accountable for any illegal Act and the very Command of the Prince cannot secure them from being impeach'd by the People Now if they may be prosecuted and hang'd by the People as any other private Malefactor but by the way is that submitting to them for the Lord's sake why may not a just and necessary Defence be made against them as against any other Evil-doers For that very reason says our Author in his Preface because it is a Sin to resist any Evil-doer for our Saviour has commanded us not to resist Evil Evil not signifying a thing but a Person Mat. 5.39 and thence he infers that we ought not to damn our selves to prevent the Violence of a Murderer though offered to our selves I am much confirmed in the truth which I maintain when I see that no Man can fairly oppose it without falling into the very dregs of Quakerism and into those pernicious Principles which surrender the quiet and peaceable part of Mankind to the Discretion of a few mischievous and blood-thirsty Men and in effect put a Sword into their Hands to slay us If this be Gospel gaudeant Latrones 't is good Tydings not to the true Man but to the Thief to the Cyclops to the Canibal to the hungry Irish Woolf and to the Mauritanian Lyon but to all others it is a very hard Saying But to shew that this Argument may be otherwise answered than with a shrug it is plain 1. That this Precept of our Saviour requires great Limitation for else among other things a Christian Magistrate himself might not resist an Evil-doer 2. That it carries a Limitation sufficient for my present purpose along with it For all the Instances in which our Saviour forbids Resistance are matters of a light nature as Dr. Hammond expresses it And the bearing of such tolerable Evils and Inconveniencies is no peculiar Duty of Christianity for any wise moral Man would rather take a flap on the Face patiently than turn such a ridiculous Battery into a Fray and Bloodshed and rather receive two slight Injuries one after another then revenge the first For I shall here take occasion to inform our Author that Revenge never was a natural Right as he affirms p. 57. but a Sin against the Light of Nature and that the necessary Preservation of a Man's Life or Livelihood or the Moderation of a just and unblameable Defence do mightily differ from Revenge And as our Author wholly wrests our Saviour's Doctrine so in the next place he wilfully mis-represents his Case as every Man knows who has read the four Gospels
very agreeable to his Hypothesis for then the Regal or Imperial Power had been discharged of the Politick Clog and had governed all alone and the Notions of Sovereignty and Passive Obedience had been as clear as the Sun. But then in some other unlucky places the same Fortescue speaking of the self-same Thing says That those former Kings of England would have parted with their Law Politick and Regal too and would fain have changed them both for the Civil Law. It seems they were as weary of the one as of the other which could not possibly be help'd because they were all one And now I appeal to all the World whether here be any Foundation for a Table of Imperial Laws which can at pleasure destroy the Lives Liberties and Properties of the Subject And whether on the other side according to Fortescue the Safety and Security of the People be not the supream Law of a Regal and Politick Kingdom But because our Author is mighty troublesom with his Imperial Laws and Imperial Power and boundless Power and such like Terms of his own coining which is a Presumption at least that what he writes is not Law but his own Dreams which no Terms of English Law can express I shall tell him from these Passages of Fortescue That the greatest Power the King of England has is this that he can do no Wrong that he cannot authorize any Man or Number of Men to destroy his Subjects contrary to Law consequently that all such illegal destructive Acts tho attempted in his Name are inauthoritative and do neither bind any Man's Conscience nor tie any Man's Hands from using those Remedies which the Laws of God and Nature as well as the Common and Statute-Laws of the Land do allow to be used against all evil-disposed Persons I shall tell him likewise from these following Authorities and many more which might be produced that his Assertion of an absolute unbounded Power in the King which is limited only in the Exercise of it is perniciously false For the Law gives the King his Power and Dominion says Bracton We hold only what the Law holds saith Judg Jenkins The King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined and bounded and admeasured by a written Law what they are We do not hold the King to have any more Power neither doth his Majesty claim any other but what the Law gives him Accordingly King Charles the First acknowledges that his Prerogatives are built upon the Law of the Land which in another place he declares are the justest Rule and Measure for them I shall add but one remarkable Passage more out of the King's Answer to both Houses concerning the Militia Feb. 28. 1641. And his Majesty is willing to grant every of them such Commissions as he hath done this Parliament to some Lords Lieutenants by your Advice but if that Power be not thought enough but that more shall be thought fit to be granted to these Persons named than by the Law is in the Crown it self his Majesty holds it reasonable that the same be by some Law first vested in him with Power to transfer it to these Persons which He will willingly do Now this is Demonstration if the Law be the Measure of the King's Power then he has no Power beyond the Bounds of the Law and whatsoever is pretended in the King's Name beyond those Bounds is void and carries no manner of Authority with it Whereas to say the King's Power is absolute and boundless is to say the Government is absolute and arbitrary and requires absolute and unlimited Subjection For it is Nonsence to say that boundless Power can be limited in the Exercise of it for boundless Power which has in it the whole Legislative Power can at pleasure make a Law to take away that Limitation and he that is limited only by his own pleasure is not limited at all And again that is not Power which cannot be exercised and therefore a Fountain full of boundless Power which cannot be brought into Act is a Fountain full of inauthoritative Authority or full of Emptifulness So much for our Author's Fountain Pipes and Channels We have his other Illustration of a boundless limited Power in these Words To be confined in the Exercise doth not destroy the Being nor diminish the Perfection of Sovereign Power for then the Power of God himself could not be Sovereign because there are certain immutable Rules of Truth and Justice within which it is necessarily limited and confined I answer As God exercises no Power which is inconsistent with Truth and Justice so he has no such Power in him in the Root or Being for it is all Imperfection and Weakness And that he neither exercises nor has any such Power is not to be imputed to any intrinsecal Limitation or Confinement but to the infinite and illimited Perfection of his Nature And if such a miscalled Power or Possibility of doing wickedly be found in the Creature it is because he is a Creature it proceeds from Finiteness and Defect And to shew our Author how much more Light there is in a few plain Words than in his Similitudes and Illustrations I say It is self-evident that a Man has no more Power in any kind than he can exercise A Man has no more natural Power than he can naturally exercise he has no more moral Power than he can morally exercise he has no more Civil or Legal Power than he can legally exercise For to say he has more Power than he can exercise is to say he can do more than he can do And therefore an Ocean of our Author 's boundless lawful Power of doing what cannot lawfully be done will not fill an Egg-shell and is such a New-nothing as even Children will despise Before I pass from this Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws I must say somewhat to a Heap of Authorities which we have p. 208 209. to prove that the Realm of England is an Empire that the Crown of it is an Imperial Crown and that one of the Saxon Kings stiled himself Basileus Imperator Dominus Well what of all that The Realm of England is an Empire has an Imperial Crown and is as independent upon any Foreign Realm as the Empire of Turkie therefore the Freemen of England are as very Slaves as any are in Turky and under Imperial or Bowstring Law. If that be your Consequence I will give you your whole Life's time to make it good But Edgar stiled himself Basileus Imperator Dominus And Carolus Rex signifies a great deal more than all those three Titles did I am ashamed to see Rolls of Parliament quoted for such poor Trifles for it is plain by all the Remains which we have of the Saxon Times by History by the Saxon Laws by King Alfred's Will in Asser Menevensis and by the Mirrour that the Saxon Kings were far from being absolute Emperors having no other Power than what
for going contrary to my Declaration and Acknowledgment ordered by the Act of Uniformity Wherein I have abhorred that Traitorous Position of taking Arms by the King's Authority against his Person or those that are commissionated by him Upon which he adds It was apparently the Design of the Three Estates in this Act to secure the Nation of such Ministers as would preach up the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction But if it were they are very much disappointed for our Author himself who is as good at Indistinction and Confusion in other Matters as any Man does not preach the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction but handles it with the Subtilty of a Schoolman For he grants p. 280 that one who is sent by the King's Order to assassinate or destroy his Subjects is not commissionated by the King for he may be resisted by the King's Law which is his most authoritative Command But great Numbers or Forces so employed may not be resisted So that his Doctrine is this That if twenty Men come one by one with the King's Order to do an illegal and destructive Act they are not commissionated and may be resisted but if the same Number come together Rank and File with the same Order and upon the same Errand then they are commissionated and may not be resisted Is this preaching up the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction Or rather is it not making a silly Distinction without a difference Again in the same place he has Distinction upon Distinction in these Words The Doctrine of Passive Obedience allows a Man to resist or use the Sword to defend his Life when the Laws from which I except all Laws destructive of the King's Crown and Regality authorize him so to do This is preaching up and preaching down the same Doctrine in the same Breath upon a wicked Supposition that the Laws of the Land which protect the Subject are destructive of the King's Crown and Regality Now on the other hand all faithful Ministers of the Church of England preach Obedience to the Laws and Non-resistance of those who are commissionated by the King without distinction and without deceiving the People to their Destruction and telling them those are commissionated by the King whom the Law declares are not commissionated nor can be commissionated as no Man can be to destroy lawful Subjects Such illegal Commissions are declared by Magna Charta to be null and void and so we ought to account them as you may see by the following Words And for this our Gift and Grant of these Liberties and of others contained in our Charter of Liberties of our Forrest the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Priors Earls Barons Knights Freeholders and other our Subjects have given unto us the fifteenth part of all their Moveables And we have granted to them on the other part that neither we nor our Heirs shall procure or do any thing whereby the Liberties in this Charter contained shall be infringed or broken And if any thing be procured by any Person contrary to the Premises it shall be had of no force or effect So that what St. Paul says of an Idol may be fitly applied to a Commission contrary to Law For we know that an illegal Commission is nothing in the World. And accordingly we find in Acts of Grace that Men who act upon such Commissions do stand in as much need of Pardon as other Men and had the Benefit of the Act of Oblivion in the first place as you may see by the Particulars which are there pardoned First all and all manner of Treasons Misprisions of Treason Murthers Felonies Offences Crimes Contempts and Misdemeanours counselled commanded acted or done since the first of January in the Year of our Lord 1637 by any Person or Persons before the 24 th of June 1660 other than the Persons hereafter by Name excepted in such manner as they are hereafter excepted by virtue or colour of any Command Power Authority Commission or Warrant or Instructions from his late Majesty King Charles or his Majesty that now is or from any other Person or Persons deriving or pretending to derive Authority mediately or immediately of or from both Houses or either House of Parliament or of or from any Convention or Assembly called or reputed or taking on the Name of a Parliament c. be pardoned released indempnified discharged and put in utter Oblivion His fourth and last Principle upon which he builds his false Passive Obedience is a false Pretence of the Sovereign's Honour concerning which he says p. 279. The Laws are more tender of our Sovereign's Honour as he is God's Minister than of his Subjects Lives As if the King's Honour and his good Subjects Lives could ever stand in such a dangerous Competition that one of them must of necessity destroy the other and as if the Laws of England had provided that the Lives of the People of England should be sacrificed to the King's Honour Has our Author been abroad to fetch home pour ma Gloire and to render it into this English He might have had sounder and safer Notions at home out of Judg Jenkins whom he often quotes to no purpose Pag. 134. we have these Words The Gentleman says We do not swear meaning in the Oath of Supremacy that the King is above all Law nor above the Safety of his People Neither do we so swear says Judg Jenkins but his Majesty and we will swear to the contrary and have sworn and have made good and will by God's Grace make good our Oath to the World that the KING is not above the Law nor above the Safety of his People The Law and the Safety of the People are his Safety his Honour and his Strength And accordingly it has been always declared in Parliament to be the Honour and Glory of the Kings of England that they were Kings of Freemen and not of Slaves whereby they have been enabled to do greater Things and to make a larger Figure in the World than Princes of five times their Territories But this Author has pick'd up quite contrary Notions and thinks it a Dishonour to the King if the generous People which he governs be not Slaves to every Parcel of Criminals who against the King's Crown and Dignity shall wickedly destroy them in his Name I have now done with every Thing that looks like an Argument in this Discourse of Passive Obedience for as for the following Chapter there is nothing new in it he only chews the Cud upon his Notions of Sovereignty and rings Changes upon his Imperial and Political Laws And then in the 12 th Chapter after he has bound us hand and foot and prepared us for the Popish Knife he has the Face to tell us That notwithstanding this Doctrine of Non-resistance or Passive Obedience we shall be secure enough of our Lives Properties and Religion under a Popish Successor For after he has given us the Security of God's Care