Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n
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A44455
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Animadversions on Mr Johnson's answer to Jovian in three letters to a country-friend.
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Hopkins, William, 1647-1700.
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1691
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Wing H2753; ESTC R20836
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74,029
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140
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at least shew this in our Law-Books he hath no right to call Mr. Dean a Proteus of Passive Obedience or reproach him as not consistent with himself It is no Contradiction to allow Subjects the Liberty of Private Resistance when illegal Violence is offerred to them and yet to deny them Power to raise Forces and to wage a Defensive War against those who as Mr. I. maliciously supposeth will murther in Troops I hope he will not be so hardy as to say that a single Captain can be made or that one private Souldier can be listed according to our Laws without Their Majesties Commission or that in their Realms and Dominions and besides Their Majesties is vested with Legal Authority to grant Commissions to levy Forces Tho' the Laws secure mens Lives and Properties against Arbitrary Power yet they do it not by giving Subjects the Power of the Sword By this you may see Sir how mean Judges your Neighbours are who discern not how gross a Fallacy Mr. I. puts upon them when he insinuates that his Adversary is so sensless as to allow That 't is lawful to resist a single Cut-throat and yet makes it a damnable sin to resist Cut-throats as also to hold that the Sovereign can Authorize Forces and great Numbers tho' he cannot single Persons to do Acts of illegal Violence Sir you know the Author of Iovian is as far as Mr. Iohnson himself from believing that Numbers are Sacred or can Legitimate Oppression or that the Sovereign can give a Valid Commission to his Forces to outrage or Murther his Liege People and render them unaccountable for such Acts of Violence He no where denieth Subjects the Liberty of making a Legal Defence against any number of Thieves and Cut-Throats how great soever and by whomsoever Commissioned Nor doth he in the least insinuate that the damnableness of resisting lies in that they are Forces But he makes it to consist in raising Forces without lawful Authority to resist with and in defending themselves in such a manner as casts off Subjection and is a manifest and dangerous Usurpation upon the Legal Rights of an English Sovereign He makes that Law the measure of the Subjects Power as well as of the Kings and this it seems is his great Crime If Subjects be allowed to defend themselves at discretion the King must hold his Crown but during pleasure Some of Mr. Iohnson's Friends will complain that their Throats are in danger and will never think them safe till they have the King's Throat in their Power They have made so good advantage formerly of what he calls Legal Defence against the Vnauthoriz'd Illegal Violence of Subjects that I do not wonder that they would fain be at the same Trade again But I cannot forget that they held the King's Person as Sacred as Mr. Iohnson doth and were as clamorous Zealots for Religion and Property who notwithstanding brought their Majesties Royal Grand-Father to the Block subverted the Ancient and Excellent Constitution of this Noble Realm both in Church and State and enslaved the whole Nation Neither you nor I can have while to entertain our selves with so diverting a Spectacle as Mr. Iohnson's Triumphs over an Adversary of Straw of his own making and therefore leaving him for some time at that Sport by himself bateing a few strictures here and there I shall say little till I meet him p. 201. Among several things worthy of Censure the first I shall note is the rude treatment of a very Eminent Protestant Writer where having impertinently cited two passages out of Bracton and K. Edwards Laws for they contradict nothing in Iovian he concludes in these words These I hope are better Authorities in this matter than Sam. Bochart our Author's French Oracles c. Certainly Mr. I. is the first man who ever mention'd that great Name without some Addition of Respect not to say with scorn and contempt And that Epistle which he so much vilifies hath ever been in great Esteem with all sorts of men It is in effect an Apologetick Declaration of the whole Protestant French-Church professing their just abhorrence of the great Rebellion which ended in the most execrable Murther of the King In a word the Memory of Mr. Bochart will ever be precious whilst the world pretends to retain any degree of Honour for eminent Piety and Learning In the next page he chargeth Mr. Dean with attributing to the Sovereign the whole Legislative Power and by his answer it is plain he accuseth him of giving the Kings of England that vast Power I marvel how Mr. I. hath disposed of his Conscience if he ever had any or with what face he can obtrude so gross a slander It is very evident that no such thing can be intended in the place he refers to For 1. Mr. Dean is speaking of All proper and compleat Sovereigns as well States as Monarchs and not in particular of our Kings 2. He doth not ascribe to such Sovereigns the Whole Legislative Power The word Whole is added by Mr. I. who could not otherwise have found any thing to cavil at 3. In those words which respect an English Sovereign he ascribes no more to him than the influence of a principal Efficient viz. to give our Laws their last form to give life and soul to Bills prepared by others And who dares deny that the Royal Assent gives those Bills which pass both Houses the Name Essence and Authority of Laws and that they are as Iovian speaks but a dead Letter without it How honestly Mr. I. calls this giving the Sovereign the whole Legislative Power I need not observe for you P. 171. Mr. I. will needs have Iovian to have founded his distinction of Imperial and Political Laws upon a perverted passage of Fortescue who distinguisheth Dominion into Imperial and Political and mixt of both But if he would have pleas'd to consider the Book he pretends to Answer he might easily have observ'd it that his Adversary fram'd that distinction upon quite another ground and useth the Terms in a sense far different For as our most eminent Lawyers and the Laws themselves call this Realm an Empire and the Crown an Imperial Crown and the King an Imperial Sovereign that is as Sir Orlando Bridgman and Mr. Dean both expound the Term a Free Independent and Vnconditional Sovereign so the Laws which secure the Rights of the Sovereign are aptly by him call'd Imperial Laws And Arch-Bishop Cranmer cited in Iovian useth the Term tho' not precisely in this sense to signify those Laws of the Realm which secure the Royal Prerogative against the Usurpations of the Pope But neither Mr. Dean nor Sir O. Bridgman ever intended hereby to give the King Imperial Power i. e. Absolute and Arbitrary Power but both declare the contrary I will cite the words of the latter It is one thing to have an Imperial Crown and another to govern absolutely What is an Imperial Crown It is that which
Church would readily set aside twenty such Titles as Iulian's to secure their Religion His pretence that Iulian's illegal Oppression of the Christians was the cause of that rough treatment they gave him together with his Insinuation that nothing but their Weakness kept them from taking up Arms against that Apostate to do themselves Right Mr. Dean hath confuted by more arguments than Mr. Iohnson thinks fit to take notice of And that one at which he nibbles is quite too hard for his Teeth Iovian saith Iulian did persecute Legally because all the Emperors Orders and Decrees how unjust soever were Legal He was an Absolute Sovereign who govern'd by purely Regal Power and whose Pleasure howsoever signifi'd whether by Letter or word of Mouth was a Law This is made out abundantly out of the best Authors both Historians and Lawyers and 't is a miserable shift to despise all these Citations as shreds of Civil Law not worthy the least consideration If these Citations are misapplied why doth he not shew it at least in one or two Instances Verily his Readers are too kind if they take his word for it and if any be so rude as to demand better satisfaction Mr. Iohnson is resolv'd to be even with them for their Curiosity They must go many a weary step on his Errand who will trot all the Town over from Shop to Shop till they meet with Gothofred's Vlpian But I confess it was done like one who is his Craft's-Master to refer them to a Book which scarce one in a thousand is ever likely to see But this one Argument is by no means the Substance of what Mr. Dean offers against this new Hypothesis That illegal Oppression and Tyranny was the cause of the Christians rough behaviour towards Julian For he sheweth that other Emperors some of them Christians too were treated as coursely as Iulian particularly Constantius by Hilary Athanasius and Lucifer from whom Mr. Iohnson cites several such passages in his Answer to Constantius the Apostate as are far ruder than any thing in the Third Chapter of his Iulian. So that the Phaenomenon he would solve by this Hyâ—othesis is not Real Fact but a mere Fiction The Christians were not more rough in their behaviour towards Iulian than elder Christians had been towards several of his Predecessors not only Pagan but also Christian Princes Again He shews that Iulian had the malice of a Devil against our Saviour and his Religion in which he persisted against the plain Evidence of Miracles and in spite of many remarkable Judgments of God upon his Uncle and other blasphemers of Christ and persecutors of his Church So that the Christians might reasonably conclude him Irrecoverable and past Repentance and treat him the more severely on that account nay believing him so they might possibly pray for his destruction as the only probable means of the Churches deliverance and yet it followeth not that they would have lifted up their hand against him or been the Instruments of that destruction they prayed for Again he proves if Iulian were guilty of Illegal Oppression and Tyranny so were other Persecuting Emperours before him particularly Galerius so that there was nothing singular in the case of Iulian's Christians nor can he infer from their Example that Illegal Oppression will warrant Subjects to take Arms against their Lawful Prince to do themselves Right In the next Page we find Mr. I. in a very peevish humour quarrelling with Iovian for what he himself said in effect over and over 'T is only the Phrase moves his Choler viz. the main ground of their displeasure was that he did not formally persecute them nor put them to Death enough Mr. Dean explains himself sufficiently the Christians desired rather to be persecuted in the old Decian and Dioclesian way i. e. to have Their Religion made their Crime and Death their Punishment This the Authours referred to in the Margin plainly evince and the instances of Iuventinus and Maximus and Romanus and his fellow Souldiers shew that some under Iulian were as ambitious of the Crown of Martyrdom as the Elder Christians who sought it by voluntary Confession and provoked their Pagan Rulers to persecute them with the utmost Cruelty Mr. I. it seems thinks them too free of their Passive Throats and if they were so fond of Martyrdom they might even as well have hang'd and drown'd themselves and saved their Persecutors the trouble I know not what he can mean else by reviving the Sarcasm of a Pagan Bloody Persecutor Arrius Antoninus who thus reproached voluntary Confession with the desire of Martyrdom Were there no Halters or Precipices in the Roman Empire P. 161. Mr. I. buckles closer to his work and pretends accurately to state the Case of Passive Obedience and saith he and Iovian are perfectly agreed 1. That the King's Person is sacred and Inviolable 2. That Inferiour Magistracy acting by the King's Authority according to Law may not be resisted I am glad to see that the peevish humour hath somewhat spent it self and that he can agree with his Adversary in any thing I presume when he saith that the King's Person is Sacred and Inviolable he means by those fine words he may not be resisted and if so it may deserve considering how well he agrees with himself For in his former Book he quoted a shrewd saying of a worthy Person That one single Arm unresisted may go a great way in massacring a Nation Every one knows whose single Arm is meant and no Man who praises that saying can agree that the King's Person may not be resisted How fairly he states the difference between himself and Iovian I have in some measure shewn already Impartial Readers though but of an ordinary Capacity who will be at the pains to compare the Book with this Answer may observe without my help that a great part thereof is employed in confuting his own slanderous Fictions For where doth Iovian assert any of the things imposed upon him as that by the Imperial Laws a Popish Prince may send Forces to murther his Liege People That a Soveraign can Authorize his Forces to do any Act of Illegal Violence Where doth he give the King Boundless Power Or the whole Legislative Power I am sure Mr. I. can shew no such Assertions in the Book he pretends to Answer And therefore how unconscionably doth he abuse both his Adversary and his Reader for almost forty pages together And how impertinently doth he swagger with Citations out of Bracton the Miroir Fortescue Judge Ienkins and King Charles the First of Blessed Memory to disprove what Iovian no where affirms It would indeed have signified something could he have produced but one clear Passage out of all those Authours in which any of them declares it lawful for Subjects to raise but a single Regiment or Troop to resist Forces legally Commissioned even in illegal and uncommissionated Acts of Violence And till he can