For he was not set upon in an illegal manner but apprehended by lawful Officers who had a Warrant from the Sanhedrin the supream Court of Judicature the Lords Spiritual and Temporal amongst the Jews and were aided by the Roman Guards for fear of a Rescue or as the Chief Priests and Elders exprest it lest there should be an uproar among the People and in opposition to this Authority St. Peter drew his Sword and wounded Malchus a Servant or Officer of the High-Priest's Mat. 26.51 Dr. Hammond there says He was the chief Officer or Foreman of them that had the Warrant to apprehend our Saviour So that if ever Sword was wrongfully drawn and in Opposition to lawful Authority St. Peter's was and therefore was deservedly charm'd into the Sheath again This being so we cannot admit one Syllable of our Author's Inferences I should now confute his Answers to my five Propositions but every ordinary Reader will be able from what I have already said to do it himself I quoted Bracton to prove that the Prerogative is bounded by Law and made no further use of his words but I should have been ashamed of such an Inference as our Author makes when from these words of his own citing Rex habet Superiorem Deum item Legem per quam factus est Rex item Curiam suam viz. Comites Barones He infers that there is no more Power allowed to the Law then there is to the Earls and Barons who can only morally oblige the King's Conscience when he is perswaded their Counsels are just What their Power is in Bracton I need not say for Bracton is an Author sufficiently known and what it is in the Mirror that very ancient Law-book need not be told the World but any Man may as well infer from this Passage that there is no more Power allowed to God than to the Earls and Barons which absurd Inference is enough to shew the Weakness and Folly of his In the next place he tells me that I have forgot the Service of the Church if I do not constantly thank God for the Example of the Thebaean Legion I do thank God for this that the Service of our Church is purged from such Fopperies and Legendary Stories or else I would never have declared my Assent and Consent to it But when I thank God for the marvellous Confirmation which the seven Sleepers have given us of the last Resurrection I shall then remember to do as much for the Example of the Thebaean Legion For tho I admitted it as a Case to be argued upon as I would any feigned Case of John-a-Nokes and John-a-Stiles and shewed that it was not our Case yet when it is obtruded as matter of Religion and Devotion I must take the boldness to call it a Fable And I have very good reason to believe it to be so when Eusebius the very Father Fox of the Primitive Church who lived in Maximian's Persecution and wrote many Years after has not one word of it nor any of the voluminous Fathers of the fourth Century but Eucherius who lived about a hundred and fourty Years after the thing is said to be done is the first Author who is quoted for it So that Maximian not only cut off this feigned Army of Martyrs but buried them under ground for 140 Years and then they rose up again as the Pied Pipers Children did in a far Country And our Author easily confirms me in the belief that it is a Romance when he here tells us that Eucherius made that brave resolute Speech to the Emperour for many a true word is said by mistake As for our Author's Performance I leave that to the Judgment of the World and so he might have done my Comparison of Popery and Paganism without endeavouring to slur what he cannot answer But tho I have forgiven him all his Abuses of me yet I cannot his reviling the Homilies when he calls what they say against Popery the old Elizabeth-way of railing And I hope all they that have subscribed the Homilies as godly and wholsom Doctrine and fit for these times will never endure them to be run down by pretended Church-of England-Men and Vipers in her Bosom both as unseasonable and ungodly as what is now out of fashion and as what according to them ought never to have been in And thus I have answered what I thought material in this Author and have consulted the Reader 's Ease as well as my own in passing over the rest of his Book of which I must needs say that I never saw so great a number of Falsifications in so small a Volume in my whole Life whereby I perceive that the design of these Men is not in the least the Service of Truth but their business is to impose upon the World to blind and inslave Men at once just as the Philistines did by Sampson they put out his Eyes and then made him grind in a Mill. And therefore the just Suspicions which I otherways have that this Author is a known Papist are not at all removed by his pretending to be of our Church for he that will write an hundred Untruths will certainly write one more AN ANSWER TO JOVIAN Answer to the Preface IT has been the extream Felicity of this Author to give such a pregnant Title to his Book as does alone in effect answer Julian For as we learn from the beginning of this Preface Jovian proves that the Empire was Elective secondly Jovian proves the Christians to have bin quiet and peaceable under Julian thirdly proves the Antiochians Zeal to have been Abusiveness and fourthly proves that Julian's Army in Persia were Christians But how if Jovian proves not any one of these Particulars but directly the contrary For first the Election of Jovian after Constantine's Family was extinct does by no means prove that that Family did not inherit the Empire but it proves the contrary if the Historians say that the Army elected Jovian and on the other side say that the Army and Senate proclaimed and recognized the Sons of Constantine to be the Emperors of the Romans but never talk of their electing them Neither does Procopius prove that Family not to be extinct in Julian For pretended Kindred and much more impudently pretended Kindred is not Kindred An House in Cilicia from which Procopius descended was not the Flavian House no more than a Man who lived all his Life in the quality of an Vnder-Writer or Clerk was a great Man and of the Blood or than a sorry Pen-and-Inkhorn-Fellow as Themistius describes him can be said to make a great Figure in the Times of Constantius and Julian I thought very innocently a Man might be allowed to say That the Line Male of the House of York ended in Richard the Third without telling the World a long impertinent Story of Simnel and Perkin Warbeck but now I see that upon such an occasion unless a Man writes the Memoirs of such Impostors
and Vagabond Landlopers he shall be represented by our Author as an Impostor himself However I regard it the less because I had not more diversion in reading heretofore the Tragi-Comedy of this Impostor than I have now in our Author's management of him To see Julian's Cousin Procopius standing by himself at the bottom of a Genealogy just like a Cipher without Father without Mother and without Descent where the Noble Algernon's Cousin might as well have stood if the Herald had so pleased But after all if this famous Procopius must needs be brought into Play he is clearly on my side For his setting up for Emperor under pretence of being of the Constantine Family is a strong Proof that the Empire was look'd upon as Hereditary as Perkin Warbeck's Imposture did suppose the Kingdom to be so here Neither lastly does the passing by of Varronianus the Infant-Son of Jovian signify any thing when Edgar Atheling was set aside thrice and several other Saxon Princes were put by for their Minority Whereas on the other hand Valentinian being made Emperor at four Years old is a greater Argument that the Empire was Hereditary than the setting aside Ten at that Age is to prove the contrary Secondly Jovian's quiet Behaviour is no proof that Valentinian as much a Confessor as he behaved himself quietly when he struck the Priest nor that all the other Christians behaved themselves quietly under Julian when they did not particularly the generous and zealous Caesareans as St. Gregory calls them who destroyed the Temple of Julian's great Goddess Fortune in his Reign and made her unfortunate in a fortunate Time. For which Julian was enraged at that whole City and gave his own Heathens there a severe Reprimand for not hazarding themselves to defend their Goddess but they durst not for the Christians in that City were too many for them Now on the other hand how if Jovian himself was as generous and as zealous a Christian as any of them For tho he had laid down his Commission and was cashiered for not sacrificing and obeying the Commandment of the wicked King yet Julian in his Expedition for Persia by Necessity of the approaching War had him amongst his Commanders as Socrates's Words are I have been often puzled to imagine what that Necessity should be and have sometimes been inclined to think that Julian stood in need of him for his Conduct to command some part of his Army who indeed for his Abilities was fittest to have commanded in chief But that cannot be for the great Jovian was but a Pike-man in that Expedition and was not entrusted with any Command so much as that of a Sergeant and was no more than a common Foot-Souldier when he was chosen Emperor And therefore Julian could not be without him nor leave him behind him upon some other account and whether that were lest in his absence he should go and live at Caesarea which was close by Nazianzum where old Gregory dwelt or upon what other account I desire to be informed by our Author Thirdly Jovian's being libelled and abused by none but the Heathens of Antioch for making a dishonourable Peace with the Persians which Reproach the Christians always wiped off from him and justly laid it upon Julian's Rashness or for his being a Christian which is undeniably true as Baronius has already proved it in Jovian's Life and as I could further prove if it were worth the while does by no means prove that the Christians of Antioch abused him as well as Julian and consequently would have abused any Body Whereas it is evident both from the Misopogon it self and from the express Testimony of Theodoret that the Instances of the Antiochian Christians Hatred to Julian did proceed purely from the height of their Christianity and their fervent Love to Christ It is too much in reason to tell Men a Story and to find them Ears too but I will do it for once as to this Story of Theodoret. The Words were these That the Antiochians who had received their Christianity from the greatest Pair of Apostles Peter and Paul and had a warm Affection for the Lord and Saviour of all did always abominate Julian who ought never to be remembred you have his own Word for it For for this reason he wrote a Book against them and called them the Beard-haters Now the same Men that derived their Christianity from the chiefest Apostles and had a great Love for our Saviour were the Men that could not endure Julian and against whom for that reason he writ his Misopogon So that according to Theodoret that Book was caused by their Hatred to Julian and their Hatred to Julian was caused by their Love to Christ and their Love to Christ proceeded from their pure and primitive Christianity And let our Author find any new ways of shuffling to call this Zeal Scurrility if he can And fourthly Jovian is so far from proving Julian's Army in Persia to be all Christians or almost all Christians as my divided Answerers say or Christians at all that it is demonstrable from his Election that they were Heathens for he therefore refused the Empire because they were Heathens He refused it at first when he was chosen by the Army in the absence of the Commanders and afterwards when the Commanders had agreed to the Army's Choice and had set him upon a high Stage and given him all the Titles of Majesty calling him Caesar and Augustus still he refused it not fearing the Princes nor Souldiers altering their Minds for the worse but told them plainly I cannot being a Christian as I am take the Government of such Men nor be the Emperor over Julian's Army which is principled in a wicked Religion for such Men being left destitute of God's Providence will become an easy Prey and Sport to our Enemies The Souldiers having heard these Words cried out with one Voice O King let not that Doubt trouble you neither do you decline the Government of us as a wicked Government for you shall reign over Christians and Men bred up in the true Religion For the elder amongst us were bred under Constantine and the rest under Constantius and the Reign of this Man who is now dead has been short and not sufficient to establish Heathenism in the Minds of those that have been seduced Now this is a Demonstration that Julian's Army were profest Heathens for it is Nonsence to say that Jovian who was so well acquainted with the Army and was all along with it in that Expedition did not know what Religion the Army profest Or I would fain know what Danger he was in for declaring against Heathenism in a Christian Army that Theodoret should say This brave Man using his accustomed Boldness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is says our Author p. 105. confessing Christ boldly in the midst of his Enemies in apparent Danger of Torture or Death not fearing the Princes or Armies
this further fetch he reckons with the Christians for Sacrilege and fairly dispatches them by Law. As St. Chrysostom tells us If any one in former times when Godly Kings had the Government had either broken their Altars thrown down their Temples taken away their Oblations or done any such thing he was presently hurried away to the Tribunal and sometimes the innocent were executed when they were barely accused The Innocent that is those that never did the matter of Faâ—t for it is plain that none of them were guilty of Sacrilege What stealing or pilfering of holy things could that be when they publickly destroyed things detestable and devoted to destruction and were armed with Authority so to do But if Julian's Judges were minded to say Ears were Horns who could help it And I doubt not but the Papists when time serves can frame as good an Inditement of Sacriledg against those who have reformed their Idolatrous glass Windows or burnt Crucifixes our Saviour as they term it in Effigie or even the Bawble of Barkin Nay I doubt not but they can make a Riot of Mens going to Church and find away to destroy us by those very Laws which were made for our safeguard and protection St. Chrysostom speaks as if very great numbers of the Christians had Suffered for Sacrilege and by this single passage it will appear with what Infamy they fell and under what Character they stand recorded in History At the same time says the Historian Artemius who had bin Duke or General in Egypt was Beheaded the Alexandrians accusing and loading him with a great heap of horrible Crimes Now Theodoret will tell us what horrible Crimes he was charged with Julian not only stript Artemius of all that he had but also severed his head from his body because when he had his Government in Egypt under Constantius he had broken very many Idols One would have thought by Ammianus's words that Artemius had been some Monster made up of all the seven deadly Sins but it seems the whole business amounts to no more than this that he was a Good Godly Lawful Wicked Prophane Sacrilegious Image-breaker So much for Sacrilege At another time Treason or Rebellion is the Word and then the Christians go to wrack for that Juventinus and Maximus as we have seen before fell under that accusation And it is very plain that those other whom St. Chrysostom mentions in his Homily upon those two Martyrs suffered also for the like Crime When these two Men were in Prison says he the whole City flockt to them notwithstanding the great terrors and threatnings and dangers which hung over their Heads who should come at them or discourse them or have any communication with them But the Fear of God dispelled all those things so that because of them many were made Martyrs for conversing with them despising this present Life We have another instance of this at Gaza where the Governour went the middle way betwixt the times and the Laws though rather inclining towards the Times for having executed a great many Christians he punished but a few of the Heathens They seem to be punished on both sides for the same Crime the partiality and disparity lies in the numbers so that the case is thus The Heathens raise a Riot and commit outrages upon the Christians killing several of them the other poor Christians make what defence they can to save themselves but they had as good not for they shal suffer in great numbers for this Riot and the mouth of the Law shall be stopped with a very few of the Heathens that began it This was the motly Justice of Gaza but when the Case comes to an hearing before Julian he storms and says The Governor ought to be hang'd for punishing any of the Heathens at all for they did but their duty the Galileans were well killed nay the Work was meritorious the Heathens not only righted Themselves but their Gods too Those Christians who in Julian's time fled into Deserts and took up their habitation in the Wilderness as St. Chrysostom assures us several did were certainly in the right for there if they made their escape from a Beast of Prey they were safe for that time and needed not to fear answering for it whereas they that rescued themselves from Julian's Blood-hounds only reserved themselves for a more infamous Death and to be executed as Rebels Just as much Rebels as the former were Church-robbers who were executed indeed by a lawful Governour and in a form of Justice but not according to Law nor to satisfie that but to serve the Times AN ANSWER TO Constantius the Apostate IT would be endless to confute the gross Errors and wilful Mistakes of which this Book is for the most part composed and therefore I shall think it sufficient to shew that the design of the whole is nothing but Fraud and Imposture wherein a Christian Emperour is made an Apostate and worse than he was only to render the Christians that lived under him the more eminently passive Which may be done by shewing these two things First That this Author has not given a true Character of Constantius Nor secondly Of the Fathers that lived under him 1. This Author has not given a true Character of Constantius nor indeed has he taken the way to do it For first He takes a great part of that Character out of Ammianus a bigot Heathen who had a Hero of his own to set off by the shadowing and black Strokes which he bestowed upon Constantius and Jovian Which is much the same as if a Man should write the Life of Queen Elizabeth out of the Memoires of the Jesuits 2. He imputes to Constantius all those Cruelties which were acted during his long Reign by any of the Arians though I am sure he cannot prove that Constantius any way encouraged very many of them For on the other hand when he found his Authority had been abused to mischievous purposes he would never forgive it in his greatest Favourites as I might instance in Macedonius for whom upon such an occasion he had an Aversion ever after Now if you draw together all the ill Humours which are dispersed in a Man's whole Body and make them settle in his Face it will certainly make him look very ugly I grant Constantius had Faults but withall they are not so much to be imputed to any wilfulness in him as to his Weakness which was continually wrought upon by some subtile Arians which were about him to the Disturbance of the Church However take him with all his Faults and still he is a Saint to Julian and so the Fathers make him when they mention both at the same time When they had an Apostate in earnest then Cappa had never done them any wrong and then they wish'd for him again And Theodoret gives a very fair account of him and represents him as a Prince who had a great sense of
Religion giving this for an Instance That he caused his whole Army in one of his Expeditions to receive the Sacrament of Baptism and would not allow any Souldier to stay with him who would not put himself into that good Posture and Preparation for Death 'T is true he dealt hardly with several Orthodox Bishops and opprest them contrary to Law or Equity particularly Athanasius and the other banish'd Bishops and I must grant this to be true for their sakes For otherwise there never was such a sort of Passive Subjects in the World and they would be ten times worse than this Author has made Constantius and even as they are I desire this Gentleman and Mr. Long to take notice that I disclaim them and do by no means propound them as Examples but shall set down their Words as matter of Fact only And with this necessary Proviso that the Sayings of their own Holy Fathers may not be treacherously turn'd upon me as Mr. Long knows one of Sozomen's has been I come to the 2 d Thing That this Author has not given a true Character of the Fathers under Constantius He tells us Pag. 17. The Conduct of all the Fathers that lived under Constantius was such that all the Cruelties which that Apostate Emperour could inflict did not extort the least mis-becoming Expression from them And Pag. 37. All their heavy Grievances did not make them remonstrate to the Decrees of their Emperour they did not make their Pressures just by impatiently submitting to them In short a discovery of the Passive Obedience of these Fathers was the glorious end of his Book as that Obedience he else-where tells us is the glorious End of Religion and had it not been for this Constantius had never been made an Apostate There were about half a dozen Orthodox Bishops who suffered Banishment for I will not reckon Pope Liberius nor Hosius into the number as our Author does because they both subscribed Heresie Of all these there are but three that I know of whose Writings have come down to us and they are St. Hillary Lucifer Calaritanus and Athanasius some of whose Expressions I shall here set down and leave it to our Author to justify that they were not misbecoming I shall begin with St. Hillary who has a little Book intituled Contra Constantium Augustum written in the Emperour's life-time notwithstanding the false Title which is now clap'd upon it for it was written a Year before Constantius's Death as appears by the Book it self wherein he calls Constantius Antichrist tells him He is the cruelest and wickedest of all Men for he was such a Persecutor as deprived those that fell of Pardon and Forgiveness and those that stuck to their Religion of the Honour of Martyrdom But your Father the Devil says St. Hillary taught you this way of persecuting And presently after he accosts him thus Thou ravening Wolf we see thy Sheeps clothing Constantius had said he would have no words used in matters of Faith which were not found in Scripture which made him reject the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but says Hillary I will shew the decietful Subtilty of your Diabolical Contrivance And not long after Know says he that you are an Enemy to God's Religion and to the Memories of Holy Men I suppose he means the Nicene Fathers and are the Rebellious Heir of your Father's Piety If any Man pleases to peruse that Book he will find much more of the same strain together with St. Hillary's Reasons for using such Language after his milder and gentler Writings had done no good for as he thought Silence his Duty before so now as he tells us he thought it his Duty to break Silence and I leave the World to judg whether he does not speak out The next is Lucifer Calaritanus of whom St. Jerome gives this account Lucifer Calaritanus was a Man of wonderful Constancy and of a Mind prepared for Martyrdom he writ a Book against Constantius and sent it him to read and not long after he returned to Calaris in Julian 's Reign and died in Valentinian's There is no one Book of Lucifer which bears that Title but all his little Tracts being directed to Constantius and written against him St. Jerome calls them all one Book and so does Florentius and Lucifer himself whereas Athanasius calls them Books which Variety is usual amongst the Antients as Jerome calls Gregory's two Invectives a Book against Julian Lucifer's Books in defence of Athanasius and his other Tracts have very severe and wounding Expressions in them but the Book De Regibus Apostaticis and the other De non parcendo delinquentibus in Deum tell us before-hand what we are to expect from them and proclaim themselves afar off I shall give the Reader but a taste of them and because Mr. Long says I only weed the Fathers I shall desire him to put those few Books into English which is the best way of convincing the World that I pick out nothing but the worst Thus therefore he speaks to Constantius Emperour when you saw your self worsted on all sides by the Servants of God you said you had suffered and do suffer despiteful Vsage from us contrary to the Admonitions of Holy Scripture c. If ever any one of the Worshippers of God spared Apostates let what you say of us be true And in another place Pray shew but one of the Worshippers of God that ever spared the Adversaries of his Religion And then he reads him his own Doom out of Deut. 13.1 If there rise among you a Prophet or a Dreamer of Dreams saying Let us go after other Gods for the Orthodox always charged the Arians with Idolatry that Prophet or Dreamer of Dreams shall be put to death you see what you are commanded to suffer And again Hear what God has ordained by Moses is to be done with you for perswading me to revolt from God Deut. 13.6 If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother or thy Son c. entice thee secretly saying Let us go and serve other Gods thou shalt surely kill him c. Here it is commanded that you shall be put to death for inviting me to forsake God. He ignorantly says Lucifer uses me contumeliously or will you deny that you have invited us to Idolatry If you think fit to deny it the Expositions of the Bishops of your Sect those Fellow-Blasphemers of yours shall convict you c. Do not you perceive what Darkness of Errour you have run into Do not you see which way you may perish And to avoid Prolixity I will set down but this one passage more Let us see what they did who remembred that none was to be feared but God in the time when your fellow-Tyrant Antiochus was a Persecutor of our Religion but first you are to know what he whom you are like ordained for so you will be able to understand that those Servants of God whom
we desire to be found like did resist Antiochus's Sacrilege even as we by the Grace of God may resist you 1 Maccab. 1.43 to ver 29 of chap. 2. See the place What have you seen done by us like that passage that you are pleased to say Lucifer uses me ill Mattathias kill'd with the Sword not only the King's Officer but him also of his own Nation whom he saw rather obedient to the King's Laws than to God's whereas I for resisting you and your party with words am judged by you to be guilty of Contumelies If you had been in the hands of that same Mattathias who was zealous for God or in the hands of Phinees to whom God bears record by Moses in the Book of Numbers and should have gone about to live after the manner of Heathens without doubt they would have killed you with the Sword I tell you over again they would have slain you with the Sword. And I because I wound with words that Soul of yours which is imbrued with the Blood of Christians am reckoned contumelious Why Emperor do not you revenge your self of me why do not you please to defend your self from ill usage and to be avenged of a beggarly Fellow In short I challenge all the World to shew me such a Book again written by any Man concerning his Sovereign Prince while he was alive much less sent to him for a Present And therefore I do not wonder that Constantius could not believe that he himself sent it tho it were brought in his Name as appears by this Letter of Florentius a great Officer at Court to Lucifer There was one presented a Book in your Name to our Lord and Emperor he has commanded it to be brought to your Sanctity and desires to know whether that Book was sent by you You ought therefore to write the certain Truth and so send back the Book that it may again be offered to his Eternity To which Letter Lucifer returns this Answer These are to inform your Religious Prudence that the Bearer of that Book whom your Honour mentions to have come to the Emperor in my Name was sent by me Athanasius hearing of this Book sent to Constantius desires Lucifer to send him a Copy of it in these words We have advice that your Sanctity has written to Constantius the Emperor and we wonder more and more that living in the midst as it were of Scorpions you notwithstanding use your freedom of mind that by Admonition or Instruction or Correction you may bring those that are in Error to the light of the Truth It is my request therefore and the request of all the Confessors that are with me that you would please to send us a Copy of it that they may all understand the greatness of your Soul and the confidence and boldness of your Faith not only by hearsay but from your own Writings Which accordingly he did send him And now this Book is in good hands for the great Athanasius who has been misled by flying report to think well of it when he comes to examine it and finds it so contrary to the Evangelical Doctrine of Passive Obedience and to the Primitive Practice of nè verbo quidem reluctamur which was not to resist so much as with a word speaking and of so different a stamp from some of his own smooth and soft Sayings to Constantius can do no less then anathematize it or write a Book against it And yet never trust me more if he and all his Confessors do not applaud and magnify it beyond all that I have said of the Homilies We have received your Letter and the Books of your most wise and religious Soul in which we have plainly seen the Picture of an Apostle the Boldness of a Prophet the magistery of Truth the Doctrin of the true Faith c. You truly answer your Name for you have brought the Light of Truth and set it upon a Candlestick that it may give light to all You seem to be the true Temple of our Saviour who dwelling in you speaks these things himself by you Believe me Lucifer you alone did not say these things but the Holy-Ghost with you How came you to remember Scripture at that rate How came you to understand the sence and meaning of it so perfectly if the Holy-Ghost had not assisted you in it Well having gotten such an infallible Interpreter of Scripture as we cannot meet with every day if his Voucher say true let us see what he says concerning that Passage of Titus 3.1 with which Constantius had rubb'd him up for his Behaviour towards him and had said that it was the Office of a Bishop according to St. Paul To put Men in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers to obey Magistrates to be ready to every good Work to speak evil of no Man c. The Apostle says he admonishes us to be subject in good Works not in evil c. I add further That the Apostle spoke of those Princes and Magistrates who as yet had not believed in the only Son of God that they by our Humility and Meekness and suffering long under Adversity and all possible Obedience in things fitting might be won over to Christianity But if you because you are Emperour feigning your self to be one of us shall force us to forsake God and imbrace Idolatry what must we quietly submit to you for fear of seeming to neglect the Apostles Precepts Does not he tell you as plainly as ever Plowden did that the case was alter'd Now suppose this Lucifer had afterwards died in a Ditch as he did not but in his own See and in the Communion of the Catholick Church or suppose he had afterwards been a Schismatick as he was not but only some of his Friends who too far espoused his severe Opinion against re-admitting the Arian Clergy into the Communion of the Church yet this would not have affected his Book especially since the great Athanasius who before now has been ballanced against the whole World has laid his hand upon it and given it his Blessing and made it his own by undertaking so largely for it But as I said before I have no further Use to make of these Fathers Writings which I have here cited than only to shew that they run in quite another strain than the Apologies of the Fathers who lived before the Establishment of Christianity and that they are a compleat Answer to Constantius the Apostate Tho I could name other excellent Uses which might be made of them particularly by those who think themselves concern'd to stuff out their Sermons with Dissenters Sayings For here they might have them in abundance and by Clusters without the trouble of gleaning them in Sermons which were made in the Heat of a flaming unnatural War when bloody things were done as well as said on both sides and here likewise they might have such as might be repeated
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
Notion of Soveraignty which is a Notion indeed any farther than it is supported by the Law of the Land. And therefore if any Man would know for certain what the King's Prerogatives are he must not take his Information from Notions of Sovereignty which are as various as the Faces of the Moon but from the Law of the Land where he shall find them granted or belonging united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Amongst which this is not the least That the King can do no Wrong The King is God's Lieutenant and is not able to do an unjust Thing These are the Words of the Law says Judg Jenkins Consequently he cannot overthrow the Laws nor is he able to authorize any Forces to destroy his Liege Subjects for this would be the highest Wrong and Injustice And therefore Forces so employed act of their own Heads and upon their own wicked Heads let their own Mischief fall And yet our Author is pleased to call such Wretches so employed the Soveraign's Forces and his Armies p. 203 221 against which we must not upon pain of Damnation defend our selves I appeal to all the Lawyers of England whether the Law will own any Number of Men to be authorized by the King in outraging and destroying his Liege People or whether it be not a great Aggravation of their Crime to pretend a Commission from the King to warrant such illegal and destructive Violence But this Author who is resolved to be an Advocate for Bloodshed and Oppression will shelter an Association of Murtherers under his common Laws of Soveraignty and if they ravage and destroy in the King's Name which doubles the Crime will make that their Protection And lastly which is the great Cheat that runs through this whole Discourse to make them irresistible he shrouds and covers them under the Name of the Soveraign For it is plain that in his Answer to my five Propositions p. 204 205. and generally throughout the following Chapters by Sovereign he means such Forces of the Soveraign for he bears me witness p. 221. that I acknowledged even a Popish Soveraign to be inviolable as to his own Person I know that deceiving Men for their Good has heretofore been excused as a pious Fraud but I am sure that such foul Practice as this to ensnare Mens Consciences and to cheat them out of their Lives is an impious Fraud and as such I leave it with the Author of it and pass to the Second Thing His Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws Common Law we know and Statute-Law we know but who are ye I confess I have heretofore seen something not unlike that Distinction in Aesop where there was a Political Law or Compact fairly made betwixt the Lion the Fox and the Ass but while the Ass was proceeding by the Measures of that Law of a sudden the Imperial Lion-Law broke loose and tore him in pieces It concerns us therefore to examine upon what Foundation this dangerous Distinction is built and if it prove to be false and groundless the good People of England have little to thank this Gentleman for Pag. 210. we have these Words Thus the Learned Chancellor Fortescue grants the King of England to have Regal or Imperial Power altho it be under the Restraint and Regulation of the Power Political as to the Exercise thereof That Distinction in the last Clause is false as I shall shew anon From that perverted Passage of Chancellor Fortescue where he speaks of Regal and Politick Dominion I doubt not but our Author or some Body for him framed his new Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws and contrived them into two contradictious Tables by one of which the Subjects Rights and Properties are secured and established and are all overthrown by the other The Lord Chancellor Fortescue is the first English Lawyer that used the Terms of Regal and Politick Government which he owns to have borrowed from Thomas Aquinas in his Book de Regimine Principum dedicated to the King of Cyprus by which Phrase that old Schoolman exprest a mixed and limited Monarchy For any Man that pleases to read those Books will see that Aquinas understands by Regal Government an absolute Monarchy and by Politick Government such Governments as the Common-wealths of Rome and Athens and by Regal and Politick a King ruling by a Senate and prescribed Rules of Law. And that Chancellor Fortescue in his Dialogue with the Prince of Wales makes no other use of the Phrase than Thomas Aquinas did will sufficiently appear by setting down his Discourse at large wherein I desire the Reader 's Patience because I intend it as a Specimen of this Answerer's Faithfulness in quoting his Authors In which Discourse that great Lawyer sometimes calls this Government Regal and Politick sometimes a Politick Kingdom but what he means by it is best exprest in his own Words Chap. 9. You stand in doubt most worthy Prince whether it be better for you to give your Mind to the Study of the Laws of England or of the Civil Laws because they throughout the whole World are advanced in Glory and Renown above all other Humane Laws Let not this Scruple of Mind trouble you most noble Prince for the King of England cannot alter nor change the Laws of his Realm at his pleasure For why he governeth his People by Power not only Royal but also Politick If his Power over them were Royal only then he might change the Laws of his Realm and charge his Subjects with Tallage and other Burdens without their consent and such is the Dominion which the Civil Laws purport when they say The Prince's Pleasure hath the Force of a Law. But from this much differeth the Power of a King whose Government over his People is Politick For he can neither change the Laws without the consent of his Subjects nor yet charge them with strange Impositions against their Wills. Wherefore his People do frankly and freely enjoy their own Goods being ruled by such Laws as they themselves desire neither are they pilled by their own King or by any Body else Like Pleasure also and Freedom have the Subjects of a King ruling by Power Royal only so long as he falleth not into Tyranny Of such a King speaketh Aristotle in the 3 d Book of his Politicks saying That it is better for a City to be governed by a good King than by a good Law. But forasmuch as a King is not ever such a Man therefore St. Thomas in the Book which he wrote to the King of Cyprus of the Governance of Princes wisheth the State of a Realm to be such that it may not be in the King's Power at pleasure to oppress his People with Tyranny which Thing is accomplished only when the Power Royal is restrained by a Politick Law. Rejoyce therefore most worthy Prince and be glad that the Law of the Realm wherein you are to succeed is such for it shall exhibit and minister to