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A65419 A vindication of the present great revolution in England in five letters pass'd betwixt James Welwood, M.D. and Mr. John March, Vicar of Newcastle upon Tyne : occasion'd by a sermon preach'd by him on January 30. 1688/9 ... Welwood, James, 1652-1727.; March, John, 1640-1692.; Welwood, James, 1652-1727. 1689 (1689) Wing W1310; ESTC R691 40,072 42

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Burnet to be Author of that Pamphlet whether you will or not and in so doing you say I derogate from his Credit since he subscrib'd the Book of Homilies and has asserted Passive Obedience A strange shuffle indeed and of a piece with the rest of your Letter I never so much as insinuated any such thing and whether it be his or not I know not But sure I am all your Hearers thought and I have evinced it as much as the matter can bear That in the scurrilous Epithets you gave the Author of that Pamphet as you call it you design'd Dr. Burnet and this you wisely pass over without an Answer I was willing to think you were now asham'd of these Expressions but the whole Tenor of your Letter forbids me to think that blushing is your greatest fault It were a piece of odd presumption to suppose that Great Man needed any Mans Vindication especially mine And sure I am in his subscribing the Homilies and asserting Passive Obedience he sufficiently understood the sense of the Words and his Reason and Learning is too great to have been cheated into your Notion of them But you know the Sun loses none of his Rays by being barkt at In your second Paragraph I find nothing but a Repetition of the Homilies yet once more to prove Passive Obedience a Principle of the Church of Englands and this requires no other Answer but what I have already given you in stating the Question and clearing the sense of the Words You begin your third Paragraph with another shuffle in making me call Passive Obedience the darling Principle of the Church of England than which nothing was farther from my thoughts and to call it yours meaning Mr. Vicars was not in my Opinion to father it upon the Church of England Then you tell me I am forc'd to own That the Government of the Empire is so far different from that of England that what would be Rebellion here would be but a legal Defence there This requires indeed a considerable Talent of Confidence for I acknowledge no such thing Yea upon the contrary I asserted That the Bulla Aurea of the Empire and the Coronation Oath in England were so far parallel that they were both Barriers against the Incroachments of the Sovereign One would have thought that instead of mis-citing my Expressions a Man of your Character would rather have endeavoured to give a fair Answer by evincing That the Bulla Aurea warrants Resistance and the Coronation Oath disallows it You are as unjust to Sleidan as to me for the Duke of Saxony is mentioned by him to use no such Expressions as these you mentioned but instead of saying The Emperor was not a proper Sovereign his words are He is not an absolute and despotick Monarch and so may be resisted When you aver That Luther at first understood not the Government of the Empire when he was for Resistance I cannot but regret his misfortune in the want of your acquaintance seeing he might have been better instructed by you at Newcastle than either by his Reading or Converse with the Greatest Men upon the place And I have as little reason to believe his Ignorance on that Head as his recanting his Opinion for both are equally true As to what you say of Calvin and Melancthon's being for Passive Obedience if I had their Works besides me as I have not I could evince the contrary from their Writings But who knows not that the first did vindicate the Genevans their throwing off the Jurisdiction both of the Bishop of Geneva and Duke of Savoy whereof one of them behov'd to be their Soveraign and the last did allow of the Famous Smalcalde League against Charles V. Next you are so kind as to instruct me a little of the power of the Ephori whereof you suppose I am utterly ignorant I cannot in good manners but thank you for this condescendance And yet it 's somewhat strange how you come to have so intuitive acknowledge of me as without search to find me ignorant of what ev'ry School Boy may know I never dream'd that Keckerman Aristotle or Plutarchs works were so rare in Scotland as you insinuate perhaps the Books we have under these Names are spurious and you by a vast charge of enquiry have found out the Genuine ones that have not yet come our length I am hopeful your charity will oblige you to bestow one true Copy of these great Mens Works upon a whole Nation you have so great a kindness for And yet Sir if what we have of Plutarch be true you are as ignorant of the Spartan Kings as I of the Ephori for if you will consult his Lives of Agesilaus Agis and Lysander you may find that albeit Lycurgus found the Government lodged in two Kings and left it so yet both before his time and afterwards the Spartans were ruled but by one King and particularly from Archidamus to Agis the last of the Heraclidae including six Kings one after another Thereafter you are pleased very obligingly to accuse me of a downright Lye in saying Grotius allows of Resistance and yet with the same breath you confess he dropt in his younger years some unmeet expressions and unsound arguments in his Book de Iure Belli Pacis which afterwards you confidently affirm he retracted I can hardly be perswaded to take with a Lye in saying Grotius allows of Resistance since in my second Letter I gave you his own words for it and you your self acknowledge he did so But I am fully convinc'd you are guilty of a thing called a mistake in saying he retracted his Opinion for Bleaw's Edition of that Book with the addition of Notes written by himself a little before his death as the very title bears not only repeats all he had formerly said upon that Head but confirms it with new Additions to which I refer you Your Reflection upon Gillespy I am willing to impute to your love to his Country and yet I perswade my self it will meet with no better name among the most of Men than that of a groundless calumny In your fourth Paragraph you would fain fix upon me a contradiction in first asserting Passive Obedience to be the darling Principle of the Church of England and then denying it Certainly this is to try how far you can push forward an untruth without lying I did indeed call Passive Obedience your darling meaning Mr. Iohn Marches but that it 's the Principle of the Church of England I have evinc'd the contrary The next time I have occasion to name any thing that belongs to you I find I must play the Quaker and use the word Thine otherwise you will Father it upon the whole Church Next with the same ingenuity you say I confessed the Government of Holland to be so far different from that of England that what were Lawful Resistance there would be Rebellion here I need not tell you I said no such thing upon the contrary I
but this was too hot for your Fingers and therefore you thought fit to drop it Secondly In your Second Paragraph I find nothing material for having referr'd you to the Homilies of our Church for Scripture Proofs of Passive Obedience you are it seems afraid to look into that excellent Book lest you should be found guilty of a Scandalum Ecclesiae and in truth I must commend your Wisdom for its much safer writing against a private Minister than against so glorious a Church but believe it you must not expect to go Scot-free since I have now prov'd the Doctrin of Passive Obedience in my narrow sense as you call it very improperly seeing it is the largest sense any takes it in to be the Doctrin of the Church of England Thirdly You say that I am unwilling the Protestants abroad should share with the Church of England in her darling Doctrin of Passive Obedience which is a Story as true as many you use to tell in the Coffee-house for if you look into the third Paragraph of my former Letter you 'll find me reproving your Learned Ignorance for abusing several of those great Names you mention such as Luther Melancthon Calvin Grotius and others whom you represent as Patrons of Resistance which is but another name for Rebellion You are now forc'd to own That the Government of the Empire differs so far from ours in England that what would be unlawful Resistance here would be but a legal Defence there and this alone is sufficient to vindicate most of those Foreign Divines you mention But because you are very hard to please I shall add further out of Sleidans Comment Lib. XVII where he tells us That the Elector of Saxony who was the chief Person engaged in the German Wars against Charles the Fifth did openly declare That if the said Charles was own'd to be a proper Sovereign with respect to the Princes of the Empire it must then be granted That it was not lawful to wage War with him I hope you will not be so injurious to the Prince of Orange as to affirm That he is no Sovereign Prince because he is proclaimed King of England Luther indeed at first was ignorant as you were of the Constitution of the Empire and therefore was altogether for resisting Charles the Fifth but afterwards he was better inform'd by Learned Lawyers as Sleidan and Melchar Adam Report Melancthon you 'll find Orthodox in this matter if you consult his Loc. Com. de Vindicat. Magistrat Indeed some have thought Calvin as you do a favourer of resisting Sovereign Princes because Lib. 4. Institut he has this Passage Si qui nunc sint populares Magistratus ad moderandum Regum libidinem constituti quales olim erant qui Lacaedemoniis Regibus oppositi erant Ephori If saith he there be any such Magistrates as the Ephori were among the Lacaedemonians they may oppose and resist Kings but in other cases he denies it Now because you are ignorant of the Power of the Ephori among the Spartans and that their two Kings were not proper Sovereigns but the one Admiral by Sea and the other Generalissimo of Land Forces I shall for your better instruction remit you to Arist. Polit. Lib. 2. Plutarch in Pausan or Keckerman de Repub. Spart a Book perhaps more easie to be got in Scotland You are pleas'd to triumph because Grotius as you say is of your Opinion and tell me He is not inferiour to me either for Learning or Judgment It 's well that you can speak a little truth at any time but whether it be your gross Ignorance or the liberty Travellers use to take it s very seldom that you speak all the Truth for the Learned Grotius though in his Book de Iure Belli pacis and in another written in his Younger Time he did drop some unmeet Expressions and unfound Arguments yet when he had weighed Matters better he retracted his former Opinions and in his last Works is as much for Non-Resistance as I was in my Sermon For proof of this Vid. Anot. on Rom. 13. Mat. 26.52 Vot pro pace where he approves of the Proceedings of the University of Oxford about Paraeus on the Romans and allows of this their Determination viz. That Subjects ought by no means to resist their King by force nor ought they to take either offensive or defensive Arms against the King for the cause of Religion or any other thing whatsoever But you no doubt will despise the Determination of our famous University though applauded by your own Grotius and imitate your Country-man Gillispie who in scorn called Prayers and Tears Oxford Divinity By these few instances it will I hope be evident to all unprejudic'd Persons how much you have abus'd these great Names Luther Melancthon Calvin and Grotius Fourthly In the next place you have the confidence to tell me That the Church of England is for the Principle of Resistance and that the Homilies cannot be for Passive Obedience Now this is not only to contradict me but also to contradict your self having in your former Paragraph call'd it the darling Doctrin of our Church You might have receiv'd full satisfaction in this matter had you according to my Advice consulted the Book of Homilies but instead of doing this and to have an opportunity to shew your great Talent of wrangling you labour to evince your impudent Assertion by these impertinent Arguments First Because Queen Elizabeth protected the Hollanders in the Revolt from Spain but this I have answer'd in my former Letter and obliged you to acknowledge That the Government of the Netherlands was vastly different from this of England so that theirs was not properly Resistance but a warrantable Defence This I say you were told before and own'd the matter and yet think fit to serve up your twice sodden Coleworts that you may seem to say something Secondly You tell me as a great Secret That the Convocation of the Clergy of England gave vast Sums towards the Protection of the Hollanders and the Preamble of every Act insinuates the lawfulness of their Resisting the King of Spain This is a Secret with a Witness for I dare be bold to say That the Learnedst Lawyer in England never heard of an Act of Parliament for Mony made by a Convocation But suppose the Bishops or any of the Clergy did contribute such vast Sums it will not prove That our Church did not own Passive Obedience in Queen Elizabeths time as you assert But pray Sir were not the Homilies in her time And that the Fathers of our Church did then take them in the same sense as I did in my Sermon will appear beyond all contradiction from the Testimonies of Bishop Bilson and Iewell I begin with Bishop Bilson who speaks thus in his Book of Christian Subjection Deliverance if you would have it obtain it by Prayer and expect it in Peace These be the Weapons for Christians the Subjects have no Refuge against their