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A57226
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Providence and precept, or, The case of doing evil that good may come of it stated and resolved according to Scripture, reason, and the (primitive) practice of the Church of England : with a more particular respect to a late case of allegiance &c. and its vindication in a letter to the author.
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Richardson, Mr.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing R1377; ESTC R24095
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23,343
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36
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Practice and your new Notions of Allegiance let the World judge 'T is easie to draw divers other Inferences altogether as useful for the Enemies of our Israel as these two I have already named but they would swell this Letter beyond its intended Bounds And therefore I will haste towards a Conclusion for by this time I presume Acts 26.27 I may ask you St. Paul's Question to King Agrippa Believest thou the Prophets I know that thou believest c. Yet your Case of Allegiance c. would almost persuade a good Christian to doubt it for your prevaricating according to the different Cases which at different times happens to fall in your eye gives cause for a just suspition And your two last Books has made it too evident that you do not as to what you have formerly told us believe your self which must consequently create in us poor Laymen melancholy Considerations in that we must venture our very Souls upon the Judgment and Integrity of such Priests who are as variable as the Weathercocks on the Steeples of the Churches they preach in For it is not many Years ago that not only your self but the whole University of Oxford rejected such Doctrines as your Case c. is founded on witness the Judgment and Decree that past in their Convocation July 1. 1683. against certain Books and damnable Doctrines as they were pleased to call them consisting in all of 27 Propositions the 10th of which I will give you in the very words c. because they are the same on which the whole stress of your Case relies on and I wonder you did not place it amongst your own The 10th Proposition c. runs thus Possession and Strength gives a Right to Govern Success in a Cause or Enterprize proclaims it to be Lawful and Just To justifie it is to comply with the Will of God because it is to follow the Conduct of this Providence * Hebbs Owen's Sermon before the Regicideâ— Jan. 3â— 1648. Baxter Jenkins's Petition Oct. 1651 So you see you do but bring up the Rear to all these famous Heroes who have march'd before you fighting the good Fight of Faith in the Good Old Cause some of which have not as yet finished their Course and so are still but in expectation of their future Reward but what that may be is no great matter For if they grow Rich and fill their Bags with Crowns here they will trust to Providence for hereafter And filling of Bags you know is such an Epidemical Distemper that there are few but what are Infected with it And Judas himself possibly had never coveted to have been one of the Twelve but for the sake of carrying the Bag and rather than not have it full for a Sum betray'd his Lord and Master And it is too plain we all the Priests not excepted do much more mind the things that belong to our Profit and Preferment here Luk. 16.8 than our Peace hereafter And our Saviour has told us The Children of this World are in their Generation wiser than the Children of Light But it is such a sort of Wisdom which will turn but to a slender Account at last and therefore as our Lord elsewhere says Mat. 16.26 What will it profit a Man to gain the whole World and lose his own Soul c But that is not much minded in our days We may observe from the Universal Degeneracy of the Age we live in that Truth and Justice Religion and Loyalty are fled from amongst us 1 Kings 22.23 and that Almighty God for our Sins has as he once did permitted a lying spirit to go forth and possess our Prophets so that they prophesie falsely and we love to have it so c. which strengthens the Argument of Heaven's permissive Will And that those Texts cannot without abdicating our Understandings be understood in your Sense of Providence and Success giving a Right which is the chief Basis on which your new Fabrick stands but how long it will Time and the next change of Stars if ever there be any will best demonstrate And truly should there be as many in your Time as hapned in the Life of the Famous Vicar of Bray the Scheme is so nicely drawn and your Case so exactly calculated to the purpose that you may without Doubt or Scruple swear Faith and Allegiance to them all nay though they were all Competitors at the same time And as they happen to be uppermost you have as you say God's Authority for so doing So that you are now Thanks to Providence pretty safe For should our Metropolis be in as much danger by the French which God forbid as Vienna was not long since by the Turks you no doubt would like a good Christian patiently submit and pay both a chearful and active Obedience from your Notion of Providence judging it the Lord 's doing though it appear never so marvellous in our eyes For indeed Passive Obedience and Nonresistance were never more necessary as now in your Case c. And yet after all I cannot but be amazed to see two such Cases as your Resistance and Allegiance come from one and the same I will not say Heart but Hand without blushing for the matter But though you do not I am apt to believe there are some and of your own Function too that do for you not so much for your taking the Oaths c. as no doubt a great many good Men may but for your giving such Reasons as reflect upon the Honour and Reputation of the Church of England and possibly may make many of Her weak Sons believe that She now owns the same pernicious Doctrines that her Clergy have been preaching and writing against ever since the Reformation and strictly forbidding their Hearers the practising under no less Penalty than Damnation But I find the Case as well as the Times are altered For then was then and now is now But to draw towards a Conclusion I hope your Christian temper will lead you to a favourable Construction of this Letter which I 'll assure you was not as I said in the beginning design'd to reflect on Persons or Things but only to expose as well as I could pernicious Principles which would if universally receiv'd quickly throw us from St. Paul's state of Grace to Hobbs's of Nature And what Advantage that would be to preserve Civil Societies let the World judge 'T is true you say God is not confined to humane Laws but at the same time 't is reasonable to suppose though he be not you and I and all Mankind are and the acting or doing any thing against humane Laws especially such which do not contradict his is the same thing as breaking of God's Laws And no doubt the doing so is a Resisting the Higher Power and they that Resist shall as you say receive to themselves Damnation And if so What is Sawce for a Goose is Sawce for a Gander And I know
PROVIDENCE and PRECEPT OR THE CASE OF Doing Evil that Good may come of it STATED and RESOLVED According to Scripture Reason and the Primitive Practice OF THE CHURCH of ENGLAND With a more particular Respect to a Late Case of Allegiance c. and its Vindication In a Letter to the Author The Second Edition And the Lord said unto him Wherewith and he said I will go forth and I will be a lying Spirit in the Mouth of all his Prophets 2 Kings 22.22 A wonderful and horrible Thing is committed in the Land The Prophets prophesie falsly and the Priests bear rule by this means and my People love to have it so and what will ye do in the end thereof Jer. 5.30 31. London Printed in the Year 1691. SIR I Have at last by the help of a good Friend my Circumstances being such I could not purchase them perused your Case of Allegiance c. and its Vindication And finding them both of a Piece I shall not go about to divide what you have so Providentially joyned And therefore it will be needless to speak to the latter by reason it stands only upon the Foundation of your former the Removal of which will be like Sampson's pulling down the Pillars or main Prop so that consequently the whole Fabrick must fall to the Ground But before I enter the Field against such a mighty Champion and brave Challenger that is Armed Cap-a-pe and Charges as it were in Armour I will for some Reasons let you know what I am by telling you what I am not and also the Reason of this my bold Undertaking As to the first know then that I am neither Lawyer Divine nor Physician Scholar or Pretender to Letters and so you need not fear my troubling you with hard Words or philosophical Distinctions with the latter of which your Case c. is pretty well furnished but I presume that was only to let the World see how nicely you could split a Hair or like a good Lawyer for his Client make the best of a bad Cause which in them is tolerable if not commendable But in a Grave Learned Divine it looks methinks as odd as a Protestant Priest preaching up a Mahometan Doctrine in opposition to Christian Precept Pray mistake me not as if nothing was intended by this Letter but a little Railery for you shall find when I come to serious Things I can talk seriously of them and my Designs are honest and fair and therefore will as much as in me lies endeavour to give no Offence by confining my Discourse to Generals without concerning my self with any Particulars For my aim is not to expose bad Men but ill Principles which I am sure are destructive to all Civil Governments in the World And in Prosecution of which I will at your own Game for nothing but Diamonds cut Diamonds play you Text against Text and then leave your self or any other Providential Divine to judge of the matter I consess you have according to your own stating the Case taken a great deal of Pains in transferring an Allegiance from a Legal and Rightful King to a Providential one or in your own Phrase from the Person who hath still a Legal Right and Pag. 26. as you say he may recover it if he can to another whom your self owns for there cannot be two Legal Rights at one and the same time hath no such Title and all by a nice Distinction Pag. 16. Though the Man is in Being still the King is gone which Learned Distinction I presume you took from the Measures that was taken in Forty one by Reason 't is so agreeable with that Rebel Notion which our Law condemns of taking up Arms against the King's Person to defend his Authority which Republican Notion I am sure can never be serviceable to the present nor any thorough Settlement whatever And I am confident you did not meet with any such Doctrine in Bishop Overal's Convocation Book Which happy Book if you had not Providentially met with the Church as well as the State had as to that Point lost a great Champion and poor distressed Subjects the Advantage of knowing their Duties to the Supreme Authority when ever a Civil Government is changed by Peoples following the conduct of your Providence contrary to Precept But it may be objected Why should I concern my self with Things so much out of my way Or as the saying is A Cobler should not go beyond his Last To which I answr A Stander by may as often it happens see more than a Gamester and so it commonly appears when as opportunity serves he discovers the Mistake Besides though I am but poor in Purse yet I am rich in Faith and inclinable to believe with some old Philosophers I have heard talk of my Soul may not be inferior to other Bodies let them shine never so Gay or Glittering And as you use to tell us God is not a Respecter of Persons which is a good Argument for me and every good Christian to set a value upon his Soul let his Body be never so poor and contemptible And that is one Reason of my Enquiry into the Reasons you have given the World both for your conforming and non-conforming to the present c. For you like the Children of Israel did halt along time between two Opinions and I am apt to believe had not you met with Something besides the Convocation Book you had as you tell us perhaps stuck till this time where you did stick for stick you did till Mr. Dr. Sherlock's Preâ— Jenkins kind hand more than the Bishop's Convocation Book as I shall shew you by and by relieved and haled you out of the Mire and set you safe upon dry Land on which you now stand as firm as a Rock But before I enter upon the Premises I will give you a second Reason which is indeed the chief for my so doing viz. I having prov'd my Soul of as Noble an Extract as your own and that the Eternal Peace and Welfare of it depends upon our Allegiance and Submission to the Supreme Authority For they as you say that resist shall receive to themselves damnation I judge it well worth the while to observe the Apostle's Rule 1 Thess 5.21 of proving all things and holding fast that which is good Which is I hope a sufficient Reason to excuse my Presumption in enquiring whether you are not more mistaken in St. Paul's meaning as to your New Case c. than you were in the Case you had formerly in your Eye as you tell us in the Preface when you proved he meant no such thing And as to that Case you still think you were in the right and truly so do I and yet you must be mistaken either then or now And that it was then and not now do's not appear to any Body but your self that I know of neither have you produced any Authority to convince the World that you are