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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
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

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

remain SIR Your Humble Servant JOHN MARCH Feb. 19. 1688 9. For the Reverend Mr. JOHN MARCH Vicar of Newcastle Newcastle March 3. 1688 9. SIR AFTER your so unusual method of exposing your Second Letter at your Stationers Shop and thereby to most of the Town I might have expected it my self especially considering my so often sending for it but your delaying it from day to day and at last absolute Refusal put me upon the necessity of getting a Copy of it another way I cannot much blame you for this Conduct the writing and dispersing such a Letter required indeed the Denial of it to the Person for whom it was design'd I find you are liable to the fate of him of whom it was said If he had held his Peace he might have been thought a Philosopher and I was nothing unwilling you should continue such in the Opinion of the Mobile I might well spare my self the trouble of a Rejoinder there being nothing in your Letter that requires one for they must have clearer Eyes than mine that can discover any thing material or to the purpose in it but instead thereof a continued shuffling and waving of the Question mixt with so mean Sarcasms that for your own Honour I could have wish'd you had omitted them So that to give you an Answer I am at a great loss being unacquainted with Billingsgate Oratory and oblig'd at every turn to repeat my own words in my former Letters which you have been pleas'd to wrest so far as I cannot say you have given a fair repetition of one single Sentence of mine all along yours But to evince to the unbiass'd and knowing Persons of the place That you are not infallible as your admiring Mobile would have you I have put my self upon a nauseating Task of writing you these few Lines in answer to so indigested and immethodick a Letter You begin it with bantering my taking notice of the Direction of your first and tell me That the Heraulds Office will inform me that a Doctor of a Foreign University has no Priviledge in England I pretend to no great Priviledges any where but I had reason to expect a designation you refuse not to some who scarce ever saw an University Neither have I liv'd so obscure or been so little imploy'd as not to be known for what I am by most of the Gentry and People of Quality in the place and you notably contradict your self in saying You was ignorant of my Quality since you name expresly my Profession in your first Letter But we shall not fall out upon that Head since the Heraulds Office is not like to be much troubled with either of our Escutcheons Next you would fix upon me a great ferment of Choler and Rudeness in many of my Expressions you enumerate and tell me I deserved not so modest an Answer as you vouchsaf'd me considering the Provocations I gave you a Person that never disobliged me I submit both my first and second to any neutral Person who perhaps will allow them a better Construction and if any thing of Heat has slipt from my Pen I hope the occasion of it will do more than procure me a pardon It 's true you never disoblig'd me but no Personal Injury could have affected me more than the hearing a glorious and unparallel'd Deliverance branded in the Pulpit with the infamous Names of Rebellion Damnation and the like and the being a Witness to a Series of Actings consequential to such Expressions You seem'd to me in inveighing against a Revolution wherein the Finger of God was so visible to act much in parallel with those of old who dar'd to attribute the stupendious Effects of Omnipotence to a baser Influence And for me to have been an Apathist on such an occasion would have been but another name for Stupidity In your accusing me of Passion you must needs have a fling at poor Zeno and Two thousand Years rest in his Grave must not shelter him from your accusation of a felo de se albeit his manner of Death is not agreed upon by Authors whereof not a few allow him a natural one Before you come to answer my Letter you will needs premise something concerning the Doctrin of the Church of England and this you say will bring us to the true State of the Question Whereupon you are at the pains to cite several Passages out of the Book of Homilies against Resistance and for Passive Obedience and then you subsume Having premis'd thus much to state the Question you come to examine my Letter Sir I thought every School-Boy knew better what it was to state a Question than to cite Authorities to prove the thing questioned and what gentiel Name to give your thus stating it I am at a loss The stating of a Question is properly the removing all Equivocation of Terms or Amphibologies of Speech as the Schools speak whereby both the Opponent and Defendant may agree in the same sense and meaning of the words And pray Sir how came you to imagine That the Authorities produc'd removed any Difficulty arising from a wrong understanding of the words Passive Obedience and Resistance c. that are the Subjects of our Debate If you had been at pains to cast your Eyes upon my Letter so as to read it I presume you would have found me stating the Question betwixt us thus upon the matter viz. That to resist the Magistrate when he is lawfully such and acting in execution of Laws is one thing but to resist the same Person when he divests himself of that Sacred Character by trampling on Fundamental Laws is quite another The first is certainly unlawful but not the second And to elucidate this I told you there was a great Difference betwixt a Princes trampling upon a part of his Subjects in execution of Laws made against them and his doing of the same in downright contradiction of Fundamental Laws made in their Favours And albeit in the first case it were disallowable to Resist yet in the second reason and common sense in my Opinion does warrant it And upon my thus stating of the Question I did then as now once for all tell you That all places of the Homilies yea of Holy Scripture it self disproving Resistance of Magistrates are to be understood in a natural sense and with Analogy of Reason to be meant of Magistrates when lawfully such and acting conform to Laws and not of Princes divesting themselves of that Office by their own Faults and Mismanagement And in my giving so necessary and natural a Gloss upon the Homilies I do but Justice to those worthy Reformers that compil'd them whereas on the contrary you by endeavouring to wrest their Words to your notion of Passive Obedience derogate from the Reason and Learning of those Excellent Men And thus you have lost your pains and time in citing them At length you come to examine my Letter and in the first place you tell me I will have Dr.