obligation of honouring their Father by which even Presbyterian Writers Mr. Dod in particular understand not only natural Parents but Kings with the natural and indispensable duties of tribute custom fear and honour Rom. 13.7 We may yet further observe that the Jewes had really such a Tradition which our Saviour there overthrows but we have no such Law therefore these Pleas run upon a false presumption and have no foundation and therefore are false in themselves and need not the authority of a Divine command to the contrary to put them to shame and silence I wish such men would consider that by such corrupt discourses they utterly destroy that argument which themselves are ready enough to use in order to the perswading Princes to beat out Popery and to establish the Protestant Religion in their Dominions drawn from their own safety among Protestants and dangers among Popish subjects since resistance is favoured justified and practised by both Where was the safety of King Charles the First among Protestants What is the difference between an Ax and Poison or a Pistol What is the difference between the Popes absolving some Subjects from their Allegeance and your teaching that no Allegeance or duty is owing to some Princes What difference between the Popes disposing of Crowns and your setting up an Usurper Here is no room for any unless a School distinction which is sometimes so nice that the difference is not to be found But you will say that Princes are secure enough among Protestants when they rule well but I pray who must be Judge of that Even your own selves and then the meaning is they are safe while they rule according to your own minds but not otherwise and so much safety there is for them amongst the worst Papists in the World Therefore resisters utterly destroy this argument and lose the great advantage they might otherwise have made of it It is then neither our interest nor duty nor the priviledge of our Laws to make resistance against Authority But there are doubtless divers motives and considerations yet remaining from which the fondness of some men and the subtilty of others raise a fancied necessity of such proceedings else they think they are all undone Horse and Foot Soul and body for else say they Popery will come in for nothing is now likely to keep it out but the Sword To which I answer 1. When the Heathen Emperours commanded the Christians to deliver up their Bibles and by confiscation of Goods imprisonments deaths and all possible artifices and cruelties endeavoured to root the name of Christians out of the World might not they have said nothing but standing on our guards can save us Yet in the time of Tertullian they told the Emperour that they had Christians in his Armies in every Town and City that they wanted not Arms men nor courage to defend themselves from persecuting hands yet they dare do no such thing because their Lord and Master Christ Jesus had left them no other weapons but prayers and tears And what was the issue God carried them through all those fiery Tryals and increased them as he did the Israelites of old under the very means used for their extirpation It is God that rules over all and his providence extends to the meanest creatures not a sparrow falls to the ground without his will be sure then that his Church shall not be left to the will of his enemies any further than serves the wise ends of his providence The Jews when few and weak were preserved in the midst of a world of enemies the Christian Church upheld in the bosome of an Heathen Empire who patiently submitted to all severities and waited milder providences till he pleased to bring them forth to the light and shew them his righteousness Mic. 7.9 These all trusted in God and were delivered Why then should we be faithless as if the Lords arm were shortned that he cannot help us This in Rev. 13.10 is called the Faith and Patience of the Saints that they suffered and would not resist persecuting Governours And indeed such resistance most plainly evidences the want of Faith and Patience both for men first doubt God will not deal well by them and then resolve right or wrong to carve for themselves And for this reason God is more glorified and Religion more advanced in unjust sufferings than in unjust resistance because in such sufferings men shew their Faith their Hope their Patience Fortitude and other graces which evidence the excellency of the Christian Religion by which they wearied and overcame their fiercest persecutors and moreover the wisdom goodness and power of God is more clearly seen in their preservation and deliverance when men sit still and see the Salvation of God than when they seek by humane policy and strength to save themselves for this speaks both their weakness and derives a reproach upon the Religion they profess and also disposes themselves and others to attribute what safety they have not so much to God as to themselves 2. The doing evil that good may come on it never ends well Where I pray is all the fruit and gain of the last Civil War What is the Protestant Religion the better or Protestants the safer thereby Nay what have not both suffered since then and as we may undoubtedly affirm for that very cause For are not the confusions of our Religion and the danger of us all both occasioned by our present differences and these differences occasioned by that resistance and the lawless liberty it took to it self greater now than ever God commonly payes men in their own Coyn. Thus upon the Babylonish captivity God told the remains of the people Jer. 42. that in case they would continue in their own Land he would build and not pull them down v. 10. But if they would go into Egypt for fear of the Sword and Famine which they afterwards did do then v. 16. The Sword which you feared shall overtake you there in the Land of Egypt and the Famine whereof ye were afraid shall follow close after you in Egypt and there shall ye dye Divine Justice overtakes men in their own wayes and snares them in the works of their own hands making those very courses whereby they would keep off judgments to prove their ruine I am sure the Jews found it so for John 11.48 they plead the necessity of crucifying our Saviour in order to the preservation of themselves and their Religion If we let him thus alone all men will believe on him and the Romans will come and take away our place and Nation and for that very sin God brought the Romans upon them who indeed took away their Place and Nation too And if these things are written for our example upon whom the ends of the World are come we cannot in any reason think we may run into those great sins of Rebellion and murther which are a breach of so many Gospel precepts and so contrary to
Popish Successor in case any such shall be But it is the unhappiness of most men that they see persons the least when nearest them and understand them best at farther removes Which must be imputed partly to this that few know the reasons of other mens actings especially while masked and clouded in a multiplicity of affairs and things arising from different parties principles and designs therefore in such circumstances if men judge alwayes according to outward appearance they must needs sometimes judge amiss For the wheels of Government sometimes necessarily run in the deep and by many oblique motions windings and circumferences come at last to the point they first aimed at Therefore when men alwayes conclude that their Governours design what their faces are at any time set towards they must unavoidably fall into error of judgement and trouble themselves with needless suspicions and fears And sometimes the mistake is founded on want of good information due consideration sound judgement and an over-easiness to be inclined by the unsteady measures of fame which represents persons and things not according to their own natures but according to the rashness ignorance ill-will suspicions and other unreasonable humours of men These indeed are the bitter fountains from whence our present as well as late fears jealousies and unsettlements do spring 3. Many are affrighted into a dreadful expectation of some severe visitation by Prodigies and therefore think it very requisite to be upon their watch or guard that they may be ready to receive the shock or rather to stave the evil off Indeed there was one prodigious appearance in the face of Heaven in the latter end of December or beginning of January last Things of which nature have formerly been held to be Exhalations kindled in the air and were believed to be even operative causes of evil as sometimes of Famines the Earth being beggered by such vast quantities of such matter drawn from it sometimes of Pestilence the Air being poison'd by noxious matter arising from Fens Bogs Ditches Sinks and other unwholsome places and sometimes of War mens minds being inflamed by I know not what influence from thence and so disposed to quarrels and fighting But these fancies have long since been hissed off from the Stage For now most men hold they are no causes but only signs and tokens of some approaching evils But these conceits have no foundation in Scripture for though our Saviour foretold some notable appearances that should precede the destruction of Jerusalem yet this doth not reach our case For 1. That was a calamity that admitted no parallel it was a Type of the destruction of the world and was to carry with it some sensible evidences of Divine displeasure not only against that people but their worship which was at first established by mighty Signs and Wonders 2. As we are not to expect any like Visitation so we have no warrant to expect any like prodigies 3. St. John in the Revelations threatning a ruine to so many Churches never mentioned any such Sign that should precede that ruine nor do we elsewhere read of any such thing observed to have preceded the same nor doth any Text in the New Testament mention any thing of this nature unless in those two cases viz. of Jerusalem and the end of the world 4. There were doubtless such appearances in the several Ages of the Jewish Church and are thought to be mentioned under the terms of pillars of fire and smoak yet we no where read that they ever looked upon them as Signs of the times as some now take it The Romans indeed and other Nations had very sacred regards to these things long before Christ therefore they seem as much of Gentile Original as the May-poll or any thing else that is arraigned and condemned by some amongst us And if Scripture cannot justifie I am sure Reason hath no plea for any such matter For the only inducement to such a perswasion is the common observation that they are usually fore-runners of some very sore visitation or revolution To which we answer 1. Sometimes they are owned to be tokens of good as the birth of Princes c. 2. Many notable changes and heavy judgements have been in the world when men have not been alarmed by any Prodigy 3. Come when they will something remarkable must be expected to follow because there is little in the world but instances of the frailty of nature and uncertainty of humane affairs 4. They do not remain fixed like the Sword over Jerusalem nor do they hover about one Countrey only as the Armies in the Air about Judaea but pass over great part of the world Therefore from these heads it undeniably follows that men cannot say whether the Prodigy portends 1. Good or 2. Evil or 3. Neither that is whether any thing or nothing But suppose it bodes some evil yet no man can tell whether it be 1. To us or 2. To the Dutch German French Italian or any other to whom it hath been as visible as here But suppose it portends some evil to us yet none can guess what evil whether 1. Any thing from a Popish hand or 2. Whether it may not be an evil that some men are disposed to run into in order to keeping out some other evil they may fear There is no certain conjecture then from things of this nature but they have been often abused to vanity or wicked purposes for while they take off mens minds from the more steady rules of Scripture and reason which shewmen what they must expect from the works that they have done they have usually been made an incouragement to men of all sides parties and causes And have oftentimes affrighted some and incouraged others to those disturbances and other evils they had not else been likely to have run into Therefore it hath been the policy of wise men of old observing that no good and many times great evils befel a Society from attendance to and conjectures from such appearances to use all prudent means they could to take off men from such Vanities There is as much foundation in reason for Palmâ—stry Augury and such other Ethnick customes as for presages from monstrous births and generations on the Earth or in the Heavens And as the Egyptians and at last the Romans with other Heathen people were the great observers of such things so it was the Nations that lived without God in the world who gave the first being to these conceits for which reason we may plead as our Saviour in another case after these things do the Gentiles seek which would be argument enough against it were it an institution or rite of the Church of England But admit they are some general Alarms to mankind yet that we of this Nation should draw from them certain conclusions of evil upon us when they pass over so great a part of the World is an humour like that of the late times which would have the prophecies of
Daniel and the Revelations to be accomplisht in England only But other Prodigies so much talked of and still believed by many there is no truth in them For the Saddles said to rise out of the Earth are now as confidently said to come to nothing And all the groanings of men and shrieks and cries of women and children as if under some bitter torments said by a weekly Intelligence about 17. Months since to have been heard at Edgehil in Warwickshire are notoriously false What is become of the Army and the audible reports of Guns said to have been seen and heard at Hatfield some time this winter Where are the Armies reported to have been seen in the air in Leicestershire Where is the blazing Star said to have been visible several nights to people about VVarwickshire and elsewhere I might give in a long relation of Prodigies that have had no being but only the fears fancies and mouths of the people I find a whole heap of such stuff raked up together in a book printed An. Dom. 1662 or 61. wherein we are told of a Drum beating at certain times in a well in Oundle in Northamptonshire and of the waters turned to blood at the time the said Drum was heard which continued by fits such a space that people came many miles and were frequent witnesses to those things but when my self some time after inquired of the truth of this relation I found the inhabitants of the place wholly strangers to any such matters And divers other very monstrous relations from which nothing can be learned but the vanity falshood and religious frenzies of some great zealots By which wild extravagancies they would perswade men to believe that even Heaven it self gives approbation to their cause that the Stars fight in their courses for them that even Nature goes out of her common paths to make way for them that all the Elements and whole Juries of the creatures give in their verdicts for them whence it must needs be concluded that they are Chara Dei Soboles the people of God and the offspring of Heaven Though I know no greater evidences of an overgrown hypocrisie and pride yet it is strange how wonderfully those devices take with the people for whilst every party are of so different interests and Religions yet they all receive these things with such religious regards that they will undertake to spell out of them the fall of Princes the revolution of Government and the advance every one of his own party though as inconsistent together as the present establishment and themselves Now whilst it is made a very heavy charge upon the Church of Rome that they uphold their Religion by officious lies and pious frauds all parties amongst us do the very same thing For by these stratagems men gather keep and increase their parties for poor well-meaning people seldom question the truth of such pretended Prodigies but receive them as signs from Heaven sent to condemn what they dislike and approve what themselves espouse and as assurances that in little time God will appear for them Whereas would men speak truth all those spreading parties would soon shrivel to a little substance And that we may not be overtaken with the error of the times and the strong delusions the Scripture mentions we should be careful not to make Prodigies the touchstone whereby to try the truth of a Religion the lawfulness of a Government or the goodness of a cause Nor should we receive the reports of any Prodigies till we see sufficient confirmation and good reason to do so By which means we shall exclude many of those fears that otherwise may terrifie and discompose us For as peoples attendance to such things is the greatest evidence of unsetled minds and reaching after some new thing so it is the ready course to hurry men into rash Counsels and those precipitant actions they may afterwards have all the reason in the world to repent But we should bottom our selves upon the best foundation which is a good life and a clear conscience from all forbidden things and works of darkness and then we need not be much concerned what colours may be hung out from the battlements of Heaven but may compose ourselves into a faith and confidence that whatever comes it shall be well with us and therefore not fear though the Earth be removed and the mountains cast into the sea 4. Many men are mightily moved to such sentiments viz. of the necessity of a resistance by evil reports raised on Governours For while we should not revile the Gods nor curse the Ruler of the people Exod. 22.28 it is become the humor of the times to blast their names and bespatter all their Actions Were they never so vile this can be no part of our Religion but is the work of him who is an accuser of the brethren and therefore is called the Devil from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to calumniate or slander But we may observe that all the Actions of Governours are backwards and forwards turned to evil For while any part of the Army raised for Flanders were in Arms they are said to be kept up to secure our ruine when they are all disbanded the design must needs be to leave us naked and exposed to slaughters This time was two year there was no Fleet out the reason of which was said to be that we might lye open to Forreign Invasions when the King would have set out a Fleet in April 1679. the design must then be to impoverish the Nation These two instances may mind the Reader of many others of like nature from which it is most palpably plain that a Spirit of jealousie in some men and evil intendments in others make dangers where they cannot find them and where there is no Bear nor Lyon in the way will affright fools with their own shadows But where men know no more than what is told them and easily receive whatever is offered it is no wonder that the ignis fatuus of pretended Prodigies and the black representations of Governours and Government bring them to their wits end and make them think there is no safety left when the greatest dangers may be of their own making It is from hence that as I have often observed the same times have two faces the one blear-ey'd and alwayes weeping the other more fair and comely For go amongst the common people of the Town hear their stories and you will think the world is at an end for you shall see nothing but Signs in the Sun and in the Moon and on earth Goblins and Furies distress of Nations mens hearts failing them for fear and for looking for the things that are coming on the world but discourse with men that are more wise and observing who fetch their knowledge from the things themselves not from the reports and sentiments of others and we find a place still left for hope and a comfortable enjoyment of our selves and what evil
all others And if we should ever fall under Independency or a Liberty of Conscience can we think the change worth any little part of our pains we are or may be at Can we think of being contented in that condition which of late years was the anguish of our souls Can we make that our choice which not long since was our burden Some men indeed are apt to reach after any thing but what they have and hope to gather Grapes of Thorns and Figs of Thistles till they try and prick their fingers 2. Suppose the Presbyterian should be uppermost this is no more than he had before but could not keep it For truly they are for Government they talk't and preach'd and wrote all they could against Liberty they decryed the forsaking their Church as an unwarrantable Schism and would severely have bound up all to their own methods for which cause the Independent spoke him worse than the Pope For Mr. Sterry in a Sermon at White-Hall Nov. 5. 1651. tells us that our deliverance from Popery is not so great a mercy as our deliverance from the black plots and bloody powers of the Northern Presbyterie For the same cause the Anabaptist disputed against and the Quaker disturbed him in the Pulpit and every Party declared more against them than against the Church of England and never rested till they had worried and run them down And if it should be in the power of the Presbyterian to give Laws to others however as a means thereto they may yield to Indulgence Comprehension Liberty or any thing they will then lay a sufficient restraint upon the tongues of all Sectaries and stop the mouths of error and folly else they lose the end and fruit of all their care pains dangers prayers tears and whatsoever they have done for the service of truth and the Gospel They cannot suffer that woman Jezabel which calls her self a Prophetess to teach and to seduce which was the great sin of the Church of Thyatira and for which Christ said he had a few things against her Revel 2.20 And if ever they come to establish a Rule and oblige all others to it every Sectary will cry persecution and never cease till they have undermined the Church and the Truth and thrown all again into utter confusions Should any man flatter himself into expectation of better fruit if it ever come to tryal the issue will confute and fool him to his face What a crop then must we expect from the seed of Sedition and disturbance What an harvest when so many hands are sowing Tares among the Wheat Surely whatever men do hope this will be the end of all that they that sow the wind shall reap the whirl-wind 2. Another cause or reason of mens being disposed to a resistance of the Powers is this that they think it is their bounden duty as it seems to make for the glory of God and propagation of the Gospel of Christ This indeed hath been the mistake and fall of many honest and well meaning men and my self formerly have much stumbled at it But I took the course which the ingenious Cartesius advises in order to the finding out any truth which is this to strip our selves of all former Notions and Sentiments or rather of all Opinions and Perswasions formerly imbibed and so as far as is possible to bring our selves to doubt of every thing and then without prejudice or prepossession to apply our selves to the consideration of the point we would understand In this way I came to be fully satisfied that this point of resisting lawful Governours let them be what they will is a grand and most dangerous mistake and hath no foundation or any the least colour of encouragement from the Gospel or any Epistles or part of the New Testament And as every man is bound upon his Salvation to come to the light and use the best means he can to come to the knowledge of the truth so I doubt not but if any man will lay aside his prejudices and set himself to the impartial consideration of these following heads he will subscribe to this as an undoubted truth That a resistance of lawful Governours let the reasons or inducements be what they will is no way our duty nor by any means lawful For 1. There is no Precept of resistance in all the New Testament I never heard the man that was so hardy as to plead there is and if any think there is such a Text let him find and produce it that we may consider it For Mat. 10.34 I came not to send peace but a sword speaks only an accidental consequence an evil proceeding not from the nature of Religion which breathes nothing but on earth peace and good will towards men but only from the wickedness of the world And therefore shews us not what ought to be but what will be viz. differences upon the account of Religion as in V. 15. a man at variance against his Father and the daughter against her Mother And Luke 22.36 he that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buy one Only gave the Disciples an hint of the dangers and evils that were now ready to overtake them and did not in the least authorize them to make the weapons of their warfare carnal This appears undeniably from our Saviours reproof of Peter who could best expound his own meaning when he cut off Malchus's ear of which under the next head which 2. Shews that we have no example of resistance in all the New Testament For when Peter Matth. 26.51 took the Sword and cut off the ear of the High Priests servant Jesus heals the wound and saith V. 52. Put up thy sword for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword Where the Margin points us to Gen. 9.6 Whoso sheds mans blood by man shall his blood be shed Thereby asserting that to kill any man that comes from a lawful authority to apprehend even the Person of Christ is murder Therefore to kill any sent from Authority though as they think in defence of the Gospel is murder too Unless they make Christ's Gospel more worthy of defence than his person which certainly they will not do that talk so much of Imputative righteousness of the personal excellencies of Christ and the pretiousness of Christ But if any do so yet still there is no example of resisting the Powers for defence of the Gospel Therefore this instance is an instance only of Peter's weakness and error and gave an happy occasion to let the World understand that no Plea from the defence of Christ the propagation of the Gospel or the glory of God can justifie a resistance or excuse them from murder who kill any that are in or come from Authority in any manner or to any end whatever For if Peter's case was not justifiable I am sure none is Now some men reject Infant Baptism for no other reason but this viz. that there is