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cause_n	church_n	england_n	king_n	3,792	5	4.0738	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47295	The duty of allegiance settled upon its true grounds, according to Scripture, reason, and the opinion of the Church in answer to a late book of Dr. William Sherlock, master of the Temple, entituled, The case of the allegiance due to sovereign powers, stated, and resolved, according to Scripture, &c. : with a more particular respect to the oath lately injoyn'd.	Kettlewell, John, 1653-1695.	1691 (1691)	Wing K366; ESTC R13840	111,563	86

And this Churches Authority he says Is a venerable Authority and thinks there is good Argument in it when p. 3. c. he seeks to confirm his own Opinion from Bishop Overal ' s Convocation Book But a great Pr●judice he says p. 46. the received Sense and Censure of those Usurpations is to his Right of Providence And very well it may upon many Accounts For a King in his Notion p. 12. ●s removed and disauthorized by God when Providence thrusts him from the Throne and ●akes the Government that is actual Government out of his hand And another King or Commonwealth for the Case is the same under any Form is set up and cloathed with God's Authority when Providence advances them to his Throne and puts the actual Government into their hand Now when King Charles 〈◊〉 stood arraigned before the High Court of Justice Providence had thrust him out of his Throne and taken the actual Government out of his hand and put it in the hand of the Rump Parliament Then had he none of God's Authority nor any Allegiance due to him Then his Tryal was no Tryal of the real but only nominal King God having first removed that Authority and actual Government from him which made him King and Allegiance due to him Then were his Judges no Traytors and his Murder no Treason Which is quite against the received Opinion of Church of England Men. Again as to his Son King Charles II. after his Death when he came into England with an Army at Worcester Fight the R●mp Parliament were Providentially possessed of all the Power and Exercise of Government and had been for two years and an half which is a longer time than has passed hitherto for the Possession of the same or Settlement of the present Government If then God's Authority goes with such Exercise and Possession they had God's Authority here and he had it not Then if he came as an Englishman he could be nothing here but a Subject Then was his leading an A●my through England and Attempts to raise one in it against the Rump Parliament a Rebellious Arming against God's Authority and Ordinance and he and all his Adherents were Rebels against the Common-Wealth And all that stir'd in his Cause afterwards were Guilty of the Scriptural Resisting of Authority or higher Powers and their Sufferings were just Executions They deserved to dye for it here and without Repentance were in danger to be eternally condemn'd for it hereafter All which are likewise very cross to the Church of England received Opinions yea and to the Opinion of this Reverend Person who is far enough from charging these things upon them And his Endeavour in this point is to exempt his Principle of Providential Right from authorizing the Usurpers of that time or aspersing the Loyal Adherents of the Legal Right with the foregoing Imputation There is Difference he says p. 46. betwixt these two Cases and he instances in many particulars The only Question is Whether any of the Points of Difference assigned make a Difference in the Possessors Authority and Subjects Allegiance If not theirs was God's Authority by his Providential Right for all the Differences And the King and all the Loyalists resisting God's Authority would therein have been rebellious as is before alledged For what is the Ground of all Conscionable Allegiance God's Authority as he rightly observes p. 15. 34. and nothing else And what makes any Person or Body of Men to be God's Authority or Ordinance Is it coming well by their Power without Villanies or Murder of preceding Sovereigns Or is it good use of those they have Providentially got under their Power especially of such of them as had bore Arms in the opposite Cause and stand still well affected to it Is it their keeping up Bishops and Episcopal Cler●y and Church Revenues Or retaining Fundamental Laws and Constitutions yea or even Monarchy it self or Legal Parliaments all which are the Particulars of Difference assigned by him in this point p. 46. 47. No none of these makes any to be God's Authority or Ordinance according to his Principles but being set up by Providence in Possession of Power and act●al Administration of Government This makes both the Change of F●rm and Government or the new Degenerate Forms of Government as he tells us p. 4. 5. from the Convaeation Book to be God's Ordinance And therefore as such we must own them when actually administring whether they be Monarchy or Commonwealth whether all Estates or only Commons whether a full House or a few Persons And also the Change of Persons ib. p. 34. how villanously soever the Change was brought about whether by the Injustice of Ambitious Neighbours or by the Treason and Rebellion of Disloyal Subjects Then for all the Villanies of those Usurpers and the Murder of K. Charles and their barbarous usage of his Friends and pulling down Bishops and Bishops Lands and turning out malignant Clergy and changing Monarchy to Common-wealth and a full Representative of the Nation to a Rump Parliament For all these I say since Providence had put them into Possession and Administration of Government God had put them into his Authority by this Principle and they were as truly a Power of his making and his Ordinance by this Plea as the present Power or any other Providential Power and Possessor is And having thus got into God's Authority What can make them lose it Will continuance of the same villanous Practices against the murder'd King's legal Heir or his Friends or the Church and Bishops No but only like Dispossession again by Providence Whilst in this Possession then they were God's Ordinance And for what Cause may Subjects Arm against God's Ordinance May they do it for their pulling down the Church of England or the King's Friends out of an abhorrence they have of past or for the Oppressions they feel by present Villanies No For what then would become of the D●ctrine of Non-resistance And if they could not with a good Conscience be resisted for these What is like to become of those Rising Or Who can bring them off from being as Damnable a Resistance as any other Rebellions But he adds p. 47. lastly That their Government was never settled being frequently changed and having no National Consent As to Settlement by these Principles I do not see that Settlement in Possession should first give Right or Authority but only that it should settle and continue them for Possession gives Authority by his Account p. 15. 23. 25. 32. 36. Possession of Government must needs give actual Government and actual Government gives Right to Allegiance as his Discourse still asserts p. 26 27. 32. Yea all the Scripture Texts for Obedience as he thinks p. 21. require it to be paid only to him that Exercises Government And claiming Allegiance it must imply and carry Authority since Allegiance is only due to Authority as he also says pag. 15. 34. He then who has got Possession

Providential Right should prevail and carry it against the Canonical Right the Canons being the same for making and bounding Right in the Church that Laws are in the State But that on the contrary the Canonical Right is to prevail over it I shall shew briefly in Two instances First From the Synodical Determination of our own Church in case of the Papal Usurpation over us His Jurisdiction in this Realm stood upon a long Possession which is the Author 's Providential Right But it was against the Canonical Privileges of the Church of England which being among the Autocephali ought to have been independent upon him and subject only to its own Primate so it infringed their Canonical Right Nay it was an Usurpation moreover on the Civil Power and Regality or on the Rights of the Crown so as to invade the King's legal Right But in Synodical Iudgment about this Competition the Church of England gave it for the King 's Legal and Statutable Right and for the Churches Canonical Right against his Right of Providence or Usurped Possession Declaring his Power to be abolished and taken away for most just Causes and that therefore no manner of Subjection and Obedience is Due thereto in these Realms And if this throwing out his usurped Right by Legal and Canonical Right were not a good Decision How shall we justifie the Reformation And the same Determination was made by those Statutes wich abolish the Popes Supremacy and make his Providential Possession give Place to the King 's legal Rights So that both Church and State gave like Decision and Sentence in this Case Secondly From the Synodical Determination of the Catholick Church and that in one of the first four General Councils viz. the Council of Ephesus against all Usurpations on the Freedoms of other Churches For those Fathers on Complaint of the Bishops of Cyprus That the Bishop of Antioch had invaded the Liberties of their Church which by the Canons and ancient Custom was not to be Subject to him but only to themselves Determine for the Canonical Rights against all Providential Invasions And That the Invaders shall get nothing by any Successfulness of their unjust Force therein but shall be bound to recede from all they have so unjustly gotten and that the Canonical Right and Privilege shall still stand good against them And had the same Question been put to those Fathers concerning the legal Right of Princes as was about the Canonical Right of Bishops I fancy they would have been as just to Right in Princes as they were to it in themselves and have given as much Preference to legal Right above illegal and usurped Possession in their Prince's Case as they did in their own CHAP. VII Of his Scripture Proofs and some of his Reasons for his Right by Providential Possession HAving hitherto endeavoured to disprove the Author's Right of Providence and to establish a Legal or Human Right for Crowns and all things else to go by against all the fancied Prevalence and opposite Force thereof Which I have done from the Nature of things both the Nature and Effects of Right and the Nature and Use of Providence and from the Sentence and Determination of our own Laws and the Iudgment both of the ancient Church and of the Church of England given both in the Opinions and Practices of Times and Consent of Writers and Synodical Decisions here produced and pertinently as I conceive to this purpose And having said thus much to shew his Providential Possession without other Title gives no such Right I now proceed 2. Secondly to answer those Scriptures and other Reasons which he has brought to shew it doth give it All which I shall the sooner dispatch having already answered several and subverted the main Grounds whereon the rest are built in what I have before said 1. I begin First with the Scriptures he alledges p. 11. 12. 20. These are Dan. 2. 21. 37. ch 4. 17. Am. 3. 6. which declare God's ruling in the Kingdoms of Men and giving them to whom he will and setting up whom he will over them and removing and setting up Kings upon any Changes and doing what is done in a City Now when these are applied to Providence removing or setting up Kings by means of human Titles where Revelation doth not interpose there is no Dispute but that doth give or remove God's Authority and therewith the Subjects Allegiance And this way all Kings that are to be obeyed are set up by God and all that are to have no more Obedience paid to them are removed by him But when they are applied as the Author's Principle doth to Providence doing both without means of preceding Titles but by means only of Success and Possession against human Rights All the foresaid Scriptures may speak Providence acting in these matters but none of them by way of giving a Right or authorizing those that get thereby or act in them God Rules by his Providence among Rebels and Thieves and Pyrates but as the Author says he gives none of them a Right to act Rebellions Thefts or Pyracies And Providence sets up every one that prospers and removes every one that is removed whether from publick or private Right and gives what is gotten and takes what is taken from every other Person as well as from the King But his giving or setting up or prospering is not giving or setting up Right in any of them if it be in an unrighteous thing nor his taking or removing taking away the Right which the legal Owners had therein All these Expressions when used in such cases as I have before shewn Chap. 5. Chap. 6. speak God only accomplishing these Events not authorizing or giving Right to them And accordingly they are used about the most unrighteous things which God himself condemns and punishes and which all Mankind cry out of as the most horrible Wickedness and Injustice as may appear above more at large So that if not mere accomplishment of an Event or Possession but God's giving Right to a Throne is the Point in Question these Scriptures that in these Cases speak of God's Giving or Doing with a Respect only to Accomplishment not to Right will not serve the Turn There are several Steps and Degrees in God's removing and so answerably in his setting up a King The true and full way is when he removes him by way of Right or by the known ways of taking his Right from him One great way of this is removing his Person by taking him out of the World which removes his Right with him And this way of removing Kings is particularly meant in Dan. 2. 21. where the Changes in removing and setting up Kings is particularly spoken of the Changes from one to another in the four Monarchies the first whereof was to be from the Babylonians to the Medes and Persians and was accomplished in Belshazzar who was slain when the City was taken and the Empire therewith transferred to the

of themselves those Nations gave like Right over them to the Romans as the Romans by their Consent and Submission gave to the Emperors And as to the Jews in particular the Romans had not only this human Right over them by their own Consent and Submission but in our Saviour's days this had stood for well on towards an Hundred Years which gives another Degree of human Right that at least is a good Strengthner of the former and that is Prescription So that Submission required to the Powers in the Apostles Days speaks nothing but Submission to a rightful King And these Considerations I judge may be sufficient to show that the Submission and Obedience call'd for by the Scripture Commands is an Obedience to rightful Powers But against this he Objects several Things 1. First he says The Powers which these Scripture Commands call for Obedience to are the present Powers without Distinction between rightful Kings and Usurpers But to make any Person the Power or Authority in being or the present Authority must imply Right He is not the present Authority unless at present he has it vested in him and it be his Authority and how can it be his but by some good Right or his having a Title to it So the present Power must be he who at present has the Right to the Power without a precedent Right to make it his no Person being capable to pretend to have any Authority which Subjects may either lawfully defend or are bound to obey which either God gives or the Command means and intends or calls for Obedience to as has been already shewed And this is enough for these Scriptures which in requiring Obedience to the present Powers require it only to the present lawful Powers And such the Powers were that were then Present or then in Being who are expressly meant therein as I proved before 2. He says We have no Example in Scripture of any People ever blamed for submitting to the present usurping Power Many Usurpations indeed the Scripture mentions particularly among the Israelitish Kings But the Scriptures not blaming Peoples Submission to such Usurpers is no Proof it was without Blame for the same Scriptures are Ordinarily content to relate and do not blame the usurping Kings themselves for making the Usurpation and yet I am sure this Reverend Person would blame them But it is not always blame-worthy to submit to Usurpers but only in them who at the same time are under Obligation to another's Right or to submit to an Usurper against a rightful Prince And these Scripture Submissions to Usurpers were not against any rightful Princes For against whose Right did the People submit or to whom else Were they under any contrary Obligation not to the former King for the Usurper had Murdered him to get into his Throne nor to any rightful Heir whom immediately on his Father's Death the Law made King For the Crown of Israel was not intailed by Law to lineal Descent and Proximity of Blood And the same may be said of other Scripture Submissions to the Egyptians Babylonians Persians or Romans or to any one else The People in Iury or elsewhere either submitted when they had no King nor any left that had Kingly Right over them or when the Kings themselves came together with the People into the Submission So these Submissions were against no other Person 's Right nor did any Third Person any Wrong And therefore the Scriptures might have no Cause to blame them and yet have Cause enough to blame others for turning subject to an Usurper whilst they have a rightful King of their own to whom they are under a contrary Obligation 3. Our Saviour's Argument he says relies wholly on Possession and the Image and Superscription of the Coyn if it be a good Reason for Submission will carry as much to an Usurper as to the most rightful King But when our Saviour shewed Caesar's Coyn to the Pharisees it was a good Reason in their Case When the Author produces it for Submission to an Usurper against a lawful Prince it is none in his The Reason is because they are two different Questions and what is a good Answer to one Question need not to be a good Answer to another The Question that puzzel'd and stuck with the Pharisees was not whether they ought to be subject to any other for no Body else had any pretence of Right over them nor could they have any exception to this Submission as being under a contrary Obligation to any Third Person But theirs was only whether they were subject to him not only whether his Heathen Power was the Power meant in the Commandment which is sufficiently decided by our Lord 's ordering the dues of Authority to be paid to it but whether it ought to be a Power over them as being an infringement of Jewish Freedom it was a Dispute between their own Liberty and his Authority whether they were Caesar's Subjects or their own Masters not betwixt Submission to him as I say and to any other more rightful Power Now in the Question whether they were their own Masters or Caesar's Subjects to show the Coyn is a good Reason for it shewed they were under his Subjection as a Token of their having receiv'd the Roman Yoke and submitted to their Power which gives a Right among Men and of this only our Lord was to give a Reason But as to the present Case of submitting to an Usurper against the Right of a Third Person or a rightful King that was not proposed to him 4. He says God Commands Submission to Usurpers and Condemns refusal thereof when he Commands the Jews by the Prophet Jeremiah to submit to the Babylonians This by Ieremiah he thinks was an Express Command from God to be subject to the King of Babylon If so I cannot understand what sort of Usurper the King of Babylon was for if God by a Prophet exspressly Commands that they shall be his Subjects he expressly Commands withall that he shall be their King And then he is King by Divine express Command which is the same as by Divine express Nomination which we both agree is the best Right and Title whereby any Prince can hold his Throne and so must absolutely exclude all charge of Usurpation Besides what sort of Usurper will he make Nebuchadnezzar before this Command Had not all both King and People before this submitted and given up themselves to him Nay even the King himself Zedekiah by name had accepted the Crown from him and had taken an Oath of Fealty and Allegiance to him and had broken that Oath in hopes of Succour from Egypt for which he is so severely threatned by God Ezek. 17. And this breach of Oath and Rebellion against his Leige Lord the King of Babylon was the very Thing that brought the Babylonian to beseige Ierusalem when Ieremiah came from God to bid the Jews under Zedekiah to submit to him Ier. 21.

to the Stronger So his Power carrying Right throws all into a State of War as much I conceive as Mr. Hobbs's Power giving it and adds the grant of God to boot as if in this way of getting all by War and the Stronger taking from the Weaker they all the while kept to that course of Right which God has given them to walk by Nay if at last by breaking the Strength of rightful Opposers in this way of power they come peaceably to enjoy such Gettings yet is not that the Peace which God intends which is a Peace with Justice or for every Man peaceably to enjoy his own not for one Man to live at Peace in possessing another Man's Rights and Properties which God all the while calls upon him to restore to him to whom of Right they do belong To this effect of its destroying all Obligation of Right and Wrong among Kings I add 2. Secondly That this Notion of Providential Right would confirm and authorize all illegal Invasions of Kings upon their own Subjects The Reason is because when he invades either their Liberties or Properties and grasps at more Authority or Possessions among them than doth by Right and Law belong to him all the Success he has is by Providence And these unjust Attempts upon his own Subjects have like Scripture Declarations as other unjust Attempts on any Neighbour Kings Let the Evil of the City be Arbitrariness and Oppression shall there be any Evil in the City saith the Prophet and the Lord hath not done it Am. 36. Do the Israelites labour under the heaviest Servitude and Oppressions whilst Subject to the King of Egypt God turned their Hearts to hate his People and deal subtilly with his Servants says David Ps. 105. 25. Doth Rehobeam's Heart devise Tyranical Rigours and Oppressions and his rough Answer threaten the people to Chastise them with Scorpions The Scripture tells us the Cause was from the Lord 1 King 12. 13. 14. 15. Unrighteous Ravenous and Oppressive Kings whom God calls his Rod and Staff and Battle Ax and the like are as much so when turned upon their own Subjects as when upon foreign Princes And whatever are the Counsels of the King's heart whether against Subjects or Strangers the Scripture declares in general That the King's heart is in God's hand and that he turns it whithersoever he will Prov. 21. 1. So that in their Domestick Invasions Kings have as good Plea of Providence and as good Scripture Declarations of God's turning their Hearts and causing and doing and acting by them therein as in any others And in Reason methinks if they were to get Right by any Invasion of Rights it should be most especially in invading the Rights and Liberties of their own Subjects The Consideration of their being Subjects may give more pretence and embolden him to take greater Liberties and bind them to more patient Sufferance than when the like is done to other Kings that stand with him upon even Terms and are no ways Subject to him at all But now 't is plain Kings do not get Right by such mere unrighteous Invasions without other Title of Subjects Rights and Properties As Abab did not by unjustly possessing himself of Naboth's Vineyard Nor Iehojakim by having his eyes and heart only for shedding innocent Blood and Oppression and Violence and by building his House by Unrighteousness and his Chambers by Wrong whom God did not look upon as having any Right therein but denounces a Woe upon him Jer. 22. 13. 17. And if this must be the Consequence of this Right of Providence to give as good Authority and Confirmation to any Invasions our Kings shall make upon our Rights as to any that other Princes shall make upon theirs I think neither Prince nor Subjects have any great Cause to be fond thereof 3. Thirdly It confirms the unjust Possessions and Invasions one private Subject shall make upon the Properties of another If Robbers or Pyrates possess themselves of other Mens Money or Goods by this Principle they have a better Right thereto than the legal Owners For their Possession is by Providence that delivered the Sufferers into their hands And it is as much authorized as the other by Scripture Expressions The Lord hath taken away saith Iob when the Sabean and Chaldean Robbers had taken and carried away his Substance Iob 1. 21. And 't is what the Lord hath sent is the Reflection of all serious persons upon these Misfortunes So there is as much Providence and as much said of it in private as in publick Robberies Both then have equally the Right of Providence And that says he is better than any Right the Legal Owners had by human Laws So that as it ousts Kings of their Crowns it will oust private Persons of their Purses and make all private Robbers as well as publick Usurpers to hold their Purchase by the best and most rightful Titles To this he says p. 34. That the Dispute is not about human or legal Right in either Case 'T is not I grant whether either Usurpers or Robbers have a legal Right to what they have got which no Man that understands what he talks of will Dispute but 't is whether they have not another Right viz. Providential Right which shall set aside both the Dispossessed Prince's and Private Owner's legal Rights And if Providence and the foresaid Scripture Declarations made such Providential Right 't is plain they are as much on the side of a private Robber as of an Usurper and so would give that Right to both if they did to either But the Dispute adds he ibid. is about Authority and no Man will pretend that Thieves and Pyrates have God's Authority which the Persons robbed are bound to submit to But who puts the Objection so What the Thief pretends to is the Purse which is matter of Property and what the Usurper claims is the Crown which is matter of Authority And Right is necessary to both in their respective pretences if they would hold them righteously This can be no legal Right which rests still with the dispossessed Prince and private Sufferers But the Author has found a Providential Right better than the Legal to give the Usurper the best Right to the Authority And that will serve as well for the Thief or Pyrate and give him the best Right to the Property And if he can hold his stolen Goods by as good Right as Usurpers may their Usurped Crowns by this Principle in the Eyes of God he may all the time be very Righteous For God is no respecter of Persons and so when he justifies one he will not condemn the other when he can make the same Plea and acts upon the very same Grounds If this Right of Providence is the best Right it will be the best for every thing that is to go by Right and then it will be the best Title to Property as well as to Authority Yea Goods and Properties are expresly mentioned in those