Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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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
and as demonstrable as any Point in the Mathematicks and that your self was never in the Right as to your Providential Rulers till this happy Juncture c. But what makes it more acceptable at present is the advantage the Protestant Religion has gained by your not complying with the Providential Settlement till such time as you were in danger to have lost all which no doubt was likewise the Providential Occasion of your more earnest seeking of God and making inquiry into not the revealed but the secret Will of God which is a Note beond Elah touching those matters without which the Church of ENGLAND perhaps might have continued another Century or two without the happiness of such a convenient Doctrine And that which makes it so to you is worth observing for if hereafter some ill Men which neither understands you nor Hobbs should throw it in your Dish that you writ in defence of King William and Queen Mary's Right c. You may truly answer it was no more for them than it was for Captain Tom or any Body else that can get into the Saddle for there your Providence centers them And when they are so fixt they cannot as you say be without the Divine Authority so that you need never write more on that Subject for 't is impossible for any Government to trump up that your Case c. will not as well serve as it does the present for which I think our most Gracious King and Queen have no great Cause to thank you But if they do not there are others that will viz. our Common-wealth Friends only I must tell you by the way they are angry with you for two things The first is that you did not sooner meet with their spiritual Shuff to the heavy A Christian And the second for your making it a Church of England Doctrine when their Belief of the contrary was one of the chief Reasons of their deserting from it But now you have taken down as to that Point the Partition-wall and if you would be but as kind in other matters as they think of less moment no doubt you might bring them all within the Pale c. And truly since you have been so generous as to part with your darling distinguishing Doctrine of constant steady and unsophisticated Loyalty to your Prince which you learned from the Principles of your Church as the London Clergy pleased to say * London Gazette Febr. 16. 1684. in their Address to the late King James I think it would not be amiss for so great a good to gratifie them with the rest without which 't is to be feared they will still stick where they did stick and you know how closely they always stuck to the Interest of the Crown and the Church and therefore it would be worth while to gain to you so considerable a number of Friends But as our Lord told the Scribes and Pharisees you are so nice and exact in paying of Mint and Cumin that you omit the more weighty things of the Law viz. Justice Mercy and Truth c. though indeed neither is to be left undone And yet if ever it could be thought convenient I confess this is the only time to judge it tolerable if not necessary to settle as in Scotland a Religion suitable to the Inclinations of the People and that may possibly fill up the Vacancies of those that cannot swallow your Turkish Providential Pill notwithstanding its being so nicely and Philosophically prepared and gilded over by so famous a Christian Doctor But the Experiment is altogether new and till of late hardly amongst us known but never practised by good Christians and therefore the Apostle may very justly upbraid us as he once did the Galatians Gal. 3.1 O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the Truth c. And truly unless we are so we could not be so grosly imposed upon as to be whiffled about with every new wind of Doctrine To prevent which Solomon I think gives the best Advice in the World Prov. 24.21 My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change But I will conclude all with an Observation of one remarkable Passage in your Preface in the following Words viz. I prayed heartily to God that if I were in a Mistake he would let me see it that I might not forfeit the Exercise of my Ministry for a mere Mistake and I thank God I have received that Satisfaction which I desired Which I presume no Body doubts And I suppose the foregoing Words are to satisfie the World that you received better satisfaction from your hearty praying to God than from the Convocation-Book If not why is it made use of as an Argument of freeing you from a supposed Doubt for you were or you were not satisfied before your praying c. Now if you were then it was needless and impertinent to pray to God to let you see your Mistake when there was none If not then 't is plain your Satisfaction was not owing to B. Overill's Book but to your hearty praying c. But after all how shall any other Body be satisfied that your Satisfaction in that Case was owing to your praying to God c. Or that he was pleased to illuminate your Understanding so as to give a better Exposition of Rom. 13. than you had done heretofore in your Case of Resistance But give me leave to put a Case Suppose a Man had a mind or inclination to do some particular thing which is Ill in its own Nature or perhaps he is in some doubt whether it be or no but the better to inform his Judgment he goes and prays heartily to God for a Satisfaction touching the Lawfulness of the Matter though possibly he might be resolved to do it before After which finding his desires more strong and his inclination to do it rather increased than abated is he then to take it for granted that God has answer'd his Request and that he is sure he is in the Right in doing the said Ill or doubtful Thing If so then Cromwel and others of the Regicides that murder'd Charles I. was in the Right also for divers of them made use of the same Plea And Harrison at his Tryal seem'd to be angry at those Words in his Indictment Of not having the Fear of God before his Eyes but by the Instigation of the Devil c. For he said He always had the Fear of God before his Eyes and sought him Night and Day with Tears till he received like you such Satisfaction as be desired And so consequently it was the Lord's Work as it was called in those Days though done by the ways of the Devil But we all know this ridiculous Plea would be admitted before an earthly Tribunal and whether it will before an heavenly one do you judge For then I am afraid it will be to little purpose our saying We thought or we believed and heartily prayed and received such Satisfaction as we desired that we were in the Right though at the same time perhaps we were conscious of breaking God's positive Commands Mat. 7.22 23. And though we should press the matter yet further as our Lord says Many will say to me in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name and in thy Name cast out Devils and in thy Name do many wonderful Works And then I will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me that work Iniquity From all which 't is rational to conclude That the receiving of such a Satisfaction as you and others before you talk of after praying c. is not a sufficient Reason for their doing any thing they have a mind to do unless it be in its own Nature good and not contrary to the written Word of God which is a better Rule to direct us in those matters than any such Phanatical Enthusiastick Notions I do not mean of praying to God which without doubt nothing if sincere can be better but drawing from thence such unwarrantable Consequences which you cannot but know have been made use of as a colour for the worst of Villanies and I am persuaded there are few but believe you were as well satisfied as to your Mistake before as after praying c. for what relation had such sort of Cant to Mr. Jenkins and your Turkish Predestinarian Hypothesis for if that were ever true it will always remain so if neither ne nor you had never preachd or pray'd in your Lives And supposing it true in spite of all your nice Distinctions there is no successful Villany that has been done since the Creation but may be justifi'd Nay the very Surrender of Mons to the French King by the same Rule must be thought very just and reasonable because he having set down before it armed with your Authority of having Power to crush them into Obedience and by shutting your Reasons into the Town Pag. 6. gave the Inhabitants a Mathematical Demonstration of his having a Providential Title to be their Lawful King and Governor Pag. 6. without intrenching upon the K. of Spain's legal Right for he as well as the late King James may recover it again if he can From which Argument we may infer That the same Providence that removes a Prince from his Crown and Legal Rights or Them from him may as in King Charles the Second's Case restore them again without Wrong being done to any Body all the while because as you say 't is the work of Providence and the Person in Possession is always in the Right Which I confess is good News for great Princes though bad for little ones for if Strength and Force be the only determination of Right and Wrong Religion and Laws will quickly become useless and then I am sure your Profession as well as mine will be none of the best But such wise and great Men as you may say what they please But for my part I could as easily be persuaded that there is no God as believe his most holy Commandments may be broke for the publick Good or that we may follow our own scanty Notions of Providence contrary to Precept FINIS