Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A41952
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Reflections upon Mr. Johnson's notes on the pastoral letter by William Gallaway ...
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Gallaway, William, b. 1659 or 60.
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1694
(1694)
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Wing G178; ESTC R8149
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33,013
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66
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nothing can be more proper to do it than a Text of Scripture Observe the Axiom A man mâ—y lawfully promise to do every thing he may lawfully do Now the Instance Our Saviour commands If any man compel me to go a mile with him to carry his burthen to go with him twain From which he inâ—ers But is it therefore lawful for me to promise this man to be his Pack horse all my Life and to starve my Wiâ—e and Children c. No no by no means lawful Besides you can't be a Pack-horse and your own Instance will not let you be worse than an Infidel There is a great difference between lawfully promising and being compell'd to do any thing and therefore your Instance is nothing to the purpose I can find no power of Conviction in it and I am afraid it is like an Estate left in our late Diego Wickhams ' Will because all Compultion takes away the Liberty of doing or not doing Promises to do or not do signifie nothing when I am Forc'd or Hinder'd Besides your Inference is an unlawful Action and you cannot lawfully promise therefore you are oblig'd not to promise any man to be his Pack horse and by that means to starve your Wiâ—e and Children and therefore you may not lawfully do it I may lawfully promise to assist my Neighbour to carry his Burthen and therefore I may lawfully do it For any thing I know our Noter may be a good Lawyer but I am sure he is but a Dabbler at instancing To proceed to the Second Instance 'T is as great a Conquest for a Philosopher to refute an Axiom as a General to take a strong Town in Flanders and therefore our Noter brings another battering Instance against it I 'le assure you Mr. Iohnson I have no prejudice against your Person I will neither lessen your Merits nor Sufferings But I am in the way of writing Mr. Iohnson my Controversy is only with your Book and though I by my self I I say that my Motion I was sure was Right being drawn by my own Hand which is more positive perhaps than Old Bracton would have said so I by my self I say that your Instance is wrong therefore I will mind the Process Out of this long and truly impertinent Story I put this short Case It was certainly lawful for me to submit to this Vsage when I could not help it but I had deserved to die the Death of a Dog and had betrayed the Rights of an Englishman if I had entred into Engagements to abide by it Observe the Consequence therefore a man may not lawfully promise to do every thing which he may lawfully do O profound Logician Now I would fain understand how Mr. Iohnson will reconcile his lawfully doing of that which he tells us was compulsorily wrongfully and illegally inflicted and more especially when he declares in his 15 th page That Forc'd Obedience is not the Obedience of Men It is Passive and Dog-kennel Obedience If I should pursue this Point and prove that he hath a Grain of Passive Obedience about him he would certainly hang himself therefore I desist and won't be guilty of Murder This is so pretty an Instance that I can't chuse but repeat it once more It was certainly lawful for me to submit to this Vsage when I could not help it Ay ay 't is very true too true we must all submit when we can't help it there 's no Remedy but Passive Patiâ—nce But you know the Old Saying Patience per Force is a Medicine for a mad Dog Now I don`t find by the Story thar you lawfully promis'd to submit to this Usage which you might have done too if you had thought it fit because you tell us It cost you Two or Three Fees not to be kept in Acta Custodia So that our Impregable Axiom holds out still That a Man may lawfully promise to do what he may lawfully do Having defeated your first and Second Line jam ad Triariâ—s ventum est I think I had as good stop here lest in his Second Part I should be noted on as a Couquering Clergyman But the best on it is I fear no Character he can give me and therefore will attack him in his third Instance At the Parliament at Oxford in 65 when they made the Five Mile Act there was the same enslaving Project on foot as there was afterwards in Seventy odd to Swear to the Government in Church and State without Alteration The Wise Lord Treasurer Southampton was against it and said that though he liked Episcopacy yet he would not be Sworn to it Because he might hereafter be of another Opinion And perhaps he had been further off â—rom that Oath if he had lived till now I smell your design in this instance 't is to let us know that you don't like Episcopacy so well now as formerly for any story that you could have thought on had been as much to the purpose as this If the Lord Southampton was satisfied with Episcopacy at that time he might have taken an Oath to it especially if it had been Enacted into a Law so to do A Law would have concluded his Opinion and determin'd his Compliance till it had been repeal'd and had he liv'd till now Episcopacy would have been the same thing as then The Virtual Consent of every individual Person is given when a Law is made and therefore I must obey when what is commanded is not undeniably a sin and my Disobedience is a sin when the matter is lawful So that rebus sic stantibus a man may lawfully promise to do what he may lawfully do and if there be an evident and publick Alteration in the Subject Matter the Obligation ceases Neither do I apprehend any Reason from the Law of God or Men but that every Man may swear Allegiance or to be quiet under our present Government though they would have had things otherwise setled because a private Opinion is not to be oppos'd against the general Determination of the Body of the Nation And to me it appears Imprudence and Mockery that after the Non-Iuring Passive Men have beat King Iames out of the Kingdom as far as their Principles allow'd with their Primitive Weapons Prayers and Tears That is that now we are deliver'd by Providence and Second Causes from Popery and Slavery that the very same men some of which put their Helping Hand too are praying it back again for the French Court is the worst in the World to instruct Princes to govern according to Laws and I don't hear Father Peters is turn'd Protestant Now to the part of the Bishops Paragraph which follows in these words And as it appears that there lies no just Objection to the swearing Obedience so there arises none from the word Allegiance for that being in its Original Signification nothing but the Service that a Vassal owed to the Chief Lord of the Fee If the King is owned in Fact to be our King
fright â—hem into his Net with a Venient Romani The French the Irish and Popish Tyranny will be upon you if you do not take the Oath The Bishop in his Pastoral Letter page the 3 d and 4 th informs his Clergy That by refâ—sing the Oath they might do a considerable Prejudice to the Publick Peace and shake as far as in them lay the present Settlement of the Nation and therefore they ought to consider well the Grounds of their Non-Compliance before they adventur'd against a Woâ—k which in the whole Progress of it has had so many signal Characters of a Favourable Providence and then he adds the Advantages we have reap'd by it and the mischievous Consequences that might ensue in case they did not take the Oaths which were Popish Tyranny An Irish Conquest and Massacre and French Barbarity and Cruelty To which he subjoyns A Man that adventures on so dangerous a Thing as refusing the Oaths had need be very sure that he is in all this matter in the Right Otherwise he runs a Risque of sighting against God if he should happen to be in the wrong Upon the whole matter the Bishop makes use of the Topick of Divine Providence to perswade their Compliance and the great Miseries we might bring on our own Heads after so great a Deliverance if there were not an Unanimous agreement amongst us Gamaliel I presume must be acknowledg'd as Wise a Doctor as Mr. Iohnson can be thought by any of our great Council and as a Proof of it the whole body of the People oâ— Israel were concluded by his Advice in the great Sanhedrim purposely conveened to determine that Important Affair in Relation to those Doctrines and Miracles which were wrought and preach'd by the Apostles and which they were so zealous to oppose You may at your leisure read the whole Transaction in the 5 th of the Acts of the Apostles but because 't is pertinent to my present purpose I will recite Gamaliel's Advice in the great Council contained in the 38 th and 39 th Verses And now I say unto you Refrain from these men and let them alone for if this Counsel or this Work be of Men it will come to nought But if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it lest haply ye be found even to fight against God So that as that great Revolution in Religion and the New Face of Affairs in the World was brought to pass by the powerful Hand of God and could not be resisted So also there are many Instances to be given of the Visible Providences which attended and procur'd our happy Settlement and preserv'd that Faith of Christ which we profess in its Pâ—imitive Purity and against which the utmost Efâ—orts and Artifiâ—es of a Resolv'd and Attempted Power could not prevail We might still have enjoy'd an uninterrupted continuance of its kind Influences had not our Ingratitude Divisions as well as Treachery and Malice to each other those most provoking sins loudly call'd for Judgments to fall on us Now I am the Fairest Adversary in the World tho I say it my self You have leâ—t out Who should not ay it But I will no more believe you than if you should say you were a Saint or that your Gall did not lye in your Scull because you have almost in every Particular throughout your Notes vented your ungovern'd Passion more than Reason One of the things he says we ought to fear and tremble at is Popish Tyranny I would fain know whether the word Popish added to Tyranny makes it better or worse In this Note Mr. Iohnson thinks himself safe but I 'le inform him that the Word Tyranny may be made Blacker that there 's no false Heraldry in it That Popish and Protestant Tyranny are not alike and that their Effects are not the same Popish Tyranny is the worst of Tyrannies it attempts to enslave mens Consciences their Religion as well as Liberties and Properties And because I will be before-hand with him in Instances French Tyranny is Popish Tyranny and a late Author tells us that Danish is Protestant I have nothing to say against your Story of Sir Ellis Leighton and that the late King's Design was to subvert the Government The Papists do not deny it And as for those Imprudent Discourses if there were any such let the guilty answer for themselves He may please himself with his several Descants on the Word King Our King makes the Laws of the Kingdom his Rule to govern by and desires no more Power than to be able to do all the good he can to his People I go therefore in the next place to set before you those Reasons that seem convincing to me even tho there were no more to be said for the presenâ— Settlement but that we have a Throne filled and a King and Queen in Possession After Mr. Iohnson hath made a Flourish he tells us I shall take the pains of examining them One by One and find out if I can their power of Conviction which I am afraid is like an Estate left in Diego's Will He is so merry a Gentleman and hath such an Overflowing of frothy Conceits that I am afraid he won't live long But to the Reasons The Bishop never design'd nor ever hopes to convince you with his Reasons Instead of being as good as your Word in examining the Bishop's Reasons a fancy comes in to your Head that the Throne is widened and then you tell us for whaâ— Reason I know not That you believe that a King and Queen in possession alone or a King and Queen de Facto together in Opposition to de Jure would have frighted Cook Littleton c. I will repeat no more of what 's nothing to the purpose and I thought you had lov'd the great Dead Lawyers better than to contrive any Scare-crows to fright them The Bishop in his Pastoral Letter page 21 st Declares the King and Queens Right to the Crown from the Determinaâ—ion and Declaration of the Peers and People of England chosen and Assembled together with all possible Freedom So that he hath nothing to do with the Distinction of de Facto and de Iure Possession is a very good Title till a better appears and the Bishop tells us the King and Queen have a Lawful Title and a Right to our Allegiance for several Reasons And there is no need of the Bishop's naming the Cause or how they came into the Throne because this Reason is press'd only on Supposition of their bare Possession of it But to the following part of the Paragraph The bringing the State of the Question so low may seem at first View not to be of so much Advantage to Their Majesties Title but since I intend to carry the matter further before I leave it I hope it may be no incongruous method to begin at that which will take in the greatest Numbers since there is no dispute in this that they are actually in possession of the