Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A49129
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A resolution of certain queries concerning submission to the present government ... by a divine of the Church of England, as by law establisht.
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Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing L2980; ESTC R21420
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45,635
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72
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A RESOLUTION OF Certain Queries CONCERNING SUBMISSION TO THE Present Government The QUERIES I. Concerning the Original of Government II. What is the Constitution of the Government of England III. What Obligation lies on the King by the Coronation-Oath IV. What Obligation lies on the Subject by the Oaths of Supremacy c. V. Whether if the King Violate his Oath and actually Destroys the Ends of it the Subjects are freed from their Obligation to him VI. Whether the King hath Renounced or Deserted the Government VII Whether on such Desertion the People to Preserve themselves from Confusion may admit Another and what Method is to be used in such Admission VIII Whether the Settlement now made is a Lawful Establishment and such as with a good Conscience may be Submitted to By a Divine of the Church of England As by Law Establisht Licensed April 8th 1689. J. Fraser London Printed and are to be Sold by R. Baldwin in the Old-Baily 1689. The INTRODUCTION THERE is no doubt but the imputation of Disloyalty will as the Viper that came out of the fire and fastned upon St. Paul's Hand be fixed on the Church of England from the Dissenters of all sorts The Clamour is already very loud Where is the Loyalty of the Church of England Which though ad homines it might well be Answered by demanding Where is the Loyalty of the Papists Whom the King had so far obliged as to put them into the most considerable Offices of the Nation excluding better Subjects yet none of them though they were well Armed and in great numbers ever struck a stroke to defend the King against the Assailants although by their mischievous Counsels they had reduced him to those unhappy Circumstances And the other Dissenters who pretended to be great numbers and to have so great a Zeal for His Majesty for the favours granted them by the Indulgence and share in the Government as with their Lives and Fortunes to assist him yet were most forward to unite against him But what have the Clergy done to incur the Note of Disloyalty Did they enter into an Association against the King Were they called in Convocation to declare their Judgments as to the present juncture of Affairs Did they not as long as the King remained in his Kingdom obey him in all things Lawful according to their Doctrine of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience It could not be expected that they should take Arms or expose their naked Bodies to the Invaders Sword. They kept their Stations as their Duties to God and the King obliged them committing themselves to God and waiting for his Salvation And methinks when the Bishops and Clergy were accused for Disloyalty by some for not obeying the King in reading his late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience which they could not do with a good Conscience and were generally applauded for such Refusal they should not now be decried for keeping to the same Rule of not doing such things for which their Consciences till better informed will condemn them But we are now brought into a great strait in which our Adversaries will by all Arts imaginable endeavour to keep us and which way soever we turn they will turn it to our Ruin if it be possible If we comply with the present Establishment they will rob us of our Reputation and Faithfulness towards the People committed to our Charge as if we had misled them and taught them those Doctrines which we our selves never intended to practice If we comply not they judge us Men worthy to be deprived of our Livelihoods and with our Families to be exposed as in the late War to Sequestrators and new Committees These are no groundless Jealousies but real Fears and in some degree matters of Fact for almost in every Parish there are Persons of different Persuations and if the Minister pray for the present King and Queen according to Order one part of the Mobile condemn him for an Apostate from his own Doctrine and a Rebel If we keep to our Liturgy which by Oath we are bound to do and tho' we have as yet no Order regularly transmitted to us for altering any of those Prayers there is another Party threaten to knock us on the heads and great Affronts have been offered to several Conscientious Ministers on both these occasions What then shall we do to extricate our selves from these Mazes which are daily enlarged and become more dark and difficult for 't is not the case of a few Bishops or private Ministers only but the case of the Church of England which if our Enemies can divide in this they will easily destroy us and not us only but the whole Interest of the Protestant Churches abroad whose welfare much depends upon our Vnion and Agreement in this Nation It therefore concerns us all seriously and sincerely to enquire after the due measures of Obedience to our present Governors that doing our Duties according to the Commands of God and the Dictates of a well-inform'd Conscience we may stop the mouths of such as are opened against us and ready to swallow us up I shall at present only consider The Objection against the Church of England which is That she hath Deserted the King contrary to her Oaths her own Doctrine for Passive Obedience and their Declaration for Non-resistance viz. That it is not Lawful on any Pretence whatsoever c. Answer 1. That the Doctrine of the Church as to the present Juncture is not known but by their Determinations in a Convocation duly called for what some of the Clergy do act or declare is not to be imputed to the Church In the War raised against Charles the First some of the Clergy as Sibthorp and Manwaring stretched the Prerogative too high others as Marshal and Calamy all which pretended to be of the Church of England depressed it as low But neither of these Extremities could be charged on the Church which kept in a middle way And under the late King some were of the same Opinion with Sibthorp and Manwaring as the Bishops of Chester and Oxford others refused to comply so far as to publish his Declaration what the Church would have done in Convocation is a Non constat 2ly As to the Doctrines of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience which were not so generally taught but others did declare That those general Rules might admit of just Exceptions and had certain tacite Conditions and Qualifications in them which in case of great alterations in the Affairs of Government would appear to be necessary and justifiable and they suppose that if such a case as ours now is had been thought of or proposed it would certainly be excepted or provided against And they think it fit that the condition and circumstances of the Times wherein such Doctrines were published ought to be considered for from the Reign of Q. Elizabeth we lived under Protestant Princes governing by Laws and Defenders of our Faith who though they erred from the Laws and
the Honour of the Church in some lesser matters as the necessity of their Affairs and Counsels perswaded them yet as to the Fundamentals of both Laws and Religion they resolutely adhered to them yet was there in the People such a ferment of Rebellion infused by Malecontents perswading them of great danger both to their Religion and Laws that the People were alway ready to take fire from the sparks of groundless Fears and Jealousies and at last broke forth into such a flame as well nigh turned the whole Nation into Ashes and this was done against a Prince who as much abhorred Tyranny and Popery as any of his Subjects could it was therefore necessary that when after twenty Years Confusion we were brought as by a Miracle to settle on our first Foundations the strictest Rules and Doctrines for Obedience should be inculcated to the People Thus by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when a Stick is crooked we bend it to the contrary part to bring it strait and the Rule is generally approved Imquum petas ut aequum feras To demand more than is due that we may not receive less See his Sermon on Eph. 5.4 It is observed by Dr. Barrow that both Moral and Political Aphorisms tho' delivered in general Terms do need Expositions and admit Exceptions else they would clash with Reason and Experience The best Masters of such Wisdom interdict things apart by unseasonable or excessive use to be perverted in general forms of Speech leaving the Restrictions which the case may require or bear to be made by the Hearers or Interpreters discretion whence many seemingly formal Prohibitions are to be received only as sober Cautions So far that Learned Doctor So Bishop Usher's Sentences delivered in general terms are not always intended to be taken in their full latitude but to have their commodious restrictions according to the quality and nature of the matter in hand P. 5. of the Power of Princes And in dangerous Causes Abundans cautela non nocet which may serve as a reason for our pressing the Duties of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience in such dangerous times as we lived in in such general terms And if we should collect all that the ancient Fathers have said in the heat of Controversies and Disputations or in their Panegericks and Invectives and compare them with their Dogmata or Opinions when they wrote their mature Judgments of matters of Faith and Doctrine we might find them to contradict themselves more then the present Church doth contradict herself in these Doctrines of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience Thus for instance St. Augustine disputing against the Pelagians who defended Free-will wrote as if he had been a Manachee and defended an irresistible Fate and when he disputed against the Manachees he seemed to be a Pelagian and to defend Free-will And those who are Predestinarians in their Writings in their Sermons to the People agree with the Arminians And the Church of England which ever since the Reformation taught the Doctrine of Non-resistance in any case whatsoever have yet manifested their Judgment that this general Rule may insome cases admit exception as by the Assistance given to the Scots French and Dutch Protestants in defence of their Religion and Liberties as hereafter mentioned may appear God himself reversed the Sentence denounced in general terms against the Ninevites upon their performing of the tacite Condition of returning from their evil Ways and yet there was no variableness in God And if there be any such tacite Conditions in the Laws and Declarations of Men as is confest by many wise and good men the sence of such Law and Declarations may differ from the letter when the state of Affairs doth alter for if it had been foreseen that a King should arise that would exercise Arbitrary Power and subject the Kingdom to the Pope destroy the Religion and Properties of the Subjects a case so odious and improbable that it could not well be supposed the Doctrine of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience would not have been prest to those ends which were intended to the contrary viz. to make way for Popery and Tyranny and Confusion Tempora mutantur non nos We adhere to our first Principles still for Levitas non est destituere si aliquid novi intervenerit eadem mihi Omnia praesta idem Sum. 3ly But as to matter of Fact let it be inquired what have the Clergy acted contrary to those Doctrines While the King continued in the Government they continued their Obedience even when their Liberties and Properties were actually taken away and their Lives were at stake Since the King's departure they have been under restraint and an impossibility of defending him whom the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty and his own Army had generally deserted and joyned with the Invading Army Hitherto then they have been Passive but the grand inquiry is How they ought to behave themselves under the present Circumstances the present King in vindication of his Queen 's Right which was otherwise desparate and not to be recovered by Petition or Bill in Chancery got full possession of the Kingdom and by a National Consent in Parliament they are declared King and Queen Whether our Allegiance be due to the late King or the present Power under whose Protection we live and enjoy our Religion Laws and Liberties which were so near to be lost Some men of great Reputation for Learning and Piety think themselves obliged by their former Oaths And the present Government think they cannot be secure till the Clergy are obliged to them by new Oaths the refusal whereof may draw on Suspension and Deprivation to the undoing not only of themselves and Families but the Established Church at home and the Protestant Interest over all Christendom if any Wars or Divisions should be occasioned by such Refusal for Prevention of which I earnestly intreat my Brethren the Clergy to lay aside all Prepossessions and Prejudices and seriously to consider the Answers given to the following Queries which the Author hath collected from * St. August l. 3. Concerning Order says there are two ways of resolving Doubts either by our own reason or the authority of the most learned Nam qui consiliis pollet nihil ipse nec audit Suadentes alios nullos homo vivit in usus the Writings of men of great Integrity Learning and Experience partly for his own satisfaction but mostly for the satisfaction of others whose welfare is as dear to him as his own that yeilding due Subjection to the King and Queen and all that are now in Authority we may lead a quiet and peaceable Life in all Godliness and Honesty The Original of Government in General GOD is the Fountain of all Government being not the Author of Confusion but of Peace and hath established Order among all his Creatures in the Angelical Nature he hath constituted several Orders Angels and Archangels Principalities Powers and Dominions in the Celestial Bodies the Sun to