Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A44455
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Animadversions on Mr Johnson's answer to Jovian in three letters to a country-friend.
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Hopkins, William, 1647-1700.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing H2753; ESTC R20836
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74,029
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140
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that Parliament which recognized K. Iames his Lineal Descent from Elizabeth Daughter of K. Edward the Fourth 2. He quarrels with his Adversary for talking of the Exclusion of the House of Suffolk which he saith never had any pretensions to the Crown Sure Mr. I. was in a very cavilling humour The Daughters of Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk by the French Queen and their Issue are those whom Iovian intends by the House of Suffolk and why they may not as properly be call'd the House of Suffolk as the present Line the House of Scotland I know not For denying the pretensions of that Line to the Crown I leave him to answer to the Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Derby and some other Noble Lords descended thence 3. He represents Iovian as very absurd for quoting the Act of Recognition 1 Iacobi when he is for invalidating all Acts of Parliament that limit and determine the Succession But the absurdity is his own He seem'd well enough to understand the difference of Declaring or Recognizing from Creating and Electing about 20 pages before 't is much he should so soon forget it An Act of Recognition confers no Title but supposes it An Act which limits the Descent of the Crown creates a Title when it was not It is worth observing how strange an Answer he gives to two Authorities cited by Iovian importing a Bill of Exclusion which changeth our Succession from Hereditary to Elective Saith he An Act of Disinheriting from the Crown doth own and proclaim and prove the Kingdom to be Hereditary Right But it makes it quite otherwise So the Act for taking away the King's Office doth own this Realm to be a Monarchy but made it a Commonwealth The Ordinance for abolishing Episcopacy doth own and prove the Government of these Churches to be Episcopal and at the same time destroyed it I suppose that implicit acknowledgment did not cure the manifest Injustice of those Acts. His Reflection on Iovian's way of arguing is Childish if there be four Terms in the Syllogism or Enthymeme they are of his own making and he is to answer for the honesty of it himself No less ridiculous is his pretence that his Adversary professeth to have sworn Allegiance to Subjects It is possible an Oath of Allegiance may be broken by injuries done to a Subject and yet no Allegiance be sworn to that Subject for instance by ravishing or killing the Queen or the Prince and yet both the Queen and Prince are no more than Subjects Whether an attempt to debar the next Lineal Heir from Succeeding be not an Invasion of the Rights and Prerogative of the present King especially when he is averse to it and an offence against his Crown and Dignity may possibly be a doubt with Persons of more Learning and Conscience than Mr. I. hath shewn either in Iulian or his Defence of it Whether it be or not I will not determine The Rant wherewith he closeth his Answer to Iovian's Preface is to the tune of Lewis du Moulin Yet I presume no body takes Mr. Dean to have renounced the Doctrine of our Glorious Reformers or thinks him one step nearer Rome on that Account Some such Zealots against Popery as Mr. I. about 60. years since fell foul on Bishop Hall who in his old Religion acknowledgeth the Roman to be a true though a corrupt Church and occasioned him to publish an Apologetical Epistle call'd the Reconciler in which he faith that to acknowledge the Church of Rome to be a True Church was common with the best Reformed Divines and had been done by himself with the Approbation and Applause of the whole Representative Body of the Clergy of this Kingdom He explains himself as Iovian doth asserting that in different senses the Church of Rome is both a True and a False Church True in Existence False in Belief that is hath a Natural not a Moral Trueness As a Thief or a Cheat is truly a Man though not a True Man or as the Devil is a true Spiri◠or Angel though not as Mr. I. fallaciously expresseth himself a true Angel of Light a false lying Spirit He addeth that Antichristianism though it justly makes the Church of Rome odious and execrable to God Angels and Men yet it cannot utterly dischurch it He saith in this Doctrine he followeth Zanchy Luther Calvin Iunius Plessis Hooker Andrews Field Crakanthorp Bedel and others who deny not the Natural Verity of the Church of Rome though they deny it to be veram puram They own it to be a True Church such as the Ten Tribes were notwithstanding the Idolatrous Worship set up by Ieroboam which is little to the advantage of the Roman Church being only in effect to say They are neither Jews Turks nor Pagans though misbelieving Heretical and Idolatrous Christians and this Epistle and Doctrine is approved by Bishop Morton Davenant and Prideaux as also by Mr. Primrose Minister of the French Church Thus I have attended Mr. I. through his first Stage and here I think it best for me to rest a while with him My motion hath been somewhat slower than I intended and I confess in point of time I have broken my word with you But you will pardon me when you consider that his numberless Frauds which I had to detect required more time than I allowed my self for Fallacies are not laid open and confuted in as few words as they are committed And withal I have been the more particular in exposing this first part of his Answer because here it is that I am most capable of serving you by shewing how wretchedly he prevaricates in abusing many good Authours which you have not at hand to consult I hope to make a shorter business of what is behind a great part of it being already examin'd in my former Letter March 14. 1689. I remain Dear Sir Your most humble Servant The Third LETTER Dear Sir I Am now come to what Mr. I. is pleas'd to call an Answer to Iovian and concur with your Observation that Brevity is the only good thing in it craving leave to add that it would have been abundantly more commendable upon that account had he forborn Cavils and spiteful misrepresentations of his Adversary without which his Answer would not have exceeded the fifth part of its present bulk as small as it is His Argument à fortiori if design'd to prove that the Christians of the fourth Century would in our Circumstances have been for Exclusion of a Popish Successor is wretched Fallacy because of the vast disparity of their Case and Ours For Mr. I. hath not been able to maintain his Paradox that the Empire was Hereditary against Iovian's Arguments And if it be design'd to prove that had the Christians known Iulian to be a Pagan they would have done all in their Power to have kept him from the Crown it is no less wretched Impertinence in regard his Adversary undertakes that the Fathers of our
to which he hath given no sort of answer to let you see how little reason his Admirers have to magnifie this Reply in which he declines medling with the most considerable Arguments urged against him which stand in full force against his first Book notwithstanding the Shew he makes of defending it To avoid being tedious I purposely omit the mention of many other considerable things in Iovian of which he takes no notice And having shewn that he hath given no full Answer to that Book I shall proceed to shew that this Reply is not a fair one but full of fallacy and deceit 1. As he doth not consider many of Iovian's Arguments so when he vouchsafes to Reply to others he frequently misrepresents them or coâ—cealeth the Reasons and Authorities which support and inforce them and shams them off with a Droll Which is very unbecoming a fair and generous Adversary and unworthy I will not say of a Christian or Divine but even of an honest Man and a Scholar though a meer Pagan I will not trouble you with particular instances of such foul dealing because they will frequently occur in my Remarks on several passages of his Book such as the shuffle he makes to exclude Procopius from the Flavian house the account he gives of the distinction of Laws inâ—o Imperial and Political 2. His main Authorities are Rhetorical Amplifications and flourishes in Panegyricks and Invectives in which the Orator doth not tie him strictly to truth and the proper use of words so that there is no arguing from the literal sence but abatements must be made for Hyperbolical Speech on both hands for lofty strains of Complement in Panegyrick and for heavy and Tragical Aggravation in the Steliteutick or Invective This deceitful artifice is the Masterpiece of our Popish Adversaries when they pretend the Father's Authority for the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Invocation of Saints c. they ransack their Declamatory pieces for lofty Expressions touching the dignity and benefits of the Holy Eucharist and take Metaphors and Metonymies in a proper and literal sence They urge this very Apostrophe of Gregory Nazianzen to Constantius whence Mr. Iohnson would infer the Doctrine of Exclusion as a notable Testimony for the Invocation of Saints and for my part I think it proves the one as much as the other This foul play his Adversaries have sufficiently complained of but cannot prevail with him to leave it he is conscious that he needs such advantages and dares not let them go For having made such a wild assertion as that the Empire was Hereditary and being hard pressed by his Answerers and withal resolved not to bate them one syllable in his whole Book he is forced to outface plain History with strains of Rhetorick in which the Orator frequently allows fancy as licentious flights as the very Poets and nay even to stretch Hyperboles too by an advantageous Translation Now this argues great want of Ingenuity an unchristian and wrangling temper and that he contends not so much for the love of truth as for Glory and Victory Whether he hath obtained it or not will be further seen in the particular Remarks to which I am proceeding His Intimation that Mr. Dean waited to see the other Answers to Iulian and then gave the substance of them in his Book scarce deserves any notice It is well known that Iovian was written currente prelo and great part of it Printed before those Answers appeared The expectation of it made my self and divers others never look into them and quite spoiled the sale of Mr. Long 's Book as the Bookseller concerned hath complained to many It is more material for me to enquire whether Iovian hath given us an outlandish notion of a Soveraign for if he hath not the deceit will lie at Mr. Iohnson's Door If his Notion be supported by the joint Authority of the Common and Statute Laws it is great injustice to call it an outlandish one Now Iovian doth not set up an English Soveraign furnished with an Arbitrary and boundless Power like that of the French King or Grand Seignior He acknowledgeth him to be under the direction of the Law though he ascribe to him a Supremacy over all Persons within his Dominions which let Mr. I. say what he pleases is the formal notion of a Soveraign unless the word be taken in an improper sence This Supremacy he proves to belong to an English Soveraign by many Statutes and the Testimony of our most eminent Lawyers both Ancient and Modern against which Mr. Iohnson hath not one word to reply He proceeds to a particular recital of the Essential Rights and Properties of a true Soveraign viz. to be unaccountable to have the sole power of the Sword to be free from Coercion and Military Resistance He sheweth these Prerogatives to be the King 's due by express Statute Law which Statutes do not vest any new Right in the Crown but only declare what always hath been the Ancient and Fundamental Law of this Realm in those Cases So that Iovian's Soveraign is an English Soveraign for ought Mr. I. hath proved to the contrary and therefore his Jest of a Dutch Scale in a Map of Middlesex is both false and impertinent For though the Miles of several Countries have no formal Conceptions in which they all agree as Individuals of the same Species yet all proper Soveraigns have viz. Supremacy from which the foremention'd rights are inseparable Nor will his doughty Demonstration from an Act of Parliament which useth the Term in a lax and improper sence convince Mr. Dean or any Man else that the Notion of a Soveraign implies nothing in it but Superiority For at that rate there will be no fixing the formal Conception of any thing if it must be stretcht so wide as to take in whatsoever though improperly bears the same name The sence of the Term Soveraign with respect to a civil Society is so very well known and agreed upon in the World that upon the very hearing it every body forms a conception in his mind of somewhat more than Superiority and understands thereby such a superiour as is above all and hath none above him which imports Supremacy and Mr. I. might as well have argued that the formal conception of a Baron of England doth not imply Peerage with all the Râ—ghts Essential to a Peer of this Realm because the Baron of Kinderton the Barons of the Cinque-Ports and the Barons of the Exchequer are not Peers and have none of those great Privileges The next material thing in his Preface is his quarrel against the Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws Now let us first â—ee how Iovian explains this Distinction and then what work Mr. I. makes with it He calls those Imperial Laws which ascertain the Rights of the Soveraign and those Political which secure the Rights of the Subject That there are Laws of both sorts I presume Mr. I. will not