Griffith Serm. 25. Mar. 1660. called fear God and the King p. 11. v.p. 39. and p. 8 9. If God command one thing and the King should command another then God's command is to be preferred and yet let me tell you that the King is not to be disobeyed for a true Christian is obliged to a twofold obedience Active and Passive Where the King commands things Lawful there yield Active Obedience and know that it is your duty to do them but if he should command such a thing as you may not lawfully do then you must not resist but suffer patiently for your not doing it and that is your Passive Obedience and in both these you may still keep a good Conscience for though God be to be preferred yet God will not have his Anointed to be disobeyed Dr. Jane Dean of Gloucester Ser. at the Consecr of Doctor Crompton Bishop of Oxon p. 30 31 32. Such is the peculiar genius of Christianity that where ever it is either Preacht or Received it can create no jealousie in the State. The ground upon which this Assertion stands is this that it disclaims all title to the Sword but leaves him that takes it to perish with it though it be drawn in defence of Christ himself In the Church then as of old in Israel there was no Smith to provide Swords and Spears though against their persecuting Philistines To obey Authority was taught and practised under a Nero and their Submissions were as unparallel'd as their Provocations And we may truly suppose under the Roman Emperors that had the Doctrine of Obedience been as truly received by their Heathen Subjects as it was Preacht by S. Paul and practised by the believing Romans they had effectually provided for the publick Tranquillity without any further need of Forts and Armies to secure it Dr. Outram The Glory of the King Ser. Jan. 30. 1664. p. 141 149. the Privileges of the Parliament the Liberty of the Subject the Purity of Religion these are written upon the Face of the design The Principle is doing evil that good may come of it and breaking Laws that we may the better observe them These Men went to Rome to whet the Ax and borrowed an Arrow out of the Roman Quiver secretly to shoot the Lord 's Anointed Were the Prince a Nero p. 160. Paul would charge us we should not resist and would charge resistance with damnation Sir Orlando Bridgman at the Tryal of the Regicides says Try. p. 10 12. v. p. 15 52 182 283. I must deliver to you for plain and true Law that no Authority no single Person no Community of Persons not the People Collectively or Representatively have any coercive Power over the King of England And this he proves at large in the same place The Crown of England is and always was an Imperial Crown Now I do not intend any Absolute Government by this It is one thing to have an Absolute Monarchy another thing to have that Government absolutely without Laws as to any coercive Power over the Person of the King. God is my witness what I speak V. p. 13 14. p. 280. V. p. 281 282. I speak from mine own Conscience that is that whatsoever the case was by the Laws of these Nations the Fundamental Laws there could not be any coercive Power over the King. And this he there proves from the obligation of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy c. Mark the Doctrine of the Church of England and I do not know with what spirit of Equivocation any Man can take that Oath of Supremacy Her Articles were the judgment not only of the Church but of the Parliament at the same time And the Queen and the Church were willing that these should be put into Latin that all the World might see the Confession of the Church of England So also Sir Heneage Finch P. 51. then the King's Sollicitor General The King is not accountable to any coercive Power See also the accurate Treatise See also Nalson's Counter p. 35 c. 3â—9 Com. Interest of Kings p. 139 c. p. 3. called the Harmony of Divinity and Law which proves that it is a damnable sin to resist Sovereign Princes and answers all the little objections of the Republicans to the contrary I shall here only mention Mr. Foulu's History of the Plots and Conspiracies of the pretended Saints and briefly transcribe a passage or two out of Dr. Sprat Bishop of Rochester his True account of the horrid Conspiracy At that time under the color of the only true Protestant the worst of all Unchristian Principles were put in Practice all the old Republican and Antimonarchical Doctrines whose effects had formerly proved so dismal were again as confidently owned and asserted as ever they had been during the hottest rage of the late unhappy Troubles p. 21. See p. 41. The Lord R was seduced by the wicked Teachers of that most Unchristian Doctrine which has been the cause of so many Rebellions That it is lawful to resist and rise against Sovereign Princes for preserving Religion p. 43 44. Other Principles were that the only obligation the Subject hath to the King is a mutual Covenant that this Covenant was manifestly broken on the King's part ☞ that therefore the People were free from all Oaths and other tyes of Fealty and Allegiance and had the natural Liberty restored to them of asserting their own Rights and as justly at least against a Domestick as against Foreign Invaders p. 131. v. p. 132. The whole design of A. S's Papers was to maintain That Tyrants may be justly Deposed by the People and that the People are the only Judges who are Tyrants That the general Revolt of a Nation from its own Magistrates can never be called a Rebellion which Positions the Historian calls with great Truth and Justice Villanous Opinions p. 133. and such as if allowed it will be impossible for the best Kings or the most happy Kingdoms in the World to be free from perpetual Treasons p. 164. and Rebellious Plottings But his Majesty hath just reason to acknowledge that the main body of the Nobility and Gentry stood by him so has the whole sound and honest part of the Commonalty so the great Fountains of Knowledge and Civility the two Universities so the wisest and most learned in the Laws so the whole Clergy and all the genuine Sons of the Church of England ☞ a Church whose glory it is to have been never tainted with the least blemish of disloyalty Dr. Pocock In ch 8. Hos 4. p. 388 389. Some Interpreters by Setting up Kings but not by me would understand Saul but that cannot with reason be imagined Others looking on the sin of the Israelites to be their defection from the House of David on which God had intayled the Right and Title of the Kingdom and their changing of the Kinghom and Priesthood of their own heads
first brought from another Country and is no way natural to our own tho the Infection hath been taken by too many who had an ill Temper prepared for it Cons Dr. Jackson's Works Tom. 3. l. 12. ch 8. p. 978. their Loyalty and Peaceableness may be the Fruits of their Education or their good temper but not of their Faith or as Dr. Sherlock says they may be loyal as Englishmen but they cannot be so as Papists Would we therefore judge of the Doctrine of our Church we must consult her Articles Canons publick Homilies publick Offices of Devotion General Orders of her Bishops Censures of her Universities and Writings of her greatest Men who have vindicated her Doctrine and explained her Belief and this Method I shall use to discover what hath been owned by the Church of England as to the Doctrine of Non-resistance or Passive Obedience CHAP. I. The Doctrine of the Thirty nine Articles THE Articles of our Church have been always looked upon as the stated Doctrine of our whole Church to which all her Priests are obliged to make their Subscriptions they are allowed a place in the Body of the Confessions of the Protestant Churches and are highly commended by Foreigners as well as by our own Writers for * Bishop Ridley's Farewel Letter apud Fox tom 3. p. 506. this Church hath in matters of Controversie Articles so penned and framed after the Holy Scriptures and grounded upon the true understanding of God's Word that in short time if they had been universally received says Bishop Ridley the Martyr they should have been able to have set in Christ's Church much concord and unity in Christ's true Religion and to have expelled many false Errors and Heresies wherewith this Church alas was almost overgone Nor is this that excellent Prelate's peculiar Opinion but of the whole Church which ordains †Can. 3. an 1604. That whosoever shall affirm that the Church of England by Law establish'd under the King's Majesty is not a true and Apostolical Church teaching and maintaining the Doctrine of the Apostles let him be excommunicated ipso facto And Can. 5. Whosoever shall affirm that any of the thirty nine Articles agreed in the Synod 1562 are in any part superstitious or erroneous let him be excommunicate ipso facto Anno 1552. In the Convocation held at London Articles of Religion were agreed upon of which the Thirty sixth runs thus The Civil Magistrate is ordained and allowed of God and therefore is to be obeyed not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake And expresly asserts That the Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England In the Articles of our Church under Queen Elisabeth anno 1562. it runs thus and so continues to this day The Queens Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all Cases doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any Foreign Jurisdiction And it is remarkable ‖ Rogers's Praef. to the 39th Artic. that these Articles of 1562. were published in the same year in which the Massacre at Vassey in France was committed by the Duke of Guise and when all the Protestants in the Country were sentenced to Death by the Parliament of Paris It is true this Doctrine is not limited to the particular Case of Subjects taking up Arms but it seems to me by two necessary Consequences to be deduc'd from it 1. Because if the Pope who pretended by a Divine Right had no power over Kings much less have the People any power who pretend to an inferior Right that of Compact 2. Because the Article makes no distinction but excludes all other Power as well as that of the Pope And in truth the Plea is the same on either side the Pope says as long as the Prince governs according to the Laws of God and the Church of which he is the Interpreter so long the Censures of the Church do not reach him and say the People as long as the Prince governs according to the Laws of the Land and of the meaning of those Laws themselves are the Interpreters so long are they bound to be obedient but as soon as the King doth any thing that may contradict the Pope then he is deservedly say the Romanists excommunicate deposed and murdered and when he usurps upon the Peoples Liberties then he ought to be deposed by the Peoples the Arguments on either side are the same and for the most part the Authorities for as * Moderat of the Church of England ann 17. §. 19. p. 481. Dr. Puller well observes both Papists and Dissenters deny the Supremacy of the King one attributes it to the Pope originally the other to the People and the same Arguments that the Pope useth for his Supremacy over Kings the Disciplinarians use for establishing their Sovereignty CHAP. II. The Doctrine of the Injunctions and Canons IN the Infancy of the Reformation under Henry the Eighth for there I begin the Restoration of Religion to her Purity in this Kingdom as Dr. Burnet does †Burnet hist Reform l. 3. p. 226. tom 1. And Fox tom 2. p. 387. Anno 1536. Injunctions were issued out the first of which is That every Man that hath Cure of Souls shall for the Establishment and Confirmation of the King's Authority and Jurisdiction sincerely declare manifest and open for the space of one quarter of a year next ensuing once every Sunday and after that at the least wise twice every Quarter in their Sermons and other Collations that the Bishop of Rome 's usurp'd Power and Jurisdiction having no Establishment or Ground in the Law of God was of most just Causes taken away and abolish'd and that the King's Power is in his Dominions the highest Power and Potentate under God to whom all men within the same Dominions by God's Commandment owe most Loyalty and Obedience afore and above all other Potentates in Earth Now if a King be above all other Powers then he cannot be accountable to any other Power and so ought not to be resisted Anno * Burnet's Collect. of Records p. 181. 1538. came out the Lord Cromwel's Injunctions as they were called wherein the same Duty is injoyned in the same Words This also is the first of the Injunctions of Edw. the Sixth †Sparr Collect. p. 1 2. An. 1547. the Preface to which Injunctions acknowledges that part of them were formerly set out by Henry the Eighth and the rest added by King Edward the Sixth This also was the first of the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth with a very little variation and accordingly in the Articles of Enquiry of Archbishop Cranmer in the Diocess of Canterbury under Edward the Sixth the first is Whether all Persons c. have preach'd against the usurp'd Power of the Bishop of Rome Secondly Whether they have preach'd and
for Atheism * Id. Ser. on Rom. 13.5 p. 5 6. c. The real causes of Commotions are seldom the same with those that are pretended for training in and engaging a multitude they are truly an ungrounded and aspiring Ambition the heat and fury of Mens passions c. But * P. 19. 20 c. Natural and revealed Religion do offer us these reasons for obliging us to subjection to the higher Powers 1. We are taught that those Powers are of God nay that they are Gods a strain of speech that if divine Authority did not warrant it would pass for impudent and blasphemous flattery Deputed Powers are onely accountable to those from whom they derive their Authority and L. P. 25. the Example and practice of our Great Master My kingdom is not of this World this doth so expresly discharge all bustling and fighting on the pretence of Religion ☞ that we must either set up for another Gospel or utterly reject what is so formally condemn'd by the Author of this we profess to believe Never cause of Religion was of so great concern as the preserving the Head and Author of it P. 27. If we examine the nature and design of that holy Religion our Saviour deliver'd we shall find nothing more diametrically opposite to all its Rules than the distemper'd fury of these misguided Zealots Otherwise doth St. Paul teach the Romans though then groaning under the severest rigours of bondage and tyranny and St. Peter doth at full length once and again call on all Christians to prepare for sufferings and to bear them patiently ☜ And though the bondage of the Slaves was heavy and highly contrary to all the freedoms of the humane nature yet he exhorts them to bear the severities even of their froward and unjust Masters P. 29. With this Argument that Christ suffered for them leaving them an Example from these unerring practices and principles must all true Christians take the measures of their actions and the rules of their Life and indeed the first converts to Christianity embrac'd the Cross and bore it not onely with patience but with joy Neither the cruelty of their unrelenting persecutors nor the continued tract of their miseries which did not end but with their days prevailed on them either to renounce the faith or do that which is next degree to it throw off the Cross and betake themselves to seditious practices for their preservation ☜ In twenty years persecution the Martyrs of one Province Egypt were reckon'd to be betwixt eight or nine hundred thousand P. 31.32 and yet no tumults were raised against all this tyranny and injustice and though after that the Emperours turn'd Christian and establish'd the Faith by Law yet neither did the subtle attempts of Julian the Apostate nor the open persecutions of some Arian Emperours who did with great violence persecute the Orthodox occasion any seditious Combinations against Authority And though Religion suffer'd great decays in the succession of many Ages yet for the first ten Centuries no Father ☜ or Doctor of the Church or any Assembly of Churchmen did ever teach maintain or justifie any Religion or seditious Doctrines or practices It is true about the end of the Eleventh Century this pestiferous Doctrine took its rise and was first broach'd and vented by Pope Gregory VII Hildebrand P. 36. The same equality of Justice and freedom that obliged me to lay open this ties me to tax also those who pretend a great hate against Rome and value themselves on the abhorring all the Doctrines and practices of that Church and yet have carried along with them one of their most pestiferous Opinions pretending Reformation when they would bring all under confusion and vouching the Cause and Word of God when they were disturbing that Authority he had set up and opposing those impower'd by him and the more Piety and devotion such daring pretenders put on it still brings the greater stain and imputation on Religion as if it gave a patrociny to those practices it so plainly condemns But blessed be God our Church hates and condemns this Doctrine from what hand soever it comes ☞ and hath establish'd the Rights and Authority of Princes on sure and unalterable foundations enjoyning an entire Obedience to all the lawful Commands of Authority and an absolute submission to that supreme Power God hath put in our Sovereign's hands this Doctrine we justly glory in and if any that had their Baptism and Education in our Church have turn'd Renegado's from this they proved no less Enemies to the Church her self than to the Civil Authority so that their Apostacy leaves no blame on our Church The same learned Man * P. 446. in a marginal Note on Bishop Bedel's Letter to Wadsworth when the Bishop was representing the common Principles of those Papists and Protestants who asserted a right of taking up Arms against their Sovereign whenever their Lives Properties or Religion were invaded saith This passage above is to be consider'd as a Relation not as the Author's Opinion but yet for fear of taking it by the wrong handle the Reader is desired to take notice that a Subject's resisting his Prince in any cause whatsoever is unlawful and impious Which passage I have lately seen in some Copies of the same Edition for I never heard but of one thus altered This passage above is to be consider'd as a Relation not as the Author's Opinion lest it should mislead the Reader into a dangerous mistake And when he makes his own Apology * Pres to the Ser. Nov. 5. at the Rolls 1684. He professes I am sure that the last part of the Sermon that presses Loyalty and Obedience is not at all enlarged beyond what I not only preach'd in that Sermon but on many other occasions in which I appeal to all my Hearers but I leave the Sermon to speak for it self and me both and will refer it to every Man's Conscience that reads it to judg whether or not I can be concluded from it to be a Person disaffected to his Majesties Government * Id. first Letter to the E. of Middl. collect of pap p. 284. Few have written more and preach'd oftner against all sort of treasonable Doctrines and practices and particularly against the lawfulness of rising in Arms upon the account of Religion I have preach'd a whole Sermon in the Hague against all treasonable Doctrines and practices and in particular against the lawfulness of Subjects rising in Arms against their Sovereign upon the account of Religion And I have maintain'd this both in publick and private that I could if I thought t◠convenient give proofs of it that would make all my Enemies be ashamed of their injustice and malice P. 159. As oft as I have talk'd with Sir John Cochran of some things that were complain'd of in Scotland I took occasion to repeat my Opinion of the duty of Subjects to submit
God sets over us So that Religion can never be pretended against Loyalty and therefore when I take a sad review of the Evil of our late Disturbances It ake not so much notice of the Loss of King Liberty Property Parliaments Blood tho very great as of impairing so far the Credit of Religion in the Violences offered to the person of his Sacred Majesty and that by persons so highly pretending to it I am sorry the Papists seem to have now a thirtieth of January Pag. 18. to return us for a fifth of November Christianity disowns all consecrated Daggers in Heathen Writers indeed nothing of more familiar occurrence than Panegyricks in commendation of the Assertors of publick Liberty by the assassinating of a Tyrant a thing easily pardonable in them being able by the dim Light of Nature to discover no more in a King than a Head of Gold supported by the Clayie Toes of popular Election and Acceptance but Scripture shews a higher Charter than so Pag. 19. by which Kings hold their Crowns Prov. 8.15 By me Kings reign c. the taking Arms to redress some Evils in the Government of a Nation proves generally but as the cutting off of the Hand to get rid of a cut Finger Pag. 23. It is a Truth of everlasting Faithfulness That can never be brought about safely by bad means which could not be by good SECT XXIV Dr. Tillotson Dean of Canterbury * Letter to the Lord Russel Jun. 20. 1683. In tender compassion of your Lordship's Case and from all the good will that one man can bear to another I do humbly offer to your Lordships deliberate thoughts these following Considerations concerning the Point of Resistance if our Religion and Rights should be invaded ☞ 1. That the Christian Religion doth plainly forbid the resistance of Authority 2. That tho our Religion be established by Law which your Lordship urges as a Difference between our Case and that of the Primitive Christians yet in the same Law which establishes our Religian 14 Car. 2. c. 4. 14 Car. 2. c. 3. it is declared That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms c. Besides that there is a particular Law declaring the Power of the Militia to be solely in the King and this ties the Hands of Subjects tho the Law of Nature and the general Rules of Scripture had left us at liberty which I believe they do not because the Government and Peace of human Society could not well subsist upon these Terms 3. Your Lordship's Opinion is contrary to the declared Doctrine of all Protestant Churches ☜ and tho some particular persons have taught otherwise that have been contradicted herein and condemn'd for it by the generality of Protestants I beg of your Lordship to consider how it will agree with an avowed asserting of the Protestant Religion to go contrary to the general Doctrine of the Protestants my end in this is to convince your Lordship that you are in a very dangerous and great Mistake and being so convinced that which before was a sin of Ignorance will appear of a much more heinous nature as in truth it is 〈◊〉 calls for a very particular and deep repentance which if your Lordship exercise by a particular acknowledgment of it to God and Man you will not only obtain forgiveness of God but prevent a mighty scandal to the Reformed Religion I am very loth to give your Lordship and disquiet in the distress you are in but am much more concern'd that you do leave the world in a delusion and false peace to the hinderance of your eternal happiness And in his Prayer on the Scaffold with the same Lord he hath this expression Grant O Lord that all we who survive by this and other instances of thy Providence may learn our Duty to God and the King. Dr. Stillingfleet Dean of S. Paul's Serm. on Jan. 30. 166 8 / 9 on Jude 11. p. 2 3. The Christian Religion above all others hath taken care to preserve the Right sof Sovereignty by giving unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's And to make resistance unlawful by declaring that those who are guilty of it shall receive to themselves damnation Of such men we have a description in this short but smart Epistle who believ'd it a part of their Saintship to despise Dominions c. P. 7 8. Whose design like that of Corah was the sharing the Government among themselves which it was impossible for them to hope for as long as Moses continued a King in Jeshurun nor were they awed by the solemn Vows and Promises they had made of Obedience to him for factious men know they must address themselves to the people and in the first place persuade them that they manage their interests against the usurpations of their Governors while the people take a strange pride in hearing and telling all the Faults of their Governors P. 11 12. The common grounds of all Seditions being usurpations upon the Peoples Rights ☜ arbitrary Government and ill management of Affairs as if they had said we appear only in the behalf of the Fundamental Liberties of the People both Civil and Spiritual That Moses was guilty of the Breach of the Trust committed to him so that now by the ill management of his Trust the Power was again devolved into the Hands of the People and they ought to take account of his Actions Pag. 21. Cons p. 22 23 c. There were then two great Principles among them by which they thought to defend themselves 1. That Liberty and a Right to Power is so inherent in the People that it cannot be taken from them 2. That in case of Usurpation upon that Liberty of the People they may resume the Exercise of Power b◠punishing those who are guilty of it And I believe they will be found to be the first Assertors of this kind of Liberty that ever were in the world ☞ and happy had it been for this Nation if Corah had never found any Disciples in it Of the later of the two Propositions Pag. 26 27 28 29. it is said that there can be no Principle imagined more destructive to Civil Societies and repugnant to the very nature of Government for it destroys all the Obligations of Oaths and Compacts it makes the solemnest Bonds of Obedience signifie nothing it makes every prosperous Rebellion just c. and if Corah Dathan and Abiram had succeeded in their Rebellion against Moses no doubt they would have been called the Keepers of the Liberties of ISRAEL The Supposition of this Principle will unavoidably keep up a constant Jealousie between the Prince and his People and there can be no such way to bring in an arbitrary Government into a Nation Besides this must necessarily engage a Nation in endless Disputes about the forfeiture of Power into whose Hands it falls whether into the People in common or some persons
to take up Arms against the King. They are not enamour'd with every fine Project that may be set on foot neither do they admire those for the wisest of all that think themselves excellent at new modelling of States They suppose the King's Title may be good enough tho they do not know exactly how many Acres of Land may be held sufficient to confer a Right to the Sovereign Power They understand very well that there will be some casual Miscarriages in the administration of all humane Affairs but they esteem it more becoming wise and good Christians to bear with those we are acquainted with than to hazard the infinite mischiefs and inconveniences of a change which it is impossible either to foresee or prevent and therefore among the great Uncertainties and Vicissitudes of these earthly Concerns they are verily persuaded that our common Safety will be best preserved by a pious dependance upon the divine Providence which they are not ashamed to own tho they should be laugh'd at for it by a few conceited scoffing Politicians Mr. Hesketh †Serm. on Jan. 30. bef Lord Mayor 167◠/ ◠p. 10. Cons also his Serm. on 1 Pet. 2.15 p. 10 11 c. An. 1684. P. 13 14. Subjects are as equally obliged to assist their Kings in all straights and dangers as not to resist or rise up against them to bring them into the same and their failure in the first is as criminal as their doing the second and only differs from it as the Cause from the Effect for therefore some Men are encouraged to attempt the latter because others are negligent and failing in the former Some Men are apt to claim the honor of Loyalty if they do not actually resist their King as others that venture their Lives and Fortunes to assist and vindicate them against those that do resist them But how pernicious this is to the Safety of Kings and how contrary to the true notion of Loyalty will soon be made appear All Nations have ever held the Persons of Kings to be sacred and he that considers those Oaths that Subjects bind themselves in to Princes will clearly see that thereby they are obliged not only not to do violence to them themselves but to do all that in them lies that others also may not do it And when Duty is tied on men by Oaths there to fail in it is not only common guilt P. 17. but died with a Perjury Tho much may be said for David's being actually in Arms against Saul considering some Circumstances yet considering the whole matter we may safely pronounce of it that it was certainly unjustifiable for there were safer ways of avoiding the Displeasure and Anger of Saul than by raisng an Army of Out-laws and vicious Persons and appearing in actual Rebellion against him But if none of this were true yet the least Evil that can be said is that he yielded not that Assistance unto Saul which he might have done and by which possibly he might have averted Saul's sad Fate c. P. 22. I think it neither difficult nor injurious to shew the Doctrines of the late Usurpers to be but the Transcripts of what the later Jews do fabulously report of the Power of their Sanhedrim over Kings P. 22. ☞ P. 35.37 The Parricide of Charles I. was committed by Men who must first offer Violence to their own Consciences chase all remains of Justice and Compassion out of their own Breasts before they could do this Murther and cease wholly to be Men that they might commence Devils for truly I do not know how they can expect a better Name whom no ties of Laws no Bands of Conscience no Obligations of Oaths can hold Were our Religion chargeable with this Fact there needed no other thing to be pleaded against it this alone could bar all its pretences of being a Christian for ever for it is most certain the Religion of the Blessed Jesus can be chargeable with no such thing nay it is most obvious that it takes all possible care to prevent them that it secures Subjection and chearful Obedience to Kings by the strongest ties possible and makes it impossible for a true Christian to become Rebel upon any pretence whatsoever Whatever Religion doth contrary to this P. 37 38. is by that only Argument detected to be perfectly Antichristian I could easily make manifest how very unsafe all of them make the condition of things and upon what weak and slippery grounds they found Subjection to them It is the honor of the Church of England that her Doctrines in this case are truly Christian and Primitive And it is certain when she fails to be so i. e. loyal she ceases to be degenerates from her self and doth justly forfeit their i. e. Prince's Protection Dr. Freeman * Sermon before L. Mayor 1682. on Psalm 34.12 13 14. P. 8. He that makes his Prince to be undervalued and despised raises a Rebellion against him in mens breasts beats him out of his Subjects hearts and fights him out of their Affections and having once dispossess'd him of this his strongest Hold 't will be no hard matter to strip him of all his other Garrisons neither his Person nor his Government can hope to be long in safety when once they have wounded his Honour and put his Reputation to flight but in the Name of God! What do people of this temper propose to themselves Do they think that their Governours are not Men of passion and infirmities as well as others Do they not know that the Employments they are engaged in are so infinitely various and difficult that they are scarce capable to be managed with that evenness and exactness as may exclude all inconveniences And is it not certain that how ill soever the administration of publick Affairs may at any time be under lawful Governours 't is yet far more tolerable than even the reformation of an usurping Populacy Dr. Littleton's Sermon at a Solemn meeting of the Natives of the City and County of Worcester p. 17. Blessed Jesu This Evangelium Armatum this Sanguinary Doctrine was no Gospel of thy making no Doctrine of thy teaching Thy Doctrine was sealed with no bloud but that of thy own who wast the teacher of it and that of thy Apostles and Martyrs who were the propagators of it and though thou said'st thou camest not to send peace but a Sword yet that Sword was not designed to fight with but to suffer by it was a Sword of a passive not of an active persecution as to thy Disciples by which they were to fall victims themselves and not to sacrifice the lives of others And p. 18. May God ever preserve his gracious Majesty and Us the sinful People of this Land from such villanous Attempts of his and our Enemies I am heartily sorry that any who delight to wear the name of Protestants should give a just occasion for such a Charge D. Morrice Chaplain to
that to do evil though for our own preservation instead of procuring our peace and settlement would be most likely to unsettle and ruin us for having once broken down the fences of Duty which are placed about us who can tell where we shall stop or abide Having allowed our selves the liberty of doing one sinful action we may easily be prompted on to commit a thousand for the same pretences will justifie all sins alike and if for the sake of Religion a Tumult may lawfully be raised a Rebellion also may be promoted c. SECT XXXIV Mr. Long is so well known for his Zeal in this good Cause to all that have seen his answer to Johnson and Hunt his no Protestant but a Dissenters Plot and other such Treatises that it is wondered that of late he should own himself the Author of the Solution of the Popular Objections c. In which he musters up for unanswerable Arguments the very same Objections of Julian of Persecuting according to and against Law c. which himself had formerly so luckily both answered and exploded But he tells us that St. Austin wrote his Retractations in which he corrected his errors and he might have told the World too that Bellarmine wrote his Recognitions in which he multiplies and confirms his Heterodoxies I shall therefore briefly represent his former Judgment out of one of his Printed Sermons * On Sept. 9. 1683. p. 13. Rebels should shew so much of ingenuity and serious Penitence as the Sorcerers did Act. xix 19. Who burnt their Books for I dare aver that there are more Arguments for Resisting of Lawful Princes which they cannot but know is threatned with damnation Rom. xiii 2. in the Books of some who term themselves true Protestants than are in all those which are written by such as they justly condemn for Idolatrous and Trayterous Papists P. 19. What greater encouragement can be given Men pretending to Religion and Conscience than when their Guides ☜ to whom they have committed the Conduct of their Souls shall Prophesie lyes in the name of God and urge them to Rebellion by Scripture and Examples They are like them in the Gospel whom no Bonds or Chains could restrain from practising the mischief they had imagined No Obligation of Laws of Conscience of Fear or Favour no Oaths or Promises could hold them but they mock God himself that they may the more unsuspectedly destroy his Vicegerent Pag. 22. If the Principles allowed of in any Community of Men ☞ do countenance the Resisting Deposing and Mur hering of Princes be it on pretence of Heresie or Tyranny or for the good of the Kirk reforming Abuses or redressing Grievances though there be but a few Actors yet all are Criminals When Absalom was Sacrificing at Hebron P. 25 26. the Conspiracy was strengthned saith the Text. It seems that Absalom had his Levites and these were they that strengthned the Rebellion By him the People were instructed in their great Priviledges and Power that there is Idolatry and Superstition in the Church Oppression and Tyranny in the State that they ought to shake off these Yoaks of Bondage and vindicate themselves into the glorious liberty of the Sons and Daughters of God. P. 27 28. One tells the People That they are the Original of Authority ☞ That it is not against Scripture or the practice of the Primitive Christians violently to resist the Higher Powers when they Persecute them for Religion and when the Prince commands against the Laws of the Country that Success justifies a good Cause and to pursue it is to comply with the Will of God and the Conduct of Providence Vnder such Doctrines as these the Presses have sweat the Church hath groaned the Peoples souls been led Captive in Chains of darkness and under these this horrid Conspiracy hath been hatched The Devil himself when he appeared in the Mantle of Samuel never did nor could teach Saul more pernicious Doctrine than this Philostratus saith that the murther of Domitian was more owing to the Doctrine of Appollonius than the Hands of Stephanus and Parthenius who slew him Dr. Fowler * Design of Christianity chap. 16. The most calm meek peaceable gentle and submissive temper recommended in the Gospel did mightily declare it self in the Primitive Christians that though they were for the most part sorely Persecuted yet saith Tertull there was never any uproar or hurlyburly among them nor was this owing to necessity as is plain from Tertullian and the History of the Thebaean Legion Chap. 24. p. 346. It is the most strange and unaccountable thing for Men in defence or favour of that way of Religion which they take to be most truly the Christian to do that which is essentially and in its own nature evil for these things are quite contrary to the design of Christian Religion Pag. 248 249. What Villanies are there which the Pope and his Proselytes have stuck at committing for the propagation of their Religion Such as exciting Subjects to take Arms against their lawful Sovereigns to whom they are obliged in the Bonds of most solemn Oaths c. I would I could say that of all that are called Christians the Papists only are lyable to this charge but alas It is too manifest to be denyed or yet dissembled that not a few of those that profess enmity to Popery are sadly guilty though not equally with the Papists in this particular SECT XXXV The Author of The Faith and Practice of a Church of England Man. I pay all Men their dues all Officers Chap. 3. p. 63 64. and Offices in Church and State according to St. Paul's command Rom. xiii I pay all Honor and Service to the King as God's Vicegerent and I cannot endure to hear him evil spoken of P. 66. I consider my self as to all the Capacities and Relations that I am in the World and endeavour to behave my self suitably to them Which Duties are fully exprest in the excellent Book of the Whole Duty of Man and I am sure that excellent Book plainly asserts the Doctrine of Non-resistance I look upon Government and Magistracy as one of the most sacred things in the World Chap. 6. p. 137 138 139. 140. for it is of God's Appointment Of all kinds of Government I like Monarchy which seems naturally to derive it self from paternal Authority And if there be any Right on Earth surely Monarchy hath Right with us and hath at least as good a Title to all its Powers Rights and Privileges as any of its Subjects can have to their Honors Properties and Estates The Monarchy of England being always esteemed as truly an hereditary and successive a Monarchy as any in the World not liable to be disposed alienated or sold nor depending on any Election Choice or Approbation of the People And according to this method our present King enjoys the Crown who hath as I believe the truest and most
earth their Superior that may awe them if they sin more licentiously and heinously than others He that will read the Sentiments of Sam. Petit on this Doctrine let him consult his Treatise set out by his Nephew Sorbiere called Diatriba de Jure Principum edictis Ecclesiae quaesito c. while Monsieur Allix says Praefat. ad Determ Joh. Paris p. 61. That the Determination that Kings may be deposed is much worse than the most Heresies And Dr. Bourdieu †Serm. on 29. May. 1684. having asserted That Religion teaches men to give Obedience to Pagan Tyrannical Persecuting Heretical Princes in his Epistle to the King avers That it was reasonable that he should publish to the World the Opinion of their disconsolate Churches upon the Doctrine of Obedience which ought to be given to higher Powers Thus he was instructed in his Infancy and Youth thus he saw it practised in their Congregations and Assemblies thus for many years himself had taught it as he had read and found it contain'd in the Holy Scriptures And to mention one unblassed Authority out of that suffering Church instead of all the rest take a few words of a pious Minister of theirs smarting at the very time when he wrote under the Severity of his Sovereign and as himself testifies enjoying then the Protection of a Commonwealth * Le Droit Souv du Prince c. p. 15 16. No good man says he ought to resist a Prince for any earthly Interest whatsoever nay nor for Religion neither c. It may be objected that the Doctrine of such absolute Power in Princes should give occasion to the increase of misery in such passive Churches To which I answer 1. That were it so that such temporal misery should be increased by it yet that countervailed not the necessity of recovering so many Souls without number from death temporal first and afterwards from eternal And again speaking of the Authority of a Prince as to the Essentials of Religion †Pag. 33. If a Prince will use force and violence there all that we have to do is to suffer with humility and patience both his threats and the worst he can do not suffering his rigor to raise the least motion to Rebellion in us and transport us to the least degree of outward resistance any more than refusing to wound our Consciences with such Acts of Religion as are contrary to the Faith we profess and never had the Church of Christ had so many holy Champions as deserved the Name of Martyrs and Confessors if they had not thought this Rule inviolably true Pag. 36. We must suffer all their displeasure even in case of these Essentials without murmuring and sacrifice our Resentments to the Authority that afflicts us according to the Commandment of God which we keep in suffering so As for the things of this life Pag. 40. there is not one of them exempted from the Power of Princes for as the Judgment of Conscience upon the Account of being peculiar to God alone was the reason why the Essence of Religion was exempted from it so the Cognizance of these things belonging to Princes they are all of them capable to receive the impressions of their Power pag. 53 54. And again having described the Nature and Original of the most Sovereign and Absolute Power upon Earth he adds That in all States where that Power is either already established or where it is about to establish it self by such means as nothing but an unjust Rebellion of Subjects can prevent the Hand of God ought to be acknowledged in it and the Secrets of his Providence adored and our Sins forsaken which provoke the King of Kings to permit such an Increase of Power and try to obtain that Liberty of the Divine Mercy which it is not lawful for us to give our selves and if it please not God to take off that Yoke from them that bear it or to help them escape it that fly from it it is matter of Conscience to undergo it as a Chastisement of God's sending and against which we cannot struggle without opposing him who sends it In a word this Power is a Power of Impunity which Sovereigns have in respect of their People The CONCLUSION IT were easie to sum up the Arguments of these eminent Men That Power is only from God and therefore only accountable to him that suffering for Righteousness sake is the Glory of Religion that Resistance is a damnable Sin that no Evil is to be done that the greatest good may come of it and that true Religion is tender of the Rights of Princes and teaches Obedience to them for Conscience sake and that the Devil of Rebellion does commonly transform himself into an Angel of Reformation But these things are so plainly affirmed in the foregoing Discourse that the Reader must be very weak or very negligent that does not observe them FINIS Omitted by the Printer Pag. 84. Line 15. Dr. Stillingfleet In his Preface to the Jesuits Loyalty THE same Learned Author exposing the absurd and inconsistent pretences of Loyalty in the Jesuits makes choice of this method To run the Parallel between the Deposing Doctrine of the Church of Rome and the Commonwealth Principles which he undertakes to prove and effectually makes out to agree in these three particulars 1. Pag. 4. In setting up a Court of Judicature over Sovereign Princes 2. In breaking the Oaths and Bonds of Allegiance Men had entered into 3. In justifying Rebellion on the account of Religion As to the first The setting up a Court of Judicature over Sovereign Princes The Jesuit he observes had endeavoured to come off by the idle distinction of a direct and indirect Power And the Commonwealthsmen says he do herein agree with them For they do not say that the People have a direct power over their Prince which were a contradiction in its self for Subjects to command their Sovereigns but only breach of Trust the People have an indirect Power to call their Princes to an account and to deprive them of their Authority Pag. 5. The main thing to be debated is says he whether Sovereign Princes have a Supreme and Independent Authority inherent in their Persons or no or whether they are to be accountable to others That upon Male-Administration they may be deprived of their Government This is the first and chief Point and the Republicans and Asserters of the Pope's Deposing Power are perfectly agreed in the Affirmative of the latter Question and only differ as to the Persons in whom the Power of calling Princes to an account doth lie whether in the Pope or in the People And even as to this they do not differ so much as Men may at first imagin For however the Primitive Christians thought it no flattery to Princes to derive their Power immediately from God and to make them accountable to him alone as being Superior to all below him as might be easily proved by multitudes
he suffered the most bitter and cruel kind of Death for our sakes and the points of Office of him that is his Vicar are to be in subjection not to command Princes but to acknowledge himself to be under their power and commandment not only when they command things indifferent and easily to be done but also when they command things not indifferent so they be not wicked in checks in scourgings and beatings unto death yea even unto the death of the Cross Indeed these are Christs footsteps Now if it be objected against what hath been said that the Author of the Treatise Gardiner was a virulent Papist I answer this strengthens the Authority for the Testimony of an Enemy to the Truth of Religion is worth an hundred other Witnesses and it is very remarkable that a Romish Bishop should assert the Divine Right and unaccountableness of Kings when his Church teacheth him to believe that the Pope hath power to depose Princes and many of their eminent Writers affirm that all power is originally in and derived from the people And if it be further objected that Gardiner retracted and disowned this Doctrine in the Reign of Queen Mary I grant it and I wish that he and Bonner had been the only men in the world who had altered their Opinions for the worse being prevailed upon by the love of the world which is the root of all evil But Truth is never the less venerable because some Professors of it have turned Apostates Gardiner 's and Bonner 's Reasons * Vide Cranmer's Translat in praef before his Book of unwritten Verities being so pithy and Arguments so strong as neither they themselves nor any other after them shall be able at any time rightly to assoil and answer And it must be observed that before they condemned these their Orthodox Tenets they wilfully broke the Oaths which they had taken in the Days of Henry the Eighth and the venerable Dean * Reproof of Dorman p. 1.6 Lond. 1565. Nowel thus urges the Argument Ask your forsworn Fathers with what face they did give to the King the Title of Supreme Head did swear it to him and so long time continued so calling him If they did not so think as they said and had sworn but dissembled deeply ask of them with what face they played so false dissembling Hypocrites with their Sovereign Lord Ask of them what manner of Subjects they were all that while feigning in face in word in writing yea and taking a Solemn Oath to be with their Prince therein and being in heart and deed on his sworn Enemy his side But if they thought indeed as they pretended in words then ask of them with what face they did change their Copy ☞ and forswear the same and themselves withal so easily afterward yea and compelled all others to be forsworn with them for company Then you shall find who they were that changed their Copy and turned with the Wind as the Weather-cock that so falsly swear reswear trieswear and forswear themselves and not content therewith did by all most terrible Torments and dreadful Deaths compel others to Perjury with them And whoso considers Bonner's juggling Fox Martyrs To. 2. p. 1192 1193. Edit 1610. anno 1547. with King Edward the Sixth's Commissioners about the Injunctions at one time protesting against them at another recanting that his Protestation swearing Obedience to the King receiving his Injunctions giving his assent and consent to the State of Religion then established to the abolishing Images abrogation of the Mass setting up of Bibles in Churches giving the Sacrament in both kinds and such like And then two years afterward anno 1549. on the Death of the Lord High Admiral and the many tumultuous Insurrections of the King's Subjects neglecting to be present or to officiate in his Cathedral at Divine Service and permitting others to frequent the Mass may see his temper throughly and be convinced that his Authority is of no worth while his Reasonings are unanswerable it being unjust that his personal Faults should make void the weight of his Arguments especially when he spake not his own sense but the sense of the whole Church of England which will undeniably appear by the continuation of his story For when Bonner was for his prevarication suspected and complained of and convened before the King's Council among other Injunctions then given him one was that he should personally preach within three weeks after at Paul's Cross And among the special points and Articles that were to be treated of by him in his Sermon this was the first 1. That all such as rebel against their Prince get unto them damnation and those that resist the higher Powers resist the Ordinance of God and he that dieth therefore in Rebellion by the word of God is utterly damned and so loseth both body and soul and therefore those Rebels in Devonshire and Cornwal in Norfolk or elsewhere who take upon them to assemble a Power and Force against their King and Prince against the Laws and Statutes of the Realm and go about to subvert the State and Order of the Commonwealth not only to deserve therefore death as Traitors and Rebels but do accumulate to themselves eternal damnation even to be in the burning Fire of Hell with Lucifer the Father and first Author of Pride Disobedience and Rebellion what pretence soever they have as Corah Dathan and Abirom for Rebellion against Moses were swallowed down alive into Hell altho they pretended to sacrifice unto God. And 4. That our Authority of Royal Power is as of truth it is of no less authority and force in this our young Age than is or was of any of our Predecessors tho the same were much elder as may appear by example of Josias c. How Bonner discharged his Obedience to these Injunctions is not my present Province the Martyrology will inform the Reader but what is already related undeniably proves what was the Doctrine of the Church of England in those Days Anno 1541. was Dr. Robert Barnes martyred Vide his Life prefixed to his Works and at the stake he professed That he never to his knowledge taught any erroneous Doctrine but only those things which the Scripture led him unto and that in his Sermons he never maintain'd any Error nor gave occasion of any Insurrection but with all diligence did study evermore to set forth the Glory of God the Obedience to our Sovereign Lord the King and the true and sincere Religion of Christ desiring the People to bear witness that he detested and abhorred all evil Opinions and Doctrines against the Word of God. And his Writings are agreeable to his dying Protestation In his Supplication to King Henry the Eighth when condemned to die treating of the Cruelties of the Popish Clergy among other things he says If they cannot make a Man a Heretick P. 183. to colour and maintain their Oppression they add Treason against your Grace tho
such a case Men may refuse to obey else in all other matters we ought to obey what Laws soever they make as concerning outward things we ought to obey and in no wise to rebel though they be never so hard noysom and hurtful Our duty is to obey and to commit all the matters to God not doubting but that God will punish them when they do contrary to their office and calling therefore tarry till God correct them we may not take upon us to reform them ☞ for it is no part of our duty If the Robels I say had consider'd this think you they would have preferr'd their own will before God's will for doing as they did they prayed against themselves * Id. Serm. on Ep 21. Sund after Trinity p. 196 197 Subjects may not of their own private autority take the sword or rebel against their King for when they rebel they serve the Devil for they have no commission of God so to do but of their own head they rise against God that is against the King to whom they owe obedience and so worthily be punish'd therefore good Christian People beware of rebelling against our Sovereign Lord the King. ‖ Id. 24. Sund after Trin. p. 216. The calling of the Subjects is to be obedient unto the Magistrates not to rebel against them for if they do they strive against God himself and shall be punish'd of him Another cause why Christ was circumcised is Id. Serm. on the Twelfth day p. 291. to be obedient unto common orders therefore he would suffer rather to be circumcised than to give occasion of hurly burly or uproar for the will of the Father was that Subjects should obey Magistrates and keep orders Subjecti estote cuivis potestati be obedient unto them c. look what Laws and Ordinances are made by the Magistrates we ought to obey them and this is to be understood as well in spiritual matters as temporal matters so far forth as the Laws be not against God and his Word When they will move us to do any thing against God then we must say Oportet magis obedire Deo quam hominibus we must be more obedient unto God than Man ☞ yet we may not withstand them with stoutness or rise up against them but suffer whatsoever they shall do unto us for we may for nothing in the World rebel against the Office of God that is to say against the Magistrate CHAP. III. The Doctrine of Passive Obedience in the Reign of Queen Mary SECT I. UPon the Death of King Edward VI. so prevalent were the two Families of Northumberland and Suffolk that they made a great Party to oppose the legal Succession of the Right Heir their abettors being countenanc'd and encouraged by the last Testament of King Edward but as * Cent. 16. p. 1. Fuller rightly observes the Will of the Duke of Northumberland but whatever was done in defence of the Lady Jane Grey was contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England which taught her Children better and more wholsom Doctrine and though Archbishop Cranmer were one of the Subscribers to that Will and to the Letter sent after Edward the sixth's Death to Queen Mary yet there is much to be said in Apology for him For first Cranmer ‖ Heyl. Hist of the Refor p. 152. Fox Burnet and Godwin c. of all the Privy Council was the last that stood out having at first positively refused to sign the Will and after much reasoning and many arguments urged for the Queens Illegitimation required a longer time of deliberation and at last could be overcome by nothing but the King 's own restless importunity To whom the Archbishop had as he ought a great regard and this his resolution so prevail'd upon his Judges that though at first they committed him to the Tower with the Lady Jane Fox tom 2. p. 1289. and the Duke of Northumberland's Sons for High Treason yet though they prosecuted his Fellow Prisoners on that Statute they let fall their Action against him and prosecuted him only for Heresie to his great joy as Fox relates it The same ‖ p 1698. Author assuring us that Dr. Heath afterwards Archbishop of York did affirm to one of Archbishop Cranmer's Friends that notwithstanding his Attainder of Treason the Queens Determination at that time was that Cranmer should only have been deprived of his Archbishoprick and had a sufficient Living assign'd him with commandment to keep his House without meddling in matters of Religion Secondly that the Archbishop was encouraged so to do * Id. ibid. by the Example of all the Nobles of the Realm and the States and Judges Sir James Hales only excepted for the Lord Chief Justice Mountague had after much ado subscribed the Lawyers especially assuring him that it was no breach of his former Oath so to do And it is well known that if any thing exasperated Queen Mary against him it was not the signing of King Edward's Will but her Mother's Divorce which Cranmer so actively promoted Thirdly The Reasons were specious both from * Hâ—yl Hist Reform ann 1553. p. 151 152. Burn. par 2. p 223. Law and Policy as they were then stiled that both the Sisters were declared illegitimate and that by Act of Parliament and that were they not so yet being but of the half Blood to the King by the Law they could not succeed nor could any Foreigner by the same Law. And that the Duchess of Suffolk had waved her Title and then the Right was in the Lady Jane that this was the only way to preserve the Nation from the Vassalage and Servitude of the Bishop of Rome and from subjecting the Realm to Foreigners if the Sisters should marry out of it Fourthly Par 2 hist l. 1. p. 224. Dr. Burnet affirms that as nothing but the King 's own importunities could prevail on the Archbishop so it 's probable that he signed it only as a Witness and not as Counsellor according to a Distinction then found out by Sir William Cecil Secretary of State. But lastly This act was no Declaration of the Archbishop's Judgment in the Case of the Deprivation Deposition or resisting of Kings against which he protested through the whole tenor of his life He it was that was if not the Author * Fox p. 1697. yet the main Contriver Approver and Publisher of the Book of the Reformation the Catechism with the Book of Homilies as also of the Necessary Erudition of a Christian Man. In which Books the Power of Kings and the Necessity of Obedience together with the wretched Estate of Rebels and such as resist Authority is plainly set forth He calls the Insurrection against †Vide Herbert Hâ—â—â— 3. p. 457 King John as much as others magnifie it and what followed it plain Rebellion And having contrary to that Truth suffered himself to be over-persuaded in this one particular he publickly
the Conscience of all true Christians as if he had been then summus Pontifex or that the Primitive Church was not as well restrain'd de Jure by the Doctrine of Christ's Apostles as de facto from bearing Arms against such Princes as were then Ethnicks and transferring of their Kingdoms from them unto any others or that the Apostles at that time if they had found the Christians of sufficient force for number provision and furniture of Warlike Engines to have Deposed those Pagan Princes that were then both Enemies ☜ and Persecutors of all that believed in Christ would no doubt have moved and authorized them to have made War against such their Princes and absolved them from performing any longer that obedience which they as Men temporizing had in their Writings prescribed unto them or that when afterward Christians were grown able for number and strength to have opposed themselves by force against their Emperors being Wicked and Persecutors they might lawfully so have done for any thing that is in the New Testament to the contrary he doth greatly err If any Man shall affirm that it is not a most profane impiety Can. 10. l. 2. tending altogether to the discredit of the Scriptures for any Man to hold that St. Peter and St. Paul had so instructed the Christians in their times as that they knew if they had been able they might without offence to God have deposed Nero from his Empire or that the Christians in Tertullian's time when they profess'd that notwithstanding their numbers and forces were so great as they had been able to have distress'd very greatly the Estate of the Emperors being then Persecutors they might not so do because Christ their Master had taught them otherwise ought not to be a sufficient Warrant for all true Christians to detest those Men in these days and for ever hereafter who contrary to the Example of the said Christians in the Primitive Church and the Doctrins of Christ which were then taught them do endeavor to perswade them when they shall have sufficient Forces to rebel against such Kings and Emperors at the Pope's commandment and to thrust them from their Kingdoms and Empires ☞ or that this devilish Doctrine of animating Subjects to Rebellion when they are able against their Sovereigns either for their Cruelty Heresie or Apostacy was ever taught in the Church of Christ by any of the Ancient Fathers during the Reigns of Dioclesian or Julian the Apostate or Valens the Arrian or of any other the Wicked Emperors before them or that it is not a wicked perverting of the Apostles words to the Corinthians touching their choice of Arbitrators to end dissentions among themselves rather than draw their Brethren before Judges that were Infidels to infer thereof either that St. Paul intended thereby to impeach in any sort the Authority of the Civil Magistrates as if he had meant they should have chosen such Judges as by civil Authority might otherwise have bound them than by their own consents to have stood to their award or to authorize Christian Subjects when they are able to thrust their Sovereigns from their Royal Seats and to chuse themselves new Kings in their places he doth greatly err But it were requisite to transcribe almost that whole admirable Treatise should I give the Reader a view of all those passages that vindicate the Divine Right of Kings and assert the necessity of Subjects being obedient to them while I forbear in expectancy that the most venerable owner of that great Treasure will very speedily make the World happy in the publication of so elaborate a work SECT V. Some few years after this King James ordered to be Printed and had in every Church a little Treatise called Deus Rex which was publish'd both in Latin and English and as I am very credibly inform'd drawn up by Bishop Overal which was reprinted in English Anno 1663. by the especial command of King Charles II. and therein the Nation is taught their duty toward their Superiors thus In the Allegiance of a Subject to his Sovereign the evil he is to eschew is 1. Evil in action p. 15 16. edit 1663. for he is not to touch him with any evil touch not to stretch out his hand against his most sacred Person nor so much as to affright or disgrace him by cutting the lap of his Garment 2. Evil in words for he is not to curse his Ruler 3. Evil in cogitation for he is not to curse the King in his thought and all this is proved by many Texts of Scripture placed in the Margin Now if the Subjects of our Sovereign out of their Allegiance to His Majesty are to succor and defend him even with the hazard of their lives c. and the bond of this Allegiance is inviolable and cannot by any means be dissolv'd then c. Eccles 8.2 p. 17. is an evident Testimony that Kings are subject unto God ☜ and have no mortal Man their superior who may require of them an account of their doings and punish them by any Judicial Sentence which Doctrine is excellently confirm'd by the instance of David in the case of Uriah and the Prophet Nathan 's carriage towards him after which 't is said that God only gave unto Saul Kingly Power and not the People p. 19. p. 29 30. c. who are said to make him King i. e. approving him as made by God c. But was not Saul a Tyrant a bloody Oppressor did not the blood of so many Innocents cry to God for vengeance and by his special commandment whoso sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed deserve death Yet David by God's own appointment design'd to the Kingdom says the Lord keep me from doing that thing unto my Master the Lord 's Anointed c. the Bishop of Rome and by parity of reason any other Person p. 35. if I Judge aright cannot dispense with the Law of Nature which from the first beginning of the reasonable Creature is unchangeable nor with the Moral Law of God whose Precepts are indispensible but the duty of Subjects in obedience to their Sovereign is grounded upon the Law of Nature beginning with our first beginning for as we are Born Sons so are we Born Subjects p. 38. Obj. But is there no means to stay the fury of a Sovereign command if he should be so tyrannous and profane as to endeavour to oppress the whole Church at once and utterly to extinguish the Light of Christian Religion Princes in their rage may endeavour wholly to destroy God's Church Ans but in vain because Christ hath so built it on a Rock that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it and when they do labour to effect so heinous an impiety the only means we have to appease their fury is serious repentance for our sins which have brought this chastisement upon us and humble prayer unto God who guides
Subjects leave to withdraw their obedience from their Sovereign when he hath most need of their assistance so that assoon as any Town City or Province of any Prince's Dominions is invaded by a Foreign Enemy or possess'd by a rebellious Subject that the Prince cannot for the present suppress the Power of the one or the other the People may lawfully resort to those who are over them and for their protection perform all the Offices and Duties of good Subjects to them whereas the duty of Subjects is and all good Subjects believe they owe another kind of Duty and Obedience to their Sovereign than to withdraw their subjection because he is opprest and will prefer poverty and death it self before they will renounce obedience to their natural Prince or do any thing that may advance the service of his Enemies P. 92. surely this woful desertion and defection which hath always been held criminal by all Law that hath been current in any part of the World hath received so much countenance and justification by Mr. Hobbs's Book ☞ that CROMWELL found the submission to those Principles produc'd a submission to him and the imaginary relation between protection and allegiance so positively proclaim'd by him prevailed for many years to extinguish all visible fidelity to the King whilst he persuaded many to take the Engagement as a thing lawful and to become Subjects to the Usurper P. 135 136. as to their legitimate Sovereign Kings themselves can never be punish'd for their casual or wilful errors and mistakes let the consequences of them be what they will but if they who maliciously lead or advise or obey them in unjust resolutions and commands were to have the same indemnity there must be a dissolution of all Kingdoms and Governments but as Kings must be left to God whose Vicegerents they are to judge of their breach of trust so they who offend against the Law must be left to the punishment P. 163. the Law hath provided for them if all Sovereigns be subject to the Laws of Nature because such Laws are divine and cannot by any Man or Commonwealth be abrogated they then are obliged to observe and perform those Laws which themselves have made and promis'd to observe for violation of faith is against the Law of Nature ☞ Nor doth this obligation set any Judge over the Sovereign nor doth any Civil Law pretend that there is any power to punish him it is enough that in justice he ought to do it and that there is a Sovereign in Heaven above him tho not on earth To this great Minister of State I should join Sir Robert Filmer but that it is needless the Enemies of the unaccountableness of Kings having branded him with the mark of a State Heretick for his Orthodox Opinions which among all good Men make his Memory reverend and his works Eminent to which I advise the Reader to make his recourse particularly his short but excellent Treatise of the Power of Kings c. See also Sir William Dugdale's Preface to his view of our late troubles c. The Late Bishop of Chichester Dr. Lake having Aug. 27. 1689. received the Sacrament on his Death-bed did in the presence of Dr. Hicks Dean of Worcester Dr. Green and some others make this protestation being as himself worded it ingaged in the most sacred and solemn act of conversing with God See the Paper and the vindication of it not knowing to the contrary but that he might appear with those very words in his mouth at the dreadful Tribunal That I was Baptized into the Religion of the Church of England and sucked it in with my Milk I have constantly adhered to it through the whole course of my life and now if so be the will of God shall dye in it and had resolved through Gods Grace assisting me to have dyed so tho at a Stake And whereas that Religion of the Church of England taught me the Doctrine of Non-Resistance and Passive Obedience which I have accordingly inculcated upon others and which I took to be the distinguishing Character of the Church of England ☜ I adhere no less firmly and stedfastly to that and in Consequence of it have incurred a Suspension from the exercise of my Office and exspected a Deprivation I find in so doing much inward satisfaction and if the Oath had been tendred at the peril of my life I could only have obeyed by suffering c. Manu propriâ Subscripsit Jo. Cicestrensis To this great Man I should add his bosome Friend Dr. Allestrey who speaks fully and consonant to sound Doctrine on this Head but I must refer the Reader to his Sermon Novemb. 5. 1665. on Luc. 9.55 Vol. 1. p. 127. and Vol. 2. p. 60. and p. 253 276. Thus the acute Dr. Sherlock Some Men pretend great Oppression Serm. on Ps 18.50 p. 2. and Male-Administration of Government though their licentious noises and clamors sufficiently confute it for Men who are most opprest dare say the least of it The Liberties and Properties of the Subject is an admirable pretence to deprive the Prince of his Liberties and Properties Others make Religion the pretence for their Rebellion Religion the greatest and the dearest Interest of all but methinks it is a dangerous way for Men to Rebel to save their Souls when God hath threatned damnation against those who Rebel No Men fight for Religion who have any Religion is a quiet peaceable governable thing it teaches Men to suffer patiently but not to Rebel It is evident it is not Religion such Men are zealous for but a liberty in Religion i. e. that every one may have his liberty to be of any Religion or of none which serves the Atheist's turn as well as the Sectaries but is not much for the honor or interest of true Religion So that whatever the pretences are it is an ambitious p. 3. v. p 6 7. discontented revengeful spirit an uneasie restless fickle and unchangeable humor which disturbs Politick Government and undermines the Thrones of Princes In the time of the Fanatick Plot p. 7 8. p. 11. but to Talk or Write or Preach about Obedience to Government or patient Suffering for a good Cause was to betray the Protestant Interest God may sometimes suffer Treason and Rebellion to be prosperous p. 11. but it can never prosper but when God pleases and it is impossible Rebels should ever know that and therefore it is impossible they should have any reasonable security of Success There is nothing more expresly contrary to the revealed Will of God than Treasonable Plots and Conspiracies against Sovereign Princes Christian Religion indeed is the greatest security of Government both in its Precepts and Examples It requires us to obey our Superiors in all lawful things and quietly to submit and suffer when we cannot Obey And the blessed Jesus who was the Author of our Religion and our great Pattern and Example did himself practise
Letter Apologet. c. 5. p. 334. The Dean smartly rejoyns By this we might think Mr. Cressy a stranger in his own Country and that he had never heard of the 30. of January or the 29. of May which are solemnly observed in our Church and the Offices joyned with that of the 5. of November and are purposely intended for that very thing ☜ which he denies to be taken notice of by us in such a manner what doth Mr. Cressy think the Renunciation of the Covenant was intended for if not to prevent the mischief of the former Rebellion After his he gives an Historical account of the Controversie in England about the Power of Princes and the Usurpations of the Pope over them p. 348. and having cited Pope Gregory the Seventh's Letter wherein he avers That Kings had their beginnings from Men who gained their Authority over their equals by blind Ambition and intolerable Presumption by Rapines and Murders by Perfidiousness and all manner of Wickedness ☞ He subjoins Is not this a very pretty account of the Original of Civil Power by the Head of the Church The Oath of Allegiance sworn to the Pope p. 366. leaves no room for Allegiance to Princes any more than a person who hath already sworn Allegiance to one Prince hath liberty to swear the same thing to another p. 370. which it is impossible he should keep to both And discoursing of King Stephen he says that his Title being very bad he saw it necessary for him to strengthen it by the Pope's Authority and that during his Usurpation all the Rights of the Crown were lost p. 373. p. 452. Again he says If depriving Sovereign Princes of their Crown and Dignity endeavouring by open Rebellions and secret Conspiracies to take away their Lives be not Treasons there are none such in the World. p. 463. If the Primitive Christians had been guilty of so many horrible Treasons ☞ and Conspiracies if they had attempted to deprive Emperors of their Crowns and absolved Subjects from their Allegiance to them if they had joined with their open and declared Enemies and imployed Persons time after time to assassinate them what would the World have said of their sufferings Would Men of any common sense have said they were Martyrs for Religion but that they dyed justly and deservedly for their Treasons the late Regicides pleaded the cause of God and Religion The Scripture attributes the great revolutions of Government to a particular Providence of God Id. Ser. on 1 Cor. 12.24 25. p. 17. God is the Judge or the Supreme Arbitrator of the Affairs of the World he putteth down one and setteth up another which holds with respect to Nations as well as particular Persons which doth not found any right of Dominion as some fansied till the Argument from Providence was return'd with great force upon themselves but it shews that when God pleases to make use of Persons or Nations as the scourges in his hand to punish People with he gives them success above their hopes or expectations but that success gives them no right Suppose a Prosperous Usurper in this Kingdom Id. ans to the first royal paper p. 23. and vindicat of that ans p. 64. had gained a considerable Interest in it and challenged a Title to the whole and therefore required of all the King's Subjects within his power to own him to be rightful King upon this many of them are forc'd to withdraw because they will not own his Title is this an Act of Rebellion and not rather of true Loyalty ‖ Id. Vindi. p. 37. and ans to the 1st part p. 19. the Doctrins of deposing Princes and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance are errors in matters of practice of the highest importance * Id. ans to 2d royal paper p. 40 55. if fancy only keeps us firm to the Church of England might it not as well have been said that the Protestants of the Church of England adhered to the Crown in the times of Rebellion out of fancy and not out of judgment and that if their fancy chang'd they might as well have joyned with the Rebels as we have cause to be thankful to God when Kings are Nursing Fathers to our Church so we shall never cease to pray for their continuing so and that in all things we may behave our selves towards them as becomes Good Christians and Loyal Subjects and whereas the Defender of the Royal Papers p. 80. argued against this that Subjects were no longer according to this Doctrin to be Loyal than their King is a Nursing Father to their Church the Doctor wipes off the Aspersion by telling him †Vindic. of the ans p. 101. ☜ P. 86. that he had put an ill construction on his words far from the intention of the Author who thinks it a part of a good Christian to be always a Loyal Subject I desire this Gentleman to resolve me whether in the late times of Usurpation this had been good Doctrin that those who enjoy or pretend to Supreme Power are to be judges in their own case if so then it had been impossible for Men to have justified their Loyalty to the Royal Family then very unjustly put out of possession P. 88 89. it is some comfort that our Church is confessed to teach the Orthodox Doctrin of Loyalty and her practice to be conformable thereto in the worst of times and so the Doctor hopes it will always be But it hath been said by some body ☜ that we have nothing peculiar to our Church but our Doctrin of Non-Resistance this might have given occasion to inquire whether the Church which pretends to be infallible doth teach it so Orthodoxly or not or whether those who do think themselves obliged to believe what she teaches are thereby obliged to the strictest Principles of Loyalty ☜ this our Church doth not only teach them as her own Doctrin but which is far more effectual as the Doctrin of Christ and his Apostles and of the Primitive Church which I think ought to have more force on the Consciences of Men P. 99. than the pretence to Infallibility in any Church in the World. ☜ Is it any argument that the constitution of our Government is not firm or that Loyal Subjects cannot be certain of their duty because Men of ill Principles have run away with false notions of a Fundamental contract and coordinate power and whereas it might be objected that propositions as dangerous as those of the Jesuits were held by some among our selves witness those condemn'd at Oxford July 26. 1683. We cannot deny says he but that there have been Men of ill Minds and disloyal Principles Factious and Disobedient Enemies to the Government both in Church and State but have these Men ever had that countenance from the Doctrins of the guides of our Church which the deposing Doctrin hath had in the Church of Rome To
Party have been the great cause of all these inhumane Butcheries yet they have not been the only Actors in them there are another sort of Men who have had their Hands stained with blood and upon what Motives and Principles and to what degrees they have proceeded I refer the Reader to Archbishop Bancroft's dangerous Positions and to the History of Presbytery to satisfic himself Ch. 2 p. 7. 8. But tho several Murders and Rebellions have been carryed on by those that call themselves Christians yet neither the Christian Religion nor the Church it self did ever teach any such Doctrin or encourage any such Practice nay there are such Evidences against it that no rational Man that does rightly consider the matter can ever doubt but that she in her judgment and belief wholly condemns all such wicked and ungodly designs And for further satisfaction I will inquire into the flate of the matter P. 9. that all Power and Dominion is Originally from God is not to be doubted but by Atheists and that Governors act in his Name and by his Authority is as unquestionable among Christians now this Power is derived to them either from the Law of Nature which is common to all Mankind or else from positive Revelation and Assignment the first and highest fountain of Supreme Power is founded in that natural Dominion that God hath given Parents over their Children insomuch that if either Adam or Noah who were the common Fathers of us all were now alive P. 10. they ought to be the Universal Monarchs of the World but when the Father dyes and Brothers are scatter'd up and down the World and live independently one of another there can be no natural pretence for one to have Dominion over the other yet the necessity of forming themselves into Societies for mutual defence and traffick will oblige them to enter into Covenants and tho while they are free they may chuse different forms as they shall see best for themselves yet having once chosen and accepted of a Supreme Power they are not at liberty to cast it off again when they please but all the Rights Prerogatives and Jurisdictions which belong to Sovereign Authority are presently by God invested on it who does ratifie all lawful pacts and agreements and requires us strictly and inviolably to observe them tho it may fall out P. 11. that the Person somtime may be chosen by the People or Nobility or Senate yet the Power and Office it self was not made is not given nor can it be limited or bounded by them so as to destroy the Office it self or make it become no Supreme Power one Prerogative whereof is to be irresistible P. 1â— and not to be called to account by any but God. a Prince must use his Subjects as Freemen and not Slaves but if Princes do not their duty we must not revenge our selves for we ought not to be Judges in our own case for God hath told us that Vengeance is his and he will repay P. 13. therefore we must go for vengeance to those whom God hath appointed to execute vengeance in his stead if then our inferior Governors do us wrong we must go to the Superior who are made Revengers to execute wrath upon them that do evil But if the Supreme Powers themselves oppress us they cannot be judg'd by their Inferiors and there will be no other remedy but to leave them to the judgment of God who hath reserved their punishment to himself but tells us he that resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation and 't is better to suffer unjustly in this World than to suffer justly in the World to come for since the last judgment in this World must be somewhere 't is fitter that Children should be committed to the judgment of their Parents and Inferiors to the Supreme than any other way P. 14 15. tho Princes are the Instruments yet it is God's purposes or commands that they put in execution whether they be for good or evil he inclines them to favor and mercy when he is pleas'd to try us with prosperity and kindness again when our sins call for judgment and indignation then he sends forth evil Governors or else permits wicked Men to act according to their own cruel and ambitious minds and the insâ—igation of the Devil but yet in the midst of judgment he does remember mercy they shall not do any harm further than God in his Wisdom shall give them leave and that is no more than is needful for our good so that we are to look upon evil Governors and Superiors that oppress us no other than plagues or violent Storms or Earthquakes sent from God from whence we may run and hide our selves if it be possible and use all reasonable means to save our lives by flight or the like but they are no more to be resisted by violence than any of those natural Evils we must by humiliation and prayer implore God's mercy to us in turning their hearts or some other way sending us deliverance as we do to avert a Plague or an Earthquake P. 16. but God hath given us no natural strength to secure our selves and thereupon will defend us himself and have us wholly therein depend upon his own care this belief it was that filled the World with Martyrs c. this made our Saviour confess to Pilate that he had Power given him from above to crucifie him c. it was upon this account that St. Paul said let every Soul be subject c. and in this sense those Texts and the Authority of Governors were vouched by the Antient Fathers and Councils and there is not one Writer for a Thousand years of any credit in the Church that did ever doubt of P. 17. or question this Doctrin but many of them have declared themselves fully for it that Sovereign Princes had their Authority immediatly from God and were accountable to none but him if they did use it amiss and therefore could not be deposed by any Authority upon Earth whether of Pope or People neither ought they to be resisted by open violence or have their Power wrested out of their hands by any of their rebellious Subjects those also that act in a War without the Commission of the Supreme Power or of the King where he is Supreme have not the Sword given them by God but take it themselves and therefore shall perish with the same And this he confirms as from Scripture so from the Doctrin of the Church and the sense of the Holy Fathers about it P. 40 41. and concludes It were casie to carry the same Doctrin through all Ages of the Church and to produce testimonies especially from the Articles and Canons of the Church of England and the Writings of our Learned Bishops and other Eminent Defenders of our Church but these shall suffice for the present and they are
enough to convince any sober Man that the Ancient Christians did never dream that either the Pope or the People did give Kings their Authority or had any Power to depose them and authorize their Subjects to take up Arms against them with or without their Authority much less to set up others in their stead or reserve their Power in their own hands but did believe that their Authority and Power is wholly from God and therefore must be obeyed according to his Ordinance and that they never can be deposed either by the People or People or any other Authority upon Earth Dr. Dove Sermon on Nov. 5. 1680. p 4 5. They that dare imagin evil against the King in their Bed-chamber will not stick to countenance Rebellion against him in the Camp for the malice of Treason like fire concealed will either find or force its passage this is the usual Prologue to all trayterous designs P. 21. to calumniate the Government and speak evil of dignities to repreach the one and make it odious by traducing the other and rendring them contemptible we may learn by experience that God for the better Government of the World thinks it fit to make Rebels and Traytors the most memorable examples of vengeance and judgment search the Scriptures and turn over the Annals of all Ages you shall scarce meet in story with a seditious Innovator or a Rebel who hath not ruined himself Id. Ser. bef Lord Mâ—yor Sept. 29. 1682. p. 15. If a Man can help Men to an evasion from the duty of Obedience he shall have followers enough this is a certain sign that tho Men know their duty yet they do not love to hear it for certainly obedience to Magistrates is one of those things that accompany Saivation and if they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation then surely we may safely affirm and that without any breach of charity or stretching beyond our line that they who oppose them in lawful things or refuse to obey them in the same without a timely repentance and reformation are in danger of it P. 17. tho David was next heir to the Crown and already anointed to it tho Saul thirsted for his blood and persecuted him by force and fraud tho he had the hearts of the People and Saul was given up into his hands so that he could as easily have slain him as have cut his skirt yet this was that which kept him from so great iniquity that he was the Lord's Anointed P. 18. the Authority is still from God tho it be placed in the bands of a sinful Man and it loseth not its essence by the accession of personal miscarriages c. disobedience hath all that is base in it P. 24. and Rebellion contains a whole conjugation of wickedness of which there seems to be an indelible sense in all Mens minds since even they who love the thing do usually hate the name of Rebels and such as are conscious of the guilt would gladly avoid the reproach of it a plain indication of guilt as guilt is a manifest argument of sin and wickedness P. 25. 't is a sin next to blasphemy to speak evil of dignities a degree of profaneness to disobey them ☜ and intolerable iniquity to rebel against them it is as bad in its own nature as murder or theft being as expresly forbidden as these and in its consequence 't is far more mischievous c. this sin debauches the conscience P. 26. and hardens Men in impiety so that it is rare very rare to find a repenting Rebel it is directly opposite to the Spirit and Power of Christianity it makes the very profession of Religion odious and despicable it is contrary to the example of Christ the Blessed Apostles and Primitive Christians there have been many pretences made for disobedience and resistance P. 27. v. p. 28. one hath libelled the Primitive Christians ascribing their meekness and submission to necessity so Bellarmine another that the Apostles in prescribing Obedience only flatter'd the Emperors so Salmeron a third hath taught that the Doctrin of resistance was a mystery bid from the first Ages and reserved for these last days of greater light so Jo. Goodwin thus the Gospel it self is belyed to countenance that which it every where condemns we have a Church P. 30. whose Doctrin Discipline and Government is Apostolical and Primitive defective in nothing so much as the Obedience of her Members unless it be the exercise of her Discipline this Church was always famous for her untainted fidelity and loyalty to the Crown oh that our lives were as good as our Religion c. SECT XVI Dr. Henry Maurice The Ancient Christians knew how to dye better than to dispute Ser. on Jan. 30. 1681. p. 2 12 30 c. cons 1st pt hist p. 112. but none understood yet how to rebel for their Religion how then are we departed from this ancient and reasonable practice no Faction did ever insult a Prince they did not mean to destroy but now to return to the blaspheming of the Church of Rome if community of name be not so much to be regarded as agreement in Doctrin our accusers will be found to have a greater part in these Sectaries than we for both agree in the Fundamentals of Rebellion and the lawfulness and merit of Resisting the Higher Powers There are Men in the World that honor such as Martyrs P. 180. that were executed for murdering their King I hope they were neither Bishops nor Episcopal Men that were so fond of Canonizing those Murderers for Martyrs P. 318. when Chrysostome saw the Civil Power against him he would not contend but endeavoured to steal away to prevent contention and what his favorers did when they began a Mutiny they did it against his will and against all his entreaties and obsecrations to the contrary did not the Primitive Christians meet to serve God p. 326. and suffer'd Martyrdom for it but did they ever enter into Covenants and Practices against the State in all the lamentable distractions of the Church by the Arians we find no Orthodox Bishop animate the People against the Government p. 327. what Persecution soever they suffer'd but on the contrary restraining all tendences to Rebellion and withdrawing themselves when the popular favor towards them grew inordinate p. 32â— p. 337. and uncontrolable Whoever animated the People to resist Julian what a number of worthy learned Ministers of the Church of England were turned out to make vacancies for the Non-Conformists in the days of Rebellion who were to instruct the People in new Mysteries of Religion which their old Pastors had not the conscience or ability to teach them i.e. of the lawfulness of Rebellion we read of St. Ambrose's zeal against the Arians of his popularity of his charity c. but not a word of his Sedition p 34â— or his forcible resistance of the
Emperor while the good Bishop in his Embasly to Maximus carried himself as the Father or Guardian of his Prince ☞ tho he had been provok'd in the most tender part by his Prince's endeavors for the introducing of Arianism others perhaps if they had been in his condition would have look'd upon this Tyrant's Maximus declaring for the truth as such an opportunity that Providence had offer'd for the Preservation of the Faith and since the Empress was of a false Religion and the Emperor was govern'd by her why should they not set up this Maximus as the Protector of the true Faith But Ambrose and the Bishops were of another mind they knew what it was to dye for their Religion p. 346. but did not understand what it was to brigue or to resist and I pray how did the Bishops comply with the Usurper Maximus were any of them instrumental to his advancement did they Preach up his cause and the lawfulness of his revolt did they ever press the People to bring in their Plate and contributions or after his successes and the Murther of Gratian did any of the Bishops justifie the Usurper's Proceedings and Preach and Print in defence of that barbarous Regicide did they flatter him as the preserver of Religion the David the Champion of Israel with much more to the same purpose Dr. Williams Printed his Sermon Preach'd July 26. 1685. Seâ—â—ful 26. 1685. on Rom. 3â—7 8. p. 11. being on the day of publick thanksgiving for the late victory over the Rebels to vindicate the City Clergy and particularly himself who was censured as if the Sermon was not to the purpose of the day and occasion as he says in his Epistle Dedicatory to the Bishop of London Grant this that evil becomes lawful by a good end and when we think our selves secure we make all compacts broken Oaths dissolved all difference betwixt Superiors and Inferiors confounded it exposes the Church and State to every pretender and any one that hath a mind P. 20 21. will never want a reason for Insurrection and Rebellion as no Religion hath more discountenanc'd such Principles and Proceedings than the Christian so no Nations nor Persons have more discountenanc'd the thing than those who have profess'd it it is too notorious to be dissembled for that there have been Rebellions against and depositions of Princes dissolutions of Governments taking and breaking of Oaths and other things apparently evil of that and the like kind done to serve a Cause a Party or a Church is no Mystery now a days Christian Religion teaches the wholsom Doctrin of being subject to the Higher Powers and that they that resist p. 22. shall receive to themselves damnation from the confessions of Faith in all the â—rotestant and Reformed Churches nothing can be drawn p. 23. that will justifie Opposition or Rebellion against Civil Authority but they expresly declare against it when Queen Mary was a known Member of the Roman Church yet the Protestants first joyned with her against the Lady Jane Grey who was invested with the title of Queen and was a Protestant And this particularly is the avowed Doctrin of the Church of England in all its Articles and Homilies at large three of which are against Rebellion Do they find in the Sermons of the Ministers of the Church of England Id. Apol. for the Pulpits p. 3 4. the Doctrines of the Peoples Power over Princes of the lawfulness of resisting their Sovereigns or rather where have the Rights of Princes and the Subjection and Obedience of the People in all lawful Cases and the Non-resistance in any Case ☜ been so much asserted That Loyalty which concerns all of all Perswasions is taught in the Pulpits of the Church of England which obliges them to be as loyal when the Prince is of a different Religion as when he is of the same with them The same Author also in his Difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome having cited our Articles Homilies c. to prove the chief Power of the King and that he ought not to be resisted and shewn how contrary to this Doctrin the Decrees of the Church of Rome are he subjoins pag. â—1 The Church of England teacheth the King in all his Realms hath Supream Power in all Causes whether Ecclesiastical or Civil For God alloweth neither the Dignity of any Person ☜ nor the Multitude of any People nor the Weight of any Cause as sufficient for the which Subjects may rebel So Dr. Grove in his Examination of Bell. 15th Note viz. Temporal Felicity pag. 393. Since the Power of Deposing Princes hath been openly assumed and frequently practised and never yet condemned by any either Pope or Council since the Doctrin of Equivoeation and many other absurd and Impious Opinions are taught by their Casuists and made use of by their Confessors in directing the Consciences of their Penitents and since these and many more very dangerous Errors do not only escape without a Censure but are approved of and encouraged by their Governors I cannot see how they and their Church can possibly be excused from the Guilt of them Mr. Thomas Stainoe B. D. and Archdeacon of Brecknock preach'd Sept. 6. Ann. 1686. Seem on Rom. 13.5 Epist Ded. before the Lord Mayor and says that he publish'd it That it might be instrumental to convince the People of their Duty to their King because it was for that very reason that he preach'd it That there is no Man so much a ravening Wolf inwardly pag. 3. but he will put on Sheeps Cloathing and tho his Resolutions are bent upon Rebellion yet his Discretion and Prudence will prompt him to pretend Religion The least that can be inferr'd from the words will be a Subjection to lawful Authority and by consequence also to our own Prince For the truth of all which I shall urge no more at present than the tacit Confession of his most avowed and professed Enemies who after all their contrivance of Wit Anger and Malice could at length pitch upon no better expedient to prevent his Right of Accession than a Bill of Exclusion Now such a Bill either presupposes an antecedent Right or it does not if it does not then it must be confess'd that they did most elaborately trifle whilst they took a great deal of pains to bring that about that was already done to their hands If it does then we have what we look for and that is that the Injustice of their Actions does make good the Justice of his Title and affords us a tacit Confession that there was no other way to overthrow that Title but by overturning the very Foundations of the Government it self pag. 7. We are therefore obliged in Conscience to be in subjection to the Superior Powers because God himself commands us so to be God hath given the lawful Magistrate a Title to that Authority pag. 12. to which we
THE HISTORY OF Passive Obedience Since the REFORMATION AMSTERDAM Printed for Theodore Johnson in the Calver-Straet 1689. THE PREFACE HAving always thought that the Doctrine of Passive Obedience or Non-resistance of our lawful Superiors had been a Doctrine founded in the Holy Scriptures recommended to the Christian World by the Precepts and Example of our Blessed Saviour and the Practices of his more immediate Followers which Copy the Church of England hath exactly transcribed to whose immortal Glory it must be said that She alone in contra-distinction both to Papists and Dissenters hath asserted the Principles of Obedience to Princes as the best Ages of Christianity own'd and practised it and having lived so long to see that Doctrine ridicul'd and call'd the Doctrine of the Bow-string and the Assertors and Practisers of it exploded as Old Lacrymists and the matter of fact as to the first Ages of the Reformation denyed while some affirm that the Tenet was no older than Archbishop Laud and was introduced by a few Court Bishops Bishop Saunderson's Preface to Arch-Bishop Vsher of The Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject The Apostle saith put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers Tit. 3.1 Tho' S. Paul was certainly no Man-pleaser far from seeking himself or from making merchandize of the Word of God or handling it deceitfully for filthy Lucre sake nor were there hopes of Preferment when the Church had no setled Revenue nor was there any Christian Prince in the Universal World but he draws his Arguments from the Ordinance of God the discharge of Duty and a good Conscience the advancement of the Gospel and the honor of the Christian Religion See more in that admirable Preface the better to make way for the attainment and establishing of their own Grandeur by reason of which the Enemies of our Communion both Romanists and others have confidently averred that our Obedience to our Sovereigns is nothing but our Interest and that we have vindicated the Rights of Kings because they have vindicated the Rights of our Church and have prosecuted all that dislik'd our Constitutions I could no longer forbear writing in the behalf of that truth which is eternal and unalterable as are all the Doctrines of Christianity tho we must acknowledg to our shame that they are more illustrious in our Books than in our Lives and shewing that from the infancy of the happy Reformation the Church of England hath always believed and avowed That it is the duty of every Christian in things lawful actively to obey his Superior in things unlawful to suffer rather than obey and in any case or upon any pretence whatsoever not to resist because whoever does so shall receive to themselves Damnation Nor can the Doctrine be unseasonable since no Government can be safe without it Mens Passions naturally inclining them to think well of themselves and to make Complaints of hard Vsage even then when they are most gently treated what Instances have we in the Writings of the last Ages When Parsons in the name of his Party resolving to expose the admirable Reign of Q. Elizabeth renders her worse than the worst of Tyrants and asks Where are the Neroes and Dioclesians where are the Genserics and Hunnerics As if neither Pagan nor Arian Persecutors were as cruel as she And when another Classis of Men blackned one of the best of Men and the best of Princes the Martyr CHARLES I. as the great Enemy of his Country the Invader of the Religion and Liberties of his Subjects and have not former Ages labored under the same Discontents When the disaffected Jews could say We have no portion in David nor any inheritance in the Son of Jesse every man to his tents O Israel And yet that Prince was of Gods own immediate designation and a Man after Gods own heart Now if upon such Pretensions Subjects may right themselves by resisting their lawful Superiours how soon will a fruitful Land be turned into a barren Wilderness and Paradise it self become a Field of Blood And I have with some regret and confusion reflected heretofore that in the Romish Communion Preston Widdrington and Barnes in England VValsh and Caron in Ireland and in Scotland Barclay to omit other Countries all profest Papists and all but Barclay Priests and consequently more obliged to uphold the Grandeur of the Pontifical Chair should honestly and stoutly appear to the Vindication of this Truth which we seem either weary or asham'd of I never wondered to see the Enemies of our Church make a Fasting-day of our Blessed Saviours Nativity as if they were sorry that he came into the World and perhaps with reason because their Actions were so contrary both to his Precepts and Example but I stand amazed to see her Sons disown her Doctrine and Constitutions Did we seriously study the Laws of Providence and consider the indispensible Obligations laid on us of taking up the Cross did we remember that Affliction is the Churches Portion and that not the least Evil may be done to procure the greatest Good this a Aug. de haeres Epiph. Doctrine would be more easily believ'd and more readily embrac'd They were the Gnosticks of the Primitive Church who taught Men to swear and forswear and to sly from Persecution when it was the Lot of Religion And for these among other Reasons I conjecture does b Stillingfleet's Ser. Jan. 30. 168 â— / 9. p. 3. 4. a learned Man of our Church call Simon Magus the Institutor of that vile Sect The Leviathan of the Primitive Church who de stroyed all the differences of good and evil And that probably because as the Leviathan makes himself sport in the waters so the Gnosticks played with Oaths and all Laws divine and human c Id. p. 4. setting a mighty Value upon themselves and having mean and contemptible Thoughts of the Authority which God had established in the VVorld and it may be because he was the Hobbs of that Age who gave being to Opinions contradictory to the whole Tenour of the Gospel For the Gnosticks thought d Id. p. 5. all the Governments of the VVorld to be nothing else but the contrivance of some evil Spirits to abridg Men of their Liberty which God and Nature had given them and that this is the speaking evil of Dignities which they are charged with by S. Jude And the same great Man says e Sermon Novem. 5. 1673. pag. 2 3. that it was one of Machiavel 's Quarrels against Christianity that by its Precepts of Meekness and Patience it rendered Men unfit for such great Undertakings as could not be accomplish'd without something of Cruelty and Inhumanity whereas the old Religions by the multitude of Sacrifices did inure Men to Blood and Destruction and so made them fit for any Enterprize And Machiavel was certainly in the right if Religion were intended only to make Men Butchers or to instruct them in the use of Swords and
declared at the least four times in the year That the King's Majesties Power Authority and Preheminence within his Realms and Dominions is the highest Power under God Here the Injunction plainly distinguishes the claim of the Pope from other claims implying that our Church always believed that her Prince's Power was derived immediately from God and that they were superior to all their Subjects either singly or collectively and so were not accountable to them but only to God and among Bishop Ridley's Articles of Visitation An. 1550. one is Whether any do preach or defend that private persons may make Insurrection stir Sedition or compel Men to give them their Goods Anno 1564. being the seventh Year of Queen Elizabeth in the ‖ Sparr Collect. p. 123. Articles for Preaching it is injoyn'd That the Minister move all People to Obedience as well in observation of the Orders appointed in the Book of Common Service as in the Queen's Majesty's Injunctions as also of all other civil Duties due for Subjects to do and that all Preachers Preaching Matters tending to Dissention c. shall be complained At last the Injunctions were called Canons and the first Canon An. 1603. in the first Year of King James is the same in substance with the Injunction of Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth and for this reason Can. 55. it is ordained That every Minister should before his Sermon acknowledge the King to be in all Causes and over all Persons supreme Head and Governor in more express terms than were formerly used But particularly I look upon the Canons of the Year 1640. to be a full Explanation of the belief of our Church in this point Now Can. 1. injoyns all former Laws Ordinances and Constitutions formerly made for the acknowledgment and profession of the most lawful and independent Authority of our dread Sovereign Lord the King 's most excellent Majesty to be carefully observed and then descends to give an Explanation of the Royal Power and Authority That the most sacred Order of Kings is of divine Right being the Ordinance of God himself founded in the prime Laws of Nature and clearly establish'd by express Texts both of the Old and New Testament and for any Person or Persons to set up maintain or allow in any their said Realms or Territories respectively under any pretence whatsoever any independent coactive Power either Papal or Popular whether directly or indirectly is to undermine their great Royal Office and cunningly to overthrow that most Sacred Offfice which God himself hath establish'd and so is treasonable against God as well as against the King. For Subjects to bear Arms against their Kings See the Doctrine of these Canons vindicated in Dr. Puller's Moderat of the Ch. of Engl. c. 12. §. 6. p. 34. offensive or defensive upon any Pretence whatsoever is at least to resist the Powers which are ordained of God and though they do not invade but only resist St. Paul tells them plainly They shall receive to themselves Damnation while in the next Paragraph they shew that this Doctrine does not intitle the King to every Man's Estate But against the Synod that made these Canons lies a great Objection tho I should have thought that the hard Censures of it might have been spar'd because no Synod of our Church and perhaps none of any other Protestant Church hath so expresly condemn'd Popery and Socinianism the great Enemies of true Reformed Christianity as this Synod hath done ‖ V. Art. 3.4 that it was not a Lawful Synod because it was continued and sat after the Parliament was Dissolved and was by another Parliament Condemn'd not to answer that that very Parliament that first Condemn'd this Synod ruin'd even the Monarchy it self nor that the Synods of old Provincial or General were not dependent on the meeting of the States at the same time I answer First that these Canons were made and confirm'd in full Convocation of both Provinces of Canterbury and York and the making of Canons being a work properly Ecclesiastical these Canons were made by the Representatives of the whole Clergy of this Kingdom 2. The Canons were confirm'd by the King which was all that was of old required in such Cases and tho the Convocation sat after the Dissolution of the Parliament yet 1. This is not without President even in the happy Days of Queen Elizabeth not to look back into Henry VIII or the primitive Times And 2. the Persons who condemn'd this Synod are well known to have done it to justifie their own Proceedings being resolved to ruine Episcopacy and with it the Monarchy and afterward by their own power they called an Assembly of Divines and What a Confession of Faith what Discipline Rites and Methods did they Establish a Directory among other things out of which they left the Lord's Prayer perhaps because it 't was a Form the Apostles Creed because themselves thought they could make a better and the Ten Commandments because the fifth plainly accused them of Rebellion against their Lawful Prince And it is worth the observing that Sr. Edward Deering's Speeches that were spoken with so much Virulence against this Synod and afterwards Printed were by the Order of the same House who first applauded them decreed to be Burnt by the hand of the Common Hang-man And if it be still objected that the Canons were Reprobated since the Restitution of Charles II. I say that I quote them not as a Law that obliges the Church but as the known Sense of the Church of England at that time CHAP. III. The Doctrine of the Homilies THough the name of Homily hath been look'd upon and censured by unthinking People as ridiculous yet those admirable Sermons made by our first Reformers as a body of practical Divinity and a Confutation of the Errors and Idolatries of the Church of Rome are as Bishop Ridley said of the first Tome of them * Apud Fox To. 3. p. 506. Holy and wholsome Homilies Recommendations of the principal Virtues which are commended in Scripture and against the most pernicious and capital Vices that so alas do reign in this Realm of England These we subscribe to as containing wholsome Doctrine †Dr. Stanley's Faith and Pract. c. 7. p. 192. and every Man hereby sees what Opinions the Clergy are of for they subscribe and assent to the Book of Articles and Homilies and to the Book of Common Prayer Many also have some regard to the Articles of An 1640. They take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test c. and Johnson says That the Book of Homilies is the best Book in the World next the Bible And since a ‖ D. Welw Letter to M. March p. 10. late Author is so bold to say that Passive Obedience in the narrow sense we take it in was not so much as thought on at the time of the publishing the Homilies I must first ask him How he came to be so
‡ P. 201 202. We are not satified in being obliged to preserve the King's person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and the Liberties of the Kingdom forasmuch as 1. No such limitation of our Duty in that behalf is to be found either in the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance which no Papist would refuse to take with such a Limitation nor in the Protestation nor in the Word of God. 3. Such a Limitation leaves the Duty of the Subject at so much loosness and the safety of the King at so great uncertainty ☞ that whensoever the People shall have a mind to withdraw their Obedience they cannot want a pretence from the same for so doing 4. Hereby we make our selves guilty of an actual and real diminution of his Majesties Power and Greatness which in the same Breath we call the World to witness with our Consciences that we had no thought to diminish c. P. 210 211. The Tyranny and Yoke of Antichrist if laid upon the Necks of Subjects by their lawful Sovereigns ☜ is to be thrown off by Christian Boldness in confessing the truth and patient suffering for it not by taking up Arms or violent resisting the higher Powers Pag. 217 Because some have inferred from the very Order that the Defence of the King's Person and Authority ought to be with subordination to the preservation of the Rights and Privileges of Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdom therefore we cannot take this Oath Especially being told in a late Pamphlet P. 219. that the King not having preserved the Liberties of the Kingdom c. as of duty he ought is thereby become a Tyrant and so ceaseth to be a King and consequently that his Subjects cease to be Subjects and ow him no longer Subjection which Assertion since we heartily detest as false and scandalous in the Supposition and in the Inference seditious and devilish we dare not by subscribing this Article give the least countenance thereto And that we may take the Covenant in our own sense is contrary to the nature and end of an Oath which must be full of simplicity P. 223. contrary to the end of Speech c. and will bring a scandal upon our Religion that we practise that our selves that we condemn in the Paqists viz. Swearing with Jesuitical Equivocations and mental Reservations that we play fast and loose with God in as much as what we swear to day in one sense we may swear the direct contrary to morrow in another P. 225. And if this would fatisfie the Conscience we might with a good Conscience not only take the Covenant but even subscribe to the Council of Trent also yea and to the Turkish Alcoran P. 229. if the King should not protect us but neglect his part too having power and ability to perform it his voluntary neglect ought not to free us from the faithful performance of what is to be done on our part Ann. 1683. July 21. in a full Convocation many opinions were condemn'd that had been publish'd in diverse Books and writings in English and also in the Latin tongue P. 2. repugnant to the holy Scriptures decrees of Councils writings of the Fathers the Faith and profession of the Primitive Church and also destructive of the Kingly Government the safety of his Majesties Person the publick Peace the Laws of Nature and Bonds of Humane Society as Proposition 1. All civil Authority is derived originally from the People Proposition 2. There is a mutual compact tacit or express between a Prince and his Subjects and if he perform not his Duty they are discharged from theirs Proposition 3. P. 3. that if Lawful Governours become Tyrants or Govern otherwise than by the Laws of God and Man they ought to do they forfeit the Right they had unto their Government Prop. 7. Self-preservation is the Fundamental Law of Nature and supersedes the Obligation of all others when they stand in competition with it Prop. 8. The Doctrine of the Gospel concerning patient suffering of Injuries is not inconsistent with violent resisting of the higher Powers in case of Persecution for Religion Pr. 9. P. 4. There lies no obligation upon Christians to Passive Obedience when the Prince commands any thing against the Laws of our Country and the Primitive Christians chose rather to die than to resist because Christianity was not yet settled by the Laws of the Empire And besides the Condemnation of the Doctrines the Books of Milton P. 7. Baxter Goodwin Owen Johnson c. were ordered to be publickly burnt by the Hand of the Marshal in the Court of the Schools as Books that were fitted to deprave Mens Manners stir up Seditions and Tumults overthrow States and Kingdoms and lead to Rebellion Murther of Princes and Atheism it self And a Prohibition issued forbidding the Reading any of the said Books under great Penalties This Decree was drawn up by Dr. Jane Dean of Glocester and the King's Professor of Divinity at Oxon and subscribed by the Vicechancellor other Professors and the whole Convocation And pursuant to this Decree Parkinson a Fellow of Lincoln-College for maintaining that the Right and Foundation of all Power was in the People that Kings are accountable for their Maleadministration c. And particularly that King Charles the First was justly put to death for making War upon his Subjects was an 1684. expelled the University And it is observable that our excellent Homilies that so expresly require Obedience to Princes and condemn Rebellion and Resistance upon any pretence whatsoever were Printed at the Theatre the same year that the abovementioned Decree was made CHAP. VII The Opinions of Learned Men. WHen Men would know what are the Sentiments of any Church in her Articles or Sanctions the most rational Course is to make inquiry among those who were concern'd in making them or those who may be presumed best to understand them by reason of their nearness to the time their acquaintance with the Compilers or their extraordinary Sagacity and Honesty and of suchpersons in the Church of England must we make Inquiry concerning the Doctrine of Obedience and Non-resistance In * Burn. hist Ref. part 1. l. 3. p. 245. the Days of Henry the Eighth when the Reformation began to dawn an 1537. a Convocation was held upon the Conclusion of which there was Printed an Explanation of the chief Points of Religion signed by nineteen Bishops eight Arch-Deacons and seventeen Doctors of Divinity and Law in which there was an Exposition of the Creed the Ten Commandments c But this was but a rude Draught the beauteous Stroaks were given it †Id. p. 286. anno 1540. when a select number of Bishops sate by Virtue of a Commission from the King confirm'd in Parliament among which were Cranmer Ridley Redman and other extraordinary men their first work was to draw up a Declaration of the Christian Doctrine for the
that those who suffer for asserting any other power over Kings are not Martyrs but Traitors †Id. Serm. 39. p. 391 392. We sin against the Father the Root of Power in conceiving amiss of the Power of the Civil Magistrate when God saith By me Kings reign there the Per is not a Permission but a Commission it is not that they reign by my Sufferance but they reign by my Ordinance a King is not a King because he is a good King nor leaves being a King as soon as he leaves being good all is well summed up by the Apostle Rom. 13.5 Ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake The Law of the Prince is rooted in the power of God ‖ Ser. 69. p. 698. the Root of all is Order and the Orderer of all is the King. SECT IX The Archbishop of Spalato came a Stranger into this Kingdom but in a little time became well acquainted with the Estate of our Church and spoke her Sense in his Books which were well received both here and abroad nor does his Apostacy afterward concern the Merit of the Cause for if we may believe a ‖ Bishop Cosens of Transub Reverend Prelate of our Communion the Archbishop of Spalato did make good what he promised here when he came to Rome that he would own and defend the English Church to be a true Church of Christ And that among other her Doctrines he very well understood this of Non-resistance or rather he understood it to be a Doctrine of the true Catholick Church for his Books were written tho not completed before he left Italy will easily appear when it is remembered that * Lib. de Rep. Eccles cap. 1. he shews to the confutation of all that can be said to the contrary That our blessed Saviour while he lived on earth had no temporal Kingdom ‡ Cap. 2. That the Power of Princes is immmediately from God proving it from Rom. 13.1 That thus God ordain'd the Affairs of the old World that God himself was the King of Israel till the Days of Saul that he transferred his power not to the people but to Saul that this Opinion that Kings were of God's Institution and not the peoples was the Belief of the ancient Christians which he proves from the Writings of Irenaeus Tertull. Chryst Optat. Didymus Hosius Ambrose Austin c. And from the Assertions of the elder Popes and Councils that the common opinion of the Schoolmen and other Divines that Government is in the Body of the People is false that there is no Revelation hath confirmed this Assertion that all that the Light of Nature says is that Men must be governed and that if the Government were originally in the Hands of the People all Governments ought to have been Democratical which says he is the worst and most imperfect Form of Government he proving also that if the People do elect they cannot call the Prince whom they elect to account after which †Cap. 10. n. 82. he proposes an Objection If Princes be so unaccountable then there is no Remedy against evil Princes no not tho they are Enemies to the true Faith and are guilty of Maleadministration of the Government and vex their Subjects both in their Civil and Sacred Properties for while Deposition is the only Remedy if they cannot be deposed there is no Remedy To which he answers 1. That we are to enquire after such a State not what is free from all Inconveniences but what is subject to the least and the least dangerous but much more pernicious and destructive of human Society are those Confusions which are wont to arise from the Rebellions of Subjects and from Civil Wars than those which happen from the Cruelty of an ungovernable King exercised upon his Subjects 2. That this is proper and peculiar to a supreme temporal Prince that he cannot lawfully be deposed for such Kings are only inferior to God and are his immediate Vicegerents c. And in his Confutation of the Errors of Suarez ‖ C. 3. n. 6. he shews the mistakes of that Jesuit that there is no Revelation that God hath given Princes such a power proving from S. Paul that there is no power but what is of God. And †N. 16. if a Crown happen to fall to an Infidel his Subjects are bound to obey him in which case says he we ought to acknowledge and reverence the Equity of the English ☞ who when they had freed themselves from the Papal Yoke and embraced the Reformed Religion under Edward the Sixth did notwithstanding after his Death set the Crown on the Head of his Sister Mary whom they knew to be a Papist and zealously affected towards the Pope which Succession the Peers did not only allow of but the Prelates also who expected nothing from her but Executions and Martyrdoms for they knew that Religion ought not to hinder the Admission of the lawful Heir to his Right ‖ N. 17. For the Power of a King is given him by divine positive Law and therefore there is no other but God who can take his power from him To this Archbishop I will join his bitter Adversary Bishop Montagu * Not. in Invect 2. Naz. in Jul. because herein they were both agreed When the Christians in Julian 's time betook themselves only to their Prayers and not to Force it was not because they could not but because they would not for they had sufficient force to subdue the Tyrant as both Greg. Naz. and S. Austin aver but they had learn'd patience in the School of their Master Christ who had recommended it to them both by his Words and by his Example not to confound Heaven and Earth c. Bishop Lake 's Sermon Preached in Trinity-Church in Winchester at An Assizes 1610. A false Religion doth not hinder him from being a lawful Sovereign To resolve the Conscience of such as doubt Whether a different Religion doth evacuate the Power of a lawful Sovereign It doth not says he tho it be a false Religion SECT X. Old Mr. Ded hath been censured as a Puritan but I am sure neither he nor his Copartner Clever were so in this point for in their * The 5th Commandment p. 216 217. Comment on the Commandments they thus declare themselves The first Duty of the Subject is Submission both inward and outward in heart to reverence and outwardly to obey the Magistrate and this is commanded Rom. 13. Let every soul be subject c. He commands not only a bodily Subjection which may be in many rebellious persons that resist Authority and lie open to the Curse of God for this sin but an inward submission of the Soul as unto a spark of God's Authority ☜ and an appointment of his For if this inward be not first this outward will fail upon every occasion there must be also an outward subjection in obeying their Commands as
particularly chosen by the People c. but on the other side what mighty danger can there be in suppossing the persons of Princes to be so sacred that no Sons of Violence ought to come near to hurt them Have not all the ancient Kingdoms and Empires of the World flourished under the Supposition of an unaccountable power in Princes No inconvenience can be possibly so great on the supposition of this unaccountable power in Sovereign Princes as the unavoidable Mischiefs of that Hypothesis which places all power originally in the People and notwithstanding all Oaths and Bonds whatsoever to Obedience ☞ gives them the Liberty to resume it when they please which will always be when a Spirit of Faction and Sedition shall prevail among them God Pag. 34. Numb 26.9 interprets striving against the Authority appointed by him to be a striving against himself they who resist resist an Ordinance of God and they who do so shall in the mildest sense receive a severe punishment from him let the Pretences be never so popular the persons never so great and famous nay tho they were of the great Council of the Nation yet we see God doth not abate of his severity upon any of these Considerations nor hath the Christian Doctrine made any Alteration in these things P. 39. It would take up too much time to examine the frivolous Evasions and ridiculous Distinctions by which they would make the case of the Primitive Christians in not resisting Authority so much different from theirs who have not only done it but in spite of Christianity have pleaded for it either they wanted Strength or Courage or the Countenance of the Senate or did not understand their own Liberty P. 40. When all their Obedience was only due to those Principles of the Gospel which made it so great a part of Christianity to be subject to Principalities and Powers and which the Teachers of the Gospel had particularly given them in charge to put the People in mind of Tit. iii. 1. And happy had it been for us if this Doctrine had been more sincerely preach'd and duely practis'd in this Nation * Id. Ser. on Nov. 5. 1673. p. 39. It is the Honor of our Church of England that it asserts the Rights of Princes so clearly and fully without Tricks and Reservations and all that mean honestly love to speak plainly †Id. Ser. on Mat. x. 16. at Whitchall March 7. 167 8 / 9. That there might be no colour for any such Cavil against Christianity as if it gave occasion to many Disturbances of the Civil Government no Religion that ever was did so much enforce the duty of Obedience as Christ and his Apostles did and that upon the greatest and most weighty Considerations for Conscience sake for the Lord's sake for their Religion's sake for consider I pray if the Doctrine of Christ had given encouragement to Faction and Rebellion under pretence of it if S. Peter himself had taken upon him to dispose of Crowns and Scepters or had absolved Christians from their Allegiance even to their greatest Persecutors what Blot had this been even upon the whole Religion such as all the Blood of the Martyrs could never have wash'd out P. 50. It is an intolerable Reproach to Christianity to impute their patient Submission to Authority to their Weakness and want of force which is all one as to say they would have resisted if they durst And the same Author in his Grand Question c. p. 180 181. says That every new Modeller of Government hath something to offer that looks like Reason at least to those whose interest it is to carry it on and if no Precedents can be found then they appeal to a certain invisible thing called the Fundamental Contract of the Nation which being a thing no where to be found may signifie what any one pleases And pag. 75. I am of Opinion That if he i.e. the Author of the Letter c. could be persuaded to produce this Fundamental Contract of the Nation which I perceive he hath lying by him it would not amount to so much as a blind Manuscript Thus also he says in his Book called The Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome truly stated p. 106. The Principles of our Church are directly contrary to them i. e. deposing Principles and our Houses of Convocation would as readily condemn any such damnable Doctrines as the University of Oxford and all the World knows how repugnant such Principles are to those of the Church of England and none can be Rebels to their Prince but they must be false to our Church SECT XXV Dr. Patrick Dean of Peterborough * Paraphr on Prov. 24 21. Take care therefore my dear Child that thy Religion which teaches thee in the first place to worship reverence and obey the great Lord and Governor of all the World make thee humbly obedient to the King as God's Vicegerent here on Earth and have nothing to do with those whose discontent with the present state of things or their love of Novelty makes them affect a change of Government and depart from their duty both to God and Man. †Id. Pref. to the Paraphr on Eccles p. 16. To this purpose the Preface to the Paraphrase on Ecclesiastes cites and confirms the Opinion of Antonius Corranus an excellent Person a learned Spaniard as the Paraphrast justly stiles him concerning that Book of Solomon's This Tractate is truly royal and worthy to be read perpetually in this most turbulent Age both by high and low that from hence Subjects may learn to perform Obedience and the greatest Observance both in word and deed towards their Princes chusing rather to bear and suffer any thing than to attempt Rebellion against them ‖ Id. Per. Annot. on Eccl. 8.2 p 216. It is much safer and easier as well as more honest to submit and be quiet than to contend and unsettle the Peace of Kingdoms tho Princes do not govern as they ought The Verse says Melancthon is a Sentence exceeding worthy of Consideration and Remembrance and then gives the different Interpretations of it and closes all thus ‡ P. 219.220 Some may think that I have dilated too much upon this Verse but they may be pleased to consider how useful if not necessary it is at this time when men begin again to plead the lawfulness of Resistance which is so plainly condemn'd in this place that the most learned Assertors of the Old Cause were extremely puzzled to make it agree with their Principles in the late Times of Rebellion There is one who in his Book called Natures Dowry chap. 21. calls in the Assistance of a great many Hebrew Doctors to help him to another Translation of the Words and yet after all is forc'd to acknowledge that our English is right enough and is content to admit it with this Proviso That the King manage well the Affairs of the Commonwealth
their Doctrine to have been of God had their Actions been so contrary to all the Precepts of Natural Divinity And in this matter does the Learned Dr. Dr. Dove's Serm. before the Sons of the Clergy 1687. Dove vindicate the Integrity of our Church in a few but as significant Words as any of his Brethren when speaking of some who suffered much for their Constancy to the Faith and their Fidelity to the Crown he terms them Two inseparable Notes of a genuine Son of the Church of England Dr. Puller * Moderat of the Ch. of Engl. ch 12. § 5. Other Sects deny the King's Supremacy in Matters Ecclesiastical either claiming a Power of Jurisdiction over him or pleading a Privilege of Exemption from under him where as the Clergy of the Church of England like good Christians and good Subjects neither pretend to any Jurisdiction over the Kings of England nor withdraw their Subjection from them †Sect. 6 7. And then he vindicates that Expression of Can. 1. of the Synod 1640. That the Order of Kings is most high and sacred The Moderation of our Church doth not favour any Doctrines or Practices which are prejudicial to the safety of human Society in general It doth no where pretend to remit the Divine Laws or dispense with Oaths or transfer the Rights of Kingdoms c. Contrariwise it requires of all of its Communion to give the King such Security of their Allegeance and Fealty as may be a sufficient Security to his Government ‖ Chap. 17. The Romanists and Separatists extremely agree in their Principles against the Civil Magistrate according to that of Bishop Lany * Bishop Lany's Serm. on 1 Thess 4.11 The Papists and Presbyterians hunt in Couples against the King's Power and Supremacy It is admirable to see how the Commonwealths Men in the times of the late Rebellion received their Principles from the ancient and modern Writers of the Jesuits and other Papists and still agree with them in most of the Republican Doctrines and Tendencies of them to the like Practices Both deny the Supremacy of the King one attributes it to the Pope originally the other to the People and the same Arguments which the Pope useth for his Supremacy over Kings the Disciplinarians use for establishing their Sovereignty The Pretence of the King's Authority against his Person was hatch'd under the Roman Territories and was made use of in the Holy League of France The Rules for making a King to be a Tyrant and then ceasing to be a King that it may be lawful to attempt any thing against his Person and Life are so much the same §. 20. that they cannot be more I need not here relate how many Doctrines of the Romanists tend to dissolve the very Bonds of relative Duty one towards another absolving People from their Oaths and Allegiance No Faith to be kept with Hereticks c. How do many Principles of our Enthusiasts and Separatists tend to destroy the Relations of King and Subject Bishop and People c. SECT XXXII Dr. Scott * Serm. July 26. 1685. p. 2. P. 13 14. Absalom accomplish'd his design partly by declaiming against the Maleadministrations of his Father's Government partly by promising them a thorough Reformation if ever he arrived to be a Judge in Israel Every Man knows or might easily know if he were not extremely wanting to himself that his King is the Vicegerent of his God and that being so he is indispensibly obliged by all the ties of Reason and Religion to submit to his Will and reverence his Person and bow to his Authority and that he cannot lift up his hand against him without fighting against God himself the Truth of which is as obvious to our natural Reason and as plainly asserted in holy Scripture as of any Proposition in Religion ☜ so that I dare boldly affirm a Man may find as many Pretexts for any Vice whatsoever even for Drunkenness Whoredom or Perjury as ever were made for Rebellion and were I to set up for a publick Patron of Wickedness I hardly know a Villany in nature so black and monstrous which I could not more plausibly recommend to Mens Reason and Consciences than this of Resistance against lawful Authority which is such a complication of Villanies such a loathsome mixture of hellish Ingredients as is enough to nauseate any Conscience but a Devil 's And tho Conscience and Religion are the Colors it usually marches under yet is the imposture of this Pretence so fulsome and bare-fac'd that no Man in his Wits can be innocently abused by it for certainly that Man must have a great mind to rebel his Will must have a strong Byass of Pride or Discontent Faction or Ambition in it that in despite of all the evidence from Reason and Scripture to the contrary can persuade himself that it is lawful for him and much less P. 15 16. that it is his duty to lift up his hand against his Sovereign And therefore for Men to appeal to God in a Cause so apparently wicked is not submissively to refer themselves to him but openly to mock and affront him and to make a vexatious Appeal to God's Judgment again in a Case which he hath so often and so expresly judged already is a common Barretry 't is not to consult but to tempt him and under pretence of submitting to his determinations openly to defie his Authority in effect it is to appeal from his Will to his Providence and to bespeak him to declare himself against his own Declarations In the case of Rebellion there is not only a peremptory Disobedience to those Laws of God which require our dutiful Submission to our lawful Superiors ☞ but also a direct Renuntiation of the divine Authority it self for all Sovereign Power is immediately founded in the Dominion of God who being the supreme Lord of the World no person can have right to govern in his Kingdom under him but by Commission from him Kings therefore are only accountable to him P. 17.18 and if so then for any of their Subjects to presume to call them to account by a publick form'd resistance is to arraign God's own Authority and invade his peculiar it is to thrust him out of his Throne and set themselves down in it and then to summon his Authority before them and require it to submit its awful Head to their imperious doom and sentence While therefore we behave our selves factiously and rebelliously towards those whom God hath set over us we live as Out-laws in the Kingdom of God without any respect to that visible Authority by which he governs the World and if this be so then for Subjects to rebel against their Prince is neither better nor worse than to appeal to God against his own Authority and to put this impious Case to him Whether it be he or they that have the Right of Governing the World. I profess * Id. Serm.
his Grace the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in his Sermon on the 30. of Jan. 1682. The English Nation had been long held in singular Reputation P. 24. for good Natur'd and Loyal Courage and not onely the neighbouring Nations but the more remote parts of the Earth have been witnesses of their Dutiful Affection to their Kings And p. 30. speaking of the Authors of that days wickedness saith Doubtless we have great reason to own the kindness of their Separation They went out from Us and would not be of Us because our Doctrine was too Loyal and Passive for Men of so fiery Temper and the greatest Tyranny they found in our Religion was the Restraint that it laid on the Conscience of Men from resisting against the Higher Powers c. Pag. 33. He who has no due Conscience of his Duty to his Prince and obeys not for Gods sake but his own is a Servant but during his own pleasure or Advantage Now let us learn the Necessity of joyning Religion to Loyalty to Fear God and the King together It is the same Power that is to be Reverenc'd in both they cannot be separated but to the manifest disadvantage of all humane Authority Learn to detect all the plausible beginnings and Witchcrafts of Rebellion and confirm our selves with stedfast Resolutions of perpetual Obedience to our Sovereign Dr. Lake's Sermon before the Lord Mayor c. Jan. 30. 1684. Tells us It was a usual saying among the Rabbies that no one can judge the King but he who is over all God blessed for ever and p. 22. The Reformed Religion of our Church gives no Rules prefers no Examples but what are obedient and Loyal ones If any will convince our Church as accessary to any others let them impeach our authentick Constitutions her Doctrine Worship or Discipline Her Doctrine is contained in the 39 Articles and Book of Homilies which are of Age and can speak for themselves p. 22. What our Articles do more concisely speak the Homilies do more fully teach With an exact agreement to this Doctrine is her Liturgy compos'd p. 23. Nor has the practice of the Children of this Church ever run Counter to those excellent Rules And speaking concerning the villany of that day He adds Shall we Curse shall we detest the Men who acted or encouraged this Murther No p. 24. But we will execrate those damnable Positions which gave occasion to it those Positions which fix the Government in the people and transfer to them a power to Curb to Correct to depose their Princes You bloudy you Antichristian you Hellish Doctrines let there be no more Dew nor Rain upon you let them not be diffus'd nor propagate any farther but wither and die p. 29. What remains but that we ever detest and accurse their villanous suggestions beware of the Witchcraft of Rebellion and not suffer our selves to be again charm'd and trick'd out of our Loyalty Mr. Lynford * Sermon 1679. bef L. Mayor on 2 Chr. 20.17 p. 12 13. c. Our great mistake is that we dote too much upon these present Enjoyments and are too fond of the things of this World by which means it comes to pass that we stretch the Principle of preservation too far and are often apt to conclude that whatsoever seems fit and proper to work our present security this we may lawfully and with a safe Conscience do Now although our present danger may seem great enough altho Life Fortune Religion all should appear to be at stake and we can imagine within our selves that if such and such courses were made use of we might escape Yet that we ought nevertheless to stand still and make use of no means but such as are honest and lawful I shall endeavour to evince from these following Considerations First Consider that by doing any unlawful action we deprive our selves of God's care and protection c. 2. Nothing can bring a greater scandal upon the Religion we profess than for us to do any thing which is unlawful although it be for our own preservation All Sects and Parties do in all their undertakings pretend Piety c. But our Saviour hath given us a Caution not to judg of Men by their pretences but by their actions c. Wheresoever therefore we observe Men to be covetous and full of ambition to allow Superstition and Idolatry to be Factors for Schism and Rebellion c. Let them talk as much as they please of the Glory of God by their Fruits we know them they are ravenous Wolves in Sheeps cloathing c. We see how the Papists have misrepresented all our Actions And therefore nothing could be a greater gratification to them at this time than to see us act any thing which is either contrary to that duty which we owe to God or that Allegiance which is due to our Soyereign what pleasure would they reap from an Insurrection Pag. 17. or popular Tumults c. In vain do we call our selves Protestants if we live otherwise than becomes true Christians neither shall we be ever able to excuse our selves either to God or Man if to keep out Popery we are not afraid wilfully to commit any sin or wickedness such a way of proceeding as it would on the one Hand confirm the Proselytes of Popery and hinder them from renouncing their gross absurdities so would it on the other Hand harden the Atheist in his loose and debaucht Principles who with more boldneses than formerly would assert that Religion was a trick of State since the most Zealous Professors of it took so little care to observe its Precepts and that Heaven and the pleasures of another World were only Fable and Romance since they who talk'd so much of them whether Papists or Protestants had nevertheless such a tender regard to the comforts of this life and so kind a respect to their present Estates and Fortunes that for the preservation of these later they did not scruple venturing the forfeiture of the former If therefore we have any kindness for that Religion we profess if we would not make the name of Protestants as despicable as that of Papists c. Let us keep within those bounds of Duty which are set us and although our condition may appear desperate ☞ let us resolve not to uphold it by any other means than what are allowed by God himself his glory will be sooner advanced and true Religion better propagated by suffering wrong than doing wickedly And therefore it was the constant practice of the Primitive Christians to submit to the most cruel Tortures rather than by any unwarrantable action strive to avoid them neither were there any more severely censured among them than such who at any time for fear of Persecution warpt from their Duty by tamely complying with any Heathenish Custom Nothing being more scandalous than for Religious Professors to be guilty of such practices as are most manifestly repugnant to their own Principles 3. Consider
ancient Right to his Crowns that any King in the known Parts of the World hath P. 178. Where Government in general in Scripture is establish'd and Obedience to Governors injoin'd it ought to be reckoned as spoken of our Governors and Government Ecclesiastical and Civil as well as of any other in the World. Ch. 7. p. 198. Whatever discouragement the Clergy of England have found they still preach up and persuade Loyalty to the King and by the Doctrine of Passive Obedience to temporal Authority keep People from Rebellion notwithstanding they have so often been jeer'd and abused with it * Serm. 2. of the unlawfulness of resist Ep. Ded. Mr. Payn. I think it my duty as a Minister of that Church and Religion which hath been often the Mark but never the Author of any Treason to publish these Sermons And that none may be so malicious as to think we calculate our Sermons merely for the present Circumstances as if the Pulpit were but a kind of a Weather-glass wherein the Doctrine of Obedience to Governors is higher or lower to the temperature or variation of outward Affairs I have put out a plain Sermon without any Addition that was preach'd long before the Plot c. When the ancient Christians were persecuted P. 7 8 9. they endured unheard of cruelties from their Governors ☞ and this often as they complain'd of in their Apologies against Law too Such as would have stirred up those who had power to defend themselves had they not learnt such Principles from their Religion as forbad it we are under the obligation of Oaths though there have been some who have forgot all Oaths and could as easily unloose them as Sampson did his Wit hs and then set themselves free from the Precepts ☞ and Examples of Christ and his Apostles by this colour and pretence that the Government under which they lived was of another Nature than ours in England and that such is our Constitution as makes all this impertinent and of very little regard here And by the same way might they not discharge Wives and Children and Servants from those Duties the Gospel requires from each of them because there was a great difference between the State and condition of those among the Jews the Romans and the Grecians formerly and with us now And afterward he shews Serm. 2. p. 22. That neither in the Case of Religion nor of Legal Rights nor in the case of Natural Defence and the otherwise remediless case of Mankind by the encroachments of Princes P. 27. it 's any way lawful to take Arms. And proves that the Law of Nature or of Self-preservation does not allow of resistance c. And closes all with these good Prayers God preserve Christianity from that reproach P. 37. and blasphemy which these wicked Men have brought upon it God preserve the Protestant Religion from that advantage which is hereby given to our Enemies to destroy it J. Kettlewell 's Measures of Christian Obedience Book 2. c. 4. A Duty to Kings and Princes being God's Vicegerents here on Earth is a readiness and resolved industry to maintain and support them in their Persons and Government not plotting and endeavouring our selves to give away their Lives and Kingdoms unto others or consenting to them that do so not submitting and subjecting our selves to them but violently resisting and opposing them is called by S. Paul resisting of Power or standing up against it Rom. 13.2 And this when it is made by great numbers and goes on to extremities when men are as the Apostle there saith set in array and posture of Defence against it ☜ and ready by force of Arms to wage War with it is Rebellion Book 3. c. 6. The first pretence whereby men justifie to their own thoughts the indulgent Transgression of several Laws is because those Transgressions wherein they allow themselves are necessary for the preservation of their Religion and of themselves in those times of danger and persecution wherein God's Providence has placed them Religion is in danger and like to be undermined by the close and subtle Arts or overborn by the more open and powerful violence of strong and witty Enemies And this is God's Cause and Christ our Lord and Saviour's Interest So that whatever is done here we think is in Service of our Maker If we fight it is his Battels Some on one Hand that call us Hereticks think no means sinful whereby they can weaken and divide And others again even of our own selves who justly abhor these damnable Instances of Disobedience upon pretence of preserving or propagating Religion in some furious and firy spirited sort of Papists for God forbid that we should think them all to be of this temper do yet run into the same extravagance which upon so great reason they condemn in them For if we look into our zeal for the common Religion of Protestants we shall find that we transgress many and those most material and weighty Laws of it whilst we express our affection and concern to defend and preserve it For doth not this pretence of preserving our Religion carry us beyond all the Bounds of Peaceableness and good Subjection Yea I add further that these same Fears for our endangered Religion transport us into the Transgression of sundry weighty Laws which oblige us towards our very Enemies who have contrived to destroy us Thus full of Sin and Disobedience is this sanctified pretence It is the Cover for every Offence ☞ and the common shelter for all Transgressions for we boggle not at an◠sin so long as it tends to preserve us in the prosperous Profession of our endangered or oppressed Religion But if Men would consider calmly and have patience to look beyond the surface and bare outsides of things they would soon discern the vanity of this pretence and how far it will be from excusing any such sinful and disobedient Practices as they think to justifie and warrant by it For as for true and substantial Religion for protection whereof they would be thought to venture upon all these Transgressions it stands in no need of their help to preserve it in persecuting times altho they should use innocent and just means not such as are sinful and disobedient it would live then without their care and whether they went about by any politick means to preserve it or no. For Religion is not lost when Religious Men are persecuted it doth not suffer when they do that profess it seeing it is not one jot impaired when Men are buffeted and imprisoned nay when they bleed and die for it ☞ Could the violence of Persecution have oppressed our Religion it had been stifled in the Birth For it entered in a persecuting Age and yet was not over-born by the pressure of its Sufferings but bravely overcame them It begun grew up and conquered all the World in the very Heat of Affliction and Opposition the more it
old saying Let us do evil that good may come thereof cries out that they speak Blasphemy and that such mens damnation is just as if he were pronouncing an Anathema Maranatha against such profane Men. But our modern Zelots how contrary are they to St. Paul They seem to have minded that one thing that they might exclude the King from his rightful Succession due to him by Inheritance and by the Laws of the Land c. Peter du Moulin * Vit. Molinaei Lond. 4◠p. 707. When he returned into France from England with much grief saw the Protestants ingaged in the Party of the Prince of Conde against the Queen Mother which War was indeed raised against the King himself and endeavoured both by his Sermons and his Letters to remove them from so unlawful a design †V. Du Moulin answ to Philan. Angl. p. 37. and the King's Party owes it to him that not one Protestant Town on this side the Loire joyned it self to the Prince of Condé And when he was forc'd to leave France and fix at Sedan the first Letter that he wrote was to the Commonwealth of Rochel as it was then called ' To persuade them to Peace to dissolve their Covnention and to throw themselves as they ought on the Kings Mercy advising them to obey the King and thereby to take away all pretence from their Enemies And if God saw fit that they should suffer extremity for every one that feared God would be sure to suffer for no other cause but for the Profession of the Gospel c. Nay du Moulin the Son says Ubi Supr p. 45. that the actions of the Men of Rochel were disallowed by the best and the most of their Church That they were exhorted to their Duty by their Divines And that this was the Sense of the National Synod of which du Moulin was the President but two months before he wrote his Letter This also is du Moulin's Doctrine * P. 795 c. Ed. Genev. 1635. in his Buckler of Faith That the Government of Kings is by Divine Right and founded upon the Ordinance of God and that God hath required Obedience to Magistrates as to those whom he hath established and that whosoever resisteth them resisteth God and that those who affirm that the Authority of Kings is of Human Institution put Kings upon maintaining their Interests by force c. That that Allegiance of Subjects is firm which is incorporated in Piety and is esteemed a part of Religion and of the service which we owe to God. And whatever the learned Hugo Grotius might have said in his Books de Jure Belli Grot. in Mat. xxvi 52. Pacis in his later Works wherein it may presumed he speaks his truest Sense he asserts this Doctrine which it appears he had well studied as if he had been a Member of the English Church whose Articles and Politie he so well understood and in whose Communion he resolved to have lived had not God in his Providence ordered it otherwise If it be once admitted says he that private Men when they are injured by the Magistrate may forceably resist him all places would be full of Tumults and no Laws or Judicatures would have any Authority since there is no Man who is not inclined to favour himself To this purpose * Vot pro pace ad art 16. pag. 66 〈◊〉 662. he censures the Practices and Writings of many of the French Church still excepting Camero confirming his Opinion by the Authority of King James and the Reasons of the University of Oxford that condemned Paraeus's Book †Animadver in animadv Riveti art 16. p. 644. For both Christ and his Apostles Peter and Paul have Preached the Doctrine that no force is to be opposed to the Supreme Power and that we ought to own and retain the Doctrine to be of Divine Right and Institution The Opinion of Monsieur Bochart the glory of the French Churche sis fully seen in his Epistle to Bishop Morley who among other reasons refused to Communicate with the Reformed Church in France because he thought they asserted the Doctrine of Resisting and Deposing Kings but Bochart expresly avers That the King is Gods Anointed and Lieutenant and so not in any case to be Resisted since he is accountable to none but God. That he who rises against his Prince is one of those Giants that fight against God. That David could not take away the Wife of Uriah Nor Ahab seize Naboth's Vineyard without being guilty of great sin but that when Samuel 1 Sam. viii 9. says of the King He shall take your sons and your daughters c. He means that when Kings commit such transgressions they are as uncontrolable as if the Actions had been lawful That in such cases a Nation ought to call upon God since there are no Human remedies against the force of a King for if a King may be resisted he cannot be a Sovereign for where Subjects may Resist they may Judge and consequently the Sovereignty is in them That when Julian Persecuted contrary to Law none of his Soldiers rose up against him though nothing was more easie would they have undertaken it since at his death it was plain that almost the whole Army was Christian David Blondel * De Formula Regnante Christo Sect. 2. §. 16. p. 172. p. 184. chastises Pope Gregory VII as for many other Usurpations upon Princes so for this among the rest for saying That a Prince hath his Power from the People contrary to what S. Paul says expresly of Nero that he was ordained of God affirming further that lawful Kings being guilty of ill management of their Power are accountable to and shall be punished by God who gave them that Power Pag. 187 but not to Men. That this Opinion that Kings were subject to any human Authority was brought into the Church near 1100 years after our Saviour came into the World when the Church could not be presumed to be in a better condition than it was when it flourished in the former Ages of Christianity And that no Man before Greg. VII ever owned the Power of any Man over Kings And this he proves from the Testimonies of Tertullian Pag. 188. Hosius of Corduba Basil Ambrose Hierom Arnobius junior Cassiodore and others who say That King David was above the coercive power of the Law nor could be called to account for his Faults And therefore says in his Confession to God Against thee only have I sinned If Subjects offend against the Laws of Justice the King corrects them but if the King offends who shall correct him None but he who is Justice it self all other persons are under the Restraint of Laws but Kings only are reserved to the Tribunal of God and therefore while according to the Apostle it is a terrible thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God it will be more terrible to Kings who have none on
of Testimonies Yet after the Popes Deposing Power came into request the Commonwealth Principles did so too and the Power of Princes was said to be of another Original and therefore they were accountable to the People And having shown the Affinity of such Doctrines and Principles in both by some Tragical effects of them as well at home as abroad he proceeds thus Pag. 12. If we enquire farther into the Reasons of these Pretences we shall find them alike on both sides The Commonwealthsmen when they are asked how the People having once parted with their Power come to resume it They presently run to an implicit Contract between the Prince and the People by vertue whereof the People have a Fundamental Power left in themselves which they are not to exercise but upon Princes violating the Trust committed to them The very same Ground is made the Foundation of the Popes Deposing Power viz. An Implicit Contract that all Princes made when they were Christians to submit their Scepters to the Popes Authority c. And where he reasons against these Principles from the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles Pag. 15. The Religion they taught says he never meddled with Crowns and Scepters but left to Cesar the things that were Cesar's and never gave the least intimation to Princes of any Forfeiture of their Authority if they did not render to God the things that are God's Concluding that Head with this Reflection upon the whole In my 〈◊〉 there is very little difference between Dominion being founded in Grace and being forfeited for want of it But then secondly as to the breaking of Oaths and Bonds of Allegiance he first lays down That the Duty betwixt Princes and Subjects is natural and antecedent to their embracing the Christian Religion And therefore secondly the absolving Subjects from that is in plain terms nulling the Obligation to a natural Duty and taking away the Force of Oaths and Promises And thirdly That all Mankind are agreed that it is a sin to break a lawful Oath and the more solemn and weighty the Oath is the greater is the Perjury And then proceeds to shew that the Power which absolves from such Oaths is a Power of turning Evil into Good and Good into Evil of making civil Obedience to Princes to be a Crime and Perjury to be none and such as from the Schoolmen he proves to be greater than they allow of in God himself Pag. 18. where there is intrinsick Goodness in the Nature of the thing and inseparable Evil from the contrary to it As in the Case says he of Disobedience to Parents and Violation of Oaths lawfully made and after a clear Confutation of the Sophistry of Popish Casuists in this matter he concludes Wo be to them that make good evil Pag. 24. and evil good when it serves their turn For this is plainly setting up a particular Interest under the Name of the Good of the Church and violating the Laws of Righteousness to advance it If Men break through Oaths and the most solemn Engagements and Promises and regard no Bonds of Justice and Honesty to compass their Ends let them call them by what specious Names they please The Good Old Cause or The Good of the Church it matters not which there can be no greater sign of Hypocrisie and real Wickedness than this c. And lastly as for the justifying Rebellion upon the account of Religion having cited the Boucher de justâ abdicat Hen. 3 Sorbon Doctor who not only called it lawful to resist Authority on the Account of Religion but folly and Impiety not to do it where there is any probability of Success And said that the Martyrs were only to be commended for suffering because they wanted Power to resist With a Note of Admiration says he Most Catholick and Primitive Doctrine And a little after pag. 28. Cardinal Bellarmin having given his Reason amongst others for the Pope's deposing Power Because it is not lawful for Christians to suffer an Heretical Prince if he seeks to draw his Subjects to his Belief The Learned Dean makes this Reflection upon it And what Prince that believes his own Religion doth it not And what then is this but to raise Rebellion against a Prince where-ever he and they happen to be of different Religions With a great deal more to the same purpose which it would be much more profitable for the Reader to learn from the ingenious Preface it self than from this imperfect Transcript of it A CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF Passive Obedience Since the REFORMATION AMSTERDAM Printed for Theodore Johnson in the Calver-Straet 1690. A PREFATORY EPISTLE TO THE AUTHOR Of the First Part of the History of Passive Obedience SIR THE first part of the History of Passive Obedience having been favorably received by the generality of Readers tho unjustly censured and undeservedly reproach'd by some Men who think themselves injured thereby I have thought fit to publish a second Part of the same History not doubting your leave for my so doing wherein the Reader may find that Doctrin carefully and at large deduc'd through the first Ages of our Reformation down to the times of Archbishop Laud and from thence to the present time to shew the World that the Opinion was not first hatch'd and brought up in that great Man's days who dyed a Martyr to the constitutions of our most excellent Church and among them to the true Principles of Loyalty Nor do I believe that any one Primitive Doctrin wherein we differ from the Papists can shew even in that Age when the whole drift of our Writers was to expose and confute the Romish Synagogue more Authors that uniformly assert it than this of Non-Resistance as if God in his wise and good Providence had so order'd it to stifle an Objection which he foresaw would afterwards be made against it in the degenerate Ages of the same Church nor is there need of any other Apology to you or the Reader for my medling with this Province for my adding some Passages to what hath been already publish'd and illustrating and enlarging others since if the interest of truth be promoted See the History unmask'd it matters not how many are engaged in that service nor that whether they are called Papists Atheists and Hobbists for their pains I have often heretofore wondred at the assurance of the Romish Authors who wrote against our Church a little after the Reformation that they could so confidently accuse the whole Body of Pretestants as the Preachers and Practisers of Rebellion for so says Stapleton ‖ Counterblast p. 20. that Protestants obey no longer than till they have power to resist And Card. Allen * Answ to the Just of Gr. Bri. cap. 4. that the Protestants are desperate and Factious that as long as the Laws are favorable to them they are obedient but when the Laws are against them and their Princes their Enemies they break all the Bonds of Allegiance despise
Majesty fill all places with Slaughters Burnings of Towns and Robberies and run headlong into the contempt of all things Civil and Sacred to omit other Writers when I seriously reflected upon the tumultuary reformations in many Countries and the seditious Writings of Buchanan Knox Goodman Whittingham Junius Brutus and others I saw reason to cease my wonder at the accusation tho I can never enough admire the forehead of the Accusers who at the same time that they impeach'd the Protestants were themselves guilty of Writing most Traiterous Libels and promoting Sedition and Rebellion as much as in them lay against their lawful Sovereign But whomsoever this accusation might concern in those days I am sure it did not touch the Church of England of whose Loyalty her adversary Christopher Goodman gives a fair testimony Of Obed. ch 3. p. 30. Prat Gen. 1558. even when he complains of it The most part of Men says he yea and of those who have been both Learned and Godly and have given worthy testimony of their Profession to the Glory of God have thought and taught by the permission of God for our Sins that it is not lawful in any case to resist and disobey the Superior Powers but rather to lay down their Heads and submit themselves to all kinds of Punishment and Tyranny and in the Margin he sets this note this is dangerous Doctrin And tho it may be expected that every Age will produce such Boutefeau 's yet the Doctrin of the Cross and the benefits of a patient suffering of injuries will I hope be always so well understood in the World that all the attempts of the Jesuits and their Journeymen for it is from their shop that these Wares come will prove vain and the true Catholick Doctrin of Passive Obedience will be still owned still honored and when God calls to the performance of is practised the Christian Religion is soft and gentle its Foundation was laid in the blood of its institutor and our Holy Saviour the superstructure cemented with the blood of an innumerable Army of Martyrs and adorn'd with the patience of the Saints and the more truly reformed Christianity is the more like it grows to those admirable examples the more meek and humble it is and the better prepared for a state of suffering but when Mammon finds a way into the House of God and the Baptismal Vow is forgotten when Men depend on their own Arts and distrust Gods Providence when they dare fight for Religion because they are afraid to dye for it and can allow themselves to do evil that good may come thereof it is no wonder if Christianity be blended with the World and made a pretence to serve the ends of pride and covetousness of ambition and revenge Sir Will. Temple's Obs on the Netherl c. 1. p. 57. according to the observation of a wise Statesman with respect to the Netherlands that whereas the Spanish and Italian Writers attribute the Revolutions in the Low Countries to the change of Religion c. That Religion without mixtures of ambition and interest works no such violent effects and produces rather the examples of constant sufferings than of desperate actions How truly Ancient and Primitive the Doctrin of Passive Obedience is comes not within the limits of this present History but may be hereafter considered by deducing it through the Writings and Practices of the earliest Christians down to the days of King Henry VIII But those times in the esteem of John Goodwin were times of ignorance and the truth was but in its dawn and by a glimmering light Men were easily led out of their way for he says that the Primitive Christians and among them he must include the Apostles Anti-Cavalerism Sect. 6. tho guided by the Spirit of God which led them into all truth knew nothing of this useful Doctrin of Resistance that God had hid this liberty from the Primitive Christians of the Subjects Power and right to resist their Superiors which he hath manifested to us the commonalty of Christians doing contrary to the will of their Superiors being the Men that must have the Principal hand in executing God's judgments upon the Whore. Rev. 18 4 5. and as John Goodwin slanders the Ancient Fathers as a company of ignorant Men so John Milton accuses the first Reformers as the genuine assertors of the Doctrin of Resistance for Salmasius having truly alledged that the Doctrin of the Sacred and Inviolable Authority of Princes was preserved pure and uncorrupt in the Church till the Bishops of Rome attempted to set up a Kingdom in this World Paramount to all Kings and Emperors Milton replies Defens pro pop Angli p. 33. that Salmasius strove in vain to transfer the guilt upon the Pope which all free Nations every Religion all the Orthodox take upon themselves and that he had as many Adversaries in this point as there were most excellent Doctors of the Reformed Church While a third Writer boldly affirms Author of plain English p. 7. that the Doctrin of Non-Resistance is contrary to the Fundamental Liberties of the Nation and that they undid the Kingdom who required the Oath contrary to the Fundamental Liberty of the Nation whereby they would make the King and them who are commissioned by him to be as irresistible as there severity against Dissenters would argue the imposers infallible Thus in the Opinion of such Writers Passive Obedience was the weakness of the Ancient Christians and a sign they were under a lower dispensation and that to assert it necessary in this more inlightned Age is to contradict the most eminent Reformers and the Fundamental Liberties of Nature and if after all this some Men should be so resty as to quote St. Paul to the Romans for their submission to Princes Ubi sup p. 38. Goodman says that Men are deceived into this submission by misunderstanding this place of St. Paul and such like It behoveth every Soul to be subject to superior Powers because there is no Power but of God for the Powers that be are ordained of God and therefore he that resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God which words he elsewhere thus comments Ch. 9. p. 410 c. that they require Obedience only to such Magistrates whom God hath ordained over us lawfully according to his word which rule in his fear according to their Office as God hath appointed and that Tyrants Idolaters Papists and Oppressors are not God's Ordinance if so Satan must be obeyed and his Infernal Powers for they are Powers and have their Powers also from God and yet we must resist the Devil for the Magistrate is ordained for good and to such only must every Person be subject and Obedient Such unhappy Commentaries do some Men write even on Holy Scripture it self when their Interests incline their minds to wrest the Sacred Oracles it were easie to prove this from Pope Hildebrand down through the School-men to the present time
Magistrates but suffer patiently death rather than to offend God or else our obedience is nothing but hypocrisie and dissimulation Who would accept his own Child's making of Courtesie when all his facts be contrary to his commandment What Masler would be content or think his Servant doth his duty in putting off his cap and in his doing contemneth all his Master's Laws and Commandments the Laws of a Magistrate if they be repugnant to the Word of God they should not be obeyed yet rather should a Man suffer death than to defend himself by force ☜ and violent resisting of the Superior Powers as Christ his Apostles and the Prophets did On verse 2. Because that naturally there is in every Man a certain desire of liberty and to live without subjection and all manner of Laws except such as please himself St. Paul is not content generally to exhort and command all Men to obedience of the Higher Powers but giveth many great and weighty causes wherefore Men should be obedient and in subjection to them The first is because the Office of a Magistrate is the Ordinance of God and therefore the Magistrate must be obeyed except we will say in some respects God is not to be obeyed therefore the Magistrates be called Gods in Scripture ungodly Princes God suffers and appoints for the sins of the People but let the King and Magistrate be as wicked as can be devised and thought ☜ yet is his place and office the Ordinance and Appointment of God and therefore to be obeyed and in case they do any thing in their Offices contrary to the Word of God although the Subjects may not nor upon pain of eternal Damnation ought not by force nor violence to resist the Officer in his High Power yet they are bound to think that God can and will as well revenge the abuse of his Office in them as punish the Subject for the disobedience of his ordinance towards the Higher Power If it be true that St. Paul saith the higher power to be the Ordinance of God it is very damnable iniquity that for any private affection or other unjust oppressions for any Man to depose the Magistrates from their Places and Honors appointed by God or else privily or openly craftily or violently to go about to change or alter the State and Ordinance of God c. The second cause is the great peril and danger it is to resist and disobey God's Ordinances They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation as tho he had said lest ye should think it a light thing but a trifling matter to withstand and disobey the Magistrates understand ye that in so doing ye stand and fight against God and therefore ye provoke Judgment and Vengeance against your selves and be culpable and guilty of God's everlasting displeasure if ye repent not Here St. Paul hath set forth the End and success of Sedition ☞ Treason Conspiracy and Rebellion that is to say destruction both of Body and Soul and who is able to contend and fight with God On verse 5. One cause wherefore we must obey is the fear of pain and punishment which the Magistrate must minister by the commandment of God unto all such as disobey and contemn the Ordinance of God the other is conscience for although the Magistrate do not see nor know how thou dost disobey and break the Order of God or else if thou could'st by power and strength overcome the Magistrates yet thy conscience is bound to obey there be some so indurate and past grace that think themselves not bound to obey this order and Higher Power appointed and commanded of God but doubtless those shall perish with their Captains as Achitophel did with his Absalom if the Higher Power command any thing contrary to God's Word they should not be obey'd notwithstanding there should be such modesty and soberness used as should be without all violence force rebellion as Peter and John used ☞ saying God is more to be obeyed than Man and so in saying of truth they continued in the truth without moving of Sedition and suffered death for the truth c. Nor was this only this excellent Bishop's Opinion while his King was of his Religion and friend to his Person and Principles but as Truth is eternal and unalterable so he persevered in this belief when Queen Mary persecuted the Church of God and this worthy Prelate in a particular manner The Martyrs Letters Lond. 1564. 4to p. 120. for in his Letters just before his death set out by Miles Coverdale Bishop of Exon his fellow Confessor he frequently inculcates this Doctrin Remember ye be the workmen of the Lord and called into his Vineyard there to labour till eventide that ye may receive your peny which is more worth than all the Kings of the Earth but he that calleth us into his vineyard hath not told us how sore or how fervently the Sun shall trouble us in our labour but hath bid us labour and commit the bitterness thereof unto him who can and will so moderate all afflictions that no man shall have more laid upon him than in Christ he shall be able to bear these days be dangerous and full of peril p. 136. but yet let us comfort our selves in calling to remembrance the days of our forefathers upon whom the Lord sent such troubles that many hundreds yea many thousands died for the testimony of Jesus Christ both men and women suffering with patience and constancy as much cruelty as Tyrants could devise and so departed out of this miserable World to the Bliss everlasting p. 139. Who would not now rather than to offend so merciful a God fly this wicked Realm as your most Christian Brother and many other have done or else with boldness of heart and patience of the Spirit bear manfully the Cross even unto the death Albeit I know p. 141 / 2 that all those which seek God's honour and the furtherance of his Gospel be accounted the Queens Enemies altho we daily pray for her Grace and never think her harm but we must be content to suffer slander and patiently to bear all such injuries Nevertheless this is out of doubt that the Queens Highness hath no authority to compel any man to believe any thing contrary to God's word neither may the Subject give her Grace that Obedience in case he do his Soul is lost for ever Our bodies ☜ goods and lives be at her Highness commandment and she shall have them as of true Subjects but the Soul of man for Religion is bound to none but unto God and his holy Word p. 148 149 Seeing therefore we live for this life among so many and great perils and dangers we must be well assured by God's word how to bear them and how patiently to take them as they be sent to us from God we must also assure our selves that there is no other remedy for Christians in the time of
Rain under the pretence of Obedience to the Magistrates whom we ought to obey although they be wicked But such much learn of Christ to give to Cesar that that is Cesar's and to God that that is due to God And with S. Peter to obey the higher Powers in the Lord albeit they be evil if they command nothing contrary to God's Word otherwise we ought not to obey their Commandments although we should suffer death therefore as we have the Apostles for our Examples herein to follow who answered the Magistrates as we ought to do in this case not obeying their wicked Precepts saying Judg ye whether it be more righteous that we should obey men rather than God. Nor was this Doctrine peculiar to these few Confessors in that general Persecution for Rogers the Proto-Martyr of that Reign Dr. Taylor of Hadley Crome Laurence and others as appears by the first * page 23. Part of this History were of the same mind the contrary Doctrine among those who called themselves Protestants being then hardly hatch'd or but just out of the Shell Thus the Primitive Martyrs who never declined going to a Stake unanimously declared that no man of their Society was imprisoned or brought to suffer as a Traytor against the Government for they had learnt to dye not to fight for Religion SECT VI. It cannot be denied that John Knox was an early Opposer of this truly Christian Apostolical and Primitive Practice as the account of the Troubles of * v. first part of Hist page 25 / 6. Francfort declares But we ought withal to consider what our most worthy Primate Archbishop Bancroft well observes †Danger Posit c. lib. 2. c. 1. that whereas such dangerous Doctrines as these The Authority which Princes have is given them from the People and upon occasion the People may take it away again That evil Princes by the Law of God ought to be deposed That when Magistrates cease to do their Duties in deposing evil Princes then God gives the Sword into the Peoples hands and such other like dangerous Positions as he truly calls them were owned by the Genevians and many of the English that were fled to Geneva in the Reign of Queen Mary ' that the rest of the learned Men that fled in that Queens Reign as John Scory William Barlow Richard Cox Thomas Becon John Bale John Parkhurst Edmond Grindal Edwin Sandys Alexander Nowel Robert Wisdom John Jewel and very many more having no great affection to Geneva bestow'd themselves in Germany especially at Zurich Basil and Francfort and maintain'd the Reformation of the Church of England in King Edward 's time ☜ they used in their holy Assemblies the form of Service and order of Ceremonies which were then establish'd and they utterly misliked and condemned the aforesaid Propositions as very seditious and rebellious according to the judgment of all the Reformed Churches for ought I can learn both in Germany and elsewhere except Geneva and her Offspring besides they of Francfort as it appeareth notwithstanding their grief that they were constrain'd to leave their Country for their Conscience yet in the midst of all their Afflictions they retained so dutiful Hearts to Queen Mary imitating therein the Apostles and Disciples of our Master as that they could not endure to hear her so traduced into all Hatred and Obloquy as she was by the other sort Mr. Knox coming upon occasion from Geneva to Francfort was by these grave Men accus'd of Treason as he himself confesseth for Matters that he had publish'd in print against their Sovereign and the Emperor and was fain thereupon to fly thence to Geneva So that by this and the former Letter of Bradford c. we may plainly see what was the uniform Belief of the English Confessors in those days of Persecution both those who were in England and those who had fled thence for Righteousness sake and for a good Conscience Nor can I find any true Son of our Church that asserted the contrary Doctrine unless we must except Bishop Poinet in his short Treatise of Politick power and true obedience in which it is Thetically laid down that it is lawful to depose an evil Governor and to kill a Tyrant But I cannot believe the Book to be his 1. Because Printed as I think after his death Anno 1556. he dying at Strasburg April 11. of the same year and the Preface to his Book seems to acknowledg it 2. Because if I conjecture aright by the character Printed at Geneva where two years afterward Anno sc 1558. both Knox's first blast of the Trumpet against the Regiment of Women and Goodman's Book of Obedience first saw the light and Ant. Gilbie's admonition to England and Scotland to call them to repentance and thirdly because it wants that learning and acumen that discover themselves illustriously in his other Writings and the Doctrine is contrary to that Bishop's Practices l. 2. hist Reform p. 271. Dr. Burnet acquitting Bishop Poinet of having any hand as he was accused in Sir Thomas Wyatt's Rebellion and how easie is it in a disturbed Age for Zealots to Father on a dead Bishop such Tenets as he neither own'd nor defended but if after all this Bishop Poinet be the genuine Author of that Treatise it is but the example of one and that no Old Man for he died before he was forty maintaining a Paradox against all the other the venerable Martyrs and Confessors of that time SECT VII Among those pious Exiles Thomas Beacon was one who having been in the beginning of Queen * Fox tom 2. p. 1281. Mary's Reign committed to the charge of the Lieutenant of the Tower with Bradford and Vernon went afterwards into Germany whence upon Queen Elizabeth's advancement to the Crown he with many other Exiles return'd into this Kingdom I shall at present omit what he in his Anthology out of the Works of Lactantius hath cited out of that Father and give an account of what he declares to be his own Sentiments In his Governance of Virtue Sect. Tom 1. oper f. 263. Lond 1564. against Rebellion and Disobedience he thus instructs us If the Devil that old Enemy of Mankind and troubler of all good orders go about to put in thy head that the Magistrates and High Powers do not their duty in the right Government of a Common-wealth ☜ but too much cruelly oppress their Subjects and that therefore they may justly rise and rebel against them and take upon thee of thy own private authority to redress things that are amiss in the Common-wealth take heed that thou by no means consentest to his most subtle and wicked temptation whereby he goeth about to throw thee into everlasting damnation both of Body and Soul besides the shameful death that thou shalt have in this World and the loss of all that ever thou hast but content thy self with thy vocation labour diligently and quietly for thy living to maintain peace
the deformity of your fault c. an unnatural hope it is and a beastly to joyn with any strangers to the spoil of their own Country but such is the nature of that false Religion to regard no Country faith nature or common honesty SECT II. Antonius Corranus of Sevil a Learned Spaniard an excellent Person as Dr. Patrick with reason calls him spent much of his time in England and as appears by his Writings very well understood our Doctrine after he left his Country for the sake of a good Conscience he Preach'd ten years in France as he did also for some time in Flanders still reserving himself when God should give him an opportunity to Preach to his own Countrymen which he afterwards did for two years in London till that Congregation of Exil'd Spaniards was dissolv'd after which an 1571. he was chosen by the Templers to read his Lectures among them and their choice was confirm'd by Edwin Lord Bishop of London In the first year of his Ministry he expounded the Epistle to the Romans and out of that larger Commentary he Printed an 1574. a Theological Dialogue between St. Paul and one of his Roman auditors for this among other reasons that it might witness the purity of his Doctrine and how much he abhorr'd the Opinions of the Sectaries that then disturb'd the Church In this Dialogue having shown from the close of the 12th Chap. that we ought to overcome our Enemies perversness and malign temper by our goodness and patience he continues to Paraphrase the 13th Chapter thus Rom. I could wish from my Soul that this Doctrine so useful and necessary to our quiet were embrac'd by all Men but O horrid wickedness many of our Church begin not only to revenge themselves on their Persecutors but dare take Arms and resist the Magistrates and Judges that hinder the Preaching of the Gospel Paul They who think that the sufferings of Christians hinder the propagation of the Gospel are extreamly deceived for the blood of the Martyrs waters the Garden of the Church but do you who love Religion mind this Precept that every one that hath given up his name to Christ be subject to the higher Powers for why are they placed in a superior Station but that their inferiors may be subject unto them Rom. But what if Princes either Hereditary or Elective be evil or cruel must we obey them Paul What should hinder for we are not to consider our Rulers as private Men but to reverence them as constituted by God for there is no power but what is of God if they inclined by the fear of God promote piety their example does great good but if they do otherwise we ought to consider the Vengeance of God who for the Sins of a Nation sets over them Hypocrites and Dissemblers But even this Dispensation of God brings with it advantage to the godly Rom. Then you S. Paul are of that opinion that it is not lawful to take Arms against Princes and Magistrates tho they hinder the Gospel and would Murther and destroy us Paul That is my opinion and this I add as a conclusion Whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation and that justly for since God is the Author of this Order they who rebel against the Magistrates wage War against God himself and shall bring upon themselves great Calamities Rom. O the deplorable state of this Age In which we see so many civil Wars popular Seditions Treasons cruel Murthers of Princes and more than barbarous Massacres perpetrated on Subjects Paul All these things probably fall out for the Sins both of the People and Rulers The People forgetting their Duty despise the Authority of the Prince and the King on the contrary forgets his Obligations and rages like a cruel Tyrant Wouldest then therefore and when I speak to you I speak to all Men not dread the Power do that which is good and thou shalt have praise and a reward from it so far oughtest thou to be from opposing it Rom. A most excellent method of bearing this Yoak which would otherwise be insupportable but men are wise too late Would to God this Doctrine were as much engraven on Mens Hearts as it finds a place on their Tongues for by this means it would soon come to pass that the Minds of Christians would enjoy much inward Peace and the Commonweal much Advantage Paul Wheresoever you are inculcate this Sentence in season out of season beseech reprove and teach that the Magistrate is God's chosen Minister appointed and preferr'd by him to the Office of governing for the punishment of them that do evil and for the comfort of them that do well If therefore thou do evil fear for he bears not the Sword in vain for God who hath advanc'd those Powers hath arm'd them with the Sword of Justice That I may sum up all in a few words we ought to be subject to the Powers not only for wrath but for Conscience sake for it is the Duty of a Christian to be subject to his Superiors Rom. You therefore believe that we must obey Magistrates not only for fear of Punishment but for greater Reasons because tho the Magistrate have no power over Conscience yet because he is the Minister of God no one with a good Conscience can resist him Paul That is my Opinion and for this Reason to shew the inward Obedience of your Mind do you pay Tribute c. So that learned and pious Paraphrast in opposition to the many false Glosses put upon the Words of the holy Apostle John Young Doctor of Divinity preach'd before the Queen the Second of March 1575. on Psal 131. Lord I am not high minded and he tells us the occasion of writing the Psalm was That there were certain Parasites and Flatterers attending upon King Saul who maligning David because that by Almighty God's special appointment he was anointed King over Israel and seeking to bring him into discredit and into hatred with his Prince did insinuate that he did secretly practise the Deposing him from the Kingdom and the Advanceing of himself ambitiously to the same Therefore the Prophet declares their Suggestions to be most false and slanderous and himself to be innocent from that great Offence S. Austin saith He that will go about to satifie and fulfil as all other so that ambitious and arrogant desire shall find it a Toyl of all Toyls such a Labor as Samson or Hercules never atchiev'd This desire of Honor Rule Principality worldly Glory and Renown is in the Heart of Man if it be once possessed therewithal a Worm that dyeth not c. Now David when he saith He did not exercise himself in such great matters c. his meaning was that he did never seek as he was most falsly and unjustly charged by some to advance himself ambitiously to the Kingdom King Saul his Master being alive because he knew well enough that
and Prophets submitted their persons to those wicked Princes whose Idolatry they reproved with the loss of their lives P. 359. If the Prince wilfully maintain Heresie and open Impiety the Bishops are to reprove admonish c. but still they must serve him honor him pray for him and teach the People to do the like ☜ and with meekness enduring what the wrath of the Prince shall lay upon them without annoying his person resisting his power discharging his Subjects or removing him from his Throne Which says he to the Jesuit is your way of censuring Princes P. 366. P. 382. The Church of Christ offers not any Example of resisting and deposing Princes for a thousand years ☜ It is not enough for you to have Laws of your own making to license you to bear Arms against your Prince you must have God's Law for your Warrant or else you may come within the compass of heinous and horrible Rebellion Theoph. P. 384. that is the Protestant Interlocutor That 's the Case which you take in hand that the People may punish the Prince offending as the Prince may the People Phil. i. e. the Jesuit Either the people or none must do it Theoph. And seeing the people may not do it it is evident that God hath reserved the Magistrate to be punished by himself and not given the people power over their Prince P. 502. Do not with violence restrain them but in patience possess your own souls This is the way for all Christian Subjects to conquer Tyrants and this is the Remedy provided in the New Testament against all Persecutions not to resist Powers which God has ordain'd lest we be damn'd but with all meekness to suffer that we may be crowned P. 512. If Princes presume to violate the Dominion which God hath reserved to himself we may not rebel that 's your Jesuitical Doctrine but disobey them in that or any point that is prescribed by man against the will of God and submit our selves to endure persecution for righteousness sake P. 541. If Princes embrace the Truth you must obey them if they pursue Truth you must abide them And these Passages with what hath been formerly cited out of the said Book will I think sufficiently vindicate both the Author and his Doctrine from all that is usually objected against them Especially if we consider that when the Jesuit had quoted Goodman's Book of Obedience as applauding Wyat's Rebellion the Protestant answers It is much that you measure the whole Realm by one man's merit Par. 3. p. 273 274. and more that you draw the words which he spake from the meaning which he had to warrant your Rebellions The party ☞ which you name at the same time took Queen Mary for no lawful Prince which particular and false supposal beguiled him and made him think the better of Wyat's War but our Question is of lawful Princes not of violent Intruders and therefore Goodman's Opinion which himself hath long since disliked is no way serviceable to your Seditions or as it is in the Margin Goodman's private Opinion long since corrected by himself cannot prejudice the whole Realm Goodman did not hold that lawful Princes might be thrust from their Crowns but that Queen Mary was no lawful Magistrate One of his great Arguments against her being taken from her Sex which was made by God as he dreamed uncapable of Government this being one of his and Knox's beloved Paradoxes but he lived to repent and retract them SECT III. To give the King at his entry into England a Specimen of the temper of the Zealots they tender'd him a Petition called the Mille manus Petition as if they would have intermixed their desires with threatnings by telling the King that 1000 Ministers An. 1603. as they loved to be called had influence enough on many thousands of People to incline them to give disturbance to his Government if he did not comply with their requests to which the University of Oxford wrote a full and satisfactory answer wherein they affirm that the Presbyterians allow the King not potestatem Juris p. 29. but only facti while they make him a maintainer of their proceedings but no commander in them and all the while the King submits his Scepter unto the Scepter of Christ and licks the dust of the Churches feet for which they Quote T. C. lib. 1. p. 180. This assertion they condemn together with the other Antimonarchical Antiepiscopal Doctrins of that Petition nor was this the sole judgment of that Famous University but of her Famous Sister at Cambridge whose Epistle is published at the end of that answer and wherein they aver Quicunque Ecclesiae Anglicanae doctrinam vel disciplinam vel ejus partem aliquam legibus publicis stabilitam c. that whosoever shall by writing speaking or any other way publickly oppose the Doctrine or Discipline of the Church of England or any part thereof established by publick Laws shall be uncapable of taking any Degree and suspended from any Degrees he hath formerly taken Dated Octob. 7. 1603. Dr. Anthony Rudd Bishop of St. pr. at Lond. 1604. Davids Preach'd before the King May 13. 1604. on Ps 101. v. 2. and in it gives an account of David's demeanor both before and after he attained the Crown of Israel and among other things he commends him for his patient waiting on God till Saul's Death p. 26 27. David had given proof of his rare patience in his distressed Estate during the expectancy of the Kingdom of Israel for though in that Interim of sundry years attendance after that Samuel had Anointed him ☜ before the Crown fell unto him by the death of King Saul he sustain'd many grievous troubles inconveniences and dangers yet he still possessed his Soul in patience without seeking unlawful means to hasten his own advancement by the making away of his Sovereign Insomuch as though Saul who deadly pursued him was twice by the Providence of God offer'd into his hands that he might have dâ—ne his pleasure with him first in the Wilderness of Engedi and secondly in the desert of Zâ—ph yet he spared his life and did no violence to his Person leaving him to God's Judgment and referring his own cause to God's merciful providence patiently attending the Lord's leisure till he should vouchsafe to come and put him in possession of the Kingdom To King James at his first coming to the English Throne the Learned Dr. Feild was a Chaplain as he was also an eminent Champion for the Church against her adversaries of Rome and his arguments against the Usurpations of the Popes are equally cogent against the Republicans * of the Church l. 5. c 45. p. 610. If they shall say that Sovereign Princes are subject to none while they use their authority well but that if they abuse it they lose the independent absoluteness thereof their saying will be found to be Heretical
the hearts of Princes like Rivers of Waters You know how before the coming of Christ the Jewish Church by the command of Ahasuerus was to be destroy'd Esth 4. both young and old c. here the whole Church by the barbarous designment of Ahasuerus seem'd to be in the very Jaws of death yet they take no arms they consult not how to poyson Ahasuerus or Haman they animate no desperate Person suddenly to stab them but there was only great sorrow among them and fasting and weeping c. This Book gave so much disgust to a party of Men in this Kingdom that they could not be quiet till something was Printed under the name of an answer to it tho every Pamphlet that is so called does not deserve that name and to make it pass the more plausibly it assumes the same title Deus Rex and is said to have been Printed at Colen An. Dom. 1618. the Author of which tho unquestionably a Papist as appears by many passages in the Book affirms p. 13. that the Scots had undoubtedly the true spirit of the Gospel who profess'd and for it he quotes Knox 's History of the Scotch Church that they would be Subjects to no one unless they could enjoy their desired Reformation p. 19. and that the former Dialogue falsly asserts that Kings have their Power only from God and are accountable only to him and that the duty of Subjects cannot be dissolv'd if the King turns Tyrant Infidel Heretick or Apostate and that Kings are not to be deposed or resisted unless by prayers and tears tho they are fall'n into so much impiety and madness as to seek the ruin of the Church and the destruction of Religion Which Assertions the Author condemns but with no reason and a great deal of injustice while he owns and improves the Romish Doctrins of resisting and deposing Princes in many places so easily are Men inclined to be despisers of Dignities and blasphemers of Dominions Gabriel Powel says De Adiaplyris Lond. 1606. c 8. §. 34 p. 69 that when St. Paul bids us be obedient for conscience sake that he means we must no way offend the Magistrate by rebelling against him but that we must keep a good Conscience in his sight who hath set the Magistrate over us ‖ §. 93. p. 71. for his Power is from God and to the just praise of our Reformation he adds * c. 9 Sect. 35. p. 79 that no Church in Europe reform'd her self more orderly than the Church of England in which nothing was done tumultuarily by force and arms or by fraud but all alterations were made by the supreme Power of the Nation agreeable to the Word of God and the Example of the Primitive Church Oliver Oâ—mered in his picture of a Papist It is not lawful for Subjects to attempt the murthering of their Sovereign for Religion sake or for any pâ—etence whatsoever Go with cresset and torchlight throughout the whole Book of God and throughout the spacious volumes of the Ancient Fathers and tell me whether any Priest Levite Evangelist Apostle Ancient Father ever hath taught counsell'd and much less practised the like I say not against Lawful Magistrates ☜ but tyrannous Rulers and such as were reprobated of God p. 176. the Prophet Isaiah complain'd of the Exactions and Oppressions of the Kings of Israel shew'd them their faults and admonish'd them of God's vengeance but he did not animate encourage and incite the People to avenge themselves of their Princes and to lift up Arms against them the Prophets Amos Micah and Zephaniah give sufficient testimony that the Rulers in their times were very wicked Men and such as did grind the faces of the Subjects and yet all this notwithstanding they did not advise the Subjects to mutiny or rebel against their Princes When Rome was pure and primitive you shall find p. 179. the arms of the Church were tears and prayers but now they are degenerate from their former purity and openly threaten the lives of Kings the ancient Romans shall in judgment rise against you and condemn you for they conspired not the death of Pagans Infidels and Tyrants that made havock of the Church of God c. SECT VI. Among these Divines I will place one Civilian the famous Albericus Gentilis who tho Born in Italy yet lived long in England the King's Professor of the Laws in the most Famous University of Oxon of which he was one of the greatest Ornaments I shall not mention what he says on this subject in his Books de Jure belli since he hath undertaken it professedly in his three Royal Disputations London 1605. 4 to as he calls them in the first of which treating of the absolute power of a King wherein his Notions are very agreeable to the Sentiments of his Master King James in his true law of free Monarchies to which he refers he affirms that he is absolutely supreme p. 9 10 17. who acknowledges nothing above him but God to whom only and not to any other he is to render an account he confesses there were some Magistrates improperly called Kings such as the Kings of Sparta and of Egypt to which last there were laws set how far they should walk and how often bath themselves who might be accus'd when they were dead and being convicted be denied decent Burial but those do not deserve to be called Kings whose Subjects pay them no more obedience than they please A Prince is a God upon Earth his Power is greater than either that of a Father of old over his Children or that of a Master over his Servants All Princes are feudataries to God p 17. to whom they ought to render an account of their Government who is their only Judge p. 34. 't is a Maxim in the Civil Law Princeps legibus solutus est a Prince is free from laws the Greek Interpreters understand it of his freedom from Penal Laws for a Prince hath no Judges who can compel him others that he is exempt from the coaction not from the direction of the law but all agree against any force to be used against him This and much more to this purpose the Reader will meet with in that first disputation while the third treats largely how unjust any violence is p 39. p. 100. which Subjects use against their King by King he says he means such a Prince as hath no Superior no Judge or Governor over him he means also a lawful Prince not a Tyrant but such a lawful Prince who rules Tyrannically i.e. seeks the destruction of the Commonwealth It is a fundamental and unquestionable Law that Men ought to honour their Prince p. 101 102. and not to speak evil of him and that what injuries ought not to be done to a Parent parad 3. ought much less to be done to a Prince but no Man says Tully can take away the life of his Father without
infant Age of the Church whom Tortures made happy Infamy glorious the Contempt of Gold rich and the Crown not of a Kingdom but Martyrdom made august And as Truth is the same in all Climates so was this learned Man in whatsoever place Providence fixt for when he came into England he had the same Notions as fully appears by his Epipistle to Fronto Ducaeus written Ann. 1611. wherein discoursing of S. Gregory Nazianzen's Observation of old that Mens preposterous Zeal had destroy'd their Charity he adds But Good God! Pag. 82 Lond. 1611. Had the Father lived in our Age what Complaints would he have made To see so many Men acted by a preposterous Zeal under the pretext of Religion and Piety most wickedly and irreligiously not only break the Peace of the Church about Trifles but undertake Rebellions Treasons most cruel Massacres of innocent People overthrowing of lawful Governments and the Murther of Princes this is your privilege at this time of day as he addresses himself to the Roman Catholicks that not only the grave Citizens and Senators of a Nation assembled in a general Convention tho what they should do of this kind is unlawful but even the Mobile assume to themselves a Power of Abdicating Kings forfeiting their Kingdoms and giving them to whom they please and of abolishing all Laws under the pretext of Piety which Villany no Religion tho never so profane and impious except yours meaning the Popish ever allows P. 100 c. or hath ever formerly allowed Garnet 's chief Crime was that he had either forgotten or neglected S. Paul 's Advice consenting to the doing of evil that good might come thereof this he ought not to have done had he demonstrated himself a true follower of Jesus Christ for what Precept or Example bad he of our holy Saviour for his so doing Who was a Lamb without blemish and reprov'd the preposterous Zeal of James and John the Apostles with You know not what spirit you are of i. e. You think your Zeal is commendable which hates the Samaritans and would destroy them but I do not require such a cruel sanguinary and destructive Zeal from my Followers what I require is Charity that is Patient Edifying and which covers a multitude of Sins this I approve of and this I would have practised by those to whom I am to leave my Peace This he would not have done had he remembred P. 104 105. how severely our holy Saviour chastised Peter when he rashly cut off Malchus 's Ear. But Zealots are very seldom removed from their purposes by any consideration of Laws either divine or humane whatever School teaches this Doctrine is not Christian it is the School of Antinhrist and of Satan for the Devil was a Murderer from the beginning ☞ a true Abeddon and Apollyon but the Doctrine of our holy Saviour Jesus Christ is perfectly contrary to this for he prescribed no other remedy to his Disciples against all manner of Injuries but Flight Patience and Prayers that rejoycing in hope being patient in Tribulation and praying continually as the Apostle advises they might triumph over all their Adversaries These were the only Arms that the Apostles used wherever they laid the foundations of the Gospel these were the only Weapons which the Fathers of the ancient Church only knew no man took Arms or raised Rebellion against his Prince these were the fruits of the Hildebrandine Doctrine which flyes at the Crowns of Emperors Kings and Princes c. SECT IX Against this modest and learned Epistle of Isaac Casaubon did Eudaemon Johannes write which Dr. Prideaux * Pr. at Oxford 1614. c. 2. p. 76. afterward the King's Professor of Divinity and Bishop of Worcester answered in which he compares the Jesuits and Buchanan and Knox together branding them justly with the name of Traytors as King James had done before him and avers P. 107. that the Popish Writers bred in the School of Hildebrand call a lawful King a Tyrant if excommunicated by the Pope whereas a Tyrant according to the Doctrine of the Sorbon and of the Men of ancient sincerity and simplicity is opposed to a lawful Prince and signifies one who hath invaded an Empire that is not his own by Force and evil Arts and then adds If an Apostate should reign in France P. 109. or England who exceeded Julian or the Grand Signior it is not the duty of his Subjects to dethrone him For who can lift up his hand against the Lord's anointed and be innocent ☜ Did the Israelites attempt any thing against Nebuchadnezzar or the Christians against Julian and the Heathen Emperors Did they use any other Weapons besides their Prayers and their Tears Let us use these Arms and if the King do amiss let us expect when God will punish him let not his Subjects tumultuously oppose him And whereas Mariana had affirmed P. 123. that when Princes openly invade the Rights of their Subjects and there is no other way left to maintain the publick Safety then it is lawful to take Arms and murder Kings he replies here is no mention made of the Patience of the Subjects the just Judgments of God the Obligation of Oaths the sacred Authority of Princes conferr'd on them immediately by God the Duty of Subjection not only when we live easie under the Government for our Profit but when we suffer under it for Conscience sake by the Maxims of the Jesuits P. 130 131. the People are made the King's Judges to enquire into his Faults and to punish him as they think fit when he does amiss What difference is there if this be true between the Rights of Princes and their Subjects A Subject breaks the Laws and he is punish'd by the King the King violates his Promises and his Subjects tell him We will not have this Man longer to rule over us Admirable security of the Persons and Crowns of Princes We obey our Princes for Conscience sake P. 60. we believe them to be immediately constituted by God if they rule well they are God's greatest Blessing if they degenerate into Apostasie or Tyranny they are God's Scourges to punish the Sins of a People as * Rom. 13. and in 1 Pet. 2. Calvin says truly If a King abuse his Power he shall render an account to God in time but for the present he doth not lose his Authority We urge not Compact but we pour out our Prayers our Bishops do advise not threaten †Id. Serm. on Gowry's Conspir p. 4 6 7. The same learned Bishop in his Sermon on the 5th of August at S. Maries before the University preaches the same Doctrine When occasion is offer'd howsoever they otherwise strive to appear good Subjects Traytors will be ever ready to vent their Treasons Hypocritical Traytors watch their times and are ready to vent their Villany upon the least advantage In the 2 Kings 19.37 where we read that Adrammelech and Sharezer slew their
Puritan against Scripture Fathers Councils and other Orthodoxal Writers for the Coercion deposition and killing of Kings and the Title is a sufficient declaration what the Author's judgment was the Book it self being in many places both as to Argument and Style very agreeable to the Treatise called Deus Rex set forth by the King's Order he proves in the First Chapter that Kings are not punishable by man but reserv'd to the Judgment of God by the Testimony of the Holy Scriptures and in the subsequent Chapters he proves the same by the Testimony of the Fathers and other ancient Writers and he briefly gives his Opinion * P. 24. Chap. 4. but very fully Be the King for his Religion impious for his Government unjust for his Life licentious the Subject must endure him the Bishop must reprove him the Counsellor must advise him all must pray for him and no mortal man hath Authority to disturb or displace him The same Author Ann. 1622. printed at Cambridg his Anti-Paraeus in confutation of †Ambergae 1612. David Paraeus's Book De Jure Regum Brincipum contra Bellarminum Becanum c. who disallowing the Pope's Claim invested the Power over Princes in the People In the Preface of this Book the Dr. shews the consonancy and agreeableness of the Popish and Disciplinarian Principles and in the Book refutes from the dictates of nature Thes 1. p. 3 c. the laws of Nations Civil and Canon Scriptures Fathers and most eminent Reformed Divines that the Power and Jurisdiction of Kings is not founded in compact as if the Majesty of Princes were derived from the People and limited by them but that P. 16 17. as God is the Supreme Lord of all who judges all his Creatures and is judged of none so Kings and Princes who judge and punish others can be judg'd and punish'd by no one save God alone to whose only power they are subject this David understanding though guilty of Adultery and Murder implores the divine mercy against thee only have I sinned for I acknowledg no other Superior on Earth but thee who can call me to account give sentence against me or punish me for my sin the reason is the King is the head of the body politick but the members ought not to judge the head because they are subject nor to cut it off for then they cease to be members and this the Heathen Poet knew and averred that Kings have a power over their several Subjects but God only hath an Empire and Authority over Kings Nor will the publick safety and tranquillity be maintain'd without such an unaccountable power in Kings for the Monarch who is opposed by his rebellious Subjects although they are much too strong for him will call to his assistance all his neighbouring Kings and Confederates will list Foreign Forces to vindicate himself and the miseries of such a War will be a poor comfort to such an infatuated Nation P. 18. but suppose there were such a power in the People to call their Kings to account which we ought not to grant ☞ Nero perish'd but the case of Rome was not better'd by it for in the next year after his death it felt more calamities and was imbrued in more blood than in the whole nine years of Nero 's Tyranny Rome when she cast off her Kings did not abrogate p. 19. but change the Tyranny and Athens drove out one Tyrant and brought in thirty ☞ I do confidently assert that all Tyranny whether it uses violence against God or Man ought to be suffer'd ought not to be abrogated till he puts an end to it who alone girds and ungirds the loins of Kings p. 20. Solomon was guilty of Polygamy and Idolatry but lost not his Crown and Dignity Ahab slew Naboth Tyrannically Banished and put to death the Prophets persecuted the true Religion and established the Worship of Baal by his Authority but neither the inferior Magistrate nor the People presumed to resist his Tyranny it is true Jehu did so but it was not by any power that the Laws gave him but by an extraordinary Commission from Heaven and that which could not then be done without an Oracle from Heaven cannot now be done without the contempt of God's Majesty the contumely of Kingly Power and the ruin of the Commonwealth Christ who lived under the Empire of Tiberius the Authority of Herod and Government of Pilate p. 22. the Apostles who flourish'd under Caligula Claudius Nero and Domitian the Primitive Christians who lived under Persecutors for three hundred years Liberius Hosius Athanasius Nazianzen and many other Fathers who for a thousand years after the Birth of Christ watered the Church with their holy Lives and sound Doctrine were all ignorant of this Mystery that Princes may be resisted by their Subjects if they are blessed who suffer persecution for righteousness sake p. 25. then they undoubtedly shall not be blessed who refuse to suffer persecution for righteousness sake for in that they will not suffer but rise against their Persecutors they are convinc'd of sin and acquire to themselves damnation But are not Princes under the power of the Law Yes P. 41. under the directive not under the compulsive power of the Law. P. 43. but have not Princes given their Subjects many and must they be suffered to invade them it is very hard that Princes own voluntary concessions should be made use of to their detriment to encourage their Subjects to Rebellion and Parricide but whatever Princes do as the Laws are derived from them and they are the interpreters of them so though they voluntarily submit to their direction they cannot be compell'd so to do the concessions of a Prince to his Subjects P. 55. do not give them a right to call him to account Tyrants who are in possession of lawful power over us we are commanded to obey forbidden to resist ☜ for in the Holy Scripture we find no distinction between a good Prince and an evil Tyrant as to the honour reverence and obedience that is due to them it is not lawful therefore to draw the Sword against them because they that resist resist God and shall receive to themselves damnation but no law of God or Man hath set over us private Tyrants Usurpers or Domestick Thieves we are under no obligations to them we owe them no obedience nor are we any way either out of reverence to their power or necessity of submission but that we may repel force by force P. 65. one Apostle forbids all resistance another commands obedience to Superiors neither of them make any distinction between good and bad and they speak to all Inferiors indifferently to Lay and Clergy to Men of all Orders Degrees and Dignities that Man therefore distinguishes ill where the Law of God admits of no distinction in such a case God allows us flight P. 80. and patience and prayers and tears
gave that Prince no reason to repent of his favors to him vindicating on all occasions both the interests of the Church and the Person Power and Writings of the King nor were his Books and his Actions dissonant one to the other for he never sided with never encouraged the Commonwealth of Rochel as it was called and in his works Orthodoxly States the Catholick Doctrine of Government and confutes the objections of its adversaries thus in his Buckler of Faith c. Buckler of Faith. He lays down briefly but fully ‖ Lib. 2. Sect. ult p. 556 557. Lon. 1623 in Engl. first the Opinion of the Romanists and then the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches as to the right of Kings Thomas the chief Schoolman says he avers that the Power of Princes and Sovereign Lords is but a humane constitution and proceedeth not from God and with him agree Bellarmin and Arnoux their reasons are 1. That the first King that was in the World Nimrod made himself King by force 2. That the greatest part of Empires were erected by Conquest 3. That Kings are established by humane means whether they attain to the Crown by Hereditary Succession or by Election since there is no rule in the Word of God that bindeth to follow an Hereditary Succession more than an Election 4. That there is no express command set down to obey Henry or Lewis or to acknowledge this or that Man more than another to be King. 5. That for these reasons St. Peter calls the Obedience to Kings an Humane Order while we on the contrary maintain that Obedience due to Kings proceedeth from the Divine Law and is grounded upon the Ordinance of God and whom no Man may resist without resisting God. Rom. 13.1 2. and St. Peter in the same place which they object against us will have us yield Obedience to the King for the Lord's sake and altho Nebuchadnezzar was an ungodly King a scourge used by God to destroy Nations nevertheless God speaks thus unto him by his Prophet Dan. 2.37 Thou O King art a King of Kings c. as to their reasons 1. It is false that Nimrod was the first King in the World for the Fathers and Heads of Families were Kings Priests and Sovereign Princes of their Families Men living after the Flood Five or Six hundred Years long enough to see a multitude of their own Children over whom they were to exercise their paternal Power 2. As to the establishment of Government in Conquest I say that those whose Countries a strange Prince seeketh to invade do well to defend themselves and if in that defensive War the Usurper chance to be slain he is justly punished but if he get the upper hand if the Race of the Ancient Possessors of the same Country be clean extinguished if the States of the Country assembled together do agree upon a new form of Government and if all the Officers throughout the Country have taken their Oaths of Fidelity to the New King then we must believe that God hath established such a Prince in that Kingdom then I say that the People ought to yield to the will of God who for the sins of Kings and of their People transposeth Kingdoms and disposeth of the Issues of Battels at his will and pleasure as to the third it belongs not to the Question whether a King succeed by Inheritance or by Election but whether by the Ordinance of God we ought to obey him when he is established therein while our Adversaries will have the Power of Popes to proceed from the Ordinance of God tho they enter into the Papacy by Election and too often by indirect means c. 4. Tho there be no command to obey Henry or Lewis it sufficeth there is a commandment to obey the King and to keep our Oaths of Fidelity made to the King and by consequence to be faithful to that King to whom we swear Obedience and Loyalty nay by this argument no King of this age were to be obeyed because we do not find his name expresly set down in Holy Writ nay no Man were bound to fear God or to believe in Jesus Christ because the Scripture doth not particularly ordain that Thomas Anthony or William should fear God or believe in Jesus Christ it sufficeth that the Word of God containeth general rules which bind particular Persons without naming them 5. St. Peter calls the Obedience that Men owe to Kings an humane Order either because Kings command divers things which by their own nature are not derived from the Divine Law as suppose to forbid to go by night without a Candle or because they attain to that Power by humane means which hinders not but that their Power is grounded upon the Word of God after they are once established for the Question is not touching the means whereby a Prince attains his Kingdom i. e. whether by Hereditary Succession or Election but what Obedience is due to him after he hath attained thereunto whosoever buildeth the Authority of Kings upon Man's Institution and not upon the Ordinance of God cuts off three parts of their Authority and bereaveth them of that which assureth their Lives and their Crowns more than the guards of their Bodies or puissant Armies which put terror into Subjects instead of framing them to Obedience then the Fidelity of Subjects will be firm and sure when it shall be incorporated into piety and esteemed to be a part of Religion and of the service which we owe unto God. The same excellent Person in his rejoinder to de Balzac after he had asserted that the Jesuits teach the Murder of Princes ‖ Letter 2d ed. Lon 1636. Eng p. 73 94 95. and that their Schools have produced many King-killers he proceeds to vindicate the French Church from de Balzac's imputation who professes himself incens'd against the Authors of the troubles in France tho he acquits du Moulin's Person as one who made the subjection due to Sovereignty a part of the Religion which he taught affirming that Obedience to our Sovereigns is a thing just and necessary that to find out an occasion of Rebellion either in a Man 's own Religion or in that of his King is to make insurrections to defend Religion by courses condemn'd by the same Religion such as these being perplext in their own particular Affairs hope to find ease in troubled waters and to save themselves amidst a confusion never yet did the cause of God advance it self that way Moses had power to inflict grievous punishments on Aegypt and her King notwithstanding he would never deliver the Children of Israel out of Aegypt without the permission of the King. SECT XVI And tho this famous Man Peter du Moulin had one Son Lewis who applauded the Regicides translated Milton and bespatter'd the best Church in Christendom yet God blest him with another of his own Name and Principles who in his Letter as he calls it of a French Protestant to a Scotchman of
Doctrin of the Church and would fain defend it as the uniform belief of the Reformed much more to the same purpose may be found in the same Book which I recommend to the Reader 's perusal the Learned Author of which wrote after his Father's Copy and therefore I have joyned them together tho according to the exact rules of Chronology I should have given the junior du Moulin a place in the next Reign CHAP. VI. The History of Passive Obedience during the Reign of King Charles the Martyr SECT I. WEre we to judge of the righteousness of any Cause and of its being acceptable to God by the prosperity of its outward circumstances and to intitle Heaven to the owning of all the designs which providence promotes as some Divines both then and since have argued more consonant to the Doctrin of the Alcoran than the Holy Gospel then the most Excellent Prince Charles I. was a vile Malefactor and fell justly a sacrifice to the rage of his rebel Subjects but the true Sons of the Church were of a more Orthodox belief and chose rather to suffer with their Master the Lord 's Anointed than to enjoy the ease and preferments which then were the rewards of perfidiousness and disloyalty as the first part of this History hath amply proved And though Dr. Sybthorp's Sermon called Apostolical Obedience was severely censured nor is it fit to defend every Proposition in it yet the then Bishop of London Dr. George Mountain approved it publickly in Print as a Sermon learnedly and discreetly Preached Testim ante concion and agreeable to the Ancient Doctrin of the Primitive Church both for faith and good manners and to the Doctrin established in the Church of England and therefore under his hand gave authority for the Printing of it Ma. 8. 1627. Mr. Hayes Could any thing privilege Loyalty toward Kings Serm. at St. Mary's Oxon. on Esth 1.15 1624. p. 3 21. Eminence and Alliance might be fair pretences but neither of these could yield Queen Vasthi advantage but what shall any dare to limit Sovereignty and prescribe Majesty it's duty shall he that enjoys the subjection of others by the Law be subject himself to the Law no in no other sense than that of Aquinas not that the Law should lead him by compulsion but lead him by directive persuasion if he conform his actions to the prescript of the Laws it is of his own accord if he do not is he lyable to account Yes but it is only to God against thee only have I sinned says King David Ps 51. those modest times had not the face to capitulate with their Sovereigns the pride of Faction had not yet hatch'd this rebellious Doctrin ☜ that if Kings obey not Laws Subjects have leave to disobey their Kings no let it glory in no Ancienter Author than New Rome and in no better success than confusion and seeing it owes it self to Jesuited Patrons let it be banish'd this Land together with their Persons Mr. Adams When Saul was in David 's hands In 2d ep of Peter pr. 1633. p. 755. his Men alledge God's promise and the advantage concurring and what was David 's charm to allay the fury of those raging Spirits he is the Lord 's Anointed Saul did not lend David so impenetrable an Armour when he ran to encounter Goliah as David lent him in the plea of his Unction not one of the discontented Out-laws durst put forth a hand of violence against him the image and impress of that Divine Ordinance strikes such an awe into the hearts of Men that it makes even Traytors cowards so that instead of smiting they tremble like those whose Office it is to suffer not to do fear God honour the King there was never Man that feared God but he also honored the Prince But let us hear P. 759 c what the Synod of Hell can plead for disobedience how if the Prince be bad an Enemy to truth and goodness a Ravisher a Persecutor raising powers for the extirpation of the Gospel here if ever a Subject may renounce all Allegiance for here is power against power Man against God and the Subject of both left to follow either Answ in this streight some for fear of the King Shipwrack their faith and these are Traytors to God others by a defensive sword in their hand Rebels to the King ☞ there is no question but God must be obeyed even against the King when the King commands things against God. what then shall we resist him with violence no God never Warrants that practice no not against a Prince that denies him there is an active Obedience and a passive I may not execute his impious commands I must suffer his unjust punishments the vices of Men cannot frustrate the institution of God peruse Mat. 5.44 and Rom 12.17 this will tye the Hands of Christian Subjects Samuel offer'd not to depose Saul though the express Sentence of God had cast him off and he was Excommunicated by a higher power than ever came from Rome Saul lived and dyed a King this he illustrates by the examples of the Jews and Primitive Christians and adds what resistance did those Primitive Christians make to those barbarous outrages but praying for the Emperor's life when under the Emperor's command they were bleeding to death neither did they suffer because they were not able to resist but it was their Doctrin c. Christians never prove losers but when they unjustly sight for their own preservation provide we the buckler of patience not a sword when the decree was gone out by Ahasuerus this was their refuge preces lacrymae the Apostles could work miracles yet they resisted not the ordinate powers this charge St. Paul gives the Romans even while Nero was their Emperor a Monster whom divers held to be Antichrist that Religion then cannot be right that pulls down Princes seeing neither Moses in the Old Testament nor Christ in the New nor Levite nor Prophet Apostle nor Disciple either counsell'd or practised against Government which should decide the point that hath cost the Lives of so many Christians and still threatens more Tragedies P. 763. there was never Prince to whom some Belialist took not some exceptions it were ill with Princes if their state depended on the good liking of their Subjects Subjects unfaithful at the heart may be without the suspicion of their Prince but they beheld Rebels in the Court of Heaven we be bound to be subject not only for wrath but for conscience sake In all the time of David 's prosperity there was no news of Shimei he looks like a fair Subject but he that smiles on David in his Throne P. 821. curs'd him in his Flight there is no security in that Subjects Allegiance that hath not God in his Conscience he that poysons the People with the male opinion of their Prince is the most dangerous Traytor to rip up the faults of Kings is bold
were to subvert order and measure it is High Treason by the Law of the Land to levy War against the King to compass or imagine his death c. follow the Monition and Counsel of the Lord Cook 3. P. 141. part Instit p. 36. peruse over all Books Records and Histories and you shall find a Principle in Law a Rule in reason and a Tryal in experience that Treason doth ever produce fatal and final destruction to the Offender and never attains to the desired end two incidents inseparable thereunto and therefore let all Men abandon it as the poysonous bait of the Devil and follow the Precept in Holy Scripture Serve God Honour the King and have no Company with the Seditious Dr. Stewart in his Sermon Preach'd at Paris called Hezekiah's Reformation P. 38 39. he can be no Martyr for the first Table of the Law who is in the same deed a transgressor of the second nor will God at all thank him as a Reformer of his Church who in the self same act is no less than a Traytor to his Deputy so that as for Subjects to take up Arms against their Kings is by the Doctrin of St. Peter ☞ and St. Paul in all cases damnable so especially to do this in point of our Religion which so much commends and blesses Patience and Sufferings and Martyrdom either upon pretence to plant it where now it is not or to reform it where it hath been planted is of all other kinds of contentions or Wars most Turkishly Antichristian Rabshakeh himself was grown so much a Divine as to aver openly that he P. 54. who puts his hand to overturn that Religion he professes yea that puts his hand to overturn it too at the same time while he likes it pretend what he will he trusts not in God he trusts perhaps in the Syrians or in Aegypt To what is quoted in the first part of this History out of Bishop Brownrig's Sermons may be added a remarkable Passage or two of his life P. 183 186 187. recorded by Bishop Gauden the first that having Preach'd at Cambrige that Christians had neither Christ's Precept nor any good Christians practice to resist their Sovereign Princes but that there was only left them the choice to obey actively or passively to do or suffer he was immediatly for this Doctrin proscribed and outed of his places in the University and deprived of his liberty and put in Prison the second that when O. P. with some shew of respect to him demanded his judgment in some publick Affairs then at a non plus his Lordship with his wonted gravity and freedom replyed My Lord the best counsel I can give you is that of Our Saviour render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods with which free answer O. P. rested rather silenc'd than satisfied There are many observations worth the noting made by Bishop Hacket on this Subject in his Sermon on the day of the Coronation of King Charles I. on Ps 118.24 but I refer the Reader to the Discourse it self while I relate what is recorded of him in his life written by Dr. Plume that in the time of the great Rebellion P. 17. no Man Preach'd more boldly against the licentiousness of those times than he challenging the boutefeu's to shew where ever the Scripture gave countenance to Uproars and Rebellions Julian the Apostate reading the Bible with a malicious intention to quarrel at it said that Christianity was a Doctrin of too much patience but he could never find any place in it to object that it was a Doctrin of Rebellion If the administration of a Kingdom be out of frame it is better to leave the redress to God than to a seditious Multitude the way to continue purity of Religion being not by Rebellion but by Martyrdom to resist lawful Powers by seditious Arms and unlawful Authority was not the Primitive and Apostolical Christianity but Popish Doctrin not taught the first three hundred years but much about a thousand years after Our Saviour's Ascension into Heaven by the Pope of Rome the very time the Spirit of God says Satan should be let loose viz. by Gregory VII who first taught the Germans to rebel against the Emperor Henry IV. this poyson was given the English People to drink out of the Papal cup tho they pretended quite contrary but Bishop Hacket ever asserted this was not the way to pull down Antichrist but Protestant Religion and therefore he warn'd the Non-conforming Divines to have a care how they cryed up a War and became famous in the Congregation only as Erostratus by setting the Temple on fire SECT IV. Thus the truth was asserted in the days of distress till God was in his infinite mercy pleased to restore the King under whom the Confessors for Loyalty who had during his Exile Preach'd this truth by their sufferings asserted it as vigorously from the Pulpit and Press and among them the most Reverend Primate Dr. Sancroft challenges an Eminent Station who in his most Learned Sermon Preached at the Consecration of Seven Bishops comparing the State of our Native Country with that of the Island of Crete adds have we not outvyed the Cretans lyed for God's sake P. 31. and talk'd deceitfully for him what pious frauds and holy cheats what slandering the footsteps of God's Anointed when the Interest was to blacken him Pliny hath observ'd it nullum animal maleficum in Cretâ and Solinus adds nec ulla serpens but they should have excepted the Inhabitants and I wish there were no other Island could shew Vipers too many that have eat out the Bowels of their common Mother and slown in the face of their Political Father without whose benigner influence their chill and benumm'd fortunes had not warmth enough to raise them to so bold an attempt fulness of bread was also one of their sins and now I cannot wonder if it be observ'd from the Records of History as Grotius assures us who knew them well that the Cretans were and I wish there were no other such a mutinous and a seditious People and had but too much need to be put in mind by Titus to be subject to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates The Devil of Rebellion and Disobedience Id. lex ignea p. 15. which not long since possess'd the Nation rent and tore it till it foam'd again and pin'd away in lingring Consumptions that cast it oft-times into the Fire and oft-times into the Water calamities of all sorts to destroy it this ill spirit this restless fury this unquiet and dreadful Alastor the Eldest Son of Nemesis and heir apparent to all the terrors and mischiefs of his Mother walks about day and night seeking rest and finds none and he says in his heart I will return sometime or other to my house from whence I came out Oh! let us take heed of provoking that God who alone
of the King. P. 20. David spake by the Spirit of God to the Amalekite wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thy hand against the Lord 's Anointed What! afraid of a conquer'd King unable to defend himself much less afford protection to any Subject is not that enough to Unking him yes if we owe him least assistance when he needs it most tho flying nigh breathless panting and gazing round to beg his death of some friendly hand he was formidable he was sacred still P. 23 24. for still he had a signal impress of the Deity upon him I will only put the case of Julian the Apostate Emperor after so clear conviction after so full instruction as he had in the Christian Religion having as some Historians report taken one of the lower Orders in the Clergy before he came to the Throne after all this he renounc'd his Baptism he turn'd a very plague to the Church he proved the most formidable Persecutor that is a tempter of his Christian Subjects to Apostasie he offended with that malicious wickedness that the Catholick Church and all her guides justly supposed he had committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost they look'd upon him as one that had cut himself off from their body with the greatest Excommunication even to Anathema Maranatha i. e. till the Lord come to judgment now in this case was it lawful for Christians to cast him off that had so openly and maliciously cast off his Christianity We have the judgment of the whole Church to the contrary they thought themselves obliged by St. Paul 's Apostolical Canon to make prayers and supplications even for him that whatsoever he was and howsoever he behav'd himself towards them they might still lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty and they had the Grace they pray'd for they did live peaceably under him they never took upon them to Unking him they drew out no Forces against him but only their thundring Legion of prayers and tears St. Paul exhorting to make prayers for all Men Id. Serm. before L. Mayor May 7. 1682. p. 10 P. 11 12. for Kings c. has left no room for any to evade it as if he had foreseen there would be a sort of Men and they lived within our memories Men who instead of praying for their King would learn to pray against him there is a sin unt o death saith St. John I do not say that ye shall pray for it but St. Paul in my text hath provided even against this supposition tho the charity that hopeth all things were overcome so that the spiritual welfare of a Nero c. were in a manner despair'd of yet such Provision is made that as their Prince he was to be pray'd for still that they might lead a peaceable and quiet life thus it was in the case of that impious Wretch Licinius P. 13 14 15. c. and if our lives ought to be answerable to our prayers since praying for peace is but mocking of God without keeping the King's peace too then let not any pretend to be good Christians and sound Members of Christ's Church unless they be also good Subjects my aim is against the Power of Deposing Kings that has been often claimed by the Bishops of Rome and there is another Party of Men who have introduc'd a distinction of taking Arms by the Kings Authority against his Person whereas wheresoever the King's Person is P. 16 17. there is also his greatest Authority but they tell us the Primitive Christians wanted not Authority and Right but strength to resist the civil Powers but did our Saviour want Power when he controuled evil spirits and cast out devils did he want Power then when he commanded Universal nature when even the Winds and Seas obey'd him c. he had more than twelve Legions of Angels at his call why did he not strike Herod or Pilate but that he confesses himself Subject to him the Men P. 30 31. that first broke the Peace of the Church were the first that gave the leading foul example of waging War against their lawful Prince as did the Novatians of Paphlagonia who fought with the Arian Emperor Constantius 's Forces sent against them to compel them to receive the Arian confession Such as will not trust in God Id. Serm. Sept. 9. 1683. p. 10 P. 17. as a deliverer from any dangers they fear but will take the Sword against their lawful Prince upon any pretence whatsoever their sentence is read in the words of our Blessed Saviour they that take the Sword shall perish with the Sword the Jews shedding innocent blood brought upon them a deluge of blood and their second desolation under Titus says Josephus came upon them in the same month on the same day of the month that the former fell upon and when by the same division of Priests and Levites the same Divine Service was reading in course viz. that Psalm P. 24. which was written in admiration of God's vindictive justice O God to whom vengeance belongeth c. there are complying Men who resolve to thrive under all Governments they are animals incombustible for Religion as one defines them and whatever interest prevails in the State they laugh at the notion of being State-Martyrs honesty is true policy unless Men mean to revive that old abominable Gnostick Principle of complying with any Usurpations or Impositions for fear of suffering St. Paul declares their damnation is just and righteous Id. Serm. Nov. 5. 1684. p. 5 6. who persevere in charging the Blessed Gospel with admitting so cursed a Principle as if it were lawful to do any one known evil tho with an eye to the best and noblest designs and with an aim at no other consequences but such as were most beneficial to the publick for this was no Apostolical Canon but a maxim from Hell. such Men are apt to conceit P. 10. that they have made themselves necessary as if God Almighty could not do his work without them I have heard that the case of Jacob's wrestling with God was Preach'd upon to our late Great Usurper and this Doctrin raised that God's Jacobs or glorious Wrestlers with God ☜ might for great ends do some things contrary to his declared Will which things might yet be acceptable to his secret Will and procure a blessing 't is a Jesuit's Salvo P. 20. P. 27. that a Man of wit never sins against his conscience we believe it a preposterous way of securing our Religion by giving up the peculiar Doctrin of our Church the Doctrin of Obedience unto Kings and we judge it a strange means of barring out Popery by letting in the Doctrin of translating and disposing of Kingdoms For a King and People to be happy Id. Coron Ser. April 23. 1685. p. 15 16. the King must have a right to his Kingdom for how can an Usurper expect to reign prosperly how mise
will have the words to concern their setting up of Jeroboam and his Successors in opposition to the House of David as appears by their carriage 1 Kings 12.16 when not liking Rehoboam's answer to them they cryed what portion have we in David c. no command or instructions were for ought we find given them by Abijah or any other from God neither did they in what they did consult with God by that Prophet or any other means to know his pleasure therein but what they did was of their own heads out of a rebellious humour of casting off their lawful Sovereigns of the House of David in which God had settled the right of the Kingdom so that tho they so fulfilled the Will and Counsel of God yet they did it not in obedience to them but with contrary intentions and plain disobedience and so were no more justifiable in it than the Jews in murthering Christ than Judas in betraying Innocent Blood that it was determin'd by God. and the setting up of his Successors was a continuance of defection from the House of David and a Rebellion against God. others by setting up Kings without me c. would mean their seeking to Foreign Kings and Princes for help as to the Assyrians and King Jareb ch 5.13 to Aegypt ch 7.11 so forsaking God and their dependence on him and setting up them as Patrons and Protectors to themselves Dr. Fitz Williams Serm. of the duties of fearing God and the King. p. 4 v. p. 5 6. Subjects withdrawing their obedience from their lawful Prince is a denying God's Authority Treason against him is a kind of Sacrilege a revolt from him an Apostacy from God a resisting him an opposing God rebelling against him fighting with God the setting up the title of a Counterfeit Prince against the true one an introducing a plurality of Godheads the obeying of an Usurper Idolatry the slandering his Anointed and his Footsteps a Blaspheming God the blaming his conduct P. 15. a quarrelling with Providence breaking through all Oaths Oaths in which they deposited with them the richest pawn it was possible for them to stake down and gave them the strongest security that others could require of their fidelity and obedience their Salvation Oaths in which they called God's Omniscience to witness these engagements and his justice and power to revenge the breach of them can it be thought that he P. 23. who will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain should connive at the violation of all obligations of duty and fidelity contracted in that name if Men shall be in danger of Hell-fire for calling their Brother Fool shall they be in none for railing against their Superiors invested with Authority from above and acting by a Commission from Heaven St. Peter and St. Jude have taught us that God reserves such who speak evil of dignities unto the day of Judgment to be punish'd in the blackness of darkness for ever Mr. Wagstaffe Serm. Sep. 9. 1683. p. 11 12. It is the glory of our Reformation that as it proceeded by the most peaceable and orderly steps so it held the most peaceable and orderly Doctrins the first Reformers pleaded as the Primitive Christians did that they always paid subjection to the powers set over them that they always complyed with the will of their Rulers where they lawfully might and where they might not they submitted with patience and always chose rather to suffer than to be seditions turbulent and unquiet this was the first Reformation and this the true Protestant Doctrin but alas since that time there hath risen up another Protestant Religion P. 33 34. See also his Serm. July 26. 1685 p. 18 19 21 22 c. and another Reformation c. it is the peculiar glory of the Church of England that it never hath either by Doctrin or Practice in the least encouraged or countenanc'd any thing tending to Treason Sedition or Rebellion it is impossible that any Man so lâ—â—g as he continues in the Communion of the Church of England should be a Matineer or a Traytor Of this Opinion also are the Authors of the Remarks †P. 32 33 34 35. on Popery represented c. as to the deposing Doctrin * Pâ—â—â— Prosecution â—o persecution p 21. See his mod Pharisee p. 4 23. Id misch of Anarchy p. 13. v. p 33 55 56 57 c Exposit 5. Comm. in private devot Ox. 1089. In lib. 4. antiquit p. 294. con loc and of the Catholick balance Dr. Bisby Formy part I wish as well to my Religion as any Man and pray as heartily for the continuance of it but to put by my lawful Prince because I suspect he will call me to account for my Religion and thereby make me worthy of suffering for Christ nay blessed this my Duty my Conscience my Oaths my Religion will not suffer me to do a King supposes a Power Sovereign accountable to none but to God who is the King of Kings and the last Judge of Men. Dr. Ed. Bernard I will obey I will reverence all my Superiors Spiritual and Temporal and in all things not plainly repugnant to God's Word and whenever they command any thing contrary thereto if I may not according to Law Righteousness and Honor appeal to a superior Power on Earth I will patiently submit to their censures and penalties The Oxford Notes on Josephus treat largely of this Subject and say that the Pharisees were the Men who under the doubtful and linsey woolsey Government of the Maccabees brought in these Maxims that the King could do nothing without the High Priest and the Sanhedrim because in weighty matters he used to consult them of his own choice that his luxury and other vices ought to be maturely corrected and that an Aristocracy was a better Government than that of a single Person that they themselves might be concern'd in the Government although in that very Age it was a celebrated Axiome among the Jews that the Majesty of their Kings was so sublime that it ought not to be stoopt to the Senate the King gives judgment but no Man judges him that God only calls the King to account but no mortal Person with many other citations out of the Rabbinical Writers to the same purpose Such Doctrins therefore contrary to the Rights of Kings Josephus would never have vented if he had been less addicted to the Opinions of Hillel and Shammai and had remembred the Golden Times of David and Solomon or the flourishing State of Judea in other Reigns for the Posterity of David down to the Assyrian Captivity exercised a full Power a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as truly such as any that Asia ever saw in all Affairs Sacred and Civil c. beware therefore O you Princes of the Doctrin of the Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites of the Rabbies Jesuits and Presbyterians Dr. South with great smartness censuring the solemn League and Covenant observes these two things
1. That those Serm. at St. Mary's Oxf Jan. 30. 1660. and before the King Jan. 30. 1661. who promise Obedience to the King only so far as he preserves the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom withal reckoning themselves Judges of what Religion is true what false and when these Liberties are invaded and when not do by this put it within their own Power to judge when Religion Faith and Liberties are Invaded as they think convenient and from such judgment to absolve themselves from their Allegiance 2. That those very Persons who thus covenanted had already from Pulpit and Press declared the Religion establish'd in the Church of England and then maintain'd by the King to be Popish and Idolatrous and withal that the King had actually Invaded their Liberties was there any thing in the Book of God to warrant this Rebellion Why yes Daniet dreamed a Dream and there is also somthing in the Revelation concerning a Beast and a little horn and a fifth Viol and therefore the King ought undoubtedly to dye ☜ others plead providential dispensations God's work it seems must be regarded before his Word as if when we have a Man's Hand-writing we should endeavour to take his meaning by the measure of his foot we have lived under that model of Religion in which nothing hath been counted impious but Loyalty nothing absurd but restitution the Church of England is the only Church in Christendom we read of whose avowed Practices and Principles disown all resistance of the Civil Power and with the saddest experience and truest Policy and reason will evince it self to be the only one that is durably consistent with the English Monarchy let Men look back into its Primitive Doctrin and it's History and they will find neither the Calvin's nor the Knox's the Junius Brutus's the Synods nor the Holy Common-wealths on the one side nor yet the Bellarmin's nor the Mariana's on the other SECT IX And here it is necessary to mention the several Addresses that own the same Doctrin and I shall begin with that of the two Universities that of Oxford runs thus being according to an Act of Convocation dated Febr. 21. 1685. May it please your Majesty c. We your Majesty's most dutiful c. as we can never swerve from the Principles of our Institution in this place and our Religion by Law establish'd in the Church of England which indispensibly binds us to bear all Faith and true Obedience to our Sovereign without any restrictions or limitations so we presume to assure your Majesty that no consideration whatsoever shall be able to shake that stedfast Loyalty and Allegiance which in the days of your Blessed Father that Glorious Martyr and in the late times of discrimination stood here firm and unalterable to your Royal Brother and your Self under the sharpest trials and that we shall constantly by God's assistance with our utmost zeal and sidelity improve all those advantages wherewith God and your Majesty have intrusted us in this ancient nursery of Learning to promote the quiet happiness and security of your Majesties Reign over us Thus also the University of Cambridge in their Address tendred by the Vice-Chancellor Gaznum 2019. c. Mar. 23. 1684. We do with all humble submission present to your Sacred Majesty our unfeigned Loyalty the most valuable Tribute that we can give or your Majesty receive from us this is a Debt which we shall be always paying and always owing it being a Duty naturally flowing from the very Principles of our Holy Religion by which we have been enabled in the worst of times to breed as true and stedy Subjects as the World can shew as well in the Doctrine as Practice of Loyalty from which we can never depart Many other Addresses Gaz num 2008. 2012. 2013. 2016. 2018 c. of the same kind were made by the University of Dublin by the Bishop and Clergy of the City of London the Bishop and Clergy of Chester the Bishops of Bath and Wells and of Hereford and in truth of all the Dioceses I think in England Scotland and Ireland besides such as were tendred by Lords Lieutenants Grand Juries and particular Societies For which Sense of the Nation in those days I must refer the Reader to the Prints while I only subjoin the memorable Close of the Address tendered by the Bishop Vicar-General and the Clergy of the Cathedral and City of Bristol The Church of England is peculiarly indeared to us for that above all that is called Religion in the World it twists Piety with Loyalty and without Reserve Recognizeth your Sacred Majesty as the Sovereign and Supreme Power within your Majesties Realms and Dominions against whom there is no rising up and only less than God himself According to the Dictates of that most excellent Religion we abhor all those Antimonarchical Persons and Principles which would either exclude Princes from their just Rights or disturb the peaceable enjoyment of them And we earnestly beseech the King of Kings that your Majesties Throne may not only be Established but raised still higher upon the ruins of those that shall endeavour to Subvert or Supplant it SECT X. Dr. Stillingfleet Origin Brit. c. 5. p. 319. inquiring into the Reasons why the Saxons were called into Britain by Vortigern quotes Gildas who affirms That after the Britains found themselves deserted by the Romans they set up Kings of their own and soon after put them down again and made Choice of worse in their room Adding it is plain that he supposes that the Britains in that Confusion they were in took upon them without regard to their Duty to place and displace them But withal he observes that then the Britains were left to their full liberty by the Roman Empire that there was no Line remaining to succeed in the Government nor so much as to determine their Choice which made them so easily to make and unmake their Kings who lost their Purple and their Lives together This must needs breed insinite confusions among them and every one who came to be King lived in perpetual fear of being served as others had been before him And the natural Consequence of this jealousie of their own Subjects was looking out for assistance from abroad which I doubt not was one great reason of Vortigern 's sending for the Saxons hoping to secure himself by their means against his own People although it proved at last the ruin both of himself and his People And whereas Cressy in his answer to my Lord of Clarendon's Vindicaon of the Dean of S. Pauls had objected That days of Thanksgiving were kept for the discovery and prevention of such personal Treasons as the Gunpowder Treason but none for the Deliverance of the whole Kingdoms from almost an Universal Rebellion as if their were no necessity of requiring from any a retraction of the Principles of Rebellion or a promise that they shall not be renewed Answ to the
make the Case parallel he must suppose our Houses of Convocation to have several times declared these damnable Doctrins and given encouragement to Rebels to proceed against their Kings and the University of Oxford to have condemn'd them how come the Principles of the Regicides among us to be parallel'd with this Doctrin when the Principles of our Church are so directly contrary to them and our Houses of Convocation would as readily condemn any such damnable Doctrins as the University of Oxford and all the World knows how repugnant such Principles are to those of the Church of England And none can be Rebels to their Prince but they must be false to our Church The same Author in his accurate Preface to the Jesuits Loyalty says P. 1 2. that tho the Jesuits walk in darkness and do mischief his intention was to set such marks and characters upon them that when others see them they might take the wind of them and avoid the infection and that he publish'd the Jesuits Treatises because some poysons lose their force when they are exposed to the open air and thereupon addressing himself to the Jesuits he endeavours to prove two things P. 3. 1. That if you do not renounce the Popes power of deposing Princes and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance you can give no real security to the Government 2. That if you do renounce it you have no reason to stick at the Oath of Allegiance to prove the first he says it is allowed by all Friends to our King and his Government ☞ that the Commonwealth Principles are destructive to it and that none who do own them can give sufficient security for their Allegiance I shall therefore prove that all the mischievous consequences of the Republican Principles do follow upon the owning the Pope's Power of deposing Princes P. 4. Now the mischief of the Commonwealth Principles lay in these things 1. Setting up a Court of Judicature over Sovereign Princes ☞ 2. Breaking the Oaths and Bonds of Allegiance Men had enter'd into 3. Justifying Rebellion on the account of Religion As to the first of setting up a Spiritual High-Court of Justice at Rome it is no satisfaction in this case to distinguish of a direct and indirect power for however the Power comes the effect and consequence of it is the same The question is whether the Pope hath any such Sovereignty over Princes as to be able by virtue thereof to depose them and the Commonwealth's Men do herein agree with you for they do not say that the People have a direct Power over their Princes which were a contradiction in it self for Subjects to command their Sovereigns but only that in case of breach of Trust the People have an indirect power to call their Princes to an account and to deprive them of their Authority but are the Commonwealth Principles the less mischievous to Government because they only assert an indirect Power in the People the main thing to be debated is P. 5. whether Sovereign Princes have a Supreme and Independent Authority Inherent in their Persons or no or whether they are so accountable to others that upon male-administration they may be deprived of their Government the Republicans and Assertors of the Pope's deposing Power are agreed in the Affirmative of the later Question and only differ whether the Power be in the Pope or the People to call Princes to an account and even in this they do not differ so much as Men may at first imagine for however the Primitive Christians thought it no flattery to Princes ☜ to derive their Power immediatly from God and to make them accountable to him alone as being superior to all below him as might be easily proved by multitudes of testimonies yet after the Pope's deposing Power came into request the Commonwealth Principles did so too and the Power of Princes was said to be of another Original and therefore they were accountable to the People Thus Gregory VII not only took upon him to depose the Emperor and absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance but he makes the first constitution of Monarchical Government to be a mere Usurpation upon the Rights and Liberties of the People and did ever any Remonstrance Declaration of the Army P. 6. or agreement of the People give a worse account of the beginning of Monarchy than this Infallible Head of the Church doth What follows from hence but the justifying all Rebellion against Princes which upon these Principles would be nothing else but the Peoples recovering their just Rights against intolerable Usurpations the very worst of our Fanaticks never talk'd so reproachfully of Civil Government ☜ as your Canonized Saint doth their Principles and Practices we of the Church of England profess to detest and abhor I pray Gentlemen tell me what divine assistance this good Pope had when he gave this admirable account of the Original of Civil Government and whether it be not very possible upon his Principles for Men to be Saints and Rebels at the same time I have had the curiosity to inquire into the Principles of Civil Government P. 7. among the fierce contenders for the Pope's deposing Power and I have found those Hypotheses avowed and maintained which justifie all the Practices of our late Regicides Parson's Book of the Succession to the making of which Cardinal Allen Sir Francis Inglefield and other Principal Persons of our Nation concurred being shred into so many Speeches to justifie their Proceedings against our Late Sovereign of Glorious Memory the Book being design'd to exclude King James and thus we see P. 8. the Pope's deposing Power was maintain'd here in England by such who saw how necessary it was for their purpose to defend the Power of Commonwealths over their Princes ☜ either to exclude them from Succession to the Crown or to deprive them of the possession of it The same we shall find in France in the time of the solemn League and Covenant there in the Reigns of Henry III. and IV. for those who were engaged so deep in Rebellion against their Lawful Princes found it necessary for them to insist on the Pope's Power to depose and the People's to deprive their Sovereigns thus Boucher affirms the fundamental and radical Power to be so in the People that they may call Princes to account for Treason against the People and that in such cases they are not to stand upon the niceties and forms of Law but that the necessities of State do supercede all those things If this Man had been of Council for the late Regicides he could not more effectually have Pleaded their Cause our Countryman William Reynolds also Vindicating the Murther of Henry III. says that Obedience to Princes is so far conditional that if they do not their duty their Subjects are free from their obligation to obey them the contrary opinion being against the Law of Nations and the Common reason of Mankind and this is
affirm'd by many others of their Writers Thus we find P. 1â— the most mischievous Commonwealth Principles have been very well entertain'd at Rome as long as they are subservient to the Pope's deposing Power and if we inquire further into the reason of these pretences we shall find them alike on both sides the Commonwealth's Men when they are askt how the People having once parted with their Power come to resume it they presently run to an implicite contract between the Prince and the People by virtue whereof the People have a Fundamental Power left in themselves which they are not to exercise but upon Princes violation of the Trust committed to them ☞ the very same ground is made the Foundation of the Pope's deposing Power viz. an implicite contract that all Princes made when they were Christians to submit their Scepters to the Pope's Authority which is so implicite P. 13. that very few Princes in the World ever heard of it it is declared in the Case of King John that the resignation of the Crown to the Pope is a void Act. And so consequently will the Imposing any such condition be as inconsistent with the Rights of Sovereignty if they plead an implicite contract who made such conditional settlements of Civil Power upon Princes ☞ who keeps the ancient Deeds and Records of them for all the first Ages of the Christian Church this conditional Power and Obedience was never heard of not when Emperors were open and declared Infidels or Hereticks what reason can be supposed more now than was in the times of Constantius and Valens that were Arian Hereticks Yet the most Learned Zealous and Orthodox Bishops of that time never once thought of their losing their Authority by it as I could easily prove if the design of this Preface would permit me If Christ and his Apostles were the best Teachers of Christianity P. 15 this is certainly no part of it for the Religion they taught never meddled with Crowns and Scepters but left to Caesar the things that were Caesar's and never gave the least intimation to Princes of any forfeiture of their Authority if they did not reader to God the things that are God's it requires all Men of what rank or order soever to be subject to the Higher Powers P. 16. because they are the Ordinance of God and to pray for them that are in Authority c. Thus far the Christian Religion goes in these matters and thus the Primitive Christians believed and practised when their Religion was pure and free from the Corruptions and Usurpations which the Interests and Passions of Men introduced in the following Ages and how then come Princes in these later times to be Christians upon worse and harder terms than in the best Ages of it in my mind there is very little difference between Dominion being founded in grace and being forfeited for want of it and so we are come about to the Fanatick Principles of Government again which this deposing Power in the Pope doth naturally lead Men to but this is not all the mischief of this Doctrin For 2. It breaks all Bonds and Oaths of Obedience how sacred and solemn soever they have been P. 17. there being an obligation to Obedience on the Subjects part which doth naturally arise from the relation between them and their Prince when Subjects are absolved from their Oaths of Allegiance they are thereby declared free from that natural duty they were obliged to before this is nulling the obligation to a natural duty and taking away the force of Oaths and Promises this is turning Evil into Good and Good into Evil that can make Civil Obedience to Princes to be a Crime ☞ and Perjury to be none this is a greater Power than the Schoolmen will allow to God himself where there is intrinsick goodness in the nature of the thing and inseparable evil from the contrary to it P. 18. for tho it be granted that God may after the matter or circumstances of things our Question is only about dispensing with the force and obligation of a Law of Nature such as keeping our Oaths undoubtedly is this he illustrates very Learnedly and at large in some following Paragraphs asking how comes the Pope to have power to give away another Man 's natural right a Man swears Allegiance to his Prince by virtue of which Oath the Prince challenges his Allegiance as a sworn duty the Pope dispenseth with this Oath i.e. gives away the Princes right whether he will or no. but how came the Pope by that right of the Prince which he gives away P. 19 20 21. may he not as well give away all the just rights of Men to their Estates as those of Princes to their Crowns Cajetan lays down a good rule about dispensing with Oaths that in them we ought to see that no prejudice be done to the Person to whom and for whose sake they are made he afterwards cites the several distinctions which the Roman Casuists use to vindicate this Power of dispensing with Oaths particularly Laymen that a promising Oath made to a Man cannot ordinarily be relax'd p. 24. without the consent of the Person to whom it is made except it be for the publick good of the Church ☜ as tho evil might be done for the good of the Church but woe be to them that make good evil and evil good when it serves their turn for this is plainly setting up a particular Interest under the name of the good of the Church and violating the Laws of Righteousness to advance it if Men break through Oaths and the most solemn Engagements and Promises ☜ and regard no bonds of justice and honesty to compass their ends let them call them by what specious names they please p. 25. the good Old Cause or the good of the Church it matters not which there can be no greater sign of Hypocrisie and real Wickedness than this for the main part of true Religion doth not lye in caâ—ting Phrases or mystical Notions neither in specious shews of devotion nor so zeal for the true Church but in Faith as it implies the performance of our promises as well as belief of the Christian Doctrin and in Obedience or a careful observance of the Laws of Christ among which Obedience to the King as Supreme is one which they can never pretend to be an inviolable duty who make it in the Power of another Person to absolve them from the most solemn Oaths of Allegiance and consequently suppose that to keep their Oaths in such a case would be a sin and to violate them may become a duty which is in effect to overturn the natural differences of good and evil to set up a controuling Sovereign Power above that of their Prince and to lay a perpetual Foundation for Faction and Rebellion which nothing can keep Men from If Conscience and their Solemn Oaths cannot Therefore 3. The third
prostrated themselves for in your way of reasoning they have a right to preserve or delight themselves by any course of means and can be best protected by the prevailing side which because it hath more degrees of growing Power has it seems therefore more of right P. 158. thus it is in the choice of every Subject whom you make the Judge of the means to preserve himself to apply himself to the stronger side or for a Company combin'd in Arms and Counsel when an Heir and a Traytor are engag'd in Battel with equal success as was the practice of the Lord Stanley c. at Bosworth-field to give the day to the side they presume will most favour them but there is no tye so strong as that of Religion c. * Vid. 1. part of the Hist p. 93. and whereas Hobbs affirm'd that Covenants are but words and breath and have no force to oblige or constrain any Man but what it has from the Publick Sword he answers that thus the Prince is always in a State of danger P. 160. Society being like a State of Nature managed all by force because he cannot be a day secure of remaining uppermost seeing that the People are taught by you to believe that the right of Authority is a deceit and that every one would have as good a Title if he had as long a Sword for the many headed Beast will throw the Rider when he burthens and galls them Woe to all the Princes upon Earth if this Doctrin be true and becomes Popular if the Multitude believe this the Prince not Armed with the scales of the Leviathan i. e. with irresistible Power can never be safe P. 161. wherefore such as own these pernicious Doctrins destructive to all Societies of Men ☜ may be said to have Wolves Heads as the Laws of old were wont to speak concerning excommunicated Persons and are like those ravenous Beasts so far from deserving our love and care P. 192. that they ought to be destroyed at the common charge if the commands of Christ and his Apostles are not also Laws what means the common Doctrin in the Scripture of suffering for the sake of Christianity We are injoined to take up the Cross and to follow Christ c. Such commands and exhortations to dye rather than to obey Unchristian injunctions are deliver'd in vain yea they deserve the name of Impious if they be not a Royal Law without the stamp of Civil Authority it is therefore your opinion that it is our duty for the sake of outward safety to obey that which is the Law of our Country tho we live among the Heathens rather than to follow dangerous tho Evangelical Counsel This Doctor together with the Lords Bishops of Ely and Bath and Wells and Dr. Hooper were by the King appointed to attend the late Duke of Monmouth before his Execution and the great thing that they with reason prest him to was a particular repentance an acknowledgment that his Invasion was a Rebellion particularly urging him as the Printed account says more than once P. 1 2. if he were of the Church of England to acknowledge the Doctrin of Non Resistance to be true ☞ and therefore I believe that Pulton the Jesuit as †Pulton consider'd p. 67. himself says charg'd him unjustly that when he assisted Sir Thomas Armstrong before his Execution that he did not oblige him to an humble acknowledgment of his Crimes and particularly of the injury done to his King and Country for the * Account of the cons with 〈◊〉 p. â—3 Doctor even in the heigth of Popery thought his Loyalty more valuable than Mr. Meredith's because he as a Son of the Church of England profest he would not rebel against the King notwithstanding he might be of another Religion whereas Mr. M. being of the same Religion could not well separate Loyalty from Interest and ‖ 〈…〉 cons p. 89. avers that he is by Church Principle against resisting the Higher Powers and approves not of the excluding and deposing Doctrin taught in Mr. P's great Lateran Council before there were Jesuits and also after they arose by Bellarmine and Doleman and a long train of others in which some Popes some Synodical Men have pompously march'd To pass by General Complaints Id. exam of 〈◊〉 10 note 〈◊〉 holiness of life p. 243. we may furnish our selves with abundance of instances in the Lives of particular Men of that Communion who have been Infamous for Impiety I shall content my self with a few reflections upon two or three of this sort of Mâ—n with whom the more the World is acquainted the less veneration it will have for them Pope Gregory the Great fawn'd upon the Emperor Mauritius whilst he lived and prospered and own'd him as his Patron and the Maker of his Fortunes even before he had made his own But assoon as the Emperor and his Family were barbarously Murthered by the most Bloody Vassal and Usurper Phocas Gregory insulted over this dead Lion and flatter'd this living Monster and his Immoral Wife Leontia He used such words at his â—surped â—xaltation as he did at that which he called the Conversion of England singing profanely Glory to God in the Highest Let the Heavens rejoyce and the Earth be glad There are many things in the Roman Church it self P. 248. which by helping forward an ill life do in part deface this mark of her Sanctity Such as the Doctrins about Papal Supremacy Which last is very prejudicial to the quiet of the World especially in the Deposing Point concerning which I take leave to use the words of another with Relation to Bellarmine He was * Postscript to transl of 〈…〉 of the Leag p. 15 16 17. himself a Preacher for the League in Paris during the Rebellion there of King Henry IV. Some of his Principles are these following In the Kingdoms of Men the Power of the King is from the People because the People make the King. We hear Bellarmine in another place â—ositively affirming it as Matter of Faith if any Christian Prince shall depart from the Catholick Religion and shall withdraw others from it he immediatly forfeits all Power and Dignity even before the Pope has pronounced sentence on him And his Subjects in case they have Power to do it may and ought to cast out such an Heretick from his Sovereignty over Christians If therefore the Faith of Bellarmine be Faction whatsoever his Church is in it self it is certain as he has made it it can never he found out either as The Church or as A found Church so far as we are to look for it by the Note of Holiness SECT XII Dr. Patrick hath also fully declared his Opinion in this point for besides what hath been cited out of his works in the first part of this History he says Paraphâ— on on Ps 15. p. 75. that he who shall dwell in God's Tabernacle is a
must do nothing to shew that we are acted by the Spirit of Popery we must never forget the Station in which God hath put us â—s we are Subjects under a Lawful Prince to whom we are tyed both by Divine and Humane Laws and even the Lion's Mouth it self opening to devour us ☜ can never excuse us from our obligation to submit and suffer if God had so ordered it by his Providence that we were born under a Prince that would deliver us up to the Lion. the late Rebellion as it was managed with a Popish i. e. a bloody Spirit so many of the Arguments that were used to defend it were taken from Popish Authors P. 28. When we go out of the way of patience and submission of obedience and of bearing the Cross when we give scope to passion and rage to jealousie and mistrust and upon this fermentation in our minds we break out into Wars and Rebellion we forget that the God whom we serve is Almighty and can save us either from a devouring Fire or a Lion's Mouth we forget that the Saviour whom we follow was made perfect by sufferings and that we become then truly his Disciples when we bear his Cross even tho we should be crush'd under it we forget that our Religion ought to inspire us with a contempt of Life and the World and with meekness and lowliness of mind c. P. 29. we are not to share with the Papists in their cruelty not imitate them in their Rebellion SECT XV. Dr. Adam Littleton in his Catechism Printed Lon. 1662 â—p ded or the Grounds of Religion An ungrounded Christian will be easily peâ—suaded to give him self up to any wild Opinion or loose practice to turn Heretick or Rebel P. 334. and prove a fit instrument for the managery of Satan's designs the fifth commandment is the hinge of the two Tables and concerns the Magistrate who is God's Vicegerent on Earth and the keeper of both the Tables wherefore some assign it a place in the first Table P. 336 337. See his Ser. on Nov. 5 1675. p. 221 223 224 226. and Ser. on Jan. 30. 1677. p. 236 237 c. God having a special care of civil order and Peace in the Societies of Men honour thy Father and Mother whether thy natural Parents or the Civil Magistrate disobedience dissolves and unloosens or â—er and peace which are the bands of Society whereas oppression does but strain and gird the tyes of Government too close no Tyranny of the most wicked Prince can be so mischievous and destractive to the Publick as the Rebellion of Subjects let them pretend never so much Religion for it the great interest of society is to obey since the resisting of a Lawful Governor will in the end destroy Government it self and bring all things into consusion ☞ then he introduces God thus speaking thou inferior whoever thou art that art under anothers Power P. 343 344. thou shalt be subject to him and yield a ready and chearful obedience to him as to the Lord in all things that are just and lawful and hear with his humors and his harshness ☞ remembring that the he be a Man of like passions with thy self yet he is in God's stead and if he at any time swerve from his rule in commanding yet do not thou decline thy duty in obeying but when be biddeth thee do any thing coutrary to my will carry thy self with submission and resolve to suffer for a good conscience rather than to resist where thou canst not with a good conscience obey thou shalt not withdraw or grudge thy obedience P. 347. much less shalt thou take upon thee to call him to account thou Subject shalt honor and obey the King and his Ministers thou shalt not raise sedition to bring an odium upon the Magistrate's Person his Authority or his Council nor shew any discontent to the disturbance of the publick Peace nor take up Arms against thy Lawful Sovereign nor maintain or assist Rebellion nor meddle with those that are given to change thou shalt not offer any violence to the King 's Sacred Person but if at any time unrighteous commands are imposed upon thee have recourse to thy Prayers and make thy appeals to Heaven to God the King of Kings to whom alone they are accountable and who will in his dut time remove the oppression and call the Oppressor's to an account P. 352 353. when the hedge of Government is broken down neither Religion nor Law shall bound us this hath been England 's Case in the wicked times of Anarchy and Confusion when we complyed with Illegal Powers when our Oaths of Allegiance were eluded with the solemn cozenage of a League and sinful Combination when we were bewildred with the Witchcrafts of Rebellion and knew not the things which belong'd to our Peace but pretended to reform abuses by destroying the Offices when we rais'd War against our dread Sovereign and offered violence to the Lord 's Anointed what need have we therefore to pray fervently with the Church Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law. The same Author in his Sermon Pt. Lond. 1669. p. 24 25. called The Churches Peace asserted upon a Civil account Preach'd July 4th An. 1669. says the same thing The best Party of the Dissenters have such Principles of Policy and Government as are utterly inconsistent and incompatible with Monarchy whereas there is no one thing that the English Church doth in her Doctrin more positively affirm ☞ or in her Offices more â—ealously express than Obedience to Governors and her duty to her Sovereign thanked be God we live not now under Heathen Emperors and Pagan Governors tho if we did it were our duty to pray for them and to thank God for them too and to obey them in all lawful commands An Original of all Plots Lond. 1680. 810. cap. 1. p. 2. and where we cannot safely obey chearfully to suffer for a good Conscience Dr. William Saywel Still it hath fallen out that Men of more zeal than discretion of greater reading than judgment have struck in with the Politicians and wrote that which would most please the Men in Authority and was likely to get them most favor and reputation amongst those who could satisfie their ambition and by these means have rather served themselves than God tho with the confusion and disorder of the Church Athelsm breach of common faith and honesty P. 3. violations of all Oaths and Contracts Murders Treasons Conspiracies Rebellions long and bloody Wars Massacres Fires Underminings Poysons P. 4 5. and Subversions of Governments are the sad consequences of such dissensions in Religion that these Parts of Christendom for some Ages past have been an Aceldama or Field of Blood and many horrid and barbarous Murders have been acted upon pretence of Religion is evident from all Modern Histories and tho the Romish
not to be laught out of our Passive Obedience and the Doctrin of Non-Resistance tho even those who perhaps owe the best part of their security to that Principle are apt to make a jest of it SECT XVII Dr. C. 26. §. 1 2 6 8. Pierce Dean of Salisbury in his body of Orthodox Divinity avers that the Church of God consists of a Civil as well as an Ecclesiastical Hierarchy that Magistrates are constituted by a Divine right as well as Priests that he who resists the Magistrate so constituted by God wounds his Conscience deeply in this World and shall be damn'd in the next after which he smartly censures both the Fanaticks and the Jesuits the scandals of Christianity as he calls them condemning the Doctrins of both sorts of them and shewing the unreasonableness of that proposition that Inferior Magistrates may controul a Prince if he does not do his duty since by the Laws of the Land as well as the Laws of God a King can do no harm i.e. that the King is unaccountable inferior only to God and obnoxious only to his Tribunal so that no Mortal much less his Subjects can have any Authority over him Id. exceeding sinfulness of Schism §. 5 6 7 11. v. Ser. on 1 Pet. 2.13 §. 4 5 7 8. Obedience to Magistrates being of Divine Right strongly founded upon the Will and the Word of God and even a part of the Obedience to God himself whilst it is paid to that Authority which God hath commanded us to pay an Obedience to cannot possibly be due to the Men as Men or to the good as they are good but to the Magistrates as they are such 't is due to the Governors as they are Governors and as the Ordinance of God let their Practices and Opinions be what they will. When God and his Deputies do stand in competition for our Obedience God must have our whole active and his Deputies our Passive Obedience only Saving the dignity and priority of the first and great commandment as the ground and foundation of all the rest our Obedience to our Governors and Humane Laws in force among us is as really an Essential and Fundamental of Christianity ☞ and of as absolute necessity to our Salvation as the belief of one God or any other that can be named it being as rigidly commanded by God in Scripture under the very same promises of reward if we obey and under the very same threats of endless punishments if we rebel Dr. Serm. on Tit. 3.1 p. 4 5. c. D. Whitby Chantor of the same Church in the time of the D. of Monmouth Rebelbelliâ—n laid down this position That Christians must be subject to their Civil Magistrates and in no cases are allowed or authorized forcibly to resist or bear Arms against them and this he proves at large from the expressions of the Holy Scriptures from the deportment of David to King Saul that Jeroboam's revolt is by God himself called Rebellion 1 King. 12.19 p. 8 9. for as a Father doth not forfeit his Authority over his Children nor are they freed from that Obedience which they owe him because he deals severely with them so neither can the King i. e. the Father of his Country lose his Authority over his Subjects because he governs them severely or lays afflicting burthens on them the Scriptures of the New Testament expresly call for our subjection Let every Soul be subject saith St. Paul so let him yield subjection to them as never to resist on any provocation temptation or specious pretence whatsoever whence it is clear ☜ p 10. Serm. 〈…〉 13.1 p. 24 26 27 2â— 29 30 31. that by the Christian Doctrin it is unlawful to resist the Higher Powers upon pretence of Male-administration Tyranny Injustice or to rebel for the defence of our Religion against the worst of persecuting Princes for if Resistance in the forementioned cases was a damning sin when can it be excusable after this he answers the common objections from the Coronation Oath and Self-Preservation c. Mr. Long 's Sermon called the causes of Rebellion Preach'd Jan. 13. 1683. on Jâ—â— 4.1 P. 14 15. was Printed by the joint desires of the Bishop of Exon and the Justices of the County of Devon and the Dedication gives an account of an order of theirs that concurs with the Doctrin of the Sermon nor can any complaint of Tyranny or Oppression justifie a War among us did we suffer under some miscarriages in Government some passions and excesses in our Governors neither Scripture nor reason will warrant any resistance Obj. But the Primitive Christians had no Laws to confirm their Religion P. 16. and therefore it was not so lawful for them to defend their Religion by Arms as it is for us Answ It is strange that our Laws should be made a pretence for Resistance which declare that it is not lawful to resist upon any pretence whatsoever then the Subjects are made Judges of the Actions and Conduct of their Governors P. 22 23. I take those and only those who do agree with the Jesuits in Preaching ☜ and propagating Seditious and Traiterous Principles and Practices such as the lawfulness of Resistance and taking up Arms in defence of Religion against the Supreme Magistrate that the Original of the Magistrate's Power is in the People who may call them to an account and Depose and Murder them as they see cause those who have Murdered one King already and use the same Methods to destroy another in a word V. p. 23 26. all such as will not declare that it is unlawful to take up Arms against the King on any pretence whatsoever or that they will not endeavour any alteration of the establish'd Government for such false Prophets as our Saviour bids us to beware of This also is the Doctrin of his Sermon on July 26. 1685. and his Vindication of the Primitive Christians c. Dr. Fuller Chancellor of Lincoln those Men have but little sense of the honor of Christian Religion that abuse its Name Ser. bef the King June 25. 1682. p. 56 c. and pervert its obligations to justifie Sedition and Rebellion who with great pretences and zeal for Christianity forsake her in her more principal commands of meekness patience and submission and defend the Doctrin of Resistance and Disobedience from those Holy Scriptures that have forbidden them under the penalty of Damnation that those Men do little deserve the Character of Reformed who have forsaken our Reformation in its Principal and Fundamental Doctrin of the King's Supremacy and renounced the Protestant Church of England in all her Principles of Christian Loyalty and indeed all the Enemies of the Church of England how distant soever in other points are perfectly united in the Doctrin of disobedience all agreeing in one conclusion against the express commands of Holy Scripture that it is lawful to resist the Higher Powers c. Dr.
Sclater What a joy will it be to thy Spirit and a lightning to thy Heart Royal pay paymaster on Rom. 2.10 p. 6 7 1â— when thou canst say thou didst not cowardly yield tho thou hast been disarm'd sequestred decimated and unrewarded for it 't was of God's mercy to be kept faithful to the righteous cause of God and the King when there were so many temptations to witdraw us from our Loyalty Fidelity and Loyalty is in a more especial manner required in a Subject towards his Sovereign 't is Treason in a Subject to fight against his Sovereign but how long must this Fidelity last a day or two or so Oh no I this Commandment is like that heavy saying in Matrimony till death us do part Dr. Hickman Serm. before Lâ—rd Mayor Juâ— 27. 1680 p. 17 18. The honor of God and the defence of his Worship are glorious Undertakings yet even here the excess of zeal is a crime and the great importance of the end cannot justifie any unlawfulness in the means the will of God as it is exprest in his Word is the standard of good and evil and he will not suffer his eternal Laws to be violated tho in his own defence if it should please him to give his and our Enemies such advantage over us as may endanger the exercise of our Religion we have our Prayers and other lawful endeavours for our redress but we must not defend our Church by an unlawful return of evil for evil nor like our Adversaries commit any Act of Impiety or Injustice tho under the most specious pretence of fighting the Battels of the Lord The goodness of the Cause here is so far from justifying the Act that it only aggravates the offence when a Law is violated or any injustice done for the sake of our Religion both the scandal and the Crime become conspicuous they are then laid at the door of our Church and bring a publick and perpetual blot upon our cause P. 19 v. p. 20 33. what can our Religion profit us or what honor can it bring to the Almighty when our Sacrifice comes polluted with blood and violence of its own how can it attone for our transgressions therefore it is necessary to obey not only for wrath ☞ but also for Conscience sake St. Peter who was the first that drew his Sword In his Master's quarrel was the first that denyed his name and forsook his cause and doubtless whosoever fights for his Religion against his Prince can never pass the muster without a Romish dispensation Mr. Ser. at Bath Aug. 7. â—631 p. 4 5 c. Jos Pleydall Arch-Deacon of Chichester Plebeians and Hobbists proceed upon one and the same Principle making the People the Fountain of all Power whereas Subjects owe a natural and inviolable Allegiance but if a Prince prove a Tyrant does he not by Male-administration forfeit the trust reposed in him in whose Opinion in the Opinion of Mariana or Knox Hobbs or Bradshaw i. e. in the judgment of Papists P. 8. Sectaries Atheists or Rebels 't is impossible there should be a Rebellion while the Principles of the Church of England are revered and owned that Kings may be Deposed and Murdered P. 11. we may reckon under the Apostles strange and monstrous Doctrins or rather under his Doctrins of Devils Mr. Assize Ser. p. 21 22. v. p. 5 78 16. Kimberley No pretences of Conscience or Religion can Authorize our Resistance of the lawful Powers which God hath set over us they never knew what it was in the times of the Primitive Christianity to oppose expel or destroy any Pagan Persecuting Arian or Apostate Emperor Mr. Assize Ser. p. 21. Jemmat None but God can absolve Subjects from that Allegiance and Obedience which they owe to their natural Lords neither the Male administration of Government nor their own fears jealousies nor the decay of Trade no nor the hazard of Religion it self can justifie the Acts of Rebellion they to whom God hath given his own Power are accountable to none but himself c. Mr. Serm. on 2 Chr. 13.5 p. 6. v. p. 8 15 18. Camfield The King is in the highest place and highest power and consequently all in his Dominions Every Soul of them are obliged to be subject to him none may presume to judge or resist him violently there can be nothing justifyable on the Subjects part but obedience and Submission the rest must be referred to God alone the only Ruler of Princes c. Mr. Ser. at York Aug 3. 1685. p. 16 24. 〈◊〉 loc Stainforth We have great reason to pity and pray for Kings for the eminency of their Station and uncontroulableness of their Power if Princes are bad Men and oppress their Subjects against reason and against Law we have no reason left us but Prayers to God in whose hands are the hearts of Kings Whatsoever Injuries they heap upon us whatsoever Violences and Persecutions we suffer under them we must not suffer our Passions to rise and swell againvt them much less must we take up Arms and by force resist their Persons or Authority P. 34. Those who take up Arms against their Sovereign's Authority fight against Heaven Mr. Graile Rector of Blickling in Norfolk publish'd four Sermons Lond. 1685. P. 44 45. For Loyalty to our Prince is a thing commanded by God himself together with Piety and Devotion towards himself yea and commanded in the very next place to it so that the one is a part an inseparable part a very considerable part of the other And it follows from hence by an apparent Consequence that Mens Disloyalty is a clear indication of their irreligion if they fear not the King they fear not God. ☜ If any Man seem to be religious and bridles not his Tongue from speaking evil of Dignities or Higher Powers Jam. 1.26 2 Pet 2.10 Rom. 13.2 P. 53 54 55. that Man's Religion is vain and 't is much more so if he holds not his hands from resisting these Powers Our Law will have no Error no Injustice no Folly no Imperfection whatsoever to be found in the King. All the States of the Realm joyned together all the Nobles and Commons and the whole Body of the People have not a Power and Authority equal to his For otherwise he would not be the King of a Kingdom but of single Men separately taken P. 56. The King is no substitute of the People but the Minister of God and his Power is the Ordinance of God. It is a contradiction to be Sovereign and to have a Superior The Lords P. 57. both Spiritual and Temporal together with all the Commons assembled in Parliament do by a solemn Oath acknowledg the King to be Supreme and themselves to be his Subjects And they have in publick Statutes particularly declared That both or either Houses of Parliament cannot nor lawfully may raise or levy any War offensive or
defensive ☜ against his Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors Neither is the King accountable to them or to any other besides God These are the Essentials of Sovereignty There is but one Case wherein a good and loyal Subject will refuse to obey his Prince and that is p. 60 61 v. p. 66 96 97 119 120 154. when such Obedience will by no means consist with his Obedience to God But there is no Case whatsoever wherein he dares either to resist or reproach the Person or Authority of the King or to offer any Indignity to him To fight against him is to fight against God whom the King represents upon any pretence whatsoever it cannot be done without open Perfidiousness and Rebellion Such are Monsters of Men and are as natural brute Beasts made to be taken and destroyed So S. Peter describes them 2 Pet. 2.10 12. Mr. David Jenner in his Prerogative of Primogenitures * Lond 1635 P. 48. asserts the same Cause Altho the Law of God is indeed above all Kings and if they wilfully transgress the same they are all accountable unto God and unto God only for the same yet in this Kingdom of England no Statute Law is or can be above the King because it was the King that first gave life and being to the Law of the Land the King by his Royal Assent made the Law to be what it is viz. a Law But the Law of the Land did not make the King to be what he is viz. a King for the King was King before the Law. That the Doctrin and Practice of Deposing lawful Kings P. 122. and Excluding the right Heir from succeeding in the Throne for his being an Heretick Idolater ☜ tyrannical and wicked is grounded upon nothing but Popery and Fanaticism Mr. Hancock in his Answer to the Viscount Stafford's Memoires Lond. 1682. p. 31. I could make it evident that the same Maxims of Political Divinity the same Arguments and many times the same Phrases and Expressions are to be found in the Heads of both Factions I know 't is disputed whether the Ring-Leaders of Sedition among us poyson'd the Jesuits or the Jesuits them but I do not envy the Bishops of Rome the Honor of having first poyson'd them both with Antimonarchical Doctrins If Milton the great Oracle of one of the Factions had own'd himself to be a Papist there had been no reason to wonder at the Impiety of his Doctrins which he either did or might have learnt from the Popes and greatest Divines of the Roman Church It was truly alledg'd by Salmasius that the Doctrin of the sacred and inviolable Authority of Princes was preserved pure and uncorrupt in the Church till the Bishops of Rome attempted to set up a Kingdom in this World paramount to all Kings and Emperors but he with his usual Confidence acquits the Popes and charges his Antimonarchical Principles on Luther Zuinglius Calvin Bucer Martyr Parcus and all the Reformed Divines Bellarmine P. 50. Parsons Creswel Suarez c. are the Men that furnish'd the leading Faction among us with Principles and Precedents with Arguments and Texts of Scripture ☞ out of whom they either did or might have derived the Grounds of the War against the King of erecting an High Court of Justice and of bringing him to the Block John Goodwin P. 53. in one of his Pamphlets hath this remarkable Expression As for offering Violence to the Person of a King or attempting to take away his Life we leave the Proof of the lawfulness of it to those profound Disputers the Jesuits P. 166 c. I have fairly represented those Doctrins and Principles which strike at the very root of our establish'd Religion and Government with the Arts and Instruments which have been used by the prevailing Faction of the Roman Church for the Subversion of them ☞ And I know no stronger Argument against the truth and goodness of any Religion than that it supplants moral Righteousness and serves to be a Bond of Conspiracy allowes of Sedition and Treachery Injustice and Cruelty for how can that Religion be from God which maketh Men unlike to God as had or worse than if they were left to the Principles and Inclinations of their own Natures Of the Church of England I will only say It hath establish'd the Right of Kings upon such sure and unalterable Foundations that it is the Interest as well as the Duty of the Civil Power to support and defend it Mr. Animadv on Ob. Ch. Govern. Preface Smalridge Certainly that Doctrin which invades the just Rights of Princes can hope but for few Proselytes among those who have constantly defended them in their Writings asserted them in their Decrees and upon all occasions vindicated them with their Swords For we do not lye open to the imputation of a condition'd and distinguishing Loyalty who have shewed our readiness to imitate the glorious Examples of our Fathers and were prepar'd had not God's good Providence prevented our Service to have transcribed that Copy lately at Sedgmore which they set us formerly at Edg-hill And in truth our steady Fidelity to the Prince is so unquestionable that our Enemies have been pleased to ridicule what they could not deny and have made Passive Obedience bear a part in our Character when the Muse hath been enclin'd to Satyr Thus also the Person of Quality who wrote the Reasons Why a Protestant should not turn Papist P. 30 31. I am then quite out of conceit with your Religion since I cannot embrace it without endangering my Loyalty by reason of the Deposing Doctrin in case I live up to the pitch of its real Principles But 't is all one to me so long as I remain a Protestant what Religion my Prince is of tho I could wish he were of the same I profess because his Authority over me and my indispensible Obligation to submit to him do not depend upon his Opinion or Religion but upon his Birth-right yet have we not reason to doubt if the zealous sort of Roman Catholicks would not think it lawful to take Arms against their Prince turn'd a Heretick since the French League against Henry the 4th was upon this very account styled Holy and had I not been particularly acquainted with the Principles of the Church of Rome I had never conceived how it came to pass that such great Numbers of learned and well-meaning Men too could be guilty of such a horrible wickedness as that was and forget themselves so far as to pretend Holiness in an open Rebellion against their lawful Prince I am then more satisfied with the Loyalty of a Protestant especially of the Church of England who acknowledgeth the Prince to be a Supreme Governour over all his Subjects and Sovereign Judg in all Cases than with that of a Roman Catholick who seems to set limits to his Power by such restrictions as neither Reason nor Scripture can warrant Mr. Pomfret