Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A36199
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Dr. Sherlock's Two knights of Brainford brought upon the stage in a congratulatory letter to Mr. Johnson : occasioned by the doctor's vindication of himself in taking the oath of allegiance to Their Majesties after the time, indulg'd by the law, was expired.
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1690
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Wing D1766; ESTC R31333
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34,233
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42
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of another Kingdom and has but one more to try his Fate in so that there is two to one on the side of the Possessor Now therefore he who had the Right has justly Forfeited And the Supream Law the publick Good warranted a Revolt from him and meeting our Deliverer as a Blessing from Heaven All this may be little expected from the Doctor but tho it may startle and surprize you I shall prove it Page 3. and shew from him 1. That our Monarchy is limited and the King has no Authority but what the Law allows him Page 30. Page 65. which sets Bounds to Sovereign Power As I before observed he owns that the King has no Right but by Law and the Law may determine how far his Right shall extend And thus Man's Law limits Gods Authority This is more than he would own expresly that I can find in the time of C. 2. but even then he admitted that he who Governs by Caâ—e of Resist p. 197. Arbitrary Will is a Tyrant and no King Yet he then left it to his pleasure whether he whom he calls the Law maker would Govern by Laws or Sovereign Will. Case of Resist p. 196. This was suitable to the use he then had for the 13th to the Romans but now it serves only to countenance what he will have an Usurpation And yet it will be a question how he can be an Usurper who as the Doctor confesses as he is King receives his Right from Law having no Right but by Law And what he says in another Page 42. respect as far as he quits his Government he quits the Allegiance of the Subjects might be easily improved here 2. That if Kings receive their Authority from Men and Humane Laws their Power is a trust of which they Page 36. must give an account to those who intrusted them c. tho no express Provision were made in the Law to call them to account 3. That King James notoriously violated the Subjects Rights and broke the Constitution upon which himself page 27. stood and struck at the Dearest things their Religion established by Law and their Properties is almost as plainly signified by him as if he had named the Man 4. He is express in relation to the late Revolution that a Prince Forfeits the Affections and Legal Defence of Page 30. his Subjects by the Exercise of an Illegal and Arbitrary Power Where 1. he owns a Forfeiture And 2. of what is essential to the Sovereignty that Love or Filial Duty to Princes which our Clergy tell us is required under the Honour due to Parents 3. A Legal Defence is certainly due by Law to a King as such and therefore when that Defence is no more a duty Allegiance ceases especially the Subjects having Sworn to this And if the Oaths taken to the Prince are discharged as to any part by a Forfeiture it will be difficult to shew why that Forfeiture ought not to extend to the whole 5. He as good as yields that the late King Absolved the Subjects from their Allegiance to him Speaking Page 48. of the late King and his People and their chief Interests in comparison with former times which he would make greatly to differ from the present The bold steps says he and extraordinary Methods he had taken gave them great Apprehensions that all these were in danger even the Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown it self the Preservation of which was a main end of the Oath of Allegiance by his Submission to the See of Rome and rejecting the Oath of Supremacy and as far as he could absolving his Subjects from it Add to this what he said elsewhere The Defence of Monarchy and the Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown will appear a very page 51. page 47. material part of the Oath of Allegiance It must be considered that all which he makes requisite for transferring the Legal Right of Government to an Usurper who obtains a settled Possession is the Submission or Consent of a Legal Prince Since therefore the Prince in this consented as far as he could to divest himself of his Supremacy which I hope he will say is essential to his Sovereignty it may seem that his Sovereignty may as well be transferred to the People as to any Prince being the Doctor and the Convocation have no Scruples upon the Degeneracy of the Form of Government And therefore our Parliament justly affirmed the Power to have been The Act about the Law proceedings devolved upon the People when they ordered Indictments for Offences during the Vacancy to be laid Contra pacem Regni He grants farther That the Safety of the People is the Supream Law That it will be hard to convince any considering Men that that which is necessary to preserve a Nation is page 41. a Sin This indeed he applies to Submitting to an Usurper But the reason of it goes farther He admits That we have no Direction in Scripture at all about page 22. making or unmaking Kings To which I may apply what he brings to another purpose That when we page 45. are to learn our Duty not from any express Law of God or Nature but from the Reason and Nature of things It is a sufficient Argument that it is not my Duty which will expose me to great Sufferings without serving any good end nay which exposes me to Sufferings for contradicting the natural End and Intention of my Duty And soon after he admits That Men were not made for Princes to be their Slaves and Properties but Princes were made for the Government of Men. That necessity of Preservation may absolve Subjects from their Oaths to their Prince And that page 42. the Preservation of Humane Societies is the ultimate end of Government and will justifie what it makes necessary page 40 41. page 33. Farther yet and more particular I do not think says he the Right and Interest of any Prince so considerable as the Safety and Preservation of a Nation and the Lives and Fortunes of all his Subjects I shall not enquire how far this agrees with his Assertion That if a Limited Monarch were not as irresistible Case of Resist p. 208. as the most Absolute the most Absolute and Despotick Government is more for the Publick Good than a Limited Monarchy But certain it is had the Doctor taken as much time to consider the direct Consequences of these Noble Truths for justifying the Shakeing off a Tyrannical Power Usurp'd over the Subjects as he did for bringing himself to submit to what he will have to be an Usurpation upon a Legal Prince he could not but have seen that they who contributed towards this Revolution discharged their Duty to God and their Country much better than they who were Unnatural to their Country in adhereing to the Interest of one whom the Doctor Page 2. An Oath to fight for the King does not oblige us to
certain Sign to us that God placed him in it however the Right to the Crown is so Sacred that God himself cannot alter it without a miraculous Interposition For that Providence which removes and sets up Kings does not tho God Pag. 26. Pag. 14. gives the Man in Possession the true and rightful Authority of a King and makes him true and rightful King And indeed notwithstanding Gods setting up a King and making him Rightful as far as his Authority can the measures of Obedience are Doubtful there are different degrees of Settlement and Submission and the Convocation Pag. 17. Book leaves it a very great question Whether Allegiance can be due to an Usurper while the right Heir lives I should not tell any but Friends the Art I have used about the Story of Jaddus the High Priest whose Scruple against taking an Oath to Alexander during Darius his Life is the Foundation of a Canon wherein the Church declares If any Man affirm that Juddus having Sworn Allegiance Canon 30. to Darius might have lawfully born Arms against him he doth greatly Err. I know that if I had taken notice of this part of the Canon it would have seem'd a very Foreign Interpretation to say The meaning was no more than this that he having Sworn Allegiance to Pag. 8. Darius could not make a voluntary Dedition of himself to Alexander If this Art of mine should be publish'd in the Streets of Gath some Barbarous Philistines would be ready with rude Clamours and unchristian Vid. Pref. p. 1. Censures to say That I used the Canons as I did Bracton whom with a curious Vid. Case of Resistance p 196. Bracton Lex facit Regem attribuat ergo Rex Legi quod Lex attribuitâ—ei viz. Dominationem potestatem non est etenim Rex ubi dominatur voluntas non Lex piecing together the beginning and end of a Paragraph I brought over cleaverly to my side after the Rogue had said in the middle That the King receives his Dominion and Power from the Law But not a word more of this and take a short safe Rule with you Never Resist when you are like to be Crush'd for it and not to do your Legal Prince any Service Be not righteous over much why should ye destroy your selves Ye may be preserved for Good Times should your Legal Prince Land with an Army then your Oaths of Allegiance may equally Ballance on both side and you may lye still till Providence has declared it self or take that side which has most Indications of its Favour In this last Particular I may seem to misrepresent the Doctor who may be thought to have determined the Point absolutely on the side of this Government when the People have not only submitted to it but the late King's Power is broken and there is no prospect of his helping his Friends In such case he says If it be visible that the dispossessed Prince can never recover his Throne again Page 18. but by making a new Conquest of the Nation by Foreigners who will be our Masters if they conquer and no gentle ones neither We may then look upon the new Prince as advanced and setled by God in his Throne and therefore such a King as we owe an entire Obedience and Allegiance to 1. But if we observe what he says upon the Enquiry by what means the dispossessed Prince shall recover his Right it will appear that he lays the Subject under no higher Obligation to the Prince in Possession than not to assist the other but I do not find that he thinks they are bound to defend the Possession though they have sworn Allegiance which implies a legal Defence according to their Abilities so that if he speaks out he will not yield entire Obedience and Allegiance to be due all Men he says are not bound to list themselves Soldiers and though he allows the Militia and Posse Com. to be a legal Defence he no where says that Men are bound to act Page 31. in it against their legal King as he supposes the dispossessed Prince to be so that Men only run the hazard of the Penalty if Providence should still keep on the side of the Possessor Nay upon his Principles if it be safe Duty leads us to take part with his legal King out of Possession Whether a Commission granted by such a King be a legal Commission Page 71. he makes such a nice point in Law as he is not Lawyer enough to decide but if we go to him as a Divine he will tell us the Sovereign Power is inseparable from his Person and tho Case of Ref. pag. 20. the Commission be not legal in form it has the Authority of Sovereign Power 2. I do not find that he allows the Prince who is in Possession to defend God's Authority against the suppos'd legal Right and neither Prince nor People may defend the Kingdom against the legal King and foreign Forces 3. If the Doctor thinks the Rights of the Church or of the Monarchy injured in either of these Cases he seems to encourage the Subjects to resist God's Authority In the late Times of Rebellion and Usurpation he says all the Friends of Monarchy Page 48. and of the English Government and of the Liberties of their Country and of their own Honors and Fortunes were bound in Interest to take all Opportunities to restore the late King The Church he owns is provided for now Page 50. But he says if it be well considered the Defence of Monarchy Page 47. and the Rights and Prerogatives thereof will appear a very material part of the Oath which may bind Subjects when the Person of the King is changed and may make them think themselves more obliged to restore such a Prince when they cannot restore Monarchy and the ancient Laws and Government of the Nation without him God's Authority it seems in these Respects is suspended under God's King or other Minister if he but allowed the same under Man's his legal King I fear it would set aside his Doctrine of Passive Obedience when the Constitution is violated as according to his Notion of the Rights of Soveraignty that is of the Person of the King it is greatly by the Bill of Rights nor is it likely to be restor'd but with the late King to whom they had ascrib'd it 4. The danger from the Foreign Invasion be may answer in the same way as he does the danger of the legal Prince's losing his Right for ever if not assisted by his old Subjects viz. This may be called a difficulty in Providence but no difficulty to the Subject if he pursue his Duty that is if according to his Rule he cautiously wait upon the Motions or rather Events of Providence 5. If the Doctor will in such a Case yield as entire Obedience to the King of Providence as he did to the legal King he has as I shall shew learn'd this