as this wherein loose Principles make loose Practices so that you will find very few Men of strict or if you please Doctor of stupid and slavish Vertue In particular if you please to look about I believe you will find almost as few men of stupid and slavish Sobriety or stupid and slavish Chastity as of stupid and slavish Loyalty Nay if the general Complaints be true there are but very few of stupid and slavish Justice and Honesty For why should a Man of Honour as the Cardinal said be a Slave to his Word or to his Oath either especially of late Dr. Tillotson's Serm. of Hell-Torments since we can hardly tell how to reconcile the eternal Misery of Hell with the Justice and Goodness of God who notwithstanding all his Threatenings of it in Scripture is free to doe what he pleases But this Doctor doth not belong to you but to some of those Nine Men who you told * In a Letter to a Friend containing some Queries about the New Commission for making Alterations in the Liturgy Canons c. of the Church of England sent to the Press by Dr. Sherlock and published a little before the first Sitting of the Convocation us not long before you took the Oath had Latitude enough to conform to a Church de facto which had Power on its side and Tenderness and Moderation enough to part with any thing but their Church Preferments When you were at the Writing of that Letter †p 5. the A. Bp. and other Bishops and Clergymen under Suspension were as eminent for a prudent and well tempered Zeal as for their constant Loyalty but now their well tempered Zeal though not one degree altered from its Temper is factious and their constant Loyalty stupid and slavish Allegiance and what else you will hereafter be pleased to call it or them 13. Having now I hope vindicated the Opinions and Reasonings of some among our selves from Singularity and Novelty by shewing that they do not contradict the general Sense of Mankind but are the very Sense of the wisest and best part of it I come now to examine what you say for I cannot call what you say Arguments against them p. 15. who as you tell the World withdraw from our Communion because we pray for K. William and Q. Mary but they say and I fear are able to prove it too that it is you that have withdrawn from them and their Communion and that the Schism and the causes of it is in you and not in them But to let that pass you assert that St. Paul in your Text makes no difference of Kings but that they do but I tell you Sir that they make as little difference as St. Paul for they grant that he commands us to pray for all Kings but then they say that the Usurpers of Kingdoms as long as they remain so are not Kings nor within the Intention of your Text. But you tell us they say That St. Paul means only Lawful and Rightful Kings it is true they do say so but then they also say that there are no Kings but what are Lawful or have the Legal Right and that all others exercising the Kingly Power in any Kingdom against Law are onely called Kings as Idols are called Idols but are not true Kings You tell us again the Commandment is general to pray for Kings and they say so too but then they tell you that this doth not bind them to pray for Usurpers who call themselves Kings and are so called by those who set them up against Law but are not so But then you think you ask them a very confounding Question though they have answered it an hundred times before viz. Whether there is any such Distinction as this in Scripture that we must not pray for all Kings but onely for Legal Kings To this they answer that all Kings in the nature of the thing and in Scripture intendment are Legal Kings as all Husbands and Wives in the sense of the Scriptures are Husbands and Wives by lawful Wedlock though an Adulterer may sometimes usurp the Name of a Husband as did the pretended Husband of the Samaritan Woman whom our Saviour told her for that reason was not her Husband And as the Duty of Wives to their Husbands commanded by the Apostle is in no danger by asserting that they must not be subject to any but Rightful Husbands So neither to answer your trifling Question are Subjects in any danger of being delivered from the Duty in your Text of praying for Kings by teaching that we must pray for none but lawful Kings But then you tell us that this distinction of lawful Kings from Kings that are not lawful * p. 17. is Arbitrary and that it hath no †p. 20. solid Foundation in Reason and Nature but they have told you over and over that it is a Real and no Arbitrary distinction founded upon the common Notions of Right and Wrong Truth and Falshood and that it is a distinction not of a thing from it self which is Arbitrary but of a thing from what it is not and that it is as necessary for Subjects to make this distinction between Kings as for Children and Wives to distinguish betwixt lawful and unlawful Husbands and Fathers or Clergy-men to distinguish between Canonical and Uncanonical Bishops or to distinguish in Religion between the true God and Idols who are worshipped in the stile of Gods And therefore to come to your Latria and Dulia to which you foolishly compare this distinction p. 1◠they return it upon you and say that the Scriptures appropriate the Allegiance of Subjects of which praying is a part to lawful Kings but that you are more than a Papist in Politicks because you are for giving away not only Dulia or half Allegiance but Latria or the whole Allegiance Ibid. from True to Idol-Kings And then as for avoiding the Duty of the Fifth Commandment by the Vow Corban which you misapply to them that returns upon your self for they have shew'd you again and again in their Answers that that Commandment directs the Duty of it to true and lawful both natural and civil Parents and have made it appear that you are one of the Pharisees who have endeavoured to make that and other Commandments of none effect by giving the Name of Kings to pure Providential Usurpers though they are no more Kings by possessing the lawful Kings Throne than Idols are Gods by possessing the Temple of the true God Idols have all the Ensigns of Divinity as you say the other have of Majesty and by God's own Providence come to be invested with all the Religious Rights and Ceremonies of the true God and often happen to be worshipped and recognized for Gods by the People and Estates of Idolatrous Realms but for all that they are but abominable Idols that ought to be thrown down and broken in pieces and the more cursed and abominable by
how much the more their Worship is like of that of the true God But you tell us p. 18. that there is Reason to conclude that St. Paul spoke of such Kings i. e. of Kings that were set up by the Estates and People without legal Title if we will allow that he spoke the language of the Age wherein he lived To which I answer That neither the Language of that Age nor any Age before or since the Apostle wrote ever meant such Kings whenever they spoke of Subjects duty in Praying for Kings and that when the Apostle wrote the Roman Powers or King or Emperour then in being was a Lawful as well as a Providential King and that therefore he is to be understood onely of lawful Kings p. 20. But you on the contrary assert That he wrote in a time of most violent Vsurpation when he had reason to distinguish between lawful Kings and such as were not lawful but no Man of less Forehead and Conscience than your self would have asserted it after the contrary had been so fully proved against you Indeed had the Emperor when the Apostle wrote been an Usurper you had said something to purpose but this you cannot prove and therefore you only say it But had it been true you might easily have proved it by shewing who was the claiming injured Party and to whom the Empire belonged by Law and whose Right that unlawful Emperor did usurp No body will deny but that the Apostle wrote his Epistle to the Romans and his first Epistle to Timothy in the Reigns of Caligula Claudius or Nero. But to pass over the Roman Historians to which your Answerers appeal to prove they were no Usurpers I will here prove from the Roman Coins that they were lawful Princes upon whom the Senate and People of the Common-Wealth of Rome had conferred the Sovereign Authority as Authority signifies Right as well as Power Now to prove this I must advertise you if you did not know it before that all Coines in which we find †Suppetunt plane quam plurima ut hae literae S. C. quae in Aereis Nummis Romanorum in Argentis nonnullis leguntur E. X S C. quae Senatûs Consulti Auctoritate Cusos significant Anton August Dialog 1. S. C. or EXS. C. as also S. P. Q. R. shew that they were coined by the special Order and Authority of the Senate And as to their Inscriptions and Devises were not left to Discretion of Triumviri monetales or Masters of the Mint Therefore all such Coines as learned Medallists observe are of greater Authority than any Private Historians as being so many Publick Acts of the Senate by which they gave as well as declared the Powers which are read in the Inscriptions of such Coines I will begin with Caligula of whom there are many such Senatarian Coines which on the Front or ℞ of them have S. C. or EXS. C. or S. P. Q. R. with all his Sovereign Imperatorial Titles Of the former sort are these which about his Head bear the following Inscriptions CAIUS CAESAR AUG GERMANICUS PON. MAX. TR. P. S. C. and CAIUS CAESAR DIVI AUG PRON. AUG P. M. TR. POT III. P. P. S. C. Of the latter sort are those which have the foresaid Titles on the Front and S. C. or S. P. Q. R on the ℞ ℞ as that which within an oken Crown or Corona Civica hath inscribed S. P. Q. R. P. P. ob C. S. So that hath S. C. on the ℞ in which are stamped the Heads of his three Sisters Agripina Drusilla and Livia The ℞ of another bearing the former Titles hath the Temple which he dedicated to Angustus with S. on one side of it and C. on the other And there is another curious piece extant which hath the Head of Agripina surrounded with this Inscription AGRIPPINAM F. MAT. C. CAESARIS AUG and on the Reverse a Tensa drawn by two Mules and this Inscription S. P. Q. R. MEMORIAE AGRIPPINAE Then for Claudius there is a Coin which hath this Inscription about his Head TI. CLAUDIUS CAESAR AUG GERM. P. M. TR. P. IMP. P. P. S. C. Another hath this Inscription about his Image TI. CLAUDIUS CAESAR AUG and on ℞ P. M. TR. P. IMP. COS. II. S. C. Another hath this Inscription about his Image T. CLAUDIUS CAESAR AUG P. M. TR. P. IMP. P. P. and on ℞ SPES AUGUSTA S. C. Another about the Head of his Mother hath ANTONIA AUGUSTA and on ℞ TITUS CLAUDIUS CAESAR AUG P. M. S. C. On the ℞ of another bearing his Imperial Titles there is within an Oken Crown EXSC OB CIVES SERVATOS On ℞ of another within an Oken Crown S. P. Q. R. P. P. OB C. S Another ℞ hath CONSTANTINE AUGUSTI S.C. Another SPES AUGUSTA S. C. And another ℞ in which is stamped the Emperor and the Praetorian Signifer PRAETOR RECEPT S. C. Lastly for Nero. There is one with an Oken Crown bearing this Inscription about it NERONI CLAUD DIVI F. CAES AUG GERM. IMP. TR P. and within it EX S. C and on ℞ AGRIPPINA AUG DIVI CLAUD NERONIS CAES. MAT. about the Heads of Nero and Agrippina looking one upon another Another with Nero CLAUD CAES. AUG GERM. 〈…〉 and on the 〈…〉 Another hath NERO CAES. AUG IMP. about his Image and on ℞ PONT MAX. TR P. about an Oken Crown and in it E X. S. C. And as for the ℞ ℞ on this Emperour's Coines one hath PONTIF MAX. TR. P. V. P. P. E X. S. C. another hath PONTIF MAX. TR. P. VII COS. IIII. P. P E X. S. C. Another PONTIF MAX. TR. P. X. COS. IIII. P. P. EX S. C. Another a Pomana Armata with a Victoriola on her hand E X. S. C. Another under a triumphant Arch SC. And these Coins prove as plainly that these Emperours were lawful and rightful Emperors as that of Pompey proves him to have been the lawful Admiral of Rome which hath this Inscription POMPEIUS MAGNUS PRAEFECT CLAS ET ORAE MARITIMAE which Office he bore as Historians shew us in the Piratical War And now Doctor as I have shewn from these Coins that that Emperor whoever he was under whom St. Paul wrote was a lawful Emperor or rightful Possessor of the Emperial Power so let me ask you one Question is it needful that I should distinguish here betwixt true and counterfeit Coins or not If not then it was much less needful for the Apostle to distinguish between lawful Kings and Kings that were not lawful because he wrote under a lawful King that had no Competitor at home or abroad to claim or prosecute his Right against him But because there are many Cavans or counterfeit Coins I here distinguish between them though I think I need not and tell you that I have made use of none but true Coins But if you suspect me you may borrow a litte from the Bp. of St. Asaph as you did a little * See the learned Answer to the
of it Your second Question they say agrees not with your first nor with the design of your Sermon For when you ask them whether they are as certain that it is unlawful to pray for Kings legally invested c. as they are that the Apostle commands us to pray for Kings they say that according to your Hypothesis the questoin ought to be put of Kings illegally invested with the Royal Power and then they answer that illegal Kings cannot be legally invested and as certain that it is as unlawful to pray for illegal Kings as they are that the Apostle commands us to pray for Kings and all that are in Authority and likewise add as before to the Answer of the first Question In your third they observe that you call the lawful King 's Right a supposed Right whereas the providential King 's Right is merely so but the lawful King out of Possession hath according to your state of the Controversie a real Right to possess and to recover Possession if he can and therefore if they could wonder at you for any thing they say they should wonder why you call it a supposed Right And in order to answer the question as they are a distinguishing sort of Men so they distinguish about Estates of the Realm and they say they are of three sorts 1. Estates that are always free 2. Estates that are sometimes free And 3. Estates that are never free The first are Sovereign Estates as the Estates of Rome formerly were and those of Venice now are in whom the supreme Authority is lodged and all Persons in their Dominions are subject to them and they are subject unto none The second are the Estates of Elective Kingdoms where there is an Interregnum of Freedom to chuse a new King in as in Poland and some other Kingdoms And the third are the Estates of Hereditary Kingdoms where by Law there is no Interregnum but the last moment of one King's Reign is the first of another and where by consequence all Ranks and Orders of Men are constantly subject even as constantly as if they had but one immortal or never dying King This distinction being premised they answer in Thesi that they are certain that it is the Duty of Subjects to adhere to the legal Right and him that hath it in opposition to an unlawful King put into the Throne by subject and unfree Estates that have no Authority Right or Liberty to make Kings because the Law hath always Kings ready made for them to whom they ought to be subject I say they are certain nay as certain that it is the Duty of Subjects whatever they suffer by it to adhere to the legal Right in such a Case as they are that it is our duty to pray for Kings And then to your last Question they answer that they are as certain that the Roman Powers or Emperors were legal and rightful Powers when the Apostle wrote as that he commanded the Christians to be subject to them and pray for them For they were placed in the Throne by free Estates who had Authority to place them there but you more like a Sophister than a Preacher of Truth take no notice of this plane distinction as if the Estates of all Kingdoms were alike free and Sovereign These Men say you p. 18. will pray for no Kings unless they be legal Kings tho' they have all the Ensigns of Majesty and are invested with the legal Authority and Power with all the legal and customary Rights and Solemnities of Investiture and are acknowledged and recognized by the Estates of the Realm These are fine words Dr. but did you never hear of Realms where Kings are Kings without any Ensigns of Majesty before the Solemnitie of Coronation of Realms where the King quatenus King never dyeth and by consequence where the Estates are always subject to the King and have no Interregnum of Freedom of Realms where for the aforesaid Reason the King is said to demise when he departs this Life and where the King is crowned because he is King and not King because he is crowned Fie Dr. fie I am ashamed of your Ignorance if you have lived among Lawyers so long and not know these things or of something worse than that if you knew them and suppress them because they did not suit with you Providential Scheme I have now Dr. answered your Questions plainly and perhaps more plainly than you desired but to shew you and the Worshipful Bench how much you dare impose upon them I must ask you the same questions the same proper questions about degrees of Evidence and Certitude p. 20. Come therefore Dr. sublime seraphick irrefragable Dr. for once vouchsafe to answer a poor little Writer who humbly desires to know 1. Whether you are as certain that by all Powers Rom. 13.1 the Apostle means Powers that have no legal Right and Title as well as Powers that have legal Right and Title and prosecute that Right as you are that he expresly teaches that all Power is of God 2. Whether you are as certain that it is lawful to pray for unlawful Kings who have no legal Right to the Power which they exercise as you are that the Apostle commands us to pray for Kings and all that are in Authority 3. Whether you are as certain that it is the Subjects duty to adhere to a supposed Providential Right against the Laws of the Realm and in opposition to the lawful King and his Right as you are that it is our duty to pray for Kings 4. Are you as certain that the Roman Powers when the Apostles wrote were illegal and usurping Powers which you affirm as you are that St. Paul commanded Christians to be subject to them and to pray for them These Dr. are your own Questions and doubtless you can answer them better than any other Man but when you think fit to do so let me entreat you not to perplex the Controversie of Right and legal Right with the Word antecedent as you have done in your Sermon 4 or 5 times merely to amuze your Readers and fill them with Prejudice against these Men as if they would own no Man for King but such as comes to the Administration of the Sovereign Power with an antecedent Right But this Dr. is a great and I fear a wilful mistake of yours for provided that he that hath the actual Administration of Government hath a legal Right to it it is all one to them whether it be an antecedent concomitant or consequent Right Right or legal Right is the thing that they look after in him that hath the Sovereign Power and that alone which can lay the Obligation of Obedience upon Men's Consciences and command Subjection from them Sovereign Power how providentially soever it is attained is but Sovereign Force and Tyranny without it and to speak in logical Strictness King is a name of Law and Right and assoon as a Man hath the Right which the