against Law and they are at least as guilty Instruments of Rage and Violence as any Minister of State can be who in times to Peace in complyance with a Kings Will does most unjustly kill and spoil the People These things well considered it will easily appear That it cannot be the Peoples Sin if K. James should lose his Rights for want of their Assistance Because in the present Circumstances they are no more obliged to assist Him than they would have been to assist a Fellow-subject against an injurious and tyrannical Act of his whilst he kept up Government In that Case the good of the Community and the great Benefit which every one receives from Government might well oblige a calamitous Person to passive Obedience or to be content to suffer wrongfully and it might well oblige all others not to tumultuate or to disturb the publick Weal for the regaining of his Right In both Cases men are obliged to Pity and Charity but not to Assistances with Force of Arms because the Good of the Community in both Cases are alike against such Actions For the late K. James having left the People without provision for Law and Justice and without Government is now as much destitute of any Plea from thence as the injur'd Subject ever was and he that now acts in his behalf has no Security that he does not act against great and important Duties all that which he ows to his Country his People his Religion his God he is not secured but that he acts for Will against Law for Tyranny against Justice for Idolatry against Christianity to pull down Truth and to set up a Lye a Cheat the most impudent that ever was which has always advanced it self by Insolence and Cruelty without Regard to the Law of God or Man. He that thinks of these things may well allow himself time to consider before he undertakes to Act. And he that does so will soon find that there is a vast difference between Passive Obedience and Active Assistances For tho a Man may and is bound to suffer wrongfully for his Conscience and for his Religion from an ill Master an ill Governor or an ill King as St. Peter intimates 1. Pet. 2.19 yet he is not bound to assist to fight for to support him in the doing those ill things S. Paul Rom. 13. requires Christians to be Subject to the higher Powers not to resist the power to look upon him who beareth the Sword as a Minister of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil By those injunctions he obligeth them to Passive Obedience not to tumultuate not to disturb Government but to live peaceably and quietly whether the higher Powers were good or bad men and that too whether they had good or bad Titles to those Powers for that was for their own Good and for the Good of the Community Therefore he exhorts them further 1. Tim. 2.2 to pray for Kings and all that are in Authority that is whether they be good or bad Men whether they had good or bad Titles for this end That they might lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty that is because this tended to their own Good and the Good of the Community Nero Who then was the highest Power and bore the Sword was certainly a very bad Man and he had no Title to the Power for he got the possession against the Right of the true Heir by a seasonable poysoning of Claudius his Antecessor yet he being in Possession the Christians are commanded to submit and be subject not to resist but to pray for him This will not be easily thought to have been required in Favour of Him or for his sake but for the reason which St. Paul gives that the Christians who were under his Power might lead peaceable and quiet lives in the Profession and Practice of their Religion or in all Godliness and Honesty Thus far then and upon this accompt it may be granted that Christians are obliged to be subject not to resist to pray for Emperors and Kings so that we keep in mind that all these Duties refer to them as they are Powers as they bear the Sword as they are in Authority that is as they keep up Rule and Order and Government amongst the Societies of Men. But if it should happen that any such a one either Emperor or King should lay aside his Power throw away his Sword make himself uncapable of executing Wrath upon evil doers be not in Authority but so far out of it that he cannot contribute toward their leading a peaceable and quiet life if he withdraw so from Government that he leaves the People without benefit of Law and Justice in these Cases there is nothing in those Texts that refer to Him nothing that obliges the People either to passive Obedience or any other Duty in respect of Him. So much for the understanding the Nature of and the Obligation to Passive Obedience it is a Duty incumbent upon Christians in certain Cases for certain ends and purposes But as to Active Assistances by fighting and warring for one Pretender against another or in behalf of a right Title to a Crown against a bad one Scripture gives no directions lays no duty upon Christians but leaves them to the Laws of their several Countrys to the Obligations they are under in Civil Societies Suppose that Nero at the coming of Galba had escaped Death and withdrawn out of the Territories of the Empire and left the People just as K. James did without making any Provision for Law and Justice would the Christians then by Virtue of their Christianity have been obliged to take up Arms in his behalf to recover his Rights and resettle him in the Power What Text can be cited for such a Duty as this St. Paul blesses God that he was once delivered from the mouth of this Lyon and must succeeding Christians after his Death and cruel Martyrdom be obliged to offer themselves to that Mouth must they inable him to crantch and tear in pieces as many as he pleases and execute all the direful effects of his Rage and Fury This is against Humanity and cannot be a Christian Doctrine it was certainly enough for some of them to submit and suffer wrongfully and perform all the Duties of a Passive Obedience whilst others under his Government might perhaps live peaceable and quiet lives or else received some Benefits of the usual Forms of Law. Whatever more than this they might have done in his behalf had been more than their Duty as they were Christians and if they had prevailed for his Restoration they must have looked upon themselves as the Causes of all the Mischiefs and Outrages which he would have committed But suppose another Case a little nearer to the present Circumstances and perhaps may hit the Thoughts of some particular Persons What if Dioclesian had reassumed the Purple and redemanded the Imperial Throne which he had not
yet the descending Title from Ancestors that gives the true Value and Estimate of a King for the Name is equivocal and in several Countries signifies a very different state of Power and the descending Title comes to him just as other Titles to Estates come to other Men. That which gives him his true Value is Government or that which knits him to his People and his People to him so that they become one Body united together He as Head they as Members He influencing and directing they under Managery and Disposal and all this according to the Make and Frame of that particular Body whereof He is the Head. Thus a King as Head is in value answerable to the whole Body because all the Parts in their activities receive Influence and Direction from him It is the Head that sees dangers and advantages and accordingly gives order to the Foot to move forward or backward without such Notices and Influences the whole cannot be preserved each part must lose its Activities and all the Advantages it hath in the present State of being Upon this account it is that the Arm puts up it self to suffer to bear to receive the impending blow which was design'd against the Head because by the Preservation of that the whole is secured Thus a King as Head influencing the whole is in value as great as all the People But if we put the Case either in Body natural or Body politick that all influences from the Head are intercepted and no direction comes to the Members from it then each part begins to have a value of its own which may be as much or greater than that of the Head for it is the usefulness that gives the true value to the Head for whilst all the Senses are with it and all the Nerves and Muscles are under the Managery of it if these be directed according to their natural Activities infinite are the Benefits that come from the government of the Head. But if the natural Head could be capable of taking a froward Capricio against the Body and would not permit the Eyes to be open or the Ears to hear or the Mouth to receive in nourishment or the Nerves to move the parts or would contrive to do these things not in the ways and methods of Nature but by appointments of its own as suppose it should cut off the joynts of the Fingers and Toes of the Arms Legs and Thighs and fasten them again with Wires instead of Nerves in this Case the Head could not effectually influence those parts as formerly nor could they be alike plyant to the directions of the Head and so the Head would be less useful to the whole and consequently of less value in it self Now perhaps such a Capricio never entred into a Head natural but politick Heads have often acted in similar ways to it They have slighted the proper Conveyances whereby according to the Frame of establish'd Governments the effects of their Power should descend down to the People and set up new ways and methods of their own Contrivance and have taken upon them to rule by Will and Humor and Project without and against the Laws of the established Government and it may be against their own Oaths whereby they have nulled the mutual Trusts that should be between King and People and broken the Bonds that naturally unite one to the other whereby they become one Body politick and so they have made themselves useless to the People and the People to them In such a Case whatever the Title is yet the true value of the King necessarily decreases and he becomes not answerable in value to the whole People But if there happens to be a Separation of one from the other either by Death or manifest Abrenunciation or Abdication or plenary Dereliction or if it be a subitary Dereliction but such a one as leaves the People bereft of Law and Justice without Provisions for their Security and without sufficient Ground of hope that upon his return he will lay aside his mischievous Project of governing according to Pleasure but will let the Influences of Regal Power descend to the People in the regular and avowed ways which the Laws of the established Government require In these Cases as the People are without a King so they must have another in his stead who must be substituted in the same way that the other was instituted that is by creating mutual Trusts in one another which only can effectually and solemnly be done by giving and taking mutual Oaths to and from one another X. If they can contract with another so as to become his People and he their King they may then take Oaths to Him. For if the Oaths which K. James took to them and they to him did not inseparably joyn them together so that he must as long as he lives remain their King and they his People inasmuch as notwithstanding those Oaths he may if he will renounce and abdicate and entirely desert the Government and upon such Renunciation Abdication and plenary Desertion they no longer are or can be his People From hence it must follow that in certain Cases there may be a separation of King from People and so of People from King notwithstanding their Oaths mutually taken and given to one another and then the People must be at Liberty to become Subjects to another and by new Oaths to secure Him of their Fidelity without which they can never become a People or Body Politick Therefore in such a Case they may take new Oaths and the present circumstances of our Affairs will make such a Case if the premises be true All this is true but yet some will not allow it because they are under an opinion that the Subjects are tyed faster by their Oaths to the King than the King is by his to them and consequently they think that if a King should imprudently or rashly desert his People yet He may at pleasure reassume the Government over them and require them to return to their obedience and the duty of Subjects because he had a Title to the Regal power and an Estate cannot be surfeited by a Mistake or act of Imprudence Now this Opinion is altogether groundless it has no foundation from the nature of Oaths and is contrary to the nature of Truth and whereas all the high Perogatives of Kings suppose the good of the Community this without reason deprives it of all possible means of Safety XI They ought to take the Oaths because thereby they will get again into a state of Government become a People have the benefit of Laws be secured from Violence and Wrong All these they must desire and endeavour after it is not onely their Interest but Duty to do it And without Oaths which only can beget mutual trusts and so create a sufficient power none of those things can be secured And why should they not do it as they love their Lives their Liberties their Properties their Religion
legally and formally renounced or abdicated If he had done this after that time when Constantine was in possession of the Power and had declared himself a Christian and resolved to support Christianity I say what if he or his Friends at that time had made their Argument and sent abroad this Plea in his behalf That he was once Emperor owned and acknowledged as such in full exercise of the Power he had never Demised or Abdicated or Deserted the Government for so his Colleague Maximianus Herculeus really thought and did actually reassume and persuaded Dioclesian to do the same he had withrawn indeed and stept aside to his Gardens at Salonae to see how his Cabbages thrived to take care that they were well ordered so that they might live and grow and become at length great according to his Wishes but he is now returned and demands his former Rights and expects that the People should come in to his Assistance Here the Query is what the Christians would and what they ought to do And what can we think Would they leave their Constantine their dearest Friend their Brother Christian their Deliverer the greatest Blessing that God had ever given to the Christian Name one that freed 'em from Slavery and Misery from the Racks and Gibbets by which other Christians had formerly suffered and were then anew designed against them and actually preparing for them One who had secured to them the common Rights of Liberties and Properties which by Law they ought to have and which others were complotting injuriously by Force and Violence to snatch from them What can we think That Dioclesian their Enemy a known Persecutor a furious Designer against themselves their Lives their Religion might be able to execute all the mischievous purposes which he or the naughty People about him might contrive He that can think that the Christians would have done this he must have express clear Texts to prove that this was their Duty or else he must think that they were mere Bedlams and Mad Men. And when he has done that he must conclude too that God the Father had resolved that his Son Christ should never have a Kingdom in this World to be sure not that which is promised to be set upon a Hill unto which all Nations might resort but that he had predestinated Christians not only to a Purgatory but a Hell in this World from whence there is no Redemption For if they must choose Misery when they have the greatest Appearances possible that he by his Providence works most effectually for their delivery then they must be miserable without hope of Recovery Many more things might be added to shew that the Christians Duty and Interest go the same way in this and such like Cases but it belongs to the Adversary if there be any such to prove Christians under duty by Christs Law to give Active Assistances either to Nero or Dioclesian or any like them for the recovery of their Rights after they have withdrawn from the Government and left the Community without any benefit of Protection and Defence from them It was enough for them to be submitted unto to be not resisted whilst they were the powers and bore he Sword. And it was enough for the Christians to be under Passive Obedience all that time and they were sufficiently exercised with it Beyond this it is not conceivable that God would lay any farther Duty upon them He might as well command them to put Swords into mad-mens hands as oft as they find them disarmed He may as well command them to hang themselves for the sport of Fools for it is much the same thing to assist those in the regaining of lost power who will certainly rack hang and gibbet them No publick Good no true Right of Princes no Interest of Religion can be forced to speak one word in this Case tho each of them most apparently and strongly plead for the Duty of Passive Obedience It is not for the Publick Good to favor the Cause of fierce violent heady bold presumptuous men or of those that set lip their own wills and humours against Law and Justice Whilst they are Powers the publick Good requires that we should suffer 'em and suffer for them But if they divest themselves of Power Whether with design or by mistake their Cause is not favorable the Publick Good is no way concerned for them if it be not for the avoidance of a greater Evil. If they be catched with a Why-not who can help it if they will go none are bound to fetch them back their Rights as they are Princes do not require it and there is no Vertue no point of Religion that does oblige men to it I have been long in this point on purpose to free mens thoughts from Confusion and Mistake that they may see what vast difference there is betwixt the Duty of Passive Obedience and the false plea's for Active Assistances I shall end this by hinting a known Apologue which seems to speak clearly common Sense and Reason and may help the apprehensions of some Men. It is said that a fierce wild Beast was catched in a snare and there held till he was almost famished a man passing by the Beast beseeches him to unty and loose his bonds and set him at Liberty and for that favour promises Amity and perpetual Friendship the man complies and the Beast is freed He must live by prey and since he had no other to supply his necessities he must prey upon him The man pleads his merits that he had saved the Beast's life and therefore ought not to lose his own for it The Beast alledges present Urgences and insuperable Necessities Whilst they are high in this altercation they are both cited to the Lyons Den and the Fox is appointed to hear and decide the Controversie betwixt them Upon hearing he finds there is much in the Mans Plea and much in the Beasts and would not positively determine against either But that he might judge fairly and equitably at last he fix'd upon this Expedient That all things should be put into the same state wherein they were before the Controversie began Let the Beast says he be put into the snare again and let the Man pass by him again and if at the request of the Beast the Man think good to loose him again let the Beast e'en devour him if he will. FINIS