Allegiance required by K. W. and Q. M. of the Clergy at least in particular contain in them nothing but what they may lawfully do during the ceasing Obligation of Obedience to K. J. For those Acts according to the former Distribution must be either Bearing of Arms at their Command or assisting the Forces they raise by sending in Militia Soldiers or Payment of Taxes imposed by them in the legal Methods or Preaching or Praying for them Now the first of these bearing Arms in Person no Clergy-man as was before said can by Law be required to do and therefore they may be assured that will not by their Majesties who are engaged to govern by Law be demanded of them And as to the furnishing out such of the standing Militia appointed by Law as their Ecclesiastical or Temporal Revenues render them liable unto as the Law it self justifies him that by Command doth it so doth it by Penalties enforce those that refuse so to do And so that Assistance will come under the Consideration of the third Particular the Payment of Taxes in form of Law imposed And the Payment of such may by the plenary Possessor of the Throne be exacted from all Subjects with all the Penalties incurred by refusing in case any one deny them So that besides the Liberty left any one to deny them if he will run the hazard the quiet Payment of them amounts indeed to no more in a conscientious as well as prudent Consideration than the purchasing our own ease and compounding for a less Sum out of our Estates with those who may upon refusal enforce from us a far greater And we had somewhat above Forty years since a Case of the same nature though with far less colour of Law than this at present wherein the doing of this was universally allowed by the severest Assertors of Allegiance to K. C. I. and II. and therefore thence in Reason I think be now less disputable as to its lawfulness to those who have received the strictest Principles they argue from in the present Circumstances from them as will appear anon more largely in the handling of the Ninth Proposition And yet withal I conceive there is more to be said for such Payments now then at that Time there was Partly upon a Military Account because the end for which the Soldiery are to be maintained though it be true that in that War a dispossessed King was kept out of his Throne as in this is far more justisiable now than at that time it was For those Arms were taken against a Protestant Prince and upon false Imputations of his Inclinations to Popery only whereas in this case those Fears are really made good both as to the Person and his Designs And those great Concerns of our Religion Laws and Liberties were only then concluded to be in danger from remote Consequences of some suspicious Acts which are now bare-facedly undermined And partly upon a Civil Account The Laws have now their Free Course whereas then all Law was trampled on by the conquering Party either by Military Force or by Arbitrary Courts Whence it is but meet that that Law and the Administrators of it should be maintained by all those who receive the Benefit and Advantage thereof Nor is it certainly more inconsistent with the Obligations of any former Allegiance to pay for the Support of that Power that maintains me in my Right than to appeal to its Courts of Justice for legal Relief against any that would deprive me thereof The next Particular Preaching for them as the Persons actually invested with Supreme Authority can as required of us import no more than that which is our Duty at all Times by the Apostles Rule Tit. 3. 1. The putting our People in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates That is actively or passively to obey those Laws with the actual Administration whereof they are intrusted by the actual Possession of that Supremacy whence they are derived For as to the Title by which they hold that Supremacy as they will not allow us to maintain that of the dispossessed Prince in the Pulpit So neither do they there require us to maintain their own And it is well this is not imposed upon us for if it were we might have some colour to reluct seeing it is justly disputable whether it were ever any part of our work to dispute the Titles of Princes in the Pulpit or by asserting of them in divided Congregations to occasion them to be disputed by others whatever our private Judgment may be concerning them For if it were so it is beyond all doubt to me that our Saviour and his Apostles or some one of them would have left us such certain Measures as might have governed our own and enabled us to satisfie all other Mens Judgments in the Resolution of such various Cases of Conscience as on that account must in all Nations be supposed ever and anon to be started from the different Pretensions of Competitors Nor was it indeed expedient that our Lord should clog that Religion which he was first to recommend to the World universally prejudiced against it at that time upon other accounts with such a Doctrine as would have been more obnoxious to prejudice than any of the rest Such indeed as would probably have rendred all Princes jealous of the Progress of it seeing it would have endangered the exposing all their Titles to the Disputes of its Professors and rendred them determinable according to the Issue of them A Prejudice which he hath wisely prevented by leaving his Followers some general Rules only for their Deportment under such Princes and Governours as they found in present Possession who are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13. 2. and thereby reconciled his Doctrine to the Interests of all actual Superiors by what Title soever they hold their Authority Lastly As to Praying for them it seems but reasonable that seeing we cannot expect to lead quiet and peaceable Lives in all Godliness and Honesty while they that are possessed of Authority over us lead unquiet and unpeaceable ones therefore that being the means by God directed as most proper and effectual to that end I cannot see how it can be rationally doubted whether we may nay rather it follows in my Judgment that we must make Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of Thanks for Kings and all that are in Authority and so for their Majesties at present which may through Divine Grace enable them to promote that end And accordingly the People of God anciently made no scruple to pray euen for the Kings of Babylon who by no other Claim then the Success of their Arms could pretend to Jurisdiction over them Ezra 6. 12. Jer. 29. 7. And the Primitive Christians as Tertullian who also gives us the heads of the Petitions they offered on their behalf abundantly testifieth for these Roman Emperors whose Title was never a jot better as will anon be more fully
ALLEGIANCE VINDICATED OR The TAKERS OF THE New OATH of ALLEGIANCE TO K. William Q. Mary JUSTIFIED AND THE Lawfulness of taking it Asserted in its Consistency with our former Oaths and also with the Doctrine of the Reformed Church of England CONCERNING NON-RESISTANCE PASSIVE OBEDIENCE By a Divine of the Church of England LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pidgeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1690. The Takers of the new Oath of Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary vindicated and the Lawfulness of taking it asserted in its consistency with our former Oaths and also with the Doctrine of the Reformed Church of England concerning Non-resistance and Passive Obedience IT appears sufficiently by this Time I suppose upon Record that the generality of the Reverend Learned and Pious Clergy of this Church have actually taken the Oath in Dispute and their Books every where extant declare that divers of them have written Learnedly in Defence of themselves and their Brethren so doing and have not been wanting in their utmost endeavours to satisfie those of them who yet refuse by offering them all the Arguments they could think of for it and turning every Stone under which they could imagine any considerable objection against it to lie concealed in order to the giving it a satisfactory Solution They have to this purpose unravelled all the Principles of Government and searched into the Reason of them all even from Adam downwards they have particularly with great industry sifted the Legal Constitution of the English Monarchy and the History of all its Monarchs to evidence the Original Contract upon which it is asserted that our Government is founded they have endeavoured to evince the late King to have been a kind of Felo de se as to his Title thereunto by voluntary Abdicating the Throne to which divers Authors also have added his Legal Forfeiture as they suppose by breaking the Original Contract before-mentioned they have fortified the Claim and Title of our present Sovereigns by justifying the late Dutch Invasion together with the rising of the English Nobility and their adherents in the circumstances wherein we then were to assist it they have pleaded the Right of Conquest consequent thereupon if their Present Majesties had thought fit to fix their Throne on that foundation and that being waved by them who have rather chosen to adventure themselves upon the favour of the Nation Assembled in Parliament they have asserted the Legality of the present Parliament for substance although wanting the usual circumstances of Summons c. which in the present conjuncture could not be had to constitute them in all points formally such and by Consequence have inferred the validity of those Acts for the settlement of the Throne which they have made and thereby not only justified the matter of this Oath but also the Authority by which it is imposed and lastly they have by strong Evidence to that Point at least if all other grounds should fail made out the lawfulness if not necessary Duty of paying our Actual Obedience to their Majesties as actually possessed of the Government And yet notwithstanding all these Endeavours of theirs it appears also that divers of the Sacred Function and some of them of the highest Character and Station in this Church have rather than to comply with the rest in taking this Oath already incurred the Penalty of Suspension from and seem inclined yet farther to hazard the being totally deprived which is the Penalty to which Refusers are shortly endangered of their Places and Employments which evidently declares that all that hath been said upon that subject yet hath not been prevalent enough for their plenary satisfaction The consideration whereof I must confess may very well discourage any Person who hath but modesty enough to take a just measure of himself in comparison with those who have Written before so accurately on this Argument as to leave little for any that comes after them to add thereunto from attempting any thing farther of that kind and had certainly had that effect upon my self had I not found it necessary in a sort upon the account of the uncharitable carriage of divers Persons who though it may be they have not so much as looked into any of the Books before-mentioned to understand the Reasons moving us thereto have made it much of their business to censure and condemn both my self and so many of my Reverend Fathers and Brethren as have taken the said Oath to write a few Lines in Justification at least of that which we have done if not also to the conviction of others who still stand out in their refusal and the inducing of them to do the same yet before the approaching expiration of the Term by the Act allowed and the securing themselves in those Stations wherein they may still continue serviceable to this Church to which divers of them as all must acknowledge have hitherto been both a Defence by their learned Pens and an ornament by their personal Qualifications I am sensible I musts needs say by Experience that with the Assertors of some rigorous Principles of Loyalty all the Arguments urged from the Topicks before-mentioned except those of the last sort are of no consideration at all and that even those although they find from them some fairer Quarter then the rest in Thesi or in general yet in the present Case are judged insufficient and unconcluding And this because they are strongly possessed with a persuasion that their former Allegiance is a thing of an everlasting permanent Obligation and in no sort or degree upon any emergency to be transferred from a Prince however dispossessed as one who hath a Title neither forfeitable by any miscarriage nor voidable by any cession or departure unto any other so long as he lives and is not pleased expresly to release it and adhere to the Doctrines of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience as they judge them taught by the Church of England to such a Degree as to pronounce them utterly inconsistent with the Allegiance in this Oath required So that when we have to do with Men of that strain it is necessary that we wave all those former Heads of Arguments above-mentioned and cast the whole stress of this Dispute upon the last in the Issue of this single Question viz. Whether with the saving of those Principles of theirs be they sound or not a Man that professeth Loyalty in its utmost rigours may not yet be at liberty in the present circumstances to take the Oath required to K. W. and Q. M. as actual Possessors of the Throne To this therefore I resolve in this Discourse to confine my self endeavouring to prove the Affirmative and answer all visible Objections to the contrary in the making good the Propositions following The first whereof is this I. That in all Places every one that is by Law in the condition of a Subject owes a Legal Obedience which I take to be no other
under illegal Violence and to seek an occasion of undergoing those Sufferings a Mans self which our Saviour himself allows him if there be no other way open at least by flight to escape Nay I will go yet one step farther in this case and allow the Parties that under shelter of a Royal Commission seek a Man's Destruction to have in some Juncture all the strength of Law on their side and withall suppose him that is so endangered to be by Providence placed in these Circumstances wherein he is for the present though by an unjust and illegal Force preserved from persecuting Hands Let therefore Famous London-Derry be the designed Scene of a Popish Persecution where a Protestant by his Habitation and the Obligation of his other Circumstances resides And is by the making the City a Garrison without his contributing thereunto in the least that we may lay the case as wholly and intirely Passive as may be safe while he remains there This Man is so far possessed with a Conscientious Principle of Passive Obedience that even in these Circumstances he dares not take up Arms with the Garrison when Beleagured as lately to maintain the Walls and therein his own House c. against K. J. and his French and Irish Army as thinking the Defendants Rebels and the Law entirely on the Besiegers side I would fain learn now whether in this Case it be not lawful even for a Man so Principled to accept of the Protection which without his seeking his Habitation gives him be the Hands which defend it what they will even whatever K. J. himself would call them may he not for the present exercise the more Beneficial sort of Patience by suffering himself though sore against his Inclination to be protected againg suffering more grievously by the Popish Besiegers if they could get him into their hands by the supposed Rebel-Governour and his Garrison If not what is he obliged to do Is there any who will judge it to be his Duty by the obligation of his Principle of Passive Obedience to endeavour to raise a Tumult within against the Governour or to betray that Power that illegally protects him by entertaining Spies from the Besiegers or sending them Intelligence You will say it may be this is more than Passive Obedience this is Action rather But still this is in order to the Passivity he thinks he owes the Law Or is he to take a shorter course to it to withdraw himself out of his Protection and deliver himself into the hands of the Loyal Besiegers I confess I should think to the contrary that he should rather thank God and even Rebels for his Protection lye quiet under his shelter whilst he may and content himself with his dispositive Preparation to undergo whatever may befall him with others in case the Garrison come at last to be taken and so expect the reward of his Patience from that God whose call of unavoidable Providence and no Procurement of his own exposeth him to it But suppose after all this is said to weaken it that our highest Brethrens Notion concerning Non-resistance and Passive Obedience should stand firm in reference to K. J. and those Commissioned by him yet am I still at a loss how according to a Paper lately Printed containing the Dying Declaration of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Chichester even that can rationally be improved to the rendring the present Oath of Allegiance to K. W. and Q. M. unlawful Seeing upon the Hypothesis I have before laid do and I hope sufficiently proved the Allegiance promised by it includes nothing which according to it a Man even of those Principles may not lawfully pay and binds him not to contribute more to the hinderance of that Power from being Paramount under which he thinks himself rather obliged to suffer than to obey this that protects him then what may by legal Process be forced from him And what Force in such Circumstances causeth it doth withall excuse as you will see more anon when I have dispatched one Proposition more which is this VIII That the Law of the Land justifies the Subject in the Payment of his actual Allegiance to the actual Possessor of the Throne though wrongfully whilst he continues to be so possessed though at the same time there be another rightful K. out of Possession This I confess is not within my Province to prove so strongly and convincingly as some learned Men of the long Robe have undertaken to do and most think have done beyond Contradiction Nor will I enlarge this Discourse to such a Bulk as the Transcription of what hath been said by them to that purpose would swell it to But I shall content my self with the bare mention of one Famous Statute that of 11. Hen. 7. which highly Indemnifies all Persons that assist the King in being even with Arms against him that is King de Jure The reason whereof must needs be that the Makers of that Statute looked on such Persons either as Innocent supposing them under a Force or as doing their Duty if voluntarily complying with the Divine Providence placing him on the Throne while he sits there This in the next Proposition I shall farther evince from Practise IX That the stoutest Assertors of the Principles of indispensable Allegiance Non-resistance and Passive Obedience formerly have so far complied with the Supream Powers in actual Possession as this Paper pleads for now and been justified in so doing by the most learned and judicious Casuists then living For as to the Payment of Military Taxes to the Long Parliament and the several Models of Government that succeeded or interloped with them in K. C. I. and K. C. II's time appearing at their Bars on their Summons compounding for their Estates at the Rates they imposed Suing and being Sued in their Courts Addressing to them upon occasion in the Terms they directed and by the Titles they assumed yea and more than all this subscribing an Engagement to be true and Faithful to them that is to pay them all that which we call Allegiance Who is there that lived in those Times who knows not that the generality both of the Clergy and Laity who went under the Name of Cavaliers and high Royalists did comply with the prevalent Faction by whatever Name they exercised the Sovereign Authority some more and some less as their Circumstances obliged them through all the Varieties of that Government All which Acts are judged to be in themselves and in ordinary Cases Treasonable Acts and by consequence high Breaches of Allegiance and were no way justifiable but by the Words or Reason at least of the Statute before mentioned And yet he is a great Stranger in our Israel who knows not also that they were justified in so doing by the Determinations of the ablest Lawyers and the most eminent Casuists and especially of the later sort by the Writings of that incomparable Master in Theology Dr. Sanderson afterwards for his Loyal Service in