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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46955	Julian's arts to undermine and extirpate Christianity together with answers to Constantius the Apostate, and Jovian / by Samuel Johnson.	Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.; Constantius II, Emperor of Rome, 317-361.; Jovian, Emperor of Rome, ca. 331-364.	1689 (1689)	Wing J832; ESTC R16198	97,430	242

had been utterly unlawful and an horrid Sin to assist Subjects in the Violation of their Duty and Allegiance and to turn at least a whole Years Revenue of all the spiritual Promotions in England into Swords to be employed in resisting the Ordinance of God. Those Men must needs have a great mind to partake of that Damnation wherewith St. Paul threatens this Sin who were willing to purchase it at so dear a rate By which it appears that this modish Passive Doctrine of submitting for Conscience sake to illegal Violence and all sorts of lawless Oppression is all Madness and Innovation and a thing wholly unknown to the Compilers of the Homilies who dream'd as little of it as they did of the late unnatural destructive War which it produc'd And hereby likewise the Reader will be enabled to judg between me and my Adversaries who is truer to the Doctrine of the Church of England They or I and who are really guilty of Apostacy from it they that retain the Primitive Sense of the first Reformers or they that follow the upstart and new-fangled Opinions of a few mischievous and designing Innovators 3. The last thing to be answered are the Religious Pretences which are fetch'd from Scripture for the support of this Passive Doctrine Before I come to examine the particular Texts which this Author has alledged I shall say somewhat in general concerning the great Impertinency of interessing Scripture in this Controversy for this reason because Christ meddles not with the Secular Government of this World as Dr. Hammond infers from the Scripture it self 1 Cor. 7.22 and our Author in his Preface allows that Inference Or as Luther expresses it because The Gospel doth not bar nor abolish any Politick Laws which Position he always held and Bishop Bilson did believe that it could not be refuted the Truth whereof I shall prove both by direct Argument and by parallel Instances 1. The Scripture does not meddle with the Secular Government of this World so as to alter it for to alter Government is to overthrow the just Compacts and Agreements which have been made amongst Men to which they have mutually bound themselves by Coronation-Oaths and Oaths of Allegiance whereby the duties of Governours and Subjects are become the moral Duties of Honesty Justice and righteous dealing which no Man will say it is the work of the Gospel to destroy or abolish 2. If Scripture has made any alteration in the Secular Government of the World then that alteration is Jure Divino and all Governments which are not reformed according to it are unlawful which if it be said concerning our own Constitution is Treason and if it be said of all other Governments in Christendom is very ill manners for none of them pretend much less can be proved to agree exactly with any such Pattern given in the Mount. In the second place therefore Christianity has given no new measures of Rule and Government nor of Obedience and Subjection but on the other hand has forbidden Men to remove the old Land-marks by confirming and re-inforcing the known Duties of Morality in this Case as it has done in like Cases It has charged Masters to be just to their Servants and Servants to be obedient to their Masters whereby it has created no new Right on either side For Masters were always bound to allow their Servants that which is just and equal and Servants to yield Obedience but in what measures or proportions we must not expect to find in Scripture for that is left to be determined by former particular Contracts or by the Laws and Customs of every Country For even those Precepts of absolute Obedience for Servants to obey their Masters in all things and to please them well in all things do not alter any of those measures of Obedience which the Parties themselves shall agree upon or the usage of every Country does prescribe For an English Servant is not bound to obey his Master in all lawful things if they be inconvenient and no part of his Bargain It is lawful for a Servant to obey his covetous Master and to please him well in taking but one half of his Wages in full of all but I presume he may do better to disobey and displease him too in that matter and to insist upon having his whole Due It is certainly lawful according to Mr. Long for an English Servant to obey passively nay suffering tho wrongfully is his calling and yet if he refuse to serve in Chains and to be used like a Gally-Slave and so disobey and displease in that matter it is no breach of his Christianity for St. Paul himself could not abide to be smitten contrary to Law tho it were at the command of the High-Priest Acts 23.3 He presently indeed recalled his reviling Language but he did not correct his sharp Resentment of that Injury If some Men could find such Texts as these for Subjects what Iron Yokes and what heavy Burdens would they not presently lay upon them and yet they would no more bind English Subjects than these Texts which were directed to Roman Slaves are the duty of English Servants I might instance in several other Relative Duties in the same manner if it were needful Accordingly such Precepts as this Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars do not alter or destroy the Laws of our Country but plainly refer us to them for we know not who is Caesar nor who Caesar is but by the Law of the Land. And the things of Caesar or what belongs to him are not whatsoever he may demand for then when we are bid to render all Men their Dues we are as much bound to satisfy their Demands let them be what they will and never so unjust and unreasonable And as for that new Device in Jovian of learning our Allegiance or legal Duty from the Notion of a Soveraign it is a sort of conjuring for I may as well know the just Sum of Money which one Man owes to another meerly from the Notion of a Creditor Having said this in general I shall now particularly examine those Texts of Scripture which this Author alledges he begins with Rom. 13.1 2. Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God The Powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation From which Text Epiphanius proves that the many Magistates under one King are ordained of God and thence our Author infers That the Power of under-Officers since it is the Ordinance of God ought no more to be resisted than the King 's Adding this further Though this may seem harsh in an English-man's Ears who will acknowledg perhaps that the King can do no Injury and is above the Censure of the Law yet he knows his Officers are accountable for any illegal Act and the very Command of the

JULIAN'S ARTS TO Undermine and Extirpate CHRISTIANITY The present Impression of this Book was made in the Year 1683 and has ever since lain Buried under the Ruines of all those English Rights which it endeavoured to Defend But by the Auspicious and Happy Arrival of the Prince of Orange both They and It have obtained a Resurrection JVLIAN's ARTS To Undermine and Extirpate CHRISTIANITY TOGETHER With ANSWERS to Constantius the APOSTATE and Jovian By SAMUEL JOHNSON Licensed and Entered according to Order LONDON Printed by J. D. for the Author and are to be sold by Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown and Jonathan Robinson at the Golden-Lion in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXIX TO THE Ever Glorious MEMORY OF WILLIAM Lord Russel The Author having written this Book in his Lordships Service does most Humbly Offer and Dedicate it The PREFACE BEfore the Reader engages in the perusal of this Book I shall entreat him to take this following Account of what he shall find in it Having given as large an Account in my former Book concerning Julian's Vsage of the Christians and their Behaviour towards him as might satisfy any reasonable Man I have since found it necessary to add some new Matter of Fact upon that Subject both to confirm the old and to free it if it be possible from Wrangling and Dispute And that I might not deliver this fresh Matter in a way of loose and incoherent Quotations which would have been tedious I took a Hint from Gothofredus his Julianus to put it into a Discourse which will at once give an Account of Julian's Devices to worm the Christians out of their Religion and likewise shew how well studied the Papists are in those Arts. My Answerers have been so many that I cannot number them on the sudden and I think it has been Drudgery enough for one Man to read them over but yet because two of them especially have been applauded as the Champions of the Cause I thought my self concerned to give them an Answer not in the least to vindicate my self from their Reflections which I value not tho it were stupidity not at all to resent them but to do what Service I could to Truth and to the Rights of my Native Country for either of which if God will have it so I hope I shall not be unwilling to lay down my Life The Author of Constantius in the late shamming way has set up a Mock-Apostate to give a Diversion and take off the Force of what has been said concerning Julian but I hope it will prove to be with the like Success as the Mock-Plots have had which have always confirmed Men in the Belief of the true one He has likewise abused a great deal of Scripture to expose the Freemen of England and their established Religion to Violence Oppression and Extirpation and if I have rescued those Texts which he has so employed from such mischievous Applications for the future I shall think my Pains well spent The Author of Jovian by coming last has had the Advantage of summing up the Evidence which he has done so faithfully that he has not omitted Heraclitus's Charge against me That I raise an Induction from one Particular which he backs with as true an Observation of his own That I call the few Months of Julian 's Reign an Age p. 139. I say this to shew the Compleatness of this Author's Performance and that in his Answer we read the Substance of all the rest and not to rob him of the Honour of having added many Things of his own as particularly the History of broken Succession in the Empire which may be a true one for ought I know for it is of so small Concernment in this Controversy that I never examined it his Outlandish Notion of a Soveraign which is such a Deceit to a common Reader as a Scale of Dutch Miles would be in a Map of Middlesex and his Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws which is the Master-Piece in his Book This Distinction I am apt to think is his last Refuge and therefore I shall first shew how this Author was driven to it and 2dly How false and groundless it is and 3dly What are the immediate Consequences of it 1. In my former Book I laid down this undeniable Truth That we are bound not to part with our Lives but to defend them unless when the Laws of God or of our Country require us to lay them down Now it is not Death by the Law of God but our Duty to be Protestants and by the Law of the Land it is so far from being Death that on the other hand it is Death to forsake the Protestant Religion and to turn Papist And therefore in case Protestants should be persecuted under a Popish Successor I ask'd by what Law they must die That Question would admit no direct Answer for no Man can say that we ought to die for being Protestants either by the Law of God or the Law of the Land And therefore the Author of Jovian being resolved to cut a Knot which he could not untie has found out the most wretched Expedient of a Distinction that ever was For first he splits and divides one and the same Law of the Land into Imperial and Political and then says that by the Imperial or Prerogative Law we ought to submit to be murthered 2. Now in the second Place there never was a more horrid Slander cast upon the Prerogative than this is For whereas the Law of England says That the King's Prerogative stretcheth not to the doing of any Wrong this Author has found a way to stretch and extend it to the Subversion of all the Laws and to the Destruction of all his Liege Subjects By the Law of England the King is inviolable and by the same Law he can do no Wrong and there is all the Reason in the World that he who is above the doing of any Injury should be placed out of the reach of any manner of Resistance But tho the King can do no Wrong and therefore we can suffer none from him yet to make way for Passive Obedience our Author will have a sort of Subjects call'd the Sovereign's Forces to be irresistible too tho in the most outragious Acts of Destructive Violence That 's too plain a Juggle for as the King can do no Wrong so he can authorize no single Person much less Numbers of Men to do any Wrong Or to borrow the Words of a great Lawyer The King cannot do Injury for if he command to do a Man Wrong the Command is void alter fit Autor and the Actor becomes the Wrong-doer Now whether Men by authorizing themselves to do Mischief and to commit Capital Crimes are thereby entitled to an uncontroulable Imperial Power to the Rights of Sovereignty and to the Prerogative of being irresistible I leave all the World to judg 3. In the last place I shall shew the immediate Consequences of this new

Prince cannot secure them from being impeach'd by the People granting this to be very true yet I shall still assert that the Inferiour Magistrate though in the Execution of an illegal Act is not to be repelled by Force To this I answer I grant that Inferiour Magistrates rightly constituted and duly executing their Office are the Ordinance of God for Government would be an impracticable thing without them but as you shall see anon the Text it self carries this Limitation in the Bowels of it for it excludes both the Usurpation of an Office and the illegal and malicious Exercise of it If our Translators in this place had rendred the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authorities instead of Powers as they were forced to do 1 Pet. 3.22 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authority that is a just and lawful Power as they have rendred it in other places and as it constantly signifies they had effectually prevented the false Application of this Text. But now it is easy to shelter illegal Commissions unauthoritative Acts and all manner of unlawful and outragious Violence under the word Power for these are Might tho they be not Right However I shall make short work with this Imposture for if these things before-named be really contained in this Text under the word Power and by virtue of this Text are forbidden to be resisted why then let us put them into the Text which is the surest way of trying the Sence of any Scripture and let us see how they will become the place And then it runs thus There is no illegal destructive Commission nor outragious Violence of Inferiour Officers but of God. The Rapines Burglaries Assassinations Massacres which are commited by Inferiour Officers are ordained of God Whosoever therefore withstands these resists the Ordinance of God. What blasphemous stuff is this which Men dare to affix upon a Text of Scripture which is no other than the Voice of God approving all lawful Government and confirming from Heaven those moral Duties of Subjection Obedience and Non-resistance which were always due to lawful Authority but you plainly see are not due to illegal Violence for that is clearly shut out of the Text the Text it self will by no means admit it but spues it out In the same manner you may likewise try whether usurped Power or those that intrude into the Government and get into Office by wicked and undue means be the Ordinance of God. In the next place our Author quotes St. Peter in these words Let 's hear St. Peter 's Opinion in the Case 1 Pet. 2.13 14 15. Submit your selves unto every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake whether to the King as Supream or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for this is the Will of God c. From this 't is plain that we ought to submit to Inferiour Officers for the Lord's sake as well as Supream this subordinate Power being from God tho not immediately I shall hot trouble my self as our Author does about the Question whether the true rendring of this place be submit to every humane Creature meaning Divine Creature or submit to every Ordinance of Man as our Translation has it which he says is an improper Translation and has given occasion to a dangerous Error for let the lawful Government be of what Extraction it will every Subject must submit to it for the Lord's sake The present Question which wants St. Peter's Resolution is Whether we are bound to submit to the illegal Violence of under-Officers which I suppose will prove to be in the Negative For St. Peter plainly limits our Submission to such Governours as are in Subordination to the King and are sent by him and come on this Errand which it was not over honest in our Author to conceal for the Punishment of Evil-doers and for the Praise of them that do well Whereas it is evident that the illegal Violence of Inferiour Governours crosses the very end of their Institution besides they are not in any such Act sent by the King but come of their own Head and which is more they do this in Contradiction to the King 's declared Will and Pleasure which is his Law and against his Crown and Dignity as an Indictment does fully set forth such Offences For I must remember our Author of his Acknowledgment a little before that the King's Officers an accountable for any illegal Act and the very Command of the Prince cannot secure them from being impeach'd by the People Now if they may be prosecuted and hang'd by the People as any other private Malefactor but by the way is that submitting to them for the Lord's sake why may not a just and necessary Defence be made against them as against any other Evil-doers For that very reason says our Author in his Preface because it is a Sin to resist any Evil-doer for our Saviour has commanded us not to resist Evil Evil not signifying a thing but a Person Mat. 5.39 and thence he infers that we ought not to damn our selves to prevent the Violence of a Murderer though offered to our selves I am much confirmed in the truth which I maintain when I see that no Man can fairly oppose it without falling into the very dregs of Quakerism and into those pernicious Principles which surrender the quiet and peaceable part of Mankind to the Discretion of a few mischievous and blood-thirsty Men and in effect put a Sword into their Hands to slay us If this be Gospel gaudeant Latrones 't is good Tydings not to the true Man but to the Thief to the Cyclops to the Canibal to the hungry Irish Woolf and to the Mauritanian Lyon but to all others it is a very hard Saying But to shew that this Argument may be otherwise answered than with a shrug it is plain 1. That this Precept of our Saviour requires great Limitation for else among other things a Christian Magistrate himself might not resist an Evil-doer 2. That it carries a Limitation sufficient for my present purpose along with it For all the Instances in which our Saviour forbids Resistance are matters of a light nature as Dr. Hammond expresses it And the bearing of such tolerable Evils and Inconveniencies is no peculiar Duty of Christianity for any wise moral Man would rather take a flap on the Face patiently than turn such a ridiculous Battery into a Fray and Bloodshed and rather receive two slight Injuries one after another then revenge the first For I shall here take occasion to inform our Author that Revenge never was a natural Right as he affirms p. 57. but a Sin against the Light of Nature and that the necessary Preservation of a Man's Life or Livelihood or the Moderation of a just and unblameable Defence do mightily differ from Revenge And as our Author wholly wrests our Saviour's Doctrine so in the next place he wilfully mis-represents his Case as every Man knows who has read the four Gospels