Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A46385
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Just principles of complying with the new oath of allegiance by a Divine of the Church of England.
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A. B.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing J1236_VARIANT; ESTC R6490
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11,672
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22
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JUST PRINCIPLES OF COMPLYING With the NEW Oath of Allegiance By a Divine of the Church of England Licensed and Entred according to Order LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin near the Black Bull in the Old-Bailey 1689. JUST PRINCIPLES Of Complying with the New Oath of Allegiance THE New Oath is certainly an intricate case and incumbred with no small difficulties But it will appear unexceptionably lawful if without intermedling with the Politicks of these times we suppose that there may be three Parties concern'd in an Oath of Allegiance A Ruining-Prince A Saviour-Prince And innocent Subjects The terms of ruining and destroying are ambiguous and may signifie in a lax or strict acceptation and therefore a Prince may be ruining and malificent in several degrees He may be so far ruining and malificent as to Abdicate his People from being his People whereby he loseth and forfeiteth all Title to them and their Allegiance * Grot. de J. B. ac P. l. 1. c. 4. S. XI Existimat Barclaius amitti Regnum si Rex vere hostili animo in totius populi exitium feratur quod concedo consistere enim simul non possunt voluntas imperandi voluntas perdendi quare qui se hostem totius populi profitetur is eo ipso abdicat regnum If a King maketh Himself a Destroyer of his whole people He Abdicateth the Kingdom according to Grotius and Barclay because the Will of destroying is inconsistent with the Will of being their governing Head. It is possible that a Bigotted pontifician Prince may not be in this notion a ruining Prince for although He manifestly designeth to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion and to introduce his own which every Prince desireth yet He may not design to extirpate the Body of Protestants out of his Kingdom But the World need not be told that the Principles of his Religion oblige Him to it And 't is not probable that the French King 's principal Allie would be better natur'd to his Protestant Subjects than his most Christian Majesty The sinking calamities which He was gradually introducing Popery and Gallican Slavery which have all manner of Evils in the Bowels of them as also his Combination with the common Enemy of Christendom ruinous to the State of Europe and the Protestant Party in Europe may justly denominate Him a ruining Prince at a Superlative rate The notion of a Saviour-Prince usually occurreth in History as in the instances of Ptolomy Antigonus and Demetrius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Under this notion our present King ought to be consider'd which is far more honourable than the style of a Kind de facto competible to every vile Usurper nor is He only a Saviour-Prince to these Nations but to harass'd afflicted Europe and the Reformed Churches abroad A Saviour-Prince may be such before his entrance upon the Government if with vast expence and hazard He becometh our Redeemer from the calamities of Popery and Arbitrary Power And being seated in the Government He subsisteth in the quality of a Saviour-King A man shall be an hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest as rivers of water in a dry place as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land By innocent Subjects I understand Subjects unconcern'd in the Revolutions of Government who cannot be thought under any Obligatio delicti to their former King and who will not fail to judge of all his pretensions ex aequo bono Subjects are thought incompetent Judges of the Rights of Princes but they that dare not swear Allegiance to an Usurper against their rightful Sovereign must take upon them to make a judgment of his Pretensions that calleth himself by that venerable name Having thus represented the notion of Innocent Subjects and of two opposite sorts of Princes we may proceed to affirm I. If the main of our Allegiance to a Ruining-Prince out of possession be ceas'd and expir'd and the rest be forfeited by Him it is lawful to swear Allegiance to the King in possession The Law determineth our Subjection and Allegiance to the King in possession but the same Law and our Oath also determineth who it is that should be and be continu'd King in possession From whence it followeth That the Duties of Allegiance which is the business of being Liege-Subjects are of two sorts Bounden Duty to Government which is plainly legible in the Law Submission Obedience Tribute Gratitude and such more and bounden Duty of Friendship and Adherence to the rightful Governour commonly call'd the King de Jure If the rightful Governour was by fraud and violence kept out of possession or unjustly thrown out of place faithful Subjects in former Ages suppos'd themselves under an Obligation to this Jural King. Which supposition of theirs was not ill grounded as appeareth from the contexture of the old Oath of Allegiance from our Obligations to Justice and from the Nature of Fidelity and Friendship for the relation between Sovereign and Subject is a relation of Friendship amicitiae imparium but to this latter sort of the Duties of Allegiance a Ruining-Prince out of place can pretend no Title If He be kept out of possession faithful Subjects are not bound to introduce Him but rather to endeavour his legal Exclusion or if He be thrust out of place they are not bound to adhere to him own him reduce him fight or struggle for him they owe him nothing but may entirely forsake him and be glad that they are rid of him for by seeking their ruin He hath justly forfeited the Friendship of his innocent people and therefore the fidelity of their Friendship and all the Offices of Friendship which are otherwise due to a rightful Governour out of place The other sort of Duties of Allegiance Duties to Government the Law transferreth to the King in possession and they are deservedly given to a saviour-Saviour-King If therefore a Ruining-Prince be out of Place and governing Power the Bond or Relation between Him and his innocent People is entirely dissolv'd by a Cessation of one part and a Forfeiture of the other part of their Allegiance and the whole business of their Adherence Fidelity and Allegiance to him is at an end A faithful Subject will not easily forsake a tolerable Prince but there may be a Prince of such a character that there is no owning Him adhering to Him or suffering for Him with Honour and Conscience And if He ought to be intirely forsaken by his innocent Subjects they are not bound to reserve for Him any Allegiance nor to make his pretended Rights the matter of their care II. There are several Total Modes of destroying a King's Right of Regality and there are several Partial Modes of destroying it approaching to a Total If by this latter sort of Modes the Competitor-King's Right of Regality be sufficiently destroy'd innocent Subjects may swear Allegiance to the King in possession Suppose a King hath not alienated or given away his Kingdom nor thrown it away
in this method of demolishing the Regality nor is it unjust if good Subjects suffer it to be demolished both because of their own danger and their paramount obligation to the whole nor is it unjust if the Estates of the Realm add an Epicrisis that his late Majesty's removal from the Government was in this notion just and necessary It is certain that his removal from the Government though his Recession was not altogether forc'd and involuntary was the effect of the Prince's Arms * Driven out of his Dominions Letter to a Bishop p. 21 22. and of his Conduct of affairs and ought chiefly to be ascrib'd thereunto And that in an Exigence of the whole a Saviour-Prince may reasonably proceed to so great an extremity whereas if a Nation only be in danger of Persecution from their King their Saviour-Princes usually proceed no further than to divert the present storm And if a Saviour-Prince justly and necessarily proceedeth to so great an extremity the Nation is discharg'd from their former Allegiance the Right of Government belongeth no more to his late Majesty or his pretended Heir of the French Papal Interest but our Subjection and Allegiance to that line of Succession is at an end Which if the Nation be absolv'd from they necessarily become a free people sui juris if the next Heirs will make them such and the Crown becometh vacant The Revolution in this Nation is a Case of the whole and the Act of the Citizens of the whole A Transcendental to Civil and Municipal Law but not the less lawful for being so There was a second Design co-incident in time concurrent and complicate with the former part of it as the Nation is part of the whole but of separate consideration from it peculiarly redressive of the Grievances of the English Nation Multitudes of the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation intent upon the saving their own Free-hold address'd a Neighbour-Prince to come to their rescue from an Hurricane of Popery and Arbitrary Power and to support the tottering Fabrick of their Government they assisted him by Associations and Arms both Subjects and Souldiers made a defection from the late King which issu'd in his Recession from the Kingdom and a Vote of the Convention of the Estates absolving the Nation from their Allegiance If this Scene of affairs be consider'd as one continu'd Design to demolish the late Regality it is not justifiable by English Law or English Divinity It is all one whether the People demolish the Regality by their own or another's hand But this Scene of affairs ought to be distinguish'd into three periods of time the Time before the Breach the Time of the Breach between King and People and the Time after it The Time before the Breach necessitated an Address to a Neighbour-Prince and a Desence of the Establish'd Religion and Laws the Lives and Liberties of the Subjects from a violent Rape During the Time of the Breach the Affairs of the Kingdom were in suspence and therefore the Breach may be consider'd as nothing more than a just and necessary Self-defence In the third period of Time the Estates of the Realm deliberate touching the remainder of Duty to their with-drawn King and proceed to a definitive Sentence That He had Abdicated the Government and the Crown was become vacant To make the Justice of this definitive Sentence appear part of it the vacating the Crown ought to be consider'd not in a separate and solitary notion but as the late Design redressive of the Grievances of the Nation was concurrent with another Design oppositive to that reigning Power and Interest ruinous to the whole So I understand this part of the definitive Sentence only as a concurrence with the former Mode of vacating the Crown and in such a notion it is necessarily just because the former Mode is certainly so With the former Mode of demolishing the Regality there was also a concurrence of his late Majesty's will to be gone and his Mode of Recession leaving no Commissioner withdrawing the Seals destroying the Writs for a Parliament is necessarily a Degree of Abandoning the governing of us If this Degree of Abandoning the Government be consider'd with its Antecedents subverting the Constitution violating the Fundamental Laws designing his People's ruin and such more and also with its Consequent that no provision can be made for the Government consistent with his Allegiance the Sum-total is suppos'd to amount to thus much No further Subjection or Allegiance is in equity demandable from the People And if no further Subjection or Allegiance of the People be in Equity demandable by the King He hath Abdicated the Government In this notion the late Revolution is of a better appearance than usually changes of Government are But we will suppose that in this notion it is not absolutely just yet because in the former notion and as to innocent Subjects it is unexceptionably just therefore a good Man may be rationally satisfy'd that the late Regality is justly and necessarily demolish'd V. The King in possession upon several accounts may justly demand the Allegiance of the People not upon the account of Conquest for there is no pretence to the Conquest of the People the contract also between the Prince of Orange and the Nation which we are * Letter to a Bishop p. 22. told of ought to protect the People from any such claim and altho' his Majesty may be said to have conquer'd our late King yet not at all as a common Conqueror contesting for Dominion or Possession but as a Saviour-Prince to the Nation and to the whole agreeably to the style of his Declaration and his publick Profession that He came not hither for any Interest but to save us from Popish slavery First therefore his Majesty is justly said to have a degree of Propriety in the People by Right of Redemption having done enough to Merit the Name of a Redeemer of the People according to the known Sentiments of Gratitude which is the main source of our Obligations A ruin'd People actually ruin'd in part and design'd for further degrees of ruin owe themselves to him and their former Sovereign deserveth to lose them for ever to a Saviour Prince having manifestly design'd to make them extremely miserable In the next place because of his just Propriety in the People and because of the vast Beneficence of his Government which obligeth to the Duties of Gratitude a Saviour-Prince in possession hath a better Right to the People's Allegiance than a Natural-unnatural Prince out of place that hath reduc'd his Right to none or next to none and therefore in case of competition the former is rather the rightful King. So if an Heir of the French-Papal Interest not fairly and legally ascertain'd to the Nation come in competition with the Queen it is a known rule of the Casuists In rebus dubiis melior est conditio possidentis Moreover if the Nation or the major part of it be fairly