from a more intimate acquaintance than your narrow Theatre could allow you obliges me to do that Justice to the Protestants abroad as to affirm That notwithstanding all the Resistance they made to their Tyrannizing Princes they are as much for Passive Obedience in its true and rational sense as the Church of England it self that is where the Commands of the Sovereign are incompatible with their duty they hold themselves oblig'd to suffer for their disobedience rather than to sin In all their Confessions of Faith they own Magistracy as the Ordinance of God and disapprove opposition to it in execution of Law But they never so far divested themselves of Reason as to yield up their Throats to be cut by their Princes turn'd absolute Tyrants when it was in their power to vindicate their Religion and Liberties by their Sword. That England concurr'd with them in this opinion appears as I told you in my Letter by the mighty protection they vouchsaft them in this their Resistance Moreover which I forgot to tell you in all the Convocations of the Clergy of England at that time there were vast sums given to carry it on and the preamble of ev'ry Act does fairly insinuate the lawfulness of that resistance made by the Protestants abroad against their Princes so that resistance was not only allowed by the Nation but likewise by the Church of England in a full Convocation of its Fathers And if the Church of England assisted so generously in the support of the Protestants abroad at a time when their Religion was Heresie by the Laws of their Country How much rather would these excellent Fathers of the Church have done it if their Religion had been settled by positive and fundamental Laws as it was after by several Edicts and Treaties What you say of the difference of the Government of the Empire and that of England I know but let me tell you as the Golden Bull is the great Barrer against Slavery there the same is the Coronation Oath here and consequently if the Germans may lawfully resist the Emperor or the Rex Romanorum upon breach of that Bull the same may the Representatives and Nobility of England do upon palpable breaches of the Coronation Oath for as the Golden Bull is the great security of the German aggregate Body against the incroachments of the Emperor the same is the Coronation Oath in England against the incroachments of the King. Fourthly You tell me you hold Passive Obedience to be founded on the word of God and maintain'd by the Church of England and contain'd in her Homilies To this I Answer 1. Tell me what opinion was ever broached in the Church without a pretence of Scripture to back it And what gloss can you put upon any Text of Holy Writ to prove your position but what has been a thousand times said and as many times refell'd Yet if you had allowed me a Copy of your Sermon I would have endeavoured to clear the sense of the Texts you make use of which I do not exactly remember so as to make nothing for your purpose And in your doing the one and I the other neither of us would have reason to value our selves upon that score since I fear none of us could outdo what has been again and again done already on that Subject In the mean time let me tell you that the simple stating of the Question solves all the Arguments you can bring from Scripture as I shall make appear in one word anon 2. As to Passive Obedience its being the Doctrine of the Church of England I have told you already that the Fathers of the Church of England contradicted it in Queen Elizabeths Reign And where can we find more authentick records of their Opinion and Doctrine than in the Printed Manifesto's and Acts made in Convocation As to the 39 Articles which is in place of a Confession of Faith and the Homilies wherein you say that Doctrine is maintain'd I 'll make bold to say that Passive Obedience in the narrow sense you take it was not so much as thought on at the time of their Publishing And albeit you should find a way to make them seem to speak for you the simple right stating of thē question answers them sufficiently It would seem to me that the Mitred Clergy and particularly that excellent Prelate My Lord Bishop of London should be at least as well acquainted with the Doctrine of the Church of England as any private Minister in a corner of the Nation and how far they have refell'd your fond Principle appears with a Witness in their committing the Government to the Prince in this juncture and a great many other publick actings If your Passive Obedience be the Principle of the Church of England how few Church of England-men are there in both Houses of Convention at present since they act so diametrically opposite to it And yet I perswade my self these Worthy Patriots would take it ill to be call'd of any other Church 3. To refell your Tenet of Passive Obedience in one word I need no more but to state the case fair and without equivocation thus Whate're can be said from Scripture or the acknowledgment of Protestant Churches Centers all in this viz. That it is unlawful to resist the Magistrate while he is lawfully such because he is Gods Vicegerent within his own Iurisdistion But when by his maleversations he divests himself of that Office and assumes a contradictory Character by trampling upon Laws and endeavouring to subvert the fundamental constitutions of the State contrary to his Coronation Oath in this case in my humble opinion He is no more justly a Magistrate nor the object of our Obedience and sua culpa amittit Imperium Upon which the Primores Regni and the Representatives of the People may lawfully fill up the Throne vacated by such palpable incroachments This being the State of the case all the Texts of Scripture you can produce for Obedience to Magistrates are to be natively understood and in a Logical propriety of predication asserted of Obedience to Magistrates when they are justly and lawfully such but the Relatives do not meet when the Magistrate by his own fault becomes dispossest of the Office. There is one thing more I would have you to take notice of to clear this head and it 's this There is a great difference betwixt resisting the Magistrate when he tramples upon the Religion and Liberty of any part of his Subjects in the execution of the Laws made against them and his doing of it in contradiction to Fundamental Laws already made in their Favours As for example albeit I should acknowledge that in Nero's time it had been unlawful for the Christians to resist him because Christianity was at that time contradictory to the Laws of the Empire Yet I cannot perswade my self but in case the Laws at that time had not only established the Christian Religion as the Religion of the Empire but had
making any material Difference betwixt what I said was exprest in your Sermon and what you say your self in your Letter for still in both medling with the Kings Forts c. is a sin exposes to Damnation Then you tell me You had no design against the Prince of Orange in your Discourse and in my taxing you with a Scandalum Magnatum you accuse me of a Scandalum Ecclesiae To this I answer First What can reflect more upon the Illustrious Prince of Orange than that the meddling with the Kings Forts c. exposes to Damnation Since albeit his Highness be a Sovereign Prince and no Subject of England yet in heading and assisting these Subjects that seizes the Kings Forts c. he must necessarily incur the Guilt of a mighty Sin in your sense For he that so far assists another in a sinful Act as without his assistance it could not have been acted is certainly guilty before God of the sinful Act it self So if the Nobility and Gentry of England seiz'd the Kings Forts c. and thereby in your sense expos'd themselves to Damnation it follows necessarily that the Prince of Orange who so far assisted them as to render them capable to do it must in the same sense of yours share in the Guilt of so doing And that this Darling Prince of all the Protestants of Europe is none of yours appears too clearly by your refusing either to preach your self or allowing others to do it and by your Curats leaving out the Prayer for him on this happy day of Commemoration of that mighty Deliverance whereof God has made him the glorious Instrument Secondly It Scandalum Magnatum be not properly in its self a Reflection upon the Honour of a Peer of England I am mistaken and am willing to be corrected by those who have had more occasion to know the Laws of England than I have had And if it be so What greater blemish to their Honour and blot upon their Scutcheon can there be than to be accus'd of Rebellion which you say is the same with Resistance and of Actions that necessarily without Repentance expose them to Damnation Thirdly I knew not before that the giving a Check to a private Minister of England enveighing against the Nobility of England was a Scandalum Ecclesiae neither did I dream that your single Opinion was to be estimate that of a whole Church The Roman Catholicks on this side the Alpes scorn to lodge the Infallibility in one single Person and that a private Protestant Minister here should so far fix it upon himself as the least Reflection upon him must be estimate a Scandal done to the whole Church is a thing very new to me In the end of this Paragraph you would fain fix upon me the putting a blot upon the Predecessors of the Prince of Orange A strange Inference indeed from any thing in my Letter The Revolt of the States of Holland under the blest Conduct of that Illustrious Heroe William of Nassaw was in my sense no Rebellion but a just Vindication of Religion and Civil Liberties while in your sense it must merit no better Name than Rebellion since Rebellion and Resistance in your Opinion are convertible Terms And if you will turn over the Authors that have written in favor of that Revolt and the most exact model of the present Government of the States I know called Commentariolus de Statu Belgii thought to be Grotius's you will find a very neer Parallel betwixt the Coronation Oath of England and that of the House of Burgundy and their Priviledges to have been little or nothing above ours In the last Paragraph You are angry at my blaming you for wrong timing your Sermon and tell me You use always to preach such Doctrin upon the 30 th of January and if Times be changed Truth is not In answer to this I refer you to what I wrote in my Letter upon this Head Only this I must say I find it 's hard to eradicate a bad Custom You mind me of the Fate of those that have been Sea-sick even when the Storm is past and themselves on firm ground their Giddiness continues You have been so us'd to thunder out your little Bolts against the poor Dissenters and to cry up Passive Obedience in order to their Ruine when the edge of the Laws were pointed against them That now when the Horizon begins to clear up and the Cheat of setting Protestants by the Ears discovered you cannot wean your self from the old beloved way of railing About the middle of this Paragraph You seem to scorn me for an Antagonist because of my being of another Profession and my small skill in Divinity And are pleased to promise Dr. Burnet a Copy of your Sermon if so be I can prevail with him to vindicate these Positions contain'd in the Inquiry you would refute To this I answer First I cannot but commend you in desiring such an Antagonist as Dr. Burnet it were honour enough for you to be overcome by so great a hand But forgive me to tell you I am not so far as yet berest of Common Sense although I had the honour to have such Power with him as to desire him to stoop to so unequal a Combat Secondly As to my want of Skill in Divinity I am not so impudent as to deny it But I hope no body will blame me to love the light of the Sun tho I cannot attain the Eagles Fortune to look that bright Planet in the Face I am heartily sorry That that Noble Study should be monopolized to the Clergy for I was still in the mistake That our Religion allowed us a share in it pro nostro modulo and was so foolish as to think That a Physician whose proper Study is the search of Nature might very lawfully imploy some part of his Hours in that sacred Science whose immediate Subject is the God of Nature I am happy in this That neither in my other Letter nor in this I have had any occasion of demonstrating my Skill in Divinity or the want of it And if you will not be angry I 'll tell you You seem to me to do with your vast Treasure of Divinity as some sordid Misers with their Money they hoard it up so close in their Cabinets as it 's impossible for others to say certainly they have any Thirdly As to my want of Judgment Memory Skill in Divinity and a great many other such Expressions all along your Letter which I here take notice of once for all I would have thought that a Man of your great Parts and Character would have rather in your Christian Charity have pitied me than upbraid me with a defect of Nature For those who know us both may tell you That if my Spirit had not been so utterly incapable of Letters I might have attain'd to some small Scantlings of Knowledge My Education both at home and abroad and the Charges of it being at least nothing inferiour
but this was too hot for your Fingers and therefore you thought fit to drop it Secondly In your Second Paragraph I find nothing material for having referr'd you to the Homilies of our Church for Scripture Proofs of Passive Obedience you are it seems afraid to look into that excellent Book lest you should be found guilty of a Scandalum Ecclesiae and in truth I must commend your Wisdom for its much safer writing against a private Minister than against so glorious a Church but believe it you must not expect to go Scot-free since I have now prov'd the Doctrin of Passive Obedience in my narrow sense as you call it very improperly seeing it is the largest sense any takes it in to be the Doctrin of the Church of England Thirdly You say that I am unwilling the Protestants abroad should share with the Church of England in her darling Doctrin of Passive Obedience which is a Story as true as many you use to tell in the Coffee-house for if you look into the third Paragraph of my former Letter you 'll find me reproving your Learned Ignorance for abusing several of those great Names you mention such as Luther Melancthon Calvin Grotius and others whom you represent as Patrons of Resistance which is but another name for Rebellion You are now forc'd to own That the Government of the Empire differs so far from ours in England that what would be unlawful Resistance here would be but a legal Defence there and this alone is sufficient to vindicate most of those Foreign Divines you mention But because you are very hard to please I shall add further out of Sleidans Comment Lib. XVII where he tells us That the Elector of Saxony who was the chief Person engaged in the German Wars against Charles the Fifth did openly declare That if the said Charles was own'd to be a proper Sovereign with respect to the Princes of the Empire it must then be granted That it was not lawful to wage War with him I hope you will not be so injurious to the Prince of Orange as to affirm That he is no Sovereign Prince because he is proclaimed King of England Luther indeed at first was ignorant as you were of the Constitution of the Empire and therefore was altogether for resisting Charles the Fifth but afterwards he was better inform'd by Learned Lawyers as Sleidan and Melchar Adam Report Melancthon you 'll find Orthodox in this matter if you consult his Loc. Com. de Vindicat. Magistrat Indeed some have thought Calvin as you do a favourer of resisting Sovereign Princes because Lib. 4. Institut he has this Passage Si qui nunc sint populares Magistratus ad moderandum Regum libidinem constituti quales olim erant qui Lacaedemoniis Regibus oppositi erant Ephori If saith he there be any such Magistrates as the Ephori were among the Lacaedemonians they may oppose and resist Kings but in other cases he denies it Now because you are ignorant of the Power of the Ephori among the Spartans and that their two Kings were not proper Sovereigns but the one Admiral by Sea and the other Generalissimo of Land Forces I shall for your better instruction remit you to Arist. Polit. Lib. 2. Plutarch in Pausan or Keckerman de Repub. Spart a Book perhaps more easie to be got in Scotland You are pleas'd to triumph because Grotius as you say is of your Opinion and tell me He is not inferiour to me either for Learning or Judgment It 's well that you can speak a little truth at any time but whether it be your gross Ignorance or the liberty Travellers use to take it s very seldom that you speak all the Truth for the Learned Grotius though in his Book de Iure Belli pacis and in another written in his Younger Time he did drop some unmeet Expressions and unfound Arguments yet when he had weighed Matters better he retracted his former Opinions and in his last Works is as much for Non-Resistance as I was in my Sermon For proof of this Vid. Anot. on Rom. 13. Mat. 26.52 Vot pro pace where he approves of the Proceedings of the University of Oxford about Paraeus on the Romans and allows of this their Determination viz. That Subjects ought by no means to resist their King by force nor ought they to take either offensive or defensive Arms against the King for the cause of Religion or any other thing whatsoever But you no doubt will despise the Determination of our famous University though applauded by your own Grotius and imitate your Country-man Gillispie who in scorn called Prayers and Tears Oxford Divinity By these few instances it will I hope be evident to all unprejudic'd Persons how much you have abus'd these great Names Luther Melancthon Calvin and Grotius Fourthly In the next place you have the confidence to tell me That the Church of England is for the Principle of Resistance and that the Homilies cannot be for Passive Obedience Now this is not only to contradict me but also to contradict your self having in your former Paragraph call'd it the darling Doctrin of our Church You might have receiv'd full satisfaction in this matter had you according to my Advice consulted the Book of Homilies but instead of doing this and to have an opportunity to shew your great Talent of wrangling you labour to evince your impudent Assertion by these impertinent Arguments First Because Queen Elizabeth protected the Hollanders in the Revolt from Spain but this I have answer'd in my former Letter and obliged you to acknowledge That the Government of the Netherlands was vastly different from this of England so that theirs was not properly Resistance but a warrantable Defence This I say you were told before and own'd the matter and yet think fit to serve up your twice sodden Coleworts that you may seem to say something Secondly You tell me as a great Secret That the Convocation of the Clergy of England gave vast Sums towards the Protection of the Hollanders and the Preamble of every Act insinuates the lawfulness of their Resisting the King of Spain This is a Secret with a Witness for I dare be bold to say That the Learnedst Lawyer in England never heard of an Act of Parliament for Mony made by a Convocation But suppose the Bishops or any of the Clergy did contribute such vast Sums it will not prove That our Church did not own Passive Obedience in Queen Elizabeths time as you assert But pray Sir were not the Homilies in her time And that the Fathers of our Church did then take them in the same sense as I did in my Sermon will appear beyond all contradiction from the Testimonies of Bishop Bilson and Iewell I begin with Bishop Bilson who speaks thus in his Book of Christian Subjection Deliverance if you would have it obtain it by Prayer and expect it in Peace These be the Weapons for Christians the Subjects have no Refuge against their
told you that the Coronation Oath in England ran parallel with that of the Family of Burgundy in whose right Philip of Spain was Lord of Belgium And this you skip over as all the rest that 's material You use your old way of shuffling in fixing on me the mentioning only the Hollanders in the Protection given by Queen Elizabeth Whereas I named the Protestants abroad in general whereof these of the Low Countries were but a part yet by this little trick of skill you wisely pass over the assistance that Great Princess gave the Protestants of France who never could lay claim to any such priviledges as either the Low Countries or England justly pretend to that Government being as absolute as any in Christendom ever since Lewis XI Notwithstanding of which She protected them at a vast charge in the Reigns of Charles IX and Henry III. Yea it was not only in Q. Elizabeth's time that England assisted the Protestant Subjects of France against their incroaching Princes but in King Charles I. Reign the Expedition of Rochel was carried on by King and Parliament and cordially agreed to by the Fathers of the Church What a poor shift are you forc'd to use to evite my argument from the concurrence of the Clergy in Convocation when you play upon the word Act of Parliament as if I had named the act of Convocation thus which I did not All the World knows they gave considerable summs for managing that assistance given by the Queen and thereby allowed of the action it self Your Citations of Bilson and Jewel are to no purpose the stating of the Question clears sufficiently their meaning You begin your Rhapsody of a fifth Paragraph with a snarl at my saying there was a Parallel betwixt the Coronation Oath of England and the Golden Bull of the Empire and yet you are not able to evince the discrepancy betwixt them If you cast your eyes upon that Bull you may find that by it the Emperor is to swear observance of the Laws and Liberties of the Empire and so does the King of England swear at his Coronation the observance of the Laws and Liberties of England And I would have you to take notice that neither in the Golden Bull nor our Coronation Oath there is any irritant clause expressing power to resist in case of violation of either for the nature of the Contract warrants it without the necessity of any such express clause As to that Calumny of my drinking to the success of King Iames's Arms against all Invaders I 'll give you this advice The first time you Preach upon the ninth Commandment allow your self a Reflection upon that place of Scripture Romans 2.22 23. Thou that sayest a Man should not commit adultery dost thou commit adultery Thou that abhorrest Idols doest thou commit Sacriledg Thou that makest thy boast of the Law through breaking of the Law dishonourest thou God You have been so unhappy in this Calumny that it 's the only one neither my Friends nor Enemies will believe and even in laying the Scheme of it you shew your good nature in insinuating His present Majesty came to England as an Invader whereas none but such as you denyed him the quality of a Deliverer What a needless puther do you make about the Coronation Oath because forsooth the King of England is a Soveraign before his Coronation This ev'ry body knows and yet I would have you likewise to know that a Princes acceptance and exercise of the Regal Power before Coronation is in it self an Homologation of the Coronation Oath and he becomes virtually obliged by it as a necessary condition of the Original Contract betwixt him and his Subjects And in case a King should contradict the whole tenour of that Oath by Male-administration it were no rational excuse to alledge he had not actually taken the Coronation Oath seeing it 's presumed in Law he knew the terms on which he attain'd that dignity In the end of this Paragraph you desire me to shew you any thing in the Coronation Oath that allows Subjects to take up Arms against their Prince I have told you before that it 's not Lawful for Subjects to rise up against their Princes acting as lawful Magistrates and there is no necessity of an express clause in the Coronation Oath to warrant Resistance in case of a Princes overturning all Laws Because the Nature of the thing inforces it And moreover you will find no such express clause in the Golden Bull nor in the Plan of the Government of the Netherlands nor of any Monarchick Government in Europe Poland alone excepted So that if the nature of the Government do not allow Resistance without any such express clause you will be as little able to vindicate the Hollanders and the Princes of the Empire from the imputation of Rebellion as I the Subjects of England In the beginning of your sixth Paragraph you are heavy upon the poor Transcriber of my Letter for the mistake of the Figure 4 instead of 3 and I am displeased at him too for angering you Then after your usual manner of calling me a lyer for what reason I know not you come to answer my three cases which I cited both out of Grotius and Barclay with your good leave And the first case you would answer is none of mine for instead of saying a Prince may be Dethroned when he voluntarily and freely relinquishes his Crown as you would have me to say My words out of Grotius were these si imperium abdicavit vel habet pro derelicto which are as far distant from yours as East and West And the case as you word it will not admit of sense for he that Dethrones himself by a voluntary Renunciation as Charles V. needs not to be Dethroned by others An office may be truly and properly abdicate when there is no solemn formal Renouncing it and to evince this I 'll give you but two instances of Offices that have a near analogy with Monarchy If a General in the Field of Battel would either absent himself or by a supine negligence refuse to give the word of Command or lead on the Army In this case there is no formal Resignation of his Office And yet how unreasonable were it to debar the Soldiers from making choice of another General in so urgent a juncture Secondly What office seems more despotick than that of a Master of a Ship Now in case amidst an imminent hazard of death the Master cannot be prevail'd with to use his skill to prevent Shipwrack and yet will not voluntarily Resign his place to another Who can justly blame the Seamen to appoint one in his place to direct them to a safe Harbour And how near a Parallel there is betwixt these two examples and our late juncture in England the Votes of both Houses have evinced in the word Abdicated The second case wherein you acknowledg Resistance is lawfull is this if the Prince either alienate his Kingdom or
A VINDICATION Of the present Great Revolution IN ENGLAND IN FIVE LETTERS Pass'd betwixt Iames Welwood M. D. and Mr. Iohn March Vicar of Newcastle upon Tyne Occasion'd by a SERMON Preach'd by him on Ianuary 30. 1688 9. before the Mayor and Aldermen for Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance Licensed April 8. 1689. London Printed and sold by R. Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1689. THE PREFACE READER NOthing can excuse me even to my self for thus appearing in Print but the occasion of it backt with a Command I could not disobey Not many Months ago the posture of Affairs in Europe threaten'd no less than the utter extirpation of the Reform'd Religion and Re-establishment of a Yoke so happily thrown off the Age before The French King more from the weakness of his Contemporary Princes and a fatal Friendship packs up with the Two last Kings of England than either by his own Strength or Mony had rendred himself so formidable abroad and absolute at home as enabled him to fall on his Protestant Subjects in a Path untrodden by the worst of the Primitive Persecutors themselves seeing in this even the favour of Dying was denyed them And neither the mighty Services they had done that King in preserving the Crown upon his Head in his Minority nor the solemnest Sanctions ratified by Oath could secure these poor Victims from the Villany and Cruelty of Popish Counsels The on-looking Protestant States stood amaz'd at this Tragick Scene and all the Assistance they were able to give their distrest Brethren was that of Prayers and Tears they themselves expecting to appear next upon the mournful Theater The Accession of a Popish Prince to the Throne the barefac'd Invasions of Liberty and Property the palpable Incroachments on Laws and Fundamental Constitutions with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Popish Confidence a Prince of Wales were Events too great and important not to awaken England out of a Lethargy the reiterated Promises of preserving the Protestant Religion as by Law establish'd had cast her into And as some Diseases are not known till past cure all the effect of her awakening was to see her Case desperate and her Ruine inevitable Things were in this deplorable State when his present Majesty led by the Hand of Heaven and sway'd by the glorious Motives of Honour and Religion to save us from the precipice of Ruine ventur'd on an Enterprize unexampl'd in the Records of Time. This stupendious Attempt including in its Womb the Fate of this and all other Reform'd Churches of Christendom was seconded with the Prayers and alternate Hopes and Fears of all good Men who justly considered the then Prince of Orange's Interest with that of our Religion Lives and Liberties were embarkt in one and the same Bottom The Almighty was pleas'd beyond the ordinary Tracts of Providence to meet the Nations pressing Misery and to bring our Deliverer to the Capital City there to be addrest with the just thanks of a People he had sav'd from Destruction and the humble offer of the Government Military and Civil for that Iuncture It was at this very time that I had the unhappiness to be hearer of a Sermon preach'd by Mr. March in which his now Majesties Glorious Enterprize and the Concurrence and Actings of the Nobility and Gentry of England were scandaliz'd with the name of Rebellion and the now Lord Bishop of Salisbury treated in the rudest manner for a Papen said to be his viz. An Enquiry into the Measures of Obedience c. which Mr. Vicar undertook in his Sermon to refute To hear such a Discourse so tim'd and to find its approbation eccho'd by the Gentlemans Admirers was a thing very unpleasant to me to see a Prince condemn'd in the Pulpit by the very Men he came to save and the People cajol'd by Plausible Insinuations into a bad Opinion of so great a Deliverance were too pressing Motives to break Silence And if I may add one particular Swasive to these of a more publick Nature the friendship betwixt the Learned Doctor Thomas Burnet Physician and me and the Obligations I have to him could not permit me without a breach of Gratitude to bear his Brother My Lord Bishop of Salisbury the honour of our Country so scurrilously treated without taking some notice of it These were the Inducements that extorted my First Letter and that occasion'd the rest And what Consequents these Lines have produc'd if thou be acquainted in the Country where they were writ thou canst not but know and if a Stranger tho I should tell thee thou canst scarce believe I design'd an Answer to his Sermon if I had been allowed a Copy which to oblige Mr. Vicar to send me I wrote the First so that the many Digressions in the other two will I hope meet with thy favourable Construction since I was necessitated to them by tracing of his I have done when I have told thee Thou canst not be more a loser in reading this than I in writing and exposing it to the Censure of the World contrary to my Inclination and perhaps to my Interest J. W. London April 1. 1689. To the REVEREND Mr. John March Vicar of NEWCASTLE Newcastle Feb. 1. 1688 9. LEST your narrow Acquaintance in the World and the Retirement your Humor obliges you to should occasion your Ignorance of the Sentiments the most thinking part of your Hearers have of your other days Sermon I have given my self the trouble to write these few Animadversions upon it which be pleased to take in good part as coming from a Person who as he scorns to flatter you so he hates to treat you any otherwise but as a Gown-man and a Gentleman The first thing which occurs to me in your Discourse is of such a nature as the Learned World and Men of Breeding have ever disdain'd I mean your unmannerly way of treating a Gentleman whose Reputation is uncapable of being in the least tainted by any such waspish Expressions as yours Dr. Burnet has made a Figure in the World of no contemptible Magnitude and such an one as obliges the Roman Catholicks themselves whom none ever more disobliged to treat him in their Writings with the just Character a Person of his vast Learning deserves If in France amidst the heat of Persecution against those of his own Religion if in Italy yea in Rome it self Dr. Burnet has been carrest by all the Learned of the Romish Persuasion notwithstanding his immortal Writings against them could it be dreamed that in so Noble and Antient a Corporation as this of Newcastle and in presence of so many Worthy Gentlemen the Magistrates thereof any of the Black-Robe would venture to treat this Dr. Burnet with the scurrilous and indecent Epithets of a Man that has made a great bustle in the World an Apostate from the Church of England a seditious Inquirer a scandalous Pamphleteer and the like and to repeat such Expressions seventen times in less than three quarters of an hour Was this
the Company your Messenger found me engaged in You are pleased in the first place to accuse me of treating Dr. Burnet in a very rude manner to which accusation I return you this Answer First That I knew not that Doctor Burnet was the Author of that Pamphlet Secondly I have been Informed that he disowns it Thirdly I am willing to believe this Information for the Doctors honour because it is well known he hath in his Learned Writings stiffly asserted the Doctrine of Passive Obedience insomuch that some have been pleased to tell the World in Print that he hath asserted it even to a fault Fourthly If Doctor Burnet be the Author of the said Pamphlet I have not treated him so ill as he hath done a Crowned Head and his own Sovereign Prince and this I hope will pass for a just Apology with a Person of your Loyalty In the second place you quarrel with those Epithets I bestowed on the Anonymus Author of the said Pamphlet but it had been a more substantial Vindication of his Innocence to have refuted the reasons on which the imputation was grounded In the third place You take notice that I affirm'd in my Sermon that the Doctrine of Passive Obedience c. was a Principle asserted by all the Protestants in the World but as to this part of my Sermon either your great memory or great understanding failed you for that which I asserted was this That all the Protestant Churches own the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be a perfect Rule of Faith and Manners and for a proof of this I do now refer you as I did then to the Corpus Confessionum and thus you have spent a third part of your Letter in chasing your own shadow if my Sermon had concerned me in the Controversie I would also make it appear that you injure some of those great names you mention in your Letter such as Luther Calvin Melancton and others by making them Patrons of Resistance which is but another name for Rebellion But Doctor Burnet was better informed by a Learned Divine of Franckford as you may see in his Travels where you find the Government of the Empire differs from this of England so far that what would be unlawful Resistance here would be but a just and legal defence there but my Sermon is not concern'd in this matter and therefore I shall wave it In the fourth place you say that I asserted Passive Obedience and Non-resistance of the higher Powers as a Principle founded in the Word of God this I confess I must own and it is not only my private opinion but also the Doctrine of our Church as you may see in her excellent Homilies against Rebellion When you shall give your self the trouble to prove these Texts are misapply'd by our Church you shall hear farther from me and I assure you I urged no other Texts than what you 'l find there and this will save me the labour of copying out that part of my Sermon In the fifth place you admire what bad Genius prompted me to stile self defence even in the general notion of it an old Phanatick Principle Sir I find you are very subject to make misrepresentations I was not obliged by my Text to treat of self defence in the general notions of it and I do assure you 't is lawful to defend our selves against Robbers and private Aggressors as it would have been for the late Archbishop of St. Andrews against Balfour and his other barbarous Assassines This I easily grant you but I inveigh'd in my Sermon as the Text did warrant me against such as resisted the Higher Powers and to tell you the truth the bad Genius that prompted me to stile such resistance an old Fanatick Principle came out of Scotland for I have in my little Library Buchanan Douglas Rutherford Nephthali and other Scotch Fanaticks who maintained Rebellion under the disguise of such self defence and because you pretend to great skill in the Civil Law I must tell you I have in my little Library the Roman Tables the Codex Pandects Institutes and several Famous Civilians that have commented upon them and I do not find that they allow self defence against the Higher Powers I desire you therefore to tell me whether the Lex Regia or what part of the Codex Pandects c. doth allow self defence against the Higher Powers and I would also know whether St. Paul did not understand the Roman Tables and the Constitution of that Oecomenical Empire and whether he chose rather to Preach as I did the Doctrine of Non-resistance than that of Self-defence I hope you will not say as a wretched Socinian once did Paulo majora canamus Whereas you add I should have given some distinctions of the several kinds of self defence I think with Submission the Text made it needless to distinguish seeing there is express mention of Resisting the Higher Powers which had your zeal given you leave to have attended to I 'm so charitable as to believe you would have reserved your complaint for a fitter occasion In the sixth place you tell me you cannot recount without horror the passage of my Sermon Whosoever medleth with the Kings Forts Militia c. were guilty of Damnation the passage fairly represented was thus Our Saviour commands Subjects to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars now since by the undoubted Laws of the Land all Forts Customs Militia c. are the things that belong to our English Caesar our Saviour were he now upon Earth would command the Subjects of this Kingdom at this time to render those things unto Caesar and not to seize them c. Is this such terrible Doctrine that you could not mention it without horror but in England we bring solid Arguments not puerile Exclamations to prove a Doctrine to be false If then it be a sin for Subjects to seize the Kings Revenues c. as I shall presume it to be till I see the contrary proved it will no doubt without repentance expose the sinner to Damnation unless you believe it to be but a venial sin you seem a little malicious when you make me reflect upon the Prince of Orange but you can't but know that I am discoursing of the duty of Subjects and I hope you do not believe the Prince to be one As therefore I had no occasion to mention him so I can assure you he was far from my thoughts You shew little skill in our Laws when you call Preaching up Passive Obedience which your Friend Doctor Burnet will inform you is the avowed Doctrine of our Church Scandalum Magnatum your rash censure sounds more like a Scandalum Ecclesiae you are mightily concern'd for the Protestant States and Princes of Europe but I know no injury done them by my Sermon I am confident there is not a Protestant Prince who understands his own Interest that will be offended at the Doctrine of Passive Obedience you
expresly disallowed any other under the severest penalties if the Roman Senate and the whole almost of the People had been Christians I cannot perswade my self I say but they might have lawfully resisted Nero Neither have we the least tract in the History of that age that the Christians disallowed the Senate of Romes declaring that Monster an Enemy of Mankind and of the Roman Empire I would fain know can Magistracy lodg'd in any particular Person at this day pretend to any more Divine Right then the Patris-familial Power And yet by the Concession of Lawyers notwithstanding I owe intire Obedience to my Father in this if my Father divesting himself of all paternal affection should conspire my death and endeavour my distruction in this Hypothesis the Lawyers say ei debetur Reverentia sed non Obedientia And pray what seems more inconsequential to reason and the Oeconomy of the World yea to the Goodness and Wisdom of Almighty God than that some Millions of People should be so despotically subjected to the Power of one Man of the same infirmities with themselves as in case he should command all their Throats to be cut at once they are oblig'd under the pain of no less than Damnation by a thing call'd Passive Obedience to submit their Necks tamely to the blow since in no case you say they may resist And to use the words of a Worthy Gentleman in the late Parliament that one Man should die for the whole People we have heard but that the whole People should perish for the pleasure of one Man is an unaccountable piece of folly I have read some Champions of Regal Prerogative and among others the Learned Barclay who though a Scotch-man yet as bitter an Anti-fanatick as your self and they all agree that at least in these three cases the Subjects may not only resist but wage War against their Prince 1. They say it may be done so as to Dethrone him Si imperium abdicavit aut habet pro derelicto And this to be Parallel with our case in England the Votes of both Houses of Convention declare 2. They say he forfeits the Crown if he either alienate it or subject it to the Power of another And how far a Prince bigotted in the Romish Religion may stretch his Zeal England found by sad experience in King Iohn's days And you that are so well acquainted with Law cannot be ignorant of that Maxim quod semel datur Deo Ecclesiae non auferendum and so sweet a morsel given to Pope Innocent III. may be challenged by Innocent XI conform to that Maxim of the Court of Rome And how far he that endeavours to subject a Protestant State to the See of Rome in Spirituals may fall under this Category I leave it to them to judge who are acquainted with the Policies and necessary incroachments of the Court of Rome even in Temporals 3. These Lawyers acknowledge That a Prince forfeits the Crown Si hostili animo in populi exitium feratur And how far a Prince may be guilty of this when he endeavours to bring in a Religion inconsistent with the Peoples eternal Happiness I leave it to you the Gentlemen of the Black Robe who know best how preferable the Safety and Health of the Soul is to that of the Body or to the Goods of Fortune And thus Sir I presume I have clear'd the Controversie betwixt us by a fair stating the Question and these necessary Glosses upon it Fifthly You are offended at my Saying What bad Genius prompted you to call Self-Defence an Old Fanatick Principle and you tell me You was not obliged from your Text to distinguish betwixt the Kinds of it I refer it to any rational Man if it was not absolutely needful to distinguish the Kinds of it since many things may be said of the Species that in propriety of Speech cannot be said of the Genus and vice versa many things agree to the Genus that cannot be said properly of the Species As for Example Would it be proper for me to say in general The Sea ebbs and flows ten or twelve times in the natural Day without telling what Sea I mean because forsooth the Euripus does so And consequently it 's as improper to say in general Self-Defence is an old Fanatick Principle without distinguishing what kind of it deserves that Name But I 'm willing your Zeal in the Delivery should excuse this mistake You skip strangely out of the Road to meet the Murderers of the Archbishop of St. Andrews and lose your Pains for I abhor the Action as much as you As to your saying That Self-Defence came out of Scotland I hope their Neighbour Nation of England has sufficiently vindicated them in it by so fairly following their Copy in this Juncture You add That you have many Civil Law Books and none of them allows Self-Defence I find having of Books without reading them does no great Feats That they disallow Resistance to Magistrates acting as such I acknowledge But that there are not a great many Senatus-consulta Plebiscita Responsa Iurisprudentium c. through the whole Tract of the Corpus Iuris fixing Boundaries to the Magistrates Power against the breaches of which they often made Resistance worthy of the Roman Name none can be ignorant who know any thing of that Law. Must I tell you That in all the Changes of the Roman Government to that of Emperour exclusivè there was still a Tribunitia potestas lodged among the Plebeians of meer design to set Bounds to the Supreme Magistrates Hence it was That after the Government became Imperial and more Despotick the Emperors were obliged in Policy to unite the Tribunitial Power to the perpetual Dictatorship and Imperial Dignity Was there ever a People in the World more jealous of Liberty and impatient of Slavery as the Romans Witness the dethroning of Tarquin the Plebeians Insurrection against the Patritii the bloody Wars of Sylla and Marius Caesar and Pompey the unparallel'd Battel of Munda c. Yea after that Rome had submitted its Neck to the Imperial Yoke there still was left them considerable Vestiges of the Peoples and Senates Power which in many Emergents they were obliged to make use of and must I mind you of the famous Saying of one of the greatest of the Emperors in giving the Praetor the Sword Pro me si mereor in me mention'd with mighty Applause by Pliny the Younger in his Panegyrick Sixthly You are displeased at my Saying I could not recount without horror your affirming That whoever medled with the Kings Forts Revenue c. were guilty of Damnation And yet with the same breath you say it over again in expressing your self in your Letter thus If it be a Sin for Subjects to seize the Kings Revenues c. as I shall presume it to be till the contrary be prov'd it will no doubt without Repentance expose the Sinner to Damnation In truth I must acknowledge my Judgment fails me in
Sovereign but only to God by Prayer and Patience Bishop Iewell in his Defence of the Apology speaks thus We teach the People as St. Paul doth to be subject to the Higher Powers not only for fear but also for Conscience sake We teach 'em That whoso striketh with the Sword by private Authority shall perish with the Sword. If the Prince happen to be wicked or cruel or burdensom we teach 'em to say with St. Ambrose Tears and Prayers be our Weapons This I hope will be sufficient to evince That Passive Obedience was own'd by our Church in the Days of Queen Elizabeth of Blessed Memory and that in the same sense I did assert in my Sermon Fifthly In the next place you attempt to prove the lawfulness of Resisting the Kings of England from the Coronation Oath which you say is of the same import with the Bulla Aurea in Germany but for this we have no other proof than your own ipse dixit as if the Soul of Pythagoras by a Metempsychosis had at last taken up its Lodging in a Scots Tenement But I assure you Sir your bare word is of no such Authority with me Besides I have already proved That the Emperor by reason of the Bulla Aurea is no proper Sovereign And if you should say the Prince of Orange is no proper Sovereign now that he is proclaim'd King of England it would be as bad or worse than to drink a Health to the Success of King Iames's Forces against all Invaders whatsoever at that very time when the Prince of Orange was coming over to rescue the Nation from Popery and Slavery and yet this you merrily did in a certain House at the lower end of Westgate so that for all your pretended Zeal you are a sneaking Proteus and it would be as easie to shape a Coat for the Moon as for your Latitudinarian Conscience But I must instruct you That the King of England is a Sovereign Prince before his Coronation nor is his Oath necessary to make him so seeing Henry the Sixth Reign'd divers Years in England before he was Crown'd and yet was own'd by his Parliaments for their dread Sovereign Nay further our Chronicles inform us That some of our Kings were never Crown'd and besides all this I desire you and those of your Cabal to shew any thing in the Coronation Oath that allows Subjects to take up Arms against their Prince In the next place you pretend to give such an exact State of the Controversie as you say will in one word refute the Tenet of Passive Obedience and in order hereunto you offer four Cases out of Barclay and others in which as you tell me They all agree that it 's lawful for Subjects to resist and wage War against their Sovereign Princes Had you read your Country-man Barclay as you pretend you would have found that he allows only two Cases in which a Prince may be divested of his Royal Dignity and when you come to propose these four Cases you mention only three Such is the great Excellence of your Memory notwithstanding that according to the Proverb Some stand in need of a very good one First Your first Case is When a Prince does voluntarily and freely relinquish his Crown and Dignity as did Charles the Fifth Christiana of Sweden and to name no more nine Saxon Kings mentioned in Fuller's Church History Now in this Case the Prince who voluntarily resigns the Crown becomes for the future a private Person and should he afterwards by force endeavour to recover his Dignity which by his own consent is vested in the next Heir he may no doubt be resisted But sure this is not resisting a King or the Higher Powers but a private Person in defence of a lawful King and so is nothing to your purpose and pray look your Barclay again and see if this Case as you say is there Secondly If a Prince alienates his Crown and Subjects to another you say he may be resisted this without any harm may be granted too For as I own no Allegiance to a Foreign Prince so my own Prince has voluntarily divested himself and thrust himself into a private Capacity and in this case we do not resist the Higher Powers but a private Person And this instance does also fall short of the mark Thirdly The third Case is more pertinent for you say a King may be deposed or resisted Si hostili animo in populi exitium feratur This you have transcribed from Grotius and the meaning of it is this Whether a Sovereign Prince may be resisted in case he undertakes to destroy his whole Kingdom or any considerable part thereof If we may take your honest word Grotius and all that you have read resolve this Point in the Affirmative To which I answer First That Grotius with due submission to your vast reading did as I shew'd above retract in his riper Years this dangerous Opinion which Erasmus in Luke 22. stiles a most pernicious Heresie Secondly Bishop Taylor calls it deservedly a Wild Tenet and Grotius as well as he acknowledges it can scarce seem possible to happen It is certain that we have not one single instance of it in the whole Race of our British Kings Thirdly More sober Casuists condemn the starting such speculative Cases as Princes cutting the Throats of their Subjects because they have been found the Incentives of Rebellion They were such Fears and Out-crys as these that brought King Charles the Martyr to the Block and have stain'd your Scotch Chronicles with the Murders of above sixty Sovereign Princes So that King William and Queen Mary will have cause to thank you for giving such early Demonstrations of your Loyalty in the very beginning of their Reign teaching their Subjects in how many cases they may resist when the Laws of the Land say expresly That it 's unlawful to take up Arms against the King upon any pretence whatsoever Fourthly Put the case that Tiberius Caligula Claudius or Nero be the King and your Countryman Barclay instances such Monsters as these as being the greatest he could find in all History you and he both affirm they may be lawfully resisted it is not for me to oppose such Learned Gentlemen but I will assure you once more Grotius is against you and I hope he is not very much inferior to your Doctorship in Learning and Judgment And must I tell you again what I told you from the Pulpit viz. That those Prohibitions against Resistance which are given in the New Testament by our Saviour St. Paul and St. Peter were remarkably given at such a time when these greatest Monsters of Cruelty sat on the Throne and pray ask my Parishioners whether they do not believe our Saviour St. Paul and St. Peter to be as good Casuists as your Doctorship and Countryman Barclay Having thus destroyed the very Foundations your State of the Controversie stood on your slender superstructure and puerile flourishes will tumble with them In the next
evil doers nor Ministers of God for our Good except in the sense that afflictions and plagues are and so they are defective in the necessary Qualities of these higher powers to whom Subjection is enjoin'd in the Text. In your seventh paragraph after some expressions becoming the gravity of a Divine you will needs vindicate once more your not making any distinction when you term'd self defence an old Phanatick principle and the reason you give is because the Apostle made none in your Text. By the same reason you would make but a sorry comment upon many places of Scripture to instance one for all our Saviour commands us to swear not at all Now would it be here impertinent to distinguish betwixt the kinds of Oaths in order to explain what Oaths are lawful and what not because our Saviour made no distinction You have unluckily stumbled upon the Euripus in contradicting me for saying that it flow'd and ebb'd ten or twelve times in the natural day and you very confidently allow it no frequenter tides then the River Tyne This in any other would be called an unaccountable mistake the fewest motions any Author allows it being five Tides in the four and twenty hours And that my account is true I refer you to Sir George Wheelers Travels where that ingenious Gentleman gives you an exact Scheme of the ebbing and flowing of this Streight as he had it upon the place from Father Babin and the Millers thereabouts When upon this score you satyrically envy the happiness of Travellers I think such men as you are much more happy then they if Claudians description of the happy man of Verona be good For it seems he took Benacus lake for the Ocean and you take measures of all the Seas of the World by the River of Tyne Next you tell me you expected from me a great many Citations out of the Roman Law for resistance of higher powers and because of your dissapointment you charm me with four Heroick Lines Sir I did indeed tell you the Roman Laws fixt a great many boundaries to the Magistrates power and that the Tribunitial Office was lodg'd in the Plebeians for that very cause I also told you the Romans were of all People the most impatient of Slavery and gave you a hint why after the Government of Rome became more despotick the Emperours were oblig'd to confound the Tribunitial power with the Imperial dignity and all this you wisely pass over It were to transcribe too great a part of the civil Roman Law to instance all the Laws and Sentences against Arbitrary Government But let these two suffice at present The first is of Theodosius the younger Cod. Iustin. lib. 1. tit 24. Princeps tenetur The Prince is bound to the Laws on the Authority whereof his Authority depends and to the Laws he ought to submit The second is of Constantinus Leo in Bizantin pro communi The end of a King is the general good which he not performing he is but the counterfeit of a King. These two I rather instance because the first is a more ample commentary upon Trajans expression to the Praetor than I can my self agree to And the second a clear cofirmation of what I said in stating of the question that Princes divest themselves of that sacred Character by their trampling upon Laws As to your Rhyming albeit you have aped Cleveland in a great many expressions of kindness to my Countrey and have coppied verbatim out of one of his Letters that raillery of the Mares eating Thiftles yet you come not altogether up to the Stile of that ingenious Poet in your lofty Verses In the end of this Paragraph you tell me that my two last Paragraphs are such an Augean Stable of unkind falsities as will tire Hercules to clear and because they contain no Argument you vouchsafe them no other answer but get thee behind me Satan I acknowledg that in these Paragraphs I take notice of more than one single Augean Stable but you know with whose furniture Replenish'd And pray Sir is 't a falsity that you entail'd no less then damnation upon these that meddled with the Kings Forts Army Revenue c. Seeing not only in that Sermon but in your first Letter you repeat it in express words Was there no matter of Argument in what I told you of your rash Censures being levelled no lower than a Crown'd Head Was it not proper for you to answer what I said in relation to you charging me with Scandalum Ecclesiae for checking your inveighing against the Nobility of England Is it a falsity that you neither preach'd your self not would allow your Pulpit to others on the Thanksgiving day appointed for the late mighty Deliverance When you cannot but know that all honest Men of the Place exclaim'd against you for it And you know best what it meant instead of a Sermon on that day to have read in one of the Churches the Homily against Rebellion I am loth to rake up any more of the dung of this your Augean Stable since the naming of Particulars might occasion such Consequences as I do not wish you And my silence herein should oblige you to a blush for your manner of treating me But when you call all these things falsities you put me in mind of the Nature or rather Epologue of that Animal who darkning his own Sight by shutting his head into a hole fancies himself invisible to others Above all things I cannot dream how you came by the Office of an Exorcist I took it for one of the Orders of the Romish and not of the Reform'd Church but I confess I 'm oblig'd to you for a great many things I never knew before Now because your heavy charge of Rebellion was so clearly levell'd against the Nobility and Gentry of England for their medling with the late King's Forts Castles c. And by ther Resisting his Forces which more then once you say is but an other name for Rebellion It were easie to demonstrate that the Nobles and People of England have not only done so before in former ages but depos'd their Tyranizing Princes and alter'd the direct and Lineal Succession of the Crown tho they justly adher'd to the Royal Blood I shall only give you one instance of each of these As to their Resistance and medling with Forts c. We have the famous instance in King Henry the III. from whom the Magna Charta was obtain'd by the Nobles and People of England by the edge of their Swords Of the second Richard II. was a memorable Example where neither the fresh remembrance of his excellent Father nor his own promises of amendment could save him from having fourteen Articles of Maleversation exhibited against him and then deposed Of the altering the direct Lineal Succession we have a paramount instance in Cooke 4. inst p. 36.39 where notwithstanding Iohn de Beaufort Son to Iohn of Gaunt was in his Legitimation formally and expresly excluded from the Crown of England yet the Parliament entail'd the Crown upon Henry VII heir of Lyne to this Iohn of Beaufort and to the heirs of King Henry's Body and that even before his Marriage with Princess Elizabeth of the Family of York who in Cook 's opinion had the nearest right to the Crown in her own Person As to your last Paragraph I deserved to be laught at if I had troubled my self with a formal answer to your Physical questions as you call them Yet methinks I should have had more thanks for giving you a hint of your Distemper without a Fee then to have my words repeated otherwise then I wrote them For I spoke nothing of the principal Cause of diseases but told you that a Redundancy of Choler with a little of adust Melancholly produces more Tragedies in the Body of Man then the Iuice of the Pancreas is capable to do and perhaps you find it so to your own cost Let us not quarrel for the honor of the discovery of the Circulation of the Blood. If you be pleased to compare Andreas Cisalpinus and Harvey together I hope you will alter your opinion and if you send to me for the former it may ease you of a Pisa or Oxford journey Before I leave this I cannot but admire your skill in the Belles Letters for I have often read that Laurels were wreath'd about the Victors head but that they were stuck in their bosoms I owe it to your discovery I expected you would rather have bestowed it on Solomon then on Cisalpinus which I gave you a fair opportunity to do but when any thing of Divinity comes in the Play you are as silent as the Moon in an Eclipse to use your own words tho I knew not before she was more silent at time then any other and would be gladly informed what Language at other times she Speaks As to our Law Question I am not much concern'd on either side being in no great hazard of being either a Vicar or his Curat You know the reason why I proposed it and you may do in it as your Christian Wisdom shall dictate to you But what a wretched notion have you of the term Iure Divino when you confound it with not being contrary to the Law of God And that you fall not into so gross a mistake a second time I refer you to the excellent and learned Author you named his Irenicon where you may learn a better definition of it After so Learned an Answer to my Letter I expected one to my Postscript and thought you might perhaps teach the World some middle way betwixt the poor Protestants of Ireland's Resisting King Iames and their tamely yielding up their Throats to be cut but this so seasonable a Secret you keep to your self Thus I have done with you and your Letter and never any of Loyolla's Sect injoyn'd a more nauseous Penance on their Votaries then I on my self in giving you an Answer Take it as the last you shall be troubled with from SIR Your humble Servant James Welwood ERRATA Page 11. Line 14. for in this read in Thesi. p. 16. l. 27. for Barly r. Barclay p. 22. l. 27. for bold fright r. bodily fright