Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A49129
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A resolution of certain queries concerning submission to the present government ... by a divine of the Church of England, as by law establisht.
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Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing L2980; ESTC R21420
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45,635
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72
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Edict which Mordecai procured for the Jews to defend themselves says Jus naturae munit authoritate Regiâ supposing they might have done it by the Law of Nature And on those words of his Si Rex hostili animo c. hath this Note Jo. Major in 4 Sentent says Non posse populum à se abdicare potestatem destituendi Principis si in destructionem vergeret So Bilson p. 520. If a Prince submit his Kingdom to a Foreigner or change the Form of the Common-weal or neglecting the Laws established by common consent to execute his own pleasure the Lords and Commons may joyn and defend the Laws established From whence I argue thus that Prince who studiously altereth the Form and Constitution of his Kingdom as suppose from a mixed and limited Monarchy to an absolute destroys the Species of Government qua talis and so loseth it for the introduction of the new Form is the destruction of the old but a King that declares and acts accordingly that he will govern absolutely and requires his Subjects to acknowledge his absolute power doth ipso facto destroy that Species of a limited Monarchy which he had therefore he loseth that Monarchy And what was acted in Scotland and intended to be acted in England is sufficiently known and a full confirmation of this Argument And 't is the judgment of Grotius that he that openly in word or deed professeth himself an enemy to the whole Nation and the major and better part may carry that denomination is in that very act presumed to abjure and renounce the Government of it for if such a Prince should proceed to execute all his ruining Designs he would leave none of his People over whom he might reign To these I shall add another Argument viz. That a Prince or People may yield up themselves to a prevailing power as the men of Capua and Collatia did to the Romans and so lost all their authority And that our King did so may appear by disbanding his Army on the approach of the present King and submitting himself to his Guards And as King Agrippa said to the Jews Intempestivum est nunc libertatem concupiscere olim ne ea amitteretur certatum oportuit He ought to have defended his Dominion while he had it it is too late to require what by dedition and dereliction he hath given up 4. There are in Laws as well as in Oaths Casus omissi and tacit exceptions which the greatest prudence of men could neither foresee nor sufficiently prevent nor indeed were it a point of prudence so much as to name them being things odious or rarely contingent as the case of a King 's being lunatick or otherwise incapable of the Administration of his Office which our Laws have not provided against Bishop Sanderson p. 41. De Juramento mentioneth these four Si Deus permiserit quoad licet salvà potestate Superioris Rebus sic stantibus 1. If God permit as in the 4th of St. James So that if Caius swears to Titius to pay him at London on the Calends of January a Sum of Money which he oweth him but is at that time confined to his Bed by a grievous Disease or in his Journey is robbed of his Money by Thieves in this case he is not guilty of perjury because Rei impossibilis nulla est obligatio there is no obligation to a thing impossible and because all things are subject to the Divine Will and Providence therefore in every Oath by a Common Law this Clause is to be understood unless God shall otherwise dispose For this he quotes the Gloss ad quest 22. c. 2. B. Paulus In omni voto vel Sacramento intelliguntur hujusmodi generales conditiones si Deus voluerit si vivero si potero 2. Another Condition to be understood is if it be lawful because there is no obligation to unlawful things as if a man swear to observe all the Statutes and Customs of a Corporation he is bound to observe such only as are lawful and honest A 3d Condition is a Salvo to the power of a Superior as when a Son swears to do a thing that is lawful in it self but his Father being ignorant of the matter commands another thing the doing whereof hinders the Son from performing what he had sworn the Son is not bound by that Oath because by the Divine Law he is bound to obey the command of his Father the reason is because the act of one man ought not to prejudice the right of another The 4th Condition is if things continue in the same state wherein they were as when a man swears to return a Sword that he borrowed and the person of whom it was borrowed grows furiously mad he is not bound to restore it So Seneca l. 4. de Ben. c. 35. Tum fidem fallam si omnia eadem sint me promittente Si mutentur fidem meam liberat It is highly reasonable to presume that such cases may happen which if the Law-givers could have foreseen they would not have made or pass'd into a Law and therefore it may be presumed they will not exact obedience to it Dr. Sanderson p. 166. de Cons When the Law forbids that to be done which the Subject cannot omit without sin or commands that to be done which he cannot do without sin such a Law doth not bind for 1. Rei illicitae nulla est obligatio as when a Prince commands the Worship of a false God Prior obligatio praejudicat posteriori The obligation to preserve the Common Welfare is prior to our Allegiance to the present Governor Falkner in his Book of Christian Loyalty speaks as much for the unlawfulness of Subjects taking up Arms against the King as can be said p. 372 c. yet p. 542. he proposeth the case Whether if a Supreme Governor should according to his own Pleasure and contrary to the established Laws and his Subjects Property actually engage upon the destroying and ruining a considerable part of his People they might not defend themselves by taking Arms. And he instanceth in the Paris Massacre where about 100000 were slain in cold blood most of which were innocent persons never accused or tried by Law which he says was such a cruelty as can scarce be paralel'd under Mahometism And he grants that if ever such a case should happen it would have great difficulties Grotius saith he thinks that in this utmost extremity the use of such defence ultimo necessitatis praesidio as a last refuge is not to be condemned provided the case of the common good be preserved And he seems to grant that this may be true upon this ground viz. that such attempts of ruining do ipso facto include a disclaiming the governing those persons as Subjects i. e. according to Law and consequently of being their Prince or King and so the expressions in the Declaration that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever c. would be secured Now p. 529. he
A RESOLUTION OF Certain Queries CONCERNING SUBMISSION TO THE Present Government The QUERIES I. Concerning the Original of Government II. What is the Constitution of the Government of England III. What Obligation lies on the King by the Coronation-Oath IV. What Obligation lies on the Subject by the Oaths of Supremacy c. V. Whether if the King Violate his Oath and actually Destroys the Ends of it the Subjects are freed from their Obligation to him VI. Whether the King hath Renounced or Deserted the Government VII Whether on such Desertion the People to Preserve themselves from Confusion may admit Another and what Method is to be used in such Admission VIII Whether the Settlement now made is a Lawful Establishment and such as with a good Conscience may be Submitted to By a Divine of the Church of England As by Law Establisht Licensed April 8th 1689. J. Fraser London Printed and are to be Sold by R. Baldwin in the Old-Baily 1689. The INTRODUCTION THERE is no doubt but the imputation of Disloyalty will as the Viper that came out of the fire and fastned upon St. Paul's Hand be fixed on the Church of England from the Dissenters of all sorts The Clamour is already very loud Where is the Loyalty of the Church of England Which though ad homines it might well be Answered by demanding Where is the Loyalty of the Papists Whom the King had so far obliged as to put them into the most considerable Offices of the Nation excluding better Subjects yet none of them though they were well Armed and in great numbers ever struck a stroke to defend the King against the Assailants although by their mischievous Counsels they had reduced him to those unhappy Circumstances And the other Dissenters who pretended to be great numbers and to have so great a Zeal for His Majesty for the favours granted them by the Indulgence and share in the Government as with their Lives and Fortunes to assist him yet were most forward to unite against him But what have the Clergy done to incur the Note of Disloyalty Did they enter into an Association against the King Were they called in Convocation to declare their Judgments as to the present juncture of Affairs Did they not as long as the King remained in his Kingdom obey him in all things Lawful according to their Doctrine of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience It could not be expected that they should take Arms or expose their naked Bodies to the Invaders Sword. They kept their Stations as their Duties to God and the King obliged them committing themselves to God and waiting for his Salvation And methinks when the Bishops and Clergy were accused for Disloyalty by some for not obeying the King in reading his late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience which they could not do with a good Conscience and were generally applauded for such Refusal they should not now be decried for keeping to the same Rule of not doing such things for which their Consciences till better informed will condemn them But we are now brought into a great strait in which our Adversaries will by all Arts imaginable endeavour to keep us and which way soever we turn they will turn it to our Ruin if it be possible If we comply with the present Establishment they will rob us of our Reputation and Faithfulness towards the People committed to our Charge as if we had misled them and taught them those Doctrines which we our selves never intended to practice If we comply not they judge us Men worthy to be deprived of our Livelihoods and with our Families to be exposed as in the late War to Sequestrators and new Committees These are no groundless Jealousies but real Fears and in some degree matters of Fact for almost in every Parish there are Persons of different Persuations and if the Minister pray for the present King and Queen according to Order one part of the Mobile condemn him for an Apostate from his own Doctrine and a Rebel If we keep to our Liturgy which by Oath we are bound to do and tho' we have as yet no Order regularly transmitted to us for altering any of those Prayers there is another Party threaten to knock us on the heads and great Affronts have been offered to several Conscientious Ministers on both these occasions What then shall we do to extricate our selves from these Mazes which are daily enlarged and become more dark and difficult for 't is not the case of a few Bishops or private Ministers only but the case of the Church of England which if our Enemies can divide in this they will easily destroy us and not us only but the whole Interest of the Protestant Churches abroad whose welfare much depends upon our Vnion and Agreement in this Nation It therefore concerns us all seriously and sincerely to enquire after the due measures of Obedience to our present Governors that doing our Duties according to the Commands of God and the Dictates of a well-inform'd Conscience we may stop the mouths of such as are opened against us and ready to swallow us up I shall at present only consider The Objection against the Church of England which is That she hath Deserted the King contrary to her Oaths her own Doctrine for Passive Obedience and their Declaration for Non-resistance viz. That it is not Lawful on any Pretence whatsoever c. Answer 1. That the Doctrine of the Church as to the present Juncture is not known but by their Determinations in a Convocation duly called for what some of the Clergy do act or declare is not to be imputed to the Church In the War raised against Charles the First some of the Clergy as Sibthorp and Manwaring stretched the Prerogative too high others as Marshal and Calamy all which pretended to be of the Church of England depressed it as low But neither of these Extremities could be charged on the Church which kept in a middle way And under the late King some were of the same Opinion with Sibthorp and Manwaring as the Bishops of Chester and Oxford others refused to comply so far as to publish his Declaration what the Church would have done in Convocation is a Non constat 2ly As to the Doctrines of Non-resistance and Passive Obedience which were not so generally taught but others did declare That those general Rules might admit of just Exceptions and had certain tacite Conditions and Qualifications in them which in case of great alterations in the Affairs of Government would appear to be necessary and justifiable and they suppose that if such a case as ours now is had been thought of or proposed it would certainly be excepted or provided against And they think it fit that the condition and circumstances of the Times wherein such Doctrines were published ought to be considered for from the Reign of Q. Elizabeth we lived under Protestant Princes governing by Laws and Defenders of our Faith who though they erred from the Laws and