Rain under the pretence of Obedience to the Magistrates whom we ought to obey although they be wicked But such much learn of Christ to give to Cesar that that is Cesar's and to God that that is due to God And with S. Peter to obey the higher Powers in the Lord albeit they be evil if they command nothing contrary to God's Word otherwise we ought not to obey their Commandments although we should suffer death therefore as we have the Apostles for our Examples herein to follow who answered the Magistrates as we ought to do in this case not obeying their wicked Precepts saying Judg ye whether it be more righteous that we should obey men rather than God. Nor was this Doctrine peculiar to these few Confessors in that general Persecution for Rogers the Proto-Martyr of that Reign Dr. Taylor of Hadley Crome Laurence and others as appears by the first * page 23. Part of this History were of the same mind the contrary Doctrine among those who called themselves Protestants being then hardly hatch'd or but just out of the Shell Thus the Primitive Martyrs who never declined going to a Stake unanimously declared that no man of their Society was imprisoned or brought to suffer as a Traytor against the Government for they had learnt to dye not to fight for Religion SECT VI. It cannot be denied that John Knox was an early Opposer of this truly Christian Apostolical and Primitive Practice as the account of the Troubles of * v. first part of Hist page 25 / 6. Francfort declares But we ought withal to consider what our most worthy Primate Archbishop Bancroft well observes †Danger Posit c. lib. 2. c. 1. that whereas such dangerous Doctrines as these The Authority which Princes have is given them from the People and upon occasion the People may take it away again That evil Princes by the Law of God ought to be deposed That when Magistrates cease to do their Duties in deposing evil Princes then God gives the Sword into the Peoples hands and such other like dangerous Positions as he truly calls them were owned by the Genevians and many of the English that were fled to Geneva in the Reign of Queen Mary ' that the rest of the learned Men that fled in that Queens Reign as John Scory William Barlow Richard Cox Thomas Becon John Bale John Parkhurst Edmond Grindal Edwin Sandys Alexander Nowel Robert Wisdom John Jewel and very many more having no great affection to Geneva bestow'd themselves in Germany especially at Zurich Basil and Francfort and maintain'd the Reformation of the Church of England in King Edward 's time ☜ they used in their holy Assemblies the form of Service and order of Ceremonies which were then establish'd and they utterly misliked and condemned the aforesaid Propositions as very seditious and rebellious according to the judgment of all the Reformed Churches for ought I can learn both in Germany and elsewhere except Geneva and her Offspring besides they of Francfort as it appeareth notwithstanding their grief that they were constrain'd to leave their Country for their Conscience yet in the midst of all their Afflictions they retained so dutiful Hearts to Queen Mary imitating therein the Apostles and Disciples of our Master as that they could not endure to hear her so traduced into all Hatred and Obloquy as she was by the other sort Mr. Knox coming upon occasion from Geneva to Francfort was by these grave Men accus'd of Treason as he himself confesseth for Matters that he had publish'd in print against their Sovereign and the Emperor and was fain thereupon to fly thence to Geneva So that by this and the former Letter of Bradford c. we may plainly see what was the uniform Belief of the English Confessors in those days of Persecution both those who were in England and those who had fled thence for Righteousness sake and for a good Conscience Nor can I find any true Son of our Church that asserted the contrary Doctrine unless we must except Bishop Poinet in his short Treatise of Politick power and true obedience in which it is Thetically laid down that it is lawful to depose an evil Governor and to kill a Tyrant But I cannot believe the Book to be his 1. Because Printed as I think after his death Anno 1556. he dying at Strasburg April 11. of the same year and the Preface to his Book seems to acknowledg it 2. Because if I conjecture aright by the character Printed at Geneva where two years afterward Anno sc 1558. both Knox's first blast of the Trumpet against the Regiment of Women and Goodman's Book of Obedience first saw the light and Ant. Gilbie's admonition to England and Scotland to call them to repentance and thirdly because it wants that learning and acumen that discover themselves illustriously in his other Writings and the Doctrine is contrary to that Bishop's Practices l. 2. hist Reform p. 271. Dr. Burnet acquitting Bishop Poinet of having any hand as he was accused in Sir Thomas Wyatt's Rebellion and how easie is it in a disturbed Age for Zealots to Father on a dead Bishop such Tenets as he neither own'd nor defended but if after all this Bishop Poinet be the genuine Author of that Treatise it is but the example of one and that no Old Man for he died before he was forty maintaining a Paradox against all the other the venerable Martyrs and Confessors of that time SECT VII Among those pious Exiles Thomas Beacon was one who having been in the beginning of Queen * Fox tom 2. p. 1281. Mary's Reign committed to the charge of the Lieutenant of the Tower with Bradford and Vernon went afterwards into Germany whence upon Queen Elizabeth's advancement to the Crown he with many other Exiles return'd into this Kingdom I shall at present omit what he in his Anthology out of the Works of Lactantius hath cited out of that Father and give an account of what he declares to be his own Sentiments In his Governance of Virtue Sect. Tom 1. oper f. 263. Lond 1564. against Rebellion and Disobedience he thus instructs us If the Devil that old Enemy of Mankind and troubler of all good orders go about to put in thy head that the Magistrates and High Powers do not their duty in the right Government of a Common-wealth ☜ but too much cruelly oppress their Subjects and that therefore they may justly rise and rebel against them and take upon thee of thy own private authority to redress things that are amiss in the Common-wealth take heed that thou by no means consentest to his most subtle and wicked temptation whereby he goeth about to throw thee into everlasting damnation both of Body and Soul besides the shameful death that thou shalt have in this World and the loss of all that ever thou hast but content thy self with thy vocation labour diligently and quietly for thy living to maintain peace
the Covenant Printed at Lon. 1640. disproves their pretended conformity with the French Churches in the points of Church Discipline and Obedience to Superiors averring solemnly P. 2. that it was ever far from our wishes that your conformity with the Reformed Churches of France should be misapplyed as a pretence of your expelling your Bishops much less a president for you to take Arms against your Gracious Sovereign P. 37 38. take it for granted that the Orders imposed upon you by His Majesty are Ungodly and Antichristian are you therefore allowed to defend Religion with Rebellion will ye call the Devil to the help of God Sure it is a prodigious kind of Christian Liberty for a Subject to draw his Sword against his Sovereign you that stand so much upon the point of conscience ought ye not to be subject for Conscience sake ☞ Were your Sovereign unjust and froward and his commands injurious unto God had ye instead of our pious defender of the Faith a fierce Dioclesian illud solis precibus patientiâ sanari potest nothing will mend it but prayers and patience it is Beza's counsel to the discontented Brethren of England conformable to that of St. 1 Pet. 3.17 Peter for it is better if the will of God be so that ye suffer for well doing than for evil doing if the Sovereign come to kill the Subject for his Religion the Subject must yield him his throat not charge his Pike against him and this he proves by Calvin's Practice and Writings P. 38 39 40. the Churches of France have lately declared to His Majesties Ambassador there their utter dislike of the Insurrection of Scotland under pretence of a Covenant with Christ P. 41. there can be no just cause to take Arms against a Lawful Sovereign after this he treats of the French Protestants taking Arms P. 46. and concludes that till the Reign of King Lewis the Arms of the Protestants were either justifiable or excusable but their Wars in his time were neither and they prosper'd accordingly P. 48. the French Protestants had to do with a King of a contrary Religion they were incens'd by many wrongs and oppressions they were in danger to lose with their Forts and Towns their Liberty their Religion and their Life the privileges which they enjoyed were rewards of their long Services by the Charter of Rochel when they yielded to Lewis XI it was granted to them that they should be no longer the King's Subjects ☞ than the King should maintain their immunities and yet these true reasons and just fears could not justifie their defensive Arms against their Sovereign but they were condemn'd by the best of their own and of their neighbors and God shewed his dislike by the ill success he gave them And much more to this purpose is to be seen in his answer to Philanax Anglicus and in his Regii sanguinis Clamor ad caelum contra Parricidas Anglicanos Hagae Com. 1652 C. 1. 〈◊〉 5. for that being is du Moulin juniors and not Alexander Morus's as was conjectured affirming with the Apostle that even the Jews would not have Crucified the Lord of Glory had they known him while the Parricides of King Charles I. wittingly and wilfully Murdered their Lawful King and with the King beheaded also the Church of England and brought upon the neighbouring Protestant Churches abundance of Dishonor and much danger while the same madness was imputed to all the Reformation which had only infected a few who falsly called themselves Reformed Nothing hath happened since the beginning of the World more contrary to the glory of God or that hath cast a greater blot upon holy Truth while the Wickedness defends it self by the Doctrin of the Gospel and is said to be perpetrated to vindicate the Protestant Religion to the just indignation and abhorrence of all the foreign Churches for which reason Salmasius P. 7. Heraldus Porree and others wrote smartly both against the Men P. 17. and their villanous Principles It is a Law not only written but born with us and springs from the most pure fountains of Nature That it is a most horrid crime for Subjects to punish their Princes and therefore we do too much honour to Parricides when we use Arguments against them for as Aristotle says they who doubt 1 Top. c 9 whether God is to be worship'd or Parents to be honoured are not to be convinc'd by Reasons but by Scourges and Salmasius hath proved by unanswerable Reasons by divine and human Authority that the Majesty of Kings is unaccountable and that Subjects have no manner of Authority over them Cap. 2. p. 29 30. There is no fallacy of Satan which more prevails upon good Men to engage them in an evil Cause than when Men contrary to God's Word believe that it is lawful to do evil that good may come thereof and that God hath need of our sinful assistance to promote his Kingdom and that whatever is design'd to promote God's Glory immediatly commences good P. 52. the Judges at Westminster were turn'd out by the Army because being consulted they had given this opinion that to judge the King was against the Laws of England Cap. 5. p. 107. to argue from Providence and Success to the goodness of a Cause is impudent one man is hang'd for that by which another gets a Crown Junius Brutus by expelling the Kings of the Family of Tarquin saved his Country another Brutus by murdering a Tyrant ruined it perhaps the later Brutus did an act of justice when he slew an Usurper but the first was very unjust who drove away a lawful King by the murder of King Charles I. Cap. 6. p. 121. the Parricides taught the rest of the World that Kings may be guilty of breach of trust to their People that the People are their Judges and may condemn and execute them and these Tenets they are not ashamed to own in their Writings that they had freed the World of its old Superstition that Kings are only obnoxious to God and can be punish'd only by him that they had set an example to all other Nations conducive to their safety and to be dreaded by all Tyrants as Cromwel wrote to the Scots after Dunbar fight what an occasion of insulting is hereby given to the Papists to say Cap. 7. p. 135. this is the Religion which brings down Reformation to us from Heaven these are the Men who cry out against the Usurpations of the Popes upon the Crowns and lives of Princes only that they might themselves have that power over Kings when they had snatched it from the Pope But the Papists would suggest this with less fierceness if they remembred that those few who left us in this point went to them and borrowed their Weapons from them C. 8 p. 148. these Monsters do not content themselves with being simple Parricides but they turn Rebellion into a
first brought from another Country and is no way natural to our own tho the Infection hath been taken by too many who had an ill Temper prepared for it Cons Dr. Jackson's Works Tom. 3. l. 12. ch 8. p. 978. their Loyalty and Peaceableness may be the Fruits of their Education or their good temper but not of their Faith or as Dr. Sherlock says they may be loyal as Englishmen but they cannot be so as Papists Would we therefore judge of the Doctrine of our Church we must consult her Articles Canons publick Homilies publick Offices of Devotion General Orders of her Bishops Censures of her Universities and Writings of her greatest Men who have vindicated her Doctrine and explained her Belief and this Method I shall use to discover what hath been owned by the Church of England as to the Doctrine of Non-resistance or Passive Obedience CHAP. I. The Doctrine of the Thirty nine Articles THE Articles of our Church have been always looked upon as the stated Doctrine of our whole Church to which all her Priests are obliged to make their Subscriptions they are allowed a place in the Body of the Confessions of the Protestant Churches and are highly commended by Foreigners as well as by our own Writers for * Bishop Ridley's Farewel Letter apud Fox tom 3. p. 506. this Church hath in matters of Controversie Articles so penned and framed after the Holy Scriptures and grounded upon the true understanding of God's Word that in short time if they had been universally received says Bishop Ridley the Martyr they should have been able to have set in Christ's Church much concord and unity in Christ's true Religion and to have expelled many false Errors and Heresies wherewith this Church alas was almost overgone Nor is this that excellent Prelate's peculiar Opinion but of the whole Church which ordains †Can. 3. an 1604. That whosoever shall affirm that the Church of England by Law establish'd under the King's Majesty is not a true and Apostolical Church teaching and maintaining the Doctrine of the Apostles let him be excommunicated ipso facto And Can. 5. Whosoever shall affirm that any of the thirty nine Articles agreed in the Synod 1562 are in any part superstitious or erroneous let him be excommunicate ipso facto Anno 1552. In the Convocation held at London Articles of Religion were agreed upon of which the Thirty sixth runs thus The Civil Magistrate is ordained and allowed of God and therefore is to be obeyed not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake And expresly asserts That the Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England In the Articles of our Church under Queen Elisabeth anno 1562. it runs thus and so continues to this day The Queens Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all Cases doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any Foreign Jurisdiction And it is remarkable ‖ Rogers's Praef. to the 39th Artic. that these Articles of 1562. were published in the same year in which the Massacre at Vassey in France was committed by the Duke of Guise and when all the Protestants in the Country were sentenced to Death by the Parliament of Paris It is true this Doctrine is not limited to the particular Case of Subjects taking up Arms but it seems to me by two necessary Consequences to be deduc'd from it 1. Because if the Pope who pretended by a Divine Right had no power over Kings much less have the People any power who pretend to an inferior Right that of Compact 2. Because the Article makes no distinction but excludes all other Power as well as that of the Pope And in truth the Plea is the same on either side the Pope says as long as the Prince governs according to the Laws of God and the Church of which he is the Interpreter so long the Censures of the Church do not reach him and say the People as long as the Prince governs according to the Laws of the Land and of the meaning of those Laws themselves are the Interpreters so long are they bound to be obedient but as soon as the King doth any thing that may contradict the Pope then he is deservedly say the Romanists excommunicate deposed and murdered and when he usurps upon the Peoples Liberties then he ought to be deposed by the Peoples the Arguments on either side are the same and for the most part the Authorities for as * Moderat of the Church of England ann 17. §. 19. p. 481. Dr. Puller well observes both Papists and Dissenters deny the Supremacy of the King one attributes it to the Pope originally the other to the People and the same Arguments that the Pope useth for his Supremacy over Kings the Disciplinarians use for establishing their Sovereignty CHAP. II. The Doctrine of the Injunctions and Canons IN the Infancy of the Reformation under Henry the Eighth for there I begin the Restoration of Religion to her Purity in this Kingdom as Dr. Burnet does †Burnet hist Reform l. 3. p. 226. tom 1. And Fox tom 2. p. 387. Anno 1536. Injunctions were issued out the first of which is That every Man that hath Cure of Souls shall for the Establishment and Confirmation of the King's Authority and Jurisdiction sincerely declare manifest and open for the space of one quarter of a year next ensuing once every Sunday and after that at the least wise twice every Quarter in their Sermons and other Collations that the Bishop of Rome 's usurp'd Power and Jurisdiction having no Establishment or Ground in the Law of God was of most just Causes taken away and abolish'd and that the King's Power is in his Dominions the highest Power and Potentate under God to whom all men within the same Dominions by God's Commandment owe most Loyalty and Obedience afore and above all other Potentates in Earth Now if a King be above all other Powers then he cannot be accountable to any other Power and so ought not to be resisted Anno * Burnet's Collect. of Records p. 181. 1538. came out the Lord Cromwel's Injunctions as they were called wherein the same Duty is injoyned in the same Words This also is the first of the Injunctions of Edw. the Sixth †Sparr Collect. p. 1 2. An. 1547. the Preface to which Injunctions acknowledges that part of them were formerly set out by Henry the Eighth and the rest added by King Edward the Sixth This also was the first of the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth with a very little variation and accordingly in the Articles of Enquiry of Archbishop Cranmer in the Diocess of Canterbury under Edward the Sixth the first is Whether all Persons c. have preach'd against the usurp'd Power of the Bishop of Rome Secondly Whether they have preach'd and
well acquainted with the Thoughts of those venerable Men who wrote the Homilies at this distance of time What Communication hath he with the other World or what peculiar Memoirs that have scap'd all the wise Men of our Church who have been conversant with her Records have fallen into his hands And then I will shew that the Expressions of the Homilies are very full and plain and exclusive of all Pretences to take up Arms against our lawful Superiors The Homily or Exhortation to Obedience Burnet's Hist Ref. part 2. l. 1. c. 6. was made An. 1547. in the Reign of K. Edward the Sixth in the second part of which Sermon of Obedience we are told that it is the calling of God's People to be patient and on the suffering side and to render Obedience to Governors although they be wicked and wrong doers and in no case to resist and stand against them Subjects are bound to obey them i. e. Governors as God's Ministers although they be evil not only for fear but also for conscience sake and here good People let us mark diligently that it is not lawful for Inferiors and Subjects in any case to resist and stand against the superior Powers for St. Paul 's words be plain That whoso withstandeth shall get to themselves Damnation Our Saviour Christ and his Apostles received many and divers Injuries of the unfaithful and wicked men in Authority yet we never read that they or any of them caused any Sedition or Rebellion against Authority we read oftne that they patiently suffer'd all Troubles Vexations Slanders Pangs Pains and Death it self obediently without Tumult or Resistance Christ taught us plainly that even the wicked Rulers have their Power and Authority from God and therefore it is not lawful for their Subjects to withstand them although they abuse their Power Let us believe undoubtedly good Christian People that we may not obey Kings if they command us to do any thing contrary to God's Commandments in such a case we ought to say with the Apostle We must rather obey God than Man but nevertheless in that case we may not in any wise withstand violently or rebel against Rulers or make any Insurrection Sedition or Tumults either by force of Arms or otherwise against the Anointed of the Lord or any of his appointed Officers but we must in such case patiently suffer all wrongs and injuries referring the judgment of our Cause only to God and Part 3. of the same Homily Ye have heard before of this Sermon of good Order and Obedience manifestly proved both by Scriptures and Examples that all Subjects are bound to obey their Magistrates and for no cause to resist or withstand or rebel or make any Sedition against them yea although they be wicked men The second Book of Homilies was compiled in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and among them the Homily against Disobedience and wilful Rebellion is full to this purpose * Part. 1. In reading the holy Scriptures we shall find in very many and almost infinite places as well of the Old Testament as of the New that Kings and Princes as well the evil as the good do reign by God's Ordinance and that Subjects are bounden to obey them The further and further any Earthly Prince doth swerve from the Example of the Heavenly Government the greater plague he is of God's Wrath and Punishment by God's Justice unto the Country and People over whom God for their Sins hath placed such a Prince and Governor What shall Subjects do then What a perillous thing were it to commit to Subjects the Judgment which Prince is wise and godly and his Government good and which otherwise as though the Foot must judge of the Head an Enterprize very heinous and which must needs breed Rebellion and is not Rebellion the greatest of all mischiefs A Rebel is worse than the worst Prince and Rebellion worse than the worst Government of the worst Prince that hitherto hath been If we will have an evil Prince when God shall send such a one taken away and a good one in his place let us take away our Wickedness which provoketh God to place such a one over us Shall the Subjects both by their Wickedness provoke God for their deserved punishment to give them an undiscreet and evil Prince and also rebel against him and withal against God who for the punishment of their Sins did give them such a Prince And this Doctrine is excellently inforc'd in the second part of that Homily from the Example of King David in his Carriage towards Saul And one reason perhaps why these old plain Sermons are by some men despised and evil spoken of is because they so heartily recommend this Doctrine of Non-resistance CHAP. IV. The Doctrine of the Liturgy TO our Homilies I subjoin the Liturgy of our Church the most excellent body of publick Prayers that the World owns In the Morning and Evening Service for every day God is said to be the only Ruler of Princes exclusive of both Pope and People To the understanding of which Collect I shall give you the Paraphrase of Dr. Cumber * Compan to the Temple part 1. § 23. p. 171. Ed. Fol. The Church of England is famous above all other Churches for her entire Loyalty to the King which may be seen not only in the Lives of the true Sons thereof but in their Prayers c. †Id. p. 173. God is the only Judge of the Actions of Princes since they are his Servants and Substitutes to their own Master they must stand or fall and are only accountable to his Tribunal and therefore we have so much the more need to pray for them to their great Lord that he would direct them to do well and guide them who are to rule us that this their mighty Prince may be in safety and in peace for if it should be otherwise which God forbid we neither will nor can oppose them having no other Arms against our Prince but Prayers and Tears ‖ Id. p. 174. If he were a Saul or a Nero we should sin in ceasing to pray for him ‡ Id. p. 176. v. p. 225. It is natural to the true Sons of the Church of England to love the King. If a foreign Prince opposes our King he is a Robber if * P. 177. he be a Subject who rises against his Sovereign he hath renounc'd Christianity with his Allegiance ☞ and is to be esteem'd a Troubler of our Israel Therefore whosoever they be that are Enemies to the King and whatsoever the pretence be we wish they may never prosper In the Litany we pray God to deliver us from all Sedition privy Conspiracy and Rebellion and Dr. Cumber †Part 2. § 2. p. 225. says That the Words Rebellion and Schism were put into the Litany since our late unhappy Civil Wars that have given us reason to pray From all Sedition c. In the Greek Liturgies he says it
is thus express'd From Civil Wars c. ☜ but not one Word of this could he ever find in the Roman Missals that have come to his hands it being the peculiar Glory of the Church of England that her Prayers and Practices have always been eminently loyal and Enemies to Treason and Rebellion And he says farther * Ib. p. 226 227. That Rebellion is a sin so contrary to Christianity that though the Primitive Christians had all the Provocations imaginable and Force sufficient they never offer'd to rebel So that they who do rebel have divested themselves of the Christian Principles and almost of their Humanity too In the Prayer for the Parliament We may say of our Princes as Pliny said of the good Emperor Trajan they have freely yielded to rule by those Laws to which nothing but their own goodness could oblige them and doubtless the People of England ought to take it as an Act of Grace that their Kings have consented to govern them on this manner In the Prayer after the Commandments the King is said to be God's Minister and we beg God that all his Subjects duly considering that he hath God's Authority may faithfully serve honor and humbly obey him according to God's blessed Word and Ordinance And this is admirably commented †Id. part 3. §. 4. p. 20. We are to consider that Kings bear God's Name and act by his Power and such as rebel do fight against God oppose his Word and resist his Ordinance c. In the occasional Office for Nov. 5. we pray God That the King may cut off all such workers of Iniquity as turn Religion into Rebellion and Faith into Faction And in the Office for May 29. when we thank God for the Restoration of the Royal Family we beseech God to accept of our unfeigned Oblation of our selves vowing all holy Obedience in Thought Word and Work unto the Divine Majesty and promising in him and for him all dutiful Allegiance to his anointed Servant and to his Heirs for ever And it is also observable the Proclamations relating to those solemn times are appointed to be read which are as full to this purpose as any thing can be and by our Canons when the Minister bids Prayer before his Sermon to continue the belief of this Truth he is bound to exhort the People when they pray to acknowledge the King to be in all Causes and over all Persons next and immediately under God supreme c. CHAP. V. The Orders of our Bishops BY the Orders of our Bishops I mean not so much the particular Injunctions or Enquiries of our Prelates within their own particular Dioceses though of such instances there is no want as I have shewn Chap. 2. from the Articles of Inquiry of Archbishop Cranmer and the Articles of Visitation of Bishop Ridley and could prove from many other such Instances but the general Orders which have been sent from the Metropolitan to the whole Church such Injunctions when obey'd ought to be look'd on as the sense of the whole Church unless we shall impeach either the Makers or the Complyers of dishonest Practices especially when the Adversaries of the Church have given occasion to such Injunctions thus when Knight of whom I shall treat in the next Chapter was censured at Oxford the same Year some Cautions concerning Preachers and Preaching were by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York with the King's Consent as the Law required sent to the several Bishops of their Provinces to be put in execution in their several Dioceses The Directions are dated Aug. 4. 1622. of which the first requires That no Preacher c. shall fall into any set course or common place otherwise than by opening the Coherence and division of his Text which shall not be comprehended and warranted in essence substance effect or natural inference within some one of the Articles of Religion set forth Ann. 1562. or in some one of the Homilies set forth by Authority c. The fourth is That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever shall presume from henceforth in any Auditory within this Kingdom to declare limit or bound out by way of positive Doctrine in any Lecture or Sermon the Power Prerogative Jurisdiction Authority or duty of Sovereign Princes or therein meddle with Matters of State and Reference between Princes and People than as they are instructed in the Homily of Obedience and in the rest of the Homilies and Articles of Religion set forth by Publick Authority These Injunctions were again renew'd and reinforc'd in the days of King Charles the Second and in the next Reign and in the Articles of the present Archbishop of Canterbury * July 16. 1638. Art. 7. the Clergy are expresly enjoyn'd That in their Sermons they should four times in the Year at least teach the People That the Kings Power being in his Dominions highest under God all Priests should upon all occasions persuade the People to Loyalty and Obedience to his Majesty in all things lawful and to patient Submission in the rest promoting as far as in them lies the publick Peace and Quiet of the World. And agreeably to this Doctrine were the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy especially the later framed which though particularly made against the Papists yet as Bishop Sanderson well observes where the Reason of making and imposing an Oath is particular Praelect 7. de juram but the words of the Oath are general there the Oath obliges according to the sense of the words in their utmost latitude as says he for Example in the Oath of Supremacy to the making of which the Usurpation of the Pope gave occasion the words being all general do exclude all Persons from exercising that Supreme Power in this Kingdom And every Clergy-man especially ought to reflect how often he hath solemnly profess'd and averr'd That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King or any commissioned by him c. and to remember that that Declaration was injoyned in opposition to the Doctrines of the year 1641 the Men of which age asserted That the Power of Kings was given them by the People and might be resumed by the Donors that the King was co-ordinate with the States and that his Politick differ'd from his personal Capacity Now the occasion of the making a Law and the preamble of it are look'd on as the best Interpreters of the words of a Law. CHAP. VI. The Censures of our Universities NOR are the Censures of our most famous Universities in this case to be neglected or look'd on slightly it is well known what a Repute the Judgment of the single College of the Sorbone hath at Paris and how much the Authority of the Foreign Universities together with our own sway'd with King Henry the Eighth and persuaded the Christian World to credit the Justice of his Divorce Now I shall not mention the Censure of the Mille manus Petition as it
Doctrines to murder Princes are not of the Gospel-Spirit Bishop Hacket's Sermons on Psal xli 9. on the Gowry's Conspiracy p. 740. 741. Surely above all Men if the Clergy be not careful to set forth the honor of this day with great Honour and Solemnity it is their Ignorance or their Negligence Had these furious Sword-men that laid their Weapons to his Throat found an austere Master nay a Tyrant they must have born with it and not touch the Man that bears the Character of the Lord 's Anointed Dr. Sharp before the House of Commons Apr. 11. 1679. p. 35. O may God so inspire you That by your means the Person of his sacred Majesty and the Rights of his Crown may be secured against all wicked Attempts And p. 39. Let us hate all Tricks and Devices and Equivocations both in our Words and in Carriage Let us be constantly and inflexibly loyal to our Prince and let no consideration in the World make us violate our Allegiance to him And in his Sermon preach'd before the Lord Mayor 1680. speaking of the upright Man He is one studiously endeavouring to preserve his Allegiance to his Prince Pag. 19. He is a Man that honors the King that is observant of the Laws that is true to the Government and meddles not with them that are given to change In his Sermon preached at the Yorkshire Feast Feb. 17. 16 79 / 80. p. 17. We may do a great deal of good by our good Examples of Loyalty SECT XXII And to evince that this hath been the unquestion'd Doctrine of all the Members of this Church I shall subjoin many other Testimonies * Bish of Lincoln Principl and Posit p. 7. That England is a Monarchy the Crown Imperial and our Kings supreme Governors and sole supreme Governors of this Realm and all other their Dominions will I believe I am sure it should be granted seeing our Authentick Laws and Statutes do so expresly and so often say it In our Oath of Supremacy we swear That the King is the only supreme Governor supreme so none not the Pope above him and only supreme so none coordinate or equal to him so that by our known Laws our King is solo Deo minor invested with such a Supremacy as excludes both Pope and People and all the World God Almighty only excepted by whom Kings do reign from having any Power Jurisdiction or Authority over him This Book hath its Imprimatur not from any mean hand but from my Lord Bishop of London himself which is to me a plain implication that his Lordship did then own the Doctrine and so we have another Testimony to the Truth †Burnet's Vind. c. printed at Glascow p. 7. c. The Vindication of the Authority c. of the Church is full to this purpose Obj. May not Subjects when opprest in their establish'd Religion defend themselves and resist the Magistrate doth not the Law of Nature direct Men to defend themselves when unjustly assaulted Answ We must distinguish between the Laws of Nature and the Rights and Permissions of Nature now self-defence cannot be a Law of Nature ☜ for then it could never be dispenc'd with without a Sin nay were a man never so criminal he ought not to suffer himself to be killed neither should any Malefactor submit to the sentence of the Judge but stand to his defence by all the force he could raise and it will not serve turn to say for the good of Society he ought to submit for no Man must violate the Laws of Nature were it on never so good a design Christ's dying for us shews that self-defence can be no Law of Nature otherwise Christ who fulfilled all Righteousness had contradicted the Laws of Nature ‖ Pag. 10. He then proceeds to demonstrate that Magistrates derive not their Power from the Surrender of the People for none can surrender what they have not ☜ Take then a multitude of People not yet associated none of them hath power of his own Life neither hath he power of his Neighbor's since no Man out of Society may kill another be his Crime never so great much less be his own Murtherer A multitude of People not yet associated are but so many individual Persons therefore the Power of the Sword is not from the People nor is any of their Delegation but is from God. * Pag. 35. Consider that Christ was to fulfill all Righteousness if then the Laws of Nature exact our Defence in case of unjust Persecution for Religion ☜ he was bound to that Law as well as we for he came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law both by his Example and Precepts if then you charge the Doctrine of Absolute Submission as brutish or stupid or as contrary to the Law of Nature see you do not run into Blasphemy by charging that Holy One foolishly for whatever he knew of the secret Will of God he was to follow his revealed Will in his Actions †Pag. 39. If fighting at that time when Saint Peter drew his Sword for preserving Christ from the Jews were contrary to the Nature of his Kingdom so the Rule of the Gospel binding all the succeeding Ages of the Church no less than those to whom it was first deliver'd what was then contrary to the nature of Christ's Kingdom will be so still * P. 42. I shall add one thing which all Casuists hold a safe Rule in matters that are doubtful viz. That we ought to follow that side of the doubt that is freest from hazard ☞ here then damnation is at least the seeming hazard of resistance therefore except upon as clear evidence you prove the danger of absolute submission to be of the same nature that it may ballance the other then absolute submission as being the securest is to be followed * P. 41. Obj. But he is the Minister of God to thee for good and if they swerve from this they forsake the end for which they were raised up and so fall from the Power and right to our Obedience Answ It is true the Sovereign is a Minister of God for good so that he corrupts his power grosly when he pursues not that design but in that he is onely accountable to God whose Minister he is c. The same Author continued stedfast to this Doctrine when he left Scotland and came into England * Ser. on Jan. 30. 1674 / 5. p. 7. 9. David when Saul was most unjustly hunting his life would not stretch forth his hand against him seeing he was the anointed of the Lord from Almighty God the King had his Power and to him he knew he was to give an account of his Administration Affirming that the Enemies of that Royal Martyr P. 38. by Oaths and Counter-Oaths which they often took had their Consciences so seared as to be past feeling till they threw off all sense of God and Religion and set up professedly
secured by a patient submitting to persecuting Princes it being manifest from thence that Christianity was so far from being destroyed by the Blood of its many Martyrs that on the contrary it thrived and propagated it self by it Pag. 260. From that second Plea pass we to a third which is taken from those Oaths which Kings do commonly make before they are solemnly crowned of governing the People by the Laws the Government as some think seeming thereby to arise from a Compact between them and their Subjects upon the breach whereof on the King's part it may be lawful for the Subject to depart from their Allegiance and resist him in the Execution of his Power For Answer to which not to tell you what intolerable Mischiefs would ensue from such a Tenet as often as any seditious Man should go about to persuade the People they were not so well governed as they ought I will alledge in behalf of our own Princes farther than which we shall not need to look that which will cut the Throat of this Objection to wit That our Kings are to as full purpose such before their Coronation as after witness not only their performing all the Acts of a King but that known Maxim in our Laws that the King of England never dies From whence as it will follow that as the Kings of this Nation owe not their being such to any compact between them and their People that upon any supposed breach thereof it might be lawful for the Subject to resist them so also that the Oaths taken by them at their Coronation are not to procure them that Power which otherwise they could not have but for the encouraging the People to yield the more ready Obedience to them which they may very well do when they who are to govern plight their Faith and Reputation to govern them according to their own Laws Mr. Scrivener Book I. Part I. Of the Original Government p. 93. The Arguments to affirm that the grosser Body of the People did first of all agree upon Government and constitute their Ruler are 1. Ridiculous 2. Sacrilegious and impious 3. Impossible 4. Pestilential and pernicious to all Government 'T is a true Saying It is more to make a King than to be a King. Still I hold-this which I have not found shaken by the many Attempts of innovating Wits That there is a real Paternal Power in lawful Princes For 't is not Choice but Power that makes a King and in this case no power at all is given or can be given nor in truth ought to be taken away as the manner is from Princes entring through the Populacy into the Throne for God only is the proper and immediate Author of Right and Power which he hath inserted into Parents over their Children and hath proportionably prescribed to Kings and Princes without ever advising with the People or expecting their Consent or Confirmation This the Scripture it self calls Jus Imperii or lâ—ss significantly with us The manner of the King 1 Sam. viii 9. Not from the People but from God. Pag. 94. The most therefore that the People do when they act most in creating Kings is under God to apply the Person to the Place or Office of Governing Pag. 95. Grant that all Men were once but no body could ever tell when and in a certain place but no body could ever tell where equally free or at least all of years of Discretion which is most uncertain it would be known first how Men dare to be so presumptuous as to make such a breach of the Law of Nature as this must be viz. To part with their Birth right and to imbezzle that which God had given them concomitantly with their own Lives And this is further confirmed from the impossibility as well as impiety of making any such Translation of Power from its natural Subject the People because it cannot ever fairly or justly be brought about seeing that the People cannot unanimously much less ever did concur to the Election of any one Government or Governor They cannot all give in their Votes to such an end always some were dissenting and if they did not enter their Protest against the proceeding of their Fellows it must be because they were deterred curbed and oppressed by a more prevalent Faction obliging them and constraining them most unjustly to comply with their Opinions and Decrees for there appears no sound reason why a more numerous and powerful Faction may not as well take away my Estate because they are stronger than I as take away my Birth-right which Liberty is here asserted to be So that the very first step to Liberty must be founded in Injustice in taking away that from me which I might no less in natural reason spoil them of and in Servitude too in bringing me whom they acknowledge naturally free into unwilling Subjection Neither is the difficulty solved in saying That Reason and Nature also require that for order sake and regulating humane Society the minor part must yield to the major for upon this Supposition indeed that Power is so absurdly and inconveniently posited there doth presently appear such a necessity but my Argument is taken from the absurdity of any such necessity of Natures creating that the Supposition is very false and if it were true yet were not that Maxim true which is here brought to controul and correct the same for Nature doth not teach us much less necessitate us in any case to follow the most numerous but rather Reason and Experience and the Judgment of diligent and wise Discussers of this Point inform us That the Multitude are more inconsiderate undiscerning and injudicious than the fewer in number many times the World being generally thicker set with Fools than wise Men and Fools being commonly more apt to be led by Fools than with deeper and sounder Reasons of the Wise Pag. 96 97. The Right of Rule in the People is look'd upon as by Nature and Divine Ordinance belonging to them and therefore cannot de jure be transferred or if attempted must needs by the same Right be revocable Finding themselves most commonly destitute of that advantage they proceed to expound it more to their purpose tyrannical and boldly affirm That by the People is not meant necessarily the most but the best and soberest and godliest and such only that study really the Good of Religion and the Liberties of the People And are not these sine Doings Do not these popular Tenets hang well together and end well which in process of their own Reason and Practices confute the very first Principle of all viz. That People have an absolute supream Power to frame Governments when before they can bring matters to their intended conclusion they are forc'd to deny them Of the Obligations between the Governors and Governed p. 103. It cannot either consist with the Law of God or Nations to inflict Punishments on Princes Sovereign Not but that for instance Murder Adultery unjust
careful our blessed Saviour was to pay all due respects to any person invested with Authority and that St. Peter recommends a meek behaviour even towards them from whom we receive hard measure P. 94. That such a continued respect and practice of duty to Governours even under hard usage is that which Conscience to God will oblige to perform This duty of respectful submission is not founded upon the good temper of our Superiours but upon the Authority they receive from God and the Precepts which God hath thereupon given to us P. 97. Obj. But if Religion be concern'd and in danger doth it not behove every good Man to be zealous c. Ans 1. It is requisite he should be zealous in the diligent exercise of a holy Life and in frequent and devout prayer c. But he must not be active as an evil doer in giving himself the liberty to behave himself undutifully towards his Superiours 2. Religion can never be so in danger that God can need any sinful practices of Men to uphold his interest his Kingdom is not so weak that it cannot stand without the affistance of the works of the Devil P. 99. 3. Religion can never be opposed with greater enmity and malicious designs than it was when our Saviour suffered and yet then he reviled not P. 100. nor allow'd St. Peter's rashness The Jews aimed utterly to root out the Christian Name and there were great oppositions against Religion even fiery Tryals 1 Pet. 4.12 When yet Saint Peter requires Christians to follow the Example of our Lord's patience and meekness and to reverence Superiours 4. True zeal for Religion consists in pious and holy living not in passionate and sinful speaking To Dr. Falkner I should join his Pupil Dr. Sherlock but his Book of Non resistance is so strong and his arguments from Scripture so cogent that it is needless to make any extracts out of it and till his Adversary writes both a more becoming and a more demonstrative Answer it will be still by all wise Men look'd upon as unanswerable SECT XXIX Among the unanswerable Treatises I also reckon Dr. Hicks the Dean of Worcester's Jovian for unless scurrility confidence and a desertion of the main Argument may pass for an Answer the Reply that is yet extant deserves no Rejoinder Out of that Elaborate Commentary on the Doctrine of Passive Obedience I shall only quote one passage because it is a History of the Author's Principles and Resolution I had rather dye a Martyr than a Rebel P. 259 and I resolve by God's assistance neither to turn Papist nor Resist but if I cannot escape I will suffer according to the Gospel and the Church of England and I will Preach and Practise Passive Obedience after the example of the Prophets and Martyrs who suffered against Law and in my most melancholy prospect of things I can comfort my self with the hopes of a reward for dying at a Stake which he shall never have for dying in the Field To this purpose also the Sermon at Bow-Church Jan. 30. 1681 / 2. Together with the same Author's Artillery Sermon are worth the perusing Dr. South I have read heretofore of some Serm. 2. p. 80 81. that having conceived an irreconcileable hatred of the Civil Magistrate prevailed with Men so far that they went to resist him even out of Conscience and a full perswasion and dread upon their spirits ☜ that not to do it were to desert God and consequently to incur Damnation Now when Mens rage is both heightened and sanctified by Conscience the War will be fierce for what is done out of Conscience is done with the utmost activity and then Campanella 's Speech to the King of Spain will be found true Religio semper vicit praesertim armata which sentence deserves seriously to be considered by all Governors and timely understood lest it come to be felt P. 212. P. 236. We have seen Rebellion commented out of Rom. xiii He that makes his Prince despised and undervalued blows a Trumpet against him in Mens Hearts c. * See Dr. Freeman's Ser. before the L. Mayor 1682. p. 8. P. 242 243. To imagine a King without Majesty a Supreme without Sovereignty is a Paradox and direct contradiction The Church of England glories in nothing more than that she is the truest friend to Kings and to Kingly Government of any other Church in the World. It is the happiness of some Professions and Callings that they can equally square themselves to and thrive under all Revolutions of Government but the Clergy of England neither know nor affect that happiness and are willing to be despised for not doing so And so far is our Church from encroaching upon the Civil Power as some who are back-friends to both would maliciously insinuate that were it stript of the very remainder of its privileges and made as like the Primitive Church for its bareness as it is already for its Purity it could chearfully and what is more Loyally want all such Privileges and in the want of them pray that the Civil Power may flourish as much and stand as secure from the assaults of Fanatick Anti-Monarchical Principles grown to such a dreadful height during the Churches late confusions as it stood while the Church enjoyed those Privileges Dr. Serm. on Heb x. 36. p. 2. John Moor. Our Saviour was the first that did effectually recommend this Passive Virtue to the World and furnished Men with such true Arguments to bear their Cross as made the most afflicted state not only supportable but to be preferred before the happiness of this life P. 16 17. A good Man when he is persecuted for his Religion neither deserts it nor by any unlawful means defends it He will not renounce his Faith to escape Persecution and yet he dreads by resisting of Authority to promote the cause of Religion P. 19. it being a blasphemy against the Divine Wisdom and Power to suppose God can stand in need of our sins to bring to pass his most glorious designs and this he says of those who under pretence of defending their Rights or Religion resist lawful Authority He then in whom this virtue of Patience dwells keeps a due regard to the commands laid upon him to submit himself to the Supreme Powers and he dares not lift up his Hand against the Lords Anointed ☞ nor Levy War upon the most plausible account whatsoever nay to him it cannot but seem a wonder that the Doctrin of Resistance should have gone down so glibly with any who have read the New Testament and are baptised into the Christian Faith. All Resistance to the Supreme Authority is unlawful The Popes of Rome being the first pretenders from Scripture to a right to resist the Civil Power P. 20 21. c. And it is most certain that by the same Argument they would take off their obligation to this plain Christian Duty they
their Doctrine to have been of God had their Actions been so contrary to all the Precepts of Natural Divinity And in this matter does the Learned Dr. Dr. Dove's Serm. before the Sons of the Clergy 1687. Dove vindicate the Integrity of our Church in a few but as significant Words as any of his Brethren when speaking of some who suffered much for their Constancy to the Faith and their Fidelity to the Crown he terms them Two inseparable Notes of a genuine Son of the Church of England Dr. Puller * Moderat of the Ch. of Engl. ch 12. § 5. Other Sects deny the King's Supremacy in Matters Ecclesiastical either claiming a Power of Jurisdiction over him or pleading a Privilege of Exemption from under him where as the Clergy of the Church of England like good Christians and good Subjects neither pretend to any Jurisdiction over the Kings of England nor withdraw their Subjection from them †Sect. 6 7. And then he vindicates that Expression of Can. 1. of the Synod 1640. That the Order of Kings is most high and sacred The Moderation of our Church doth not favour any Doctrines or Practices which are prejudicial to the safety of human Society in general It doth no where pretend to remit the Divine Laws or dispense with Oaths or transfer the Rights of Kingdoms c. Contrariwise it requires of all of its Communion to give the King such Security of their Allegeance and Fealty as may be a sufficient Security to his Government ‖ Chap. 17. The Romanists and Separatists extremely agree in their Principles against the Civil Magistrate according to that of Bishop Lany * Bishop Lany's Serm. on 1 Thess 4.11 The Papists and Presbyterians hunt in Couples against the King's Power and Supremacy It is admirable to see how the Commonwealths Men in the times of the late Rebellion received their Principles from the ancient and modern Writers of the Jesuits and other Papists and still agree with them in most of the Republican Doctrines and Tendencies of them to the like Practices Both deny the Supremacy of the King one attributes it to the Pope originally the other to the People and the same Arguments which the Pope useth for his Supremacy over Kings the Disciplinarians use for establishing their Sovereignty The Pretence of the King's Authority against his Person was hatch'd under the Roman Territories and was made use of in the Holy League of France The Rules for making a King to be a Tyrant and then ceasing to be a King that it may be lawful to attempt any thing against his Person and Life are so much the same §. 20. that they cannot be more I need not here relate how many Doctrines of the Romanists tend to dissolve the very Bonds of relative Duty one towards another absolving People from their Oaths and Allegiance No Faith to be kept with Hereticks c. How do many Principles of our Enthusiasts and Separatists tend to destroy the Relations of King and Subject Bishop and People c. SECT XXXII Dr. Scott * Serm. July 26. 1685. p. 2. P. 13 14. Absalom accomplish'd his design partly by declaiming against the Maleadministrations of his Father's Government partly by promising them a thorough Reformation if ever he arrived to be a Judge in Israel Every Man knows or might easily know if he were not extremely wanting to himself that his King is the Vicegerent of his God and that being so he is indispensibly obliged by all the ties of Reason and Religion to submit to his Will and reverence his Person and bow to his Authority and that he cannot lift up his hand against him without fighting against God himself the Truth of which is as obvious to our natural Reason and as plainly asserted in holy Scripture as of any Proposition in Religion ☜ so that I dare boldly affirm a Man may find as many Pretexts for any Vice whatsoever even for Drunkenness Whoredom or Perjury as ever were made for Rebellion and were I to set up for a publick Patron of Wickedness I hardly know a Villany in nature so black and monstrous which I could not more plausibly recommend to Mens Reason and Consciences than this of Resistance against lawful Authority which is such a complication of Villanies such a loathsome mixture of hellish Ingredients as is enough to nauseate any Conscience but a Devil 's And tho Conscience and Religion are the Colors it usually marches under yet is the imposture of this Pretence so fulsome and bare-fac'd that no Man in his Wits can be innocently abused by it for certainly that Man must have a great mind to rebel his Will must have a strong Byass of Pride or Discontent Faction or Ambition in it that in despite of all the evidence from Reason and Scripture to the contrary can persuade himself that it is lawful for him and much less P. 15 16. that it is his duty to lift up his hand against his Sovereign And therefore for Men to appeal to God in a Cause so apparently wicked is not submissively to refer themselves to him but openly to mock and affront him and to make a vexatious Appeal to God's Judgment again in a Case which he hath so often and so expresly judged already is a common Barretry 't is not to consult but to tempt him and under pretence of submitting to his determinations openly to defie his Authority in effect it is to appeal from his Will to his Providence and to bespeak him to declare himself against his own Declarations In the case of Rebellion there is not only a peremptory Disobedience to those Laws of God which require our dutiful Submission to our lawful Superiors ☞ but also a direct Renuntiation of the divine Authority it self for all Sovereign Power is immediately founded in the Dominion of God who being the supreme Lord of the World no person can have right to govern in his Kingdom under him but by Commission from him Kings therefore are only accountable to him P. 17.18 and if so then for any of their Subjects to presume to call them to account by a publick form'd resistance is to arraign God's own Authority and invade his peculiar it is to thrust him out of his Throne and set themselves down in it and then to summon his Authority before them and require it to submit its awful Head to their imperious doom and sentence While therefore we behave our selves factiously and rebelliously towards those whom God hath set over us we live as Out-laws in the Kingdom of God without any respect to that visible Authority by which he governs the World and if this be so then for Subjects to rebel against their Prince is neither better nor worse than to appeal to God against his own Authority and to put this impious Case to him Whether it be he or they that have the Right of Governing the World. I profess * Id. Serm.
on Prov. xxiv 21. Ep. ded P. 17 19 20 c. with the same sincerity as I would confess my Soul to God that my design in this Discourse was only to promote the Peace and Happiness of Men. These are the ways of knowing Men when they are given to change 1. When Men who have actually chang'd the Government already begin to re-advance their old Methods and Principles it 's a certain sign they are given to change 2. When Men make that a pretence for publick Clamor and Bustle which themselves have little or no claim to or regard for that is Religion it 's a certain sign they are given to change 3. When Men pretend Religion or publick Reformation but pursue it by sinful and indirect means it 's a certain sign c. Now Religion is as great an Enemy to Lying and Rebellion as it is to Popery 4. When under pretext of reforming the Government ☜ Men reproach and vilifie the Persons of their Governors 5. When Men shift their Principles with their Interests and to serve a turn can comply at one time with that which they condemn at another Tho in following our Principles we may sometimes indanger our worldly Interest and fall under the disgrace of a Rabble and the Persecutions of a prevailing Faction yet our very Enemies will be forc'd to revere and honor us to acknowledge that we are constant and brave and honest and resign'd to our own Principles 6. and lastly When Men who in the ordinary course of their Conversation are proud and quarrelsome and impatient of Contradiction set up Pretences of Religion against the Government †Id. Serm. on Rom. xiii 1. p. 25 26. Consider that upon our faithful Subjection to our Prince the safety of our Religion depends for there is nothing in the World can more indanger our Religion than our making it a pretence for Rebellion for hereby we inevitably expose it to the hatred of Princes and do what lies in us to arm their Power against it ‖ Id. Artillery Serm. p. 31. If you be courageous from a Principle of Righteousness you will honor the King as well as fear God and obey his Ordinances for God's sake you will never conduct a rebellious design under the sacred Banner of Religion nor pretend Loyalty to God to cover your Disloyalty to his Vicegerent you will never press the Scriptures to fight against the King Pag. 32. nor arm his political against his personal Capacity nor assume his Authority to cut off his Head nor on the other hand will you ever allow him to be unking'd by the sentence of a domineering Prelate c. In a word you will never confront those loyal Admonitions of S. Peter and S. Paul with the treasonous Canons of the Councils of the Ungodly nor levy Arms against your Prince upon that counterfeit Commission of his being pronounc'd a Heretick by a Congregation of Impostors who would fain fetch Pretences for their Treasons and Rebellions from the most loyal and peaceable Religion that ever was The ADDRESS of the University of Cambridge presented by Dr. Gower then Vicechancellor Sept. 18. 1681. to the King at Newmarket Sacred SIR WE your Majesties most faithful and obedient Subjects of the University of Cambridge have long with the greatest and sincerest joy beheld what we hope is in some measure the effect of our own Prayers the generous Emulation of our Fellow Subjects contending who should first and best express their Duty and Gratitude to their Sovereign at this time especially when the seditious Endeavours of unreasonable Men have made it necessary to assert the ancient Loyalty of the English Nation and make the World sensible that we do not degenerate from those prime Glories of our Ancestors Love and Allegiance to our Prince That we were not seen in those loyal Crowds but chose rather to stand by and applaud their honest and religious Zeal we humbly presume will not be imputed to the want of it in our selves either by your Majesty or your People for Sir it is at present the great honor of this your University not only to be stedfast and constant in our Duty but to be eminently so and to suffer for it as much as the Calumnies and Reproaches of factious and malicious Men can inflict upon us And that they have been hitherto able to do no more than vent the venom of their Tongues that they have not proceeded to Plunder and Sequestration to violate our Chappels rifle our Libraries and empty our Colleges as once they did next to the over-ruling Providence of Almighty God is only due to the Royal Care and Prudence of your most sacred Majesty who gave so seasonable a check to the arbitrary and insolent Undertakings But no earthly Power we hope no Menaces or Misery shall ever be able to make us renounce or forget our Duty We will still believe and maintain That our Kings derive not their Titles from the People but from God that to him only they are accountable that it belongs not to Subjects either to create or censure but to honor and obey their Sovereign who comes to be so by a fundamental hereditary Right of Succession which no Religion no Law no Fault or Forfeiture can alter or diminish Nor will we ever abate of our well-instructed Zeal for our most holy Religion as it is professed and established by Law in the Church of England that Church which hath so long stood and still is the envy and terror of her Adversaries as well as the beauty and strength of the Reformation It is thus Dread Sir that we have learned our own and thus we teach others their Duty to God and the King in the conscientious discharge of both which we have been so long protected and encouraged by your Majesties most just and gracious Government that we neither need nor desire any other Declaration than that Experience for our assurance and security for the future In all which Grace and Goodness Great Sir we have nothing to return we bring no Names and Seals no Lives and Fortunes well capable of your Majesties Service or at all worthy of your Acceptance nothing but Hearts and Prayers Vows of a zealous and lasting Loyalty Our Selves and Studies all that we can or ever shall be able to perform which we here most sincerely promise and most humbly tender at your Majesties feet a mean and worthless Present but such a one as we hope will not be disdained by the most gracious and indulgent Prince that Heaven ever bestowed upon a People SECT XXXIII Dr. Grove * Short def of the Church and Clerg of Engl. p. 81. p. 84. This is the main occasion for which so many of the Conformists are clamor'd against they are presently branded for medling with matters of State if they do but teach their Hearers to be obedient to Magistrates and are not furnish'd with Jesuitical Distinctions to shew in what Cases it may be lawful
that to do evil though for our own preservation instead of procuring our peace and settlement would be most likely to unsettle and ruin us for having once broken down the fences of Duty which are placed about us who can tell where we shall stop or abide Having allowed our selves the liberty of doing one sinful action we may easily be prompted on to commit a thousand for the same pretences will justifie all sins alike and if for the sake of Religion a Tumult may lawfully be raised a Rebellion also may be promoted c. SECT XXXIV Mr. Long is so well known for his Zeal in this good Cause to all that have seen his answer to Johnson and Hunt his no Protestant but a Dissenters Plot and other such Treatises that it is wondered that of late he should own himself the Author of the Solution of the Popular Objections c. In which he musters up for unanswerable Arguments the very same Objections of Julian of Persecuting according to and against Law c. which himself had formerly so luckily both answered and exploded But he tells us that St. Austin wrote his Retractations in which he corrected his errors and he might have told the World too that Bellarmine wrote his Recognitions in which he multiplies and confirms his Heterodoxies I shall therefore briefly represent his former Judgment out of one of his Printed Sermons * On Sept. 9. 1683. p. 13. Rebels should shew so much of ingenuity and serious Penitence as the Sorcerers did Act. xix 19. Who burnt their Books for I dare aver that there are more Arguments for Resisting of Lawful Princes which they cannot but know is threatned with damnation Rom. xiii 2. in the Books of some who term themselves true Protestants than are in all those which are written by such as they justly condemn for Idolatrous and Trayterous Papists P. 19. What greater encouragement can be given Men pretending to Religion and Conscience than when their Guides ☜ to whom they have committed the Conduct of their Souls shall Prophesie lyes in the name of God and urge them to Rebellion by Scripture and Examples They are like them in the Gospel whom no Bonds or Chains could restrain from practising the mischief they had imagined No Obligation of Laws of Conscience of Fear or Favour no Oaths or Promises could hold them but they mock God himself that they may the more unsuspectedly destroy his Vicegerent Pag. 22. If the Principles allowed of in any Community of Men ☞ do countenance the Resisting Deposing and Mur hering of Princes be it on pretence of Heresie or Tyranny or for the good of the Kirk reforming Abuses or redressing Grievances though there be but a few Actors yet all are Criminals When Absalom was Sacrificing at Hebron P. 25 26. the Conspiracy was strengthned saith the Text. It seems that Absalom had his Levites and these were they that strengthned the Rebellion By him the People were instructed in their great Priviledges and Power that there is Idolatry and Superstition in the Church Oppression and Tyranny in the State that they ought to shake off these Yoaks of Bondage and vindicate themselves into the glorious liberty of the Sons and Daughters of God. P. 27 28. One tells the People That they are the Original of Authority ☞ That it is not against Scripture or the practice of the Primitive Christians violently to resist the Higher Powers when they Persecute them for Religion and when the Prince commands against the Laws of the Country that Success justifies a good Cause and to pursue it is to comply with the Will of God and the Conduct of Providence Vnder such Doctrines as these the Presses have sweat the Church hath groaned the Peoples souls been led Captive in Chains of darkness and under these this horrid Conspiracy hath been hatched The Devil himself when he appeared in the Mantle of Samuel never did nor could teach Saul more pernicious Doctrine than this Philostratus saith that the murther of Domitian was more owing to the Doctrine of Appollonius than the Hands of Stephanus and Parthenius who slew him Dr. Fowler * Design of Christianity chap. 16. The most calm meek peaceable gentle and submissive temper recommended in the Gospel did mightily declare it self in the Primitive Christians that though they were for the most part sorely Persecuted yet saith Tertull there was never any uproar or hurlyburly among them nor was this owing to necessity as is plain from Tertullian and the History of the Thebaean Legion Chap. 24. p. 346. It is the most strange and unaccountable thing for Men in defence or favour of that way of Religion which they take to be most truly the Christian to do that which is essentially and in its own nature evil for these things are quite contrary to the design of Christian Religion Pag. 248 249. What Villanies are there which the Pope and his Proselytes have stuck at committing for the propagation of their Religion Such as exciting Subjects to take Arms against their lawful Sovereigns to whom they are obliged in the Bonds of most solemn Oaths c. I would I could say that of all that are called Christians the Papists only are lyable to this charge but alas It is too manifest to be denyed or yet dissembled that not a few of those that profess enmity to Popery are sadly guilty though not equally with the Papists in this particular SECT XXXV The Author of The Faith and Practice of a Church of England Man. I pay all Men their dues all Officers Chap. 3. p. 63 64. and Offices in Church and State according to St. Paul's command Rom. xiii I pay all Honor and Service to the King as God's Vicegerent and I cannot endure to hear him evil spoken of P. 66. I consider my self as to all the Capacities and Relations that I am in the World and endeavour to behave my self suitably to them Which Duties are fully exprest in the excellent Book of the Whole Duty of Man and I am sure that excellent Book plainly asserts the Doctrine of Non-resistance I look upon Government and Magistracy as one of the most sacred things in the World Chap. 6. p. 137 138 139. 140. for it is of God's Appointment Of all kinds of Government I like Monarchy which seems naturally to derive it self from paternal Authority And if there be any Right on Earth surely Monarchy hath Right with us and hath at least as good a Title to all its Powers Rights and Privileges as any of its Subjects can have to their Honors Properties and Estates The Monarchy of England being always esteemed as truly an hereditary and successive a Monarchy as any in the World not liable to be disposed alienated or sold nor depending on any Election Choice or Approbation of the People And according to this method our present King enjoys the Crown who hath as I believe the truest and most
ancient Right to his Crowns that any King in the known Parts of the World hath P. 178. Where Government in general in Scripture is establish'd and Obedience to Governors injoin'd it ought to be reckoned as spoken of our Governors and Government Ecclesiastical and Civil as well as of any other in the World. Ch. 7. p. 198. Whatever discouragement the Clergy of England have found they still preach up and persuade Loyalty to the King and by the Doctrine of Passive Obedience to temporal Authority keep People from Rebellion notwithstanding they have so often been jeer'd and abused with it * Serm. 2. of the unlawfulness of resist Ep. Ded. Mr. Payn. I think it my duty as a Minister of that Church and Religion which hath been often the Mark but never the Author of any Treason to publish these Sermons And that none may be so malicious as to think we calculate our Sermons merely for the present Circumstances as if the Pulpit were but a kind of a Weather-glass wherein the Doctrine of Obedience to Governors is higher or lower to the temperature or variation of outward Affairs I have put out a plain Sermon without any Addition that was preach'd long before the Plot c. When the ancient Christians were persecuted P. 7 8 9. they endured unheard of cruelties from their Governors ☞ and this often as they complain'd of in their Apologies against Law too Such as would have stirred up those who had power to defend themselves had they not learnt such Principles from their Religion as forbad it we are under the obligation of Oaths though there have been some who have forgot all Oaths and could as easily unloose them as Sampson did his Wit hs and then set themselves free from the Precepts ☞ and Examples of Christ and his Apostles by this colour and pretence that the Government under which they lived was of another Nature than ours in England and that such is our Constitution as makes all this impertinent and of very little regard here And by the same way might they not discharge Wives and Children and Servants from those Duties the Gospel requires from each of them because there was a great difference between the State and condition of those among the Jews the Romans and the Grecians formerly and with us now And afterward he shews Serm. 2. p. 22. That neither in the Case of Religion nor of Legal Rights nor in the case of Natural Defence and the otherwise remediless case of Mankind by the encroachments of Princes P. 27. it 's any way lawful to take Arms. And proves that the Law of Nature or of Self-preservation does not allow of resistance c. And closes all with these good Prayers God preserve Christianity from that reproach P. 37. and blasphemy which these wicked Men have brought upon it God preserve the Protestant Religion from that advantage which is hereby given to our Enemies to destroy it J. Kettlewell 's Measures of Christian Obedience Book 2. c. 4. A Duty to Kings and Princes being God's Vicegerents here on Earth is a readiness and resolved industry to maintain and support them in their Persons and Government not plotting and endeavouring our selves to give away their Lives and Kingdoms unto others or consenting to them that do so not submitting and subjecting our selves to them but violently resisting and opposing them is called by S. Paul resisting of Power or standing up against it Rom. 13.2 And this when it is made by great numbers and goes on to extremities when men are as the Apostle there saith set in array and posture of Defence against it ☜ and ready by force of Arms to wage War with it is Rebellion Book 3. c. 6. The first pretence whereby men justifie to their own thoughts the indulgent Transgression of several Laws is because those Transgressions wherein they allow themselves are necessary for the preservation of their Religion and of themselves in those times of danger and persecution wherein God's Providence has placed them Religion is in danger and like to be undermined by the close and subtle Arts or overborn by the more open and powerful violence of strong and witty Enemies And this is God's Cause and Christ our Lord and Saviour's Interest So that whatever is done here we think is in Service of our Maker If we fight it is his Battels Some on one Hand that call us Hereticks think no means sinful whereby they can weaken and divide And others again even of our own selves who justly abhor these damnable Instances of Disobedience upon pretence of preserving or propagating Religion in some furious and firy spirited sort of Papists for God forbid that we should think them all to be of this temper do yet run into the same extravagance which upon so great reason they condemn in them For if we look into our zeal for the common Religion of Protestants we shall find that we transgress many and those most material and weighty Laws of it whilst we express our affection and concern to defend and preserve it For doth not this pretence of preserving our Religion carry us beyond all the Bounds of Peaceableness and good Subjection Yea I add further that these same Fears for our endangered Religion transport us into the Transgression of sundry weighty Laws which oblige us towards our very Enemies who have contrived to destroy us Thus full of Sin and Disobedience is this sanctified pretence It is the Cover for every Offence ☞ and the common shelter for all Transgressions for we boggle not at an◠sin so long as it tends to preserve us in the prosperous Profession of our endangered or oppressed Religion But if Men would consider calmly and have patience to look beyond the surface and bare outsides of things they would soon discern the vanity of this pretence and how far it will be from excusing any such sinful and disobedient Practices as they think to justifie and warrant by it For as for true and substantial Religion for protection whereof they would be thought to venture upon all these Transgressions it stands in no need of their help to preserve it in persecuting times altho they should use innocent and just means not such as are sinful and disobedient it would live then without their care and whether they went about by any politick means to preserve it or no. For Religion is not lost when Religious Men are persecuted it doth not suffer when they do that profess it seeing it is not one jot impaired when Men are buffeted and imprisoned nay when they bleed and die for it ☞ Could the violence of Persecution have oppressed our Religion it had been stifled in the Birth For it entered in a persecuting Age and yet was not over-born by the pressure of its Sufferings but bravely overcame them It begun grew up and conquered all the World in the very Heat of Affliction and Opposition the more it
old saying Let us do evil that good may come thereof cries out that they speak Blasphemy and that such mens damnation is just as if he were pronouncing an Anathema Maranatha against such profane Men. But our modern Zelots how contrary are they to St. Paul They seem to have minded that one thing that they might exclude the King from his rightful Succession due to him by Inheritance and by the Laws of the Land c. Peter du Moulin * Vit. Molinaei Lond. 4◠p. 707. When he returned into France from England with much grief saw the Protestants ingaged in the Party of the Prince of Conde against the Queen Mother which War was indeed raised against the King himself and endeavoured both by his Sermons and his Letters to remove them from so unlawful a design †V. Du Moulin answ to Philan. Angl. p. 37. and the King's Party owes it to him that not one Protestant Town on this side the Loire joyned it self to the Prince of Condé And when he was forc'd to leave France and fix at Sedan the first Letter that he wrote was to the Commonwealth of Rochel as it was then called ' To persuade them to Peace to dissolve their Covnention and to throw themselves as they ought on the Kings Mercy advising them to obey the King and thereby to take away all pretence from their Enemies And if God saw fit that they should suffer extremity for every one that feared God would be sure to suffer for no other cause but for the Profession of the Gospel c. Nay du Moulin the Son says Ubi Supr p. 45. that the actions of the Men of Rochel were disallowed by the best and the most of their Church That they were exhorted to their Duty by their Divines And that this was the Sense of the National Synod of which du Moulin was the President but two months before he wrote his Letter This also is du Moulin's Doctrine * P. 795 c. Ed. Genev. 1635. in his Buckler of Faith That the Government of Kings is by Divine Right and founded upon the Ordinance of God and that God hath required Obedience to Magistrates as to those whom he hath established and that whosoever resisteth them resisteth God and that those who affirm that the Authority of Kings is of Human Institution put Kings upon maintaining their Interests by force c. That that Allegiance of Subjects is firm which is incorporated in Piety and is esteemed a part of Religion and of the service which we owe to God. And whatever the learned Hugo Grotius might have said in his Books de Jure Belli Grot. in Mat. xxvi 52. Pacis in his later Works wherein it may presumed he speaks his truest Sense he asserts this Doctrine which it appears he had well studied as if he had been a Member of the English Church whose Articles and Politie he so well understood and in whose Communion he resolved to have lived had not God in his Providence ordered it otherwise If it be once admitted says he that private Men when they are injured by the Magistrate may forceably resist him all places would be full of Tumults and no Laws or Judicatures would have any Authority since there is no Man who is not inclined to favour himself To this purpose * Vot pro pace ad art 16. pag. 66 〈◊〉 662. he censures the Practices and Writings of many of the French Church still excepting Camero confirming his Opinion by the Authority of King James and the Reasons of the University of Oxford that condemned Paraeus's Book †Animadver in animadv Riveti art 16. p. 644. For both Christ and his Apostles Peter and Paul have Preached the Doctrine that no force is to be opposed to the Supreme Power and that we ought to own and retain the Doctrine to be of Divine Right and Institution The Opinion of Monsieur Bochart the glory of the French Churche sis fully seen in his Epistle to Bishop Morley who among other reasons refused to Communicate with the Reformed Church in France because he thought they asserted the Doctrine of Resisting and Deposing Kings but Bochart expresly avers That the King is Gods Anointed and Lieutenant and so not in any case to be Resisted since he is accountable to none but God. That he who rises against his Prince is one of those Giants that fight against God. That David could not take away the Wife of Uriah Nor Ahab seize Naboth's Vineyard without being guilty of great sin but that when Samuel 1 Sam. viii 9. says of the King He shall take your sons and your daughters c. He means that when Kings commit such transgressions they are as uncontrolable as if the Actions had been lawful That in such cases a Nation ought to call upon God since there are no Human remedies against the force of a King for if a King may be resisted he cannot be a Sovereign for where Subjects may Resist they may Judge and consequently the Sovereignty is in them That when Julian Persecuted contrary to Law none of his Soldiers rose up against him though nothing was more easie would they have undertaken it since at his death it was plain that almost the whole Army was Christian David Blondel * De Formula Regnante Christo Sect. 2. §. 16. p. 172. p. 184. chastises Pope Gregory VII as for many other Usurpations upon Princes so for this among the rest for saying That a Prince hath his Power from the People contrary to what S. Paul says expresly of Nero that he was ordained of God affirming further that lawful Kings being guilty of ill management of their Power are accountable to and shall be punished by God who gave them that Power Pag. 187 but not to Men. That this Opinion that Kings were subject to any human Authority was brought into the Church near 1100 years after our Saviour came into the World when the Church could not be presumed to be in a better condition than it was when it flourished in the former Ages of Christianity And that no Man before Greg. VII ever owned the Power of any Man over Kings And this he proves from the Testimonies of Tertullian Pag. 188. Hosius of Corduba Basil Ambrose Hierom Arnobius junior Cassiodore and others who say That King David was above the coercive power of the Law nor could be called to account for his Faults And therefore says in his Confession to God Against thee only have I sinned If Subjects offend against the Laws of Justice the King corrects them but if the King offends who shall correct him None but he who is Justice it self all other persons are under the Restraint of Laws but Kings only are reserved to the Tribunal of God and therefore while according to the Apostle it is a terrible thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God it will be more terrible to Kings who have none on
he suffered the most bitter and cruel kind of Death for our sakes and the points of Office of him that is his Vicar are to be in subjection not to command Princes but to acknowledge himself to be under their power and commandment not only when they command things indifferent and easily to be done but also when they command things not indifferent so they be not wicked in checks in scourgings and beatings unto death yea even unto the death of the Cross Indeed these are Christs footsteps Now if it be objected against what hath been said that the Author of the Treatise Gardiner was a virulent Papist I answer this strengthens the Authority for the Testimony of an Enemy to the Truth of Religion is worth an hundred other Witnesses and it is very remarkable that a Romish Bishop should assert the Divine Right and unaccountableness of Kings when his Church teacheth him to believe that the Pope hath power to depose Princes and many of their eminent Writers affirm that all power is originally in and derived from the people And if it be further objected that Gardiner retracted and disowned this Doctrine in the Reign of Queen Mary I grant it and I wish that he and Bonner had been the only men in the world who had altered their Opinions for the worse being prevailed upon by the love of the world which is the root of all evil But Truth is never the less venerable because some Professors of it have turned Apostates Gardiner 's and Bonner 's Reasons * Vide Cranmer's Translat in praef before his Book of unwritten Verities being so pithy and Arguments so strong as neither they themselves nor any other after them shall be able at any time rightly to assoil and answer And it must be observed that before they condemned these their Orthodox Tenets they wilfully broke the Oaths which they had taken in the Days of Henry the Eighth and the venerable Dean * Reproof of Dorman p. 1.6 Lond. 1565. Nowel thus urges the Argument Ask your forsworn Fathers with what face they did give to the King the Title of Supreme Head did swear it to him and so long time continued so calling him If they did not so think as they said and had sworn but dissembled deeply ask of them with what face they played so false dissembling Hypocrites with their Sovereign Lord Ask of them what manner of Subjects they were all that while feigning in face in word in writing yea and taking a Solemn Oath to be with their Prince therein and being in heart and deed on his sworn Enemy his side But if they thought indeed as they pretended in words then ask of them with what face they did change their Copy ☞ and forswear the same and themselves withal so easily afterward yea and compelled all others to be forsworn with them for company Then you shall find who they were that changed their Copy and turned with the Wind as the Weather-cock that so falsly swear reswear trieswear and forswear themselves and not content therewith did by all most terrible Torments and dreadful Deaths compel others to Perjury with them And whoso considers Bonner's juggling Fox Martyrs To. 2. p. 1192 1193. Edit 1610. anno 1547. with King Edward the Sixth's Commissioners about the Injunctions at one time protesting against them at another recanting that his Protestation swearing Obedience to the King receiving his Injunctions giving his assent and consent to the State of Religion then established to the abolishing Images abrogation of the Mass setting up of Bibles in Churches giving the Sacrament in both kinds and such like And then two years afterward anno 1549. on the Death of the Lord High Admiral and the many tumultuous Insurrections of the King's Subjects neglecting to be present or to officiate in his Cathedral at Divine Service and permitting others to frequent the Mass may see his temper throughly and be convinced that his Authority is of no worth while his Reasonings are unanswerable it being unjust that his personal Faults should make void the weight of his Arguments especially when he spake not his own sense but the sense of the whole Church of England which will undeniably appear by the continuation of his story For when Bonner was for his prevarication suspected and complained of and convened before the King's Council among other Injunctions then given him one was that he should personally preach within three weeks after at Paul's Cross And among the special points and Articles that were to be treated of by him in his Sermon this was the first 1. That all such as rebel against their Prince get unto them damnation and those that resist the higher Powers resist the Ordinance of God and he that dieth therefore in Rebellion by the word of God is utterly damned and so loseth both body and soul and therefore those Rebels in Devonshire and Cornwal in Norfolk or elsewhere who take upon them to assemble a Power and Force against their King and Prince against the Laws and Statutes of the Realm and go about to subvert the State and Order of the Commonwealth not only to deserve therefore death as Traitors and Rebels but do accumulate to themselves eternal damnation even to be in the burning Fire of Hell with Lucifer the Father and first Author of Pride Disobedience and Rebellion what pretence soever they have as Corah Dathan and Abirom for Rebellion against Moses were swallowed down alive into Hell altho they pretended to sacrifice unto God. And 4. That our Authority of Royal Power is as of truth it is of no less authority and force in this our young Age than is or was of any of our Predecessors tho the same were much elder as may appear by example of Josias c. How Bonner discharged his Obedience to these Injunctions is not my present Province the Martyrology will inform the Reader but what is already related undeniably proves what was the Doctrine of the Church of England in those Days Anno 1541. was Dr. Robert Barnes martyred Vide his Life prefixed to his Works and at the stake he professed That he never to his knowledge taught any erroneous Doctrine but only those things which the Scripture led him unto and that in his Sermons he never maintain'd any Error nor gave occasion of any Insurrection but with all diligence did study evermore to set forth the Glory of God the Obedience to our Sovereign Lord the King and the true and sincere Religion of Christ desiring the People to bear witness that he detested and abhorred all evil Opinions and Doctrines against the Word of God. And his Writings are agreeable to his dying Protestation In his Supplication to King Henry the Eighth when condemned to die treating of the Cruelties of the Popish Clergy among other things he says If they cannot make a Man a Heretick P. 183. to colour and maintain their Oppression they add Treason against your Grace tho
resisteth the Ordinance of God. These are our Institutions these Doctrins are illustrious in our Books in our Sermons and in the manners and modesty of our People The same admirable Prelate in his Epistle Dedicatory to Queen Elizabeth before his defence of the Apology is still of the same mind blaming his Adversary Harding for debasing the Majesty of Kings ‖ sol 318.6 Mr. Harding concerning the Majesty and Right of Kings tells us they have their first authority by the positive Law of Nations and can have no more power than the People hath of whom they take their Temporal Jurisdiction as if he would say Emperors and Kings have none other Right of Government than it hath pleased their Subjects by composition to allow unto them thus he says and says it boldly as if God himself had never said per me Reges regnant by me and mine authority Kings bear rule over their Subjects or as if Christ our Saviour had never said unto Pilate the Lord Lieutenant thou shouldst have no power over me were it not given thee from above or as if St. Paul had not said there is no power but only from God they also hold that the Pope is the Head and Kings and Emperors the Feet If this Doctrine may once take root ☜ and be freely received amongst the Subjects it shall be hard for any Prince to hold his Right And in his Defence he declareth himself to be of the same mind part 1. p. 15. Mr. Harding knoweth right well we never Armed the People ☜ nor taught them to rebel for Religion against the Prince if any thing have at any time happen'd otherwise it was either some wilful rage or some fatal fury it was not our counsel it was not our Doctrine we teach the People as St. Paul doth To be subject to the higher powers not only for fear but also for conscience we teach them that whoso striketh with the sword by private authority shall perish with the sword if the Prince happen to be wicked or cruel or burthenous we teach them to say with St. Ambrose Arma nostra sunt preces lacrymae tears and prayers be our weapons and when ‖ p. 16. Harding himself had said that he condemn'd all such attempts that any Subject or Subjects whatsoever of their own private authority should take Arms against their Prince for matters of Religion why replies Jewel except you only the case of Religion Is it lawful by your Grant for the Subject in any other case either of Life or of Government to Arm himself against his Prince and would you thus perswade the People Is this your Religion Is this your Doctrine Anno 1565. Alexander Nowel Dean of St. Pauls set forth his reproof of Mr. Dorman 's proof and in it vindicates the Church of England from the scandalous imputation pr. at Lond. 4 to p. 94 95. that it taught Men to be Rebels Corah Dathan and Abyron rebelled against Moses and Aaron who were specially by God appointed to be their Governors and his Ministers but what appertaineth that to us who do obey our natural Prince appointed by God to be our Governor and all as well Civil Magistrates as Ecclesiastical Ministers of God under our Prince And therefore do we as we must needs renounce the authority of that foreign Usurper of Rome it is you Papists that are the Successors of the Rebels Corah c. who leaving the Obedience due to your own natural Princes for the serving of a Foreign false Usurper of Rome do rebel not only against Moses that is to say your Governor by God appointed but against God himself also we acknowledg that as Moses and Aaron were Gods Ministers by him appointed to govern his peculiar People Israel so hath God likewise appointed to every several Country their Moses and Aaron their Princes and Pastors or Bishops which ought likewise to be obeyed as Moses and Aaron were to be obey'd of the Israelites and that those who do disobey them do sin by Rebellion ☞ p. 96. as did Corah c as we are most far from Rebelling against our natural Sovereign and other of God's Ministers appointed to govern us and therefore no partakers of Corah and his fellows Rebellion so trust we in God to be most far from their most horrible destruction and we give warning to Mr. Dorman c. who for maintenance of a Forein Pharaoh against their conscience as is to be feared do disobey their own natural Prince and that upon a pretence of holiness and spirituality and are therein most like to Corah c. rebelling against their own special Governors by God appointed as they did that they make speed by unfeigned repentance to mollifie God's most just wrath that they follow not Corah c. in horrible damnation as they have followed them in damnable Rebellion Anno 1569. an exhortation to the Queens Majesties poor deceived Subjects of the North drawn into Rebellion by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland was printed by allowance and in it they are thus accosted Christians I cannot term you that have defac'd the Communion of Christians and in destroying the Book of Christ's most Holy Testament renounced your parts by his Testament bequeath'd unto you their pretences were the foul disorder of the Realm much impoverish'd far indebted the defrauding of due execution of Justice that no Subject can have his Right by Law but falsly whereas they are better taught far doth the proportion of duty of Subjects to the Prince exceed the duty of Servants to Masters or Children to Parents yea or of Wives to their Husbands the very nearest conjoyning in humane fellowship even so far as a Realm exceeds a private Family but if one of your own Servants Children or Wives should do that without your will nay against your will and express commandment that your Captains and you have attempted without and against the Queens Highness pleasure would you account them good Servants good Children or good Wives if they shall put on armour and weapon and become terrible or threaten force to the Master Father Husband or the rest of the Family if the case were your own you would more mislike it The Prince is the Husband of the Common wealth married to the Realm and the same by ceremony of a ring shall you resist her authority and refuse her blessing and say you be her good children Shall your Captains forsake her Service and say they are good Servants note withal how likely they are to profess a true Religion that hold this Principle ☜ to keep no faith use no loyalty regard no oaths and promises made with attestation of God and avowing themselves to renouncing of Heaven and to eternal damnation they regard no Religion that go so irreligiously to work all is but show and hypocrisie Reed I beseech you the excellent Treatise of Sir John Cheek Knight of the hurt of Sedition there see as in a glass
and Prophets submitted their persons to those wicked Princes whose Idolatry they reproved with the loss of their lives P. 359. If the Prince wilfully maintain Heresie and open Impiety the Bishops are to reprove admonish c. but still they must serve him honor him pray for him and teach the People to do the like ☜ and with meekness enduring what the wrath of the Prince shall lay upon them without annoying his person resisting his power discharging his Subjects or removing him from his Throne Which says he to the Jesuit is your way of censuring Princes P. 366. P. 382. The Church of Christ offers not any Example of resisting and deposing Princes for a thousand years ☜ It is not enough for you to have Laws of your own making to license you to bear Arms against your Prince you must have God's Law for your Warrant or else you may come within the compass of heinous and horrible Rebellion Theoph. P. 384. that is the Protestant Interlocutor That 's the Case which you take in hand that the People may punish the Prince offending as the Prince may the People Phil. i. e. the Jesuit Either the people or none must do it Theoph. And seeing the people may not do it it is evident that God hath reserved the Magistrate to be punished by himself and not given the people power over their Prince P. 502. Do not with violence restrain them but in patience possess your own souls This is the way for all Christian Subjects to conquer Tyrants and this is the Remedy provided in the New Testament against all Persecutions not to resist Powers which God has ordain'd lest we be damn'd but with all meekness to suffer that we may be crowned P. 512. If Princes presume to violate the Dominion which God hath reserved to himself we may not rebel that 's your Jesuitical Doctrine but disobey them in that or any point that is prescribed by man against the will of God and submit our selves to endure persecution for righteousness sake P. 541. If Princes embrace the Truth you must obey them if they pursue Truth you must abide them And these Passages with what hath been formerly cited out of the said Book will I think sufficiently vindicate both the Author and his Doctrine from all that is usually objected against them Especially if we consider that when the Jesuit had quoted Goodman's Book of Obedience as applauding Wyat's Rebellion the Protestant answers It is much that you measure the whole Realm by one man's merit Par. 3. p. 273 274. and more that you draw the words which he spake from the meaning which he had to warrant your Rebellions The party ☞ which you name at the same time took Queen Mary for no lawful Prince which particular and false supposal beguiled him and made him think the better of Wyat's War but our Question is of lawful Princes not of violent Intruders and therefore Goodman's Opinion which himself hath long since disliked is no way serviceable to your Seditions or as it is in the Margin Goodman's private Opinion long since corrected by himself cannot prejudice the whole Realm Goodman did not hold that lawful Princes might be thrust from their Crowns but that Queen Mary was no lawful Magistrate One of his great Arguments against her being taken from her Sex which was made by God as he dreamed uncapable of Government this being one of his and Knox's beloved Paradoxes but he lived to repent and retract them SECT III. To give the King at his entry into England a Specimen of the temper of the Zealots they tender'd him a Petition called the Mille manus Petition as if they would have intermixed their desires with threatnings by telling the King that 1000 Ministers An. 1603. as they loved to be called had influence enough on many thousands of People to incline them to give disturbance to his Government if he did not comply with their requests to which the University of Oxford wrote a full and satisfactory answer wherein they affirm that the Presbyterians allow the King not potestatem Juris p. 29. but only facti while they make him a maintainer of their proceedings but no commander in them and all the while the King submits his Scepter unto the Scepter of Christ and licks the dust of the Churches feet for which they Quote T. C. lib. 1. p. 180. This assertion they condemn together with the other Antimonarchical Antiepiscopal Doctrins of that Petition nor was this the sole judgment of that Famous University but of her Famous Sister at Cambridge whose Epistle is published at the end of that answer and wherein they aver Quicunque Ecclesiae Anglicanae doctrinam vel disciplinam vel ejus partem aliquam legibus publicis stabilitam c. that whosoever shall by writing speaking or any other way publickly oppose the Doctrine or Discipline of the Church of England or any part thereof established by publick Laws shall be uncapable of taking any Degree and suspended from any Degrees he hath formerly taken Dated Octob. 7. 1603. Dr. Anthony Rudd Bishop of St. pr. at Lond. 1604. Davids Preach'd before the King May 13. 1604. on Ps 101. v. 2. and in it gives an account of David's demeanor both before and after he attained the Crown of Israel and among other things he commends him for his patient waiting on God till Saul's Death p. 26 27. David had given proof of his rare patience in his distressed Estate during the expectancy of the Kingdom of Israel for though in that Interim of sundry years attendance after that Samuel had Anointed him ☜ before the Crown fell unto him by the death of King Saul he sustain'd many grievous troubles inconveniences and dangers yet he still possessed his Soul in patience without seeking unlawful means to hasten his own advancement by the making away of his Sovereign Insomuch as though Saul who deadly pursued him was twice by the Providence of God offer'd into his hands that he might have dâ—ne his pleasure with him first in the Wilderness of Engedi and secondly in the desert of Zâ—ph yet he spared his life and did no violence to his Person leaving him to God's Judgment and referring his own cause to God's merciful providence patiently attending the Lord's leisure till he should vouchsafe to come and put him in possession of the Kingdom To King James at his first coming to the English Throne the Learned Dr. Feild was a Chaplain as he was also an eminent Champion for the Church against her adversaries of Rome and his arguments against the Usurpations of the Popes are equally cogent against the Republicans * of the Church l. 5. c 45. p. 610. If they shall say that Sovereign Princes are subject to none while they use their authority well but that if they abuse it they lose the independent absoluteness thereof their saying will be found to be Heretical
the hearts of Princes like Rivers of Waters You know how before the coming of Christ the Jewish Church by the command of Ahasuerus was to be destroy'd Esth 4. both young and old c. here the whole Church by the barbarous designment of Ahasuerus seem'd to be in the very Jaws of death yet they take no arms they consult not how to poyson Ahasuerus or Haman they animate no desperate Person suddenly to stab them but there was only great sorrow among them and fasting and weeping c. This Book gave so much disgust to a party of Men in this Kingdom that they could not be quiet till something was Printed under the name of an answer to it tho every Pamphlet that is so called does not deserve that name and to make it pass the more plausibly it assumes the same title Deus Rex and is said to have been Printed at Colen An. Dom. 1618. the Author of which tho unquestionably a Papist as appears by many passages in the Book affirms p. 13. that the Scots had undoubtedly the true spirit of the Gospel who profess'd and for it he quotes Knox 's History of the Scotch Church that they would be Subjects to no one unless they could enjoy their desired Reformation p. 19. and that the former Dialogue falsly asserts that Kings have their Power only from God and are accountable only to him and that the duty of Subjects cannot be dissolv'd if the King turns Tyrant Infidel Heretick or Apostate and that Kings are not to be deposed or resisted unless by prayers and tears tho they are fall'n into so much impiety and madness as to seek the ruin of the Church and the destruction of Religion Which Assertions the Author condemns but with no reason and a great deal of injustice while he owns and improves the Romish Doctrins of resisting and deposing Princes in many places so easily are Men inclined to be despisers of Dignities and blasphemers of Dominions Gabriel Powel says De Adiaplyris Lond. 1606. c 8. §. 34 p. 69 that when St. Paul bids us be obedient for conscience sake that he means we must no way offend the Magistrate by rebelling against him but that we must keep a good Conscience in his sight who hath set the Magistrate over us ‖ §. 93. p. 71. for his Power is from God and to the just praise of our Reformation he adds * c. 9 Sect. 35. p. 79 that no Church in Europe reform'd her self more orderly than the Church of England in which nothing was done tumultuarily by force and arms or by fraud but all alterations were made by the supreme Power of the Nation agreeable to the Word of God and the Example of the Primitive Church Oliver Oâ—mered in his picture of a Papist It is not lawful for Subjects to attempt the murthering of their Sovereign for Religion sake or for any pâ—etence whatsoever Go with cresset and torchlight throughout the whole Book of God and throughout the spacious volumes of the Ancient Fathers and tell me whether any Priest Levite Evangelist Apostle Ancient Father ever hath taught counsell'd and much less practised the like I say not against Lawful Magistrates ☜ but tyrannous Rulers and such as were reprobated of God p. 176. the Prophet Isaiah complain'd of the Exactions and Oppressions of the Kings of Israel shew'd them their faults and admonish'd them of God's vengeance but he did not animate encourage and incite the People to avenge themselves of their Princes and to lift up Arms against them the Prophets Amos Micah and Zephaniah give sufficient testimony that the Rulers in their times were very wicked Men and such as did grind the faces of the Subjects and yet all this notwithstanding they did not advise the Subjects to mutiny or rebel against their Princes When Rome was pure and primitive you shall find p. 179. the arms of the Church were tears and prayers but now they are degenerate from their former purity and openly threaten the lives of Kings the ancient Romans shall in judgment rise against you and condemn you for they conspired not the death of Pagans Infidels and Tyrants that made havock of the Church of God c. SECT VI. Among these Divines I will place one Civilian the famous Albericus Gentilis who tho Born in Italy yet lived long in England the King's Professor of the Laws in the most Famous University of Oxon of which he was one of the greatest Ornaments I shall not mention what he says on this subject in his Books de Jure belli since he hath undertaken it professedly in his three Royal Disputations London 1605. 4 to as he calls them in the first of which treating of the absolute power of a King wherein his Notions are very agreeable to the Sentiments of his Master King James in his true law of free Monarchies to which he refers he affirms that he is absolutely supreme p. 9 10 17. who acknowledges nothing above him but God to whom only and not to any other he is to render an account he confesses there were some Magistrates improperly called Kings such as the Kings of Sparta and of Egypt to which last there were laws set how far they should walk and how often bath themselves who might be accus'd when they were dead and being convicted be denied decent Burial but those do not deserve to be called Kings whose Subjects pay them no more obedience than they please A Prince is a God upon Earth his Power is greater than either that of a Father of old over his Children or that of a Master over his Servants All Princes are feudataries to God p 17. to whom they ought to render an account of their Government who is their only Judge p. 34. 't is a Maxim in the Civil Law Princeps legibus solutus est a Prince is free from laws the Greek Interpreters understand it of his freedom from Penal Laws for a Prince hath no Judges who can compel him others that he is exempt from the coaction not from the direction of the law but all agree against any force to be used against him This and much more to this purpose the Reader will meet with in that first disputation while the third treats largely how unjust any violence is p 39. p. 100. which Subjects use against their King by King he says he means such a Prince as hath no Superior no Judge or Governor over him he means also a lawful Prince not a Tyrant but such a lawful Prince who rules Tyrannically i.e. seeks the destruction of the Commonwealth It is a fundamental and unquestionable Law that Men ought to honour their Prince p. 101 102. and not to speak evil of him and that what injuries ought not to be done to a Parent parad 3. ought much less to be done to a Prince but no Man says Tully can take away the life of his Father without
Hereticks his anointing may be wiped off or scraped off then you may write a Book de justa abdicatione make a holy League c. but it is not Religion nor Virtue nor any spiritual Grace this Royal Anointing Christus Domini is said not only of Josias a King truly Religious but of Cyrus a mere Heathen not only of David a good King but of Saul a Tyrant even when he was at the worst Unxit in Regem Royal Unction gives no Grace but a just Title only it includes nothing but a just Title it excludes nothing but usurpation God's claim never forfeits his Character never to be wiped out or scraped out nor Kings lose their Rights no more than Patriarchs did their Fatherhood P. 809. Never was any truly partaker of the inward anointing of a Christian Man but he was ever fast and firm to the Royal Anointing The same excellent Prelate in his Answer to Tortus or Cardinal Bellarmin's Book against King James's Apology for the Oath of Allegiance says That Subjects are bound to obey their Prince by all Law London 1609. p. 16. 36. Natural Moral Civil Municipal That Christ never interdicted any Subjects Obedience his Father sent him not into the World on this Errand nor did he send any of his Followers P. 43. Let the King be a Heathen he ceases not to be a King let him be a Julian an Apostate which is worse than a Heathen yet he is a King still ☜ and against even such it is not lawful to take Arms nay it is a sin not to take Arms in their defence when they command us P. 110. Both Papists and Puritans conspire the hurt of Kings as Herod and Pilate agreed to murther Christ both being equally injurious to Kings in striving to rob them of their Authority Kings in their Kingdoms are God's Vicars P. 158 161. And the ancient Christians cheerfully obeyed them A forced Obedience rather becomes the Devil than a Christian for they are subject against their wills but to the praise of Christianity the Christians in the Infancy of the Church were so sincerely obedient that their Enemies could not bespatter them and so cheerfully patient that their Enemies were forced to admire them And it is blasphemy against Christ to think or say P. 321. that he would have any one that is his Vicar to hinder Subjects from being true to their Prince or Kings from being safe P. 384 385. Kings derive their Authority from God the people confer nothing upon them they are God's anointed not the people's the Form of Government may be from men but the Authority is always from Heaven Anno 1610 The same Learned Prelate published his Answer to Cardinal Bellarmin's Apology and therein avers †C. 2. p. 58. That every Subject is bound by his Allegiance not to suffer any one who shall endeavour either to depose his Prince or to dispose of his Kingdom he is bound to oppose himself against any Invader neither to absolve himself from his Allegiance nor to suffer himself to be absolved by any other not to take Arms against his Sovereign but to defend him from all violence in his Crown and Person and to discover all Conspiracies P. 132. To render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's The Apostles did so to Tiberius Caligula Claudius Nero Domitian The Martyrs did so to Commodus Severus Decius Dioclesian The Fathers did so to Constantius Valens and Anastasius Nay the Popes themselves did so to the Arians to Theodoric and the Goths in their times the contrary Doctrin was reckoned to be Heresie These were the Sentiments of that great man than whom while he lived the King had not a more Loyal Servant nor the Church a more Learned Prelate as the Editors ‖ Ep. Ded. Râ—gi of his Opuscula with Justice aver When Becanus a busie Jesuit had undertaken to answer this admirable Prelate's Books against Bellarmin Rich. Thompson an 1611. wrote his Vindication P. 20. and smartly censures his Adversary for saying That in England we swear Allegiance to our Kings upon these two conditions 1. As long as we stay in England 2. As long as he maintains the true Religion Both which Propositions as he says are most false and then he proceeds to confirm his Hypothesis proving in pursuance of his Design P. 27. That to the Oath of a Papist no regard ought to be had for who can believe ☞ whether he swears truly and from his Heart who defends the Lawfulness of a mixt Proposition of which one part is spoken P. 44. the other reserved The Text Touch not mine anointed only concerns Kings and in the whole Bible none are called the Lord's anointed but Kings And Rabbi Levi Ben Gershon the Jew hath commented more honestly and more like a Christian on 1 Sam. 12.24 than the Fathers of the Society of the Jesuits P. 78 79 83. All Princes even Pagans have a supreme Power over all their Subjects and in all Causes and Proscribere non posse proscribi propria sunt Regum timendorum in proprios greges ad ipsos coelitùs delapsâ autoritate ac peculiari quâdam ratione spectant i. e. To punish others and not to be punishable themselves is the peculiar Right of Kings derived unto them from above Nor was Becanus the only Antagonist that Bishop Andrews met with in this Cause Eudaemon Johannes a Cretan and a Jesuit and he needs no other Character undertakes the Defence of Garnet and the Censure of Allegiance him Dr. Samuel Collins the publick Professor of Divinity at Cambridge Cantab. 1612. undertakes wherein he averrs * Par. 2. p. 52. That the Jesuit had belyed King James when he called him a Follower of Knox to whose Opinions he was always most averse detesting both him and his Followers whom he upon all occasions rather punished than countenanced †Par. 3. c. 72. p. 252. Shew me that there is any such power I do not mean only in private persons but in the Pope or in any other mortal to depose ☞ or to murder a King. If a King do not his Duty he is to be left to the Divine Tribunal Against thee only have I sinned says David for he was a King says S. Hierom and had no one whom he might fear Understand it of coercive power not only not to punish but also not to upbraid him for who shall say to a King why dost thou so Eccl. 8.4 And who can resist him Prov. 30. P. 2.3 But you have found out this pretty Distinction that as long as a King remains a King let him be never so tyrannical his Subjects dare not oppose him but when the Pope deposes him then it is lawful boldly to oppose him And I would fain know where the odds is if the Pope or the people depose him so that if the Commons have power and the Pope consent and no danger of scandal
Doctrin of the Church and would fain defend it as the uniform belief of the Reformed much more to the same purpose may be found in the same Book which I recommend to the Reader 's perusal the Learned Author of which wrote after his Father's Copy and therefore I have joyned them together tho according to the exact rules of Chronology I should have given the junior du Moulin a place in the next Reign CHAP. VI. The History of Passive Obedience during the Reign of King Charles the Martyr SECT I. WEre we to judge of the righteousness of any Cause and of its being acceptable to God by the prosperity of its outward circumstances and to intitle Heaven to the owning of all the designs which providence promotes as some Divines both then and since have argued more consonant to the Doctrin of the Alcoran than the Holy Gospel then the most Excellent Prince Charles I. was a vile Malefactor and fell justly a sacrifice to the rage of his rebel Subjects but the true Sons of the Church were of a more Orthodox belief and chose rather to suffer with their Master the Lord 's Anointed than to enjoy the ease and preferments which then were the rewards of perfidiousness and disloyalty as the first part of this History hath amply proved And though Dr. Sybthorp's Sermon called Apostolical Obedience was severely censured nor is it fit to defend every Proposition in it yet the then Bishop of London Dr. George Mountain approved it publickly in Print as a Sermon learnedly and discreetly Preached Testim ante concion and agreeable to the Ancient Doctrin of the Primitive Church both for faith and good manners and to the Doctrin established in the Church of England and therefore under his hand gave authority for the Printing of it Ma. 8. 1627. Mr. Hayes Could any thing privilege Loyalty toward Kings Serm. at St. Mary's Oxon. on Esth 1.15 1624. p. 3 21. Eminence and Alliance might be fair pretences but neither of these could yield Queen Vasthi advantage but what shall any dare to limit Sovereignty and prescribe Majesty it's duty shall he that enjoys the subjection of others by the Law be subject himself to the Law no in no other sense than that of Aquinas not that the Law should lead him by compulsion but lead him by directive persuasion if he conform his actions to the prescript of the Laws it is of his own accord if he do not is he lyable to account Yes but it is only to God against thee only have I sinned says King David Ps 51. those modest times had not the face to capitulate with their Sovereigns the pride of Faction had not yet hatch'd this rebellious Doctrin ☜ that if Kings obey not Laws Subjects have leave to disobey their Kings no let it glory in no Ancienter Author than New Rome and in no better success than confusion and seeing it owes it self to Jesuited Patrons let it be banish'd this Land together with their Persons Mr. Adams When Saul was in David 's hands In 2d ep of Peter pr. 1633. p. 755. his Men alledge God's promise and the advantage concurring and what was David 's charm to allay the fury of those raging Spirits he is the Lord 's Anointed Saul did not lend David so impenetrable an Armour when he ran to encounter Goliah as David lent him in the plea of his Unction not one of the discontented Out-laws durst put forth a hand of violence against him the image and impress of that Divine Ordinance strikes such an awe into the hearts of Men that it makes even Traytors cowards so that instead of smiting they tremble like those whose Office it is to suffer not to do fear God honour the King there was never Man that feared God but he also honored the Prince But let us hear P. 759 c what the Synod of Hell can plead for disobedience how if the Prince be bad an Enemy to truth and goodness a Ravisher a Persecutor raising powers for the extirpation of the Gospel here if ever a Subject may renounce all Allegiance for here is power against power Man against God and the Subject of both left to follow either Answ in this streight some for fear of the King Shipwrack their faith and these are Traytors to God others by a defensive sword in their hand Rebels to the King ☞ there is no question but God must be obeyed even against the King when the King commands things against God. what then shall we resist him with violence no God never Warrants that practice no not against a Prince that denies him there is an active Obedience and a passive I may not execute his impious commands I must suffer his unjust punishments the vices of Men cannot frustrate the institution of God peruse Mat. 5.44 and Rom 12.17 this will tye the Hands of Christian Subjects Samuel offer'd not to depose Saul though the express Sentence of God had cast him off and he was Excommunicated by a higher power than ever came from Rome Saul lived and dyed a King this he illustrates by the examples of the Jews and Primitive Christians and adds what resistance did those Primitive Christians make to those barbarous outrages but praying for the Emperor's life when under the Emperor's command they were bleeding to death neither did they suffer because they were not able to resist but it was their Doctrin c. Christians never prove losers but when they unjustly sight for their own preservation provide we the buckler of patience not a sword when the decree was gone out by Ahasuerus this was their refuge preces lacrymae the Apostles could work miracles yet they resisted not the ordinate powers this charge St. Paul gives the Romans even while Nero was their Emperor a Monster whom divers held to be Antichrist that Religion then cannot be right that pulls down Princes seeing neither Moses in the Old Testament nor Christ in the New nor Levite nor Prophet Apostle nor Disciple either counsell'd or practised against Government which should decide the point that hath cost the Lives of so many Christians and still threatens more Tragedies P. 763. there was never Prince to whom some Belialist took not some exceptions it were ill with Princes if their state depended on the good liking of their Subjects Subjects unfaithful at the heart may be without the suspicion of their Prince but they beheld Rebels in the Court of Heaven we be bound to be subject not only for wrath but for conscience sake In all the time of David 's prosperity there was no news of Shimei he looks like a fair Subject but he that smiles on David in his Throne P. 821. curs'd him in his Flight there is no security in that Subjects Allegiance that hath not God in his Conscience he that poysons the People with the male opinion of their Prince is the most dangerous Traytor to rip up the faults of Kings is bold
who can lift up his hand against the Lord 's Anointed and be innocent 1 Sam. 26.9 or do they consider his commands in the Proverbs of Solomon 24.21 my Son fear God and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change or his counsel in the Book of Ecclesiastes 8.1 I counsel thee to keep the King's commandment and that in regard of the oath of God or because they possibly may pretend that they are exempted from or unconcern'd in the commands of Obedience delivered in the Old Testament do they know and remember the Precept given to all Christians by St. Peter submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake c. or that terrible Sanction of the same command they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation left by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans who then were the miserable Subjects of the worst King the worst Man nay I think I may add truly the worst Beast in the World that so all Rebels mouths might be stopt for ever ☜ and left without all colour and pretence whatsoever to justifie resistance of Sovereign Power Undoubtedly if they did know and consider and lay to heart these places of Scripture or the fearful judgment which befel Corah Dathan and Abiram for this very sin which they now commit and with a high hand still proceed in it would be impossible but their hearts would smite them as David 's did upon an infinitely less occasion and affright them out of these ways of present confusion and eternal damnation SECT III. Dr. 10 Serm. Prâ—at Lon. 16 â— P. 10â— Arthur Lake Bishop of Bath and Wells Magistrates are from God and he resides among them Magistrates must proceed like God God can and will redress the evils that spring from them because he is Sovereign in and over those places and persons which are misgoverned by them P. 131. what is our lesson truly first as Nazianzen advises as near as we can though we cannot as constantly as God not to have a heart and not a heart but to say with King David I have sworn and am stedfastly purposed it were to be wish'd there were such a constancy in our Oaths so many would not retract the Oath of that Allegiance which they owe without an Oath Dr. Sermon at St. Mary's Cambr on Judg. 21.25 1642. p. 27 28 29. Stephens The King's Commission is signed from Heaven by me Kings Reign his Authority is conferr'd by Heaven he is the Anointed of the Lord his power descends from Heaven obedience to him is required from Heaven 1 Pet. 2. it is the will of God that you submit your selves to the Government of your Kings I have heard the Prophet David suspected by some as partial in his own cause just like the Northern Borderers who conceived the Eighth Commandment thou shalt not steal to be none of God's making but foisted in by Henry the Eighth to shackle their thievish fingers but I dare oppose the 13th Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans against the power of Men or Devils which would trample upon the necks of Kings suppose thy King very wicked he hath more need of thy Prayers to make him better suppose him to be a Tyrant he will give thee the fairer occasions to exercise thy virtue of patience suppose him to be a Persecutor he 'll do thee a courtesie he 'll send thee to Heaven by violence Saul was an unnatural Tyrant against his own Son Jonathan P. 30 31. ☞ a bloody Persecutor of the Priest's of God a Sacrilegious Usurper of their Holy Offices a demoniacal furious Man possest with a Devil and on David 's part his life was sought for and by sparing Saul he should undo himself he had all the opportunity that might and security could administer unto him he was Saul 's adopted Son by Michal 's Marriage he was a Successor to the Kingdom by the Prophet's Unction and yet for all this who can lift up his hand c. are we Christians do we know the virtue of an Oath What think we then of the Solemn Oath of our Allegiance an Oath which can receive no dispensation no absolution from any power whatsoever contrary to the assertions of Bellarmine and Parsons is the establish'd Doctrin of the Church of England in the 37 Article the King's Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of England and his other Dominions and is not nor ought to be Subject to any jurisdiction whatsoever the six parts of the Homily against Rebellion are so full and apposite that we must either disclaim them from being the Interpreters of the Doctrin of our Church or sit down convinc'd in the manifest truth of this assertion c. Consider seriously against whom would you take up Arms Id. Serm. on Judg. 4.23 p. 78. is it not against the Power against the Ordinance of God they are Men before God but they are Gods before Men. the whole earth combining could not make St. Bernard willingly offend his King and shall the fear of a threatned plundering make us oppose our King shall the common rout persuade me to go to Hell for company 'T is true God sometimes refines his Church in the Furnace of Persecution neither then does he leave it naked and disarm it but what are the Churches weapons St. Ambrose had his dolere potero potero flere his sighs and groans against the Gothish Soldiers St. Bernard fought to death against Lewis of France non scutis aut gladiis sed precibus fletibus prayers and tears were his Sword and Buckler Nazianzen overcame Julian but it was lacrymis ubertim effusis by softning his Adamantine Heart with salt drops from their eyes thence flows the only Sea we can overthrow Pharaoh 's Host in SECT IV. P. H. Corah of the tribe of Levi joyn'd with Dathan c. Sermon at Cambr. 1640. on Numb 16. 3. p. 5 6. of the tribe of Reuben the Levite or Clergy alone would have wanted power and strength the Laity or Reubenite alone could not have had so fair a colour and cloak of Religion to cover their rebellious practices but both join'd together make a strong Faction and a fair show our surest course is to judge Mens Persons by their actions if their actions be unsound and irregular P. 10. 2. p. 11 c. if they gather themselves together against God's express word and commandment against their Prince and Sovereign be their outward appearance never so specious we may assure our selves that they neither fear God nor regard Man but only to serve their own turns if God in absolute and unlimited terms pronounce ☜ whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God I cannot see how the goodness of the end be it Religion or Reformation or the common good can warrant any such resistance from the transgression of God's Ordinance P. 15. cons the place unless these and the like limitations
them when the rebellious Israelites in Moses's absence would needs make a God that is a Leader or Ruler to go before them they contributed their ear-rings to the carrying on that design but the effect and issue of that contribution was only a Calf I beseech you remember from all our contributory Plate from the silver basin even to the smallest bodkin whether we have any productions amongst us better than this P. 30. Men who decry the Pope yet cry up themselves into an Authority as great as his not only over the People Id. Visit Sermon at Lewis Octob. 8. 1662. p. 43. but over the Prince whatsoever therefore teacheth Children Obedience to their Parents Subjects Loyalty toward their Sovereign whatsoever teacheth the afflicted patience the happy temperance the faithful perseverance and all sorts of People Charity is that sound Doctrin which we must Preach the Congregation learn. Dr. Gardiner It is high time for Sovereign Majesty to send a strict injunction of taking heed Sermon at St. Mary's Ox. on Act Sund. 1622. p. 25 c. that we poyson not our studies with the Writings of Puritans and Jesuits for the one no less than the other under colour of Zeal and pretence of Holy Discipline corrupt and spoil green age before it can discern and season new Vessels with unseasonable liquor witness that detestable and trayterous instruction encouraging Subjects to resist their supreme Rulers when they are notoriously tax'd of injustice and cruelty so that Kings according to them shall be no longer Kings than they serve their turns are not these Gospellers where they broach such Tenets mere Popes are they not like to Antichrist that sits in the Temple of God but advanceth himself against all that is called God or do they not work like Sampson who laid hold on the Pillars whereon the house did stand that overthrowing them the house and the men might fall into a common ruin I am sure God's word says Touch not mine Anointed and do my Prophets no harm and this Commandment of Obedience is without distinction Jeremy chap. 29. commands the Israelites even those which were Captives under Heathen Kings not to resist but to pray for them and for the Peace of Babylon and it is acceptable to the Lord says St. Paul 1 Tim. 2. not that ye resist but that ye make supplications and prayers for Kings and for all that are in authority the Prophets the Apostles and Christ himself subjected themselves to the Power of Magistracy and therefore when the Disciple did draw his Sword in Christ's defence he was commanded to put it up the examples are not to be numbred of God's punishments upon those that have resisted authority by God ordain'd and establish'd In the Old Law it was death if a Man had resisted the Higher Power Corah with all his was consumed with fire Dathan and Abiram were swallowed up of the earth because they seditiously resisted Moses and Aaron We know what end Absalom came unto when he had expelled his Father out of his Kingdom what seem'd more goodly to the eye of the World than that notable act of Brutus and Cassius who destroyed Caesar reputed a Tyrant and yet that those their doings were not allowed of God the end declared wherefore it is not lawful to resist supreme Rulers the they swerve from the line of justice for it pleases God sometimes to punish his People by a tyrannous hand and in such a case to resist what else is it but tollere martyrium to take away the occasion the Glory and Crown of Martyrdom Anno 1647. Dr. Jasper Mayne publish'd his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 P. 5. or the Peoples war examined c. and in it he affirms that suppose the King invade the Peoples Liberties which could not possibly be preserved but by Arms taken up against the Invader yet the King being this Invader unless by such an Invasion he could cease to be their King and they to be his Subjects I cannot see how such Rights could make their defence lawful and this he proves P. 6 7 c. by shewing the Divine Institution of Kings and what rights God allowed them particularly that of being supreme independently Lord of his own actions whether unjust or just as not to be accountable to any but God after which he proceeds to shew P. 12 c. wherein the supreme Power consists P. 16 17. and that those particular rights do belong to the Kings of England wherefore the Crown is Hereditary where the tenure is not conditional nor hangs upon any contract where the only obligation upon the Prince is the Oath that he takes at his Coronation to rule according to the known Laws of the place tho every breach of such an Oath be an offence against God to whom alone a Prince thus Independent is accountable for his actions yet 't will never pass for more than perjury in the Prince no warrant for Subjects to take up Arms against him were a King misled by evil Counsellors ☞ did actually trample upon the Laws of the Kingdom and the liberty of his Subjects yet unless some Original Compact can be produced where 't is agreed that upon every such incroachment it shall be lawful for them to stand upon their defence that where the King ceases to govern according to Law he shall for such Misgovernment cease to be King to urge such unfortunate Precedents as a deposed Richard or a dethroned Edward two disproportioned examples of popular fury the one forc'd to part with his Crown by resignation the other as never having had legal title to it may shew the injustice of former Parliaments grown strong never justifie the pitch'd Fields that have been fought by this If this supposition were true the King being bound to make the Law his rule by no other obligation Sect p. 20 21 c. but his Oath at his Coronation than which there cannot be a greater I confess and where 't is violated never without repentance scapes unpunish'd yet 't is a trespass of which Subjects can only complain but as long as they are Subjects can never innocently revenge but they will say they have all this while fought for the defence of the Protestant Religion c. all which resolves it self into this unchristian bloody conclusion P. 36. that an Assembly of profess'd Protestant Divines have advised the two Parliaments of England and Scotland confess'd Subjects to take up Arms against the King their lawful Sovereign have thereby set three Kingdoms in a flame Id. def of his Serm. against Cheynel p. 4. c. This Doctrin that it is not lawful to propagate Religion how pure soever it be by the sword is that Religion to which I profess my self ready to fall a Sacrifice is that defamed true Protestant Religion for which the Holy Fathers of our Reformation dyed before me Dr. Peter Heylyn Anno 1643. Print Oxf. p. 2 3 c. publish'd
the Rebel's Catechism wherein he shews that Lucifer was the first Author of Rebellion that the Rebellion even of the heart makes a Man guilty of Damnation in the sight of God much more that of the tongue or the hand that one branch of the Rebellion of the hand is the composing and dispersing of false and scandalous Books and Pamphlets tending to the dishonour of the King the other the taking up Arms against such Persons P. 6 7. cons p. 9 10 11 c. to whose Authority they are subject and it is worth our observation that not only the bearing Arms against the King is declared to be Rebellion by the Law of England but that it was declared to be Rebellion by the chief Judges of this Kingdom at the Arraignment of the Earl of Essex for any Man to seek to make himself so strong that the King should not be able to resist him although he broke not out into open act even defensive Arms are absolutely unlawful in the Subject against his Sovereign in regard that no defensive War can be undertaken but it carrieth with it a resistance in it to those Higher Powers to which every Soul is to be subject we find it thus resolved in Plutarch P. 12. that it was contrary both to positive Laws and the Law of Nature for any Subject to lift up his hand against the Person of his Sovereign with much more to the same purpose The same Author near about the same time See his Ecclesia Vindicata p 645 c Prâ—at Lon. 1681. wrote a Treatise intitled the stumbling-block of disobedience removed to shew that Kings ought not to be controuled by their Subjects either singly or in a body the whole of which learned Treatise as well as his other Vindications of the Doctrins and Rights of our Church will sufficiently repay the Reader 's expence of pains and leisure And in his Sermon on May 29. 1681. it is to be observed that such as draw their Swords upon God's Anointed use commonly to throw away the scabberds also and find no way of doing better but by doing worse no middle way for them to walk in but either to bear up like Princes or to dye like Traytors SECT VI. Of the same belief was Sir John Spelman in his Case of our affairs in Law c. that the Sovereignty is in the King's Person inseparably Pr. Oxf. 1643. p. 15 17 19. and the allegiance of the Subject by Law thereto inseparably annex'd fortifyed and enforc'd by Religion under the severe menace of damnation what streight then of humane Affairs can be so violent as to make Christian Subjects contrary to sworn Faith to Law and to Religion not only to disobey their Sovereign but resist and Invade the Sovereign Rights c. Anno 1641. Sir Tho. Ashton and many others Noblemen and Gentlemen of Cheshire tendred a Remonstrance to the Parliament against Presbyterian Government and in it they affirm that the donation of Sovereign Power is solely from God and so will he have the revocation too he doth not subject them to the question of inferiors but puts a Guard upon their Sacred Persons which to violate though in our own defence is a breach of his command even when persecuted as David was by Saul which precepts are renewed in the Gospel we see our selves bound by Oath to acknowledge and support that Regal Government our Statutes have establish'd our Laws approved History represents most happy to whom all Primitive times yielded full obedience to whose Throne Christ himself yields Tribute whose Persons God will have Sacred whose actions unquestionable whose Succession he himself determines and whose Kingdoms he disposes Tacitus tho a Heathen advises us to bear with the riots and covetousness of Kings as with barrenness and other infirmities of nature for while there are Men there will be vices but they cannot continue long and will be recompenc'd when better come In the 19th year of this King came forth a little book called an Appeal to thy Conscience as thou wilt answer it at the great and dreadful day of Jesus Christ p 2 3 c. the Author of which says that Subjects may not take up Arms against their lawful Sovereign because he is wicked and unjust no tho he be an Idolater and Oppressor 1. Because it were an high presumption in us to limit that command which God doth not limit now our obedience to Superiors is always commanded without limitation 2. We may not think evil of the King much less may we take up Arms against him 3. St. Paul saith recompence to no man evil for evil Rom. 12.19 If to no Man then certainly not to thy King 〈◊〉 That which peculiarly belongs to the Lord thou oughtest not without his Authority to meddle with but vengeance is his 5. Rom. 13. Every Soul none excluded must be subject there is no Power but of God if so then the Power of a wicked Prince is from God and the penalty of resisting is everlasting damnation both of Soul and Body in Hell-fire for ever 6. In Eccl. 8.1 2. the Covenant made by the People to obey their King is called the Oath of God and who dares break this Oath of God 7. God commands Touch not mine Anointed therefore thou mayest not smite him therefore thou mayest not bear Arms against God's Anointed 8. For Subjects to take up Arms against their own King tho an Idolater and an Oppressor is contrary to the practice of God's People in all Ages the Jews and the Prophets Christ and his Apostles and the Primitive Christians 9. God's heavy judgments on those who have taken up Arms against their Prince tho an Idolater and Oppressor ought to be a warning to us how we do the like this is contrary to the Doctrin of the Church of England in her Homilies then he answers the usual objections for resistance resolves several doubts and removes other little scruples and in the close of all passionately advises all Men to return to the Lord and to do their duty P. 51. for 't is strange says he that God's Church can be no way preserved the Subjects liberty no ways maintain'd but by sin who ever heard unless from a Papist that the way to Heaven was through Hell shall we do evil that good may come Rom. 3.8 It would be a very needless labor to cite all the passages to this purpose that occur in the Books written between the year 1644. and the time of the King's Murther and therefore I shall refer the Reader to the Regal Apology Printed 1648. the Kingdoms brief answer to the Declaration of the Commons Pr. 1648. the Plea for the King and Kingdom 1648. with many other Treatises of the same kind only I shall mention Bishop Rainhowe who took the degree of Doctor of Divinity An. 1646. Vid. Bish Rainbow's life p. 41. when his chief Question on which he made his Thesis was Ecclesia Anglicana tenet
setting up others the deposition of Edw. 2. was as horrid Treason as was imaginable or possible to be in nature and does doing wickedly create a lawfulness if so all sins and villanies by the perpetrating them lose their natures to be evils and become lawful wickedness can be no president p. 16. no such thing as Government can be if the governed may judge and execute their Governor I wonder how Mr. Baxter can dispense with the Scriptures against using force to Kings or destroying them his distinction of Parliamentary right will not serve the turn since it is absolutely forbidden as is proved from Exod. 22.28 Ezr. 6.10 Ps 51.4 Eccl. 10.20 Prov. 24.21 1 Sam. 26.9 Rom. 13. 1 Tim. 2. 1 Pet. 2.13 P. 19. 17. which texts having some of them a relation to very Tyrants shew directly the nature of supreme Governors to be born by the People whatsoever their condition be to call them Gods is an exemption from all humane Tribunals above the condition of Mankind subject to God only as Supreme Governors cannot in nature be other I think that God would take it ill that we should mock him p. 20. ☜ p. 22. to set up a King to govern and then to reserve a Power to destroy him God doth somtimes give evil Governors and doth he not likewise give them power God himself forespake in Saul and then concluded the People in these words 1 Sam. 8.18 then i.e. when they were oppressed by their King shall they cry out i. e. seek help of God because there are no humane remedies as Grotius expounds it and call to God for help i. e. there was no means of resistance to be used on their part Kings were when Parliaments were not P. 23. we cannot suppose here in England any time of Government without Kings the Parl. therefore was a creature merely of the King's will and creating the King is the sole judge of the safety p. 27. or danger of the Republick Supremacy is the sole governing Power p. 53. and Government is a constant being the other that of Parl. but at times and by occasion that must needs be a strange Government p. 54. where the Sovereignty is divided and lying in divers powers when they differ the People are distracted in their obedience therefore the 11. of Henr. 7. was made to avoid the mischief of a divided commanding Power tho it be a gross Law and against truth many times ☜ because Usurpers did possess the Throne it is not possible to fansie governing power with a power in the People p. 57. ☜ or any Party out of the King to resist his power for then he should govern no longer than the governed Party were disposed to obey and so no Government at all there can be no such thing as a conquest of Subjects over their King p. 64. p. 65. it is Desertion or Treason not Conquest there is no footstep or mark from God of the Peoples title over Kings or their making them or giving them their Power Parliaments have declared for titles p. 69. but never can make any nor deprive right it is true divers Usurpers have had Parliament Test for their Warrant for those have most need of it but still it was acted under power enforcing and so it was nothing p. 70. but merely so long as the Power lasted Conquest is only a great Riot and multiplying of Rapines and Man slaughters it is all wickedness which is only distinguish'd from common wickedness as it transcends all other actings of Wickedness and such is conquest by excess of Wickedness to make it self above offending and punishment and if so then it cannot be in the submission of the People who are first conquer'd before they consent none of these things make right for if the outed Prince can recover and regain power these things vanish as unlawful one instance with us in England of sixty years discontinuance yet when it recovered power to act all the Usurpation went for nothing and the old came in as Right not as Conquest SECT V. Bishop Wren in his abandoning of the Scotch Covenant P. 49 50. God disposed of the Kingdom of Abiah but otherwise by Man it could never else have been done rightly nor would it ever have held no Man not all the Men in the Kingdom whatsoever is told you of the Power of the People by those that worship that many headed Monster had Power or Authority to alter that Covenant of God with David more than they had to alter that Covenant of day and night in their Seasons says God himself if Men would believe him Jer. 33.21 they were never to meddle with it unless God himself gave order expresly in it Bishop Laney We were in a sad case not long since in this Kingdom by a Civil War. Sermon at Whitehall Mar. 18. 1665 / 6. p. 19 c. they Covenanted first to extirpate the Government of the Church in this they were too bold with the King's Scepter at the next turn they take hold of his Sword too and engage themselves to a mutual defence against all opposition tho a self defence may be allowed as natural to all it is against private not publick opposition and then too as Divines generally resolve Cum moderamine inculpatae tutelae never to the hurt of others every Man may defend himself clypeo but not every one gladio the Sword is the Kings and he that takes it from any hand but his where God hath placed it shall perish with the Sword. Bishop Pearson aggravating the sin of the Gunpowder Traytors Serm. No. 5. 1673. p. 14 20 25. says Touch not mine Anointed is the voice of God nor must we do evil that good may come thereof such Mens damnation is just I cannot chuse but remember those words which I read so frequently in the Scriptures God save the King God save the King God save him from the open Rebellion of the Schismatical Party the ruin of his Father God save him from the secret Machinations of the Papal Faction the danger of his Grand-father God save the King and let all the People say Amen SECT VI. Francis Lord Bishop of Ely hath frequently asserted the same great truth The Church of Rome 's Fifth-Monarchy-Men assertors ‖ Serm. bef the King Jan. 30. 168 0 / 1. p. 13 P. 17. I mean of the Papal Universal Monarchy in the Murder of Conradine King of Naples and Sicily were beforehand with our Fanaticks and taught the Art of killing a King ceremoniously the Life and Person of the King his Office his Crown and Dignity ought to have been inviolable and sacred in the Eyes of all his Subjects if he be the soul of the Nation then it follows P. 18. that his Power is derived from above and is held from none under Heaven and as none but God can judge both Soul and Body so none but God is a competent judge
Griffith Serm. 25. Mar. 1660. called fear God and the King p. 11. v.p. 39. and p. 8 9. If God command one thing and the King should command another then God's command is to be preferred and yet let me tell you that the King is not to be disobeyed for a true Christian is obliged to a twofold obedience Active and Passive Where the King commands things Lawful there yield Active Obedience and know that it is your duty to do them but if he should command such a thing as you may not lawfully do then you must not resist but suffer patiently for your not doing it and that is your Passive Obedience and in both these you may still keep a good Conscience for though God be to be preferred yet God will not have his Anointed to be disobeyed Dr. Jane Dean of Gloucester Ser. at the Consecr of Doctor Crompton Bishop of Oxon p. 30 31 32. Such is the peculiar genius of Christianity that where ever it is either Preacht or Received it can create no jealousie in the State. The ground upon which this Assertion stands is this that it disclaims all title to the Sword but leaves him that takes it to perish with it though it be drawn in defence of Christ himself In the Church then as of old in Israel there was no Smith to provide Swords and Spears though against their persecuting Philistines To obey Authority was taught and practised under a Nero and their Submissions were as unparallel'd as their Provocations And we may truly suppose under the Roman Emperors that had the Doctrine of Obedience been as truly received by their Heathen Subjects as it was Preacht by S. Paul and practised by the believing Romans they had effectually provided for the publick Tranquillity without any further need of Forts and Armies to secure it Dr. Outram The Glory of the King Ser. Jan. 30. 1664. p. 141 149. the Privileges of the Parliament the Liberty of the Subject the Purity of Religion these are written upon the Face of the design The Principle is doing evil that good may come of it and breaking Laws that we may the better observe them These Men went to Rome to whet the Ax and borrowed an Arrow out of the Roman Quiver secretly to shoot the Lord 's Anointed Were the Prince a Nero p. 160. Paul would charge us we should not resist and would charge resistance with damnation Sir Orlando Bridgman at the Tryal of the Regicides says Try. p. 10 12. v. p. 15 52 182 283. I must deliver to you for plain and true Law that no Authority no single Person no Community of Persons not the People Collectively or Representatively have any coercive Power over the King of England And this he proves at large in the same place The Crown of England is and always was an Imperial Crown Now I do not intend any Absolute Government by this It is one thing to have an Absolute Monarchy another thing to have that Government absolutely without Laws as to any coercive Power over the Person of the King. God is my witness what I speak V. p. 13 14. p. 280. V. p. 281 282. I speak from mine own Conscience that is that whatsoever the case was by the Laws of these Nations the Fundamental Laws there could not be any coercive Power over the King. And this he there proves from the obligation of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy c. Mark the Doctrine of the Church of England and I do not know with what spirit of Equivocation any Man can take that Oath of Supremacy Her Articles were the judgment not only of the Church but of the Parliament at the same time And the Queen and the Church were willing that these should be put into Latin that all the World might see the Confession of the Church of England So also Sir Heneage Finch P. 51. then the King's Sollicitor General The King is not accountable to any coercive Power See also the accurate Treatise See also Nalson's Counter p. 35 c. 3â—9 Com. Interest of Kings p. 139 c. p. 3. called the Harmony of Divinity and Law which proves that it is a damnable sin to resist Sovereign Princes and answers all the little objections of the Republicans to the contrary I shall here only mention Mr. Foulu's History of the Plots and Conspiracies of the pretended Saints and briefly transcribe a passage or two out of Dr. Sprat Bishop of Rochester his True account of the horrid Conspiracy At that time under the color of the only true Protestant the worst of all Unchristian Principles were put in Practice all the old Republican and Antimonarchical Doctrines whose effects had formerly proved so dismal were again as confidently owned and asserted as ever they had been during the hottest rage of the late unhappy Troubles p. 21. See p. 41. The Lord R was seduced by the wicked Teachers of that most Unchristian Doctrine which has been the cause of so many Rebellions That it is lawful to resist and rise against Sovereign Princes for preserving Religion p. 43 44. Other Principles were that the only obligation the Subject hath to the King is a mutual Covenant that this Covenant was manifestly broken on the King's part ☞ that therefore the People were free from all Oaths and other tyes of Fealty and Allegiance and had the natural Liberty restored to them of asserting their own Rights and as justly at least against a Domestick as against Foreign Invaders p. 131. v. p. 132. The whole design of A. S's Papers was to maintain That Tyrants may be justly Deposed by the People and that the People are the only Judges who are Tyrants That the general Revolt of a Nation from its own Magistrates can never be called a Rebellion which Positions the Historian calls with great Truth and Justice Villanous Opinions p. 133. and such as if allowed it will be impossible for the best Kings or the most happy Kingdoms in the World to be free from perpetual Treasons p. 164. and Rebellious Plottings But his Majesty hath just reason to acknowledge that the main body of the Nobility and Gentry stood by him so has the whole sound and honest part of the Commonalty so the great Fountains of Knowledge and Civility the two Universities so the wisest and most learned in the Laws so the whole Clergy and all the genuine Sons of the Church of England ☞ a Church whose glory it is to have been never tainted with the least blemish of disloyalty Dr. Pocock In ch 8. Hos 4. p. 388 389. Some Interpreters by Setting up Kings but not by me would understand Saul but that cannot with reason be imagined Others looking on the sin of the Israelites to be their defection from the House of David on which God had intayled the Right and Title of the Kingdom and their changing of the Kinghom and Priesthood of their own heads
1. That those Serm. at St. Mary's Oxf Jan. 30. 1660. and before the King Jan. 30. 1661. who promise Obedience to the King only so far as he preserves the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom withal reckoning themselves Judges of what Religion is true what false and when these Liberties are invaded and when not do by this put it within their own Power to judge when Religion Faith and Liberties are Invaded as they think convenient and from such judgment to absolve themselves from their Allegiance 2. That those very Persons who thus covenanted had already from Pulpit and Press declared the Religion establish'd in the Church of England and then maintain'd by the King to be Popish and Idolatrous and withal that the King had actually Invaded their Liberties was there any thing in the Book of God to warrant this Rebellion Why yes Daniet dreamed a Dream and there is also somthing in the Revelation concerning a Beast and a little horn and a fifth Viol and therefore the King ought undoubtedly to dye ☜ others plead providential dispensations God's work it seems must be regarded before his Word as if when we have a Man's Hand-writing we should endeavour to take his meaning by the measure of his foot we have lived under that model of Religion in which nothing hath been counted impious but Loyalty nothing absurd but restitution the Church of England is the only Church in Christendom we read of whose avowed Practices and Principles disown all resistance of the Civil Power and with the saddest experience and truest Policy and reason will evince it self to be the only one that is durably consistent with the English Monarchy let Men look back into its Primitive Doctrin and it's History and they will find neither the Calvin's nor the Knox's the Junius Brutus's the Synods nor the Holy Common-wealths on the one side nor yet the Bellarmin's nor the Mariana's on the other SECT IX And here it is necessary to mention the several Addresses that own the same Doctrin and I shall begin with that of the two Universities that of Oxford runs thus being according to an Act of Convocation dated Febr. 21. 1685. May it please your Majesty c. We your Majesty's most dutiful c. as we can never swerve from the Principles of our Institution in this place and our Religion by Law establish'd in the Church of England which indispensibly binds us to bear all Faith and true Obedience to our Sovereign without any restrictions or limitations so we presume to assure your Majesty that no consideration whatsoever shall be able to shake that stedfast Loyalty and Allegiance which in the days of your Blessed Father that Glorious Martyr and in the late times of discrimination stood here firm and unalterable to your Royal Brother and your Self under the sharpest trials and that we shall constantly by God's assistance with our utmost zeal and sidelity improve all those advantages wherewith God and your Majesty have intrusted us in this ancient nursery of Learning to promote the quiet happiness and security of your Majesties Reign over us Thus also the University of Cambridge in their Address tendred by the Vice-Chancellor Gaznum 2019. c. Mar. 23. 1684. We do with all humble submission present to your Sacred Majesty our unfeigned Loyalty the most valuable Tribute that we can give or your Majesty receive from us this is a Debt which we shall be always paying and always owing it being a Duty naturally flowing from the very Principles of our Holy Religion by which we have been enabled in the worst of times to breed as true and stedy Subjects as the World can shew as well in the Doctrine as Practice of Loyalty from which we can never depart Many other Addresses Gaz num 2008. 2012. 2013. 2016. 2018 c. of the same kind were made by the University of Dublin by the Bishop and Clergy of the City of London the Bishop and Clergy of Chester the Bishops of Bath and Wells and of Hereford and in truth of all the Dioceses I think in England Scotland and Ireland besides such as were tendred by Lords Lieutenants Grand Juries and particular Societies For which Sense of the Nation in those days I must refer the Reader to the Prints while I only subjoin the memorable Close of the Address tendered by the Bishop Vicar-General and the Clergy of the Cathedral and City of Bristol The Church of England is peculiarly indeared to us for that above all that is called Religion in the World it twists Piety with Loyalty and without Reserve Recognizeth your Sacred Majesty as the Sovereign and Supreme Power within your Majesties Realms and Dominions against whom there is no rising up and only less than God himself According to the Dictates of that most excellent Religion we abhor all those Antimonarchical Persons and Principles which would either exclude Princes from their just Rights or disturb the peaceable enjoyment of them And we earnestly beseech the King of Kings that your Majesties Throne may not only be Established but raised still higher upon the ruins of those that shall endeavour to Subvert or Supplant it SECT X. Dr. Stillingfleet Origin Brit. c. 5. p. 319. inquiring into the Reasons why the Saxons were called into Britain by Vortigern quotes Gildas who affirms That after the Britains found themselves deserted by the Romans they set up Kings of their own and soon after put them down again and made Choice of worse in their room Adding it is plain that he supposes that the Britains in that Confusion they were in took upon them without regard to their Duty to place and displace them But withal he observes that then the Britains were left to their full liberty by the Roman Empire that there was no Line remaining to succeed in the Government nor so much as to determine their Choice which made them so easily to make and unmake their Kings who lost their Purple and their Lives together This must needs breed insinite confusions among them and every one who came to be King lived in perpetual fear of being served as others had been before him And the natural Consequence of this jealousie of their own Subjects was looking out for assistance from abroad which I doubt not was one great reason of Vortigern 's sending for the Saxons hoping to secure himself by their means against his own People although it proved at last the ruin both of himself and his People And whereas Cressy in his answer to my Lord of Clarendon's Vindicaon of the Dean of S. Pauls had objected That days of Thanksgiving were kept for the discovery and prevention of such personal Treasons as the Gunpowder Treason but none for the Deliverance of the whole Kingdoms from almost an Universal Rebellion as if their were no necessity of requiring from any a retraction of the Principles of Rebellion or a promise that they shall not be renewed Answ to the
Letter Apologet. c. 5. p. 334. The Dean smartly rejoyns By this we might think Mr. Cressy a stranger in his own Country and that he had never heard of the 30. of January or the 29. of May which are solemnly observed in our Church and the Offices joyned with that of the 5. of November and are purposely intended for that very thing ☜ which he denies to be taken notice of by us in such a manner what doth Mr. Cressy think the Renunciation of the Covenant was intended for if not to prevent the mischief of the former Rebellion After his he gives an Historical account of the Controversie in England about the Power of Princes and the Usurpations of the Pope over them p. 348. and having cited Pope Gregory the Seventh's Letter wherein he avers That Kings had their beginnings from Men who gained their Authority over their equals by blind Ambition and intolerable Presumption by Rapines and Murders by Perfidiousness and all manner of Wickedness ☞ He subjoins Is not this a very pretty account of the Original of Civil Power by the Head of the Church The Oath of Allegiance sworn to the Pope p. 366. leaves no room for Allegiance to Princes any more than a person who hath already sworn Allegiance to one Prince hath liberty to swear the same thing to another p. 370. which it is impossible he should keep to both And discoursing of King Stephen he says that his Title being very bad he saw it necessary for him to strengthen it by the Pope's Authority and that during his Usurpation all the Rights of the Crown were lost p. 373. p. 452. Again he says If depriving Sovereign Princes of their Crown and Dignity endeavouring by open Rebellions and secret Conspiracies to take away their Lives be not Treasons there are none such in the World. p. 463. If the Primitive Christians had been guilty of so many horrible Treasons ☞ and Conspiracies if they had attempted to deprive Emperors of their Crowns and absolved Subjects from their Allegiance to them if they had joined with their open and declared Enemies and imployed Persons time after time to assassinate them what would the World have said of their sufferings Would Men of any common sense have said they were Martyrs for Religion but that they dyed justly and deservedly for their Treasons the late Regicides pleaded the cause of God and Religion The Scripture attributes the great revolutions of Government to a particular Providence of God Id. Ser. on 1 Cor. 12.24 25. p. 17. God is the Judge or the Supreme Arbitrator of the Affairs of the World he putteth down one and setteth up another which holds with respect to Nations as well as particular Persons which doth not found any right of Dominion as some fansied till the Argument from Providence was return'd with great force upon themselves but it shews that when God pleases to make use of Persons or Nations as the scourges in his hand to punish People with he gives them success above their hopes or expectations but that success gives them no right Suppose a Prosperous Usurper in this Kingdom Id. ans to the first royal paper p. 23. and vindicat of that ans p. 64. had gained a considerable Interest in it and challenged a Title to the whole and therefore required of all the King's Subjects within his power to own him to be rightful King upon this many of them are forc'd to withdraw because they will not own his Title is this an Act of Rebellion and not rather of true Loyalty ‖ Id. Vindi. p. 37. and ans to the 1st part p. 19. the Doctrins of deposing Princes and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance are errors in matters of practice of the highest importance * Id. ans to 2d royal paper p. 40 55. if fancy only keeps us firm to the Church of England might it not as well have been said that the Protestants of the Church of England adhered to the Crown in the times of Rebellion out of fancy and not out of judgment and that if their fancy chang'd they might as well have joyned with the Rebels as we have cause to be thankful to God when Kings are Nursing Fathers to our Church so we shall never cease to pray for their continuing so and that in all things we may behave our selves towards them as becomes Good Christians and Loyal Subjects and whereas the Defender of the Royal Papers p. 80. argued against this that Subjects were no longer according to this Doctrin to be Loyal than their King is a Nursing Father to their Church the Doctor wipes off the Aspersion by telling him †Vindic. of the ans p. 101. ☜ P. 86. that he had put an ill construction on his words far from the intention of the Author who thinks it a part of a good Christian to be always a Loyal Subject I desire this Gentleman to resolve me whether in the late times of Usurpation this had been good Doctrin that those who enjoy or pretend to Supreme Power are to be judges in their own case if so then it had been impossible for Men to have justified their Loyalty to the Royal Family then very unjustly put out of possession P. 88 89. it is some comfort that our Church is confessed to teach the Orthodox Doctrin of Loyalty and her practice to be conformable thereto in the worst of times and so the Doctor hopes it will always be But it hath been said by some body ☜ that we have nothing peculiar to our Church but our Doctrin of Non-Resistance this might have given occasion to inquire whether the Church which pretends to be infallible doth teach it so Orthodoxly or not or whether those who do think themselves obliged to believe what she teaches are thereby obliged to the strictest Principles of Loyalty ☜ this our Church doth not only teach them as her own Doctrin but which is far more effectual as the Doctrin of Christ and his Apostles and of the Primitive Church which I think ought to have more force on the Consciences of Men P. 99. than the pretence to Infallibility in any Church in the World. ☜ Is it any argument that the constitution of our Government is not firm or that Loyal Subjects cannot be certain of their duty because Men of ill Principles have run away with false notions of a Fundamental contract and coordinate power and whereas it might be objected that propositions as dangerous as those of the Jesuits were held by some among our selves witness those condemn'd at Oxford July 26. 1683. We cannot deny says he but that there have been Men of ill Minds and disloyal Principles Factious and Disobedient Enemies to the Government both in Church and State but have these Men ever had that countenance from the Doctrins of the guides of our Church which the deposing Doctrin hath had in the Church of Rome To
prostrated themselves for in your way of reasoning they have a right to preserve or delight themselves by any course of means and can be best protected by the prevailing side which because it hath more degrees of growing Power has it seems therefore more of right P. 158. thus it is in the choice of every Subject whom you make the Judge of the means to preserve himself to apply himself to the stronger side or for a Company combin'd in Arms and Counsel when an Heir and a Traytor are engag'd in Battel with equal success as was the practice of the Lord Stanley c. at Bosworth-field to give the day to the side they presume will most favour them but there is no tye so strong as that of Religion c. * Vid. 1. part of the Hist p. 93. and whereas Hobbs affirm'd that Covenants are but words and breath and have no force to oblige or constrain any Man but what it has from the Publick Sword he answers that thus the Prince is always in a State of danger P. 160. Society being like a State of Nature managed all by force because he cannot be a day secure of remaining uppermost seeing that the People are taught by you to believe that the right of Authority is a deceit and that every one would have as good a Title if he had as long a Sword for the many headed Beast will throw the Rider when he burthens and galls them Woe to all the Princes upon Earth if this Doctrin be true and becomes Popular if the Multitude believe this the Prince not Armed with the scales of the Leviathan i. e. with irresistible Power can never be safe P. 161. wherefore such as own these pernicious Doctrins destructive to all Societies of Men ☜ may be said to have Wolves Heads as the Laws of old were wont to speak concerning excommunicated Persons and are like those ravenous Beasts so far from deserving our love and care P. 192. that they ought to be destroyed at the common charge if the commands of Christ and his Apostles are not also Laws what means the common Doctrin in the Scripture of suffering for the sake of Christianity We are injoined to take up the Cross and to follow Christ c. Such commands and exhortations to dye rather than to obey Unchristian injunctions are deliver'd in vain yea they deserve the name of Impious if they be not a Royal Law without the stamp of Civil Authority it is therefore your opinion that it is our duty for the sake of outward safety to obey that which is the Law of our Country tho we live among the Heathens rather than to follow dangerous tho Evangelical Counsel This Doctor together with the Lords Bishops of Ely and Bath and Wells and Dr. Hooper were by the King appointed to attend the late Duke of Monmouth before his Execution and the great thing that they with reason prest him to was a particular repentance an acknowledgment that his Invasion was a Rebellion particularly urging him as the Printed account says more than once P. 1 2. if he were of the Church of England to acknowledge the Doctrin of Non Resistance to be true ☞ and therefore I believe that Pulton the Jesuit as †Pulton consider'd p. 67. himself says charg'd him unjustly that when he assisted Sir Thomas Armstrong before his Execution that he did not oblige him to an humble acknowledgment of his Crimes and particularly of the injury done to his King and Country for the * Account of the cons with 〈◊〉 p. â—3 Doctor even in the heigth of Popery thought his Loyalty more valuable than Mr. Meredith's because he as a Son of the Church of England profest he would not rebel against the King notwithstanding he might be of another Religion whereas Mr. M. being of the same Religion could not well separate Loyalty from Interest and ‖ 〈…〉 cons p. 89. avers that he is by Church Principle against resisting the Higher Powers and approves not of the excluding and deposing Doctrin taught in Mr. P's great Lateran Council before there were Jesuits and also after they arose by Bellarmine and Doleman and a long train of others in which some Popes some Synodical Men have pompously march'd To pass by General Complaints Id. exam of 〈◊〉 10 note 〈◊〉 holiness of life p. 243. we may furnish our selves with abundance of instances in the Lives of particular Men of that Communion who have been Infamous for Impiety I shall content my self with a few reflections upon two or three of this sort of Mâ—n with whom the more the World is acquainted the less veneration it will have for them Pope Gregory the Great fawn'd upon the Emperor Mauritius whilst he lived and prospered and own'd him as his Patron and the Maker of his Fortunes even before he had made his own But assoon as the Emperor and his Family were barbarously Murthered by the most Bloody Vassal and Usurper Phocas Gregory insulted over this dead Lion and flatter'd this living Monster and his Immoral Wife Leontia He used such words at his â—surped â—xaltation as he did at that which he called the Conversion of England singing profanely Glory to God in the Highest Let the Heavens rejoyce and the Earth be glad There are many things in the Roman Church it self P. 248. which by helping forward an ill life do in part deface this mark of her Sanctity Such as the Doctrins about Papal Supremacy Which last is very prejudicial to the quiet of the World especially in the Deposing Point concerning which I take leave to use the words of another with Relation to Bellarmine He was * Postscript to transl of 〈…〉 of the Leag p. 15 16 17. himself a Preacher for the League in Paris during the Rebellion there of King Henry IV. Some of his Principles are these following In the Kingdoms of Men the Power of the King is from the People because the People make the King. We hear Bellarmine in another place â—ositively affirming it as Matter of Faith if any Christian Prince shall depart from the Catholick Religion and shall withdraw others from it he immediatly forfeits all Power and Dignity even before the Pope has pronounced sentence on him And his Subjects in case they have Power to do it may and ought to cast out such an Heretick from his Sovereignty over Christians If therefore the Faith of Bellarmine be Faction whatsoever his Church is in it self it is certain as he has made it it can never he found out either as The Church or as A found Church so far as we are to look for it by the Note of Holiness SECT XII Dr. Patrick hath also fully declared his Opinion in this point for besides what hath been cited out of his works in the first part of this History he says Paraphâ— on on Ps 15. p. 75. that he who shall dwell in God's Tabernacle is a
Emperor while the good Bishop in his Embasly to Maximus carried himself as the Father or Guardian of his Prince ☞ tho he had been provok'd in the most tender part by his Prince's endeavors for the introducing of Arianism others perhaps if they had been in his condition would have look'd upon this Tyrant's Maximus declaring for the truth as such an opportunity that Providence had offer'd for the Preservation of the Faith and since the Empress was of a false Religion and the Emperor was govern'd by her why should they not set up this Maximus as the Protector of the true Faith But Ambrose and the Bishops were of another mind they knew what it was to dye for their Religion p. 346. but did not understand what it was to brigue or to resist and I pray how did the Bishops comply with the Usurper Maximus were any of them instrumental to his advancement did they Preach up his cause and the lawfulness of his revolt did they ever press the People to bring in their Plate and contributions or after his successes and the Murther of Gratian did any of the Bishops justifie the Usurper's Proceedings and Preach and Print in defence of that barbarous Regicide did they flatter him as the preserver of Religion the David the Champion of Israel with much more to the same purpose Dr. Williams Printed his Sermon Preach'd July 26. 1685. Seâ—â—ful 26. 1685. on Rom. 3â—7 8. p. 11. being on the day of publick thanksgiving for the late victory over the Rebels to vindicate the City Clergy and particularly himself who was censured as if the Sermon was not to the purpose of the day and occasion as he says in his Epistle Dedicatory to the Bishop of London Grant this that evil becomes lawful by a good end and when we think our selves secure we make all compacts broken Oaths dissolved all difference betwixt Superiors and Inferiors confounded it exposes the Church and State to every pretender and any one that hath a mind P. 20 21. will never want a reason for Insurrection and Rebellion as no Religion hath more discountenanc'd such Principles and Proceedings than the Christian so no Nations nor Persons have more discountenanc'd the thing than those who have profess'd it it is too notorious to be dissembled for that there have been Rebellions against and depositions of Princes dissolutions of Governments taking and breaking of Oaths and other things apparently evil of that and the like kind done to serve a Cause a Party or a Church is no Mystery now a days Christian Religion teaches the wholsom Doctrin of being subject to the Higher Powers and that they that resist p. 22. shall receive to themselves damnation from the confessions of Faith in all the â—rotestant and Reformed Churches nothing can be drawn p. 23. that will justifie Opposition or Rebellion against Civil Authority but they expresly declare against it when Queen Mary was a known Member of the Roman Church yet the Protestants first joyned with her against the Lady Jane Grey who was invested with the title of Queen and was a Protestant And this particularly is the avowed Doctrin of the Church of England in all its Articles and Homilies at large three of which are against Rebellion Do they find in the Sermons of the Ministers of the Church of England Id. Apol. for the Pulpits p. 3 4. the Doctrines of the Peoples Power over Princes of the lawfulness of resisting their Sovereigns or rather where have the Rights of Princes and the Subjection and Obedience of the People in all lawful Cases and the Non-resistance in any Case ☜ been so much asserted That Loyalty which concerns all of all Perswasions is taught in the Pulpits of the Church of England which obliges them to be as loyal when the Prince is of a different Religion as when he is of the same with them The same Author also in his Difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome having cited our Articles Homilies c. to prove the chief Power of the King and that he ought not to be resisted and shewn how contrary to this Doctrin the Decrees of the Church of Rome are he subjoins pag. â—1 The Church of England teacheth the King in all his Realms hath Supream Power in all Causes whether Ecclesiastical or Civil For God alloweth neither the Dignity of any Person ☜ nor the Multitude of any People nor the Weight of any Cause as sufficient for the which Subjects may rebel So Dr. Grove in his Examination of Bell. 15th Note viz. Temporal Felicity pag. 393. Since the Power of Deposing Princes hath been openly assumed and frequently practised and never yet condemned by any either Pope or Council since the Doctrin of Equivoeation and many other absurd and Impious Opinions are taught by their Casuists and made use of by their Confessors in directing the Consciences of their Penitents and since these and many more very dangerous Errors do not only escape without a Censure but are approved of and encouraged by their Governors I cannot see how they and their Church can possibly be excused from the Guilt of them Mr. Thomas Stainoe B. D. and Archdeacon of Brecknock preach'd Sept. 6. Ann. 1686. Seem on Rom. 13.5 Epist Ded. before the Lord Mayor and says that he publish'd it That it might be instrumental to convince the People of their Duty to their King because it was for that very reason that he preach'd it That there is no Man so much a ravening Wolf inwardly pag. 3. but he will put on Sheeps Cloathing and tho his Resolutions are bent upon Rebellion yet his Discretion and Prudence will prompt him to pretend Religion The least that can be inferr'd from the words will be a Subjection to lawful Authority and by consequence also to our own Prince For the truth of all which I shall urge no more at present than the tacit Confession of his most avowed and professed Enemies who after all their contrivance of Wit Anger and Malice could at length pitch upon no better expedient to prevent his Right of Accession than a Bill of Exclusion Now such a Bill either presupposes an antecedent Right or it does not if it does not then it must be confess'd that they did most elaborately trifle whilst they took a great deal of pains to bring that about that was already done to their hands If it does then we have what we look for and that is that the Injustice of their Actions does make good the Justice of his Title and affords us a tacit Confession that there was no other way to overthrow that Title but by overturning the very Foundations of the Government it self pag. 7. We are therefore obliged in Conscience to be in subjection to the Superior Powers because God himself commands us so to be God hath given the lawful Magistrate a Title to that Authority pag. 12. to which we
God the things that are God ' s. Dr. Fowler There is nothing more certain than that for any of us to be false Dâ—sign of Christianity p. 243 251 252. and perfidious to be ungovernable rebellious or seditious upon the account of Religion it self is most unsufferable and inexcusable For if it be lawful to behave our selves after this manner upon any account whatever Religion would be the most useless thing in the World and if this were lawful upon the account of Religion only ☜ I will not stick to say that it will not be more useless and unprofitable than mischievous and hurtful Nor would the Christion Religion it self be worthy our profession if it would give us leave upon any design to allow our selves in the forementioned Immoralities or in any one whatsoever Thus to do is no other than to be irreligious to promote Religion to be unchristian to do service to Christianity and therefore to go the directest way to destroy it by the means we use for its preservation Thus to do is to oppose the Interests of our Religion to that of our Souls Id. Discour of Christian Liberty p. 175. â—ee his Discourse of Offences p. 9 10 11. and to cast these away in the defence of that It is come to that sad pass that preaching Obedience to Authority is as unacceptable Doctrin as can be to even many great Pretenders to Christianity altho it be done never so prudently and agreeably to the express Doctrin of our Saviour and his Apostles And the Notion of Obedience for Conscience sake seems almost lost among not a few which is one of the great Sins for which we have too great reason to fear there is a heavy Scourge near us Mr. Evans A moderate Man when the Honor of God or the King when Religion Sermon of Moderat 1682. p. 12. and the Welfare of his Country lye at stake then thinks it a most worthy and weighty occasion of imploying his Zeal and Activity in their Service of defending them with Courage and Resolution with his Life and Fortunes He never breaks the second Table to preserve the first nor make use of any ways to secure Religion that are contrary to or destructive of its Principles What Men esteem great Falshoods pag. 23. and call Toryism and Popery are really as true as Gospel pag. 34. I will conclude all with this Remark We may and shall if we do not timely take up bring in Popery by a heady and extravagant Zeal against it ☜ and ruin and enslave our selves by our fierce and passionate Contentions for Liberty Property and Safety p. 48. Give me the Man that is honest and constant to his Principles and to what he professes whatsoever Party or Perswasion he is of he is much more valuable to me than he that plights his Faith to the Church and gives all the Security that can be taken for his Conformity to it and then after he hath wound himself into its Communion and Preferments plays booty and acts like a Non-Conformist These are the treacherous Friends that like Vipers prey upon the Bowels of their Mother and betray her as Judas did our Lord with a Kiss Dr. Comber in his Religion and Loyalty Sec. Edit 1683. p. 8 3. v. pag. 12 13 c. If the Church of England did make worldly Interest the sole measure of her Actions they would never consider what was honest but only what was expedient and never stick at ill means to accomplish that which they account good Ends. We of this Church are perhaps the only Christians since the Primitive Ages who never dispens'd with our Loyalty to serve our worldly Ends. And if this do not commend our Policy I am sure it declares our Honesty and Integrity and must needs recommend us to all good Men as those who prefer our Duty and our Conscience before all earthly Advantages p. 39. No Religion in the World teaches and practises more Loyalty than that which is truly called Protestant and we doubt not but that if ever his R. H. should attain the Crown he will not blame our Church for that which was the Opinion of those who endeavoured to subvert it after they had renounc'd all Communion with it pag. 52. especially when it is further considered how constantly the true Protestants of the Church of England have loved and how faithfully they have served the Royal Family in all Fortunes how closely they have adher'd to the Interests thereof upon all Occasions so that whoever were true Sons of this Church our Kings have always reckon'd them their certain and undoubted Friends And when a Rebellion was designed against the blessed Father of his Royal Highness the Contrivers of it found it necessary first to seduce Men from the Church of England before they could engage them in so wicked an Action p 〈…〉 And since the happy Restoration they have incurr'd the Hatred of the bigotted Fanaticks for their perpetual standing for the King's Prerogative and their zealous promoting his and his Royal Highness's Interest The Pamphlets written in defence of the Bill of Exclusion p. 57. â—â— frequently transcribe whole Passages out of Doleman's Book Take some of their accursed Principles The Commonwealth hath Power to chuse their own fashion of Government as also to change it upon reasonable Causes The Commonwealth hath Power not only to put back the next Inheritors upon lawful occasions but also to dispossess them that have been lawfully put in possession if they fulfil not the Laws and Conditions by which and for which their Dignity was given them The Republick may cure or cut off their Heads if they infest the rest Princes are subject to Law and Order and the Commonwealth which gave them their Authority for the good of all may also restrain or take the same away again if they abuse it to the common evil The whole Body to superior to the Prince neither so giveth the Common-wealth her Authority and Power up to any Prince that she depriveth herself utterly of the same when need shall require to use it for her defence for which she gave it The Prince's Power is not absolute but delegate from the Commonwealth and is given with such Conditions and Oaths on both Parties as if the same be not kept by either Party the other is not bound With many other such Popish Positions So also the Apost Prâ—â— p. 4 5. and it is very observable that this wicked Libel of Doleman was in part reprinted Anno 1648. under the feigned Title of Several Speeches deliver'd at a Conference concerning the Power of Parliaments to proceed against their King's form of Government pag. 61. But the Protestant Church of England is not only better in all other accounts but doth hold teach and practise Loyalty above all others in the World the Divines thereof generally holding Monarchy to be of divine Right and Allegiance to be an Obligation on
Sclater What a joy will it be to thy Spirit and a lightning to thy Heart Royal pay paymaster on Rom. 2.10 p. 6 7 1â— when thou canst say thou didst not cowardly yield tho thou hast been disarm'd sequestred decimated and unrewarded for it 't was of God's mercy to be kept faithful to the righteous cause of God and the King when there were so many temptations to witdraw us from our Loyalty Fidelity and Loyalty is in a more especial manner required in a Subject towards his Sovereign 't is Treason in a Subject to fight against his Sovereign but how long must this Fidelity last a day or two or so Oh no I this Commandment is like that heavy saying in Matrimony till death us do part Dr. Hickman Serm. before Lâ—rd Mayor Juâ— 27. 1680 p. 17 18. The honor of God and the defence of his Worship are glorious Undertakings yet even here the excess of zeal is a crime and the great importance of the end cannot justifie any unlawfulness in the means the will of God as it is exprest in his Word is the standard of good and evil and he will not suffer his eternal Laws to be violated tho in his own defence if it should please him to give his and our Enemies such advantage over us as may endanger the exercise of our Religion we have our Prayers and other lawful endeavours for our redress but we must not defend our Church by an unlawful return of evil for evil nor like our Adversaries commit any Act of Impiety or Injustice tho under the most specious pretence of fighting the Battels of the Lord The goodness of the Cause here is so far from justifying the Act that it only aggravates the offence when a Law is violated or any injustice done for the sake of our Religion both the scandal and the Crime become conspicuous they are then laid at the door of our Church and bring a publick and perpetual blot upon our cause P. 19 v. p. 20 33. what can our Religion profit us or what honor can it bring to the Almighty when our Sacrifice comes polluted with blood and violence of its own how can it attone for our transgressions therefore it is necessary to obey not only for wrath ☞ but also for Conscience sake St. Peter who was the first that drew his Sword In his Master's quarrel was the first that denyed his name and forsook his cause and doubtless whosoever fights for his Religion against his Prince can never pass the muster without a Romish dispensation Mr. Ser. at Bath Aug. 7. â—631 p. 4 5 c. Jos Pleydall Arch-Deacon of Chichester Plebeians and Hobbists proceed upon one and the same Principle making the People the Fountain of all Power whereas Subjects owe a natural and inviolable Allegiance but if a Prince prove a Tyrant does he not by Male-administration forfeit the trust reposed in him in whose Opinion in the Opinion of Mariana or Knox Hobbs or Bradshaw i. e. in the judgment of Papists P. 8. Sectaries Atheists or Rebels 't is impossible there should be a Rebellion while the Principles of the Church of England are revered and owned that Kings may be Deposed and Murdered P. 11. we may reckon under the Apostles strange and monstrous Doctrins or rather under his Doctrins of Devils Mr. Assize Ser. p. 21 22. v. p. 5 78 16. Kimberley No pretences of Conscience or Religion can Authorize our Resistance of the lawful Powers which God hath set over us they never knew what it was in the times of the Primitive Christianity to oppose expel or destroy any Pagan Persecuting Arian or Apostate Emperor Mr. Assize Ser. p. 21. Jemmat None but God can absolve Subjects from that Allegiance and Obedience which they owe to their natural Lords neither the Male administration of Government nor their own fears jealousies nor the decay of Trade no nor the hazard of Religion it self can justifie the Acts of Rebellion they to whom God hath given his own Power are accountable to none but himself c. Mr. Serm. on 2 Chr. 13.5 p. 6. v. p. 8 15 18. Camfield The King is in the highest place and highest power and consequently all in his Dominions Every Soul of them are obliged to be subject to him none may presume to judge or resist him violently there can be nothing justifyable on the Subjects part but obedience and Submission the rest must be referred to God alone the only Ruler of Princes c. Mr. Ser. at York Aug 3. 1685. p. 16 24. 〈◊〉 loc Stainforth We have great reason to pity and pray for Kings for the eminency of their Station and uncontroulableness of their Power if Princes are bad Men and oppress their Subjects against reason and against Law we have no reason left us but Prayers to God in whose hands are the hearts of Kings Whatsoever Injuries they heap upon us whatsoever Violences and Persecutions we suffer under them we must not suffer our Passions to rise and swell againvt them much less must we take up Arms and by force resist their Persons or Authority P. 34. Those who take up Arms against their Sovereign's Authority fight against Heaven Mr. Graile Rector of Blickling in Norfolk publish'd four Sermons Lond. 1685. P. 44 45. For Loyalty to our Prince is a thing commanded by God himself together with Piety and Devotion towards himself yea and commanded in the very next place to it so that the one is a part an inseparable part a very considerable part of the other And it follows from hence by an apparent Consequence that Mens Disloyalty is a clear indication of their irreligion if they fear not the King they fear not God. ☜ If any Man seem to be religious and bridles not his Tongue from speaking evil of Dignities or Higher Powers Jam. 1.26 2 Pet 2.10 Rom. 13.2 P. 53 54 55. that Man's Religion is vain and 't is much more so if he holds not his hands from resisting these Powers Our Law will have no Error no Injustice no Folly no Imperfection whatsoever to be found in the King. All the States of the Realm joyned together all the Nobles and Commons and the whole Body of the People have not a Power and Authority equal to his For otherwise he would not be the King of a Kingdom but of single Men separately taken P. 56. The King is no substitute of the People but the Minister of God and his Power is the Ordinance of God. It is a contradiction to be Sovereign and to have a Superior The Lords P. 57. both Spiritual and Temporal together with all the Commons assembled in Parliament do by a solemn Oath acknowledg the King to be Supreme and themselves to be his Subjects And they have in publick Statutes particularly declared That both or either Houses of Parliament cannot nor lawfully may raise or levy any War offensive or
defensive ☜ against his Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors Neither is the King accountable to them or to any other besides God These are the Essentials of Sovereignty There is but one Case wherein a good and loyal Subject will refuse to obey his Prince and that is p. 60 61 v. p. 66 96 97 119 120 154. when such Obedience will by no means consist with his Obedience to God But there is no Case whatsoever wherein he dares either to resist or reproach the Person or Authority of the King or to offer any Indignity to him To fight against him is to fight against God whom the King represents upon any pretence whatsoever it cannot be done without open Perfidiousness and Rebellion Such are Monsters of Men and are as natural brute Beasts made to be taken and destroyed So S. Peter describes them 2 Pet. 2.10 12. Mr. David Jenner in his Prerogative of Primogenitures * Lond 1635 P. 48. asserts the same Cause Altho the Law of God is indeed above all Kings and if they wilfully transgress the same they are all accountable unto God and unto God only for the same yet in this Kingdom of England no Statute Law is or can be above the King because it was the King that first gave life and being to the Law of the Land the King by his Royal Assent made the Law to be what it is viz. a Law But the Law of the Land did not make the King to be what he is viz. a King for the King was King before the Law. That the Doctrin and Practice of Deposing lawful Kings P. 122. and Excluding the right Heir from succeeding in the Throne for his being an Heretick Idolater ☜ tyrannical and wicked is grounded upon nothing but Popery and Fanaticism Mr. Hancock in his Answer to the Viscount Stafford's Memoires Lond. 1682. p. 31. I could make it evident that the same Maxims of Political Divinity the same Arguments and many times the same Phrases and Expressions are to be found in the Heads of both Factions I know 't is disputed whether the Ring-Leaders of Sedition among us poyson'd the Jesuits or the Jesuits them but I do not envy the Bishops of Rome the Honor of having first poyson'd them both with Antimonarchical Doctrins If Milton the great Oracle of one of the Factions had own'd himself to be a Papist there had been no reason to wonder at the Impiety of his Doctrins which he either did or might have learnt from the Popes and greatest Divines of the Roman Church It was truly alledg'd by Salmasius that the Doctrin of the sacred and inviolable Authority of Princes was preserved pure and uncorrupt in the Church till the Bishops of Rome attempted to set up a Kingdom in this World paramount to all Kings and Emperors but he with his usual Confidence acquits the Popes and charges his Antimonarchical Principles on Luther Zuinglius Calvin Bucer Martyr Parcus and all the Reformed Divines Bellarmine P. 50. Parsons Creswel Suarez c. are the Men that furnish'd the leading Faction among us with Principles and Precedents with Arguments and Texts of Scripture ☞ out of whom they either did or might have derived the Grounds of the War against the King of erecting an High Court of Justice and of bringing him to the Block John Goodwin P. 53. in one of his Pamphlets hath this remarkable Expression As for offering Violence to the Person of a King or attempting to take away his Life we leave the Proof of the lawfulness of it to those profound Disputers the Jesuits P. 166 c. I have fairly represented those Doctrins and Principles which strike at the very root of our establish'd Religion and Government with the Arts and Instruments which have been used by the prevailing Faction of the Roman Church for the Subversion of them ☞ And I know no stronger Argument against the truth and goodness of any Religion than that it supplants moral Righteousness and serves to be a Bond of Conspiracy allowes of Sedition and Treachery Injustice and Cruelty for how can that Religion be from God which maketh Men unlike to God as had or worse than if they were left to the Principles and Inclinations of their own Natures Of the Church of England I will only say It hath establish'd the Right of Kings upon such sure and unalterable Foundations that it is the Interest as well as the Duty of the Civil Power to support and defend it Mr. Animadv on Ob. Ch. Govern. Preface Smalridge Certainly that Doctrin which invades the just Rights of Princes can hope but for few Proselytes among those who have constantly defended them in their Writings asserted them in their Decrees and upon all occasions vindicated them with their Swords For we do not lye open to the imputation of a condition'd and distinguishing Loyalty who have shewed our readiness to imitate the glorious Examples of our Fathers and were prepar'd had not God's good Providence prevented our Service to have transcribed that Copy lately at Sedgmore which they set us formerly at Edg-hill And in truth our steady Fidelity to the Prince is so unquestionable that our Enemies have been pleased to ridicule what they could not deny and have made Passive Obedience bear a part in our Character when the Muse hath been enclin'd to Satyr Thus also the Person of Quality who wrote the Reasons Why a Protestant should not turn Papist P. 30 31. I am then quite out of conceit with your Religion since I cannot embrace it without endangering my Loyalty by reason of the Deposing Doctrin in case I live up to the pitch of its real Principles But 't is all one to me so long as I remain a Protestant what Religion my Prince is of tho I could wish he were of the same I profess because his Authority over me and my indispensible Obligation to submit to him do not depend upon his Opinion or Religion but upon his Birth-right yet have we not reason to doubt if the zealous sort of Roman Catholicks would not think it lawful to take Arms against their Prince turn'd a Heretick since the French League against Henry the 4th was upon this very account styled Holy and had I not been particularly acquainted with the Principles of the Church of Rome I had never conceived how it came to pass that such great Numbers of learned and well-meaning Men too could be guilty of such a horrible wickedness as that was and forget themselves so far as to pretend Holiness in an open Rebellion against their lawful Prince I am then more satisfied with the Loyalty of a Protestant especially of the Church of England who acknowledgeth the Prince to be a Supreme Governour over all his Subjects and Sovereign Judg in all Cases than with that of a Roman Catholick who seems to set limits to his Power by such restrictions as neither Reason nor Scripture can warrant Mr. Pomfret
these Laws p. 14. v. loc and p. 21 22 c which he gave to us Under the most barbarous and persecuting Emperors no Christian ever suffered as a Rebel they gave no other disturbance to the Government than by confessing themselves Christians and suffering for it Their numbers indeed were very formidable but nothing else The same Doctor wrote his Case of Resistance when the Doctrine of Non-Resistance and Passive Obedience were not Confuted but laught out of Countenance Ep. Ded. p. 109. When whoever hath been so hardy as to assert the Doctrine of Non Resistance hath been thought an enemy to his Country one who tramples on all Laws who betrays the Rights and Laberties of the Subject and sets up for Tyranny and Arbitrary Power p. 3. In this accurate Treatise he proves 1. That God himself set up a Sovereign and iresistible power in the Jewish Nation and that during all that time v. p. 13 14. it was unlawful for Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever to resist their Princes 2. That our Saviour taught the same Doctrine both by his Example and Precepts as did also St. Peter and St. Paul. p. 133. The sum of St. Paul's Doctrine is this that all Men whatever their rank and condition be must be subject to Sovereign Princes i. e. must obey all their just and lawful commands and patiently submit even to their unjust violence for Sovereign Princes are made and advanced by God and therefore he that resisteth resisteth not Man but God and how prosperous soever such Rebels may be in the World they shall not escape the Divine Vengeance and Justice which will follow them into another World They shall receive to themselves damnation p. 221. The last Judgment weighs down all other considerations and certainly Rebellion may well be said to be as the sin of Witchcraft when it so inchants Men that they are resolved to be Rebels though they be damned for it So Dr. H. Bagshaw Serm. on Isa 1.26 p. 8. Should Magistrates omit Works of Justice and Mercy they are no more Gods but Idols nay the worst sort of Idols that being made to represent do yet foully reproach Divine Power but should People resist libel or abuse them and so strive to deface the marks of their greatness they strike at the Majesty of the Supreme We may all learn Duty from considering that God is the founder of human Government So also the learned Dr. Faulkner V. Christian Loyalty l. 1. c. 5. p. 183 184. The truth is Maximus was a Rebel and had wicked murdered Gratian the Emperor and invaded the Territories of Valentinian and for this cause S. Martin though often requested for a long time refused to come to his Table and avoided all converse with him and did also foretel his ruin And Marcellinus Socrates Theodoret and Sozomen in their Histories often give him the stile of Maximus the Tyrant And Symmachus a Roman Senator was found guilty of Treason by Theodosius for publishing a Panegyrick upon Maximus S. Ambrose not only refused Maximus the salutation of a Kiss from him but withdrew himself from those Bishops who Communicated with him c. Chap. 6. p. 233. The same Author confuteing the claim of the Pope to this Kingdom on the account of the surrendry made by King John to Pandulphus the Pope's Legat adds I shall chuse to observe in general that this Case is the same as if any Seditious persons or Usurpers should by fraud or force reduce the King to straits and difficulties and should then by like methods gain a promise from him that he should be under their Government and shall order the Affairs of his Realm in complyance with them and subjection to them Now all such Acts are wholly void and utterly unobligatory Because 1. No part of Royalty can be gained by Possession upon an unjust Title against the right Owner upon a sure Title this being a parallel Case to a Thief being possest of an honest Man's Goods 2. No Sovereign King unless by voluntary relinquishing his whole Authority to the next Heir can transfer his Royal Supremacy to any other person whomsoever c. p. 383. v. loc Another ground of Subjects security though they may not take Arms against their Sovereign is from God being the Judg and Governor of the World and shall not the Judgment and Authority of God over Princes be thought valuable and considerable though he is more righteous and more able to help the oppressed than any Judge upon Earth p. 393. V. p. 395 397 456 457 463 490 491. Unless all things be in utter confusion and Anarchy it is not possible but that there must be acknowledged such an Authority which none have power of resisting but this can no where be so well placed for the Subjects Interest as in their Sovereign Prince and Supreme Governor Christians are Baptized into that Doctrine which makes great provision for the security of Kings and against all manner of resistance But though the directions of our Religion be plain History will acquaint us that there have been many contrary Practices as matters of Fact. But these are no more to be urged against the Rules of Duty in this than in other Actions of disobedience and swerving from God's Commandments p. 507. It was truly observed by Barclay that Valentinian the younger who was an Arian might as easily have been Resisted and Deposed by the Catholick Christians as any King or Emperor whatsoever if they would have undertaken any such thing for then the strength of the Eastern part of the Empire was then in the Hands of Theodosius who was a zealous promoter of the True Faith the Western Empire was over-run by Maximus an Enemy to the Arians The Army of Valentinian then at Milan were so disaffected to the Emperor that they declared they would go over to those Ambr. Ep. 33. ad Marcellin to whom S. Ambrose should direct them unless the Emperor would Communicate with them who embraced the True Faith. But in this case Theodosius protected and assisted Valentinian and S. Ambrose disclaimed all resistance against him and espoused his Interest to the utmost against Maximus Herbert Lord Bishop of Hereford Pr. Lond. 1688. in his Defence of the Reading the late Declaration asserts the same Truth for though he pleads for the Reading of the Decclaration p. 5. Because when we are bid to Honor the King we ought to observe that express command of God in every thing that is not expresly contrary to the word of God or at least most evidently deduced from it so that every common understanding must needs see it p. 15. Yet he subjoyns that it is impossible that a true Son of the Church of England should have any disloyal thoughts in his Heart his Principles commanding him unto intire Obedience either Active or Passive without any Equivocation or Mental Reservation whatsoever SECT VIII Dr. Matthew
Party have been the great cause of all these inhumane Butcheries yet they have not been the only Actors in them there are another sort of Men who have had their Hands stained with blood and upon what Motives and Principles and to what degrees they have proceeded I refer the Reader to Archbishop Bancroft's dangerous Positions and to the History of Presbytery to satisfic himself Ch. 2 p. 7. 8. But tho several Murders and Rebellions have been carryed on by those that call themselves Christians yet neither the Christian Religion nor the Church it self did ever teach any such Doctrin or encourage any such Practice nay there are such Evidences against it that no rational Man that does rightly consider the matter can ever doubt but that she in her judgment and belief wholly condemns all such wicked and ungodly designs And for further satisfaction I will inquire into the flate of the matter P. 9. that all Power and Dominion is Originally from God is not to be doubted but by Atheists and that Governors act in his Name and by his Authority is as unquestionable among Christians now this Power is derived to them either from the Law of Nature which is common to all Mankind or else from positive Revelation and Assignment the first and highest fountain of Supreme Power is founded in that natural Dominion that God hath given Parents over their Children insomuch that if either Adam or Noah who were the common Fathers of us all were now alive P. 10. they ought to be the Universal Monarchs of the World but when the Father dyes and Brothers are scatter'd up and down the World and live independently one of another there can be no natural pretence for one to have Dominion over the other yet the necessity of forming themselves into Societies for mutual defence and traffick will oblige them to enter into Covenants and tho while they are free they may chuse different forms as they shall see best for themselves yet having once chosen and accepted of a Supreme Power they are not at liberty to cast it off again when they please but all the Rights Prerogatives and Jurisdictions which belong to Sovereign Authority are presently by God invested on it who does ratifie all lawful pacts and agreements and requires us strictly and inviolably to observe them tho it may fall out P. 11. that the Person somtime may be chosen by the People or Nobility or Senate yet the Power and Office it self was not made is not given nor can it be limited or bounded by them so as to destroy the Office it self or make it become no Supreme Power one Prerogative whereof is to be irresistible P. 1â— and not to be called to account by any but God. a Prince must use his Subjects as Freemen and not Slaves but if Princes do not their duty we must not revenge our selves for we ought not to be Judges in our own case for God hath told us that Vengeance is his and he will repay P. 13. therefore we must go for vengeance to those whom God hath appointed to execute vengeance in his stead if then our inferior Governors do us wrong we must go to the Superior who are made Revengers to execute wrath upon them that do evil But if the Supreme Powers themselves oppress us they cannot be judg'd by their Inferiors and there will be no other remedy but to leave them to the judgment of God who hath reserved their punishment to himself but tells us he that resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation and 't is better to suffer unjustly in this World than to suffer justly in the World to come for since the last judgment in this World must be somewhere 't is fitter that Children should be committed to the judgment of their Parents and Inferiors to the Supreme than any other way P. 14 15. tho Princes are the Instruments yet it is God's purposes or commands that they put in execution whether they be for good or evil he inclines them to favor and mercy when he is pleas'd to try us with prosperity and kindness again when our sins call for judgment and indignation then he sends forth evil Governors or else permits wicked Men to act according to their own cruel and ambitious minds and the insâ—igation of the Devil but yet in the midst of judgment he does remember mercy they shall not do any harm further than God in his Wisdom shall give them leave and that is no more than is needful for our good so that we are to look upon evil Governors and Superiors that oppress us no other than plagues or violent Storms or Earthquakes sent from God from whence we may run and hide our selves if it be possible and use all reasonable means to save our lives by flight or the like but they are no more to be resisted by violence than any of those natural Evils we must by humiliation and prayer implore God's mercy to us in turning their hearts or some other way sending us deliverance as we do to avert a Plague or an Earthquake P. 16. but God hath given us no natural strength to secure our selves and thereupon will defend us himself and have us wholly therein depend upon his own care this belief it was that filled the World with Martyrs c. this made our Saviour confess to Pilate that he had Power given him from above to crucifie him c. it was upon this account that St. Paul said let every Soul be subject c. and in this sense those Texts and the Authority of Governors were vouched by the Antient Fathers and Councils and there is not one Writer for a Thousand years of any credit in the Church that did ever doubt of P. 17. or question this Doctrin but many of them have declared themselves fully for it that Sovereign Princes had their Authority immediatly from God and were accountable to none but him if they did use it amiss and therefore could not be deposed by any Authority upon Earth whether of Pope or People neither ought they to be resisted by open violence or have their Power wrested out of their hands by any of their rebellious Subjects those also that act in a War without the Commission of the Supreme Power or of the King where he is Supreme have not the Sword given them by God but take it themselves and therefore shall perish with the same And this he confirms as from Scripture so from the Doctrin of the Church and the sense of the Holy Fathers about it P. 40 41. and concludes It were casie to carry the same Doctrin through all Ages of the Church and to produce testimonies especially from the Articles and Canons of the Church of England and the Writings of our Learned Bishops and other Eminent Defenders of our Church but these shall suffice for the present and they are
enough to convince any sober Man that the Ancient Christians did never dream that either the Pope or the People did give Kings their Authority or had any Power to depose them and authorize their Subjects to take up Arms against them with or without their Authority much less to set up others in their stead or reserve their Power in their own hands but did believe that their Authority and Power is wholly from God and therefore must be obeyed according to his Ordinance and that they never can be deposed either by the People or People or any other Authority upon Earth Dr. Dove Sermon on Nov. 5. 1680. p 4 5. They that dare imagin evil against the King in their Bed-chamber will not stick to countenance Rebellion against him in the Camp for the malice of Treason like fire concealed will either find or force its passage this is the usual Prologue to all trayterous designs P. 21. to calumniate the Government and speak evil of dignities to repreach the one and make it odious by traducing the other and rendring them contemptible we may learn by experience that God for the better Government of the World thinks it fit to make Rebels and Traytors the most memorable examples of vengeance and judgment search the Scriptures and turn over the Annals of all Ages you shall scarce meet in story with a seditious Innovator or a Rebel who hath not ruined himself Id. Ser. bef Lord Mâ—yor Sept. 29. 1682. p. 15. If a Man can help Men to an evasion from the duty of Obedience he shall have followers enough this is a certain sign that tho Men know their duty yet they do not love to hear it for certainly obedience to Magistrates is one of those things that accompany Saivation and if they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation then surely we may safely affirm and that without any breach of charity or stretching beyond our line that they who oppose them in lawful things or refuse to obey them in the same without a timely repentance and reformation are in danger of it P. 17. tho David was next heir to the Crown and already anointed to it tho Saul thirsted for his blood and persecuted him by force and fraud tho he had the hearts of the People and Saul was given up into his hands so that he could as easily have slain him as have cut his skirt yet this was that which kept him from so great iniquity that he was the Lord's Anointed P. 18. the Authority is still from God tho it be placed in the bands of a sinful Man and it loseth not its essence by the accession of personal miscarriages c. disobedience hath all that is base in it P. 24. and Rebellion contains a whole conjugation of wickedness of which there seems to be an indelible sense in all Mens minds since even they who love the thing do usually hate the name of Rebels and such as are conscious of the guilt would gladly avoid the reproach of it a plain indication of guilt as guilt is a manifest argument of sin and wickedness P. 25. 't is a sin next to blasphemy to speak evil of dignities a degree of profaneness to disobey them ☜ and intolerable iniquity to rebel against them it is as bad in its own nature as murder or theft being as expresly forbidden as these and in its consequence 't is far more mischievous c. this sin debauches the conscience P. 26. and hardens Men in impiety so that it is rare very rare to find a repenting Rebel it is directly opposite to the Spirit and Power of Christianity it makes the very profession of Religion odious and despicable it is contrary to the example of Christ the Blessed Apostles and Primitive Christians there have been many pretences made for disobedience and resistance P. 27. v. p. 28. one hath libelled the Primitive Christians ascribing their meekness and submission to necessity so Bellarmine another that the Apostles in prescribing Obedience only flatter'd the Emperors so Salmeron a third hath taught that the Doctrin of resistance was a mystery bid from the first Ages and reserved for these last days of greater light so Jo. Goodwin thus the Gospel it self is belyed to countenance that which it every where condemns we have a Church P. 30. whose Doctrin Discipline and Government is Apostolical and Primitive defective in nothing so much as the Obedience of her Members unless it be the exercise of her Discipline this Church was always famous for her untainted fidelity and loyalty to the Crown oh that our lives were as good as our Religion c. SECT XVI Dr. Henry Maurice The Ancient Christians knew how to dye better than to dispute Ser. on Jan. 30. 1681. p. 2 12 30 c. cons 1st pt hist p. 112. but none understood yet how to rebel for their Religion how then are we departed from this ancient and reasonable practice no Faction did ever insult a Prince they did not mean to destroy but now to return to the blaspheming of the Church of Rome if community of name be not so much to be regarded as agreement in Doctrin our accusers will be found to have a greater part in these Sectaries than we for both agree in the Fundamentals of Rebellion and the lawfulness and merit of Resisting the Higher Powers There are Men in the World that honor such as Martyrs P. 180. that were executed for murdering their King I hope they were neither Bishops nor Episcopal Men that were so fond of Canonizing those Murderers for Martyrs P. 318. when Chrysostome saw the Civil Power against him he would not contend but endeavoured to steal away to prevent contention and what his favorers did when they began a Mutiny they did it against his will and against all his entreaties and obsecrations to the contrary did not the Primitive Christians meet to serve God p. 326. and suffer'd Martyrdom for it but did they ever enter into Covenants and Practices against the State in all the lamentable distractions of the Church by the Arians we find no Orthodox Bishop animate the People against the Government p. 327. what Persecution soever they suffer'd but on the contrary restraining all tendences to Rebellion and withdrawing themselves when the popular favor towards them grew inordinate p. 32â— p. 337. and uncontrolable Whoever animated the People to resist Julian what a number of worthy learned Ministers of the Church of England were turned out to make vacancies for the Non-Conformists in the days of Rebellion who were to instruct the People in new Mysteries of Religion which their old Pastors had not the conscience or ability to teach them i.e. of the lawfulness of Rebellion we read of St. Ambrose's zeal against the Arians of his popularity of his charity c. but not a word of his Sedition p 34â— or his forcible resistance of the
the Conscience and indispensible because the King's Power is from God pag 62. to whom only Kings are accountable They pray for him three or four times by Name in all their solemn Offices their Sermons are frequent and pressing upon this Theme and their Books are numerous against Papists and their factious Scholars for the Right of Kings yea and their Actions being always Loyal do justifie they sincerely believe as they teach Dr. Sec. Edit ad Lectorem Pelling's Apostate Protestant Those Republicans who were the Movers of the Bill of Exclusion very well knew that by the sam ePower which they pretended to have to dispose of the Heir they might pretend afterwards to have to devest and destroy the Possessor of the Crown And I will presume to declare on my own and my Brethrens behalf too without begging their pardon that we still act ☞ and by the Grace of God resolve stedfastly to act upon the same loyal Principles wherewith we have hitherto endeavor'd to season the Kingdom The People cannot but be tickled at the heart p. 6 7. when they are told that they have a Sovereign Power in them which they did not dream of that they can make and unmake Kings that Crowns and Scepters lye at their Worship's Feet must make Court to them for Succession and that they can if they will bar them out and come like the Tribunes of the People of Rome with an uncontroulable Veto I am grieved at the heart and 't is enough to raise the indignation of every honest Man to find that so many among us do so inconsiderately not to say maliciously run altogether upon this Jesuit's Principles c. V. p. 9 10 11. p. 14. Doleman confidently insists on this that the Crown is not a bare Inheritance but an Inheritance accompanying an Office of trust and that if a Man's defects render him uncapable of the trust he hath also forfeited the Inheritance and from this Principle he concludes that even a true King may be deposed when he answers not the trust which the People had reposed in him This Jesuitical Doctrin did not long ago cost one of our Kings his Throne and his life too I pray God it be not so chargeable to another but t is ominous when pretending Protestants will be nibling at such Jesuitical Principles Observe that the Power of Deposing a King P. 19. naturally follows from the Doctrin of the People's Power to chuse one if any of our Clergy hold our Kings to be Divine they hold no more than what all Christians have ever held P. 21. V. p. 24 25. P. 33 34. v. loc p. 36. no more than what the Church of England hath declared no more than what the Laws of our Country do own and will bear them out in Doleman is positive that Princes may lawfully be deposed and he observes too is a remarkable instance as he calls it that God hath wonderfully concurred for the most part with such judicial Acts of the Commonwealth against their evil Princes not only in prospering the same but by giving also some notable Successor in the place of the deposed had Father Parsons been alive in our days perhaps he would have instanc'd in that blessed Bird Oliver Cromwell among the rest I happen'd to read a new Assemblies Catechism called a Political Catechism p. 38. v. p. 40 41 c. and I found it as full of the Jesuit's Venom as if it had been spit out of Doleman's own Mouth these are some of the Principles in it word for word 1. That the Government being a regulated Monarchy the King is not above the Law but is accountable to the Law and not to God only 2. That whatsoever is done by the King without and beyond the limits of the Regulation is not Regal Authority 3. That to resist the notorious transgressions of that regulation is no resisting the Regal Authority that the immediate Original of the King's Power is from the People and many other such Principles upon which the late Rebellion was raised and maintained After this he proceeds to shew that the little arts made use of to evade the obligations to Passive Obedience have been also borrowed from the Jesuits and to vindicate Dr. Hicks's Sermon on that Subject as also to shew the Parallel between the Jesuit and the Puritan particularly in their disobedience to Government violation of Oaths c. And then subjoins that when once Men are Jesuited P. 50. they will never stick at any manner of wickedness Lying Libelling Sedition defaming of Government Perjury c. you see how basely partial these Folks are in their ordinary censures P. 51. let a Man be a true Friend to the King and to the Establish'd Government and presently forsooth he is a Papist let him resuse to do evil that good may come tho that was St. Paul's way and he is called a Papist let him be for subjection to a Lawful Prince ☜ and when time serves for Passive Obedience and he is a Papist with a witness but let these Men profess the Faith and Doctrins of the Jesuits let them lye and equivocate like the Jesuits let them violate Oaths v. p 52 53 57 58. or construe them in their own sense like the Jesuits let them dispense with one another in doing any wickedness that is serviceable to their cause as the Jesuits do yet who but they the true Protestants we dare not be dishonest unless we will be Hypocrites nor be Rebels P. 54. unless we will be damn'd Some in Solomon's time were given to change out of 〈◊〉 strange kind of levity and inconsistency of mind Id. Serm. on Prov 24.21 1632. p. 25. and therefore some Expositors render the place thus cum inconstantibus with Men that are fickle and unsteady in their Loyalty would we not think it strange that Men who have shewed their fidelity all along Men who have acted taught suffered and ventur'd their Lives for the sake of Majesty should such I say start aside and suffer themselves to be wheadled into Faction at last Truly we might wonder at it the less when we consider that it was the case of several Men in the Reign of David and especially two very eminent Persons Abiathar the Priest and Joab that brave Commander the former had been David's secret and sure Friend and the later had not turn'd after Absalom both of them had been faithful hitherto but when Adonijah usurp'd the Kingdom both of them were concern'd in that Plot the Priest turn'd an Apâ—state and the General a Renegado upon what provocations I do not know nor can I gather any reason thereof unless it be that I now have mention'd a strange inconstancy of Spirit in Men who in David's Old Age thought it their best cunning to take up the Persian custom and worship the Rising Sun. Thus the Letter to a dissenter on occasion of the Declaration of Indulgence We are