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A64271
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Obedience and submission to the present government, demonstrated from Bishop Overall's convocation-book
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Taylor, Zachary, 1653-1705.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing T597; ESTC R2448
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6,580
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24
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OBEDIENCE AND SUBMISSION OF THE Present Government DEMONSTRATED FROM Bishop Overall's Convocation-Book LONDON Printed for Robert Clavel at the Sign of the Peacock in St. Pauls-Church-Yard 1690. OBEDIENCE AND SUBMISSION To The Present Government c. THAT those of the Church of England who have taken the Oaths to Their Majesties KING William and QUEEN Mary have Deserted their Principles about Allegiance and Government is the common Reflection cast upon them by some whom either Malice or Ignorance does Dispose to Reproach 'em But since Bishop Overall's Convocation-Book appeared they now Plead Reason and Authority to Justify the Scandal and pretend that they have got a whole Convocation of Unprejudic'd and Learned Men who have Unanimously Condemned the late Submission and such as being far removed from any Temptation are the fittest and most fair Judges that we can be Determined by tho' their Proceedings not having the Royal Confirmation which is absolutely necessary for Canons does as some think very much if not altogether invalidate their Authority and makes 'em as insignificant as the last Convocation we heard of I thought therefore I might do some Service to the Church and its Members if I could in some Measure Vindicate It and Them by proving that their Compliance with the present Settlement has not in the least deviated from the Doctrine of the Church of England as it was Profess'd and Taught in that Convocation I shall begin therefore with laying down the Doctrine about Government and Allegiance in Four Propositions extracted out of the Convocation-Book to which may be Reduced whatever almost can be pretended in this Controversy And they are these First That the Power of Kings was Originally Patriarchal Deriv'd from GOD and not from the People C. 2.6 13. For tho' Kings are or ought to be bound up and Limited in the Exercise of their Power by Laws C. 15. yet that proceeds from GOD and Nature who never intended Princes to be such Leviathans whose wilful Pleasure should be Laws but Parents of their Countrey Impowered from Above to Maintain the Native Liberty and Property of their Subjects as of their Children For the Conceit of Absoluteness never did or could prevail in any State but where Superstition or Ignorance blinded Mens Reasons as in Turky and most of the Eastern Empires or Parasitical Flattery and the naked Sword Maintain the Arbitrary Usurpation as it is in a Neighbouring Kingdom Second Prop. That Descent in Hereditary Kingdoms is the ordinary Way whereby a Right and Title to the Crown is Claimable I say Prov. 8.15 is the ordinary Way For since Kings Rule by GOD it is only as the Convocation-Book saith The Lord who both may and is able to overthrow Kings or Emperors notwithstanding any Claim Right Title or Interest which they can Challenge to their Countries Kingdoms or Empires pag. 53. Third Prop. That no Violence is to be used to Kings from their own Subjects for any Irregularities that they commit C. 22. For the Doctrine of Passive Obedience to a Government Established by Law whether the PRINCE be Limited and Sworn to Govern by Laws Chosen by the People and Enacted with his Consent or the PRINCE be Absolute and his will sufficiently Declared be the Law is of absolute necessity to the Support of any Government and they who deny that can never clear themselves from the Suspicion of some Designs against this Fourth Prop. That having sworn Allegiance to a Prince we cannot without the Dreadful Guilt of Perjury transfer our Allegiance whilst he continues to have an Authoritative Right and Title to the Crown C. 36. I say an Authoritative Right and Title because the Case may so happen that these being separated the Claim of Right without the Authority cannot Challenge our Allegiance as in the Case of the Kings of Israel and Judah that were led Captive by the Babylonians who they surviv'd in Babylon and some of them out of Confinement yet as it appears from Jeremy's calling for the Peoples Prayers and Obedience to the Babylonish Kings could lay no Claim to the Allegiance of their late Subjects The Reason of which is Because it is the Authority which is GOD's that Commands our Allegiance and tho' no Mortal can separate this Authority from the Person invested with it yet GOD can of which more hereafter and if he do transfer it to another wherever it is plac'd it calls for our Allegiance This is the Sum I think of what can be pretended in the present Controversie To Reply to which I will not Expatiate on what hath been abundantly offer'd by others but Confine my self as much as possible to the Convocation-Book that the Impartial Reader may judge which side the Jurors or Non-Jurors the Old Established Doctrine of the Church of England does countenance And as to the First Proposition That Government in general whether Monarchy or any other Form derives it's Authority from GOD the Author of Nature and consequently of Humane Society and not from the People tho' their Consent be ordinarily necessary to the Constitution both of the Form of Government and the Persons Governing is that which is to be the Ground-Work of the whole Discourse and therefore in the first Place to be admitted which I the more Confirm by observing from the Right Reverend the Author First That all Kingdoms are now what was more peculiarly appropriated to the Jewish Nation in their First Constitution in some sort Theocracies wherein GOD according to His own Pleasure takes away Kings and setteth up Kings For C. 35. P. 83. GOD being the Universal Lord and Ruler over all the World the whole World is His Universal Kingdom in the Government whereof He useth the Ministry of Civil Magistrates as well in other Countries as amongst His own peculiar People Israel without any Desert of theirs but as in His Heavenly Providence He thinks it most convenient p. 84. Howbeit He does not leave them at Liberty to do what they list but holds Himself the Helm of every Kingdom and useth their Services in such sort as be they Good or Bad and their Designments Holy or Wicked He ever makes them the Executioners of His own Just Judgments Will and Good Pleasure according as He is minded to Punish any Kingdom People or Countrey And this He does by reserving to His Providence the Prerogative of the Designation of the Person whom He intends for His Vice-Gerent and that even in Hereditary Kingdoms 1 Chro. 3.25 as Adoniah who was Solomon's Elder Brother and Anointed by Abiathar to succeed his Father so his great Disappointment may be an Instance Nay GOD sometimes for the only design'd Usurpation of a Prince whose Title and that in an Hereditary was altogether Indisputable does deprive him of the Government in Part or Whole and will not allow him so much as to Endeavour the re-gaining of it which was the Case of Rehoboam And how oft he has Extinguish'd the Line Royal and Advanc'd to the Crown such
it holds Analogy with those Proceedings wherein GOD hath already Notify'd His Holy Will and Pleasure I think this will hardly be deny'd and therefore all that remains is to produce some Precedents wherein Royal Authority has been Translated and GOD hath own'd it for his immediate Doing For if his Head was Interpos'd there I see not how we can Exclude it here Therefore First When Kings have Illegally Oppressed their Subjects and been too Arbitrary in their Imposition GOD hath been pleas'd 〈◊〉 Discharge them of their Trust The â—eason of which is because they are GOD's Roresentatives and therefore what they doby Implication is and cannot but be Interpreted to be GOD's Work and then as he saith of the Judges in the Execution of their Office 2 Chron. That they Judge not for Man but for the LORD who is with them in the Judgment The Wrong if they do any is an Injury to GOD whose Judgment it is suppos'd to be which Injury he will not suffer to go unpunish'd So the Usurpations of Princes being Reflections upon GOD whose Trustees they are his Honor stands Engag'd when our sins are sufficiently punish'd by such Scourges to Vindicate its own Innocence in Removing or otherwise Animadverting upon them that so abus'd his Trust We have a notable Instance of this in Rehoboam who being Rejected of the People because of his Resov'd Usurpations and Endeavouring to Regain his Right by the Sword is forbid by GOD for which Prohibition the Reason that is given by no mean States-Man my Lord Clarendon is this Because I had been in the Fault himself The Applicaon I leave to the Reader Secondly The Instance of Time is another Mark of GOD's Interposition For when His Church is on the Brink of Ruin and the Designs against Her have been so prevalent that it is not in the Power of Man to over-rule Them than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is a Present GOD in Trouble This the Deliverance of the Israelites out of Aegypt will Attest who have made upon it this Comfortable Observation then whenever the Tale of Bricks i. e. The utmost Servitude is imposed Moses i. e. A Deliverer is near at hand And the Methods prescribed by Father Parsons for the Reduction of England to the Roman Yoak found in the Closet of the Late King James and so religiously observ'd throughout his Reign is too great an Evidence of our design'd Extirpation for Impudence it self to deny Thirdly The Way and Manner of this Revolution which was without Bloodshed and Battles i. e. Such as beseems the God of Peace doth confirm the same For not to enlarge on this I desire any of the Non-Jurors to speak plainly if they do not think the Peaceableness of the Restoration of King Charles to be an unanswerable Testimony of God's Work and Interposition for my part I must confess I always did And then I know not how to deny the Infatuation of his Brothers Desertion to intimate that the same Hand that restored the One was very much Confenting to the withdrawing of the Other I have done and will provoke no Man by Reflections but yet I earnestly intreat our Non-Juring Brethren to Consider First That the refusing of an Oath which may Lawfully be taken as this in Controversie may if what these Canons say be True makes the Refusers Responsible for the Want of all that Good which their Officiating in their Cures might have produc'd together with all that Unsettledness in the STATE which their Example hath encouraged Secondly If what I have produc'd be the Canonical Doctrine of the Church of England let them be advised of the Mischief of that Fatal Division which their Obstinacy will bring amongst us and is already design'd if not begun in a Form of Prayer pretended though I think it smells too strong of Jesuite to be theirs Therefore for the Sake of Peace whereof Christ is the Head and his Doctrine is the Gospel For the Sake of our Church threatned with a more Affecting and Pathetical Division than ever For the Sake of the Reformation which this Breach above all things will prejudice and above all for the Sake of GOD Whose Truth and Worship if another Revolution come are as far as we can see to be extinguish't I entreat and beg of you seriously to lay aside all Passion Heat and Peevishness and whatever else may byass your Reason and Consider if what I have wrote be the Genuine Doctrine of the Church of England For if it be not I must Acknowledge my Mistake and beg GOD Pardon for the Guilt which by taking the New Oath I have incurr'd which till my Conscience be more enlightened I am so far from suspecting that I would not as my Conscience for more Kingdoms than King James has lost be in the same Guilt with those who by refusing to take the Oaths Contribute too much to the Designs of such as will favour neither Them nor Us if our Sins should ever prevail with GOD to give them the Ascendency Which GOD prevent for the Merits of His Son the King of Peace and Truth Amen FINIS