attainting of many hundreds of the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland who were fled to England But the Town of London-Derry holding out and an Army being every Day expected from England the 18th of July this Parliament was prorogued till October And notwithstanding their Act for Liberty of Conscience and the dreadful Expectation of a sudden Revenge from England the Popish Clergy took possession of the Tithes and Church Revenues and many of the Protestant Clergy were clapt up in Prison in order to be sent into France All that our discontented Party here in England have to say to all this is That we must not believe all is told as out of Ireland but they mean That we must believe nothing of it but call in King James and try if he will use us at the same rate We have a Proverb That Experience is the Mistress of Fools and certainly none but such will come a second time under her Discipline when they have so lately tried it and see every Day hundreds of the Nobility Gentry and Clergy of Ireland flee hither to save their Lives with the loss of all besides who agree very exactly one with another in these dreadful Stories Now let it be considered That nothing was asked by the Bishops in their Proposals and by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in their Petition of the 17th of November but a free and legal Parliament and the redress of our Grievances and that this was the principal thing insisted on by the Prince of Orange in his Declaration viz. That a free and legal Parliament might settle and adjust all things in Difference or Dispute and that it was obstinately refused till the 28 th of that Month and then granted when it could be no longer denyed the greatest part of the Nobility and Army being then gone over to the Prince Let also that Passage in the Proclamation of the 30th of November be considered For the reconciling all Publick breaches and obliterating the very Memory of all past Miscarriages We do hereby Exhort and kindly Admonish all our Subjects to dispose themselves to Elect such Persons for their Representatives in Parliament as may not be byassed by Prejudice or Passion but qualified with Parts Experience and Prudence proper for this Conjuncture and agreeable to the Ends and Purposes of this Our Gracious Proclamation And after this that by his Message of the 8th of December sent by the three Lords to the Prince of Orange He promised That he would consent to every thing that could be reasonably required for the security of those that came to it that is to the Parliament And that the 10th of December he sent for the Lord Mayor and Aldermen and Sheriffs of London to Whitehall and again passed his Word to them That though the Queen and Child were gone for France He would stay with them And though this Evening he received such an Answer from the Prince to his Proposals that he could not but acknowledge It was fairer than he could or did expect Yet after all these solemn ingagements he burnt the Writs for the Summoning a Parliament and went the very next Morning away for France as his Roman Catholick Friends had foretold he would above a fortnight before And who accordingly sent a Letter to him whilst he was at Salisbury perswading him to come back from thence and withdraw himself out of the Kingdom and leave it in confusion Assuring him That within two years or less the Nation would be in such Disorder that he might come back and have his Ends of it That is Ruine both our Civil Rights and our Religion When all these solemn promises were thus easily broken or rather never intended to be kept at the very time they were made and all those he has since made have been violated in Ireland where only he had power to keep or break his word what can we conclude but that as a Minister of State told our Planters It is very undecent not to say undutiful to tax this King with his Promises Who of all Mankind has shewn the least regard in time past to them and for time to come can never be blamed for any breach the Parties that take his word being alone responsible for their Incorrigible folly Some of these Men have confessed to me That if ever he be restored they expect to be treated as they were before without Truth Justice or Mercy but yet if it be his Right he must have it And they cannot think his Right can be determined but by Death or a voluntary surrender or a Conquest made by meer Foreigners to the utter Ruine of the English Nation And they will admit no Answer to these their Scruples but what shall be palpable convictive to that degree that they can make no Objection against it Now if they admit all the dreadful consequences that attend this relapse and yield up both Church and Nation to certain and inevitable ruine only that they may not be damned for Perjury and Disobedience to a King that has left them when he might have staied and now offereth to return and do what he then refused What shall we also consent and sacrifice our selves and our Posterity to the humour or scruples of these Men Shall we suffer the English Church Liberties and the very People of England to be destroyed to gratifie two or three hundred persons I have been told from good hands That one of our Bishops said Though he could not satisfie his own Scruples yet he thought the English Nation fools if ever they suffered King James to return and I may from hence reasonably conclude the far greatest part of our Scruplers are satisfied in the main and do heartily wish they could also be of the same mind with the rest of their Brethren in the rest so that the cause is half obtained against them and those that shall finally persist will I hope not meet with much Compassion it being scarce possible there should not be a very great deal of Will in so much blindness Our Neighbours abroad have observed with wonder That England was delivered from an Arbitrary Government which threatned the Ruine and Desolation of the whole Nation and the Destruction of our Religion without the shedding any of our Blood and that the Army of our Deliverer has committed no Disorder or Rapine in any of our Places through which it passed Now one would think the manner of our Deliverance were a Mercy almost equal to the Deliverance No they cry if King William the Third had entered England as William the First did and had slain fifty or sixty thousand English Men in a Battle then it had been a true Conquest and would have justified our submission and God would not have been offended with us if we had transferred our Allegiance from the beaten James to the Victorious King William Now if Men were like Beasts altogether distitute of the use of Reason and capable of no Reflection but the
THE DOCTRINE OF Non-Resistance or Passive Obedience No way concerned in the CONTROVERSIES Now depending between the Williamites and the Iacobites By a LAY GENTLEMAN of the Communion of the Church of England by Law establish'd Cruces nec colimus nec optamus LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXIX The Doctrine of NON-RESISTANCE or PASSIVE OBEDIENCE No way concern'd in the CONTROVERSIES now depending c. I Have with some impatience and wonder beheld the bandying of the Non-resisting Doctrine to and fro in this disturbed Kingdom for so many Months and to so little purpose because I am not able to comprehend what any of the contending Parties would be at nor why that Doctrine rather than any other should be made now the Subject of our Disquisitions and Enquiries For what if God has forbidden us upon pain of Damnation to resist our Lawful Princes when they do amiss and has reserved to himself the Censure and Punishment of his own Ministers as I'believe all Lawful Princes are such and that God has for great and wise Reasons tied up our hands Doth it therefore follow from hence that James is still the Lawful King of England Or that when he was so we that believe the Non-resisting Doctrine were bound to sight for him whatever he did And on the other side what can the Friends of their present Majesties pretend to palliate their Contempt and Scorn of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience It was indeed dangerous to them when he first entered England because all that believed themselves bound by it were obliged not to take up Arms for him against King James and so consequently it deprived him of their Assistance But when he had once subdued the Forces and obtained the Throne of that Infatuated Monarch of what use can it be to him to have his Subjects so frequently told That it is lawful for them to take Arms and Defend themselves their Rights and Religions against him I doubt not but His Majesty intends to Govern us with the utmost Clemency and Mercy according to our Laws But when neither Moses nor David could always please their Subjects It is to be feared the best of Princes may at one time or other need the Influence of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience to restrain the madness of the People and therefore they can be no Friends to Government in general nor to him or his in particular who are so zealous to have the Doctrine of Non-resistance extirpated out of the World. The consequence of which is That it is Lawful for every Man to Rebel against his Lawful Prince whenever he thinkâ— it necessary My design therefore in this Discourse being to put an end as far as I can to this unseasonable Dispute I shall endeavour to prove these Particulars as to the Friends of the late King. 1. That thâ—se that believed it were not thereby bound to assert the Mis government of James the Second 2. That seeing he has deserted his Throne and withdrawn his Person and Seals they are not thereby obliged to endeavour the restoring of him The Doctrine of Passive Obedience doth not oblige a Subject to assert the Mis-government of his Prince For it supposeth the Prince may command what he ought not and then it obligeth me to suffer rather than to resist my Prince or to break the Commandments of God or the Laws of my Country or do any other ill Action in Obedience to his Commands Now what is this to the purpose King James had notoriously subverted all our Constitutions and Laws both in Church and State and would suffer no redress the Church of England on the other hand Petition'd him from time to time by her Bishops and Nobility to suffer a Parliament to meet and redress our Grievances but this he would not yield and what should they do in this case Why said the Jesuit in the Answer to the Petition of the 17 th of November 1688. when they had set forth That in their Opinion the Only visible way to preserve his Majesty and this his Kingdom would be the calling of a Parliament Regular and Free in all its circumstances I hope to make it out that the summoning a Parliament now is so far from being the Only way to effect these things that it will be one of the Principal Causes of much Misery to the Kingdom And I am sure both our Duty to God and our holy Religion as well as to His Majesty and our Country doth plainly enjoyn us to use one other effectual means c. which is the keeping inviolably to our Allegiance to our Sovereign and effectually joyning with him to resist all his Enemies Whether Foreign Aggressors or Native Rebels That is let the King do what he please to you you are bound to fight for him and expel the Prince of Orange and subdue all his Adherents I can very well remember what small effect this Oratory had then upon the minds of all Men. There did not seem to be one Protestant in the Nation who could not distinguish between the Doctrine of Non-resistance and that of actually aiding a Prince to destroy and enslave his People His late Majesty however persisted in his Opinion that no Parliament could be holden till the Prince of Orange was driven out and the Clergy and Nobility in theirs that this was the Only visible way to preserve the late King and Kingdom which imply'd that all fighting was dangerous to both till this was done And accordingly as we had no disloyal Exhortations from Press or Pulpit to perswade Men to fight against their Prince so neither had we any to perswade us to fight for him but the thing was committed to God to determine as he thought fit In this our Bishops Clergy Nobility and Gentry and in general all the Children of the Church of England behaved themselves like good Christians and good Subjects too this difficult Case could then be no otherwise well and justifiably managed and if some few forgot their Duty and declared too soon for the Prince of Orange his now Majesty this they only are responsible for those that adhered to the late King till he actually left the Nation and the Government fell for want of the first Mover are not responsible for their Miscarriage if it was one In the Primitive times when this Doctrine was best both understood and practised their Loyalty was one of their lesser Virtues upon which they never valued themselves It would have been then a mean piece of Virtue for a Man to have alledged he had been ever Loyal to his Prince when a Rebel or a Traytor Christian was a thing they looked upon with horror and affrightment they expected Martyrdom every moment and were preparing for it at all times they were told then at their first admission into the Church that they must expect Persecution and every one who took up that Profession did it with that Expectation And the
but scorned and trodden upon by his proud Enemy Did the Christians of this Age petition for their old Persecutor did they refuse to be under the milder Government of his Son Gallienus because the Father was still living tho' in Captivity No he tells us That this was added to his Punishment that though he had a Son which succeeded in the Empire yet there was no Revenger of his Captivity and Slavery nec omnino repetitus est nor was he in the least ever demanded or desired Next after him arose Aurelian a mad and a rash Prince who was cut off in the beginning of his Rage After him came Dioclesian who was hardly persuaded to begin a Persecution but raged more than any of his Predecessors soon after he fell into a Sickness and was thought by the Violence of it to have been dead but tho' he escaped with his Life he was a long time disracted and was forced by Galerious Imperio cedere to resign the Empire in the Year 305. and although he lived to the Year 313. which was nine Years after he was deposed none of the Christians of that Age desired he should again ascend the Throne One of the last of the Pagan Princes that persecuted the Church was Licinus upon whom Constantine made War for that very Cause and reduced him to a private Life in Thrace in the Year 324. and in the Year 325. put him to death for endeavouring to recover his Throne But neither here did the Christians that were his Subjects desire again to be under their Pagan Persecuting Prince rather than under their Deliverer Constantine Julian the Apostate was the last Pagan Prince that reigned in the Roman Empire and he perished in Persia by an unknown Hand within two Years and one Month and was followed both living and dead with the Detestation of that and all the succeeding Ages S. Ambrose as he is cited by Grotius de jure belli pacis saith This Apostate had many Christian Soldiers under him who when he commanded them To stand to their Arms against the common Enemy of their Country obeyed him but when he commanded them to sight against the Christians then they acknowledged the Emperor of Heaven That is they refused to serve him in this And the famous Thebean Legion made this their Apology We offer our Service against any Enemy but we esteem in an Impiety to stain them with the Bloods of Innocent Men You may command our Hands against the Wicked and your Enemies but we cannot butcher the Pious and our fellow-Subjects We do well remember That we took up Arms for and not against our Countrymen and we have ever fought for Justice for Piety and the Preservation of the Innocent These things have hitherto been the Rewards of our Dangers Shall we oh Sir ever be able to keep our Faith and our promise to you if we now fail of performing our Promise to our God They were then said to be led into France to fight against the Bagaudae a sort of outlawed Christians who were forced by the Iniquity of the Times to take up Arms under Dioclesian and were all of them destroyed by Maximianus so that if that Story be true it is a pregnant Testimony That he Doctrine of Passive Obedience doth not oblige any Man to lend his Assistance to the Ruine of the true Religion Beside these Pagan Princes there were some Arian Princes who treated the Catholicks of their Times very hardly and though none of the Christians of those Times rebelled against them yet neither would the Catholicks assist the Arian Princes against the Catholick Bishops as is plain in the Story of S. Ambrose and the many Tumults at Constantinople Antioch and Alexandria in those Times and when these Princes sell by the Justice of God in Civil or Foreign Wars their Ends were looked upon as deserved Thus Valens perished in Thrace and Valentinian the younger at Vienne the one by the Hands of the Goths and the other by the Procurement of Arbogastes an Usurper and the untimely Deaths of these two Princes proved the Exaltation of Theodosius the Resettler of the Catholick Religion and the extirper of Arianism in the Roman Empire In all the various Events of these Times the Providence of God ordered things for the good of his Church and the Christians of those Times left them to his Disposal and submitted to those he set over them quietly and without disputing their Rights or Titles whereas Procopius who claimed the Empire as cousin to Julian the Emperor perished in the Attempt without pity or the Regard of the Church There is no part of the Reign of James II. that has not been examined and represented by many pens so that it were a needless but an ungrateful Task for me to rip it up again it may suffice to say in general Never any of our Princes so openly attempted the Ruine of the English Liberties or went so far in it never did any Man more openly endeavour the Ruine of an established Religion or by more illegal Courses than he nor Laws nor Oaths nor Promises nor Gratitude could restrain him he broke through all the Barriers God and Man had put in his Way and seemed resolved to ruine us or Himself no Remonstrances from abroad no Petitions at home could work upon him till he saw the Sword coming to cut up the Gourd he had planted and was so fond of then indeed he seemed to relent and to give back but still he would be trusted he would yield up nothing but so as that he might when the Danger was over re-assume the same again An English Parliament was the thing in the World he most hated because he foresaw if it was Free there was an end for ever of the Hopes of setting up Popery in this Kingdom and that was his main and almost only Design and yet as fond as he ever seemed to be of an Absolute and Uncontroulable Power if he had been of our Church he would not have hazarded all for it but he would have managed Things with some Reserve but the Jesuites he took into his Bosom and his Queen especially spurred him on and put him upon these Courses only by representing to him the Glory and Merit of extirpating the Northern Heresies and settling the Catholick Religion in England Well but what has he done since he left us that may give us any Assurance we were mistaken as to what was past or may hope for better Usage for time to come Why there have been some General Promises made In the Letter pretended to be sent to the Lords and Commons of England and after wards printed in London he or some other Person for him tells us We are resolved Nothing shall be omitted on our Part whenever we can with Safety return that can contribute towards the Redress of all former Errors or present Disorders or add to the securing of the Protestant Religion or the Property