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A46960
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Reflections on the History of passive obedience by Samuel Johnson.
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Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing J838; ESTC R2473
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7,933
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12
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REFLECTIONS ON THE History of PASSIVE OBEDIENCE By SAMUEL JOHNSON IN turning over the late History of Passive Obedience I quickly found out the Author to be a King James's Man and no King William's Man for so it is that by means of some who pretend to be mightly Church-of England Men we have Two Kings on foot and when a Man in common Conversation names the King he is asked to explain himself and to say which King he means And when I had discovered of what stamp the Historian was I needed no great sagacity to understand the Design and Drift of the History It is this plainly to thrust out the present Government by leaving no Room for it and by telling us that the late Tyranny was Sacred and Irresistible it is to keep up that Indefeisible Title which no Religion no Law no Fault nor Forfeiture can Alter or Diminish It is to blacken all the Glorious Instruments of our Deliverance who invited over and joined the Prince of Orange with the multiplied Titles of Rebels and Traitors and to leave them all in a State of Damnation which they must get out of as well as they can it is in short to Damn the whole Nation both the Defenders of our Country and the Passive-men too the former for Resisting and the latter for not Assisting the late King the former as Giants that fought against God and the latter as Disloyal and Perjured Wretches in not fighting for him So that it calls them All to Repentance and Reparation and is in effect a great many Sermons together upon one of their late Texts Why are ye the last in bringing back the King He when he went away left it under his Hand That the Nation was Poisoned and therefore out again comes this Historian with the old Orvetan having a great number of Probatum's annexed to it to try if it will prove a better Restorative than it did a Preservative against that venomous Doctrine of a Nation 's Defending their Rights and Liberties and rescuing themselves from Slavery But the Truth and Goodness of any Doctrine is not to be tried by the telling of Noses and therefore this History signifies as little to the Merits of the Cause as if it had been the History of Tom Thumb and somewhat less if it be a False History as I shall in few words plainly shew it to be For whereas the commendable Diligence of this Historian has made several Chapters concerning the Publick and Established Doctrine of the Church of England which have not one Syllable to his purpose At the same time he has made no mention nor taken any notice at all of three Acts of Convocation which are likewise Acts of Parliament in Queen Elizabeth's Reign which are the Standard of the Church of England Doctrine in this Case And these are back'd with three other Contemporary Acts of Parliament to the same purpose which are full in Point to justify the late Dutch Expedition by celebrating the Religion Justice and Merit of three several Expeditions in those Days which were exactly the same with this Last I have Printed the very words of these Six Acts of Parliament four times over once in my Answer to Constantius and thrice in the Opinion of Resistance which is extant p. 130 131. of my Collection And therefore the total omission of them in this History and the passing them over in so profound a Silence is not reconcileable with the Faithfulness required in an Historian If he passed them over as being no fit Materials for his Passive History but contrary to it then I wonder very much that he should advance a Doctrine under the Name of the Church of England which he knew to be opposite to Six Acts of Parliament and to three solemn and binding Declarations of the whole Church of England when he has not so much as any one Authority of the same Nature to stand in competition with any one of those Declarations I am perfectly weary with transcribing those Passages as they there stand and as they are the highest Acknowledgments and Applauses of Queen Elizabeth for her assisting the Scots Dutch and French in their several Defences of themselves against Tyranny and Oppression and therefore I shall here only apply some of those Authentick and Act-of-Parliament Expressions to the present Case If those brave Men were now alive they would certainly be very forward in paying their own Deliverance-Mony when they paid six Shillings in the Pound Deliverance-Mony for their Neighbours and would have been very thankful to his present Majesty for using Godly and Prudent Means namely a Fleet and Army to abate the Hostility and Persecution practised against them and for his Princely and Upright preservation of the Liberty of the Realms and Nations of England Scotland and Ireland from imminent Captivity and Desolation They would have gratefully acknowledged the great and perpetual Honour which it hath pleased God to give his Majesty in making him the principal Support of all just and religious Causes against Usurpers They would have said The States of Holland are now become in their turn since your Majesty's happy Days both a Port and Haven of Refuge for Distressed States and Kingdoms and a Rock and Bulwark of Opposition against the Tyrannies and Ambitious Attempts of Mighty and Usurping Potentates Now let us search this Historian's whole Pack and see what he has got to oppose to this publick Doctrine of the Church of England wherein she allowed and abetted the Subjects of three several Soveraign Princes in fighting against them and was successful in helping two of those Countries to throw off the Yoke of their Oppressors Mary Queen of Scots and Philip the 2d of Spain And upon examination I cannot find in this whole History one Publick Act contrary to this Established Doctrine of the Church of England There is not a word against this in the 39 Articles nor in the Homilies for as I have heretofore shewn the up-shot of the Homily of Obedience is obeying Common Authority And Rebellion is there defined to be resisting or withstanding Common Authority and therefore I heartily subscribe the Homilies over again For the difference betwixt Authority and No Authority Law and No Law though it be thought a little and a puzzling distinction by this Historian yet I am sure is both a very clear one and goes a great way with me There is not a word against this in the Liturgy and therefore this Historian catches at a Straw when he says that God is stiled in it the only Ruler of Princes For may I defend my self against no Man's Violence till I can prove that I am his Ruler There is not a word against this in the Injunctions and Canons till you come to the Canons of Forty which instead of being established by Act of Parliament do stand condemn'd and reprobated by two Parliaments No nor in the Bishops Orders neither as I can see though I have valued them the less
since I have known the Pacquet of Advice to the Men of Shaftsbury to have been one of those Orders I can see nothing more which looks with any Face of a Publick Authority unless it be the Censures of our Universities but every Body knows what cheap things those are and that an Oxford Decree is nothing else but a Cambridg Address As for the Martyrs and Confessors Doctrine in Q. Mary's Time which is brought in by the Head and Shoulders into this History for it has no affinity with it it was Submission to the Law and not to Arbitrary Government His Popish Bishops Stokesly Tonstal and Bonner's Authorities I give him Here are indeed left in this History abundance of private Doctors Opinions and their flights of Flattery are very high especially in their Court-Sermons but these are in opposition to the Established Doctrine of the Church of England and to six Acts of Parliament as I shewed before and therefore their Authority is worse and less than Nothing But if they must have an Answer they are only fit to be confuted by a Second Edition of Dissenters Sayings And here I have reason to enter a just Complaint against the pretended Church-of England Men of the two last Reigns who not only left me the grinning Honour of maintaining the Establish'd Doctrine of the Church all alone which I kept alive till it pleased God to make it a Means of our Deliverance with the perpetual hazard of my own Life for many Years and with suffering Torments and Indignities worse than Death but also besides this were very zealous in running me down and very officious in degrading me as an Apostate from the Church of England for this very Service While at the same time they themselves were making their Court with their own Renegado Doctrine of Passive Obedience and wearing out all Pulpits with it as if it had been not only the First and great Commandment but the Second too and cramming it down the reluctant Throats of dying Patriots as the Terms of their Salvation And now in this Reign for want of recanting their Passive Doctrine they suffer it to be made use of against the present Government and to be compiled into such an History as is a Seed-Plot of Rebellion and a standing Common-place-Book for Treasonable Practices And this is the more to be complained of because they themselves must needs now clearly see if they did not before the mischievous Consequence of their Passive Doctrine which bound us not to Resist but to Assist our Prince though a Tyrant which if it had taken place in Mens Minds and inward Belief had for ever inslaved the Nation But God be thanked though this Doctrine filled the Ears of the Nation for a long time yet it never bored them for if it had the Prince of Orange with all the Power of Holland could never have brought us a Deliverance nor have been able to have rescued these three Kingdoms from themselves and from their own chosen and voluntary Bondage And while this Doctrine continues to be believed by any deluded Party amongst us they are bound in Conscience either to be doing Mischief here or else to go and join the Irish Camp at Drogheda For which Reason till it be publickly recanted or condemn'd I shall here fully confute it in a few words All their Proof that a Tyrant may not be Resisted but must be Assisted by his Subjects wholly centers in the 13th of the Romans In order therefore to know whether a Tyrant is any way concerned or has any part or portion in that Text we must first consider what a Tyrant is And because I will not be my own Judg nor make Definitions of my own I will take that exact one of Mr. Abraham Cowley approved and published by the present Lord Bishop of Rochester I call him a Tyrant who either intrudes himself forcibly into the Government of his Fellow-Citizens without any legal Authority over them or who having a just Title to the Government of a People abuses it to the destruction or tormenting of them So that all Tyrants are at the same time Usurpers either of the whole or at least of a part of that Power which they assume to themselves and no less are they to be accounted Rebels since no Man can usurp Authority over others but by rebelling against them who had it before or at least against those Laws which were his Superiors It is plain by this Definition that a Tyrant though he had a legal Title and is a Tyrant only in Exercise as they term it is both an Usurper and a Rebel and if neither of these are contained in the Text nor can lay any claim to the Duties of Subjection Non-resistance Assistance Tribute c. So neither can a Tyrant who is both of them in one As I have many Years since shewn in my Answer to Constantius that the Illegal Violence of inferiour Magistrates is excluded out of this Text by letting the Text speak for it self so let any Man try whether the Text will admit of a Rebel or Usurper and you may soon see how well they will become the Place For then St. Paul's words run thus Let every Soul be subject to a Rebel though he be neither higher Power nor lower Power nor any Power at all for there is no Rebel but of God the Rebels that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth a Rebel resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation For a Rebel is the Minister of God to thee for Good and so is the Devil and the Inquisition Whereby it is demonstrable That St. Paul here describes a Just and Righteous Government which is employed for the Publick Good and requires subjection only to that for if you put in any other into the Text it quite overthrows it and turns it into Blasphemy And it is likewise demonstrable that no Tyrant can put in so much as his Nose at the 13th of the Romans The next thing is to consider whether the late King was a Tyrant or not by this Definition Perhaps the proving him so will as much displease some very courtly People as the calling a Crowned Head by that Name heretofore did but God be thanked they were so far mistaken for he was an Uncrowned Head at that time However pleasing and displeasing is not my Business but doing all the Right and Service I can to my Country and to that Just and Rightful Government which is now over us and so that be done I care not who is pleased or displeased This Definition then is very full and contains both a Tyrant in Title and a Tyrant in Exercise or in the Administration of the Government as Writers of Politicks call them The former is he who intrudes himself forcibly into the Government of his Fellow Citizens without any legal Authority over them I will not make my self more work than I need in saying the late King was