which he now seeks protection and which he acknowledges now at last being convinc'd thereof by the Events of Providence to have the Authority of God though introduced by the Devil But how does it follow that this Doctrine of his must therefore be received as the Doctrine of the Church of England because he finds it in Bishop Overal 's Book Do the Canons of a Convocation neither assented to by Act of Parliament nor so much as by the King 's Letters-Patents make or authoritatively declare the Doctrine of the Church of England Is the Convocation the Representative Body of the Church of England I know they tell us so in the Canons of 1603. But I never found that any but some few of the Clergy believed them Has what he calls the Church a power to determine matters of Civil Right Are we to go to School to Clergy-men to learn the Terms and Measures of our Duty and Allegiance to Magistrates which all Mankind but a few of that profession in our own Nation acknowledge to depend upon Human Laws and the several Constitutions of Government and which the body of our Clergy are so ignorant of that they are a dark Labyrinth to them When the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch And yet his Argument Page 9 10 drawn from the pretended Canons of that Convocation are as good Authority as can be urged to the Members of the Church of England for if a Convocation cannot declare the Judgement of the Church of England he knows not where we shall learn it So that the Members of the Church of England are to be guided in matters relating to their Temporal Rights by an Assembly of their Clergy Though even our Popish Ancestors protested from time to time against the Authority of the See of Rome in Temporalibus But I can tell him whence and whence only he may learn the Doctrine and Judgment of the Church of England authoritatively viz. in the Articles and the Liturgy which have the publick Sanction of the Legislative Authority not in his Spurious Canons of 1610 nor in those of 1640 nor yet in the Homilies though appointed by Act of Parliment to be read in Churches for so is the Apocrypha and yet we do not submit to those Books as Authoritative All other writings are but the Opinions of private Men The rest of that Section consists of some Stories of Jehu Ahab and Jezebel The Moabites and Aramites Ehud and Eglon the Kings of Egypt and Babylon the Four Monarchs Alexander Darius Jaddus and Caesar All which are no more to us than if he had told us a tale of Tom Thumb or Guy of Warwick But it is no new thing for the Clergy to top Foreign Laws and Governments upon us One of their Canons in 1603. is Quicunque in posterum assirmabit Potestatem Regiam non habere eandem Authoritatem in Causis Ecclesiasticis quam Pii Principes apud Judeos Christiani Imperatores in Primitiva Ecclesiâ obtinuerunt c. Excommunicetur ipso facto c. Our King's Jurisdiction in matters Ecclesiastical is setled and bounded by Laws of this Realm and those Laws we look upon as the measure of their Authority But Clergy men make nothing of Human Laws at least not of the Laws of England But send us to the Jews and to the Romans to enquire what Authority their Princes had and very boldly determine under the penalty of Excommunication That Our Kings have eandem potestatem And yet they neither know what power our Laws allow to our Kings nor what their Laws allow'd to theirs He grants that Kings set up by God have God's Authority and that all Kings who are in the actual possession of the Government are set up by God And therefore having God's Authority Allegiance is due to them So that he resolves the Duty of Allegiance into the Authority committed by God to the Prince the committing of which Authority appears by the Events of Providence For Providence is God's Government of the World by an invisible Influence and Power the Ends of which he serves by overruling mens wicked Designs to accomplish his own Counsels and decrees and either disappoints what they intended or gives success to them when he can serve the Ends of his Providence by their wickedness But how shall Subjects judge when God serves the ends of his Providence by man's wickedness and consequently when their obedience becomes due to a new Prince why obedience is due to God's authority when we can reasonably conclude that God has made him King p. 16. That is when the providence of God has settled him in the Throne But there are different degrees of settlement which require different degrees of submission The Doctor has gone hand in hand with providence ever since the Revolution p. 17. The generality of the Nation submitted to the present King and Queen and placed them on the Throne and put the whole power of the Kingdom into their hands though it may be the Doctor could not think them settled by Provedence whilest the late King had such a formidable power as made the Event p. 17. doubtful yet because he thought fit to continue in the Kingdom he could live quietly and peaceably pay taxes give them the title of King and Queen and pray for them as such because we are bound to pray for all that are in authority and that their Majesties had because they had power to do a great deal of good or a great deal of hurt Here power to do good or harm is authority And Thieves and Robbers have that But it may be the King and Queen had Gods authority all this while before the Doctor thought fit to own it by swearing Allegiance to them because he did not know they had it till the power of the dipossessed Prince was broken and no visible prospect of his recovering his Throne again So that men of the Doctor 's opinion must watch till God has play'd his game out before they can be ascertain'd what his will and pleasure is in these matters of obedience and swearing Allegiance to Princes For the will of God when known is the rule of Conscience But the will of God in these cases is no otherwise to be known but by the Events of Providence So that men of such Principles as this Gentleman represents to us for Church of England Principles must stay till the Storm be over and then they 'l tell us 't is fair weather I cannot sufficiently express my indignation against men that can have the confidence to represent the Church of England which is the body of the People of England and who have a right to their Properties and Religion as far as these words Right to Properties and Religion can be extended as a sort of men who must not stir their finger in opposition to a Prince that invades this Right all at once upon a supposition that the Prince is invested with God's
in his Patriarcha and that it will serve the turn of every Usurper is evident nor does the Doctor deny it But that the Possession of the Throne and the actual Administration of a Government creates a Right the Doctor is positive in not such a Right as shall Entitle a King to be what we poor Lay-men call a King de Jure but to be a Rightful King with respect to God And why so Why because the Most High Ruleth in the Kingdom of Men and giveth it to whomsoever he will and setteth over it the basest of Men. It is he that removeth Kings and setteth up Kings Shall there be evil in the City and the Lord hath not done it They are the Ministers of God All Power is of God the Powers that be are ordained of God I exalted thee out of the dust and made thee Prince over my people Israel Now I cannot understand the Doctor 's Inference from such Expressions as these That God governs the World and that all things come to pass by his Providence I hope is past dispute And that such expressions as these are to be understood only of God's Ordinary Providence in the guidance of Humane Affairs will perhaps appear by the common style of Scripture in ascribing all things of what kind or nature soever natural or moral good bad immediately in words to the first Cause God is said to instruct the Plowman in discretion and to teach him And that his skill cometh from Isa 28. 26 29. Exod. 35. 31. the Lord of Hosts which is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working So God filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God in wisdom in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of workmanship Thunder is said to be the Voice of God God hardned Pharaoh 's heart Is there evil in the City and Job 40. 9. the Lord hath not done it So God sets up Princes and removes them by the Events of Providence But that their Authority is derived immediatly from God or that they have when setled in the Throne any other Authority than what the Constitution of the Government allows much less that they can have an Authority from God in opposition to a Legal Right I shall believe when I see a Prince work greater Miracles than Curing the King 's Evil to Justify the delegation of such Authority The Doctor throughout this Discourse runs upon a notion of Mens Duty to Princes only as if the Persons of Princes were the sole Objects of our Duty and Obedience That is his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and proceeds from his Ignorance of the Nature of Humane Laws in Political Governments It is a notion that suits only with a Despotical Government which is down-right Tyranny nor has the Doctor an Idea of any other And if he had not been invincibly prejudiced against the Truth by the ignorance of his Education in things of this nature that excellent Discourse of Mr Johnson's in answer to his Book of Non-Resistance would have had another effect upon him than a scornful Reprinting of his own Book in answer to it His second Section is taken up with proving from Bishop Overal's Book That though the Church of England has been very careful to instruct her Children in their Duty to Princes to obey their Laws and submit to their Power and not to resist though very injuriously oppressed and that those who renounce these Principles renounce the Doctrine of the Church of England that she takes care to condemn all those wicked means whereby changes of Government are made yet she teaches that when such changes are made the Authority is God's and must be obeyed Here we learn that if this be the Doctrine of the Church of England then by the Laws of God as the Church of England understands them and teaches them to her Children all the People of England are Slaves For to be injuriously oppressed is to be oppressed contrary to Law Executio Juris non habet injuriam No Man can pretend that he or any body else is injured when the Laws have their Course But from very injurious oppressions the true Sons of the Church of England have no redress because they must not resist the Authority of God which the Prince Regnant is invested with Whatever the Constitution of the Government be whatever Laws your Forefathers have provided for the continuance and preservation of it whatever Legal Right you may fancy you have to your Lives Liberties Religion Properties if you assert and defend this Legal Right in opposition to the very injurious oppressions of your Princes who in a Limited Government as yours is acknowledged to be have but a limited Power by Law yet in so doing you oppose the Authority of God And so your Laws are but Cobwebs your Legal Right an Imaginary Notion Your Princes have an Authority from God to cancel your Laws and dispose of you and your Rights as they see Cause Thus by the Doctrine of your Church as this Gentleman Represents it you are in no better a condition than if you were Subjects to the Grand Seignior Your Forefathers who fought for your Liberties in opposition to the Tyranny of K John K Henry the 3d K. Edw. the 2d c. and who if they had acknowledged such an irresistible Authority of their Princes as the Doctor contends for and had not vindicated the Government by force of Arms you their Posterity had long before now been in the same or a worse condition than the Peasants of France were all Traytors and Rebels tho warranted by the Laws of the Land to make opposition nay and sworn so to do by the King 's own Commission as particularly in the Reign of King John and King Henry the third This Notion of an Irresistible Authority in your Princes because they have Gods Authority was not then hatch'd nor did it appear in the World till the degeneracy of the Reformation brought it forth For Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments and Convocations were of another Opinion as has been proved by many Instances of their giving her Subsidies to relieve distressed Subjects against their own Princes and when Sibthorp and Manwaring broached those Traiterous Positions in King Charles the first his time they were impeached in Parliament and severely censured for it Yet notwithstanding all this Clergy-man will have it to be the Doctrine of the Church which if it were pursued does unavoidably destroy the State and therefore by his own Argument pag. 44 can be no good Doctrine because if pursued it would subject all Human Societies to be destroyed whereas he acknowledges the End of Government to be the preservation of Human Societies And he has the assurance to publish his Conceits of this kind under a Government that has been happily setled amongst us in opposition to and in spight of these slavish Conceits of some of our Clergy A Government which those who contributed to erect this Doctor brands with the loudest Calumnies and yet under
is a force and a force gives no right let the Doctor tell us to the world's end of All things being equally rightful with respect to God men that are under a force have a Right from Self-preservation which is a Law of Nature and consequently of God to rid themselves of that force it they can Conquests end when the Conquerors and Conquered come to mutual Pacts and Agreements which are the Laws by which they agree to rule and be ruled for the future Till such subsequent Pacts intervene the Conquered People shift for themselves as well as they can But where there is no pretence nor appearance of any Conquest where the Laws of a Nation which are the publick Agreement of all the nation for their mutual defence and security retain their force they cannot be good subjects who set up any other rule of conscience in matters of civil Right Property or power for that other rule is either agreeable with the Law and then we need it not or it is contrary to it and then they that advance it are enemies to the Constitution I know little difference betwixt assuming an authority to govern the State and setting up other rules then that of the Law to guide men's Consciences by in matters of Allegiance and Obedience to the civil Magistrates Our Saviour's argument relies wholly on possession of power whose Image pag. 21. and superscription hath it If such a possession as having the Coynage of Mony requires Allegiance the Doctor ought to have taken the Oaths when the new money came out If not then our Saviour's argument does not justifie him now We have no directions in Scripture about restoring a dispossessed Prince to his Throne again But if the dispossessed Prince retain a Legal right then we are pag. 22. directed to restore him Rom cap. 13. v. 7. Render unto all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due custom to whom custom fear to whom fear honour to whom honour If the late King have a legal right to the Crown he has a legal right to the Excise the Customs and Hearth money c. And if he has a legal right to them they are due to him And if they are due to him we are commanded to render them to him And that the late King may yet have a legal right to the Crown the Doctor agrees The Providence of God removes Kings and sets up Kings but alters no legal Rights We are commanded to do as we would be done by and none of us would be deprived our selves of our own legal Rights If the late Kings have a legal Right yet then no English subjects can have a legal Right to oppose him unless a man can have a legal Right to an Estate and at the same time another have a legal Right to with-hold it from him which is to make the Law a contradiction to it self and yet these are necessary consequences of the Doctors Positions That one Prince is at present placed in the Throne and the other removed out of it does not divest the dispossessed Prince of his legal right and claim nor pag. 26. forbid him to endeavour to recover his Throne nor sobid those who are under no obligation to the Prince in possession to assist the dispossessed Prince to recover his legal Right A Legal and successive Right bars all other Humane Claims so that the dispossessed Prince has a just cause of War against the Prince in possession for the recovery of his Legal Right And they that are under no obligation to the Prince in possession are not forbid to assist him Who these are that are supposed to be under no obligation c. I know not I hope if the Prince in possession be throughly settled he has God's Authority and then all that are his Subjects are under some obligation to him or else God's Authority stands for nothing But if foreign Princes are meant by those who are under no obligation then at least the King of France has a just cause of War upon us to restore King James And then at whose Doors must the Blood lie that is spilt in the War If the late King have a legal Right he has a Right by our Laws and then in opposing his Title we fight against our own Laws and Government If the late King have a Legal Right to the Crown then a man must be very learned indeed to be of opinion that the obligation of our Oaths of Allegiance to him ceases It is not enough for the Doctor to say That it was necessary for him to reason upon the suspicion of unjust Usurpations and illegal Revolutions c. and that he was far from intending to reflect upon the present Government With Reverence be it spoken is a common laying with some when they are going to speak blasphemy His standing out so long the grounds of his present compliance his avowed Principles in his Book of Non-Resistance which he here justifies excepting in one punctilio shew undenyably that the Doctor acknowledges no other Right in Their Present Majesties but an Authority from God of his own inventing and that their only firm security because only satisfactory to the Consciences of their Subjects that of a Legal Right which indeed is God's Authority and we acknowledge no other in these matters is by this Writer as far as in him lyes quite blown up The duty of Subjects is to obey their Prince whilst in possession but Kings pag. 27. must take care to preserve their Crowns by good Government For if they notoriously violate their Subjects Rights c. it is too much to venture their lives and Fortunes to keep them in the Throne to oppress them But why should not Subjects be obliged in Conscience to defend such an injurious Prince He has a Legal Title Possesssion a Settlement he has God's Authority he is irresistible and has the Soveraign Power And is it no part of Soveraign Power to command the service of his Subjects No he is entituled only to a legal defence the Militia and the Posse Com. Thus when men are at pag. 30. a pinch they seek refuge where they can When their Doctrine of Non-resistance and a thousand other ascriptions to the power of the Prince turns upon them they shelter themselves under the Law of the Realm Which when things go as they would have them go they subject to the Prince's pleasure And to excuse their taking shelter under what they have so basely betrayed they tell us tho' they taught Non-Resistance they may practice Non-Assistance without forgoing that Doctrine So they may suffer the Lord 's Anointed the light of their Eyes and the breath of their Nostrils to be taken in the pits of wicked Men when he does not serve their turn and be good Loyalists good Church of England men good King's men for all that Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo This Doctrine of Obedience and Allegiance to the present powers is
REMARKS UPON Dr. SHERLOCK'S BOOK Intituled The CASE OF THE ALLEGIANCE DUE TO SOVERAIGN PRINCES Stated and Resolved c. The Second Edition Printed at London and Re-printed in Edinburgh Anno Dom. 1691. REMARKS UPON D R. SHERLOCK'S CASE of ALLEGIANCE c. HAVING lately Perused Dr. Sherlock's Reasons as the Books is commonly called I cannot forbear imparting to you some very few Observations upon them not to Pref. p. 3. shew my Skill but to perform my Promise I observe in the First place That the Doctor thinks it necessary to convince all sober Christians That men may pref p. 4. swear Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary without renouncing any Principles of the Church of England But I hope we were not in such a condition as that All Sober Christians stood in need of such a Conviction And God forbid the Principles of the Church of England should be such as not only to create in all sober Christians a doubt whether they might swear Allegiance to the Present King and Queen but should be so obscure in the matter as that so Learned a Man the Doctor is reputed and so Wise a Man as he would be thought for he never gave any just occasion to the world to mark him out for a fool should be at almost Two Years Pains to make a Reconciliation betwixt Them and the Duty of Swearing Allegiance Pref. p. 1. to this present Government upon the continuance of which the Doctor does more than once or twice acknowledge the Liberties and Religion of the Nation to depend He confesses he stuck and should have stuck to this day had he not been relieved by Bishop Overal's Convocation-Book and had the Venerable Authority Pref. p. 5. of a Convocation given him greater Freedom and Liberty of Thinking which the apprehensions of Novelty and Singularity had cramp'd before How mean are we Laymen in the eyes of these Gentlemen Nothing that was done said or writ at and after the Revolution to justifie the Lawfulness thereof by the Laws of God and of this Realm had any influence upon this Clergy man's Judgment or Conscience till he met with a new upstart Convocation-Book Nay his very Thoughts were in Chains till the Veneable Authority of a Convocation gave him Liberty to Think What the Lords and Commons did the Consent of a Nation the Approbation of all Protestants abroad the Interest of Religion and the Publick Weal were not considerable enough to give this man a liberty to think his liberty of Thinking was cramp'd till the Venerable Authority of a Convocation came and set him at liberty I wonder the less to find him in his Book enslaving his Life and Liberty to what in a mistaken Notion he calls God's Authority since I perceive his very Thoughts are slaves to an Assembly of Ecclesiastiks He waves the matter of Right is not concerned in the Legality of the late Revolution * But I hope all Subjects that believe it may and ought to assert it And upon occasion would if they did believe it else they lye on the lurch to dispute she Right of Princes is a thing which no Government can permit to be a question amongst their Subjects such Disputes are needless in this Cause and serve only to confound it by carrying men into such dark Labyrinths of Law and History c. as very few know how to find their way out again To judge truly of the legality of the late Revolution requires such a perfect skill in Law and History and the Constitution of the English Government that few men are capable of making so plain and certain a judgment of it as to be a clear and safe Rule of Conscience Laymen think Laws and Constitutions of Governments to be safe Rules of Conscience in these Cases and no such dark Labyrinths as the Mysteries of the Holy Trinity and Incarnation the Satisfaction of our Saviour the Judge of Controversies c. which yet are all as plain to the Doctor as a Pike-staff the Scripture and Reason are admirably clear in all these things but the Laws of a Nation and the Constitution of its Government are a dark Labyrinth None are so blind as they that will not see Till some Proud Ambitious Clergy-men and Flattering Courtiers either really or pretendedly ignorant of our Laws and Constitutions set their own and other Mercenary Heads and Pens at work to represent our Government in quite other than its own native Colours out of a base Compliance with a Court that left no stone unturn'd to overthrow it till then I say the Constitution of our Government was so well understood by our Fore-fathers that they supported and asserted it from time to time at a vast Expence of Blood and Treasure and transmitted it down to their Posterity as they had received it from their Ancestors confirmed with all the Sanctions that the nature of the thing was capable of nor were ever beholden to a Foreign Prince to preserve it till now nor needed to have had recourse to the Prince of Orange to assert their Liberties if the overflowing of such Bigottry as this Gentleman is infected with had not almost unmann'd the Nation and prepar'd them for Slavery And two ways were taken to effect it the one by perswading us That we are Slaves by the Law of God and the other by representing our Government as being absolute in its Original Constitution and that whatever Liberties the People claim a Right to are either Concessions from the Crown or Usurpations upon it And because some ignorant People have been imposed upon by the misapplication of Scripture by the Clergy and by mis-understanding and mis-applying our Ancient Histories and Records and not thoroughly searching them neither our Constitution and Fundamental Laws must now be represented as not clear nor a safe Rule for Conscience and therefore another must be set up in stead of them invented by a Clergy-man in his Study directed in his Enquiry by a few of his own Profession either ignorant of our Constitution or prosessed Enemies to it or both and this Rule of Conscience not so clear neither but that our Spiritual Guides are together by the ears about it and the Learned Dr. Sherlock has been all this while finding it out But found it he has The Mountains have been in Labour and behold the Mouse God when he sees fit and can better serve the Ends of his Providence by pag. 2. 3. it sets up Kings without any regard to Legal Right or Human Laws Kings thus set up by God are invested with God's Authority Subjects are bound to Obey and to Pay and Swear Allegiance if it be required to those Princes whom God hath placed and settled in the Throne when they are invested with God Authority This is no new Invention of the Doctor 's nor does he pretend to it he had it it seems from Bishop Overal's Convocation-Book But Sir Robert Filmer broached it before that Book came out