told you that the Coronation Oath in England ran parallel with that of the Family of Burgundy in whose right Philip of Spain was Lord of Belgium And this you skip over as all the rest that 's material You use your old way of shuffling in fixing on me the mentioning only the Hollanders in the Protection given by Queen Elizabeth Whereas I named the Protestants abroad in general whereof these of the Low Countries were but a part yet by this little trick of skill you wisely pass over the assistance that Great Princess gave the Protestants of France who never could lay claim to any such priviledges as either the Low Countries or England justly pretend to that Government being as absolute as any in Christendom ever since Lewis XI Notwithstanding of which She protected them at a vast charge in the Reigns of Charles IX and Henry III. Yea it was not only in Q. Elizabeth's time that England assisted the Protestant Subjects of France against their incroaching Princes but in King Charles I. Reign the Expedition of Rochel was carried on by King and Parliament and cordially agreed to by the Fathers of the Church What a poor shift are you forc'd to use to evite my argument from the concurrence of the Clergy in Convocation when you play upon the word Act of Parliament as if I had named the act of Convocation thus which I did not All the World knows they gave considerable summs for managing that assistance given by the Queen and thereby allowed of the action it self Your Citations of Bilson and Jewel are to no purpose the stating of the Question clears sufficiently their meaning You begin your Rhapsody of a fifth Paragraph with a snarl at my saying there was a Parallel betwixt the Coronation Oath of England and the Golden Bull of the Empire and yet you are not able to evince the discrepancy betwixt them If you cast your eyes upon that Bull you may find that by it the Emperor is to swear observance of the Laws and Liberties of the Empire and so does the King of England swear at his Coronation the observance of the Laws and Liberties of England And I would have you to take notice that neither in the Golden Bull nor our Coronation Oath there is any irritant clause expressing power to resist in case of violation of either for the nature of the Contract warrants it without the necessity of any such express clause As to that Calumny of my drinking to the success of King Iames's Arms against all Invaders I 'll give you this advice The first time you Preach upon the ninth Commandment allow your self a Reflection upon that place of Scripture Romans 2.22 23. Thou that sayest a Man should not commit adultery dost thou commit adultery Thou that abhorrest Idols doest thou commit Sacriledg Thou that makest thy boast of the Law through breaking of the Law dishonourest thou God You have been so unhappy in this Calumny that it 's the only one neither my Friends nor Enemies will believe and even in laying the Scheme of it you shew your good nature in insinuating His present Majesty came to England as an Invader whereas none but such as you denyed him the quality of a Deliverer What a needless puther do you make about the Coronation Oath because forsooth the King of England is a Soveraign before his Coronation This ev'ry body knows and yet I would have you likewise to know that a Princes acceptance and exercise of the Regal Power before Coronation is in it self an Homologation of the Coronation Oath and he becomes virtually obliged by it as a necessary condition of the Original Contract betwixt him and his Subjects And in case a King should contradict the whole tenour of that Oath by Male-administration it were no rational excuse to alledge he had not actually taken the Coronation Oath seeing it 's presumed in Law he knew the terms on which he attain'd that dignity In the end of this Paragraph you desire me to shew you any thing in the Coronation Oath that allows Subjects to take up Arms against their Prince I have told you before that it 's not Lawful for Subjects to rise up against their Princes acting as lawful Magistrates and there is no necessity of an express clause in the Coronation Oath to warrant Resistance in case of a Princes overturning all Laws Because the Nature of the thing inforces it And moreover you will find no such express clause in the Golden Bull nor in the Plan of the Government of the Netherlands nor of any Monarchick Government in Europe Poland alone excepted So that if the nature of the Government do not allow Resistance without any such express clause you will be as little able to vindicate the Hollanders and the Princes of the Empire from the imputation of Rebellion as I the Subjects of England In the beginning of your sixth Paragraph you are heavy upon the poor Transcriber of my Letter for the mistake of the Figure 4 instead of 3 and I am displeased at him too for angering you Then after your usual manner of calling me a lyer for what reason I know not you come to answer my three cases which I cited both out of Grotius and Barclay with your good leave And the first case you would answer is none of mine for instead of saying a Prince may be Dethroned when he voluntarily and freely relinquishes his Crown as you would have me to say My words out of Grotius were these si imperium abdicavit vel habet pro derelicto which are as far distant from yours as East and West And the case as you word it will not admit of sense for he that Dethrones himself by a voluntary Renunciation as Charles V. needs not to be Dethroned by others An office may be truly and properly abdicate when there is no solemn formal Renouncing it and to evince this I 'll give you but two instances of Offices that have a near analogy with Monarchy If a General in the Field of Battel would either absent himself or by a supine negligence refuse to give the word of Command or lead on the Army In this case there is no formal Resignation of his Office And yet how unreasonable were it to debar the Soldiers from making choice of another General in so urgent a juncture Secondly What office seems more despotick than that of a Master of a Ship Now in case amidst an imminent hazard of death the Master cannot be prevail'd with to use his skill to prevent Shipwrack and yet will not voluntarily Resign his place to another Who can justly blame the Seamen to appoint one in his place to direct them to a safe Harbour And how near a Parallel there is betwixt these two examples and our late juncture in England the Votes of both Houses have evinced in the word Abdicated The second case wherein you acknowledg Resistance is lawfull is this if the Prince either alienate his Kingdom or
expresly disallowed any other under the severest penalties if the Roman Senate and the whole almost of the People had been Christians I cannot perswade my self I say but they might have lawfully resisted Nero Neither have we the least tract in the History of that age that the Christians disallowed the Senate of Romes declaring that Monster an Enemy of Mankind and of the Roman Empire I would fain know can Magistracy lodg'd in any particular Person at this day pretend to any more Divine Right then the Patris-familial Power And yet by the Concession of Lawyers notwithstanding I owe intire Obedience to my Father in this if my Father divesting himself of all paternal affection should conspire my death and endeavour my distruction in this Hypothesis the Lawyers say ei debetur Reverentia sed non Obedientia And pray what seems more inconsequential to reason and the Oeconomy of the World yea to the Goodness and Wisdom of Almighty God than that some Millions of People should be so despotically subjected to the Power of one Man of the same infirmities with themselves as in case he should command all their Throats to be cut at once they are oblig'd under the pain of no less than Damnation by a thing call'd Passive Obedience to submit their Necks tamely to the blow since in no case you say they may resist And to use the words of a Worthy Gentleman in the late Parliament that one Man should die for the whole People we have heard but that the whole People should perish for the pleasure of one Man is an unaccountable piece of folly I have read some Champions of Regal Prerogative and among others the Learned Barclay who though a Scotch-man yet as bitter an Anti-fanatick as your self and they all agree that at least in these three cases the Subjects may not only resist but wage War against their Prince 1. They say it may be done so as to Dethrone him Si imperium abdicavit aut habet pro derelicto And this to be Parallel with our case in England the Votes of both Houses of Convention declare 2. They say he forfeits the Crown if he either alienate it or subject it to the Power of another And how far a Prince bigotted in the Romish Religion may stretch his Zeal England found by sad experience in King Iohn's days And you that are so well acquainted with Law cannot be ignorant of that Maxim quod semel datur Deo Ecclesiae non auferendum and so sweet a morsel given to Pope Innocent III. may be challenged by Innocent XI conform to that Maxim of the Court of Rome And how far he that endeavours to subject a Protestant State to the See of Rome in Spirituals may fall under this Category I leave it to them to judge who are acquainted with the Policies and necessary incroachments of the Court of Rome even in Temporals 3. These Lawyers acknowledge That a Prince forfeits the Crown Si hostili animo in populi exitium feratur And how far a Prince may be guilty of this when he endeavours to bring in a Religion inconsistent with the Peoples eternal Happiness I leave it to you the Gentlemen of the Black Robe who know best how preferable the Safety and Health of the Soul is to that of the Body or to the Goods of Fortune And thus Sir I presume I have clear'd the Controversie betwixt us by a fair stating the Question and these necessary Glosses upon it Fifthly You are offended at my Saying What bad Genius prompted you to call Self-Defence an Old Fanatick Principle and you tell me You was not obliged from your Text to distinguish betwixt the Kinds of it I refer it to any rational Man if it was not absolutely needful to distinguish the Kinds of it since many things may be said of the Species that in propriety of Speech cannot be said of the Genus and vice versa many things agree to the Genus that cannot be said properly of the Species As for Example Would it be proper for me to say in general The Sea ebbs and flows ten or twelve times in the natural Day without telling what Sea I mean because forsooth the Euripus does so And consequently it 's as improper to say in general Self-Defence is an old Fanatick Principle without distinguishing what kind of it deserves that Name But I 'm willing your Zeal in the Delivery should excuse this mistake You skip strangely out of the Road to meet the Murderers of the Archbishop of St. Andrews and lose your Pains for I abhor the Action as much as you As to your saying That Self-Defence came out of Scotland I hope their Neighbour Nation of England has sufficiently vindicated them in it by so fairly following their Copy in this Juncture You add That you have many Civil Law Books and none of them allows Self-Defence I find having of Books without reading them does no great Feats That they disallow Resistance to Magistrates acting as such I acknowledge But that there are not a great many Senatus-consulta Plebiscita Responsa Iurisprudentium c. through the whole Tract of the Corpus Iuris fixing Boundaries to the Magistrates Power against the breaches of which they often made Resistance worthy of the Roman Name none can be ignorant who know any thing of that Law. Must I tell you That in all the Changes of the Roman Government to that of Emperour exclusivè there was still a Tribunitia potestas lodged among the Plebeians of meer design to set Bounds to the Supreme Magistrates Hence it was That after the Government became Imperial and more Despotick the Emperors were obliged in Policy to unite the Tribunitial Power to the perpetual Dictatorship and Imperial Dignity Was there ever a People in the World more jealous of Liberty and impatient of Slavery as the Romans Witness the dethroning of Tarquin the Plebeians Insurrection against the Patritii the bloody Wars of Sylla and Marius Caesar and Pompey the unparallel'd Battel of Munda c. Yea after that Rome had submitted its Neck to the Imperial Yoke there still was left them considerable Vestiges of the Peoples and Senates Power which in many Emergents they were obliged to make use of and must I mind you of the famous Saying of one of the greatest of the Emperors in giving the Praetor the Sword Pro me si mereor in me mention'd with mighty Applause by Pliny the Younger in his Panegyrick Sixthly You are displeased at my Saying I could not recount without horror your affirming That whoever medled with the Kings Forts Revenue c. were guilty of Damnation And yet with the same breath you say it over again in expressing your self in your Letter thus If it be a Sin for Subjects to seize the Kings Revenues c. as I shall presume it to be till the contrary be prov'd it will no doubt without Repentance expose the Sinner to Damnation In truth I must acknowledge my Judgment fails me in
making any material Difference betwixt what I said was exprest in your Sermon and what you say your self in your Letter for still in both medling with the Kings Forts c. is a sin exposes to Damnation Then you tell me You had no design against the Prince of Orange in your Discourse and in my taxing you with a Scandalum Magnatum you accuse me of a Scandalum Ecclesiae To this I answer First What can reflect more upon the Illustrious Prince of Orange than that the meddling with the Kings Forts c. exposes to Damnation Since albeit his Highness be a Sovereign Prince and no Subject of England yet in heading and assisting these Subjects that seizes the Kings Forts c. he must necessarily incur the Guilt of a mighty Sin in your sense For he that so far assists another in a sinful Act as without his assistance it could not have been acted is certainly guilty before God of the sinful Act it self So if the Nobility and Gentry of England seiz'd the Kings Forts c. and thereby in your sense expos'd themselves to Damnation it follows necessarily that the Prince of Orange who so far assisted them as to render them capable to do it must in the same sense of yours share in the Guilt of so doing And that this Darling Prince of all the Protestants of Europe is none of yours appears too clearly by your refusing either to preach your self or allowing others to do it and by your Curats leaving out the Prayer for him on this happy day of Commemoration of that mighty Deliverance whereof God has made him the glorious Instrument Secondly It Scandalum Magnatum be not properly in its self a Reflection upon the Honour of a Peer of England I am mistaken and am willing to be corrected by those who have had more occasion to know the Laws of England than I have had And if it be so What greater blemish to their Honour and blot upon their Scutcheon can there be than to be accus'd of Rebellion which you say is the same with Resistance and of Actions that necessarily without Repentance expose them to Damnation Thirdly I knew not before that the giving a Check to a private Minister of England enveighing against the Nobility of England was a Scandalum Ecclesiae neither did I dream that your single Opinion was to be estimate that of a whole Church The Roman Catholicks on this side the Alpes scorn to lodge the Infallibility in one single Person and that a private Protestant Minister here should so far fix it upon himself as the least Reflection upon him must be estimate a Scandal done to the whole Church is a thing very new to me In the end of this Paragraph you would fain fix upon me the putting a blot upon the Predecessors of the Prince of Orange A strange Inference indeed from any thing in my Letter The Revolt of the States of Holland under the blest Conduct of that Illustrious Heroe William of Nassaw was in my sense no Rebellion but a just Vindication of Religion and Civil Liberties while in your sense it must merit no better Name than Rebellion since Rebellion and Resistance in your Opinion are convertible Terms And if you will turn over the Authors that have written in favor of that Revolt and the most exact model of the present Government of the States I know called Commentariolus de Statu Belgii thought to be Grotius's you will find a very neer Parallel betwixt the Coronation Oath of England and that of the House of Burgundy and their Priviledges to have been little or nothing above ours In the last Paragraph You are angry at my blaming you for wrong timing your Sermon and tell me You use always to preach such Doctrin upon the 30 th of January and if Times be changed Truth is not In answer to this I refer you to what I wrote in my Letter upon this Head Only this I must say I find it 's hard to eradicate a bad Custom You mind me of the Fate of those that have been Sea-sick even when the Storm is past and themselves on firm ground their Giddiness continues You have been so us'd to thunder out your little Bolts against the poor Dissenters and to cry up Passive Obedience in order to their Ruine when the edge of the Laws were pointed against them That now when the Horizon begins to clear up and the Cheat of setting Protestants by the Ears discovered you cannot wean your self from the old beloved way of railing About the middle of this Paragraph You seem to scorn me for an Antagonist because of my being of another Profession and my small skill in Divinity And are pleased to promise Dr. Burnet a Copy of your Sermon if so be I can prevail with him to vindicate these Positions contain'd in the Inquiry you would refute To this I answer First I cannot but commend you in desiring such an Antagonist as Dr. Burnet it were honour enough for you to be overcome by so great a hand But forgive me to tell you I am not so far as yet berest of Common Sense although I had the honour to have such Power with him as to desire him to stoop to so unequal a Combat Secondly As to my want of Skill in Divinity I am not so impudent as to deny it But I hope no body will blame me to love the light of the Sun tho I cannot attain the Eagles Fortune to look that bright Planet in the Face I am heartily sorry That that Noble Study should be monopolized to the Clergy for I was still in the mistake That our Religion allowed us a share in it pro nostro modulo and was so foolish as to think That a Physician whose proper Study is the search of Nature might very lawfully imploy some part of his Hours in that sacred Science whose immediate Subject is the God of Nature I am happy in this That neither in my other Letter nor in this I have had any occasion of demonstrating my Skill in Divinity or the want of it And if you will not be angry I 'll tell you You seem to me to do with your vast Treasure of Divinity as some sordid Misers with their Money they hoard it up so close in their Cabinets as it 's impossible for others to say certainly they have any Thirdly As to my want of Judgment Memory Skill in Divinity and a great many other such Expressions all along your Letter which I here take notice of once for all I would have thought that a Man of your great Parts and Character would have rather in your Christian Charity have pitied me than upbraid me with a defect of Nature For those who know us both may tell you That if my Spirit had not been so utterly incapable of Letters I might have attain'd to some small Scantlings of Knowledge My Education both at home and abroad and the Charges of it being at least nothing inferiour
Sovereign but only to God by Prayer and Patience Bishop Iewell in his Defence of the Apology speaks thus We teach the People as St. Paul doth to be subject to the Higher Powers not only for fear but also for Conscience sake We teach 'em That whoso striketh with the Sword by private Authority shall perish with the Sword. If the Prince happen to be wicked or cruel or burdensom we teach 'em to say with St. Ambrose Tears and Prayers be our Weapons This I hope will be sufficient to evince That Passive Obedience was own'd by our Church in the Days of Queen Elizabeth of Blessed Memory and that in the same sense I did assert in my Sermon Fifthly In the next place you attempt to prove the lawfulness of Resisting the Kings of England from the Coronation Oath which you say is of the same import with the Bulla Aurea in Germany but for this we have no other proof than your own ipse dixit as if the Soul of Pythagoras by a Metempsychosis had at last taken up its Lodging in a Scots Tenement But I assure you Sir your bare word is of no such Authority with me Besides I have already proved That the Emperor by reason of the Bulla Aurea is no proper Sovereign And if you should say the Prince of Orange is no proper Sovereign now that he is proclaim'd King of England it would be as bad or worse than to drink a Health to the Success of King Iames's Forces against all Invaders whatsoever at that very time when the Prince of Orange was coming over to rescue the Nation from Popery and Slavery and yet this you merrily did in a certain House at the lower end of Westgate so that for all your pretended Zeal you are a sneaking Proteus and it would be as easie to shape a Coat for the Moon as for your Latitudinarian Conscience But I must instruct you That the King of England is a Sovereign Prince before his Coronation nor is his Oath necessary to make him so seeing Henry the Sixth Reign'd divers Years in England before he was Crown'd and yet was own'd by his Parliaments for their dread Sovereign Nay further our Chronicles inform us That some of our Kings were never Crown'd and besides all this I desire you and those of your Cabal to shew any thing in the Coronation Oath that allows Subjects to take up Arms against their Prince In the next place you pretend to give such an exact State of the Controversie as you say will in one word refute the Tenet of Passive Obedience and in order hereunto you offer four Cases out of Barclay and others in which as you tell me They all agree that it 's lawful for Subjects to resist and wage War against their Sovereign Princes Had you read your Country-man Barclay as you pretend you would have found that he allows only two Cases in which a Prince may be divested of his Royal Dignity and when you come to propose these four Cases you mention only three Such is the great Excellence of your Memory notwithstanding that according to the Proverb Some stand in need of a very good one First Your first Case is When a Prince does voluntarily and freely relinquish his Crown and Dignity as did Charles the Fifth Christiana of Sweden and to name no more nine Saxon Kings mentioned in Fuller's Church History Now in this Case the Prince who voluntarily resigns the Crown becomes for the future a private Person and should he afterwards by force endeavour to recover his Dignity which by his own consent is vested in the next Heir he may no doubt be resisted But sure this is not resisting a King or the Higher Powers but a private Person in defence of a lawful King and so is nothing to your purpose and pray look your Barclay again and see if this Case as you say is there Secondly If a Prince alienates his Crown and Subjects to another you say he may be resisted this without any harm may be granted too For as I own no Allegiance to a Foreign Prince so my own Prince has voluntarily divested himself and thrust himself into a private Capacity and in this case we do not resist the Higher Powers but a private Person And this instance does also fall short of the mark Thirdly The third Case is more pertinent for you say a King may be deposed or resisted Si hostili animo in populi exitium feratur This you have transcribed from Grotius and the meaning of it is this Whether a Sovereign Prince may be resisted in case he undertakes to destroy his whole Kingdom or any considerable part thereof If we may take your honest word Grotius and all that you have read resolve this Point in the Affirmative To which I answer First That Grotius with due submission to your vast reading did as I shew'd above retract in his riper Years this dangerous Opinion which Erasmus in Luke 22. stiles a most pernicious Heresie Secondly Bishop Taylor calls it deservedly a Wild Tenet and Grotius as well as he acknowledges it can scarce seem possible to happen It is certain that we have not one single instance of it in the whole Race of our British Kings Thirdly More sober Casuists condemn the starting such speculative Cases as Princes cutting the Throats of their Subjects because they have been found the Incentives of Rebellion They were such Fears and Out-crys as these that brought King Charles the Martyr to the Block and have stain'd your Scotch Chronicles with the Murders of above sixty Sovereign Princes So that King William and Queen Mary will have cause to thank you for giving such early Demonstrations of your Loyalty in the very beginning of their Reign teaching their Subjects in how many cases they may resist when the Laws of the Land say expresly That it 's unlawful to take up Arms against the King upon any pretence whatsoever Fourthly Put the case that Tiberius Caligula Claudius or Nero be the King and your Countryman Barclay instances such Monsters as these as being the greatest he could find in all History you and he both affirm they may be lawfully resisted it is not for me to oppose such Learned Gentlemen but I will assure you once more Grotius is against you and I hope he is not very much inferior to your Doctorship in Learning and Judgment And must I tell you again what I told you from the Pulpit viz. That those Prohibitions against Resistance which are given in the New Testament by our Saviour St. Paul and St. Peter were remarkably given at such a time when these greatest Monsters of Cruelty sat on the Throne and pray ask my Parishioners whether they do not believe our Saviour St. Paul and St. Peter to be as good Casuists as your Doctorship and Countryman Barclay Having thus destroyed the very Foundations your State of the Controversie stood on your slender superstructure and puerile flourishes will tumble with them In the next
from a more intimate acquaintance than your narrow Theatre could allow you obliges me to do that Justice to the Protestants abroad as to affirm That notwithstanding all the Resistance they made to their Tyrannizing Princes they are as much for Passive Obedience in its true and rational sense as the Church of England it self that is where the Commands of the Sovereign are incompatible with their duty they hold themselves oblig'd to suffer for their disobedience rather than to sin In all their Confessions of Faith they own Magistracy as the Ordinance of God and disapprove opposition to it in execution of Law But they never so far divested themselves of Reason as to yield up their Throats to be cut by their Princes turn'd absolute Tyrants when it was in their power to vindicate their Religion and Liberties by their Sword. That England concurr'd with them in this opinion appears as I told you in my Letter by the mighty protection they vouchsaft them in this their Resistance Moreover which I forgot to tell you in all the Convocations of the Clergy of England at that time there were vast sums given to carry it on and the preamble of ev'ry Act does fairly insinuate the lawfulness of that resistance made by the Protestants abroad against their Princes so that resistance was not only allowed by the Nation but likewise by the Church of England in a full Convocation of its Fathers And if the Church of England assisted so generously in the support of the Protestants abroad at a time when their Religion was Heresie by the Laws of their Country How much rather would these excellent Fathers of the Church have done it if their Religion had been settled by positive and fundamental Laws as it was after by several Edicts and Treaties What you say of the difference of the Government of the Empire and that of England I know but let me tell you as the Golden Bull is the great Barrer against Slavery there the same is the Coronation Oath here and consequently if the Germans may lawfully resist the Emperor or the Rex Romanorum upon breach of that Bull the same may the Representatives and Nobility of England do upon palpable breaches of the Coronation Oath for as the Golden Bull is the great security of the German aggregate Body against the incroachments of the Emperor the same is the Coronation Oath in England against the incroachments of the King. Fourthly You tell me you hold Passive Obedience to be founded on the word of God and maintain'd by the Church of England and contain'd in her Homilies To this I Answer 1. Tell me what opinion was ever broached in the Church without a pretence of Scripture to back it And what gloss can you put upon any Text of Holy Writ to prove your position but what has been a thousand times said and as many times refell'd Yet if you had allowed me a Copy of your Sermon I would have endeavoured to clear the sense of the Texts you make use of which I do not exactly remember so as to make nothing for your purpose And in your doing the one and I the other neither of us would have reason to value our selves upon that score since I fear none of us could outdo what has been again and again done already on that Subject In the mean time let me tell you that the simple stating of the Question solves all the Arguments you can bring from Scripture as I shall make appear in one word anon 2. As to Passive Obedience its being the Doctrine of the Church of England I have told you already that the Fathers of the Church of England contradicted it in Queen Elizabeths Reign And where can we find more authentick records of their Opinion and Doctrine than in the Printed Manifesto's and Acts made in Convocation As to the 39 Articles which is in place of a Confession of Faith and the Homilies wherein you say that Doctrine is maintain'd I 'll make bold to say that Passive Obedience in the narrow sense you take it was not so much as thought on at the time of their Publishing And albeit you should find a way to make them seem to speak for you the simple right stating of thē question answers them sufficiently It would seem to me that the Mitred Clergy and particularly that excellent Prelate My Lord Bishop of London should be at least as well acquainted with the Doctrine of the Church of England as any private Minister in a corner of the Nation and how far they have refell'd your fond Principle appears with a Witness in their committing the Government to the Prince in this juncture and a great many other publick actings If your Passive Obedience be the Principle of the Church of England how few Church of England-men are there in both Houses of Convention at present since they act so diametrically opposite to it And yet I perswade my self these Worthy Patriots would take it ill to be call'd of any other Church 3. To refell your Tenet of Passive Obedience in one word I need no more but to state the case fair and without equivocation thus Whate're can be said from Scripture or the acknowledgment of Protestant Churches Centers all in this viz. That it is unlawful to resist the Magistrate while he is lawfully such because he is Gods Vicegerent within his own Iurisdistion But when by his maleversations he divests himself of that Office and assumes a contradictory Character by trampling upon Laws and endeavouring to subvert the fundamental constitutions of the State contrary to his Coronation Oath in this case in my humble opinion He is no more justly a Magistrate nor the object of our Obedience and sua culpa amittit Imperium Upon which the Primores Regni and the Representatives of the People may lawfully fill up the Throne vacated by such palpable incroachments This being the State of the case all the Texts of Scripture you can produce for Obedience to Magistrates are to be natively understood and in a Logical propriety of predication asserted of Obedience to Magistrates when they are justly and lawfully such but the Relatives do not meet when the Magistrate by his own fault becomes dispossest of the Office. There is one thing more I would have you to take notice of to clear this head and it 's this There is a great difference betwixt resisting the Magistrate when he tramples upon the Religion and Liberty of any part of his Subjects in the execution of the Laws made against them and his doing of it in contradiction to Fundamental Laws already made in their Favours As for example albeit I should acknowledge that in Nero's time it had been unlawful for the Christians to resist him because Christianity was at that time contradictory to the Laws of the Empire Yet I cannot perswade my self but in case the Laws at that time had not only established the Christian Religion as the Religion of the Empire but had
subject it to another But the reason you give for it is wide from the purpose For a Prince may Subject his Crown to another and yet not thrust himself into a private capacity as you call it When King Iohn subjected his Crown to the Pope he ceas'd not thereby to be King of England and the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily are true Monarchies in the Family of Spain and yet Feudatory and Subject to the Pope One would have thought that you might have taken some notice of what I said upon this case in relation to the Native incroachments of the Sea and Court of Rome and how far a subjection in Spirituals may usher in a dependance even in Temporals But your self denyal will not allow you to be thought too knowing in what relates to your own Profession When you come to my third Case thô you at first confess it a pertinent Case yet you bring four pretty Answers against it The case being thus a King may be Dethron'd si in populi exitium feratur you answer 1. Grotius retracted this opinion how true this is I refer you to that Edition of his Works I formerly mentioned wherein instead of retracting this Case he confirms it by his Notes upon it you are as far in the wrong to Erasmus as to Grotius for having lookt upon the place cited there is not one word there relating to this case 2ly you tell me B. Taylor calls it a wild Case which is nothing to the purpose for none but wild Men can be capable of it then you say Grotius calls it a Case that scarce seems possible to happen That there have been such Monsters in the World appears by Nero's Firing the City of Rome and Caligula's wishing the Roman People had but one single Neck yea in the late Age have we not seen a Northern Prince invite his whole Nobles aboard his Ship and order them all to be murder'd before his Eyes It 's true we have been blessed with a better Race of Kings in England than to find any such Monsters in our Annals But how proper it was for a Divine to take notice of what I told you upon this Head How far a Prince may fall under this Category who endeavours to introduce a Religion inconsistent with his Peoples Eternal Happiness I am willing as well as you to appeal to your Parishioners Thirdly In answer to this Case you tell me More sober Casuists condemn the starting of such Speculative Cases and would fix upon me ill Service done to their Majesties in teaching their Subjects in what Cases they may Resist For the first part of this Answer you are pleas'd to instance no particular Casuist and I presume you are not able to do it unless you wrest their words as much as you use to do mine that is make them say what you please But when you so positively assert that in no case a Prince may be Resisted give me leave to think I refel sufficiently your assertion by instancing a case wherein you acknowledg you self Resistance is warrantable tho that case be very rare As to the second part of your answer I hope I shall be found to do no bad service to their Majesties in vindicating a Revolution wherein they have acted so glorious a part from the aspersions you have cast upon it And they have given the World so many and great demonstrations of a Sublim Vertue and of their abhorrence of Arbitrary Power as none but such as refuse to pray for them will dare to imagine they can possibly fall under any of the Cases I have mentioned And I heartily agree with you so far in point of Resistance that I firmly believe he who Resists such two darling Princes falls under the inevitable hazard of Damnation in the sense of your Text unless he repent Among a great deal of Rubbish of gentle Expressions I find nothing in your Fourth answer merits any notice but one thing that has been canted a thousands times over by your sort of Men Viz that the Precepts for Obedience given by our Saviour Saint Peter and Saint Paul were given at a time when the greatest Monsters of Cruelty were upon the Throne for so your express words are Sir even in this matter of Fact you commit a gross mistake for tho probably the two Apostles named wrote their Epistles in the Reigns of Caligula Domitian and Nero yet every Body knows that our Saviour's preaching was from the fifteenth till the eighteenth of Tiberius inclusivè who was none of the worst of Princes especially before that time of his Reign But as to that of the Apostles commanding subjection at a time when Monsters were upon the Throne to answer this I shall take occasion to give you my gloss upon that Text Romans 13.1.2 which has occasioned all our debate and in so doing perhaps I obviate all you have preached from it for Passive obedience and non-resistance The subjection there commanded to be given to the Higher Powers is in a proper sense a standing in order under them as on the contrary the Resistance prohibit is a Contraordinatness to them and so the very Etymology of the Greek words bears This being the genuine Critick of the words the meaning of them does fairly resolve into these two Corollaries First That the Gospel destroys not Magistracy nor exempts Christians from the Oeconomy of Subjection as some Hereticks at that time vainly imagined to which fond opinion it 's very probable the Apostle had an eye as many learn'd Men have thought particularly Gerhardus de Magist. polit n. 34.38 Secondly That Christianity exempts not the Professors of it from subjection to Heathen Magistrats as some Christians of that Age did maintain having imbib'd that principle from the Gaulonites among the Iews who held subjection to the Romans or any other Strangers unlawful and that likewise this heresie or error was in the Apostles view the same learn'd Author and a great many others do agree Now Resistance of open and notorious Violations of Magistracy in which case only I say Resistance is lawful contradicts not the subjection enjoyn'd in the Text being thus explain'd That subjection being nothing more but an acknowledgment of Magistrates as a Lawful Power ordain'd of God for the good of Mankind And that even at that time this was the Christians sense of this precept would appear by what I told you of the Senats declaring Nero an Enemy of Mankind and adjudging him to Death approv'd by the Christians of old and by the best of Lawyers and Casuists of late as for instance Bodinus de Republica Lib. 2. Cap. 5. And further That the Subjection here required is not to Princes abusing their Power by trampling upon all that 's Sacred as you would have it in naming of Nero is evincible from these Reasons First Such Princes are not the Ordinance of God the Relative of Subjection being they act in opposition to God. Secondly they are not a terror to
evil doers nor Ministers of God for our Good except in the sense that afflictions and plagues are and so they are defective in the necessary Qualities of these higher powers to whom Subjection is enjoin'd in the Text. In your seventh paragraph after some expressions becoming the gravity of a Divine you will needs vindicate once more your not making any distinction when you term'd self defence an old Phanatick principle and the reason you give is because the Apostle made none in your Text. By the same reason you would make but a sorry comment upon many places of Scripture to instance one for all our Saviour commands us to swear not at all Now would it be here impertinent to distinguish betwixt the kinds of Oaths in order to explain what Oaths are lawful and what not because our Saviour made no distinction You have unluckily stumbled upon the Euripus in contradicting me for saying that it flow'd and ebb'd ten or twelve times in the natural day and you very confidently allow it no frequenter tides then the River Tyne This in any other would be called an unaccountable mistake the fewest motions any Author allows it being five Tides in the four and twenty hours And that my account is true I refer you to Sir George Wheelers Travels where that ingenious Gentleman gives you an exact Scheme of the ebbing and flowing of this Streight as he had it upon the place from Father Babin and the Millers thereabouts When upon this score you satyrically envy the happiness of Travellers I think such men as you are much more happy then they if Claudians description of the happy man of Verona be good For it seems he took Benacus lake for the Ocean and you take measures of all the Seas of the World by the River of Tyne Next you tell me you expected from me a great many Citations out of the Roman Law for resistance of higher powers and because of your dissapointment you charm me with four Heroick Lines Sir I did indeed tell you the Roman Laws fixt a great many boundaries to the Magistrates power and that the Tribunitial Office was lodg'd in the Plebeians for that very cause I also told you the Romans were of all People the most impatient of Slavery and gave you a hint why after the Government of Rome became more despotick the Emperours were oblig'd to confound the Tribunitial power with the Imperial dignity and all this you wisely pass over It were to transcribe too great a part of the civil Roman Law to instance all the Laws and Sentences against Arbitrary Government But let these two suffice at present The first is of Theodosius the younger Cod. Iustin. lib. 1. tit 24. Princeps tenetur The Prince is bound to the Laws on the Authority whereof his Authority depends and to the Laws he ought to submit The second is of Constantinus Leo in Bizantin pro communi The end of a King is the general good which he not performing he is but the counterfeit of a King. These two I rather instance because the first is a more ample commentary upon Trajans expression to the Praetor than I can my self agree to And the second a clear cofirmation of what I said in stating of the question that Princes divest themselves of that sacred Character by their trampling upon Laws As to your Rhyming albeit you have aped Cleveland in a great many expressions of kindness to my Countrey and have coppied verbatim out of one of his Letters that raillery of the Mares eating Thiftles yet you come not altogether up to the Stile of that ingenious Poet in your lofty Verses In the end of this Paragraph you tell me that my two last Paragraphs are such an Augean Stable of unkind falsities as will tire Hercules to clear and because they contain no Argument you vouchsafe them no other answer but get thee behind me Satan I acknowledg that in these Paragraphs I take notice of more than one single Augean Stable but you know with whose furniture Replenish'd And pray Sir is 't a falsity that you entail'd no less then damnation upon these that meddled with the Kings Forts Army Revenue c. Seeing not only in that Sermon but in your first Letter you repeat it in express words Was there no matter of Argument in what I told you of your rash Censures being levelled no lower than a Crown'd Head Was it not proper for you to answer what I said in relation to you charging me with Scandalum Ecclesiae for checking your inveighing against the Nobility of England Is it a falsity that you neither preach'd your self not would allow your Pulpit to others on the Thanksgiving day appointed for the late mighty Deliverance When you cannot but know that all honest Men of the Place exclaim'd against you for it And you know best what it meant instead of a Sermon on that day to have read in one of the Churches the Homily against Rebellion I am loth to rake up any more of the dung of this your Augean Stable since the naming of Particulars might occasion such Consequences as I do not wish you And my silence herein should oblige you to a blush for your manner of treating me But when you call all these things falsities you put me in mind of the Nature or rather Epologue of that Animal who darkning his own Sight by shutting his head into a hole fancies himself invisible to others Above all things I cannot dream how you came by the Office of an Exorcist I took it for one of the Orders of the Romish and not of the Reform'd Church but I confess I 'm oblig'd to you for a great many things I never knew before Now because your heavy charge of Rebellion was so clearly levell'd against the Nobility and Gentry of England for their medling with the late King's Forts Castles c. And by ther Resisting his Forces which more then once you say is but an other name for Rebellion It were easie to demonstrate that the Nobles and People of England have not only done so before in former ages but depos'd their Tyranizing Princes and alter'd the direct and Lineal Succession of the Crown tho they justly adher'd to the Royal Blood I shall only give you one instance of each of these As to their Resistance and medling with Forts c. We have the famous instance in King Henry the III. from whom the Magna Charta was obtain'd by the Nobles and People of England by the edge of their Swords Of the second Richard II. was a memorable Example where neither the fresh remembrance of his excellent Father nor his own promises of amendment could save him from having fourteen Articles of Maleversation exhibited against him and then deposed Of the altering the direct Lineal Succession we have a paramount instance in Cooke 4. inst p. 36.39 where notwithstanding Iohn de Beaufort Son to Iohn of Gaunt was in his Legitimation formally and expresly excluded from the Crown of England yet the Parliament entail'd the Crown upon Henry VII heir of Lyne to this Iohn of Beaufort and to the heirs of King Henry's Body and that even before his Marriage with Princess Elizabeth of the Family of York who in Cook 's opinion had the nearest right to the Crown in her own Person As to your last Paragraph I deserved to be laught at if I had troubled my self with a formal answer to your Physical questions as you call them Yet methinks I should have had more thanks for giving you a hint of your Distemper without a Fee then to have my words repeated otherwise then I wrote them For I spoke nothing of the principal Cause of diseases but told you that a Redundancy of Choler with a little of adust Melancholly produces more Tragedies in the Body of Man then the Iuice of the Pancreas is capable to do and perhaps you find it so to your own cost Let us not quarrel for the honor of the discovery of the Circulation of the Blood. If you be pleased to compare Andreas Cisalpinus and Harvey together I hope you will alter your opinion and if you send to me for the former it may ease you of a Pisa or Oxford journey Before I leave this I cannot but admire your skill in the Belles Letters for I have often read that Laurels were wreath'd about the Victors head but that they were stuck in their bosoms I owe it to your discovery I expected you would rather have bestowed it on Solomon then on Cisalpinus which I gave you a fair opportunity to do but when any thing of Divinity comes in the Play you are as silent as the Moon in an Eclipse to use your own words tho I knew not before she was more silent at time then any other and would be gladly informed what Language at other times she Speaks As to our Law Question I am not much concern'd on either side being in no great hazard of being either a Vicar or his Curat You know the reason why I proposed it and you may do in it as your Christian Wisdom shall dictate to you But what a wretched notion have you of the term Iure Divino when you confound it with not being contrary to the Law of God And that you fall not into so gross a mistake a second time I refer you to the excellent and learned Author you named his Irenicon where you may learn a better definition of it After so Learned an Answer to my Letter I expected one to my Postscript and thought you might perhaps teach the World some middle way betwixt the poor Protestants of Ireland's Resisting King Iames and their tamely yielding up their Throats to be cut but this so seasonable a Secret you keep to your self Thus I have done with you and your Letter and never any of Loyolla's Sect injoyn'd a more nauseous Penance on their Votaries then I on my self in giving you an Answer Take it as the last you shall be troubled with from SIR Your humble Servant James Welwood ERRATA Page 11. Line 14. for in this read in Thesi. p. 16. l. 27. for Barly r. Barclay p. 22. l. 27. for bold fright r. bodily fright
are much more guilty of casting an indeleble blot upon the Noble Progenitors of the Prince of Orange the High and Mighty States of Holland c. who will have a Reformation introduced amongst them by a Rebellion I am not at leisure to vindicate all the Protestant Countries but it will be a sufficient answer to your bold challenge to inform you that the States of Holland give another account of their revolt from the King of Spain assuring us that the constitution of the Government of the Netherlands was such as allowed them to defend themselves against the Incroachments of their Prince but the Constitution of the English Monarchy is different for the 12 and 13 Statutes Car. 2. forbid the Subjects to Levy any War offensive or defensive In the close you question my prudence in timing my discourse no better this perhaps may be a complement in Scotland and therefore let it pass but Sir I must tell you I have always Preached this Doctrine on Ianuary the 30th ever since I came to Town and formerly it hath not been thought improper for that sad occasion but received with good approbation If the times be changed Truth is not and English Ministers of all Men ought not to be time servers In that Sermon I follow'd the dictates of my own Conscience and though I have read as much Politicks as my Neighbours yet I have always thought and do still think that honesty is the best Policy You desire a Copy of my Sermon and with great modesty threaten me with a full Answer but Sir from the little Specimen you have given me of your skill in Divinity I find you are one of another Profession and therefore I question whether it will quit cost to trouble you but since you tell me that Doctor Burnet is the Author of that Pamphlet I took notice of in my Sermon and I hear that you have some acquaintance with that great Man to shew my just veneration for that Learning he is master of I shall not refuse to send him a copy of it in case you can prevail with him to vindicate those positions he lays down there I do assure you I should be very well content to be honestly rid of an error I can promise my self no great advantage by If you are in love with scribling and think fit to communicate your thoughts concerning those two points which are more agreeable to your Profession viz. An succus Pancreaticus sit causa principalis morborum an clarissimus Harveius fuerit primus inventor circulationis sanguinis both of which I deny though affirmed by several of your Learned tribe I may possible gain more by your Learning in Physick than I have by your skill in Divinity Be pleased to take in good part this hasty scrible and pardon the faults thereof by which you 'l oblige SIR Your humble Servant John March. To the Reverend Mr. JOHN MARCH Vicar of Newcastle Newcastle February 13th 1688 9. SIR I Expected the Copy of your Sermon but I have received a Letter and that of such a strain as bespeaks you no Apathist I take no notice of your direction but to tell you that if you had taken the degree of Doctor in any University of England you would have found the good manners in any civiliz'd Nation of Europe to be design'd as such and albeit no Man has a greater Veneration for the two great Luminaries of Oxford and Cambridge then I yet the University where I commenc'd Doctor would take it ill to be placed in a much lower degree Letting this pass among a great many expressions that smells of a redundancy of Choler be pleased to take this Answer to your Letter as it lyes divided in your Numerical Paragraphs First You are pleased to say you knew not that Doctor Burnet was the Author of that Pamphlet the inquiry into the measures of Obedience and though you had yet you have not treated him so ill as he has treated his Soveraign Prince To which I answer that whether it be his or not it matters not in this case since common fame makes it so and ev'ry body in this place believes it And that you likewise thought so would appear from that expression in your Sermon yea Doctor Burnet himself cannot instance above three hundred Martyrs in Q. Maries days the word himself being emphatick enough to oblige your Hearers to believe you took him for the Author of that Pamphlet as you call it That you design'd that great Man in your kind Epithets and the Person unknown appears plainly by your calling the inquirer a Man that has made a great bustle in the World giving so scurril a term to the Doctors justly acquired fame And if it was not he pray be pleas'd to condescend whom else you meant And I must tell you this is not the first time you have spoken unkindly of him When you talk of the Doctor his ill treating of his Soveraign Prince I doubt not but you incline that others should share in this imputation since the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation have treated the King worse by their actions in your sense than ever Dr. Burnet himself was capable to do by his Pen. And I assure my self that as Conscience and Love to Religion oblig'd these Noble Patriots to what they have acted so the same Principle did actuate the Doctor to what he has wrote Secondly You quarrel me for minding you of the scurrilous Epithets you gave the Inquirer and tell me I ought rather to have refuted the Reasons against him The truth is I was in the wrong to quarrel with such Epithets since they seem to be congeneal with your Nature But as to the Refuting of your Reasons as my Memory is not the worst so I confess 't is none of the best which makes me loath to trust it with any Methodick Systeme of the slender arguments you used so as to satisfie my self in a Categorick Answer to them But if you had wish'd for a Refutation you might have occasion'd it by a Copy of them And if I had not at least endeavoured to Answer them I would have been to blame for breach of promise Thirdly You tax me with a mistake in saying that you maintain'd Passive Obedience to be the Sentiment of all the Protestants in Europe To this I answer that if I had not evinc'd to you that it was not their opinion perhaps your charity would have permitted me to lye under that mistake still And if it be a mistake I am not in it alone for a great many of your Hearers perswade themselves you said so But I cannot but take notice how unwilling you are that the Protestants abroad should share in your darling Tenet of Passive Obedience and your unkindness to them herein supprises me the less seeing it is not the first time you have unchurch'd them upon the account they were not so constitute as the Church of England But the value I have of them