Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A52764
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A Letter from Oxford concerning Mr. Samuel Johnson's late book
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N. N.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing N40; ESTC R4251
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12,066
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31
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to practise what he tells us the best Teachers of Christianity did viz. They never meddled with Crowns and Scepters but left Mankind under those Forms and Rules of Civil Government in which they found them What greater and better Argument can be given against Church-mens introducing Religion or Christianity into the Forms and Rules of Civil Government than what this Gentleman acknowledges viz. that our Saviour and his Apostles meddled not with it They left the several Civil Governments to depend upon their own Laws Policies and Constitutions and there and no where else are we to seek for a Rule and Guide to our Consciences in Matters relating to Allegiance and Protection the Power of the Prince and the Duty of Subjects I am not here professedly taking upon me to maintain either of Mr. Iohnson's Positions which no Man is better able to make good than himself though there is no great need of his undertaking it neither unless some or other should have the Impudence to contradict him But I must beg leave to observe that heretofore under the Reigns of Princes whose Accession to the Throne was occasion'd by the Removal of their Predecessors the Doctrine contain'd in Mr. Iohnson's second Position was never look'd upon as dangerous to Princes but countenanced and openly a vowed In the first Year of King Edward the Third there are these observable Words in a Stature of that King viz. Whereas it was necessary for our Soveraign Lord the King that now is and the Queen his Mother seeing the Destructions Damage Oppressions and Disherisons which were notoriously done in the Realm of England upon Holy Church Prelates Earls Barons and other Great Men and the Comminalty by the said Hugh and Hugh Robert and Edmund Arundel by the incroaching of such Royal Power to them to take as good Counsel therein as they might And seeing they might not remedy the same unless they came into England with an Army of Men of War and by the Grace of God and with such Puissance and with the Help of Great Men and Commons of the Realm they have vanquished and destroyed the said Hugh and Hugh Robert and Edmund Wherefore our Soveraign Lord the King that now is at his Parliament holden at Westminster c. hath provided ordained and established That no Great Man nor other of what Estate Dignity or Condition he be that came with the said King that now is with the Queen his Mother into the Realm of England nor none other then dwelling in England that came with the said King that now is and the Queen in Aid of them to pursue their said Enemies IN WHICH PURSUIT THE KING HIS FATHER WAS TAKEN AND PUT IN WARD AND YET REMAINETH IN WARD shall not be impeached molested nor grieved in Person nor in Goods in the King's Court nor other Court FOR THE PURSUIT OF THE SAID KING TAKING AND WITHHOLDING OF HIS BODY nor Pursuit of any other nor taking of their Persons Goods c. This same Parliament reversed the Attainders of several Persons who had assisted Thomas Duke of Lancaster towards the Removal of the Spencers Father and Son from the Presence and Councils of King Edward the Second and particularly the Attainder of Thomas Duke of Lancaster himself who as Lord High Steward of England had betaken himself to Arms to drive the Spencers out of the Realmor to bring them to Justice and had given the King Battel And they not only reverse his Attainder but in a Letter to the Pope give an Account of his Worth of the Justice of his Cause that he died a Martyr that Almighty God had been pleased to give a Testimony of his Innocence c. by permitting several Miracles to be wrought at his Tomb which they desire the Pope to issue a Commission to enquire whether they were real or not and to canonize him for a Saint The Reversal of his Attainder and this Letter are yet extant upon Record Nor could I ever meet in any of our Histories or Monuments that give any Account of that Revolution that King Edward the Third claimed the Crown either by Conquest though he came from beyond Sea with a Force too and routed and dispersed those evil Counsellors who had got the King into their Interest or by Right of Inheritance though he was indeed the next Heir but could have no Title by Descent as long as his Father was alive or that any other Hypothesis was invented to colour his Accession to the Crown than what was really true in Fact which was no other than his being set up by the States of the Realm who had deposed his Father for his Misgovernment upon formal Articles of Impeachment which are yet to be seen in Adam Orleton's Apology at the end of Henry Knighton's Chronicle Much less would that King have endured such as should charge him to his Face with Usurpation and that he was a King de facto only but not de jure We know how his Successor King Henry the 4th treated a couple of Prelates that opposed his Title which was the same with that of his Grandfather the Victorious King Edward the Third The Bishop of Carlisle was proceeded against in Parliament and sentenced to Death though the King was pleased to remit that But for the Archbishop of York the more virulent and bitter Adversary of the two he made no more ado but chopp'd his Head off Queen Elizabeth's Title to the Crown was by virtue of a Remainder settled upon her by Act of Parliament other she had none nor ever pretended to any for she stood Illegitimated by an Ecclesiastical Sentence confirmed by Act of Parliament And so sure a Title she took this to be and was so little ashamed to own it that it was made Higk-Treason during her Reign to deny that the Succession of the Crown might be altered by Act of Parliament and a Praemunire for ever I mention these things because we hear to our Astonishment that Mr. Iohnson's Book is not well receiv'd at Court where of all other places in our poor Opinions it ought to meet with the kindest Entertainment because it justifies his Majesty's Proceedings which were previous to the Revolution and represents him as the Truth is to be a King who has a Just and a Legal Right to the Crown by the Laws of this Realm By what Logick it can be made ill Doctrine to assert the Lawfulness of removing bad Princes under the Government of good Ones and those such as upon a supposition of the Unlawfulness of removing bad Ones can have no good Title to the Crown themselves is what we cannot easily comprehend But I have ever thought that Courtiers see farther into a Mill-stone than other Men and that their way of Reasoning differs from that of the rest of Mankind since I saw King Charles the Second heal I took notice that when the King put the Gold about their Necks that came to be Touch'd the Bishop repeated over and over these
Persons whatsoever who act by virtue of any Authority derived from the Prince must act at their Peril for that if such Authority Writ Commission or whatever it is be not warranted by Law the Persons who put it in execution are Trespassers and if they meet with Opposition and kill the Opponents are Murderers because they acted without any Authority at all for an illegal Commission is a void Commission and a void Commission is no Commission Whereas according to our Passive-Obedience-Gentlemen a void Commission which our Law says ought not to be obey'd does yet command our Obedience equally with a Commission warranted by Law because it proceeds forsooth from the Authority of the Soveraign They have not been able to deny being thus pressed that Passive Obedience has no Foundation in the ancient Laws of this Realm and have betaken themselves to a few Clauses in an Act or two of Parliament made since the Restauration of King Charles the Second The one is the Corporation-Oath whereby is renounced the Traiterous Position of taking up Arms by the King's Authority against his Person OR AGAINST THOSE THAT ARE COMMISSIONED BY HIM Besides that this Oath is now taken away by an Act of Parliament in the first Year of their present Majesties Reign they would do well to remember what passed in the House of Lords in the Year 1675 when great Endeavours were used to have this Oath imposed as a Test upon the whole Nation what was then alledged against it and that the Bill was thereupon thrown out of the House But the chief thing that I now think fit to mention is that in the very sense of the Parliament which passed it Persons Legally Commissioned were understood and no others for it met with main Opposition in the House of Commons and in particular Sir Edward Vaughan who was afterwards Lord Chief Iustice of the Court of Common-Pleas made a long Speech in which he shewed that by the Law the People of England not only might but in some Cases were bound to take up Arms against Persons Commissioned by the King and that Sheriffs of Counties were bound if it could be done no otherwise to raise the Posse Comitatus to oppose and suppress all such as should put any such illegal Commissions in Execution if they proceeded so far as to compel Obedience to them for then they became Rioters and subject to the several Acts of Parliament made for the suppressing of such Offenders To which Sir Heneage Finch then Sollicitor General and afterwards Earl of Nottingham and Lord Chancellor of England who was a great promoter of the Bill made no other Answer but this viz. That the word Legally needed not be inserted for that it must of necessity be understood to be implied because Persons not Legally Commissioned were not Commissioned at all Upon which the Bill passed And for the truth of this I appeal to the Memories of some who are yet alive and were Members of that Parliament and present in the House at this Debate The same Oath with very little Alteration in Words is in the Act for ordering the Forces in the several Counties of this Kingdom commonly called the Militia-Act The Alteration is this OR AGAINST THOSE THAT ARE COMMISSIONED BY HIM IN PURSUANCE OF SUCH MILITARY COMMISSIONS Those Military Commissions are Commissions of the Lieutenancy which we know to be settled and regulated by a Law and therefore to swear not to oppose them is no more than to swear not to fight against an Act of Parliament The rest are cursory Expressions in the Preambles of an Act or two which we know do not make a Law But I fear the Fountain of the Errors that our Clergy have run into upon this Subject is their framing to themselves an Idol of their own invention instead of a Legal English King This Cheat was discovered early in the 7 th Year of the Reign of K. Iames the First and complain'd of in an Apology of the House of Commons in those Days viz. That instead of enquiring into what Power Authority and Prerogatives the Kings of England enjoy by the Laws of this Nation our Men of speculative Heads had framed to themselves a general Notion of the word King as a Genus had given it a Definition and brought all Kings and other single supreme Magistrates as Individuals under that Definition By which Means the Laws and Constitutions of Nations were silenc'd and whatever Government had a single Person at the Head of it was equally subject to that single Person however their several Laws and Constitutions respectively might limit and restrain his Power This pernicious as well as senseless Hypothesis strikes at the Root of whatever the Church is possessed of in Temporals as well as at the Liberty and Property of Lay-Subjects for the Clergy have no Privileges Jurisdictions Endowments c. but what are conferred upon them and secured to them by Law which Law if they subject to the Personal Power of the Prince their Injoyment of them is precarious and they have nothing but his good Nature to depend upon Not to mention the Ingratitude they show in having received so ample Endowments from the Charity of our Ancestors who thought themselves Proprietors of their Estates out of which they provided so liberally for them and yet indeavouring to inslave their Masters and render their Liberty and Property precarious But St. Paul's Words to Timothy are verified in these Men viz. Desiring to be Teachers of the Law they understand neither what they say nor whereof they affirm We could wish that Mr. Iohnson had inlarged his Book with what he does but hint at and barely mention I mean the Doctrine of the Mirrour the Confessor's Laws the Curtana Sword and the Power of the Lord High Steward and other great Officers of the Kingdom but particularly that he had given us an Account of the Authority of the Lord High Steward concerning which Great Officer we find but some few Scraps here and there in any printed Book but they are such as give us good Cause to believe that he was farther intrusted and impowred to redress Misgovernment in the State than our Clergy are generally aware of and tho there be no such standing Officer at this Day yet there having been such an one it would do well if we were informed both wherein his Office did particularly consist and how it came to be disused The Stile of Mr. Iohnson's Preface offends some amongst us as too light and wanton for the Gravity of the Subject others as making too bold with his Superiours by personal Reflections To the former we who are his Friends give this Answer That it is a very hard Matter for an Author to keep his Gravity when he thinks he has nothing but Nonsense to encounter with To the second That his Sufferings having been so considerable and perhaps his Disappointment so too he may the better be allowed a Freedom of his Pen in treating those whom perhaps he may look upon either personally or in their Principles to have been instrumental in either Where we find so much Truth so much Integrity and such Strength of Reason as appears in every Page of his Discourse we can easily dispense with humane Infirmities if more had really intervened than what we hear are objected against him SIR I am Your humble Servant N. N. FINIS Cap. 6. Vers. 7.