are and not else Now I humbly conceive seeing the Writ De Haeretico comburendo is taken away in time and the Laws protect us in our Religion it is a needless thing to go to Smithfield and there be burnt for an Heretick It is better if it pleased God that we should die as Hereticks if with St. Paul we truly worship God in a way that is so called than to go to Tyburn and be hanged as Traitors and Regicides For though that Law be taken away yet the Law of God stands firm which enjoyns us to submit our selves not onely for fear but for Conscience sake and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Peter in the case of our submission for Conscience sake as well as for fear of wrath is determined by St. Paul with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye must needs be subject P. 77. And so far it is fit to inform the Popish Crew lest they should be mistaken in the good Protestant Religion of our good Church as Coleman calls it I pray let them not be informed that we obey more for fear than for Conscience sake No nor that we are afraid to dye for our Religion of God call us to do it As to your Parenthesis that we have no apprehension of persecution from any other quarter I tell you we have felt a greater persecution in our Age from Geneva than from Rome and if the one have since the Reformation in this Nation killed a thousand the other have slain ten thousand Your next Reflection is on the Pulpit-law as you say the Lord Faulkland called it of Sibthorp and Manwaring and complained it had almost ruined the Nation That noble Lord was indeed a great lover of his Religion and Country and therefore was an enemy to Arbitrary Government But when he perceived that the outcry against Arbitrarie power in the King was made with a designe to grasp it into other mens hands and they began to exercise it not onely on the Gentry Clergie and Nobility of the Land but the Royal Family also he repented and so faithfully adhered to the King in defence of his Authority that he lost his life in the Quarrel It was the pulpit-Pulpit-law in 41. and 42. that destroyed us and brought in Arbitrary Power But how near doth our Author come to put a border of Treason on his impolitick discourse p. 78. where he says The Arbitrary Doctrine of those times to which both he and Mr. Hunt impute the beginning of the Late War did not bring any great terrour with it it was then but a Rake and served onely to scrape up a little paltrie passive money But now it is become a Murdering-piece loaden with I know not how many bullets Who are they I wonder that preach up such an Arbitrarie Power or who are they that make such a Murdering-piece of it Is it not rather a Fiction of some men who would find a pretence for a second War For if as Mr. Hunt says p. 52. That the Panick fear of a change of the Government that this Doctrine to wit of Arbitrary Power before 41. occasioned and the Divisions it made among us was the principal cause of the Late War is it not evident that the same fears are now made Panick or Popular to prepare the hearts of the People for another War What else mean the bleatings of the Sheep and the lowing of Oxen the Vulgar Murmurs and loud Cries of the Multitude as if it were intended we should be ruled by a Standing Armie and That his Majesties Guards are a grievance That the dissolution of a Parliament gave us cause to fear that the King had no more business for Parliaments Hunt p. 22. and p. 60. of our Author That Parliaments should sit till they have done that for which they were called i. e. says our Author in his Marginal Note till all Grievances are redressed and Petitions answered And then for ought I know they might sit for ever and so no more need of a King What means the denying him a Supply when Tangier was like to be lost and not onely with-holding their own but denying him to dispose of his Credit or Revenues for his just occasions What mean our new Associations and Bandying into Parties and advice even to the Clergie not to suspend all the legal securitie they have upon the life of our present King Hunt p. 49. All these strongly argue that they have a suspition of Arbitrary Power and that by our Author's confession was in 41 and therefore may be suspected to be made use of now as an incitement to Rebellion And though our Author p. 78. confesseth That the malignitie of this Doctrine cannot be discovered under his Majesties gracious Reign yet he thinks fit to put him in mind of the Securitie he hath given the Nation by his Coronation-Oath which all Protestant Princes value look upon as Sacred and likewise of many gracious Promises that he will govern according to Law All this caution argueth more than Suspition it looks like an Accasation though I know no defect but the neglect of executing the Laws against Transgressors But if it do not fall out in his Majesties Reign it will appear in its colours and we may feel the sting of it if it please God so sharply to punish us for our sins as to let us fall under a Popish Successour p. 78 79. We have I confess deserved such a punishment for kicking against our Protestant Princes but by the blessing of God we may not have such a One For who shall be King or Queen of this Realm of England hereafter you tell us none but God himself knows p. 21. of the Preface But you tell us of another may be the Successor may be a Papist and then he may persecute but he may not be or if he be so yet I have proved he may not persecute and our Author hath granted p. 75. That it can never happen but by our own Treacherie c. Such a formidable Persecution as you suggest is a thing impracticable and morally impossible it hath never yet been acted by any Prince Papist or Heathen the Marian Tempest did not so destroy Protestants though it had been but newly planted but in Queen Elizabeth's Reign it grew up again and covered the Land in a few days Now to disturb our Peace and Settlement with two such may be 's as are more likely may not be to suppose such things as are morally impossible is unreasonable and to fear where no fear is saith Mr. Hunt p. 250. But such suppositions as our Author makes ought not at all to be supposed for there is greater hurt to be feared from them as Mr. Faukner says p. 545. of his Christian Loyaltie than from the thing supposed since it is much more likely that such designes should be imagined and believed to be true when they are false as they were in the unjust Outcries against our late gracious Soveraign than that they
to molest another for his Religion Our Author might have gone for one of the Godly partie in those daies I do not read that there was one Law extended throughout the whole Roman Empire which was almost Vniversal but that several Kingdoms and Cities were governed by their own Laws So were the Jews and Heathen as well as Christian Subjects in their several Cities and remote Provinces As Julian told the Bishops that were of several Perswasions that they should not disturb the publick peace of the Empire and then they might enjoy their own Liberties and Religion Constantine seemed to be almost of a like perswasion for why else did he not suppress the Arian Heresie which from Alexandria infected the whole Empire He did take care to prevent Schism and Sedition among Christians that the administration of the Government might be more easie But this great man banished Athanasius into France where he remained till Constantine his Son recalled him as Eusebius in his Chronologie But what if there were some Edicts for the establishment of Christian Religion in Constantine's days nothing was confirmed by the Senate that was accounted then a needless thing Nor did the Edicts of one Emperour bind another by the same Authoritie as Constantine might have setled the Orthodox Religion Constantius setled the Arian and after him Julian the Pagan Religion I mean by his own Imperial power and Edicts For the Roman Emperour was an Absolute Monarch their Will was a Law as Gregory Nazianzen quoted by you p. 13. The Will and Pleasure of the Emperour is an unwritten Law backed with Power and much stronger than written ones which were not supported by Authority So that though he did not as you term it fairly enact Sanguinary Laws yet had he the Law of the Sword in his hands And I think it was a great mercie of God to the Christians under him that he did not by publick Edicts put the Sword out of his own hands into the hands of his Heathen Magistrates who would have written them all in bloud Therefore Mr. Baxter saies p. 20. of 4th part of his Direct Julian was a protector of the Church from Popular Rage in comparison of other Persecutors though in other respects he was a Plague Valentinian was a right Christian Emperour and when he was chosen the Souldiers were importunate that he should assume another as an Associate in the Empire he tells them It lay in you to chuse me your Emperour but being chosen what you desire is not in your power but mine it belongs to you as Subjects to be quiet and rest contented and to me as your King to consider what is fit to be done Zozomen l. 6.86 Justinian was another good Emperour and he assumed the sole administration of the Empire to himself and demands in his Novels Quis tantae authoritatis ut nolentem Principem possit ad convocandos Patres caetorosque Proceres coarctare Who can claim so great Authority as to constrain the Prince to assemble the Senate against his will And Justinian Novel 105. excepts the Emperour from the coercive power of the Law to whom says he God hath subjected the Laws themselves sending him as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 living Law unto men And the Gloss noteth That the Emperour is the Father of the Law whereupon the Laws also are subject to him When Vespasian was Emperour it was declared by the Senate That he might make Leagues with whom he pleased And though Tiberius Claudius or Germanicus had made certain Laws yet Vespasian was not obliged by them And Pliny in his Panegyrick to Trajan tells him how happie he was that he was obliged to nothing So that the Christians had no more pretence of having the Laws on their side under Julian than under Dioclesian Maximus or Constantius nor did they ever plead them to justifie a Rebellion against him for want of such an Advocate or Leader as our Author Gregory Nyssene tells us also what the power of the King or Emperour was he defines him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that hath Absolute power in himself no Master nor Equal Cont. Eunomium l. 1. So that our Author 's great Babel is fallen viz. that the Julian Christians had their Religion established by Law and that they were long possessed of it For Laws or no Laws by the Lex Regia the Emperour could reverse the old and establish new as it pleased him and for want of Laws where the word of the Emperour was there was power and none might say to him What dost thou Thus it was with Constantine and Constantius and why not with Julian And now I hope the good Christians of our Age will no longer trust to such broken Reeds as our Author puts into their hands much less that they should take up the Sword which will be no other than a broken Reed also not onely to fail them but to pierce through their sides Now if we should turn the Tables and ask our Author Whether when Jovian and Valentinian were Emperours and had made some new Edicts for the Orthodox Christians as well as against the Arians and Pagans it had been lawful for the Arians or Pagans to rebel in defence of their Religion Or to come nearer home Whether when Queen Mary had established Popery by Law in this Nation it had been lawful for the Papists to have rebelled against Queen Elizabeth they having the Laws on their side yea and questioning her Right of Succession too yet we do not read that they did contrive a General Rebellion though for ought I see our Author would have justified them when he tells us from Zozomen what men may do for the Religion whereof they are well perswaded Or neerer yet when the Long too Long Parliament pretended against the King that their Religion was in danger by Poperie and Superstition their Laws and Liberties invaded by an Arbitrary Power did they well or ill from these pretences to raise that War against the King that turned the Nation to an Aceldama Were the Laws such as could justifie that Rebellion or no If they could not then I am sure they cannot now since the late Act for Treason in the 13th of our King and a Declaration of Parliament That it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever c And by several Statutes it is declared That the King is the Onely Supreme Governour of his Dominions over all Persons and Causes whatsoever And the power of the Sword or Militia is put into his hands as well by the Law of the Nation as of God and I trust he will not bear it in vain Having thus stript this full-fac'd Bird of a few borrowed and painted Feathers how justly is he exposed to be hooted at by every boy or dealt with as in the Apologue of such another bird that seeing the Pidgeons to be well meated and live securely he would get himself to be coloured and arrayed like one of them and feed among
Commands of God for obedience to the Higher Powers From all which Premises I shall onely conclude as to my self That it is much more desirable to perish by the hands of a known Enemie to God and the true Religion than to out-live that Religion and by a successful resistance against the Ordinance of God to live in the enjoyment of Temporal wealth and Honours and to deserve this Epitaph to be engraved on my Tomb. Plorate quotquot estis Pacis vitaeque placidae Pertaesi Conservator optimi Populi pessimus Legum Libertatis Religionis Protector Post Oliverum Primus nulli Secundus Deperditae Respublicae Instaurator Regum timendorum tremendus Judex Regiae Stirpis Extirpator Perfidus Juris Consultorum Doctor Ignoramus Qui Consentientibus dissentit ab omnibus Orthodoxis Antiquis Modernis Qui Dissentientibus consentit omnibus Papistis Anabaptistis Regicidis Scrutator Majestatis oppressus à Gloria Inglorius obiit OF Passive Obedience IT is a very hard Case that when the Scripture injoyns such as are of the Ministry in this Nation to put the people in mind to be subject to Principalities and powers and the Canons of the Church to which we have subscribed oblige us four times in the year at least to manifest open and declare in our Sermons and Lectures That the Kings power within his Majesties Realms c. is the highest power under God to whom all men born within the same do by Gods Laws owe most Loyaltie and Obedience afore and above all Powers and Potentates on Earth that for so doing we should be reproached as Time-servers and such as advance an Arbitrarie power and that such Doctrine is calculated and fitted on purpose for the use of a Popish Successour and to make us an easier prey to the bloudie Papists p. 89. And all this by those men who are equally obliged by Oaths and Subscriptions to do the same as we Of these things the Author accuseth a learned Doctor who had affirmed in a Sermon I suppose and he quotes p. 8. That the Gospel doth not prescribe any remedie but flight against the Persecutions of the lawful Magistrate allowing no other means when we cannot escape between denying and dying for the Faith This is in p. 80. and p. 85. for saying That the Gospel by its own confession is a suffering Doctrine and so far from being prejudicial to Caesars authoritie that it makes him the Minister of God and commands all its Professors to give him and all that are in authoritie under him their dues and rather die than resist them by force Now to remove the prejudice of such as are of our Author's Judgment I shall first propose the Judgment of Mr. Baxter as a preparative to the more candid entertainment of what I shall propound concerning Passive Obedience P. 24 of the 4th part of Christian Directorie Direct 31. Resist not where you cannot obey and let no appearance of probable good that may come to your selves or to the Church by any unlawful means as Treason Sedition or Rebellion ever tempt you to it for evil must not be done that good may come by it But Sect. 61. it is objected If we must let Rulers destroy us at their pleasure the Gospel will be rooted out of the Earth When they know we hold it unlawful to resist them they will be emboldened to destroy us and sport themselves in our bloud as the Papists did by the poor Albigenses Answ All this were something if there were no God that can easilier restrain and destroy them at pleasure than they can injure or destroy you If God be engaged to protect you and hath told you that the hairs of your head are numbered and more regardeth his Honour Gospel and Church than you do and accounteth his Servants as the Apple of his eye and hath promised to hear them and avenge them speedily then it is but Atheistical distrust of God to save your self by sinful means as if God could not or would not do it Thus he that saveth his life shall lose it This Mr. Baxter speaks against Rebellion and unlawful Arms and Acts. To this purpose he quotes Grotius de Imperio p. 210. answering the like Objection viz. Mutato Regis Animo Religio Mutabitur That if the King change his mind the Religion will be changed also Answ In this case the onely remedie is in the providence of God who hath the hearts of all men in his hand but especially the Kings God worketh his ends both by good and evil Kings sometime a calm sometime a storm is most profitable to the Church If the King be of a perverse and corrupt Judgment it will be worse for him than for the Church But all this you will say is against unlawful acts and means which they that have the Laws on their side cannot be said to use To this Mr. Baxter answers p. 26. What power the Laws have they have it by the Kings Consent and Act. And it is strange impudencie to pretend that his own Laws are against him If any misinterpret them he may be confuted I suppose Mr. Baxter means by some other method than that of arguing as St. Augustine advised in the like case The Law and Ordinance of Government and especially of Monarchie is founded on the Law of God and Nature and no positive Laws or condescentions of Governours can make void the Law of God For though a righteous Prince will not violate those Laws which he hath consented to yet if he should it will not justifie those Subjects that shall violate the Law of God and Nature in resisting and rising up against him in Rebellion which would as it were argue great ingratitude to them who by Acts of Grace have obliged themselves for as St. Augustine observes our Prince like God himself becomes a Debtor to man Non aliquid à nobis accipiendo sed omnia nobis largiendo Not by receiving any thing from us but by promising all good things to us So it is a certain way to bring us all to Confusion if the King should be judged as a Criminal upon every transgression of the Law And I would ask those who would bind their Kings in such Fetters By what authoritie they would proceed against him and judge him would they erect another High Court of Justice or bring him from his Throne to the Block Would they arm the people again on pretence of fighting for their Laws and Liberties The end of those things we have seen to be the death of a most righteous Prince and the general destruction of the Subjects Wherefore I commend to you that of your Bracton Omnem esse sub Rege ipsum sub nullo fed tantum sub Deo And if he contradict himself in this the suffrage of Nature and the Laws of all well-governed Nations will condemn him which agree in this That Principi non est Lex posita there is no Law above the Prince that makes the Law and by
whose Authoritie alone the Laws are executed for it is he that beareth the Sword And Plutarch says of him that he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not onely govern according to the Laws but hath a power above them He hath so indeed for the good of his Subjects to whom the rigorous execution of the Laws in many cases would be an insupportable burden if by the Kings Authoritie they might not be moderated and interpreted by Rules of Equitie against which our Dissenters have the least reason of any men alive to object And if we grant him this power for our good how can we deny it to him for his own That Learned Casuist Bishop Sanderson whose modesty in other Resolutions is eminent in resolving this Question Whether it be lawful for the Prince in cases extraordinary to do any thing besides or against Law undertakes to prove the Affirmative with an extraordinary confidence and which is more to prove it by that abused Maxime which some would invert against the King Salus Populi Suprema Lex That the Peoples Safetie is the highest Law And if I prove not this as your selves shall confess from that very Maxime saith he then say that I cannot see at noon-day and censure me to have been not a Defender of this good Cause but a Betrayer and Praevaricator Which thus he doth First he tells us the Original of that Sentence viz. from Cicero de Legibus in these words l. 3. Regio Imperio duo sunto iique praeeundo judicando consulendo Praetores Judices Consules appellantur Militiae Summum Jus habento nemini parento Ollis Salus Populi Suprema Lex esto Now to whom doth this power belong to them says the very Letter of those Laws to whom the Imperial power was committed that is to the two Consuls for the time being Come now says the Bishop all you that are the Patrons of Popular confidence read weigh and examine every Word Syllable and Comma and shew where you can find the least hint of any power granted to Subjects against their Princes will either to judge concerning the safety of the people or to determine and do any thing against the Laws Doth not the whole series both of Things and Words loudly proclaim that the Supream Authoritie which is above all Law and that the care of the Publick safetie properly belongs to him alone to whom the Imperial power the right of the Militia and that Supream Authoritie which is subject to none is granted When the Law commands one thing says Aeneas Sylvius de Ortu Imperii c. 20. and Equity another it is fit the Emperour should temper the rigour of the Law with the bridle of Equity Seeing no Decree of the Law though made by never so deliberate advice can sufficiently answer the various and unthought-of plottings of mans nature and it is manifest that the Laws which aforetime were just in after-times may prove unjust harsh and unprofitable to moderate which it is needful that the Prince who is Lord of the Laws interpose his Authority And where it is said that a Law though it be severe should be observed this respects inseriour Magistrates not the Emperour to whom the power of moderating the Laws is so connexed that by no decrees of man it can be pull'd from him Bishop Sanderson gives a pertinent instance to this purpose in his Book de Oblig Consc p. 384. That when upon discovery of the Gunpowder-plot the Traitors fled some of them were pursued by the High Sheriff of Worcester-shire who having hunted them from place to place came to the Confines of his Countie beyond which he was not to pass with his Souldiers by the Law yet fearing that they might otherwise escape he pursues them into another County takes them and brings them Prisoners Yet knowing he had transgressed the Law and lest others in matters of less moment should be encouraged to do the like or himself be exposed to future trouble he presently goes to the King and obtains his Pardon What excellent Chymists were they who out of those golden Laws should draw out so many Swords and Axes against their Soveraign and Fellow-subjects on such a vile pretence And is not our young Empyrick neer of kin to them who by his Mountebank-Receipts would poyson the People with a conceit that they may by the Laws arm themselves against the King if they shall judge that he doth transgress those Laws that then he is no longer a Minister of God but of the Devil and may be persecuted as a Midnight-Thief or Highway-Robber or in the words of Gregory as a common Cut-throat pag. 25. And that he is hardly to be blamed who shews himself so courageous for God and for that Religion which he approves as to assassinate his Prince To conclude it is the judgement both of Divines Civilians and States-men that there must be in Kings and Governours a Supream Power to mitigate the rigour of the Laws and to suspend the execution of them to pardon some Delinquents and in case of necessity to provide for the safety of the People besides and against the Laws and that to arm the People and teach them on pretence of the Law to resist their Prince is a pernicious Tenet destructive to Government It is Criminal saith Mr. Hunt p. 41. and no less dangerous to the being of any Polity to restrain the Legislative Authority and to entertain principles that disable it to provide remedy against the greatest mischiefs that can happen to any Community No Government can support it self without an unlimited Power in providing for the happiness of the people No civil Establishment but is controlable and alterable to the Publick Weal Whatever is not of Divine Institution ought to yield and submit to this Power and Authority And this is all that I or any of my Brethren that I know of ever intended to say of the extent of the Kings Power That such distempers as are incurable by common and prescribed Remedies such as the Kings Evil usually is must have extraordinary applications such as the Kings hand and none but his may successfully administer Nor doth any among us plead that the King is above the Directive power of the Laws but onely that he is not under the Coercive power of them For which cause Antonie would not permit that Herod should be called to an account of what he did as a King for then he should in effect be no King at all for what power can judge him who is the Supreme power on Earth The Emperour saith Tertull. is solo Deo minor inferiour to God onely and under the power of God onely In cujus solius potestate sunt à quo sunt secundi post quem primi And St. Ambrose spreaking of David applieth it to other Kings He was a King and obnoxious to no humane Laws because Kings are free from punishment for their offences being secured by the power of their Empire If the People have power to
is that they are the Commonalty of Christians I mean Christians of ordinary Rank and Quality that shall be most active and have the principal hand in executing the Judgments of God upon the Whore Consider that place Rev. 18.4 5 6. Now that this service shall be performed unto God by them Christians I mean of under Rank and Quality contrary to the will desires or commands of those Kings and Princes under whom they live it appears by that which immediately followeth v. 9. And whereas the Text saith expresly that the ten Kings shall hate the whore and shall make her desolate and naked and eat her flesh and burn her with fire for God hath put it in their hearts to fulfil his will and to agree and give their Kingdom unto the Beast until the Words of God shall be fulfilled To prevent this Objection because God in his good time will arm the Kings to fight joyntly the Lords battel against the Beast he thus interprets that place I conceive saith he this is not meant of the persons of Kings but of their States and Kingdoms i. e. of the generality of the people under them p. 32. As if the meaning of The Kings shall hate the Beast were The People shall hate their Kings and rebel against them in order to the destruction of Antichrist Nothing is more evident than that this Doctrine which he would promote for the pulling down of Antichrist was that by which Antichrist was advanced to that sublimity of Power which he now hath and by which he is still supported in it unless they will deny the Pope to be Antichrist for this Resistance of lawful Authority is still practised and defended by that Church And how can they blame that Church who teach and practise the same things If ever the Pope be pulled down by the Doctrine and Practice of Resistance of lawful Princes it will be to set up Another in his room Now that the Doctrine which was taught by this wretched man and John Milton the onely two persons that publickly defended the Parricide committed on that incomparable King when he was cast out of his Throne and an Vsurper placed in it is the same which is now revived by these two Authors whom I have under consideration I submit to your Graces judgment and the Consciences of all impartial Readers And to what a prodigious height of Impiety are they come who in such times of Peace under a most gracious and religious Prince and after such experiences of the miserable effects of them shall openly plead for the same Antiscriptural and Antichristian Doctrines and Practices by which these men endeavour at one leap as the Devil did the herd of Swine to plunge the Multitude over head and ears in Rebellion and Confusion And yet to court the People Mr. Hunt tells them in the close of his Preface That Loyalty Religion and the Prosperity and Peace of his Country have entirely conducted his thoughts and guided his hand in this Work whereas if he were not the same person yet he useth the same Arguments as an anonymous Author did in a Tract concerning Mixt and Limited Monarchy That he hath affirmed nothing but what is publickly known for truth That Justice it self will acquit him from having done any thing amiss That he hath encircled himself in his own considerations as in a brazen wall when it is but a brazen face And as for the fears of Rage and Injustice they shall never affect him but I fear the hand-writing of the Laws and the sentence of Justice may one day shake his confidence I joyn Issues with him in his Appeal concerning his Writings and the Reply now made to them and though he have provoked me to say something that may balance the Reputation of Religion and Loyalty c. which he assumes to himself I shall onely say That I am one who have served in the Ministry of the Established Religion for forty years together I have kept my Station and defended my Post against all Assaults I have seen those deplorable times wherein it was counted a daring thing to assert the use of the Lords Prayer in the Publick Assemblies against the Blasphemies of J. O. I have withstood the attempts of Mr. Baxter Humfries Lob and others for the disturbance of our publick Peace And though by age and other infirmities I might claim the priviledge of a Miles Emeritus yet have I engaged once more against these two Incendiaries and having the same cause of Religion and Loyalty to defend I cannot doubt of success against such Aggressors of whom your Grace will find a far different Character from that which they give of themselves for These two Authors like Simeon and Levi are so confederate that they strive who shall exceed the other in doing mischief The one undermines the foundation of the Church in her Ministry The other that of the State in the Royal Authority Again The one plays with the Crown as if it were a Tennis-ball The other derides the Doctrine of the Cross comparing it with that of the Great Turks Bow-string The one encourageth Resistance and very modestly insinuates a Reward due to such as shall kill those be they Princes or others who oppose the Religion which they approve of The other more confidently asserts the excluding not of a single Monarch but even Monarchy it self though it be in the glorious Family of the STVARTS as he Ironically calls them Yet so great is the Revolt of our People both from God and the King that these two like Jeroboam's Calves which he set up as well to alter the established Worship as to translate the Kingdom from the Family of David are worshipped by the Rabble from Dan to Beersheba And now I beseech your Grace not to be offended with this Confident Address of an obscure Person who after various tossings having through the great mercy of God escaped Shipwreck in that great Hurricane wherein many thousands more worthy persons perished is still imbarked in that ancient Vessel wherein he hopes to end his days in peace nothing doubting but that God who stilled the raging of that Sea and the madness of that People will also lead us without any harm through those Fires which so many busie-bodies are now kindling against us and that he will preserve us even in the flames at which though we be affrighted as Moses was at the burning Bush yet we shall not be consumed by them Especially while we have such a CAESAR who all his life-time hath been a Favourite of Heaven being born preserved restored guided and supported by a Chain of Miracles And such a principal Member of that Church of Christ embarked with us against which the gates of Hell shall never prevail and having also such a pious and experienced Pilot as your Grace who hath both his Eyes and his Heart to Heaven for his own direction and both his hands to the Helm for the conduct of the People committed to
care of those who are put on an inevitable necessity of defending themselves c. How far a man that is assaulted and put on an inevitable necessity of defending himself against the injuries of private men is one thing and what he may do against his Prince of whom you seem to discourse is another In this case we may apply that in Rev. 13.10 He that killeth with the sword shall be killed with the sword This is the patience and faith of the Saints P. 11. This Doctrine of Passive Obedience you say quite alters the Oath of Allegiance which requires you to be obedient to all the Kings Majesties Laws Precepts and Process proceeding from the same I do not find those words in that Oath as set forth by King James but I find what you overlook viz. I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to his Majestie his Heirs and Successors and him and them will defend to the utmost of my power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever And thus I find more particularly in a Declaration which I believe our Author hath subscribed thus amplified I do declare that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King And that I do abhor that traiterous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are commissionated by him P. 11. After a large Preface little to your purpose telling us That the Church of England reserves her Faith entire for the Canonical books of Scripture which I hope you also do and that she divides her Reverence between the Fathers and the first Reformers of this Church who partly were Martyrs that died for the Protestant Religion and partly Confessors that afterward setled it And now to the business How much the Fathers would have been for a Bill of Exclusion you say we have seen already No not one word of it from the beginning nor I believe any mention of it from one Argument tending to it to the end of the Book from any of the Fathers as will shortly appear But what say our Martyrs Confessors and Reformers First he tells us what some men would have perswaded King Edward to do if they could have had their wills confirmed by Act of Parliament They shewed what they would have done if they could saith our Author They never spake such bad English as our Author doth in his Taunton-Dean Proverb Chud eat more Cheese an chad it which being interpreted is We would rebel if we had power The Duke of Northumberland indeed did cause the Lady Jane Gray's Title to be proclaimed but here the Bishops must be the men that were chiefly engaged in that designe of Exclusion whereas I read not that any of them were ever consulted with nor ever declared any thing to that purpose but in their joynt and most solemn Writings enjoyn the clean contrary as shall now appear P. 12. The Bishops in Queen Elizabeth 's time to whom under God and that Queen we owe the settlement of our Church concurred to the making of that Statute which makes it High-Treason in her Reign and forfeiture of Goods and Chattels ever after in any wise to hold or affirm That an Act of Parliament is not of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the descent limitation inheritance and government thereof 13 Eliz. chap. 1. But our Author never considered the grounds and reasons of that Act Ex malis moribus bonae Leges it was the iniquity of those times and the traiterous practices of the Queen of Scots which gave occasion to that Statute for there were many Pamphlets written by Saunders and the Author of Doleman which deni'd the Title of Queen Elizabeth and proclaim'd her an Usurper and the Queen of Scots made actual claim to the Crown of England she assumed the Arms of England and other Regalia and by her Confederates endeavoured to raise a Rebellion and conspired against the life of the Queen for which causes she was condemned as may appear by her Sentence which was passed upon her viz. That divers things were compassed and imagined within this Kingdom of England with the privity of the said Queen who pretended a Title to the Crown of this Kingdom and which tended to the hurt death and destruction of the Royal Person of our Soveraign Queen Cambdens Eliz. p. 464. Leiden 1625. Such practices gave occasion to that Statute to prevent the Mischiefs that might befal Queen Elizabeth and the Nation And that Statute consists of many heads As first Whoever should compass imagine devise or intend the death or destruction or any bodily harm tending to death destruction or wounding of the Royal person of the Queen or deprive or depose her of or from the Stile Honour or Kingly name of the Imperial Crown of this Realm c. or leavy War against her Majesty within this Kingdom or without or move any Strangers to invade this Kingdom or Ireland c. or shall maliciously publish and declare by any printing writing word or sayings that our Soveraign Lady during her life is not or ought not to be Queen of this Realm c. or that any other person or persons ought of right to be King or Queen of the same or that our said Queen is a Heretick or Schismatick Tyrant Infidel or an Vsurper of the said Crown c. these shall he guilty of High-Treason Also if any after thirty days from the Session of this Parliament and in the life of our said Queen shall claim pretend declare or publish themselves or any other besides our said Queen to have Right or Title to have and enjoy the Crown of England or shall usurp the same or the Royal Stile Title or Dignity of the Crown or shall affirm that our said Queen hath not right to hold and enjoy the same such shall be utterly disabled during their natural lives onely to have or enjoy the Crown or Realm of England in Succession Inheritance or otherwise Then follows the Case of Succession That if any person shall hold or affirm that the Common Laws of this Realm not altered by Parliament ought not to direct the Right of this Crown or that our said Queen by the Authority of Parliament is not able to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient force c. as above Yet was not the Queen of Scots condemned upon the Statute of the 13 of Eliz. but on that made in the 27 of her Reign wherein it was provided That twenty four persons at least part being of the Privy Council and the rest Peers of the Realm should by the Queens Commission examine such as should make any open Rebellion or Invasion of this Realm or attempt to hurt the Queens person by or for any pretended Title to the Crown In which Commission I find no Bishop save the Archbishop who at first refused to act nor when the whole Parliament petitioned for the Execution do we find that the
dogmatically to the people committed to his charge we shall find him teaching and exhorting a different Doctrine and Practice from what is here delivered by him of which I shall speak at large hereafter and onely note by the way That the Oration was made long after Julian's death which savoured not very much of humanity and if it were upon occasion of some disappointment as is reported it had as little of Christianity And this will appear a truth that he did exceed as well in the praise of Constantius the first Arian Emperiour as in the dispraise of Julian and the misrepresentation of the Christians in his time All which circumstances considered and no other proof produced our Authour deserves to do publick Penance for abusing the Fathers and Primitive Christians and as he saies the whole Christian world And yet what can Gregory blame in Constantius but that which he calls his Ignorance or Mistake not being aware of his Apostacie And it was too unchristian to blame the Emperour not onely for making him a King but keeping him alive This you say p. 24. is enough to shew that Constantius would never have made Julian Caesar if he had known him to have been such And in my judgment here is as much said to prove that Constantius ought to have slain him when his Brother Gallus was slain Although this was a thing which he repented of in his Death-bed and would undoubtedly be more unworthy of a Christian Emperour to exclude him out of the life than to leave him to a Succession that descended by inheritance to him And if it be such a Bill of Exclusion that you contend for I am sure none of the Fathers nor any good Christian would ever consent to it P. 24. Is an Exclamation against the Emperour having first said that Constantius did far excel all other Kings in Wisdom and Vnderstanding p. 25. and that he was led by the Hand of God into every Counsel and Enterprize what in turning Arian and persecuting Athanasius and other Orthodox Bishops and putting Arians in their seats your wisdom was admired above your power and again your power more than your wisdom but your Piety was valued above them both Then he comes to blame the Emperour as the onely ignorant and inconsiderate person and which of the Devils stole in along with you at that Consult And yet again p. 26. he saies of this first Arian Emperour That he would have parted not onely with his Empire and all that he had in this world even his Life it self for the securitie and safetie of the Christian Religion c. And our Author saies that at his death he shewed with much earnestness the concernment he had for the true Religion p. 28 29. But for ought I yet see Julian's Apostacie was not yet known but he was generally accounted both a pious and a stout man and therefore his repenting of making Julian Caesar was not on the account of Religion but for some other respect Julian having been declared Augustus by his Souldiers who often disposed of the Empire and being then on his march to dispute the Title with Constantius for hitherto Julian kept to the Christian Assemblies and was not known to be a Pagan as you shew from Ammianus Marcellinus p. 28. After that Julian was declared Emperour he still feigned himself a Christian and though in private he performed his Heathenish Rites trusting some few with the secret yet he publickly went to Church on Twelfth-day and after he had been devout at the Service he came away again This was done at Vienna not quite Ten Moneths before the Emperour's death This is all that our Author produceth for the sense of the Fathers and primitive Christians for the Exclusion of Julian his Title was divine his Religion at most onely suspected not know Yet saies our Author p. 30. If this Doctrine concerning the alteration of Succession shall displease any which is contrary to what these Fathers which will not amount to one single person assert with so much vehemencie He thinks it reasonable that first they confute this Doctrine of Exclusion which they dislike And secondly That they would never fetch their Mountebank-Receipts of Prayers and Tears and suchlike encouragements to Arbitrarie Government out of the Writings of these very Fathers This our Author knew could easily be done and therefore he thought to prejudice his Readers against it by calling them Mountebank-Receipts and Antimonarchical Authors and encouragements to Arbitrarie Government Than which I scarce know any thing more profane but the down-right Blasphemie of the Doctrine of Christ and the practice of the best Christians who counted not their lives dear unto them that the Doctrine of the Gospel might not be evil spoken of as if Christianity were an utter Enemie to Caesar or as another Mahomet to establish his Kingdom by the Sword What an easie matter doth our Author think it to impose any falsehood on the Vulgar when he tells them of Fathers and primitive Christians with so much vehemencie asserting the lawfulness of excluding Julian and instead of all other proofs produceth onely a Rhetorical Expression of a person in some passion from which it might be proved as lawful to Murder Julian as to Exclude him from the Succession Hercules tuam fidem But to answer our Author's demand I shall endeavour to confute his Doctrine viz. That the Fathers and Primitive Christians of the whole World were for the Exclusion of Julian from the Empire Iraeneus Tertullian and St. Augustin you have seen to be of a contrarie Judgment 1. The true Christians could not be for it upon your Position That he had a right to it by the Law of Nature and the Hand of God gave it him which you seem to assert 2. It is certain the Arian Fathers were not as hath been alreadie shewn they congratulated Julian's advent to the Kingdom Much less could the Orthodox be for it upon Gregories surmise that Constantius would have excluded him out of the Life as well as the Empire 3. From their behaviour towards Constantius a vehement Arian the Orthodox Fathers shew they were not for Exclusion Constans his Brother was joyned with him in the Empire and he defended Athanasius and the Orthodox Bishops against Constantius yet these Christians never sided with Constans against Constantius they never resisted or sought to depose or exclude him although his Heresie was extreamly dangerous and propagated by Force and Persecution of more eminent Divines than any that suffered under Julian And as our Author says that Poperie is ten times worse than Paganism so I have heard as wise and good men as himself say that Socinianism is as bad as Poperie and the Arians who denied the Deity of the Son and the Holy Ghost were much like our Socinians Mr. Baxter hath so much Charitie as to think that some that died in the Communion of the Church of Rome are Saints in Heaven though he will scarce grant it to
greater Soloecism of an Emperour of the world awed and terrified with the fear of a kicking But it will not do No the Proverb hinders it None so blind as he that will not see It might have been done easily enough if you had not committed a Soloecism your self in translating the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he Brought but had kept the righter sence of that word which Billius the learned Interpreter of Gregory Nazianzen translates immiserat he sent or which your Elias Cretensis useth concitabat he stirred up or compelled to go against that Church which if the Emperour had been in person he need not to have done And therefore I suppose Gregory Nazianzen meant it of the Captain of the Archers that demanded the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not pro imperio by virtue of a Mandamus or Commission from the Emperour for sure the Emperour himself needed no such Commission Nor is it probable that the Emperour himself would in his March against Persia trot up and down from one Church to another for you say he had assaulted many others to make a seizure of them Nor is it a Soloecism to say the Emperour seized those Churches which another did seize by his command Our Author I suppose was led into this errour by taking the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth induco to lead or introduce whereas the Interpreters that render it immitto or concito being better Grecians than himself understand it to be from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which every Lexicon will give him such a sence as that without a wresting of it it must refer to the Captain of the Archers But we are come to the end of this Tragi-comedy The Emperour kept himself in a whole skin the Bishops Anger vented it self some other way and all was husht and calmed But certainly our Author who hath first begun this Quarrel between the Emperour and the Bishop is much to be blamed whether he did it ignorantly which is the best construction that his Friends can make or else maliciously which appears by forsaking the Translations of Billius and Cretensis and preferring another that might favour his designe And I challenge him to be as big as his word and make satisfaction for this base Coinage And that you may not be guilty of such a wilful mistake for the future I shall give you this Token to be worn as a Frontlet on your brow That from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Instigator P. 44. Here you have a description of one of the Lachrymists of old c. How far this Bishop was a Lachrymist we shall see hereafter It were fitter for the Wit of a Julian than the Piety of a Christian to deride the Prayers and Tears of those ancient Christians Whatever Garlands and Trophies Nazianzen or Basil erected for that old Bishop are now pulled down by the hands of a young P who represents him as a Hector and a Striker expresly contrary to our Saviour's Example and St. Paul's Injunction You adde p. 44. And now I know no more than the Pope of Rome what to make of all this what they meant by it or on what Principles they proceeded I question not the Principles of those in whom you have instanced it sufficeth me that you say it was done in a fit of boiling anger But when speaking of the Principles of such as offer violence to their lawful Emperours you say you know nò more than the Pope of Rome I say it is pity that you should know or divulge half so much For what you have suggested concerning these pretended Violences offered by Primitive Christians to their lawful Emperours hath a very malign influence on the present Age and for this and other such Reasons as I said I would rather lose my right hand than be the Author of them But if you know their Principles as well as the Pope of Rome you know he holds it lawful to depose or kill any Prince whom he shall judge and Excommunicate as a Heretick or Tyrant and he can teach you to distinguish between resisting Julian and resisting the Devil that was in him That the King is Vniversis minor and that the people who gave him his power may resume it c. You say p. 45. none of those Bishops had ever been in Scotland nor had learnt to fawn upon an Apostate and a mortal Enemie to Religion Parcius ista For though some may think you are reflecting only on a Popish Successor yet others considering you speak of Julian who was now a lawful Emperour may stretch this line too far Scotland indeed hath been glutted with the bloud of their Kings whereof about Thirtie have sussered violent Deaths I acquit those Bishops from confederacie with Scotland they never contributed to the destruction of any I wish I could do so by the Presbyterians Yet I perceive you know how to yoak the Popes Bull and the Scotish Heifer together and with them to make large Furrows on the backs of Kings There was I remember for above Forty years since a great Correspondence between Rome and Scotland who then communicated their Principles to each other and though none of the old Bishops were acquainted with them yet some late Presbyters have espoused them and can on all occasions for the disturbance of our English Nation talk as Whiggishly as ever Knox or Buchanan did But they are so disingenuous as to conceal the names of their good Teachers from whom they learned to distinguish not onely between Julian and the Devil in him but between Charles Stuart and the King that they might destroy him in a double capacity first as a King and then as a Man And if as you say the Laws of our Land do not allow any one to imagine violence to their lawful Emperour And if as Bracton says fama apud graves bonos viros is a proof of Treason I fear an Indictment may lie against the Author of Julian's Life for that Not having the fear of God before his Eyes but being moved c. It is therefore a most profane and Reproachful inference with which you conclude Chap. 6. That in that Age the best Prayers and Tears were those that contributed most to Julian 's destruction An Answer to our Author's CHAP. V. Of their Devotions And first of their Psalms THis was indeed the Devotion of our late Times to begin with a Psalm not regarding the Scriptures or as much as the Commandments Creed or Lords Prayer and then to preach in their Prayers and pray in their Preaching or if you will in our Authors Language to say their Prayers backward In their Devotions you say p. 45. It might be expected we should see the flights of their self-denying and suffering Religion and one may expect they should lay aside their annimositie against Julian though he were their Ememie and for that reason pray the harder
Christian Shall the Priviledges which Christian Princes grant us be used as Weapons to fight and rebel against them Was it lawful for the Catholicks to rebel against Constantius when he was a declared Heretick and by great violence promoted that damnable Heresie as Bishop Vsher calls it suppressing and banishing the Orthodox and setting up the Arian Is it not said that if we suffer wrongfully i. e. against Law and Equity and take it patiently this is thank-worthy with God Can you without Sacriledge take away the Crowns from all the Martyrs that died ever since Julians time and tell us they died like Fools or mad men and were felo's de se for not selling their Lives at a dearer rate and like Sampson pull down the Pillars of the Empire with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If I must perish let the whole world perish with me Or can you think that they perished in the next world for perishing in this when Christ tells them he that loseth his life shall save it If it be unjust in the Prince to deprive us of our Rights against the Law of the Land is it not much more so for us to deprive him of his against the Law of God as well as that of the Land too And have we not generally I mean the Clergie at least Subscribed That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever not of Religion nor of the Laws to take up Arms c. Non debet minor potestas irasci si major praelata sit The Laws of the Land must give place to the Law of God The contrary to all these are the monstrous Consequences of your new distinction that allows of Rebellion when we suppose the Laws of the Land to be on our side I say suppose them for Wars have been raised and maintained on such a false Supposition And if when the Prince declares that he doth and will govern by the known Laws we shall Remonstrate that he doth not and suggest our groundless and unreasonable Fears and Jealousies that he will not who shall be Judge in this Case Shall the people take the Sword in their hands to cut this Gordian-knot and cut us all in pieces We have God be thanked many good Laws for our security and a gracious Prince that hitherto hath and will govern by them but we have one great Law of God and another of the Land that though he should not yet we may not rebel That excessive commendation which our Author gives of Constantius makes me think he hath exceeded also in the dispraise of Julian p. 70. Never any man in this world set his heart so much upon any other thing as he did to see the Christians flourish and to have all the advantages of glorie and power And neither conquered Nations nor a well-govern'd Empire nor great Treasures nor excessive Glorie nor being King of Kings nor all other things which make up other mens notions of Happiness did delight him so much as to have the honour of bringing honour to the Christians and of leaving them established for ever in the possession of Power and Authoritie And yet as it was said of Naaman that mightie man of Valour But he was a Leper so it is recorded of Constantius he was an Arian and persecuted the Church of God I think I have said enough already to confute the insignificant Instances produced by our Author when I gave you the more sober sence of St. Gregorie himself of St. Basil Ambrose and Bernard all which lived when they had the Laws on their side and the best Religion in the world to defend and yet they durst not do it by the Sword if they could have done it for I shall not now question their power Tertullian did assert that of old and the Learned Hammond hath put the truth of it out of question in his Answer to Mr. Stephen Marshal But says our Author p. 70. For Julian who by his Baptism first and entring into Orders after and going to Church after that sufficiently engaged himself to maintain Christianitie to endeavour on the other hand to dispossess them of their Freehold is an insupportable injurie It was so indeed and I would have our Author consider whether for a man that hath been received into the Bosom of the Church and hath eaten of her Bread and approved of her Doctrine to become an Apostate from that holy Profession and expose that Church and Christianity it self to scorn and contempt be not to out-do Julian I shall desire the Reader patiently to look on while I remove those few Blockadoes which our Author hath laid in my way and then I shall attack that inchanted Castle wherein those two Giants think themselves so secure as to laugh at all opposition that can be made against them That of Juventinus and Maximus mentioned a third time in p. 72. is already level'd if there were a Sham-plot against them our Author seems to be one of their accusers for talking too boldly against the Emperour which they utterly denied A second Sham-plot was of Sacriledge p. 72. but I see no man concerned in that neither shall I fight with Shadows as our Author doth P. 73. Old Bracton is conjured up and he presently flies in the face of the Conjurers and tells them that when Laws are made by the consent of the people and the Royal Authority they cannot be altered or destroyed without the joynt consent of all those by whom they were concerned And yet the Laws of Queen Elizabeth for keeping her Subjects in due obedience are exploded as some of the Grievances of the Nation With what face can they plead the Laws of the Land for their security who daily violate and contemn them and teach others to do so And in p. 74. our Author is surprised with the Thebaean Legion which appeared to him as a Legion of Noon-day Devils and he wonders who should raise them up he cries out as that Legion Matth. 8.22 Art thou come to torment us What have we to do with thee O Thebaean Legion what have we to do with their Example No I 'll warrant my Author he shall never die for his Religion as they did he hath parted with that already for fear of what might come And this Thebaean Legion is such a terrible immortal Army as will defeat all Rebels to the worlds end Are we says our Author to go to Mass to morrow or else to have our Throats cut No nor are we to cut our Princes Throat to day for fear lest he should compel us to go to Mass to morrow Such fears were as groundless in the daies of Charles the First as of Charles the Second yet we see what was then done Again Are we under a Sentence of Death according to the Laws of our Country if we do not presently renounce our Religion No but if we presently renounce our Religion as our Author hath done and then contrive a Rebellion we are under a Sentence of a
counted the Grievance of a great Partie P. 82. Old Bracton appears again and is made to eat his own words for whereas he had said of the King That every one is under him and he under none but God and that he can have no equal in his Kingdom for so he should lose his command because one equal hath no power over another now he is made to contradict himself That Rex est sub lege quia lex facit Regem c. which is utterly false not onely because the Kings Predecessors came in by Conquest but also because it is the Royal Assent that passeth all Bills into Laws Mr. Baxter answers this p. 14. part 4. of Christian Directory That Lex being taken for the signification of the Soveraigns will to oblige the Subject the Law doth not make the King but the King the Law For which he quoteth Grotius lib. 8. p. 195. Neminem sibi imperare posse à quo mutatâ voluntate nequeat recedere And Grotius quotes S. Augustine Imperatorem non esse subjectum Legibus suis And doubtless this is true in every Free Monarchie as England is by Historians and Lawyers granted to be Now consider that Bracton wrote in the Reign of Henry the Third when his Earls and Barons often confederated and rose actual War against him and made him to capitulate with them having got the strength of the Nation in their hands in favour of whom he seems to write and calls them the Kings higher Court not as some higher than the King but than other of the Kings Courts Yet was this no Parliament for the Commons are not mentioned by Bracton Now let any judge when Bracton was in the right and when in the wrong opinion by what followeth in the same Chapter for as our Author blames the Doctor for not reading on so do I much more blame him because he came nearer to it And thus Bracton says Si autem ab eo peccatur locus erit supplicationi quod factum suum corrigat emendat quod si non fecerit satis sufficit ei ad poenam quod Dominum expectet Vltorem Nemo quidem de factis suis praesumat disputare multo fortius contra factum suum venire i. e. If the King do offend there is libertie of petitioning that he would amend what is amiss which if he will not do there is no punishment for the King but to expect God to be his Avenger but let no man presume to dispute of his doings much less to make opposition against what he doth And this is agreeable to that Scripture Eccles 8.4 Who may say to him What dost thou If therefore we should grant it to be true what Bracton says according to practice rather than Law in those lawless times yet Now as Plowden as great a Lawyer as Bracton says the Case is altered And the Oath of Supremacie against the Pope which Bracton would by no means admit and the Oath of Allegiance and Act of Parliament for not taking up Arms on any pretence whatsoever would have quite overthrown Bracton's Opinion if he had not done it himself Our Author seems to apply the Premises onely against a Popish Successor and freely grants that when he is lawfully possest of the Crown he is inviolable and unaccountable as to his own person and ought by no means to have any violence offered to him p. 84. To what purpose then hath he given Instances of reproach proachful and provoking Language Prayers and Devotions that helpt on his death all for his Destruction none for his Conversion threatning to kick him and from Zozomen encouraging the Assassination of him when Julian was in quiet possession of the Empire P. 94. You quote a Saying of Asterius How great a resort is there from the Church to the Altars c. This is answered by Bishop Bilson p. 502. of Christian Subjection You find saith he that multitudes ran from Christ to Paganism after Julian to Arianism after Valens but do you find that the Godly did rebel against them What presumption is this in you to controul the Wisdom and Goodness of God sifting his Church by the rage and fury of wicked Princes and crowning those that be his as patient in Trial and constant in Truth Were you throughly perswaded that the hearts of Kings are in the hands of God and that the hairs of our heads are numbered so that no persecution can apprehend his which he disposeth not for the experience of their faith or recompence of their sins you would as well honour the Justice of God in erecting Tyrants that our unrighteousness may be punished in this world as embrace his Mercie in giving rest to his Church by the favour of good Princes Experto Crede This good Bishop says We have these twenty seven years endured all sorts of calamities that may befal men in exile therefore charge not us to be worldly minded p. 501. See Mr. Baxter to this purpose part 4. of the Christian Directory What our Author says concerning Passive Obedience p. 85. c. shall be considered anon P. 89. He is very angry that the Doctor should reflect on some dangerous Pamphlets as that of the History of Succession The Dialogue between Tutor and Pupil and another that affirms That Parliaments should sit till they have done that for which they were called And contrariwise so far commends the treasonable Popish book of Doleman as that it was impossible to write a Historie of Succession without borrowing from it Their Tools are so dull they must needs be beholding to the Philistines to set an edge on them upon their Whetstones of Lyes and Forgeries Quam bene conveniunt P. 91. The Thebaean Legion like a malus Genius meets him again and for their sakes he is resolved rather to die a Murtherer than a Martyr for p. 85. he puts the Case though he confesseth it to be a rare Case for bad Princes seldom stoop so low as to be Executioners of their own cruelty But the Question is if they should How far notwithstanding men may endeavour to save themselves without breach of their Allegiance and of that true Faith and Loyaltie which they ought to bear of life and limb and terrene honour If they have a mind to know they may ask advice i. e. How far notwithstanding the Oath of Allegiance men may resist their Prince For the Authors part he is resolved already but will not discover to every one what is in his heart if he thought it unlawful to resist the Kings person in case he should offer violence to a Subject he would certainly have published it but his Silence speaks his Consent Now if the King be forced for his defence to take an armed Guard as our Late Soveraign was And our Author with other Malecontents that think themselves highly wronged because they are not rewarded according to their deserts should meet him with another Armed Company and fight him he may kill his person
when he faithfully loves him who reigns by Gods authoritie P. 151. Mr. Hunt hath another Observation that deserves a special remark Neither will we saith he make use in our defence of the Papists excluding the King of Navarre a Protestant King in France no more than we will allow the French to murder a Protestant Minister because we execute a seditious traiterous Roman Priest Ans It is well known the Romish Priests are not executed in England upon the account of their Religion but for such crimes as are made Treason by the Laws of our Land And if the Protestants were not executed but upon the breach of such Laws the cause of Complaint would be less than now it is But why on your Principles a Protestant Prince may not be excluded by Papists who perhaps are as fully perswaded of the truth of their Religion as we are of ours and do aver that Salvation is not to be attained in any Communion but that of their own Church I see no sufficient reason For they may as well plead that Dominion is founded in Grace as you do and that may equally justisie both parties in case of Resistance i. e. it can justifie neither And the consequences of that Act of Exclusion may dread us from doing the like For when the Guises and other contrivers of the Holy League as they called it had by great importunitie prevailed with the present King Henry the Third to agree to the Exclusion of Henry the Fourth the dreadful slaughters of the Subjects on both sides were not the onely evil consequences that ensued but the Guisian Faction grew so insolent as to affront and distress the King himself so far that fearing his own destruction he was constrained to joyn his Partie to that of the King of Navarre to whose Exclusion he had consented that he might preserve himself from being excluded by the prevailing Faction So that your Quere p. 153. Whether if the Crown should devolve upon a Roman Successor we could justifie the dethroning of him which the Author of Julian resolves we may not though the French Papists could not be justified in rejecting the King of Navarre requires no long consideration Tum tua Res agitur partes cum proximus Ardet I cannot omit another bold attempt of Mr. Hunt in his Preface where he conjures up the old Smectymnuan Monster of Curse ye Meroz to affright all men from an accursed Nutralitie to bring them into the blessed Association It was a wise Law of Solon saies he that if the Commonwealth at any time should be divided into Factions that the Neuters should be noted with infamie And that you may know what he means he addes If all that are TRVE PROTESTANTS and TRVE LOVERS OF OVR GOVERNMENT would declare themselves on the behalf of our Religion and Government in such terms as befit honestmen and as the exigencie of our present state shall require we shall find the numbers of Addressers reduced to the Dukes Pensioners and Creatures And again Our Traitors would disappear if we had no Neuters And to slur the proceedings of his Majestie against E. S. he says that the name of E. S. in the Abhorrences of the Nation were but like the name of John-a-Styles and John-an-Oakes in putting a fictitious Case So that it is most evident that he invites and threatens all men that refuse to joyn in an Association and to what that tends the Nation is indisserently well satisfied already If not the Comments which these men make upon that Text the Authors and Instruments which they make use of such as were the most notorious Incendiaries in our late War some Jesuites and eminent Factors for Rome some Regicides that died in their impenitencie these and the present endeavours to act over all the Tragedies that were plotted by them a second time may fully convince us that there is Mors in Olla some deadly Colloquintida that hath so imbittered and poisoned such sort of Writings I must beg the Readers pardon that I have not been more particular in my Remarks on Mr. Hunt his Book came but lately to my hands a part of mine being first in the Press and the rest called for so that I made it onely an Essay to provoke some more eminent persons of his own Gown to chastise him according to his demerit who have more health and help more time and advantages than I have And all that love their Religion and Peace will abhor such persons as by the same Methods the same Libels and pretences of Arbitrarie Government and Poperie the same Arguments as were used to defend the War and the Murder of Charles the First seek to involve us in another such and rather than not effect it will employ and associate with any sort of Fanaticks Jesuits and Regicides such as Doleman White and Milton their great Exemplar and Tutor I cannot stand to give this Age a character of that Pest of the former I mean this Milton whose very Sores and Impostumes these Authors suck and spit them out to poyson the People He was one that wrote against the whole Ministrie and their Maintenance that would have Divorces practised on every slight occasion And when I shall say that against his knowledge and Conscience he maliciously opposed the best of Kings I need say no more to prove him the worst of men That Mercenarie wretch was I confess a man of more than ordinarie parts and when he came in his Chap. 4. to defend the Doctrine of Resistance and Regicide against that Argument of Salmasius which proved that none of the Christians before St. Augustine's time did practise or allow of resisting the lawful Magistrate though a Heathen or an Arian he stretched his Wit and his Reading so far as to bankrupt the reputation of them both as will evidently appear in my Answer to the same Arguments which both Mr. Hunt and our Author have borrowed from him And because it hath been creditably reported that Milton died a Papist and it is certain that he had been at Rome and was there caressed by some great men Cardinals and others I shall desire the Reader to consider with me whether that defence which he makes of the Popish Doctrine for deposing of Kings in the same Chapter be not a probable Argument of the truth of that Report For thus saith Milton chap. 4. p. 47. As to what concerns the Pope against whom you DECLAIME MANY THINGS TO NO PVRPOSE I give you libertie to talk till you are hoarse yet that which you assert so largely to take with the vulgar and unlearned That every Christian was subject to their Kings whether they were just or whether they were Tyrants until the power of the Pope was acknowledged to be greater than that of the King and till be absolved Subjects from their Oaths of Fidelitie I have shewn that to be most false by many examples Nor doth that seem more true which you say in the last place that Pope
Zachary did abselve the French from their Oath of Allegiance his reason is for Hottoman a French-man and a Lawyer denieth that Chilperick was deposed by the Popes authoritie or that his Kingdom was given to Pepin but that all this was transacted by the authoritie of the great Council of that Nation as appears by ancient Annals which shew that there was no need of absolving the Subjects from that Oath which also Pope Zachary utterly denied for in the French Histories it is recorded as Hottoman and Girardus witness That the French did from the beginning reserve to themselves a power as of chusing so of deposing their Kings and that they were not wont to swear any other Fidelitie to the Kings whom they created than that they would yield them Faith and Allegiance if their Kings did perform that which they also swore to do So that if the King by male-administration first broke his Oath there was no need of the Pope the perfidiousness of the King having absolved the subjects from their Oath Yet lest this Invention of Milton's own should not be of weight to clear his Holiness he brings the Popes infallible testimonie for himself Pope Zachary says he who you say did arrogate that authoritie to himself excuseth it and lays it on the People for the Popes words are these If the Prince be obnoxious to the People by whose beneficence he possesseth his Kingdom the People that make the King may depose him So that the result of all is the Pope and Fanatick are agreed in this Principle The Majestas realis is in the People as Bellarmine with Buchanan do assert and They that create the King may destroy him with the same breath How industrious this Mercenarie man is to vindicate the Pope whenas his own Creatures acknowledge that he was the Dux Gregis the grand Instrument of dethroning that King and sharing his Inheritance In a Dialogue between Theophilus a Christian and Philander a Jesuit Bishop Bilson p. 418. of Christian Subjection brings in Theophilus saying Your Law doth not stick to boast that Zacharias deposed Childerick King of France and placed Pepin in his room Philander answers And so he did Theoph. Who says so besides you Philand Platina saith Ejus authoritate regnum Franciae Pipino adjudicatur By Zachary 's authoritie the Kingdom of France was adjudged to Pepin And Frisingensis affirmeth that Pepin was absolved from the Oath of Allegiance by Pope Steven which he had given to Childerick and so were the rest of the Nobles of France and then the King being shaven and thrust into a Monasterie Pepin was anointed King which you think much the Pope should do in our days Theoph. Zachary was consulted with whether it might lawfully be done or no he did not openly intermeddle with the matter whatever his privie practices were though many of your Bishops and Monks to grace the Pope make it his onely act But hear Zachary 's own words when Volorade and Burchard were sent to understand his judgment I find saith he in the sacred storie of Divine Scripture that the people fell away from their wretchless and lascivious King that despised the Counsel of the Wise men of his Realm and created a sufficient man of themselves King This was likely the case of Jeroboam who had a special Warrant from God God himself allowing their doings All power and rule belongs to God Princes are his Ministers and therefore chosen for the people that they should follow the Will of God and not do what they list All that he hath as Power Glorie Riches Honour and Dignitie he receiveth of the People the People create the King and may when the cause requireth forsake the King It is therefore lawful for the Franks refusing this Monster Childerick to chuse one able in War and Peace by his wisdom to protect and keep in safetie their Wives Children Parents Goods and Lives This is the Popes Divinitie saith Bishop Bilson that Kings have their power of the People which the Scripture saith they have from God Now as to the Annals of France it is true that the Pope had not intirely grasped the power of deposing Princes in those days but made use of other Instruments yet this was done say the Annals Pontifice prius consulto as Sabellicus and the Gloss in verb. Deposuit i. e. deponentibus consensit The true reason was this Pepin was a man on whom the Pope relied to quell the Lombards and defeat the Grecians that he and Pepin might divide the Spoils of the West as it came to pass for the Emperour was turned out of Italy Now let the Reader judge how diligent an Advocate Milton is for the Pope that notwithstanding his own words advising it and the testimonie of his own creatures affirming it and the matter of fact and the event demonstrating it would yet excuse him from having a hand in deposing of that French King And is this a fit Guide for our Modern Writers Is it not possible as our Author says but to take many things from Doleman in the case of Succession and many more from Milton when you would irritate or defend the People of England in case of Resistance and Regicide Have the Boutefeus of this Age nothing to set the Nation into a flame but those Firebrands which were rak'd up in the Ashes of that prosligate Villain Milton who pleaded the Cause of the Pope Gratis and for money that of Good God! what a Spirit of Rebellion is spread over the Land when as it was observed by Dr. Heylen at the beginning of the last unnatural War No times were more full of Odious Pamphlets no Pamphlets more aplauded nor more dearly bought than such as do most deeply wound those Powers and Dignities to which the Law hath made us subject Methinks we are like the man in the Gospel Matth. 12.44 out of whom the unclean Spirit being cast out it walked up and down through drie places seeking rest and finding none then said he I will return to my house from whence I came out and finding it emptie swept and garnished he taketh with him seven other Spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is worse than the first Deus avertat Omen I beg my Readers pardon that I may animadvert a little on these Libellers and acquaint them that to their Progenitors we owed the kindling fomenting and inflaming those late Wars that made us a confusion at home a scorn and a reproach abroad Prynne Burton and Bastwick were like so many Foxes let loose and encouraged like the Priests and Preco's of Mars to scatter Fire-brands through the Nation Nor would the times permit a little water to be sprinkled for the quenching of them but fed them with oyl The Laws were silenced and out-lawed then as they are now as if indeed we were inter Arma there wanted not scourges to punish them but an arm to inflict the legal
Books Libels or Writings whatsoever as they tender her Majesties good favour will avoid her high displeasure and as they will answer the contrary at their uttermost perils and upon such pains and penalties as by the Law any way may be inflicted upon the offenders in any of these behalfs as persons maintaining such seditious actions which her Majesty mindeth to have severely executed And if any person have had knowledge of the Authors Writers Printers or Dispersers thereof which shall within one month after the publication hereof discover the same to the Ordinary of the place where he had such knowledg or to any of her Majesties Privy Council the same person shall not for his former concealment be hereafter molested or troubled Given at her Majesties Palace at Westminster the thirteenth of February 1588. In the One and thirtieth year of her Highness Reign God Save the Queen Imprinted at London by the Deputies of Christopher Barker Printer to the Queens most Excellent Majesty 1588. Now either our Authors knew these things or no if not they may give me thanks for minding them of these Laws some of which are still in force which ought to bind up their hands from the like practices lest they meet with the like punishment Sure I am they are obliged in Conscience if not in Interest timely to beg pardon and make their Recantations as publick as their Crimes But if they did know these things and yet act so considently and industriously against them Miror admodum ut quorum facta imitantur eorum exitus non pertimescunt Certainly these men think themselves in some Vtopian Commonwealth ubi sentire quoe velis quoe sentias loqui licet where they think according to their own lusts and talk as lavishly as they think In magna fortunâ minima licentia Every action of our Superiours every word yea the very thoughts and intentions of their hearts are arraigned censured and condemned as if they onely were to be accountable But as for the Mobile Nos numerus summus magno dominamur Atridi The confidence of their numbers makes them confident of impunity and the Priviledges of the People far exceed the Prerogative of the Prince Quidvis impune facere hoc Regium est Though other Restraints have proved ineffectual all the wholsome Laws of the Land all the sad experiences of the national plagues of the Sword Fire and Pestilence which have fallen or rather have been drawn down on our own heads by our Ingratitude and Rebellion against God and our Superiours have been baffled yet those stronger ties of Gods Commandments so plainly so frequently and under such intolerable penalties bound upon our very Souls and Consciences should yet constrain us to live more piously and peaceably than hitherto we have done Or at least the Mercies of God who saved and redeemed us with an out-stretched Arm and hath set over us the meekest and most merciful Prince on the Earth His patience and long-suffering towards us after so long and heinous provocations his defeating the hellish Plots of our Adversaries who unweariedly watch for an opportunitie to devour us should at last lead us to Repentance and cause us to consider and do in this our day the things that belong to our peace before they are hid from our eyes Against the Sophistrie of such unreasonable men for Resistance I shall oppose the Doctrine of the Apostle for Obedience and Subjection which he delivers Rom. 13. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers For there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation v. 5. Wherefore we must needs be subject not onely for wrath but also for conscience sake OF OBEDIENCE ACTIVE PASSIVE Due to our SUPERIOURS THose few directions of the Apostle Rom. 13.1 2 c. are so full and plain that there needs no Comment on them if men were not resolved against their dutie and employed their wits to palliate their sins and destroy their Souls For from that Text we are taught 1. That all lawful Government the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is from God The powers that be are ordained of God 2. That God often gives this Power to wicked men The Powers that were in being when the Apostles wrote were such as Nero and Claudius Heathen Persecutors 3. That in every Government there is a Supream or higher Power that judgeth all and can be judged of none for without such a Power no Government can subsist 4. That such Powers must be cheerfully obeyed in all things not contrary to the Will of God paying them Custom Tribute Honour and Fear as to Gods Ministers 5. That in things contrarie to the Will of God as we ought not to obey so we ought not to resist 6. That the penaltie of Resistance is the Wrath of God eternal Damnation 7. That we are obliged as well not to resist in things contrarie to God's Will as cheerfully to obey in things agreeable thereunto for conscience sake that is in consideration of the Command of God which layeth an Obligation on our Conscience 1. That all Government is originally from God This seems to be granted by our Author and therefore I shall say the less concerning it Mr. Hunt also asserting p. 38. that it is impossible any thing can be of mans appointment which is of Gods ordination There can be no such thing as a Co-legislative power of men with their Maker Government therefore says he is of God but the Specification thereof is of men and the best definition that can be made of Government is in the words of both the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is Gods Ordinance but a Humane Creature Wherein he contradicts himself as it were even in the same breath having said immediately before It is impossible any thing can be of mans appointment which is of Gods ordination understanding it as he doth not of the Species but of the Original Right and Authoritie of Government For p. 36. he demands Where is the Charter of Kings from God Almighty to be found for nothing but the declared Will of God can warrant us to give up the Rights and Liberties of the people If they are lawful I am sure it is villanie to betray them Here you plainly see the people are encouraged to resist their Prince on pretence of defending their Rights and Liberties or else they are declared Villains and Traitors But let us examine the ground of this Assertion He quotes 1 Pet. 2.13 Where he says the Apostle stiles Kings as well as Governours under them the Ordinance of man which cannot have any other sence but that men make them and give them their power and therefore says he when the Apostle calls the power of Government Gods Ordinance it is because in general God approves of Governments as if there were any Governours which were advanced
if not Gratia Dei as our stile hath it yet Decreto ac Dono Divino when Pilate himself who condemned Christ had his power given him from above I wondered to read this in a man that had shewed much diligence and reading as to matters of Law in his Treatise concerning the Bishops Right thus to faulter and prevaricate in asserting p. 36. that Kings have no Charter from God And my wonder is yet increased when I read his confident conclusion That these two places could not be reconciled by any other interpretation but his own I am much inclined to think that Mr. Hunt knew a better way of reconciling these Scriptures onely finding no other offering themselves willingly to serve his Hypothesis he thought to press this of St. Peter to it Now the designe that he drives is against the Succession p. 42. which says he is of a Civil nature not established by any Divine Right and the several limitations of the Descent of the Crown must be made by the People in conferring the Royal Dignitie and Power Had Mr. Hunt talked at this rate in Cromwel's days when he was about to make himself a King it had been tolerable but to talk thus in a Kingdom so long continued in a Legal Succession and so well constituted that nothing but such new suggestions are like to disturb it needeth Pardon though he expects Praise for it In other things I thought Mr. Hunt an ingenuous and bold man that spake his own Sentiments as if he were in Civitate libera and I would willingly have excused him upon that account here or as a man labouring under the common fate of such as meddle with matters out of their Spheres for seldom meet we with such Blunderers as Divines when they attempt the work of Lawyers and States-men or Lawyers when they invade the Office of the Divine But none of these things can be pleaded in Mr. Hunt's excuse for no doubt he had consulted with such Divines as wrote in the time of the Late War at least such as had a hand in that War and yet survived The Assemblies Annotations were at his hand and I suppose he would have consulted them or such as they were i. e. no great friends to Kingly Government Hear then what they say on the words Ordinance of man By Ordinance is meant the framing and ordering of Civil Government called the Ordinance of man not because it is invented by or hath its original from men for all power is from God Rom. 13.1 2. though sometime he useth men as means to derive Power or Government to such or such a person or persons that so they might be the more willing to yield Obedience but because it is proper to men or because it is discharged by men And on the word Supreme they note There is therefore no other Supreme on Earth above the King in his Dominions Pareus is another common Author and one whom Mr. Hunt probably would have consulted about this Opinion above others he having written such things against the power of Kings as deserved to be committed publickly to the flames 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apellatio ad Deum primum autorem nos revocat The word Creature recalleth us to the consideration of God who is the Prime Author of Magistracie for though Magistrates are said to be created that is ordained by men yet their first Creator properly is God alone Thus he in the Appendix to his Comment on Rom. 13. Dubio 3. And there he teacheth you plainly how to reconcile St. Peter with St. Paul whom you make to contradict each other The Apostle says he calls Magistracie a humane Ordinance not causally as it is devised by men and set up at their pleasure but subjectively as it is administred by men and objectively as exercised about the government of humane Societies or lastly in respect of the end as constituted of God for the benefit of men Calvin and Beza and generally all the Modern Expositors say the same and whoever reads the words following where this Ordinance of man is divided to the King as Supreme and to Governours sent by him must needs acknowledge that the Apostle speaks not of the thing but the persons Omni personae omni principatui cui nos divina dispositio subdi voluit saith Bede on that place Dr. Hammond's Paraphrase I think is beyond all exception because it perfectly reconciles the sence of St. Peter with that of St. Paul for by every Ordinance of man he understands every Heathen Governour every mortal Prince And his learned Notes do evince the truth of his interpretation which being too long to insert I refer the Reader to them and shall onely give you his Reason which is this That the Gnosticks who had so early troubled the Church taught that Christian Servants and Subjects were not bound to obey their Heathen Masters and Magistrates whereas the Apostle enjoyns them to obey both not onely if they be good and gentle but also if they be froward if they be unbelievers We may not make our Libertie a cloak for Ambition or Rebellion and pretend to vindicate our Countrie when we intend to enslave it As Antiochus who brought a great Armie into Greece pretending to deliver it when it was in a condition of Freedom and Prosperitie And thus the Lacedemonians endeavouring to free themselves from one Tyrant made way for Thirtie to domineer over them But Mr. Hunt's demand is what Scripture we have for the Kings Charter I answer That Saul had a Charter 1 Sam. 8. for God chose him and how far it extended read there and Skiccard de Jure Regum apud Hebraeos And after God had rejected Saul who had first rebelled against God yet he hath the Title and the Reverence of the Lords Anointed given him by David still And God himself calls Cyrus his Anointed though a Heathen And Daniel acknowledged of Nebuchadnezzar The God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom power strength and glorie Dan. 2.27 These then had it not from the People Pilate himself though an Inferiour Magistrate had his Charter owned and submitted to by Christ himself And when it is said in the Old Testament By me Kings reign Prov. 8.15 and in the New even of the Roman Emperours such as Nero and Claudius that they are ordained by God and that our Obedience is due to them for the Lords sake and for Conscience sake He must be an Ignoramus or worse that can see in Scripture a Charter for the Peoples rights and power even to resist their Prince and none for the Prince to vindicate his Authoritie over the People It would be irksome to the Reader to relate what is obvious in Heathen Writers concerning the Original of Kingly power Nature did at first find out a King saith Seneca And Aristotle says That by nature not onely the Father hath rule over his Children but also the King over those that are within his Kingdom This is the Government that
God himself erected from the beginning giving to Adam a Patriarchal which is tantamount to a Monarchal power This he granted to Israel and continued to the coming of Christ To this power in the Romans Christ and his Apostles submit themselves and command every Soul to follow their examples and all the Primitive Christians did so till the Pope of Rome to the great scandal of Christianitie invaded the Thrones and usurped the power of their lawful Emperours Gregory the Seventh Pope Vrbane and Paschal were the first that stirred up Subjects against their Princes and the Son against his Father We are taught saith Polycarp to yield Obedience to all Principalities under God except in things destructive to our Souls Therefore do as you please cast me to wild beasts or the fire which is not to be compared to that eternal fire prepared for the ungodly In the Constitutions of Clemens it is declared a hainous sin to resist the Prince and the Councils for 1200 years taught no other Doctrine And when those Popes first turned Rebels and proceeded so imperiously as to Excommunicate the Bishop and Church-men of Liege for adhering to the Emperour and stirred up Robert Earl of Flanders to destroy all that Clergie they wrote a most excellent Epistle declaring That they never had heard of any such Doctrine or Practice from any of the Fathers and that they had observed fearful Judgments of God falling on such as did rebel against their Princes And so it fell out for all the Popes great Instruments Radolphus and Herman and Egbert were cut off and gave the World magnum Documentum a severe Caution not to rise up against their Princes no not for the sake of an Infallible Pope This was the sence of the Primitive Fathers Irenaeus proves it by Scripture and concludes By whose command they are born men by his command they are made Princes So Tertul. Inde Imperator unde homo inde potestas unde Spiritus It is God saith Origen who setteth up Kings and removeth them and in his own time raiseth up such a one as is useful to the State Contra Celsum Theophilus Bishop of Antioch I will honour the King not adoring him but praying for him knowing that by God the King is ordained So Athenagoras of Aurelius and his Son Commodus says They had received the Kingdom from above St. Basil also on Psal 32. The Lord setteth up Kings and removeth them and there is no power but what is ordained of God And to conclude with Greg. Nazianzen concerning the Power of the Governor of his Province Orat. 17. to the Citizens of Antioch That together with Christ he did rule the people committed to his charge that from him he had received the Sword and was to be accounted as the Image of God So S. Chrysostom And if we reverence those Officers that are chosen by the King though they be wicked though they be Thieves and Robbers not despising them for their wickedness but standing in awe of them for the dignitie of him that elected them much more ought we thus to do in the case of God and the King chosen by him Serm. 1. of David and Saul So that even wicked Princes have a Charter from God So our Saviour said of Pilate Joh. 19.11 Thou couldest have no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 authoritie or power against me except it were given thee from above And St. Paul of the Roman Emperors There is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God and he that resists resisteth the Ordinance of God And that St. Peter says the same though in other words hath been made evident Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether to the King as supreme for so is the will of God 1 Pet. 2 13-15 St. Augustine de Civitate Dei l. 5. c. 21. Regnum terrenum dat Deus piis impiis Qui Mario ipse Caio Caesari qui Augusto ipse Neroni c. God gives an Earthly Kingdom both to good and evil Princes He that gave it to Marius gave it to Caius Caesar he that gave it to Augustus gave it to Nero he who gave it to the Vespasians Father and Son most mild and loving Emperours gave it likewise to that most cruel man Domitian And not to recount them all he that gave it to that Christian Prince Constantine gave it to that Apostate Julian These things without doubt that one and true God doth rule and govern as he pleaseth although for secret causes yet not for unjust So the Prophet Dan. 2.37 Thou O King art a King of kings for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom power strength and glorie And chap. 5.21 The most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will chap. 4. And as God setteth them in the Throne so he rules by them and over-rules them guiding all their actions to his own just and wise ends If all the Princes of the World should conspire they can do no more than what Gods hand and counsel have determined before to be done Acts 4.28 God knows how to effect good and gracious ends even by wicked Kings He made Cyrus an Instrument to build him a House in Jerusalem 2 Chron. 36.23 and calls Nebuchadnezzar his Servant Jer. 25.9 The heart of the King is in the hands of the Lord as the rivers of water he turneth it whithersoever he pleaseth He can restrain the spirits of Princes as he did Abimelech and not suffer them to touch his People He can cause the wrath of man to turn to his praise He stirred up the spirit of Cyrus to deliver the Jews from the Captivitie of Babylon Ezra 1.1 He made Darius and Artaxerxes instrumental in building and beautifying the House of the Lord Ezra 6.22 and chap. 7.27 Wherefore as the Psalmist says Psal 97.1 The Lord reigneth let the earth rejoyce let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof For though Clouds and Darkness are round about him and we cannot see the reason or end of his Providences yet Righteousness and Judgment are the habitation of his Throne v. 2. Were the Almightie like the Epicureans God that could not intend the affairs of the world without great trouble and therefore retired himself and left all to Chance we might then think it fit to chuse for our selves but when every Choice and every Chance is ordered by the Almightie and wise God when it is said Sam. 18.18 The people had chosen Saul chap. 10.24 it is said The Lord had chosen him And if the Magistrate be chosen by Lot yet as Solomon says Prov. 16.33 The Lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposition thereof is of the Lord. We may not say therefore as that Prince did 2 King 6.33 when God had sent a Famine in Samaria This evil is from the Lord why should I wait on him any longer much less should we resist the established Ordinance of Heaven
Majestie yet never were Christians found to be Albinians Nigrians or Cassians i. e. they never sided with any Factions against the Emperours though if they had so done their numbers were so great that they might have overthrown his Forces They might in one night with a few Fire-brands avenge themselves if they held it lawful to revenge evil with evil Had we been minded to profess open Hostilitie could we want numbers of men or force of Arms we have filled your Islands Castles Towns Tents Tribes and Wards yea even the Palace Senate and place of Judgement For what War were not we able though fewer in number than you who go so willingly to our Martyrdom if it were not more lawful in our Religion to be slain than to slay And yet under all their Persecutions they multiplied Ligabantur includebantur torquebantur urebantur laniebantur tamen multiplicabantur saith St. Augustine de Civit. Dei l. 22. c. 6. Grotius l. 1. c. 4. de Jure Belli c. speaking of that Sacred Maxime of the Apostles Acts 4. It is better to obey God than man discourseth thus If either for this i. e. our obedience to God or for any other cause he that hath the Soveraign power offer us an injurie it ought rather to be patiently tolerated than forcibly resisted for although we do not owe an Active Obedience to such Commands of Princes yet we do owe a Passive we may not transgress the Laws of God or Nature for the pleasure of the greatest Monarch yet ought we rather patiently to submit to what shall be inflicted on us for disobeying than by resistance to disturb our Countries peace The best and safest course in such a case is either to preserve our selves by flight or resolutely to undergo whatever shall be imposed on us His Reason is cogent Because Civil Societies being instituted for the preservation of Peace there accrues to that Commonwealth a greater Right over us and ours so far as is necessarie for that end And if a promiscuous Right of forcible Resistance should be tolerated it would be no longer a Commonwealth i. e. a Sanctuarie against Oppression but a confused Rabble For this among other things he quotes that noted Saying Principi Summum rerum arbitrium dii dederunt subditis obsequii gloria relicta est God hath given to Princes the Soveraign power leaving to us the glorie of Obedience If a Souldier resist his Captain striking him and but lays hold of his Weapon he is casheered if he break it or strike again he shall be put to death That this was the Hebrew Law he proves from Josh 1.18 1 Sam. 8.11 Deut. 17.14 which he so expounds That the Governours may not be resisted though they command what is not right And therefore it is added in that place of Samuel v. 18. that when the people are so oppressed by their King that there is no remedie they are to invoke his help who is the Supreme Judge of Heaven and Earth And when our Saviour commands in the New Testament to give Caesar his due he intended doubtless that they should yield as great if not greater Obedience both Active and Passive unto the Higher Power than what was due from the Jews which St. Paul Rom. 13. expounds more largely and chargeth those that resist the power of Kings with no less Crime than rebellion against Gods Ordinance and with a Judgment as great as their sin So that as there is a necessitie for our Subjection there is also for our Not Resisting Wherefore the Powers set over us are to be obeyed not servilely superstitiously or out of fear but with free rational and generous Spirits tanquam à diis dati as being Gods Ordinance and being commissioned by him cannot do more or less than he orders and permits them to do Another reason is drawn from our benefit the Government being constituted for our good and therefore in conscience not to be resisted for the Apostles Argument respects that universal good for which Government was first instituted i. e. the publick Peace wherein every one is concerned more than in his private Now he that resists doth as much as in him lies dissolve his Countries Peace and so will burie himself in the Ruines of it at the end and were it not for Governmens a Kingdom would be but like a great Pond wherein the bigger Fishes devour the lesser Omnia erit fortiorum Object The Commands of Princes do not alway tend to the publick good and when they decline from that end they are not to be obeyed Answ Though the Supreme Magistrate doth sometime through fear anger lust or other passions swerve from the path of Justice and Equitie yet these hapning but seldom are to be past by as personal blemishes which as Tacitus observes are abundantly recompensed by the benefit of better Princes Laws may be called good though they fit not every mans case if they obviate such disorders as are frequently practised and so do good to the generalitie of the People Thus Grotius If the People may resist their Prince I would know in what Cases it may be done It may be done say some in case of Religion when that is in danger in case of Libertie when that is invaded in case of Oppression when that is heavie in case of the King 's exercising an Arbitrarie power in case of his denying his Peoples Priviledges and Immunities Nay we have known that meer Fears and Jealousies which were fancied onely to promote a Rebellion have been used as an Argument to justifie it But will any of these things justifie the resistance of a Son against his Father or a Servant against his Master Or if we may make the People Judges of the lawfulness of resisting in one or more of these Cases why may they not in all and in as many more as they shall please to be sufficient But if any cause can justifie Resistance it must be that of Religion and if any Religion that which is the true Religion Now if we admit the Christian Religion to be the truest Religion that condemns Resistance above any other as hath been demonstrated by its Precepts and the practice of those Primitive Christians who best knew the sence and the mind of our Saviour in those Precepts and if any Christians should maintain the contrarie it would give the Princes of the World a just occasion to be jealous of it and root it out of their Dominions for what Prince would permit any such number of men to abide and multiply in their Dominions that profess it to be lawful to make resistance against them Besides there are few men bred up in any Religion but they think their own to be the true Religion and then they may resist their Prince how false and destructive soever it be and so a Papist or Anabaptist a Jew or a Pagan may think it lawful for them to resist and so no Prince can be secure of the Obedience of
this Recognition declare so often as he doth particularly in p. 198. that the Succession of the Crown is the right of the whole Community their appointment their constitution and creature in Parliament Did he never read what is said by Grotius de Jure belli He says If a Kingdom descend by Succession an Act of Alienation is in itself null l. 1. c. 4. s 9. Which agrees with what Bishop Sanderson delivered before And Mr. Hunt himself says Grotius is more than ten witnesses and if you add the Bishops I think them of more value than a hundred In quâ tandem Civitate Catilina arbitraris te vivere saith Cicero you that make Hue and cry after such as write for Religion and Loyalty as if they were ready to banish themselves or prove felo's de se consider I pray under what Government you are and though you may escape the Magistrates wrath yet you ought to be solicitous 〈◊〉 you may escape the wrath of God to which you have made your self obnoxious I have but one Remark more on Mr. Hunt which is that he hath consulted another famous Author one Mr. Thomas White who being a Romish Emissary made it his business to continue our distractions This man wrote a Book entituled The Grounds of Obedience and Government And his Motto is Salus Populi Suprema Lex esto whereof I have given you the genuine sence already Now among many other Notes transcribed by Mr. Hunt from this Jesuitical Writer p. 158. he comes to answer the Objections of Divines concerning the Authoritie of Princes and non-resistance Vp steps the Divine saith he to preach us out of Scripture the Dutie we owe to Kings no less than Death and Damnation being the guerdons of Disobedience and Rebellion And p. 159. They will speak Reason too telling us that God by nature is high Lord and Master of all That whoever is in power receiveth his right from him That Obedience consists in doing the Will of him that commandeth and conclude that his Will ought to be obeyed till God taketh away the Obligation i. e. till he who is to be obeyed himself releaseth the Right Besides p. 160. They alledge that God by his special command transferred the Kingdom from Saul to David from Rehoboam to Jeroboam So that in fine all that is brought out of Scripture falleth short of proving that no time can make void the right of a King once given him by the hand of God Now mark what Mr. White says to overthrow the sense of these Scriptures The reason says he of THIS WEAK WAY OF ALLEADGING SCRIPTVRE is that when they read that God commandeth or doth this they look not into Nature to know what this Commanding or Doing is but presently imagine God commands it by express and direct words and doth it by an immediate position of the things said to be done whereas in Nature the Commands are nothing but the natural Light God hath bestowed on Mankind and which is therefore frequently called the Law of Nature Likewise Gods doing a thing is many times onely the course of natural second Causes to which because God gives the Direction and Motion he both doth and is said to do all that is done by them Now to the same end viz. to prove that Kingly Government is not from God but the People and therefore may be altered and resisted and in the same words for the most part doth Mr. Hunt deliver this black invention of Mr. White p. 144. The nature of Government and its Original hath been prejudiced by men that understand nothing but words and Grammar-divines that without contemplating Gods Attributes or the Nature of man or the reasonableness of moral Precepts have undertaken to declare the sence of Scripture and infer that Soveraign Power is not of Humane Institution but of Divine Appointment because they find it there written That by him Kings reign Imagining that when the Scripture saith God commands or doth this that God commanded it by express words or doth it by an immediate position of the thing done whereas in nature his Commands are nothing but the natural Light God hath bestowed on Mankind Likewise Gods doing a thing is onely the course of natural and second Causes to which because God gives Direction and Motion he doth both and is said to do all that is done Likewise Gods doing a thing is onely the course of natural and second Causes to which because God gives the Direction or Motion he doth both and is said to do all that is done All this is verbatim Mr. White So is his Raillerie in the same Phrase to bring an Odium on Divines that would prove Government out of the Scripture White calls them Grammar-Divines Verbal and wind-blown Divines p. 162. And Mr. Hunt calls them Men that understand nothing but Words and Grammar-divines Who saith Mr. White without Logick Philosophie or Morality undertake to be Interpreters of the Sacred Bible Who saith Mr. Hunt without contemplating Gods Attributes or the Nature of man or the Reasonableness of Moral Precepts have undertaken to declare the sense of the Scripture It is not strange to me having read a Defiance to the Royal Family to read the like against the Clergie But that the Scripture also should suffer and the uncertain and mutable Traditions and Effects of natural Causes be made equivalent with the immediate Commands of God in the Scripture though it be no new thing among Jesuits yet a true Protestant should abhor it The man is so angry that he hath done the ungrateful Bishops any right that he will have satisfaction right or wrong from the rest of the Clergie And though he call the younger sort onely Coxcombs yet his design is to bring the whole Clergy into contempt But any young Divine may draw such Conclusions out of the Premises as might exclude him out of the Society of all good and learned men 1. That to conclude from the sence of Scripture is a weak way of Arguing In this Mr. White and Mr. Hunt consent 2. That non obstante what the Scripture says of Divine Right of Soveraign Power it is not of Divine but Humane Institution 3. That Providence and the Effects of second Causes being influenced by God are of equal Authority with the Precepts enjoyned by the Word of God 4. That the Soveraign Power being but of Humane Institution may be resisted and is alterable 5. That they who mock the Messengers of God do go on to despise the Word of God and abuse his Prophets a sin which often stirs up the Wrath of God so as there is NO REMEDY And this I observe in the behalf of the abused Clergie 6. That having cast off our Loyaltie to our Governours and their Laws puts us in a fair way to cast off the Soveraignty of God and his Laws 7. That the worst of Papists and their most Atheistical Arguments are made use of by some that call themselves true Protestants against the express
your sence nor for being reduced to a State of Bondage through the Wilderness of a new War We are for standing still keeping our places and doing our duties and wait for the Salvation of God Though we were by the wickedness of unreasonable and cruel men deprived of our Moses yet God hath sent us a Josua and with him are the Priests of the Lord and the Ark of his Covenant to which we doubt not the swelling streams of Jordan will give way and we shall yet pass to Canaan on dry land Now let the Reader judge who do abuse the Scripture to serve their turn as Mr. Hunt doth advise p. 46. P. 35. Mr. Hunt becomes an Advocate for a sort of Gibeonites that they may have an act of Comprehension and represents them as a very harmless and friendly people The Dissenters says he have neither power nor will to destroy our RELIGION or Government they are already of our Church and it is expected that they should be Petitioners to the Bishops for their intercession towards the obtaining some indulgence in some little matters that they may bring them into an intire communion with us And again That they are in profession as Loyal as any that boast themselves true Sons of the Church of England p. 19. But though some profess an irreconcileable hatred even in their pleas for Peace the great question is what their practice is and hath been Postscr p. 89. Can any man imagine says he that any prejudice can accrew to the Church of England if she did enlarge her Communion by making the Conditions of it more easie And p. 90. Is it fit that the Peace should be hazarded or the Nation put with reason or without in fear of it or a Kingdom turned into a Shambles for a Ceremony or a Ritual in our publick Worship c. What is it the Advocate of these men pleads for hath he full instructions from his Clients doth he know their minds and what will give them satisfaction What he contends for hath by several men of the Church been granted to them Why may not say you standing at the Sacrament be granted And the signing with the Cross in Baptism be dispensed with when desired When the Dean of St. Pauls and the Bishop of Cork have made some overtures for conceding these things Mr. Baxter answers the first that he made them sibi suis for the advantage of himself and others of his own Perswasion and without taking any notice of them in the latter answers his Discourse with scorn and contempt But our Liturgie must also be altered for their sakes p. 91. you would have more Offices and those we have not so long though some complain they are too many and too short already And for the Rubrick that must be altered not for the present onely as general scruples shall arise and that may be to the worlds end But to answer more particularly you say the Dissenters have neither power nor will to destroy our Religion and Government Answ When they were less considerable for their numbers than now being as you say four fifths of the Nation they had both power and will to effect both What hath been done may be done and Mr. Baxter justly feared that they were Nati ad bis perdendam Remp. Anglicanam That they are the trading and wealthie part of the Nation is generally boasted by themselves We know Mr. Baxter urgeth in the name of his Brethren that there are many hainous sins in our present Constitution that hinder their Conformitie the taking off of which will be an acknowledgement of our guilt and their justification As for the prejudice that may accrue by altering the conditions of our Communion you give us a fair warning p. 93. telling us of the Church of Rome that their Doctrine of Comprehension is so large that they destroy their Religion to increase the number of their Professors by granting the demands of some we shall but encourage others and make them presume to be Judges in their case and quarrels And we have found by sad experience the inconvenience of admitting such as the Country-conformist and the Author of the Life of Julian into our Communion And you say p. 35 and 36 of the Preface That the King and States of the Realm will never suffer so excellent an Ecclesiastical Constitution as we enjoy to be subverted Yet the Dissenters project in Mr. Humphrey's Half-sheet intended to be presented to the Parliament doth certainly tend to her destruction as hath been shewed elsewhere And if the King and States will not admit an alteration you know the Bishops cannot and if the States will not and the Bishops cannot ought not they that would make themselves wiser than their Rulers to submit notwithstanding their scruples against a Ceremony rather than to hazard or disturb the peace of the Kingdom And is it not an unjust complaint of yours of turning it into a Shambles for a Ceremony or a Ritual And to conlude if as you observe p. 92. a discourse managed with almost irresistible Reason Candour Temper and Address be matter of exasperation and they turn again and be more confirmed in their separating way what condescentions will reclaim them P. 36. It is added That absurd Opinion that Dominium fundatur in gratia is charged on those that are for the Exclusion of the Duke And they think that by pronouncing that absurd piece of Latine they have at once put to silence and shame all reasons of Nature Religion and State that urge and require it How we can maintain the Negative against the Papists if we should practise the same as they do on this Position I cannot perceive and therefore we must charge it impartially on all that deserve it Bishop Davenant admits it for good Latine and I think that you quarrel at the words to avoid the sence of the Thesis which that learned Bishop maintained against the Papists concluding that the Pope could not challenge the power of Deposing Kings by any Title but that of Antichrist whose Founder was Hildebrand who like Satan claimed a power to dispose of all the Kingdoms of the World And you your self think that our Saints ought not to do so We come now to the Postscript which he hath told us was written for the sake of our young Divines those good-natur'd Gentlemen who doubtless will return his Civilities His pretence is to answer some Objections that were made against them but in truth they are his own accusations of them which he prosecutes with all the might and malice he can upon this ground because the Bishops must be made out of them and being so bad already he hath foretold how much worse it will be when they sell their Liberty for that Preferment It is said then p. 1. our Author knows by whom That they affirm it to be in the power of a Prince by Divine Right to govern as he pleaseth That the power of the Laws is solely
in him That he may if he please use the consent of Parliaments to assist the Reason of his Laws when he shall give any but it is a great condescention in Kings to give a Reason for what they do and a diminution to their most unaccountable Prerogative That they are for a Popish Successor and no Parliament and do as much as in them lies give up our ancient Government and the Protestant Religion the true Christian Faith to the absolute Will of a Popish Successor giving him a Divine Right to extirpate Gods true Religion established among us by Law and to evacuate our Government by his absolute pleasure Then after a little pause having almost run himself out of breath to tell the Nation these Falshoods he thus inlargeth himself p. 2. That just now when we are under the dread of a Popish Successor some of our Clergie are illuminated into a Mysterie That any Authoritie in the Government not derived from the King and that is not to yield to his absolute Will was rebellious and against the Divine Right and Authoritie of Kings in the establishment against which no Vsage or Prescription to the contrarie or in abatement of it is to be allowed That all Rights are ambulatorie and depend for their continuance on his pleasure So that though the Reformation was made here by the Government established by Law and hath acquired Civil Rights not to be altered but by the King and the three Estates these men yet speak says our Lawyer as if they envied the Rights of their own Religion and had a mind to reduce the Church back again into a state and condition of being persecuted and designed that she should be stripped of her legal Immunities and Defensatives and brought back to the deplorable helpless condition of Prayers and Tears do utterly abandon and neglect all the provisions that Gods providence hath made for their protection Nay by this their new Hypothesis they put it by Divine Right in the power of a Popish Successour when he pleaseth at once by a single indisputable and irresistable decree to destroy our Religion and Government That they believe no Plot but a Presbyterian Plot for of them they believe all ill and call whom they please by that hated name and boldly avow that Popery is more eligible than Presbytery for by that they shall have greater Revenues and more authority and rule over the Lay-men A heavy Charge this saith Mr. Hunt p. 4. if true but he is sure it is imputable but to a few though he had told us in the Preface that many too many were so corrupted and in many places he speaks indefinitely of the whole Order Now our Lawyer cannot but know that it lies on him who hath divulged these slanders to make proof of them though he pretends they were objected by others And all the Conforming Clergy are cast under the suspition of these unsufferable Crimes If Mr. Hunt had any regard to the welfare of the Church he would have singled out such Criminals and brought them to shame and condign punishment there being sufficient Laws for the punishment of them and it being the interest of the Magistrates to free the Church and State from such pests A Judas may creep in among Christs own Disciples and a Jonah hide himself in the bottom of the Ship But doubtless it is the interest of all that are in such a Ship to have them discovered and cast out that the storms which threaten their common destruction may be allayed especially when as Mr. Hunt says they come often under observation frequent publick houses and talk loud He that doth not according to his power seek to prevent these evils is consenting to and contracts the guilt of them Qui non vetat cum potest jubet But it consists not with Mr. Hunts design to do the Church such a real Service as to free her from such miscreants but to involve the whole Clergy under the same defamation that they may fall under the same condemnation To this end instead of extenuating the number of such he aggravates their faults as 1. Being such as may choak the Constancy Resolution and Zeal of the most addicted to the Service of the Church-men 2. That they are acted by the Papists 3. That they are agreeable to and indeed make up the most modern Project and Scheme of the Popish Plot. And 4. That They deserve to suffer as the betrayers of their Country and to be prosecuted with greater shame and ignominy than the Traditores were by the Ancient Christians And thus having breathed a while he this ill-natured Lawyer begins to lash our good-natured Divines again Vpon such scandalous and false Suggestions as these it is saith he that the generality of the Clergie who any way appear for a Christian Subjection to the King and a defence of the established Government of the Church are represented as Popishly affected and betrayers of the True Protestant Religion and the Laws c. I would have Mr. Hunt to answer his own Question p. 101. What Fines and Imprisonments Pillories and Scourgings do they deserve that persecute the Church with revilings when they themselves are tolerated It must be some large Bribe or promise of the publick Faith that thus ingageth our Lawyer to support a dying Cause and to take part as well with Papists as Fanaticks to bring the English Reformation into contempt For what neerer way is there to effect it than first to represent those who he says established our Religion in Queen Elizabeths days to be assertors and promoters of the Doctrine of King-killing Secondly to affirm That in the days of King Charles the first by preaching up the Divinity of Kings and their Absolute power that unnatural War was begun And Thirdly p. 7. That at his Majesties return Fanaticism had expired if some peevish old and stiff Church-men had not studied obstacles and some craftie States-men had not projected that the continuance of the Schism would be of great service to destroy the Church And for the present Age the Clergy great and small are all under the same condemnation Great Friends to Popery and Arbitrary Government such as have no sense of Reason or Religion such as will not when it is in their power prevent the ruine of their Nation but are either accursed Neuters or else wilful Actors in drawing down the Judgments of God upon us And we are like to have no other the Fountains being corrupted can send forth nothing but unclean streams I pray God preserve the Honourable Inns of Court from such Impostors as Mr. Hunt Let not Mr. Hunt think to hide his Malice against the Clergy by a seeming commendation of their Offices as Apostolical when he adds that Religion may subsist without it and when by all manner of evil arts he seeks to inrage the multitude against them Nor that he is to be taken as a Friend to their persons or maintenance who labours so much to
take away their good names which like precious Oyntment I hope will send forth the better savour for being thus Chafed Alas we are not so very Dolts but that we know such little Arts to be the daily practice of every Sycophant and Tale-bearer who being minded to disgrace a person useth the same method as Mr. Hunt doth toward the Clergie first to invent then to spread abroad and aggravate their supposed faults or personal infirmities as pretended Friends For thus they insinuate Do you know such a person and do you hear nothing concerning him There is a strong Report that he hath done such and such evil things as will ruine him and all his Family I am heartily sorrie to hear such things of him but they cannot be hid or denied I am much troubled to hear of such gross miscarriages He was in a very good Way and had many advantages of benefitting himself and others but he hath abused them and outlived them all and his high Place and Calling doth but discover his nakedness the more and will precipitate his ruine It could hardly enter into my belief that a person that knows and professeth better things could ever have been guiltie of such Crimes And perhaps you will be as incredulous as I was but they are too true I perceive it is not all gold that glisters How a man may be deceived by an outward form and fucus of Honestie and Religion I thank God I am undeceived my self and hope others will be so too He is a very Wolf in Sheeps clothing a Persecutor of the Righteous who seemed a Preacher of Righteousness c. Have no fellowship or communion with him he is in the very gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity If such Insinuations are vile and odious in a vulgar mouth against a single person how much more vile are they in the printed Harangues of a man of understanding against the whole Order of the Clergie with a malicious designe first to disgrace and then to destroy them Either this Gentleman is well acquainted with the Vniversities and the generality of those that from thence are admitted to the Priesthood or not If he be not he is inexcusable for printing such Scandals against them if he be he cannot but know that there was never better Discipline in the Vniversity never greater Circumspection used concerning such as are admitted to Holy Orders than now there is and that if ever Clerus Anglicanus est stupor Mundi it was true that the English Clergie were the admiration of the world it is so now And therefore the Author of these oblique Reflections strikes at all the Heads of the Vniversities and at all the Bishops in their several Diocesses as if they were the Causers and Promoters of all these Disorders I do therefore appeal first to his own Conscience whether the far greater number both in the Vniversitie and in the Clergie be not men of Learning Integrity Piety and Loyalty and then he should in justice have given them such a character as the major part doth deserve Denominatio sumitur à majore And then I appeal to the testimony of more equal and indifferent men And such a one I take Dr. Burnet to be who for his late Writings had the Thanks of the Nation in a Parliament-way and he deserved it if he had written nothing else but the Testimony which he gives of the present Clergie God hath not so left this Age and Church but there is in it a great number in both the Holy Functions who are perhaps as eminent in the exemplariness of their lives and as diligent in their labours as hath been in any one Church in any Age since Miracles ceased The humility and strictness of life in many of our Prelates and some that were highly born and yet have far outgone some others from whom more might have been expected raiseth them far above censure though perhaps not above envie And when such think not the daily instructing their Neighbours a thing below them but do it with as constant a care as if they were to earn their Bread by it when they are so affable to the meanest Clergie-men that come to them when they are nicely scrupulous about those whom they admit into Holy Orders and so large in their Charities that one would think they were furnished with some unseen ways these things must needs raise great esteem for such Bishops and seem to give some hopes of better times Of all this I may be allowed to speak the more freely since I am led to it by none of those Bribes either of Gratitude or Fear or Hope which are wont to corrupt men to say what they do not think But I were much to blame if in a Work that may perhaps live some time in the world I should onely find fault with what is amiss and not also acknowledge what is so very commendable and praise-worthy And when I look into the inferiour Clergie there are chiefly about this great City of London so many so eminent both for the strictness of their Lives the constancie of their Labours and plain way of Preaching which is now perhaps brought to as great a perfection as ever was since men spoke as they received it immediately from the Holy Ghost the great gentleness of their Deportment to such as differ from them their mutual love and charity and in a word for all the qualities that can adorn Ministers or Christians that if such a number of such men cannot prevail with this debauched Age this one thing to me looks more dismally than all the other affrighting symptoms of our condition That God having sent so many faithful Teachers their labours are still so ineffectual If any man think the Doctor speaks partially let him hear Mr. Hunt's own Testimonie p. 48. of the Postscript Our Age is blessed with a Clergie renownedly learned and prudent And p. 105. he commends our Church for the purity of her Doctrine prudence of her Discipline and her commendable decent and intelligible Devotion This Testimony is true and therefore they who contradict it cannot be too sharply rebuked But what reason can be conceived for these contradictory proceedings This Gentleman I conceive might fancie himself to be Chairman of the Committee for Trial of Ministers and hath taken his Measures for proceeding in that case from the practice of his Predecessors who formed Articles of the like nature against the Clergie of that Age. Imprimis For adhering to the King against his Parliament Item For preaching a necessitie of obedience to the King as Supream and thereby endeavouring to introduce an Arbitrary Power Item For disobeying the Votes and Ordinances of Parliament for demolishing of Superstition and keeping out of Popery Item For defending Episcopacie and Liturgie for not keeping the daies of Fasting and Humiliation appointed to crave a blessing on the Parliaments Forces and the days of Thanksgiving for defeating the Kings designs Item For preaching up Passive
Obedience when the Laws do allow us to make resistance in defence of our Religion our Liberties and Lives Item For insufficiencie not being able to pray ex tempore or to preach without book Witness Dr. Pocock Bishop Sanderson c. Item For administring the Sacrament to all that desired it and for using the Lords Prayer as a Charm Such were the Articles by which a great part of that Clergie was destroyed of whom the world was not worthy With such our Gentleman is still in travel but I hope his labour will be in vain Read some of those Sermons and Treatises which of late years have been published by such as you call young Coxcombs Consider the strains of Piety and Moderation of Reason and Judgement of Industrie and acquired Knowledge and I am confident you will find so little hopes to be believed by others that you will see reason enough not to believe your self Let him talk of the persecution of Julian and other Pagans this which our Author promotes exceeds them all Others did but Occidere Episcopos this man seeks Occidere Episcopatum and under a pretence of pleading and praying for them he contrives how to prey upon them What else meaneth that insinuation which he quotes from Grotius to gain it some Authoritie having bankrupted his own Verso in morem abusu intermitti res ipsas non est infrequens p. 13. of Preface which he applieth to the Episcopal Office Nomen eminentia Episcopalis eorum culpa quibus obtigerat omnem sui perdiderat reverentiam in odium venerat plebis I greatly wondered to hear that Prayer of his against Sacriledge p. 103. He that designs contrives or consents to spoil the Church of any of her Endowments may a secret Curse waste his substance let his Children be Vagabonds and beg their bread in desolate places But when I call to mind Mr. Humphries project for increasing the number of our Bishops whom he would have to be chosen by the several Factions Presbyterian Independent c. and these whether Lay-men or Clergie-men to preside over those Parties it remembred me of a passage of Mr. Hunt's p. 90. of his Postscript where he demands thus Will it be any prejudice that the number of her Bishops be increased and that Suffragans be appointed and approved by the present Bishops c. So that when other Trades fail Mr. Hunt as well as Mr. Humphries may have some hopes of being made Suffragans at least For the Order of Episcopacie may be laid by as he intimates and then some Lay-superintendents may succeed and enjoy their Honours and Revenues Therefore to his Curse I shall add my Prayer for a blessing on Levi Deut. 33.11 Bless Lord his substance and accept the work of his hands smite through the Loins of them that rise up against him and of them that hate him that they rise not again The second Head contains a justification of the late unnatural War p. 6. It is difficult he saith to tell how that late unhappie War began or how it came to issue so tragically in the death of the late King And being to speak in so difficult a case he enters his caution p. 50. I would not be perversly understood by any man as if I went about to justifie our late Wars But it will appear to be Protestatio contra factum P. 102. He says That War would have been impossible if the Churchmen had not maintained the Doctrine that Monarchie was Jure Divino in such a sence that made the King Absolute This was a fiction of Mr. Baxters and through the Loins of the Clergie they strike at the King as if that glorious Prince intended Tyranny But that good Prince was far from any design of ruling by an Arbitrarie power he had no Army nor Mony to raise one but by the contrivance of some men his Father was engaged in an expensive War for the recoverie of the Palatinate which exhausted all the Exchequer and reduced the Royal Family to great necessities and then they failed in their promised Supplies and left him to a precarious way of subsisting and to stretch his Prerogative for the preservation of himself and Family He would have parted with the half of his Power and Prerogative as he often offered to have preserved or restored peace to his Subjects But when he spake to them of Peace they made themselves ready for Battle But were there not some other Doctrines preached in those days which contributed more to the beginning of that War than that of the Divinity of Kings What think you of the Doctrine of the lawfulness of Resistance then preached and printed under the same Arguments as now it is by Mr. Marshal Burton c. What think you of that Doctrine which according to the Jesuits taught That the rise and Original of Government is in the People and that as they gave so they might recall it as they saw cause You know who layeth down the same Principle in a certain Preface That Government is the perfect creature of men in Societie made by pact and consent and not othorwise most certainly not otherwise and therefore most certainly ordainable by the whole Communitie for the safety and preservation of the whole P. 38. of Preface To what tended this other Doctrine That the Authoritie of the King was in the two Houses when they had frighted away his Person That the King was Singulis major but Vniversis minor That Episcopacy was an Antichristian Order and to be stub'd up root and branch That the King Court and Bishops were designing to bring in Popery That our Liturgy was but the Mass-book translated These Doctrines with such Remonstrances Votes and Ordinances began that unhappy War The Associations made in City and Country seizing the Forts and Magazines and Royal Navy and answering all his Messages of Peace with reproaches of his Male-administrations This is that which you call the English Loyalty When they sent out Armies to fight him when they had him Prisoner and voted no more Addresses they were if you will believe them or Mr. Hunt his Majesties most Humble and Loyal Subjects still Such as these I could as easily prove to be the Doctrines of those times as that they are the Opinions and Practices of too many in these our days though most absurd and dangerous as they are now published by too many besides our two Authors P. 20. Pref. There is little reason to charge the guilt of the unexpiable Murther of our late Excellent King upon Presbyterie which was not thought of here in England till the War was begun And p. 21. Sure this Gentleman hath read very little or dissembleth very much Mr. Cambden in the Life of Queen Elizabeth is full of the Projects and Practices of such as planted the Geneva-Discipline here in England what troubles they occasioned to the Government both in Church and State and what deserved punishments some of them received as Penry and Vdal
Goodness of God who may yet prevent not onely those distant evils which we fear but those real mischiefs also which we are presently and desperately running into Either the evils we fear may not come or if they do they may be speedily removed and by the blessing of God may be Sanctified by our amendment in a greater love of the Truth and of one another While Julian was meditating against Christians his vain-glory spur'd him on to a War against the Persians intending to have added one Title more to himself viz. Parthicus And although he were disswaded from it by Salustius and other his best Souldiers Amn. Marcell l. 23. c. 4. as also by those Southsayers in whom he placed most confidence yet would he by no means be diverted from that War which he carried on with such rashness and wilfulness that we may justly number him with those of whom it is said Quos perdere vult Jupiter dementat prius He was in his March presented by a Company of Souldiers with a great Lyon wounded to death which portended the death of some great King saith Marcellinus but he took no notice of it A Souldier also as he had watered his two Horses was struck dead together with them by Lightning which was interpreted as an ill Omen yet on he goes towards Persia and as soon as he had landed his Army in Persia he caused his Ships to be burnt reserving onely a few of the least of them to serve as a Bridge over the Rivers that might hinder his March which much offended his Souldierie as arguing a distrust of their valour and cutting off all hopes of retreat in their greatest necessitie It hapned that in the first Onset which was made by the Persians Julian had the better and thereupon appointed a solemn Sacrifice to Mars for which ten white Bulls are prepared but nine of them died before they could be brought to the Altar and the other ran away but being brought back was sacrificed but revenged his death by such ominous signs as highly incensed Julian and made him resolve and swear by Jupiter never to sacrifice to Mars again So that here was another Apostacie of Julian's from one of his chief Gods the God of War The grand Battalia of the Persians being at hand Julian prepares for it and in the preceding night he told some of his friends that the publick Genius which he saw when he was saluted Emperour in Gaul appeared to him in a sad posture and sorry habit passing by He saw also an Exhalation in the form of a Torch falling to the ground which he was afraid had been the Star Mars which threatned him His Aruspices being consulted upon this disswaded him from that Battle at least for some hours But he refused and as soon as it was day put his Army in order for a fight The Persians were as early as he and falling on the Rear of the Roman Armie put them to some distress which Julian hearing of made such haste to succour them that he took onely his Target neglecting any other Armour and by his seasonable assistance recovered the fault and repulsed the Persians and with hands lifted up urged his men to pursue them he himself being at the head of them and on the very heels of his Enemies In this Conflict he received his mortal Wound a Javelin slightly wounding his Arm pierced into his Side and stuck in his Liver From what hand it came we have had occasion to enquire already and as for the report that he pluck'd it out and threw it in the Air with a Vicisti Galilaee I find no great authoritie for it among the Writers of that Age. His wound being searched and dressed the pain abated and calling for his Arms and Horse resolved to enter again into the fight but his strength failed him and hearing that the place where he was wounded was called Phrygia he remembring that it was foretold that he should die in Phrygia despaired of life and about Midnight calling for a draught of cold Water he drank it and shortly after died His dying Speech THe time of departing this life is my Companions now at hand which as an honest and well-meaning Debtor I gladly repay to Nature not as some believed with reluctancie and sorrow for by the common Opinion of Philosophers I am sufficiently instructed in how much more blessed condition the Soul is than the Bodie and am satisfied that when one passeth out of a worse into a better estate he ought to rejoyce rather than to be troubled considering also that the Celestial Gods reward the most pious men with death as the greatest reward of all others I also am assured that it hapneth to me after the same manner lest I should fall under some heavie burthens as I undergo or do any thing unworthie of my self having yet ever found by experience that sorrows and pains as they domineer over Cowards so are easily overcome by Valiant persons Neither doth it repent me of my Actions nor the remembrance of any Wickedness afflict me either committed at such time as I lay in the shade and in corners as I could and studied vertue or since I came to the Government I think I have kept my self blameless and without blemish as one descended from the Gods above In times of Peace governing with moderation not without good consideration making either Offensive or Defensive Wars though the issue were not always answerable For the Celestial Powers alone have the Soveraignty of Events concluding with my self that the end of Government is the advantage and safety of good Subjects I have ever been as you know more inclined to Peace and Tranquillitie by the whole course of my actions opposing Lasciviousness as that which corrupts both things and manners and whithersoever my Mother the Commonwealth how imperiously soever called me though to never so dangerous a Post there have I stood immovable being accustomed to despise all fortuitous events I will not be ashamed to confess that I have heretofore understood that I should die in War and therefore I adore and praise the eternal Divinity that I perish not by any Conspiracie nor languish through the pain of a Disease nor am I condemned to death he thought it might have been upon his Brother's death but in the middle course of my flourishing Glory I have deserved so renowned a passage out of this world He is equally to be esteemed a Coward who desireth to die when he ought to live as he who shuns death when it comes conveniently Thus much may suffice to have spoken my strength now failing me Concerning my Successor I wittingly say nothing lest through imprudence I should pass by a worthie person or by naming one I conceive fitly qualified if another should chance to be preferred bring him into imminent danger but as a dutiful Son of the Commonwealth I wish her a good Governour in my room Having spoken this he perceived his Attendants to