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A44455
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Animadversions on Mr Johnson's answer to Jovian in three letters to a country-friend.
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Hopkins, William, 1647-1700.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing H2753; ESTC R20836
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74,029
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140
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since it is so I shall make two or three Observations from his Advertisement and proceed to consider the Book it self And first I cannot but take notice that during the Interval between the Printing and Publishing of this Book Mr. Iohnson had seen his scandalous and malicious suggestions against the Assertors of the Succession and Passive Obedience abundantly confuted It is manifest to all the World that those worthy Persons were not more mistaken in the good hopes they had of a Popish Successor that he would be moderate just and religiously observe his Promises to maintain our Religion and Liberties than he was mistaken in the ill Opinion he had entertained and the Calumnies he had published of them He had traduced them as Persons weary of their Religion Betrayers of their English Liberties and had particularly accused Dr. Hicks of fitting the notion of Passive Obedience on purpose for the use of a Popish Successor to render us an easier prey to the bloody Papists It is evident the Papists themselves had no such opinion of his kindness since he hath been baited for Iovian by all their Pamphleteers and by their procurement was in his own Cathedral in an Assize-Sermon levelled at the Test and Penal Laws most rudely and impudently reviled It is well known how early and zealously the Doctor appeared both in the Pulpit and in Print for the defence of the Protestant Religion that he was one of the first Divines I believe the very first whom King Iames Closeted for Preaching against Popery and animadverting on the Royal Papers Mr. I. is not ignorant that Dr. H. and his Friends who durst not by force of Arms resist a Popish Prince defended their Religion and civil Rights against him with an invincible Courage and repulsed all his attempts upon both as a brave strong Wall would the Batteries of a sorry Engine That neither Bribes nor Menaces could induce them to afford him those assistances in undermining the foundations both of Church and State which many violent Excluders offered him in their Addresses made publick in our Gazettes If Mr. I. had either ingenuity or shame he would not have published this Reply without acknowledging his Errour and retracting his slanderous Insinuations as also he would have made some reparation to the Clergy and Universities whose unsteadiness he sliâ—y forebodes from the Example of Queen Mary's Reign All this might have been done without either much trouble to himself or expence to Mr. Chiswell The reverse of the Title Page or the back side of the Lord Russell's Monument would have afforded him room enough and such a piece of Ingenuity and plain dealing would have gotten him more reputation with good Men than all his Book besides Secondly It is also observable that during the same â—nterval was Published Sir George Mackenzie's Ius Regium in which he vindicates the Scotch Succession and confutes the story of Robert the Second and Elizabeth More as it is related from Hector Boethius and Buchanan by Mr. Hunt Mr. Atwood and Mr. Iohnson He proves against them that from Robert the Second the Crown descended on the next Lineal Heir viz. Robert the Third Eldest Son of the said Elizabeth More who was his first anâ— lawful Wife Married to him solemnly A. D. 1349. and died before his Marriage with Eupheme Daughter of the Earl of Rosse This he supports by Authorities more credible than those which garnish Mr. I's Margin so that till the story be better supported and what Sir George hath said against it be disproved it must pass for a Fiction Now I blame neither him nor his Friends for reporting it after such Authours but since he would not let a mistake in History which he saith is not material escape him without advertising the Reader I understand not the ingenuity of letting so gross a mistake in story and so very material pass without adding one line more to warn him of it or offering better proof to maintain it Thirdly Mr. I's reason for suppressing his Book five years together may serve for an answer to your clamorous Neighbours who expect Mr. Dean should reply to this Book and conclude him baffled because he hath not answered it almost before he can have read it But if he never answer it let them know that Victory doth not always attend him who hath the last word and if the times which would not bear it salved Mr. I's honour whilst his Book lay dormant why may not Mr. Dean be allowed to use the same discretion I doubt not but he will consider this Reply and be ready to defend himself against the most formidable Arguments in it if he find it expedient but I conceive he stands no way obliged to take notice of this thing called an Answer to Iovian having declared in the close of his Preface to that Book that if instead of a fair close and substantial Answer he should only nibble shuffle and prevaricate and take Sanctuary in cavil satyr and scurrillity he would pass over such kind of replies with silence and conâ—empt This you will find the exact Character of this celebrated performance of Mr. I's and therefore he deserves not to be considered by his Learned Adversary That Man must have an unreasonable partiality for the cause of Exclusion and Resistance who will allow this to be a full Answer to Iovian wherein nothing is said to a great part of that Book neither is there any notice taken of many Arguments levelled against his two darling notions viz. That nothing is more plain than that the Empire was Hereditary and that it is lawful to resist a Prince by force of Arms if he persecute against Law as Julian did To disprove the former of these Mr. Dean hath shewn that the Succession to the Roman Empire was Elective Casual and Arbitrary and to make it out hath been at the pains to give a succinct account from all the Writers of the Imperial History both Greek and Latin how every Emperour from Iulius to Iulian came to the Throne from which account it appears that although many Princes endeavoured to secure the Succession in their own Families yet none esteemed the Empire to be their Inheritance or made claim to it by a right founded in proximity of blood but on the contrary pretended upon the nomination of their Predecessors or the choice sometimes of the Army sometimes of the Senate and sometimes of both and that when it continued some while in the same Family no regard was had to the next lineal Heir but adopted Sons have been preferred before the natural the more remote Kindred before those who were nearer and the Empire hath been divided between two or three Augustus's at once All which and a great deal more which may be true for ought he knows by his own Confession is utterly inconsistent with an Hereditary Succession as that of England is whose Laws do not allow our Kings to disinherit a Son or prefer the Issue of a
the Government of the Succession in the R. Empire was in the hands of the Emperour shews that Succession to be Arbitrary and not Hereditary and is so far from answering Iovian's Objections that it yields the Point Wherefore to his second and third Positions I shall return him an answer almost in his own words and desire he would inform me in what part of the Globe that Hereditary Kingdom lies where the present Possessor of the Crown hath the Power of declaring whom he will Relation or Stranger his Successor What sort of Hereditary Succession was that in which the first of the Family named a single Successor the second named a third and the Survivour of them though he had no other choice if Mr. I. mistake not yet did amiss in naming Iulian and ought to have named a Stranger I conceive that Succession is every whit as much Elective which depends on the free choice and nomination of one Person as that which is determined by the majority of a hundred Votes What he addeth to prove the Empire Hereditary in the Families of Valentinian and Theodosius serves only to encrease that dislike which I ever had to works of Supererogation It being all meer Rhetorick such good wishes and Complements as might have been made a King of Poland And therefore I am much amazed at Mr. I's confidence in affirming that every one knows the present Kings Children in an Elective Kingdom are furthest off from succeeding who ever succeeds they shall not He excepts only the German Empire when every one that knoweth any thing of the State of Europe can tell him of two other famous Monarchies both Elective in which being of the Royal Family is not a prejudice to their Claim but a Commendation to the Crown The one is the Kingdom of Denmark which was elective till within these thirty Years and yet all along from Waldemar to Frederick IV. they chose one of the same Family and for the most part the next lineal Heir The other viz. the Crown of Poland goes by Election to this day which yet in the present Century was successively worn by Sigismond and his two Sons Ladislaus and Casimir and it was a great advantage to Sigismund in his pretences to the Crown that he was of the Iagellonian Race and Grandson by the Mother-side to Sigismund and before that the Iagellonian Race Reigned two hundred Years and yet the Poles had no Jealousy that their Elective Constitution should be changed into Hereditary Nay where the Male Issue hath failed they have either chosen a Daughter or else made her Husband King as in the Case of Hedwig Daughter of Ludovicus Married to Iagello and Anne Daughter of Sigismund first Married to King Stephen Not to add that if Mr. I. have read the Rep. of Hungary he cannot but have seen that that Crown though held Electionis jure hath ordinarily descended to the King's Son or Brother or other Relation You see Sir How little reason we have to trust either Mr. I's Honesty or Politicks We have done at length with those miserable Fallacies which Mr. I. was forced to muster for the support of his desperate Assertion that the Empire was Hereditary which he himself hath so little confidence in that he denies the stress of his Argument to lie upon that Assertion that the Empire was Hereditary in Iulian's time Certainly he was of another mind when he wrote his former Book and thought it necessary to the fidelity of his proceedings to consider how the Roman Succession stood c. Well but on second thoughts Iovian's Concessions will serve his turn as well Iulian was Caesar expectant of and next to the Imperial Throne and yet such pretensions the Christians would have set aside for the security of their Religion and for fear of it the Apostate dissembled it for ten years together Now Sir I desire you only to read Iovian's comparison of a Caesar and a Prince of Wales and you will quickly see how unlike the Cases of Iulian and our Popish Successor were and how little could be concluded from the former in the latter case Iovian shalâ— readily grant him that it is a great sin in those who can legally and justly prevent a Popish Successor and do it not That the Fathers had been to blame if they had known Iulian's Religion and Temper and had not been for degrading him from the Caesar-ship nay he undertakes that the Fathers of our Church whom Mr. I. so much vilifies in comparison with the Bishops 13 o Eliz. would set aside a thousand such Titles as Iulian's to secure the Reformed Religion So that Mr. I's After-game will not save his stake I am now come to his Discourse about the Bill of Exclusion to which I shall say the less because I always esteemed it an Argument quite above me and looked upon it as no small Felicity that my station in the World freed me from those perplexities I should have been in had I been a Member of that honourable Body in which that weighty Case was so often debated and on whose votes the Decision of it so much depended So far as I understand that Controversie you know my Sentiments already which as they do not in all things exactly concur with those of Iovian so do they much less accord with his Adversary's You very well observe many passages in this Answer to Iâ—vian which are meer Jests and not Replies and particularly his Cavil against Mr. D'â— distinction whereby he vindicates those who addressed against the Bill of Exclusion That it was not a Popish Successour as Popish but the Succâ—ssion which they promised to maintain A Zeal for the Lineal Succession where the next Heir is a Papist and a Zeal for the nextâ— Heir as Popish are things very different and are not meerly in notion distinct but in reality insomuch that those very Persons who stickled most against the Exclusion of a Popish Successour deserted him as Iovian undertook they would in his Endeavours to overthrow the Protestant Religion Who were fittest Tools for that Service the whole Nation knows and if Mr. I's Jest is too precious to be lost he is too well acquainted with another sort of Addressers to whom the Distinction not as Protestants but as Addressers may be more properly and truly applied I am sure they very much need the help of some good Friend to bring them off with honour and if either this or any other distinction Mr. I. can devise will solve the Paradox and reconcile their fiery Zeal against Popery with their Addresses of Thanks for a Declaration design'd to introduce it and their Promises to chuse such a Parliament as would destroy our best Securities against Popery I shall acknowledge him the greatest Man I ever met with In his Vindication of the Paper of Reasons whereof he will have the Bishops to be the Authours there are many things very strange and diverting First he will