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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65419	A vindication of the present great revolution in England in five letters pass'd betwixt James Welwood, M.D. and Mr. John March, Vicar of Newcastle upon Tyne : occasion'd by a sermon preach'd by him on January 30. 1688/9 ...	Welwood, James, 1652-1727.; March, John, 1640-1692.; Welwood, James, 1652-1727.	1689 (1689)	Wing W1310; ESTC R691	40,072	42

due from a Minister of the Church of England to the Learned Dr. Burnet who to his Immortal Glory has vindicated the Reformation of that Church from the Aspersions of its Enemies by a History admired by all the World and done already into several Foreign Languages I might say more to oblige you to a blush but sure I am its punishment enough in it self that you did so The next thing I take notice of in your Sermon is your Endeavours to prove Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance a Principle founded on the Word of God and asserted by all the Protestants in the World. Pray Sir what new thing have you discover'd from the Sacred Text but what has been a thousand times said and as many times convincingly answer'd and particularly by the great Grotius a Man not much inferior to you in Learning and Judgment I confess it 's a matter of no great difficulty to talk bigly of Arguments for any Opinion in a place where there is none to answer But as to your asserting That to resist Magistrates in any case is disallowed by all the Protestants in the World I would have you to talk this in some place where Protestant Books are forbid but not where we have the Greatest and Learnedst of that Religion expresly allowing of it in many cases as among many others Calvin Beza Du Plessis Luther Melancton Zuinglius Dumoulin c. And to evince that their Practice goes equal pace with their Opinion I must tell you That you cannot instance me any Protestant Church in Europe England alone excepted that was not necessitated to wrestle thro its Reformation from Popery and Slavery by resisting the Power that would have perpetuated both None acquainted with Modern History but knows That France Germany Switzerland the Grisons the Low Countries Swedland Scotland Denmark and Poland forced their way to Reformation by Resistance and the most of them thro Rivers of Blood. I confess it could have been wished That calmer Methods had been used but the then Juncture of Affairs in Europe and concurring Providences of God seem'd not then to allow them I know that many Divines of late among others the Excellent Claud has thought fit to lay the grounds of all these Wars in the preceding Age upon the account of Civil Interest viz. Oppression and breach of Laws and if it be so it meets too patly with our case in England So that if we be not allowed to vindicate our Religion at least we may vindicate our Civil Liberties by resisting a Power that would trample upon them And I here positively challenge you to instance one Protestant Writer of any Fame that disapproves the grounds of the Civil Wars of France Low Countries Switzerland and Germany because they were either upon a Civil or a Religious Account And upon the other hand among a great many in better Libraries I 'll produce you out of that small one I have in this place ten or twelve expresly proving the lawfulness of these VVars upon both these grounds and yet in them all there were the very same Steps made that appear in the great Revolution of England at this day And that this was the Unanimous Sentiment of this very Nation England in the last Age appears by its mighty protection of and influence upon the Reformations abroad under the happy Conduct of the Glorious Queen Elizabeth so that in disapproving of Resistance upon the account of Religion and Liberties you throw a black Aspersion upon the Sacred Ashes of a Princess who at the expence of a vast Treasure and many Lives assisted afflicted Subjects against their Tyranizing Princes And who knows but the Almighty God may raise up in our Age another Princess to act over again the part of her Triumphant Predecessor and make her a glorious Instrument to perfect that Reformation which the other did so happily begin I might inlarge upon a great many things in your Sermon which this short Letter cannot allow of but I admire what bad Genius prompted you to stile Self-Defence even in a general Notion an old Fanatick Principle VVere the Authors of the Roman Tables their Codex Pandects and Institutions and all the Famous Lawyers that commented upon them Fanaticks Is not Moderamen inculpatae turelae lookt upon by them and by all Mankind as an indeleble Impression fixt upon our Nature by the Hand of our Maker If you had been at the pains to distinguish betwixt the Kinds of this Self-Defence and wherein it was allowed and wherein not you might have informed the Judgments of your Hearers but to give it such a Name without any distinction I 'll be bold to say you are the first that did it in a Pulpit There is but one thing more that I shall at present take notice of in your Discourse and really I cannot do it without horror Your saying That whoever medled with the Kings Forts Castles Militia and Revenue were in the sense of your Text guilty of Damnation Pray Sir do you consider upon whom you pass this uncharitable Censure Is it not upon a Prince that to rescue us from Popery and Slavery has ventur'd his All and who seems to have been given us of Heaven a Restorer of our Breaches Does not this your Thunder fall upon a mighty Protestant State who gave him the means to accomplish this glorious Enterprize In this you cast a Blot upon all the Protestant Princes in Europe who have concurr'd with him in it as the last cast of the Dye for our Religion In short you throw an indeleble Blot upon the most considerable Nobility and Gentry of the Nation that assisted him in this great Action And above all your Censure lies heavy upon the present Convention who have committed unanimously the Government into the Princes Hands for this Juncture And allow me to say That a greater Scandalum Magnatum was never tryed at a Barr than this of yours In fine Let any one of sound Judgment consider if this Discourse of yours be well Timed and if it had not been more Prudence to have lockt up such Notions in your own Breast than by giving them vent in a Pulpit expose a Noble Corporation to the Misapprehensions of those at the Helm upon your account and amuse the People with bad impressions of a stupendious Deliverance scarcely equal'd in History Sir I have transgrest the Limits of a Letter but if you will allow me the Favor of a Copy of your Sermon you shall have an Answer of it at full length by SIR Your Humble Servant JAMES WELWOOD Let me know if I may expect your Answer or a Copy of your Sermon To Mr JAMES WELWOOD Newcastle February 11th 1688 9. IT 's certain I never knew till this Morning that you had given your self the trouble and my meanness the honour and satisfaction of a Letter and to make the earliest acknowledgments I could of so particular a favour I set my self to the Writing an Answer assoon as I had leave from

from a more intimate acquaintance than your narrow Theatre could allow you obliges me to do that Justice to the Protestants abroad as to affirm That notwithstanding all the Resistance they made to their Tyrannizing Princes they are as much for Passive Obedience in its true and rational sense as the Church of England it self that is where the Commands of the Sovereign are incompatible with their duty they hold themselves oblig'd to suffer for their disobedience rather than to sin In all their Confessions of Faith they own Magistracy as the Ordinance of God and disapprove opposition to it in execution of Law But they never so far divested themselves of Reason as to yield up their Throats to be cut by their Princes turn'd absolute Tyrants when it was in their power to vindicate their Religion and Liberties by their Sword. That England concurr'd with them in this opinion appears as I told you in my Letter by the mighty protection they vouchsaft them in this their Resistance Moreover which I forgot to tell you in all the Convocations of the Clergy of England at that time there were vast sums given to carry it on and the preamble of ev'ry Act does fairly insinuate the lawfulness of that resistance made by the Protestants abroad against their Princes so that resistance was not only allowed by the Nation but likewise by the Church of England in a full Convocation of its Fathers And if the Church of England assisted so generously in the support of the Protestants abroad at a time when their Religion was Heresie by the Laws of their Country How much rather would these excellent Fathers of the Church have done it if their Religion had been settled by positive and fundamental Laws as it was after by several Edicts and Treaties What you say of the difference of the Government of the Empire and that of England I know but let me tell you as the Golden Bull is the great Barrer against Slavery there the same is the Coronation Oath here and consequently if the Germans may lawfully resist the Emperor or the Rex Romanorum upon breach of that Bull the same may the Representatives and Nobility of England do upon palpable breaches of the Coronation Oath for as the Golden Bull is the great security of the German aggregate Body against the incroachments of the Emperor the same is the Coronation Oath in England against the incroachments of the King. Fourthly You tell me you hold Passive Obedience to be founded on the word of God and maintain'd by the Church of England and contain'd in her Homilies To this I Answer 1. Tell me what opinion was ever broached in the Church without a pretence of Scripture to back it And what gloss can you put upon any Text of Holy Writ to prove your position but what has been a thousand times said and as many times refell'd Yet if you had allowed me a Copy of your Sermon I would have endeavoured to clear the sense of the Texts you make use of which I do not exactly remember so as to make nothing for your purpose And in your doing the one and I the other neither of us would have reason to value our selves upon that score since I fear none of us could outdo what has been again and again done already on that Subject In the mean time let me tell you that the simple stating of the Question solves all the Arguments you can bring from Scripture as I shall make appear in one word anon 2. As to Passive Obedience its being the Doctrine of the Church of England I have told you already that the Fathers of the Church of England contradicted it in Queen Elizabeths Reign And where can we find more authentick records of their Opinion and Doctrine than in the Printed Manifesto's and Acts made in Convocation As to the 39 Articles which is in place of a Confession of Faith and the Homilies wherein you say that Doctrine is maintain'd I 'll make bold to say that Passive Obedience in the narrow sense you take it was not so much as thought on at the time of their Publishing And albeit you should find a way to make them seem to speak for you the simple right stating of thē question answers them sufficiently It would seem to me that the Mitred Clergy and particularly that excellent Prelate My Lord Bishop of London should be at least as well acquainted with the Doctrine of the Church of England as any private Minister in a corner of the Nation and how far they have refell'd your fond Principle appears with a Witness in their committing the Government to the Prince in this juncture and a great many other publick actings If your Passive Obedience be the Principle of the Church of England how few Church of England-men are there in both Houses of Convention at present since they act so diametrically opposite to it And yet I perswade my self these Worthy Patriots would take it ill to be call'd of any other Church 3. To refell your Tenet of Passive Obedience in one word I need no more but to state the case fair and without equivocation thus Whate're can be said from Scripture or the acknowledgment of Protestant Churches Centers all in this viz. That it is unlawful to resist the Magistrate while he is lawfully such because he is Gods Vicegerent within his own Iurisdistion But when by his maleversations he divests himself of that Office and assumes a contradictory Character by trampling upon Laws and endeavouring to subvert the fundamental constitutions of the State contrary to his Coronation Oath in this case in my humble opinion He is no more justly a Magistrate nor the object of our Obedience and sua culpa amittit Imperium Upon which the Primores Regni and the Representatives of the People may lawfully fill up the Throne vacated by such palpable incroachments This being the State of the case all the Texts of Scripture you can produce for Obedience to Magistrates are to be natively understood and in a Logical propriety of predication asserted of Obedience to Magistrates when they are justly and lawfully such but the Relatives do not meet when the Magistrate by his own fault becomes dispossest of the Office. There is one thing more I would have you to take notice of to clear this head and it 's this There is a great difference betwixt resisting the Magistrate when he tramples upon the Religion and Liberty of any part of his Subjects in the execution of the Laws made against them and his doing of it in contradiction to Fundamental Laws already made in their Favours As for example albeit I should acknowledge that in Nero's time it had been unlawful for the Christians to resist him because Christianity was at that time contradictory to the Laws of the Empire Yet I cannot perswade my self but in case the Laws at that time had not only established the Christian Religion as the Religion of the Empire but had

A VINDICATION Of the present Great Revolution IN ENGLAND IN FIVE LETTERS Pass'd betwixt Iames Welwood M. D. and Mr. Iohn March Vicar of Newcastle upon Tyne Occasion'd by a SERMON Preach'd by him on Ianuary 30. 1688 9. before the Mayor and Aldermen for Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance Licensed April 8. 1689. London Printed and sold by R. Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1689. THE PREFACE READER NOthing can excuse me even to my self for thus appearing in Print but the occasion of it backt with a Command I could not disobey Not many Months ago the posture of Affairs in Europe threaten'd no less than the utter extirpation of the Reform'd Religion and Re-establishment of a Yoke so happily thrown off the Age before The French King more from the weakness of his Contemporary Princes and a fatal Friendship packs up with the Two last Kings of England than either by his own Strength or Mony had rendred himself so formidable abroad and absolute at home as enabled him to fall on his Protestant Subjects in a Path untrodden by the worst of the Primitive Persecutors themselves seeing in this even the favour of Dying was denyed them And neither the mighty Services they had done that King in preserving the Crown upon his Head in his Minority nor the solemnest Sanctions ratified by Oath could secure these poor Victims from the Villany and Cruelty of Popish Counsels The on-looking Protestant States stood amaz'd at this Tragick Scene and all the Assistance they were able to give their distrest Brethren was that of Prayers and Tears they themselves expecting to appear next upon the mournful Theater The Accession of a Popish Prince to the Throne the barefac'd Invasions of Liberty and Property the palpable Incroachments on Laws and Fundamental Constitutions with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Popish Confidence a Prince of Wales were Events too great and important not to awaken England out of a Lethargy the reiterated Promises of preserving the Protestant Religion as by Law establish'd had cast her into And as some Diseases are not known till past cure all the effect of her awakening was to see her Case desperate and her Ruine inevitable Things were in this deplorable State when his present Majesty led by the Hand of Heaven and sway'd by the glorious Motives of Honour and Religion to save us from the precipice of Ruine ventur'd on an Enterprize unexampl'd in the Records of Time. This stupendious Attempt including in its Womb the Fate of this and all other Reform'd Churches of Christendom was seconded with the Prayers and alternate Hopes and Fears of all good Men who justly considered the then Prince of Orange's Interest with that of our Religion Lives and Liberties were embarkt in one and the same Bottom The Almighty was pleas'd beyond the ordinary Tracts of Providence to meet the Nations pressing Misery and to bring our Deliverer to the Capital City there to be addrest with the just thanks of a People he had sav'd from Destruction and the humble offer of the Government Military and Civil for that Iuncture It was at this very time that I had the unhappiness to be hearer of a Sermon preach'd by Mr. March in which his now Majesties Glorious Enterprize and the Concurrence and Actings of the Nobility and Gentry of England were scandaliz'd with the name of Rebellion and the now Lord Bishop of Salisbury treated in the rudest manner for a Papen said to be his viz. An Enquiry into the Measures of Obedience c. which Mr. Vicar undertook in his Sermon to refute To hear such a Discourse so tim'd and to find its approbation eccho'd by the Gentlemans Admirers was a thing very unpleasant to me to see a Prince condemn'd in the Pulpit by the very Men he came to save and the People cajol'd by Plausible Insinuations into a bad Opinion of so great a Deliverance were too pressing Motives to break Silence And if I may add one particular Swasive to these of a more publick Nature the friendship betwixt the Learned Doctor Thomas Burnet Physician and me and the Obligations I have to him could not permit me without a breach of Gratitude to bear his Brother My Lord Bishop of Salisbury the honour of our Country so scurrilously treated without taking some notice of it These were the Inducements that extorted my First Letter and that occasion'd the rest And what Consequents these Lines have produc'd if thou be acquainted in the Country where they were writ thou canst not but know and if a Stranger tho I should tell thee thou canst scarce believe I design'd an Answer to his Sermon if I had been allowed a Copy which to oblige Mr. Vicar to send me I wrote the First so that the many Digressions in the other two will I hope meet with thy favourable Construction since I was necessitated to them by tracing of his I have done when I have told thee Thou canst not be more a loser in reading this than I in writing and exposing it to the Censure of the World contrary to my Inclination and perhaps to my Interest J. W. London April 1. 1689. To the REVEREND Mr. John March Vicar of NEWCASTLE Newcastle Feb. 1. 1688 9. LEST your narrow Acquaintance in the World and the Retirement your Humor obliges you to should occasion your Ignorance of the Sentiments the most thinking part of your Hearers have of your other days Sermon I have given my self the trouble to write these few Animadversions upon it which be pleased to take in good part as coming from a Person who as he scorns to flatter you so he hates to treat you any otherwise but as a Gown-man and a Gentleman The first thing which occurs to me in your Discourse is of such a nature as the Learned World and Men of Breeding have ever disdain'd I mean your unmannerly way of treating a Gentleman whose Reputation is uncapable of being in the least tainted by any such waspish Expressions as yours Dr. Burnet has made a Figure in the World of no contemptible Magnitude and such an one as obliges the Roman Catholicks themselves whom none ever more disobliged to treat him in their Writings with the just Character a Person of his vast Learning deserves If in France amidst the heat of Persecution against those of his own Religion if in Italy yea in Rome it self Dr. Burnet has been carrest by all the Learned of the Romish Persuasion notwithstanding his immortal Writings against them could it be dreamed that in so Noble and Antient a Corporation as this of Newcastle and in presence of so many Worthy Gentlemen the Magistrates thereof any of the Black-Robe would venture to treat this Dr. Burnet with the scurrilous and indecent Epithets of a Man that has made a great bustle in the World an Apostate from the Church of England a seditious Inquirer a scandalous Pamphleteer and the like and to repeat such Expressions seventen times in less than three quarters of an hour Was this