same service what fortune ever fall by chance in the same Battle against the Mind and Will of the Prince as in this Land some time passed hath been seen that it is not reasonable but against all Law Reason and good Conscience that the said Subjects going with their Sovereign Lord in Wars attending upon him in his Person or being in other places by his commandment within this Land or without any thing should lose or forfeit for doing their true Duty and Service of Allegiance c That for the said deed and true Duty of Allegiance he or they be in no wise Convict or Attaint of high Treason ne of other Offences for that cause by Act of Parliament or otherwise by any Process of Law whereby he or any of them shall lose or forfeit Life Lands Tenements c. or any other things but to be for that Deed and Service utterly discharged of any vexation trouble or loss And if any Act or Acts or other Process of the Law hereafter thereupon for the same happen to be made contrary to this Ordinance that then that Act or Acts or other Process of the Law whatsoever they shall be stand and be utterly void 5 Provided always that no Person or Persons shall take any Benefit or Advantage by this Act which shall hereafter decline from his or their said Allegiance Which is to be understood of the King in being as the rest is and against the same King. To this Statute it is alledged That the Title of the Crown was then so ambiguous and uncertain that it was hard to know where the Right lay which is a meer Cavil The Title was as well known then as it is now and is a thing of that Nature that it can never be universally known but the greatest part of Mankind take those that are set over them without further inquiry nor is it reasonable any Man should suffer for obeying them whom he cannot nor ought to resist So that what some have said That every one is bound to take notice of the right Title at his Peril is true if the Person is in Possession but false if he is out of Possession Conquest a voluntary Surrender and a wilful Desertion of a Crown will put an End to the best founded Title in the World as I think is universally agreed so that if the Party pretending has a Title why is he not in Possession too if he is outed by his own Act I am absolved if by the Force and Power of another why then he is conquered and both waies especially if I had no hand in it I am and ought to be absolved before God and Man. But then not only the three Estates of England but all the Princes and Sovereign States in Christendom except the King of France have allowed King William and Queen Mary as the rightful Sovereigns of England which is a kind of giving Judgment against the late King after hearing what has been alledged on both sides So that this Case is determined by all the ways that are possible and must absolve any Man that submits now to that which is the only Supreme Power in England As to the Oaths taken to the late King they create no new Obligation upon us as to the Extent or Duration of our Allegiance I was under the same Obligations of Allegiance before I was sworn as I was afterwards and every Subject of England oweth by the Laws of England a natural Allegiance to his Prince before he is sworn as every Man ows naturally Obedience to God before he entreth into the Baptismal Covenant And so the Primitive Christians were under the same Obligation to their Princes we are tho' I do not find they ever swore any Allegiance to them 2. This Allegiance is no everlasting Obligation as to time Death a voluntary Resignation a wilful Desertion or a lawful Conquest will put an End to it 3. It is no wild unlimited Obedience whilst it lasteth but is plainly limited by the Laws of God and the Laws of the Land and if I obey further actively I am responsible to God and Man for it I come now to the Words of the Oaths which may seem to create any Scruple which in the Oath of Supremacy I suppose may be these I do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King's Highness his Heirs and Lawful Successors and to my Power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Where first I observe No Man is bound beyond his Power but that all those who stuck to the late King till he left the Nation and another took Possession of his Place are thereby disabled and freed from attempting any further 2. That the Authorities I am to defend are such only as belong to the Crown of England by the Laws of England which are to limit my Allegiance but by the Law of England my Allegiance is now transferred to another and cannot be due to two in opposition each to other so that if I persist in my Allegiance to James II. I am punishable by these very Laws therefore my Allegiance which was a legal Allegiance is determined That in the Oath of Allegiance which may be objected is this I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to his Majesty his Heirs and Successors and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my Power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity by reason or colour of any such Sentence or otherwise c. Now this Oath which binds us to the Person as the other did to the Power is capable of the same Limitation and is to be limited both as to its Duration and extent by the Laws of England and the Law of Nations and therefore is determinable the same way the other was The Power and uttermost Power reserved and expressed in these Oaths is a Legal Power and therefore no Man is by these Oaths bound to exert his Natural Power for any Prince when he may by the Laws of England be punished as a Traytor for so doing it being a Legal and not an Illegal Allegiance we promise by them If King James would have been contented with the Preheminences Priviledges Authorities and Jurisdictions granted and annexed or belonging to the Crown of England I believe no Body questions but he had been still King of England but by grasping at others which did not belong to him he cut off his own Succours and hindred those that otherwise would have defended him and them from doing it He would not be content with those that belonged to him and they could not fight for or defend any other and between these two his Power fell to the Ground by his own Default and his withdrawing put an End to his Sovereignty
THE DOCTRINE OF Non-Resistance or Passive Obedience No way concerned in the CONTROVERSIES Now depending between the Williamites and the Iacobites By a LAY GENTLEMAN of the Communion of the Church of England by Law establish'd Cruces nec colimus nec optamus LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXIX The Doctrine of NON-RESISTANCE or PASSIVE OBEDIENCE No way concern'd in the CONTROVERSIES now depending c. I Have with some impatience and wonder beheld the bandying of the Non-resisting Doctrine to and fro in this disturbed Kingdom for so many Months and to so little purpose because I am not able to comprehend what any of the contending Parties would be at nor why that Doctrine rather than any other should be made now the Subject of our Disquisitions and Enquiries For what if God has forbidden us upon pain of Damnation to resist our Lawful Princes when they do amiss and has reserved to himself the Censure and Punishment of his own Ministers as I'believe all Lawful Princes are such and that God has for great and wise Reasons tied up our hands Doth it therefore follow from hence that James is still the Lawful King of England Or that when he was so we that believe the Non-resisting Doctrine were bound to sight for him whatever he did And on the other side what can the Friends of their present Majesties pretend to palliate their Contempt and Scorn of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience It was indeed dangerous to them when he first entered England because all that believed themselves bound by it were obliged not to take up Arms for him against King James and so consequently it deprived him of their Assistance But when he had once subdued the Forces and obtained the Throne of that Infatuated Monarch of what use can it be to him to have his Subjects so frequently told That it is lawful for them to take Arms and Defend themselves their Rights and Religions against him I doubt not but His Majesty intends to Govern us with the utmost Clemency and Mercy according to our Laws But when neither Moses nor David could always please their Subjects It is to be feared the best of Princes may at one time or other need the Influence of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience to restrain the madness of the People and therefore they can be no Friends to Government in general nor to him or his in particular who are so zealous to have the Doctrine of Non-resistance extirpated out of the World. The consequence of which is That it is Lawful for every Man to Rebel against his Lawful Prince whenever he thinkâ— it necessary My design therefore in this Discourse being to put an end as far as I can to this unseasonable Dispute I shall endeavour to prove these Particulars as to the Friends of the late King. 1. That thâ—se that believed it were not thereby bound to assert the Mis government of James the Second 2. That seeing he has deserted his Throne and withdrawn his Person and Seals they are not thereby obliged to endeavour the restoring of him The Doctrine of Passive Obedience doth not oblige a Subject to assert the Mis-government of his Prince For it supposeth the Prince may command what he ought not and then it obligeth me to suffer rather than to resist my Prince or to break the Commandments of God or the Laws of my Country or do any other ill Action in Obedience to his Commands Now what is this to the purpose King James had notoriously subverted all our Constitutions and Laws both in Church and State and would suffer no redress the Church of England on the other hand Petition'd him from time to time by her Bishops and Nobility to suffer a Parliament to meet and redress our Grievances but this he would not yield and what should they do in this case Why said the Jesuit in the Answer to the Petition of the 17 th of November 1688. when they had set forth That in their Opinion the Only visible way to preserve his Majesty and this his Kingdom would be the calling of a Parliament Regular and Free in all its circumstances I hope to make it out that the summoning a Parliament now is so far from being the Only way to effect these things that it will be one of the Principal Causes of much Misery to the Kingdom And I am sure both our Duty to God and our holy Religion as well as to His Majesty and our Country doth plainly enjoyn us to use one other effectual means c. which is the keeping inviolably to our Allegiance to our Sovereign and effectually joyning with him to resist all his Enemies Whether Foreign Aggressors or Native Rebels That is let the King do what he please to you you are bound to fight for him and expel the Prince of Orange and subdue all his Adherents I can very well remember what small effect this Oratory had then upon the minds of all Men. There did not seem to be one Protestant in the Nation who could not distinguish between the Doctrine of Non-resistance and that of actually aiding a Prince to destroy and enslave his People His late Majesty however persisted in his Opinion that no Parliament could be holden till the Prince of Orange was driven out and the Clergy and Nobility in theirs that this was the Only visible way to preserve the late King and Kingdom which imply'd that all fighting was dangerous to both till this was done And accordingly as we had no disloyal Exhortations from Press or Pulpit to perswade Men to fight against their Prince so neither had we any to perswade us to fight for him but the thing was committed to God to determine as he thought fit In this our Bishops Clergy Nobility and Gentry and in general all the Children of the Church of England behaved themselves like good Christians and good Subjects too this difficult Case could then be no otherwise well and justifiably managed and if some few forgot their Duty and declared too soon for the Prince of Orange his now Majesty this they only are responsible for those that adhered to the late King till he actually left the Nation and the Government fell for want of the first Mover are not responsible for their Miscarriage if it was one In the Primitive times when this Doctrine was best both understood and practised their Loyalty was one of their lesser Virtues upon which they never valued themselves It would have been then a mean piece of Virtue for a Man to have alledged he had been ever Loyal to his Prince when a Rebel or a Traytor Christian was a thing they looked upon with horror and affrightment they expected Martyrdom every moment and were preparing for it at all times they were told then at their first admission into the Church that they must expect Persecution and every one who took up that Profession did it with that Expectation And the
and put our present King and Queen in the actual Possession of all those Legal Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authorities which he was formerly vested with and it is now the same Sin to resist them it was formerly to resist him There may possibly be some who will lightly regard what ever I or any other Man of this Age can say to them will they then vouchsafe to hear one of the most Noble and Royal Orators that ever spoke to men Constantine the Great in his Oration to the Holy Assembly Chap. 24. Of the calamitous Deaths of Decius Valerian and Aurelian three Emperors who persecuted the Church And now I ask thee O Decius who didst once insult over the Calamities of the Just who didst hate the Church who didst inflict such Punishments on those who lived most piously What art thou doing in the other World with what and how dreadful Circumstances art thou surrounded Yea the remainder of thy Life after it in this World and the manner of thy Death shew thy Felicity when thou and all thy Army fell in the Scythian Fields And the celebrated Roman Empire by thy Fall became after this contemptible to the Goths And thou O Valerian when thou didst enter into a bloody War against the Servants of God hast thereby made his Justice known to Men being taken Prisoner by the Persians and kept in Chains in thy Purple and Royal Robes After which thou wert flea'd being dead by Sapores King of Persia and thy Skin by his Order taâ—â—ed and kept as an eternal Trophy of thy Misfortune And thou O Aurelius the unjustest and most wicked Incendiary how much hast thou discovered his Justice whilst madly invading Thrace thou wert cut off in the Field and didst deâ—ile the surrows of the Publick Road with thy wicked Blood Chap. 25. Of Dioclesian who basely resigned the Empire and was struck with Lightning for persecuting the Church Dioclesian also after a wicked Slaughter and cruel Persecution condemning himself through distraction was reduced to a private Life and punished with the Restraint of a mean House What did he get by his War against our God Why that he was ever after afraid of Thunder and Lightning Nicomedia saith this and they who saw it will not be silent among whom I my self was one The Palace was consumed and his very Chamber burnt with Fire from Heaven and thereupon wise Men foretold what would follow for they could not conceal their Thoughts nor suppress their Resentments at the ill things were done but openly and publickly with assurance said one to another What madness is this what boasting in human Power for a Mortal to begin a War against God and injuriously to affront the most chast and holy Religion and without any Cause or Provocation to contrive the Destruction of so many just Men and of so numerous a People What a famous Master and teacher of Modesty to his Subjects will he appear How rarely he teacheth his Soldiers to take Care of their Countrymen Why they stab their fellow Subjects bravely who in Fight never saw the back of a beaten Enemy At last the Providence of God undertook the avenging this Impiety tho' not without the publick Hurt for so much Blood had been shed by him that if he had slain as many of the Barbarians as he did of his own Subjects we might have procured a long Peace by it But the whole Roman Army being then in the Hand of a mean-spirited Prince who had acquired it by Force his whole Army perished when God was pleased to think fit to restore the Romans to their ancient Liberty The Voices of oppressed Men who cryed to God for Help under their Burthens and begged the Return of their natural Liberty are not forgotten nor the Praises they returned when they had regained it and saw an end of their Calamities Did they not declare to all the World How much they admired the singular Providence and paternal Love of God to men when their Liberty and the Equity of their Contracts was restored That is when they were delivered out of the Hands of perfidious Tyrants and became subject to a Prince who would keep his Faith and Promise to them They may be pleased to consider How much of this was our Case and ask their Consciences If the self-same Divine Justice and Providence has not appeared in our Times also and whether we have not as much Reason as they to be pleased and thankful Having thus dispatched what I think fit for the present to be offered to the Friends of the late King I come now to that part of the Nation who being satisfied and highly pleased with the present State of Affairs may therefore be called in contradistinction the Williamists Many of these of late have appeared very pertly against the Doctrine of Non resistance and Passive Obedience and discoursed of it with a Contempt and Scorn as if it were one of the worst and most exploded Doctrines in the whole World and full as Antichristian as that of deposing Kings and disposing of their Kingdoms Now these two being directly contrary each to other in all probability one of them is true If we of the Church of England are not in the right with the Scriptures and all Primitive Antiquity on our side it is fairly probable They of the Deposing Church are for their Claim is older than the Peoples But the Mischief is the Devils is older than either for he pretended to our Saviour when he had shewed him all the Kingdoms of the World and made a conditional Tender of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All this Power and Glory is delivered into my Hands and I give it to whomsoever I will Now this was long before People or Pope put in any Claim and before the latter of these had any Being The Pope it is true claims under the People but the Devil in his own Right But I believe neither of them can shew their Charter though the Devil claimed by a Grant and so I shall leave him and them Pope and all in the intire possession of their several Rights if any they have The Doctrine of Non-resistance has been often proved the genuine Doctrine of the best Ages of the Church and that so fully and clearly that those who would not yield to the Force of the Proof have not been able to deny the Truth of it but have been forced to pretend it was only Temporary and doth not oblige all Ages which is hardly Sense or that the Church is now in other Circumstances than she was then which is not true neither for in some Places she is now under the same or worse Circumstances than she was in the three first Centuries and consequently they at least are under the same Obligations the Primitive Christians were and therefore this very Doctrine is of eternal Verity and will have its Use till the End of the World. The command is general the Examples of it are