told you that the Coronation Oath in England ran parallel with that of the Family of Burgundy in whose right Philip of Spain was Lord of Belgium And this you skip over as all the rest that 's material You use your old way of shuffling in fixing on me the mentioning only the Hollanders in the Protection given by Queen Elizabeth Whereas I named the Protestants abroad in general whereof these of the Low Countries were but a part yet by this little trick of skill you wisely pass over the assistance that Great Princess gave the Protestants of France who never could lay claim to any such priviledges as either the Low Countries or England justly pretend to that Government being as absolute as any in Christendom ever since Lewis XI Notwithstanding of which She protected them at a vast charge in the Reigns of Charles IX and Henry III. Yea it was not only in Q. Elizabeth's time that England assisted the Protestant Subjects of France against their incroaching Princes but in King Charles I. Reign the Expedition of Rochel was carried on by King and Parliament and cordially agreed to by the Fathers of the Church What a poor shift are you forc'd to use to evite my argument from the concurrence of the Clergy in Convocation when you play upon the word Act of Parliament as if I had named the act of Convocation thus which I did not All the World knows they gave considerable summs for managing that assistance given by the Queen and thereby allowed of the action it self Your Citations of Bilson and Jewel are to no purpose the stating of the Question clears sufficiently their meaning You begin your Rhapsody of a fifth Paragraph with a snarl at my saying there was a Parallel betwixt the Coronation Oath of England and the Golden Bull of the Empire and yet you are not able to evince the discrepancy betwixt them If you cast your eyes upon that Bull you may find that by it the Emperor is to swear observance of the Laws and Liberties of the Empire and so does the King of England swear at his Coronation the observance of the Laws and Liberties of England And I would have you to take notice that neither in the Golden Bull nor our Coronation Oath there is any irritant clause expressing power to resist in case of violation of either for the nature of the Contract warrants it without the necessity of any such express clause As to that Calumny of my drinking to the success of King Iames's Arms against all Invaders I 'll give you this advice The first time you Preach upon the ninth Commandment allow your self a Reflection upon that place of Scripture Romans 2.22 23. Thou that sayest a Man should not commit adultery dost thou commit adultery Thou that abhorrest Idols doest thou commit Sacriledg Thou that makest thy boast of the Law through breaking of the Law dishonourest thou God You have been so unhappy in this Calumny that it 's the only one neither my Friends nor Enemies will believe and even in laying the Scheme of it you shew your good nature in insinuating His present Majesty came to England as an Invader whereas none but such as you denyed him the quality of a Deliverer What a needless puther do you make about the Coronation Oath because forsooth the King of England is a Soveraign before his Coronation This ev'ry body knows and yet I would have you likewise to know that a Princes acceptance and exercise of the Regal Power before Coronation is in it self an Homologation of the Coronation Oath and he becomes virtually obliged by it as a necessary condition of the Original Contract betwixt him and his Subjects And in case a King should contradict the whole tenour of that Oath by Male-administration it were no rational excuse to alledge he had not actually taken the Coronation Oath seeing it 's presumed in Law he knew the terms on which he attain'd that dignity In the end of this Paragraph you desire me to shew you any thing in the Coronation Oath that allows Subjects to take up Arms against their Prince I have told you before that it 's not Lawful for Subjects to rise up against their Princes acting as lawful Magistrates and there is no necessity of an express clause in the Coronation Oath to warrant Resistance in case of a Princes overturning all Laws Because the Nature of the thing inforces it And moreover you will find no such express clause in the Golden Bull nor in the Plan of the Government of the Netherlands nor of any Monarchick Government in Europe Poland alone excepted So that if the nature of the Government do not allow Resistance without any such express clause you will be as little able to vindicate the Hollanders and the Princes of the Empire from the imputation of Rebellion as I the Subjects of England In the beginning of your sixth Paragraph you are heavy upon the poor Transcriber of my Letter for the mistake of the Figure 4 instead of 3 and I am displeased at him too for angering you Then after your usual manner of calling me a lyer for what reason I know not you come to answer my three cases which I cited both out of Grotius and Barclay with your good leave And the first case you would answer is none of mine for instead of saying a Prince may be Dethroned when he voluntarily and freely relinquishes his Crown as you would have me to say My words out of Grotius were these si imperium abdicavit vel habet pro derelicto which are as far distant from yours as East and West And the case as you word it will not admit of sense for he that Dethrones himself by a voluntary Renunciation as Charles V. needs not to be Dethroned by others An office may be truly and properly abdicate when there is no solemn formal Renouncing it and to evince this I 'll give you but two instances of Offices that have a near analogy with Monarchy If a General in the Field of Battel would either absent himself or by a supine negligence refuse to give the word of Command or lead on the Army In this case there is no formal Resignation of his Office And yet how unreasonable were it to debar the Soldiers from making choice of another General in so urgent a juncture Secondly What office seems more despotick than that of a Master of a Ship Now in case amidst an imminent hazard of death the Master cannot be prevail'd with to use his skill to prevent Shipwrack and yet will not voluntarily Resign his place to another Who can justly blame the Seamen to appoint one in his place to direct them to a safe Harbour And how near a Parallel there is betwixt these two examples and our late juncture in England the Votes of both Houses have evinced in the word Abdicated The second case wherein you acknowledg Resistance is lawfull is this if the Prince either alienate his Kingdom or
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
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
but this was too hot for your Fingers and therefore you thought fit to drop it Secondly In your Second Paragraph I find nothing material for having referr'd you to the Homilies of our Church for Scripture Proofs of Passive Obedience you are it seems afraid to look into that excellent Book lest you should be found guilty of a Scandalum Ecclesiae and in truth I must commend your Wisdom for its much safer writing against a private Minister than against so glorious a Church but believe it you must not expect to go Scot-free since I have now prov'd the Doctrin of Passive Obedience in my narrow sense as you call it very improperly seeing it is the largest sense any takes it in to be the Doctrin of the Church of England Thirdly You say that I am unwilling the Protestants abroad should share with the Church of England in her darling Doctrin of Passive Obedience which is a Story as true as many you use to tell in the Coffee-house for if you look into the third Paragraph of my former Letter you 'll find me reproving your Learned Ignorance for abusing several of those great Names you mention such as Luther Melancthon Calvin Grotius and others whom you represent as Patrons of Resistance which is but another name for Rebellion You are now forc'd to own That the Government of the Empire differs so far from ours in England that what would be unlawful Resistance here would be but a legal Defence there and this alone is sufficient to vindicate most of those Foreign Divines you mention But because you are very hard to please I shall add further out of Sleidans Comment Lib. XVII where he tells us That the Elector of Saxony who was the chief Person engaged in the German Wars against Charles the Fifth did openly declare That if the said Charles was own'd to be a proper Sovereign with respect to the Princes of the Empire it must then be granted That it was not lawful to wage War with him I hope you will not be so injurious to the Prince of Orange as to affirm That he is no Sovereign Prince because he is proclaimed King of England Luther indeed at first was ignorant as you were of the Constitution of the Empire and therefore was altogether for resisting Charles the Fifth but afterwards he was better inform'd by Learned Lawyers as Sleidan and Melchar Adam Report Melancthon you 'll find Orthodox in this matter if you consult his Loc. Com. de Vindicat. Magistrat Indeed some have thought Calvin as you do a favourer of resisting Sovereign Princes because Lib. 4. Institut he has this Passage Si qui nunc sint populares Magistratus ad moderandum Regum libidinem constituti quales olim erant qui Lacaedemoniis Regibus oppositi erant Ephori If saith he there be any such Magistrates as the Ephori were among the Lacaedemonians they may oppose and resist Kings but in other cases he denies it Now because you are ignorant of the Power of the Ephori among the Spartans and that their two Kings were not proper Sovereigns but the one Admiral by Sea and the other Generalissimo of Land Forces I shall for your better instruction remit you to Arist. Polit. Lib. 2. Plutarch in Pausan or Keckerman de Repub. Spart a Book perhaps more easie to be got in Scotland You are pleas'd to triumph because Grotius as you say is of your Opinion and tell me He is not inferiour to me either for Learning or Judgment It 's well that you can speak a little truth at any time but whether it be your gross Ignorance or the liberty Travellers use to take it s very seldom that you speak all the Truth for the Learned Grotius though in his Book de Iure Belli pacis and in another written in his Younger Time he did drop some unmeet Expressions and unfound Arguments yet when he had weighed Matters better he retracted his former Opinions and in his last Works is as much for Non-Resistance as I was in my Sermon For proof of this Vid. Anot. on Rom. 13. Mat. 26.52 Vot pro pace where he approves of the Proceedings of the University of Oxford about Paraeus on the Romans and allows of this their Determination viz. That Subjects ought by no means to resist their King by force nor ought they to take either offensive or defensive Arms against the King for the cause of Religion or any other thing whatsoever But you no doubt will despise the Determination of our famous University though applauded by your own Grotius and imitate your Country-man Gillispie who in scorn called Prayers and Tears Oxford Divinity By these few instances it will I hope be evident to all unprejudic'd Persons how much you have abus'd these great Names Luther Melancthon Calvin and Grotius Fourthly In the next place you have the confidence to tell me That the Church of England is for the Principle of Resistance and that the Homilies cannot be for Passive Obedience Now this is not only to contradict me but also to contradict your self having in your former Paragraph call'd it the darling Doctrin of our Church You might have receiv'd full satisfaction in this matter had you according to my Advice consulted the Book of Homilies but instead of doing this and to have an opportunity to shew your great Talent of wrangling you labour to evince your impudent Assertion by these impertinent Arguments First Because Queen Elizabeth protected the Hollanders in the Revolt from Spain but this I have answer'd in my former Letter and obliged you to acknowledge That the Government of the Netherlands was vastly different from this of England so that theirs was not properly Resistance but a warrantable Defence This I say you were told before and own'd the matter and yet think fit to serve up your twice sodden Coleworts that you may seem to say something Secondly You tell me as a great Secret That the Convocation of the Clergy of England gave vast Sums towards the Protection of the Hollanders and the Preamble of every Act insinuates the lawfulness of their Resisting the King of Spain This is a Secret with a Witness for I dare be bold to say That the Learnedst Lawyer in England never heard of an Act of Parliament for Mony made by a Convocation But suppose the Bishops or any of the Clergy did contribute such vast Sums it will not prove That our Church did not own Passive Obedience in Queen Elizabeths time as you assert But pray Sir were not the Homilies in her time And that the Fathers of our Church did then take them in the same sense as I did in my Sermon will appear beyond all contradiction from the Testimonies of Bishop Bilson and Iewell I begin with Bishop Bilson who speaks thus in his Book of Christian Subjection Deliverance if you would have it obtain it by Prayer and expect it in Peace These be the Weapons for Christians the Subjects have no Refuge against their
Sovereign but only to God by Prayer and Patience Bishop Iewell in his Defence of the Apology speaks thus We teach the People as St. Paul doth to be subject to the Higher Powers not only for fear but also for Conscience sake We teach 'em That whoso striketh with the Sword by private Authority shall perish with the Sword. If the Prince happen to be wicked or cruel or burdensom we teach 'em to say with St. Ambrose Tears and Prayers be our Weapons This I hope will be sufficient to evince That Passive Obedience was own'd by our Church in the Days of Queen Elizabeth of Blessed Memory and that in the same sense I did assert in my Sermon Fifthly In the next place you attempt to prove the lawfulness of Resisting the Kings of England from the Coronation Oath which you say is of the same import with the Bulla Aurea in Germany but for this we have no other proof than your own ipse dixit as if the Soul of Pythagoras by a Metempsychosis had at last taken up its Lodging in a Scots Tenement But I assure you Sir your bare word is of no such Authority with me Besides I have already proved That the Emperor by reason of the Bulla Aurea is no proper Sovereign And if you should say the Prince of Orange is no proper Sovereign now that he is proclaim'd King of England it would be as bad or worse than to drink a Health to the Success of King Iames's Forces against all Invaders whatsoever at that very time when the Prince of Orange was coming over to rescue the Nation from Popery and Slavery and yet this you merrily did in a certain House at the lower end of Westgate so that for all your pretended Zeal you are a sneaking Proteus and it would be as easie to shape a Coat for the Moon as for your Latitudinarian Conscience But I must instruct you That the King of England is a Sovereign Prince before his Coronation nor is his Oath necessary to make him so seeing Henry the Sixth Reign'd divers Years in England before he was Crown'd and yet was own'd by his Parliaments for their dread Sovereign Nay further our Chronicles inform us That some of our Kings were never Crown'd and besides all this I desire you and those of your Cabal to shew any thing in the Coronation Oath that allows Subjects to take up Arms against their Prince In the next place you pretend to give such an exact State of the Controversie as you say will in one word refute the Tenet of Passive Obedience and in order hereunto you offer four Cases out of Barclay and others in which as you tell me They all agree that it 's lawful for Subjects to resist and wage War against their Sovereign Princes Had you read your Country-man Barclay as you pretend you would have found that he allows only two Cases in which a Prince may be divested of his Royal Dignity and when you come to propose these four Cases you mention only three Such is the great Excellence of your Memory notwithstanding that according to the Proverb Some stand in need of a very good one First Your first Case is When a Prince does voluntarily and freely relinquish his Crown and Dignity as did Charles the Fifth Christiana of Sweden and to name no more nine Saxon Kings mentioned in Fuller's Church History Now in this Case the Prince who voluntarily resigns the Crown becomes for the future a private Person and should he afterwards by force endeavour to recover his Dignity which by his own consent is vested in the next Heir he may no doubt be resisted But sure this is not resisting a King or the Higher Powers but a private Person in defence of a lawful King and so is nothing to your purpose and pray look your Barclay again and see if this Case as you say is there Secondly If a Prince alienates his Crown and Subjects to another you say he may be resisted this without any harm may be granted too For as I own no Allegiance to a Foreign Prince so my own Prince has voluntarily divested himself and thrust himself into a private Capacity and in this case we do not resist the Higher Powers but a private Person And this instance does also fall short of the mark Thirdly The third Case is more pertinent for you say a King may be deposed or resisted Si hostili animo in populi exitium feratur This you have transcribed from Grotius and the meaning of it is this Whether a Sovereign Prince may be resisted in case he undertakes to destroy his whole Kingdom or any considerable part thereof If we may take your honest word Grotius and all that you have read resolve this Point in the Affirmative To which I answer First That Grotius with due submission to your vast reading did as I shew'd above retract in his riper Years this dangerous Opinion which Erasmus in Luke 22. stiles a most pernicious Heresie Secondly Bishop Taylor calls it deservedly a Wild Tenet and Grotius as well as he acknowledges it can scarce seem possible to happen It is certain that we have not one single instance of it in the whole Race of our British Kings Thirdly More sober Casuists condemn the starting such speculative Cases as Princes cutting the Throats of their Subjects because they have been found the Incentives of Rebellion They were such Fears and Out-crys as these that brought King Charles the Martyr to the Block and have stain'd your Scotch Chronicles with the Murders of above sixty Sovereign Princes So that King William and Queen Mary will have cause to thank you for giving such early Demonstrations of your Loyalty in the very beginning of their Reign teaching their Subjects in how many cases they may resist when the Laws of the Land say expresly That it 's unlawful to take up Arms against the King upon any pretence whatsoever Fourthly Put the case that Tiberius Caligula Claudius or Nero be the King and your Countryman Barclay instances such Monsters as these as being the greatest he could find in all History you and he both affirm they may be lawfully resisted it is not for me to oppose such Learned Gentlemen but I will assure you once more Grotius is against you and I hope he is not very much inferior to your Doctorship in Learning and Judgment And must I tell you again what I told you from the Pulpit viz. That those Prohibitions against Resistance which are given in the New Testament by our Saviour St. Paul and St. Peter were remarkably given at such a time when these greatest Monsters of Cruelty sat on the Throne and pray ask my Parishioners whether they do not believe our Saviour St. Paul and St. Peter to be as good Casuists as your Doctorship and Countryman Barclay Having thus destroyed the very Foundations your State of the Controversie stood on your slender superstructure and puerile flourishes will tumble with them In the next
Burnet to be Author of that Pamphlet whether you will or not and in so doing you say I derogate from his Credit since he subscrib'd the Book of Homilies and has asserted Passive Obedience A strange shuffle indeed and of a piece with the rest of your Letter I never so much as insinuated any such thing and whether it be his or not I know not But sure I am all your Hearers thought and I have evinced it as much as the matter can bear That in the scurrilous Epithets you gave the Author of that Pamphet as you call it you design'd Dr. Burnet and this you wisely pass over without an Answer I was willing to think you were now asham'd of these Expressions but the whole Tenor of your Letter forbids me to think that blushing is your greatest fault It were a piece of odd presumption to suppose that Great Man needed any Mans Vindication especially mine And sure I am in his subscribing the Homilies and asserting Passive Obedience he sufficiently understood the sense of the Words and his Reason and Learning is too great to have been cheated into your Notion of them But you know the Sun loses none of his Rays by being barkt at In your second Paragraph I find nothing but a Repetition of the Homilies yet once more to prove Passive Obedience a Principle of the Church of Englands and this requires no other Answer but what I have already given you in stating the Question and clearing the sense of the Words You begin your third Paragraph with another shuffle in making me call Passive Obedience the darling Principle of the Church of England than which nothing was farther from my thoughts and to call it yours meaning Mr. Vicars was not in my Opinion to father it upon the Church of England Then you tell me I am forc'd to own That the Government of the Empire is so far different from that of England that what would be Rebellion here would be but a legal Defence there This requires indeed a considerable Talent of Confidence for I acknowledge no such thing Yea upon the contrary I asserted That the Bulla Aurea of the Empire and the Coronation Oath in England were so far parallel that they were both Barriers against the Incroachments of the Sovereign One would have thought that instead of mis-citing my Expressions a Man of your Character would rather have endeavoured to give a fair Answer by evincing That the Bulla Aurea warrants Resistance and the Coronation Oath disallows it You are as unjust to Sleidan as to me for the Duke of Saxony is mentioned by him to use no such Expressions as these you mentioned but instead of saying The Emperor was not a proper Sovereign his words are He is not an absolute and despotick Monarch and so may be resisted When you aver That Luther at first understood not the Government of the Empire when he was for Resistance I cannot but regret his misfortune in the want of your acquaintance seeing he might have been better instructed by you at Newcastle than either by his Reading or Converse with the Greatest Men upon the place And I have as little reason to believe his Ignorance on that Head as his recanting his Opinion for both are equally true As to what you say of Calvin and Melancthon's being for Passive Obedience if I had their Works besides me as I have not I could evince the contrary from their Writings But who knows not that the first did vindicate the Genevans their throwing off the Jurisdiction both of the Bishop of Geneva and Duke of Savoy whereof one of them behov'd to be their Soveraign and the last did allow of the Famous Smalcalde League against Charles V. Next you are so kind as to instruct me a little of the power of the Ephori whereof you suppose I am utterly ignorant I cannot in good manners but thank you for this condescendance And yet it 's somewhat strange how you come to have so intuitive acknowledge of me as without search to find me ignorant of what ev'ry School Boy may know I never dream'd that Keckerman Aristotle or Plutarchs works were so rare in Scotland as you insinuate perhaps the Books we have under these Names are spurious and you by a vast charge of enquiry have found out the Genuine ones that have not yet come our length I am hopeful your charity will oblige you to bestow one true Copy of these great Mens Works upon a whole Nation you have so great a kindness for And yet Sir if what we have of Plutarch be true you are as ignorant of the Spartan Kings as I of the Ephori for if you will consult his Lives of Agesilaus Agis and Lysander you may find that albeit Lycurgus found the Government lodged in two Kings and left it so yet both before his time and afterwards the Spartans were ruled but by one King and particularly from Archidamus to Agis the last of the Heraclidae including six Kings one after another Thereafter you are pleased very obligingly to accuse me of a downright Lye in saying Grotius allows of Resistance and yet with the same breath you confess he dropt in his younger years some unmeet expressions and unsound arguments in his Book de Iure Belli Pacis which afterwards you confidently affirm he retracted I can hardly be perswaded to take with a Lye in saying Grotius allows of Resistance since in my second Letter I gave you his own words for it and you your self acknowledge he did so But I am fully convinc'd you are guilty of a thing called a mistake in saying he retracted his Opinion for Bleaw's Edition of that Book with the addition of Notes written by himself a little before his death as the very title bears not only repeats all he had formerly said upon that Head but confirms it with new Additions to which I refer you Your Reflection upon Gillespy I am willing to impute to your love to his Country and yet I perswade my self it will meet with no better name among the most of Men than that of a groundless calumny In your fourth Paragraph you would fain fix upon me a contradiction in first asserting Passive Obedience to be the darling Principle of the Church of England and then denying it Certainly this is to try how far you can push forward an untruth without lying I did indeed call Passive Obedience your darling meaning Mr. Iohn Marches but that it 's the Principle of the Church of England I have evinc'd the contrary The next time I have occasion to name any thing that belongs to you I find I must play the Quaker and use the word Thine otherwise you will Father it upon the whole Church Next with the same ingenuity you say I confessed the Government of Holland to be so far different from that of England that what were Lawful Resistance there would be Rebellion here I need not tell you I said no such thing upon the contrary I