hath observed * b. p. 48. That you acknowledge St. Chrysostom to be of their Opinion and he hath cited St. Basil against you for saying expresly That the Higher Powers mention'd by the Apostle were such as attain to the Government by Humane Laws I hope Doctor you will grant that these two Fathers were sober and considering Men who understood the general sense of Mankind and according to this sense in which they understood the Apostle that Author goes on to shew that it was the constant practice of the Primitive Christians to side with that Emperor who had the Legal Title And to their practice I will add the Testimony of the Emperor Justinian in his Letters to * Procop. Caes de Bello Vandalico l. 1. c. 7 8. Gelimer King de Facto of the Kingdom of the Vandals in Affrica who deposed his Cousin Hildericus between whom and Justinian there was always great Friendship But to make you understand the Emperor's Letter to this Usurper the better I must acquaint you Doctor that Gizericus the Founder of that Monarchy who reigned Thirty Nine years settled the Succession in his Posterity upon the Male Descendents according to Seniority so that he should always come to the Crown who was the Eldest among them and accordingly the Crown had peaceably descended for four Successions to Hildericus whom Gelimer depos'd and shut up in Prison with his Brother's two Sons who were faithful to their Uncle As soon as Justinian heard of it he wrote to him to this effect Thou hast acted Gelimer against Right and Duty and contrary to the Testament of Gizericus in Imprisoning an Old Man and thy Kinsman and the King of the Vandals if the Establishment of Gizericus be valid and deposing him by force from the Government to which thou mightest have lawfully succeeded Do not persit in thy Wickedness nor prefer the Name of a Tyrant before the Title of a King which a little time would give thee but let the Old Man who cannot live long enjoy the Royal Power and Dignity and do thou Administer under him and be content to wait a little while till thou mayest take upon thee the Title of King acording to the Law of Gizericus by doing this thou wilt please God and oblige me This Letter having no effect upon the Usurper he wrote again to this purpose I wrote my former Letter to thee hoping thou wouldst not persist to act contrary to my Advice but since thou art resolved to keep Possession of the Kingdom as thou hast acquired it take what will follow thereupon only send unto us Hildericus and Hoemer whose Eyes thou hast put out with his Brother Evagees that they may receive such Consolation from us the one for the loss of his Kingdom and the other for the loss of his sight as Men in their Condition are capable of It is in your power to do this if you do it quickly otherwise the confidence they have in Us will oblige Us speedily to help them nor will it be any infraction of the Peace which our Predecessors made with Gizericus for I shall not make War with one that is his Successor but avenge the injuries thou hast done But Gelimer was too Ambitious to make restitution and therefore Justinian sent his great General Balsarius to make War upon him in behalf of Hildericus the lawfull King but the first thing that Gelimer did after the Landing of Belisarius was to Murder Hildericus but God avenged his blood upon the Usurper whom Belisarius after some years War brought Captive to Constantinople where he cried out on the way as he was led to the Emperor Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity To this Testimony of a Christian Emperor I shall add another of a famous Heathen Prince Lycurgus King of Sparta who though he came lawfully to the Possession of the Crown yet refused to keep it longer than he was allow'd by Law as appears by the following Story which you may find in his Life written by Plutarch in the following words This Confusion and Disorder continued a long time in Sparta which occasion'd the death of the King the Father of Lycurgus for as he was endeavouring to quell a Riot in which the Parties were a fighting he was stab'd with a Cook 's Knife and left the Kingdom to his Eldest Son Polydectes but he too dying soon after the Right of Succession as all Men judged rested in Lycurgus and he Reigned untill it was perceived that the Queen his Sister in Law was with Child But as soon as this appear'd he declared that the Kingdom belonged to her Issue if it proved a Male and that he would administer the Government only as his Guardian and Regent Soon after a private offer was made him by the Queen that she would make her self miscarry upon condition he would Marry her when he was sure of the Crown He hated the Woman for this wicked Proposal yet wisely smothering his resentment he did not speak astainst it but seem'd to approve and accept it but diswaded her earnestly from making her self miscarry because it might endanger her Health or her Life assuring her that himself would take care that the Child as soon as it was born should be taken out of the way Thus having drawn on the Queen to the time of her Labour as soon as he heard she was in Travail he sent some to be present and observe the Birth with order that if it were a Girl they should deliver it to the Women but if a Boy they should bring it to him whatsoever he he happened to be a doing It happened that the Queen was delivered of a Boy while he was at Supper with the principal Magistrates and his Servants brought the Boy to him as he was at Table and he taking him into his Arms said to those about him Behold my Lords of Sparta here is your King and having said this he laid him down upon the Chair of State and named him Charilaus that is The Joy of the People because they were so much transported with Joy at the Birth of the young Prince and with Admiration at the Noble Mind and Justice of Lycurgus who I fear Doctor will rise up in Judgment against you and condemn you and your unrighteous Doctrine For though he had Providence on his side as much as ever Prince had yet he did not think the Providence of the Gods could give him a Right against the Laws of Nature and Sparta And therefore he became a Subject of a Sovereign and of a King a Regent because he could not justly wear a Crown which by the Law of his Countrey became another's and ceased to be his And to pass over other Kingdoms I will proceed to shew that there have been many Wise and Brave Men of that Opinion in our own I will begin with the Reign of Stephen who as Hoveden saith Invaded the Crown of England like a Tempest so that all the Nation was forced to
and Son of Impiety and Injustice Edmund the Great Earl of Kent with some other persons began to Conspire against them Which Q. Isabel who deserves the name of Jesabel perceiving privately encouraged the Keepers of her Husband to murder him but his Son coming to Maturity of Understanding avenged his blood on Mortimer his Mother's Minion and his Accomplices whom the Lords of Parliament with his assent adjudged and condemned to be executed as Traitors for murdering the King after he was deposed The Queen her self also had like to have been questioned and in the Roll 4 Edw. III. which gives an account of this matter he is stiled by all the Lords and the young King himself their King and Leige Lord. And in the 21 R. II. N. 64 65. the Revocation of the Act for the two Spencers Restitution in the Parliament of 1 Edward III. was repealed because made at such a time by King Edw. III. as his Father being very King was Living and Imprisoned These two Acts of Parliament Doctor do not at all agree with your Reasonings for the Providential King but they agree most exactly with the Reasonings of Some Men which you say contradicts the general sense of Mankind For as Mr. Pryn well observes they shew that Edw. II. was King de jure or King in the Eye of the Law as much after his Deposition as before it and by consequence that his Deposition by the Estates who had no Authority to Depose him was a void Act and if he was very King when he was in Prison and his Regnant Son's King and Leige Lord at the time of his murder as the aforesaid Acts declare him then Doctor I fear it will follow that a pure Providential K. in Possession is no King at all 11. But from this Usurpation let us pass to that of Henry IV. who was set up by Providence and the Estates of the Realm who took upon them to depose Richard II. and place Henry in his Throne But Henry being conscious to himself that he wanted Legal Right though he had all the Right that Providence could give him yet not daring to trust to such an airy Tite nor his false pretences of being the right Heir caused Richard to be murdered but between his Deposition and Murder Thomas Merks Bishop of Carlisle a Brave and Godly Prelate preferring his Duty before his Safety took the courage to make a Speech in Parliament against the Validity of Richard's Deposition and the Justice of Henry's Election and if you please Doctor to read this Speech as it is at large in our Historians you will find in spight of all your prejudice that he was a very Wise and Considering Man and entirely of these Mens Opinion and produced those Reasons for it which you say Contradict the general sense of Mankind in all Revolutions The first part of his Speech is to prove that a King may not be deposed by his Subjects for any imputation of negligence and Tyranny and to make this out clearly he brings an ugly Arbitrary distinction betwixt Kings in a Popular or Consular State which really have not Regal Rights but are subject to a Superior Power and Kings in whom the Sovereign Majesty is as it formerly was in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea c. and now is in the Kingdoms of England Spain France and Scotland c. in which the Sovereignty or Supream Authority is in the King After this distinction which Some among us now use he asserts that in such Kingdoms where the Sovereignty is by Law in the King although the Prince for his Vices be unprofitable to his Subjects yea hurtfull yea intollerable yet they cannot lawfully harm his Person or hazard his Power by Judgment or by Force because neither one nor all the Magistrates have any Authority over him from whom all Authority is deriv'd and whose only presence doth silence and suspend all inferior Jurisdictions and Power and as for force saith he what Subject can attempt assist or counsel or conceal Violence against his Prince and not incurr the high and heinous Crime of Treason Then he proceeds to prove this as you do in your Case of Non-resistance from Examples of Saul and Ahab in the Old Testament and many Texts of Scripture Then he proceeds to answer the great Objection thus Doth the King enjoyn Actions contrary to the Law of God We must neither wholly Obey nor violently Resist but with a constant courage submit our selves to all manner of Punishment and shew our subjection by enduring and not performing Oh how shall the World be pestered with Tyrants if Subjects may Rebel upon every pretence of Tyranny How many good Princes may be suppressed by those by whom they ought to be supported If they Levy a Subsidy or other Taxation it shall be claimed Oppression if they put any to Death for Traiterous attempts against their Persons it shall be exclaimed Cruelty if they do any thing against the lust and liking of the People it shall be proclaimed Tyranny Having shew'd as his words are that King Richard was deposed without Authority Then he proceeds to shew that Henry had no Title First Not as Heir to Richard which he pretended for then he ought to stay till King Richard was dead but then if K. Richard was dead it was well known there were Descendents from Lionel Duke of Clarence whose Offspring had been declared in the High Court of Parliament next Successor to the Crown in case K. Richard should die without Issue Secondly Not by Conquest because a Subject can have no right of Conquest against a Sovereign where the War is Rebellion and the Victory High Treason Nor thirdly by K. Richard's Resignation because he made it in Prison where it was exacted of him by force and therefore it had no force or validity to bind him Nor last of all by Election for saith he we have no Custom that the People at pleasure should Elect their King but they are always bound unto him who by Right of Blood is Rightfull Successor much less can they make good or confirm that Title which is before Usurped by violence Then he saith that the deposing of Edw. II. which the Barons produced for an Example to depose Richard was no more to be urged than the Poisoning of K. John or the Murdering any other lawful Prince and that we must live according to Laws and not according to Example and that the Kingdom however then was not taken from the lawfull Successor Then after saying many other things he concludes thus I have declared my mind concerning this Question in more words than your Wisdom yet fewer than the weight of the Cause requires and boldly conclude that we have neither Power nor Policy either to depose King Richard or to Elect Duke Henry into his Place and that K. Richard still remaineth our Sovereign Prince and that it is not lawfull for us to give Judgment upon him and that the Duke whom you call King
Bishop aaa Chronology about Jaddus from him and he 'll help you out in both alike And in the mean time Doctor take this with you That your pure Providential King in Policy are no better than counterfeit Medals in Antiquity or Bristol-stones among Diamonds they shew and glister like Kings but are not Kings but Usurpers And the distinction between them and Kings by the help of the Word lawful or unlawful is as real and natural as that of the Nummists between real and forged Medals or that of the Jewellers between true and false Diamonds or that of all the World between true and counterfeit Silver and Gold It is the Appearance of Things without Reality that is the Ground of this distinction and to discover real from apparent true from false and right from wrong in the moral and natural World makes these distinctions useful that otherwise would be useless and when Authors do not use them in speaking of Things they are supposed to speak of real true and right things of every kind and not of things of another Nature that for some shew likeness or false Pretensions are called by their Names You think you speak finely when you say it is matter of Sense to know who is King because a Man may see who administers the Government by Regal Authority But if it be matter of Sense Doctor how came you to lose your Senses so long And what made you so blind that you could not see it when other Men did This shews Doctor that it is not matter of Sense but of Reason for Sense can onely perceive the supream external Force that is administred in any Kingdom but to discern the Right or Authority to exercise the supreme Force of Power which makes a King is the work of Reason because Authority is a moral Quality as hath been * c. ch 20. excellently proved to you of which Reason and Conscience is Judge O but then say you it must be a matter of Wit p. 18. or Law or Philosophy to know who is King It is so Doctor but of no more Wit Law and Philosophy than every common Understanding hath and no more than is needful to know who is Husband Entituled The Resurrection of Loyalty and Obedience out of the Grave of Rebellion by the sacred Force of the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance Printed for Will. Shears in Bedford street near Covent-Garden at the blue Bible and inscribed to Gen. Monk or Master of any Family or Parson of any Parish or Mayor of any Corporation The World knows saith an excellent little Book who it is that the Law and Custome of this Nation states to be the Heir and Successor of the King even the eldest Son of the Predecessor In truth Doctor there is no difficulty in it there is not a Countrey Fellow in any Kingdom but knows by what Title the Crown is held and in an hereditary Kingdom there is no great need of Wit or Law or Philosophy to know the Royal Family and the next Heir in it But you have had enough of this in your learned Answerers and none but a Man that is desperate and past blushing would preach the same Stuff again P. 19. especially before such an Audience when he knew he could not defend what he said But you tell us you will not dispute the Matter and the Reason is plain because you cannot dispute it though you are one of the Disputers of this World your Adversaries having put the Controversie beyond all reasonable Dispute But if you will not dispute it why should you meddle any more with it Or is it because you are a great Man and a great Rabbi that ought not to dispute with such little Writers 14. Well but though you will not dispute them yet you 'l vouchsafe to chatechise them Ibid. and ask them some hard Questions about Certainty And before I answer for them I must beg leave Doctor tho' of late you do not love distinctions to distinguish about Certainty and I hope it is no arbitrary distinction that hath no Foundation in Reason and Nature Certainty then Doctor is of two sorts absolute of which no doubt can possibly be made and against which there lies no Objection or such which though it be not free from all doubts and Objections yet it is such as the nature of the Thing will bear and such as command a firm assent of the Mind without doubting of the truth of what it believes The first is a Mathematical or Metaphysical Certainty and with this absolute mathematical and metaphysical Certainty you and I and all the World are sure that two and two make four and that a thing cannot be and not be at the same time The second is moral Certainty which results from Reasons on one side in every Matter and Question that visibly preponderate the Reasons on the other and so commands the Assent of a Man's Understanding that he hath either no doubt or very weak ones of the truth of the thing which he believes This indeed is a sort of Certainty inferior to the other but yet such a one as you and I and all Men have of most of the things of which we are certain as that there was such a Man as Moses and upon this sort of Certainty and no other we make no doubt of venturing our Lives and Estates in this World and our Souls in the next I presume Doctor you will allow this for a good distinction and if you do then with submission I must ask you Which Certainty do you mean in the Questions you have put to these Men. I dare say you do not mean the former for some ill Consequences I need not mention but if the latter then Dr. for once permit one of the little Writers to shew you the Folly and Vanity of this way of arguing in Questions about Certainty from a few Questions of the same Nature Are you certain then that your Text is the Words of St. Paul or that they were written by divine Inspiration Are you certain that there are there Persons in the holy Trinity That there is such a Continent as America Or to jest and argue together are you certain that your Priests Orders are valid that your Marriage with your incomparable Lady was lawfull or that your Children are your own The answering these Questions Dr. will help to convince you to what little purpose you put so many of the same nature about Certainty however I will answer them in order To the first then they say that they are as certain that by all Powers Rom. 13.1 the Apostle only means such as have legal Right and Title to Power as they are that he expresly teaches that all Power is of God But 2. They also say that tho' they were not so certain which is not necessary yet they are so certain of it as that they make no doubt of it and venture their All here and hereafter upon the truth
King and by supposing in the next Paragraph That it was lawfull in a limitted Monarchy But is this the way of arguing against Resistance which not long ago was such a damnable sin especially on the 30th of January I protest to you Dr. should I hear you speak at this tender rate from the Pulpit against Adultery I should think you had a design upon some Ladies in the Congregation and that you intended they should understand by you that you thought it no sin Formerly on the 30th of January Resistance was a most damnable sin and the Doctrine of it Popish Diabolical Doctrine and the sin of the day was the Murder of a King but now it seems Dr. you will not dispute the lawfulness of resisting the King it may be lawfull for any thing you know to the contrary even on the 30th of January the sin of which day now it seems P. 19. lies in the Murder of a Good King who kept the Laws and was a Zealous Patron of the Church of England of a King of such Virtues as are rarely found in meaner Persons nay which would have adorned an Hermet's Cell But had he been a King that had broken the Laws and stretch'd his Prerogative to set up an Ecclesiastical Commission against the Church of England then the killing of him had been no Murder at least no such barbarous Murder But Dr. at this rate of Preaching on the 30th of January Kings and Queens had need take care of themselves for I do not see but they are upon their Behaviour Quam diu bene se gesserint and do not break the Laws but if they do so let them do it at their peril xxix p. 21. For every irregularity in their motions is soon felt and causes very fatal Convulsions in the State or as a much better Subject said by way of Apology for Charles I. There is no time past Judge Jenkins in his Works p. 28. present nor will there be time to come so long as Men manage the Laws but the Laws will be broken more or less So Dr. in your Temple-Sermon to exhort us to pray for Kings you tell us That it is very difficult to govern a Family xxix p. 24 25 26. and that Princes are liable to mistakes like other Men and that they are exposed to misinformations by Court-Flatterers and subject to greater Temptations than other Men But Dr. If it be lawfull to take up Arms against the King in a limitted Monarchy which you were contented to suppose before the House and others of your Brethren plainly assert then God help Kings of such Monarchies xxx p. 23. especially where the Springs and Fountains of Government are poysoned and where the Nation is already divided into Parties both in Church and State Such Kings be they by Providence only or Law and Providence together it matters not they had need look to their hits when their best pretended Friends are willing to suppose it is lawfull to take up Arms against them All your Apologies and Panegyricks upon their Majesties and Exhortations to pray for them can never make them amends for such a supposition and they must indeed stand in need of more and better Prayers than yours if they have no better a Title to the Crown than that of Possession which you have found out for them and that too no longer than they keep the Laws 4. These Dr. to use your own Language are very loose Notions of Government and Obedience and dangerous at such a time as this when so many Malecontents in both Kingdoms complain of the breach of Laws See h. If you will go to Scotland you shall hear two sort of discontented Men clamour loudly against the Government the Jacobite Episcoparians and the Presbyterians the latter are so impudent as to charge King William down right with the breach of the Original Contract and the former complain of torturing Strangers against Law and the Articles of Government of exercising illegal and unheard of Severities upon the complying Clergy worse than Dragooning of abolishing Episcopacy and thereby altering the Constitution of the Government and of the Murder and Massacre of a Laird and his Clan in cold blood after they had laid down their Arms and submitted to the Government And you cannot be ignorant of the Complaints which are made at home by restless and disaffected Spirits of pretended Illegal and Arbitrary Commitments of Men for High Treason and not to mention the Reflections which have been made in and out of Parliament upon Mr. Ashton's Trial you cannot but hear what a din this grumbling and disaffected Faction make of excessive Fines and Bail contrary as they clamour to our English Liberties and the Articles of Government And they bring one Example among others of a poor Boy about thirteen years old who was Arraign'd and Try'd at the Old-Baily and condemned to the Pillory and after he endured this Discipline and many other cruel hardships was Fined at the Court of the Old-Baily above threescore times more than he and his Parents are worth Sir These things considered you should have thundered with your old Zeal and demonstrations against Resistance as a damnable sin and taught Submission and Obedience to their Majesties upon the account of their Office and Character and not purely upon the account of their Virtues as you used to do in former Sermons And let me tell you Dr. that the most effectual way of serving their Majesties in the Pulpit and especially on the 30th of January is to Preach up the unconditional Duty of Subjects to Kings as Kings xxx p. 23. whether they be good or bad This was the Strict Loyalty and Obedience which you tell us was so earnestly pressed on the Consciences of Men before the Revolution and made the People so passive in it But by your favour Dr. not so passive for not to put you in mind of the vast numbers in the West and the North Mrs. Sherlock her self sent in a Man and Horse to the assistance of the Prince of Orange and whether it was with your Connivance or Approbation God and your own Conscience can best tell But however that was this is certain that it is most for the Interest of Princes as well as most becoming Divines to set the King as a King and not as an Hero before the People and to convince their Consciences of the inviolable Duty which results from their relation to him as Subjects independant of his moral Qualities but the other way of Preaching which you have taken up serves only to beget a precarious and doubtful sense of Duty in the People who as your Sermon before the House shews can soon be made to have the worst Opinion of the best of Kings 5. The Sandersons and Hammonds of former times who guarded the Pulpit from all suspicion of Flattery would never have Preached so much in commendation of their Royal Masters as you have Preached in the praise
up the Government p. 5. as if intermission of Government were a total giving up of Right so that he cannot claim it again if he returns and yet he grants the case of present danger and just fear This ought not to be pressed too far but that it is indecent to suppose that Kings can be subject to fear that is we must not suppose them to be Men for if they are fear is an humane Passion But he had no just cause of fear I will not dispute that but suppose he was affraid without just cause Doth not fear still make the Action involuntary and save the forfeiture of the Crown and if it doth What difference is there betwixt his first and second withdrawing For it seems he apprehends there was more just cause of fear the second time and therefore will not lay the Accusation there but upon his first going and yet it is a probable Argument that he was affraid at first because Kings do not use to forsake their Kingdoms without Fear But what need of pretending the King's going away if the subversion of his Government and Laws dissolved the Government For it seems he was no King before he went nor to be looked upon as a King but a Destroyer so that whether he had gone or staid the thing had been the same But if the King can do no wrong he can never forfeit his Crown by Male Administration at least an ipso facto forfeiture was never heard of in Kings it is more reasonable to bring him to a Trial than to Judge and Condemn and Depose him without Hearing which is thought hard usage for a Subject But the mischief is they know not how to frame the Indictment where to find Judges and his Peers to try him which is an Argument our Law knows nothing of trying Kings because it hath made no provision for it 8. Your observing Readers laugh at your Confidence in saying xxx p. 22. That the late Revolution hath made no Alterations in the Principles of Government and Obedience And to use your own words Some think your Providential Right a tottering Foundation for the Monarchy that cannot long support it and every jot as tottering as that of the Power of the People which you explode because the People if they get the Supream Power of the King they will plead Providence for it and keep it whether they have naturally a Superior Power over him or no. In page 23. you say It was a wonderful Providence that the generality of Subjects were meerly Passive at the Revolution But they say you used to bemoan the Passiveness of them as sinfull especially in the Clergy particularly you were often heard with great formality to recite some words of Dr. Patrick concerning the silence of the Clergy which you said went like Daggers to your Heart It seems once upon a time you pray'd the Dr. to consider what a dishonour the Clergy's taking the Oath would be to our Religion to which he reply'd that if that were all the Honour of our Religion was gone in the silence of the Clergy at the Prince's Invasion though some of the Clergy were not so silent as that Dr. imagined and when another asked you how you could forbear at that time to Preach up the Duty of Active Assistence as some others had done You answered with a shew of Tears in your Eyes that they were happy Men and striking your Hand upon your Breast you wished you had done so too Page 27. You say There is no appearance of illegal Vsurpations no oppression of the Subjects just Rights nor pretence of Clamour of Persecution for Conscience take and yet as some among us observe according to your own bafled Hypothesis of Right to Government their Majesties Possession of the Throne is not legal and by consequence how rightful soever you pretend to make it in the Eye of Providence it is an Usurpation in the Eye of the Law And then as for Persecution for Conscience sake these Men say That of all Men it least became you to assert That there was no pretence to complain of that who confidently said That the late Revolution was the greatest Scheme of Vilany that ever was contrived and not long since had such an high Opinion both of their Consciences and their Cause and pretended to believe that they were persecuted not only for Conscience but Righteousness sake They say they are both the same they were as when you were one of them and though you have changed the Names of them since you changed your Opinion yet they think that they still retain their old Nature and have as much to say for themselves as you could say for them then Then they say you took it ill to be told by the Writers of the Times That it was not Conscience but Shame Peevishness Stubbornness and other causes of prejudice that made the Non-Swearers stand out And to remove this scandalous Imputation from your self and your Brethren you went on purpose to the Excellent Bp. of Chichester to put him upon making his Death-Bed Declaration at which the Government was so offended but since you took the Oath it is no matter of Conscience or Difficulty and it is now dwindled into a Gnat nay into Nothing which was a Cammel before Methinks you might remember the great difficulty with which many thousands that took the Oath took it and call to mind the lower sense in which they took it only to live peaceably and quietly and how others took it in this sense only as a Temporary Oath And if so many Mens Consciences would not let them take it but in such qualified senses Why should it not be pure Conscience in these Men to take it in no sense at all You know the Secret of Dr. Scot why he refused the Bishoprick of Chester it was because his Conscience would not let him take the Oath of Homage to K. W. and Q. M. and if that Oath was an insuperable difficulty to an honest and well informed Conscience in him Why should not the new Oath of Allegiance be so to these Men who think thar at least they have a pretence to complain that they are persecuted and suffe-for Conscience sake They say farther that any Government may persecute by Law as well as against it and that there is little or no difference between being oppressed and ruined by unjust Laws or unjustly against Law Nay any Persecution is the greater they say for having Law to support it and that Conscience is Conscience whether it suffer against Law by a Tyrant or by Tyrannical Laws I remember there is something to this purpose somewhere in your Case of Resistance and then as to the Cause for which these Men suffer no Man they say had a more full Persuasion of the Justice of it than your self They say you scarce had patience to hear your best Friends argue against it in favour of the Oath that you told Mr. Maur you cold as soon
hath more offended against the King and the Realm than the King hath done against him or us Thus Sir spoke that Heroick Prelate in the Court of Parliament and his practice was answerable to what he spoke For he chose not the safer but the juster side as all good Men ought to do He knew while he spoke that Bonds and Persecutions would attend him nevertheless he spoke freely and after speaking was committed to Prison and after that was crushed with many other brave Men by the Usurper against whom they rose up Afterwards about the sixth year of his Reign Rich. Scroop A. B. of York with the L. Maubray Marshal of England H. Piercy E. of Northumberland L. Bardolf and * As I suppose the Earls of Salisbury Huntington Glocester the Lords Clarenden Roper with divers other Knights and Esquires and after that the Lord Thomas Piercy Earl of Worcester and Lord Henry Piercy Son and Heir to the Earl of Northumberland many others published an Excommunication and †In the first Volume of Fox's Acts and Monuments in the Reign of H. IV. Remonstrance consisting of several Articles against Henry which they fixed upon the doors of Churches and Monasteries to be read of all It begins thus IN THE NAME OF GOD Amen Before the Lord Jesus Christ Judge of the quick and the dead We not long since became bound by Oath upon the Sacred Evangelical Book unto our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England that we as long as we lived should bear true Allegiance and Fidelity towards him and his Heirs succeeding him in the Kingdom by just Title Right and Line according to the Statutes and custom of this Realm have here taken unto us certain Articles subscribed in form following to be proponed heard and tried before the just Judge Christ Jesus and the whole World but if which God forbid by Force Fear or Violence of wicked Persons we shall be cast in Prison or by violent death be prevented so as in this World we shall not be able to prove the said Articles as we wish then we do appeal to the High Coelestial Judge that he may judge and discern the same in the day of his Supream Judgment First We depose say and except and intend to prove against Lord Henry Darby commonly called King of England himself pretending the same but without all Right and Title thereunto and against his Adherents Fautors Complices that they have ever been are and will be Traitors Invaders and destroyers of God's Church and of our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England his Heirs his Kingdom and Commonwealth as shall hereafter manifestly appear In the second Article they declare him forsworn perjured and excommunicate for that he conspired against his Sovereign Lord King Richard In the fourth they recite by what wrong illegal and false means he exalted himself into the Throne of the Kingdom and then describing the miserable State of the Nation which followed after his Usurpation they again pronounce him Perjured and Excommunicate In the fifth Article they set forth in what a barbarous and inhumane manner Henry and his Accomplices imprisoned and murdered K. Richard and then cry out Wherefore O England arise stand up and avenge the Cause the Death and Injury of thy King and Prince if thou do not take this for certain that the Righteous God will destroy thee by strange Invasions and Forreign Power and avenge himself on thee for this so horrible an Act. In the seventh they depose against him for putting to death not only Lords Spiritual and other Religious Men but also divers of the Lords Temporal there Named for which they pronounce him Excommunicate In the ninth they say and depose that the Realm of England never flourished nor prospered after he Tyrannically took upon him the Government of it And in the last they depose and protest for themselves and K. Richard and his Heirs the Clergy Commonwealth of the whole Realm that they intended neither in Word nor Deed to offend any State of Men in the Realm but to prevent the approaching Destruction of it and beseeching all Men to favour them and their Designs whereof the first was to exalt to the Kingdom the true and lawfull Heir and him to Crown in Kingly Throne with the Diadem of England Upon publishing these Articles much people resorted to the Archbishop but he being circumvented by the Earl of Westmoreland who pretended to join with him dismissed his Forces at his persuasion upon which he was immediately made Prisoner and beheaded at York with the Earl Marshal and divers York shire Gentlemen and Citizens of York who had joined with him The Earl of Northumberland and Lord Bardolph escaped and held out two years longer before they were crushed by the Usurper but at last they were both slain Fighting in the Field against him You see Doctor in this Remonstrance how the Archbishop and Lords that joined with him contrary to the general sense of Mankind unking'd this Providential King for want of a Legal Title and Remonstrated against him as a Perjured Traytor and Vsurper and when he lay upon his Death-bed he himself also began to be of their Opinion contrary to the general sense of Mankind when his guilty Conscience forced him to tell his Son That he had no good Title to the Crown but he not inferior to his Father in Ambition snatched it from his Pillow and plainly told him That as he had got it by the Sword so by the Sword he would keep it And in truth Doctor your Title by Providence against Law is Sword Title and your Providential Kings Sword-Kings for in all Kingdoms the Sword is King where their lawfull Prince is not the Sword or Supream Force Rules all and that Supream Crushing Force which by God's permission gets and keeps possession makes your Providential Kings 12. I have hitherto shewed you what Opinion many Wise and Considering Men had of Henry IV. and his Reign for want of Legal Right and Title And I now proceed to shew the sense that a whole Parliament had of him and of his Son and Grand-Son's Succession the latter sitting in the Throne This appears from Roll. Parl. 39 Henry VI. as it is in Cotton's Abridgement or rather from the Record at large as it is to be seen as it was lately printed in an Answer by a skillful and faithful hand to The unreasonableness of the new Separation upon account of the Oaths This Roll gives an account how Richard Duke of York Father of Edward IV. brought to the Parliament Chamber in writing not a Petition but a Claim to the Crown of which Henry had been long fully and quietly possessed and his Title which was only Succession by Birth-right being fully made appear it was the Opinion of all the Lords that it could not be defeated That single Title by Proximity of Blood was thought sufficient to supersede all the patch'd Titles of Henry and all that could be said in
Ease or Wellfare have by indirect Surmise Policies Practices Force and new Devices most Usurped upon the lawfull Prerogatives of their Kings or the Persons Lives Offices or Estates of such Nobles Great Officers and other persons of a contrary Party whom they most dreaded maligned and which have imposed new Oaths and Engagements on the Members to secure perpetuate and make irrevocable their own Acts Judgments and unrighteous proceedings have always proved most Abortive Successless Pernicious to themselves and the activest Instruments in them the Parliaments themselves being commonly totally Repealed Null'd and the Grandees in them Suppressed Impeached Condemned Destroyed as Traytors and Enemies to the Publick in the very next succeeding Parliaments or not very long after That Kings created and set up meerly by Parliaments and their own Power in them without any true Hereditary Title have seldom answered the Lords and Commons Expectations in the Preservation of their just Laws Liberties and Answers to their Petitions yea themselves at last branded for Tyrants Traitors Murderers Usurpers their Posterities Impeached of High Treason and disinherited of the Crown by succeeding Kings and Parliaments as you may read at large in the Parliaments of c. From these three last Observations we may learn that as Parliaments are the best of all Courts Councils when duly Summoned Conven'd Constituted Ordered and kept within their legal Bounds So they become the greatest Mischiefs and Grievances to the Kingdom when like the Ocean they overflow their Banks or degenerate and become through Sedition Malice Fear or Infatuation by Divine Justice Promoters of corrupt sinister Ends or Accomplishers of the private Designs and ambitious Interests of particular persons under the disguise of publick Reformation Liberty Safety and Sentlement You see Doctor here how Mr. Pryn distinguishes between legal Kings by Hereditary Title and Kings that are not legal and between Parliaments Convened and acting legally from Parliaments that are not so Conven'd and do not so Act But in your Providential Hypothesis which must damn all such distinctions as Groundless and Arbitrary it is enough that any Man Jack Cade or Oliver Cromwel be set up for King by the Estates of the Realm howsoever Conven'd and Acting Once the Estates of this Realm did most illegally call in a French King and set him up in the Throne and swear Fealty to him and if in the late designed French Invasion which if God had thought fit might have succeeded they had set up the great Oppressor of the Liberties of Europe then according to your Doctrine he must have been King and by your Principles and all the seriousness which the Subject of the Last Judgment requires you must and would have professed without any regard to the Recognitions of their Majesties right that you were his most faithful Subject and Servant To this Authority of Mr. Pryn I shall add that of Judg Jenkins who protested against the Power of the two Houses when they had made the King their Prisoner and usurped his Sovereign Authority and had power to crush his Majesty and much more any other Man in the Kingdom Shortly after Judge Jenkins printed his Protestation and a Justification of it from Law in which he declared he should hold it a great Honour to dye for the honourable and holy Laws of the Land It was for the King then and his Authority that he stood up against the Powers in being who were then in your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he asserted before them That Allegiance followed the King 's natural Person then Prisoner at Holmby And as for the times before him he declared that all Deposers of Kings were Traitors that Henry IV. was an Usurper and that Kings de facto are Vsurpers that come in by the Consent of the People This is the Doctrine of Judge Jenkins of famous Memory but yours Doctor is the scandalous Doctrine of presbyterian Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Baxter's Holy Common-wealth as has been observed by a plain honest Layman in a †Providence and Precept Book which he wrote against you and which I believe you can never answer I wonder how Dr. Grove your old Acquaintance who wrote against Jenkins takes it to have his Reasonings condemned by you as contrary to the general Sense of Mankind they were received with great Applause by all wise and considering Churchmen when they were first published and I do not hear he hath retracted them And therefore Doctor give me leave to make use of his Testimony among others to prove that the Reasonings of Some among our selves are not contrary to the general Sense of Mankind To these common Lawyers let me add the Authority of one Civilian the learned Sir John Hayward in his Answer to the First Part of a Conference concerning Succession by R. Doleman and to these single Authorities that of all the Judges in the famous Case of the Postnati which two of your learned ‖ d. p. 101. c. p. 37. Adversaries have cited against you viz. That Allegiance follows the natural Person of the King and that †Sir Francs Moorts Reports 79. it is not taken away though the King is expulsed by Force and another usurps When you were first acquainted with this Opinion of the Judges by a learned Lawyer you express'd your Satisfaction with Joy and talkt of printing the discovery but since you have taken the Oath their Authority signifies not a Straw for you are become the true Son of your Sire Leviathan who was above all Authority but his own To these Lawyers of our own Countrey I beg leave to add that of two or three foreign Lawyers whereof two are Scotish Men the learned Craigy and Sir George Mackenzy the former's Opinion is to be seen in a learned MS. of his entituled Thomae Cragii de Jure Successionis Regni Angliae Libriduo adversus Sophismata Personati Dolemani quibus non solum Jura Successionis in Regnis sed etiam ipsorum Regum Ss Auctoritatem nititur evertere The Opinion of the latter is to be read in his JVS REGVM or Defence of the Succession in Scotland and as he wrote in that Book so he lived and dyed a faithfull Subject or if you will Doctor a stupid Slave of Loyalty for he was one of these Men And it is well for you that he dyed when he did for had he survived in Health you and some other Writers would as I have been informed have soon heard from him The third is a Dutch Man of no small Authority even Hugo Grotius who was a wise and considering Man indeed and did not use to write Contradictions to the general Sense of Mankind but yet he as you have been told already by a very learned * aa p. 93. Man saith expresly in contradiction to your Doctrine †De Jar. Bell. Pac. l. 1. c. 14. that it is lawfull to kill an Vsurper if it be with the Authority of him that hath the Right to govern whether
as this wherein loose Principles make loose Practices so that you will find very few Men of strict or if you please Doctor of stupid and slavish Vertue In particular if you please to look about I believe you will find almost as few men of stupid and slavish Sobriety or stupid and slavish Chastity as of stupid and slavish Loyalty Nay if the general Complaints be true there are but very few of stupid and slavish Justice and Honesty For why should a Man of Honour as the Cardinal said be a Slave to his Word or to his Oath either especially of late Dr. Tillotson's Serm. of Hell-Torments since we can hardly tell how to reconcile the eternal Misery of Hell with the Justice and Goodness of God who notwithstanding all his Threatenings of it in Scripture is free to doe what he pleases But this Doctor doth not belong to you but to some of those Nine Men who you told * In a Letter to a Friend containing some Queries about the New Commission for making Alterations in the Liturgy Canons c. of the Church of England sent to the Press by Dr. Sherlock and published a little before the first Sitting of the Convocation us not long before you took the Oath had Latitude enough to conform to a Church de facto which had Power on its side and Tenderness and Moderation enough to part with any thing but their Church Preferments When you were at the Writing of that Letter †p 5. the A. Bp. and other Bishops and Clergymen under Suspension were as eminent for a prudent and well tempered Zeal as for their constant Loyalty but now their well tempered Zeal though not one degree altered from its Temper is factious and their constant Loyalty stupid and slavish Allegiance and what else you will hereafter be pleased to call it or them 13. Having now I hope vindicated the Opinions and Reasonings of some among our selves from Singularity and Novelty by shewing that they do not contradict the general Sense of Mankind but are the very Sense of the wisest and best part of it I come now to examine what you say for I cannot call what you say Arguments against them p. 15. who as you tell the World withdraw from our Communion because we pray for K. William and Q. Mary but they say and I fear are able to prove it too that it is you that have withdrawn from them and their Communion and that the Schism and the causes of it is in you and not in them But to let that pass you assert that St. Paul in your Text makes no difference of Kings but that they do but I tell you Sir that they make as little difference as St. Paul for they grant that he commands us to pray for all Kings but then they say that the Usurpers of Kingdoms as long as they remain so are not Kings nor within the Intention of your Text. But you tell us they say That St. Paul means only Lawful and Rightful Kings it is true they do say so but then they also say that there are no Kings but what are Lawful or have the Legal Right and that all others exercising the Kingly Power in any Kingdom against Law are onely called Kings as Idols are called Idols but are not true Kings You tell us again the Commandment is general to pray for Kings and they say so too but then they tell you that this doth not bind them to pray for Usurpers who call themselves Kings and are so called by those who set them up against Law but are not so But then you think you ask them a very confounding Question though they have answered it an hundred times before viz. Whether there is any such Distinction as this in Scripture that we must not pray for all Kings but onely for Legal Kings To this they answer that all Kings in the nature of the thing and in Scripture intendment are Legal Kings as all Husbands and Wives in the sense of the Scriptures are Husbands and Wives by lawful Wedlock though an Adulterer may sometimes usurp the Name of a Husband as did the pretended Husband of the Samaritan Woman whom our Saviour told her for that reason was not her Husband And as the Duty of Wives to their Husbands commanded by the Apostle is in no danger by asserting that they must not be subject to any but Rightful Husbands So neither to answer your trifling Question are Subjects in any danger of being delivered from the Duty in your Text of praying for Kings by teaching that we must pray for none but lawful Kings But then you tell us that this distinction of lawful Kings from Kings that are not lawful * p. 17. is Arbitrary and that it hath no †p. 20. solid Foundation in Reason and Nature but they have told you over and over that it is a Real and no Arbitrary distinction founded upon the common Notions of Right and Wrong Truth and Falshood and that it is a distinction not of a thing from it self which is Arbitrary but of a thing from what it is not and that it is as necessary for Subjects to make this distinction between Kings as for Children and Wives to distinguish betwixt lawful and unlawful Husbands and Fathers or Clergy-men to distinguish between Canonical and Uncanonical Bishops or to distinguish in Religion between the true God and Idols who are worshipped in the stile of Gods And therefore to come to your Latria and Dulia to which you foolishly compare this distinction p. 1◠they return it upon you and say that the Scriptures appropriate the Allegiance of Subjects of which praying is a part to lawful Kings but that you are more than a Papist in Politicks because you are for giving away not only Dulia or half Allegiance but Latria or the whole Allegiance Ibid. from True to Idol-Kings And then as for avoiding the Duty of the Fifth Commandment by the Vow Corban which you misapply to them that returns upon your self for they have shew'd you again and again in their Answers that that Commandment directs the Duty of it to true and lawful both natural and civil Parents and have made it appear that you are one of the Pharisees who have endeavoured to make that and other Commandments of none effect by giving the Name of Kings to pure Providential Usurpers though they are no more Kings by possessing the lawful Kings Throne than Idols are Gods by possessing the Temple of the true God Idols have all the Ensigns of Divinity as you say the other have of Majesty and by God's own Providence come to be invested with all the Religious Rights and Ceremonies of the true God and often happen to be worshipped and recognized for Gods by the People and Estates of Idolatrous Realms but for all that they are but abominable Idols that ought to be thrown down and broken in pieces and the more cursed and abominable by
of it Your second Question they say agrees not with your first nor with the design of your Sermon For when you ask them whether they are as certain that it is unlawful to pray for Kings legally invested c. as they are that the Apostle commands us to pray for Kings they say that according to your Hypothesis the questoin ought to be put of Kings illegally invested with the Royal Power and then they answer that illegal Kings cannot be legally invested and as certain that it is as unlawful to pray for illegal Kings as they are that the Apostle commands us to pray for Kings and all that are in Authority and likewise add as before to the Answer of the first Question In your third they observe that you call the lawful King 's Right a supposed Right whereas the providential King 's Right is merely so but the lawful King out of Possession hath according to your state of the Controversie a real Right to possess and to recover Possession if he can and therefore if they could wonder at you for any thing they say they should wonder why you call it a supposed Right And in order to answer the question as they are a distinguishing sort of Men so they distinguish about Estates of the Realm and they say they are of three sorts 1. Estates that are always free 2. Estates that are sometimes free And 3. Estates that are never free The first are Sovereign Estates as the Estates of Rome formerly were and those of Venice now are in whom the supreme Authority is lodged and all Persons in their Dominions are subject to them and they are subject unto none The second are the Estates of Elective Kingdoms where there is an Interregnum of Freedom to chuse a new King in as in Poland and some other Kingdoms And the third are the Estates of Hereditary Kingdoms where by Law there is no Interregnum but the last moment of one King's Reign is the first of another and where by consequence all Ranks and Orders of Men are constantly subject even as constantly as if they had but one immortal or never dying King This distinction being premised they answer in Thesi that they are certain that it is the Duty of Subjects to adhere to the legal Right and him that hath it in opposition to an unlawful King put into the Throne by subject and unfree Estates that have no Authority Right or Liberty to make Kings because the Law hath always Kings ready made for them to whom they ought to be subject I say they are certain nay as certain that it is the Duty of Subjects whatever they suffer by it to adhere to the legal Right in such a Case as they are that it is our duty to pray for Kings And then to your last Question they answer that they are as certain that the Roman Powers or Emperors were legal and rightful Powers when the Apostle wrote as that he commanded the Christians to be subject to them and pray for them For they were placed in the Throne by free Estates who had Authority to place them there but you more like a Sophister than a Preacher of Truth take no notice of this plane distinction as if the Estates of all Kingdoms were alike free and Sovereign These Men say you p. 18. will pray for no Kings unless they be legal Kings tho' they have all the Ensigns of Majesty and are invested with the legal Authority and Power with all the legal and customary Rights and Solemnities of Investiture and are acknowledged and recognized by the Estates of the Realm These are fine words Dr. but did you never hear of Realms where Kings are Kings without any Ensigns of Majesty before the Solemnitie of Coronation of Realms where the King quatenus King never dyeth and by consequence where the Estates are always subject to the King and have no Interregnum of Freedom of Realms where for the aforesaid Reason the King is said to demise when he departs this Life and where the King is crowned because he is King and not King because he is crowned Fie Dr. fie I am ashamed of your Ignorance if you have lived among Lawyers so long and not know these things or of something worse than that if you knew them and suppress them because they did not suit with you Providential Scheme I have now Dr. answered your Questions plainly and perhaps more plainly than you desired but to shew you and the Worshipful Bench how much you dare impose upon them I must ask you the same questions the same proper questions about degrees of Evidence and Certitude p. 20. Come therefore Dr. sublime seraphick irrefragable Dr. for once vouchsafe to answer a poor little Writer who humbly desires to know 1. Whether you are as certain that by all Powers Rom. 13.1 the Apostle means Powers that have no legal Right and Title as well as Powers that have legal Right and Title and prosecute that Right as you are that he expresly teaches that all Power is of God 2. Whether you are as certain that it is lawful to pray for unlawful Kings who have no legal Right to the Power which they exercise as you are that the Apostle commands us to pray for Kings and all that are in Authority 3. Whether you are as certain that it is the Subjects duty to adhere to a supposed Providential Right against the Laws of the Realm and in opposition to the lawful King and his Right as you are that it is our duty to pray for Kings 4. Are you as certain that the Roman Powers when the Apostles wrote were illegal and usurping Powers which you affirm as you are that St. Paul commanded Christians to be subject to them and to pray for them These Dr. are your own Questions and doubtless you can answer them better than any other Man but when you think fit to do so let me entreat you not to perplex the Controversie of Right and legal Right with the Word antecedent as you have done in your Sermon 4 or 5 times merely to amuze your Readers and fill them with Prejudice against these Men as if they would own no Man for King but such as comes to the Administration of the Sovereign Power with an antecedent Right But this Dr. is a great and I fear a wilful mistake of yours for provided that he that hath the actual Administration of Government hath a legal Right to it it is all one to them whether it be an antecedent concomitant or consequent Right Right or legal Right is the thing that they look after in him that hath the Sovereign Power and that alone which can lay the Obligation of Obedience upon Men's Consciences and command Subjection from them Sovereign Power how providentially soever it is attained is but Sovereign Force and Tyranny without it and to speak in logical Strictness King is a name of Law and Right and assoon as a Man hath the Right which the
Estates of the Realm This Doctour I fear is the Spirit and these the Principles generally speaking of the Refugees and this Spirit and these Principles of which they give so many Signs obliged the King for his own Security to send their Ministers out of his Kingdom but he did not send them away empty he did not send them to the Galleys as you know who did What I have said Doctour is out of justice and not out of kindness to the French Monarch I am none of those that wish he may prevail and bear all before him like a Torrent but I do not like that he should be ignorantly and partially traduc'd by every soul mouth'd Pulpitier when were it not for his invincible Mistake in Religion he would be thought even by you one of the bravest Princes that ever wore a Crown Nor have I any ill Will at his Protestant Subjects I have been as great a Reliever of them in proportion to my Ability as any other Man in the Kingdom and should be glad to see a Vindication of them that I might have a better Opinion of them I grant the King hath persecuted them with very great Severity and made havock of their Church and am as sorry as you can be for it and for the Cause of it but then are there no persecutors among the Confederate Princes Look about you Doctor set the Acts and Edicts and Executions of other Princes against his and then you will find that other Protestants besides the French have been dragoon'd and lost their Estates their Lives their Liberties and their Countrey for Conscience sake In short the French Apologists tell us that the King persecuted them because they intended to persecute him This their own Consciences can tell them whether it be true or no and if it be true then their destruction is of themselves and they have brought down their Ruine upon their own Heads The Bishop of St. Asaph who foretold the Downfall of their King hath now foretold his Conversion and their Restitution It is some Months ago since he foretold that this would happen within a year God grant his Prediction may prove true it would make his Majesty a Constantine to his People But yet I fear that would not satisfie some Men nor reconcile their ulcerated Minds to him unless with the Popish Religion he quitted the Interests of King James This Doctor is another crowned Head against whom you love to croak All your malicious Speeches and Slanders of him and particularly those in your first and second Letter concerning the French Invasion are filed up in Heaven and shall be brought in Evidence against you at the great Day of Judgment when without publick and bitter Repentance you will appear at the left Hand with Cromwell Bradshaw Cook Milton and Thom. Good win and be sent with those Worthies of the Old Cause into your own place You cannot be content with sober and wise Men among your Brethren to say nothing of him or when you speak to speak of him as they do with Decency and Respect but you fall upon him as the Mob did at Feversham with a brutal Rage without any Regard to his Royal Name and Person or to her Majesty and the Princess whom you dishonour in reproaching of him For let me tell you Doctor the Disgrace of the Chief always terminates in the Clan and the Men of Honour will tell you they are bound to revenge it as soon as they have the Opportunity 16. In this Sermon you also upbraid him with his Misfortunes which no good Man can think of without the greatest degree of Compassion scornfully calling him the late unfortunate Prince It is true Doctor he is unfortunate but you should have remembred what Solon said of Croesus and that what happens to Kings may also happen to Divines You live now in great Prosperity and State but God may yet bring you down He can when he pleases take off the Wheels of your Chariot turn your Silver Candelesticks into Brass and your Wax Candles into Tallow and reduce you even beyond your first principals yet before you dye I wish this may not happen to you nor none of those who insult over the Calamities of that unfortunate Prince but if it do so remember you saw the Anguish of his Soul and had no Pity for him and then say therefore if this Distress come upon us One of the Nine Men when he heard him pitied had the Barbarity to say Why what matter is it He is but a Bastard St. Alban 's Bastard and it is great pity that her Majesty had not been told of it before he put on his Lawn Slieves We commonly say Misfortunes are no Crimes and before you upbraid him with them again remember his Father the Martyr of the Church of England was unfortunate before him and had this also added to the rest of his Misfortunes that he was reviled and had in derision by such Sons of the Earth as you But God supported him by his Grace and made him more than Conqueror and the same God which supported the Father hath also upheld the Son under his Misfortunes which let me tell you had never come upon him had you and your Brethren the Clergy done their Duty as some of them did And therefore methinks you should take no pleasure in ripping up his Misfortunes which are your Crimes He was unfortunate in you more than in his Lay Subjects You might have saved him as well as your Religion if you would have preached but half as much for him as you did for that but your general Silence in the needfull time betrayed him to all his Misfortunes and Now such as you among your Brethren are very sorry that they are not greater and mad against the suffering Remnant because they do not renounce him in his Misfortunes and murmur against God that hath preserved him and laid Help upon one that is mighty for him a mighty Prince who hath long maintain'd more Legions than the Roman Empire did at the highest Pitch of Greatness and who perhaps one day like Augustus and Trajan may inscribe upon his Medals coined upon such glorious Occasions REX PARTHIS REX ARMENIS DATVS for God seldom raises Princes to that Greatness but he hath something extraordinary for them to doe I must also remind you of another great Blessing which God who remembers Mercy in Judgment has bestowed upon him and thereby enabled him the better to bear the loss of his Kingdoms He hath given him of his most virtuous Queen a Royal * See the Observator published Monday Aug. 21. and Wednesday Aug. 23. 1682. Son and Daughter by whom I trust the Royal Family will be multiplied into many Branches and come to be restored to its antient Rights and Glory The Seed of the Royal Martyr is in them and I hope it is no Crime to pray that God would give them the sure Mercies of David and let them grow up like
submit to him as it were in the twinkling of an Eye He was Doctor as you speak Recogniz'd for King by the States of the Realm and the great Body of the Nation submitted to him and took the Oath of Allegiance to him who himself had taken that Oath to Queen Maud and Henry her Son and yet though he had all the Ensigns of Majesty by Coronation and was in full Possession of the Throne which you call a thorough Settlement there were many Gallant Men who would not acquiess in the Publick Judgment of the Nation because it was incompetent and erroneous but after some time opposed him to their utmost as an Usurper although he had Providence on his side Among these was * Dicerem nisi adulatio videretur non imparem fuiss◠Julio Caesari Robertus Christiana Pietate insignis Anno 1139. Robert Earl of Glocester half Brother to Queen Maud who as Malmsbury saith was the most Learned Pious and Valiant Man of his Age. Indeed Robert with a relucting Conscience had done Homage conditionally to Stephen but though he did it upon condition he soon recovered himself and repented of it and took care * Robertus quasi positus in speculâ Rerum providebat exitum ne de juramento quod fecerat sorori erga Deum Homines perfidiae notaretur sedulo cagitabat Anno 1137. to act nothing contrary to his Allegiance to Maud and with the first safe opportunity †Homagio etiam abdicato rationem praeserens quà m injuste id fecerat quia Rex illicite ad Regnum aspiraverat Ipsemet etiam contra Legem egecisset qui post Sacramentum quod sorori dedirat alteri cuilibet ea vivente se manus dare non trubuisset sent Messengers to Stephen to tell him That he renounced his unrigteous Oath of Homage to him and that he had acted contrary to Law in that he was not ashamed to Swear Homage to any Mortal while his Sister was alive And afterwards as I shall shew he could never be brought to turn Subject to Stephen in the greatest extremity when they threatned to take away his Life if he would not The Historians who I believe were sober Men represent Stephen as a ‡ Quamvis ipse jurasset juramentum fidelitatis Imperatrici Henrico filio suo tamen quasi Tempestas invasit Diadema Regni Angliae Qui si legitime Regnum fuisset ingressus Hoveden Qui Rex illicite ad Regnum aspicaverat Malmsbury Sed dum externam vim propulsat Domestica petitur jam manifeste Deo Perjurii poenas ob eo expectente Polyd. Virg. Perjured Usurper and complain of the Perjury of the Times and say that it brought down the Judgment of God upon the Land ‖ Quibus De propitio salubriter actis Rex Angliam Angliae Pacem recepit Annis enim jam plarimis sere nudo Regis nomine insignis tunc recipere vijus est hujus rem nominis quia tunc primo purgata invasionis Tyrannica Macula Legitimi Principis Justitiam inducit Nubrigensis saith that he was but a Nominal King till the Pacification or Agreement made with Henry and that it was that which made him a Real Lawfull and Rightful King Nay the Historians observe in what a signal manner the Judgment of God fell upon the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Salisbury who were the two first that swore Allegiance to him the former not surviving a year to an end and the latter being made a Prisoner by him was miserably vexed by him till he died of Grief Malmsbury tells us That God made him an example to Men not to trust in uncertain Riches which saith he Some Men coveting after concerning Faith have made Shipwreck Anno 1138. He also tells us that Robert Earl of Glocester consulted many Religious Men to know their Opinion if he might quit his Allegiance to his Sister And that they answered He could neither live in this World with Honour nor in Everlasting Happiness in the World to come if he acted contrary to the Oath which he had taken to her I suppose Doctor the Religious Men whom that Learned and Wise Prince consulted as the Guides of his Conscience were as good Men and Casuists as that Age afforded and they being dead yet speak and give Evidence against you for asserting that the Opinion and Reasonings of Some among our selves is against the general sense of Mankind If Mr. Fuller in his Church History represents the mater right all the Arguments which you and your Brethren used for taking the new Oath of Allegiance were then used to justifie Swearing Allegiance to Stephen but Earl Robert to use your words felt not the force of them he had nothing left him but a Stupid and Slavish Allegiance to Maud for when he was promised to be made as great as Stephen the Throne only excepted if he would become his Subject he made this Answer which * Anno 1143. Non sum mei inquit sed alleni juris saith the Historian I desire Posterity may know and admire I am not at my own disposal but under the Right of another but when I shall have power over my self I shall do what the reason of the Case shall direct After this Answer Doctor which he made in defence of his Allegiance to a Queen that never was Crown'd the Lords who brought the Message from Stephen to him began to threaten him with Imprisonment and Death And what reply do you think he made to that Why Slave of Allegiance as he was to Maud he told them with a serene Countenance That he feared nothing less After this again Stephen with the Great Lords came in Person to him but he * Ille velut Pelagi rupes immota stood like a Rock against the Waves protesting to them that he had espoused his Sisters Cause neither out of the prospect of any Worldly advantage nor out of hatred to the King but purely out of Conscience in consideration of his Duty and Oath which the Pope had assured him did tie him to her Obedience Thus Doctor we see that God in the most corrupt times reserves some to bear witness to Truth as the Prophet saith Except the Lord of Hosts had left us a very small remnant we should have been as Sodom and like unto Gomorrah The unnatural Usurpation of Edward III. was so short before his Father's death that there was not time enough for those who abhorred it to signalize their detestation of it But however Doctor there were * Non deerant qui ejus vicem dolentes summae Principes perfidiae ac Edoardum Regem ac Isabellam impietatis criminis notarent Aliqui Optimates Auctore Edmundo Cantii Comite secreta passim jam consilia Sermones deliberāndo Edoardo una conserre ceperunt Polyd. Virg. Ang. Hist lib. 18. Some who lamented the injuries that Edward II. had suffered and were not affraid openly to reproach his Queen