worthy Prince and punish them to purpose by resigning his Crown into their own hands Let them take it for a warning if he should serve them such a slippery trick the hurt will be all their own but not an Atom of injury to himself Revenge they say is a sweet thing but this makes it sweeter then Empire that Princes should part with their Crowns only to vex their Rebellious Subjects However they are much obliged to Mr. B. for his kind advice and I hope will return him publick thanks for this easie expedient that he has invented to ease them of all their troubles And if we should ever be so unfortunate and abandoned of the Protection of God's Providence as to fall into the hands of another Presbyterian Parliament we are now provided of a certain Remedy against all the evils of a Civil War it is but the King 's resigning up his Crown and all will be well again He will be no loser the Nation will have the worst of it but t is no matter for that if they will be so foolish as to punish themselves by depriving themselves of a worthy Prince Once more thank you good Mr. B. had I any access to or acquaintance with Kings I would move them to settle a Pension upon you for so noble a piece of Service But in the mean while is not this an admirable Commentary upon Rom. 13. and yet it is the short result of a long discourse upon that very Text Resist not the higher Powers i. e. says he Wring their Swords out of their Hands and fret them till they throw away their Crowns too But as bad as the Doctrine is the Application is somewhat worse For to it he has annext a Discourse concerning the Lawfulness of the late Long-Parliament Rebellion and the Reasons that moved himself to engage in a War against the King And in it he is so far from giving any signs of Repentance or so much as confessing any fault that he frankly declares both his readiness and obligation to do the same thing all over again upon the same opportunity And professes that After the strictest Examination of his own heart he dares not repent of it nor forbear the same if it were to do again in the same state of things And that if he should do otherwise he should be gâ—ilty of Treason and Disloyalty against the Sovereign Power of the Land And that if he had taken up Arms against the Parliament in that War his Conscience tells him he had been a Traytor and guilty of resisting the higher Powers and incurred the danger of Condemnation threatned to Resisters in the 13th to the Romans And in his Preface or Review makes this bold challenge Prove that the King was the highest Power in time of Divisions and that he had Power to make that Waâ— which he made and I will offer my head to Justice as a Rebel But this is to piece out one wickedness with another not only to rebel against the King but to Depose him Had he fought for the King against the Parliament he had deserved to be hang'd for a Rebel and had violated that Command of God Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers and incurred the danger of that Condemnation that is there threatned to Resisters Had been guilty of Treason and Disloyalty against the Sovereign Power of the Land and had been a Traytor and guilty of resisting the higher Powers From all which it is undeniably plain that not the King but the Parliament are the Sovereign and Supreme Power Which is such a contradiction to the fundamental Constitution of the English Government to all the known Laws of the Kingdom to so many reiterated Acts and Declarations of Parliaments from time to time that as bold an affront as it is to the Law of God it is a more impudent out-sacing the Law of the Land so that it seems there is no other way of justifying that Rebellion then by perverting and belying both And if Men can allow themselves such Liberties as these I know nothing that can keep them in any due subjection to the higher Powers that can dispose of the Supremacy by their own Arbitrary Will and Pleasure For where the Sovereignty of this Kingdom resides is a thing so easily and vulgarly known that to search it out requires no deep inspection either into the Laws of the Land or the Nature of Government The Oath of Supremacy is so full a Declaration of it that no Man whoever took it can after that deny the Sovereign Power to reside in the King alone without Perjury That the King's Highness is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm For if he be the only Supreme there is no other Supreme much less Superiour I do not argue from the bare Title of Supreme Governor because that say the Presbyterians may be honorary though others may share in the Power but from its being appropriated to the King alone For we do not only swear that he is the Supreme Governor but that he is the only Supreme Governor and then we swear that neither the Parliament nor any other State of Men whatever share they have in the Government are the Supreme Governors I shall not dispute with Mr. B. or any Man of the Principles of Fourty One of the Power of Parliaments for be it never so great yet unless the Oath of Supremacy be meer Perjury I am sure it is not Superiour nor Equal to the King 's when by it he alone has the Supremacy and then to resist him by their Authority is Rebellion by the Law of the Land and Damnation by the Law of God So impossible is it to tye Men to any Sense of Duty that can allow themselves such an unconscionable liberty of perverting and falsifying Laws and if this be consistent with any tenderness of Conscience or any Pretences to Integrity there can never be any such thing as Truth or Honesty in the World Mr. B. declares that he is very desirous to Repent if he have sinned that he daily prays to God that he would not suffer him to dye impenitently in his Sin and promises that if he could but be convinced of it he would make publick Recantation I verily believe that he is serious in his Protestation and hope to live to see it perform'd and that is my only design here to convince him if that be possible before it is too late I intend not to upbraid him or others with old Miscarriages or to revive old Stories long since buried in Oblivion For when his Majesty has been pleased in his great goodness to pardon them as to all the Punishments of this life God forbid but that they should enjoy the benefit of his Mercy and Clemency But I call upon them to think of Repentance out of pure tenderness and compassion to their Souls For God never pardons Absolutely but always upon Conditions and with him nothing less will expiate
Religion and Loyalty OR A Demonstration OF The Power of the Christian Church within it Self The Supremacy of Sovereign Powers over it The Duty of Passive Obedience or Non-Resistance to all their Commands Exemplified Out of the Records of the Church and the Empire from the Beginning of Christianity to the End of the Reign of JULIAN By Samuel Parker D. D. Arch-Deacon of CANTERBURY LONDON Printed for John Baker at the Three-Pigeons in St. Paul's Church-yard 1684. AN ADDRESS TO HIS MAJESTY FROM THE Primitive Church SIR THe whole Christian World being both Alarm'd and Amazed at the late Barbarous Conspiracy against the Sacred Lives of Your Majesty and Your Royal Brother And Your Majesty having upon that Occasion been over-whelm'd with numberless Addresses and Protestations of Loyalty from Your dutiful Subjects of the Church of England I thought it not improper or unseasonable to consult the Records of the best and purest times of our Religion for Precedents of this Loyal Practice and after an Accurate Diligent and Impartial Enquiry I dare in their Names declare to Your Majesty and all the Christian World their infinite abhorrence of all Treasonable and Rebellious Attempts against all Sovereign Powers whatsoever as the rankest contradiction to their Christian Faith and the boldest Blasphemy against their own Sovereign Lord. So that though Your Majesty were as much an Enemy as You are a Patron and Protector of the Church whoever shall at any time or upon any pretence offer any Resistance to any of Your Royal Commands must forever renounce his Saviour the four Evangelists and the Twelve Apostles to join with Mahomet Hildebrand and the Kirk set up the Pigeon against the Dove the Scimeter against the Cross and turn a Judas to his Saviour as well as a Cromwel to his Prince And this Sir in those days was thought so far from flattering Divinity that if they had not own'd and asserted it with their last drop of Blood under the worst of Tyrants they had judged themselves Traytors both to their Prince and to their Lord. And this Doctrine of entire and unreserved Submission was then so Catholique so Universally Taught and Practiced that Christian Rebellion was a Sin altogether unknown in those days It was the only Sin for which the Laws of the Church never appointed any Punishment because it was the only Sin that was then never actually committed And though they had too frequent and sad Occasions to enter their Protestations against it that was never done to correct any miscarriages among themselves but to rectifie the misapprehensions of the Roman Emperours Who being possest with too just a Jealousie that all Alterations in Religion tended to Innovations in Government they thought themselves obliged in Duty and for the honour of their Lord to represent to their Majesties That the erecting of his Kingdom in the Empire was so far from shaking their Thrones that it was and ever would be their strongest Security And when they had done this they had nothing more to do then to submit themselves to their Royal Pleasure and lay their Lives at their Royal Feet And this Sir they did with that Candour Frankness and Ingenuity so without all reserves and limitations that the slander that some Men have dasht upon their Memories is as false as foul that all their Pretended Loyalty was nothing but Hypocrisie for want of strength to raise and pretence of Law to Warrant Rebellion But some Men are so ignorant that they cannot understand the Doctrine of the Cross because its Superscription was written in Latin Greek and Hebrew and were they not as great Strangers to the Primitive Records as to the Primitive Religion they could never have had the confidence to fasten a surmise so false upon so clear an Integrity when beside giving us their own Opinions they have left behind them the Eternal and unalterable Reasons upon which they were grounded and these are of equal force in all Ages and under all Governments And this unkind Calumny is so very unjust that their spightful and most implacable Enemies who spared not to asperse them with all the vile things that could be believed durst never charge them either with any Overt-acts or secret designs of Disloyalty And as for the Laws though no Subject were ever more thankful for good Laws or more tender of their preservation then themselves yet when they had them they were neither so ungrateful nor so uncivil as to turn them upon the Government and make them so many Bulwarks and Sconces for Rebellion They thought it a very scurvey complement to invite Princes to protect their Religion by telling them That whilst they were pleased to Persecute it Christians were under an entire Submission to their Will and Pleasure but when they had once own'd and protected it by Law that then their Christian Subjects were warranted to Rebel against their Sovereign Authority by a Commission from their own Imperial Rescripts As soft and simple Lachrimists as they were they were wiser then to give Julian so much advantage to justifie his Apostacy when by it he recover'd the Imperial Crown to himself and his Successors that Constantine had pawned to his Christian Subjects by taking up the Christian Faith And whenever there was any misunderstanding between the Emperour and his Laws they thought it their duty that were subject to both to leave the Contest to be adjusted between themselves And if the Prince were at any time undutiful to his own Laws and so unhappy as to incur their displeasure whatever Power the Laws had to Execute themselves upon him they were satisfied that the Subjects had none And as they embraced this Principle of unlimited Submission as one of the greatest duties of their Religion so they have farther declared in all their Writings that setting aside all tyes of Duty and Conscience they would have done the same upon Principles of Interest and Prudence And tho they had lived under the worst of Princes and themselves had been the worst of Men they would have paid the same submission for the purchase of their own ease and safety that they thought themselves to owe out of duty to God and his Laws These Sir were the Doctrines that they taught both as Divines and Philosophers as Men that understood this World as well as Christians that believed the World to come And though to avoid being too bold and tedious I have here only presented Your Majesty with the Subscriptions of all the most Reverend Fathers of the Church for the first Three hundred and sixty three Years yet if Your Majesty think it worth Your Royal Acceptance I am ready to produce not only the hasty Votes but the Hands of all Christian Bishops and Doctors for above a Thousand Years with a Nemine Contradicente But beside the demonstration of the Primitive Loyalty I have here humbly presented Your Majesty with the true State of the Primitive Church as it was left by our Lord and his Apostles and
Grant and Commission And that certainly is as high a Prerogative as any Prince can care to demand to have a Sovereign Power over all the Powers within his own Dominions So that whether they are derived from his Authority or not they shall be as entirely Subject to it as if they had subsisted by no other Charter And that is as high a Supremacy as Mr. Hobbs himself has been pleased to challenge for Sovereign Princes when he took away all Power from the Church to vest it in them for though it is a very gross prophaneness in him to allow no Authority for Religion it self then as it is enjoyn'd and made Law by them yet that Authority that is in the Church by Divine Right is as absolutely Subject to their Dominion as it could have been had it been establisht as Mr. Hobbs contends only by their own Authority And this State of the Controversie if it can be made good I am certain will satisfie all Parties that can claim any share or degree of Government in Church or State but most of all the Supreme Powers to whose Soveraignty all Power whatsoever it is or whencesoever derived is indispensibly Subjected As for the Jurisdiction of the Church as settled by Divine Right and nothing else I have discoursed of that in former Treatises and proved that it is immediately derived from our Saviour himself and settled unalienably by him upon the Apostles and their Successors the Bishops forever so that here I must suppose the Constitution of the Christian Church within it self and all that I am bound to do at present is That supposing its distinct and independent Authority for granted to explain how it accommodates and submits it self to the Civil State and comes under the common obligation of all good Subjects to true Allegiance and Loyalty to the Sovereign Prince §. II. And here the first and chiefest thing to be consider'd is That Christianity supposes the Power of Princes Civil Government being settled in the World from its beginning by the general Providence of God and antecedently to our Saviour's particular Institution And therefore as the first thing that our Saviour openly declared when he enter'd upon his Office was the erection of his own new Kingdom so the next thing that he took care to instruct his Subjects in was that this his Kingdom was no Kingdom of this World So that from thence it is evident that he left the Government of the Kingdoms of this World in the same posture in which they had ever stood be ore he came into it And therefore there could be no alteration much less abatement of the Civil Government any where upon the score of his Authority otherwise the Institution of his Kingdom had been a breach upon the Ancient Rights of those Sovereign Powers in whose Dominions it was erected which was the first thing that our Saviour whilst himself conversed upon Earth was careful to avoid This therefore is to be set down in the first place as the Fundamental Article of his Religion that neither himself nor any of those that he has deputed for the Government of it challenge any Temporal Power to themselves or any exemption from the Authority of those that have it Neither is this to be lookt upon only as a positive duty but it is necessary in it self from the nature and the design of Christianity which was to settle a pure Religion in the World by the strength of its own truth and goodness without any help of worldly power or mixture of worldly interest as I have elsewhere shewn at large from the whole story of its first settlement And therefore agreeable to this great Observation it is very remarkable That our Saviour himself whilst he convers'd upon Earth did not only never challenge any kind of Civil Authority to himself but seiz'd all occasions to defie and disclaim it as absolutely inconsistent with his Commission Thus John 6. 15. When the People supposing him to be that Temporal Messias that they expected would have forced him to take the Kingdom upon himself he immediately withdrew into a Solitude to shift their importunity And Luke 12. 13 14. When one solicited him only to take upon him the Authority of an Arbitrator he perfectly disavows it as if he were solicitous not to give them the least pretence of Objection against him for his intermedling with the Civil Government And yet he might lawfully have done â—t according to the received custom of the Jews at that time for in the Babylonish Captivity to avoid the scandal of Contention before Heathens they referred all their Controversies to the Rabbies and Doctors of the Law and such an one this Jew supposed our Saviour to have been as appears by his giving him their proper Title of Master and whoever refused to stand to their award he was Excommunicated their Society as a scandal to the Jewish Nation And this priviledge of being their own Judges among themselves was granted to them by the Romans and for a long time continued by the Christian Emperors themselves And therefore though our Saviour might have undertaken this Office by the allowance and permission of the Civil Government yet to avoid all suspicions of any such imputation he protests against it as unbecoming his own Office and Person And the case is the very same as to the Woman taken in Adultery Joh. 8. 3. of whom he declares that he had no such Authority as they imagin'd to pass any Sentence upon her according to their Law so that if she were not legally condemn'd before they brought her before him she was at liberty for any such Power that he had to pass Sentence upon her But the most remarkable passage for his disclaiming all Earthly Power is in his Examination before Pontius Pilate Joh. 18. 36. to whom he freely confesses that he is a King but to prevent his jealousie or mistake he both immediately declares that his Kingdom is not of this World * and clearly explains what he means by it For If my Kingdom were of this World then would my Servants fight that I should not be deliver'd to the Jews From which words we understand his evident meaning when he professes that his Kingdom is not of this World that it is not endued with any power of the Sword So that for any of his Officers or Subjects to make any resistance to the Civil Power by the Sword in defence of his Kingdom is to destroy the very nature of itâ— Constitution that consists in this that it is to be govern'd by the power of Truth and is distinguisht from the Kingdoms of this World in that it is a Kingdom without the power of the Sword And therefore for any Officers in it to pretend to any such Power by virtue of any Authority or Commission from him is at oncâ— both to dethrone and renounce his Kingly Power because it is a contradiction to his whole design in the World to have
will be plain from that too as well as common Sence That Resistance to Authority if it were never so Lawful is such a Remedy as never bears its own Charges and that no Nation ever made use of it that did not rue its own folly The Vices of a single Person are finite and reach but to particular cases the most bloody Tyrant that ever was never cut off any great Numbers and it is truly observed by Cardan of Nero that as wanton as he was with the Lives of Men in a very few Months after his death there was abundantly more blood spilt then in all his fourteen years Reign The miseries of War are endless and universal and whatever the event is or whoever wins the Common-wealth is sure to be a loser and to pay a severe reckoning on all sides Some few of the scum of the People may by the strength of their brawny Arms signalize themselves into Clowns of Eminance whilst the Ancient Gentry and Nobility endanger all their Fortunes and great numbers even of the first beginners of disturbance lose their Lives and in short the whole Kingdom must be undone for the advancement of a Cromwel a Pride an Hewson or a Desborough and it rarely happens and it is pity but it should be so but that the first Contrivers are out-reached in their own Designs and baulkt by other Men and other Councils and live to lament their own folly in much more good earnest then they did the grievances or miscarriages of the Government But when the dispute is once raised it is not to be determin'd but by the Sword and wherever success attends that Nation is in a sweet condition when a Conquering Army comes with Swords drawn to rate the Merits of their past Services and challenge rewards equal to their present Insolence and that is to take whatever they are pleased to demand and it is a kindness in them not easily to be expected if they will stop at any violence At least it is certain That which side soever is Victor the generality of a Nation never reap any thing by a War then Repentance and a little Wisdom got by dear bought Experience But not to mention a thousand other great publick and lasting Calamities that Naturally follow Resistance and Rebellion the certain miseries of Civil War it self infinitely outweigh all the Burthens that the greatest Tyranny can lay upon the Subject What a long Succession of unexampled Tyrants must have Reign'd in England before they could have committed so many inhumanities as a few years Civil War for the Liberty of the Subject brought upon it What one mortal Man's Salvageness could ever have spilt half so much Blood as was shed in any one eminent Battel Let therefore the Patriots of Sedition cease to upbraid Loyalty with weakness of Understanding when all Men of common Sense or any Experience in the Affairs of the World cannot but see through the delusion of fighting for their Liberties against their Prince by which they hazard and for the most part lose both and at least certainly bring themselves into greater Slavery then they could have suffered had they been patient under the worst of Governments And this brings to my mind another instance of the wisdom of Submission and that is this that as no wise Man that takes a thorough account of his own interest would care to draw himself into a War against his Prince so it is generally Men of the meanest understandings that are seduced by them And they are drawn in by such poor slights and delusions that plainly shew the contempt that the Patriots have of their shallow reach and the bottom of all their Politiques is to inveagle the common People into a conceit that in all contests with the Government it is only their interest that is concerned and as for themselves were it not to assert their Liberties they would never undergo the frowns of the Court never expose themselves to the hazards of War nor venture their Lives and Fortunes for any thing less then the preservation of their Country And all this while the poor People must be supposed so dull and so they are as not to suspect that there is any such thing as Revenge Ambition and Discontent in the World and yet it is these that have always been the great Patrons of their Liberties And though their Seditious Artifices are known and thread-bare as often discovered as used and a thousand times over and over exposed yet because the common People have not the advantage to know or make use of the Experience of former Ages they are in every Age as ready a Prey for the Snare as if it had never been set before So that omitting divers other good reasons that might be urged against all kind of Resistance and particularly that one That if it be once allowed the common People in any case there is no stop of pretences or end of confusions And if Princes may and do abuse their Power it is much more certain that the Rabble cannot use theirs aright And therefore to prevent the vast inconvenience of their ever abusing it it must be stopt at first and without reserve else the mischiefs that follow if it be admitted at all will be infinite I know indeed that learned Men suppose some Extravagant cases in which they will allow Resistance to be Lawful Barclay and Winzet suppose two viz. When the Prince sets himself to destroy the Common-wealth or would sell the Kingdom to a Foreign Power But these wild suppositions are not to be brought into the practice of the World of which perhaps there are no Examples upon Record For what can be more incredible then that a King should be fond of destroying his Kingdom when by that he certainly in the first place destroys himself himself or of alienating it to another when by that he as certainly enslaves himself Perhaps the thing may be possible in Nature but it is so infinitely improbable that it ought not to be supposed in the practice of the World Least by supposing such an unexampled madness we let Men loose from their Duty in all other Cases for that is the constant practice of all Incendiaries to perswade the People that their present Governors take the course to destroy the Common-wealth So that by this supposition of these two Extravagancies these Learned Men utterly defeat their own Design because these are the very Cases that are pretended in all Rebellions and may be applyed to all Cases as Men please to make use of their assistance Thus when Barclay argues That if the Power of calling Sovereign Princes to account for their Government be allowed to the People or their Representatives it would be as destructive of good as of bad Princes as we may see by the insolent deportment of the Ephori against their Kings whom they chastised not only for their greater misdemeanours but for their mistakes or fancies thus as Plutarch Records in the Life