certain Sign to us that God placed him in it however the Right to the Crown is so Sacred that God himself cannot alter it without a miraculous Interposition For that Providence which removes and sets up Kings does not tho God Pag. 26. Pag. 14. gives the Man in Possession the true and rightful Authority of a King and makes him true and rightful King And indeed notwithstanding Gods setting up a King and making him Rightful as far as his Authority can the measures of Obedience are Doubtful there are different degrees of Settlement and Submission and the Convocation Pag. 17. Book leaves it a very great question Whether Allegiance can be due to an Usurper while the right Heir lives I should not tell any but Friends the Art I have used about the Story of Jaddus the High Priest whose Scruple against taking an Oath to Alexander during Darius his Life is the Foundation of a Canon wherein the Church declares If any Man affirm that Juddus having Sworn Allegiance Canon 30. to Darius might have lawfully born Arms against him he doth greatly Err. I know that if I had taken notice of this part of the Canon it would have seem'd a very Foreign Interpretation to say The meaning was no more than this that he having Sworn Allegiance to Pag. 8. Darius could not make a voluntary Dedition of himself to Alexander If this Art of mine should be publish'd in the Streets of Gath some Barbarous Philistines would be ready with rude Clamours and unchristian Vid. Pref. p. 1. Censures to say That I used the Canons as I did Bracton whom with a curious Vid. Case of Resistance p 196. Bracton Lex facit Regem attribuat ergo Rex Legi quod Lex attribuitâ—ei viz. Dominationem potestatem non est etenim Rex ubi dominatur voluntas non Lex piecing together the beginning and end of a Paragraph I brought over cleaverly to my side after the Rogue had said in the middle That the King receives his Dominion and Power from the Law But not a word more of this and take a short safe Rule with you Never Resist when you are like to be Crush'd for it and not to do your Legal Prince any Service Be not righteous over much why should ye destroy your selves Ye may be preserved for Good Times should your Legal Prince Land with an Army then your Oaths of Allegiance may equally Ballance on both side and you may lye still till Providence has declared it self or take that side which has most Indications of its Favour In this last Particular I may seem to misrepresent the Doctor who may be thought to have determined the Point absolutely on the side of this Government when the People have not only submitted to it but the late King's Power is broken and there is no prospect of his helping his Friends In such case he says If it be visible that the dispossessed Prince can never recover his Throne again Page 18. but by making a new Conquest of the Nation by Foreigners who will be our Masters if they conquer and no gentle ones neither We may then look upon the new Prince as advanced and setled by God in his Throne and therefore such a King as we owe an entire Obedience and Allegiance to 1. But if we observe what he says upon the Enquiry by what means the dispossessed Prince shall recover his Right it will appear that he lays the Subject under no higher Obligation to the Prince in Possession than not to assist the other but I do not find that he thinks they are bound to defend the Possession though they have sworn Allegiance which implies a legal Defence according to their Abilities so that if he speaks out he will not yield entire Obedience and Allegiance to be due all Men he says are not bound to list themselves Soldiers and though he allows the Militia and Posse Com. to be a legal Defence he no where says that Men are bound to act Page 31. in it against their legal King as he supposes the dispossessed Prince to be so that Men only run the hazard of the Penalty if Providence should still keep on the side of the Possessor Nay upon his Principles if it be safe Duty leads us to take part with his legal King out of Possession Whether a Commission granted by such a King be a legal Commission Page 71. he makes such a nice point in Law as he is not Lawyer enough to decide but if we go to him as a Divine he will tell us the Sovereign Power is inseparable from his Person and tho Case of Ref. pag. 20. the Commission be not legal in form it has the Authority of Sovereign Power 2. I do not find that he allows the Prince who is in Possession to defend God's Authority against the suppos'd legal Right and neither Prince nor People may defend the Kingdom against the legal King and foreign Forces 3. If the Doctor thinks the Rights of the Church or of the Monarchy injured in either of these Cases he seems to encourage the Subjects to resist God's Authority In the late Times of Rebellion and Usurpation he says all the Friends of Monarchy Page 48. and of the English Government and of the Liberties of their Country and of their own Honors and Fortunes were bound in Interest to take all Opportunities to restore the late King The Church he owns is provided for now Page 50. But he says if it be well considered the Defence of Monarchy Page 47. and the Rights and Prerogatives thereof will appear a very material part of the Oath which may bind Subjects when the Person of the King is changed and may make them think themselves more obliged to restore such a Prince when they cannot restore Monarchy and the ancient Laws and Government of the Nation without him God's Authority it seems in these Respects is suspended under God's King or other Minister if he but allowed the same under Man's his legal King I fear it would set aside his Doctrine of Passive Obedience when the Constitution is violated as according to his Notion of the Rights of Soveraignty that is of the Person of the King it is greatly by the Bill of Rights nor is it likely to be restor'd but with the late King to whom they had ascrib'd it 4. The danger from the Foreign Invasion be may answer in the same way as he does the danger of the legal Prince's losing his Right for ever if not assisted by his old Subjects viz. This may be called a difficulty in Providence but no difficulty to the Subject if he pursue his Duty that is if according to his Rule he cautiously wait upon the Motions or rather Events of Providence 5. If the Doctor will in such a Case yield as entire Obedience to the King of Providence as he did to the legal King he has as I shall shew learn'd this
has given him would have brought him to a sound Judgment in this matter Fourthly Would excuse his holding off from the Government and his Behaviour while he did yet is Self condemn'd Fifthly Seems to make his court to the King out of Possession and to their present Majesties yet neither did nor does by this Book serve either but quite the contrary First He would have the Justification of the right Waved as an unfit Dispute and besides To judge of Page 1. the Legality of the Revolution he says requires such perfect Skill in the Law and History and the Constitution Page 2. of the English Government that few Men are capable of making so plain and certain a Judgment of it as to be a clear and safe Rule of Conscience It is to be observed that here the question is not in relation to them who were to consider of their Duty before the Revolution but what might satisfie their Consciences when it was settled and when it might be look'd on as settled And this very matter he himself thinks a plain case in our Law he says the Law it self as well as the Principles of Reason and Religion P. 59. c. 60. have annexed the Authority of Government to the Possession of the Throne And has no other colourable means of proving a Settled Possession but by the Law of the Land for he places it under God in the regular Consent and Submission of the People and owns that the Submission has been made by a Legal Representative of the People That Page 9. Page 51. the Law only tells us who is King that he has no Right that is no Authority but by Law And that our Representatives in a Convention at least in Page 54. Page 65. Parliament are the Judges in whose Judgement we should acquiesce And they 't is certain have declared that their Majesties are Lawful and Rightful King and Queen Vid. The Act Settling the Crown And that which declares the Acts of the First Parliament to be binding Laws Is not this a plain case without troubling the Subjects with particular Controversies But then he confounds this matter which otherwise were plain when he offers at the Law 1. Tho the Statute 11 H. 7. shews that Legal Allegiance is due to the King in Possession and that he is the Legal King he will have it that the Law does not deny Page 65. the others Legal Right to the Crown 2. Whereas the Lawyers say and prove from History Records and Law-books that the Constitution of this Monarchy is as has been observed of the Jewish Hereditary as to a Family elective as to Persons The Doctor will have it that the Lineal Heir has the Right to the Crown and yet that it is Hereditary Page 52. to any Person who gets a settled Possession tho he be not of that Royal Family which has through Providence either by Affinity or Consanguinity maintained the Possession for near 1000 years as may easily be proved and I hope may continue the Possession till time shall be no more 3. Whereas the Lawyers say that our Monarchy is limited and founded in Contract that a King who Acts without regard to the Fundamental Contract is not a Legal King and that the Natural Allegiance due to our Country supersedes the Obligation of what otherwise was due to him He will have the Law to allow a Legal Right to the Crown unto him who is out of Possession and lost it by the Just Judgment of God for exercising an Authority which the Law condemns and rejects And tho the Law in a limited Monarchy Page 30. sets Bounds to Sovereign Power yet that Scripture and Reason require our not Resisting a King Page 30. when he Subverts the Laws and Liberties and Legal Established Religion of the Kingdom by Illegal Methods as if he had Gods Authority for all this nor can they find a Contradiction in the thing that God should give a Prince Authority Case of Resistance p 119. to govern according to Law and yet Subjects are at Liberty to resist when the Bounds which God had set him are willfully transgressed And if a Lawyer may be allowed to Reason upon this Point he would say if he may not be resisted because he has Gods Authority Because he has Gods Authority he ought to be obeyed in every thing not contrary to Gods Law For it is certain the Sovereign Power which is Gods Authority is to be obeyed actively in all things within that Limitation A Person may act beyond it but the Power never can which shews a necessary Distinction between Persons in Power and the Power which they have or exercise tho the Doctor allows of none and helps himself by confounding and joyning what God separates which is as bad as separating what he has joyned Thirdly That he would set up Scripture and Reason without regard to Right or Law appears from the very Scheme of Government which he lays down in his first Section The design of this Book is particularly to prove it to be without regard to the Right of the Government leaving the question of Law in great measure to his Case of Resistance the chief design of which was to shew that the Scripture requires Obedience to the Prince that has Right by Law without regard to any other Law but that which settles his Title This was a giving up the Cause as to what he would enforce from the 13th to the Romans for tho he had then asserted that that Chapter and the whole Scripture where ever it speaks of Higher Powers always means the Authority of a Person not of a Law To serve his turn then he would allow no Man to be Gods Ordinance in an Case of Resistance p. 113. Hereditary Monarchy but the next Heir in the Line in Consequence of which the Scripture speaks of no Higher Power but what is Legal This point he is forced to give up as to the next Heir and yet finds another Heir according to his fancied Law of the Monarchy but in the main keeps to his Fundamental Error that the Scripture means Persons and not Laws where it speaks of Higher Powers Nay and must be of Persons alone without regard to Laws for otherwise the Scripture affords no proof that God ever sets up Persons without regard to Laws and makes them his Ordinance Now the Doctor all along supposing that their Majesties did not come to the Crown according to the Law of the Government finds it convenient that the Scripture should be held to have no regard to the Law which shews who have right to govern and yet even in that respect it is evident that he must own the 13th to the Romans not to speak of Persons barely as invested with Natural Power that is Force but Moral that is Legal Power for he will not yield that the People who have the most Natural Power have in any case Right to Govern It must
from Principles directly contrary Vid. infra at large to the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non resistance the Professors of which as himself tells them do not think it a sufficient Confutation of their Doctrine to say Page 34. that this puts it into the King's Power to invade the Laws and Liberties the Lives and Fortunes of hss Subjects at pleasure Perhaps he was not aware that herein he exposed his own Doctrine as well as his old Friends for he admits a possibility for a Prince in a limited Monarchy to govern arbitrarily Non-Resist pag. 209. and to trample upon all Laws and yet will allow no Remedy but Patience In the Time of Charles II. when this slavish Doctrine had prepared Men for Submission to Tyranny and Popery of which the Discovery of the Plot and Management of that Discovery gave an immediate prospect the Doctor 's business was to Vid. Pref. Liberty of Thinking cramped allay Mens Fears and cramp their Endeavours to secure the Religion and Laws upon these dazling Assurances 1. Though we might be ruin'd and Violence might Case of Resist p. 209 210. overwhelm this Generation yet the Constitution might revive in future Ages till the breach of it were setled by a Law The Prince cannot make or repeal a Law without the Consent of the People you may be sure when the People are made Slaves they will be very loth to part with their Liberty 2. The Prince would offer constant Violence to himself especially if he were a Papist it would grieve him to the Heart to overthrow the Protestant Religion by Law established 3. Subjects are not bound to assist him in his Usurpations he must work without Tools the Age is so vertuous that none could be found 4. It would be dangerous for Subjects to serve him contrary to Law because if the Law should have its course again they might be punished 5. If we believe him all our Historians scandalize King John and Ric. 2. for in this long Succession of Princes in this Kingdom there has been no Prince that has cast off the Authority Pag. 212. of Laws and usurp'd an absolute and arbitrary Power Even King James you must understand exercis'd the Rights of Sovereignty when he dispens'd with the Laws and might have done it safely had he not violated the Rights of the Church That the Doctor then impos'd vain Assurances himself is now convinc'd and admits his bare possibility to have been reduc'd to act but still he would have the whole Difficulty left upon Providence and that Men should stand still and see the Salvation of the Lord. Besides what has already been observ'd these Consequences are obvious from his unretracted Doctrine 1. That all Kings are absolute and have Authority from God to trample upon our Religion Liberties and Laws at their soveraign Will and Pleasure 2. That all who joyn'd in Arms with King William before the Abdication resisted the Ordinance of God and without Repentance shall receive Damnation 3. That King James has still a legal Right to the Crown and therein one would think to our Obedience 4. That he may use Arms to recover that Right which the Doctor ascribes to him But how the Subjects and this King himself are in this Case cramp'd by him has appear'd Pag. 16. before 5. That they who fought against the late King in Ireland fought against their rightful King before Providence had declared God's Will 6. That the Doctor 's Justifrcation of himself for refusing the Oath of Allegiance so long and taking it at last amounts to this that agreeably to what he had before taught from Press and Pulpit he held that Allegiance ought not to be paid to Usurpers but having met with Bishop Overall's Convocation-Book which teaches that Usurpers are to be obeyed when setled in the Power his own Reason took its rise from that Authority to satisfie him that Allegiance is due to Usurpers tho the others legal Right remains and upon this Account he has taken the Oath to their Majesties Wherein he retracts his suppos'd Error that Usurpers are not to be obeyed but retains a real and pernicious one That their Majesties are Usurpers His declaring That he is far from intending to reflect upon the present Government is a Pag. ult Protestation contrary to the plain Fact Tho the Intention makes the Crime the Law implies the Malice when the Fact cannot be excus'd The Doctor confesses there is no prospect of Securing the Church of England and the Laws and Liberties of the Nation by other means than by this Government Yet this Pag. 50. is so far from prevailing with him to renounce King James his Right that notwithstanding his particular Obligation to the Mildness and Gentleness of this Government and his urging the Obligation of Gratitude upon Pref. p. 1. Pag. 39. others who will not Swear now he does He publickly maintains those Principles upon which it is impossible that the late King while he Lives should lose his Right or their Majesties be other than Usurpers and prefers the Vanity of asserting That he never taught but one Error to the Security of our Religion Laws and Pref. p. 5. Liberties For which it is to be presum'd his Book will undergo a publick Censure And the University of Oxford which condemn'd your Book to the Fire out of Loyalty beyond Law would make a due Atonement if they offer'd Case of Resist and Case of Alleg. up the Doctor 's Political Treatises to its injured Manes Sure I am the Bishop of L s Chaplain had no regard to his Master's Honour and uncovered his Spiritual Father's Nakedness when he Licensed such palpable Reflections upon that Action of his which was much more Commendable and Glorious than his Defence before the High Commission Court But besides those Observations which may occur to any Body upon the first running over Dr. Sherlock's Book there are others which may not be thought of till things of the like Nature are sorted together and set in a proper Light As First That he would set aside the Consideration of Law and Legal Right as Useless Unfit and intricate yet shews himself under an Absolute Necessity of having recourse to it 2. Takes upon him to explain it but verifies his Censure of it by his uncouth way of understanding it Secondly That in the room of Law he would set up Scripture and Reason without regard to Law but abuses Scripture and perverts it to the bringing God to Authorize Usurpation upon Princes and Tyranny or Usurpation upon Subjects and makes Reason inconsistent with its self but his Inconsistencies return so often that I need not make any distinct Head of them Thirdly That he would maintain his Old Doctrine of Passive Obedience as far as he can with colour make it consistent with his present Actings yet he effectually renounces it and says those things which if he had pursued the thoughts with that Force which Nature
Fight against our Country which is as Vnnatural as to Fight against our King describes as a Tyrant and Unnatural Lord. Besides the former Particulars which in Justifying the Revolution prove their Majesties to have been Rightfully declared King and Queen tho the Doctor will have the Dispossessed Prince to remain Legal King and to have Right to the Government the Doctor shews their Majesties Right to be Legal now they are settled He affirms that the Law it self as well as the Principles of Reason and Religion have annexed Page 59. the Authority of Government to the Possession of the Throne that no Authority but the States of the Realm page 52 53. can take Cognizance of the Titles and Claims of Princes and the disposal of the Crown that private Subjects ought to submit to their Determination that no Law binds us to disown a King whom the Estates have owned That such a Possessor is a True and Rightful King and has the True and page 14. Rightful Authority of King Surely then he is a Legal King and less Subtle Wits would not free themselves from a Contradiction in saying that the Rival is the Legal King still He has a doubtful Passage where he may seem positively to deny that the ejected Prince continues a legal Prince he admits that he and his Friends have been in a Mistake but whether in relation to the legal Prince or the nature of the Allegiance due to him you may take which you please There is nothing says he to prejudice any Man against the present Government or to Pag. 50 make the Restoration of the dispossessed Prince necessary but a mistaken Notion of Allegiance to that Prince whom we suppose to have the legal Right tho he be dispossessed and another established in his Throne which I have already prov'd to be a Mistake It was necessary for him to leave this with two Handles lest what he has driven at all along should be taken for his positive Assertion that he and his Party suppose that 't is believ'd That the late King has the Right still and this King is an Usurper Yet I take the genuine Sense to be thus We have had mistaken Notions of the Allegiance due to King James whom we suppose to have the legal Right But however he as I before observ'd admits that in some Cases God may leave a free People to choose their own Pag. 13. King says withal That the late King in some sense left his Pag. 50. Throne vacant and yields what infers it absolutely In which he shews the Submission of the People to Their Majesties to be full and legal and that the Law of the Monarchy is preserved and one would think this should make them legal and rightful King and Queen And yet this may be prov'd more evidently out of the Doctor 's own Concessions upon the Submission of the People Himself makes nothing wanting Pag. 51. He begins to doubt whether this is requisite and uses it but as the Objection of others Pag. 9. He says inded it may be thought necessary and the whole Book and Preface shew that himself thinks so but the Submission or Consent of the legal King to transfer a legal Right to the Possessor He says indeed it is nonsense to suppose the Consent of the King Pag. 59. de jure but if the Law shews that he consented I hope it is good Sense and Reason to say that he has consented nor must the Doctor cavil if he yields such Law to be in force He tells us the Stat. 11 Hen. 7. which says in the Preamble That Subjects shall be obliged to pay Allegiance to the Pag. 62. King for the time being is an authoritative Declaration of the Pag. 63. Law and himself shews That this has been admitted for Law in the Reigns of legal and rightful Kings Pag. 53. He must farther yield when press'd to it that King James has directly consented to that Law and that as much as if it had been particularly recited to him not only in accepting the Government under the legal Limitation but in swearing to maintain the Laws in general and to suffer them to have their course If then this be the Law he has submitted and consented to it and his leaving the Government was as good as a recommending the Execution of it to his People And if he has consented that they should pay their Allegiance where they should make their Choice and Submission it follows that he has consented to the Translation of that legal Right to their Allegiance which he once had But that which legally transfers the Allegiance of the Subject must transfer the Right of the King and he who has no Right to their Allegiance has no Right to be their King I hope when the Doctor has consider'd this matter he will say that the late King has no manner of Right and that their Majesties are our only Lawful and Rightful Soveraigns Fourthly His Excuse for holding so long off and Account of his Behaviour while he did is very lame and unsatisfactory I. It manifestly appears that he held off and came in upon the same Principles and it may seem very strange that a Man should be so long in understanding what necessarily flows from his own Doctrine what he now retracts is evidently contrary to his own Sense of the 13th to the Romans Preached and Published six Years since and if a Jewish Example An. 1684. made him then bring in an Exception to his Rule Vid. the examample of Joash Pref. p. 6. Book p. 34 35. he might have had as full an Example to set aside the Exception in the Case of Rehoboam who for slighting that Constitution by which he was to govern was adjudged by God himself to have forfeited his Right and particularly commanded not to claim it by Arms. The Government established upon that Revolt was more plainly God's Ordinance than the Doctor 's Usurpers and Tyrants Wherefore for all the Jewish Presidents he might have kept throughout to his own Interpretation of the Text and have believ'd that it made Usurpation as well as Tyranny God's Ordinance especially since it is evident that the Text relates to both or neither Obj. Indeed I meet with an Objection to this in both his Treatises of Government viz. That only the Kingdom of Judah had been entail'd on David's Posterity Case of Resist p. 131. and that nothing could justifie an Usurpation against his Posterity within that Kingdom tho it might be justifiable Case of All. p. 35. as to that of Israel but in truth the Doctor here comes to his Rule from Success they kept Judah but lost Israel which had been included within the first Settlement God Almighty by his Prophet told Solomon If 1 Kings 9. 4 5. you will keep my Statutes and my Judgments then I will establish the Throne of thy Kingdom upon Israel for ever as I promised to David