since it is so I shall make two or three Observations from his Advertisement and proceed to consider the Book it self And first I cannot but take notice that during the Interval between the Printing and Publishing of this Book Mr. Iohnson had seen his scandalous and malicious suggestions against the Assertors of the Succession and Passive Obedience abundantly confuted It is manifest to all the World that those worthy Persons were not more mistaken in the good hopes they had of a Popish Successor that he would be moderate just and religiously observe his Promises to maintain our Religion and Liberties than he was mistaken in the ill Opinion he had entertained and the Calumnies he had published of them He had traduced them as Persons weary of their Religion Betrayers of their English Liberties and had particularly accused Dr. Hicks of fitting the notion of Passive Obedience on purpose for the use of a Popish Successor to render us an easier prey to the bloody Papists It is evident the Papists themselves had no such opinion of his kindness since he hath been baited for Iovian by all their Pamphleteers and by their procurement was in his own Cathedral in an Assize-Sermon levelled at the Test and Penal Laws most rudely and impudently reviled It is well known how early and zealously the Doctor appeared both in the Pulpit and in Print for the defence of the Protestant Religion that he was one of the first Divines I believe the very first whom King Iames Closeted for Preaching against Popery and animadverting on the Royal Papers Mr. I. is not ignorant that Dr. H. and his Friends who durst not by force of Arms resist a Popish Prince defended their Religion and civil Rights against him with an invincible Courage and repulsed all his attempts upon both as a brave strong Wall would the Batteries of a sorry Engine That neither Bribes nor Menaces could induce them to afford him those assistances in undermining the foundations both of Church and State which many violent Excluders offered him in their Addresses made publick in our Gazettes If Mr. I. had either ingenuity or shame he would not have published this Reply without acknowledging his Errour and retracting his slanderous Insinuations as also he would have made some reparation to the Clergy and Universities whose unsteadiness he sliâ—y forebodes from the Example of Queen Mary's Reign All this might have been done without either much trouble to himself or expence to Mr. Chiswell The reverse of the Title Page or the back side of the Lord Russell's Monument would have afforded him room enough and such a piece of Ingenuity and plain dealing would have gotten him more reputation with good Men than all his Book besides Secondly It is also observable that during the same â—nterval was Published Sir George Mackenzie's Ius Regium in which he vindicates the Scotch Succession and confutes the story of Robert the Second and Elizabeth More as it is related from Hector Boethius and Buchanan by Mr. Hunt Mr. Atwood and Mr. Iohnson He proves against them that from Robert the Second the Crown descended on the next Lineal Heir viz. Robert the Third Eldest Son of the said Elizabeth More who was his first anâ— lawful Wife Married to him solemnly A. D. 1349. and died before his Marriage with Eupheme Daughter of the Earl of Rosse This he supports by Authorities more credible than those which garnish Mr. I's Margin so that till the story be better supported and what Sir George hath said against it be disproved it must pass for a Fiction Now I blame neither him nor his Friends for reporting it after such Authours but since he would not let a mistake in History which he saith is not material escape him without advertising the Reader I understand not the ingenuity of letting so gross a mistake in story and so very material pass without adding one line more to warn him of it or offering better proof to maintain it Thirdly Mr. I's reason for suppressing his Book five years together may serve for an answer to your clamorous Neighbours who expect Mr. Dean should reply to this Book and conclude him baffled because he hath not answered it almost before he can have read it But if he never answer it let them know that Victory doth not always attend him who hath the last word and if the times which would not bear it salved Mr. I's honour whilst his Book lay dormant why may not Mr. Dean be allowed to use the same discretion I doubt not but he will consider this Reply and be ready to defend himself against the most formidable Arguments in it if he find it expedient but I conceive he stands no way obliged to take notice of this thing called an Answer to Iovian having declared in the close of his Preface to that Book that if instead of a fair close and substantial Answer he should only nibble shuffle and prevaricate and take Sanctuary in cavil satyr and scurrillity he would pass over such kind of replies with silence and conâ—empt This you will find the exact Character of this celebrated performance of Mr. I's and therefore he deserves not to be considered by his Learned Adversary That Man must have an unreasonable partiality for the cause of Exclusion and Resistance who will allow this to be a full Answer to Iovian wherein nothing is said to a great part of that Book neither is there any notice taken of many Arguments levelled against his two darling notions viz. That nothing is more plain than that the Empire was Hereditary and that it is lawful to resist a Prince by force of Arms if he persecute against Law as Julian did To disprove the former of these Mr. Dean hath shewn that the Succession to the Roman Empire was Elective Casual and Arbitrary and to make it out hath been at the pains to give a succinct account from all the Writers of the Imperial History both Greek and Latin how every Emperour from Iulius to Iulian came to the Throne from which account it appears that although many Princes endeavoured to secure the Succession in their own Families yet none esteemed the Empire to be their Inheritance or made claim to it by a right founded in proximity of blood but on the contrary pretended upon the nomination of their Predecessors or the choice sometimes of the Army sometimes of the Senate and sometimes of both and that when it continued some while in the same Family no regard was had to the next lineal Heir but adopted Sons have been preferred before the natural the more remote Kindred before those who were nearer and the Empire hath been divided between two or three Augustus's at once All which and a great deal more which may be true for ought he knows by his own Confession is utterly inconsistent with an Hereditary Succession as that of England is whose Laws do not allow our Kings to disinherit a Son or prefer the Issue of a
younger before the elder Son's Posterity much less to adopt Strangers nor yet to divide their three Kingdoms among three Sons or to set them up all together joint Soveraigns and Kings of the whole British Empire Now to all this what saith Mr. I. Truly nothing in effect but thinks to sham it all with a piece of Republican Cant he calls it the History of the broken Succession in the Empire which is as good as he and his Friends will allow the English Succession to have been and then he tells us that it is of so small concernment in the Controversy that he hath never examined it Whether he hath examined it or no I cannot tell I am sure 't is much his interest that no body else should examine it There is a Cloud of Witnesses against him and they all speak home to the point and I think if any Man will have Patience to examine them he must have Mr. I's own Forehead if he dare say their Testimony is of small concernment in the Controversy He once believed it a matter of such moment to prove the Empire Hereditary that he thought he could not proceed faithfully without doing it and therefore unless some great Revolution hath since happened in his Mind he cannot esteem so full and clear a proof of the contrary of little or no concernment in the dispute Perhaps it was prudently done to slight and overlook what he could not Answer but Mr. I. hath in all appearance undertaken to answer some other passages in Iovian without examining them Again it was by no means fairly done to represent the account of the Roman Succession as a meer History and slight it when he had done as containing nothing that he was obliged to take notice of There are many and till he shew the contrary I shall think concluding proofs drawn from the History that nothing is more plain than that the Roman Empire was not Hereditary which if he meant in earnest to defend his first Book it concern'd him to Answer I am sure they were such as have in my presence made some of the most considerable of his Friends acknowledge that he was mistaken in asserting the Empire to have been Hereditary And if he were mistaken in that all his Discourse from Iulian's Case which is founded on that supposition falls to the ground with it For an Argument from one case to another concludeth not if the two Cases prove to be very different Now all that he saith for exclusion in his first Book abating some things in his Preface which are considered in the Preface to Iovian is wholly deduced from Iulian's Case and the sence of the Ancient Fathers and Christians thereupon And therefore if he have a stock of new Arguments to produce for Exclusion in this Book 't is nothing to the state of the Controversy as it stood between him and his Adversary who undertook only to answer what he had written and not to divine what he might say hereafter But if the Authour of Iovian had not given us an History of the Roman Succession and by an Induction which is one of the strongest sorts of proof as an Example or Case is the weakest made it out to be Elective and not Hereditary He hath without that sufficiently evinced the disparity of the Cases of Iulian and the D. of Y. by shewing that there were no entailed Estates nor any such thing as Heir in Tail or Hereditary Succession to Entailed Estates in the Empire but that every Man might dispose of his Patrimony by his last Will and Testament or sell or give it away as he pleased or in case he died Intestate it fell to his next Kindred as Heir or Heirs at Law To this Mr. I. makes no Reply Nor indeed could he make any defence for his Foreign Notion of an Heir and Inheritance which is in truth as great a fallacy as a scale of Dutch Miles in a Map of Middlesex For a Roman Heir and English Heir like Dutch and English Miles agree in nothing but an ambiguous Name they are distinct Species of Title and have not the same formal Conception as Dutch and English Miles are distinct species of Measure Whether there be not more Wit than Truth in his representing Mr. Dean's Notion of a Soveraign to be such a deceit I shall have another occasion to consider The other main Notion in his Book and that which for ought I know he may have the honour of first discovering is that a Prince persecuting against Law may lawfully be resisted by force of Arms and that the reason why the Primitive Christians treated Iulian worse than former persecuting Emperours was because they persecuted by virtue of Law against Christianity whereas he persecuted against Laws which established the Christian Religion Now to this new Hypothesis of Mr. Iohnson the Dean objects two things 1. That it is next to impossible for a Roman Emperour to persecute against Law considering his absolute power over the Laws and that his Edicts Rescripts and indeed his Pleasure any way expressed had the force of a Law And as for what was done against Christianity by his Officers presuming on his connivence and secret approbation was no more than what had been usual in former Reigns and therefore could no more justify resistance under Iulian than it would have done it under former Emperours And at this answer he just nibbles p. 158. 2. He saith that if oppressing the Christians contrary to former Laws their civil Liberties as Romans were persecuting against Law the former Christians as many as were Roman Citizens were also persecuted against Law put to Death upon shams and pretended Crimes of Treason tortured to deny their Religion which was their pretended Crime and not as other Malefactors to bring them to confess it denied the Liberty of making their defence which the Laws of the Empire allowed all Men and this he makes good by the Testimony of Tertullian and he shews at large how Galerius invaded the civil rights of all Men as well as the Christians subverted the fundamental Laws of the Empire and endeavoured to introduce the Persian Tyrannical Form of Government and to enslave the freeborn Roman People His illegal and barbarous treatment of his Subjects in general is described from Lactantius and Eusebius and yet never in any Persecution did the Christians suffer more patiently than in this Galerian Persecution when if Persecution against Law would warrant Resistance they had sufficient provocation to take Arms if in other Persecutions they were discouraged by want of sufficient Force and Numbers yet in this they could not want either but might have expected that their Pagan Neighbours would have joined with them for their common defence against such a Monster and Tyrant And what saith the unanswerable Man to all this Why truly not one word no not so much as that this Chapter is of small concernment in the Controversy I have noted these material parts of Iovian
to which he hath given no sort of answer to let you see how little reason his Admirers have to magnifie this Reply in which he declines medling with the most considerable Arguments urged against him which stand in full force against his first Book notwithstanding the Shew he makes of defending it To avoid being tedious I purposely omit the mention of many other considerable things in Iovian of which he takes no notice And having shewn that he hath given no full Answer to that Book I shall proceed to shew that this Reply is not a fair one but full of fallacy and deceit 1. As he doth not consider many of Iovian's Arguments so when he vouchsafes to Reply to others he frequently misrepresents them or coâ—cealeth the Reasons and Authorities which support and inforce them and shams them off with a Droll Which is very unbecoming a fair and generous Adversary and unworthy I will not say of a Christian or Divine but even of an honest Man and a Scholar though a meer Pagan I will not trouble you with particular instances of such foul dealing because they will frequently occur in my Remarks on several passages of his Book such as the shuffle he makes to exclude Procopius from the Flavian house the account he gives of the distinction of Laws inâ—o Imperial and Political 2. His main Authorities are Rhetorical Amplifications and flourishes in Panegyricks and Invectives in which the Orator doth not tie him strictly to truth and the proper use of words so that there is no arguing from the literal sence but abatements must be made for Hyperbolical Speech on both hands for lofty strains of Complement in Panegyrick and for heavy and Tragical Aggravation in the Steliteutick or Invective This deceitful artifice is the Masterpiece of our Popish Adversaries when they pretend the Father's Authority for the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Invocation of Saints c. they ransack their Declamatory pieces for lofty Expressions touching the dignity and benefits of the Holy Eucharist and take Metaphors and Metonymies in a proper and literal sence They urge this very Apostrophe of Gregory Nazianzen to Constantius whence Mr. Iohnson would infer the Doctrine of Exclusion as a notable Testimony for the Invocation of Saints and for my part I think it proves the one as much as the other This foul play his Adversaries have sufficiently complained of but cannot prevail with him to leave it he is conscious that he needs such advantages and dares not let them go For having made such a wild assertion as that the Empire was Hereditary and being hard pressed by his Answerers and withal resolved not to bate them one syllable in his whole Book he is forced to outface plain History with strains of Rhetorick in which the Orator frequently allows fancy as licentious flights as the very Poets and nay even to stretch Hyperboles too by an advantageous Translation Now this argues great want of Ingenuity an unchristian and wrangling temper and that he contends not so much for the love of truth as for Glory and Victory Whether he hath obtained it or not will be further seen in the particular Remarks to which I am proceeding His Intimation that Mr. Dean waited to see the other Answers to Iulian and then gave the substance of them in his Book scarce deserves any notice It is well known that Iovian was written currente prelo and great part of it Printed before those Answers appeared The expectation of it made my self and divers others never look into them and quite spoiled the sale of Mr. Long 's Book as the Bookseller concerned hath complained to many It is more material for me to enquire whether Iovian hath given us an outlandish notion of a Soveraign for if he hath not the deceit will lie at Mr. Iohnson's Door If his Notion be supported by the joint Authority of the Common and Statute Laws it is great injustice to call it an outlandish one Now Iovian doth not set up an English Soveraign furnished with an Arbitrary and boundless Power like that of the French King or Grand Seignior He acknowledgeth him to be under the direction of the Law though he ascribe to him a Supremacy over all Persons within his Dominions which let Mr. I. say what he pleases is the formal notion of a Soveraign unless the word be taken in an improper sence This Supremacy he proves to belong to an English Soveraign by many Statutes and the Testimony of our most eminent Lawyers both Ancient and Modern against which Mr. Iohnson hath not one word to reply He proceeds to a particular recital of the Essential Rights and Properties of a true Soveraign viz. to be unaccountable to have the sole power of the Sword to be free from Coercion and Military Resistance He sheweth these Prerogatives to be the King 's due by express Statute Law which Statutes do not vest any new Right in the Crown but only declare what always hath been the Ancient and Fundamental Law of this Realm in those Cases So that Iovian's Soveraign is an English Soveraign for ought Mr. I. hath proved to the contrary and therefore his Jest of a Dutch Scale in a Map of Middlesex is both false and impertinent For though the Miles of several Countries have no formal Conceptions in which they all agree as Individuals of the same Species yet all proper Soveraigns have viz. Supremacy from which the foremention'd rights are inseparable Nor will his doughty Demonstration from an Act of Parliament which useth the Term in a lax and improper sence convince Mr. Dean or any Man else that the Notion of a Soveraign implies nothing in it but Superiority For at that rate there will be no fixing the formal Conception of any thing if it must be stretcht so wide as to take in whatsoever though improperly bears the same name The sence of the Term Soveraign with respect to a civil Society is so very well known and agreed upon in the World that upon the very hearing it every body forms a conception in his mind of somewhat more than Superiority and understands thereby such a superiour as is above all and hath none above him which imports Supremacy and Mr. I. might as well have argued that the formal conception of a Baron of England doth not imply Peerage with all the Râ—ghts Essential to a Peer of this Realm because the Baron of Kinderton the Barons of the Cinque-Ports and the Barons of the Exchequer are not Peers and have none of those great Privileges The next material thing in his Preface is his quarrel against the Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws Now let us first â—ee how Iovian explains this Distinction and then what work Mr. I. makes with it He calls those Imperial Laws which ascertain the Rights of the Soveraign and those Political which secure the Rights of the Subject That there are Laws of both sorts I presume Mr. I. will not
deny in this and all other Kingdoms and so I see no reason for his fury against any person who invents Terms to distinguish them But Mr. I. represents this Distinction most disingenuously and quite contrary to the Authour's Mind As though it set up a new sort of Law never heard of in this Nation Authorizing our Kings to do all manner of Injustice nay to commission others also to Murder Plunder and commit all manner of outrage and â—o indemnifie them when they have done it And that he may the more effectually delude his Reader into this belief he fraudulently confounds Imperial Power by which Fortescue cited by him understands Absolute and Arbitrary Power which is no where given by Iovian to our Kings with Imperial Laws and then deduces from it the most odious consequences he could devise Now I defy him to shew where Mr. Dean ascribes to our Kings Imperial Power in Fortescue's sence or pretends that the Imperial Laws of this Realm allow them to Act or Authorize any of those outrages he talks of Where doth he deny that the Advisers or Instruments of such Oppressions are accountable and punishable or pretend that any Commission will warrant and bear them out Therefore all his odious consequences vanish into smoke and his tedious citation out of Fortescue is wholly impertinent since Iovian no where gives our Kings absolute and Imperial Power though he say that the Imperial Laws of this Realm forbid Subjects all Military Resistance when their Soveraign strains Prerogative beyond its legal bounds Mr. Iohnson in his former Book demanded in case we are persecuted for Religion under a Popish Successor by what Law we must die And he supposes his Adversary devised this Distinction to answer that question Admit it to be so he saith by the Imperial Laws we must die Yet it is plain he doth not pretend that those Laws authorize the Popish Successor to persecute or give him power to subvert the established Religion or condemn and execute its Professors against Law All he saith is that those Laws forbid me in those circumstances to save my Life by Rebellion Had I been to answer his Book I would have turned the question upon him and have demanded by what Law I am allowed to draw the Sword and raise Forces against my Soveraign for self defence Those Laws which give him the sole power of the Sword and condemn a defensive War against the King whether levied by the body Collective or body Representative of the people do in effect require me to submit to be murthered and in that case he himself will admit that I must die my time is come If splitting this same Law of the Land into Imperial and Political displease him it is because he was in a peevish humour for I never yet have learned that 't is a faulty distinction which divides the whole into its parts However you see he grants the Imperial as well as Political Laws to be the Law of the Land and if they be so let the World judge whether he hath shewn the Charity of a Christian or the Candour of a generous Adversary in thus representing the Distinction I will not reckon his Allusion to the words of the Devil Iesus I know and Paul I know but who are ye among his profanations of Holy Scripture But he is a very sorry Exorcist who will be gravelled with his Question Common Law we know and Statute Law we know but who are ye For the Imperial and Political Laws are both common and Statute Law and by his own Confession the Law of the Land If his suggestion were true that Passive Obedience as it is taught by his Adversaries is Popery established by a Law by which he only means that it would be an encouragement to a Popish Prince to set it up without Law an irresistible temptation to persecute the Reformed Religion and to commit all manner of Lawless Oppression I say if this were true it is no Argument that the Doctrine of Passive Obedience is false because ill Governours may take occasion to abuse it Is our Saviour's Passiâ—e Doctrine on the Mount either false or foolish because Iulian was thence encouraged to oppress Chriâ—tianity and becoming his own Chaplain Preached it himself This is the very fallacy a non causa which he unjustly in another place of this Preface chargeth upon his Answerer If the Laws oblige us to non Resistance and allow no pretence of levying defensive War and this liberty denied will as surely establish Popery as 10000 Political Acts oâ— Parliament let him arraign the Laws and not this poor innocent Distinction or Iovian who only teacheth obedience according to Law But I pray you may not ill Men make as wicked and dangerous advantages of the conâ—rary Doctrine why may not the Doctrine of civil liberty as well as Christian Liberty be made a Cloak of maliciousness It is notorious that it hath been so abused yet I would urge no Man to renounce his interest either in the one or the other on that account Are not Subjects as apt to be clamorous and turbulent as Princes to be Arbitrary are not the former as apt to claim undue Liberties as the latter undue Prerogatives Is it an unhappiness peculiar to Princes only to be haunted with Flatterers Have not the People also Parasites and Sycophants about them both Divines and Lawyers who â—latter them into an opinion of a boundless English as much unknown Liberty to our Ancestors as boundless Power in the Prince And have not these Sycophants as much the temptation of interest and as fair a prospect before them in working confusions and revolutions as the other Parasitesâ— can have in the hopes of Court favours To conclude is not Arbitrary Subjection and an ungovernable humour in the people as destructive to Society as Arbitrary Government If then the Inconveniencies which may arise render a Doctrine foolish or wicked the Doctrine of Resistance is full as much in danger as the slavish Doctrine of Passive Obedience and the mischievous consequences I fear are not altogether so accidental to the former as to the latter Oh! but Iovian owns the consequences of Non-Resistance and saith expresly p. 242. In all Soveraign Governments Subjects must be Slaves as to this particular that is of their lives and liberties and he would fain know then in what particular they are Freemen Is Mr. I. sure Iovian saith so or is he sure that life and liberty are the particulars as to which he saith Subjects must be Slaves I doubt he is guilty of a mistake or a worse fault The passage as torn from the context and expounded by Mr. I. sounds very harshâ— but I will set it down intire and then a very ordinary Reader will understand the measure of his Candour and Honesty in representing Iovian The passage runs thus Therefore to cut off Resistance in the English Government the three Estates have declared against all Defensive as well as Offensive