Liege People of England contrary to the Political Laws that is the Common and statute-Statute-Laws which declare the Fundamental Propriety that the People of England have in their Lives Liberties and Estates those Forces may not be resisted for they who in their own Defence do resist them with Arms may be legally hanged for it in this World and without Repentance will be damned for it in that which is to come And yet this Author pag. 274. asserts That the Laws of all Governments allow every Man to defend his Life against an illegal Assassin and he that doth not so when he can dies not like a Martyr but a Fool. Now Forces thus employed are no other than illegal Assassins But it may be the Damnableness of resisting lies in resisting them with Arms No it is not that for our Author in the same place says Contra Sicarium quilibet homo est miles Any Man is a lawful Souldier against a Cut-Throat that is may use a Sword against him and not only a Switch Neither is it their being called the King's or Sovereign's Forces which makes them irresistible for p. 280 he allows that a Man may defend himself against an Assassin sent by the King's Order because says he the King's Law which is his most Authoritative Command allows us as I suppose that Benefit And therefore it remains that the Damnableness of resisting them lies in this that they are Forces and murther in Troops So that tho any Man is a lawful Souldier against a Cut-Throat yet no Man is a lawful Souldier against Cut-Throats and indeed this last Particular is the only Thing wherein our Author has not been pleased to answer himself Now in opposition to our Author I hold That if the Sovereign cannot authorize one single Person to do an Act of illegal Violence much less can he authorize Forces or great Numbers of Men to do such illegal Acts And that there is just the same Reason Law and Conscience a thousand times over to resist a thousand Murtherers that there is to resist one His Conclusions I confess are very terrible to Flesh and Blood but I take comfort when I look back upon the Principles from whence he infers them which are absurdly false and so far from supporting that Battery which he raises upon them that they fall with their own Weakness Rottenness and Incoherency His Principles are an unlimited boundless Soveraign Power two Tables of Laws which break one another some Preambles of Statutes which he stifles and will not suffer to speak out and a false Pretence of the Soveraign's Honour First He begins with the Notion of a Soveraign p. 200. by which all the World may see that he no more understands what an English Soveraign is than I know what Prester John is Does not every Body know that the very same Titles of Power and Office have a several Notion in several Countries As to compare great Things with small a Constable in England is conceived under another Notion than a Constable in France And so tho an Assyrian King were conceived under the Notion of Absoluteness whom he would he slew and whom he would he made alive whom he would he set up and whom he would he pulled down and his Will did all Yet this is quite contrary to the Notion of an English King as Bracton tells us Non est enim Rex ubi dominatur Voluntas non Lex Where Will governs and not the Law the Notion of a King is lost Nay the Laws of King Edward confirmed by William the Conqueror and sworn to be kept by all succeeding Kings in their Coronation-Oath have these Words Rex autem quia Vicarius summi Regis est ad hoc est constitutus ut regnum terrenum populum Domini regat ab injuriosis defendat c. Quod nisi fecerit nec nomen Regis in eo constabit verùm nomen Regis perdit These I hope are better Authorities in this Matter than Sam. Bochart our Author's French Oracle who like a Forreigner as he was fetch'd his Notions of our Government from the Motto of the King's Arms Dieu mon droit I need not trouble my self in examining our Author's Scheme of Soveraign Power or the Rights of the Soveraign which is full of Equivocation and Fallacy witness the last particular of it where he attributes to the Soveraign the whole Legislative Power Which methinks he might have left out as well as he has done another main Branch of the Soveraign Power which Writers of Government call Vniversale eminens Dominium or a Power of laying Taxes upon the Subject But therein our Author had Reason for if he had but mentioned that Right of Soveraignty every English-man who had ever read a Subsidy-Act or Money-Bill would immediatly have discovered the fraudulent Contrivance of that whole Discourse And because our Author writes as if he were better studied in the modern French Monarchy than in the ancient equal happy well-poised and never enough to be commended Constitution of this Kingdom as King Charles the First calls it I shall take this occasion to set down these few Words of that wise Prince concerning it There being three Kinds of Government amongst Men absolute Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and all these having their particular Conveniencies and Inconveniencies the Experience and Wisdom of your Ancestors haâ—h so moulded this out of a mixture of thâ—se as to give to this Kingdom as far as humane Prudence can provide the Conveniencies of all three without the Inconveniencies of any one But we have some little People risen up amongst us who with a Dash of their Pen will new-mould the Government endeavouring as much as in them is to dissolve this excellent Frame and to change it into an absolute Monarchy The establish'd Constitution does not agree with the new Models they have seen abroad nor with the new Notions they have got by the end and therefore tho it be the Product of the long Experience of the deepest Insight and of the united Wisdom of a whole Nation yet it must give place to new Inventions and submit to be regulated by an Epistle of a French Author The two Houses of Parliament which have a joint Authority in making Laws as the King expresly says In this Kingdom the Laws are jointly made by a King by a House of Peers and by a House of Commons as also every Act that is made in the very enacting of it tells us shall by the new common Laws of Soveraignty only perform a Ministerial part of preparing Bills and Writings and finding a Form of Words for the Soveraign alone to enact And so likewise the Prerogatives of the King which are built upon the same Law of the Land upon which is built the Propriety and Liberty of the Subject and which is the most firm and stable Bottom in the World shall in this new and treacherous way be founded upon a floating
Notion of Soveraignty which is a Notion indeed any farther than it is supported by the Law of the Land. And therefore if any Man would know for certain what the King's Prerogatives are he must not take his Information from Notions of Sovereignty which are as various as the Faces of the Moon but from the Law of the Land where he shall find them granted or belonging united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Amongst which this is not the least That the King can do no Wrong The King is God's Lieutenant and is not able to do an unjust Thing These are the Words of the Law says Judg Jenkins Consequently he cannot overthrow the Laws nor is he able to authorize any Forces to destroy his Liege Subjects for this would be the highest Wrong and Injustice And therefore Forces so employed act of their own Heads and upon their own wicked Heads let their own Mischief fall And yet our Author is pleased to call such Wretches so employed the Soveraign's Forces and his Armies p. 203 221 against which we must not upon pain of Damnation defend our selves I appeal to all the Lawyers of England whether the Law will own any Number of Men to be authorized by the King in outraging and destroying his Liege People or whether it be not a great Aggravation of their Crime to pretend a Commission from the King to warrant such illegal and destructive Violence But this Author who is resolved to be an Advocate for Bloodshed and Oppression will shelter an Association of Murtherers under his common Laws of Soveraignty and if they ravage and destroy in the King's Name which doubles the Crime will make that their Protection And lastly which is the great Cheat that runs through this whole Discourse to make them irresistible he shrouds and covers them under the Name of the Soveraign For it is plain that in his Answer to my five Propositions p. 204 205. and generally throughout the following Chapters by Sovereign he means such Forces of the Soveraign for he bears me witness p. 221. that I acknowledged even a Popish Soveraign to be inviolable as to his own Person I know that deceiving Men for their Good has heretofore been excused as a pious Fraud but I am sure that such foul Practice as this to ensnare Mens Consciences and to cheat them out of their Lives is an impious Fraud and as such I leave it with the Author of it and pass to the Second Thing His Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws Common Law we know and Statute-Law we know but who are ye I confess I have heretofore seen something not unlike that Distinction in Aesop where there was a Political Law or Compact fairly made betwixt the Lion the Fox and the Ass but while the Ass was proceeding by the Measures of that Law of a sudden the Imperial lion-Lion-Law broke loose and tore him in pieces It concerns us therefore to examine upon what Foundation this dangerous Distinction is built and if it prove to be false and groundless the good People of England have little to thank this Gentleman for Pag. 210. we have these Words Thus the Learned Chancellor Fortescue grants the King of England to have Regal or Imperial Power altho it be under the Restraint and Regulation of the Power Political as to the Exercise thereof That Distinction in the last Clause is false as I shall shew anon From that perverted Passage of Chancellor Fortescue where he speaks of Regal and Politick Dominion I doubt not but our Author or some Body for him framed his new Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws and contrived them into two contradictious Tables by one of which the Subjects Rights and Properties are secured and established and are all overthrown by the other The Lord Chancellor Fortescue is the first English Lawyer that used the Terms of Regal and Politick Government which he owns to have borrowed from Thomas Aquinas in his Book de Regimine Principum dedicated to the King of Cyprus by which Phrase that old Schoolman exprest a mixed and limited Monarchy For any Man that pleases to read those Books will see that Aquinas understands by Regal Government an absolute Monarchy and by Politick Government such Governments as the Common-wealths of Rome and Athens and by Regal and Politick a King ruling by a Senate and prescribed Rules of Law. And that Chancellor Fortescue in his Dialogue with the Prince of Wales makes no other use of the Phrase than Thomas Aquinas did will sufficiently appear by setting down his Discourse at large wherein I desire the Reader 's Patience because I intend it as a Specimen of this Answerer's Faithfulness in quoting his Authors In which Discourse that great Lawyer sometimes calls this Government Regal and Politick sometimes a Politick Kingdom but what he means by it is best exprest in his own Words Chap. 9. You stand in doubt most worthy Prince whether it be better for you to give your Mind to the Study of the Laws of England or of the Civil Laws because they throughout the whole World are advanced in Glory and Renown above all other Humane Laws Let not this Scruple of Mind trouble you most noble Prince for the King of England cannot alter nor change the Laws of his Realm at his pleasure For why he governeth his People by Power not only Royal but also Politick If his Power over them were Royal only then he might change the Laws of his Realm and charge his Subjects with Tallage and other Burdens without their consent and such is the Dominion which the Civil Laws purport when they say The Prince's Pleasure hath the Force of a Law. But from this much differeth the Power of a King whose Government over his People is Politick For he can neither change the Laws without the consent of his Subjects nor yet charge them with strange Impositions against their Wills. Wherefore his People do frankly and freely enjoy their own Goods being ruled by such Laws as they themselves desire neither are they pilled by their own King or by any Body else Like Pleasure also and Freedom have the Subjects of a King ruling by Power Royal only so long as he falleth not into Tyranny Of such a King speaketh Aristotle in the 3 d Book of his Politicks saying That it is better for a City to be governed by a good King than by a good Law. But forasmuch as a King is not ever such a Man therefore St. Thomas in the Book which he wrote to the King of Cyprus of the Governance of Princes wisheth the State of a Realm to be such that it may not be in the King's Power at pleasure to oppress his People with Tyranny which Thing is accomplished only when the Power Royal is restrained by a Politick Law. Rejoyce therefore most worthy Prince and be glad that the Law of the Realm wherein you are to succeed is such for it shall exhibit and minister to
you and your People no small Security and Comfort With such Laws as saith St. Thomas should all Mankind have been governed if in Paradise they had not transgressed God's Commandment With such Laws also was the Synagogue ruled while it was under God only as King who adopted the same to him for a peculiar Kingdom but at the last when at their request they had a Man-King set over them they were then under Royal Laws only brought very low Chap. 10. Then the Prince thus said How cometh it to pass good Chancellor that one King may govern his People by Power Royal only and that another King can have no such Power Seeing both these Kings are in Dignity equal I cannot chuse but much muse and marvel why in Power they should thus differ Of which Difference in Authority over their Subjects the Chancellor in the next Chapter promises to shew the Reason which is grounded upon the different Originals of those Kingdoms And accordingly chap. 12. he shews that an Absolute Monarchy is founded in the forced Consent of a subdued and inslaved People and chap. 13. That a Kingdom of Politick Governance is founded in the voluntary Consent of the Community And after he has illustrated the first Institution of a Politick Kingdom by shewing how it resembles the Formation of a natural Body he thus proceeds in the 13 th Chapter Now you understand most noble Prince the Form of Institution of a Kingdom Politick whereby you may measure the Power which the King thereof may exercise over the Law and Subjects of the same For such a King is made and ordained for the Defence of the Law of his Subjects and of their Bodies and Goods whereunto he receiveth Power of his People so that he cannot govern his People by any other Power Wherefore to satisfy your Request in that you desire to be certified how it cometh to pass that in the Power of Kings there is so great diversity Surely in mine Opinion the diversity of the Institutions or first Ordinances of those Dignities which I have now declared is the only Cause of this foresaid Difference as of the Premises by the Discourse of Reason you may easily gather For thus the Kingdom of England out of Brute's Retinue of the Trojans which he brought out of the Coasts of Italy and Greece first grew to a Politick and Regal Dominion Thus also Scotland which sometime was subject to England as a Dukedom thereof was advanced to a Politick and Royal Kingdom Many other Kingdoms also had thus their first beginning not only of Regal but also of Politick Government Wherefore Diodorus Siculus in his second Book of ancient History thus writeth of the Egyptians The Egyptian Kings lived at first not after the licentious manner of other Rulers whose Will and Pleasure is instead of Law but as it had been private Persons they were bound by the Law neither did they think much at it being persuaded that by obeying the Laws they should be happy For by such Rulers as followed their own Lusts they thought many Things were done whereby they should incur divers Harms and Perils And in his fourth Book thus he writeth The Ethiopian King as soon as he is created he ordereth his Life according to the Laws and doth all things after the Manner and Custom of his Country assigning neither Reward nor Punishment to any Man other than the Law made by his Predecessors appointeth He reporteth much the same of the King of Saba in Arabia Faelix and of certain other Kings which in old Time reigned happily Chap. 14. To whom the Prince thus answered You have good Chancellor with the clear Light of your Declaration dispelled the Clouds wherewith my Mind was darkned so that I do most evidently see that no Nation did ever of their own voluntary Mind incorporate themselves into a Kingdom for any other Intent but only to the end that they might enjoy their Lives and Fortunes which they were afraid of losing with greater Security than before And of this Intent should such a Nation be utterly defrauded if then their King might spoil them of their Goods which before was lawful for no Man to do And yet should such a People be much more injured if they should afterwards be governed by foreign and strange Laws yea and such as they peradventure deadly hated and abhorred And most of all if by those Laws their Substance should be diminished for the Safeguard whereof as also for the Security of their Persons they of their own accord submitted themselves to the Governance of a King. No such Power for certain could proceed from the People themselves and yet unless it had been from the People themselves such a King could have had no Power at all over them Now on the other side I perceive it to stand much otherwise with a Kingdom which is incorporate by the King 's sole Power and Authority because such a Nation is subject to him upon no other Terms but that this Nation which was made his Kingdom by his Will and Pleasure should obey and be governed by his Laws which are nothing else but the same Will and Pleasure Neither have I yet good Chancellor forgotten that which in your Treatise of the Nature of the Law of Nature you have learnedly proved that the Power of these two Kings is equal while the Power of the one whereby he is at liberty to deal wrongfully is not by such Liberty augmented as to have Power to decay and die is not Power but because of the Privations which are added to it is rather to be called Impotency and Want of Power because as Boetius saith Power is not but to Good. So that to be able to do Evil which the King who rules Regally is more at liberty to do than the King that has a Politick Dominion over his People is rather a Diminution than an Increase of his Power For the Holy Spirits which are now established in Glory and cannot sin do in Power far excell and pass us who have a delight and pleasure to run headlong into all kind of Wickedness It is plain to any attentive Reader that throughout this long Discourse Fortescue speaks but of two sorts of Kingdoms an absolute Monarchy and a limited Monarchy the latter of which he sometimes calls a Politick Government and sometimes he calls the very same Regal and Politick to distinguish it more expresly from an Aristocracy or Democracy But I will prove this beyond contradiction by some other Passages in Fortescue where he tells us that some of the former Kings of England would fain have changed the Laws of England for the Civil Law and did all they could to shake off this Politick Yoke of the Law of England that they also might rule or rather rage over their Subjects in Regal wise only and for this end endeavoured with might and main to cast away their Politick Government This is what our Author would have and
very agreeable to his Hypothesis for then the Regal or Imperial Power had been discharged of the Politick Clog and had governed all alone and the Notions of Sovereignty and Passive Obedience had been as clear as the Sun. But then in some other unlucky places the same Fortescue speaking of the self-same Thing says That those former Kings of England would have parted with their Law Politick and Regal too and would fain have changed them both for the Civil Law. It seems they were as weary of the one as of the other which could not possibly be help'd because they were all one And now I appeal to all the World whether here be any Foundation for a Table of Imperial Laws which can at pleasure destroy the Lives Liberties and Properties of the Subject And whether on the other side according to Fortescue the Safety and Security of the People be not the supream Law of a Regal and Politick Kingdom But because our Author is mighty troublesom with his Imperial Laws and Imperial Power and boundless Power and such like Terms of his own coining which is a Presumption at least that what he writes is not Law but his own Dreams which no Terms of English Law can express I shall tell him from these Passages of Fortescue That the greatest Power the King of England has is this that he can do no Wrong that he cannot authorize any Man or Number of Men to destroy his Subjects contrary to Law consequently that all such illegal destructive Acts tho attempted in his Name are inauthoritative and do neither bind any Man's Conscience nor tie any Man's Hands from using those Remedies which the Laws of God and Nature as well as the Common and Statute-Laws of the Land do allow to be used against all evil-disposed Persons I shall tell him likewise from these following Authorities and many more which might be produced that his Assertion of an absolute unbounded Power in the King which is limited only in the Exercise of it is perniciously false For the Law gives the King his Power and Dominion says Bracton We hold only what the Law holds saith Judg Jenkins The King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined and bounded and admeasured by a written Law what they are We do not hold the King to have any more Power neither doth his Majesty claim any other but what the Law gives him Accordingly King Charles the First acknowledges that his Prerogatives are built upon the Law of the Land which in another place he declares are the justest Rule and Measure for them I shall add but one remarkable Passage more out of the King's Answer to both Houses concerning the Militia Feb. 28. 1641. And his Majesty is willing to grant every of them such Commissions as he hath done this Parliament to some Lords Lieutenants by your Advice but if that Power be not thought enough but that more shall be thought fit to be granted to these Persons named than by the Law is in the Crown it self his Majesty holds it reasonable that the same be by some Law first vested in him with Power to transfer it to these Persons which He will willingly do Now this is Demonstration if the Law be the Measure of the King's Power then he has no Power beyond the Bounds of the Law and whatsoever is pretended in the King's Name beyond those Bounds is void and carries no manner of Authority with it Whereas to say the King's Power is absolute and boundless is to say the Government is absolute and arbitrary and requires absolute and unlimited Subjection For it is Nonsence to say that boundless Power can be limited in the Exercise of it for boundless Power which has in it the whole Legislative Power can at pleasure make a Law to take away that Limitation and he that is limited only by his own pleasure is not limited at all And again that is not Power which cannot be exercised and therefore a Fountain full of boundless Power which cannot be brought into Act is a Fountain full of inauthoritative Authority or full of Emptifulness So much for our Author's Fountain Pipes and Channels We have his other Illustration of a boundless limited Power in these Words To be confined in the Exercise doth not destroy the Being nor diminish the Perfection of Sovereign Power for then the Power of God himself could not be Sovereign because there are certain immutable Rules of Truth and Justice within which it is necessarily limited and confined I answer As God exercises no Power which is inconsistent with Truth and Justice so he has no such Power in him in the Root or Being for it is all Imperfection and Weakness And that he neither exercises nor has any such Power is not to be imputed to any intrinsecal Limitation or Confinement but to the infinite and illimited Perfection of his Nature And if such a miscalled Power or Possibility of doing wickedly be found in the Creature it is because he is a Creature it proceeds from Finiteness and Defect And to shew our Author how much more Light there is in a few plain Words than in his Similitudes and Illustrations I say It is self-evident that a Man has no more Power in any kind than he can exercise A Man has no more natural Power than he can naturally exercise he has no more moral Power than he can morally exercise he has no more Civil or Legal Power than he can legally exercise For to say he has more Power than he can exercise is to say he can do more than he can do And therefore an Ocean of our Author 's boundless lawful Power of doing what cannot lawfully be done will not fill an Egg-shell and is such a New-nothing as even Children will despise Before I pass from this Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws I must say somewhat to a Heap of Authorities which we have p. 208 209. to prove that the Realm of England is an Empire that the Crown of it is an Imperial Crown and that one of the Saxon Kings stiled himself Basileus Imperator Dominus Well what of all that The Realm of England is an Empire has an Imperial Crown and is as independent upon any Foreign Realm as the Empire of Turkie therefore the Freemen of England are as very Slaves as any are in Turky and under Imperial or Bowstring Law. If that be your Consequence I will give you your whole Life's time to make it good But Edgar stiled himself Basileus Imperator Dominus And Carolus Rex signifies a great deal more than all those three Titles did I am ashamed to see Rolls of Parliament quoted for such poor Trifles for it is plain by all the Remains which we have of the Saxon Times by History by the Saxon Laws by King Alfred's Will in Asser Menevensis and by the Mirrour that the Saxon Kings were far from being absolute Emperors having no other Power than what
for going contrary to my Declaration and Acknowledgment ordered by the Act of Uniformity Wherein I have abhorred that Traitorous Position of taking Arms by the King's Authority against his Person or those that are commissionated by him Upon which he adds It was apparently the Design of the Three Estates in this Act to secure the Nation of such Ministers as would preach up the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction But if it were they are very much disappointed for our Author himself who is as good at Indistinction and Confusion in other Matters as any Man does not preach the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction but handles it with the Subtilty of a Schoolman For he grants p. 280 that one who is sent by the King's Order to assassinate or destroy his Subjects is not commissionated by the King for he may be resisted by the King's Law which is his most authoritative Command But great Numbers or Forces so employed may not be resisted So that his Doctrine is this That if twenty Men come one by one with the King's Order to do an illegal and destructive Act they are not commissionated and may be resisted but if the same Number come together Rank and File with the same Order and upon the same Errand then they are commissionated and may not be resisted Is this preaching up the Doctrine of Non-resistance without distinction Or rather is it not making a silly Distinction without a difference Again in the same place he has Distinction upon Distinction in these Words The Doctrine of Passive Obedience allows a Man to resist or use the Sword to defend his Life when the Laws from which I except all Laws destructive of the King's Crown and Regality authorize him so to do This is preaching up and preaching down the same Doctrine in the same Breath upon a wicked Supposition that the Laws of the Land which protect the Subject are destructive of the King's Crown and Regality Now on the other hand all faithful Ministers of the Church of England preach Obedience to the Laws and Non-resistance of those who are commissionated by the King without distinction and without deceiving the People to their Destruction and telling them those are commissionated by the King whom the Law declares are not commissionated nor can be commissionated as no Man can be to destroy lawful Subjects Such illegal Commissions are declared by Magna Charta to be null and void and so we ought to account them as you may see by the following Words And for this our Gift and Grant of these Liberties and of others contained in our Charter of Liberties of our Forrest the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Priors Earls Barons Knights Freeholders and other our Subjects have given unto us the fifteenth part of all their Moveables And we have granted to them on the other part that neither we nor our Heirs shall procure or do any thing whereby the Liberties in this Charter contained shall be infringed or broken And if any thing be procured by any Person contrary to the Premises it shall be had of no force or effect So that what St. Paul says of an Idol may be fitly applied to a Commission contrary to Law For we know that an illegal Commission is nothing in the World. And accordingly we find in Acts of Grace that Men who act upon such Commissions do stand in as much need of Pardon as other Men and had the Benefit of the Act of Oblivion in the first place as you may see by the Particulars which are there pardoned First all and all manner of Treasons Misprisions of Treason Murthers Felonies Offences Crimes Contempts and Misdemeanours counselled commanded acted or done since the first of January in the Year of our Lord 1637 by any Person or Persons before the 24 th of June 1660 other than the Persons hereafter by Name excepted in such manner as they are hereafter excepted by virtue or colour of any Command Power Authority Commission or Warrant or Instructions from his late Majesty King Charles or his Majesty that now is or from any other Person or Persons deriving or pretending to derive Authority mediately or immediately of or from both Houses or either House of Parliament or of or from any Convention or Assembly called or reputed or taking on the Name of a Parliament c. be pardoned released indempnified discharged and put in utter Oblivion His fourth and last Principle upon which he builds his false Passive Obedience is a false Pretence of the Sovereign's Honour concerning which he says p. 279. The Laws are more tender of our Sovereign's Honour as he is God's Minister than of his Subjects Lives As if the King's Honour and his good Subjects Lives could ever stand in such a dangerous Competition that one of them must of necessity destroy the other and as if the Laws of England had provided that the Lives of the People of England should be sacrificed to the King's Honour Has our Author been abroad to fetch home pour ma Gloire and to render it into this English He might have had sounder and safer Notions at home out of Judg Jenkins whom he often quotes to no purpose Pag. 134. we have these Words The Gentleman says We do not swear meaning in the Oath of Supremacy that the King is above all Law nor above the Safety of his People Neither do we so swear says Judg Jenkins but his Majesty and we will swear to the contrary and have sworn and have made good and will by God's Grace make good our Oath to the World that the KING is not above the Law nor above the Safety of his People The Law and the Safety of the People are his Safety his Honour and his Strength And accordingly it has been always declared in Parliament to be the Honour and Glory of the Kings of England that they were Kings of Freemen and not of Slaves whereby they have been enabled to do greater Things and to make a larger Figure in the World than Princes of five times their Territories But this Author has pick'd up quite contrary Notions and thinks it a Dishonour to the King if the generous People which he governs be not Slaves to every Parcel of Criminals who against the King's Crown and Dignity shall wickedly destroy them in his Name I have now done with every Thing that looks like an Argument in this Discourse of Passive Obedience for as for the following Chapter there is nothing new in it he only chews the Cud upon his Notions of Sovereignty and rings Changes upon his Imperial and Political Laws And then in the 12 th Chapter after he has bound us hand and foot and prepared us for the Popish Knife he has the Face to tell us That notwithstanding this Doctrine of Non-resistance or Passive Obedience we shall be secure enough of our Lives Properties and Religion under a Popish Successor For after he has given us the Security of God's Care
JULIAN'S ARTS TO Undermine and Extirpate CHRISTIANITY The present Impression of this Book was made in the Year 1683 and has ever since lain Buried under the Ruines of all those English Rights which it endeavoured to Defend But by the Auspicious and Happy Arrival of the Prince of Orange both They and It have obtained a Resurrection JVLIAN's ARTS To Undermine and Extirpate CHRISTIANITY TOGETHER With ANSWERS to Constantius the APOSTATE and Jovian By SAMUEL JOHNSON Licensed and Entered according to Order LONDON Printed by J. D. for the Author and are to be sold by Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown and Jonathan Robinson at the Golden-Lion in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXIX TO THE Ever Glorious MEMORY OF WILLIAM Lord Russel The Author having written this Book in his Lordships Service does most Humbly Offer and Dedicate it The PREFACE BEfore the Reader engages in the perusal of this Book I shall entreat him to take this following Account of what he shall find in it Having given as large an Account in my former Book concerning Julian's Vsage of the Christians and their Behaviour towards him as might satisfy any reasonable Man I have since found it necessary to add some new Matter of Fact upon that Subject both to confirm the old and to free it if it be possible from Wrangling and Dispute And that I might not deliver this fresh Matter in a way of loose and incoherent Quotations which would have been tedious I took a Hint from Gothofredus his Julianus to put it into a Discourse which will at once give an Account of Julian's Devices to worm the Christians out of their Religion and likewise shew how well studied the Papists are in those Arts. My Answerers have been so many that I cannot number them on the sudden and I think it has been Drudgery enough for one Man to read them over but yet because two of them especially have been applauded as the Champions of the Cause I thought my self concerned to give them an Answer not in the least to vindicate my self from their Reflections which I value not tho it were stupidity not at all to resent them but to do what Service I could to Truth and to the Rights of my Native Country for either of which if God will have it so I hope I shall not be unwilling to lay down my Life The Author of Constantius in the late shamming way has set up a Mock-Apostate to give a Diversion and take off the Force of what has been said concerning Julian but I hope it will prove to be with the like Success as the Mock-Plots have had which have always confirmed Men in the Belief of the true one He has likewise abused a great deal of Scripture to expose the Freemen of England and their established Religion to Violence Oppression and Extirpation and if I have rescued those Texts which he has so employed from such mischievous Applications for the future I shall think my Pains well spent The Author of Jovian by coming last has had the Advantage of summing up the Evidence which he has done so faithfully that he has not omitted Heraclitus's Charge against me That I raise an Induction from one Particular which he backs with as true an Observation of his own That I call the few Months of Julian 's Reign an Age p. 139. I say this to shew the Compleatness of this Author's Performance and that in his Answer we read the Substance of all the rest and not to rob him of the Honour of having added many Things of his own as particularly the History of broken Succession in the Empire which may be a true one for ought I know for it is of so small Concernment in this Controversy that I never examined it his Outlandish Notion of a Soveraign which is such a Deceit to a common Reader as a Scale of Dutch Miles would be in a Map of Middlesex and his Distinction of Imperial and Political Laws which is the Master-Piece in his Book This Distinction I am apt to think is his last Refuge and therefore I shall first shew how this Author was driven to it and 2dly How false and groundless it is and 3dly What are the immediate Consequences of it 1. In my former Book I laid down this undeniable Truth That we are bound not to part with our Lives but to defend them unless when the Laws of God or of our Country require us to lay them down Now it is not Death by the Law of God but our Duty to be Protestants and by the Law of the Land it is so far from being Death that on the other hand it is Death to forsake the Protestant Religion and to turn Papist And therefore in case Protestants should be persecuted under a Popish Successor I ask'd by what Law they must die That Question would admit no direct Answer for no Man can say that we ought to die for being Protestants either by the Law of God or the Law of the Land And therefore the Author of Jovian being resolved to cut a Knot which he could not untie has found out the most wretched Expedient of a Distinction that ever was For first he splits and divides one and the same Law of the Land into Imperial and Political and then says that by the Imperial or Prerogative Law we ought to submit to be murthered 2. Now in the second Place there never was a more horrid Slander cast upon the Prerogative than this is For whereas the Law of England says That the King's Prerogative stretcheth not to the doing of any Wrong this Author has found a way to stretch and extend it to the Subversion of all the Laws and to the Destruction of all his Liege Subjects By the Law of England the King is inviolable and by the same Law he can do no Wrong and there is all the Reason in the World that he who is above the doing of any Injury should be placed out of the reach of any manner of Resistance But tho the King can do no Wrong and therefore we can suffer none from him yet to make way for Passive Obedience our Author will have a sort of Subjects call'd the Sovereign's Forces to be irresistible too tho in the most outragious Acts of Destructive Violence That 's too plain a Juggle for as the King can do no Wrong so he can authorize no single Person much less Numbers of Men to do any Wrong Or to borrow the Words of a great Lawyer The King cannot do Injury for if he command to do a Man Wrong the Command is void alter fit Autor and the Actor becomes the Wrong-doer Now whether Men by authorizing themselves to do Mischief and to commit Capital Crimes are thereby entitled to an uncontroulable Imperial Power to the Rights of Sovereignty and to the Prerogative of being irresistible I leave all the World to judg 3. In the last place I shall shew the immediate Consequences of this new
Distinction of Imperial Laws to which we must pay our Passive Obedience We have many People amongst us who are very much at ease and wrap up themselves in the Security of this one Consideration That Popery can never be established in England Which I believe to be true provided Men may be allowed to hold their own and to maintain those Laws which establish the Protestant Religion as they are bound to do And therefore I was perfectly of the same mind till I saw the blind slavish Passive Obedience set up and so industriously promoted amongst us for that Passive Obedience is Popery established by a Law when ever the Prince shall please For what was Popery established by a Law in Q. Mary's Time Or what other Mischief can Protestants suffer by the Establishment of Popery at any other time but only to be reduced to this Choice either to turn Papists or else to submit to be destroyed Now so soon as ever a Popish Successor shall give the Word Popery is as surely established by the Imperial Laws as it can be by ten thousand Political Acts of Parliament For if we are as much bound to submit when we are turned over to the Secular Arm of a Brigadeer as when by a Writ De Haeretico comburendo we are turned over to the Secular Arm of a Sheriff where is the Difference So that we may be driven to Smithfield by Droves and be piled up and burnt like Loads of Faggots without the Trouble of repealing one Protestant Political Act. Vnless a Protestant Nation a Kingdom fly they are in a State of Damnation according to our Author if they will not submit to this Vsage and I am sure a Popish Prince according to his Religion is in the same State to say nothing of the Loss of his Kingdom if he do not destroy Hereticks as far as Fire and Sword will go Thus far as Protestants we are beholden to this new Doctrine of Imperial Laws and as English Men we shall suffer more by them than the Nation ever did under Popery For those that will be Papists shall not be excused from being Slaves but their Lives and Liberties shall be wholly at the Discretion of their Prince This is so clear a Consequence that our Author himself owns it and says expresly p. 242. In all Sovereign Governments Subjects must be Slaves as to this Particular Whereas the Subjects of England never were Slaves in any Particular nor ever would be in the darkest Times of Popery Besides I would fain know in what Particular they are Free-men who are Slaves as to this Particular of their Lives and Liberties I cannot but think that they must needs be Slaves all over Neither can I see the Necessity of our Author's must be Slaves for Sovereignty in the Government does not at all imply Slavery in the Subject in any one Particular as I will prove to him even in his own way by the Notion of a Sovereign For tho he talks much of the Essence and Essential Rights of Sovereignty p. 241 and in many other Places yet I doubt not of convincing him that the Notion of a Sovereign implies nothing in it but Superiority and as for the Terms and Measures of this Superiority they must be known some other way and are not involved in the formal Conception of a Sovereign nor are all out so certain and demonstrable as the Properties of a Cube or a Sphere For in the Law of England every Master of a Servant for Instance is a Sovereign he is his Servants immediate Sovereign as our Author may find it twice in one short Act 12 Hen. 7. cap. 7. And a hired Servant who is a Free-man owes to this immediate Sovereign a natural and obliged Duty as he may see in the same Act. And yet I am certain our Author will not undertake to prove that the Rights of an absolute and arbitrary Sovereignty do belong to every Master of a Servant or that that Servant is a Slave as to his Life or Liberty either by the common Laws of Sovereignty as his Phrase is or by the Laws of Christianity And truly it is not the least Aggravation of this Slavery to be put into Chains under pretence of our Christianity which for that end must go under the Name of a suffering Religion and be called the Doctrine of the Cross in such a sense as if it would not suffer the Professors of it to live Whereas I have heretofore shewed from 1 Cor. 7.21 22 23. That Christianity is so far from enslaving us or devesting us of those Rights and Priviledges which we have already that it encourages us to procure more Liberties and Franchises if we can come honestly by them V. 21. But if thou mayest be made free use it rather It forbids Men likewise to enslave themselves v. 23. Ye are bought with a Price be ye not the Servants of Men. I might now from this place charge all those that are for the slavish passive Obedience with denying the Lord that bought them as the Author of Constantius does me with denying a passive Crucified Saviour or as the Author of Jovian does with burlesquing the Doctrine of the Cross But I abhor all such Abuse of Scripture to abuse an Adversary for I know that all honest Men will sooner renounce an hundred such silly Doctrines which it may be hitherto they had no occasion to examine than either renounce their Blessed Saviour or any part of his Religion But to return it is plain therefore that Christianity does not alter Mens Condition for the worse nor turn Free-men as the People of England have always been into Slaves as to their Lives and Liberties neither under the pretence of Passive Obedience does it give their Persons or Estates into the hands of Violence when the Law bids them keep them and protects them in defending them But on the other hand it charges them Be ye not the Servants of Men Which indeed is a Dictate of the Law of Nature and what Men of themselves would observe if they were not degenerate for voluntary Slavery is a Sin against the Law of Nature which no Man in his right Mind can be guilty of And therefore the Canon-Law says That if there had been no Drunkenness there had been no Slavery It seems it was the Product of a blind drunken Bargain And we have hitherto seen no better Fruits of our drunken Healths and Huzza's but much worse For it is a greater Sin for a Man to betray others into Slavery with him than only to make bold with himself and it is still a greater Sin to betray a Trust to do it and to break Oaths and be perjured to betray that Trust for that is making themselves the Captives of the Devil that they may be the Servants of Men and enslaving themselves Body and Soul to enslave others Good God! I what will become of us when such Wickedness as this shall dare to assume the Name of
against Bp Bilson who in his Book of the true difference betwixt Christian Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion dedicated to Queen Elizabeth being a Dialogue between Theophilus a Christian and Philander a Jesuite so that a Jesuite in that Age was not thought worthy to be accounted a Christian has several large Discourses which do not at all accord with the Passive Doctrine tho my Answerers have used great force and violence towards him to get him on their side The Author of Jovian particularly p. 229 has strangely wrested him for what the Bishop Physician-like prescribes to the Papists who had the Laws mortally against them Deliverance if you would have obtain it by Prayer and expect it in Peace those be weapons for Christians that Author applies in his old way to those who blessed be God have the Laws on their side and Deliverance by them already And so in the next passage the Bishop speaking of the same Case says The Subject has no refuge against his Soveraign but only to God by Prayer and Patience But this is not the Case of Men who are under the Protection of the Laws which were made on purpose to be a Defence and Refuge against all lawless Oppression whatsoever or else as Chancellour Fortescue says the People would be cruely cheated Afterwards that Author skips over a large Defence of the French Protestants and of Luther's Doctrine concerning which I may say to him in the Bishop's words And this I ween you will hardly refute or convert to your purpose and sets down a Passage which I will supply by adding the words which immediately follow in Bilson Phil. What their Laws permit I know not I am sure in the mean time they resist Theo. And we because we do not exactly know what their Laws permit see no reason to condemn their Doings without hearing their Answer Phil. Think you their Laws permit them to rebel Theo. I busie not my self in other Men's Common-wealths as you do neither will I rashly pronounce all that resist to be Rebels Cases may fall out even in Christian Kingdoms where the People may plead their Right against the Prince and not be charged with Rebellion Phil. As when for Example Theo. If a Prince should go about to subject his Kingdom to a Forreign Realm or change the form of the Common-wealth from Imperie to Tyranny or neglect the Laws established by common Consent of Prince and People to execute his own Pleasure in these and other Cases which might be named if the Nobles and Commons joyn together to defend their ancient and accustomed Liberty Regiment and Laws they may not well be counted Rebels Phil. You denied that even now when I did urge it Theo. I denied that Bishops had Authority to prescribe Conditions to Kings when they crowned them But I never denied that the People might preserve the Foundation Freedom and Form of their Common-wealth which they foreprised when they first consented to have a King. Lastly Why do they not urge these Homilies against all the Compilers of them and the whole Clergy of England who in several Convocations in Queen Elizabeth's Reign not only maintained in words the Justice of the French Scotch and Dutch Defences which the Protestants of those Countries made for the safeguard of their Lives Liberties and Religion but laid down their Purses to help them and charged themselves deeply with Taxes in consideration of the Queen 's great Charges and Expences in assisting them As you may see in the Preambles of the Clergies Subsidy-Acts in that Reign 5 Eliz. cap. 24. Amongst other Considerations for which they give their Subsidy of six shillings in the pound they have these words And finally pondering the inestimable Charges sustained by your Highness aswell of late days in reducing the Realm of Scotland to Unity and Concord as also in procuring as much as in your Highness lieth by all kind of godly and prudent means the abating of all Hostility and Persecution within the Realm of France practised and used against the Professors of God's holy Gospel and true Religion The first thing in this Passage is the Queen's Assistance of the Scotish Nobility in their Reformation in which the Queen of Scotland resisted them to her power by bringing French Forces into Scotland which is set down at large in our Chronicles The Temporality in their Subsidy-Act call this Assistance The Princely and upright Preservation of the Liberty of the next Realm and Nation of Scotland from imminent Captivity and Desolation The other thing is the godly and prudent means for abating Hostility and Persecution within the Realm of France Now History will inform us that those were the Forces sent under Dudley Earl of Warwick to Newhaven to assist the Hugonots who were then in Arms. We have some modern illuminated Divines who would not stick to call this the abetting of a Rebellion but the whole Bishops and Clergy and amongst them the Compilers of the Homilies call it the use of Godly and Prudent Means to abate Hostility and Persecution practised against the Professors of God's holy Gospel and true Religion for so that Charitable Clergy could find in their hearts to call a parcel of Calvinists who never had a Bishop amongst them whom some in this degenerate Age would sooner unchurch and destroy than aid or assist Again The Clergy grant another Subsidy 35 Eliz. c. 12. in consideration of her Majesty's Charges in the provident and needful Prevention of such intended Attempts as tended to the extirpation of the sincere Profession of the Gospel both here and elsewhere The Temporalties Subsidy-Act at the same time will explain this to us in these Reasons for their Tax Besides the great and perpetual Honour which it hath pleased God to give your Majesty abroad in making you the principal Support of all just and Religious Causes against Usurpers Besides the great Succours in France and Flanders which we do conceive to be most Honourable in regard of the Ancient Leagues the Justice and Equity of their Causes And to the same purpose again the Temporalty 39. Eliz. cap. 27. This Land is become since your Majesties happy Days both a Port and Haven of Refuge for distressed States and Kingdoms and a Rock and Bulwark of Opposition against the Tyrannies and ambitious Attempts of mighty and usurping Potentates Neither are the Clergy in their Subsidy-Act 43 Eliz. cap. 17. at all behind them either with their Money or Acknowledgments For who hath or should have a livelier Sense or better Remembrance of your Majesties Princely Courage and Constancy in advancing and protecting the free Profession of the Gospel within and without your Majesties Dominions than your Clergy From hence I argue That if the French and Dutch Protestants were Rebels in defending themselves against illegal and destructive Violence then the Bishops and Clergy of England quite through Queen Elizabeth's Reign by their assisting of them involved themselves in the same Guilt For it
Prince cannot secure them from being impeach'd by the People granting this to be very true yet I shall still assert that the Inferiour Magistrate though in the Execution of an illegal Act is not to be repelled by Force To this I answer I grant that Inferiour Magistrates rightly constituted and duly executing their Office are the Ordinance of God for Government would be an impracticable thing without them but as you shall see anon the Text it self carries this Limitation in the Bowels of it for it excludes both the Usurpation of an Office and the illegal and malicious Exercise of it If our Translators in this place had rendred the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authorities instead of Powers as they were forced to do 1 Pet. 3.22 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authority that is a just and lawful Power as they have rendred it in other places and as it constantly signifies they had effectually prevented the false Application of this Text. But now it is easy to shelter illegal Commissions unauthoritative Acts and all manner of unlawful and outragious Violence under the word Power for these are Might tho they be not Right However I shall make short work with this Imposture for if these things before-named be really contained in this Text under the word Power and by virtue of this Text are forbidden to be resisted why then let us put them into the Text which is the surest way of trying the Sence of any Scripture and let us see how they will become the place And then it runs thus There is no illegal destructive Commission nor outragious Violence of Inferiour Officers but of God. The Rapines Burglaries Assassinations Massacres which are commited by Inferiour Officers are ordained of God Whosoever therefore withstands these resists the Ordinance of God. What blasphemous stuff is this which Men dare to affix upon a Text of Scripture which is no other than the Voice of God approving all lawful Government and confirming from Heaven those moral Duties of Subjection Obedience and Non-resistance which were always due to lawful Authority but you plainly see are not due to illegal Violence for that is clearly shut out of the Text the Text it self will by no means admit it but spues it out In the same manner you may likewise try whether usurped Power or those that intrude into the Government and get into Office by wicked and undue means be the Ordinance of God. In the next place our Author quotes St. Peter in these words Let 's hear St. Peter 's Opinion in the Case 1 Pet. 2.13 14 15. Submit your selves unto every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake whether to the King as Supream or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for this is the Will of God c. From this 't is plain that we ought to submit to Inferiour Officers for the Lord's sake as well as Supream this subordinate Power being from God tho not immediately I shall hot trouble my self as our Author does about the Question whether the true rendring of this place be submit to every humane Creature meaning Divine Creature or submit to every Ordinance of Man as our Translation has it which he says is an improper Translation and has given occasion to a dangerous Error for let the lawful Government be of what Extraction it will every Subject must submit to it for the Lord's sake The present Question which wants St. Peter's Resolution is Whether we are bound to submit to the illegal Violence of under-Officers which I suppose will prove to be in the Negative For St. Peter plainly limits our Submission to such Governours as are in Subordination to the King and are sent by him and come on this Errand which it was not over honest in our Author to conceal for the Punishment of Evil-doers and for the Praise of them that do well Whereas it is evident that the illegal Violence of Inferiour Governours crosses the very end of their Institution besides they are not in any such Act sent by the King but come of their own Head and which is more they do this in Contradiction to the King 's declared Will and Pleasure which is his Law and against his Crown and Dignity as an Indictment does fully set forth such Offences For I must remember our Author of his Acknowledgment a little before that the King's Officers an accountable for any illegal Act and the very Command of the Prince cannot secure them from being impeach'd by the People Now if they may be prosecuted and hang'd by the People as any other private Malefactor but by the way is that submitting to them for the Lord's sake why may not a just and necessary Defence be made against them as against any other Evil-doers For that very reason says our Author in his Preface because it is a Sin to resist any Evil-doer for our Saviour has commanded us not to resist Evil Evil not signifying a thing but a Person Mat. 5.39 and thence he infers that we ought not to damn our selves to prevent the Violence of a Murderer though offered to our selves I am much confirmed in the truth which I maintain when I see that no Man can fairly oppose it without falling into the very dregs of Quakerism and into those pernicious Principles which surrender the quiet and peaceable part of Mankind to the Discretion of a few mischievous and blood-thirsty Men and in effect put a Sword into their Hands to slay us If this be Gospel gaudeant Latrones 't is good Tydings not to the true Man but to the Thief to the Cyclops to the Canibal to the hungry Irish Woolf and to the Mauritanian Lyon but to all others it is a very hard Saying But to shew that this Argument may be otherwise answered than with a shrug it is plain 1. That this Precept of our Saviour requires great Limitation for else among other things a Christian Magistrate himself might not resist an Evil-doer 2. That it carries a Limitation sufficient for my present purpose along with it For all the Instances in which our Saviour forbids Resistance are matters of a light nature as Dr. Hammond expresses it And the bearing of such tolerable Evils and Inconveniencies is no peculiar Duty of Christianity for any wise moral Man would rather take a flap on the Face patiently than turn such a ridiculous Battery into a Fray and Bloodshed and rather receive two slight Injuries one after another then revenge the first For I shall here take occasion to inform our Author that Revenge never was a natural Right as he affirms p. 57. but a Sin against the Light of Nature and that the necessary Preservation of a Man's Life or Livelihood or the Moderation of a just and unblameable Defence do mightily differ from Revenge And as our Author wholly wrests our Saviour's Doctrine so in the next place he wilfully mis-represents his Case as every Man knows who has read the four Gospels
the very Apostles 2dly Our Author quotes two Authorities The one says A Bill of Exclusion if it should pass would change the Essence of the Monarchy and make the Crown Elective or as another ingenious but I am sure very scurrilous and irreverent Pen saith it would tend to make a Football of the Crown and turn an Hereditary Kingdom into Elective The same Answer will serve them both namely That an Act of disinheriting from the Crown does own and proclaim and prove the Kingdom to be Hereditary And further I would be glad to know in what part of the Globe that Elective Kingdom lies where the very Essence of it is this that the present Possessor of the Crown shall have Power in declaring or disabling his Successor II. His next Argument is from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy wherein a Minister of London especially ought to have used no Sophistry because Oaths are sacred Things and ought not by false Glosses and Interpretations to be turn'd into Snares to entangle the Consciences of those who hereafter shall be desirous to secure the Protestant Religion and withal to involve three successive Houses of Commons in the Guilt of Perjury only for discharging their Consciences to God and their Country And because our Author after he has done thus stands upon his Justification and calls his Way of Arguing plain and honest and says he is not conscious of the least Sophistry in it I shall endeavour to make his Sophistry stare him in the face I shewed him before in my Preface by the most convincing Proof that could be produced that by the Heirs and Successors mentioned in these Oaths are meant Kings and Queens of this Realm of England And if the old Oath of Allegiance at common-Common-Law which I there quoted had not expresly said so yet Common-Sense would have taught us the very same For Allegiance sworn to a Subject must needs be Treason And therefore as I there argued it is a Falshood of very dangerous Consequence to say that any Person besides his Majesty hath now any Interest in those Oaths or can lay claim to any part of them Our Author had done well to have answered that Argument before he had fallen to new-vamping of old baffled Fallacies which I shall now examine By the Oath of Supremacy as he says true we are sworn to our Power to assist and defend all Jurisdictions Privileges Preheminencies and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Now one of these Jurisdictions granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm is this That the King with and by the Authority of the Parliament of England is able to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Descent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof And therefore I ask if they be not the perjured Persons who by asserting an unalterable Succession endeavour to destroy this Jurisdiction Privilege and Authority which they are sworn to maintain But our Author 's honest way of arguing is to have four Terms in a Syllogism As thus We are sworn to defend the Rights of Supremacy vested in the King Ergo we are bound to defend an unalterable Succession which is contrary to the Rights of this Supremacy Again we are sworn to defend all Privileges belonging to the King's Heirs and Successors that is Kings and Queens of England Ergo we are sworn to defend all the Privileges belonging to such as are neither Kings nor Queens but Subjects of England and if they be excluded never can be Kings or Queens of England And therefore to our Author's first Question I answer No Subject can possibly have undoubted transcendent and essential Rights Privileges and Preheminencies united to the Imperial Crown of England for if so then the Imperial Crown of England is united to his Rights which I would desire our Author to take heed of affirming for we can have but one Soveraign as there is but one Sun in the Firmament To his second Question I answer By lawful Successors is meant Kings and Queens of England which have not been always next Heirs by Proximity of Blood witness Henry 7. Q. Mary and Q. Elizabeth who could not be both Heirs in that manner to Edward the 6 th And further I say that the Oath of Supremacy only binds us to the King in being and not to the whole Royal Family otherwise we should have a great many Soveraigns at once and it is made in our Author's Phrase for the Behoof and Interest of the Crown and not for the Behoof of him who may never be concern'd in it In the next place we have these Words Some indeed have said with our Author that the Oath of Supremacy is a Protestant Oath and so could not be understood in a Sence destructive to the Protestant Religion which is a meer Shift and proves nothing because it proves too much Sir I think it was much more a Shift to find out a way to drive on the Popes Interest by an Oath which does most solemnly renounce him and under a pretence of unalterable Succession of which there is not the least shadow in this Oath but the direct contrary to abandon this Protestant Kingdom to the Hellish Tyranny of Rome which we are sworn to oppose and all Protestants will oppose even under a Popish Successor if any such can be in England and let Dr. Watson prove it if he can to be no less than resisting the Ordinance of God. But methinks it had been time enough to offer to prove that after the Pope's Power had been re-established by a Law and not to go about it now when it is Treason to endeavour to reconcile Men to the Church of Rome Thus much the Oath of Supremacy proves which is not nothing nor a Jot too much And further it proves that we are bound in order to the keeping out the Pope's Power which we have utterly renounced humbly to beg of his Majesty to foreclose a Popish Successor who will infallibly let it in I am sure this way of assisting and defending the Jurisdictions and Authorities of the Crown is in our Power and so is within the compass of our Oath and therefore we are treacherous to the Crown and false to our Oath as well as to God and to our Religion if we will not do so much for any of them as this comes to And I do seriously and earnestly recommend this Consideration to all that have taken the Oath of Supremacy and especially to the Clergy of England who have taken it several times over As for our Author 's saying That moderate Papists will take the Oath of Supremacy I shall only say this to it Let him shew me a Man that has taken this Oath and prove him to be a Papist and I
was limited and restrained by Law and Rules of Right as is largely set down in the Mirrour p. 8. Esâ—ierent de eux un Roy a reigner sur eux governer le People d'Dieu a maintainer defendre les persons les biens en quiet per les Rules d'droit al comencement ilz fieront le Roy jurer que il mainteindroit la sanct foy Christian ove tout son poyar sa people guideroit per droit sans regard a ascun person serroit abbeissant a suffre droit come autres de son people And p. 9. in case the King did Wrong to any of his People that he might not be Judg and Party too Convient per droit que le Roy ust Compaignions pur Oyer Terminer aux Parliaments trestouts les breves plaints de torts de le Roy de la Roigne de lour Infans de eux especialment de que torts leu ne poit aver autrement Common droit And for this purpose as well as to make Laws for the good Government of the People it was ordained in King Alfred's time for a perpetual Usage that a Parliament should meet twice a Year at London and oftner if need were as you have it p. 10. And you have a great many particular Laws which were made in those Parliaments p. 15. Amongst other things it was ordained that all Plaintiffs should have Writs of Remedy in the King's Court Aussi bien sur le Roy ou sur la Roigne come sur autre del people d' chestun injury forsque en vengeances d' vie d' membre ou pleint tient lieu sans brief And in the last place to avoid prolixity this Book speaking of the Abusions of the Common Law that is Practices which are Frauds to the Law and repugnant to Right pag. 282. hath these Words La primier la soveraigne abusion est que le Roy est oustre la ley ou il duist ceste subject sicome est contenus in son serement 2 Abusion est que ou les Parlaments se duissent faire pur le salvation des Almes de Trespassors ceo a Londres deux foits per An la ne se font ils ore forsque rarement a la volunt le Roy pur aides cuilets de tresore c. Vide Abusion 153 p. 308. I hope this pure old French of which Chancellor Fortescue says the modern is but a Corruption will inform our Author what Power a Saxon King had and what Basileus Imperator Dominus signified I come now to the next Head to examine some Preambles of Statutes which he either quotes to no purpose or else mangles them in the same manner as Scripture was once quoted to our Saviour and for the self-same end namely to teach Men to tempt God and Danger at once His first Collection of Preambles pag. 212 213 consists of Declarations that the Crown and Realm of England is not in subjection to the Pope which make nothing at all to our Author's purpose but very much against it if he did not stifle them with Et caetera's and long Strokes for the Truth of which I refer the Reader to those Statutes and shall only set down 25 H. 8. cap. 21. for I am not at leisure either to transcribe the Statute-Book or to winnow all our Author's Chaffe He says pag. 212. The Parliament directing their Declaration to the King enacted and declared That this your Graces Realm recognizing no Superiour under God but only your Grace hath been and is free from Subjection c. Now the following Words are these To any Man's Laws but such as have been devised made and ordained within this Realm for the Wealth of the same or to such other as by Sufferance of your Grace and your Progenitors the People of this your Realm have taken at their free Liberty by their own Consent to be used amongst them and have bound themselves by long Use and Custom to the Observance of the same not as to the Observance of the Laws of any Foreign Prince Potentate or Prelate but as to the Custom and ancient Laws of this Realm originally establish'd as Laws of the same by the said Sufferance Consents and Custom and none otherwise It standeth therefore with natural Equity and good Reason that all and every such Laws Humane made within this Realm or induced into this Realm by the said Sufferance Consents and Custom your Royal Majesty and your Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons representing the whole State of your Realm in this your most High Court of Parliament have full Power and Authority not only to dispence but also to authorize some elect Person or Persons to dispence with those and all other Humane Laws of this your Realm and with every one of them as the quality of the Persons or Matter shall require and also the said Laws and every of them to abrogate adnull amplify or diminish Now our Author it is possible may find out of these Words an unalterable humane Law of Succession or that the King has the whole Legislative Power or that there are Imperial Laws ordained within this Realm which are not for the Wealth of the same but may destroy the Political Laws at every turn And so may any Body else make the same Discoveries who is resolved before-hand to do it His other Collection is p. 218 219. not one of which concerns the present Question no not that wherein he triumphs and slavishly braggs That the very Doctrine of the Bow-string is declared by Act of Parliament 'T were better the Doctrine of the Bowstring were about his Neck tho his Name were Legion I see that if the whole Nation were enslaved we have some of the Brood of Cham amongst us who would rejoice at it and make themselves as merry with it as Nero was at the Flames of Rome and would dance after his Harp. But such impotent Malice and poor-spirited Insolence is below an English-Man's Indignation and therefore I shall calmly desire our Author to look over again that Declaration 13 Car. 2. cap. 6. and to tell me in which Clause Word or Syllable of it he finds the Doctrine of the Bow-string declared For my part I have read it very often over and cannot see any more in it than this That it is unlawful for both or either of the Houses of Parliament to raise or levy any War offensive or defensive against the King which was always Treason for any Subjects to do But was ever a legal Defence against unauthorized illegal Violence of Subjects called by the Name of levying War against the King Shew me That in any authentick Book of Common-Law in any Statute or in any Resolution of all the Judges in England and I will be as passive as any Man. Before I go any further I must not forget a Passage which does more nearly concern me p. 221 222. wherein I am taxed
Right-Lines failed or Sedition disturbed the Heir Where he likewise matches it with the Hereditary Kingdoms of England France Spain Scotland and others And further I desire to know at what time afterwards the Empire began to be Hereditary if it were not so in Constantine's Family where there was an uninterrupted Succession of Five from Herculeus Maximianus to Julian But besides such an Instance of uninterrupted Succession which is a great Rarity in Kingdoms that are undoubtedly Hereditary which tho it be matter of Fact is no Proof of Right the express Testimony of Eusebius is so full and convincing that it descended from Father to Son like any other Patrimony that I needed not to have added other Proofs for I see that alone cannot be answered I was not in the least concern'd to prove that the Empire descended in a right Line from the twelve Caesars down to Constantine and therefore our Author needed not to have writ his long impertinent History of broken Succession which I confess I did slight when I heard of it but not so much as now I see it For who would go to use such a deceitful Medium as a History of broken Succession to prove an Empire to be Elective I am sure if our Author consider that Argument better he will not abide by it Without thinking my self bound therefore to follow him in his Knight-Errantry quite through a Succession of three hundred Years which in the first Constitution of it was Hereditary as he confesses and quotes Dio for it p. 9. and was propagated by Adoption in the Julian Family to the Emperor Nero and afterwards when it was broken was often pieced again by Adoption which still shews the Nature of it to be Hereditary I shall prove with all the Clearness and Brevity I can that the Empire was hereditary in Constantine's Family both as to matter of Fact and matter of Right First They were not elected either by the Senate or the Army who only declared recognized or proclaimed the new King to be Emperor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Vita Const lib. 1. cap. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 4. cap. 68. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 69. 2dly During that Family there was no Interregnum At Chlorus Death Eusebius says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vit. Const lib. 1. c. 16. And afterwards says there was not an Interregnum no not for a minute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3dly They were either Testamentary Heirs or Heirs at Law to the Empire all lawful and undoubted Heirs Const Chlorus as the adopted Son of Maximian Constantine as eldest Son to his Father Constantine's Sons as Testamentary Heirs and Julian as Heir at Law. I shall in a few Words clear the Titles of Constantine and his Sons and especially of Julian which is the only one that I needed to insist upon First Of Constantine Eusebius says that the Throne descended to him from his Father as a Patrimony Socrates says that he was declared King in his Father's stead the very Word which is used to describe the Jewish Succession Eumenius says he was his Father's lawful Successor and undoubted Heir Secondly Constantine being possest of the whole Roman World which indeed was too large for the Government of one single Person wisely divided it amongst his three Sons and made them Heirs by Testament Theod. Socrat. Ruffin He left them Heirs he made them Heirs he wrote them Heirs And accordingly St. Ambrose calls Constantius who survived the others and had it entire again the Heir of his Fathers Dignity Thirdly Julian was Heir at Law He had the Empire by Blood and Birth it fell to him by ordinary Right And if Jovian had been elected Emperor while Julian was living he had been injured and should have had Wrong done to him as I shall make appear by these following Testimonies 1. Julian was lawfully possest of the Empire after Constantius's Death but not before for tho he were chosen Emperor by the Army in Constantius's Life-time yet that Choice only made him an Usurper So Ruffinus tells us lib. 1. cap. 27. Post quem scil Constantium Julianus praesumptum priùs deinde ut legitimum solus obtinuit Principatum 2. This lawful Title was a Title by Birth and Blood. So Themistius a Senator and the Governor of Constantinople in his Speech to Jovian speaking of the Constantine Family and Julian especially tells him You having received the Empire meaning by Election have maintained it better than they who received it in a way of Succession by Birth and Blood. And this I doubt not is what Ammian Marcell means by ordinario jure where he says That when Julian had news of Constantius's Death he and his whole Army after him marched merrily for Constantinople for they saw that the Empire which they were going to take away by force with the apprehension of the utmost Hazards was now unexpectedly granted in the ordinary way of Right That is by Constantius's Death it was Julian's of course For as for that Flam that Constantius named Julian his Successor with his last Breath it is so ridiculous a Falshood that the meanest Sutler in Julian's Army was not silly enough to believe it when it was so notorious that Constantius was coming to advance him the other way 3. This ordinary Right by Birth as he was the sole Heir of the Constantian Family was so just a Title that if Jovian had been elected Emperor while Julian was alive he had been injured by it and should have had Wrong done him So the same Themistius in the same place where he tells Jovian That the Empire was before owing to him for his Father's Vertue but at Constantine's Death he deferred to take the Debt that he might not be thought to usurp upon the last of the Constantine Succession and was reserved till now so as to receive his Father's Debt without doing wrong to any Body It seems Julian had been wronged if he had been put by his Succcession therefore he had a Right to it and the setting him aside had been a proper Exclusion And yet Gregory and Basil who did not wear one Beard and Constantius on his Death-Bed thought the whole Christian World much more wronged in that he was not set aside Q. E. D. To answer Forty of our Author's trifling Objections at once such as Whether the Law of Nature be for Primogeniture and Gavelkind too c. I affirm First That there never was a Succession in the World that was not alterable and which might not be directed and governed either by the Prince or People or as it is here by both The Jewish Succession which was establish'd by God himself in the Line of David was not so establish'd as to exclude the Peoples Governance and Disposal of it A clear Instance you have of this 2 Chron. 36.1 and 2 Kings 23.30 Then the People of the Land took Jehoahaz the Son of Josiah and made him King in
had been utterly unlawful and an horrid Sin to assist Subjects in the Violation of their Duty and Allegiance and to turn at least a whole Years Revenue of all the spiritual Promotions in England into Swords to be employed in resisting the Ordinance of God. Those Men must needs have a great mind to partake of that Damnation wherewith St. Paul threatens this Sin who were willing to purchase it at so dear a rate By which it appears that this modish Passive Doctrine of submitting for Conscience sake to illegal Violence and all sorts of lawless Oppression is all Madness and Innovation and a thing wholly unknown to the Compilers of the Homilies who dream'd as little of it as they did of the late unnatural destructive War which it produc'd And hereby likewise the Reader will be enabled to judg between me and my Adversaries who is truer to the Doctrine of the Church of England They or I and who are really guilty of Apostacy from it they that retain the Primitive Sense of the first Reformers or they that follow the upstart and new-fangled Opinions of a few mischievous and designing Innovators 3. The last thing to be answered are the Religious Pretences which are fetch'd from Scripture for the support of this Passive Doctrine Before I come to examine the particular Texts which this Author has alledged I shall say somewhat in general concerning the great Impertinency of interessing Scripture in this Controversy for this reason because Christ meddles not with the Secular Government of this World as Dr. Hammond infers from the Scripture it self 1 Cor. 7.22 and our Author in his Preface allows that Inference Or as Luther expresses it because The Gospel doth not bar nor abolish any Politick Laws which Position he always held and Bishop Bilson did believe that it could not be refuted the Truth whereof I shall prove both by direct Argument and by parallel Instances 1. The Scripture does not meddle with the Secular Government of this World so as to alter it for to alter Government is to overthrow the just Compacts and Agreements which have been made amongst Men to which they have mutually bound themselves by Coronation-Oaths and Oaths of Allegiance whereby the duties of Governours and Subjects are become the moral Duties of Honesty Justice and righteous dealing which no Man will say it is the work of the Gospel to destroy or abolish 2. If Scripture has made any alteration in the Secular Government of the World then that alteration is Jure Divino and all Governments which are not reformed according to it are unlawful which if it be said concerning our own Constitution is Treason and if it be said of all other Governments in Christendom is very ill manners for none of them pretend much less can be proved to agree exactly with any such Pattern given in the Mount. In the second place therefore Christianity has given no new measures of Rule and Government nor of Obedience and Subjection but on the other hand has forbidden Men to remove the old Land-marks by confirming and re-inforcing the known Duties of Morality in this Case as it has done in like Cases It has charged Masters to be just to their Servants and Servants to be obedient to their Masters whereby it has created no new Right on either side For Masters were always bound to allow their Servants that which is just and equal and Servants to yield Obedience but in what measures or proportions we must not expect to find in Scripture for that is left to be determined by former particular Contracts or by the Laws and Customs of every Country For even those Precepts of absolute Obedience for Servants to obey their Masters in all things and to please them well in all things do not alter any of those measures of Obedience which the Parties themselves shall agree upon or the usage of every Country does prescribe For an English Servant is not bound to obey his Master in all lawful things if they be inconvenient and no part of his Bargain It is lawful for a Servant to obey his covetous Master and to please him well in taking but one half of his Wages in full of all but I presume he may do better to disobey and displease him too in that matter and to insist upon having his whole Due It is certainly lawful according to Mr. Long for an English Servant to obey passively nay suffering tho wrongfully is his calling and yet if he refuse to serve in Chains and to be used like a Gally-Slave and so disobey and displease in that matter it is no breach of his Christianity for St. Paul himself could not abide to be smitten contrary to Law tho it were at the command of the High-Priest Acts 23.3 He presently indeed recalled his reviling Language but he did not correct his sharp Resentment of that Injury If some Men could find such Texts as these for Subjects what Iron Yokes and what heavy Burdens would they not presently lay upon them and yet they would no more bind English Subjects than these Texts which were directed to Roman Slaves are the duty of English Servants I might instance in several other Relative Duties in the same manner if it were needful Accordingly such Precepts as this Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars do not alter or destroy the Laws of our Country but plainly refer us to them for we know not who is Caesar nor who Caesar is but by the Law of the Land. And the things of Caesar or what belongs to him are not whatsoever he may demand for then when we are bid to render all Men their Dues we are as much bound to satisfy their Demands let them be what they will and never so unjust and unreasonable And as for that new Device in Jovian of learning our Allegiance or legal Duty from the Notion of a Soveraign it is a sort of conjuring for I may as well know the just Sum of Money which one Man owes to another meerly from the Notion of a Creditor Having said this in general I shall now particularly examine those Texts of Scripture which this Author alledges he begins with Rom. 13.1 2. Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God The Powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation From which Text Epiphanius proves that the many Magistates under one King are ordained of God and thence our Author infers That the Power of under-Officers since it is the Ordinance of God ought no more to be resisted than the King 's Adding this further Though this may seem harsh in an English-man's Ears who will acknowledg perhaps that the King can do no Injury and is above the Censure of the Law yet he knows his Officers are accountable for any illegal Act and the very Command of the
Reformers with one odious Name or other and above all are so very desirous to have it believed that the pretended Church of Rome but real Synagogue of Satan is a true Church of Christ which they are no more able to make out than to prove the Devil to be a true Angel of Light. For instead of being a Catholick Church it is a plain Catholick Apostacy as the Protestation of Archbishop Vsher and the rest of the Irish Bishops Novemb. 1626. does justly term it AN ANSWER TO THE BOOK HAving now done with the Preface before I return an Answer to any part of the Book I shall set down the Substance of it whereby the Reader will be enabled to judg what parts of it do require an Answer The Design of my Book was to shew that the Primitive Christians would have been for a Bill of Exclusion which I proved by shewing how much they were against a Pagan Successor both by their hearty Wishes he had been fore-closed and by their Uneasiness under him when he was Emperor Our Author answers the former of these Proofs by endeavouring to shew that the Empire was not Hereditary which I have already considered in the Preface And as for the other Proof which was the Behaviour of the Christians toward Julian when he was Emperor it is all Matter of Fact and therefore tho our Author wrangles and raises many Cavils about it some of which I shall examine anon yet he cannot disprove one Syllable of it Now this Argument concludes à fortiori thus Would not the Christians have petitioned at least for Julian's Exclusion when he was a Subject seeing they spent so many Prayers and Tears for his Destruction when he was Emperor Would that whole Church which leaped for Joy and triumphed at his untimely and violent Death have scrupled his Exclusion Would they have thought Julian wronged in being barred from succeeding to the Empire who thought themselves wronged and injured in that Constantius did not kill him instead of making him Caesar Which Julian himself represents as the Sence of the City of Antioch The Behaviour of the Christians was so very rough towards Julian that I could not ascribe it wholly to his being a Pagan but shewed that his Illegal Oppression and Tyranny was also the cause why they pursued him with so much Hatred The Substance of our Author's Answer to this is That Julian could not oppress them illegally if he would because it was his Royal Pleasure to have the Christians suffer after this manner and his Will according to Gregory was an unwritten Law and much stronger than the written ones which were not back'd with Power and Authority Yes that is Gregory's Complaint and the very illegal Oppression against which he exclaims That when the Christians were under the Protection of the Publick Laws and Edicts yet they were destroyed by dumb Signs and private Hints and oftentimes upon a meer presumption of the Emperor's Pleasure And whoever will please to read Jacob. Gothofredus his Vlpianus sive de Principe legibus soluto will see how much our Author has perverted and misapplied all the Shreds of Civil Law which he hath made use of upon this occasion In short our Author grants that the Christians were highly provoked against Julian but then he says p. 182. The main Ground of their Displeasure against him was this That he would not formally persecute them nor put them to Death enough As for the word Formally we find that explained p. 133. He put them not to Death formally as Christians but accused and condemned them for other Crimes Now this is one Instance which I gave of his illegal Oppression and Tyranny that being it did not stand with his Conveniences to enact Sanguinary Laws against Christianity he found out ways of putting the Christians to Death upon false and pretended Crimes of Sacrilege and Treason So that tho they died meerly for their Religion yet they had not the Honour of dying for it but suffered under the Character of the greatest Malefactors and both they and their Reputation were murdered at once This indeed was a just Cause of their Displeasure against Julian but I cannot say with our Author that they were displeased at him because he did not put them to Death enough for I thought he had given them their Belly-full of that Does Gregory call him Dragon Murtherer common Cut-Throat or as the Scholiast renders it bloody Devil for this because he did not put them to Death enough Were there no Halters nor Precipices in the Roman Empire but must Heaven and Earth be moved against Julian for this because he would not put them to Death enough I can only say 'T is very much This Discourse about Julian's illegal Oppression of the Christians and their Behaviour thereupon towards him led me to speak of the Duty of Passive Obedience or suffering for our Religion which I asserted to be our Duty only then when the Laws are against our Religion and shewed that Christianity does not oblige us to submit to illegal Violence but to defend our selves against it I found a Necessity for the true stating of this Duty because the Doctrine of Passive Obedience has been so handled of late as to tempt Oppression and Tyranny into the World by pressing it upon Mens Consciences as a necessary Duty that they ought to submit to the most Arbitrary Oppression and illegal destructive Violence I shewed that by this Doctrine in the Case of a Popish Successor which is no impossible Case witness the Expedient at Oxford we should be ready bound hand and foot to invite the Popish Knife it would expose a whole Protestant People and Nation at once and give them but one Neck which a Popish Successor by the Principles of his Religion is bound to cut off In defence of this Doctrine our Author spends the Remainder of his Book to which as being a matter of the greatest Consequence I shall immediately apply my self and consider the Arguments which he has brought for it That I may avoid all Obscurity in an Argument of this weight and importance wherein the Lives of all English Protestants and their Posterity are concerned I shall 1. Shew how far this Author and I are perfectly agreed 2. State the Difference betwixt us We are both agreed 1. That the King's Person is Sacred and inviolable by Law. 2. That inferior Magistrates acting by the King's Authority according to Law may not be resisted And therefore neither the King's Person nor his Authority are any ways included in this Controversy But in the second place it is somewhat more difficult to state the Difference betwixt us for never was there such a Proteus of Passive Doctrine as this is Nevertheless by tracing him carefully quite through this Argument I find his Sence to be this That by the Imperial Laws or Laws of the Prerogative in case the Forces of a Popish and Tyrannical Prince do outrage and murther the