Emperor while the good Bishop in his Embasly to Maximus carried himself as the Father or Guardian of his Prince ☞ tho he had been provok'd in the most tender part by his Prince's endeavors for the introducing of Arianism others perhaps if they had been in his condition would have look'd upon this Tyrant's Maximus declaring for the truth as such an opportunity that Providence had offer'd for the Preservation of the Faith and since the Empress was of a false Religion and the Emperor was govern'd by her why should they not set up this Maximus as the Protector of the true Faith But Ambrose and the Bishops were of another mind they knew what it was to dye for their Religion p. 346. but did not understand what it was to brigue or to resist and I pray how did the Bishops comply with the Usurper Maximus were any of them instrumental to his advancement did they Preach up his cause and the lawfulness of his revolt did they ever press the People to bring in their Plate and contributions or after his successes and the Murther of Gratian did any of the Bishops justifie the Usurper's Proceedings and Preach and Print in defence of that barbarous Regicide did they flatter him as the preserver of Religion the David the Champion of Israel with much more to the same purpose Dr. Williams Printed his Sermon Preach'd July 26. 1685. Seâ—â—ful 26. 1685. on Rom. 3â—7 8. p. 11. being on the day of publick thanksgiving for the late victory over the Rebels to vindicate the City Clergy and particularly himself who was censured as if the Sermon was not to the purpose of the day and occasion as he says in his Epistle Dedicatory to the Bishop of London Grant this that evil becomes lawful by a good end and when we think our selves secure we make all compacts broken Oaths dissolved all difference betwixt Superiors and Inferiors confounded it exposes the Church and State to every pretender and any one that hath a mind P. 20 21. will never want a reason for Insurrection and Rebellion as no Religion hath more discountenanc'd such Principles and Proceedings than the Christian so no Nations nor Persons have more discountenanc'd the thing than those who have profess'd it it is too notorious to be dissembled for that there have been Rebellions against and depositions of Princes dissolutions of Governments taking and breaking of Oaths and other things apparently evil of that and the like kind done to serve a Cause a Party or a Church is no Mystery now a days Christian Religion teaches the wholsom Doctrin of being subject to the Higher Powers and that they that resist p. 22. shall receive to themselves damnation from the confessions of Faith in all the â—rotestant and Reformed Churches nothing can be drawn p. 23. that will justifie Opposition or Rebellion against Civil Authority but they expresly declare against it when Queen Mary was a known Member of the Roman Church yet the Protestants first joyned with her against the Lady Jane Grey who was invested with the title of Queen and was a Protestant And this particularly is the avowed Doctrin of the Church of England in all its Articles and Homilies at large three of which are against Rebellion Do they find in the Sermons of the Ministers of the Church of England Id. Apol. for the Pulpits p. 3 4. the Doctrines of the Peoples Power over Princes of the lawfulness of resisting their Sovereigns or rather where have the Rights of Princes and the Subjection and Obedience of the People in all lawful Cases and the Non-resistance in any Case ☜ been so much asserted That Loyalty which concerns all of all Perswasions is taught in the Pulpits of the Church of England which obliges them to be as loyal when the Prince is of a different Religion as when he is of the same with them The same Author also in his Difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome having cited our Articles Homilies c. to prove the chief Power of the King and that he ought not to be resisted and shewn how contrary to this Doctrin the Decrees of the Church of Rome are he subjoins pag. â—1 The Church of England teacheth the King in all his Realms hath Supream Power in all Causes whether Ecclesiastical or Civil For God alloweth neither the Dignity of any Person ☜ nor the Multitude of any People nor the Weight of any Cause as sufficient for the which Subjects may rebel So Dr. Grove in his Examination of Bell. 15th Note viz. Temporal Felicity pag. 393. Since the Power of Deposing Princes hath been openly assumed and frequently practised and never yet condemned by any either Pope or Council since the Doctrin of Equivoeation and many other absurd and Impious Opinions are taught by their Casuists and made use of by their Confessors in directing the Consciences of their Penitents and since these and many more very dangerous Errors do not only escape without a Censure but are approved of and encouraged by their Governors I cannot see how they and their Church can possibly be excused from the Guilt of them Mr. Thomas Stainoe B. D. and Archdeacon of Brecknock preach'd Sept. 6. Ann. 1686. Seem on Rom. 13.5 Epist Ded. before the Lord Mayor and says that he publish'd it That it might be instrumental to convince the People of their Duty to their King because it was for that very reason that he preach'd it That there is no Man so much a ravening Wolf inwardly pag. 3. but he will put on Sheeps Cloathing and tho his Resolutions are bent upon Rebellion yet his Discretion and Prudence will prompt him to pretend Religion The least that can be inferr'd from the words will be a Subjection to lawful Authority and by consequence also to our own Prince For the truth of all which I shall urge no more at present than the tacit Confession of his most avowed and professed Enemies who after all their contrivance of Wit Anger and Malice could at length pitch upon no better expedient to prevent his Right of Accession than a Bill of Exclusion Now such a Bill either presupposes an antecedent Right or it does not if it does not then it must be confess'd that they did most elaborately trifle whilst they took a great deal of pains to bring that about that was already done to their hands If it does then we have what we look for and that is that the Injustice of their Actions does make good the Justice of his Title and affords us a tacit Confession that there was no other way to overthrow that Title but by overturning the very Foundations of the Government it self pag. 7. We are therefore obliged in Conscience to be in subjection to the Superior Powers because God himself commands us so to be God hath given the lawful Magistrate a Title to that Authority pag. 12. to which we
Gun-powder nay the Religion of Mahomet is in this respect to be very much preferr'd before the Christian c. And having mention'd Hobbs how am I asham'd to find that his Authority and the Reasons which he derived from Milton and both from Doleman i. e. Parsons the Jesuite are of a sudden so generally received as if the Doctrine were Apostolical and ought to be preached in all the World That Power is originally in the Body of the People that the Foundation of all Government is laid in compact and that the breach of Conditions by one Party dispenses with the Duty of the other tho confirmed by Sacraments Oaths B. Saunderson's Case of a rash Vow §. 9. The several Duties that by Gods Ordinance are to be performed by Persons that stand in mutual relation either to other are not pactional or conditional as are the Leagues and Agreements made between Princes but are absolute and independent wherein each Person is to look to himself and to the performance of the Duty that lies upon him tho the other Party should fail in the performance of his Cons Praelect 5. de Juram and reiterated Promises that a Prince may be opposed in his Politick tho not in his personal Capacity that when Religion is a part of our Property it may be defended and that the Determinations of Providence are to be followed or that the Prosperity of a Cause is a Mark of its goodness And what encouragement hath the owning and complying with such Principles given to many weak and ignorant Persons who cannot distinguish between the steady Doctrines of a Church and the Opinions and Practices of some of her Members to embrace the Roman Faith and Communion I need not declare the Matter of Fact is visible while we are accused that all our former Declarations have been only pretence and juggle and that we have been Loyal no longer than we could get by it I speak this God knows not to upbraid but to deplore and if I could to confute the Calumny and with the deepest sense of the Interests of a poor despised Church which is still and will be the best the most Orthodox and most Primitive of all Christendom Nor is this Account strange and new any otherwise than as it concerns the Church of England as distinct from other Protestants since a Exomologes cap. 12. I confess I wondered that they could hope to make any Christians believe that their Reformation came from the Spirit of Christ when instead of those spiritual Arms of Charity Humility Patience and most indispensible Obedience even to Nero himself by which Christ enabled his Apostles to conquer the World to the belief of the Gospel Calvin and Luther put into the hands of their Sectaries Malice Pride Hatred to suffer for Conscience sake active Resistance against all Authority in a word the very same Weapons which the Devil suggested to Mahomet After the best enquiry I could make I could not find or hear of during our bloody Civil War so much as one single Person of the Presbyterian Calvinist Party but did actively oppose his King nor one single Minister of that Party but was a Trumpet to incite to war. Cons Loc. Cressy makes it one of the most cogent Reasons why he when he vainly thought the Church of England quite destroyed so as never to be restored could not communicate with other Protestant Churches because they tho in that Accusation he falsifies and calumniates as I shall make it appear in the following Discourse taught men That it was lawful to take Arms in defence of Religion and that when Princes persecuted the Truth their Subjects were no longer bound to obey them Nor is Cressy the only Person of the Popish Communion who hath laid this Imputation at the door of the Protestants tho without Reason or Justice while the Romish Church in one of her General Councils determins the Deposition of Princes who are not in all things obedient to her Injunctions And I hope no man can imagin that I intend to promote any disturbance by this Writing 1. Because I only do the office of an Historian not wilfully misquoting any Passage nor citing it contrary to the Authors intention and meaning as far as I understand it and this also must excuse me from being obliged to make good every Argument from Authority or Reason which my Authors use for that Province those of my Authors which are alive are obliged to manage or to acknowledg their Mistakes I intending only to shew the concurrent Testimony of our greatest Men in this momentous Point 2. Because I am told a Dr. Burnet's Royal Martyr page 6. that the Incendiary and Incendiarism were among the much abused words of the late times yet those were the great Incendiaries who kindled God's wrath and that it is from such that we may justly fear the like or rather severer Judgments if our Sins be greater than they were then i. e. When under the specious Pretexts of Liberty and Religion they first opposed and then murdered the Lord 's Anointed 3. Because he who preaches up the Necessity of Suffering and the Unlawfulness of Resisting Superiors and who avers that the Gospel teaches the followers of our Blessed Saviour to dye but not to fight for Religion is little likely to be a Disturber of Government whose Original he acknowledges to be only from Heaven and accountable only to that Tribunal For at last it will be found true that no Government can be safe while those who live under it do not own this Principle That it is not lawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to take Arms against our Lawful Sovereign since he who is Obedient and Loyal only because his Compliance advances his Designs either of Profit Pleasure Honor Revenge or any other Lust as soon as his Point is gained his Duty ceases but he who is obedient to his Sovereign Dr. Tennison Hobbs's Creed p. 159. Except a Man obey for Conscience sake all the Cords of outward Pacts and Covenants will not hold him when he dreams that the Philistines are upon him and that he can deliver himself by force from the power of his Enemies in which number the Prince himself is reckoned by ambitious Subjects out of favor Mr. Pelling's Sermon Jan. 30. 1683. p. 43. Some are for the King as long as he is rich powerful able to maintain their Interest this is the Loyalty of the Leviathan c. because he is God's Vicegerent and because God hath obliged him to be subject not only for wrath but for conscience sake can never be shook from his good resolutions and will be unalterably true to his Oaths and his Duty And when so many Men eminent for their Piety Learning and Station have unanimously agreed in delivering their Sentiments in this Point to say that whatever they said or did was to gratifie or advance their ambitious or covetous Appetites as if their Honesty like Quicksilver in a Weather-glass rose
Religion I shall name but two Examples Tertullian tells the Emperor that his Cities Islands Castles Councils Armies Regiments and Companies the Palace the Senate the Courts of Judicature were filled with Christians and yet they submitted to Persecution And we read that the Thebean Legion consisted of six thousand six hundred sixty and six persons every Man Christian when they submitted to the Decimation of Maximinian for Religion MISHPAT HAMELEK Pag. 63. the Jus Regium the Fundamental Law of the Kings of Israel What then is the meaning of Mishpat hamelsk Surely it imports thus much that if all this hard usage should come upon them they might cry unto the Lord 1 Sam. viii 18. but that it would not dissolve Jus Regium the Right of Sovereignty or enable them to resist their Kings or rebel against them That Pretence Pag. 67. that after a lawful Sovereign is established the Power still remains in the People in the diffused Body of them or their Representatives to alter the Government as they please it is in respect of Policy and Government what the Sin of the Holy Ghost is to Religion These were their secret Griefs Pag. 69. for a Redress whereof they make a party in the Parliament they gain to them two hundred and fifty Men famous in the Parliament Men of Renown and in order to their ambitious Designs they remonstrate against Moses Numb xvi 13. and their Declaration was this Pretence which we are upon that all the Congregation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were holy and that Moses and Aaron had lifted up themselves above them that is that their power was a contrivance of themselves not an Ordinance of God that notwithstanding what God had done to settle the Civil and Ecclesiastical Power it remained still in the People or their Representatives assembled together Now the Scripture tells us that since the World began God was never more highly provoked than upon this occasion Numb xvi 32. When he heard this he was wrath and greatly abhorred them he invented a new thing in the World for their sakes for the Earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and covered the congregation of Abiram It tells us Pag. 71. in effect that Might is Right that every thing is just or unjust good or evil according to the pleasure of the prevailing Force whom we are to obey till a stronger than he cometh or we be able to go through with Resistance That in reference to this Life Pag. 71. Obedience is a matter of Wit and Prudence and after Life there remain for us no Concernments How stramineous is this Theory compared with the Christian Theory which speaks in this wise Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers It is but a little while since the Anointed of the Lord Pag. 74. the holiest the wisest the best of Kings was taken in the Snares of Men pretending to Reformation and sacrificed to the fury of Men possessed by an evil Spirit from the Lord. It is but a very little while since the Lamentation of Jeremy was in the mouth of all the Faithful in the Land Pag. 74. Lam. ii 9. Our Kings and our Princes were amongst the Gentiles It may be all these things have been done Pag. 75. that the Sayings of our Saviour might be fulfilled Matth. 18.7 ibid. 6. It cannot be but that Offences will come but woe be to them by whom they come it were better that a Mill stone c. It may be God suffered the late Rebellion to prevail Pag. 76. that he might not leave himself without witness but shew forth his Wonders in our days in the miraculous Restitution of our gracious Sovereign and the Church Surely these things were suffered Pag. 77. that the Faith and Patience and Loyalty of the Church of England might be made bright and glorious by the Flames of Persecution and that in the day when God shall have given our most gracious Sovereign the hearts or necks of all his Enemies it may not repent him of the kindness he hath shewn to Religion and Government in lifting out of the Dust the despised Head of that only Church for ought I know which makes Obedience without base Restrictions and Limitations an Article of its Religion Bish of Exeter's Serm. before the House of Lords Nov. 5. 1678. Certainly their Authority who lived in the Primitive Light and who bear witness to their own disadvantage teaching Submission to Magigrates though absolute Tyrants and who never took up any Arms against them but Prayers and Tears ought to beget in us a conformity to those innocent times when Christianity gained as much by Patience as 't is now like to lose by Rebellion The Emperors for the first three hundred years after Christ for the generality were very bad but especially to the Christians they were bloody and cruel and yet we never read of any Insurrection of the Christians against them tho they were in a condition to do it The Thebean Legion were all Christians when the Emperor commanded the whole Army to offer Sacrifice to false Gods they removed their Quarters that they might if possible avoid the occasion of displeasing the Emperor He summons them a second time to perform that Worship they return an humble denial The Emperor not content with that Answer puts them to a Decimation to which they submit with much chearfulness and dye praying for their Persecutors Not to trouble you with many Witnesses of this Truth take one for all Tertullian who wrote his Apologetick as the sense of the whole Church he makes there a bold Challenge and desires them to produce if they can any one Example of any Christian taking part with Rebels such as Cassius Niger and others were No he tells them the Christians were better instructed than to hold Resistance lawful Nos judicium Dei suspicimus c. We with patience submit and kiss the Rod that scourgeth us Though they have no just cause to torment us yet there is too much cause why we should suffer We must acknowledge our Sins against God and he may punish us in what way he thinks fit however resist we must not And again in his thirty seventh Paragraph of that Apologetick he tells the Emperor That his Cities Istands Castles Councils Armies his Palace and Courts of Judicature were fill'd with Christians Sic non deesset nobis vis Copiarum If we had a mind we could not want force to resist but we dare not save our Bodies to the eternal loss and perdition of our Souls We wish to the Emperor a long Life an happy Reign a valiant Army a faithful Council a sober People and a quiet World. Such as these were their Wishes towards their Emperors tho Heathens and Persecutors Thus you see the Minds of Christ his Apostles and the Primitive Christians in that great Point of Obedience to Magistrates Therefore they who raise Tumults abett Rebellions set on foot Plots and Conspiracies teach
for Atheism * Id. Ser. on Rom. 13.5 p. 5 6. c. The real causes of Commotions are seldom the same with those that are pretended for training in and engaging a multitude they are truly an ungrounded and aspiring Ambition the heat and fury of Mens passions c. But * P. 19. 20 c. Natural and revealed Religion do offer us these reasons for obliging us to subjection to the higher Powers 1. We are taught that those Powers are of God nay that they are Gods a strain of speech that if divine Authority did not warrant it would pass for impudent and blasphemous flattery Deputed Powers are onely accountable to those from whom they derive their Authority and L. P. 25. the Example and practice of our Great Master My kingdom is not of this World this doth so expresly discharge all bustling and fighting on the pretence of Religion ☞ that we must either set up for another Gospel or utterly reject what is so formally condemn'd by the Author of this we profess to believe Never cause of Religion was of so great concern as the preserving the Head and Author of it P. 27. If we examine the nature and design of that holy Religion our Saviour deliver'd we shall find nothing more diametrically opposite to all its Rules than the distemper'd fury of these misguided Zealots Otherwise doth St. Paul teach the Romans though then groaning under the severest rigours of bondage and tyranny and St. Peter doth at full length once and again call on all Christians to prepare for sufferings and to bear them patiently ☜ And though the bondage of the Slaves was heavy and highly contrary to all the freedoms of the humane nature yet he exhorts them to bear the severities even of their froward and unjust Masters P. 29. With this Argument that Christ suffered for them leaving them an Example from these unerring practices and principles must all true Christians take the measures of their actions and the rules of their Life and indeed the first converts to Christianity embrac'd the Cross and bore it not onely with patience but with joy Neither the cruelty of their unrelenting persecutors nor the continued tract of their miseries which did not end but with their days prevailed on them either to renounce the faith or do that which is next degree to it throw off the Cross and betake themselves to seditious practices for their preservation ☜ In twenty years persecution the Martyrs of one Province Egypt were reckon'd to be betwixt eight or nine hundred thousand P. 31.32 and yet no tumults were raised against all this tyranny and injustice and though after that the Emperours turn'd Christian and establish'd the Faith by Law yet neither did the subtle attempts of Julian the Apostate nor the open persecutions of some Arian Emperours who did with great violence persecute the Orthodox occasion any seditious Combinations against Authority And though Religion suffer'd great decays in the succession of many Ages yet for the first ten Centuries no Father ☜ or Doctor of the Church or any Assembly of Churchmen did ever teach maintain or justifie any Religion or seditious Doctrines or practices It is true about the end of the Eleventh Century this pestiferous Doctrine took its rise and was first broach'd and vented by Pope Gregory VII Hildebrand P. 36. The same equality of Justice and freedom that obliged me to lay open this ties me to tax also those who pretend a great hate against Rome and value themselves on the abhorring all the Doctrines and practices of that Church and yet have carried along with them one of their most pestiferous Opinions pretending Reformation when they would bring all under confusion and vouching the Cause and Word of God when they were disturbing that Authority he had set up and opposing those impower'd by him and the more Piety and devotion such daring pretenders put on it still brings the greater stain and imputation on Religion as if it gave a patrociny to those practices it so plainly condemns But blessed be God our Church hates and condemns this Doctrine from what hand soever it comes ☞ and hath establish'd the Rights and Authority of Princes on sure and unalterable foundations enjoyning an entire Obedience to all the lawful Commands of Authority and an absolute submission to that supreme Power God hath put in our Sovereign's hands this Doctrine we justly glory in and if any that had their Baptism and Education in our Church have turn'd Renegado's from this they proved no less Enemies to the Church her self than to the Civil Authority so that their Apostacy leaves no blame on our Church The same learned Man * P. 446. in a marginal Note on Bishop Bedel's Letter to Wadsworth when the Bishop was representing the common Principles of those Papists and Protestants who asserted a right of taking up Arms against their Sovereign whenever their Lives Properties or Religion were invaded saith This passage above is to be consider'd as a Relation not as the Author's Opinion but yet for fear of taking it by the wrong handle the Reader is desired to take notice that a Subject's resisting his Prince in any cause whatsoever is unlawful and impious Which passage I have lately seen in some Copies of the same Edition for I never heard but of one thus altered This passage above is to be consider'd as a Relation not as the Author's Opinion lest it should mislead the Reader into a dangerous mistake And when he makes his own Apology * Pres to the Ser. Nov. 5. at the Rolls 1684. He professes I am sure that the last part of the Sermon that presses Loyalty and Obedience is not at all enlarged beyond what I not only preach'd in that Sermon but on many other occasions in which I appeal to all my Hearers but I leave the Sermon to speak for it self and me both and will refer it to every Man's Conscience that reads it to judg whether or not I can be concluded from it to be a Person disaffected to his Majesties Government * Id. first Letter to the E. of Middl. collect of pap p. 284. Few have written more and preach'd oftner against all sort of treasonable Doctrines and practices and particularly against the lawfulness of rising in Arms upon the account of Religion I have preach'd a whole Sermon in the Hague against all treasonable Doctrines and practices and in particular against the lawfulness of Subjects rising in Arms against their Sovereign upon the account of Religion And I have maintain'd this both in publick and private that I could if I thought t◠convenient give proofs of it that would make all my Enemies be ashamed of their injustice and malice P. 159. As oft as I have talk'd with Sir John Cochran of some things that were complain'd of in Scotland I took occasion to repeat my Opinion of the duty of Subjects to submit
☜ and bear all the ill administration that might be in the Government but never to rise in Arms upon that account * Id. third Letter to the E. of Middl. p. 168. I will do that which I think fit for me to do to day though I were sure to be assassinated for it to morrow but to the last moment of my life I will pay all duty and fidelity to his Majesty * Ans to the New Test c. p. 48 49. The Church of England may justly expostulate when she is treated as seditious after she hath rendred the highest Services to the Civil Authority that any Church now on Earth hath done she hath beaten down all the principles of Rebellion with more force and learning ☜ than any body of Men hath ever yet done and hath run the hazards of enraging her Enemies and losing her Friends even for those from whom the most learned of her Members knew what they might expect We are the only Church in the World that carries these principles to the highest We acknowledg that some of our Clergy miscarried in it upon King Edward's death yet at the same time others of our Communion adhered more steadily to their Loyalty in favour of Queen Mary than she did to the promises that she made to them The Laws of Nature are perpetual P. 51. and can never be cancell'd by any special Law so that if these Gent. own so freely that this is a Law of Nature that every individual might fight in his own defence they had best take care not to provoke Nature too much P. 52. As we cannot be charg'd for having preach'd any seditious Doctrine so we are not wanting in the preaching of the duties of Loyalty P. 55. even when we see what they are like to cost us Of all the Maximes in the World there is none hurtful to the Government in our present circumstances than the saying That the King's promises and the people's fidelity ought to be reciprocal and that a failure in the one cuts off the other for by a very natural consequence the Subject may likewise say that their Oaths of Allegiance being founded on the assurance of his Majesty's protection the one binds no longer than the other is observed and the Inferences that may be drawn from hence will be very terrible if the Loyalty of the so much decryed Church of England does not put a stop to them But for that we may cite the Testimony of the Right Reverend Bishop of S. Asaph in his Seasonable Discourse c. We are Members of a Church Pag. 4. which above all other Constitutions in the Christian World enforces the great Duties of Obedience and Submission to the Magistrate and teaches to be subject not only for Truth but Conscience sake And among other Motives which he mentions in the behalf of the Established Religion The fourth says he is this The Safety of the King's Person and the Prerogative of the Crown which hath no higher or more necessary Appendent than his Supremacy in his Dominion in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Secular according to the Powers invested in the Jewish Kings under the Law ☞ and exercised by the first Christian Emperors To whom we may add the Right Reverend Doctor Sprat in his Sermon before the House of Commons Jan. 30. 1677 / 8. by them ordered to be Printed Where speaking of King Chalres the Martyr Who saith he not only by his Birth had a Successive Right to the Crown which he could not forfeit but also by his Personal Vittues might have deserved another Title to it if his Crown had been elective and as his Murderers impudently pretended at the Disposal of his Subjects pag. 3. So that he terms him the Vicegerent of God's Power ibid. pag. 44. He pleaded and prayed for his Enemies at the Bar of Heaven which only was above him And pag. 47. May all of us be most industriously watchful that the same Schismatical Designs and Antimonarchical Principles which then inspired so many ill Men misled some good Men and cost our good King so dear may not once more revive and insinuate themselves again under the same or newer and craftier Disguises and find an opportunity to attempt the like mischiefs And in another Sermon of his at White-Hall Pag. 44 45. December 22. 1678. Let us withdraw our thoughts and lift up our minds to the imitation of the most Christian Examples As of our Saviour himself so of his Apostles and Disciples in the first and therefore the best Ages How were they zealous for the Glory of God Not by violence or malice or revenge against any not eve nagainst their Oppressors but only by their own Labors and Prayers and Patience and Magnanimity in suffering How were they zealous in respect to their Temporal Governors Not to resist for conscience sake but rather to be subject for that very reason not by open Rebellion not by private Machinations but in blessing and serving and submitting to their Emperors tho they were Idolaters and obeying them in all things except their Idolatry Whom to imitate is our Duty SECT XXIII Mr. Thorndyke * Apud Falkner's Christian Loyalty p. 429. from the Instance of the Maccabees avers that it was lawful for Subjects to take Arms in Defence of their Religion under the Jewish State tho in that he be mistaken but expresly condemns taking Arms upon that or any other pretext under the Christian State. Dr. Spencer †Serm. at S. Mary's Cambr. Jun. 28. 1660 p. 4. the now Dean of Ely The Gospel doth very sparingly meddle with State matters but when it doth it engageth to Obedience by as obliging Principles as it doth to Religion even a Principle of Conscience we must be subject for conscience-sake not barely for safety's sake and a principle of highest fear They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation A Doctrine taught the World in the Type long before by that Fire and Earthquake which destroyed the Opposers of lawful Authority Numb xvi 33 34. P. 11 12. God hath attested unto Sovereignty by suffering none of his Servants in Scripture few or none in story to be guilty of willful opposing lawful Authority We find many a wicked Man guilty of this Sin but as Reverence to other Divine Commands wore off in time as the power that exalteth it self above all that is called God obtained in the world so to this among the rest of Obedience to lawful Authority P. 14. The Heathens used to reproach the Gospel on this account but the Pulpit was never intended to be a Circle in which to raise up the evil Spirits of Sedition and State-Commotions no Religion in the Doctrine of it so greatly secures the Power of Kings and the Peace of States ☜ as the Christian doth we are bound by the Gospel to be obedient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. ii 18. to the crookedest and frowardest Masters
particularly chosen by the People c. but on the other side what mighty danger can there be in suppossing the persons of Princes to be so sacred that no Sons of Violence ought to come near to hurt them Have not all the ancient Kingdoms and Empires of the World flourished under the Supposition of an unaccountable power in Princes No inconvenience can be possibly so great on the supposition of this unaccountable power in Sovereign Princes as the unavoidable Mischiefs of that Hypothesis which places all power originally in the People and notwithstanding all Oaths and Bonds whatsoever to Obedience ☞ gives them the Liberty to resume it when they please which will always be when a Spirit of Faction and Sedition shall prevail among them God Pag. 34. Numb 26.9 interprets striving against the Authority appointed by him to be a striving against himself they who resist resist an Ordinance of God and they who do so shall in the mildest sense receive a severe punishment from him let the Pretences be never so popular the persons never so great and famous nay tho they were of the great Council of the Nation yet we see God doth not abate of his severity upon any of these Considerations nor hath the Christian Doctrine made any Alteration in these things P. 39. It would take up too much time to examine the frivolous Evasions and ridiculous Distinctions by which they would make the case of the Primitive Christians in not resisting Authority so much different from theirs who have not only done it but in spite of Christianity have pleaded for it either they wanted Strength or Courage or the Countenance of the Senate or did not understand their own Liberty P. 40. When all their Obedience was only due to those Principles of the Gospel which made it so great a part of Christianity to be subject to Principalities and Powers and which the Teachers of the Gospel had particularly given them in charge to put the People in mind of Tit. iii. 1. And happy had it been for us if this Doctrine had been more sincerely preach'd and duely practis'd in this Nation * Id. Ser. on Nov. 5. 1673. p. 39. It is the Honor of our Church of England that it asserts the Rights of Princes so clearly and fully without Tricks and Reservations and all that mean honestly love to speak plainly †Id. Ser. on Mat. x. 16. at Whitchall March 7. 167 8 / 9. That there might be no colour for any such Cavil against Christianity as if it gave occasion to many Disturbances of the Civil Government no Religion that ever was did so much enforce the duty of Obedience as Christ and his Apostles did and that upon the greatest and most weighty Considerations for Conscience sake for the Lord's sake for their Religion's sake for consider I pray if the Doctrine of Christ had given encouragement to Faction and Rebellion under pretence of it if S. Peter himself had taken upon him to dispose of Crowns and Scepters or had absolved Christians from their Allegiance even to their greatest Persecutors what Blot had this been even upon the whole Religion such as all the Blood of the Martyrs could never have wash'd out P. 50. It is an intolerable Reproach to Christianity to impute their patient Submission to Authority to their Weakness and want of force which is all one as to say they would have resisted if they durst And the same Author in his Grand Question c. p. 180 181. says That every new Modeller of Government hath something to offer that looks like Reason at least to those whose interest it is to carry it on and if no Precedents can be found then they appeal to a certain invisible thing called the Fundamental Contract of the Nation which being a thing no where to be found may signifie what any one pleases And pag. 75. I am of Opinion That if he i.e. the Author of the Letter c. could be persuaded to produce this Fundamental Contract of the Nation which I perceive he hath lying by him it would not amount to so much as a blind Manuscript Thus also he says in his Book called The Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome truly stated p. 106. The Principles of our Church are directly contrary to them i. e. deposing Principles and our Houses of Convocation would as readily condemn any such damnable Doctrines as the University of Oxford and all the World knows how repugnant such Principles are to those of the Church of England and none can be Rebels to their Prince but they must be false to our Church SECT XXV Dr. Patrick Dean of Peterborough * Paraphr on Prov. 24 21. Take care therefore my dear Child that thy Religion which teaches thee in the first place to worship reverence and obey the great Lord and Governor of all the World make thee humbly obedient to the King as God's Vicegerent here on Earth and have nothing to do with those whose discontent with the present state of things or their love of Novelty makes them affect a change of Government and depart from their duty both to God and Man. †Id. Pref. to the Paraphr on Eccles p. 16. To this purpose the Preface to the Paraphrase on Ecclesiastes cites and confirms the Opinion of Antonius Corranus an excellent Person a learned Spaniard as the Paraphrast justly stiles him concerning that Book of Solomon's This Tractate is truly royal and worthy to be read perpetually in this most turbulent Age both by high and low that from hence Subjects may learn to perform Obedience and the greatest Observance both in word and deed towards their Princes chusing rather to bear and suffer any thing than to attempt Rebellion against them ‖ Id. Per. Annot. on Eccl. 8.2 p 216. It is much safer and easier as well as more honest to submit and be quiet than to contend and unsettle the Peace of Kingdoms tho Princes do not govern as they ought The Verse says Melancthon is a Sentence exceeding worthy of Consideration and Remembrance and then gives the different Interpretations of it and closes all thus ‡ P. 219.220 Some may think that I have dilated too much upon this Verse but they may be pleased to consider how useful if not necessary it is at this time when men begin again to plead the lawfulness of Resistance which is so plainly condemn'd in this place that the most learned Assertors of the Old Cause were extremely puzzled to make it agree with their Principles in the late Times of Rebellion There is one who in his Book called Natures Dowry chap. 21. calls in the Assistance of a great many Hebrew Doctors to help him to another Translation of the Words and yet after all is forc'd to acknowledge that our English is right enough and is content to admit it with this Proviso That the King manage well the Affairs of the Commonwealth
Spoil and Robbery of the Subjects may no less considering the nature of the Crime deserve such Punishment of Princes as they do 〈◊〉 People But because there is none in such Cases that can or ought duely and regularly to execute such Laws because there can be no such Execution without the Power of the Sword and there can be but one proper Subject of that Power in any Republick And of all guilt I know not whether any be greater than the assuming of such a Power which no ways belongs to a Man for better it were to take away ones Horse or to ravish another Man's Wife or to extort unjustly anothers Estate than to divest a Prince of his Right of Rule and usurp it to himself and that first because no Man's Estate or any thing that is his doth descend to him or otherways become his by the like divine Title as the Supream Power rightly posited and possessed doth to the Owner thereof and therefore this being more sacred the Invasion of this Right is much more wicked and unjust Secondly because a publick mischief and of general influence upon all is much more intolerable than a private But such a Violation of Princely Rights must of necessity draw a publick mischief on the whole civil Body I mean all the Subjects in such a Nation who shall be distracted between the sense of Obedience known otherwise to be due and the terror of usurped Power threatning ruine to such as comply not with their Injustice Pag. 104. Some late Demagogues have written for the promotion of Religion forsooth as well as Civil Liberty that to kill Tyrants and here I will not shew who they call Tyrants is as good an act as to slay Wolves Lions and Bears But I would fain know whence such a Law proceeded if not from Tyranny it self Even such persons who under colour of natural Law of returning evil for evil and self-preservation have done the greatest injustice imaginable not only against the person persecuted but the people who never at any time had power so to deliver themselves nor if they had did generally and unanimously or could confer the same on the new Pretenders to it That Law therefore of killing Tyrants invented by Tyrants taketh place on the Authors of it as much as any body else and where the like Power can be snatched up may have the same event on popular Statesmen as well as Kings and Princes For they are Tyrants too Mr. Jos Glanvil's Sermon of Christian Loyalty published by Anth. Horneck D. D. on Rom. 13.2 They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Pag. 153 154. Which words were spoken in the days of Nero who besides that he was an Heathen was a Persecutor and a Tyrant and the most infamous instance in Nature and yet this Monster is not excepted as to the tribute of Obedience Whereas had this been said in the days of such a Prince as our Charles the First it might have been suppos'd that the vertue of the Person claim'd the reverence and subjection and not the Character of the Prince And that 't was damnable to resist because he was good not because he was supreme because he was a Nursing-father of the Church not because the ruling Father of his Countrey 'T was an happy Coincidence therefore to secure the Authority of the Magistrate which answers the greatest pretensions of Rebellion If Religion be pretended an Heathen must not be resisted If Tyranny 't is damnation to oppose a Nero. Pag. 156. Kings wear God's Image and Authority but besides there is evidence enough in the nature of the thing to prove that Kings have their Power and Authority from God and are no Substitutes of the People Pag. 157 158 159. They that Rule are God's Substitutes and no Creatures of the People for the People have no power to govern themselves and consequently cannot devolve any upon another Resistance is opposite to the Spirit of Religion Religion is of a calm and pacifick temper like that of its Author whose voice was not heard in the street He commands the payment of all Duties to Cesar He acknowledgeth Pilates Power to be from above He commands his Disciples to pray for their Persecutors He permits them to fly not to oppose He rebukes Peter 's violence to the High Priests Servant and the revenge of the Disciples when they called for fire from Heaven He paid Tribute submitted to the Laws of the Sanhedrim and to that unjust sentence against his life This was his temper and the Apostles who liv'd among his Enemies and theirs and met with severity enough to have soured their spirits and exasperated their Pens to contrary resolutions and instructions yet as true followers of their dear Lord they faithfully transmit to us what they had learn'd from him viz. That we should obey those that have the rule over us submit to every Ordinance of Man pray for Kings and all in Authority submit to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates And those Noble Spirits of the first Ages after who began to be Martyrs as soon as to be Christians who lived in the Fire and went to Heaven wrap'd in those flames that had less arder than their love These I say amidst the greatest and fiercest fires that cruelty and barbarism had kindled paid the tribute of a peaceable and quiet subjection to their Murtherers and made unforced acknowledgments of the right they had to their obedience Pag. 157 158 159. Nor do we ever read of any attempts they made to free themselves by resistance though as Tertullian saith they were in powerful numbers mingled in their Villages and in their Cities yea in their Castles and in their Armies Yea there is an illustrious instance of Passive Obedience in the Thebean Legion whose tenth Man being executed for not offering sacrifice to Idols they quietly submitted to the Cruelty And a second Dicimation being commanded by Maximinian the Author of the first one of their great Commanders an excellent Christian persuades them to suffer it with the same patience because it was not with their Swords they could make their way to the Kingdom of Heaven but by another kind of Warfare Pag. 163. By a dear experience we have learned that 't is better to endure any inconveniences in a setled Government than to endeavour violent alterations Doctor Anth. The Letter he makes his own p. 478. and advises others to follow the Example of these Primitive Christians p. 541. Horneck's Letter to a Person of quality at the end of his best Exercise speaking of the heavenly Lives of the Primitive Christians he saith Pag. 496. They looked upon Christianity as a Religion that taught them to suffer valiantly Pag. 534. 535. To their Princes and Magistrates they were ever very submissive and in all lawful things obedient to a tittle In their Prayers they always remembred them and though they persecuted and afflicted them yet that did not abate their Zeal and Vows for their
of Testimonies Yet after the Popes Deposing Power came into request the Commonwealth Principles did so too and the Power of Princes was said to be of another Original and therefore they were accountable to the People And having shown the Affinity of such Doctrines and Principles in both by some Tragical effects of them as well at home as abroad he proceeds thus Pag. 12. If we enquire farther into the Reasons of these Pretences we shall find them alike on both sides The Commonwealthsmen when they are asked how the People having once parted with their Power come to resume it They presently run to an implicit Contract between the Prince and the People by vertue whereof the People have a Fundamental Power left in themselves which they are not to exercise but upon Princes violating the Trust committed to them The very same Ground is made the Foundation of the Popes Deposing Power viz. An Implicit Contract that all Princes made when they were Christians to submit their Scepters to the Popes Authority c. And where he reasons against these Principles from the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles Pag. 15. The Religion they taught says he never meddled with Crowns and Scepters but left to Cesar the things that were Cesar's and never gave the least intimation to Princes of any Forfeiture of their Authority if they did not render to God the things that are God's Concluding that Head with this Reflection upon the whole In my 〈◊〉 there is very little difference between Dominion being founded in Grace and being forfeited for want of it But then secondly as to the breaking of Oaths and Bonds of Allegiance he first lays down That the Duty betwixt Princes and Subjects is natural and antecedent to their embracing the Christian Religion And therefore secondly the absolving Subjects from that is in plain terms nulling the Obligation to a natural Duty and taking away the Force of Oaths and Promises And thirdly That all Mankind are agreed that it is a sin to break a lawful Oath and the more solemn and weighty the Oath is the greater is the Perjury And then proceeds to shew that the Power which absolves from such Oaths is a Power of turning Evil into Good and Good into Evil of making civil Obedience to Princes to be a Crime and Perjury to be none and such as from the Schoolmen he proves to be greater than they allow of in God himself Pag. 18. where there is intrinsick Goodness in the Nature of the thing and inseparable Evil from the contrary to it As in the Case says he of Disobedience to Parents and Violation of Oaths lawfully made and after a clear Confutation of the Sophistry of Popish Casuists in this matter he concludes Wo be to them that make good evil Pag. 24. and evil good when it serves their turn For this is plainly setting up a particular Interest under the Name of the Good of the Church and violating the Laws of Righteousness to advance it If Men break through Oaths and the most solemn Engagements and Promises and regard no Bonds of Justice and Honesty to compass their Ends let them call them by what specious Names they please The Good Old Cause or The Good of the Church it matters not which there can be no greater sign of Hypocrisie and real Wickedness than this c. And lastly as for the justifying Rebellion upon the account of Religion having cited the Boucher de justâ abdicat Hen. 3 Sorbon Doctor who not only called it lawful to resist Authority on the Account of Religion but folly and Impiety not to do it where there is any probability of Success And said that the Martyrs were only to be commended for suffering because they wanted Power to resist With a Note of Admiration says he Most Catholick and Primitive Doctrine And a little after pag. 28. Cardinal Bellarmin having given his Reason amongst others for the Pope's deposing Power Because it is not lawful for Christians to suffer an Heretical Prince if he seeks to draw his Subjects to his Belief The Learned Dean makes this Reflection upon it And what Prince that believes his own Religion doth it not And what then is this but to raise Rebellion against a Prince where-ever he and they happen to be of different Religions With a great deal more to the same purpose which it would be much more profitable for the Reader to learn from the ingenious Preface it self than from this imperfect Transcript of it A CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF Passive Obedience Since the REFORMATION AMSTERDAM Printed for Theodore Johnson in the Calver-Straet 1690. A PREFATORY EPISTLE TO THE AUTHOR Of the First Part of the History of Passive Obedience SIR THE first part of the History of Passive Obedience having been favorably received by the generality of Readers tho unjustly censured and undeservedly reproach'd by some Men who think themselves injured thereby I have thought fit to publish a second Part of the same History not doubting your leave for my so doing wherein the Reader may find that Doctrin carefully and at large deduc'd through the first Ages of our Reformation down to the times of Archbishop Laud and from thence to the present time to shew the World that the Opinion was not first hatch'd and brought up in that great Man's days who dyed a Martyr to the constitutions of our most excellent Church and among them to the true Principles of Loyalty Nor do I believe that any one Primitive Doctrin wherein we differ from the Papists can shew even in that Age when the whole drift of our Writers was to expose and confute the Romish Synagogue more Authors that uniformly assert it than this of Non-Resistance as if God in his wise and good Providence had so order'd it to stifle an Objection which he foresaw would afterwards be made against it in the degenerate Ages of the same Church nor is there need of any other Apology to you or the Reader for my medling with this Province for my adding some Passages to what hath been already publish'd and illustrating and enlarging others since if the interest of truth be promoted See the History unmask'd it matters not how many are engaged in that service nor that whether they are called Papists Atheists and Hobbists for their pains I have often heretofore wondred at the assurance of the Romish Authors who wrote against our Church a little after the Reformation that they could so confidently accuse the whole Body of Pretestants as the Preachers and Practisers of Rebellion for so says Stapleton ‖ Counterblast p. 20. that Protestants obey no longer than till they have power to resist And Card. Allen * Answ to the Just of Gr. Bri. cap. 4. that the Protestants are desperate and Factious that as long as the Laws are favorable to them they are obedient but when the Laws are against them and their Princes their Enemies they break all the Bonds of Allegiance despise
of the pretended Holy Discipline And if I mistake not by his directions the Account of Hacket's Coppinger's and Arthington's Treason was drawn up and Printed in the Book called Conspiracy for pretended Reformation the Design of which is expresly against the Doctrin of taking up Arms against the Lord's anointed especially on the Account of Religion SECT V. Anno 1594 Dr. Richard Eedes Printed with five other Sermons London 1604. p. 70 72 73 74. Dean of Worcester Preached before the Queen on Isai 49.23 Wherein he says That the Strength even of Heathen States was in their Religion by the which they were persuaded that their Princes were the Children of their Gods and their Laws drawn from the Oracles of some Divine Power They found by experience how hard it was for men to be brought to obey men unless they had the authority of more than men c. And what doth more teach either Obedience or Peace than the Religion of Christ Obedience is rightly called Nervus Imperii the Sinew and Strength of a Kingdom as well because it is grounded upon the Obedience of Christ who as Bernard noteth Ne perderet Obedientiam perdidit vitam did rather chuse to lose his life than to leave his Obedience As also because it requires in Christians Obedience without respect of persons to all without difference of Degrees higher Powers Rom. 13.2 Without exception against their Qualities not only to them that are good and courteous but to them also who are froward 1 Pet. 2.18 ☜ And that in all things Tribute to whom tribute c. and that not with eye-service as men-pleasers c. and that not because of wrath but for conscience sake Rom. 13.5 That if all the Laws and Policies of States and Kingdoms were gathered into one they could not be so strong to work peace and to persuade Obedience as these few but very forcible Rules of the Religion of Christ How much therefore is it to be lamented that in so great Light there should be so little Fruit That whereas the Truth of Religion is the Preserver of Government and the Mother of Obedience the name of Religion is made the Firebrand of Kingdoms and the armor of disobedience and that not only to maintain the Tyranny of that Usurping Power who takes upon him to Depose Kings but also to bring in that Anarchy of factious Subjects who presume to give Laws to their lawful Princes Wherein besides that it is true which Leo wrote unto Theodosius private causes are handled with pretence of Piety and every Man makes Religion which should be the Mistress the Handmaid of his affections it is intolerable to see how far some busie heads fetch the beginning of Kingdoms p. 7â— Vindic contr Tyran Bachâ—n de juâ—e regin and so as they please the right of Kings from the pleasure of the People how contemptuously they term the titles of honour and reverence the solecisms of the Court how seditiously they give wings to ambitious humors to plead the right of a â—aconical Ephory against Kings but for themselves and to arm that beast of many heads the multitude which ever goes as Seneca not whither it should but whither the stream bears it against that which to want of judgment is ever most heavy the present Government Whereas the right rules of Religion give no remedy to Subjects against the Highest Authority ☞ but the necessity of either suffering or obeying and therefore they that open that gap whether it be to the Tyranny of ambitious Popes or to the Anarchy of seditious Subjects howsoever they pretend the name of Religion they shall sooner prove themselves to have no Religion than that there is any defence for them in the Religion of Christ which teacheth as to be thankful to God for good Princes so to be patient of those whom in anger as the Prophet Hosea speaks Hos 13.11 he setteth over us for the punishment of our sins and against whom the first Professors of our faith had no weapons but prayers and tears p. 2. the same Author in his first Sermon before King James saith that promotion comes neither from the East nor from the West nor from the South but from God. Ps 73.6 that their power is of God Rom. 3.1 and their judgments God's judgments Deut. 1.17 and that therefore they who resist them not only by a consequence resist the ordmance of God Rom. 13.2 but God in them as he told Samuel they have not rejected thee but me 1 Sam. 8.7 The Reverend Bishop Moreton begun very early to assert this Doctime in his Writings and he lived long enough to assert it by his sufferings being a great sharer in that affliction which in the great Rebellion the Doctrine of resistance brought upon both the King and the Church Anno 1596. he publish'd his Solomon or a Treatise declaring the shake of the Kingdom of Israel pr. Lond. as it was in the days of Solomon Wherein he proves after the words as it was in the days of Solomon insert these following that the Kingdom of Israel was a most true and lively picture of the State and Crown one egg being not more like another than the State to that under which we live so that all his arguments without any further comment are applicable to our Kingdom and whereas he foresaw ‖ Ep. ad Lect. that it would be objected to him that he gives the Christian Magistrate especially in great and absolute Monarchies greater authority than seems to stand with the good of the Church or the truth of God's Word he desires the Reader not to attribute it to flattery but to a constant and settled persuasion he intending in publishing the Treatise the good and peaceable State of the Kingdom and the maintaining of that powerful and majestical Authority whereunto it hath pleased God to make us subject and in the discourse he affirms †Sect. 2. p. 4 5. that Magistracy is not a mere device of Man as they who contemn and labor to overthrow all Authority speaking evil of those things which they know not have imagined but an ordinance of God. Rom. 13. there is no power but of God he therefore that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God. Obj. But it cannot be shewed that it was ever establish'd by God throughout the World except only among the Jews but was invented and continued by Men excelling others in strength and ambition Answ The abuses of Magistracy tho many and grievous p. 6. cannot take away the lawful use of it and altho Magistracy hath been by the express commandment of God establish'd only in the Church yet it belongs as much to Infidels for it is instituted by God not as he is the Saviour of his Church but as he is the Creator and Preserver of all Men. p. 7. God sets up this his Ordiannce among Infidels by the light of nature remaining in the minds of Men c.
the hearts of Princes like Rivers of Waters You know how before the coming of Christ the Jewish Church by the command of Ahasuerus was to be destroy'd Esth 4. both young and old c. here the whole Church by the barbarous designment of Ahasuerus seem'd to be in the very Jaws of death yet they take no arms they consult not how to poyson Ahasuerus or Haman they animate no desperate Person suddenly to stab them but there was only great sorrow among them and fasting and weeping c. This Book gave so much disgust to a party of Men in this Kingdom that they could not be quiet till something was Printed under the name of an answer to it tho every Pamphlet that is so called does not deserve that name and to make it pass the more plausibly it assumes the same title Deus Rex and is said to have been Printed at Colen An. Dom. 1618. the Author of which tho unquestionably a Papist as appears by many passages in the Book affirms p. 13. that the Scots had undoubtedly the true spirit of the Gospel who profess'd and for it he quotes Knox 's History of the Scotch Church that they would be Subjects to no one unless they could enjoy their desired Reformation p. 19. and that the former Dialogue falsly asserts that Kings have their Power only from God and are accountable only to him and that the duty of Subjects cannot be dissolv'd if the King turns Tyrant Infidel Heretick or Apostate and that Kings are not to be deposed or resisted unless by prayers and tears tho they are fall'n into so much impiety and madness as to seek the ruin of the Church and the destruction of Religion Which Assertions the Author condemns but with no reason and a great deal of injustice while he owns and improves the Romish Doctrins of resisting and deposing Princes in many places so easily are Men inclined to be despisers of Dignities and blasphemers of Dominions Gabriel Powel says De Adiaplyris Lond. 1606. c 8. §. 34 p. 69 that when St. Paul bids us be obedient for conscience sake that he means we must no way offend the Magistrate by rebelling against him but that we must keep a good Conscience in his sight who hath set the Magistrate over us ‖ §. 93. p. 71. for his Power is from God and to the just praise of our Reformation he adds * c. 9 Sect. 35. p. 79 that no Church in Europe reform'd her self more orderly than the Church of England in which nothing was done tumultuarily by force and arms or by fraud but all alterations were made by the supreme Power of the Nation agreeable to the Word of God and the Example of the Primitive Church Oliver Oâ—mered in his picture of a Papist It is not lawful for Subjects to attempt the murthering of their Sovereign for Religion sake or for any pâ—etence whatsoever Go with cresset and torchlight throughout the whole Book of God and throughout the spacious volumes of the Ancient Fathers and tell me whether any Priest Levite Evangelist Apostle Ancient Father ever hath taught counsell'd and much less practised the like I say not against Lawful Magistrates ☜ but tyrannous Rulers and such as were reprobated of God p. 176. the Prophet Isaiah complain'd of the Exactions and Oppressions of the Kings of Israel shew'd them their faults and admonish'd them of God's vengeance but he did not animate encourage and incite the People to avenge themselves of their Princes and to lift up Arms against them the Prophets Amos Micah and Zephaniah give sufficient testimony that the Rulers in their times were very wicked Men and such as did grind the faces of the Subjects and yet all this notwithstanding they did not advise the Subjects to mutiny or rebel against their Princes When Rome was pure and primitive you shall find p. 179. the arms of the Church were tears and prayers but now they are degenerate from their former purity and openly threaten the lives of Kings the ancient Romans shall in judgment rise against you and condemn you for they conspired not the death of Pagans Infidels and Tyrants that made havock of the Church of God c. SECT VI. Among these Divines I will place one Civilian the famous Albericus Gentilis who tho Born in Italy yet lived long in England the King's Professor of the Laws in the most Famous University of Oxon of which he was one of the greatest Ornaments I shall not mention what he says on this subject in his Books de Jure belli since he hath undertaken it professedly in his three Royal Disputations London 1605. 4 to as he calls them in the first of which treating of the absolute power of a King wherein his Notions are very agreeable to the Sentiments of his Master King James in his true law of free Monarchies to which he refers he affirms that he is absolutely supreme p. 9 10 17. who acknowledges nothing above him but God to whom only and not to any other he is to render an account he confesses there were some Magistrates improperly called Kings such as the Kings of Sparta and of Egypt to which last there were laws set how far they should walk and how often bath themselves who might be accus'd when they were dead and being convicted be denied decent Burial but those do not deserve to be called Kings whose Subjects pay them no more obedience than they please A Prince is a God upon Earth his Power is greater than either that of a Father of old over his Children or that of a Master over his Servants All Princes are feudataries to God p 17. to whom they ought to render an account of their Government who is their only Judge p. 34. 't is a Maxim in the Civil Law Princeps legibus solutus est a Prince is free from laws the Greek Interpreters understand it of his freedom from Penal Laws for a Prince hath no Judges who can compel him others that he is exempt from the coaction not from the direction of the law but all agree against any force to be used against him This and much more to this purpose the Reader will meet with in that first disputation while the third treats largely how unjust any violence is p 39. p. 100. which Subjects use against their King by King he says he means such a Prince as hath no Superior no Judge or Governor over him he means also a lawful Prince not a Tyrant but such a lawful Prince who rules Tyrannically i.e. seeks the destruction of the Commonwealth It is a fundamental and unquestionable Law that Men ought to honour their Prince p. 101 102. and not to speak evil of him and that what injuries ought not to be done to a Parent parad 3. ought much less to be done to a Prince but no Man says Tully can take away the life of his Father without
makes a Hypocrite to reign for the sins of a people Now the Supremacy of Kings and the subjection of every Soul to them are so joined that the King cannot be said to be supreme unless every Soul be subject to him nor will the duty of subjection agree to every Soul unless the King be invested with this Supremacy Sect. 3. p. 21. for all Men universim omnes sigillatim singuli whether singly or contained in a body are bound in conscience by this Apostolical Precept to pay the duties of subjection and observance to Kings and whereas Bellarmin as others urged the deposition of Athaliah Sect. 5. p. 33. to prove the lawfulness of Dethroning Princes he answers that Athaliah had no right to the Crown that she had the Kingdom by violence that the true King lay hid that by her Parricide and Treason she had made herself guilty of death by the Law and ought to have suffered Prelect 4. Sect. 3. p. 44. p. 47. and that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Power which St. Paul uses never signifies force and violence but a just Power which must be lawful because it is from Heaven that Christ was subject by the law to the Power of Pilate and the Apostles to the Heathen Princes Prel 5. Sect. 1.2 p. 70 71. and that in the Primitive Church there were no Traytors who either openly or privately contrived or attempted any thing against the Life or Crown of the Emperor when they wanted neither numbers nor force but they durst not turn Rebels or Traytors ☜ lest by breaking the command of Christ they should lose Heaven and Bellarmin belies them when he says they wanted not a right nor good will to depose Kings but only forces sufficient P. 73. it was of old their Doctrine that the Church ought not to rebel against Princes and this the Gospel taught them let them therefore shew from the Gospel that it is lawful for else let a Man pretend to Inspiration if he speaks from himself and not from the Gospel believe him not says St. Chrysostom Prelect 8. Sect. ult p. 96. and having shewn from David's saying against thee only have I sinned that Kings are accountable only to God he closes his Lecture with these words a King is under the coercion of no Laws because there is no power among Men on Earth that can punish him so that when Kings transgress we must expect the judgments of God upon them SECT XIV In the same year Dr. Lewis Bayly Bishop of Bangor set forth the Practice of Piety ‖ P. 479. edit 1675. in the end of which he shews that the Doctrine which St. Paul taught the Ancient Church of Rome is diametrically opposite in 26 fundamental points of true Religion to that which the new Church of Rome teacheth and maintaineth and the 24th is this that every Soul must of conscience be subject and pay tribute to the Higher Powers i.e. the Magistrates which bear the Sword. Rom. 13.1 2 c. and therefore the Pope and all Prelates and by parity of reason all other Subjects must be subject to their Emperors Kings and Magistrates unless they will bring damnation upon their Souls as Traytors that resist God and his Ordinance and therefore let the Jesuits P. 480. c. take heed and fear lest it be not Faith but Faction not Truth but Treason not Religion but Rebellion which is the cause of their deaths ☜ because they cannot be suffered to persuade Subjects to break their Oaths and to withdraw their Allegiance from their Sovereign to raise Rebellion to move Invasion to stab and poyson Queens to kill and murder Kings c. Some years before this Dr. Richard Crackenthorp Preach'd at Pauls Cross viz. Mar. 24. 1608. and in his Epistle Dedicatory he affirms pr. Lond. 1609. that his desire therein was to testifie his unfeigned love first to God's truth and then to the Peace of our Jerusalem and in the Sermon he commends King James's Book of Free Monarchies but especially his Learned Apology for the Oath of Allegiance and proves that as Solomon had his Kingdom neither from the Priest nor the People but immediatly from God so the Scriptures call Kings the Ministers or Lieutenants of God Rom. 13. and that all the Ancient Fathers did believe that the Imperial Authority of Kings was immediatly and only derived of God immediatly depending of God and of God alone this was the judgment and just defence of all the Christians and of the Church at that time and to prove this to be agreeable to the Law he cites a Statute made 16. Ric. 2. c. 5. of purpose to keep sacred and inviolable the Sovereignty and regality of this Kingdom ☞ it was therein declared that the Crown of England hath been so free at all times not then only but which is specially to be remembred at all times that it hath been in subjection to no Realm but immediatly subject to God and to none other in all things touching the regality of the same in defence of which Statute they in the Parliament then Assembled promised to live and dye as it is there noted by all which it is evident that this Doctrine which is now at Rome counted most ridiculous it in it self most sacred as being grounded on the Scriptures of God and as most sacred hath been embrac'd by all the Christians in the Primitive Church taught and maintained with a general consent by the Ancient and Godly Fathers in their several Ages and Successions constantly defended by whole Kingdoms and Empires and that under pain of High Treason to the Gainsayers thereof even in those latter times also when superstition had dimin'd but not quite extinguish'd and put out the Truth that cannot possibly be true loyalty or sincere obedience which ever attending to an higher command includes in it as in a Trojan Horse that condition of rebus sic stantibus durante beneplacito or the like out of which if strength and opportunity might serve they might let out whole Armies and Troops of Armed Men suddenly to surprize both Church and Kingdom and much more to that purpose To Dr. Crackenthorp it is requisite to join his Friend Dr. P. 334 ed. Lon. 1675 Daniel Featly who in his Handmaid to devotion on the Feast of the Fifth of November gives all good Christians this useful admonition All that fear God ought to abhor and detest all Traiterous and Bloody conspiracies against the Prince and State because God strictly forbids dreadfully threatens miraculously discovers and severely punishes all Treasons and Conspiracies as we see in Corah Absalom Adonijah Zimri the Servants of Ammon Sullam Haman the servants of the Nobleman in the Parable Judas for God forbids conspiracies Touch not mine Anointed c. SECT XV. The Famous Peter du Moulin the Father the Cicero of the French Churches was by King James made a Prebendary of the Church of Canterbury and
gave that Prince no reason to repent of his favors to him vindicating on all occasions both the interests of the Church and the Person Power and Writings of the King nor were his Books and his Actions dissonant one to the other for he never sided with never encouraged the Commonwealth of Rochel as it was called and in his works Orthodoxly States the Catholick Doctrine of Government and confutes the objections of its adversaries thus in his Buckler of Faith c. Buckler of Faith. He lays down briefly but fully ‖ Lib. 2. Sect. ult p. 556 557. Lon. 1623 in Engl. first the Opinion of the Romanists and then the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches as to the right of Kings Thomas the chief Schoolman says he avers that the Power of Princes and Sovereign Lords is but a humane constitution and proceedeth not from God and with him agree Bellarmin and Arnoux their reasons are 1. That the first King that was in the World Nimrod made himself King by force 2. That the greatest part of Empires were erected by Conquest 3. That Kings are established by humane means whether they attain to the Crown by Hereditary Succession or by Election since there is no rule in the Word of God that bindeth to follow an Hereditary Succession more than an Election 4. That there is no express command set down to obey Henry or Lewis or to acknowledge this or that Man more than another to be King. 5. That for these reasons St. Peter calls the Obedience to Kings an Humane Order while we on the contrary maintain that Obedience due to Kings proceedeth from the Divine Law and is grounded upon the Ordinance of God and whom no Man may resist without resisting God. Rom. 13.1 2. and St. Peter in the same place which they object against us will have us yield Obedience to the King for the Lord's sake and altho Nebuchadnezzar was an ungodly King a scourge used by God to destroy Nations nevertheless God speaks thus unto him by his Prophet Dan. 2.37 Thou O King art a King of Kings c. as to their reasons 1. It is false that Nimrod was the first King in the World for the Fathers and Heads of Families were Kings Priests and Sovereign Princes of their Families Men living after the Flood Five or Six hundred Years long enough to see a multitude of their own Children over whom they were to exercise their paternal Power 2. As to the establishment of Government in Conquest I say that those whose Countries a strange Prince seeketh to invade do well to defend themselves and if in that defensive War the Usurper chance to be slain he is justly punished but if he get the upper hand if the Race of the Ancient Possessors of the same Country be clean extinguished if the States of the Country assembled together do agree upon a new form of Government and if all the Officers throughout the Country have taken their Oaths of Fidelity to the New King then we must believe that God hath established such a Prince in that Kingdom then I say that the People ought to yield to the will of God who for the sins of Kings and of their People transposeth Kingdoms and disposeth of the Issues of Battels at his will and pleasure as to the third it belongs not to the Question whether a King succeed by Inheritance or by Election but whether by the Ordinance of God we ought to obey him when he is established therein while our Adversaries will have the Power of Popes to proceed from the Ordinance of God tho they enter into the Papacy by Election and too often by indirect means c. 4. Tho there be no command to obey Henry or Lewis it sufficeth there is a commandment to obey the King and to keep our Oaths of Fidelity made to the King and by consequence to be faithful to that King to whom we swear Obedience and Loyalty nay by this argument no King of this age were to be obeyed because we do not find his name expresly set down in Holy Writ nay no Man were bound to fear God or to believe in Jesus Christ because the Scripture doth not particularly ordain that Thomas Anthony or William should fear God or believe in Jesus Christ it sufficeth that the Word of God containeth general rules which bind particular Persons without naming them 5. St. Peter calls the Obedience that Men owe to Kings an humane Order either because Kings command divers things which by their own nature are not derived from the Divine Law as suppose to forbid to go by night without a Candle or because they attain to that Power by humane means which hinders not but that their Power is grounded upon the Word of God after they are once established for the Question is not touching the means whereby a Prince attains his Kingdom i. e. whether by Hereditary Succession or Election but what Obedience is due to him after he hath attained thereunto whosoever buildeth the Authority of Kings upon Man's Institution and not upon the Ordinance of God cuts off three parts of their Authority and bereaveth them of that which assureth their Lives and their Crowns more than the guards of their Bodies or puissant Armies which put terror into Subjects instead of framing them to Obedience then the Fidelity of Subjects will be firm and sure when it shall be incorporated into piety and esteemed to be a part of Religion and of the service which we owe unto God. The same excellent Person in his rejoinder to de Balzac after he had asserted that the Jesuits teach the Murder of Princes ‖ Letter 2d ed. Lon 1636. Eng p. 73 94 95. and that their Schools have produced many King-killers he proceeds to vindicate the French Church from de Balzac's imputation who professes himself incens'd against the Authors of the troubles in France tho he acquits du Moulin's Person as one who made the subjection due to Sovereignty a part of the Religion which he taught affirming that Obedience to our Sovereigns is a thing just and necessary that to find out an occasion of Rebellion either in a Man 's own Religion or in that of his King is to make insurrections to defend Religion by courses condemn'd by the same Religion such as these being perplext in their own particular Affairs hope to find ease in troubled waters and to save themselves amidst a confusion never yet did the cause of God advance it self that way Moses had power to inflict grievous punishments on Aegypt and her King notwithstanding he would never deliver the Children of Israel out of Aegypt without the permission of the King. SECT XVI And tho this famous Man Peter du Moulin had one Son Lewis who applauded the Regicides translated Milton and bespatter'd the best Church in Christendom yet God blest him with another of his own Name and Principles who in his Letter as he calls it of a French Protestant to a Scotchman of
omnia ad salutem necessaria a point which he durst defend in the worst of times when that Church was so much oppress'd for asserting her Loyalty to God and the King for her agreement with the Primitive Church in not rebelling against the lawful Magistrate and in owning the Jus Divinum of Episcopal Hierarchy and Liturgy To what is quoted out of Mr. Edw. Symmons's Vindication of King Charles in the first part of this History let these Passages be added by virtue of the Canon Romanus Episcopus say the Jesuits Sect 4. p. 46. v. p. 47. the Pope hath power to depose Kings be they Heretical or Catholick of vicious or virtuous lives if in his judgment he finds them unfit and some others more capable of Government and do not these Men believe the Authority of Parliament to be as irresistible as that of the Pope and their Votes to be as full of virtue as his Canons and altogether as authentick even to the deposing of Kings and disposing of their Kingdoms have they not loosen'd People from their Oath of Allegiance to the King and then put them in Arms persuading them that 't is no Rebellion to fight against him Sect. 16. p. 160 161. the next thing they mention wherein they triumph indeed and glory is their late extraordinary success in the Field some perhaps may wonder how these three can agree together great sufferings strange patience and extraordinary good success prosperity and good success which of old went current only among the Papists for a note of the true Church is now admitted also by these Men to be a special mark of the goodness of their Cause but in regard our Religion hath hitherto taught that sufferings and patience were rather the marks of Christ's true Flock than extraordinary success in the World therefore c. these two names of suffering and patience shall from henceforth be rejected and wholly disclaimed P. 168. cons loc as infallible marks of Loyalty and Malignity success is the weakest Argument that can be alledged to prove the goodness of a Cause and the wickedest Men have most used it this Book was written Anno 1645. tho not published till the year 1648. CHAP. VII The History of Passive Obedience under King Charles II. c. SECT I. WHen the execrable Parricide was committed on the Martyr Charles and his Family driven into Exile this Truth did not want its Confessors tho they smarted bitterly for owning it of which number Mr. Sheringham publish'd his accurate treatise of the King's Supremacy wherein as he says in his Introduction he exposes and confutes those Principles and Grounds whereby the Rebels endeavour'd to justifie the War against the King the first of which was that it was lawful for the People to resist their Sovereign and Supreme Governors by force of Arms in case they be Tyrants and bent to subvert the Laws and Religion establish'd or by illegal Proceedings invade the Lives Estates or Liberties of their Subjects This dangerous position he fully and learnedly confutes in his Book proving the Supremacy of our Kings and that they are neither coordinate nor subordinate to the People both by the Statute and common Law of this Land and clearly answers all the objections from either reason or authority concluding all with this remarkable saying P. 118. To speak my desires I wish unfeignedly the Salvation of all the pretended Parliamentarians ☞ but to speak my thoughts I conceive more hopes of the honest Heathen than of any Man that shall dye a Rebel or not make restitution as far as he is able of all that he hath gained by oppression and injustice Mr. Allington in his Grand Conspiracy Sermon 3. p. 106 107. Vid. Serm. 2. p. 60 81. Caiaphas pleaded the exigencies of the State for the Murther of our Saviour and which of us is there that hath not a Caiaphas in his bosom Which of us is there that doth not rather consider the expediency than the justice of an action which of us do not consider whether what we do be not rather secure than conscionable Men who will sacrifice both Judgment Loyalty Conscience and all Honesty to avoid an inconvenience P. 115 116. it is a Law much commended in this Land of ours that no Man shall be tryed but by his Peers now a King must be above the judgment of his Subjects because among them he can have no Peers such an heir as Christ was in the Parable Sermon 4. p. 179. Luc. 20.14 could not be robb'd of his Birth-right nor deprived of his Inheritance but it must be done with violence and that violence could never had hands enough without an Association the Husbandmen without any mask of Religion P. 205. or cloak of Godliness without any pretence of freeing themselves from Tyranny Arbitrary Government or any manner of Oppression they declare clearly what more subtle Rebels would not that the reason they prosecute bought arraign'd and kill'd the heir P. 208 and P. 210 211. it merely was for his Inheritance that the Inheritance may be ours this Lord had power to call the Labourers but the Labourers had none to call him to account Anno 1651. Mr. Jane Father to the present Regius Professor at Oxon if I am rightly informed Printed his Answer to Miltons Iconoclastes and in it fully and on all occasions avers this truth Exam. of the Pref. p. 5. v. p. 11 It is hateful in any to descant on the misfortunes of Princes but in such as have relation to them by Service or Subjection as the Libeller Milton to the late King is the compendium of all unworthiness P. 28 v. p. 34. and unnatural Insolence had His Majesty's faults been as palpable as this Author's falshood it could not diminish his Subjects duty nor excuse the Rebels imprety Rebels never wanted pretensions P. 36 37. but liberty and justice were the common masks of such Monsters so this Man will have the World believe Rebellion is dearer to this Author than Religion and he will rather commend superstitious actions of a blind Age and the very dregs of Popery than want an ingredient to the varnish of that horrid sin P. 39. Superstitious Churchmen had their hands in the old Rebellions and in our days we find they have Successors that teach the People Doctrins of Devils and seduce them from Obedience to those that had the rule over them P. 47. Obedience and Sufferings are the servility and wretchedness which Milton calls the Pulpit stuff of the Prelates we may shortly expect that as these Miscreants have altered State and Church ☜ so they will compose an Index Expurgatorius of the Bible for it cannot be imagined that they will object this heinous crime of Preaching Passive Obedience to the Prelates and leave so many places in the Gospel which command it and themselves need not the Gospel to make Men obedient they have the Sword and this
affirm'd by many others of their Writers Thus we find P. 1â— the most mischievous Commonwealth Principles have been very well entertain'd at Rome as long as they are subservient to the Pope's deposing Power and if we inquire further into the reason of these pretences we shall find them alike on both sides the Commonwealth's Men when they are askt how the People having once parted with their Power come to resume it they presently run to an implicite contract between the Prince and the People by virtue whereof the People have a Fundamental Power left in themselves which they are not to exercise but upon Princes violation of the Trust committed to them ☞ the very same ground is made the Foundation of the Pope's deposing Power viz. an implicite contract that all Princes made when they were Christians to submit their Scepters to the Pope's Authority which is so implicite P. 13. that very few Princes in the World ever heard of it it is declared in the Case of King John that the resignation of the Crown to the Pope is a void Act. And so consequently will the Imposing any such condition be as inconsistent with the Rights of Sovereignty if they plead an implicite contract who made such conditional settlements of Civil Power upon Princes ☞ who keeps the ancient Deeds and Records of them for all the first Ages of the Christian Church this conditional Power and Obedience was never heard of not when Emperors were open and declared Infidels or Hereticks what reason can be supposed more now than was in the times of Constantius and Valens that were Arian Hereticks Yet the most Learned Zealous and Orthodox Bishops of that time never once thought of their losing their Authority by it as I could easily prove if the design of this Preface would permit me If Christ and his Apostles were the best Teachers of Christianity P. 15 this is certainly no part of it for the Religion they taught never meddled with Crowns and Scepters but left to Caesar the things that were Caesar's and never gave the least intimation to Princes of any forfeiture of their Authority if they did not reader to God the things that are God's it requires all Men of what rank or order soever to be subject to the Higher Powers P. 16. because they are the Ordinance of God and to pray for them that are in Authority c. Thus far the Christian Religion goes in these matters and thus the Primitive Christians believed and practised when their Religion was pure and free from the Corruptions and Usurpations which the Interests and Passions of Men introduced in the following Ages and how then come Princes in these later times to be Christians upon worse and harder terms than in the best Ages of it in my mind there is very little difference between Dominion being founded in grace and being forfeited for want of it and so we are come about to the Fanatick Principles of Government again which this deposing Power in the Pope doth naturally lead Men to but this is not all the mischief of this Doctrin For 2. It breaks all Bonds and Oaths of Obedience how sacred and solemn soever they have been P. 17. there being an obligation to Obedience on the Subjects part which doth naturally arise from the relation between them and their Prince when Subjects are absolved from their Oaths of Allegiance they are thereby declared free from that natural duty they were obliged to before this is nulling the obligation to a natural duty and taking away the force of Oaths and Promises this is turning Evil into Good and Good into Evil that can make Civil Obedience to Princes to be a Crime ☞ and Perjury to be none this is a greater Power than the Schoolmen will allow to God himself where there is intrinsick goodness in the nature of the thing and inseparable evil from the contrary to it P. 18. for tho it be granted that God may after the matter or circumstances of things our Question is only about dispensing with the force and obligation of a Law of Nature such as keeping our Oaths undoubtedly is this he illustrates very Learnedly and at large in some following Paragraphs asking how comes the Pope to have power to give away another Man 's natural right a Man swears Allegiance to his Prince by virtue of which Oath the Prince challenges his Allegiance as a sworn duty the Pope dispenseth with this Oath i.e. gives away the Princes right whether he will or no. but how came the Pope by that right of the Prince which he gives away P. 19 20 21. may he not as well give away all the just rights of Men to their Estates as those of Princes to their Crowns Cajetan lays down a good rule about dispensing with Oaths that in them we ought to see that no prejudice be done to the Person to whom and for whose sake they are made he afterwards cites the several distinctions which the Roman Casuists use to vindicate this Power of dispensing with Oaths particularly Laymen that a promising Oath made to a Man cannot ordinarily be relax'd p. 24. without the consent of the Person to whom it is made except it be for the publick good of the Church ☜ as tho evil might be done for the good of the Church but woe be to them that make good evil and evil good when it serves their turn for this is plainly setting up a particular Interest under the name of the good of the Church and violating the Laws of Righteousness to advance it if Men break through Oaths and the most solemn Engagements and Promises ☜ and regard no bonds of justice and honesty to compass their ends let them call them by what specious names they please p. 25. the good Old Cause or the good of the Church it matters not which there can be no greater sign of Hypocrisie and real Wickedness than this for the main part of true Religion doth not lye in caâ—ting Phrases or mystical Notions neither in specious shews of devotion nor so zeal for the true Church but in Faith as it implies the performance of our promises as well as belief of the Christian Doctrin and in Obedience or a careful observance of the Laws of Christ among which Obedience to the King as Supreme is one which they can never pretend to be an inviolable duty who make it in the Power of another Person to absolve them from the most solemn Oaths of Allegiance and consequently suppose that to keep their Oaths in such a case would be a sin and to violate them may become a duty which is in effect to overturn the natural differences of good and evil to set up a controuling Sovereign Power above that of their Prince and to lay a perpetual Foundation for Faction and Rebellion which nothing can keep Men from If Conscience and their Solemn Oaths cannot Therefore 3. The third
prostrated themselves for in your way of reasoning they have a right to preserve or delight themselves by any course of means and can be best protected by the prevailing side which because it hath more degrees of growing Power has it seems therefore more of right P. 158. thus it is in the choice of every Subject whom you make the Judge of the means to preserve himself to apply himself to the stronger side or for a Company combin'd in Arms and Counsel when an Heir and a Traytor are engag'd in Battel with equal success as was the practice of the Lord Stanley c. at Bosworth-field to give the day to the side they presume will most favour them but there is no tye so strong as that of Religion c. * Vid. 1. part of the Hist p. 93. and whereas Hobbs affirm'd that Covenants are but words and breath and have no force to oblige or constrain any Man but what it has from the Publick Sword he answers that thus the Prince is always in a State of danger P. 160. Society being like a State of Nature managed all by force because he cannot be a day secure of remaining uppermost seeing that the People are taught by you to believe that the right of Authority is a deceit and that every one would have as good a Title if he had as long a Sword for the many headed Beast will throw the Rider when he burthens and galls them Woe to all the Princes upon Earth if this Doctrin be true and becomes Popular if the Multitude believe this the Prince not Armed with the scales of the Leviathan i. e. with irresistible Power can never be safe P. 161. wherefore such as own these pernicious Doctrins destructive to all Societies of Men ☜ may be said to have Wolves Heads as the Laws of old were wont to speak concerning excommunicated Persons and are like those ravenous Beasts so far from deserving our love and care P. 192. that they ought to be destroyed at the common charge if the commands of Christ and his Apostles are not also Laws what means the common Doctrin in the Scripture of suffering for the sake of Christianity We are injoined to take up the Cross and to follow Christ c. Such commands and exhortations to dye rather than to obey Unchristian injunctions are deliver'd in vain yea they deserve the name of Impious if they be not a Royal Law without the stamp of Civil Authority it is therefore your opinion that it is our duty for the sake of outward safety to obey that which is the Law of our Country tho we live among the Heathens rather than to follow dangerous tho Evangelical Counsel This Doctor together with the Lords Bishops of Ely and Bath and Wells and Dr. Hooper were by the King appointed to attend the late Duke of Monmouth before his Execution and the great thing that they with reason prest him to was a particular repentance an acknowledgment that his Invasion was a Rebellion particularly urging him as the Printed account says more than once P. 1 2. if he were of the Church of England to acknowledge the Doctrin of Non Resistance to be true ☞ and therefore I believe that Pulton the Jesuit as †Pulton consider'd p. 67. himself says charg'd him unjustly that when he assisted Sir Thomas Armstrong before his Execution that he did not oblige him to an humble acknowledgment of his Crimes and particularly of the injury done to his King and Country for the * Account of the cons with 〈◊〉 p. â—3 Doctor even in the heigth of Popery thought his Loyalty more valuable than Mr. Meredith's because he as a Son of the Church of England profest he would not rebel against the King notwithstanding he might be of another Religion whereas Mr. M. being of the same Religion could not well separate Loyalty from Interest and ‖ 〈…〉 cons p. 89. avers that he is by Church Principle against resisting the Higher Powers and approves not of the excluding and deposing Doctrin taught in Mr. P's great Lateran Council before there were Jesuits and also after they arose by Bellarmine and Doleman and a long train of others in which some Popes some Synodical Men have pompously march'd To pass by General Complaints Id. exam of 〈◊〉 10 note 〈◊〉 holiness of life p. 243. we may furnish our selves with abundance of instances in the Lives of particular Men of that Communion who have been Infamous for Impiety I shall content my self with a few reflections upon two or three of this sort of Mâ—n with whom the more the World is acquainted the less veneration it will have for them Pope Gregory the Great fawn'd upon the Emperor Mauritius whilst he lived and prospered and own'd him as his Patron and the Maker of his Fortunes even before he had made his own But assoon as the Emperor and his Family were barbarously Murthered by the most Bloody Vassal and Usurper Phocas Gregory insulted over this dead Lion and flatter'd this living Monster and his Immoral Wife Leontia He used such words at his â—surped â—xaltation as he did at that which he called the Conversion of England singing profanely Glory to God in the Highest Let the Heavens rejoyce and the Earth be glad There are many things in the Roman Church it self P. 248. which by helping forward an ill life do in part deface this mark of her Sanctity Such as the Doctrins about Papal Supremacy Which last is very prejudicial to the quiet of the World especially in the Deposing Point concerning which I take leave to use the words of another with Relation to Bellarmine He was * Postscript to transl of 〈…〉 of the Leag p. 15 16 17. himself a Preacher for the League in Paris during the Rebellion there of King Henry IV. Some of his Principles are these following In the Kingdoms of Men the Power of the King is from the People because the People make the King. We hear Bellarmine in another place â—ositively affirming it as Matter of Faith if any Christian Prince shall depart from the Catholick Religion and shall withdraw others from it he immediatly forfeits all Power and Dignity even before the Pope has pronounced sentence on him And his Subjects in case they have Power to do it may and ought to cast out such an Heretick from his Sovereignty over Christians If therefore the Faith of Bellarmine be Faction whatsoever his Church is in it self it is certain as he has made it it can never he found out either as The Church or as A found Church so far as we are to look for it by the Note of Holiness SECT XII Dr. Patrick hath also fully declared his Opinion in this point for besides what hath been cited out of his works in the first part of this History he says Paraphâ— on on Ps 15. p. 75. that he who shall dwell in God's Tabernacle is a
must do nothing to shew that we are acted by the Spirit of Popery we must never forget the Station in which God hath put us â—s we are Subjects under a Lawful Prince to whom we are tyed both by Divine and Humane Laws and even the Lion's Mouth it self opening to devour us ☜ can never excuse us from our obligation to submit and suffer if God had so ordered it by his Providence that we were born under a Prince that would deliver us up to the Lion. the late Rebellion as it was managed with a Popish i. e. a bloody Spirit so many of the Arguments that were used to defend it were taken from Popish Authors P. 28. When we go out of the way of patience and submission of obedience and of bearing the Cross when we give scope to passion and rage to jealousie and mistrust and upon this fermentation in our minds we break out into Wars and Rebellion we forget that the God whom we serve is Almighty and can save us either from a devouring Fire or a Lion's Mouth we forget that the Saviour whom we follow was made perfect by sufferings and that we become then truly his Disciples when we bear his Cross even tho we should be crush'd under it we forget that our Religion ought to inspire us with a contempt of Life and the World and with meekness and lowliness of mind c. P. 29. we are not to share with the Papists in their cruelty not imitate them in their Rebellion SECT XV. Dr. Adam Littleton in his Catechism Printed Lon. 1662 â—p ded or the Grounds of Religion An ungrounded Christian will be easily peâ—suaded to give him self up to any wild Opinion or loose practice to turn Heretick or Rebel P. 334. and prove a fit instrument for the managery of Satan's designs the fifth commandment is the hinge of the two Tables and concerns the Magistrate who is God's Vicegerent on Earth and the keeper of both the Tables wherefore some assign it a place in the first Table P. 336 337. See his Ser. on Nov. 5 1675. p. 221 223 224 226. and Ser. on Jan. 30. 1677. p. 236 237 c. God having a special care of civil order and Peace in the Societies of Men honour thy Father and Mother whether thy natural Parents or the Civil Magistrate disobedience dissolves and unloosens or â—er and peace which are the bands of Society whereas oppression does but strain and gird the tyes of Government too close no Tyranny of the most wicked Prince can be so mischievous and destractive to the Publick as the Rebellion of Subjects let them pretend never so much Religion for it the great interest of society is to obey since the resisting of a Lawful Governor will in the end destroy Government it self and bring all things into consusion ☞ then he introduces God thus speaking thou inferior whoever thou art that art under anothers Power P. 343 344. thou shalt be subject to him and yield a ready and chearful obedience to him as to the Lord in all things that are just and lawful and hear with his humors and his harshness ☞ remembring that the he be a Man of like passions with thy self yet he is in God's stead and if he at any time swerve from his rule in commanding yet do not thou decline thy duty in obeying but when be biddeth thee do any thing coutrary to my will carry thy self with submission and resolve to suffer for a good conscience rather than to resist where thou canst not with a good conscience obey thou shalt not withdraw or grudge thy obedience P. 347. much less shalt thou take upon thee to call him to account thou Subject shalt honor and obey the King and his Ministers thou shalt not raise sedition to bring an odium upon the Magistrate's Person his Authority or his Council nor shew any discontent to the disturbance of the publick Peace nor take up Arms against thy Lawful Sovereign nor maintain or assist Rebellion nor meddle with those that are given to change thou shalt not offer any violence to the King 's Sacred Person but if at any time unrighteous commands are imposed upon thee have recourse to thy Prayers and make thy appeals to Heaven to God the King of Kings to whom alone they are accountable and who will in his dut time remove the oppression and call the Oppressor's to an account P. 352 353. when the hedge of Government is broken down neither Religion nor Law shall bound us this hath been England 's Case in the wicked times of Anarchy and Confusion when we complyed with Illegal Powers when our Oaths of Allegiance were eluded with the solemn cozenage of a League and sinful Combination when we were bewildred with the Witchcrafts of Rebellion and knew not the things which belong'd to our Peace but pretended to reform abuses by destroying the Offices when we rais'd War against our dread Sovereign and offered violence to the Lord 's Anointed what need have we therefore to pray fervently with the Church Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law. The same Author in his Sermon Pt. Lond. 1669. p. 24 25. called The Churches Peace asserted upon a Civil account Preach'd July 4th An. 1669. says the same thing The best Party of the Dissenters have such Principles of Policy and Government as are utterly inconsistent and incompatible with Monarchy whereas there is no one thing that the English Church doth in her Doctrin more positively affirm ☞ or in her Offices more â—ealously express than Obedience to Governors and her duty to her Sovereign thanked be God we live not now under Heathen Emperors and Pagan Governors tho if we did it were our duty to pray for them and to thank God for them too and to obey them in all lawful commands An Original of all Plots Lond. 1680. 810. cap. 1. p. 2. and where we cannot safely obey chearfully to suffer for a good Conscience Dr. William Saywel Still it hath fallen out that Men of more zeal than discretion of greater reading than judgment have struck in with the Politicians and wrote that which would most please the Men in Authority and was likely to get them most favor and reputation amongst those who could satisfie their ambition and by these means have rather served themselves than God tho with the confusion and disorder of the Church Athelsm breach of common faith and honesty P. 3. violations of all Oaths and Contracts Murders Treasons Conspiracies Rebellions long and bloody Wars Massacres Fires Underminings Poysons P. 4 5. and Subversions of Governments are the sad consequences of such dissensions in Religion that these Parts of Christendom for some Ages past have been an Aceldama or Field of Blood and many horrid and barbarous Murders have been acted upon pretence of Religion is evident from all Modern Histories and tho the Romish
enough to convince any sober Man that the Ancient Christians did never dream that either the Pope or the People did give Kings their Authority or had any Power to depose them and authorize their Subjects to take up Arms against them with or without their Authority much less to set up others in their stead or reserve their Power in their own hands but did believe that their Authority and Power is wholly from God and therefore must be obeyed according to his Ordinance and that they never can be deposed either by the People or People or any other Authority upon Earth Dr. Dove Sermon on Nov. 5. 1680. p 4 5. They that dare imagin evil against the King in their Bed-chamber will not stick to countenance Rebellion against him in the Camp for the malice of Treason like fire concealed will either find or force its passage this is the usual Prologue to all trayterous designs P. 21. to calumniate the Government and speak evil of dignities to repreach the one and make it odious by traducing the other and rendring them contemptible we may learn by experience that God for the better Government of the World thinks it fit to make Rebels and Traytors the most memorable examples of vengeance and judgment search the Scriptures and turn over the Annals of all Ages you shall scarce meet in story with a seditious Innovator or a Rebel who hath not ruined himself Id. Ser. bef Lord Mâ—yor Sept. 29. 1682. p. 15. If a Man can help Men to an evasion from the duty of Obedience he shall have followers enough this is a certain sign that tho Men know their duty yet they do not love to hear it for certainly obedience to Magistrates is one of those things that accompany Saivation and if they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation then surely we may safely affirm and that without any breach of charity or stretching beyond our line that they who oppose them in lawful things or refuse to obey them in the same without a timely repentance and reformation are in danger of it P. 17. tho David was next heir to the Crown and already anointed to it tho Saul thirsted for his blood and persecuted him by force and fraud tho he had the hearts of the People and Saul was given up into his hands so that he could as easily have slain him as have cut his skirt yet this was that which kept him from so great iniquity that he was the Lord's Anointed P. 18. the Authority is still from God tho it be placed in the bands of a sinful Man and it loseth not its essence by the accession of personal miscarriages c. disobedience hath all that is base in it P. 24. and Rebellion contains a whole conjugation of wickedness of which there seems to be an indelible sense in all Mens minds since even they who love the thing do usually hate the name of Rebels and such as are conscious of the guilt would gladly avoid the reproach of it a plain indication of guilt as guilt is a manifest argument of sin and wickedness P. 25. 't is a sin next to blasphemy to speak evil of dignities a degree of profaneness to disobey them ☜ and intolerable iniquity to rebel against them it is as bad in its own nature as murder or theft being as expresly forbidden as these and in its consequence 't is far more mischievous c. this sin debauches the conscience P. 26. and hardens Men in impiety so that it is rare very rare to find a repenting Rebel it is directly opposite to the Spirit and Power of Christianity it makes the very profession of Religion odious and despicable it is contrary to the example of Christ the Blessed Apostles and Primitive Christians there have been many pretences made for disobedience and resistance P. 27. v. p. 28. one hath libelled the Primitive Christians ascribing their meekness and submission to necessity so Bellarmine another that the Apostles in prescribing Obedience only flatter'd the Emperors so Salmeron a third hath taught that the Doctrin of resistance was a mystery bid from the first Ages and reserved for these last days of greater light so Jo. Goodwin thus the Gospel it self is belyed to countenance that which it every where condemns we have a Church P. 30. whose Doctrin Discipline and Government is Apostolical and Primitive defective in nothing so much as the Obedience of her Members unless it be the exercise of her Discipline this Church was always famous for her untainted fidelity and loyalty to the Crown oh that our lives were as good as our Religion c. SECT XVI Dr. Henry Maurice The Ancient Christians knew how to dye better than to dispute Ser. on Jan. 30. 1681. p. 2 12 30 c. cons 1st pt hist p. 112. but none understood yet how to rebel for their Religion how then are we departed from this ancient and reasonable practice no Faction did ever insult a Prince they did not mean to destroy but now to return to the blaspheming of the Church of Rome if community of name be not so much to be regarded as agreement in Doctrin our accusers will be found to have a greater part in these Sectaries than we for both agree in the Fundamentals of Rebellion and the lawfulness and merit of Resisting the Higher Powers There are Men in the World that honor such as Martyrs P. 180. that were executed for murdering their King I hope they were neither Bishops nor Episcopal Men that were so fond of Canonizing those Murderers for Martyrs P. 318. when Chrysostome saw the Civil Power against him he would not contend but endeavoured to steal away to prevent contention and what his favorers did when they began a Mutiny they did it against his will and against all his entreaties and obsecrations to the contrary did not the Primitive Christians meet to serve God p. 326. and suffer'd Martyrdom for it but did they ever enter into Covenants and Practices against the State in all the lamentable distractions of the Church by the Arians we find no Orthodox Bishop animate the People against the Government p. 327. what Persecution soever they suffer'd but on the contrary restraining all tendences to Rebellion and withdrawing themselves when the popular favor towards them grew inordinate p. 32â— p. 337. and uncontrolable Whoever animated the People to resist Julian what a number of worthy learned Ministers of the Church of England were turned out to make vacancies for the Non-Conformists in the days of Rebellion who were to instruct the People in new Mysteries of Religion which their old Pastors had not the conscience or ability to teach them i.e. of the lawfulness of Rebellion we read of St. Ambrose's zeal against the Arians of his popularity of his charity c. but not a word of his Sedition p 34â— or his forcible resistance of the
THE HISTORY OF Passive Obedience Since the REFORMATION AMSTERDAM Printed for Theodore Johnson in the Calver-Straet 1689. THE PREFACE HAving always thought that the Doctrine of Passive Obedience or Non-resistance of our lawful Superiors had been a Doctrine founded in the Holy Scriptures recommended to the Christian World by the Precepts and Example of our Blessed Saviour and the Practices of his more immediate Followers which Copy the Church of England hath exactly transcribed to whose immortal Glory it must be said that She alone in contra-distinction both to Papists and Dissenters hath asserted the Principles of Obedience to Princes as the best Ages of Christianity own'd and practised it and having lived so long to see that Doctrine ridicul'd and call'd the Doctrine of the Bow-string and the Assertors and Practisers of it exploded as Old Lacrymists and the matter of fact as to the first Ages of the Reformation denyed while some affirm that the Tenet was no older than Archbishop Laud and was introduced by a few Court Bishops Bishop Saunderson's Preface to Arch-Bishop Vsher of The Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject The Apostle saith put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers Tit. 3.1 Tho' S. Paul was certainly no Man-pleaser far from seeking himself or from making merchandize of the Word of God or handling it deceitfully for filthy Lucre sake nor were there hopes of Preferment when the Church had no setled Revenue nor was there any Christian Prince in the Universal World but he draws his Arguments from the Ordinance of God the discharge of Duty and a good Conscience the advancement of the Gospel and the honor of the Christian Religion See more in that admirable Preface the better to make way for the attainment and establishing of their own Grandeur by reason of which the Enemies of our Communion both Romanists and others have confidently averred that our Obedience to our Sovereigns is nothing but our Interest and that we have vindicated the Rights of Kings because they have vindicated the Rights of our Church and have prosecuted all that dislik'd our Constitutions I could no longer forbear writing in the behalf of that truth which is eternal and unalterable as are all the Doctrines of Christianity tho we must acknowledg to our shame that they are more illustrious in our Books than in our Lives and shewing that from the infancy of the happy Reformation the Church of England hath always believed and avowed That it is the duty of every Christian in things lawful actively to obey his Superior in things unlawful to suffer rather than obey and in any case or upon any pretence whatsoever not to resist because whoever does so shall receive to themselves Damnation Nor can the Doctrine be unseasonable since no Government can be safe without it Mens Passions naturally inclining them to think well of themselves and to make Complaints of hard Vsage even then when they are most gently treated what Instances have we in the Writings of the last Ages When Parsons in the name of his Party resolving to expose the admirable Reign of Q. Elizabeth renders her worse than the worst of Tyrants and asks Where are the Neroes and Dioclesians where are the Genserics and Hunnerics As if neither Pagan nor Arian Persecutors were as cruel as she And when another Classis of Men blackned one of the best of Men and the best of Princes the Martyr CHARLES I. as the great Enemy of his Country the Invader of the Religion and Liberties of his Subjects and have not former Ages labored under the same Discontents When the disaffected Jews could say We have no portion in David nor any inheritance in the Son of Jesse every man to his tents O Israel And yet that Prince was of Gods own immediate designation and a Man after Gods own heart Now if upon such Pretensions Subjects may right themselves by resisting their lawful Superiours how soon will a fruitful Land be turned into a barren Wilderness and Paradise it self become a Field of Blood And I have with some regret and confusion reflected heretofore that in the Romish Communion Preston Widdrington and Barnes in England VValsh and Caron in Ireland and in Scotland Barclay to omit other Countries all profest Papists and all but Barclay Priests and consequently more obliged to uphold the Grandeur of the Pontifical Chair should honestly and stoutly appear to the Vindication of this Truth which we seem either weary or asham'd of I never wondered to see the Enemies of our Church make a Fasting-day of our Blessed Saviours Nativity as if they were sorry that he came into the World and perhaps with reason because their Actions were so contrary both to his Precepts and Example but I stand amazed to see her Sons disown her Doctrine and Constitutions Did we seriously study the Laws of Providence and consider the indispensible Obligations laid on us of taking up the Cross did we remember that Affliction is the Churches Portion and that not the least Evil may be done to procure the greatest Good this a Aug. de haeres Epiph. Doctrine would be more easily believ'd and more readily embrac'd They were the Gnosticks of the Primitive Church who taught Men to swear and forswear and to sly from Persecution when it was the Lot of Religion And for these among other Reasons I conjecture does b Stillingfleet's Ser. Jan. 30. 168 â— / 9. p. 3. 4. a learned Man of our Church call Simon Magus the Institutor of that vile Sect The Leviathan of the Primitive Church who de stroyed all the differences of good and evil And that probably because as the Leviathan makes himself sport in the waters so the Gnosticks played with Oaths and all Laws divine and human c Id. p. 4. setting a mighty Value upon themselves and having mean and contemptible Thoughts of the Authority which God had established in the VVorld and it may be because he was the Hobbs of that Age who gave being to Opinions contradictory to the whole Tenour of the Gospel For the Gnosticks thought d Id. p. 5. all the Governments of the VVorld to be nothing else but the contrivance of some evil Spirits to abridg Men of their Liberty which God and Nature had given them and that this is the speaking evil of Dignities which they are charged with by S. Jude And the same great Man says e Sermon Novem. 5. 1673. pag. 2 3. that it was one of Machiavel 's Quarrels against Christianity that by its Precepts of Meekness and Patience it rendered Men unfit for such great Undertakings as could not be accomplish'd without something of Cruelty and Inhumanity whereas the old Religions by the multitude of Sacrifices did inure Men to Blood and Destruction and so made them fit for any Enterprize And Machiavel was certainly in the right if Religion were intended only to make Men Butchers or to instruct them in the use of Swords and
first brought from another Country and is no way natural to our own tho the Infection hath been taken by too many who had an ill Temper prepared for it Cons Dr. Jackson's Works Tom. 3. l. 12. ch 8. p. 978. their Loyalty and Peaceableness may be the Fruits of their Education or their good temper but not of their Faith or as Dr. Sherlock says they may be loyal as Englishmen but they cannot be so as Papists Would we therefore judge of the Doctrine of our Church we must consult her Articles Canons publick Homilies publick Offices of Devotion General Orders of her Bishops Censures of her Universities and Writings of her greatest Men who have vindicated her Doctrine and explained her Belief and this Method I shall use to discover what hath been owned by the Church of England as to the Doctrine of Non-resistance or Passive Obedience CHAP. I. The Doctrine of the Thirty nine Articles THE Articles of our Church have been always looked upon as the stated Doctrine of our whole Church to which all her Priests are obliged to make their Subscriptions they are allowed a place in the Body of the Confessions of the Protestant Churches and are highly commended by Foreigners as well as by our own Writers for * Bishop Ridley's Farewel Letter apud Fox tom 3. p. 506. this Church hath in matters of Controversie Articles so penned and framed after the Holy Scriptures and grounded upon the true understanding of God's Word that in short time if they had been universally received says Bishop Ridley the Martyr they should have been able to have set in Christ's Church much concord and unity in Christ's true Religion and to have expelled many false Errors and Heresies wherewith this Church alas was almost overgone Nor is this that excellent Prelate's peculiar Opinion but of the whole Church which ordains †Can. 3. an 1604. That whosoever shall affirm that the Church of England by Law establish'd under the King's Majesty is not a true and Apostolical Church teaching and maintaining the Doctrine of the Apostles let him be excommunicated ipso facto And Can. 5. Whosoever shall affirm that any of the thirty nine Articles agreed in the Synod 1562 are in any part superstitious or erroneous let him be excommunicate ipso facto Anno 1552. In the Convocation held at London Articles of Religion were agreed upon of which the Thirty sixth runs thus The Civil Magistrate is ordained and allowed of God and therefore is to be obeyed not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake And expresly asserts That the Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England In the Articles of our Church under Queen Elisabeth anno 1562. it runs thus and so continues to this day The Queens Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all Cases doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any Foreign Jurisdiction And it is remarkable ‖ Rogers's Praef. to the 39th Artic. that these Articles of 1562. were published in the same year in which the Massacre at Vassey in France was committed by the Duke of Guise and when all the Protestants in the Country were sentenced to Death by the Parliament of Paris It is true this Doctrine is not limited to the particular Case of Subjects taking up Arms but it seems to me by two necessary Consequences to be deduc'd from it 1. Because if the Pope who pretended by a Divine Right had no power over Kings much less have the People any power who pretend to an inferior Right that of Compact 2. Because the Article makes no distinction but excludes all other Power as well as that of the Pope And in truth the Plea is the same on either side the Pope says as long as the Prince governs according to the Laws of God and the Church of which he is the Interpreter so long the Censures of the Church do not reach him and say the People as long as the Prince governs according to the Laws of the Land and of the meaning of those Laws themselves are the Interpreters so long are they bound to be obedient but as soon as the King doth any thing that may contradict the Pope then he is deservedly say the Romanists excommunicate deposed and murdered and when he usurps upon the Peoples Liberties then he ought to be deposed by the Peoples the Arguments on either side are the same and for the most part the Authorities for as * Moderat of the Church of England ann 17. §. 19. p. 481. Dr. Puller well observes both Papists and Dissenters deny the Supremacy of the King one attributes it to the Pope originally the other to the People and the same Arguments that the Pope useth for his Supremacy over Kings the Disciplinarians use for establishing their Sovereignty CHAP. II. The Doctrine of the Injunctions and Canons IN the Infancy of the Reformation under Henry the Eighth for there I begin the Restoration of Religion to her Purity in this Kingdom as Dr. Burnet does †Burnet hist Reform l. 3. p. 226. tom 1. And Fox tom 2. p. 387. Anno 1536. Injunctions were issued out the first of which is That every Man that hath Cure of Souls shall for the Establishment and Confirmation of the King's Authority and Jurisdiction sincerely declare manifest and open for the space of one quarter of a year next ensuing once every Sunday and after that at the least wise twice every Quarter in their Sermons and other Collations that the Bishop of Rome 's usurp'd Power and Jurisdiction having no Establishment or Ground in the Law of God was of most just Causes taken away and abolish'd and that the King's Power is in his Dominions the highest Power and Potentate under God to whom all men within the same Dominions by God's Commandment owe most Loyalty and Obedience afore and above all other Potentates in Earth Now if a King be above all other Powers then he cannot be accountable to any other Power and so ought not to be resisted Anno * Burnet's Collect. of Records p. 181. 1538. came out the Lord Cromwel's Injunctions as they were called wherein the same Duty is injoyned in the same Words This also is the first of the Injunctions of Edw. the Sixth †Sparr Collect. p. 1 2. An. 1547. the Preface to which Injunctions acknowledges that part of them were formerly set out by Henry the Eighth and the rest added by King Edward the Sixth This also was the first of the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth with a very little variation and accordingly in the Articles of Enquiry of Archbishop Cranmer in the Diocess of Canterbury under Edward the Sixth the first is Whether all Persons c. have preach'd against the usurp'd Power of the Bishop of Rome Secondly Whether they have preach'd and
was call'd in which both the Universities most amicably agreed resolving only to give an account of the Proceedings at Oxford in the Years 1â—22 1647 and 1683 the Decree of 1622 was made the 25th of June in full Convocation on this occasion †Antiqu. Oxon. l. 1. p. 326 327 c. Mr. Knight of Broadgate Hall now Pembroke College preaching at S. Peter's in the East on Palm-Sunday upon 1 Kings 19.9 What dost thou here Elijah started this Question Whether it were lawful for Subjects in the defence of themselves when persecuted for Religion to take Arms against their Prince which he held in the Affirmative for which Doctrine when he was convened by the Vice-Chancellor he pleaded the Authority of Paraeus in his Commentary on the xiii to the Romans and the Example of King James who assisted the Rochellers against their King and was for that reason sent to Prison the Vice-Chancellor making the Bishop of St. David's Laud who in May of the same Year had his Conference with Fisher the Jesuit acquainted with it from whom the King was inform'd who ordered Knight and his Sermon to be sent up the Author being committed a Prisoner to the Gate-house in Westminster where he lay two Years and at last by the intercession of one of his Fellow Prisoners with Bishop Williams was releas'd and having ask'd the King's Pardon went into Holland where in a short time he died When Knight was complain'd of the King sent to the Vice-Chancellor to injoin the Students of Divinity to lay the Foundation of their Studies next to the holy Scriptures in the Fathers and Councils and to abstain from the Writings of either Jesuits or Puritans and accordingly the Heads of Colleges the Professors c. met in Convocation the Bishops that were then about the Court having condemn'd the Doctrine and the Books that contain'd it as seditious and contrary to the holy Scriptures the Decrees of Councils and Dictates of the Fathers and to the Doctrine and Constitutions of the Church of England and censur'd among others this Proposition * Proposit 2. v. Antiqu. Oxon. p. 327. That Subjects not private Persons but inferior Magistrates may take Arms to defend themselves the Commonwealth the Church and true Religion against their Sovereign or the superior Magistrate upon these Conditions If 1. The Prince turn Tyrant 2. If he compel his Subjects to commit Idolatry or to blaspheme 3. When any great injury is done 4. If they cannot otherwise be safe in their Fortunes their Lives and Consciences upon condition also 5. That under the pretext of Religion or Justice they do not seek their own advantage and 6. That their Arms be managed with much moderation Moderamine inculpatae tutelae These are the Terms of the Proposition and the Censure of the University runs thus This Proposition is false and seditious and so craftily restrain'd under such Conditions annex'd as every seditious Person may make use of to vindicate himself And the third Proposition which is of the same kind is alike condemn'd so that it is no wonder that Gillespy in the Preface to his Sermon calls this Doctrine the new Oxford Divinity and I wish no worse had been ever broach'd or owned there Nor did the University rest here but withal decreed and declared That according to the Canon of the holy Scriptures Subjects ought by no means forcibly to resist their Prince and that it is not lawful to take Arms either offensive or defensive against the King upon the account of Religion or any other Pretence requiring all the Members of the Convocation to subscribe the Censures and enjoyning all that should be admitted to any Degrees to take an Oath to consent to the determinations of that Convocation while the Commentary of Paraeus was burn'd in the Church-yard of St. Mary's at Oxford at Paul's Cross in London as it was likewise burn'd at Cambridge that University joyning with her Sister of Oxford in the Condemnation of those seditious Doctrines For as a * Doublet Ep. ad Gerh. Voss learned Foreigner who at that time was upon the spot informs that Knight citing for his Opinion the Authority not only of Paraeus but also of Bucanus and Junius Brutus affirming further that it was the Opinion of all the Reformed Divines and illustrating it by this instance that If the King of France should while his Army laid Siege to any Town of the Protestants his Subjects happen to fall by the hand of any of the besieged he was justly slain nor was he that killed him guilty of any crime both the Universities condemn'd the Doctrine and though at Oxford only Paraeus's Book was burn'd yet at Cambridge they also burn'd Bucanus's Common places and Junius Brutus or Hubert Languet's Vindiciae and damn'd the Authors to perpetual Infamy my Author adding that the Cambridge Doctors were the more fierce of the two whether because they hated the Puritans or were the Majority of them at least Remonstrants the Censure of that University Doublet saw when he was at the Commencement it being put into his Hands by him who drew it up upon his promise not to transcribe it What hinder'd it's publication I know not while the same year Dr. David Owen publish'd his Anti-Paraeus seu Determinat de Jure Regio adv David Paraeum at Cambridge anno sc 1622. Octavo in which the Doctrine of Resistance is throughly confuted This Censure and the Execution done upon his Book much troubled the old Paraeus And his Son * Append. in Comment ad Rom 13.5 vit Paraei says that his Father meant what he wrote not of Kings endowed with an absolute power but of such as were admitted to their Crowns upon condition while the illustrious Hugo Grotius thought so well of it that he hath inserted it at large in his Works †Vot pro pace ad Art. 16. p. 661. with a high commendation affirming That the Reverend Memory of King James the first the wisest King of Great Britain and the honor which he owed to the University of Oxford which at that time foresaw the Calamities which England afterward suffered and a just fear lest the pernicious Doctrine might do more mischief ingaged him to reprint the Censure To which Determination Dr. Prideaux Dr. Abbot and the other eminent Men of that time gave their suffrage Anno 1647 June 1. The same famous Academy met in Convocation and declared their Judgment concerning the Solemn League and Covenant and a few of their Reasons why they could not take that Covenant I shall transcribe * Ad calc vit Sanderson p. 174. as they were drawn up by Bishop Sanderson 1. We cannot take the Oath without acknowledging in the Imposers a greater power than for ought appeareth to us hath been in former times challenged †P. 181. 3. We cannot take the Oath without manifest danger of Perjury ‖ P. 182. the Oath being contrary to the Oath of Supremacy by us taken
Man was for the Lady Jane but besides his Temper I have this to say for him that the several and contrary Acts of Parliament limiting and changing the Succession according to the King's Pleasure in the latter end of Henry the Eighth's Reign might very well in such a juncture of Affairs as happen'd on the Death of Edward the Sixth stagger a wise Man and incline him to believe that the Son had the same Right that his Father had as unquestionably he had if it were a Right of the Crown especially while that Right was recogniz'd and confirm'd in Parliament To this excellent Prince was Sir John Cheek a Tutor as he also was the Restorer of the Greek Tongue in England he in his Advice of the True Subject to the Rebel Ed. Oxon. 1641. p. 2 3 4. or the hurt of Sedition thus bespeaks the Rebels of that Age For our selves we have great cause to thank God by whose Religion and holy Word daily taught us we learn not only to fear him truly but also to obey our King faithfully and to serve in our own Vocation like Subjects honestly ye which be bound by God's Word not to obey for fear like Men-pleasers but for conscience sake like Christians have contrary to God's holy will whose Offence is everlasting Death and contrary to the godly Order of Quietness set out by the King's Majesty's Laws the breach whereof is not unknown to you taken in hand uncalled of God unsent by Men unfit by reason to cast away your bounden Duties of Obedience c. yet ye pretend that partly for God's sake partly for the Commonwealth's sake ye do rise How do you take in hand to reform Be you Kings by what Authority or by what Succession Be you the King's Officers by what Commission Be you called by God by what Tokens declare you that Ye rise for Religion what Religion taught you that If you were offer'd Persecution for Religion you ought to fly so Christ teacheth you and yet you intend to fight if you would stand in the truth you ought to suffer like Martyrs and you slay like Tyrants thus for Religion you keep no Religion and neither will follow the Counsel of Christ nor the constancy of Martyrs whatever the Causes be that have moved your wicked Affections herein Pag. 11. as they be unjust Causes and increase your Faults much the thing it self the Rising I mean must needs be wicked and horrible before God and the usurping of Authority and taking in hand rule which is the sitting in God's Seat of Justice a proud climbing up into God's high Throne must needs be not only cursed newly by him but also hath been often punished afore of him and that which is done to God's Officers Pag. 12. God accounteth it done to him Ye be bound in God's Word to obey your King and is it no Breach of Duty to withstand your King See also Bishop Hooper's Comment on the Fifth Commandment SECT III. But the outward Felicity of the Church as it was very great under Edward the Sixth so it was short-lived a black Storm gathering under Queen Mary and at last falling severely upon her Protestant Subjects who dealt with her as they were in duty bound they assisted her chearfully till she got her Crown and when contrary to her Duty and her Promises she persecuted them some of them resolutely suffered Martyrdom others as our Saviour advises fled into Foreign Countries for Protection the great Men of that Party solemnly disowning the Principle of taking up Arms against their Sovereign even when she had falsified her promises to them And this is attested by more than a few of the greatest Men of that Reign ‖ Burn. Hist Res part l. 2. p. 285. the Bishops of Exeter S. Davids and Glocester Taylor Philpot Bradford Crome Sanders Rogers Laurence and others who having given an account of their Principles conclude thus as the Historian says These things they declared that they were ready to defend as they often had before offered and concluded charging all People to enter into no Rebellion against the Queen but to obey her in all points except where her Commands were contrary to the Law of God. But their own words will most properly give us their meaning as * Tom. 3. p. 100 c. Fox records Because we hear that it is determined to send us speedily out of the Prisons of the King's Bench c. where at present we are and of a long time some of us have been not as Rebels Traitors seditious persons Thieves or Transgressors of any Laws of this Realm Inhibitions Proclamations or Commandments of the Queen's Highness or of any of the Councils God's Name be praised therefore but only for the Conscience we have to God and to his most holy Word and Truth to one of the Universities there to dispute We write and send abroad this our Faith humbly requiring and in the Bowels of our Saviour Christ beseeching all that fear God to behave themselves as obedient Subjects to the Queen's Highness and the superior Powers which are ordained of God under her rather after our Example to give their Heads to the Block than in any point to rebel or once to mutter against the Lord's anointed we mean our Sovereign Lady Queen Mary into whose Heart we beseech the Lord of Mercy plentifully to pour the Wisdom and Grace of his Holy Spirit now and for ever Amen First we confess and believe all the Canonical Books of the Old Testament c. And having reckoned up what Doctrines they owned and what they condemned they go on thus And we doubt not but we shall be able to prove all our Confessions here to be most true by the Verity of God's Word and Consent of the Catholick Church In the mean season as obedient Subjects we shall behave our selves towards all that be in Authority and not cease to pray to God for them that he would govern them all generally and particularly with the Spirit of Wisdom and Grace and so we heartily desire and humbly pray all Men to do ☞ in no point consenting to any kind of Rebellion or Sedition against our Sovereign Lady the Queen's Highness but where they cannot obey but they must disobey God then to submit themselves with all patience and humility to suffer as the will and pleasure of the highest powers shall adjudge as we are ready through the goodness of the Lord to suffer whatsoever they shall adjudge us unto rather than we will consent to any Doctrine contrary to this which we here confess unless we shall be convinced thereof either by Writing or by Word c. and the Lord of Mercy endue us all with the Spirit of his Truth and Grace of Perseverance therein unto the end Amen May 8 Anno Dom. 1554. This Letter was subscribed by Bishop Ferrar Bishop Hooper and Bishop Coverdale and by nine others who were the Flower of Confessors at that time
be buzz'd as if they were Christi populi the anointed of the People and held of them but this Claim also falleth to the ground by the Text God help if the people fall to make Gods to say that Princes may be lawfully slain is to make men believe P. 801. P. 808. that they go to Heaven for breaking God's Commandments * Ser. 3. on Gunpowder Treas p. 938 939. V. Appen p. 91. What if Kings take too much upon them Corah's exception then it is dedi vobis Regem in irâ saith God by the Prophet Angry was I when I gave him but I gave him tho but this onus Principis how may webe rid of it Is there any other per me to go to to deprive or depose them sure where the worst is reckoned that can be of them clamabunt ad Dominum is all I find in nature every thing is dissolved by the same means it came together in the Law institution and destitution belong both to one c. * Sermon on the Queen's day at the end of his Lectures on Jonah p. 695. Bishop King. It is the greatest dishonour to Religion to put down Princes a thing which neither Moses in the Old nor Christ in the New Testament c. ever hath taught counselled and much less practised I say not against lawful Magistrates but not against heathenish infidel Idolaters tyrannous Rulers though by the manifest and express sentence of God reprobated and cast off P. 696. V. p. 697. I never could suspect that in the Commission of Christ given to his Disciples there is one word of encouragement to these lawless attempts unless to go into the World be to go and overturn the World to shake the Pillars and foundations thereof with Mutinies and Seditions and unless preaching may be interpreted proclaiming of War and Hostility unless to baptize be to wash the people of the World in their own bloud unless binding and loosing be meant of Fetters and Shackles retaining and remitting of Prisons and Wards and receiving the Holy Ghost be receiving the firy and turbulent Spirit which our Saviour liked not * Id. Lect. 35. in John. p. 472 473 c. Cons Loc. If such were the King as Darius was and such his Rulers and Officers as would make a Decree to defraud God of his Worship as Dan. 6. be thou also as Daniel was enter into thy House and open thy Windows toward Jerusalem and pray c. stay not till the King or his Council release thee thereto and if every hair of thy head were a life redeem thy duty to God 〈◊〉 adventure and loss thereof rather than neglect it and if â—â—ou happen to be alone in that action yet forego it not I like not in any case that the least advantage and slip in the Earth be given to the People against his lawful and Christian Governour it is as fire to Flax an easie a welcome persuasion to busie and catching natures the least exception once taken against their want of Religion Piety Justice or the like is so far followed that not onely the Prince in the end but the whole People rueth it Doctor Jackson * To. 3. Treat of Christian obed p. 903. yield but once That dominion over the Creature is founded in Grace and then tempt the precious Saints to muster Decem legiones and if God suffer them to prosper they will be the godly party whether men will or no. †P. 933 934. Let every Soul be subject is not the same as let every Soul be obedient to the higher Powers no no albeit there can be no obedience without subjection yet may there be subjection without obedience and oftentimes when obedience to humane Powers is dangerous subjection is due and cannot be denied without the just censure of disobedience Act. 4.18 19. the Apostles were commanded not to speak in the name of Christ so far were they from doing what was commanded that they refuse to hearken to such a proposal yet were they still subject to their Power whom they refused to obey for they suffer themselves to be imprison'd by them without resistance and yet withal they obey the Angel of the Lord which open'd the Prison doors Acts 5.18 but being the second time convened without violence offered they subject themselves to their Power and do not appeal to the Angel which had deliver'd them out of Prison or implore his aid to resist their Power with this flat denial of obedience to their injunctions they do not deny or question subjection to their coercive Power nor do they repine at the exercise of it or rail upon the actors and the true reason of the subjection of their bodies without subjection of their Consciences was that Commandment of our Saviour Luke 12.4 c. fear not them that can kill the body c. * Id. p. 941. the Rule is General that unto the penalty or sanction of every humane Law or Ordinance passive obedience ☜ or subjection of the outward man is due whether the Law be just or unjust * P. 963. and this Rule holds as punctually of the Magistrate as of the Magistracy †P. 965. he that is a King or supreme Magistrate by just and lawful Title may not be resisted albeit he exercise his Power tyrannically †P. 967. The power which the High-Priest exercised in apprehending our Saviour was unjust and satanical was it therefore lawful for Christ's Disciples to resist it to oppose violence to it was unlawful and if Peter had continued to do as he began he had fallen under the Sanction of this Law They that resist shall receive damnation SECT VIII Doctor Hakewil was thought fit by King James to be intrusted with the instruction of his eldest Son Prince Henry the delight of the English Nation and to vindicate the just rights of Princes he set forth Ann. 1613. his Scutum regium in which Chap. 1. Lib. 1 he shews What a horrid sin Murther is especially Ch. 2. of Princes who are God's immediate Vicegerents and sit in the place of God and are accountable only to him against whom to make insurrections is with the Giants to make War against God and Ch. 6. discoursing of that Text 1 Sam. 8. that their King should seize their Vineyards c. he subjoins not that this was lawful for their King to do for the King's duty is otherwise described Deut. 17. but that if he did so they ought not to resist him and therefore the Prophet subjoins ver 18. not that they were to shake off his Yoke or to disturb his Reign or to murther his Person but to call upon God for redress and Ch. 7. the Prophet David shall rise in judgment against those that do otherwise and shall condemn them who had this excellent Lesson not only in his mouth but in his heart and I could wish engraven on all mens tongues and hearts and hands in great
that those who suffer for asserting any other power over Kings are not Martyrs but Traitors †Id. Serm. 39. p. 391 392. We sin against the Father the Root of Power in conceiving amiss of the Power of the Civil Magistrate when God saith By me Kings reign there the Per is not a Permission but a Commission it is not that they reign by my Sufferance but they reign by my Ordinance a King is not a King because he is a good King nor leaves being a King as soon as he leaves being good all is well summed up by the Apostle Rom. 13.5 Ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake The Law of the Prince is rooted in the power of God ‖ Ser. 69. p. 698. the Root of all is Order and the Orderer of all is the King. SECT IX The Archbishop of Spalato came a Stranger into this Kingdom but in a little time became well acquainted with the Estate of our Church and spoke her Sense in his Books which were well received both here and abroad nor does his Apostacy afterward concern the Merit of the Cause for if we may believe a ‖ Bishop Cosens of Transub Reverend Prelate of our Communion the Archbishop of Spalato did make good what he promised here when he came to Rome that he would own and defend the English Church to be a true Church of Christ And that among other her Doctrines he very well understood this of Non-resistance or rather he understood it to be a Doctrine of the true Catholick Church for his Books were written tho not completed before he left Italy will easily appear when it is remembered that * Lib. de Rep. Eccles cap. 1. he shews to the confutation of all that can be said to the contrary That our blessed Saviour while he lived on earth had no temporal Kingdom ‡ Cap. 2. That the Power of Princes is immmediately from God proving it from Rom. 13.1 That thus God ordain'd the Affairs of the old World that God himself was the King of Israel till the Days of Saul that he transferred his power not to the people but to Saul that this Opinion that Kings were of God's Institution and not the peoples was the Belief of the ancient Christians which he proves from the Writings of Irenaeus Tertull. Chryst Optat. Didymus Hosius Ambrose Austin c. And from the Assertions of the elder Popes and Councils that the common opinion of the Schoolmen and other Divines that Government is in the Body of the People is false that there is no Revelation hath confirmed this Assertion that all that the Light of Nature says is that Men must be governed and that if the Government were originally in the Hands of the People all Governments ought to have been Democratical which says he is the worst and most imperfect Form of Government he proving also that if the People do elect they cannot call the Prince whom they elect to account after which †Cap. 10. n. 82. he proposes an Objection If Princes be so unaccountable then there is no Remedy against evil Princes no not tho they are Enemies to the true Faith and are guilty of Maleadministration of the Government and vex their Subjects both in their Civil and Sacred Properties for while Deposition is the only Remedy if they cannot be deposed there is no Remedy To which he answers 1. That we are to enquire after such a State not what is free from all Inconveniences but what is subject to the least and the least dangerous but much more pernicious and destructive of human Society are those Confusions which are wont to arise from the Rebellions of Subjects and from Civil Wars than those which happen from the Cruelty of an ungovernable King exercised upon his Subjects 2. That this is proper and peculiar to a supreme temporal Prince that he cannot lawfully be deposed for such Kings are only inferior to God and are his immediate Vicegerents c. And in his Confutation of the Errors of Suarez ‖ C. 3. n. 6. he shews the mistakes of that Jesuit that there is no Revelation that God hath given Princes such a power proving from S. Paul that there is no power but what is of God. And †N. 16. if a Crown happen to fall to an Infidel his Subjects are bound to obey him in which case says he we ought to acknowledge and reverence the Equity of the English ☞ who when they had freed themselves from the Papal Yoke and embraced the Reformed Religion under Edward the Sixth did notwithstanding after his Death set the Crown on the Head of his Sister Mary whom they knew to be a Papist and zealously affected towards the Pope which Succession the Peers did not only allow of but the Prelates also who expected nothing from her but Executions and Martyrdoms for they knew that Religion ought not to hinder the Admission of the lawful Heir to his Right ‖ N. 17. For the Power of a King is given him by divine positive Law and therefore there is no other but God who can take his power from him To this Archbishop I will join his bitter Adversary Bishop Montagu * Not. in Invect 2. Naz. in Jul. because herein they were both agreed When the Christians in Julian 's time betook themselves only to their Prayers and not to Force it was not because they could not but because they would not for they had sufficient force to subdue the Tyrant as both Greg. Naz. and S. Austin aver but they had learn'd patience in the School of their Master Christ who had recommended it to them both by his Words and by his Example not to confound Heaven and Earth c. Bishop Lake 's Sermon Preached in trinity-Trinity-Church in Winchester at An Assizes 1610. A false Religion doth not hinder him from being a lawful Sovereign To resolve the Conscience of such as doubt Whether a different Religion doth evacuate the Power of a lawful Sovereign It doth not says he tho it be a false Religion SECT X. Old Mr. Ded hath been censured as a Puritan but I am sure neither he nor his Copartner Clever were so in this point for in their * The 5th Commandment p. 216 217. Comment on the Commandments they thus declare themselves The first Duty of the Subject is Submission both inward and outward in heart to reverence and outwardly to obey the Magistrate and this is commanded Rom. 13. Let every soul be subject c. He commands not only a bodily Subjection which may be in many rebellious persons that resist Authority and lie open to the Curse of God for this sin but an inward submission of the Soul as unto a spark of God's Authority ☜ and an appointment of his For if this inward be not first this outward will fail upon every occasion there must be also an outward subjection in obeying their Commands as
far as they command lawful things but if it so fall out that the Prince or any in Authority under him command things unlawful against the Commandment of God then it is better to obey God than Man yet so that we be content to bear any punishment that shall be laid upon us even to death it self as Daniel when the King made a wicked Edict would not yield unto it but yet was content to yield unto the punishment with patience and never went about to gather a Power against the King in his own Defence c. so that if the Magistrates Command be lawful the Subject must obey if he require an unlawful Obedience he must not rebel but suffer the punishment without grudging ☜ even in heart Eccl. 10.20 If the King be unjust and wicked we must pray God to convert him that as our Sins have brought an ill Governor over us so our Prayers may either remove or better him Bishop Hall's Contemplations The Inauguration of Saul 1 Vol. fol. p. 1029. Earthly Monarchs must walk by a Rule which if they transgress they shall be accountable to him that is higher than the highest who hath deputed them Not out of care of Civility so much as Conscience must every Samuel labour to keep eaven terms betwixt Kings and Subjects prescribing just moderation to the one to the other Obedience and Loyalty which whoever endeavours to trouble is none of the Friends of God or his Church The Death of Saul Lib. 14. p. 1084. Saul was none of the best Kings yet so impatient are his Subjects of the Indignity offered to his dead Corps that they will rather leave their own bones amongst the Philistins than the Carcass of Saul Such a close Relation there is betwixt a Prince and Subject that the dishonour of either is inseparable from both but how unnatural is the Villany of those Miscreants that can be content to be Actors in the Capital Wrong offered to Sovereign Authority Page 1085. Every drop of Royal Bloud is Sacred for a Man to say that he hath shed it is mortal The Death of Absalom Lib. 16. 1128. Strangers shall relieve him whom his own Son persecutes Page 1129. O holy David what means this ill-placed love this unjust mercy deal gently with a Traytor but of all Trayors with a Son Who can want courage to fight for a righteous Sovereign and Father against the Conspiracy of a wicked Son The God of Hosts with whom it is all one to save with many or with few takes part with Justice and lets Israel feel what it is to bear Arms for a traiterous Usurper Let no Man look to prosper by Rebellion the very thickets and stakes and pits and wild Beasts of the Wood shall conspire to the punishment of Traytors Page 1131. Even at this day very Pagans and Pilgrims that pass that way cast each man a stone into that heap and are wont to say in a solemn Execution Cursed be the Parricide Absalom and cursed be all unjust persecutors of their Parents for ever Fasten your Eyes upon this woful Spectacle O all ye rebellious and ungracious Children which rise up against the loins and thighs from which you fell and know that it is the least part of your punishment that your Carcasses rot on the Earth and your Name in Ignominy these do but shadow out those Eternal sufferings of your Souls for your full and unnatural disobedience Sheba's Rebellion Page 1132. That a lewd Conspirator should breath Treason is no wonder but is it not wonder and shame that upon every mutinous blast Israel should turn Traytor to God's anointed Contemplations Lib. 18. p. 1171. In the Case of Succession into Kingdoms we may not look into the Qualities of the Person but into the Right No Bond can be surer than the natural Allegiance of Subjects I do not find that the following Kings stood upon the Confirmation of the People but as those that knew the way to their Throne ascended their steps without aid Page 1174. How durst these seditious Mouths mention David in defiance One would have thought that very Name had been bale to have temper'd their fury and to have contained them within the limits off Obedience Blessed be God for lawful Government Even a mutinous Body cannot want a Head If the Rebellious Israelites have cast of their true Sovereign they must chuse a false Jeroboam Page 1175. The Civil defection was soon follow'd by the Spiritual As there are near respects betwixt God and his Anointed so there is great Affinity betwixt Treason and Idolatry They cannot return to God and hold off from their lawful Sovereign They cannot return to Jerusalem and keep off from God from their Loyalty How can they be mine whiles the Priests and Levites shall preach to them the necessity of their due obedience and the abomination of their Sacrifices in their wilful disobedience Bishop Hall's second Vol. Christ and Caesar p. 416. It is Religion that teacheth us that God hath ordained Kingly Sovereignty Rom. 13.1 ordain'd it immediately That Position was worthy of a Red-hat Potestas Principis dimanavit à Populo Pontificis à Deo. Bellar. Recog What need I persuade Christian Kings and Princes that they hold their Crowns and Scepters as in fee from the God of Heaven Cyrus himself had so much Divinity Ezra 1.2 It is Religion that teaches us that the same Power which ordained Caesar enjoins all faithful subjection to Caesar Not for fear but for Conscience Bishop Hall's third Vol. Pag. 118. 3. A promissory Oath which is to the certain prejudice of another Man 's Right cannot be attended with Justice 4. No prejudice of another Man's right can be so dangerous and sinful as that prejudice which is done to the right of publick and Sovereign Authority 5. The right of Sovereign Authority is highly prejudiced when private Subjects encroach upon it and shall upon suspicion of the diavowed intentions or actions of their Princes combine and bind themselves to enact establish or alter any matters concerning Religion without and therefore much more if against the Authority of their Lawful Sovereign 6. A Man is bound in Conscience to reverse and disclaim that which he was induced unlawfully to engage himself by Oath to perform 7. No Oath is or can be of force that is made against a lawful Oath formerly taken so that he that hath sworn Allegiance to his Sovereign and thereby bound himself to maintain the Right Power and Authority of his said Sovereign cannot by any second Oath be tied to do ought that may tend to the infringement thereof and if he have so tied himself the Obligation is ipso facto void and frustrate And according to this Doctrine was Mr. Dod's practice * Sir H. Yelverton's Pref. to Bishop Moreton of Episc for a little before Naseby fight King Charles of blessed memory sent the Earl of Lindsey to Mr. Dod to know his opinion of the War his Lordship found him ill
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding And to that Oracle of the Son of God himself Matth. 16.24 If any man will come after me let him deny himself c. then must he raise up his thoughts to the heigth of that beatitude which our Saviour's own mouth hath given assurance of to all such as will be ruled by him herein Matth. 5.10 11 12. Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake c. and to look on the recompence of Reward and to encourage himself with the precedent of the Apostles and Prophets the innumerable company of Martyrs and Confessors and above all to look unto Christ himself Obj. P. 150 But suppose the King should command us to worship the Devil would you not give us leave to stand upon our Guard and if not what will become of God's Church and his Religion R. As if this had been a new Case never heard of before when the Devil-Worship i. e. that of Idols called Devils 1 Cor. x. 20. was so vehemently urged by the cruel Edicts of the persecuting Emperors did the Christians ever take Arms against them for the matter or betake themselves to any other Refuge but fervent Prayers unto Almighty God and patient suffering of what disgrace or punishment soever should be put upon them Pag. 152. c. But if Mens Hands be tied no Man's Estate will be secure c. I answer God's Word is clear Whosoever resisteth resisteth the Ordinance of God and thereby a necessity is imposed upon us of being subject not only for wrath but for conscience sake which may not be avoided by the pretext of any ensuing mischiefs whatsoever it becomes us in obedience to perform our part and leave the ordering of Events to God Pag. 177. whose part that is And so much both of active Obedience which in all things that may be done we are bound to perform unto our Sovereigns and of the passive which in other Cases with all Christian Fortitude we are tied to undergo ☞ without the least carnal thought either of resisting their Authority or conspiring against their Persons State and Dignity And then he closes his Discourse with an account of the Obligation of Oaths c. and the methods of the ancient Church when persecuted viz. ' Patient Sufferings and Prayers to God. Nor need I mention Dr. Heylin whose Opinions are well known and are remarkably to be seen in his Stumbling-Block of Disobedience discovered censured and removed c. Of which the Arguments are cogent and the Authorities good tho I do not like the sharpness of his Language nor the severity of his Reflections SECT XIII Archbishop * Oper. to 1. disc 2. The Serpentine-Salve p. 525 526. Bramhal who succeeded Usher both in his See and his Loyalty says there were Nonconformists in the Days of Queen Elisabeth and King James who severely protested in Print That no Christians gave more to the Royal Supremacy than they without limitation or qualification that for the King not to assume such a power or for the People to deny it is a damnable sin nay altho the States of the Kingdom should deny it him and if the King command any thing contrary to the Word of God yet we ought not to resist but peaceably to forbear Obedience and sue for Grace and when that cannot be obtained meekly to submit our selves to punishment abjuring all Doctrines repugnant to this as Anabaptistical and Antichristian they condemn all Practices contrary to this as seditious and sinful And then proceeds to give his own Opinion That Dominion is not from the Grant or Consent of the People but from God. Pag. 527 528. That absolute Power may be limited by Statutes c. without communicating Sovereign Power to subordinate or inferior Subjects or subjecting Majesty to Censure which Limitations do not proceed from mutual Pactions but from Acts of Grace and Bounty Pag. 531. If the People be greater than the King it is no more a Monarchy but a Democracy Our Oath binds us to acknowledge the King to be supreme in all Causes and over all persons to defend him against all Conspiracies and if to defend him much more not to offend him That Oath which binds us to defend him against all Attempts whatsoever presupposeth that no Attempt against him can be justified by Law against such evident Light of Truth to ground a contrary Assertion derogatory to his Majesty Pag. 532. upon the private Authority of Bracton and Fleta no authentick Authors were a strange degree of weakness or wilfulness that Subjects who have not the Power of the Sword committed to them may use force to recover their former liberty or raise Arms to change the Laws established Pag. 537. is without all contradiction both false and rebellious Surely Pag. 538. if any Liberty might warrant such force it is the Liberty of Religion but Christ never planted his Religion in Blood he cooled his Disciples Heat with a sharp Redargution Ye know not what spirit ye are of It is better to die innocent than to live nocent as the Thebean Legion all Christians of approved Valor answered the Emperor Maximian Pag. 542. If a Sovereign shall persecute his Subjects for not doing his unjust Commands yet it is not lawful to resist by raising Arms against him they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation But they ask Is there no Limits I answer where the Law doth not distinguish neither ought we to distinguish how shall we limit what God hath not limited Obj. But is there no Remedy for a Christian in this Case Yes three Remedies 1. To cease from sin remove our sin and God will take away his Rod. ☜ 2. Prayers and Tears S. Naz. lived under five Persecutions and never knew other Remedy The third Remedy is flight this is the uttermost which our Master hath allowed nor is this way so hard for Subjects this way hath ever proved successful to the Christian Religion SECT XIV With Archbishop Usher I will also join Bishop Brownrig a Man much of his primitive temper and approved Moderation even by the Enemies of our Church notwithstanding his Episcopal Character * Serm. to 1. Serm. 2. p. 26 28. The Writ by which Princes are made issues from Heaven Kings reign by God's Election not by his Permission only that is too weak and sandy a Foundation permission falls short of approbation c. †Serm. 3. p. 33. Darius was an Enemy to the Church one that kept the Church of God in Bondage and Captivity used them not as Subjects but as Slaves enthrall'd them to his Tyranny yet still acknowledged and honored by the Prophet as their rightful Sovereign the primitive Saints submitted to Julian that hateful Apostate S. Peter requires Subjection not only to the good and gentle but to the froward Governors Darius made a wicked Law forbidding Religion and
Doctrines to murder Princes are not of the Gospel-Spirit Bishop Hacket's Sermons on Psal xli 9. on the Gowry's Conspiracy p. 740. 741. Surely above all Men if the Clergy be not careful to set forth the honor of this day with great Honour and Solemnity it is their Ignorance or their Negligence Had these furious Sword-men that laid their Weapons to his Throat found an austere Master nay a Tyrant they must have born with it and not touch the Man that bears the Character of the Lord 's Anointed Dr. Sharp before the House of Commons Apr. 11. 1679. p. 35. O may God so inspire you That by your means the Person of his sacred Majesty and the Rights of his Crown may be secured against all wicked Attempts And p. 39. Let us hate all Tricks and Devices and Equivocations both in our Words and in Carriage Let us be constantly and inflexibly loyal to our Prince and let no consideration in the World make us violate our Allegiance to him And in his Sermon preach'd before the Lord Mayor 1680. speaking of the upright Man He is one studiously endeavouring to preserve his Allegiance to his Prince Pag. 19. He is a Man that honors the King that is observant of the Laws that is true to the Government and meddles not with them that are given to change In his Sermon preached at the Yorkshire Feast Feb. 17. 16 79 / 80. p. 17. We may do a great deal of good by our good Examples of Loyalty SECT XXII And to evince that this hath been the unquestion'd Doctrine of all the Members of this Church I shall subjoin many other Testimonies * Bish of Lincoln Principl and Posit p. 7. That England is a Monarchy the Crown Imperial and our Kings supreme Governors and sole supreme Governors of this Realm and all other their Dominions will I believe I am sure it should be granted seeing our Authentick Laws and Statutes do so expresly and so often say it In our Oath of Supremacy we swear That the King is the only supreme Governor supreme so none not the Pope above him and only supreme so none coordinate or equal to him so that by our known Laws our King is solo Deo minor invested with such a Supremacy as excludes both Pope and People and all the World God Almighty only excepted by whom Kings do reign from having any Power Jurisdiction or Authority over him This Book hath its Imprimatur not from any mean hand but from my Lord Bishop of London himself which is to me a plain implication that his Lordship did then own the Doctrine and so we have another Testimony to the Truth †Burnet's Vind. c. printed at Glascow p. 7. c. The Vindication of the Authority c. of the Church is full to this purpose Obj. May not Subjects when opprest in their establish'd Religion defend themselves and resist the Magistrate doth not the Law of Nature direct Men to defend themselves when unjustly assaulted Answ We must distinguish between the Laws of Nature and the Rights and Permissions of Nature now self-defence cannot be a Law of Nature ☜ for then it could never be dispenc'd with without a Sin nay were a man never so criminal he ought not to suffer himself to be killed neither should any Malefactor submit to the sentence of the Judge but stand to his defence by all the force he could raise and it will not serve turn to say for the good of Society he ought to submit for no Man must violate the Laws of Nature were it on never so good a design Christ's dying for us shews that self-defence can be no Law of Nature otherwise Christ who fulfilled all Righteousness had contradicted the Laws of Nature ‖ Pag. 10. He then proceeds to demonstrate that Magistrates derive not their Power from the Surrender of the People for none can surrender what they have not ☜ Take then a multitude of People not yet associated none of them hath power of his own Life neither hath he power of his Neighbor's since no Man out of Society may kill another be his Crime never so great much less be his own Murtherer A multitude of People not yet associated are but so many individual Persons therefore the Power of the Sword is not from the People nor is any of their Delegation but is from God. * Pag. 35. Consider that Christ was to fulfill all Righteousness if then the Laws of Nature exact our Defence in case of unjust Persecution for Religion ☜ he was bound to that Law as well as we for he came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law both by his Example and Precepts if then you charge the Doctrine of Absolute Submission as brutish or stupid or as contrary to the Law of Nature see you do not run into Blasphemy by charging that Holy One foolishly for whatever he knew of the secret Will of God he was to follow his revealed Will in his Actions †Pag. 39. If fighting at that time when Saint Peter drew his Sword for preserving Christ from the Jews were contrary to the Nature of his Kingdom so the Rule of the Gospel binding all the succeeding Ages of the Church no less than those to whom it was first deliver'd what was then contrary to the nature of Christ's Kingdom will be so still * P. 42. I shall add one thing which all Casuists hold a safe Rule in matters that are doubtful viz. That we ought to follow that side of the doubt that is freest from hazard ☞ here then damnation is at least the seeming hazard of resistance therefore except upon as clear evidence you prove the danger of absolute submission to be of the same nature that it may ballance the other then absolute submission as being the securest is to be followed * P. 41. Obj. But he is the Minister of God to thee for good and if they swerve from this they forsake the end for which they were raised up and so fall from the Power and right to our Obedience Answ It is true the Sovereign is a Minister of God for good so that he corrupts his power grosly when he pursues not that design but in that he is onely accountable to God whose Minister he is c. The same Author continued stedfast to this Doctrine when he left Scotland and came into England * Ser. on Jan. 30. 1674 / 5. p. 7. 9. David when Saul was most unjustly hunting his life would not stretch forth his hand against him seeing he was the anointed of the Lord from Almighty God the King had his Power and to him he knew he was to give an account of his Administration Affirming that the Enemies of that Royal Martyr P. 38. by Oaths and Counter-Oaths which they often took had their Consciences so seared as to be past feeling till they threw off all sense of God and Religion and set up professedly
God sets over us So that Religion can never be pretended against Loyalty and therefore when I take a sad review of the Evil of our late Disturbances It ake not so much notice of the Loss of King Liberty Property Parliaments Blood tho very great as of impairing so far the Credit of Religion in the Violences offered to the person of his Sacred Majesty and that by persons so highly pretending to it I am sorry the Papists seem to have now a thirtieth of January Pag. 18. to return us for a fifth of November Christianity disowns all consecrated Daggers in Heathen Writers indeed nothing of more familiar occurrence than Panegyricks in commendation of the Assertors of publick Liberty by the assassinating of a Tyrant a thing easily pardonable in them being able by the dim Light of Nature to discover no more in a King than a Head of Gold supported by the Clayie Toes of popular Election and Acceptance but Scripture shews a higher Charter than so Pag. 19. by which Kings hold their Crowns Prov. 8.15 By me Kings reign c. the taking Arms to redress some Evils in the Government of a Nation proves generally but as the cutting off of the Hand to get rid of a cut Finger Pag. 23. It is a Truth of everlasting Faithfulness That can never be brought about safely by bad means which could not be by good SECT XXIV Dr. Tillotson Dean of Canterbury * Letter to the Lord Russel Jun. 20. 1683. In tender compassion of your Lordship's Case and from all the good will that one man can bear to another I do humbly offer to your Lordships deliberate thoughts these following Considerations concerning the Point of Resistance if our Religion and Rights should be invaded ☞ 1. That the Christian Religion doth plainly forbid the resistance of Authority 2. That tho our Religion be established by Law which your Lordship urges as a Difference between our Case and that of the Primitive Christians yet in the same Law which establishes our Religian 14 Car. 2. c. 4. 14 Car. 2. c. 3. it is declared That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms c. Besides that there is a particular Law declaring the Power of the Militia to be solely in the King and this ties the Hands of Subjects tho the Law of Nature and the general Rules of Scripture had left us at liberty which I believe they do not because the Government and Peace of human Society could not well subsist upon these Terms 3. Your Lordship's Opinion is contrary to the declared Doctrine of all Protestant Churches ☜ and tho some particular persons have taught otherwise that have been contradicted herein and condemn'd for it by the generality of Protestants I beg of your Lordship to consider how it will agree with an avowed asserting of the Protestant Religion to go contrary to the general Doctrine of the Protestants my end in this is to convince your Lordship that you are in a very dangerous and great Mistake and being so convinced that which before was a sin of Ignorance will appear of a much more heinous nature as in truth it is 〈◊〉 calls for a very particular and deep repentance which if your Lordship exercise by a particular acknowledgment of it to God and Man you will not only obtain forgiveness of God but prevent a mighty scandal to the Reformed Religion I am very loth to give your Lordship and disquiet in the distress you are in but am much more concern'd that you do leave the world in a delusion and false peace to the hinderance of your eternal happiness And in his Prayer on the Scaffold with the same Lord he hath this expression Grant O Lord that all we who survive by this and other instances of thy Providence may learn our Duty to God and the King. Dr. Stillingfleet Dean of S. Paul's Serm. on Jan. 30. 166 8 / 9 on Jude 11. p. 2 3. The Christian Religion above all others hath taken care to preserve the Right sof Sovereignty by giving unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's And to make resistance unlawful by declaring that those who are guilty of it shall receive to themselves damnation Of such men we have a description in this short but smart Epistle who believ'd it a part of their Saintship to despise Dominions c. P. 7 8. Whose design like that of Corah was the sharing the Government among themselves which it was impossible for them to hope for as long as Moses continued a King in Jeshurun nor were they awed by the solemn Vows and Promises they had made of Obedience to him for factious men know they must address themselves to the people and in the first place persuade them that they manage their interests against the usurpations of their Governors while the people take a strange pride in hearing and telling all the Faults of their Governors P. 11 12. The common grounds of all Seditions being usurpations upon the Peoples Rights ☜ arbitrary Government and ill management of Affairs as if they had said we appear only in the behalf of the Fundamental Liberties of the People both Civil and Spiritual That Moses was guilty of the Breach of the Trust committed to him so that now by the ill management of his Trust the Power was again devolved into the Hands of the People and they ought to take account of his Actions Pag. 21. Cons p. 22 23 c. There were then two great Principles among them by which they thought to defend themselves 1. That Liberty and a Right to Power is so inherent in the People that it cannot be taken from them 2. That in case of Usurpation upon that Liberty of the People they may resume the Exercise of Power b◠punishing those who are guilty of it And I believe they will be found to be the first Assertors of this kind of Liberty that ever were in the world ☞ and happy had it been for this Nation if Corah had never found any Disciples in it Of the later of the two Propositions Pag. 26 27 28 29. it is said that there can be no Principle imagined more destructive to Civil Societies and repugnant to the very nature of Government for it destroys all the Obligations of Oaths and Compacts it makes the solemnest Bonds of Obedience signifie nothing it makes every prosperous Rebellion just c. and if Corah Dathan and Abiram had succeeded in their Rebellion against Moses no doubt they would have been called the Keepers of the Liberties of ISRAEL The Supposition of this Principle will unavoidably keep up a constant Jealousie between the Prince and his People and there can be no such way to bring in an arbitrary Government into a Nation Besides this must necessarily engage a Nation in endless Disputes about the forfeiture of Power into whose Hands it falls whether into the People in common or some persons
as much as to say do what they would have him * Id. on v. 4. p. 221. Who may say unto the King What dost thou i. e. first who hath any Authority to call him to an Account As much as to say none hath but God alone according to that of an eminent Rabbi No Creature may judge the King but the holy and blessed God alone To allow the People either collective or representative to have Power to do it is to make them Accusers Judges and Executioners also in their own Cause and that against their Sovereign nor secondly can any Man safely attempt it but he shall meet with Punishment either here or hereafter which is no new Doctrine but the same with that of S. Paul as Luther here honestly notes They that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation which none shall be able to avoid Thus much the Author of Nature's Dowry is forced to acknowledge from the evident Light he saw in this place It is Wisdom saith he out of Elisha Gallico an Hebrew Interpreter in a private man when the Magistrate enjoins what is repugnant to God's Will to remove out of his Dominions rather than contest with him †Id. p. 223. The wisest thing we can do when Princes require any thing grievous unto us is not to rebel but to watch the fittest opportunities to petition for redress and that after such a manner as may not give offence V. 7. P. 224. Luther refers wholly to the miserable Condition of a Rebel in this manner He desires various things and hopes for mighty matters by his Disobedience but is mightily deceiv'd for of the very impunity which he promis'd himself he cannot be secure c. ‖ Id. in Eccles x. 20. Paraph. p. 277. Curse not the King c. but notwithstanding all this viz. consuming the publick Treasure c. as I advised thee before not to rise in Rebellion against thy Sovereign so now let me add that it is very foolish as well as wicked to be provoked by this ill management so much as to speak an opprobrious Word of him or his Ministers c. ‡ Annot. in loc p. 302. But whatsoever negligence or profuseness and waste there be it should not provoke any wise or good man to speak contemptuously of his Sovereign or of his Ministers * P. 306. It will not be unuseful much less unseasonable in such an unruly Age as this to let the Reader understand how deeply the first Reformers of Religion laid this Precept to heart by transcribing some of Luther's Admonitions in his Annotations on this Verse The worse and the more malignant says he the World is the more studious and laborious Solomon teaches us to be in the doing of our duty particularly in honoring Magistracy because it is a divine Ordinance and the better part of the World by which God manages all things under the Sun. But the Ungodly begin their Wickedness chiefly in the Contempt of Magistrates when they hear how God blames and reproves them in the holy Scriptures but it belongs to the divine Office to find fault with Magistrates and to rebuke them and therefore tho thou hearest it yet do not imitate it for thou art not God nor the Ordainer no nor the Reformer nor the Restorer of the divine Ordinance but as God reproves them so thee also in the holy Scriptures that thou may'st do thy duty and not meddle with what belongs to them The meaning therefore of Solomon is I have spoken much of Princes how they undo the World but do thou reverence them notwithstanding that for they are not an humane Ordinance but a divine St. Peter indeed calls the King an Humane Creature because he is assumed from among men but his Authority is divine and tho Princes be bad they are to be honored because of this Ordinance of God. Why then wilt thou speak evil of those who are vexed with so many and great cares and labours for thy Peace if they be good And if they be bad and foolish their own Impiety is mischief enough to them and brings them into sufficient danger Bear with them then and compassionate them rather than rail upon them and revile them c. Dr. Towerson on the fifth Commandment Those Powers are to be look'd upon as ordained by God which came to that Power they have as without any fraud or violence so by the ordinary Course of God's Providence Upon which account all those Powers must be look'd upon as ordain'd by God that either come to the Throne by a lineal Descent from former Kings where the Kingdom is Hereditary or by a free and unconstrained choice where it is Elective Part 5. p. 241. Pag. 251. There is no doubt it is in the Power of the Subject who conceives himself not to have deserv'd it so by flight to avoid if he can the falling under the Power of it the Sword Our Saviour having expresly given leave that if we be persecuted in one City we should to save our selves flee from that to another As little difficulty should I find if that were the thing in question to license the avoiding the Prince's Severity by appealing to his own Courts of Judicature where that is by Law so allowed as it is in several Cases here that being not to be looked upon as a Resistance much less an injurious one which is with the leave of him against whom it is directed But if the Question be concerning resisting by force of Arms and so avoiding the severity of the Prince so it is as certain both from the Scripture and Reason that we ought not to avoid it but rather with all readiness submit to the strokes of it Pag. 253. For tho it be true that a Prince hath no Authority to inflict an unjust Punishment yet he is privileg'd by the place he holds under God from being subjected unto Man and ought not therefore by any force to be brought into Subjection to him Pag. 254. Whosoever resisteth evil Powers must be thought in a particular manner to fight against God. What a disappointment must needs have been to the Counsels of the Almighty if it had been permitted Christians to resist Part 7. An Answer to several Pleas which are made in behalf of Resistance c. Pag. 257 258. That which generally draws Princes to the persecuting of those that are of a different Religion from themselves being not so much any hatred of their Religion as the Jealousie they have lest under the Pretences of that and the Assemblies which are made for it some secret Design against the State should lurk which Jealousie must needs be taken away when it appears to them from undoubted Experiments that they who do profess it will not attempt any thing against them how severely soever they may be handled by them To all which if we add the story of primitive Times too we shall not need to doubt of Religion's being more than
ancient Right to his Crowns that any King in the known Parts of the World hath P. 178. Where Government in general in Scripture is establish'd and Obedience to Governors injoin'd it ought to be reckoned as spoken of our Governors and Government Ecclesiastical and Civil as well as of any other in the World. Ch. 7. p. 198. Whatever discouragement the Clergy of England have found they still preach up and persuade Loyalty to the King and by the Doctrine of Passive Obedience to temporal Authority keep People from Rebellion notwithstanding they have so often been jeer'd and abused with it * Serm. 2. of the unlawfulness of resist Ep. Ded. Mr. Payn. I think it my duty as a Minister of that Church and Religion which hath been often the Mark but never the Author of any Treason to publish these Sermons And that none may be so malicious as to think we calculate our Sermons merely for the present Circumstances as if the Pulpit were but a kind of a Weather-glass wherein the Doctrine of Obedience to Governors is higher or lower to the temperature or variation of outward Affairs I have put out a plain Sermon without any Addition that was preach'd long before the Plot c. When the ancient Christians were persecuted P. 7 8 9. they endured unheard of cruelties from their Governors ☞ and this often as they complain'd of in their Apologies against Law too Such as would have stirred up those who had power to defend themselves had they not learnt such Principles from their Religion as forbad it we are under the obligation of Oaths though there have been some who have forgot all Oaths and could as easily unloose them as Sampson did his Wit hs and then set themselves free from the Precepts ☞ and Examples of Christ and his Apostles by this colour and pretence that the Government under which they lived was of another Nature than ours in England and that such is our Constitution as makes all this impertinent and of very little regard here And by the same way might they not discharge Wives and Children and Servants from those Duties the Gospel requires from each of them because there was a great difference between the State and condition of those among the Jews the Romans and the Grecians formerly and with us now And afterward he shews Serm. 2. p. 22. That neither in the Case of Religion nor of Legal Rights nor in the case of Natural Defence and the otherwise remediless case of Mankind by the encroachments of Princes P. 27. it 's any way lawful to take Arms. And proves that the Law of Nature or of Self-preservation does not allow of resistance c. And closes all with these good Prayers God preserve Christianity from that reproach P. 37. and blasphemy which these wicked Men have brought upon it God preserve the Protestant Religion from that advantage which is hereby given to our Enemies to destroy it J. Kettlewell 's Measures of Christian Obedience Book 2. c. 4. A Duty to Kings and Princes being God's Vicegerents here on Earth is a readiness and resolved industry to maintain and support them in their Persons and Government not plotting and endeavouring our selves to give away their Lives and Kingdoms unto others or consenting to them that do so not submitting and subjecting our selves to them but violently resisting and opposing them is called by S. Paul resisting of Power or standing up against it Rom. 13.2 And this when it is made by great numbers and goes on to extremities when men are as the Apostle there saith set in array and posture of Defence against it ☜ and ready by force of Arms to wage War with it is Rebellion Book 3. c. 6. The first pretence whereby men justifie to their own thoughts the indulgent Transgression of several Laws is because those Transgressions wherein they allow themselves are necessary for the preservation of their Religion and of themselves in those times of danger and persecution wherein God's Providence has placed them Religion is in danger and like to be undermined by the close and subtle Arts or overborn by the more open and powerful violence of strong and witty Enemies And this is God's Cause and Christ our Lord and Saviour's Interest So that whatever is done here we think is in Service of our Maker If we fight it is his Battels Some on one Hand that call us Hereticks think no means sinful whereby they can weaken and divide And others again even of our own selves who justly abhor these damnable Instances of Disobedience upon pretence of preserving or propagating Religion in some furious and firy spirited sort of Papists for God forbid that we should think them all to be of this temper do yet run into the same extravagance which upon so great reason they condemn in them For if we look into our zeal for the common Religion of Protestants we shall find that we transgress many and those most material and weighty Laws of it whilst we express our affection and concern to defend and preserve it For doth not this pretence of preserving our Religion carry us beyond all the Bounds of Peaceableness and good Subjection Yea I add further that these same Fears for our endangered Religion transport us into the Transgression of sundry weighty Laws which oblige us towards our very Enemies who have contrived to destroy us Thus full of Sin and Disobedience is this sanctified pretence It is the Cover for every Offence ☞ and the common shelter for all Transgressions for we boggle not at an◠sin so long as it tends to preserve us in the prosperous Profession of our endangered or oppressed Religion But if Men would consider calmly and have patience to look beyond the surface and bare outsides of things they would soon discern the vanity of this pretence and how far it will be from excusing any such sinful and disobedient Practices as they think to justifie and warrant by it For as for true and substantial Religion for protection whereof they would be thought to venture upon all these Transgressions it stands in no need of their help to preserve it in persecuting times altho they should use innocent and just means not such as are sinful and disobedient it would live then without their care and whether they went about by any politick means to preserve it or no. For Religion is not lost when Religious Men are persecuted it doth not suffer when they do that profess it seeing it is not one jot impaired when Men are buffeted and imprisoned nay when they bleed and die for it ☞ Could the violence of Persecution have oppressed our Religion it had been stifled in the Birth For it entered in a persecuting Age and yet was not over-born by the pressure of its Sufferings but bravely overcame them It begun grew up and conquered all the World in the very Heat of Affliction and Opposition the more it
earth their Superior that may awe them if they sin more licentiously and heinously than others He that will read the Sentiments of Sam. Petit on this Doctrine let him consult his Treatise set out by his Nephew Sorbiere called Diatriba de Jure Principum edictis Ecclesiae quaesito c. while Monsieur Allix says Praefat. ad Determ Joh. Paris p. 61. That the Determination that Kings may be deposed is much worse than the most Heresies And Dr. Bourdieu †Serm. on 29. May. 1684. having asserted That Religion teaches men to give Obedience to Pagan Tyrannical Persecuting Heretical Princes in his Epistle to the King avers That it was reasonable that he should publish to the World the Opinion of their disconsolate Churches upon the Doctrine of Obedience which ought to be given to higher Powers Thus he was instructed in his Infancy and Youth thus he saw it practised in their Congregations and Assemblies thus for many years himself had taught it as he had read and found it contain'd in the Holy Scriptures And to mention one unblassed Authority out of that suffering Church instead of all the rest take a few words of a pious Minister of theirs smarting at the very time when he wrote under the Severity of his Sovereign and as himself testifies enjoying then the Protection of a Commonwealth * Le Droit Souv du Prince c. p. 15 16. No good man says he ought to resist a Prince for any earthly Interest whatsoever nay nor for Religion neither c. It may be objected that the Doctrine of such absolute Power in Princes should give occasion to the increase of misery in such passive Churches To which I answer 1. That were it so that such temporal misery should be increased by it yet that countervailed not the necessity of recovering so many Souls without number from death temporal first and afterwards from eternal And again speaking of the Authority of a Prince as to the Essentials of Religion †Pag. 33. If a Prince will use force and violence there all that we have to do is to suffer with humility and patience both his threats and the worst he can do not suffering his rigor to raise the least motion to Rebellion in us and transport us to the least degree of outward resistance any more than refusing to wound our Consciences with such Acts of Religion as are contrary to the Faith we profess and never had the Church of Christ had so many holy Champions as deserved the Name of Martyrs and Confessors if they had not thought this Rule inviolably true Pag. 36. We must suffer all their displeasure even in case of these Essentials without murmuring and sacrifice our Resentments to the Authority that afflicts us according to the Commandment of God which we keep in suffering so As for the things of this life Pag. 40. there is not one of them exempted from the Power of Princes for as the Judgment of Conscience upon the Account of being peculiar to God alone was the reason why the Essence of Religion was exempted from it so the Cognizance of these things belonging to Princes they are all of them capable to receive the impressions of their Power pag. 53 54. And again having described the Nature and Original of the most Sovereign and Absolute Power upon Earth he adds That in all States where that Power is either already established or where it is about to establish it self by such means as nothing but an unjust Rebellion of Subjects can prevent the Hand of God ought to be acknowledged in it and the Secrets of his Providence adored and our Sins forsaken which provoke the King of Kings to permit such an Increase of Power and try to obtain that Liberty of the Divine Mercy which it is not lawful for us to give our selves and if it please not God to take off that Yoke from them that bear it or to help them escape it that fly from it it is matter of Conscience to undergo it as a Chastisement of God's sending and against which we cannot struggle without opposing him who sends it In a word this Power is a Power of Impunity which Sovereigns have in respect of their People The CONCLUSION IT were easie to sum up the Arguments of these eminent Men That Power is only from God and therefore only accountable to him that suffering for Righteousness sake is the Glory of Religion that Resistance is a damnable Sin that no Evil is to be done that the greatest good may come of it and that true Religion is tender of the Rights of Princes and teaches Obedience to them for Conscience sake and that the Devil of Rebellion does commonly transform himself into an Angel of Reformation But these things are so plainly affirmed in the foregoing Discourse that the Reader must be very weak or very negligent that does not observe them FINIS Omitted by the Printer Pag. 84. Line 15. Dr. Stillingfleet In his Preface to the Jesuits Loyalty THE same Learned Author exposing the absurd and inconsistent pretences of Loyalty in the Jesuits makes choice of this method To run the Parallel between the Deposing Doctrine of the Church of Rome and the Commonwealth Principles which he undertakes to prove and effectually makes out to agree in these three particulars 1. Pag. 4. In setting up a Court of Judicature over Sovereign Princes 2. In breaking the Oaths and Bonds of Allegiance Men had entered into 3. In justifying Rebellion on the account of Religion As to the first The setting up a Court of Judicature over Sovereign Princes The Jesuit he observes had endeavoured to come off by the idle distinction of a direct and indirect Power And the Commonwealthsmen says he do herein agree with them For they do not say that the People have a direct power over their Prince which were a contradiction in its self for Subjects to command their Sovereigns but only breach of Trust the People have an indirect Power to call their Princes to an account and to deprive them of their Authority Pag. 5. The main thing to be debated is says he whether Sovereign Princes have a Supreme and Independent Authority inherent in their Persons or no or whether they are to be accountable to others That upon Male-Administration they may be deprived of their Government This is the first and chief Point and the Republicans and Asserters of the Pope's Deposing Power are perfectly agreed in the Affirmative of the latter Question and only differ as to the Persons in whom the Power of calling Princes to an account doth lie whether in the Pope or in the People And even as to this they do not differ so much as Men may at first imagin For however the Primitive Christians thought it no flattery to Princes to derive their Power immediately from God and to make them accountable to him alone as being Superior to all below him as might be easily proved by multitudes
Majesty fill all places with Slaughters Burnings of Towns and Robberies and run headlong into the contempt of all things Civil and Sacred to omit other Writers when I seriously reflected upon the tumultuary reformations in many Countries and the seditious Writings of Buchanan Knox Goodman Whittingham Junius Brutus and others I saw reason to cease my wonder at the accusation tho I can never enough admire the forehead of the Accusers who at the same time that they impeach'd the Protestants were themselves guilty of Writing most Traiterous Libels and promoting Sedition and Rebellion as much as in them lay against their lawful Sovereign But whomsoever this accusation might concern in those days I am sure it did not touch the Church of England of whose Loyalty her adversary Christopher Goodman gives a fair testimony Of Obed. ch 3. p. 30. Prat Gen. 1558. even when he complains of it The most part of Men says he yea and of those who have been both Learned and Godly and have given worthy testimony of their Profession to the Glory of God have thought and taught by the permission of God for our Sins that it is not lawful in any case to resist and disobey the Superior Powers but rather to lay down their Heads and submit themselves to all kinds of Punishment and Tyranny and in the Margin he sets this note this is dangerous Doctrin And tho it may be expected that every Age will produce such Boutefeau 's yet the Doctrin of the Cross and the benefits of a patient suffering of injuries will I hope be always so well understood in the World that all the attempts of the Jesuits and their Journeymen for it is from their shop that these Wares come will prove vain and the true Catholick Doctrin of Passive Obedience will be still owned still honored and when God calls to the performance of is practised the Christian Religion is soft and gentle its Foundation was laid in the blood of its institutor and our Holy Saviour the superstructure cemented with the blood of an innumerable Army of Martyrs and adorn'd with the patience of the Saints and the more truly reformed Christianity is the more like it grows to those admirable examples the more meek and humble it is and the better prepared for a state of suffering but when Mammon finds a way into the House of God and the Baptismal Vow is forgotten when Men depend on their own Arts and distrust Gods Providence when they dare fight for Religion because they are afraid to dye for it and can allow themselves to do evil that good may come thereof it is no wonder if Christianity be blended with the World and made a pretence to serve the ends of pride and covetousness of ambition and revenge Sir Will. Temple's Obs on the Netherl c. 1. p. 57. according to the observation of a wise Statesman with respect to the Netherlands that whereas the Spanish and Italian Writers attribute the Revolutions in the Low Countries to the change of Religion c. That Religion without mixtures of ambition and interest works no such violent effects and produces rather the examples of constant sufferings than of desperate actions How truly Ancient and Primitive the Doctrin of Passive Obedience is comes not within the limits of this present History but may be hereafter considered by deducing it through the Writings and Practices of the earliest Christians down to the days of King Henry VIII But those times in the esteem of John Goodwin were times of ignorance and the truth was but in its dawn and by a glimmering light Men were easily led out of their way for he says that the Primitive Christians and among them he must include the Apostles Anti-Cavalerism Sect. 6. tho guided by the Spirit of God which led them into all truth knew nothing of this useful Doctrin of Resistance that God had hid this liberty from the Primitive Christians of the Subjects Power and right to resist their Superiors which he hath manifested to us the commonalty of Christians doing contrary to the will of their Superiors being the Men that must have the Principal hand in executing God's judgments upon the Whore. Rev. 18 4 5. and as John Goodwin slanders the Ancient Fathers as a company of ignorant Men so John Milton accuses the first Reformers as the genuine assertors of the Doctrin of Resistance for Salmasius having truly alledged that the Doctrin of the Sacred and Inviolable Authority of Princes was preserved pure and uncorrupt in the Church till the Bishops of Rome attempted to set up a Kingdom in this World Paramount to all Kings and Emperors Milton replies Defens pro pop Angli p. 33. that Salmasius strove in vain to transfer the guilt upon the Pope which all free Nations every Religion all the Orthodox take upon themselves and that he had as many Adversaries in this point as there were most excellent Doctors of the Reformed Church While a third Writer boldly affirms Author of plain English p. 7. that the Doctrin of Non-Resistance is contrary to the Fundamental Liberties of the Nation and that they undid the Kingdom who required the Oath contrary to the Fundamental Liberty of the Nation whereby they would make the King and them who are commissioned by him to be as irresistible as there severity against Dissenters would argue the imposers infallible Thus in the Opinion of such Writers Passive Obedience was the weakness of the Ancient Christians and a sign they were under a lower dispensation and that to assert it necessary in this more inlightned Age is to contradict the most eminent Reformers and the Fundamental Liberties of Nature and if after all this some Men should be so resty as to quote St. Paul to the Romans for their submission to Princes Ubi sup p. 38. Goodman says that Men are deceived into this submission by misunderstanding this place of St. Paul and such like It behoveth every Soul to be subject to superior Powers because there is no Power but of God for the Powers that be are ordained of God and therefore he that resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God which words he elsewhere thus comments Ch. 9. p. 410 c. that they require Obedience only to such Magistrates whom God hath ordained over us lawfully according to his word which rule in his fear according to their Office as God hath appointed and that Tyrants Idolaters Papists and Oppressors are not God's Ordinance if so Satan must be obeyed and his Infernal Powers for they are Powers and have their Powers also from God and yet we must resist the Devil for the Magistrate is ordained for good and to such only must every Person be subject and Obedient Such unhappy Commentaries do some Men write even on Holy Scripture it self when their Interests incline their minds to wrest the Sacred Oracles it were easie to prove this from Pope Hildebrand down through the School-men to the present time
he suffered the most bitter and cruel kind of Death for our sakes and the points of Office of him that is his Vicar are to be in subjection not to command Princes but to acknowledge himself to be under their power and commandment not only when they command things indifferent and easily to be done but also when they command things not indifferent so they be not wicked in checks in scourgings and beatings unto death yea even unto the death of the Cross Indeed these are Christs footsteps Now if it be objected against what hath been said that the Author of the Treatise Gardiner was a virulent Papist I answer this strengthens the Authority for the Testimony of an Enemy to the Truth of Religion is worth an hundred other Witnesses and it is very remarkable that a Romish Bishop should assert the Divine Right and unaccountableness of Kings when his Church teacheth him to believe that the Pope hath power to depose Princes and many of their eminent Writers affirm that all power is originally in and derived from the people And if it be further objected that Gardiner retracted and disowned this Doctrine in the Reign of Queen Mary I grant it and I wish that he and Bonner had been the only men in the world who had altered their Opinions for the worse being prevailed upon by the love of the world which is the root of all evil But Truth is never the less venerable because some Professors of it have turned Apostates Gardiner 's and Bonner 's Reasons * Vide Cranmer's Translat in praef before his Book of unwritten Verities being so pithy and Arguments so strong as neither they themselves nor any other after them shall be able at any time rightly to assoil and answer And it must be observed that before they condemned these their Orthodox Tenets they wilfully broke the Oaths which they had taken in the Days of Henry the Eighth and the venerable Dean * Reproof of Dorman p. 1.6 Lond. 1565. Nowel thus urges the Argument Ask your forsworn Fathers with what face they did give to the King the Title of Supreme Head did swear it to him and so long time continued so calling him If they did not so think as they said and had sworn but dissembled deeply ask of them with what face they played so false dissembling Hypocrites with their Sovereign Lord Ask of them what manner of Subjects they were all that while feigning in face in word in writing yea and taking a Solemn Oath to be with their Prince therein and being in heart and deed on his sworn Enemy his side But if they thought indeed as they pretended in words then ask of them with what face they did change their Copy ☞ and forswear the same and themselves withal so easily afterward yea and compelled all others to be forsworn with them for company Then you shall find who they were that changed their Copy and turned with the Wind as the Weather-cock that so falsly swear reswear trieswear and forswear themselves and not content therewith did by all most terrible Torments and dreadful Deaths compel others to Perjury with them And whoso considers Bonner's juggling Fox Martyrs To. 2. p. 1192 1193. Edit 1610. anno 1547. with King Edward the Sixth's Commissioners about the Injunctions at one time protesting against them at another recanting that his Protestation swearing Obedience to the King receiving his Injunctions giving his assent and consent to the State of Religion then established to the abolishing Images abrogation of the Mass setting up of Bibles in Churches giving the Sacrament in both kinds and such like And then two years afterward anno 1549. on the Death of the Lord High Admiral and the many tumultuous Insurrections of the King's Subjects neglecting to be present or to officiate in his Cathedral at Divine Service and permitting others to frequent the Mass may see his temper throughly and be convinced that his Authority is of no worth while his Reasonings are unanswerable it being unjust that his personal Faults should make void the weight of his Arguments especially when he spake not his own sense but the sense of the whole Church of England which will undeniably appear by the continuation of his story For when Bonner was for his prevarication suspected and complained of and convened before the King's Council among other Injunctions then given him one was that he should personally preach within three weeks after at Paul's Cross And among the special points and Articles that were to be treated of by him in his Sermon this was the first 1. That all such as rebel against their Prince get unto them damnation and those that resist the higher Powers resist the Ordinance of God and he that dieth therefore in Rebellion by the word of God is utterly damned and so loseth both body and soul and therefore those Rebels in Devonshire and Cornwal in Norfolk or elsewhere who take upon them to assemble a Power and Force against their King and Prince against the Laws and Statutes of the Realm and go about to subvert the State and Order of the Commonwealth not only to deserve therefore death as Traitors and Rebels but do accumulate to themselves eternal damnation even to be in the burning Fire of Hell with Lucifer the Father and first Author of Pride Disobedience and Rebellion what pretence soever they have as Corah Dathan and Abirom for Rebellion against Moses were swallowed down alive into Hell altho they pretended to sacrifice unto God. And 4. That our Authority of Royal Power is as of truth it is of no less authority and force in this our young Age than is or was of any of our Predecessors tho the same were much elder as may appear by example of Josias c. How Bonner discharged his Obedience to these Injunctions is not my present Province the Martyrology will inform the Reader but what is already related undeniably proves what was the Doctrine of the Church of England in those Days Anno 1541. was Dr. Robert Barnes martyred Vide his Life prefixed to his Works and at the stake he professed That he never to his knowledge taught any erroneous Doctrine but only those things which the Scripture led him unto and that in his Sermons he never maintain'd any Error nor gave occasion of any Insurrection but with all diligence did study evermore to set forth the Glory of God the Obedience to our Sovereign Lord the King and the true and sincere Religion of Christ desiring the People to bear witness that he detested and abhorred all evil Opinions and Doctrines against the Word of God. And his Writings are agreeable to his dying Protestation In his Supplication to King Henry the Eighth when condemned to die treating of the Cruelties of the Popish Clergy among other things he says If they cannot make a Man a Heretick P. 183. to colour and maintain their Oppression they add Treason against your Grace tho
resisteth the Ordinance of God. These are our Institutions these Doctrins are illustrious in our Books in our Sermons and in the manners and modesty of our People The same admirable Prelate in his Epistle Dedicatory to Queen Elizabeth before his defence of the Apology is still of the same mind blaming his Adversary Harding for debasing the Majesty of Kings ‖ sol 318.6 Mr. Harding concerning the Majesty and Right of Kings tells us they have their first authority by the positive Law of Nations and can have no more power than the People hath of whom they take their Temporal Jurisdiction as if he would say Emperors and Kings have none other Right of Government than it hath pleased their Subjects by composition to allow unto them thus he says and says it boldly as if God himself had never said per me Reges regnant by me and mine authority Kings bear rule over their Subjects or as if Christ our Saviour had never said unto Pilate the Lord Lieutenant thou shouldst have no power over me were it not given thee from above or as if St. Paul had not said there is no power but only from God they also hold that the Pope is the Head and Kings and Emperors the Feet If this Doctrine may once take root ☜ and be freely received amongst the Subjects it shall be hard for any Prince to hold his Right And in his Defence he declareth himself to be of the same mind part 1. p. 15. Mr. Harding knoweth right well we never Armed the People ☜ nor taught them to rebel for Religion against the Prince if any thing have at any time happen'd otherwise it was either some wilful rage or some fatal fury it was not our counsel it was not our Doctrine we teach the People as St. Paul doth To be subject to the higher powers not only for fear but also for conscience we teach them that whoso striketh with the sword by private authority shall perish with the sword if the Prince happen to be wicked or cruel or burthenous we teach them to say with St. Ambrose Arma nostra sunt preces lacrymae tears and prayers be our weapons and when ‖ p. 16. Harding himself had said that he condemn'd all such attempts that any Subject or Subjects whatsoever of their own private authority should take Arms against their Prince for matters of Religion why replies Jewel except you only the case of Religion Is it lawful by your Grant for the Subject in any other case either of Life or of Government to Arm himself against his Prince and would you thus perswade the People Is this your Religion Is this your Doctrine Anno 1565. Alexander Nowel Dean of St. Pauls set forth his reproof of Mr. Dorman 's proof and in it vindicates the Church of England from the scandalous imputation pr. at Lond. 4 to p. 94 95. that it taught Men to be Rebels Corah Dathan and Abyron rebelled against Moses and Aaron who were specially by God appointed to be their Governors and his Ministers but what appertaineth that to us who do obey our natural Prince appointed by God to be our Governor and all as well Civil Magistrates as Ecclesiastical Ministers of God under our Prince And therefore do we as we must needs renounce the authority of that foreign Usurper of Rome it is you Papists that are the Successors of the Rebels Corah c. who leaving the Obedience due to your own natural Princes for the serving of a Foreign false Usurper of Rome do rebel not only against Moses that is to say your Governor by God appointed but against God himself also we acknowledg that as Moses and Aaron were Gods Ministers by him appointed to govern his peculiar People Israel so hath God likewise appointed to every several Country their Moses and Aaron their Princes and Pastors or Bishops which ought likewise to be obeyed as Moses and Aaron were to be obey'd of the Israelites and that those who do disobey them do sin by Rebellion ☞ p. 96. as did Corah c as we are most far from Rebelling against our natural Sovereign and other of God's Ministers appointed to govern us and therefore no partakers of Corah and his fellows Rebellion so trust we in God to be most far from their most horrible destruction and we give warning to Mr. Dorman c. who for maintenance of a Forein Pharaoh against their conscience as is to be feared do disobey their own natural Prince and that upon a pretence of holiness and spirituality and are therein most like to Corah c. rebelling against their own special Governors by God appointed as they did that they make speed by unfeigned repentance to mollifie God's most just wrath that they follow not Corah c. in horrible damnation as they have followed them in damnable Rebellion Anno 1569. an exhortation to the Queens Majesties poor deceived Subjects of the North drawn into Rebellion by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland was printed by allowance and in it they are thus accosted Christians I cannot term you that have defac'd the Communion of Christians and in destroying the Book of Christ's most Holy Testament renounced your parts by his Testament bequeath'd unto you their pretences were the foul disorder of the Realm much impoverish'd far indebted the defrauding of due execution of Justice that no Subject can have his Right by Law but falsly whereas they are better taught far doth the proportion of duty of Subjects to the Prince exceed the duty of Servants to Masters or Children to Parents yea or of Wives to their Husbands the very nearest conjoyning in humane fellowship even so far as a Realm exceeds a private Family but if one of your own Servants Children or Wives should do that without your will nay against your will and express commandment that your Captains and you have attempted without and against the Queens Highness pleasure would you account them good Servants good Children or good Wives if they shall put on armour and weapon and become terrible or threaten force to the Master Father Husband or the rest of the Family if the case were your own you would more mislike it The Prince is the Husband of the Common wealth married to the Realm and the same by ceremony of a ring shall you resist her authority and refuse her blessing and say you be her good children Shall your Captains forsake her Service and say they are good Servants note withal how likely they are to profess a true Religion that hold this Principle ☜ to keep no faith use no loyalty regard no oaths and promises made with attestation of God and avowing themselves to renouncing of Heaven and to eternal damnation they regard no Religion that go so irreligiously to work all is but show and hypocrisie Reed I beseech you the excellent Treatise of Sir John Cheek Knight of the hurt of Sedition there see as in a glass
the deformity of your fault c. an unnatural hope it is and a beastly to joyn with any strangers to the spoil of their own Country but such is the nature of that false Religion to regard no Country faith nature or common honesty SECT II. Antonius Corranus of Sevil a Learned Spaniard an excellent Person as Dr. Patrick with reason calls him spent much of his time in England and as appears by his Writings very well understood our Doctrine after he left his Country for the sake of a good Conscience he Preach'd ten years in France as he did also for some time in Flanders still reserving himself when God should give him an opportunity to Preach to his own Countrymen which he afterwards did for two years in London till that Congregation of Exil'd Spaniards was dissolv'd after which an 1571. he was chosen by the Templers to read his Lectures among them and their choice was confirm'd by Edwin Lord Bishop of London In the first year of his Ministry he expounded the Epistle to the Romans and out of that larger Commentary he Printed an 1574. a Theological Dialogue between St. Paul and one of his Roman auditors for this among other reasons that it might witness the purity of his Doctrine and how much he abhorr'd the Opinions of the Sectaries that then disturb'd the Church In this Dialogue having shown from the close of the 12th Chap. that we ought to overcome our Enemies perversness and malign temper by our goodness and patience he continues to Paraphrase the 13th Chapter thus Rom. I could wish from my Soul that this Doctrine so useful and necessary to our quiet were embrac'd by all Men but O horrid wickedness many of our Church begin not only to revenge themselves on their Persecutors but dare take Arms and resist the Magistrates and Judges that hinder the Preaching of the Gospel Paul They who think that the sufferings of Christians hinder the propagation of the Gospel are extreamly deceived for the blood of the Martyrs waters the Garden of the Church but do you who love Religion mind this Precept that every one that hath given up his name to Christ be subject to the higher Powers for why are they placed in a superior Station but that their inferiors may be subject unto them Rom. But what if Princes either Hereditary or Elective be evil or cruel must we obey them Paul What should hinder for we are not to consider our Rulers as private Men but to reverence them as constituted by God for there is no power but what is of God if they inclined by the fear of God promote piety their example does great good but if they do otherwise we ought to consider the Vengeance of God who for the Sins of a Nation sets over them Hypocrites and Dissemblers But even this Dispensation of God brings with it advantage to the godly Rom. Then you S. Paul are of that opinion that it is not lawful to take Arms against Princes and Magistrates tho they hinder the Gospel and would Murther and destroy us Paul That is my opinion and this I add as a conclusion Whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation and that justly for since God is the Author of this Order they who rebel against the Magistrates wage War against God himself and shall bring upon themselves great Calamities Rom. O the deplorable state of this Age In which we see so many civil Wars popular Seditions Treasons cruel Murthers of Princes and more than barbarous Massacres perpetrated on Subjects Paul All these things probably fall out for the Sins both of the People and Rulers The People forgetting their Duty despise the Authority of the Prince and the King on the contrary forgets his Obligations and rages like a cruel Tyrant Wouldest then therefore and when I speak to you I speak to all Men not dread the Power do that which is good and thou shalt have praise and a reward from it so far oughtest thou to be from opposing it Rom. A most excellent method of bearing this Yoak which would otherwise be insupportable but men are wise too late Would to God this Doctrine were as much engraven on Mens Hearts as it finds a place on their Tongues for by this means it would soon come to pass that the Minds of Christians would enjoy much inward Peace and the Commonweal much Advantage Paul Wheresoever you are inculcate this Sentence in season out of season beseech reprove and teach that the Magistrate is God's chosen Minister appointed and preferr'd by him to the Office of governing for the punishment of them that do evil and for the comfort of them that do well If therefore thou do evil fear for he bears not the Sword in vain for God who hath advanc'd those Powers hath arm'd them with the Sword of Justice That I may sum up all in a few words we ought to be subject to the Powers not only for wrath but for Conscience sake for it is the Duty of a Christian to be subject to his Superiors Rom. You therefore believe that we must obey Magistrates not only for fear of Punishment but for greater Reasons because tho the Magistrate have no power over Conscience yet because he is the Minister of God no one with a good Conscience can resist him Paul That is my Opinion and for this Reason to shew the inward Obedience of your Mind do you pay Tribute c. So that learned and pious Paraphrast in opposition to the many false Glosses put upon the Words of the holy Apostle John Young Doctor of Divinity preach'd before the Queen the Second of March 1575. on Psal 131. Lord I am not high minded and he tells us the occasion of writing the Psalm was That there were certain Parasites and Flatterers attending upon King Saul who maligning David because that by Almighty God's special appointment he was anointed King over Israel and seeking to bring him into discredit and into hatred with his Prince did insinuate that he did secretly practise the Deposing him from the Kingdom and the Advanceing of himself ambitiously to the same Therefore the Prophet declares their Suggestions to be most false and slanderous and himself to be innocent from that great Offence S. Austin saith He that will go about to satifie and fulfil as all other so that ambitious and arrogant desire shall find it a Toyl of all Toyls such a Labor as Samson or Hercules never atchiev'd This desire of Honor Rule Principality worldly Glory and Renown is in the Heart of Man if it be once possessed therewithal a Worm that dyeth not c. Now David when he saith He did not exercise himself in such great matters c. his meaning was that he did never seek as he was most falsly and unjustly charged by some to advance himself ambitiously to the Kingdom King Saul his Master being alive because he knew well enough that
it was too great for him to wield and too high also for him to aspire unto Such was the Humility of this excellent Man the Friend of God to the utter Condemnation and Confusion of all those whose whole study and endeavour evermore hath been and is at this day to undermine those which be in authority to invade and occupy other mens Kingdoms to wring the Scepter and Sword out of Princes hands This is a Vice never enough to be detested considering the manifold and great Mischiefs which have come thereby to Heaven to Earth to Angels to Men to all Kingdoms and Commonwealths to the whole World. This ambitious Man is a Thief is a Homicide if it lye in his power he is a Regicide he is the Parricide of his Countrey I will only put you in mind of one only Lesson which we are taught by this Verse which is this that it is much better for us sperare quà m aspirare to trust in Almighty God than to aspire for in aspiring there be many Inconveniences but the anchor-hold of Hope is firm and sure c. Bartholomew Clerk Fidelis servi subdito inside'i responsie Lond. 1573. anno 1573 writing against that virulent tho learned Rebel Saunders avers That the Majesty of Princes is by no means to be violated if they are good we are to thank God who hath bless'd his People with so divine a Benefit but if they are evil we are to submit our Necks to their Tyranny or to fly to another City we must at no time make resistance by Force and Arms by Tumult and Slaughter For this we ought to believe that evil Kings are appointed by God for the punishment of our Sins and are sent into the World as God's Scourges SECT III. Anno 1590. Dr. Babington printed his Questions and Answers upon the Commandments he being the Year after made B. of Landaffe and saccessively of Exon and Worcester and on the Fifth Commandment he says p. 2â—2 That by Parents are meant such as are so by Dignity and Office such as are Magistrates over the People Masters over their Servants p. 203. c. Magistrates are only to be obey'd in the Lord p. 208. contrary to Prety and Charity must neither they command nor we do Many Servants take their Masters Unkindness for an excuse of their Disobedience or Infidelity in their Services which indeed must not be so saith S. Peter but be they never so froward yet we must do all Duty if we be Servants and even joy heartily in that Cross that notwithstanding our faithful and painful Duty we suffer for we serve not them but God in them And whereas some may be apt to limit this Doctrine to Servants and to exempt Subjects who are by parity of reason obliged the same Bishop in his Notes on Exodus 18. says p. 27. â— ed. Lond. fol. 1637. The Duty of Subjects toward their Governours is 1. To think most reverently of their Places as an Authority appointed of God for our good and not as some Men do outwardly to obey them and inwardly to think them but necessary Evils For S. Peter's words teach more when he saith Honor the King and Solomon when he biddeth Fear God and the King for in the word Honor Peter includeth sinceram candidam existimationem a sincere and unfeigned reverence of them and Solomon joyning the King with God sheweth a holy and reverent regard of him to be due to him from men subject to him that also in S. Paul hath great efficacy in it not for fear but for Conscience sake as if he should say even what duty is done ☜ or left undone to him is done or left undone to God himself from whom their Authority and Power is whosoever therefore the person is the calling is of God. Agian after this inward reverend Conceit must follow outward Obedience to their Laws in paying Tribute c. Let every Soul be subject to the high Powers saith the Apostle because he that resisteth ☜ resisteth to his own damnation The Magistrate may sometime be weak but God will ever be strong to punish any Contempt of his Ordinance In no case therefore may we intrude our selves into their Offices and meddle with publick matters without a calling For this is not to obey them but to rule with them what is amiss to them must be signified and their help expected unless they appoint us and then we are not private Persons any more but publick for such business be they never so evil yet their place is of God by whom only Kings do rule Dan. 2.23.37 either to our good in his Mercy or to our punishment in his Justice Tyrants are suffer'd sometimes to rule for the punishment of the evil and the reward of the good saith S. Ambrose but how will you think l. 2. de Cain Abel c. â— for the reard of the good The same Ambrose notably saith for answer Never did the Gentiles more for the Church than when they commanded the Christians to be beaten proscribed and killed for than did Religion make that a Reward an Honor and a Crown which infidelity reputed a Punishment S. Austin saith There is no Power but of God and therefore our Saviour told Pilate He could have no Power at all over him except it were given him from the Father but God doth suffer the Hypocrite to rule for the Sin of the People and therefore that Sin must be taken away that the Plague of having a Tyrant Ruler may cease What manner of King was Nez buchadnezzar c. if a King shall do as it is said 1 Sam. 8.11 c. he is God's Instrument thus to chasten us and tho things do not shew what he ought to do yet they shew what Subjects ought to suffer without Disloyalty if they be done Read Jerem. 29.7 God forbid saith David that I should lay my hand on the Lord 's Anointed and yet Saul sought his Life Who shall lay his hand on the Lord 's Anointed and be guiltless c. The Wife is not freed from her Husband when he is ill nor the Child from his Father no more are Subjects from their Prince But in such cases God the only Helper is to be thought of and prayed unto who can give a Moses for a Pharoah an Othniel for a Cushan who can bring down the Pride of Tyrus by the Egyptians and then of the Egyptians by the Assyrians the Assyrians again by the Chaldeans by the Medes and Persions c. yet carrying a gracious Ear and Eye to Prayer proceeding from a penitent Heart 〈◊〉 Not. 〈◊〉 Gen. 14. page 43 44. c. Rebellion is a bad course to get Liberty where Subjection is due For Rebellion God never loved never prospered but ever plagued and the fearful destruction of Corah and his Company Absalom and his Company c. say as much Papists charge us that we are no good Friends to Princes and
Rulers and it is no News to hear it of them Elias had such measure measured unto him Micheas all of them faithful to Princes ever were so accused We say the Doctrine of Rome is no Friend to Princes and here he instances in the treasonable Books and rebellious Insurrections of the Papists and adds shew the Princes the Gospel hath deposed shew the Princes that Popery hath not wronged It is our Doctrine that we firmly hold and they fully defie That he that taketh the Sword shall perish with the Sword i. e. he that taketh it without the bounds of a calling warranting him and that calling he afterward says is only the Prince's Order as all Rebels ever do that he which resisteth the Superior Powers resisteth the Ordinance of God and to his own Damnation that we ought to obey and be subject not for Fear but for Conscience sake that the Weapons of Subjects be but Prayers and Tears c. See then whether Popery or God's holy Gospel which we hold stand better with the safety of Princes and flourishing Estates of Kingdoms c. SECT IV. Among the Works of Dr. Lawrence Humfreys Preached at Oxford 1588. which he published against the Romanists his seven Sermons on 1 Sam. 26.8 9 c. To persuade Obedience to Princes c. are not the least considerable In which having in the Epistle Dedicatory commended that Saying of S. Ambrose Rogamus Auguste non pugnamus We beseech O Emperor P. 22 23. we fight not and in the first Sermon mentioned the many Rebellions of the Papists he says Such a Catholick Faith must be maintain'd by such Catholick Means namely by open Rebellions privy Practices in a Catholick and Universal Manner that is by all unlawful Means P. 24. That when Scruples arise against such traiterous Enterprises then the Pope hath this Religion and Omnipotency P. 32. that he can dispense with any Oath In the second Sermon he teacheth every one his Duty It is lawful for a Magistrate to put to death a Malefactor otherwise no Spirit no Reason no Friend no carnal Respect can authorise any Man of his own Head or his private affection to draw weapon against any man much less against a double and compound person P. 34. c. as the Prince established by Law and publick Authority If Christ found fault with his Servant Peter fighting in his own quarrel ☜ host much more will he be angry with them that take weapon against his anointed Prince his Lieutenant in the Earth What do these Giants and Tyrants of the World think Or what do they esteem of the Blood of a Prince Or what do they imagine of the Ordinance or Institution of Princes Are they Upstarts by themselves c. No it is only the Ordinance of our living God. P. 36 37 By Office he representeth God he is God by name Saul himself is named here the anointed of the Lord so are all other Potentates that are by their Vices evil Men yet by Office the Ordinance of God Prov. 8. Job 34. By me rulers reign the Hypocrites rule not without him And why are the bad as well as the good advanced Austin gives two Reasons hereof It is not unjust that wicked men receive power to hurt both that the patience of the good may be tryed and the wickedness of the evil punished And if they are set up by God they cannot fall but by God. P. 43. What were the Magistrates in the time of Peter and Paul but Heathen and Tyrants as Nero and such others and yet Paul exhorts every soul to be subject to the higher powers and whosoever resisteth c. Even Nebuchadnezzar a Tyrant and Infidel was to be prayed for Chrisostome amplifyeth the excellent Integrity and Faithfulness of David toward Saul the anointed Serm 3. p. 56. in that David did this in the Old Testament where some revenge was in a sort permitted c. But to kill him or any the anointed of the Lord is contrary to the Law of Nature and all Laws Those that are disloyal and Rebels are not good Christians P. 63. P. 78. P. 106. We of this Land do swear and protest in the name of Christ a fidelity to God to the Prince and to our Country this Oath must be kept Many Laws have been made against Treason and Rebellion yet the unbridled and cruel Subjects have always unkindly and unnaturally conspired against their Prince and against their own Country Our King Ethelred complains in an Oration in this sort We are overcome of the Danes not with Weapon or force of Arms but with Treason wrought by our own People Anno 1593 Reprinted 〈◊〉 1640 c. Doctor Richard Bancroft afterward Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury published his Dangerous Positions c. the whole Design of which Treatise is to expose and ' condemn the Republican Principles then newly broached in England by the Lovers of the Geneva Platform I have already in the Reign of Queen Mary given his Sentiments of the Proceedings of the English Exiles at Francfort against Knox whose Principles were so infective that they inflamed his own native Country and threw it into a most unnatural Rebellion of which their Ministers were the prime cause and shall add his sense of those seditious Doctrines and Practices * Lib. 1. cap 3. But because some peradventure will labor to excuse these Proceedings and to color the same with some pretence of zeal and great desire they had to be delivered from Popish Idolatry and Superstition I have thought it convenient to let you understand how far they are from making any such pretences in their own behalf and with what new Divinity Positions Mr. Knox and Mr. Buchanan have amplified the Geneva Resolution ☞ viz. That if Princes refuse to reform Religion the Magistrates and People may lawfully do it by force of Arms to the Justification not only of their said Attempts and Actions but also many others of the like nature Ch. 4. And afterward he mentions their Positions That Princes for just causes may be deposed That it is not Birthright only nor Propinquity of Blood that makes a King lawfully reign above a People professing Jesus Christ If Princes be Tyrants against God and his Truth their Subjects are freed from their Oaths of Obedience The People are better than the King and of greater Authority c. Of all which and many the like Propositions he averrs that they tend to the disturbance and utter overthrow of the freest and most absolute Monarchies that are or can be in Christendom and that they are contrary he was sure both to the Word of God and to all the Laws and Customs of this Realm But I must transcribe the greatest part of the Book should I cite all that is to my purpose in it while I leave to the Reader 's private Consideration that and his other excellent Treatise called a Survey
Greg. Tolesano de rep c. 7. §. 1â— And for 300 years after Christ though the Christians suffered innumerable and most cruel torments 20000 being slain at one time yet they never plotted against the Laws the Magistrate the Emperer or his â—â—enrity in the least degree but by this argument they personaded Men to turn to Christianity as to the best Religion because it tâ—â—k Men off from ambition and a desire of change and taught Men to obey Magistrates and accordingly as Nicephorus relates the Christian that but pulled down the Edict of Dioclesian at Nicomedia was lookt upon by his fellow Christians to be justly executed for the Fact it therefore behoves Princes to consider c. 2. Sect. 16. p 83. in what a slippery place their Sacred Majesty stands if this Principle of Deposing Princes unheard of in the Church of Christ for 1000 years be true and this he confirms by the authority of the Fathers c. 6. Sect. 14. p 255. especially St. Ambrose who is famous for this saying against the Goths My tears are my weapons such are the defence of a Bishop ☞ any otherwise I dare not resist Many other passages might be transcribed were not what is already cited more than enough since the Author's practice was so solemn and unquestionable a confirmation of his Opinion and his other Books especially his discovery of Romish Rebellious Positions with his full satisfaction against Parsons c. a proof that he never lived to repent of so truly Primitive and Apostolical Doctrine SECT VI. Mr. Greenham in his short form of Catechising Lond. 1599. 4 to p. 412 413.414 Qu. What do you understand by Father and Mother in the fifth Commandment Answ Not only my natural Parents but those whom God hath set over me for my good as Magistrates c. Qu. What be the duties of Servants toward their Masters Answ Servants ought in fear and trembling to submit themselves to the instructions commandments and correction of their Masters Qu. What if Parents or Masters do not their duty to their Children and Servants Answ Yet they must obey them for Conscience sake to God's Ordinance Qu. What if they command unjust things Answ Then they must obey God rather than Men and submit themselves to their corrections Archbishop Abbot An. 1600. publish'd his Lectures on Jonas Lon. 1600. lect 20. p. 432. and I shall only cite one Quotation out of him Athanaric King of the Goths seeing the triumph of the Emperor Justinian at Constantinople brake forth into these words The Emperor without doubt is a God upon Earth and whosoever shall stir his hand against him shall be guilty of his own blood In the same year on March 1st being the first Sunday in Lent Dr. William Barlow afterwards Bishop of Rochester Prâ—at Lon. 1601. and then of Lincoln Preach'd at Paul's Cross a little time after the Execution of the Earl of Essex on Matth. 22.21 and therein he well instructs us it pleaseth God to be called a King in Heaven Ps 20. and the King is called a God on Earth Ps 82. Therefore he which denieth his duty to the visible God his Prince and Sovereign cannot perform his duty to the God Invisible certainly a mind inclined to Rebellion was never well possest of Religion they therefore who with Sheba 2 Sam. 20.1 will make a secession from their Prince or with Jeroboam and the ten tribes will turn from him because he hath turn'd his Father's scourges into Scorpions 1 Reg. 12. They who think that they may either kill their Liege or sall from him or depose and thrust them out of their Seat or expose them to danger or fear are guilty not only of Rebellion but of Irreligion the Jesuit Parsons al. Doleman dedicates his Book to the Earl of Essex a Principal if not the only poyson of the Earl's heart wherein he would prove that it is lawful for the Subject to rise against his Sovereign c. my exhortation to you is beloved that you will believe Jesus rather than a Jesuit who willeth his Disciples and all Christians to possess their Souls in patience Luc. 10. albeit they be persecuted even to death by their Princes and St. Paul who adjudgeth him to damnation who resisteth the ordinance of God. Rom. 13. If you desire some stories of Scripture Saul an Apostate rejected by God not dejected by Samuel Jeroboam plagued not dispossess'd Ahab reproved by Elias not deprived Nebuchadonosor punished from Heaven not deposed by his Subjects the Law of God is streight in this case it bridles the mouth that it speak not evil of the King. Exod. 21. It binds the heart not to imagine evil against him Eccl. 10. the sum of this part is that of the Prophet Daniel 2.21 that the Inthroning and Deposing of Princes is God's only Prerogative Royal and the conclusion shall be an argument that if obedience be due unto Caesar a Tyrant and a Foreigner much more are we to perform it to our Prince c. SECT VII Thus also says Francis Marbury in his Sermon on Eccl. 10.20 〈◊〉 1602. at the Spittle on Tuesday in Easter Week Printed by authority the Principal question of this Chapter is that Subjects that are Godly wise ought to repress in themselves all insurrection of mind against the supposed scandals of civil administrations and against the doings of Princes and that a disloyal thought ought not to be lent thereunto it being insinuated by an evil subject that it is impossible to stand contented in a Government that perverts and inverts the use of preferments and abasements aiming perhaps at something done by Solomon in his uxoriousness at the instigation of his Idolatrous Wives and that the state of the Country is depraved by the riotousness and dissoluteness of the Governors but God gives us no dispensation for any cause to disreverence the Prince ☞ except that we be able to shew that we do it at God's Commandment the Men of God when they have by mistaking exceeded towards a Ruler though a wicked one have used diligence to excuse themselves and to avoid the scandal so St. Paul Act. 23 5. and David was cut in his heart because he had cut off the lap that was in Saul 's Garment ☞ so that if to refuse God be ungodliness then it must needs be so to admit a contemptuous thought of a Prince in whom God offereth himself unto us and it is sure that they are ungodly Men 1 Sam. 10.27 which offend in this kind that the Holy Ghost calleth them Sons of Belial i. e. unyoked Persons which refuse to be under the yoke of due obedience as for the allegation made by Hereticks of Conscience to God when no disobedience to God is required it is in great Hypocrisie that God is alledged for are they not put together in the Scripture fear God and the King and depart from the seditious or as the Text hath it from the various from those that
the Conscience of all true Christians as if he had been then summus Pontifex or that the Primitive Church was not as well restrain'd de Jure by the Doctrine of Christ's Apostles as de facto from bearing Arms against such Princes as were then Ethnicks and transferring of their Kingdoms from them unto any others or that the Apostles at that time if they had found the Christians of sufficient force for number provision and furniture of Warlike Engines to have Deposed those Pagan Princes that were then both Enemies ☜ and Persecutors of all that believed in Christ would no doubt have moved and authorized them to have made War against such their Princes and absolved them from performing any longer that obedience which they as Men temporizing had in their Writings prescribed unto them or that when afterward Christians were grown able for number and strength to have opposed themselves by force against their Emperors being Wicked and Persecutors they might lawfully so have done for any thing that is in the New Testament to the contrary he doth greatly err If any Man shall affirm that it is not a most profane impiety Can. 10. l. 2. tending altogether to the discredit of the Scriptures for any Man to hold that St. Peter and St. Paul had so instructed the Christians in their times as that they knew if they had been able they might without offence to God have deposed Nero from his Empire or that the Christians in Tertullian's time when they profess'd that notwithstanding their numbers and forces were so great as they had been able to have distress'd very greatly the Estate of the Emperors being then Persecutors they might not so do because Christ their Master had taught them otherwise ought not to be a sufficient Warrant for all true Christians to detest those Men in these days and for ever hereafter who contrary to the Example of the said Christians in the Primitive Church and the Doctrins of Christ which were then taught them do endeavor to perswade them when they shall have sufficient Forces to rebel against such Kings and Emperors at the Pope's commandment and to thrust them from their Kingdoms and Empires ☞ or that this devilish Doctrine of animating Subjects to Rebellion when they are able against their Sovereigns either for their Cruelty Heresie or Apostacy was ever taught in the Church of Christ by any of the Ancient Fathers during the Reigns of Dioclesian or Julian the Apostate or Valens the Arrian or of any other the Wicked Emperors before them or that it is not a wicked perverting of the Apostles words to the Corinthians touching their choice of Arbitrators to end dissentions among themselves rather than draw their Brethren before Judges that were Infidels to infer thereof either that St. Paul intended thereby to impeach in any sort the Authority of the Civil Magistrates as if he had meant they should have chosen such Judges as by civil Authority might otherwise have bound them than by their own consents to have stood to their award or to authorize Christian Subjects when they are able to thrust their Sovereigns from their Royal Seats and to chuse themselves new Kings in their places he doth greatly err But it were requisite to transcribe almost that whole admirable Treatise should I give the Reader a view of all those passages that vindicate the Divine Right of Kings and assert the necessity of Subjects being obedient to them while I forbear in expectancy that the most venerable owner of that great Treasure will very speedily make the World happy in the publication of so elaborate a work SECT V. Some few years after this King James ordered to be Printed and had in every Church a little Treatise called Deus Rex which was publish'd both in Latin and English and as I am very credibly inform'd drawn up by Bishop Overal which was reprinted in English Anno 1663. by the especial command of King Charles II. and therein the Nation is taught their duty toward their Superiors thus In the Allegiance of a Subject to his Sovereign the evil he is to eschew is 1. Evil in action p. 15 16. edit 1663. for he is not to touch him with any evil touch not to stretch out his hand against his most sacred Person nor so much as to affright or disgrace him by cutting the lap of his Garment 2. Evil in words for he is not to curse his Ruler 3. Evil in cogitation for he is not to curse the King in his thought and all this is proved by many Texts of Scripture placed in the Margin Now if the Subjects of our Sovereign out of their Allegiance to His Majesty are to succor and defend him even with the hazard of their lives c. and the bond of this Allegiance is inviolable and cannot by any means be dissolv'd then c. Eccles 8.2 p. 17. is an evident Testimony that Kings are subject unto God ☜ and have no mortal Man their superior who may require of them an account of their doings and punish them by any Judicial Sentence which Doctrine is excellently confirm'd by the instance of David in the case of Uriah and the Prophet Nathan 's carriage towards him after which 't is said that God only gave unto Saul Kingly Power and not the People p. 19. p. 29 30. c. who are said to make him King i. e. approving him as made by God c. But was not Saul a Tyrant a bloody Oppressor did not the blood of so many Innocents cry to God for vengeance and by his special commandment whoso sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed deserve death Yet David by God's own appointment design'd to the Kingdom says the Lord keep me from doing that thing unto my Master the Lord 's Anointed c. the Bishop of Rome and by parity of reason any other Person p. 35. if I Judge aright cannot dispense with the Law of Nature which from the first beginning of the reasonable Creature is unchangeable nor with the Moral Law of God whose Precepts are indispensible but the duty of Subjects in obedience to their Sovereign is grounded upon the Law of Nature beginning with our first beginning for as we are Born Sons so are we Born Subjects p. 38. Obj. But is there no means to stay the fury of a Sovereign command if he should be so tyrannous and profane as to endeavour to oppress the whole Church at once and utterly to extinguish the Light of Christian Religion Princes in their rage may endeavour wholly to destroy God's Church Ans but in vain because Christ hath so built it on a Rock that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it and when they do labour to effect so heinous an impiety the only means we have to appease their fury is serious repentance for our sins which have brought this chastisement upon us and humble prayer unto God who guides
were to subvert order and measure it is High Treason by the Law of the Land to levy War against the King to compass or imagine his death c. follow the Monition and Counsel of the Lord Cook 3. P. 141. part Instit p. 36. peruse over all Books Records and Histories and you shall find a Principle in Law a Rule in reason and a Tryal in experience that Treason doth ever produce fatal and final destruction to the Offender and never attains to the desired end two incidents inseparable thereunto and therefore let all Men abandon it as the poysonous bait of the Devil and follow the Precept in Holy Scripture Serve God Honour the King and have no Company with the Seditious Dr. Stewart in his Sermon Preach'd at Paris called Hezekiah's Reformation P. 38 39. he can be no Martyr for the first Table of the Law who is in the same deed a transgressor of the second nor will God at all thank him as a Reformer of his Church who in the self same act is no less than a Traytor to his Deputy so that as for Subjects to take up Arms against their Kings is by the Doctrin of St. Peter ☞ and St. Paul in all cases damnable so especially to do this in point of our Religion which so much commends and blesses Patience and Sufferings and Martyrdom either upon pretence to plant it where now it is not or to reform it where it hath been planted is of all other kinds of contentions or Wars most Turkishly Antichristian Rabshakeh himself was grown so much a Divine as to aver openly that he P. 54. who puts his hand to overturn that Religion he professes yea that puts his hand to overturn it too at the same time while he likes it pretend what he will he trusts not in God he trusts perhaps in the Syrians or in Aegypt To what is quoted in the first part of this History out of Bishop Brownrig's Sermons may be added a remarkable Passage or two of his life P. 183 186 187. recorded by Bishop Gauden the first that having Preach'd at Cambrige that Christians had neither Christ's Precept nor any good Christians practice to resist their Sovereign Princes but that there was only left them the choice to obey actively or passively to do or suffer he was immediatly for this Doctrin proscribed and outed of his places in the University and deprived of his liberty and put in Prison the second that when O. P. with some shew of respect to him demanded his judgment in some publick Affairs then at a non plus his Lordship with his wonted gravity and freedom replyed My Lord the best counsel I can give you is that of Our Saviour render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods with which free answer O. P. rested rather silenc'd than satisfied There are many observations worth the noting made by Bishop Hacket on this Subject in his Sermon on the day of the Coronation of King Charles I. on Ps 118.24 but I refer the Reader to the Discourse it self while I relate what is recorded of him in his life written by Dr. Plume that in the time of the great Rebellion P. 17. no Man Preach'd more boldly against the licentiousness of those times than he challenging the boutefeu's to shew where ever the Scripture gave countenance to Uproars and Rebellions Julian the Apostate reading the Bible with a malicious intention to quarrel at it said that Christianity was a Doctrin of too much patience but he could never find any place in it to object that it was a Doctrin of Rebellion If the administration of a Kingdom be out of frame it is better to leave the redress to God than to a seditious Multitude the way to continue purity of Religion being not by Rebellion but by Martyrdom to resist lawful Powers by seditious Arms and unlawful Authority was not the Primitive and Apostolical Christianity but Popish Doctrin not taught the first three hundred years but much about a thousand years after Our Saviour's Ascension into Heaven by the Pope of Rome the very time the Spirit of God says Satan should be let loose viz. by Gregory VII who first taught the Germans to rebel against the Emperor Henry IV. this poyson was given the English People to drink out of the Papal cup tho they pretended quite contrary but Bishop Hacket ever asserted this was not the way to pull down Antichrist but Protestant Religion and therefore he warn'd the Non-conforming Divines to have a care how they cryed up a War and became famous in the Congregation only as Erostratus by setting the Temple on fire SECT IV. Thus the truth was asserted in the days of distress till God was in his infinite mercy pleased to restore the King under whom the Confessors for Loyalty who had during his Exile Preach'd this truth by their sufferings asserted it as vigorously from the Pulpit and Press and among them the most Reverend Primate Dr. Sancroft challenges an Eminent Station who in his most Learned Sermon Preached at the Consecration of Seven Bishops comparing the State of our Native Country with that of the Island of Crete adds have we not outvyed the Cretans lyed for God's sake P. 31. and talk'd deceitfully for him what pious frauds and holy cheats what slandering the footsteps of God's Anointed when the Interest was to blacken him Pliny hath observ'd it nullum animal maleficum in Cretâ and Solinus adds nec ulla serpens but they should have excepted the Inhabitants and I wish there were no other Island could shew Vipers too many that have eat out the Bowels of their common Mother and slown in the face of their Political Father without whose benigner influence their chill and benumm'd fortunes had not warmth enough to raise them to so bold an attempt fulness of bread was also one of their sins and now I cannot wonder if it be observ'd from the Records of History as Grotius assures us who knew them well that the Cretans were and I wish there were no other such a mutinous and a seditious People and had but too much need to be put in mind by Titus to be subject to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates The Devil of Rebellion and Disobedience Id. lex ignea p. 15. which not long since possess'd the Nation rent and tore it till it foam'd again and pin'd away in lingring Consumptions that cast it oft-times into the Fire and oft-times into the Water calamities of all sorts to destroy it this ill spirit this restless fury this unquiet and dreadful Alastor the Eldest Son of Nemesis and heir apparent to all the terrors and mischiefs of his Mother walks about day and night seeking rest and finds none and he says in his heart I will return sometime or other to my house from whence I came out Oh! let us take heed of provoking that God who alone
rable is a King and Kingdom when every Man that is but audacious enough has a fair pretence if he can but gather force to overturn any settlement that can be in such a case such a Pirate Prince must be always exposed to Tempests King Stephen was none of our worst Princes and one of the most valiant but an Intruder he was and he sped accordingly his reign was the most turbulent of any except that of King John another Usurper c. But be the title of a King P. 18. as good as a Warrant from Heaven can make it be it so undoubted as Hell it self can find no pretence to question it be the King like an Angel of God yet if his Subjects will be Sons of Belial Sons of the Devil so Rebels are called in Scripture Men that will bear no yoke 't is still in their power to be as miserable as they please therefore I commend your strict adherence to your former Protestations P. 27. and to your Oaths of Allegiance take heed of destroying your Country to build your own House destruction and death is not all you are like to get by it take heed of that which follows there is another death to come after ☜ God has warn'd you of it they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation as you would avoid this take heed of that which leads to it thus that great Prelate who as it is justly said of him ‖ Thom. Brown. Ep. praefi conc Jun. 11. 1687. in the whole course of his life and in all the varieties of times and fortune still maintain'd his fidelity to his Prince in an illustrious manner SECT VII And of this opinion was that great promoter of piety and learning Bishop Fell who having in his †On 2 Pet. 3.3 Anno 1675. p. 21 22. Ox. 1675. Sermon before the King asserted that nothing can be so unhappy as Authority when baffled that the Coffee-house rebel is more mischievous than he that takes the Field and that a Prince is sooner murdered with a Label than a Sword and in his * Dec. 22. 1680. p. 3 4. on Mat. 12 25. Oxf. 1680. Sermon before the Lords exprest his astonishment by what Enchantment but that Rebellion is the sin of Witchcraft Men should be perswaded to disturb their own and the publick Peace forfeit all the advantages they enjoy in a settled Government which cannot be so bad as not to be much better than the confusion which sedition brings and run upon that sudden destruction which the Wiseman says is the end of those who are given to change he continues to give the same advice in his Sermon before the Sons of the Clergy wherein having told them that a great part of them present were the Sons of the persecuted Clergy ‖ On Act. 3.16 p. 61 63 68 69. a sort of Men that hazarded their lives unto the death and their Estates to the greater cruelty and grave of sequestration for the cause of God and of their Prince He adds 't is their glory that in the day of trial they did all they pretended to they forsook Father and Mother Houses Brethren and Sisters and those more endearing names of Wife and Children let it therefore be the strict concern of every one here present to maintain a faithful Loyalty to his Prince and Sovereign It is the peculiar glory of the Church of England ☞ that She above all others Principles her Children in Obedience to Superiors and most supports the ends and interests of Government which had so visible an effect in the late unhappy revolutions that the Royal Martyr who fell a Sacrifice to the misguided zeal of his rebellious Subjects ☞ made it his observation that none forfeited their duty to him who had not first deserted their Obedience to the Church nor can you any way more remarkably approve your selves to be Orthodox in your Religion and good Sons of the Church than if you are Loyal in your Principles and good Subjects to the King. On the 23. of June of the same year Dr. Thomas Bishop of Worcester dyed having two days before sent for a Reverend Divine to whom after he had discours'd an hour about the new Oath of Allegiance which he thought altogether inconsistent with the Doctrin of the Church and his former Oaths he said if my own heart deceive me not and God's grace fail me not I think I could dye at a Stake rather than take this Oath The Earl of Clarendon in his Animadversions on Mr. Cressy 's answer to the Dean of St. Paul's P. 72. as a very competent witness avers that there were very few who did so much as pretend to have a reverence for the Church of England that were ever active in the late Rebellion and that it were to be wish'd rather than hop'd that the Profession of Christian Religion in any Church had that impulsion in it as it ought to have that it preserv'd the Professors of it from entring into Rebellion and the practice of any other iniquity and speaking of Archbishop Cranmer who sign'd King Edward the Sixth's Will he adds if that unhappy P. 80. and ill advised Queen who had just reason to be offended highly with that Archbishop could have found that the Law would have condemn'd him for Treason she rather desired to have had him hang'd for a Traytor than to have him burnt for his Religion but the Law would not extend to serve her turn that way if it would no body would have blamed her for having prosecuted him with the utmost rigor whereas many good Men then did and since have for proceeding the other way with him The Popes who have assumed Authority to depose Princes P. 151 152. have caused more Christian blood to have been spilt more horrible Massacres of Kings and Princes and People than all the Heresies in the World and all other politick differences have produced much the greatest part of this destruction ☜ and ruin proceeded from the perjury of Popes themselves after they had promis'd and sworn to observe such parts and agreements voluntarily entred into by themselves or from the dispensation they granted to others to break their faith and not to perform the contracts they had entred into The same noble Person even when under the displeasure of his Prince and in Banishment thought himself still obliged to be unalterably Loyal as he professes in his Epistle to the King I thank God from the time I found my self under the insupportable burthen of your Majesties displeasure and under the infamous brand of Banishment I have not thought my self one minute absolved in the least degree from the strictest duty to your Person And whereas T. H. in his Leviath p. 114. had affirm'd that the obligation of Subjects to their Sovereign is understood to last as long and no longer than the Power lasts to protect them he rejoins P. 90. hereby he gives
Subjects leave to withdraw their obedience from their Sovereign when he hath most need of their assistance so that assoon as any Town City or Province of any Prince's Dominions is invaded by a Foreign Enemy or possess'd by a rebellious Subject that the Prince cannot for the present suppress the Power of the one or the other the People may lawfully resort to those who are over them and for their protection perform all the Offices and Duties of good Subjects to them whereas the duty of Subjects is and all good Subjects believe they owe another kind of Duty and Obedience to their Sovereign than to withdraw their subjection because he is opprest and will prefer poverty and death it self before they will renounce obedience to their natural Prince or do any thing that may advance the service of his Enemies P. 92. surely this woful desertion and defection which hath always been held criminal by all Law that hath been current in any part of the World hath received so much countenance and justification by Mr. Hobbs's Book ☞ that CROMWELL found the submission to those Principles produc'd a submission to him and the imaginary relation between protection and allegiance so positively proclaim'd by him prevailed for many years to extinguish all visible fidelity to the King whilst he persuaded many to take the Engagement as a thing lawful and to become Subjects to the Usurper P. 135 136. as to their legitimate Sovereign Kings themselves can never be punish'd for their casual or wilful errors and mistakes let the consequences of them be what they will but if they who maliciously lead or advise or obey them in unjust resolutions and commands were to have the same indemnity there must be a dissolution of all Kingdoms and Governments but as Kings must be left to God whose Vicegerents they are to judge of their breach of trust so they who offend against the Law must be left to the punishment P. 163. the Law hath provided for them if all Sovereigns be subject to the Laws of Nature because such Laws are divine and cannot by any Man or Commonwealth be abrogated they then are obliged to observe and perform those Laws which themselves have made and promis'd to observe for violation of faith is against the Law of Nature ☞ Nor doth this obligation set any Judge over the Sovereign nor doth any Civil Law pretend that there is any power to punish him it is enough that in justice he ought to do it and that there is a Sovereign in Heaven above him tho not on earth To this great Minister of State I should join Sir Robert Filmer but that it is needless the Enemies of the unaccountableness of Kings having branded him with the mark of a State Heretick for his Orthodox Opinions which among all good Men make his Memory reverend and his works Eminent to which I advise the Reader to make his recourse particularly his short but excellent Treatise of the Power of Kings c. See also Sir William Dugdale's Preface to his view of our late troubles c. The Late Bishop of Chichester Dr. Lake having Aug. 27. 1689. received the Sacrament on his Death-bed did in the presence of Dr. Hicks Dean of Worcester Dr. Green and some others make this protestation being as himself worded it ingaged in the most sacred and solemn act of conversing with God See the Paper and the vindication of it not knowing to the contrary but that he might appear with those very words in his mouth at the dreadful Tribunal That I was Baptized into the Religion of the Church of England and sucked it in with my Milk I have constantly adhered to it through the whole course of my life and now if so be the will of God shall dye in it and had resolved through Gods Grace assisting me to have dyed so tho at a Stake And whereas that Religion of the Church of England taught me the Doctrine of Non-Resistance and Passive Obedience which I have accordingly inculcated upon others and which I took to be the distinguishing Character of the Church of England ☜ I adhere no less firmly and stedfastly to that and in Consequence of it have incurred a Suspension from the exercise of my Office and exspected a Deprivation I find in so doing much inward satisfaction and if the Oath had been tendred at the peril of my life I could only have obeyed by suffering c. Manu propriâ Subscripsit Jo. Cicestrensis To this great Man I should add his bosome Friend Dr. Allestrey who speaks fully and consonant to sound Doctrine on this Head but I must refer the Reader to his Sermon Novemb. 5. 1665. on Luc. 9.55 Vol. 1. p. 127. and Vol. 2. p. 60. and p. 253 276. Thus the acute Dr. Sherlock Some Men pretend great Oppression Serm. on Ps 18.50 p. 2. and Male-Administration of Government though their licentious noises and clamors sufficiently confute it for Men who are most opprest dare say the least of it The Liberties and Properties of the Subject is an admirable pretence to deprive the Prince of his Liberties and Properties Others make Religion the pretence for their Rebellion Religion the greatest and the dearest Interest of all but methinks it is a dangerous way for Men to Rebel to save their Souls when God hath threatned damnation against those who Rebel No Men fight for Religion who have any Religion is a quiet peaceable governable thing it teaches Men to suffer patiently but not to Rebel It is evident it is not Religion such Men are zealous for but a liberty in Religion i. e. that every one may have his liberty to be of any Religion or of none which serves the Atheist's turn as well as the Sectaries but is not much for the honor or interest of true Religion So that whatever the pretences are it is an ambitious p. 3. v. p 6 7. discontented revengeful spirit an uneasie restless fickle and unchangeable humor which disturbs Politick Government and undermines the Thrones of Princes In the time of the Fanatick Plot p. 7 8. p. 11. but to Talk or Write or Preach about Obedience to Government or patient Suffering for a good Cause was to betray the Protestant Interest God may sometimes suffer Treason and Rebellion to be prosperous p. 11. but it can never prosper but when God pleases and it is impossible Rebels should ever know that and therefore it is impossible they should have any reasonable security of Success There is nothing more expresly contrary to the revealed Will of God than Treasonable Plots and Conspiracies against Sovereign Princes Christian Religion indeed is the greatest security of Government both in its Precepts and Examples It requires us to obey our Superiors in all lawful things and quietly to submit and suffer when we cannot Obey And the blessed Jesus who was the Author of our Religion and our great Pattern and Example did himself practise
1. That those Serm. at St. Mary's Oxf Jan. 30. 1660. and before the King Jan. 30. 1661. who promise Obedience to the King only so far as he preserves the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom withal reckoning themselves Judges of what Religion is true what false and when these Liberties are invaded and when not do by this put it within their own Power to judge when Religion Faith and Liberties are Invaded as they think convenient and from such judgment to absolve themselves from their Allegiance 2. That those very Persons who thus covenanted had already from Pulpit and Press declared the Religion establish'd in the Church of England and then maintain'd by the King to be Popish and Idolatrous and withal that the King had actually Invaded their Liberties was there any thing in the Book of God to warrant this Rebellion Why yes Daniet dreamed a Dream and there is also somthing in the Revelation concerning a Beast and a little horn and a fifth Viol and therefore the King ought undoubtedly to dye ☜ others plead providential dispensations God's work it seems must be regarded before his Word as if when we have a Man's Hand-writing we should endeavour to take his meaning by the measure of his foot we have lived under that model of Religion in which nothing hath been counted impious but Loyalty nothing absurd but restitution the Church of England is the only Church in Christendom we read of whose avowed Practices and Principles disown all resistance of the Civil Power and with the saddest experience and truest Policy and reason will evince it self to be the only one that is durably consistent with the English Monarchy let Men look back into its Primitive Doctrin and it's History and they will find neither the Calvin's nor the Knox's the Junius Brutus's the Synods nor the Holy Common-wealths on the one side nor yet the Bellarmin's nor the Mariana's on the other SECT IX And here it is necessary to mention the several Addresses that own the same Doctrin and I shall begin with that of the two Universities that of Oxford runs thus being according to an Act of Convocation dated Febr. 21. 1685. May it please your Majesty c. We your Majesty's most dutiful c. as we can never swerve from the Principles of our Institution in this place and our Religion by Law establish'd in the Church of England which indispensibly binds us to bear all Faith and true Obedience to our Sovereign without any restrictions or limitations so we presume to assure your Majesty that no consideration whatsoever shall be able to shake that stedfast Loyalty and Allegiance which in the days of your Blessed Father that Glorious Martyr and in the late times of discrimination stood here firm and unalterable to your Royal Brother and your Self under the sharpest trials and that we shall constantly by God's assistance with our utmost zeal and sidelity improve all those advantages wherewith God and your Majesty have intrusted us in this ancient nursery of Learning to promote the quiet happiness and security of your Majesties Reign over us Thus also the University of Cambridge in their Address tendred by the Vice-Chancellor Gaznum 2019. c. Mar. 23. 1684. We do with all humble submission present to your Sacred Majesty our unfeigned Loyalty the most valuable Tribute that we can give or your Majesty receive from us this is a Debt which we shall be always paying and always owing it being a Duty naturally flowing from the very Principles of our Holy Religion by which we have been enabled in the worst of times to breed as true and stedy Subjects as the World can shew as well in the Doctrine as Practice of Loyalty from which we can never depart Many other Addresses Gaz num 2008. 2012. 2013. 2016. 2018 c. of the same kind were made by the University of Dublin by the Bishop and Clergy of the City of London the Bishop and Clergy of Chester the Bishops of Bath and Wells and of Hereford and in truth of all the Dioceses I think in England Scotland and Ireland besides such as were tendred by Lords Lieutenants Grand Juries and particular Societies For which Sense of the Nation in those days I must refer the Reader to the Prints while I only subjoin the memorable Close of the Address tendered by the Bishop Vicar-General and the Clergy of the Cathedral and City of Bristol The Church of England is peculiarly indeared to us for that above all that is called Religion in the World it twists Piety with Loyalty and without Reserve Recognizeth your Sacred Majesty as the Sovereign and Supreme Power within your Majesties Realms and Dominions against whom there is no rising up and only less than God himself According to the Dictates of that most excellent Religion we abhor all those Antimonarchical Persons and Principles which would either exclude Princes from their just Rights or disturb the peaceable enjoyment of them And we earnestly beseech the King of Kings that your Majesties Throne may not only be Established but raised still higher upon the ruins of those that shall endeavour to Subvert or Supplant it SECT X. Dr. Stillingfleet Origin Brit. c. 5. p. 319. inquiring into the Reasons why the Saxons were called into Britain by Vortigern quotes Gildas who affirms That after the Britains found themselves deserted by the Romans they set up Kings of their own and soon after put them down again and made Choice of worse in their room Adding it is plain that he supposes that the Britains in that Confusion they were in took upon them without regard to their Duty to place and displace them But withal he observes that then the Britains were left to their full liberty by the Roman Empire that there was no Line remaining to succeed in the Government nor so much as to determine their Choice which made them so easily to make and unmake their Kings who lost their Purple and their Lives together This must needs breed insinite confusions among them and every one who came to be King lived in perpetual fear of being served as others had been before him And the natural Consequence of this jealousie of their own Subjects was looking out for assistance from abroad which I doubt not was one great reason of Vortigern 's sending for the Saxons hoping to secure himself by their means against his own People although it proved at last the ruin both of himself and his People And whereas Cressy in his answer to my Lord of Clarendon's Vindicaon of the Dean of S. Pauls had objected That days of Thanksgiving were kept for the discovery and prevention of such personal Treasons as the Gunpowder Treason but none for the Deliverance of the whole Kingdoms from almost an Universal Rebellion as if their were no necessity of requiring from any a retraction of the Principles of Rebellion or a promise that they shall not be renewed Answ to the
Man who hath such a respect to Religion that whatsoever he promiseth by Oath he will perform tho be loses never so much by keeping his faith and * in Ps 51. p. 361. that David confess'd to God against thee only have I sinned not because I stand in fear of punishment from Men who have no Power over me but because I am so obnoxious to thee whose judgments I ought to dread the more the less I am lyable to give an account of my actions unto others O how it afflicts me that I presumed because I had none to controul me here on Earth to offend thy Majesty thy All-seeing Majesty at whose Tribunal ☜ the highest must be judged Politicians when they do unwarrantable actions Id. Jewish Hypocrisie p. 371 372. Lond. 1660. think to excuse themselves with the Reason of State and pretence of Common good and therefore will break their Faith and their Oaths and at the rate of their honesty purchase the common welfare as if God had need of Mens sin or we could tell what is his Interest better than himself I am somthing angry at this vile abuse of his Holy Name that tho God hath told us what is his mind and pleasure yet they will instruct him and teach him what is more for his benefit and shew him a way that he thought not on for the advancement of his Glory The same Author in his Epitome of Man's duty annex'd to his Treatise of the Jewish Hypocrisie is of the same mind as we love our selves P. 41. let us endeavour to live in all good conscience before God let us not do the least evil for to avoid the suffering of the greatest evil and let us not neglect any good for the purchasing of the best good the World affords it cannot be long before thou feelest that hidden Whip the cords of which thou art continually twisting for to lash thy self all impatience comes by pride P. 67 68. and our murmurings are bred by too goodly thoughts of our own selves but if we thought with our selves what we are c. we should become very humble i. e. meek and patient and contented under all that befalls us one act of humility begets another and he that thinks meanly of himself will not be angry that he is afflicted Be peaceable and obedient to Governors who are Gods in the World and to whom God hath bidden us that we should submit our selves submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake c. 1 Pet. 2.13 It is an high act of Pride and Insolency to controul the Authority that is over us and to set up our own wills above God's Vicegerents for it is a great contempt of the Majesty of God whose Image they more remarkably bear and with whose Effigies they are more visibly stampt than other Men we must always therefore do what they command us or else suffer what they inflict upon us ☜ and if we chuse the latter we must suffer as meekly and peaceably as if it was an immediate hand of Heaven upon us for if Solomon says of every Man that proud and haughty scorner is his name who decleth in proud wrath Prov. 21.24 Then much more is he to be branded in the forehead for a Man superlatively proud who cannot endure to be touch'd in Body or Estate but it casts him into the highest Inflammations of anger even against the Highest Powers Dr. Tillotson There is a Spirit in the World which is not only contrary to Christianity Ser. on Nov. 5. 1678. p. 17 18. but to the common Principles of natural Religion and even to humanity it self which by falshood and persidiousness by secret Plots and Conspiracies or by open Sedition and Rebellion by Deposing and Killing Kings in a word by dissolving all the bonds of humane Society and subverting the Peace and order of the World i. e. by all wicked ways imaginable doth incite Men to promote and advance their Religion P. 19. When Religion once comes to supplant Moral Righteousness and to teach Men the absurdest things in the World to lye for the truth P. 20. and to kill Men for God's sake and to be a bond of Conspiracy better it were there were no revealed Religion ☜ and that humane nature were left to the conduct of its own Principles and Inclinations which are much more mild and merciful than to be acted by a Religion that inspires Men with so wild a fury and is continually supplanting Government and undermining the Welfare of Mankind In short such a Religion as teaches Men to propagate and advance it self by means so evidently contrary to the very nature and end of all Religion how much better Teachers of Religion were the Old Heathen Philosophers P. 21 22. in all whose Books and Writings there is not one Principle to be found of Treachery and Rebellion Panaetius Antipater and Diogenes the Stoick Tully and Plutarch P. 28. and Seneca were much honester and more Christian Casuists than the Jesuits are c. I am not sure that the Pope is Antichrist but I challenge Antichrist himself whoever he be and whenever he comes to do worse and wickeder things than these Serm. on 1 Cor. 3.15 p. 11 15. I hope no body expects that I should take the pains to shew that this was not the Doctrin of our Saviour and of his Apostles nor of the Primitive Christians viz. the Doctrin of deposing Kings our Church hath this peculiar advantage above several Professions P. 3â— 34. that we know in the World that it acknowledgeth a due and just subordination to the Civil Authority and hath always been untainted in its Loyalty Dr. Meggor Serw. before the L. 〈◊〉 on Ps 11.3 〈◊〉 30 p. 14. Altho there were Laws to guide and direct the Kings of Judea and Aegypt yet if they forgot themselves so much as to violate and break through them there were none by which they might resist and punish them their Ministers and Instruments were ever accountable but as to themselves it was a Maxim every where that they could do no wrong P. 16. he who resists Kings is in danger of receiving to himself damnation in the other World for such unjustifyable and forbidden practices there never yet was any Rebellion where Religion or Liberty were not one or both pretended yet he who examineth the most judicious and impartial Wâ—â—ters of Story will be hugely put to it to produce an instance of any one where Personal disgusts and selfish designs were not the first Promoters and Fomentors of it they P. 28 29. v. p 43 44 c. that can dispense with their Oaths and comply with Usurpers be instruments of the illegal Innovations and Zealous for the Statutes of Omri may receive some wages for their unrighteousness and ravish to themselves fortunes as unexpected as ignominious but for those that dare not debauch their Consciences nor be partakers
Party have been the great cause of all these inhumane Butcheries yet they have not been the only Actors in them there are another sort of Men who have had their Hands stained with blood and upon what Motives and Principles and to what degrees they have proceeded I refer the Reader to Archbishop Bancroft's dangerous Positions and to the History of Presbytery to satisfic himself Ch. 2 p. 7. 8. But tho several Murders and Rebellions have been carryed on by those that call themselves Christians yet neither the Christian Religion nor the Church it self did ever teach any such Doctrin or encourage any such Practice nay there are such Evidences against it that no rational Man that does rightly consider the matter can ever doubt but that she in her judgment and belief wholly condemns all such wicked and ungodly designs And for further satisfaction I will inquire into the flate of the matter P. 9. that all Power and Dominion is Originally from God is not to be doubted but by Atheists and that Governors act in his Name and by his Authority is as unquestionable among Christians now this Power is derived to them either from the Law of Nature which is common to all Mankind or else from positive Revelation and Assignment the first and highest fountain of Supreme Power is founded in that natural Dominion that God hath given Parents over their Children insomuch that if either Adam or Noah who were the common Fathers of us all were now alive P. 10. they ought to be the Universal Monarchs of the World but when the Father dyes and Brothers are scatter'd up and down the World and live independently one of another there can be no natural pretence for one to have Dominion over the other yet the necessity of forming themselves into Societies for mutual defence and traffick will oblige them to enter into Covenants and tho while they are free they may chuse different forms as they shall see best for themselves yet having once chosen and accepted of a Supreme Power they are not at liberty to cast it off again when they please but all the Rights Prerogatives and Jurisdictions which belong to Sovereign Authority are presently by God invested on it who does ratifie all lawful pacts and agreements and requires us strictly and inviolably to observe them tho it may fall out P. 11. that the Person somtime may be chosen by the People or Nobility or Senate yet the Power and Office it self was not made is not given nor can it be limited or bounded by them so as to destroy the Office it self or make it become no Supreme Power one Prerogative whereof is to be irresistible P. 1â— and not to be called to account by any but God. a Prince must use his Subjects as Freemen and not Slaves but if Princes do not their duty we must not revenge our selves for we ought not to be Judges in our own case for God hath told us that Vengeance is his and he will repay P. 13. therefore we must go for vengeance to those whom God hath appointed to execute vengeance in his stead if then our inferior Governors do us wrong we must go to the Superior who are made Revengers to execute wrath upon them that do evil But if the Supreme Powers themselves oppress us they cannot be judg'd by their Inferiors and there will be no other remedy but to leave them to the judgment of God who hath reserved their punishment to himself but tells us he that resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation and 't is better to suffer unjustly in this World than to suffer justly in the World to come for since the last judgment in this World must be somewhere 't is fitter that Children should be committed to the judgment of their Parents and Inferiors to the Supreme than any other way P. 14 15. tho Princes are the Instruments yet it is God's purposes or commands that they put in execution whether they be for good or evil he inclines them to favor and mercy when he is pleas'd to try us with prosperity and kindness again when our sins call for judgment and indignation then he sends forth evil Governors or else permits wicked Men to act according to their own cruel and ambitious minds and the insâ—igation of the Devil but yet in the midst of judgment he does remember mercy they shall not do any harm further than God in his Wisdom shall give them leave and that is no more than is needful for our good so that we are to look upon evil Governors and Superiors that oppress us no other than plagues or violent Storms or Earthquakes sent from God from whence we may run and hide our selves if it be possible and use all reasonable means to save our lives by flight or the like but they are no more to be resisted by violence than any of those natural Evils we must by humiliation and prayer implore God's mercy to us in turning their hearts or some other way sending us deliverance as we do to avert a Plague or an Earthquake P. 16. but God hath given us no natural strength to secure our selves and thereupon will defend us himself and have us wholly therein depend upon his own care this belief it was that filled the World with Martyrs c. this made our Saviour confess to Pilate that he had Power given him from above to crucifie him c. it was upon this account that St. Paul said let every Soul be subject c. and in this sense those Texts and the Authority of Governors were vouched by the Antient Fathers and Councils and there is not one Writer for a Thousand years of any credit in the Church that did ever doubt of P. 17. or question this Doctrin but many of them have declared themselves fully for it that Sovereign Princes had their Authority immediatly from God and were accountable to none but him if they did use it amiss and therefore could not be deposed by any Authority upon Earth whether of Pope or People neither ought they to be resisted by open violence or have their Power wrested out of their hands by any of their rebellious Subjects those also that act in a War without the Commission of the Supreme Power or of the King where he is Supreme have not the Sword given them by God but take it themselves and therefore shall perish with the same And this he confirms as from Scripture so from the Doctrin of the Church and the sense of the Holy Fathers about it P. 40 41. and concludes It were casie to carry the same Doctrin through all Ages of the Church and to produce testimonies especially from the Articles and Canons of the Church of England and the Writings of our Learned Bishops and other Eminent Defenders of our Church but these shall suffice for the present and they are
God the things that are God ' s. Dr. Fowler There is nothing more certain than that for any of us to be false Dâ—sign of Christianity p. 243 251 252. and perfidious to be ungovernable rebellious or seditious upon the account of Religion it self is most unsufferable and inexcusable For if it be lawful to behave our selves after this manner upon any account whatever Religion would be the most useless thing in the World and if this were lawful upon the account of Religion only ☜ I will not stick to say that it will not be more useless and unprofitable than mischievous and hurtful Nor would the Christion Religion it self be worthy our profession if it would give us leave upon any design to allow our selves in the forementioned Immoralities or in any one whatsoever Thus to do is no other than to be irreligious to promote Religion to be unchristian to do service to Christianity and therefore to go the directest way to destroy it by the means we use for its preservation Thus to do is to oppose the Interests of our Religion to that of our Souls Id. Discour of Christian Liberty p. 175. â—ee his Discourse of Offences p. 9 10 11. and to cast these away in the defence of that It is come to that sad pass that preaching Obedience to Authority is as unacceptable Doctrin as can be to even many great Pretenders to Christianity altho it be done never so prudently and agreeably to the express Doctrin of our Saviour and his Apostles And the Notion of Obedience for Conscience sake seems almost lost among not a few which is one of the great Sins for which we have too great reason to fear there is a heavy Scourge near us Mr. Evans A moderate Man when the Honor of God or the King when Religion Sermon of Moderat 1682. p. 12. and the Welfare of his Country lye at stake then thinks it a most worthy and weighty occasion of imploying his Zeal and Activity in their Service of defending them with Courage and Resolution with his Life and Fortunes He never breaks the second Table to preserve the first nor make use of any ways to secure Religion that are contrary to or destructive of its Principles What Men esteem great Falshoods pag. 23. and call Toryism and Popery are really as true as Gospel pag. 34. I will conclude all with this Remark We may and shall if we do not timely take up bring in Popery by a heady and extravagant Zeal against it ☜ and ruin and enslave our selves by our fierce and passionate Contentions for Liberty Property and Safety p. 48. Give me the Man that is honest and constant to his Principles and to what he professes whatsoever Party or Perswasion he is of he is much more valuable to me than he that plights his Faith to the Church and gives all the Security that can be taken for his Conformity to it and then after he hath wound himself into its Communion and Preferments plays booty and acts like a Non-Conformist These are the treacherous Friends that like Vipers prey upon the Bowels of their Mother and betray her as Judas did our Lord with a Kiss Dr. Comber in his Religion and Loyalty Sec. Edit 1683. p. 8 3. v. pag. 12 13 c. If the Church of England did make worldly Interest the sole measure of her Actions they would never consider what was honest but only what was expedient and never stick at ill means to accomplish that which they account good Ends. We of this Church are perhaps the only Christians since the Primitive Ages who never dispens'd with our Loyalty to serve our worldly Ends. And if this do not commend our Policy I am sure it declares our Honesty and Integrity and must needs recommend us to all good Men as those who prefer our Duty and our Conscience before all earthly Advantages p. 39. No Religion in the World teaches and practises more Loyalty than that which is truly called Protestant and we doubt not but that if ever his R. H. should attain the Crown he will not blame our Church for that which was the Opinion of those who endeavoured to subvert it after they had renounc'd all Communion with it pag. 52. especially when it is further considered how constantly the true Protestants of the Church of England have loved and how faithfully they have served the Royal Family in all Fortunes how closely they have adher'd to the Interests thereof upon all Occasions so that whoever were true Sons of this Church our Kings have always reckon'd them their certain and undoubted Friends And when a Rebellion was designed against the blessed Father of his Royal Highness the Contrivers of it found it necessary first to seduce Men from the Church of England before they could engage them in so wicked an Action p 〈…〉 And since the happy Restoration they have incurr'd the Hatred of the bigotted Fanaticks for their perpetual standing for the King's Prerogative and their zealous promoting his and his Royal Highness's Interest The Pamphlets written in defence of the Bill of Exclusion p. 57. â—â— frequently transcribe whole Passages out of Doleman's Book Take some of their accursed Principles The Commonwealth hath Power to chuse their own fashion of Government as also to change it upon reasonable Causes The Commonwealth hath Power not only to put back the next Inheritors upon lawful occasions but also to dispossess them that have been lawfully put in possession if they fulfil not the Laws and Conditions by which and for which their Dignity was given them The Republick may cure or cut off their Heads if they infest the rest Princes are subject to Law and Order and the Commonwealth which gave them their Authority for the good of all may also restrain or take the same away again if they abuse it to the common evil The whole Body to superior to the Prince neither so giveth the Common-wealth her Authority and Power up to any Prince that she depriveth herself utterly of the same when need shall require to use it for her defence for which she gave it The Prince's Power is not absolute but delegate from the Commonwealth and is given with such Conditions and Oaths on both Parties as if the same be not kept by either Party the other is not bound With many other such Popish Positions So also the Apost Prâ—â— p. 4 5. and it is very observable that this wicked Libel of Doleman was in part reprinted Anno 1648. under the feigned Title of Several Speeches deliver'd at a Conference concerning the Power of Parliaments to proceed against their King's form of Government pag. 61. But the Protestant Church of England is not only better in all other accounts but doth hold teach and practise Loyalty above all others in the World the Divines thereof generally holding Monarchy to be of divine Right and Allegiance to be an Obligation on
Sclater What a joy will it be to thy Spirit and a lightning to thy Heart Royal pay paymaster on Rom. 2.10 p. 6 7 1â— when thou canst say thou didst not cowardly yield tho thou hast been disarm'd sequestred decimated and unrewarded for it 't was of God's mercy to be kept faithful to the righteous cause of God and the King when there were so many temptations to witdraw us from our Loyalty Fidelity and Loyalty is in a more especial manner required in a Subject towards his Sovereign 't is Treason in a Subject to fight against his Sovereign but how long must this Fidelity last a day or two or so Oh no I this Commandment is like that heavy saying in Matrimony till death us do part Dr. Hickman Serm. before Lâ—rd Mayor Juâ— 27. 1680 p. 17 18. The honor of God and the defence of his Worship are glorious Undertakings yet even here the excess of zeal is a crime and the great importance of the end cannot justifie any unlawfulness in the means the will of God as it is exprest in his Word is the standard of good and evil and he will not suffer his eternal Laws to be violated tho in his own defence if it should please him to give his and our Enemies such advantage over us as may endanger the exercise of our Religion we have our Prayers and other lawful endeavours for our redress but we must not defend our Church by an unlawful return of evil for evil nor like our Adversaries commit any Act of Impiety or Injustice tho under the most specious pretence of fighting the Battels of the Lord The goodness of the Cause here is so far from justifying the Act that it only aggravates the offence when a Law is violated or any injustice done for the sake of our Religion both the scandal and the Crime become conspicuous they are then laid at the door of our Church and bring a publick and perpetual blot upon our cause P. 19 v. p. 20 33. what can our Religion profit us or what honor can it bring to the Almighty when our Sacrifice comes polluted with blood and violence of its own how can it attone for our transgressions therefore it is necessary to obey not only for wrath ☞ but also for Conscience sake St. Peter who was the first that drew his Sword In his Master's quarrel was the first that denyed his name and forsook his cause and doubtless whosoever fights for his Religion against his Prince can never pass the muster without a Romish dispensation Mr. Ser. at Bath Aug. 7. â—631 p. 4 5 c. Jos Pleydall Arch-Deacon of Chichester Plebeians and Hobbists proceed upon one and the same Principle making the People the Fountain of all Power whereas Subjects owe a natural and inviolable Allegiance but if a Prince prove a Tyrant does he not by Male-administration forfeit the trust reposed in him in whose Opinion in the Opinion of Mariana or Knox Hobbs or Bradshaw i. e. in the judgment of Papists P. 8. Sectaries Atheists or Rebels 't is impossible there should be a Rebellion while the Principles of the Church of England are revered and owned that Kings may be Deposed and Murdered P. 11. we may reckon under the Apostles strange and monstrous Doctrins or rather under his Doctrins of Devils Mr. Assize Ser. p. 21 22. v. p. 5 78 16. Kimberley No pretences of Conscience or Religion can Authorize our Resistance of the lawful Powers which God hath set over us they never knew what it was in the times of the Primitive Christianity to oppose expel or destroy any Pagan Persecuting Arian or Apostate Emperor Mr. Assize Ser. p. 21. Jemmat None but God can absolve Subjects from that Allegiance and Obedience which they owe to their natural Lords neither the Male administration of Government nor their own fears jealousies nor the decay of Trade no nor the hazard of Religion it self can justifie the Acts of Rebellion they to whom God hath given his own Power are accountable to none but himself c. Mr. Serm. on 2 Chr. 13.5 p. 6. v. p. 8 15 18. Camfield The King is in the highest place and highest power and consequently all in his Dominions Every Soul of them are obliged to be subject to him none may presume to judge or resist him violently there can be nothing justifyable on the Subjects part but obedience and Submission the rest must be referred to God alone the only Ruler of Princes c. Mr. Ser. at York Aug 3. 1685. p. 16 24. 〈◊〉 loc Stainforth We have great reason to pity and pray for Kings for the eminency of their Station and uncontroulableness of their Power if Princes are bad Men and oppress their Subjects against reason and against Law we have no reason left us but Prayers to God in whose hands are the hearts of Kings Whatsoever Injuries they heap upon us whatsoever Violences and Persecutions we suffer under them we must not suffer our Passions to rise and swell againvt them much less must we take up Arms and by force resist their Persons or Authority P. 34. Those who take up Arms against their Sovereign's Authority fight against Heaven Mr. Graile Rector of Blickling in Norfolk publish'd four Sermons Lond. 1685. P. 44 45. For Loyalty to our Prince is a thing commanded by God himself together with Piety and Devotion towards himself yea and commanded in the very next place to it so that the one is a part an inseparable part a very considerable part of the other And it follows from hence by an apparent Consequence that Mens Disloyalty is a clear indication of their irreligion if they fear not the King they fear not God. ☜ If any Man seem to be religious and bridles not his Tongue from speaking evil of Dignities or Higher Powers Jam. 1.26 2 Pet 2.10 Rom. 13.2 P. 53 54 55. that Man's Religion is vain and 't is much more so if he holds not his hands from resisting these Powers Our Law will have no Error no Injustice no Folly no Imperfection whatsoever to be found in the King. All the States of the Realm joyned together all the Nobles and Commons and the whole Body of the People have not a Power and Authority equal to his For otherwise he would not be the King of a Kingdom but of single Men separately taken P. 56. The King is no substitute of the People but the Minister of God and his Power is the Ordinance of God. It is a contradiction to be Sovereign and to have a Superior The Lords P. 57. both Spiritual and Temporal together with all the Commons assembled in Parliament do by a solemn Oath acknowledg the King to be Supreme and themselves to be his Subjects And they have in publick Statutes particularly declared That both or either Houses of Parliament cannot nor lawfully may raise or levy any War offensive or
defensive ☜ against his Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors Neither is the King accountable to them or to any other besides God These are the Essentials of Sovereignty There is but one Case wherein a good and loyal Subject will refuse to obey his Prince and that is p. 60 61 v. p. 66 96 97 119 120 154. when such Obedience will by no means consist with his Obedience to God But there is no Case whatsoever wherein he dares either to resist or reproach the Person or Authority of the King or to offer any Indignity to him To fight against him is to fight against God whom the King represents upon any pretence whatsoever it cannot be done without open Perfidiousness and Rebellion Such are Monsters of Men and are as natural brute Beasts made to be taken and destroyed So S. Peter describes them 2 Pet. 2.10 12. Mr. David Jenner in his Prerogative of Primogenitures * Lond 1635 P. 48. asserts the same Cause Altho the Law of God is indeed above all Kings and if they wilfully transgress the same they are all accountable unto God and unto God only for the same yet in this Kingdom of England no Statute Law is or can be above the King because it was the King that first gave life and being to the Law of the Land the King by his Royal Assent made the Law to be what it is viz. a Law But the Law of the Land did not make the King to be what he is viz. a King for the King was King before the Law. That the Doctrin and Practice of Deposing lawful Kings P. 122. and Excluding the right Heir from succeeding in the Throne for his being an Heretick Idolater ☜ tyrannical and wicked is grounded upon nothing but Popery and Fanaticism Mr. Hancock in his Answer to the Viscount Stafford's Memoires Lond. 1682. p. 31. I could make it evident that the same Maxims of Political Divinity the same Arguments and many times the same Phrases and Expressions are to be found in the Heads of both Factions I know 't is disputed whether the Ring-Leaders of Sedition among us poyson'd the Jesuits or the Jesuits them but I do not envy the Bishops of Rome the Honor of having first poyson'd them both with Antimonarchical Doctrins If Milton the great Oracle of one of the Factions had own'd himself to be a Papist there had been no reason to wonder at the Impiety of his Doctrins which he either did or might have learnt from the Popes and greatest Divines of the Roman Church It was truly alledg'd by Salmasius that the Doctrin of the sacred and inviolable Authority of Princes was preserved pure and uncorrupt in the Church till the Bishops of Rome attempted to set up a Kingdom in this World paramount to all Kings and Emperors but he with his usual Confidence acquits the Popes and charges his Antimonarchical Principles on Luther Zuinglius Calvin Bucer Martyr Parcus and all the Reformed Divines Bellarmine P. 50. Parsons Creswel Suarez c. are the Men that furnish'd the leading Faction among us with Principles and Precedents with Arguments and Texts of Scripture ☞ out of whom they either did or might have derived the Grounds of the War against the King of erecting an High Court of Justice and of bringing him to the Block John Goodwin P. 53. in one of his Pamphlets hath this remarkable Expression As for offering Violence to the Person of a King or attempting to take away his Life we leave the Proof of the lawfulness of it to those profound Disputers the Jesuits P. 166 c. I have fairly represented those Doctrins and Principles which strike at the very root of our establish'd Religion and Government with the Arts and Instruments which have been used by the prevailing Faction of the Roman Church for the Subversion of them ☞ And I know no stronger Argument against the truth and goodness of any Religion than that it supplants moral Righteousness and serves to be a Bond of Conspiracy allowes of Sedition and Treachery Injustice and Cruelty for how can that Religion be from God which maketh Men unlike to God as had or worse than if they were left to the Principles and Inclinations of their own Natures Of the Church of England I will only say It hath establish'd the Right of Kings upon such sure and unalterable Foundations that it is the Interest as well as the Duty of the Civil Power to support and defend it Mr. Animadv on Ob. Ch. Govern. Preface Smalridge Certainly that Doctrin which invades the just Rights of Princes can hope but for few Proselytes among those who have constantly defended them in their Writings asserted them in their Decrees and upon all occasions vindicated them with their Swords For we do not lye open to the imputation of a condition'd and distinguishing Loyalty who have shewed our readiness to imitate the glorious Examples of our Fathers and were prepar'd had not God's good Providence prevented our Service to have transcribed that Copy lately at Sedgmore which they set us formerly at Edg-hill And in truth our steady Fidelity to the Prince is so unquestionable that our Enemies have been pleased to ridicule what they could not deny and have made Passive Obedience bear a part in our Character when the Muse hath been enclin'd to Satyr Thus also the Person of Quality who wrote the Reasons Why a Protestant should not turn Papist P. 30 31. I am then quite out of conceit with your Religion since I cannot embrace it without endangering my Loyalty by reason of the Deposing Doctrin in case I live up to the pitch of its real Principles But 't is all one to me so long as I remain a Protestant what Religion my Prince is of tho I could wish he were of the same I profess because his Authority over me and my indispensible Obligation to submit to him do not depend upon his Opinion or Religion but upon his Birth-right yet have we not reason to doubt if the zealous sort of Roman Catholicks would not think it lawful to take Arms against their Prince turn'd a Heretick since the French League against Henry the 4th was upon this very account styled Holy and had I not been particularly acquainted with the Principles of the Church of Rome I had never conceived how it came to pass that such great Numbers of learned and well-meaning Men too could be guilty of such a horrible wickedness as that was and forget themselves so far as to pretend Holiness in an open Rebellion against their lawful Prince I am then more satisfied with the Loyalty of a Protestant especially of the Church of England who acknowledgeth the Prince to be a Supreme Governour over all his Subjects and Sovereign Judg in all Cases than with that of a Roman Catholick who seems to set limits to his Power by such restrictions as neither Reason nor Scripture can warrant Mr. Pomfret