to molest another for his Religion Our Author might have gone for one of the Godly partie in those daies I do not read that there was one Law extended throughout the whole Roman Empire which was almost Vniversal but that several Kingdoms and Cities were governed by their own Laws So were the Jews and Heathen as well as Christian Subjects in their several Cities and remote Provinces As Julian told the Bishops that were of several Perswasions that they should not disturb the publick peace of the Empire and then they might enjoy their own Liberties and Religion Constantine seemed to be almost of a like perswasion for why else did he not suppress the Arian Heresie which from Alexandria infected the whole Empire He did take care to prevent Schism and Sedition among Christians that the administration of the Government might be more easie But this great man banished Athanasius into France where he remained till Constantine his Son recalled him as Eusebius in his Chronologie But what if there were some Edicts for the establishment of Christian Religion in Constantine's days nothing was confirmed by the Senate that was accounted then a needless thing Nor did the Edicts of one Emperour bind another by the same Authoritie as Constantine might have setled the Orthodox Religion Constantius setled the Arian and after him Julian the Pagan Religion I mean by his own Imperial power and Edicts For the Roman Emperour was an Absolute Monarch their Will was a Law as Gregory Nazianzen quoted by you p. 13. The Will and Pleasure of the Emperour is an unwritten Law backed with Power and much stronger than written ones which were not supported by Authority So that though he did not as you term it fairly enact Sanguinary Laws yet had he the Law of the Sword in his hands And I think it was a great mercie of God to the Christians under him that he did not by publick Edicts put the Sword out of his own hands into the hands of his Heathen Magistrates who would have written them all in bloud Therefore Mr. Baxter saies p. 20. of 4th part of his Direct Julian was a protector of the Church from Popular Rage in comparison of other Persecutors though in other respects he was a Plague Valentinian was a right Christian Emperour and when he was chosen the Souldiers were importunate that he should assume another as an Associate in the Empire he tells them It lay in you to chuse me your Emperour but being chosen what you desire is not in your power but mine it belongs to you as Subjects to be quiet and rest contented and to me as your King to consider what is fit to be done Zozomen l. 6.86 Justinian was another good Emperour and he assumed the sole administration of the Empire to himself and demands in his Novels Quis tantae authoritatis ut nolentem Principem possit ad convocandos Patres caetorosque Proceres coarctare Who can claim so great Authority as to constrain the Prince to assemble the Senate against his will And Justinian Novel 105. excepts the Emperour from the coercive power of the Law to whom says he God hath subjected the Laws themselves sending him as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 living Law unto men And the Gloss noteth That the Emperour is the Father of the Law whereupon the Laws also are subject to him When Vespasian was Emperour it was declared by the Senate That he might make Leagues with whom he pleased And though Tiberius Claudius or Germanicus had made certain Laws yet Vespasian was not obliged by them And Pliny in his Panegyrick to Trajan tells him how happie he was that he was obliged to nothing So that the Christians had no more pretence of having the Laws on their side under Julian than under Dioclesian Maximus or Constantius nor did they ever plead them to justifie a Rebellion against him for want of such an Advocate or Leader as our Author Gregory Nyssene tells us also what the power of the King or Emperour was he defines him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that hath Absolute power in himself no Master nor Equal Cont. Eunomium l. 1. So that our Author 's great Babel is fallen viz. that the Julian Christians had their Religion established by Law and that they were long possessed of it For Laws or no Laws by the Lex Regia the Emperour could reverse the old and establish new as it pleased him and for want of Laws where the word of the Emperour was there was power and none might say to him What dost thou Thus it was with Constantine and Constantius and why not with Julian And now I hope the good Christians of our Age will no longer trust to such broken Reeds as our Author puts into their hands much less that they should take up the Sword which will be no other than a broken Reed also not onely to fail them but to pierce through their sides Now if we should turn the Tables and ask our Author Whether when Jovian and Valentinian were Emperours and had made some new Edicts for the Orthodox Christians as well as against the Arians and Pagans it had been lawful for the Arians or Pagans to rebel in defence of their Religion Or to come nearer home Whether when Queen Mary had established Popery by Law in this Nation it had been lawful for the Papists to have rebelled against Queen Elizabeth they having the Laws on their side yea and questioning her Right of Succession too yet we do not read that they did contrive a General Rebellion though for ought I see our Author would have justified them when he tells us from Zozomen what men may do for the Religion whereof they are well perswaded Or neerer yet when the Long too Long Parliament pretended against the King that their Religion was in danger by Poperie and Superstition their Laws and Liberties invaded by an Arbitrary Power did they well or ill from these pretences to raise that War against the King that turned the Nation to an Aceldama Were the Laws such as could justifie that Rebellion or no If they could not then I am sure they cannot now since the late Act for Treason in the 13th of our King and a Declaration of Parliament That it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever c And by several Statutes it is declared That the King is the Onely Supreme Governour of his Dominions over all Persons and Causes whatsoever And the power of the Sword or Militia is put into his hands as well by the Law of the Nation as of God and I trust he will not bear it in vain Having thus stript this full-fac'd Bird of a few borrowed and painted Feathers how justly is he exposed to be hooted at by every boy or dealt with as in the Apologue of such another bird that seeing the Pidgeons to be well meated and live securely he would get himself to be coloured and arrayed like one of them and feed among
justifie resistance of lawful Powers having in effect not onely drawn the Sword but cast away the Scabbard We are told of one that was ready to kick an Emperour and of others that play'd with his Beard but this is little less than kicking at the Crown and striking a blow at the root to render the whole Family as glorious as they made the Father of it Unless he can give some other sence of it than this Rather than not exclude the D. we will exclude the glorious Family of the Stuarts And in what sence he calls it a glorious Family needs his explication But will the Exclusion of the D. as certainly prevent our misery as his Succession effect it Did you never read how zealous some Priests and Pharisees were for a Bill of Exclusion against a far better person John 11.47 48. What do we for this man doth many Miracles if we let him thus alone all men will believe on him the Romans will come take away both our place nation And did not the passing that Bill make way for the Romans to bring all their fears on their own heads And was not our late dear King excluded from Crown Kingdom and life upon such fears and was that a means of our Peace and Happiness I wish I could say our fears now are as false as they were then We have his R. H. Declaration for our Security viz. That the Members of the Church of England are the best supporters of the Crown Insomuch that if it fall to him to be concerned he will ever countenance and preserve them and it And p. 225. Why may we not suppose that a Popish Successor will defend his Regalia against the Pope Our Ancient Kings did so in the Reign of Rich. 2.16 c. 5. In a Statute of Praemunire the Parliament declares That the Crown of England against the Encroachments of the Pope hath been so free at all times that so hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately subject to God in all things touching the Regalty of the same Crown and to none other And God defend say they that it should be submitted to the Pope and the Laws and Statutes of the Realm be by him defeated and avoided at his will in perpetual destruction of the Soveraignty of the King our Lord his Crown Regalty and of all his Realm And I hope his Royal Highness will say as they did God defend Moreover the Commons say That the things so attempted viz. purchasing Bulls from Rome executing Judgments given in the Court of Rome translating of Prelates out of the Realm or from one Preferment to another be clearly against the Kings Crown and Regalty used and approved of the time of all his Progenitors Wherefore they and all the siege Commons of the same Realm will stand with our said Lord the King and his Crown and Regalty in the Cases aforesaid and in all other cases attempted against him and his Crown and Regalty in all points to live and to dye And moreover they pray the king and him require by way of Justice that he would examine all the Lords in the Parliament as well Spiritual as Temporal severally and all the Estates of the Parliament how they think of the Cases aforesaid which be so openly against the Kings Crown and in derogation of his Regalty how they will stand in the same cases with our Lord the King in upholding the rights of the said Crown and Regalty The like promises were made by the Lords Temporal and Spiritual and the default was to be punished by a Praemunire which is To be put out of the King protection and their Lands and Tenements Goods and Chattels forfeited to the King and that they be attached by their bodie if they may be found and brought before the King and his Council there to answer to the Cases aforesaid c. Now if these professed Papists did so resolutely and unanimously contest the Regalia against the Pope what greater zeal and resolution may we justly expect from a Protestant Parliament for such we may have if it be not our own fault if the Pope or any Agents of his should attempt to destroy the foundations of our established Religion and Laws Moreover in the days of Queen Mary we read how much time and what contrivances and largesses it cost that Queen to form a Parliament to lier liking though then the Nation were mostly Papists and how much they contended still for the Regalia against the Pope and reserving of Abby-lands c. to the Purchasers nor when all was done did any man suffer without publick process in form of Law there were no throats cut nor bloudshed by private Messengers or Assassinates as we are taught to expect from every Justice of Peace and Tything man p. 85. and by I know not what Janizaries and that we shall be slain to see what Grimaces we make p. 89. Besides the number that suffered in her five years were not comparable to the number that have been slain in one hours fight during the Rebellion nor indeed to those that were Martyred for their Religion and Loyalty by illegal proceedings in the Mock-Courts of Justice during that Vsurpation the number of the Marian Martyrs being not above three or four hundred though they were too many Now a Wise man should look back upon the mischiefs that have befallen the Nation by resisting the lawful Prince and the endeavours to alter the Succession from the right Heir as well as forward upon the mischiefs that may never be and which upon a supposition of a Popish Successour are aggravated almost beyond a possibilitie of being effected Remember what it cost the Nation when the Succession to the Crown was disputed between the Houses of York and Lancaster There perished in that War as Historians do account two Kings one Prince ten Dukes two Marquesses twentie one Earls twentie seven Lords two Viscounts one Lord Prior one Judge one hundred thirtie nine Knights four hundred twentie one Esquires and of the Gentrie and Commons an incredible number So that in such cases the Remedie is generally worse than the Disease I have not said this God is my witness to abate the just and honest care of the Nation to keep out Poperie by such timely provision as his Majestie and his great Council shall see most probable but to allay the inordinate Hearts which may set the whole Kingdom in a sudden flame onely to prevent the fear of the suffering a Trial of our Faith if God should call us to it And I cannot consider without some horror what sore and long Wars and Devastations may follow upon a Bill of Exclusion as well as on a Popish Successor And if of two evils the least is to be chosen I should rather if the Will of God so be submit to my lot how hard soever under such a One than that the whole Nation should be rent in pieces again either by a Rebellion at home or Invasions
Testimony of Athanasius for this place being an account of the Publick Prayers made by himself for Constantius the Emperour though he had remeved him from his Pastoral charge In his Apologie to Constantius Witness hereof saith he is first the Lord who heard us and granted unto you the intire Empire which was left unto you by your Ancestors then those who at that time were present for the words I used were these onely Let us pray for the welfare of the most religious Emperour Constantius and the whole People with one voice cried presently O Christ be favourable to Constantius and so continued praying a long time And then he concludes Let truth take place with you and leave not the whole Church under a suspition as though such things as tended to the death of Constans should be thought on or written by Christians and especially by Bishops Athanasius was also accused for celebrating Publick Prayers in the Church of Alexandria which he confesseth he did being urged thereto by the importunity of the People that they might pray for the welfare of the Emperour in that Church which he himself had builded being ready otherwise to go out of the City and to assemble themselves in the Desarts But thus he expostulates with the Emperour And you O King most beloved of God where would you have had the People stretch out their hands and pray for you there where the Pagans did pass by or in the place which bore your name and which from the first foundation thereof all men did call a Church And then he prays thus for the Emperour O Lord Christ who art indeed King of kings the onely begotten Son of God the Word and Wisdom of the Father because the People have implored thy goodness and by thee called upon thy Father who is God over all for the welfare of thy most religious servant Constantius I am now accused And then speaking to the Emperour You do not forbid but are willing that all men should pray knowing that this is the Prayer of all that you may live in safetie and continually reign in peace And as for you O Emperour beloved of God many years I pray you may live and accomplish the Dedication of this Church for those Prayers that are made therein for your welfare do no way hinder the solemnitie of the Dedication And whereas Athanasius was accused also for not obeying the Emperours Command to depart from Alexandria he says I do not oppose the Command of your Majestie God forbid I am not such a man as would oppose the very Treasurer of the Citie much less so great an Emperour I was not so mad as to oppose such a Command of yours I neither did oppose it nor will enter into Alexandria until you of your humanitie be pleased I shall so do If old Gregory was of another mind it was but one Doctors Opinion And I think our Author in the same case is a Dissenter from all Christian Divines as well as from the Church of England and from Mr. Baxter too who saies that hurtful prayers and desires are seldom from God and he speaks it in the very case of Julian p. 17. of his Direct part 4. I shall here add the example of that Legion which was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Thundring Legion consisting of 6666 Christians under marcus Aurelius of whom Zephiline speaks thus The Emperours Army being in great distress for want of water and being compassed about by their Adversaries the Praefect of the Praetorians told Marcus That there was nothing which those Christians could not obtain by their Prayers Marcus therefore desired the Praefect that he would intreat them to pray unto their God which they had no sooner done but the Lord by thunder and lightning discomfited their enemies and with seasonable showers refreshed the whole Army which otherwise might have perished St. Ambrose was another of those Lachrymists which our Author derides he lived under Valentinian the younger another Arian Emperour and yet as Ruffinus says of him Hist Eccless l. 2. c. 26. he did not defend himself by his hand or weapon but with fastings and continual watchings and remaining under Gods Altar by his Prayers prevailed with God to be a Defender both of him and his Church I will give you St Ambrose his own words to his Church at Millain I will never forsake you willingly being constrained I know not how to make opposition Dolere potero potero flere potero gemere adversus arma Milites Gothos Lachrymae meae arma sunt talia enim munimenta sunt Sacerdotis aliter NEC DEBEO NEC POSSUM RESISTERE I can sorrow I can weep I can sigh against Arms Souldiers and Goths Tears are my weapons for such is the Munition of a Priest in any other manner I OVGHT NOT I CANNOT RESIST And his People were much of the same mind as he describes it Epist. 33. or as in some Editions the 13. Ad Marcellinam What could have been better spoken by Christian men than that which the Holy Ghost spake in you this day Rogamus Auguste non pugnamus We entreat O Emperour we fight not we are not afraid yet we entreat This saith St. Ambrose doth become Christians that both the tranquillity of peace be desired by them and their constancie in faith and truth should not be deserted no not with the peril of death And in his Tract de Renovatione fidelium Laude magis scribendum est non tam male facere non posse quam nolle whereof St. Peter told us the sence long before 1 Pet. 2.19 This is thank-worthie to God if a man endure grief suffering wrongfully And that man doth certainly suffer wrongfully that hath the Laws of God and man on his side But there is no Law of God for resistance of a lawful Magistrate The Apostle did not calculate his Doctrine for the three first Centuries under Heathen and that it should expire under Christian Magistrates the Spirit of God foresaw that Kings should be nursing Fathers to his Church and made good Laws for the securitie thereof but he never meant that Princes should be resisted though in some things they should act contrary to those Laws So that when our Author demands by what Law we must die p. 81. and answers Not by the Law of God for being of that Religion which he approves I answer Yes 1. By the Law of God rather than make resistance that we may bear testimony to that Law by suffering of death for our Religion rather than to violate it by our Rebellion 2. By the Laws of our Country too for though by the favour of Christian Princes many good Laws are made for obedient Subjects which the Prince may not violate without his great sin against God yet hath the Supreme Authority of the Land provided especially for the security of the Prince who is a Common good We see how in Nature light things do sometimes descend and things that are heavie
call the King to an account the Estate is Democratical if the Peers it is Aristocratical but if indeed it be Monarchical neither nor both can judge their Prince In the first Homily against Rebellion p. 1. our Church says that in reading of the Holy Scriptures we shall find in very many places as well of the Old Testament as the New That Kings and Princes as well the evil as the good do reign by Gods Ordinance and that Subjects are bound to obey them The Augustan Confession Article 16. Christians must necessarily obey the present Magistrates and Laws except when they command to sin French Confession Article 11. We ought to obey Laws and Statures pay Tribute and bear other burdens of Subjection and undergo the Yoke with a good will although the Magistrates should be Infidels so that Gods soveraign Authoritie remains inviolate The Belgick Confession All men of what dignitie qualitie or state soever they be must subject themselves unto the lawful Magistrates pay them Imposts and Tributes and please and obey them in all things not repugnant to the Word of God Also pray for them that God would be pleased to direct them in all their actions that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life under them in all pietie and honestie The Helvetick Confession Let all Subjects honour and reverence the Magistrate as the Minister of God Let them love and assist him and pray for him as their Father let them obey him in all his just and equitable Commands and pay all Imposts Tributes and other Dues faithfully and willingly And in case of War let them also lay down their lives and spill their bloud for the good of the Publick and of the Magistrate willingly vailiantly and cheerfully For he that opposeth himself to the Magistrate provoketh the heavie wrath of God upon himself The Bohemian Confession Let every one yield subjection in all things not contrarie to God to the Higher Powers and their Officers whether good or bad The Saxonick Confession The more a Christian is sincere in Faith the more he ought to subject himself to the publick Laws But I shall end where I began with the Doctrine of our Martyrs and Confessors who sealed with their bloud the Truths that they published with their Pens for whom in vain do we build and garnish Monuments of Fame to their memories while we are Apostates from their Doctrine and Practice The first Reformers of our Religion in the Institution of a Christian man on the Fifth Commandment say That Subjects be bound not to withdraw their Fealtie Truth Love and Obedience from their prince FOR ANY CAVSE WHATSOEVER IT BE ne for any cause may they conspire against his person ne do any thing towards the hinderance or hurt thereof or of his estate And by his Commandment they are bound to obey all the Laws Proclamations Precepts and Commandments made by their Princes and Governours except they be against the Commandment of God And likewise they be bound to obey all such as are in Authoritie under their Prince as far as he will have them obeyed They must also give unto their Prince aid help and assistance whensoever he shall require the same either for suretie preservation or maintenance of his Person and Estate or of the Realm or of the defence of any of the same against all persons And there be many examples in Scripture of the vengeance of God that hath fallen upon RVLERS and such as have been disobedient to their Princes But one principal example to be noted is of the Rebellion of Core Dathan and Abiram made against their Governours Moses and Aaron For punishment of which Rebels God not onely caused the Earth to open and to swallow them down and a great number of other people with them with their houses and all their substance but caused also a fire to descend from Heaven and to burn up two hundred and fiftie Captains which conspired with them in the Rebellion And again on the Sixth Commandment No Subjects may draw their Sword against their Prince for what cause soever it be nor against any others saving for lawful defence without their Princes license And it is their dutie to draw their Swords for the defence of their Prince and Realm whensoever the Prince shall command And although Princes which be the chief and supreme Heads of Realms do otherwise than they ought yet God hath assigned no Judges over them in this world but will have the judgment of them reserved to himself Sir John Cheek who was Tutor to King Edword the Sixth and a person of great Learning and Integrity in his Book called The true Subject to the Rebel speaks to this purpose If you were offered persecution for Religion you ought to fly for it and yet you intend to fight If you would stand in the truth you ought to suffer like Martyrs and you would slay like Tyrants Thus for Religion you keep no Religion and neither will follow the Council of Christ nor the Constancy of Martyrs And then asking the people why they should not like that Religion which Gods word established the Primitive Church authorized and the whole consent of the Parliament confirmed and his Majesty had set forth he says Dare you Commons take upon you more Learning than the Chosen Bishops and Clerks of this Realm have I suppose that the Author of Julians Life might transcribe that Act of Queen Mary above-mentioned out of Mr. Prynnes second part of the Loyalty of pious Christians c. where we have it printed at large p. 65. from whence he might very honestly have told us Mr. Prynnes Judgment of such Prayers as were made against the Queen who p. 64. says That Queen Maries zealous Protestant Bishops Ministers and Subjects likewise made constant prayers for her But some over-zealous Anabaptistical Fanaticks using some unchristian expressions in their prayers against her That God would cut her off and shorten her daies occasioned this special Act against such prayers And having repeated the Act he adds p. 66. These prayers were much against and direstly contrary to the Judgment of Archbishop Cranmer Bishop Farrer Bishop Hooper Rowland Taylor John Philpot John Bradford Edward Crome John Rogers Laurence Sanders Edward Laurence Miles Coverdale Bishop of Exon and others of our Godly Protestant Bishops and Ministers who soon after suffered as Martyrs They in their Letter May 8. 1554. professing that as Obedient Subjects we shall behave our selves towards Queen Mary and 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 Soveraign Lady the Queens Highness but where they cannot obey but they must disobey God there to submit themselves with all patience and humility to suffer as well what the will and pleasure
of the higher Powers shall adjudge as we are ready through the goodness of the Lord to suffer whatsoever they shall judge us unto And Bishop Hooper wrote an Apologie against the Slanderous report made of him that he should encourage and maintain such as cursed Queen Mary printed 1552. wherein his Innocence and Loyalty to the Queen in praying for her are vindicated at large So far Mr. Prynne Take the sence of one Marian Martyr more Mr. William Tindal in a Book de Christiani hominis Obedientia saying In every Kingdom the King which hath no Superiour iudgeth of all things and therefore he that endeavoureth or intendeth any mischief or calmity against the Prince that is a Tyrant or a Persecutor or whosoever with a forward hand doth touch the Lords Anointed he is a Rebel against God and resisteth the Ordinance of God And as it is not lawful upon any pretence to resist the King so it is not lawful to rise up against the Kings Officer or Magistrate that is sent by the King for the execution of those things that are commanded by the King And Mr. Barus in Tract de Humanis Constitut saith That the Servants of Chrict rather than commit any evil or resist any Magistrate ought patiently to suffer the loss of their goods and the tearing of their members Nay the Christian after the example of Christ his Master ought to suffer the bitterest death for Truth and Righteousness sake and therefore who ever shall rebel under pretence of Religion aeternae damnationis erit reus Now these men gave their Opinions for Passive Obedience even before Queen Mary had altered the Laws i. e. their Religion was by the established Laws of the Land the onely allowed Religion yet they were far from defending it by resistance and Rebellion It is a difficult matter to perswade them to suffer that never knew what it was to obey such as were educated in a time of Rebellion and instead of being catechized in the Principles of the Gospel were from their childhood taught how to stand on their guard and defie their Governours and being become wealthie by the Spoils wrested by themselves or their Ancestors from the King the Church or their more Religious and Loyal Brethren think that Providence will justifie them in all their Seditious attempts and that the Millennium of Christs reign upon Earth is begun and that all Laws now must be subservient to the support of that Perswasion of theirs and that their Religion hath been in full and quiet possession ever since 42 at least and therefore to teach men now that they ought to suffer rather than resist their lawful Princes is the Mahometan Doctrine of the Bow-string which is indeed the whole Oeconomie of the Gospel as will appear by what followeth If we compare Deut. 28. with Matth. 15. it will appear that as Prosperitie was the Blessing of the Old Testament so Persecution is of the New And there is no Robberie in the Exchange for though we are called to forsake house friends and lands for Christs sake we shall receive in this time a hundred fold though with persecution Mark 10.40 besides the Aureola or double Crown in the life to come How comes it then to pass that the Doctrine of the Cross is become Foolishness and a Stumbling-block to us Christians as it was to the Jews and Greeks That which was the Glorie of the Apostles and esteemed above earthly Kingdoms by the Primitive Christians even the Crown of Martyrdom is now trampled on despised and discredited as the reward of Fools and men wearie of their lives The Gnosticks drew tears from the Apostles eyes when he considered how they both taught and practised the lawfulness of denying Christ in times of persecution Phil. 3.18 Many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you with weeping that they are enemies to the Cross of Christ Such were crept in among the Galatians who by all art and industrie increased their numbers that they might not suffer persecution for the Cross of Christ Gal. 6.12 But God forbid saith the Apostle that I should rejoyce save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ whereby the world is crucified to me and I unto the world The Scars that Souldiers receive in the service of their Prince are esteemed Marks of Honour and every pettie Prince can lead forth Legions to look Death in the face at his command Every new Sect can boast of their Dipticks and Martyrologies and there is scarce a good man in the world but some or other would even dare to die for him And what difficulties do affright men of resolution when they contend but for a Garland of Flowers or Laurel fading and unsatisfactorie rewards And hath our blessed Redeemer onely so ill deserved of us for all the great things that he hath done both for our Souls and Bodies or is he only so unable to requite our service and labour of love that we should forsake him when a small Storm threatneth us or falls upon our heads When Henry the Fourth of France was engaged in fight against his Enemies and his Friends began to give ground he minds them what a Reproach it would be to the Nobilitie and Gentrie of France that of all their numbers there were not fiftie that stood by him in the Camp that had thousands waiting on him in his Court Pudet haec opprobria c. It is no rash fruitless or desperate designe that our Saviour calls us to He forewarned us at our first entrance to our Holy Profession that we could not be his Disciples except we deny our selves and take up the Cross and follow him and he that doth not so saith our Saviour is not worthy of me Matth. 10.38 Matth. 16.24 Luke 14.27 Nor is it fruitless he hath wise and great ends not onely for the glorie of his Father but the good of his Church in every affliction that Vine as well as the common ones spreads and prospers the more when it is at the wisdom of the Vine-dresser watered with blood As in lesser afflictions God chastiseth us for our good that we may be partakers of his Holiness so doth he with greater that he may bring us to glory Many a man might have perished eternally if they had not perished temporally God by his Righteous judgments calling their sins to remembrance and working in them repentance unto life Behold saith St. James we count them happy that endure You have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pittiful and of tender mercy Jobs Graces had not given so great a light and ground of Consolation to the world if they had not been tryed in the fire of affliction which is so needful for the purging out our Corruption that we are told All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution and that we must through Many tribulations enter into the Kingdom of Heaven
in him That he may if he please use the consent of Parliaments to assist the Reason of his Laws when he shall give any but it is a great condescention in Kings to give a Reason for what they do and a diminution to their most unaccountable Prerogative That they are for a Popish Successor and no Parliament and do as much as in them lies give up our ancient Government and the Protestant Religion the true Christian Faith to the absolute Will of a Popish Successor giving him a Divine Right to extirpate Gods true Religion established among us by Law and to evacuate our Government by his absolute pleasure Then after a little pause having almost run himself out of breath to tell the Nation these Falshoods he thus inlargeth himself p. 2. That just now when we are under the dread of a Popish Successor some of our Clergie are illuminated into a Mysterie That any Authoritie in the Government not derived from the King and that is not to yield to his absolute Will was rebellious and against the Divine Right and Authoritie of Kings in the establishment against which no Vsage or Prescription to the contrarie or in abatement of it is to be allowed That all Rights are ambulatorie and depend for their continuance on his pleasure So that though the Reformation was made here by the Government established by Law and hath acquired Civil Rights not to be altered but by the King and the three Estates these men yet speak says our Lawyer as if they envied the Rights of their own Religion and had a mind to reduce the Church back again into a state and condition of being persecuted and designed that she should be stripped of her legal Immunities and Defensatives and brought back to the deplorable helpless condition of Prayers and Tears do utterly abandon and neglect all the provisions that Gods providence hath made for their protection Nay by this their new Hypothesis they put it by Divine Right in the power of a Popish Successour when he pleaseth at once by a single indisputable and irresistable decree to destroy our Religion and Government That they believe no Plot but a Presbyterian Plot for of them they believe all ill and call whom they please by that hated name and boldly avow that Popery is more eligible than Presbytery for by that they shall have greater Revenues and more authority and rule over the Lay-men A heavy Charge this saith Mr. Hunt p. 4. if true but he is sure it is imputable but to a few though he had told us in the Preface that many too many were so corrupted and in many places he speaks indefinitely of the whole Order Now our Lawyer cannot but know that it lies on him who hath divulged these slanders to make proof of them though he pretends they were objected by others And all the Conforming Clergy are cast under the suspition of these unsufferable Crimes If Mr. Hunt had any regard to the welfare of the Church he would have singled out such Criminals and brought them to shame and condign punishment there being sufficient Laws for the punishment of them and it being the interest of the Magistrates to free the Church and State from such pests A Judas may creep in among Christs own Disciples and a Jonah hide himself in the bottom of the Ship But doubtless it is the interest of all that are in such a Ship to have them discovered and cast out that the storms which threaten their common destruction may be allayed especially when as Mr. Hunt says they come often under observation frequent publick houses and talk loud He that doth not according to his power seek to prevent these evils is consenting to and contracts the guilt of them Qui non vetat cum potest jubet But it consists not with Mr. Hunts design to do the Church such a real Service as to free her from such miscreants but to involve the whole Clergy under the same defamation that they may fall under the same condemnation To this end instead of extenuating the number of such he aggravates their faults as 1. Being such as may choak the Constancy Resolution and Zeal of the most addicted to the Service of the Church-men 2. That they are acted by the Papists 3. That they are agreeable to and indeed make up the most modern Project and Scheme of the Popish Plot. And 4. That They deserve to suffer as the betrayers of their Country and to be prosecuted with greater shame and ignominy than the Traditores were by the Ancient Christians And thus having breathed a while he this ill-natured Lawyer begins to lash our good-natured Divines again Vpon such scandalous and false Suggestions as these it is saith he that the generality of the Clergie who any way appear for a Christian Subjection to the King and a defence of the established Government of the Church are represented as Popishly affected and betrayers of the True Protestant Religion and the Laws c. I would have Mr. Hunt to answer his own Question p. 101. What Fines and Imprisonments Pillories and Scourgings do they deserve that persecute the Church with revilings when they themselves are tolerated It must be some large Bribe or promise of the publick Faith that thus ingageth our Lawyer to support a dying Cause and to take part as well with Papists as Fanaticks to bring the English Reformation into contempt For what neerer way is there to effect it than first to represent those who he says established our Religion in Queen Elizabeths days to be assertors and promoters of the Doctrine of King-killing Secondly to affirm That in the days of King Charles the first by preaching up the Divinity of Kings and their Absolute power that unnatural War was begun And Thirdly p. 7. That at his Majesties return Fanaticism had expired if some peevish old and stiff Church-men had not studied obstacles and some craftie States-men had not projected that the continuance of the Schism would be of great service to destroy the Church And for the present Age the Clergy great and small are all under the same condemnation Great Friends to Popery and Arbitrary Government such as have no sense of Reason or Religion such as will not when it is in their power prevent the ruine of their Nation but are either accursed Neuters or else wilful Actors in drawing down the Judgments of God upon us And we are like to have no other the Fountains being corrupted can send forth nothing but unclean streams I pray God preserve the Honourable Inns of Court from such Impostors as Mr. Hunt Let not Mr. Hunt think to hide his Malice against the Clergy by a seeming commendation of their Offices as Apostolical when he adds that Religion may subsist without it and when by all manner of evil arts he seeks to inrage the multitude against them Nor that he is to be taken as a Friend to their persons or maintenance who labours so much to
of Julian seemeth very fit to describe an Apostate having himself apostatized from the Doctrine of the Church whereof he hath long professed himself to be a Member as also from the judgment and practice of the Primitive Christians against whom his book is a very notorious Libel and by which if it should be credited he would wound the Reputation of those Primitive Christians more than Julian hath done For he says himself That but for their name Julian had better have fallen among so many Barbarians than among them p. 66. These two things are what I designe first to wipe off the dirty Aspersions cast by the Author on the Christians in Julian's time which have more of an Invective against them than any thing that St. Cyril wrote against Julian himself And secondly to prevent the infection of those false and dangerous Opinions in the case of Obedience to Magistrates which this distempered Generation are too much disposed to receive and as is usual with infected persons to propagate and make them epidemical I intend not a Vindication of the Papists nor of Julian though as the Proverb says The Devil is not so black as he 's painted let Baal plead for himself I onely designe a short Apologie for the Primitive Christians whom our Author represents as so many Apostates from their Predecessors in the days of Dioclesian when by their patient sufferings they more honoured the Gospel than the Christian Emperours did by all the Priviledges and Largesses wherewith they endowed the Church And he might with equal truth have objected the same things against the Christians in the time of Constantius as he doth against Julâ—an for he being an Arian and violently persecuting many Orthodox Bishops setting the Arians in their places some of them did speak far otherwise of him than St. Cyril doth yet none attempted to resist him but pray'd for him and patiently submitted to his unjust Chastisements as being their lawful Governour Of which hereafter AN ANSWER TO THE PREFACE OF OUR Author's Life of JVLIAN OUr Author seems better read in the Alcaron than the Scriptures that hath found out a Comparison for his Majesties Subjects from a Vision of Mahomet when he might have found more suitable representations of them from the holy Scriptures as in David's Subjects who were careful not onely of his safety but all his house 2 Sam. 19.14 Christ himself and his Apostles have delivered for the good of all succeeding Ages such Precepts and Examples of Christian obedience and subjection as the most loyal Addressers even the men of Rippon themselves come short of It was their bounden duty at such a time to make their Profession to adhere to his Majestie his Heirs and Successors it was no more than what the Law of God and the Nation hath obliged them to so that they are neither Guelphs nor Gibelines nor Papists nor Phanaticks but such as are ready to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar and unto God the things which are Gods nor could they sufficiently express their thankfulness to his Majestie when too many began to exercise an arbitrary way of vexing their fellow-subjects and supersede the established Laws for his gracious Declaration to govern according to the established Laws and which is that which gives offence to too many to cause others to do so too They know best how to reconcile Contradictions that could swallow Covenants and Engagements after the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and all their Obligations to God and his Church and knew how to make a glorious King by bringing him to the Block and to establish Religion by dividing it which our Saviour says is the readie way to destroy it for a Kingdom or house divided cannot stand If the men of Rippon had aâ— apprehension of the mischiefs that in all probability would follow upon a Bill of Exclusion I cannot see but their Fears were more reasonable than the groundless Jealousie of such as trouble themselves with what may never be or if it should is but a just judgment of God to punish those by some Rehoboam who were so malecontent with the pious and peaceable Governments of a David and Solomon And I have often thought that one reason why God set a Julian over the Christians of that Age was because in the times of Constantine and Constantius they degenerated into Heresies and Schisms such as the Arians and Donatists and began to bite and devour one another The Shepherds have generally observed that when Sheep push and chase each other it betokeneth an approaching Storm As to what you mind us of p. 4 5. That a Popish Successor will be an heavie judgment of of God and ought to be deprecated by all good men As far as Prayers and Tears and other lawful endeavours may be employed all good men will readily joyn with you but if it shall please God for our wantonness and ungovernableness to lay that heavie Yoke upon us it is in vain to resist lest we be found to fight against God I shall at present onely send you to a Heathen to learn better behaviour Quomodo sterilitatem aut nimios imbres caetera naturae mala it à luxum vel avaritiam dominantium tolerate vitia erunt donec homines sed neque haec continua meliorum interventu pensantur i. e. As we endure scarcity or immoderate rain and other natural evils so ought we to bear with the luxury or avarice of our Rulers for there will be faults as long as there are men but neither are these still continued the interchange of what is good will make compensation for that which is evil as Tacitus says Our Saviour would have us to live without distracting fear of those events which are not in our power to prevent especially when our groundless fears may be the chief cause of drawing those evils on our selves Few Rebellions were ever hatcht but by the warmth of a pretended zeal for Religion and Reformation and Fears and Jealousies how groundless soever have animated it and given it growth and strength The panick fear of a change of Government he means Arbitrary Government was the principal cause of the late War saith Mr. Hunt in his Postscript p. 52. The noise of Popery to be brought in by the King and Archbishop Land who were the Heads of the Grotian Papists as Mr. Baxter says was another yet I hope neither Mr. Hunt nor our Author will warrant that Rebellion under their hands upon such false and ungodly pretences when they shall consider to what real evils these feigned Bugbears and Fancies did precipitate us It is true a Popish Successor will be an affliction to sincere Protestants in respect of temporal accommodations and spiritual advantages also yet that evil may be improved to our eternal advantages our Saviour having promised that great shall be their reward in heaven that are reviled persecuted and slandered for his sake Matth. 5.11 12. And St. Peter tells us If we suffer
such as die in the Communion of the Church of England and therefore much less to those that die in the belief of the Socinians who renounce the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity and the use and efficacie of the Holy Sacraments 4. Constantius himself would never have consented to the Murder of Julian upon due consideration the Murder of others being repented of upon his Death-bed and here is but one Argument for both his Exclusion and his Murder Now although our Author hath sufficiently refuted himself in what hath been said yet because the Calumnie against the Christians of that Age though asserted onely with noise and confidence and as the saying is Fortiter Calumniare aliquid adhaerebit may beget a false opinion both of those Primitive Christians and the Doctrine of Christianitie it self and also infect the present Generation in which too many are glad to hear what power they may exercise on such Governours as are not of their own Judgment I shall in due time enquire strictly into this Authors Opinion concerning Resistance and shew that his whole Fabrick will be crush'd by the authoritie and reason of those very Authors upon whose bare names he seeks to raise it But for this I must desire the Readers patience An Answer to our Author's CHAP. III. Their Behaviour towards him in Words THe Reader may understand that our Author hath done with Julian as a Successor and now shews how the Christians treated him when he was in full possession of the Empire and that by Divine Appointment as he grants And therefore I hope it will be considered that the following Reflections do shew from the practice of the Christians of that Age how the Christians of this may behave themselves towards their lawful Governours And he begins p. 32. with a great varietie of Instances as he calls them of the hatred and contempt of those Christians towards Julian And I shall also desire that the Reader will consider not onely the matters of fact but the lawfulness of such Words and Actions as were spoken and done against Julian A facto ad jus non valet argumentum And then by what number of Christians and of what condition they were that spoke and acted such things as were spoken and acted For we have known in our Age such things spoken and done by no small companie of men against a Prince of known Integrity as will make all sober Christians to be ashamed and confounded at the report of them And if such behaviour of our present Christians shall be a hundred years hence read in our Annals it will be a grand Calumnie against such as were more Loyal and Pious for any Reader to conclude that such was the general practice of the Christians in that Age or that because one discontented Bishop turn'd Apostate and fought against his Prince that all the Bishops and Christians then alive were Rebels P. 33. Of their behaviour you inform us under these three Heads 1. Of their Words 2. Their Actions 3. Their Devotions Of their Words You say they were quit with him for calling them Galilaeans in calling him Idolianus This I confess savours of the Wit of that Age So the Arians called Athanasius Sathanasius so the Pharisees called our Saviour Beelzebub But did they return railing for railing I am sure they taught us to return Blessing and Prayers even to our Persecutors What if the Antiochians libelled him and plaid with his Beard and twitted him with some natural Blemishes and Imperfections whereof he himself gives the world an account in his Misopogon Is that sufficient authority for us to libel our Governours Is it becoming a Christian to deride the bodily Infirmities as the Shape of the Body the Gate the Beard and as you say p. 33. every thing that belonged to him Julian himself shewed more wisdom and humanity in scorning these impotent Reproaches than they did Christianity in seeking by such boyish language to vex every Vein in his Royal Heart p. 66. It is a sign that he had more of moderation than they for had they had his Power by your description of them they wanted no Will utterly to ruine him But I think it more agreeable to Truth though some few over-zealous persons might Lampoon his sorrie Beard as fit to make Ropes of c. that yet the generality were better principled and neither used their Tongues nor their Swords against that Heathen Emperour As for those that did so reproach him Julian tells them truly they had renounced the Laws and him that had the keeping of them i. e. They dealt with him as you say like Barbarians And if the Christians were first in the Transgression it was not like Julian would be long behind them or be less barbarous than they And yet though he could have revenged himself with the Sword he did it onely with the Pen And when he was put into a fit of anger he onely told them as a punishment that he would see them no more Nondum ira quam ex compellationibus probris conceperat emolitâ loquebatur asperiùs se eos asserens postea non visurum Am. Marcell l. 23. I think in this particular one would take them to be the Apostates and not Julian as you say p. 66. P. 36. You give a particular instance of a single man in Berea whose Son warping to the false Religion his Father turned him out of doors and disinherited him who related this whole matter to the Emperour then coming to Berea The Emperour being arrived invited among other Magistrates and Chief men this young man and his Father and set these two next himself and tells the Father that in his mind it was not just to force a mans Judgment otherwise inclined to reduce it to the other side Therefore don't you saies Julian force your Son against his mind to follow your Opinion for neither do I force you to follow mine though I could easily compel you The Father sharpning his Discourse with a Divine Faith answered O King do you speak of this Villain who is hated by God and hath preferred a Lye before the true Religion But saies Julian putting on a vizard of Meekness again Friend leave railing and turning to the young man said I will take care of you my self since I have not prevailed with your Father to do it This Berean deserves the Title of Noble for his Zeal but it reacheth not to a demonstration of what you produce it for p. 35. that the Christians took the freedom to reproach him and his Religion to his face for though he despised his Religion yet for ought that appears he owned his Authority and reverenced his Person bespeaking him by the Title of O King And here is no example for railing words neither from that Noble Berean against Julian nor from Julian against him P. 38. you give another instance of Maris Bishop of Chalcedon who being blind was led to the Emperour as he was Sacrificing to Fortune
greater Soloecism of an Emperour of the world awed and terrified with the fear of a kicking But it will not do No the Proverb hinders it None so blind as he that will not see It might have been done easily enough if you had not committed a Soloecism your self in translating the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he Brought but had kept the righter sence of that word which Billius the learned Interpreter of Gregory Nazianzen translates immiserat he sent or which your Elias Cretensis useth concitabat he stirred up or compelled to go against that Church which if the Emperour had been in person he need not to have done And therefore I suppose Gregory Nazianzen meant it of the Captain of the Archers that demanded the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not pro imperio by virtue of a Mandamus or Commission from the Emperour for sure the Emperour himself needed no such Commission Nor is it probable that the Emperour himself would in his March against Persia trot up and down from one Church to another for you say he had assaulted many others to make a seizure of them Nor is it a Soloecism to say the Emperour seized those Churches which another did seize by his command Our Author I suppose was led into this errour by taking the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth induco to lead or introduce whereas the Interpreters that render it immitto or concito being better Grecians than himself understand it to be from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which every Lexicon will give him such a sence as that without a wresting of it it must refer to the Captain of the Archers But we are come to the end of this Tragi-comedy The Emperour kept himself in a whole skin the Bishops Anger vented it self some other way and all was husht and calmed But certainly our Author who hath first begun this Quarrel between the Emperour and the Bishop is much to be blamed whether he did it ignorantly which is the best construction that his Friends can make or else maliciously which appears by forsaking the Translations of Billius and Cretensis and preferring another that might favour his designe And I challenge him to be as big as his word and make satisfaction for this base Coinage And that you may not be guilty of such a wilful mistake for the future I shall give you this Token to be worn as a Frontlet on your brow That from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Instigator P. 44. Here you have a description of one of the Lachrymists of old c. How far this Bishop was a Lachrymist we shall see hereafter It were fitter for the Wit of a Julian than the Piety of a Christian to deride the Prayers and Tears of those ancient Christians Whatever Garlands and Trophies Nazianzen or Basil erected for that old Bishop are now pulled down by the hands of a young P who represents him as a Hector and a Striker expresly contrary to our Saviour's Example and St. Paul's Injunction You adde p. 44. And now I know no more than the Pope of Rome what to make of all this what they meant by it or on what Principles they proceeded I question not the Principles of those in whom you have instanced it sufficeth me that you say it was done in a fit of boiling anger But when speaking of the Principles of such as offer violence to their lawful Emperours you say you know nò more than the Pope of Rome I say it is pity that you should know or divulge half so much For what you have suggested concerning these pretended Violences offered by Primitive Christians to their lawful Emperours hath a very malign influence on the present Age and for this and other such Reasons as I said I would rather lose my right hand than be the Author of them But if you know their Principles as well as the Pope of Rome you know he holds it lawful to depose or kill any Prince whom he shall judge and Excommunicate as a Heretick or Tyrant and he can teach you to distinguish between resisting Julian and resisting the Devil that was in him That the King is Vniversis minor and that the people who gave him his power may resume it c. You say p. 45. none of those Bishops had ever been in Scotland nor had learnt to fawn upon an Apostate and a mortal Enemie to Religion Parcius ista For though some may think you are reflecting only on a Popish Successor yet others considering you speak of Julian who was now a lawful Emperour may stretch this line too far Scotland indeed hath been glutted with the bloud of their Kings whereof about Thirtie have sussered violent Deaths I acquit those Bishops from confederacie with Scotland they never contributed to the destruction of any I wish I could do so by the Presbyterians Yet I perceive you know how to yoak the Popes Bull and the Scotish Heifer together and with them to make large Furrows on the backs of Kings There was I remember for above Forty years since a great Correspondence between Rome and Scotland who then communicated their Principles to each other and though none of the old Bishops were acquainted with them yet some late Presbyters have espoused them and can on all occasions for the disturbance of our English Nation talk as Whiggishly as ever Knox or Buchanan did But they are so disingenuous as to conceal the names of their good Teachers from whom they learned to distinguish not onely between Julian and the Devil in him but between Charles Stuart and the King that they might destroy him in a double capacity first as a King and then as a Man And if as you say the Laws of our Land do not allow any one to imagine violence to their lawful Emperour And if as Bracton says fama apud graves bonos viros is a proof of Treason I fear an Indictment may lie against the Author of Julian's Life for that Not having the fear of God before his Eyes but being moved c. It is therefore a most profane and Reproachful inference with which you conclude Chap. 6. That in that Age the best Prayers and Tears were those that contributed most to Julian 's destruction An Answer to our Author's CHAP. V. Of their Devotions And first of their Psalms THis was indeed the Devotion of our late Times to begin with a Psalm not regarding the Scriptures or as much as the Commandments Creed or Lords Prayer and then to preach in their Prayers and pray in their Preaching or if you will in our Authors Language to say their Prayers backward In their Devotions you say p. 45. It might be expected we should see the flights of their self-denying and suffering Religion and one may expect they should lay aside their annimositie against Julian though he were their Ememie and for that reason pray the harder
without breaking his Allegiance for bearing true Faith and Loyalty of life and limb or any way injuring the King for the King may be at Westminster when they are fighting against him in the Field And it is not Julian they resist but the Devil that is in him And yet I suppose that our Author as the Law requires hath declared his abhorrence of that traiterous Position of taking Arms by his authoritie against his person or against those that are commissionated by him But where shall we go to be resolved in this weighty Case shall we go to the Romish Casuists they are positively for killing the King Mariana and Bellarmine and many others own it in divers cases But we need not go so far our Author hath tanquam ex Tripode determined it in the Case of Julian that such a King is to be pursued as if he were a Midnight-Thief or a Highway Robber p. 73. and 't is as lawful to destroy him as for a hungrie Welsh man to eat up his Cheese and cry Chud eat meer an chad it p. 95. To this end Our Author quoteth Gregory calling on the Angels whose work it was to destroy the Tyrant who had not killed a Sihon King of the Amorites nor an Og the King of Basan but in so doing had killed the Dragon an Apostate the great Designer the common Enemy and Adversary of all with an c. p. 23. And again p. 61. If any one had killed Julian he was not to be blamed no but to be rewarded rather as one who shewed himself so courageous for God and for that Religion which he approves St. Chrysostom in his first Homily of David and Saul teacheth another Doctrine If we reverence and fear those Magistrates saith he that are elected by the King although they be wicked although they be Thieves and Robbers although they be unjust and whatever they be not despising them for their wickedness but standing in awe of them for the dignitie of him that did elect them much more ought we thus to do in the Case of God And Gregory Nazianzen speaks home to the Case in that 27 Oration p. 171. Continue faithful to your Kings but first of all to God and for him to them also to whom you have been committed by him And Elias Cretensis gives this Reason for it Because if ye fear God and studiously observe his Commandments you will be faithful also to your Kings for Gods sake Now Julian's Souldiers as our Author says p. 8. were men principl'd in the true Religion and therefore thought Julian stood in fear of them as he says yet they never did him hurt by Open Rebellion or Secret Conspiracies nor is our Author too old to learn of them P. 92. He sums up the strength of what hath been said in these Five PROPOSITIONS ANSWER 1. Christianitie destroys no mans Natural or Civil Rights but confirms them 1. Christianity obligeth us to prefer our Spiritual and Eternal Rights above our Temporal and Civil 2. All men have both a Natural and Civil Right and Property in their Lives till they have forfeited them by the Laws of their Country 2. Our Lives are to be parted with in obedience to God's Laws though not forfeited by the Laws of our Country 3. When the laws of God and of our Country interfere and it is made death by the Law of the Land to be a good Christian then we are to lay down our Lives for Christ sake This is the onely case wherein the Gospel requires Passive Obedience namely when the Laws are against a man And this was the Case of the first Christians 3. It is not the onely Case wherein the Gospel requires Passive Obedience when the Laws are against a man There was no Law of the Romans by which Christ might be put to death yet when he suffered he threatned not leaving us an example that we should follow his steps 1 Pet. 2.19 20 21. and hereunto we are called To what to suffer though wrongfully v. 19. and take it patiently for Conscience sake towards God 4. That killing of a man contrary to Law is Murder 4. If we suffer death wrongfully it is Martyrdom and acceptable to God though it be Murder in our Enemies 5. That every man is bound to prevent Murder as far as the Law allows and ought not to submit to be murdered if he can help it 5. We may so by our appeal to the Supreme Magistrate as St. Paul when he was like to be condemned contrary to Law appealed to Caesar having all the Law on his side Acts 25.8 Neither against the Law of the Jews nor against the Temple nor yet against Caesar have I offended yet doubtless if Caesar had condemned him he would have patiently submitted after the Example of his Master though he could have had Legions of Angels to defend him P. 93. Now I desire those men who of late have thundred in all publick places with the Thebaean Legion to keep that complete and admirable Example till they have got another Maximian and till that Maximian hath got authority at once to cut 6666 throats I think there was never more need than now to press that noble Example for though we have not a Maximian but another Constantine set over us no Julian that commands us to sacrifice to Idols but One that makes it his business that we should all with one consent worship God and our Saviour in the beauty of Holiness Though he have all the Laws of God and man to secure him from malitious and violent men yet how are the tongues of wicked men sharpned against him and all his Ministers in Church and State How are all those devilish arts of Calumny and Reproach the fears and jealousies of Arbitrary Power and Popery renewed which encouraged a Rebellious multitude to the cutting of the throats not of one Legion but of twenty at least and the cutting off the head of a most incomparable Prince too Would the Thebaean Legion that laid down their lives at the Command of a Maximian have murtered a word against so good a Governour And when the same things are attempted a second time shall we not bring forth the Thebaean Legion to withstand such impious practices and rise up in judgment against them who notwithstanding the Laws of God and our Country too would not onely decimate us but if it were in their power destroy us as Nero wisht that the Citizens of Rome had but one Neck that he might cut them all off at a stroke I would gladly add the consideration of the Thundering Legion to this of the Thebaean They by their Prayers obtained relief from Heaven and Victory too for the Army of a persecuting Heathen we are taught to pray for the Confusion of a Christian Prince But this shall suffice Under those cruel Emperours Dioclesian and Maximian that most illustrious example of Passive Obedience presenteth it self to our view which the Thebaean Legion shewed consisting of 6666
valiant Christians the tenth man of whom when Maximian had caused to be executed for refusing to slay their Fellow-Christians and to offer Sacrifice to his false Gods Mauritius taking the rest of the Legion aside used this Oration unto them as Eucherius Archbishop of Lions relateth in the Acts of their Martyrdom I congratulate your Vertue most worthy Fellow-Souldiers that for the love of Religion the Command of Caesar wrought no fear at all in you You have seen your Fellow-Souldiers in a manner with rejoycing minds to have been delivered up to a glorious death How did I fear lest any of you as it was easie for armed men to do under pretence of Defence should by lifting up his hands give interruption to their most blessed Funerals I had now readie at hand for the forbidding this attempt the Example of our Christ who by the Command of his own mouth Put up thy Sword which was unsheathed by his Apostle teaching thereby that the Vertue of Christian-Confidence is greater than all Weapons here Christ our God did clearly Prohibit our minds and hands that none with mortal hands should resist the Divine Work but rather with ever-continued Religion add a consummation to the work begun Hitherto we have read examples inserted into the Holy Scriptures but even now we our selves have beheld whom we ought to imitate After this Maximian having commanded a second decimation of those that remained among which it is likely that Mauritius suffer'd Exuperius taking the Ensigns of his Legion spake thus My most worthy Fellow-Souldiers I hold as you see the Ensigns of a secular warfare but to those Arms I provoke you not I excite not your Courage and Valour to such wars as these another kind of fight is to be chosen by us It is not by these Swords that you can make your way to the Kingdom of Heaven And then wisheth this Message might be returned to the persecuting Emperour We are thy Souldiers indeed but withal Gods Servants to thee we owe our imployment in the War to him our Innocence from thee have we received the reward of our labour to him we are beholding for the beginning of our life we cannot so follow thee in this though our Prince as to deny God who is our Maker and whether thou wilt or wilt not is thine also As for us even this necessitie of our Life doth not drive us to Rebellion Despair it self which most strengthneth men in dangers hath not been able to arm us against thee Behold we have our Weapons and yet resist not as willing rather to die than overcome and chusing rather to perish innocent than live Traitors If to what thou hast already decreed against us thou wilt add more be it Fire Torture or Sword we are ready for it WE ARE CHRISTIANS and such as our selves we cannot persecute Consider O Caesar the courage of this Legion our Weapons we cast away and thy Executioner shall find our hands unarmed but our breasts armed with the Catholick Faith Kill us down with us without all fear we offer our Necks to be cut off by the Swords appointed to slay us And so they were all cut in pieces and each of them were more than Conquerours obtaining a Crown and Kingdom infinitely more glorious than that of the Roman Empire Now suppose some Dissenting Apostate Chaplain of that noble Army that had rather lose his Religion than his Life and had more hopes to divide the spoils of a Temporal Crown than to trust his Saviour for an entire Eternal one had held forth to them after this manner My dearly beloved Brethren fellow-Souldiers and fellow-Saints we have hitherto hazzarded our Lives under a Pagan and Tyrannical Prince who hath employed us as a Forlorn Hope on all desperate designs purposely to destroy us and though he be drunk with the bloud of our Brethren now spilt before our Eyes yet doth he thirst after ours also having appointed us as so many Sheep for the Slaughter Hearken my beloved the Kings of the Earth ever were and ever will be Enemies to the King of Heaven It is not I but the Spirit of God by David tells you The Kings of the Earth set themselves and the Rulers take Counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed but the same Spirit tells us that notwithstanding he hath set his King upon the holy hill of Sion who shall break the Kings of the Earth with a Rod of Iron and dash them in pieces like a Potters Vessel and his Saints shall have the honour of binding their Kings in Chains and their Nobles with Fetters of Iron Moreover Brethren we read how in old time for the sake of his Elect God reproved Kings saying Touch not mine Anointed and do my Prophets no harm It is true that God hath appointed Government as his Ordinance but he hath not tied us up to Monarchie which all the Wise men of Greece have rejected and called them all by the name they deserved Tyrants And though our Emperours came in upon us by Conquest and Surprize yet we have been governed heretofore by a Senate and sometime the Senate and sometime the Souldiery have cut off their Emperours for their Arbitrary Government and set up others in the room So that if we grant the Office to be from God yet the person appointed to that Office is a Creature of man or a Humane Creature and they that set them up may pull them down for they are appointed to be a terrour to evil-doers and to be the Ministers of God to us for our good But when he is a Murtherer of them that do well as we see by this bloudy Execution on our Fellow-Souldiers he is the Devils Minister not Gods and in resisting we fight not against him but the Devil that is in him Besides that which this Tyrant intends is such an arbitrary Act of his own that the great Senate whose Counsel and Authority he hath rejected are afraid of the like cruelty and would be glad to be restored to their Authoritie Let us therefore be no longer Servants of such men but stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free Hath not he made us his First-born higher than the Kings of the Earth Are not we a Royal Priesthood and have not the Saints a promise that they shall inherit the Earth The Gentiles may permit Kings to exercise Lordship over them but it ought not to be so with us 'T is in vain to expect till the Emperours become Christians we Christians must make our selves Emperours at least we may divide the Empire among us and set up Christ alone to rule as King in the midst of us in a HOLY COMMON-WEALTH And now is the time or never If we should tamely submit to the Tyrants Sword our Religion which is bound up in our Lives will perish with us and the Generations yet unborn will curse us Did not Moses slay the Egyptian that assaulted his Brother and were not the
when he faithfully loves him who reigns by Gods authoritie P. 151. Mr. Hunt hath another Observation that deserves a special remark Neither will we saith he make use in our defence of the Papists excluding the King of Navarre a Protestant King in France no more than we will allow the French to murder a Protestant Minister because we execute a seditious traiterous Roman Priest Ans It is well known the Romish Priests are not executed in England upon the account of their Religion but for such crimes as are made Treason by the Laws of our Land And if the Protestants were not executed but upon the breach of such Laws the cause of Complaint would be less than now it is But why on your Principles a Protestant Prince may not be excluded by Papists who perhaps are as fully perswaded of the truth of their Religion as we are of ours and do aver that Salvation is not to be attained in any Communion but that of their own Church I see no sufficient reason For they may as well plead that Dominion is founded in Grace as you do and that may equally justisie both parties in case of Resistance i. e. it can justifie neither And the consequences of that Act of Exclusion may dread us from doing the like For when the Guises and other contrivers of the Holy League as they called it had by great importunitie prevailed with the present King Henry the Third to agree to the Exclusion of Henry the Fourth the dreadful slaughters of the Subjects on both sides were not the onely evil consequences that ensued but the Guisian Faction grew so insolent as to affront and distress the King himself so far that fearing his own destruction he was constrained to joyn his Partie to that of the King of Navarre to whose Exclusion he had consented that he might preserve himself from being excluded by the prevailing Faction So that your Quere p. 153. Whether if the Crown should devolve upon a Roman Successor we could justifie the dethroning of him which the Author of Julian resolves we may not though the French Papists could not be justified in rejecting the King of Navarre requires no long consideration Tum tua Res agitur partes cum proximus Ardet I cannot omit another bold attempt of Mr. Hunt in his Preface where he conjures up the old Smectymnuan Monster of Curse ye Meroz to affright all men from an accursed Nutralitie to bring them into the blessed Association It was a wise Law of Solon saies he that if the Commonwealth at any time should be divided into Factions that the Neuters should be noted with infamie And that you may know what he means he addes If all that are TRVE PROTESTANTS and TRVE LOVERS OF OVR GOVERNMENT would declare themselves on the behalf of our Religion and Government in such terms as befit honestmen and as the exigencie of our present state shall require we shall find the numbers of Addressers reduced to the Dukes Pensioners and Creatures And again Our Traitors would disappear if we had no Neuters And to slur the proceedings of his Majestie against E. S. he says that the name of E. S. in the Abhorrences of the Nation were but like the name of John-a-Styles and John-an-Oakes in putting a fictitious Case So that it is most evident that he invites and threatens all men that refuse to joyn in an Association and to what that tends the Nation is indisserently well satisfied already If not the Comments which these men make upon that Text the Authors and Instruments which they make use of such as were the most notorious Incendiaries in our late War some Jesuites and eminent Factors for Rome some Regicides that died in their impenitencie these and the present endeavours to act over all the Tragedies that were plotted by them a second time may fully convince us that there is Mors in Olla some deadly Colloquintida that hath so imbittered and poisoned such sort of Writings I must beg the Readers pardon that I have not been more particular in my Remarks on Mr. Hunt his Book came but lately to my hands a part of mine being first in the Press and the rest called for so that I made it onely an Essay to provoke some more eminent persons of his own Gown to chastise him according to his demerit who have more health and help more time and advantages than I have And all that love their Religion and Peace will abhor such persons as by the same Methods the same Libels and pretences of Arbitrarie Government and Poperie the same Arguments as were used to defend the War and the Murder of Charles the First seek to involve us in another such and rather than not effect it will employ and associate with any sort of Fanaticks Jesuits and Regicides such as Doleman White and Milton their great Exemplar and Tutor I cannot stand to give this Age a character of that Pest of the former I mean this Milton whose very Sores and Impostumes these Authors suck and spit them out to poyson the People He was one that wrote against the whole Ministrie and their Maintenance that would have Divorces practised on every slight occasion And when I shall say that against his knowledge and Conscience he maliciously opposed the best of Kings I need say no more to prove him the worst of men That Mercenarie wretch was I confess a man of more than ordinarie parts and when he came in his Chap. 4. to defend the Doctrine of Resistance and Regicide against that Argument of Salmasius which proved that none of the Christians before St. Augustine's time did practise or allow of resisting the lawful Magistrate though a Heathen or an Arian he stretched his Wit and his Reading so far as to bankrupt the reputation of them both as will evidently appear in my Answer to the same Arguments which both Mr. Hunt and our Author have borrowed from him And because it hath been creditably reported that Milton died a Papist and it is certain that he had been at Rome and was there caressed by some great men Cardinals and others I shall desire the Reader to consider with me whether that defence which he makes of the Popish Doctrine for deposing of Kings in the same Chapter be not a probable Argument of the truth of that Report For thus saith Milton chap. 4. p. 47. As to what concerns the Pope against whom you DECLAIME MANY THINGS TO NO PVRPOSE I give you libertie to talk till you are hoarse yet that which you assert so largely to take with the vulgar and unlearned That every Christian was subject to their Kings whether they were just or whether they were Tyrants until the power of the Pope was acknowledged to be greater than that of the King and till be absolved Subjects from their Oaths of Fidelitie I have shewn that to be most false by many examples Nor doth that seem more true which you say in the last place that Pope
Commands of God for obedience to the Higher Powers From all which Premises I shall onely conclude as to my self That it is much more desirable to perish by the hands of a known Enemie to God and the true Religion than to out-live that Religion and by a successful resistance against the Ordinance of God to live in the enjoyment of Temporal wealth and Honours and to deserve this Epitaph to be engraved on my Tomb. Plorate quotquot estis Pacis vitaeque placidae Pertaesi Conservator optimi Populi pessimus Legum Libertatis Religionis Protector Post Oliverum Primus nulli Secundus Deperditae Respublicae Instaurator Regum timendorum tremendus Judex Regiae Stirpis Extirpator Perfidus Juris Consultorum Doctor Ignoramus Qui Consentientibus dissentit ab omnibus Orthodoxis Antiquis Modernis Qui Dissentientibus consentit omnibus Papistis Anabaptistis Regicidis Scrutator Majestatis oppressus à Gloria Inglorius obiit OF Passive Obedience IT is a very hard Case that when the Scripture injoyns such as are of the Ministry in this Nation to put the people in mind to be subject to Principalities and powers and the Canons of the Church to which we have subscribed oblige us four times in the year at least to manifest open and declare in our Sermons and Lectures That the Kings power within his Majesties Realms c. is the highest power under God to whom all men born within the same do by Gods Laws owe most Loyaltie and Obedience afore and above all Powers and Potentates on Earth that for so doing we should be reproached as Time-servers and such as advance an Arbitrarie power and that such Doctrine is calculated and fitted on purpose for the use of a Popish Successour and to make us an easier prey to the bloudie Papists p. 89. And all this by those men who are equally obliged by Oaths and Subscriptions to do the same as we Of these things the Author accuseth a learned Doctor who had affirmed in a Sermon I suppose and he quotes p. 8. That the Gospel doth not prescribe any remedie but flight against the Persecutions of the lawful Magistrate allowing no other means when we cannot escape between denying and dying for the Faith This is in p. 80. and p. 85. for saying That the Gospel by its own confession is a suffering Doctrine and so far from being prejudicial to Caesars authoritie that it makes him the Minister of God and commands all its Professors to give him and all that are in authoritie under him their dues and rather die than resist them by force Now to remove the prejudice of such as are of our Author's Judgment I shall first propose the Judgment of Mr. Baxter as a preparative to the more candid entertainment of what I shall propound concerning Passive Obedience P. 24 of the 4th part of Christian Directorie Direct 31. Resist not where you cannot obey and let no appearance of probable good that may come to your selves or to the Church by any unlawful means as Treason Sedition or Rebellion ever tempt you to it for evil must not be done that good may come by it But Sect. 61. it is objected If we must let Rulers destroy us at their pleasure the Gospel will be rooted out of the Earth When they know we hold it unlawful to resist them they will be emboldened to destroy us and sport themselves in our bloud as the Papists did by the poor Albigenses Answ All this were something if there were no God that can easilier restrain and destroy them at pleasure than they can injure or destroy you If God be engaged to protect you and hath told you that the hairs of your head are numbered and more regardeth his Honour Gospel and Church than you do and accounteth his Servants as the Apple of his eye and hath promised to hear them and avenge them speedily then it is but Atheistical distrust of God to save your self by sinful means as if God could not or would not do it Thus he that saveth his life shall lose it This Mr. Baxter speaks against Rebellion and unlawful Arms and Acts. To this purpose he quotes Grotius de Imperio p. 210. answering the like Objection viz. Mutato Regis Animo Religio Mutabitur That if the King change his mind the Religion will be changed also Answ In this case the onely remedie is in the providence of God who hath the hearts of all men in his hand but especially the Kings God worketh his ends both by good and evil Kings sometime a calm sometime a storm is most profitable to the Church If the King be of a perverse and corrupt Judgment it will be worse for him than for the Church But all this you will say is against unlawful acts and means which they that have the Laws on their side cannot be said to use To this Mr. Baxter answers p. 26. What power the Laws have they have it by the Kings Consent and Act. And it is strange impudencie to pretend that his own Laws are against him If any misinterpret them he may be confuted I suppose Mr. Baxter means by some other method than that of arguing as St. Augustine advised in the like case The Law and Ordinance of Government and especially of Monarchie is founded on the Law of God and Nature and no positive Laws or condescentions of Governours can make void the Law of God For though a righteous Prince will not violate those Laws which he hath consented to yet if he should it will not justifie those Subjects that shall violate the Law of God and Nature in resisting and rising up against him in Rebellion which would as it were argue great ingratitude to them who by Acts of Grace have obliged themselves for as St. Augustine observes our Prince like God himself becomes a Debtor to man Non aliquid à nobis accipiendo sed omnia nobis largiendo Not by receiving any thing from us but by promising all good things to us So it is a certain way to bring us all to Confusion if the King should be judged as a Criminal upon every transgression of the Law And I would ask those who would bind their Kings in such Fetters By what authoritie they would proceed against him and judge him would they erect another High Court of Justice or bring him from his Throne to the Block Would they arm the people again on pretence of fighting for their Laws and Liberties The end of those things we have seen to be the death of a most righteous Prince and the general destruction of the Subjects Wherefore I commend to you that of your Bracton Omnem esse sub Rege ipsum sub nullo fed tantum sub Deo And if he contradict himself in this the suffrage of Nature and the Laws of all well-governed Nations will condemn him which agree in this That Principi non est Lex posita there is no Law above the Prince that makes the Law and by
Mr. Hunt's Preface and Postscript THe Author of the life of Julian having taken his Measures and chief Materials from the late Libels of Mr. Hunt and both of them their whole Scheme from John Milton's Defence of that most execrable Murther committed on the Royal Martyr by those whom he calls the People of England who were indeed the very scum and off-scouring the reproach and pests of the Nation I shall make my way to the Confutation of the first by some Remarks on the Writings of the other And whereas I did onely occasionally reflect on some passages of the Postscript of Mr. Hunt in my Answer to the Life of Julian I shall now more particularly examine those other seditious and treasonable Writings of Mr. Hunt which since came to my hand The first Pamphlet which I have answered in the precedent Papers is the Life of Julian He begins his Preface to the Reader with a story of Mahomets Horns half Fire and half Snow which by altering the phrase he borrowed from a parallel expression of Mr. Hunt's upon the like occasion for he compares the Addressers to those pleasant Knaves that cry with one side of the face and laugh with the other Postscr p. 13. And to him that acted a grave Spaniard with one side of his body and a brisk French-man with the other This drew on his conceit of Guelphs and Gibellines and it was very easie by so strong a Chain of thoughts as our Author hath to pass from Spain and France into Turky with the Religion and Manners of which Country he seems better acquainted than with that of Christendom or else he would never have compared the Doctrine of the Cross with the Mahometan Doctrine of the Bow-string p. 8. of his Preface But sure he stretcht his Chain very much when from the Address of the men of Rippon thanking his Majestie for his Declaration to govern by Laws and to maintain the established Religion and to call frequent Parliaments and desiring that the Crown might descend in the right Line he concludes that they prayed against all these and made it their humble request that they might be sure of a Popish Successour and were weary of their Religion p. 5 6. But he broke every link of this Chain when though he put on his considering-Cap he could not find any Precedent or Example for such an Address But presently had an imperfect remembrance for such indeed it was of the contrary Carriage of tho Primitive Christians towards Julian whereas our Author might more easily and fitter to his purpose have remembred the Behaviour of some other Christians as they professed themselves towards King Charles the First and then he might have deserved the Office of a City-Remembrancer But he wickedly and I hope by what I shall discover in vain endeavours to impose his Seditious Doctrine on the Nation For this Notorious Plagiary hath taken his whole design as Mr. Hunt had done before him from an Argument of that profligate Villain John Milton whereby he attempted to defend the Murther of our Royal Martyr and that some passages in the Life of Julian have the same malignant aspect and influence I have shewn in my Observations on a passage quoted by our Author out of Sozomen in commendation of Regicide So that his Chain of Thoughts will hang no more together than a Rope of Sand for he runs so far from the Loyal Addressers as to fall in with Rebels and Regicides His whole design is to justifie Resistance of Lawful Powers in defence of that Religion which we profess and allow of especially when we are in possession of that Religion and it is established by Law though by the way both the established Religion and Christianity it self as well as the Laws of the Land are ipso facto destroyed by resistance This Leviathan fancying to himself a wide difference between the Case of those Christians that lived under Julian and the Case of the first Christians sports himself in the depth of this great Invention and scoffs at all the Arguments brought for Obedience and Subjection from the Primitive Christians before Constantine as the Leviathan in Job 41. who esteemed Iron as Straw and Brass as rotten wood and laugheth at the shaking of the Spear Their case saith he of the Christians in Julians time and that of the Primitive Christians was as widely different as Laws for men and against men can possibly make them Yet for ought I see be the Laws for or against his Doctrine of Resistance it must be swallowed for though he tells us that our Laws do not admit of such thoughts as his Julian Christians did put in practice yet the design must on or the whole labour of our Author must perish And who can help it when men will build on the Sand and daub with untempered Mortar such as blood and slime whatever cost or time is bestowed on such a Fabrick is cast away and the fall of it will be great On this false supposition these two Master-builders with whom I am now accounting do with an unaccountable Confidence lay the stress of all their Discourses And though I have said enough to destroy this false Hypothesis in the Answer yet because they think to supersede the Arguments brought for Obedience from the practice of the first Christians for three hundred years and perswade the present Age that they do not at all concern us but that we may rather do as the Julian Christians did that is rail at and resist our Superiours having our Religion established by Law though both our Religion and Law declare precisely that we may not resist for any pretence whatsoever I shall add somewhat here to prevent that prejudice and preoccupation which our Authors have falsly and maliciously insinuated And to this end I shall prove that the Christians in Julians time were under the same Government and circumstances abstracted from the Christian Religion with those of the first three hundred years and if they had resisted it was altogether as unjustifiable as that of those Primitive Christians would have been or ours now can be Cicero acquaints us wherein the Imperial Power did consist when it was first founded among the Romans l. 3. de Legibus in these words Regio Imperio duo sunto iique praeeundo judicando consulendo Praetores Judices Consules appellantor Militiae Summum jus habento nemini parento Ollis salus Populi Suprema Lex esto i. e. Let there be two persons in the Royal Empire and let them be called from their precedence Praetors from their Judicature Judges from their Consultations Consuls Let them have the highest command of the Militia Let them obey no man Let the safety of the people be to them the Supream Law How this latter Clause is to be understood is fully resolved in the preceding Discourse But all these do certainly amount to an Absolute uncontrolable power which being first setled in the two Consuls was afterward by the Senate conferred
take away their good names which like precious Oyntment I hope will send forth the better savour for being thus Chafed Alas we are not so very Dolts but that we know such little Arts to be the daily practice of every Sycophant and Tale-bearer who being minded to disgrace a person useth the same method as Mr. Hunt doth toward the Clergie first to invent then to spread abroad and aggravate their supposed faults or personal infirmities as pretended Friends For thus they insinuate Do you know such a person and do you hear nothing concerning him There is a strong Report that he hath done such and such evil things as will ruine him and all his Family I am heartily sorrie to hear such things of him but they cannot be hid or denied I am much troubled to hear of such gross miscarriages He was in a very good Way and had many advantages of benefitting himself and others but he hath abused them and outlived them all and his high Place and Calling doth but discover his nakedness the more and will precipitate his ruine It could hardly enter into my belief that a person that knows and professeth better things could ever have been guiltie of such Crimes And perhaps you will be as incredulous as I was but they are too true I perceive it is not all gold that glisters How a man may be deceived by an outward form and fucus of Honestie and Religion I thank God I am undeceived my self and hope others will be so too He is a very Wolf in Sheeps clothing a Persecutor of the Righteous who seemed a Preacher of Righteousness c. Have no fellowship or communion with him he is in the very gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity If such Insinuations are vile and odious in a vulgar mouth against a single person how much more vile are they in the printed Harangues of a man of understanding against the whole Order of the Clergie with a malicious designe first to disgrace and then to destroy them Either this Gentleman is well acquainted with the Vniversities and the generality of those that from thence are admitted to the Priesthood or not If he be not he is inexcusable for printing such Scandals against them if he be he cannot but know that there was never better Discipline in the Vniversity never greater Circumspection used concerning such as are admitted to Holy Orders than now there is and that if ever Clerus Anglicanus est stupor Mundi it was true that the English Clergie were the admiration of the world it is so now And therefore the Author of these oblique Reflections strikes at all the Heads of the Vniversities and at all the Bishops in their several Diocesses as if they were the Causers and Promoters of all these Disorders I do therefore appeal first to his own Conscience whether the far greater number both in the Vniversitie and in the Clergie be not men of Learning Integrity Piety and Loyalty and then he should in justice have given them such a character as the major part doth deserve Denominatio sumitur à majore And then I appeal to the testimony of more equal and indifferent men And such a one I take Dr. Burnet to be who for his late Writings had the Thanks of the Nation in a Parliament-way and he deserved it if he had written nothing else but the Testimony which he gives of the present Clergie God hath not so left this Age and Church but there is in it a great number in both the Holy Functions who are perhaps as eminent in the exemplariness of their lives and as diligent in their labours as hath been in any one Church in any Age since Miracles ceased The humility and strictness of life in many of our Prelates and some that were highly born and yet have far outgone some others from whom more might have been expected raiseth them far above censure though perhaps not above envie And when such think not the daily instructing their Neighbours a thing below them but do it with as constant a care as if they were to earn their Bread by it when they are so affable to the meanest Clergie-men that come to them when they are nicely scrupulous about those whom they admit into Holy Orders and so large in their Charities that one would think they were furnished with some unseen ways these things must needs raise great esteem for such Bishops and seem to give some hopes of better times Of all this I may be allowed to speak the more freely since I am led to it by none of those Bribes either of Gratitude or Fear or Hope which are wont to corrupt men to say what they do not think But I were much to blame if in a Work that may perhaps live some time in the world I should onely find fault with what is amiss and not also acknowledge what is so very commendable and praise-worthy And when I look into the inferiour Clergie there are chiefly about this great City of London so many so eminent both for the strictness of their Lives the constancie of their Labours and plain way of Preaching which is now perhaps brought to as great a perfection as ever was since men spoke as they received it immediately from the Holy Ghost the great gentleness of their Deportment to such as differ from them their mutual love and charity and in a word for all the qualities that can adorn Ministers or Christians that if such a number of such men cannot prevail with this debauched Age this one thing to me looks more dismally than all the other affrighting symptoms of our condition That God having sent so many faithful Teachers their labours are still so ineffectual If any man think the Doctor speaks partially let him hear Mr. Hunt's own Testimonie p. 48. of the Postscript Our Age is blessed with a Clergie renownedly learned and prudent And p. 105. he commends our Church for the purity of her Doctrine prudence of her Discipline and her commendable decent and intelligible Devotion This Testimony is true and therefore they who contradict it cannot be too sharply rebuked But what reason can be conceived for these contradictory proceedings This Gentleman I conceive might fancie himself to be Chairman of the Committee for Trial of Ministers and hath taken his Measures for proceeding in that case from the practice of his Predecessors who formed Articles of the like nature against the Clergie of that Age. Imprimis For adhering to the King against his Parliament Item For preaching a necessitie of obedience to the King as Supream and thereby endeavouring to introduce an Arbitrary Power Item For disobeying the Votes and Ordinances of Parliament for demolishing of Superstition and keeping out of Popery Item For defending Episcopacie and Liturgie for not keeping the daies of Fasting and Humiliation appointed to crave a blessing on the Parliaments Forces and the days of Thanksgiving for defeating the Kings designs Item For preaching up Passive
Obedience when the Laws do allow us to make resistance in defence of our Religion our Liberties and Lives Item For insufficiencie not being able to pray ex tempore or to preach without book Witness Dr. Pocock Bishop Sanderson c. Item For administring the Sacrament to all that desired it and for using the Lords Prayer as a Charm Such were the Articles by which a great part of that Clergie was destroyed of whom the world was not worthy With such our Gentleman is still in travel but I hope his labour will be in vain Read some of those Sermons and Treatises which of late years have been published by such as you call young Coxcombs Consider the strains of Piety and Moderation of Reason and Judgement of Industrie and acquired Knowledge and I am confident you will find so little hopes to be believed by others that you will see reason enough not to believe your self Let him talk of the persecution of Julian and other Pagans this which our Author promotes exceeds them all Others did but Occidere Episcopos this man seeks Occidere Episcopatum and under a pretence of pleading and praying for them he contrives how to prey upon them What else meaneth that insinuation which he quotes from Grotius to gain it some Authoritie having bankrupted his own Verso in morem abusu intermitti res ipsas non est infrequens p. 13. of Preface which he applieth to the Episcopal Office Nomen eminentia Episcopalis eorum culpa quibus obtigerat omnem sui perdiderat reverentiam in odium venerat plebis I greatly wondered to hear that Prayer of his against Sacriledge p. 103. He that designs contrives or consents to spoil the Church of any of her Endowments may a secret Curse waste his substance let his Children be Vagabonds and beg their bread in desolate places But when I call to mind Mr. Humphries project for increasing the number of our Bishops whom he would have to be chosen by the several Factions Presbyterian Independent c. and these whether Lay-men or Clergie-men to preside over those Parties it remembred me of a passage of Mr. Hunt's p. 90. of his Postscript where he demands thus Will it be any prejudice that the number of her Bishops be increased and that Suffragans be appointed and approved by the present Bishops c. So that when other Trades fail Mr. Hunt as well as Mr. Humphries may have some hopes of being made Suffragans at least For the Order of Episcopacie may be laid by as he intimates and then some Lay-superintendents may succeed and enjoy their Honours and Revenues Therefore to his Curse I shall add my Prayer for a blessing on Levi Deut. 33.11 Bless Lord his substance and accept the work of his hands smite through the Loins of them that rise up against him and of them that hate him that they rise not again The second Head contains a justification of the late unnatural War p. 6. It is difficult he saith to tell how that late unhappie War began or how it came to issue so tragically in the death of the late King And being to speak in so difficult a case he enters his caution p. 50. I would not be perversly understood by any man as if I went about to justifie our late Wars But it will appear to be Protestatio contra factum P. 102. He says That War would have been impossible if the Churchmen had not maintained the Doctrine that Monarchie was Jure Divino in such a sence that made the King Absolute This was a fiction of Mr. Baxters and through the Loins of the Clergie they strike at the King as if that glorious Prince intended Tyranny But that good Prince was far from any design of ruling by an Arbitrarie power he had no Army nor Mony to raise one but by the contrivance of some men his Father was engaged in an expensive War for the recoverie of the Palatinate which exhausted all the Exchequer and reduced the Royal Family to great necessities and then they failed in their promised Supplies and left him to a precarious way of subsisting and to stretch his Prerogative for the preservation of himself and Family He would have parted with the half of his Power and Prerogative as he often offered to have preserved or restored peace to his Subjects But when he spake to them of Peace they made themselves ready for Battle But were there not some other Doctrines preached in those days which contributed more to the beginning of that War than that of the Divinity of Kings What think you of the Doctrine of the lawfulness of Resistance then preached and printed under the same Arguments as now it is by Mr. Marshal Burton c. What think you of that Doctrine which according to the Jesuits taught That the rise and Original of Government is in the People and that as they gave so they might recall it as they saw cause You know who layeth down the same Principle in a certain Preface That Government is the perfect creature of men in Societie made by pact and consent and not othorwise most certainly not otherwise and therefore most certainly ordainable by the whole Communitie for the safety and preservation of the whole P. 38. of Preface To what tended this other Doctrine That the Authoritie of the King was in the two Houses when they had frighted away his Person That the King was Singulis major but Vniversis minor That Episcopacy was an Antichristian Order and to be stub'd up root and branch That the King Court and Bishops were designing to bring in Popery That our Liturgy was but the Mass-book translated These Doctrines with such Remonstrances Votes and Ordinances began that unhappy War The Associations made in City and Country seizing the Forts and Magazines and Royal Navy and answering all his Messages of Peace with reproaches of his Male-administrations This is that which you call the English Loyalty When they sent out Armies to fight him when they had him Prisoner and voted no more Addresses they were if you will believe them or Mr. Hunt his Majesties most Humble and Loyal Subjects still Such as these I could as easily prove to be the Doctrines of those times as that they are the Opinions and Practices of too many in these our days though most absurd and dangerous as they are now published by too many besides our two Authors P. 20. Pref. There is little reason to charge the guilt of the unexpiable Murther of our late Excellent King upon Presbyterie which was not thought of here in England till the War was begun And p. 21. Sure this Gentleman hath read very little or dissembleth very much Mr. Cambden in the Life of Queen Elizabeth is full of the Projects and Practices of such as planted the Geneva-Discipline here in England what troubles they occasioned to the Government both in Church and State and what deserved punishments some of them received as Penry and Vdal