C.L. CL. their Fellow-Subjects. By Thomas Gipps, Rector of Bury in Lancashire, Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Darby. 4to Lond. 1683. A Defence of Sir Robert Filmer against the Mistakes and Representations of Algernon Sidney Esq.; in a Paper delivered by him to the Sheriff's upon the Scaffold, &c. By Edmund Bohun. 1684 Among the upholders of the patriarchal theory may be mentioned Chrysostom, Bp. Andrews and the Caroline Divines (see Hurd's sixth Dialogue), Fleury, Bossuet and their followers in France. (See Sir James Stephen's Lectures on the History of France, vol. ii., “The Absolute Monarchy of Louis XIV.") "It was," writes Hallam in his Constitutional History of England, "at this time [1685] that the university of Oxford published their celebrated decree against pernicious books and damnable doctrines, enumerating as such above twenty propositions, which they anathematized as false, seditious and impious. The first of these is, that all civil authority is derived originally from the people; the second, that there is a compact, tacit or express, between the king and his subjects: and others follow of the same description. They do not explicitly condemn a limited monarchy, like Filmer, but evidently adopt his scheme of primogenitary right, which is incompatible with it. . . . This decree was publicly burned by an order of the house of lords in 1709: nor does there seem to have been a single dissent in that body to a step that cast such a stigma on the university. But the disgrace of the offence was greater than that of the punishment." This decree will be found in State Tracts from the year 1660 to 1689, part ii. p. 154; Collier's Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, vol. ii. p. 902; Sacheverell's Tryall, p. 162; Somers Tracts, vol. viii. p. 420. Hickes's Jovian, ut supra. Especially the Preface. Vindicia Juris Regii, or Remarks upon a Paper entitled, An Enquiry into 4to 1693. "One of the contrivances of the Jesuits was by searching into the origin of civil power, which they brought rightly, though for this wicked purpose, from the people; for they concluded that if the original power could be shown to have no divine right, but to be of human, and even popular institution, the liberty which the pope took in deposing would be less invidious: thus the Jesuits reasoned. The argument was pushed with great vigour by Harding and his brethren in Elizabeth's reign, but afterwards with more learning and address by Bellarmine, Mariana and others. (Note. This notion was stated even so early as Henry's rejection of the supremacy. Cardinal Pole insists strongly on this origin of kingship in his book, Pro ecclesiastica unitatis defensione, lib. i. p. 74.) To combat this dangerous position so prejudicial to the power of kings and which was meant to justify the attempts of violence on the lives of heretical princes, the Protestant divines went into the other extreme, and to save the person of their sovereign, preached up the doctrine of Divine Right. Hooker, superior to every prejudice, followed the truth. But the rest of our reforming and reformed divines stuck to the other opinion, which, as appears from the Homilies, the Institution of the Christian Man, and the general stream of writings in those days, became the opinion of the church, and was indeed the received Protestant doctrine."-Hurd's Moral and Political Dialogues, vol. iv. p. 61. Hume's Essays. 4to Lond. Vol. i. part ii. Essay xii. Paley's Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, Book vi. chap. i. The arguments against the theory of an original contract are stated with great ability in chap. iii. But, as Coleridge observes, "the contempt lavished by him on the notion of an original contract, though sufficiently compatible with the tenets of a Hume, will seem strange to us in the writings of a Protestant clergyman, who surely owed some respect to a mode of thinking which God himself had authorized by his own example, in the establishment of the Jewish constitution." These arguments will also be found in Bishop Sanderson's Preface to Usher "On the Power of the Prince," § 15-18. I shall not attempt to give the golden chain of champions of monarchy from the Heroic ages down to our own days. Some links will be found in Mackenzie's Jus Regium (ut supra p. 7) and Duport's C. L. Gnomologia Homerica ad Iliad. 2, v. 204. Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη· εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω Εἷς βασιλεὺς etc. There are now living two eminent monarchists, Guizot and Palgrave. The former, in his Lectures on European Civilization, has accurately distinguished the varieties of regal power which have prevailed at different periods, Barbarian, Imperial or Roman, Feudal, Religious, and Constitutional. On the Divine Right see also Hayward's Life and Raigne of Henrie the iiii., pp. 101-110, 4to Lond. 1599; Wolley's Loyalty amongst Rebels; The True Royalist, or Hushay the Archite, Lond. 1662. For other authorities on both sides see Dr. Doddridge's Lectures. Hooker, Baxter, Horsley, Burke, and Paley contended that all government is in such sort of divine institution that be the form of any particular government what it may, the submission of the individual is a principal branch of that religious duty which each man owes to God; but the principles which they advanced ascribed no greater sanctity to monarchy than to any other form of established government. See Wordsworth's Christian Institutes, vol. iii. I shall conclude this digression into the field of Political Philosophy with a list of Tracts on non-resistance and passive obedience. Their name is Legion, but I shall confine it to those works which, having been collected in the State Tracts referred to in p. 9 and C. L. similar publications, are easily accessible— Memorial to the Prince and Princess of Orange. By Major Wildman. Vol. i. p. 36. An Enquiry into the present State of Affairs, &c. By Dr. G. Burnet, pp. 128-133. A Justification of the Prince of Orange's Descent, pp. 134 -148. Some Remarks upon Government, and particularly upon the Establishment of the English Monarchy, relating to this present Juncture. In two Letters, written by and to a Member of the Great Convention, pp. 149-62, Four Questions Debated, pp. 163-66. Important Questions of State, Law. Justice and Prudence, both civil and religious, pp. 167-74. Short Considera C. L. tions relating to the Settling of the Government, pp. 175-78. The Proceed- Vol. ii. An Answer to the late King James's Declaration to all his Vol. iii. The Revolution vindicated; in an Answer to the two Memorials, and the Protestation against the Peace treated at Reswick, and other Papers published in the late King James's Name. In which particularly the Matter of the Abdication, or the Sense in which King James is said to have abdicated, is more fully explain'd than has yet been done, pp. 694–728. The Declaration of his Highness, William Henry, Prince of Orange, &c. Of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England, for preserving of the Protestant Religion, and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England, Scotland and Ireland, is given entire in the Tryall of Dr. Sacheverell, pp. 179–185. State Tracts, 1660-89. Part ii., pp. 420-26. The opinion of Grotius referred to in the first volume, ut supra, was that our non-resistance should be ever measured by the intention of those who first framed the society. "The Rights of War and Peace," b. i. c. iv. s. 7. See also Puffendorf "de Jure Naturæ et Gentium," lib. vii. c. 7, s. 7. "The maxim, Fiat Justitia et ruat Coelum, let justice be performed though the universe be destroyed, is apparently false, and by sacrificing the end to the means, shews a preposterous idea of the subordination of duties." Hume's Essays, xiii., On Passive Obedience. The political Treatises of Samuel Johnson, Chaplain to Lord Russel, were collected in one volume, folio, 1710, e.g. Julian the Apostate; being an Account of his Life, and the sense of the primitive Christians about his Succession, &c. (published in 1682). Julian's Arts to undermine and extirpate Christianity; together with Answers to Constantius the Apostate, and Jovian (published in reply to Hickes's Jovian, 1689). Remarks on Dr. Sherlock's book, entitled, The Case of Resistance of the Supreme Powers stated and resolved (published 1689). An Argument proving that the abrogation of King James was according to the Constitution of the English Government (published 1692). Of Magistracy, Of Prerogatives by Divine Right, Of Obedience, Of Laws, (published 1688, reprinted in State Tracts, pp. 1660-1689, part ii. pp. 269-72, and in the Fifth Collection of Papers relating to the present Juncture of Affairs in England, 4to 1688). The Trial and Examination of a late Libel, ut infra. See Biographia Britannica. His Reflections on the History of Passive Obedience (pp. 251-56), in reply to Seller's History, ut infra. All these inquiries are collectively discussed in "Bibliotheca Politica; or an Inquiry into the Ancient Constitution of the English Government." In thirteen Dialogues. Lond. 1694. The first dialogue relates to the question, whether monarchy be of divine right? the second, whether hereditary succes sion to crowns be a divine institution: the third, whether resistance of the supreme power by a whole nation, can be justified by the law of nature, or the gospel: the fourth, whether absolute non-resistance is enjoined by the gospel, or was the doctrine of the primitive church: the fifth, whether the king be the supreme legislative authority, and whether the parliament be a fundamental part of the government, or proceeds from the favour of kings: the sixth, whether the commons of England was one of the three estates of the kingdom, before the 49th of Henry III.: the seventh, the same question continued: the eighth, continuation of the same subject: the ninth, whether by the ancient laws and constitution of this kingdom, as well as by the statutes of the 13th and 14th of Charles II., all resistance of the king, or of those commissioned by him, is expressly forbidden upon any pretence whatsoever: the tenth, whether a king of England can ever fall from, or forfeit his royal dignity, for any breach of an original contract, or wilful violation of the fundamental laws of the kingdom; and whether King William the Conqueror did not acquire, by virtue of his conquest, an absolute and unconditioned right to C. L. C. L. C. L. the crown of these realms: the eleventh, in what sense civil power is said to be derived from God, &c.: whether the appointment of William Prince of Orange be in accordance to the constitutional maxims of the English Constitution: the twelfth and thirteenth dialogues are on matters of little public moment. I find in "The Law of Christ respecting Civil Obedience, especially in the Payment of Tribute, &c., by John Brown D.D.," extracts on the Right of Resistance from numerous authorities, references to the most valuable of which I here subjoin: Locke on Civil Government, chap. xix. Paley's Mor. and Pol. Phil., book vi. chap. iii. Hutcheson's Elements of Ethics, book iii. M'Crie's Review of the first series of the Tales of my Landlord. Edinburgh Christian Instructor for 1817. "We can appeal to divines and dignitaries of the Church of England, who have sanctioned the principles of resistance on which our ancestors acted to Jewel, Hooker, Bilson, Bedel, Burnet, Hoadly, and King. But this is unnecessary, as the whole convocation, the Church of England representative, in Elizabeth's reign, publicly acknowledged it 'glorious to assist subjects in their resistance to their sovereigns, and their endeavours to rid themselves of their tyranny and oppressions.' Sir James Mackintosh's View of the Reign of James II. from his Accession to the Enterprize of the Prince of Orange, chap. x. Jus Populi; or, a Discourse wherein clear satisfaction is given as well concerning the Right of Subjects as the Right of Princes: showing how both are consistent, and where they border one upon the other; as also what there is divine and what there is humane in both; and whether is of more value and extent, pp. 63-65, 4to Lond. 1664. It has been ascribed, obviously in mistake, to Milton. "The reader," adds Dr. Brown, "who wishes to see what can be said against a principle which is so powerfully supported in these extracts, and in favour of its opposite, will do well to consult a small but most elaborate dissertation, in the form of a sermon, entitled Passive Obedience, or the Christian Doctrine of not resisting the Supreme Power, proved and vindicated upon the Principles of the Law of Nature, in a discourse preached at the College Chapel, by George Berkeley, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, (afterwards Bishop of Cloyne). 'Nec vero aut per senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possimus.'- Cic. fragm. de rep. Lond. 1713. This without doubt, and beyond comparison, the ablest defence of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance on philosophical principles consistent with revelation, is a curious display of the characteristic extreme acuteness, yet unsoundness of the mind of its singularly gifted and most estimable author-ingeniosa et sagax hariolatio viri disertissimi.' The scriptural argument in favour of these doctrines is fully stated in Dean Sherlock's Case of Resistance,' &c. ... And the argument from the doctrine and practice of the primitive Christians may be found in Archbishop Usher's tract, entitled, The Power communicated by God, &c. ... ... Few questions have been more thoroughly discussed. A specimen of the advocacy of what we regard as the right side is presented to the reader, and it is but justice to say that if that side of it which we consider untenable has been disgraced by the impiety of Hobbes and the unprincipled meanness of Parkerthe learning of Usher, the judgment of Sanderson, the wit of South, the subtilty and candour of Berkeley, and the sanctity of Ken, are more than enough to entitle to careful consideration any principle which they entertained," &c. Abednego Seller, in his History of Passive Obedience since the Reformation, 4to Amsterdam, 1689, maintained that the Church of England "in contradis tinction both to Papists and to Dissenters has constantly asserted the principles of Obedience to Princes, as the best ages of Christianity practised it.” |