particularly named above other Orders in these national Prayers against Enemies And the reason is obvious because the interest of the whole Nations is summed up in the Felicity of their Kings So that they that are his Enemies are taken for the Nations Enemies also in these Prayers In praying therefore against K. William's Enemies we consider him not merely as a single solitary Person but as our Sovereign Head on whose welfare our own also depends and so in his Enemies we pray against our own also Seventhly we must enquire whether K. James must in our Prayers inevitably come into the number of K. William's enemies and so by civil Construction the Nations enemies Now when these Prayers were first ordered and received K. James was in no part of his old Dominions nor in any actual sensible military Hostility against K. William any where For tho' the Irish were in Commotion yet K. James was not there nor does it appear that they acted on his Commission but mere presumption and that not against K. William till his Armies came thither but their domestic Protestants only It seemed a while as if K. James had sat down and yielded up to his fate and state of desertion After the settled course of these Prayers re-animated by the French King he enters â—â—â—land and K. William follows In the mean time â—he course and sense of the Prayers was still the same râ—â—ning in generals and not altering by those changes bâ—yond the Irish Channel as there was no reason they should And so K. James was no more particularized after than before this in our Prayers Yet if his personal behaviour toward K. William at the Boyne doth not evince the contrary I will allow you that then he was a military enemy But still the grand question is whether also he was a moral enemy and so within the intention of our Prayers by his then present breaking it off from England and his designs thereby to recover England And plain it is that the sence of our Nation which is valid and cogent to all Civil obligations doth conclude him an injurious and moral enemy to K. William and this Realm For Ireland belonging thro' a long fixed Right to the Crown of England it must appear injurious after an effectual Abdication of this Crown and a Settlement of a Title therein upon K. William to invade Ireland and so to reduce us here under war for a recovery thereof and a defence of our own land from his illegal claims and pretensions And whereas without any sense of modesty you say that I assert K. James and K. William not to be enemies but good friends viz. that K. James is so friendly to K. William for that he intends K. William no injury you may resume your forehead and remember that I only said we are not sure that K. James designs K. William injury But what we are not infallibly sure of we may verily believe and presume from all the Rules of humane Judgment upon acts of Hostility And in all humane opinion his Invasion of Ireland was injurious but since all judicial Determinations must be left and referred to God's Judgment we not mentioning K. James in the number of K. Williams Enemies do not pass our internal and personal Censure on the Conscience of K. James before our God but remit that to God the Judge of all Kings and Nations But if private Persons will intermix their own personal opinions upon such superiour Causes where they need not then they who think K. James a moral Enemy to K. William do use our forms against him on that presumption of his injury they that do not think so of K. James do not in this form of Liturgy pray against him And the Liturgy not compelling us in the acts of our Religion to condemn K. James as morally injurious does not oblige any man determinately to involve him under any of our imprecations And whereas our Prayers are upbraided in the second Chapter of your first Book of Christian Communion as directed against Right for the maintenance of wrong it hereby appears how much mistaken that great Author was for whosoever can but comport with the Sovereign Style of their present Majesties may use these Prayers without prejudice to any real Rights of K. James or his own private opinions concerning it As to K. James's Personal hurt or injury let them that can feed an evil wish it for me God hath disabled him from overturning our Constitutions and hath settled us under good and equal Governours and that is enough and if K. James be elsewhere happy as long as he hurts not us we need no further trouble our selves or him And I do verily believe their present Majesties as little require my Prayers for his hurt as you do For time was when he was in the hands of K. William who had he designed to hurt him might have done it and thereby have prevented all the pretensions that have cost so much Blood and Treasure in Ireland But 't was piously done to abstain his hands from Royal Blood and leave the Issues of his undertakings to the Rules of innocency on which only he could dare to pray for and expect God's blessing But further you have forgotten one Argument perhaps because it was inconsiderable whereby it appears that our prayers are not pointed against any Rights of K. James or to any hurt of his Person for that we pray for all Christian Kings Princes and Governours even thâ—se against whom we wage open war And out of these Prayers we do not except even the most Christian King but pray for the preservation of him also in all his Rights our war not obstructing this practice of Piety even to our greatest enemies which we observe from the precept and example of our most blessed Saviour And therefore though it were true what you would seem to prove in form of Argument that K. James is accounted a greater Enemy and if you please add a greater King too than the French King yet no Enmity ought to be great enough to overcome our Religion and Charity in praying for our very greatest Enemies even while we pray against their Enmities But let us however see whether K. William and his Subjects do take K. James for a greater Enemy than the French King who it seems to you is accounted an Enemy only for asserting K. James's Cause First then if we take the moral notion of Enemy no man can judge whether K. James or K. Lewis has the greater internal enmity against K. William If we go upon the military notion it is apparently false that K. James either is or is accounted a greater Enemy than he that is the greatest in Arms of all the Christian Monarchs So that your axiom from whence you form your Argument Propter quod unumquodque est tale id magis est tale tho' true in Physical Causalities and Operations yet fails in moral Influences and Inducements such as are the reasons
think it the best way to put an end to them as soon as can be But you cast out that Right that only can restore our Peace and when you have conjured up most horrid confusions plead for their continuance I know not what could be done more by an Advocate for the Prince of Darkness As for what you say concerning Bishop Overals's Convocation Book I am sorry that a pretender to so much modesty should be guilty of such an impudent Assertion when that matter hath been fully cleared by so many learned and judicious Pens T. B. 2d Lett. p. 20. Eucher This is a very paronymous Caress indeed but such as convinces me no more than your Arguments But I know who has taught me to give place unto wrath while I encounter your Reasons First then Is it not a Question profoundly wise whether all Men did ever think themselves bound to approve Extra-lineal interruptions For did you ever know all men in the same Opinion that they ought to approve any one State of things But this is not your only Lapse of Sense It is not the Interruptions and Convulsions of State that I would have you approve for no good man can approve Interruptions in setled Government as such But I require you only to submit to such National Settlements as close up our Confusions and so far only to approve them as they are Ends of Strife and War it there appear no other Good in them As wise also is your second Question Did they not still as opportunity served assist Right I pray who are these They but your All men just before mentioned as the Antecedent to this Relative But did all men as opportunity served assist Right How then came there any to be in the Wrong Or how came all men together to want an opportunity to do Right Or how came there in any Disorders and such a general Expence of Blood and Treasure to very ill purposes But what think you of those that enforced these fatal Expences Were they of the All men or no Or did they act aright in breaking down the Settlements of the Nation in order to what you call Restitution of Right For my part I would not vindicate an Inheritance by the slaughters of poor harmless people in the prostration of their Civil Settlement to gain the most absolute Empire in the whole World For I think no one mans mear personal interest in any external priviledge is worth one innocent mans life whatsoever your or other Martial Opinions may be in these Matters But if you justifie those Sanguinary Commotions and Barbarities against the Publick Settlements heretofore for the reduction of the Heirs Lineal and can tell us that we can have no Peace in our present State I hope henceforth your Party will not say that I enrage the present Powers against them since you openly proclaim an irreconcilable War against the Established Constitution and blow the Trumpet for your own destruction if the Government were not gentle and compassionate to your very Ravings But whereas you charge us for having conjured up Confusions and pleading for the continuance of them I shall reply that all the Evil that hath been done against our Constitutions from the time that King James began to vacate our Laws and to embroil us in discords in order to an Arbitrary and Popish Government until the day of the new Settlement under their present Majesties contributed to our Confusions and every Party to those Evils of what Character soever must account to God for it who will admit no Plea for those Evil Actions or Confusions But on the Day in which the Prince became King our Confusions ended in an orderly peaceable and were it not for your unquietness an entirely happy Settlement for the continuance of which we plead against those unsupportable Confusions to which your bitterness would reduce us And now as ill luck would have it we are fallen in on Bishop Overal's Convocation who can have no ease neither because of our Confusions But now I pray what have I said of that Monument they have left behind them No more than this And Bishop Overal 's Convocation Book comes up to it To what Why to this that a full Settlement under Extra-lineal Kings must be submitted to both by the Clergy and the People And doth it not come up full to this in their First Book and 28th Chapter and Canon Where it assigns this Obedience to the full Settlement even of ambitious Princes and Rebels procuring that thro' Settlement by wicked means And in the 27th Canon of the same Book it is resolved If any man therefore shall affirm that any person born a Subject and affirming by all the Arguments that Wit or Learning could devise that God had called him to murther the King do facto under which he lived yea tho' he should have first procured himself to be proclaimed or anointed King as Adonijah did c. he doth greatly err Now a King de facto with this Synod is one that is in by full and legal Forms of Settlement as by Submission or Continuance Lib. 1. Cap. 30 tho' attaining thereto by unjust means And such Submission to such thro' Settlement is what alone I quoted this Book for and whatsoever fate other mens Theories hereupon have incurred sure I am I have not declined the least from the Sense of that Synod who in those passages had an undoubted aspect on our several Revolutions and actual Settlements under those Extra-lineals whom the Lawyers have styled Kings de facto by a Distinction from those that are de jure whose terms herein the Convocation used Otherwise their Determinations herein could be of no use to ratifie any Settlements past nor to direct us in time to come how to end our Confusions or when to be at peace Dyscher At last you very gravely give us your Opinion that in the late Oath of Allegiance the word Successors was added after Heirs on this very self same Ground that tho' Heirs by the Ordinary Course are the Legal Successors yet others legally may succeed in Cases extra-ordinary This it is for men to give their Opinions without Book and without any other consideration than to pervert the State of the Case Had you given your self the small Trouble to read over the Oath you could not for shame have put this interpretation upon it for the express words of it are Lawful Successors which follow the word Heirs by way of Limitation or Restraint to shew that none shall succeed but the Legal Heir And thus Sir the words of the Oath instead of admitting plainly and peremptorily exclude your extra-ordinary Successors and extra-lineal Kings Thus your new invention hath added a fresh absurdity instead of being a remedy to those many others which your Party run into upon Discourses of this Matter And tho' you mince the matter yet you might have been so bold to say the Oath requires Allegiance to unlawful Successors as what you
all Christendom at this day principally seemeth to depend And this and all that I have said to you I speak with all sincerity which if it persuade not you I cannot help that but I think it is a reasonable ground for that Allegiance which I have not carelesly or inconsiderately given Dyscher You do us manifest injustice when you suppose or feign that we admit no Settlement under Powers procured by the breach of Gods Commandments And this in all reason you must do knowingly and wilfully because I think there is not one who on our behalf hath concerned himself in the matter of the Convocation-Book but hath stated this Question and always admitted a thorow Settlement whatever were the means whereby it was procured 'T is true we neither commend nor encourage such wicked doings but on the other hand we do not think Dominion to be founded in Grace and that a man cannot have a good Title unless he be a good Christian We can mourn over the bad man whilst we submit to the good Title But we complain that we have no Settlement nor any thing like a good Title to which we may submit For who can own that to be a good Title against which there are prior and better Titles in being contesting and claiming Or who can take that for a Settlement where a bad Title by bad means is maintained against a just and good Title T. B's 2d Lett. p. 25. We say that a full Settlement in one while another who has Right claims and endavours to recover his Right is contradictory nonsense T.B. ibid. p. 40. Eucher I very well know and freely own that all your Disputations upon the Convocation-Book do in terms allow a full Settlement however procured tho' you contradict the Convocation in your notions of a thorow Settlement But it does not therefore follow that all of your Party think so The most that I have orally discoursed stand upon the breach of the Moral Laws as the grand exception against the Right on which only they can swear Allegiance since say they Allegiance follows Right and Right cannot be founded in Acts morally Evil Note That in Sol. Ab. p. 8. I did not make Dyscheres positively to deny Submission to all Settlements procured by breach of Gods Commandments because I know they do not all deny it but because it is the common Objection with most of them in point of Conscience I made Dyscheres reply not should say No and essentially injurious and consequently by such there be be no full or thorow form of Settlement And if you will give me leave to deliver my Opinion I think if Gods Providence had not so disposed of things as to bring that absolutely No but what if I Book into publick Light by the hand of my Lord Arch-Bishop Sancroft in this very Juncture all your Pleas would have chiefly stuck in the Laws of God whose violation with you should have been alone sufficient to have nulled all Rights and Titles But now as it is you are pinched by the Authority and the Edition of that Book and forced against your wills to own it and have no relief but in forced Arts of Evasion Such is that demure Protestation that you do not think Dominion founded in Grace which you know was and is a pretence toto coelo distant from our matter as claiming all Secular Rights by virtue of their Religious Character or Election But will you allow that a full and legal form of Settlement can be founded in any Act really injurious I would have you speak out without boggling or clouting your Tongue If not then the Defect of Plenitude in such Settlements stands in the iniquity and breach of moral Justice and Gods Commandments And in truth this at last is the true English of all those Reasons on which you complain that we have no Settlement nor any thing like a good Title tho' those Reasons are wrapped up in forms of words chiefly relating to Civil Laws For the sum of all is the Possession of another mans Right is no full Settlement because it has no good Title as being a violation of Right and Gods Commandments Of which I shall have occasion perhaps to discourse more anon In the mean time as I have already given you part of my sense herein so will I now deliver and settle it as full viz. That when several persons claim Right then pendente lite either in Law or War the Legal Presumption of Right must be for the quiet Possessor but after judgment given to be in the person to whom it is adjudged till reverse of judgement and all other antecedent Titles and Pretensions are to be deemed null and cessant to all Civil Effects and Constructions whatsoever the Errors or mens private Senses herein may be and the condemned Titles must not be taken to be good and still in being tho' new claims and contestations may be promoted by the outed Party Which being premised I can easily yield you that that can be no good Title against which there are prior or better Titles apparently in being contesting and claiming and that it is no full and Legal Settlement where an apparently bad Title is by bad means apparently maintained against a Title apparently just and good But this is not to be taken in a judged Cause But who was Judge between King James and King William while the former disputed the new Possession of the later with the Sword to determine the Civil Practice of the Nation If none then were we to abide by King Williams quiet form of possession If there were any Judge it was foreign or domestick Now there neither was nor could be a foreign Judge to oblige us if domestick it was either private or publick if private that cannot oblige the whole Nation if publick then it was in the Estates convened but they have judged King James's Title void and Cessant and not in being and so tho' extrajudicially claimed neither just nor good But if you will neither allow quiet Possession nor publick Judgment as a Rule to State Titles Legally but will throw up all to private Opinions or Humours you dissolve all the ties of Civil Society into Eternal Wars and Commotions But because you clamour that we have no Settlement I will make further Advances and prove the Admission of their Majesties by the Estates of this Land to be a full and proper Settlement tho' against King James's claim and contest from the Laws of this Land the universal Usage of all Nations natural Reason and Holy Scripture Dyscher This is a teeming Promise have a care lest the Production be ridiculous Eucher First then I begin with the common Laws of this Nation which are nothing else but the constant and general Customs of England which Lawyers justifie for good and binding upon a fair presumption of their Descent to us from some immemorial Compositions Real and National made by our Fore-fathers whose Acts and Contracts
for future Ages do by the Laws of all Nations bind their Posterities that are yet in their Loins as in the lowest degree of minority till they are validly vacated And such Obligations are justified by sacred Instances as in the Oath of Jacob's Children to carry Joseph's Bones out of Egypt in the Covenants between God and Noah Abraham Moses in the League of Israel with Gibcon and all other their National Contracts and the Laws of Jonadab on the Rechabites c. So that fidelity to the Contracts Ordinances and Compositions Real of our Fathers and Ancestors obliges us to the Customs that yet continue as the Common Laws of England from that supposed Original And thus their Legal Obligation is founded not in Force but in Truth and Honesty Which being premised I add that our Nation in these two last Parliaments after a full Debate hath judged their Admission of King William and Queen Mary according to our Laws Legal and the second Parliament hath moreover recognized them King and Queen of Right according to those Laws And the first Parliament upon this Constitution fixed on them the full Allegiance of the Subject to be secured by Oath as much as to any other Kings whatsoever that so they might thro'ly make this present Settlement full and entire which therefore they judged to be such according to our Laws without any concurrence and notwithstanding the opposition of the Late King which on his Cession or Abdication could in their Judgment create no defect in this present Settlement since the Confusion and Anarchy we were put into thereby did in their Judgments give them a Legal Right to resettle as they could under the then Exigences for the Common Preservation nor did they judge us tied to a State of continued Anarchy during King James's pleasure that while he provided for himself in France by his own private Counsels without the consent of the Nation we should be at no liberty at home to provide for our selves against a Ruin otherwise impendent and inevitable And if we look back to all the Changes in the Succession ever since there have been two Houses of Parliament the full and final Settlement after all Ruptures Disorders and Disputes hath determined in the Recognitions and Allegiances enacted by these Parliaments even without the consent and against the presumed claim of the outed Competitors tho' these were sometimes Lineal Heirs and present in the Land Much less then is such consent or cessation of pretence or claim in the relinquishing and absent Competitors necessary to the fulness and validity of such Settlements And tho' the Dispossessed afterward moved Stirs and Wars against those past Settlements that becomes no Argument against their real plenitude for the time being in form of Law for by those new Commotions they designed to reduce themselves into such a full form of Settlement by Parliamentary Recognitions out of which by present Wars they designed to eject their settled Adversaries for to a fuller Advancement they could never raise themselves by the greatest force and successes whatsoever Thus all the precedent Usages in such cases lay before our Estates first in Convention and since that in Parliament and according to these have they made this Settlement as legally full and Obligatory as 't was possible as judging it to be so full in its own Nature and Reason without any present Defects or Capacities of addition Dyscher I wonder you cannot observe here what you readily can when it makes for you that the first Constituting Parliament did not recognize King William and Queen Mary to be de jure but excluded that Assertion out of the Oath But the second Parliament recognized their Right tho' hereby as you will say they added nothing of that intention to the Oath Now then the first Settlement to which those being tacked bears proportion going no further than a Constitution de facto was not at the full because it came not up to the fuller Recognition de jure which being judicially apparent is with you the Legal Form of Title and Ground of Allegiance And so the Oath being required to a Settlement that was not thro'ly full cannot by Bishop Overals Convocation Book be proved due from both Clergy and Laity for that the Settlement to be sworn to was herein defective And herein even Mr. Johnson is more sincere and honest than you who scorns to pay * Pres to the Argument p. 12 13 14. Allegiance upon any kind of Success or forms of Settlement except they are really founded upon Legal Right Eucher It will be as easie for you to observe as for me to remark that the Recognition is but a Declaration not a Constitution of Right and so adds nothing of Right that before was really wanting but more fully declares the Right that stands and is founded in the first Constitution which actually was at full before tho' not so fully declared this Recognition being designed not only to repress the Contradictions of their Majesties Right and Title but to compose as much as might be mens Doubts and Surmises and perhaps this your very Objection hereupon But whatsoever be the Rights Titles or Pretensions of Princes to Crowns antecedent to the actual Settlement they may be fair preparations and grounds of claim but they enter not into the essential form and constituent Reason of a full actual Settlement which commences and consists purely in a Legal Form of Admission by the Estates of this Realm judging for themselves that they may lawfully admit this or that Pretender or Sollicitor even when they are not permitted to judge any thing on the Right of his demand of such Admission which belongs to the Question de jure And to those that are thus de facto settled whether they had any real antecedent Right of claiming or no the National Allegiance is by publick Contract always given to the full without any distinguishing Measures Forms or Abatements And this is not only otherwise evident but is made more so by this present Recognition For this second Parliament that enacted this declarative Recognition of Right gave and could give no further Allegiance than had been before given on the meer Legal Form of Actual Settlement which they in their zeal would have done undoubtedly had they judged the first Settlement any wise deficient in it self or its Obligations to a plenary Allegiance which yet however is of no other form or virtue than that Allegiance which is always given even to meer Kings de facto Which shews the sense of our Nation to be that by our Law Allegiance is given to Kings not on the account of an antecedent real Title to the Crown but on the account of the Legal Form of Settlement into the Actual Possession thereof upon which there is no superiour Judge to hear nor determin Quarrels and Claims of Titles And you that require more to the nature of a full Settlement require more than the Convocation has done which assigns your
Allegiance to the * Lib. 1. Can. 27. King de facto * Ibid. Chap. 28. tho' he come into the full Settlement by wrong and injurious means and requires only a National Submission or a continuance of quiet possession to the form of * Ibid. Chap. 30. a full and thorow Settlement owning the original wickedness of the seizure to be no Legal Bar or impeachment to the Authority of their Government into which they are formally and fully settled And such was the State of the Caesars in the Empire when the two great Apostles required Christian Subjection to them not on the moral justice of their Titles of which they could be no Judges but on their actual settlement in the Concession and Submission of the Senate and other popular Powers And such also was the reason of subjection in those instanced Changes on which that Convocation wisely grounded this their now celebrious Determination But since you have again upbraided me with Mr. Johnson I cannot choose but observe how naturally men that run into contrary extreams do meet in the other side of the Sphere as you and your greatest Adversaries do in this present Controversie And you both therefore fall into the same absurdities Now here Mr. Johnson either understands not the formal Nature of a full Settlement of if he does he is inconsistent with himself For if as I have proved a National Admission constitutes a Settlement how can Mr. Johnson explode Settlement when he places the Right of Kings in the Admission of the People But if he requires any moral justice to make the Act of the People Rightful then if the People fail in that moral Justice how can their Constitution be really Right by which Justice it self is violated And such failure in a People is no impossibility except you will entitle them to an infallible Sanctity in all popular Actions As for example Mr. Johnson produces but one Authority * Arg. 1. p. 50 51. out of Knyghton to prove that Kings acting perversly against the Laws may be deposed and some one of the Royal Race advanced by the Peers and People I will not now strive to weaken the Authority and Credit of the Author herein nor the Truth of that Power which the then Lords and Commons claimed against their King neither will I alledge the many Changes and Statutes since that seem to have abrogated the popular right of Abrogation but suppose that this still is the Right of the Nation against their Kings yet if the People should on false pretences and imputations abrogate their King this Act could not be morally Just and Right tho' it were in form legal and if the Subjects that are innocent are not to admit what is thus externally Legal except it be also altogether Rightful then are they not bound to stand by any Popular Abrogations which they know or judge to be morally faulty and consequently may oppose all new Titles if they are founded in the real Right of such Abrogations And to come close home to the Case if King James were not really guilty of every one of those Enormities to a Title upon which such Statute did legitimate the Abrogation and the Convention had really abrogated their King without accurate conviction of all those guilts recited by that lost or undiscoverable Statute quoted by Knyghton then had their Abrogation been a nullity as not being Rightful But further if men shall object that Knyghtons relation of a Statute not seen by himself but only said to be objected by the Peers and the Commons is not a Record nor a valid Testimony to any Civil Consequences as being not upon Oath liable to Error and uncapable of judicial forms of Discussion besides its singularity where shall we find a bottom to authorize King James's abrogation For 't is not enough to a Judicial Conviction or effect or surmise that Richard destroyed that Statute in the Tower upon such a general crimination that he defaced Statutes of which there is no particular form of Conviction extant no not in Knyghton who yet is the only Traditor of this Transaction but you must bring us legal proof for what must legally concern us And yet nothing else that Mr. Johnson hath cited out of Law Books nor King John's Charter in the Pastoral Letter doth amount to a Popular Right of Abrogation but only to a limited power of resisting Kings on their oppression of the Laws and Constitutions So that whatsoever has in fact been done toward our several Changes must not all be taken or sworn to as Right but the consequent Settlements by National Acts must be taken for formally Legal for the time being and submitted to under that Notion leaving the real Right of the procedures to Gods judgment because there is none other under Heaven to adjust it above the National Sanctions Dyscher I did not interject the mention of Mr. Johnson to justifie all his Principles but only to alledge for our Cause those Right Concessions of our greatest Enemies as more candid and clear from jugling than you even in his greatest bitterness I will now dismiss him and produce you what a Friend of mine impartially reflected on this pretended Authority in the Judicial Opinions of Parliaments viz. that you cannot but know that this Power of Parliaments is absolutely denied by that Party against whom you dispute and we do not think it reasonable to be convinced without proof viz. that what is thus done is agreeable to the Laws of England MS. Reflect Eucher If you are not inwardly convinced of the truth of their Judgment upon their Power and of the lawfulness of their Constitution founded thereupon I cannot help that Neither is the Care of the State so much concerned to enforce such an inward conviction tho' it is to perswade it and to silence Contradictions But as I have often told you Judicial Opinions must overbear all private ones to the contrary as to all Civil Consequences This the peace of mankind the necessity of ending Controversies and the fundamental Reasons of Government do universally require so that you must assign some Superior Court or Judge within the Kingdom to be determined by if you will not stand to their Judgment or expose all to private judgments the first of which is impossible to be sworn and the later impracticable in a Society And to turn the dull point of this Objection on your self the Parliament doth not think it reasonable to be determined by Private Judgments especially those of the professed Enemies of their long-settled and immemorial Authority And what if I oppose the general Trust of the Nation in Civils to the publick Judgment of our Parliaments rather than the contrary Decisions of some private Zealots and Casuists whose Senses are seldom uniform often impracticable and always inauthoritative Will you here set your Private Judgments in battle array against the Authority and Judgment of the whole Nation and the Publick Estates thereof Or whether
is that which you promise me from the Scriptures I pray out with that too that I may either reply to it or send it to the Censure of Gilman's Coffee-House or the Impartial Reflections of a Private Friend Eucher I cannot be sullen to you to whose Felicity and sound Judgment I wish with all my Soul I could contribute And you being men of Religion that can dare to suffer for what you think right and sacred will be like to have greater respect to good and clever Arguments from the Holy Oracles We will therefore consider the several Settlements of the Children of Israel under Civil Forms of Government and try whether their actual plenitude consisted in a National Contract or any other bottom And in order hereunto I shall observe two sorts of Settlements among them one Consequent to an Antecedent Right and Title the other constituent of the Title to and in the Sovereignty And according to this Order I begin with the former First Then God upon a good original and antecedent Title actually settles himself in the political Royalty and Government of that People hence by Divines usually called the Theocracy by that Covenant at Sinai by which he properly and peculiarly became their God and King also and they his peculiar People not only under a Religious and Ecclesiastical but also a Civil Relation Exod. 19. Exod. 24. alib passim When God himself and Samuel the Prophet in God's Name had entitled Saul to the Throne of Israel by a sacred Unction yet was he afterwards actually and fully settled therein by the Popular Engagement of true Allegiance to him and was hence said to be made and chosen King as well by the People as by God and Samuel 1 Sam. chap. 9. Chap. 10. Chap. 11. Chap. 12. Thus tho' David's Title to that Succession was divinely originated in the Unction of Samuel 1 Sam. 16. yet his full and actual Settlement over Judah consisting in his Unction by the People in Hebron 2 Sam. 2. and after the death of Ishbosheth he was thro'ly and actually settled over the other Tribes by their Covenant and Unction transacted by their Elders 2 Sam. 5. And Solomon tho' designed by God and advanced by David and anointed by Zadock into the full Title unto that Sovereignty was yet finally and compleatly settled in that Throne of the Lord by the consequent Acts and Unction of that People as an Induction on an antecedent Presentation and Institution 1 Kings 1. 1 Chron. Chap. 24. Chap. 25. And thus to Rehoboams Paternal Title the People were to add their Actual Consummation of his Settlement in like manner 1 King 11. 2 Chron. 10. And last of all Jehu who by a Prophetick Unction and Gods Designation had a Divine Right and Title to the Sovereignty of the Ten Tribes and began to make way to his Actual Settlement by the slaughter of Joram Ahaziah and Jezabel yet sends to the Council at the Royal City Samaria and bids them settle the best and meetest of their Masters Sons on the Throne of their Father Ahab as knowing that that had been the usual Office of the Senate But they not daring to oppose Jehu tho' perhaps they knew nothing of his Prophetick Unction reply that they would not make any King i. e. any but himself but they contract a total submission to him and sealed that Contract in the Blood of Ahab's Sons and so actually admitted him into the full Settlement and Possession of that Sovereignty 2 Kings Chap. 9. Chap. 10. So that tho' these Titles to the Sovereignty were not founded in the Grant of the People but of God yet the full Settlement of all these New Kings consequent to their Titles did consist in the Publick Contract and Recognition of the People Secondly The Peoples Concurrence was sometimes constituent of a Title meerly human as well as a full and formal Settlement Thus the People would have given Gideon an hereditary Monarchy Judges 8. as the Elders of Gilead made Jephthah their Captain Judges 11. and as the Shechemites did what in them lay entitle Abimelech Judges 9. The Ten Tribes made Jeroboam King which God that had preingaged it by his Prophet ratified by an inhibition against Rehoboams recovery 2 Kings 12. 2 Chron. Chap. 10. Chap. 11. But Zimri who reigned but seven days in Tirzah without the full consent of the whole People wanted a good Title as well as a full Settlement thereupon and so was opposed by the Camp at Gibbethon who set up Omri against him and so he perished in a Fire of his own kindling 1 Kings 16. And this was that perhaps which Jezabel objects to Jehu 2 Kings 9. Had Zimri peace who slew his Master Did the people permit him a full and peaceable Settlement in the Throne who slow his own Sovereign Which Omri however obtained after the extinction of Tibni his Competitor 1 Kings 16.22 23. Thus in the Kingdom of Judah after Josiah's death the People of the Land took Jehoahaz probably the younger Brother to Eliakim and made him King And in that Act of the People the fulness of his Title as well as his Actual Settlement seems to have consisted 2 Kings 23. 2 Chron. 36. So that in short the Regular Constitution of their Native Kings was that subordinately to Gods Election the People should settle each New Line according to the direction of the Law Deut. 17.14 15. When thou shalt say I will set a King over me thou shalt in any wise set him King over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose c. But in the degeneracy of the Ten Tribes they set up Kings by their own Act alone without waiting or consulting the Will of God as he complains Osee 8.4 They have set up Kings but not by me they have made them Princes but I knew it not Yet God's permission hereof made the usage valid to a Title meerly human tho' done contrary to the Law And therefore to Baasha who came in this way God says 1 Kings 16.2 I have exalted thee out of the Dust and made thee Prince over my People Israel Now these things in fact were done as well in injury to the Heirs-Royal as to God and yet the full and actual Settlement by the People according to their modes gave them a form of human Title which was civily valid tho' not otherwise and especially Sacred And to conclude since it is recorded that God at first granted them Kings at their request after the manner of the Nations 1 Sam. 8. it intimates that this was then the Formal Rule of New Settlements at least among all the bordering Nations However this Office of the People being always the final Act must needs give the last plenitude to the Settlement and God surely in the admission of these Forms must be granted to know and judge them to be full and final whatsoever else was or might be sometimes constituent of an antecedent Title which the convocation-Convocation-Book does not make essentially
and Damnation not required by the word or law of God must in their own nature be And thus in the ancient Church all rigorous Doctrines which made sins where God hath made none draw after them inevitable Separations and so became Heretical Dyscher Well how doth this affect us Eucher I am afraid in all your Principles which make our present Allegiance Illegal and Irreligious Dyscher I pray form them into propositions and make your convictive Strictures upon them if you can Eucher I take no delight in such an Employ It is no pleasure to me to wound or grieve you but as the setting before you the danger of your Principles may correct the precipitancy of your Zeal I will obey and observe your direction First then Maj. Whosoever teacheth Men not to be subject to the Human Constitution and the Authorities that are as Gods Ordinance teacheth practical Errors Min. But so you teach Men against the present Constitution and Authorities Ergo. Concl. You teach Men practical Errors Again in another Form Maj. Whosoever teacheth it to be Perjury to swear Allegiance to a new settled Sovereign upon the Desertion of the former to whom we had sworn Allegiance teacheth practical Errors Min. But such is your Doctrine contrary to Bishop Overals Convocation book Ergo. Concl. You teach practical Errors Again in another Form Maj. Whosoever teacheth to disobey Princes fully settled in a Government procured by ill means teacheth practical Errors Min. But so do ye in the Reasons of your present Recusancy Ergo Concl. You teach practical Errors Again in another Instance Maj. Whosoever teacheth Men not to pray for Kings and all that are in Authority teacheth Men Practical Errors Min. But so teach most of you in the Reasons of your present Recusancy Ergo. Concl. Most of you teach practical Errors Again in another Instance Maj. Whosoever teacheth Men presumptuously to speak evil of Dignities teacheth practical Errors Min. But so do most of you Ergo Concl. Most of you teach practical Errors Again in another Instance Maj. Whosoever excommunicates or teaches Men to refuse Communion with Men that have sworn Allegiance to Powers fully settled acts upon and teacheth practical Errors Min. But so most of you act and instruct Men against our Communion because we have sworn Allegiance to the Powers fully settled over us Ergo Concl. You act upon and teach Men practical Errors And now considering all wherein I have answered you what can you say hereto Dyscher I answer we do not deny any of your Major and general Propositions but we deny your Minors that we teach such Doctrines for our Recusancy But we teach that those Major Maxims do not affect our particular Case for that these are not Constitutions Authorities or Dignities fully settled on which the Church according to the Apostles requires respect and obedience Eucher This is like those prevaricating Salvo's which your Author of Christian Communion upbraids us with †Part 3. Ch. 5. in eluding general Precepts from influencing in particular Cases but to omit this I have however gained another advantage and success by my Advice viz. that in the matter of Allegiance you must quit your Pretensions to Ecclesiastical Doctrines as the grounds of your Recusancy Deprivation and Separation and consequently there is an End of your low and causeless Clamours for your glorious Passive Doctrines as the Cause of your Sufferings all the remaining Question now being between us whether the present Constitution be fully settled which is a Point of Law not Religion to be resolved by the State not the Church by the Court Civil not the Court Christian And hereupon such Civil Judgments are to be secured by Religion and Conscience while they stand reversed and so you are obliged to acquiesce in the Judgments of our Parliaments in this Point But while you oppose this upon Principles of Conscience consider the Danger of Heresie which lies before you Maj. Whosoever teacheth Men to oppose the Course of public Judgment in Civils upon private Opinions to the contrary teacheth Rules of Sedition against Civil Government it self and in them practical Errors Min. But you teach Men to oppose the public Judgment of the Nation for our full Settlement in the present State Ergo Concl. You teach Rules of Sedition against civil Government it self and in them practical Errors Or thus in another Form Maj. He that teacheth Men to act against confessed Principles of Truth ought to be exauctorated Min. But you teach Men to practice Disobedience contrary to those Principles of Truth which you are forced to confess Ergo Concl. You are to be exauctorated Now I cannot for my part see how you can avoid this Charge which your own rigours against us have extorted from me And yet I have urged it for no ill Ends but only to lay before you the ill Aspects of your Division upon those your very Principles in which you glory For here I can more justly enclose you with your Vindicator's Dilemma viz. that if you separate without Principles you are then Schismatical if upon Principles you incur Heresie But if this be so the Church and State may according to your own Rules eject you without a Synod which I compassionately beg you tenderly to consider Dyscher Well let our Cause be what it will in Fact or Opinion I look upon these Lay and Parliamentary Forms of Deprivation to be very dangerous to the Spiritual Franchises of the Church tho' we suppose that such servile and gradual Concurrences of the Church do give them an Ecclesiastical Effect for that they destroy out of the Faith of Christians the Sense of those Spiritual Liberties and Authorities of the Church that by a Divine Charter and an Apostolic Descent belong to her and instil a fatal Erastianism into men's Principles and for that Cause ought not to be received but censured by the Church for that your Party founds their Authority on this false Proposition that the Church and State of England are the same Society whereas there are many Subjects of the State that are no Members of the Church as Apostates Papists Heretics and all unbaptized Persons Tho' yet were this Hypothesis true that all the same persons were equally Members of the Church and State yet as they are a Church and spiritually sociated they must be governed by a Spiritual Authority and as a State by the Civil Power of the Sword nor must the identity of the People confound the Distinction of Powers Besides as we are a Church we are of Right sociated into the unity of the whole Catholic Church to be maintained by an uniform Ecclesiastical Conduct the only ligament of Catholic Communion but as we are a State the Catholic Church is not concerned with us to take any Cognisance of our Civil Procedures but if as a Church we corrupt the Ecclesiastical Government into Civil we break off and excommunicate our selves from the Catholic Unity by deserting the Catholic Forms and Ties of