Union Eucher As to that Principle of the Identity of Church and State and the Consequences Men draw from thence to assert the Right of Civil Authority in Spiritual Processes I leave it to them whose Heads are clear enough to justifie it But for my own part allowing your exceptions to the contrary yet our Case has justified it self ex naturâ Rei And I must further advertise you that this Church has long submitted to the use of such Powers over us and that fundamentally in Q. Elizabeth's Reformation and in many other matters in which the State had not so much pretence of Right or Necessity all which have passed uncensured by us but in this whether well or ill God must judge The Subscription of a Popish Clergy to avoid a Premunire drew after it such Acts of Parliament as thro' which we can make no provision for the Church noâ— move a question for her good without Royal License nor have so much freedom in our Concernments and Duties as every little Corporated Burrough has in it's voluntary Councils which tho' it be a tolerable Condition under a good King that has a Zeal for Christianity yet under an Irreligious King 't is an absolute Bondage and bar to the Primitive Purity Course and Vigour of Religion In the Reign of Edward the VI. they struck out the Ordinaries names out of all Processes Ecclesiastical and set in the Kings as if all Church Power had been derived from the Crown the non-payment of Tenths tho' omitted by mere neglect and not on any Principle of Opinion remains yet a Cause of Deprivation And those shackles which the State of old thought necessary to restrain us from Popery now the reasons of that Conduct are cessant become great Obstacles to the Primitive and Catholic Reformation of our yet remaining defects of which thâ—s Church upon a just liberty and Authority restored her would become the first Example and the noblest Standard Yet all this Subjection we have born in Silence tho' hereby only can Popery be reduced whensoever a Popish Conjuncture shall arise upon us and no Body has yet dared to offer a good mediation with the Public for a Temperament in these things And if our dulness herein has not been by us or you accounted Schismatical shall we be judged Schismatics in admitting these much more reasonable Deprivations in which the Lay-powers are concerned not only in point of Care and Interest but even in certain and undubitable measures of Right Dyscher How so Sir Eucher As the State is the Churches Hospital so a Corporal or Civil Communion is substrate to the visible Communion of the Church For tho' I allow you what you * Sol. ab pag. 25. justly challenge to the innocent a primitive fundamental and undeniable Right to good as well in common as in consecrated Places yet it is certain that in order to this Claim they must give all just security and assurance of their innocency upon Test demanded by the Civil Powers that are Guardians of these fundamental Liberties to all good Subjects of which innocency an Oath of Allegiance seems the most obvious proper and usual Form of security between Subjects and Sovereigns Otherwise the Civil Powers may restrain those Libeties of which they are the Trustees Thus a Civil Soveraign may prohibit and punish all conversation with the Enemies or Recusants of his Civil Authority Now conversation simply in it self alone is a secular communication but absolutely Fundamental to the Ecclesiastical which is a visible Communion in Spirituals Though then the Secular Authority alone as such does not touch the Spirituals yet it may upon just and legal Causes take away all that secular and local Communion that is substrate to the Ecclesiastical And he that may upon Recusancies of Subjection forbid all personal Communication with a Recusant may forbid it in any certain Place Time Matter or Measure and consequently at all such Times and Places when and where the Recusant may call upon him to attend in Spirituals But this Right and Authority of the Magistrate I lodge not in arbitrary will respectively but on the nature and merit of the provocation And the Right which the Christians have to the Liberty of their Sacred Functions is not peculiar to them as Christians by a Charter altogether unconditionally exempt from Civil Powers and so a Right of Gods positive constitution in the Church as a Society founded by Christ liable to no secular Reflections for any Cause whatsoever but is a common and natural Right to all Persons of clear and unspotted innocency as such to do that which is good originally due to them from the Creation And hence Civil Powers becoming Judges of our Morals and Innocency are Guardians of that natural Right but may justly deny it to others but will not approve their innocency by due Tests to the Public Peace of the Government to which Recusants therefore the rightful Capacity Ecclesiastical Communion is lost when the natural Right to Society is either totally or in the proper opportunities of sacred Communion justly denied by the Civil Powers And to say true he that by ill Principles or Practices deserves the loss and deprivation of all common Society much more deserves the deprivation of the Spiritual that stands as a Super-structure on the other And therefore if our ill merits Authorize the Powers to take away at the bottom the Foundation of our Religious Commuion they can tho' not directly and immediatly touch yet undermine the spiritual Structure by destroying its secular Foundation which lies within the Authority and Care of Civil Powers So that in this respect and form an Heathen Prince may rightly deprive seditious or disloyal Priests of the Priviledge of actually using their Ecclesiastical Functions by rightly denying them so much secular Society as is Fundamentally requisite to the exercise of them And thus far a Statute of Deprivation may have this Civil obligation that no Subject shall yield corporal Communion with Recusant Priests when they call him to sacred Offices any where and Laws may shut them out from consecrated Places that there may be no such local Society in them And if such Recusancy against civil Powers be notorious confessed or avowed then is such Act of State both just and civil only but at the same time the bottom of the Recusants Ecclesiastical Offices is righteously and validly taken away Dyscher Well well notwithstanding these Subtilties yet the Temporal Powers cannot take away the actual Relation between Priest and People tho' they may suspend or incapacitate them hereby from the actual Ministeries of their Orders And so hence accrues no Right to civil Powers to impose new Bishops on the Church Eucher There are two known Canonical Causes of depriving Spiritual Persons Immoralities and erroneous Principles So that if either of these hath merited and drawn after it a Forfeiture and Deprivation of all that secular and local Communion and Society which is necessary to the
sacred Functions the Church upon certain Notoriety of that Guilt Forfeiture and civil Incapacity may elect and consecrate others who have contracted no such Blemish or Incapacity Nor needs there here the Judgment of a Synod as is confessed in the like Case of Callinicus and Cyrus before mentioned which is only necessary to discuss and determine things dubious in Fact or Right So that in such Cases where there is no Rule set to the contrary the Church on her old original Liberties may of her own accord proceed to a new Promotion and I think ought to do so when the Blemish and consequent Incapacity are irremediable And what the Church in freedom may do without Command she may do when commanded even by those Powers which have no direct Right to manage our Ecclesiasticals as Infidel and Un-Christian Powers have not Yet indirectly I grant a new Settlement in the Church may be necessary to the weal of an Un-Christian State which then has an indirect Right to command the Church within it to fill the Vacancies and then she is in Duty bound to obey not only for Wrath but also for Conscience sake whensoever so commanded as having no Authority to oppose those actual Reasons or the civil Causes of such the secular Commands so that in the lawful Vacancy she must be obedient And if this be a just Rule for the Christian Church under Un-Christian Princes much more ought it to be so under Christian ones to whom as nursing Fathers you know our Church gives great Homage and Deference Have you any thing more to object Dyscher Nothing at all except you will hear me repeat the three last Pages of T. B. spent wholly in charging you with soliciting our total Ruin and Misusage of your deprived Metropolitan and Diocesan on their refusal of a Petition with the same pernicious Design but because I must confess you were most carefully tender of censuring the Counsels of those Fathers and T. B. discovers himself too openly calumnious in those Impeachments I have done and commend us all to God's Grace and Mercy Eucher T. B. is one of those Men who love to speak evil of Dignities and the things they know not supplying the Narrowness of his Understanding with Rage and Bitterness for which I heartily remit him to God's Mercy But as for your Fathers and all the venerable Numbers of good Men fallen in this Change I compassionately beseech them tenderly to lay these things to heart and unanimously to think of some healing Expedient for our mutual Peace and Joy There have been who upon the bare dry Inferences of their Arguments have desired them to desist and quit claim only which is to ask not shew them Charity But might it not be thought too assuming I think I could propose such a certain Scheme of Resolutions as would so effectually close up our present Wounds as to turn all our Sighs and Sorrows into Joys and the Voice of Melody But being conscious of my Station and Measures and doubtful of your Misapprehensions I forbear and leave you and your Counsels to the Divine Conduct and your own Piety that you may happily recover that Union from which your Errors and Infirmities have too much alienated you being willing to hope that as St. Paul said of Onesimus Perhaps you are departed from us for a Season that we should receive you again for ever Amen ADVERTISEMENT WHereas T. B. Sec Let. pag. 29. and the impartial Reflecter vehemently contend against my Suggestion in Sol Ab. pag. 11. that K. James's Dispensation with the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy might look like a Concession to us to transfer our Allegiance they dealt with me disingenuously for that I made for them an effectual Answer against that Argument before in which my Conformist silently acquiesced And that Answer I made is stronger and sincerer than theirs which I could teize to purpose were I minded to wrangle But as I made Eucheres abide by just Reason then so will I use no perverseness now And in truth that Passage was brought in not with a Design to insist on it but only to introduce it for a smoother Passage to the Liberties granted us by K. James's Coronation-Oath For which Cause I laying no stress upon that Argument from the Dispensation have wholly omitted to contend with my Adversaries on it in this Debate I hope the wicked Surmise of T. B. that His Majesty would murther the Princess of Denmark and the Duke of Gloucester Sec. Lett. p. 22 if her Royal Highness should outlive the Queen is now fully refuted since her Excellent Majesties Death and it will become T. B. torepent for it in Dust and Ashes A Postscript to Mr. Richard Chiswell SIR SInce I was once an Author of yours in Solomon and Abiathar which you Printed and this very Debate was offered to your Edition once Anno 93 which you declined with thanks to me however for the respect I desire you to consider what an ungrateful office you have undertaken in publishing a Reproach against me and these very Books in the Vniversity Man's Postscript to you I am not offended at this miscarriage in you that are a Man of Interest but yet as you may justly reprove your self and your Sollicitor for this indecent way of abusing your own Authors and Books so I challenge you for a witness of the Falshood he has caused you to Print Look upon my Letter to you sometime in the Summer 93. and therein you will find this Book offered you which this Vniversity Man tells you and by your Press the Nation that it was written since the Book remarked on to secure my self against a Storm I shall makeshort however and desire you to remember my love to him and tell him that it is the most undâ—cent sort of confidence in him of all Men living to despise any Man's Writings for the present Government and to accuse any Pen for Brutality towards the Jacobites He will know the meaning at your first suggestion by the interpreting Conscience within him or that part thereof that is left And so I dismiss you with assurance that I am Your much obliged Servant S. Hill A General Remonstrance to all Good Christians IN the name of God the Sovereign Lord and Judge I remonstrate and protest that I measure not any Men by their Fortunes but their Merits and that the Sufferings of good Men increase my Affections towards them 2. That I published Solomon and Abiathar not for worldly Interest nor with any injurious design nor thro' a vanity of Affectation but on purpose to get satisfaction from the learned in the Right of Communion to the avoiding of Schism 3. That particular provocations made that discussion and it's publication absolutely and inevitably necessary 4. That after its Publication I waited two years for Satisfaction before ever I entred into the present Communion 5. That the Meditations in this Debate have satisfy'd me that our Communion is consistent with the most Catholic and Primitive Rules or else I could not have joyned in it 6. That for my own part I renounce all Ecclesiastic Servitude and all Principles leading thereto and I do declare for an assertion of the Rights and Liberties Hierarchical in contempt of all Persecutions yet not to arrogate that Liberty as a Cloak for Maliciousness 7. That tho' Calumny urged the Publication of this Debate yet that alone should not have prevailed thereunto had I not thought it of good use to reconcile Dissensions and to obviate many growing Prejudices 8. That tho' it be a public blemish that the great Authors of our present Heresies are not yet censured by Authority yet this does not illegitimate our public Communion with the Innocent who have no power to reform it nor can it in the least affect those that make their uttermost remonstrances against it 9. That all Spiteful and Insincere Writers on the point of Communion design to widen our Breaches and are therefore utter Enemies to the Church of God and their Native Country 10. That tho' I had many inducements to have collected all T. B's Flowers of barbarous and unparallelâ—d Railery into one view yet that the odium thereof may not reflect any prejudice on the better part of that side I have forborn remitting him to the friendly correction of his wiser and better Brethren and have so endeavoured to temper this Discourse as that all along Mercy and Truth might meet together that Righteousness and Peace may kiss each other Amen After all whosever is not satisfied to the full may hereby be however induced to beware of censuring us for Men wilfully Perjured and Schismatical since I suppose the reasons here offered are not all contemptible but may justify the Author in his Design of quitting himself from the guilt of those black and horrid Imputations the natural Right of every suspected or accused Innocent FINIS Books Printed for John Everingham at the Star in Ludgate-street THE Spirit of Jacobitism or Remarks upon a Dialogue between K. W. and Benting in a Dialogue between two Friends of the present Government A Sermon Preached before the H. of Lords at the Abbey-Church of St. Peter's Westminster on Thursday the 30th of Jan. 1695 6. being the Martyrdom of K. Ch. I. By the Right Reverend Father in God Humphrey L. Bishop of Bangor A Sermon Preach'd before the House of Lords at the Abbey-church of St. Peter's Westm on Wednesday the 11th of Dec. 1695. being the Day Appointed for a Solemn Fast and Humiliation by the Right Rev. Father in God James L. Bishop of Lincoln Eight Serm. Preach'd on sev Occasions 1. Of the Power and Efficacy of Faith 2. The danger of Mis-informed Conscience or Mistaken Principles in Religion 3. Of the Different Dispensations of Grace and of Impenitency under the best Means of Salvation 4. The Case of a late or Death-bed Repentance 5. The Streight and Certain way to Happiness 6. Of Growth in Grace 7. Of Murther particularly Duelling and Self-Murther 8. Of the Shortness and Instability of Humane Life
not persevere in your Sin since it is one of those Sins that shuts out of the true Chuch of God For if it were necessary I could prove that its Principles destroy the Churches Fundamentals and Structure if such Principles which destroy all Morals and all Faith and Truth among men can be said to do so by which men may exclude themselves as well as be thrown out by others without an Authentick Act of an Ecclesiastick Judic tory and your instance in the Roman Church is Insignificant for we do not communicate with it but that of the Eastern Churches is still less to the purpose for I am not satisfied that either they have condemned us or we them as Schismaticks and Dr. Basier was desired by some of the Greek Clergy to Communicate and Minister among them neither did he refuse it T. B.'s 2d Lett. p. 10 11. Eucher But Brother it is not enough to call things by hard Names but it is necessary to shew wherein the iniquity consists and by what Law For submission to a Civil Constitution after its settlement is no Perjury Robbery Rebellion nor Impiety if men contribute no antecedent Evil to the Change and it is this meer Submission which I undertook to defend as being the only thing that can be charged on the Ecclesiastick Body And tho you pretend it unnecessary yet you can never carry your cause that we are Self Excommunicate upon the malignity of our Principles except you prove it and shew that our Maxims destroy all Morals and all Faith and Truth among Men since you load us with such an heinous and general charge and I know not to what purpose you discoursed me last or discourse me now except it be to convince me of the Reality and Anathematizing guilt of our Sin in this Submission Here then you must to the Law and to the Testimony and make up a very exact proof in order to Conviction for Men are not to be harangued into condemnation by meer unproved and general clamour but by very articulate evidence only which therefore I shall expect from you in the course of this Conference In the mean time when I alledged that we own the Roman and Greek Churches to be Churches notwithstanding their far greater Pollutions and Confusions than can be imagined in our present Ecclesiastical Change that hence I might evince us not to be Unchurched i. e. cut off from being Members of the Church Catholick as not having been condemned out of it by any Ecclesiastical Sentence 't is strange you should censure this instance for impertinent upon these pretensions that we refuse the Roman but admit the Greek Communion for by your favour in order to Unchurching which very intelligibly is the making us no Church of Christ you must have proved our Change more censurable than all the Pollutions of the Roman and Greek Churches And since you accuse us as Self-Excommunicate and therefore uncapable of your Communion which yet you deny not to the Greeks as being with you no Schismaticks the instance of that Churches Corruptions was not less but far more pertinent to our Cause for if their Corruptions are far greater than ours and yet cut them not off from the Right of Catholick Communion I think we are as much entituled to that Communion who have far less and fewer Irregularities So that except you can prove our Change more Irregular than the State of the Greek Church you cannot out us of that Communion you assert to them Here indeed you saw your self pinched and so shift off the matter with a piff as if I would be shaken off with an empty Scoff of Impertinence No no I will sit a little closer on your Skirts and though I shall not exagitate or upbraid all the known disorders in that distressed Church yet will I object to you the many Arbitrary Changes of their Patriarchs made by a Mahometan Emperor and admitted by them toties quoties whensoever the Grand Seignior has a mind to ease their Purses of that money which the new Patriarch is to tax on the Church as the price of his Advancement without any other Provocation or Inducement whatsoever Is not this a greater corruption than any can be imagined in our Change This you know was what I intended and yet you condemn not them as Schismaticks though here are frequent Deprivations and New Advancements admitted by the Greek Church to the Will of an Infidel Prince without any other crime of the Deposed and only for Monys sake Dyscher I did indeed in our last Conference * Sol. Ab. p. 24 29. censure this Blemish in the Greek Church But here I will give you the answer of one of our most puissant Advocates concerning this disorder in the Greek Church with his Apology foâ— the like frequent Depositions of the Jewisâ— High-Priests * Christ Commun Part 2. cap. 3. p. 32. In these alledged State-deprivations of the Jewish High-Priests either of Abiathar by Solomon or after they came under Roman subjection of the Chief Priests by the Roman Procurators there was only a Change of Persons but matters of Religion went on every thing the same in Doctrines Practices Prayers Sacrifices and Services of the Temple and the Synagogues and when these are not corrupted Gods faithful Ministers may yield their personal claims to State-Deprivations to secure Protection and Civil Benefits to the Church This also clears the instance of the Submission of the Greeks on the frequent Deprivations of their Patriarchs by the Turkish Governors The benefits of Incorporation which they propose to secure thereby are not the most tempting lying not so much in being priviledged and beneficed by the State as in not being persecuted but tolerated under it And their submission for keeping on this State-benefit such as it is is not without detriment to the Church tho' their breaking with the State they fear would be more detrimental the Turks making their new Advancements for Mony to be levied on the Church by the new Patriarch to the countenance and growth of great Corruption and to the bringing of the Church in debt But as to the course of Religious Ministrations they are the same under both Patriarchs in the same Doctrines of Faith and Manners Prayers and Publick Offices But now you know with us here is a change in all these parts of our Religion in teaching men to swear falsly to rob our King Bishops and Priests and to pray for Robbers and Usurpers against the just and true Proprietors Eucher But all this Charge of Alteration in Religion is downright Calumny uncapable of any proof in any one particular For we preach only Submission to a Legal Change of Governors and pray for them that are set over us by Legal Rules of Constitution Therefore tho' Governors like the state of all things temporal are liable to changes yet the Rules and Forms of our Religion and Morals are still permanent and unaltered And here I think I may
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
and in their visible Communion During this Tract of time can any Man think that no Clergy Men had any Conferences with their Dissenting Bishops hereupon And in those Conferences did those Fathers Condemn and forbid these Prayers at which themselves were daily present No I believe no where and somewhere in several instances I know the contrary that directions have been given to use our present Forms But one thing I will further tell you that these innocent Fathers were not so gulled as you pretend in the first motions For upon the Enthroning of their present Majesties and the Change of the Prayers and Oath of new Allegiance the Recusant Bishops met together in Consultation how to act in these Affairs and after all Debates agitated they came to this Resolution that they would not oppose the Prayers for that it would seem too invidious and uncharitable to deny their Majesties our Devotions but determined only to stick at the Oath This I presume those Fathers will not deny and if any of them should hereafter challenge me for this Report I will give them my Author whom I presume no Man can Impeach of falsehood or Detraction But I would not have mentioned this had not you reproached me with the Lye even while you endeavour to cover the most evident Truths with Clouds and Darkness Nor do I mention this to cast a blemish on them For did not their Deprivations seem to them Schismatical I believe they would not have repudiated our Communion upon the mere account of our Prayers as neither did your great Coryphaeus till the Deprivation of the Primate All which is open Truth tho' these Fathers never read these Prayers which I never charged on them since 't is otherwise very rare to hear Bishops reading the Prayers in any Church whatsoever And this Concession to these Prayers being past on their most serious considerations there was no Cause why they should blow the Trumpet against what they judged lawful But had they really judged the contrary this concurrence had been worse than the neglect of winking Watch-Men or the silence of dumb Dogs to which I never compared them tho' your Censorious Rigours must brand this moderation with more infamous Characters as is evident from this Discourse of yours and the second Chapter of the first Part of your Treatise of Christian Communion And having thus vindicated their Equity and my Reverence thereof methinks such a Man of Manners as you have approved your self hitherto to be should have besprinkled our Fathers also a little more decently and not as generally you do with Tinctures drawn from the Lake of Sodom But to leave you to the felicity of your own good Humours I shall only observe what a silly innuendo you flurt upon the Secretaries or Council of State that they were in great fear what stirs these Bishops would make had they not concerted with Mr. Jones at the Savoy to carry on this Religious Intrigue in the Blind whereas these Fathers expected their determined Fate with all imaginable calmness and serenity as Men that well understood the patience of Saints And in that exemplary Patience they were impatient at those who thro' too great bitterness called our Conformity the Apostacy of the Church of England for the truth of which if you will not believe me I hope you will Mr. Dodwell to whom I therefore refer you for satisfaction And therefore you that would raise you a Monument out of those Flames you kindle by reproaching us with infamous Imputations recede from the pattern and act without the direction of your Fathers Dyscher Another Reason why we may lawfully join in those Prayers is because as you would Perswade us King James and your King William are very good Friends That King James is not among the number of King William and Queen Mary's Enemies MS. Reflex And you prove it for that the Prayers express him not and that you rank him not among the number of King William and Queen Mrry's Enemies For an Enemy is one that designeth to injure a Man and we are not sure that King James doth so design against King William But do you not verily believe that K. James would willingly regain his Crown if he could and consequently dispossess King William Or do you think this no Injury to K. William And no more say you can be intended in those Prayers of the Liturgy for King William than to defeat him King James in that Injurious intention For we pray for no Mans nor Kings Destruction or hurt These are * Sol. Ab. pag. 14. your reasons why no Jacobite ought to Scruple to join with you in the Common-Prayers for King William viz. To strengthen him that he may Vanquish and overcome all his Enemies because King James intends him no Injury Transubstantiation is easie to this This is perswading us out of all our Senses at once King James and King William appear upon the Head of two Armies * These two words might well have been spared to cover c. and Fight and each calls those Rebels that adhere to the other and yet they are not Enemies It is no hurt to the one if the other get the Victory and therefore you may Pray for Victory to King William without meaning any hurt to King James Why then are you offended at those that Pray for Victory to King James against King William Here is no Injury intended to King William only that King James may have a Victory that is all Is this the Argument to perswade Mens Consciences to join in your Common Prayers Is this the strength of your Cause The strong and solid Conviction of the sincerity and plainness of your Dealing MS. Reflex But supposing he will do no Wrong yet sure he may demand and endeavour to recover his Right And I am apt to think that your little ambitious Dutch Saviour would think no Man in the World so much his Enemy as he that demands three Kingdoms from him Nor do we call only those Enemies who design Injuries but even all who actually oppose each other or between whom there is any Contest let their Designs be what they will or their Cause right or wrong And after all your daubing he certainly is accounted the greatest Enemy for whose sake all others are judged Enemies Now tho' the King of France be such an abominable Enemy he should soon he esteemed the best Friend if he would but renounce the Interest of K. James and suport the Usurpation of the Prince of Orange T. B. Sec. Lett. pag. 32 33. Eucher In this Triumphant and fastidious Harangue these things severally offer themselves to our Consideration 1st Whether the Strength of our Cause lies in this Account of our Prayers 2dly Whether this be not the Sense of many Jacobites 3dly What is the full importance of the word Enemy 4thly What the importance of Vanquishment and overcoming 5thly What really is the lawful Sense of these words in the
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
of Crimes * Sol and Ab. pag. 19 20. as Apostasie Heresie Schism c. and demanded whether the Clergy and People may desert a Bishop under such pestilential crimes and impostures and procure another from Social Bishops For if they may Canonically do this in such Cases then perhaps they may canonically do so in other which tho' not so designedly malignant yet necessitate an exauctoration tho' founded in meer infirmities and too pious prejudices as I explained my self in those very passages at which it seems the gall of T. B. is exasperated Dyscher Well I think it not decent for us to draw hard on this invidious subject let us if you please discuss the Canonical forms of your procedure herein which your party generally defends from pretended precedents of Civil Authorities over the Jewish High Priests and the Practice of Christian Churches in submission to Imperial Orders especially the Greek Church under Turkîsh Changes made in their Patriarchal See Now the most famous instance among the Jewish High Priest is that of Solomons deprivation of Abiathar Which tho' you endeavoured to parallel to our present Case yet herein I brought you such just exceptions as neither you nor all your Party will be able to take off For if the Crime was nothing like if there was such a difference between the Constitutions of the Jewish and Christian Churches if it was a manifest Cession on Abiathar's part all which I well proved then that Instance can by no means come up to this Case T. B. Sec. Lett. pag. 36. Eucher Tho' I could not deny the force of your reasonings upon this instance yet have I consulted my friends upon it as well as you have done upon me And the chiefest of their senses I will lay before you to which if you can make any weighty reply you must not thence conclude a vice or fault in the Cause for if I cannot defend it my self perhaps its proper Patrons may who as they have singular Opinions so have they as singular abilities to maintain them Dyscher This is a secure Caution for your own Reputation tho' it betrays an inward suspicion of the Arguments you intend to produce But however since it is but just that no personal defects should prejudice a good Cause and that one man's Errors should not affect another man's Estimation I grant you your Demand and therefore I pray proceed Eucher Have you not seen the Book entitled The Case of Sees Vacant c. whose learned Authors felicity is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This great man pretends to dissolve all your machins against this grand Precedent for a Lay-Deprivation and I will exhibite you his Argumentations according to your and his Order First then he observes that * Case of Sees Vacant c. Chap. 2. § 2. this perhaps may be the Plea of our Adversaries in answer to the examples of the Jewish High-Priest that the Office of a Bishop amonst us is much more Spiritual than the Office of those High-Priests To that Plea I answer that he that considers the true and full import of the Question now before us will find it to be no other than this whether a Person duly invested with an Ecclesiastical Office of God's own Institution and Ordinance being deposed by the Lay-power any other can lawfully succeed in that Office Now as to God's particular Institution and Appointment whatsoever otherwise the difference may be which is needless for us to contend about it is certain that the Jewish High-Priests were rather superior than inferior to our Bishops 'T was by God himself and that too in an extraordinary manner that the Office of the High-Priest was instituted and it was from God alone that he received his Authority If therefore a Person was accepted by God as a true and real High-Priest tho' put into the room of another deposed by Civil Authority then a Bishop likewise may be truly a Bishop and accordingly ought to be received tho' put into the place of a Bishop deposed by that Power To this I add that the annual Expiation for the Sins of the whole People was to be performed by the High-Priest This was the chief of the federal Rites of that Religion and that to which our Saviour's offering himself up a Sacrifice is particularly compared in the Epistle to the Hebrews And this they did ex opere operato so that it was of the greatest Consequence to the Jews to have this Divine Institution performed by one appointed to it by God And tho' no provision was made for Cases of necessity yet necessity was understood to be a provision for it self And it is certain these annual Expiations were accepted of God till our Saviour's days For that is a certain Consequence of their being still in Covenant with God since these Expiations were the yearly renewing of that Covenant Nor can any of the performances of the Christian Priesthood be compared to this unless we believe the Power of Transubstantiating These examples of the Jewish High-Priest alone were there no other to be alledged would sufficiently warrant our submission to our present Possessors Dyscher This Doctrine of that learned Doctors is very new and amazing in every Sentence of it as also is his original Principle But whether it be of sincere Metal or no must be tried by the proper Touchstone First then it is strange that he shou'd affirm it certain that the High-Priests are rather Superior to our Bishops as to the Divinity of their Institution For are not Bishops instituted originally by God himself and in a manner more extraordinary than that of Aaron's Consecration For this appears indeed in the Levitical Law to be divinely solemn and glorious as far as external Pomp and Ceremony could adorn it and an Oracular Power of Judgment in things Temporal sanctifie him but yet as the Agent for God in this Consecration was a Servant only viz. Moses so the Oracular Sanctity was not purely Spiritual But the first Bishops were the Apostles made so not by the Hand of a Servant but the Son of God himself in our own Flesh ordaining them with an extraordinary Power of Miracles of all kinds with the insufflation of the Holy Ghost in order to the remission and retaining of sins upon the Soul by the Acts of an Authority to be ratified in Heaven To them the Sacraments were committed the Laver of Regeneration and the Mystery of our Incorporation into Christ and Participation of his Holy Spirit besides the glorious Effusion of the Spirit on them at the Feast of Pentecost consecrating them Preachers of the Resurrection of Christ with an amazing Glory in the sight of all Nations gathered together at Jerusalem in a manner more superlatively divine than any the meaner Forms of Aaron's Investiture Besides the Doctor may as well prefer the Institution of the meanest Levites to that of the Highest Apostles upon the same grounds on which he hath so superexalted the Jewish Pontiff who was
valid yet because of their actual Omission it wanted an Ecclesiastical Effect Lev. 10. So when a Statute of Deprivation requires the Church to eject Recusants from their Stations if the cause be necessary or just the Statute is valid to oblige the Conscience of the Church to an executive and concurrent obedience yet if the Church will by no means yield to such command of the State whether just or unjust valid or invalid in its obligatory intentions it cannot actually pass into an Ecclesiastical Effect and Issue and all that the Civil Powers can do on the refusal is to subject the Church to temporal Punishments Nay in the same Genus of Civil Government the Decrees and Judgments of the Kings Courts notwithstanding their perfect justice and validity cannot have their Civil Effect if the subordinate officers neglect or refuse to execute them T is true there is a difference between the Civil obligations of Under-Officers to their Superiors in Secular Authorities and those of the Church to the Civil Powers in matters Ecclesiastical For that Civil Officers are obliged only to observe the Legal forms of process in the Orders of their Superiors and are not tied to enquire into the inner justice of those Orders But the Church when under any Laws or Commands of the State may and ought to judge for her self and her conscience toward God Whether the matters enjoyned her by the Laws be consistent with the Laws and Principles of Christianity and the Churches fundamental Constitution against which she is never to admit them to an Ecclesiastical Effect but must bear the penal Consequences with all meeknes and resignation And this is not only the Right and Duty of all Churches as sacred Corporations toward all humane laws in matters moral or Religious but of every single Christian also And if this be not admitted up goes Hobbism and the Civil Powers may enact Deprivations Excommunications and Anathema's for mens refusing the Alcoran Paganism Socinianisme and even Atheism it self and for owning the Scriptures Creeds and Sacraments But you that think us such a soft and waxen generation would have found this Right asserted even unto Martyrdom against all such deprivations had they been enacted upon causes apparently injurious or imposed on the Church For in the late Reign not only you but others also opposed the growth and menaces of Popery with a burning zeal when we had no present prospect of any thing but Fagots Dragons and most Christian Bridles And that all these Armies of Worthies should all of a sudden grow base abject and irreligious cannot easily I am sure not fairly be presumed But in cases which the Church judges equal she may concur and submitt and when she may so do it can be neither religious or prudential to provoke or incur a persecution by a needles and obstinate refusal which is our Sense upon the Causes and Law of the present Deprivations But is it not a pretty exception against this Concurrence because it is yielded by Submission not Authority For did I ever assert of an Authority in the Church to refuse her Duty against which certainly there lies no Authority And I told you †Sol. and Ab. pag. 28. that the Church here concurs by Submission as judging it her duty herein to yield to the State But in such Cases if you will needs require the Churches Authority I will remind you what I told you †Sol. and Ab. Pag. 29. last time that the Church has an Authoritative Right to judge in such Cases whether she may or must concur or no. And hence a Right essentially belongs to it to examin all the Causes of the Secular Demands so that if she finds there be no grave Reasons to move the Church to the required Severities she ought to disobey as my Lord Bishop of London well did when required to suspend Dr. Sharp indictâ Causâ c. And for this I alledged out of Nazianzen one of the Noblest Instances in all Antiquity wherein the Bishops of Cappadocia refused to depose or reject the canonically settled Bishop of Cesarea notwithstanding all Julians terrors and commands of which I wonder Dr. Hody took no notice But I add also that if the Church finds those Causes sufficient she may if necessary she must admit the Laws enforcing them and not wantonly pretend Authority against duty nor use her liberty for a cloak of maliciousness And I can never imagine that this Right of the Church was ever suspected much less opposed by any Powers or Legislators truly Christian But if Civil Powers will make irreligious Laws in maters Spiritual will you immediatly oblige the Christian Councils to invade the Senate House or Courts of Civil Judicature with Protestations against their Procedures before the Laws come home upon us and press us to actual Concurrence Surely the Primitive Christians did not so against the Edicts of Heathen Powers For tho' Christianity will warrant meek and petitionary Apologies yet will it not justifie sawcy Remonstrances and Prohibitions upon Legislators who must pass undisturbed and unaffronted in their measures and we must with all meekness of behaviour wait the eventual prosecution of the Laws if we cannot divert it by fair atonement and when it comes refusing calmly the required Sins commit our selves and Cause to him that judgeth righteously So that all your Harangues about running into Parliament House with Proclamations or Protestations for our against their Authority are injudicious immodest and seditious proposals tho' we had known the demands of the State to have been unlawful which we yet acknowledge to be otherwise And that we should cease to be a Church because we are not officiously rude to the Legislators who may sometimes happen to be causelesly unkind or hard hearted to us We are neither to precipitate our zeal manners confession or sufferings but let the will of God be done upon us when his own time comes Since even the vilest Laws of men have this obligation and validity upon the Consciences of Subjects to restrain all indecencies and disturbances against them and the Legislative For if the Senate has not Authority to oblige us to evil it has to modesty and abstinence from their Presence and Consultations But the Parliament thought their Authority alone sufficient to deprive the Bishops and did not ask nor think they wanted the concurrence of the Clergy to make their Act valid very well they did not think so And if you confine this sufficiency to a valid Obligation on the Church to submit and concur this opinion of the Parliament is very true tho' I believe they ground it not upon any mere pretended Arbitrary Despotick Power but upon the Weight and Sanctity of the Causes on which they founded the Law But if you think it the opinion of the Parliament that their Acts can actually pass into an Ecclesiastical Effect without Ecclesiastical Concurrence you fix an opinion on them rather to be charged with Non-sense than Falshood
remind me of your own Principles and Senses I fear I shall fall into the Spirit of T. B. again and not use you very partially in some of my Reflexions Eucher I am sensible by experience of your infirmity And since good natur'd Men are sometimes passionate I know how to bear as well as to correct a little rudeness I pray good Brother let me know what 't is now that begins to provoke your choler Dyscher When you had spent a great many Arguments drawn out with much Pomp and Ostentation being basted in them you grow weary with strugling and fairly give up all and acknowledg that †Sol. ab pag. 27.29 an Act of State Christian cannot alone vacate a Spiritual Charge Charge by any Divine Law primitive Canon or Prescription This is as full as can be worded against the Power of the State to deprive Bishops Now see how you come about again in the very next words Yet such an Act received and admitted by the Church may from her concurrence have a just and legal Effect And then upon this Notion the Statute of Deprivation ipso facto must be taken as a Law upon the Church to reject the Recusants totally from their Stations Here you will not have the Deprivation to proceed from the Act of the State alone but to save some Honour to the Clergy you make their Deprivation valid by their Concurrence to the Act of Deprivation But I pray how did they concur Was it otherwise than by submitting to the Act when it was made And is such Submission any Authority I thought they had been quite different things Did the Clergy shew any signs or make any protestations for their Right viz. that the Act of Parliament for the Deprivation of the Bishops was not valid without their Concurrence No not a word but when it is done they submit to it and acknowledg it And you would make a Protestation against Fact that their Concurrence was necessary to it that themselves did not pretend nor dare they do it to this day It is certain the Parliament thought their own Authority sufficient to deprive the Bishops and did not ask or think they needed the Concurrence of the Clergy to make their Act valid On the contrary no Clergy-men have dared to dispute it but those who are deprived And for others to imagin to come in by their Concurrence into a share of the Authority is like the fly on a Wheel of the Chariot that thought he contributed to the dust that was raised for he too gave his concurrence It is possible such Men as you should not see how contemptible it renders them to pretend to an Authority they dare not avow And upon this Foundation to raise Arguments to justify their proceedings which they cannot maintain any other way For these Men to deny themselves to be Erastians or ever to name any Ecclesiastical Authority I had almost said to call them a Church Or to speak as †Sol. c. Ab. Pag. 29. you do that the Church ought not to admit Deprivations on improper or unreasonable Demands As if the Parliament did request it from the Convocation or left it to their admitting or not admitting As if they durst dispute the validity of an Act of Parliament for want of their Concurrence As if any of them durst let such a word come out of their Mouth Behold the Ghost the Echo of a Church c. M. S. Reflex and that the consent publick and actual Concurrence of the Church is necessary to give an Ecclesiastical Effect to Civil Ordinances in Matters of the Church Now this Concession overthrows your whole Cause and being placed after the main Body of your Arguments is it self an Argument that you had little faith in them So then our Bishops being never Canonically Deprived are the yet proper Bishops of their Sees But you come like a Spiritual Jugler and perswade us that this hath been Canonically done For the Church say you ought to empty the Sees of such Incumbents that are dangerous to the Civil State But Sir must the Church cast out her Bishops as oft as they will not comply with Vsurpers c. But you say this was done by Acts of Separation properly Ecclesiastical the Dean and Chapter of the Metropolitical Church taking the Jurisdiction till the Chapter elect and Bishops consecrate another But Sir you cannot but know that the Dean and Chapter have no Jurisdiction over their Metropolitane and the See must be vacant before they can proceed to Election T. B. Sect. Pag. 37.38 Eucher I have heard with much patience yea pleasure all your Noble strains of Rhetoric and need only say If I have spoken evil bare witness to the evil but if well why smitest thou me For if the Deprived assert the Churches Concurrence necessary to give Acts of State an Ecclesiastical Effect and I grant it what Cause have you to fly in my face for even that very Concession But for you to upbraid me with my Candour who are so heedless in attending to my words as to take or set them off in other Senses than rationally can be fixed on them in their clear account of this Concurrence is neither very courteous nor prudential Let us therefore again look over these oversights and see whether we can come again to our selves First then I never said that the Concurrence of the Church was necessary either to make an Act of Parliament or to make it valid in Ecclesiasticals and particularly in Acts of Deprivation But I admitted your Principle so far and no further that her Concurrence is necessary to give Statutes an Ecclesiastical Effect and Issue For an Act of Parliament may justly require of the Church some certain Ecclesiastical proceedings without any joynt Session or Consultation of the Church And such Acts shall be just and valid of themselves to oblige the Conscience of the Church to obedience or executive Concurrence As suppose an Act of Parliament repealing all the Statutes of Premunire which cramp the liberties of the Church in the Episcopal Successions and Synodical Consultations for a perfect reformation to a Primitive purity should consequently require our Bishops or Convocations to proceed upon such relaxation to provide and execute better rules of Discipline on the morals and duties of the Christian Church under their care and to renew the Commercium formatarum with foreign Churches for a general Restitution of Piety and Order to its Primitive State such a Law I think would valioly oblige the Church to Concurrence without which however actually given it could not have its Ecclesiastical Effect When King Joash commanded the Priests to employ the sacred Money to the reparation of the Lords House it was a valid command to oblige but while the Priests neglected it it had no Sacred effect 2 King 12. So when Moses spake unto Aaron Eleazar and Ithamar to eat the meat offering and heave shoulder according to set Rules the precept was very