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
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
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
a perpetual Servitude by Oath or other forms of engagement which they under such Exigences may lawfully yield to And proportionably the Estates of any Nation may be thus pressed by an irresistible Prince and thereupon lawfully submit to that injurious Demand of such Prince Nay if any Prince and the fiduciary Council of any Nation concert to oppress the Subject People by an unjust demand of Submission they being not only in Fact but Legal Constition uncapable to resist may for the same reason contract Submission or Legal Allegiance when their former Lord hath left them without order to shift for themselves and acts not within his Sphere as heretofore For herein you do not injure him but save your self which he has no right in such cases to deny you And this at least is the Case of all those who have taken the Oath of New Allegiance without doing any thing else in the Revolution tho' the Prince and our Convention had really done King James and us wrong For we could neither in Right nor Fact oppose it for our Representatives and the Lords having determined upon the Nation we were inhabil to censure their Judgement and consequently to oppose or subvert what we had no Authority to condemn Dyscher Much such another instance is * Sol. Ab. p. 6 7. your Lord of a Mannor Let him look how he came to be so I may treat with him as Lord of the Mannor whom the Law declares to be so But if the Lords Tenants conspire against their lawful Landlord and dispossess him of his Mannor and invite a Stranger and say and swear he shall be Lord of the Mannor and accordingly pay Homage and Fealty to him Sir you may determine for their swearing and lying too if you please but I shall have nothing the better opinion of your honesty for it T. B's 2d Lett. p. 24. Eucher I observe two grand defects in this Reply One that 't is not supposably legal that all the Tenants in the Mannor can by Legal Forms of Judgment dispossess a Lawful and possess a wrong Person into the Lordship of a Mannor because these Tenants are not Judges in Law And any other violent and illegal Forms of Expulsion and Admission quadrate not with our Case But Secondly 'T is a very silly supposition and never any where exemplified in Fact that all the Tenants under a state of National Government should violently out a true and put in a wrong Landlord vi armis and swear and pay the wrong Possessor all the Duties of the Homage accustomed when the Lord that is in by Law will bring the strength of the Country to reduce them And Thirdly You cannot duly apply this to our present Case of Allegiance For all King James's Subjects did not concur to out him either violently or judicially nor consequently to bring in the Stranger which is the form in which you state the Case of Rebellious Tenants Otherwise however my parallel holds good that if a great many of the Tenants conspire with a Stranger and bribe the Judges to a corrupt Judgment against the old true Landlord who being thereby ejected the Stranger comes in by forms of Law I say still the rest innocent Tenants tho' conscious of the Wrong may swear Homage and Fealty to the New de facto Landlord And so here put the Case as you would have it at the worst that never so great a part of King James's Subjects had with the Prince of Orange actually conspired against him and made him fly and thereupon a National Court assembling to sit upon the Tenure of his Estate had been corrupted to give wrong Judgment against him for the Prince yet the form of Process being legal the innocent Subjects may or must take him for their Royal Landlord that is in by Forms of Law and swear him the customary Homage and Fealty But for the justice of that Judgment I have fully advocated already and so in this place shall have no need to make repetition Dyscher But let the Fifth Commandment look to it self for it was never so hardly beset You say * Sol. Ab. p. 7. That from the Fifth Commandment we cannot charge King William with subjection to King James c. But does a Nephew or a Son in Law owe no Duty if he owe not that which is properly called Subjection Or may a Man because he is not his Subject spoil another of all he has And must all persons applaud and approve the Act and swear he is in the Right T. B's 2d Lett. p. 25. Eucher Since I must bear the penance of answering your loose and impertinent Questions so often inculcated know you then that as to the point of Duty a Nephew owes an Uncle and a Son in Law owes his Father in Law Reverence on the account of those Relations if the Superior Relation loses not his Title to that Reverence by ill usage For if an Uncle shall misuse a Nephew or a Father in Law the Son in Law without Cause and will not fairly adjust or refer their differences upon demand the Nephew and Son in Law owe no respect at all for that such Uncle and Father in Law is worse than a stranger and a most unnatural Enemy And therefore the Nephew and Son in Law having not derived their Being Maintenance nor Education from the Uncle and Father in Law and being under no present dependence on them are free to vindicate their Gauses against such Uncle and Father in Law by those ways of defence that they are legally capable of either by Law Arbitration or War As for injustice you know I am no Advocate for it and therefore your Interrogation hereupon with your Reflection upon his Majesty is as invidious toward me as injurious towards his Majesty as I have before abundantly shewed Dyscher The Case of an own Daughter is still more severe but for that you say * Sol. Ab. p. 7. she is in Duty bound to follow her Husbands Fortune Order and Authority even against the Will of her Father and that with a more plenary consent if she judges her Husbands Cause to be just in it self But Sir I am not satisfied with your bare word that a Woman is thus bound to follow her Husband thro' thick and thin let her have a care how she becomes partner in his sins But doth the Duty of a Wife take away the Relation of a Child They may indeed limit each other so that the Father may not command the Daughter any thing inconsistent with the Duty of a Wife nor the Husband the Wife any thing inconsistent with the Duty of a Child to a Parent But yet the great end of these Relations is to strengthen and support and not to destroy each other Besides your Reason is a mistake in it self as to this Case for could you with all your tricks of Legerdemain remove both King James and the Prince of Wales out of the way then there
would arise another Relation and then he in these Dominions must follow her Fortunes not she his But to let this pass all that has been done is contrary to the Duties of those Relations which they were and are under by the Fifth Commandment T. B's 2d Lett. p. 25. Eucher But all this is but noise and shuffle For why had you not openly denied or yielded the truth of my Proposition that a Wife is to follow her Husbands Fortune Order and Authority against the will of her Father if she thinks her Husbands Case to be just For tho' you will say * These words I unawares omitted in the last Citation of T.B. This Judgment is not worth a Farthing except the Cause be just in it self Yet be it just or unjust she must act upon her own judgment of it And to what purpose have you such a care that she follow him not thro' thick and thin in his sins Did I ever assert that liberty to a Wife or to the Princess of Orange Do not I expresly except out of this Case * Sol. Ab. p. 7. all violations of all those Decencies that are yet notwithstanding her Marriage due by the Fifth Commandment to her Father which are consistent with her Husbands Rights and Interests and in her Rightful Power to perform But this was another inconsiderable which you in great sincerity have omitted that it might not justifie my piety to the Fifth Commandment and prevent all occasion of reproach But I think you are a very loose Casuist for a Wife between the Authorities of Husband and Father if you think that the Husbands Power limits the Wife only in those Commands of the Father that are in themselves inconsistent with the Duties of a Wife whether the Husbands prohibition intervene or no for except this be your meaning 't is nothing to the purpose nor against me For it is not the Husbands Power but the Law of God that binds the Wife from the violation of her Duties to her Husband as it does bind her to keep her Duties to her Parents and all other persons even Subjects that have no power over her But by your favour if a Father commands a Married Daughter in any indifferent thing importing in it self no ill to her Husband she has no absolute Authority to promise or do it but on grant or just presumption of her Husbands leave for if he forbid it at any time before it is done the Wives hands are in duty bound up from the performance and how faulty soever the Son in Law be in his perverse and needless inhibitions the Daughter is discharged of all Guilt in the non-compliance to her Fa-Father So that strictly speaking all Imperial Power meerly human is in things that in themselves are left at liberty by the Laws of God And now whether I have said any thing more or worse than this speak out without wrigling and subterfuge And yet to deal openly with you and piously I hope with the Laws of my Creator I think there is a great latitude of equity in this Fifth Commandment and that it consists not in a meer indivisible point nor is founded meerly in the Relation but the Causes and Designs of it by the Ordinance of God and Nature For Parents being Vice-Gods to their Children while under their Family and Dominion the more they Resemble God in their Offices of Piety especially toward God and their Children the more their Children are bound to honour them even when they are sent off from the House of their Parents to found new Families and to subsist freely by themselves For tho' the ties of proper subjection are then loosed yet the Duties of Honour still remain uncancelled But if the Parents recede from their Piety toward God the common and Supreamest Father of all the greater this impiety of Parents is the less Honour is due to them even from their own Children And I truly am of Opinion that if such Impiety grow up to perfect Atheism or Defiance of God from which all the long and tender Supplications of the Children cannot reduce them the Chidren are discharged from all the Offices of Personal Honour toward them tho' not of Pity and Compassion for them And upon this ground the Law of Moses does not exempt Enticers to Idolatry from the Vengeance even of the nearest Relations Deut. 13.6 to 11. If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother or thy Son or thy Daughter or the Wife of thy Bosom or thy Friend which is as thine own Soul entice thee saying Let us go and serve other Gods Thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken unto him neither shall thine Eye pity him neither shalt thou spare neither shalt thou conceal him But thou shalt surely kill him thine Hand shall be first upon him to put him to death and afterward the Hand of all the People And thou shalt stone him with Stones that he die because he sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God c. So that all such Persons were by the Law of God looked on as a common Pestilence not to be honoured loved or cherished but destroyed by the nearest Relations Dyscher But Parents here being omitted out of this exact Catalogue of other Relations it shews them to be not within this Law and therefore that this Law does not derogate from the Honour due to Parents by the Fifth Commandment tho' they entice their Children to Idolatry the Reason being grounded on the Authority of Parents over Children which would be nulled if Children might prosecute this Law upon their Parents And for this Cause also by this Law the Wife is not required to destroy her Idolatrous Husband Eucher If you will literally interpret this Law only of the very Relations that are expressed than all other even less Relations will be exempt which is unreasonable But if you will argue a majori ad minus that if none of these Relations are exempt surely no less Relations ought to be judged discharged then the relation of Parents to Children being less than that of the Wife to the Husband and no greater than that of Children to Parents will be concluded within this Law Nor could their Natural Authority indemnifie them for all that was from and under God and was ipso facto forfeit whensoever they rejected God for Idols Otherwise such an exempted Authority of Parents must have been a Snare to the Children to draw them from the Lord their God or at least to restrain them from asserting their God impartially against all his Enemies And in the same Chapter Idolatrous Cities were to be utterly destroyed by all the rest of the People without regard to any Relations dwelling in them for when the Judgment of God was past upon them all Natural Relation and Authority ceased as to all consequent offices of Respect Love or Honour when the impious Apostates were convict and doomed to excision 'T is true indeed that Law being in its
Liturgy 6thly What is the Reason why Kings are particularly Named in National Prayers 7thly Whether our Prayers for King William must inevitably strike at King James 1. Then the strength of our Cause lies not herein nor fails in the Defects of this Account For in blunt Truth if King William and Queen Mary be our Sovereign Lord and Lady the same Prayers in the same full Sense are to be used for them in which they were used for all their Predecessors So that if King James comes into the Number of their Enemies against whom the perpetual Sense of those Prayers lies we cannot help that while we innocently perform our Duties The greatest Objection against this that I know is what your great Author of the Christian Communion herein offers that they that look upon new Sovereigns only as Kings de facto do herein pray for the Subversion of Right and him that has it and these make up a great Number of the present Conformists But that question properly comes under dispute upon the Notion of Enemies and Victory in our Prayers and on that Head it shall be considered The only question here is if a King de facto can be our Sovereign Lord This I know you deny and if your denial be good it presses our Prayers much if offered for a King by us taken for de facto only But if the Nation hath a lawful Right upon great Exigences to admit a Person into the Sovereignty who had no Right to enforce them thereto then as to the Nations part they have lawfully admitted him to be their Sovereign Lord and have yielded him all that Authority over us that the Laws of the Land in such Necessity allow us to concede And such is the Case in all Submissions upon new Conquests tho' injuriously gotten For in such Cases the submitting People being no Authentic Judges upon the Cause of the new Potentate can only judge for themselves what they may lawfully do and leave his Cause to God whether he on his Part takes the Crown de jure or no. Thus before the Recognition this Nation had de facto admitted K. William and every Person was bound to receive him at least for such and had there never been any Recognition de jure no Man was an habil Judge to have condemned the jus whatsoever Mens various Opinions in private might have been on which they ought to have laid no stress but to have received him as their actually settled and constituted Sovereign Lord and required no more since no more was determinately required of them If a Captive in Algiers c. be required to pray for his Lord and Master that is so only de facto he may certainly do so under those Titles and is bound to do so upon command if he has contracted Service I know you will here say this Contract gives the Tyrant Right But then you must grant that the Submission of a Nation passes Right ipso facto and then you put the Nation de facto only clear out of doors Here you will reply that such Submission cannot be de jure as being injurious to the present Right of another But then so will I say the Captives Submission and Contract is against the permanent Right of his Parents or former Master who thereby may lawfully rescue him by force of Arms. And yet notwithstanding this the poor Slave may thus pray for the Captivant as his Lord nay even that he may vanquish and overcome all his Enemies even while the former Proprietors are fighting for his Rescue in the same Sense we intend in our Prayers for our most rightful Sovereigns as shall clearly appear on the fifth Head of this Answer King William therefore being actually our Sovereign Lord even by our own warrantable Contract we may lawfully use these Prayers for him and on his Command are bound to do so even tho' he were only King de facto in the legal Sense of this Term and not altogether as we have owned him de pleno jure because it will appear that these Prayers are not levelled against any Man's Right tho' they are against all his Enemies Now the truth is the Relation we lately stood in to K. James as our then Sovereign makes tender hearted Men pity his whole personal History and consequently unwilling to pray against him if there be any fair or lawful way to avoid it which there is not if he comes not into the Number of those Enemies which we are to pray against Such also is the Temper of poor People under new Conquests toward their former Sovereigns when obliged to pray for the new that appear no otherwise than de facto such against all their Enemies Yet this is only an Operation of Bowels and good Nature but not of strict and impartial Reason tho' it influences much upon Men's Spirits but is to be guided and corrected in its Excesses thereby Hence upon the beginning of this Change an excellent Person that was easily satisfied in owning their Majesties Title Sovereign in the Prayers yet stumbled at the Passages about Enemies till he receiv'd with much pleasure this very Answer for which you deride me But as I have now said the only material Question here is if K. William and Q. Mary actually are our Sovereigns for this being granted all the rest follows of due Course without respect of Persons whosoever be their Enemies without exception But I confess I was willing to give you as healing a Lenitive as I could that I might not widen the Wound nor exasperate the Division but it seems while I labour for Peace you make you ready for Battel Secondly This seemeth to be the Sense of many learned Jacobites without which I see not how their Practices can be justified For not to repeat the Consent and Communion of the Deprived Fathers in these Prayers before the Day of their Suspension there are yet many moderate Men among you that read these Prayers tho' deprived for filing the Oath Now do you think that these Men direct their Prayers against K. James If they do then upon your Principles they break their Allegiance and Oath to him which they judge oblige them to this very Day Which methinks should make you less lavish of your perjurious Imputations upon others whose Principles acquit them from wilful and intended Perjury Yet there is no way for these Men of yours to avoid this Charge upon your Principles but by such a Sense of Enemies in which it is possible K. James may not be included But if they intend not their Prayers at K. James how are we charged for praying against him when we and these Jacobites in the same Words may sincerely use the same Sense so that in good truth the Account I gave of these Prayers becomes a Plea necessary not so much to us as to your own more moderate and equal Brethren against whom therefore for the future you must turn your Style and Acrimony Thirdly I will now
proceed to justifie my Sense to be the only allowable Sense of our Prayers under any the justest Reign whatsoever and not merely accommodated by me to the present Juncture This will first require me more fully to open the principal Notions of the word Enemy than for reasons private to my self I did in my last Conference The word Enemy therefore has two known principal Acceptations moral and military Morally an Enemy is one that intendeth Injury or Hurt and so this Sense carries Malice in it Militarily an Enemy is an opposite of War which innocent Princes People and Persons may be forced to be who have no Malice or moral Enmity as in Self-defences against Oppression in which it is possible that the Defendents would not willingly hurt any of the Oppressors nor engage even in an advantageous Battel if it could be avoided but gladly close up the War And yet both the injurious Aggressour and all Neuters in the Cause by custom call these just Defendents Enemies to the other Opposite not charging them with moral Injury but respecting their military Opposition The Greeks and Latines have two proper distinctive Names for these two sorts of Enemies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and inimicus for the Moral 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hostis for the military Enemy Other Opponents are most properly called Adversaries as a Term of a more comprehensive Latitude reaching to the general Nature of all sorts of Contention serious or sportive good or bad Fourthly We are to examin the importance of Vanquishing and Victory For this indeed seems to admit a far greater and benigner Latitude of signification than you in your Reflexion seem to allow For you seem to apprehend no Victory but in Butcheries Ruines and Desolations Whereas many successful Expeditions as that of General Monk have been victorious without Hurt since simply and in general to overcome is no more than to prevail against any Opponents or Oppositions whatsoever fort they are of even where there is no Enmity as in Games Wagers Votes and Competitions And there is one sort of Victory more noble than any other the overcoming Evil with Good which is God's especial way of vanquishing the Powers of Evil. And even in War those Victories are most noble where least Hurt is done and most Mercy shewed and thereupon the best and most noble Desires of Victory are those whereby we wish to prevail against our Enemy if it be possible without hurting him or his Party at all and more than this we are not absolutely to wish or pray for even against the greatest Enemies by the Laws of our most compassionate and holy Religion which allows Wars only to be waged against our Will not with delight and bloody Affectations Fifthly We are to consider against what Enemies it is lawful to pray for even the gentlest Victories First then it is not lawful to pray for any Victory against the Innocent in the Innocency of his Cause no tho' when he stan◠〈…〉 in his own Defence the Custom of military Language calls him Enemy For if I regard Iniquity in my Heart the Lord will not hear me Thus 't is not lawful for Pirates to pray for success against innocent Merchants standing on their own Defence because here Victory in the Pirates side doth not import the Defeat of an Injurious Intention but an Injury It was not lawful for K. Saul to pray for Victory over his Subject David tho' at the Head of an armed Band for Self-preservation for the same reason Whence it follows that no injurious Prince may †So the fifth Senior bids Ptolemy Philadelphus to expect Victory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ap. Arist Edit Oxon. pray for success against the Innocent whom he designs to oppress And if so neither may his Subjects pray for his Victory over the Innocent for that they may not petition more for him than he may for himself Otherwise Prayers as directly contrary as just and unjust would be allowable and acceptable with God And here indeed starts up a doubt how the opposite Devotions of warring Nations against their respective Princes Enemies can at the same time on both sides be justified for lawful and religious since one at least of the Princes must be unjust and for the Success of such a Prince in his Injustice all Prayers are unjust To the solution of which doubt it is necessary to observe that no religious or lawful Prayers for Temporal benefits are tho' never so earnest simply absolute and peremptory but always conceived with a deference and resignation to God's Will either expresly or implicitly after our Saviour's Example in his most earnest Prayers at the Approach of his Passion Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me yet not my Will but thy Will be done So then our Prayers for victory to our Prince import a reservation to God's will if he sees fit to admit them but we knowing that all injustice is contrariant to the will of God refer our Princes cause to God's judgments and will against which we intend no Prayers but ground them all on a tacit and presuming supposition that our Cause is right For it would be a very impious form of Prayer to say give success O Lord to our Prince in all his designs of ravage and oppression So that tho' the supposition of Justice at the bottom of all such Prayers be not usually expressed to prevent common jealousie in the Subject yet it is reserved by decent presumption as the proper duty of the Subject toward his Sovereign over whose Counsels he has no judgment And accordingly all our public Prayers in time of War propose the malice pride and oppression of our Enemies as the just causes of our supplication and ground of our zeal and object of God's Indignation acording to the standing Forms of such devotions in the holy Scriptures And so a moral enmity supposed in our military Enemies with our own presuming innocency with a virtual or open appeal and reference to God the Judge of all is the only Foundation of such Prayers and the only Reason that can reconcile such opposite Liturgies of warring Nations with Religion and Innocency And if you think this too disloyal and cold a form of Devotion I pray think again what an odd sort of Loyalty it is to your King to contend even with God for his injustice and to offer him your Sacrifices after the impious manner of the Heathen to accept and promote the abominations of yoâ—â— Prince But now upon the Rules by me 〈◊〉 a Captive may pray for his Masters Victory â—â—er all his enemies and yet not execrate those that are in just arms against him as being guilty of no moral Enmity or injury in their wars against â—â—m And so accordingly the Case of all people under new Conquests is to be resolved as to the like changes in their publick Services on the change of Sovereigns Sixthly it is to be considered why Princes are so
is still asserted while the people turn to both sides with the Secular Wind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And I believe no body can make it out And I think we must make the Proceedings of the Church at the best to follow the pretended measures of Right and Rule or condemn them for wrong in every Instance produced by the Dr. Dyscher What course then will you take to excuse the Churches in admitting and maintaining Anti-Bishops against the Invalidly ejected Proprietors still claiming Eucher Upon what particular Motives they did Act it is impossible for me to determine but I think I can set such Rules according to which they might act validly not otherwise First then I admit that all the Imperial Ejections were not proper Depositions but either Antecedents or Consequents of them Now if the standing Councils of the Churches find the Bishop wickedly ejected by the Secular Arm or without any declared Cause they ought not to admit any other Bishop without the consent of and during a capacity of Communication with the Ejected or his Deputies But upon defect of such Capacity they may admit an Orthodox Bishop as a Sagan not as an Anti-Bishop to the absent to resign and concede at his return Much of this Photius engaged to the Ignatians under his hand if the Drs. Metrophanes be true in this particular †Case of c. Ch. 14. Pag. 148. * that he would carry himself toward Ignatius as towards an unblamable Patriarch and neither spake any thing against himself nor approve of any that should do so But being hereupon received t is said he took away the Paper he had so Subscribed and then deposed Ignatius He was therefore sensible that such a Subscription would have engaged him to Resign whenever Ignatius should return It being a Contract not to stand as Anti-Patriarch against Ignatius But in Case the Expulsion be for Notorious Villany incompatible with Episcopal Sanctity then even without a Synodical Sentence the Councils of the Church may establish another Successor as in the Case of †Vindic. of Dep. Bâ—sh Pag. 71. c. Case of Sees c. Callinicus Patriarch of Constantinople banished to Rome for open and effectual High-Treason in whose stead Cyrus was admitted And here your Vindicator acknowledges there was no need of a Synod to deprive him upon the notoriety and heinousness of the Guilt and the Dr. rightly observes against him that there was no need of a presumed Cession in Callinicus but then the Church if she acted Piously look'd on more than bare possession in Cyrus namely to the ill Merits as well as Fortunes of Callinicus as the just ground of quitting him for Cyrus Indubitable charges of the Secular Powers removing the impeached Prelate beyond the reach of Ecclesiastical Communication the standing Council of the Church may admit another for the present reserving the Cause of the Ejected to Ecclesiastical Cognisance whensoever there shall be opportunity and Equity binds the Ejected to admit these Ecclesiastical procedures because just and necessary And with this Design the Councils of the Church might admit new Bishops when the former had fallen under Imperial or Civil Condemnations to remote Exiles for Crimes charged on them by the solemn Credit or Averment of the Secular Powers to whose Proceedings and Declarations in the mean time we owe a just Defference and Veneration And if in all those the Drs. Instances wherein heinous crimes are pretended as the true causes of the Exiles the Churches had admitted the new Ones with such a Reservation of trying the Causes perfectly upon a fair opportunity I think their new Admissions had been not only valid but just too and a charitative Presumption of such intention in the Churches Admissions of the New Bishops will I believe excuse those Admissions at our Tribunal from Schism and Invalidity But when all comes to all none of this Hypothesis these Questions or instances are applicable to our Case for our ejected Fathers are not removed from the free presence of and Communication with their Diocesses so that they need not any other Substitute for want of their Presence and Authority from whom if there were no other Cause or Reason we could not recede without their Concession And this is conclusible from †Case of c. Ch. 4. §. 1. Pag. 41. the Drs. own words and instances For saith he should our Magistrates like the Persecutors those Ages viz. the three first centuries endeavour to destroy Christianity by depriving us of our Bishops and by suffering none to be substituted in their Rooms then those Bishops would be our own Bishops and as such we should still adhere to them As the Church of Antioch stuck to Eustathius ejected by an Heretical Synod and banished by the Emperour †Case of Sees c. 〈◊〉 4. §. 1. Pag. 41. till the Catholick Bishop Meletius was settled in his See upon which Eustathius quitted his Episcopal Care and Government and not before Now from hence 't is plain that Civil Separations are not real Deprivations or Depositions and that the Admission of an Heretical Intruder thereupon does not create a Deprivation of a Catholick Bishop from his Church So that all the Question remaining herein is whether the Introduction of an Orthodox Bishop be an effectual Deprivation For if so the Orthodox Church introducing the New Orthodox Bishop must intend to deprive the former Good Persecuted Confessor Bishop but who can think that an Orthodox Church will or can do this according to the Rules of Orthodoxy But then again this is no Lay-Deprivation and yet on the Drs. Hypothesis must be Unjust Invalid and Uncanonical and yet I pray must it be done by an Orthodox Church according to the Rules of Orthodoxy Even so it must be according to the Drs. but not the Catholick Principles But if the Church by the introduction of a New does not intend to deprive the Old then the Old Bishops Title and Relation to his Church is still retained and permanent and the New is no Anti-Bishop to the Old but must resign upon the return of the former except it be otherwise Canonically contracted And in the Drs. own instance who can think that the Catholick Church in Antioch by admitting Meletius did depose Eustathius to whom they ever had so firmly adhered during all the Arian Persecution It must therefore be resolved that Eustathius directed or admitted the Introduction of Meletius in that hereupon he omitted and quitted his Episcopal Care or that the Church admitted him not against Eustathius but in his stead until his Return and Restitution upon which Eustathius wholly Resigned or discontinued and gave place And so the same may be well judged †Case of c. Ch. 17. in the Succession of Macedonius to Euphemius in the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate even as the Case is Stated by the Dr. especially since Macedonius besides other good Offices would not wear his Omophorion in the presence of Euphemius shewing
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
Opinion must concede in order to Publick Peace So that here your imprudent Zeal on false Notions of Loyalty hurries you into Principles absolutely Seditious and Destructive to the Legal Constitution of all Governments and particularly that which the Kings of England have themselves established Dyscher Well to put an End to this Disquisition upon our own Laws what have you to say for the Legality or fulness of your Settlement from the Usages or customary Practice of Nations Eucher I hope you do not require me to corrade a vast heap of Historical Instances National Decrees and Determinations of Civilians hereupon This would be to repeat whole Libraries to an evidence of one particular Custom But your own reading will inform you that under the pressing exigences of Anarchy and Ruin the Superiors or Agents of all People have ever authentically contracted a change of Government and Governours as to them then appeared necessary to the Common Preservation Dyscher 'T is so indeed upon Conquests which some have pretended here to the shame reproach and forfeiture of their Country as well as in contradiction to common Sense the pretences of your King and the Sense of your Parliament But where there are no Conquests 't is not so easie to adduce such Custom of Nations Eucher That the Nation was not conquered is most evident yet that King William in the Military Course grew stronger than King James who disbanded all his Forces and stooped to the prevailing Prince is as evident nor was this any False Doctrine in the sense of the Nation But to assert that hereby alone the Right of the Crown accrued to King William even without the consequent Admission and Contract of the Nation had he pleased to have taken it on the meer Right of the Sword is what is indeed contrary to all Law and Reason For the meer force or victory of the Sword gives no Right or Authority even over a vanquished People till they federally resign to the Conqueror and then much less doth it so in a Nation not conquered But to omit the Laws of pure Conquests there are instances enough of Abdications Cessions and Desertions as many I believe and more than of simple and proper Victories to set out the sense of all Nations by For upon all such the places quitted admitted such consequent Settlements as the straits they were cast into would permit as is manifest in the leaving of Garrisons Holds or Countries And the truth is there is the same reason upon all proper Conquests and other Surrendries that legitimates the admission of a Change viz. the necessity of preserving the Publick Body from ruins and devastations Dyscher I do not remember indeed any ininstance to the contrary in the practices of Nations for they perhaps have been and are as bad as we ready to for shift themselves upon any pinch but generally careless of and perfidious to their unfortunate Princes Interests But what Reason can you shew for it in our Case which is so very plain and obvious that we were at liberty to have preserved our Sovereign and our selves together and if so how can this Settlement be admitted for legal or be reputed full against the so just Claims of our real Sovereign Eucher Here again you transgress the proper limits of a private Judgment when you take upon you to say that we i. e. our Convention could have secured King James in his Throne and this Nation in its Rights and Properties But in the main point where you stick viz. the Consent of King James and your Prince of Wales you are very unreasonable For shall he who at last put all his Subjects into confusion by his leaving the Government hinder us from settling till he give us his Consent Or must the Consent of a Infant be waited who if he ever was or yet is is in the custody and disposal of an Enemy King who would settle him and us too with a witness if he had but a lucky Wind and a fair Opportunity It is possible that an offended Prince may meditate revenge on a People that will not yield up all to the insatiable claims of boundless Prerogative And Desertion would be the cheapest surest and severest way of revenge if they must never settle again till he please to authorize them and this truly would be the strangest of all Prerogatives There are also that say that King James's Priests counselled and his Queen engaged him to go off on this very account that we might fall into such Plagues thro' our Divisions and unsettled Looseness as should enable him to return with an absolute plenitude of Arbitrary Power But not to depend on uncertain fames with their oblique constructions what can the legal language of that Cession speak to his Loyal People but this I have disbanded my Army and will not contest it with the Sword I shift for my self and must leave you to shift for your selves and settlement as you can Since I yield to my fears and necessities so may you If even a Natural Parent to save his own life leaves his Son to the mercy of his Enemies the Son may contract Peace and subjection to that his Fathers Enemy for his own preservation nor can the meer Natural Relation and Interest of the Father in the Son vacate moral Obligation of such Contract till that power of his Enemy over his Son be otherwise legally dissolved by the Laws of War Redemption or otherwise So that tho' we should allow you that all King James's Enemies sinned in procuring this new Settlement upon us all yet his most Loyal Subjects may most innocently submit from the reason of the thing and the virtual Concession hereunto in the voice of his Desertion which must be supposed as made to his faithful Adherents tho' not to his Enemies So that should he ever return again he could not in any justice punish the meer submission to this new Settlement in those who contributed nothing to it And you that refuse it refuse that liberty which his Desertion legally gave you by all Civil Interpretations All which put together should be of great might with you to admit the present submission as Legal Nor ought his resumed Contests to be taken as Legal or just bars to the contrary For if there were such a Virtual and Legal Concession in his Desertion the Estates of his People taking the benefit of it have provided for us a Settlement upon that Concession which being passed and confirmed the supposed revocation of that Concession by a new War or Inauthoritative Declarations is null void and unobliging And so here was tho' not a Verbal yet a Legal Censent of King James which is as much as you your selves can in reason require to the justifying our present Submission and to the plenitude of our present Settlement Dyscher * T. B's 2d Lett. p. 21. These are pretty tricks to catch Dotterils But above all your most amazing pretence for your Cause
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-Book does not make essentially