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
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
the Quarrel of which mens private Opinions are most times very contrary but can hardly ever be sure or unanimous And by this Rule all Nations go and there is no better tho' God forbid that any man should be obliged to think all the Spoils of War and Law to be really honest and morally rightful Now according to these Rules and Distinctions I asserted that Extra-lineal Kings may be Lawful Successors in Cases Extra-ordinary and I will add upon Causes really Just Rightful Successors too And lest you should quarrel at this Distinction as of private Invention but no publick Character I refer you to the late Oath of Allegiance in the first Paragraph where our late Sovereign Lord K. J. is declared Lawful and Rightful King of this Realm c. that he might be taken for not only de facto but de jure King But amidst all this Dust of what use is a General Question or Position except it properly affects our particular Cases So that in order to the Censure you design upon King William you ought to have charged all the Facts in your stated Question directly upon him in the Course of the Revolution with exact congruity and accuracy that you might have evinced his Illegality or Incapacity of Right in the Possession of this Crown But this you perhaps fancy every body can do But I will in truth try whether it can be done or no. I allow you then in the foundation that the Prince of Orange at his Descent as he had no Right so he pretended none to this Crown and declared his Intentions not to injure King James in any his Personal or Royal Rights whatsoever but then I deny that the Prince seized the Crown by ill Arts or any breach of publick Protestations For when he came in the Head of an armed Force he declared that he came not for the Crown but a Decision of his Cause in Parliament to which end he sent the King fair Articles of Truce and Treaty during the Session But the King refuses or neglects the Proposals and leaves the Kingdom in Anarchy Now all such Declarations in War have this natural obvious and perpetual intention that if the matters in Controversie be adjusted as demanded the Prince demandant will be fully satisfied as having no design to seize his Adversaries Dominions if he will right the Causes of Hostility in the manner claimed but otherwise the very form and Face of War and Arms is in Fact an open Declaration to vanquish out dethrone and crush the Adversary by all Martial and Hostile Methods whatsoever So that King James nglecting his Demands in not calling a Parliament to satisfie the Prince cannot complain that he has broken his Faith or Declaration in taking his Crown And further when the King was gone there appeared no Force or Fraud in the Prince's Actions with the Convention to whose Judgment he fairly left the whole Cause and State of Affairs and they having maturely and peaceably debated all things judge King James's Desertion with respect to all antecedent passages to be an Abdication of the Government and withal they judge the Prince's Succours to have merited the Crown which with the amicable Concession of the two next Heirs they cheerfully offer up to him which he then accepted when a fair Capacity and title was thus legally opened to him So that tho' at first he had no form of Title Pretentions or Designs for this Crown during King James his Right yet when this determined and no other Legal Obstacles interposed there was a fair Reason to accept that then which it was not lawful in Conscience for him before to covet or design Dyscher Your instance in the Houses of York and Lancaster comes not up to so plain a Case as this Where things are obscure and dark as that Title was and perhaps still is to most men great allowance is to be made Lancaster had the more obvious York the better Title * Here T. B. very charitably makes the excellent Bishop of Worcâ—ster to deserve a Gallows instead of a Bishoprick p. 22. But what means this preaching up Confusion The Nation then weltered in Blood and Gore till an undoubted Title put an End to that quarrel But you would have us obstinately maintain a bad Title that our Miseries might have no End A rare Example of Justice and Love to your Country T. B's 2d Lett. p. 21 22. Eucher It seems then it was lawful for the Nation to admit the House of Lancaster against the better Title in the House of York or else what allowances do you make upon the Obscurities of the Title But does it follow that the House of Lancaster had a real Right If so then an extra-lineal King may be Rightful If not then Allegiance may be lawfully yielded by the Nation to extra-lineals who are in by legal Forms of Settlement and Recognition tho not really Rightful or Lineal Heirs For so upon your great allowances the House of Lancaster when enthroned was visibly Legal tho not lineally Rightful and does not this then come full up to all the purpose I designed For it was not meer obscurity of the Descent tho' much involved before the common World by contrary Pretensions that warranted the People in these Submissions but the necessity of ending Spoils Rapines and effusions of Blood For if the competitor Houses would have acquiesced in the judgment of the Estates they could well have determined for the better title upon a fair Heraldry or production of Descents But the Families as opportunities offered themselves were generally restless under the Superiour House but those stirs were legally ended toties quoties by Parliamentary Recognitions But the final end was not procured by the clearness of an undoubted Title but by the Marriage of the Lancastrian King Henry VII with the Lineal Heiress of the House of York by which all competitions closed but Henry stood upon his own bottom in the National Recognition through all his Reign and neither yielded subjection to nor derived his Title from his Queen But yet let us see in dubitable cases how great your allowances would be and particularly in the Lancastrian Reigns Supposing then the Title between the two Houses dubitable or doubted only with one part of the Nation but certain to the rest shall both these Parts swear one Allegiance to the Title which is doubted by one Part against that Title which the other Part is certain of If so then you allow one Part of the Nation to swear against a Title which they know to be certainly Right Or must the doubting Part concede to the Title which others know to be Right If so then the Lancastrian Line cannot be admitted or capable of any your allowances Or must there in this Case be two Kings for the two Parties and two Allegiances in this one Realm Or what if the Competitors and Doubts multiply where shall these and their Divisions end But suppose the whole Nation to
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
all men may judge how candidly our suffering Fathers are dealt with On the 28 of January 1689 the Bishop of London and St. Asaph and some others presented themselves before your mighty K. William with a mournful address in the behalf of our Reverend Fathers then drawing neer to a Civil Suspension and since more than uncivilly deprived This was the pretence but it is reasonable to think that it was a complotted thing and that the design was to get their Authorities deputed in such sure hands as might effectually promote perjury and the thrusting good men out of their Estates c. and so the Addressers got themselves into their several jurisdictions c. This is the real truth of the matter and is so far from being a deputation of their Authorities that it doth not imply any Consent more than what is always unavoidably extorted from every man in the like Circumstances c. T. B. pag. 33 34 35 c. Vide. Eucher I wonder why a man should raise such a tempest about what is nothing to the purpose of my discourse and besides the greenness of the spite discovers much ignorance For the day of suspension was past neer half an year before your 28th of January 89 viz. on the beginning of the precedent August and the time neer drawing on your 28th of January was the Day of Deprivation in the beginning of the following February But the time that I was speaking of from the admission of their Majesties in Feb. 88 till the day of suspension in the August following during which interval these Bishops were in full unsuspended jurisdiction But in that time upon all incidental occasions of collations and institutions to Ecclesiastical Promotions the Oath of present Allegiance was to be ministred by the ordinary and primary Officer of the Bishops and by no others while they were present at their Sees except by their especial Deputation So that were there no particular instance producible for me the truth which I Spake is self-evident and notorious that the Oath was administred in all such Cases by the Bishops or their Deputies For no person or power could herein impose any officer upon them while all the Course of Ecclesiastical affairs proceeded yet in their names But I know where deputations were then given and the Oath administred by those Deputies by virtue of that Deputation And is it not a very pertinent account to the contrary to tell me what was done just before and then after the day of Deprivation to disprove what I had said was done by the Bishops before their actual Suspension And was it not very accurate to mistake the days of Suspension and Deprivation for one and the same between which there was half a year distance But there had been no occasion for your reproaching Talent against the Reverend Fathers of London and St. Asaph notwithstanding their great merits against Popery in the last Reign if you had not fool'd in this impertinence for a shew of Contradiction But when you pervert the kind intentions of that Address to so horrid and calumnious surmises you ought with grief and repentance to remember that he that rewardeth evil for good evil shall never depart from his House Dyscher I see one fire kindles another by the heat my freedom hath cast you into to cool which I know no present expedient but intermission of discourse for this time And besides the day is at an End and I must retire to my lodging and respite the remainder of our debate till to morrow when with your leave we will renew our Conference and examine the Case of the Ecclesiastical Change Eucher I would not have you take my seldom ardours for uncharitable nor withdraw upon any such surmise if you please to repose your self and your passions under my roof this night you shall be truly and heartily welcome to a thrifty but friendly Hospitality Dyscher I thank you Sir but as I am not otherwise very flexible so my business requires me to take leave and wish you good Night A DEBATE ON THE Justice and Piety Of the Present CONSTITUTION UNDER K. William The Second Part. The First relating to the State The Second to the Church BETWEEN Eucheres a CONFORMIST AND Dyscheres a RECUSANT By Samuel Hill Rector of Kilmington Author of Solomon and Abiathar Psal 7.8 Judge me O Lord according to my Righteousness and according to mine Integrity that is in me Inter-utrumque tene Obsequium amicos Veritas Odium Parit LONDON Printed for John Everingham at the Star in Ludgate-street 1696. A DEBATE ON THE JUSTICE AND PIETY Of the Present Constitution PART II. Concerning the Ecclesiastical Change Dyscher ACcording to my yesterdays promise I am returned to continue on the Debate which the supervening night interrupted Let us therefore now begin where we left off and pursue the matters of our last Conference to their just and utmost Issue Eucher You are heartily welcom and so let us closely apply our selves to the Business Dyscher Pass we then from the Civil to the Sacred War in which we are engaged by the contrariety of our Principles And first I pray you wherein do you found the just and regular Right of the Ecclesiastical Deprivations Eucher This I often and very expresly told you that as to the merits of Deprivation they stand in the enormities of your practic principles against the present Civil Constitution by which you are brought into an incapacity of a public Trust over mens Consciences which your opinions will sharpen into Civil Seditions and religious Schisms And as to the Canonical form of your Deprivations I placed it in the customary right the ancient Churches used against Bishops of false principles by separating from them and Appealing to other Social Churches and Bishops for their assistance in new Consecrations which course our Church has also used against the Recusant Fathers upon the just Commands of the State Dyscher Indeed I do remember now the nature of that Charge you loaded us with †Sel. and Ab. pag. 16 17. and it might have made an excellent Argument for Julian or Dioclesian by traducing our Bishops as imposturous and comparing them to Idolaters for which my friend T. B. hath so sufficiently requited you Sec. Lett. pag. 36 that you cannot say he is in your Debt or is so indigent as to run upon tick for calumnies and slanders Eucher I was never skilled in T. B's Arts or Conversations and do decline the lists and pretentions to the faculty of evil speaking I shall only say that I ever looked on those Fathers to be too rigorously pious in their unhappy Errors in the notions and rules of English Loyalty tho' I ever acknowledged their undoubted sincerity But because I was aware that you exempt all Episcopal Causes and Authorities from all Civil and Laic Cognisance in matters and censures purely Spiritual therefore to draw you off from that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I put the Case upon the worst
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
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