Swerve unnecessarily from the Custom which had been used in the Church even when it lived under Infidels I know not why others should not emulate the Example of so great a Prince if they also would be esteem'd in the Judgment of so great a Person Virtuous I know not why it should not be counted commendable also in them if they also had made Conscience to Swerve unnecessarily from these acknowledged antient Ecclesiastical Liberties He owns that this same Excellent Prince ratified the Order which had been before exhorting the Bishops to look to the Church and promising that he would do the Office of a Bishops over the Commonwealth and when he did take cognizance of Causes of this kind yet this great Person doubts whether he did so as purposing to give them Judicially any Sentence Here we find plain confessions that the Church was in possession of these Liberties before the Conversion of this first Christian Emperor and that Emperor himself was so sensible of this Possession that he made a Conscience of invading it And who could better Judge of his Right as a Christian Prince than he who was the first example of it Mr. Hooker does indeed think that Constantine abstained from what he might lawfully do But he seems plainly to grant that the Emperor was of another mind when he says he made a Conscience of doing what Mr. Hooker thinks he might have done That same Judicious Person adds further with reference to our particular Laws in England There is no Cause given unto any to make Supplication as Hilary did that Civil Governours to whom Common wealth matters only belong may not presume to take upon them the Judgment of Ecclesiastical Causes If the Cause be Spiritual Secular Courts do not meddle with it We need not excuse our selves with Ambrose but boldly and lawfully we may refuse to answer before any Civil Judge in a matter which is not Civil so that we do not mistake either the Nature of the Cause or of the Court as we easily may do both without some better direction than can be by the Rules of this new sound Discipline But of this most CERTAIN we are that our Laws do neither suffer a Spiritual Court to entertain in those Causes which by the Law are Civil nor yet if the matter be indeed Spiritual a meer Civil Court to give Judgment of it Thus Mr. Hookeer And he proves what he says in the Margin from passages of the Laws themselves and the Book de Nat. Brevium and Bracton plainly asserting the difference of those two Jurisdictions I am sensible what a Scope I have here of enquiring into the Laws themselves and proving this Independently on the Testimony of this admirable Man But perhaps I have already said more than can be Printed in this difficulty of our Circumstances I therefore say no more at present but refer our Adversaries to him The rather because he is indeed against me in making the Church one Body with the believing State and because one of our Adversaries has expresly insisted on his Authority Both these reasons as well as the distance of the Age he lived in are sufficient to clear him of any the least suspicion of partiality on our side Even in this very Cause he defends the Use of Lay Persons joyn'd in Commission with Spiritual ones for determining Spiritual Affairs And possibly he may do so by Examples if all Examples must pass for Precedents since Henry VIIIths Usurpations But when King JAMES the II added Laymen in the same Commission with the Bishops concerned in the Case of the Bishop of London with a Power of Deprivation or Suspension ab Officio as well as a Beneficio it is very well known that his Lordship excepted against the competency of his Lay Judges that as a Bishop of the Catholick Church he ought to be tryed by Bishops only His Lorpship would do well now to remember his own Plea then in order to the judging of his own Case now how he can justify his Communicating with those who are set up against his Colleagues deprived no otherwise than by a Lay Power It is well known that his Council then Learned in our Laws insisted on this Plea as maintainable by our present Laws made since the Constitution of the Ecclesiastical Supremacy And what good Church of England Man was there then that did not think the Plea very just and reasonable Let those Lawyers be pleased to recollect what they had to say on that Case and try whether it will not also affect our present deprivations It is very certain that the Liberties of H. Church are the very first things provided for in Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath so that if these things be not inviolable nothing else can be so being Fundamental to all the Security that can be given by our present Constitution And it is no way reasonable that bare Precedents without express Acts for Alienating such Rights as these are should be thought sufficient for extinguishing a Claim grounded on so inviolable a Security If they be so Henry the VIIIth made such Precedents for violating Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath too that no Liberties of the People can now be secure And it is withal as certain that in the Disputes which occasioned the passing Magna Charta this particular of the exemption of the Clergy was one point principally insisted on Nay it was insisted on then to higher purposes than were reasonable or than I am concerned for now so far as to exempt them from Secular Courts even when they were guilty of Secular Crimes and even so it was most frequently determined in favour of the Clergy That was Becket's Dispute which generally prevailed in the following Ages when he was Canonized and when Henry the IId had submitted to Pennance for what he had done in opposition to him This Case of their Exemption as to their Spirituals which is all for which I am now concerned was than so generally acknowledged even by the Laity themselves that there was very little occasion of disputing it Rarely was it ever invaded and more rarely yet if ever was that Invasion defended by themselves who were guilty of it till the Unhappy Times of Henry the VIIIth So uncontroverted was the Right for which I plead that I do not think our Adversaries can give one single Instance of substituting a Successor into a See vacated by no better than a Lay deprivation This privilege therefore against Lay deprivations was so undoubtedly the sense of Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath that on that account as well as in point of Right all Patriots ought to be Zealous for it as well as all good Christians all who have a true Concern for those Two Fundamental Securities of Property as well as of Religion all who are so wise as to foresee how far Precedents of violating them in one Instance may proceed for violating them in others also §
a Majority in our Legislative Assemblies I say no more at present for making Application how probable it is for such Principles to gain acceptance with the majority I should be as willing as any to presume better things if I could see reason to believe them But our best security is certainly to assert Principles that my not put it in the power of any to ruin our Spiritual Society and to be true to them He adds There is nothing more manifest than that this Inconvenience is not so likely to happen as those Evils we endeavour to avoid Why so These he says are certain and present That only possible If they be certain and present how can they pretend that by their compliance they have avoided them If they have not avoided them by complying how can they pretend that the benefits of their compliance can have made amends for all the further Injuries they may expose the Church to for the future by suffering such ill practices to pass into Precedents for want of a timely opposition Methinks he should have made the avoidal of the feared evils certain and present not the Evils themselves if he would have spoken consequently to the exigence of his Case But it is too true that the Evils themselves are present and that their Compliance has not avoided them The Schism is so notoriously And so is the Persecution also to all that will be true to their old Principles and to their old Communion For what favour has been shewn on condition of deserting old Principles can by no fair Interpretation be extended to that Church whose Principles they were So far as they hold firm to their old Principles they are still liable to the Persecution and so far as they desert them so far they also cease to be of the Church whose Principles they have deserted Few Persecutions have been so severe but that they might have been avoided by desertion But the further Inconvenience likely to follw on this compliance is more than possible It is as probable as most events are that depend on Humane Wills It is a natural Consequence and a Consequence likely to be drawn by Persons so Principled and there are but too many that are so and too tempting occasions to put them in mind of and to engage them on such Inferences § XXI That abuse it a greater mischief than that it can be made a mends for by the Doctors Expedients Yet 3ly should this Inconveniences follow the Doctor thinks himself provided against it Though the Government should be so very dissolute as to turn out frequently the Bishops of the Church without any just Cause yet who says he can look upon that mischief to be comparable to that of a Schism and a Persecution If he could find in his heart to be as much concerned for a more noble Society when it can intitle him to nothing but sufferings as he is for a less noble one that can give him revenues I cannot think he could be so indifferent for bearing frequent Injuries by invalid Deprivations of its Governours which cannot discharge Subjects from their Duty in Conscience to those which are so deprived He would be sensible how this would tend to the dissolving such a Socièty that must have its Governours removable at the pleasure of a hostile Society whensoever but pleased to invade Rights not belonging to it without any remedy or relief by insisting on their own Rights which the Doctors Principles make unpracticable And what Schisms or Persecutions can be worse to a Society than dissolution He would be sensible there is now a Schism and a Persecution That our late common Body is now divided that his late Brethren upon Principles of Conscience are now Persecuted if he could not otherwise believe he would feel if he had the compassion of a living Member If he had the Zeal of the Apostle when he used that passionate Expression Who is offended and I burn not If he had any sense of the afflictions of Joseph He would be sensible of the many future Schisms that must follow upon the frequency of these Encroachments upon his own loose Principles that neither allow Bishops to assert their own just Rights nor oblige Subjects to stand by them when they do so as long as there shall be any Bishops that shall think themselves obliged to assert them and Subjects that think their doing so will not discharge themselves from Duty to them that is as long as there are any that are true to the concenting Principles of the Church as it is a Society and a Communion He would be sensible that upon such Brethren as these such frequent encroachments would draw frequent Persecutions So far his Principles and Practices are from securing our common Body from Schisms and Persecutions But it seems he has forgot all concern for his old Brethren upon the surest most uniting Principles of Brotherhood nay for our common Body and of the terms upon which it was common to us formerly If he had not he would not think our Common Body so unconcern'd in our Divisions and our Persecutions But what says the Doctor can the suffering of a few particular men be when compared with the Peace and Tranquillity of the whole Church besides Not so much undoubtedly if the few had been Men of singular Opinions of no consequence for the good of the whole if they had not been such as all ought to have been if they would cement into a Body by any solid uniting Principles The suffering of such how few soever would have involved the whole Church if all its Members had been such as they should have been It is therefore the unhappiness of a Church that such Members are but few So far it is from being a Consideration to be boasted of that the Majority avoids sufferings by doing otherwise than becomes them If the Doctors regard to Multitude alone had been true then whenever there was an Apostaoy the Church would be by so much the more happy by how much the more had been engaged in the Apostacy These Multitudes would call themselves the Church as confidently as the Doctor and his Party do now and would as little regard the sufferings of a few particular Men as our late Brethren do I am sure the antient Catholicks did not so little regard the sufferings of a few particular Men in a common Cause In the Eastern Empire there were very few that incurred the displeasure of Constantius besides Athanasius and Paulus In the West no more than five Bishops are reckoned that suffered for their constancy The rest might have pretended generally to as much Peace and Tranquillity as our Adversaries do now Yet he was not than taken for a true Catholick who was as unconcerned as the Doctor is for the few particular Men that suffered Nor do I see but that the Cause of Episcopal Authority and Ecclesiastical Subjection is of as great and common importance to the Church in general
Heroical ardor of that Age by the cold and degenerous Notions of his own our most learned Bishop Pearson has proved his Actions far from beīng singular by many more very express Testimonies of those most glorious times of our Christian Religion Nor are the Canons against the provoking Persecutors which the Doctor takes notice of near so old as these great examples of desiring and meeting Persecution nor indeed till the abatement of the first zeal appeared in the scandalous lapses of warm pretenders None such were made whilst they were true to their profession so that the consenting Practice of the best times was far from the Doctors mind in reckoning Persecution among the greatest Evils that can possibly befal the Church They did not take it for an evil but rather for a favour and a benefit And though it were allowed to be an evil yet the utmost that can be made of it is that it is an evil only of Calamity the greatest of which kind Conscientious Casuists have never thought comparable with the least evil of Sin I might add also that Scandal also as it is a cause of Sin is a greater Evil than Persecution Our Saviour himself pronounces wo to him by whom the Scandel cometh and the Fire of Hell which never shall he quenched And these are Evils which the Doctor himself must own to be worse than that of Persecution The Doctor therefore must not insist on the Persecution avoided by this complyance with the Intruders till he has cleared the condition of avoiding it from not only Sin but Scandal also If he thinks deposing all Bishops in general to be in earnest a just cause for him to shew his fortitude let him bethink himself how the matter is now in Scotland It were easie by just consequences from the Grounds and Principles of Ecclesiastical Commerce to shew how that Case would concern him in England if it were convenient If Christ were equally to be enjoyed in the Communion of the true Bishops and their Schismatical Rivals we should be as willing as he to keep off the Evil day as long as we could Flesh and Blood would easily perswade us to it if it were safe But he knows very well that the Catholick Church in the purest Ages never believed our mordern Latitudinarian Fancies that Schismaticks have any Union with Christ whilst they are divided from his Mystical Body the Church If this were true or if he thought it himself true I do not understand how he could reckon Schism among the greatest Evils that can befal the Church if even Schismaticks may enjoy Christ though they be in open Hostility with his Authorized Representative §. XVIII The Evil of Schism not avoided but incurred by complying with the Usurpers As for the Case of Schism which he pretends to be avoided by them by their compliance with the Usurpers this Evil is so far from being avoided as that it has been occasioned by it The Doctor cannot deny but that their communicating with the Intruders has occasioned a notorious breach of Communion which on one side or the other must needs be Schismatical All therefore that he can pretend is that they by complying are not chargable with the crime of the Schism that has been occasion'd by it How so it is because if we had also done as they have done there had been no Schism Very true But it had been full as true if they had done as we have done This pretence therefore leaves the Criminalness of the breach as uncertain as before and necessarily puts them for tryal of that on the merit of the Cause And if that be enquired into all the Presumptions as well as the particular Proofs are in favour of us and against them We were plainly one before this breach As therefore the branch it self is new so the guilt of it must be resolved into the Innovations that occasion'd it which will by unavoidable consequence make them chargeable with the breach who were guilty of the Innovations The Innovations that have caused the breach are the disowning our old Bishops and substituting others in their Places whilst themselves are living and continue their Claim and are not deprived by any Authority that had really a Power to deprive them But in these instances they not we have been the Aggressors and Innovators Do we own the Old Bishops for the true Bishops of these Sees of which they have pretended to deprive them And did not they do so too as well as we before the Deprivation And what had they to pretend for themselves why they do not so still Besides this very Sentence of Deprivation which the Doctor owns to be invalid And how can they justify their disowning them upon a Sentence confessedly invalid This new behaviour of theirs they must wholly own as it is new to be their own We only continue to own our Holy Fathers as Dr. Hody himself and his Brethren did formerly As for the Second Act the setting up new Bishops in opposition to our Fathers they cannot excuse themselves from being the Innovators and concerning us they cannot pretend it They have made the new Bishops who consecrated them and they also who own them by communicating with them or their Consecrators These have intirely been the Acts of the Ecclesiasticks Yet without these all that the Lay-Power could have done could never have formed a Schism nor divided our Communion And as to what has been done on both sides we can better excuse our selves than they can Could they and we have consented to have acted Uniformly there could have been no Schism But we can better account for our not complying with them than they can for not complying with us On their side they have nothing to plead but worldly Considerations They could not doubt of the Lawfulness with regard to conscience of doing that on their side which if done had prevented the Schism They can pretend no obligation in Conscience for setting up other Bishops as we can for not owning them till they can prove us fairly discharged in Conscience which they as well as we were obliged in in regard of the old true Proprietors They could pretend no cementing Principles essential to the subsistence of the Church as a Society and a Communion independent on the State obliging them to comply with these encroachments of the Politicions for making Spiritual considerations to give way to Temporals They could pretend no Catholick Authority of the Church in any Age approving what was done by them as we can of the best and purest Ages for what has been done by Us. They could not pretend any such united Authority of even the Church of England before this change for many things wherein we differ now as we can So far thay have been from avoiding Schism by these compliances or from purging themselves from the guilt of the Schism which has followed thereupon § XXI The abuses that may follow on Compliance are a just reason
ratify them if they had been Invasions of the Right of the Magistrate But the Districts were then absolutely necessary for making the Churches Censures as settled out by Lord and his Apostles practicable By them the Bishops knew what Persons were liable to their particular respective Jurisdictions By those the Subjects olso knew the particular Bishops to whose Censures they were obliged to pay a Deference If the Bishop had censured Persons not belonging to his Jurisdiction by the settlement then made by the Apostles they could not think GOD obliged to second him in his Usurpations and therefore could be under no Obligation to regard such Censures It was therefore absolutely necessary that the Right of Preaching the Gospel and settling districts without the leave of the Possessing Magistrates must by GOD have been made the Right of the Ecclesiasticks in reference to Conscience and therefore could not at the same time have been the Right of the Civil Magistrate What then will become of the Doctor 's imaginary Contract Bellarmine fancies that when the Magistrate was baptized he also was supposed to make an implicite Contract with the Bishop that his Crown should be at the Bishops disposal whenever the Bishop should judge that his holding it would be inconsistent with the Churches Interest This is as reasonable as the Doctor 's pretended Contract that on consideration of the leave allowed by the Magistrate for Preaching and settling districts in his Dominions the Bishops make an implicit contract with the Magistrate that they will submit to be deposed by him when he shall judge their holding their places hurtful to his Worldly Interests If either of these implicite Contracts would hold Bellermines is the more likely of the two that the lesser Worldly Interests should give way to the Spiritual But from what has been said it appears that the Right of making Districts was a Right inseparable from the Authority given by GOD for making and governing Proselytes all the World over If therefore it be not the Magistrates but their own what reason have they to make any however implicite Contracts for that which is their own already § LIV. Our Reasoning against the Magistrates Right of deprivation in Spiritual proceed Universally and therefore in Case of Temporal Crimes also the owning such a Power would have been Pernicious to the Primitive Christians also who were charged with Temporal Crimes The Magistrate therefore cannot by the Constitutions of the Gospel pretend to any â—ight whether direct or indirect for depriving our Bishops of their Spiritual Power This our Adversaries themselves do not deny where the Causes pretended for their deprivation are purely Spiritual But where the Case is Temporal as it is here in our Fathers Case there they think that the Magistrate may punish them not only by Secular Punishments but by Deprivations as to the exercising of their Spiritual Right in Districts contained within his Dominions But all that can fairly follow from their Crime being Secular is no more but this that it properly belongs to the Cognizance of the Secular Magistrate and is therefore justly punishable by them who have a JUST TITLE to the Supream Secular Authority That is in such a way of Punishment as properly belongs to the Right of the Magistrate And we allow that to extend as far as the Secular Honours and Revenues by the Secular Laws annexed to their Office nay to their Persons also as to what is Personal to them This is perfectly sufficient to secure the Magistrate in Case not only a single Bishop but the whole Synod should prove guilty of violating their Duty to him whatever the Doctor pretends to the contrary But that this will give him any new Right of punishing which he cannot pretend to by the Nature of his Office our Adversaries have not yet pretended to prove Till they do so or till they Answer what has now been produced to prove the contrary that his Right of Magistracy does no way reach the Spirituals of our Bishops no nor their Right to exercise them in Jurisdictions contained in his Dominions we may as easily deny as they assert that Power of Deprivation by them ascribed to the Magistrate One would think that when we have proved the Nature of the Spiritual Power such as that it is not in the Power of any but GOD or those Authorized by GOD for this purpose to deprive them of that Power who have once received it and that neither the things themselves transacted by the Spiritual Power are in the Power of the Magistrate nor that GOD has given the Magistrate any Authority to represent him in these matters which may oblige him to ratify in Heaven what the Magistrate in his name pretends to Act on Earth It should unavoidably follow that the Magistrate has not this Power at all which if he have not in general he cannot have in this nor in any other particular Case assignable by our Adversaries Why are they therefore so unreasonable as to expect after we have disproved this Power in general that we must be put to the further trouble of disproving it in a particular Case They themselves can easily perceive the partiality of their demands in other the like Cases They who on the other side are for the encroachments of the Clergy upon the Rights of the Magistracy in order to Spirituals in Case of Heresy do so far proceed successfully when they shew that Heresy is a Crime properly cognizable by the Spiritual Judicatories and that Magistrates as well as others are Subject to such Judicatories in matters purely Spiritual But then the consequence would only be that a Magistrate so convicted of Heresy might by such Spiritual Judges be deprived of his Right to Communion and consequently of all the Spiritual Rights and benefits to which he is entitled as a Member of the true Communion This is the utmost that Spiritual Judges can pretend to or wherein they can expect that GOD will second and ratify their Determinations But when they proceed further to forbid all Civil Conversation with the Magistrate to deprive him of his Civil Rights to absolve his Subjects from their Duty of Civil Obedience These are consequences which I believe our Adversaries will not defend Yet how they can avoid being obliged to it if they will be true to the Consequences of their reasonings in this Case for my part I cannot understand For why may not the Church assume a Right of punishing Temporally a Crime that is really allowed to be of Spritual Cognizance if the Magistrate for a Temporal Crime may inflict a deprivation of Spirituals I do not now insist on what we have to say as to the validity of the Sentence given against our Fathers in respect of the Temporal Authority that can be pretended for it However that is at least sufficient to shew that it is only the Judgment of those who have given Judgment against them that they had even Temporal Authority sufficient for
but England and France were then two distinst and perfectly independent Societies The same way as the BISHOP himself was the Head of the CHURCH and yet a Subject of the STATE therefore a Member of BOTH Societies antecedently to any such Conversions or any Pretence that could be therefore made for a coalition of both into one Society Conversion therefore thought it bring all Persons into one Society of the Church yet does not hinder but that the Two Societies of the Church and State continue as distinct from each other as formerly whilst the same things remain that made them two Societies formerly And Conversions do not hinder but that they may still remain so Still the Spirituals and Temporals are as distinct as ever Still the same Right continue for the Bishops to be the competent Judges of Spirituals as the Magistrate are of Temporals Still the same distinction of Laws continues by which the Two Societies are governed as formerly That the Church is to be governed by the Church which are made by a Consent of the Ecclesiasticks and that the State is governed by the Laws which receive their Sanction from the Lay-Authority Still the Independence continues that the Bishops are as supream unappealable Judges for Spirituals as the Magistrates are for Temporals Conversions I am sure do not hinder but that this also might have remained as it did formerly For such a coalition of the Two Societies as our Adversary reasons for it would be necessary that the Government of one of the Societies should surrender or acknowledge a dependence on the Government of the other But neither of them can be pretended at the first Conversions of Magistrates Neither of them now in the Case of the Church of England The name of Head on which our Adversary insists is long ago laid aside by Q. Elizabeth And one of our Articles disowns all Pretensions of our Princes to the power of preaching the Word and administring the Sacraments This Article is ratified and made Law by an Act of Parliament Upon these Considerations we can fairly take the Oath of Supremacy as thus intrepreted by the Legislators themselves without owning any subjection of the Bishops as to Causes purely Spiritual to the Supream Magistrate even in England So far the Church and State are yet even here from being made one Society as our Adversary pretends The Examples of Bishops taking out Patents for the Right of giving Orders were I believe never known before the Reign of HENRY the VIII And that I hope our Adversary himself will not plead as a Reign of Presidents If he do the Liberties of the People will be no more secure than those of the Clergy Nothing was security against him who made such manifest invasions on the Two Fundamental Securities MAGNA CHARTA and his own OATH taken at his CORONATION Thus clear it is that Conversions alone could not make any change in the Rights of Power in Spirituals of which the Church was possessed before notwithstanding that the Converts are thereby made one Body with the Church with which they were not one formerly § LIX The Church's Obligations are more necessary for the subsisting of the State than those she receives from the State are for hers If therefore the Majestrate will lay claim to a Right in Spirituals it must be on some other account than bare Conversion That he must rather lose than gain by as I have already shewn because in his Conversion he comes to the Bishop's terms not the Bishop to his Our Adversaries therefore have another Pretence for his Superiority in purely Spirituals That is the benefit that the Church enjoys by the Magistrate's favour and protection the honours and profits annex'd to the sacred Offices and the security she has thereby against Adversaries and the assistance of the secular Arm for reducing Rebellious Subjects by secular coercions For these things they think her obliged in Gratitude to remit some of her former Rights by way of compensation for them And this Obligation in gratitude they conceive sufficient to engage her to an implicite and intrepretative Contract to continue this remitting of Rights on her part if she will in reason expect that the Magistrate shall continue his Favours But I confess I cannot see proceeding on Principles that must be granted by all who believe Religion but that the disadvantage will still lye on the side of the Magistrate For by this way of Reasoning the implicite Contract for remitting Rights will lye on that side which is most obliged and that side will appear most obliged which receives more benefit by the commerce than it gives For this consideration of remitting Right on account of Gratitude comes only in by way of compensation for what is wanting on its own side to make the benefit it confers equal to that which it receives But I cannot imagine how the Magistrate can pretend his Favours equal to those which he receives by Religion especially the true Religion So far he is from exceeding them so as to expect any compensation for arrears due to him on ballancing his accounts It is by Religion and by those Obligations which nothing but Religion can make sacred and inviolable that he holds his very Throne it self If he hold his Throne by Compact nothing but Religion can hold the Subjects to the Contract made by them If by any other Right nothing but that can oblige them to pay him that which by any sort of Right soever is his due Where he has no force to exact duty from them nothing can restrain them but ties of Conscience and nothing alse can lay a restraint on their Conscience but Religion Where he has a power of Force yet even that is not near so formidable at the irresistible power of Heaven and the fear of future and eternal Punishments No Considerations but those can curb them from secret Practices which oftentimes subvert the greatest Humane Force by degrees insensible and therefore unaviodable Nor is any Religion so conget on these accounts as that which is truest and most acceptable to GOD. GOD may be obliged by the general Laws of Providence for the general Good of Mankind to inflict Imprecations made for securing Faith even in false Religions But he is most present at the Offices of his owe establishment and therefore they have the greatest reason to fear them who imprecate in that form which is most suitable to the ture Religion No Religion so formidable at that which threatens future and eternal Pains in case of Violation No Religion can so well assure Us of the future and eternal State as Revealed Religion No Revelation so well evidenced by Credentials attesting it in Ages of Writings and accurate Information as our Christian Religion No one Communion even of Christians so just and equal against Invasions on either side either of the Church or the Magistrate as that of the Primitive Christians and of these Churches which lately came the nearest to those
already what has been pretended to the contrary from the Case of Abiathar and those other later Deprivations by the Heathen Magistrates And this is at present our Principal Dispute § LXIX No Reasoning from the Rights of the Jewish Princes to the Rights of Christian Princes now Indeed in this whole matter concerning Reasoning from the Jewish to the Evangelical Priesthood I have taken care to Argue barely from what was common to them both the Nature of Priesthood in general and in those very instances wherein even the Apostolical Christians admit the Argument Our Adversaries on the contrary when they Reason from the Princes Power then to the Power of Christian Princes now they do not Argue as I have done from the Priesthood simply considered but from the Power annexed to the Priesthood yet seperable from it according to the design of GOD in the particular Constitution The Power of Governing the Society whose holy Rights are administred by it is I confess very seperable from the Right of Priesthood in general and whether it was actually annexed to it or not is therefore to be judged by the particular constitution But particularly for the Jewish State I rather believe that it was not annexed to it For the Right of Government as annexed to the Priesthood is founded on the Right the Priest has to oblige subjects by excluding refractory Persons as such from partaking in his Sacrifices But so much Erastus has I think well observed that the only things that then hindred from the Sacrifices were only Legal incapacities such as not being of the Holy Seed or being under some Legal Pollution not any whatsoever immoralities of Life And therefore the Punishment for not standing to the award of the Priests was capital as being a disobedience to so much of the secular Government as it was Theocratical not exclusion from the Sacrifices of those who had been contemned by the delinguent Nor indeed was there that necessity that the Government even as to Spirituals should be annexed to the Priesthood then as there is under the Gospel now The Prince was then always obliged to be a Jew and therefore of the Religion establish'd for that Nation by GOD himself Now his being of an other than the true Religion is no hindrance by our modern Constitutions from having a Lawful Right to the secular Government Then the Prince had a better pretence as the Head of the Theocracy to command in affairs concerning GOD than any Prince living can now when no State pretends to be Theocratical Then all the concerns of the Peculium were confined to that single Nation which was wholly commanded by one Prince Now the concerns of every National Church are mixed with those of all the other National Churches in the World with whom their Prince has no concern at all This very consideration makes the National Church's Interests seperable from the Interests of their Prince of which he can therefore be by no means presumed a Competent Judge That Priesthood was not intended to be Practicable in a time of Persecution and Independence on the Civil Government On the contrary the want of all the Exercises of their Religion was the most dejecting consideration of their Captivities and one of the greatest inducements for good Men to be earnest with GOD in Prayer for a Restoration They were then to be without a Priesthood without an Ephod without a Teraphim And the Temple of the Lord was the Principal thing bemoaned by them who pretended any Zeal for their Nation or Religion No doubt on account of their losing all the comfort of Sacerdotal Ministrations which could be performed in no other place besides that particular Temple Then the loss of their daily Sacrifices was the highest Calamity that the Antichrist then expected could bring upon them And the perfect uselesness of the Priests afther the destruction of the Temple made Titus put the Priests to the Sword when the obstinacy of the Jews had obliged him to destroy the Temple So clear it was that that was not a Religion capable of subsisting in a Persecution as to the Exercises of it as a Communion But it is withal as clear that our Church was instituted in a Persecution with a Power of depriving disobedient Subjects of the benefits of Communion and with a Power of exercising Sacredotal Offices in that very State of Independecy on the Civil Magistrate And indeed that State was principally provided for here at the first Institution of the Church which was not so much as designed in the Jewish Church Besides the clear and express Revelation of Spiritual and Eternal benefits conveyed by our Evangelical Priest-hood is a thing peculier to the Gospel Yet this alone is sufficient to put it beyond all pretensions even of a Theocratical Magistracy designed only for Temporals Thus therefore it every way appears that more Power is by GOD himself annexed to the Evangelical than to the Legal Priest-hood This therefore is sufficient to overthrow our Adversaries Reasoning here that our Princes now may challenge all that Power that the Jewish Princes could formerly For they cannot challenge that which though it was not then has yet been since annexed to our Evangelical Priest-hood § LXX Our Present deprivations not justifiable by even our present Secular Laws Yet after all we can even from the Laws of of our Countrys and the Supremacy settled by those very Laws except against the Sentence of Deprevation passed against our Fathers as to their Spirituals The Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical is by all the Acts made concerning it vested not in the PARLIAMENT but in the KING And even as it is in the KING it was never intended for him so as that it might be in his Power to confound the several Courts and Jurisdictions to which Causes are appropriated by the Laws themselves The Acts for the Supremacy even in Temporals do not allow him to transfar any Cause from the Court appointed for it to his own hearing out of it nor even to any other Court than that to which the cognizance of it does properly belong This holds as in other Cases so in this also of the Deprivations of spiritual Persons And it is own'd to hold by Mr. Hooker himself in that very Book to which we are referred by our Adversaries He owns it with express application to the Case of the KING himself the Seat of the Supremacy in Spirituals He tells us that All Men are not for all things sufficient and therefore publick affairs being divided such Persons must be Authorized Judges in each kind as common Reason may presume to be most fit Which cannot of KINGS and PRINCES ordinarily be presumed in Causes meerly Ecclesiastical so that even common sense doth rather adjudg this Burthen to other Men. He owns that Bishops alone were before accustomed to have the ordering of such Ecclesiastical affairs He confesses that Virtuous Emperours such as Constantine the Great was made Conscience to