Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A43806
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The rites of the Christian church further defended in answer to the appeal of Dr. Wake : with a letter to Mr. Hill ... on the account of the Municipium ecclesiasticum, as also an answer / by Sam. Hill ...
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Hill, Samuel, 1648-1716.; N. N.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing H2011; ESTC R5805
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16,492
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62
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is not yet done and so we yet are in no danger from this part of the Appeal But when Men are in the vein of Dedications their Strains are more Airy and Rapturous and in such perhaps we may find something more apposite and daring Now Dedic to App. p. 3. he calls his a Cause In which not only the Church of England but the Church Catholick ever since the Civil Powers have become Christian is concerned together with her The Authority he plead for in behalf of our Kings being no other than what the most famous Bishops and Councils of the Church have given to their Emperors Now this will reduce the Dispute to a short Issue Let there be production made of the most famous Bishops and Councils of the Catholick Church under Christian Princes asserting these Nine Aphorisms of Ecclesiastical Authority to all such Princes on the sole Right of their Magistracy and we will deliver up the Municipium to the Flames and the Author to the most penitential Humiliations It is not done in the former Book 't is not attempted in this Appeal nay we have produced his own Contradictions in the most important Instances of such Supremacy * Munic Eccl. p. 160 166 167 168 169 172 173 175 176 against these Infinite and Arbitrary Prerogatives to many of which Remarks he has said nothing and so own'd them just and to such as he has excepted against we shall shew his exceptions frivolous and causeless in due Place And so as to all that was proper Matter for Appeal in the Municipium he has produced nothing to excuse much less to justifie his Cause and Principles and so we humbly crave and hope for a dismission in this Second Part of the Controversie also But these Informations of ours in this Cause of Appeal though so very clear and undeniable will be apt to leave the World under an amazement that a Man should Appeal in a Cause and make such loud Clamours and yet really not offer one pertinent Syllable for himself 't is so odd so strange a prejudice that the World will hardly believe their own Eyes What hath he made no Answer to any one Charge or Imputation at all This is an hard Saying who can believe Who can bear it Now to satisfie the World the truth is he appealed not in the Cause on which he was charged nor made any defence thereof but in a Cause of our own Kings English and Peculiar Supremacy for which the Municipium never touched him As to the merits of the Cause therefore there is none the least defence made and the whole considered as a formal Appeal is a perfect and entire Impertinence But whereas the Municipium taxed him not only for the dangerous falsity of his Principles but with several personal Inadvertencies Absurdities and Contradictions some of these strokes he has endeavoured to evade which though Excentrick to the Pretended or Real Matter in Appeal shall have their due Examination tho' we confess 't is a very sickly and unprofitable Labour that must be imployed in winnowing such Trifles 1. And first of all the Municipium is blamed for four times * Municip Eccl. p. 6 8.49 55 Taxing his Definition of a Synod as unaccurate whereas he never pretended it for a proper Definition but plainly enough discovered his Sense of it to be otherwise tho' yet it had been a fit Companion for our as unaccurate a Definition Pref. to App. p. xx To which we Answer That the Words appeared to us as a Definition on which an Argument was to be raised concerning the Carthage Conference for a Regal Supremacy over Synods else how could it be deemed a Cavil if it were no Synod to alledge that it was none and so to reject it as an Impertinence To what purpose does he call it a Meeting of Ecclesiastical Persons on an Ecclesiastical Affair or such an Assembly under Imperial Authority as may justifie the like Imperial Authority over any other of the like kind †Auth. of Prin. p. 60. if real and proper Synods were of another kind What then are proper Synods Meetings of Ecclesiastical Persons on an Ecclesiastical Affair or are they not Or are they like or unlike to the Carthage Conference It cannot be denied that Synods are such Meetings and if Ministers had been set instead of Persons it had been an accurate Definition enough Then again if they are unlike to the Carthage Conference and that in their Synodical Form the Instance of that Conference was idle and frivolous if like as he says then the Description thereof was intended for definitive And 't is false that the Doctor in the same place disowned it to be a Synod but having laboured to evince it to be so yet waves urging it too much upon his cavilling Adversaries and pretends to alledge others which were unquestionably proper Synods But the main sting in the Municipium * p. 7 8. the Doctor conceals namely that he had allowed those huddles of Christians running together in consult under Alien Powers to be proper Synods without Authority from which absurdity this Definition of a Synod tho' as it seems designed to comprehend all such Cabals could not defend him And further yet to shew his repeated Inadvertency about the Carthage Conference let it be observed That he says that Synods consist of the same kind of Persons as the Carthage Conference did and about the like Affairs * Auth. of Prin. p. 60. Pref. to App. p. xx How then can this be disowned a Synod But the truth is tho' they met on the like Affairs yet they did not consist of the like Persons For in Ganonical Synods all the Members are to be Catholick but the King and his Arians that carried all by force were not so and consequently were not Persons Ecclesiastical nor qualified with any Authority Regal or Canonical to Act under pretence of Authority and so 't was an industrious Impertinence to alledge it in Plea for Authority But whereas he recriminates on the Unaccurateness of our Definition p. 49. we challenge him tho' it be but a small Pique with all his skill to detect it and we will readily own it and thank him for the discovery 2. He complains of being false quoted in the 100 and 101 pages and more injuriously p. 109. of the Municipium Pref. to App. p. xviij To which we Answer as to the 100 and 101 pages That 't is a Calumny and refers to the said pages and as to the 109 page we have above accounted for it in the Introduction again of the Doctors Aphorisms and the most that can be made of it is an harmless Inadvertency quod temen non fatemur c. and if our Judges please to censure it for such we are content with the Judgment without any further Appeal 3. That page 160 in the Matter of the Council of Ariminum's self-dissolution distinction is not made between his Historical Relation and his own Sense
THE RITES OF THE Christian Church further defended In Answer to the Appeal of Dr. WAKE With a Letter to Mr. Hill Rector of Kilmington on the account of THE Municipium Ecclesiasticum As also an Answer By Sam. Hill Rector of Kilmington John 18.23 If I have spoken evil bear witness of the evil but if well why smitest thou me Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster 1698. A LETTER Written to Mr. HILL on the account of the Municipium Ecclesiasticum With the Answer c. SIR TAking it for granted that you are the Author of Municipium Eeclesiasticum and that you will think your self obliged to remove those Charges laid upon you in your Adversary's Appeal I think fit on so ticklish a Point to offer you some Considerations necessary in my Opinion to allay the Prejudices that seem to lye against you For first of all There are some that conceive you to be the Author of the Letter to a Convocation man and therein to have thrown a needless Bone of Contention in a time of great Jealousies under the late Plot and War with very suspicious Reflections upon the Greatest in the Government and considering your daring Attempt not long before upon a formidable Adversary your Enemies stick not to represent you as a Man of Incendiary Humours a Prejudice very easie to take among Strangers and Persons disaffected especially in a soft Age dissolved into Courtship and Caresses On which account I should with submission think it not expedient to avert those Misconstructions by setting forth Truth under its fair and equal Reasons for the generous Vndertaking and this with your Name set to take off the Reproach of a Libel fixed on it The part that appertains to the intrinsick Merits and Substance of the Cause appears in the Appeal it self which you know best how to treat and therefore I do not pretend to advertise you thereupon but wishing you all Success Reward and Happiness for your many Pious Hazardous and Labours for this poor Church I subscribe New Atlant Feb. 24. 1697 Worthy Sir Yours Entirely N. N. The Answer SIR SInce you were not pleased to let me know you nor where to return Thanks for so endearing an Office yet since you have given such Useful Intimations you have fixed me in a Method how to appear on this Appeal about which I was before very anxious and undetermined for now I think it the most proper way for me to give you an Epistolary account of my sense in this matter which being sent by the Press will find you in your Secrecy and satisfie at once both you and the Impartial World against such Surmises which such an Adventure must needs draw upon it Know you then that we are so far from being the first starter of this controversie that after all possible inquisitiveness we have not been able so much as to guess at him nor are we at all concern'd in those whether real or pretended reflections at which his adversaries are all so fired And to be free with you and the world if the passages taxed did in truth design reproach his own conscience ought to smite him will one time or other do so severely if for nothing else yet for the Hypocrisie and false Colours but since his language carries in it an apparent zeal and veneration for all authorities now in being and particularly hopes for vengeance on those that reflect upon His Majesty to create a Jealousie with his people we think his Opponents have no warrant from any rules of Justice and Charity to pronounce him a reviler so absolutely as they have done and if God who searcheth the hearts finds him to be as intentionally innocent as his words are then these Men have brought that guilt of maledicence on themselves with which they now load him So that herein they seem not to have considered our Saviours precepts against Censoriousness as much as how to gratifie their own malice or ambitions But as to what really concerns us we are not very solicitous what partial men say of us because no protestations in the world can inhibit their malice and therefore in what we are accountable to God alone to him alone will we reserve our account being contented to leave with the world these arguments of our integrity that though we could have laid trains of assentation in order to advancement by avoiding all disgusting writings and by bending our capacities to serve the present Genius in Officious Treatises and fulsom Dedications and had prospects fair enough before us to have led us into such temptation yet have we never slained our concisence or our pen by any such little and illiberal Artifices but have always chosen rather to please God in the Cause of the Catholick Faith and Church against all unjust displeasures of Men than to be sacrilegiously guilty in corrupting or betraying those Divine Principles and Constitutions and if it be possible that any person especially of the sacred Robe can be offended at us for serving the Cause of Christianity at the Expence of our powers and at the loss of all our worldly Interests we can only recommend them to Gods mercy and in the mean time condole the state of the Church in that there are some in her that are more concerned for her promotions than her fundamentals But though Integrity is under no such great Obligations to stand in awe of the delicate or censorious world in order to any internal comfort and satisfaction yet that its designs may be more serviceable to the holy Ends proposed we shall not grudge to shew what just reasons there were to oppose the Counsels and Principles of this Doctor tending so openly and violently to the ruine of the Ecclesiastical Powers and Constitutions It is too intimately known to all considering and religious Persons how much the rampant Advances of Heresie and new Schemes of Christian Faith created in the Church a desire of a free Convocation to correct these Extravagancies by the methods used in such cases through all Ages And we wish we could not say that the Interest of the Criminals hath found a party against the general appetite and benefit of the Church inspired with a Spite from the dead against the lower house of Convocation not to be abated till they can hope to introduce thereinto a number and majority ready and sequacious in the execution of their purposes In which unnatural and irreligious Project they club in with all the Atheists Infidels and Sectaries of the Nation a splendid Instance wherof we have in this Doctor who has for Complices in this Adventure * Author of the Essay concerning the power of the Magistrate and Rites of Mankind in matters of Religion in his Postscript concerning the Letter to a Convocation Man one profligate Anti-christian Infidel and foul-mouth reviler of the whole Church of God through all Ages and egregiously of the Reformed Church of England in this last Age in comparison with which