Deliverance having forgotten that Compassion which I deeply have for all Royal Tragedies would be apt to make a jest of this and reply upon you that they have been served well enough in the first place before the Prince and Princess of Orange who are well enough served too and all as they deserve But I shall only observe your inconsiderateness of discourse in bringing in King James into the Catalogue of his own Heirs after his Cession upon which I said the Succession was not violently broken but altered by the consent of the next Heirs And this I think I may still defend without breach of modesty even tho' I should allow the proceedings of the Convention to have been violations of his Right For a violent Expulsion of a Possessor may consist with the true Succession of the next Reversioners But admitting the Cession or Abdication for real what need was there to solicit his further consent to our Establishments And for your Prince of Wales beside the doubt of the Nation concerning his Descent the late Queen brought him into a Cession before the Cession and Abdication of the King nor were there any Claims entred for him before the Convention and so he might be legally neglected for want of Claimer I know this has been charged on the Prince and the Convention for not admitting the Discussion of that Descent But I think no Law could oblige them to move it ex officio when he was absent and no Promoter appeared on his behalf But further to enquire into the Equity hereof if King James at the Prince's demand had called a Parliament that had been one of the Principal Articles to have been judicially determined by the Parliament between them But King James not calling a Parliament nor allowing the Convention power of Judgment herein there was no reason such a Question should be admitted there which if determined against King James and his Prince of Wales should not have concluded them but if given against the Princess of Orange should have confined and excluded her As to your politick stroke upon the Princess of Denmark I shall reflect no more than this that if she will permit you to the Conduct of her Counsels she is like to thrive mightily by it For you will advise her either to present flight or sedition only to make way for I know not what or how many new Princes of another Venter whose real Descent no one should ever know but the Men of the Mysteries Perhaps your Agents have laid the Seeds of Discontent between the two Princely Ladies already in order to form your other Projects but I hope that God that has hitherto preserved them in their natural Rights against all the Arts of those who would have illegitimated or intercepted their Sucession will still preserve her Royal Highness from the Snares you lay for her And since you have blurted out the Secret to the Publick she and the whole Kingdom have reason to take close notice of it Dyscher When we object the immoralities of these proceedings you tell us * Sol. Ab. p. 6. That the internal immorality of all Actions must be carefully distinguished from the Civil Consequences of them A Son say you by fraudulent Arts gets judgment in Law and seizes his Fathers Estate and Body by Execution and starves his Father in Prison this mans immorality is damnable Yet the Judges Sheriffs and other Officers are innocent It may be so while they act as Officers of Law and according to the directions of Law But if your Judges Sheriffs or other Officers join with and assist such a wicked Son or Daughter to effect such an Evil Act or do applaud and approve it when they know it be done by such wicked and unlawful Acts then their being Officers of Law will rather increase than diminish their Guilt T. B's 2d Lett. p. 23. Eucher Now all this I allow too whether done judicially or in forms of Law or no. But if it be done in private and not in Legal Forms it is nothing to our purpose or my objection But if the Judges sit in Judgment between the Father and the Son and very wickedly cast the Father in his Cause yet it being done in form of Law the Judgment will pass into such Execution as will be taken for formally legal tho' the Judgment be morally unjust and contract an heinous Guilt on the Conscience of the Judge So that still the Subject People are innocent in admitting the Acts of the Convention as Legal tho' really before God they had been Unrighteous Judges Yet because you herein sharpen a Dart against the King and Queen tho' I never intended my Objection to such a Reflection the Case you set is not parallel to ours For the Convention sate not in Judgment between the Father and Son and Daughter the Father not being subject in Law nor submitting his Cause to them but when the Father had left his Royal Estate the Prince calls them together to settle the forsaken State of the Kingdom which they did as it now stands And as this Judgment was in Form Legal and Authoritative so you cannot prove it immoral or injurious For as the Estates were not concerned to enquire into the temper of Spirit in the Contest between the Father and the Children toward each other which was not of Civil Cognizance so they debated only the Civil Purposes of King James's Actions and how the state of this Land might be legally and securely fixed after his Desertion in which they acted as Legal Judges and no otherwise What was done before or out of Convention by any of the Members and the inner motions and aims of particular mens minds there sitting during these agitations these are extrajudicial and so not chargeable on the whole Court as a Council of State as being no parts of their formal Determinations Dyscher So for your Robbers and Pirates a man may lawfully suffer by them tho' it were better if he could escape it But if you will plead that their Robberies and Piracies are lawful if you say they acquire a just Right to what they get by such wicked means or if you actually joyn with them and rob and share in their Booties you will be as very a Rogue as they and which is most like the Case I leave others to judge T. B's 2d Lett. p. 24. Eucher This it seems is your reply to what I said * Sol. Ab. p. 6. That Wars and Victories are many times unjust yet they that suffer the injury lawfully submit to the unlawful and injurious demand of Submission as in Piracies and other like Tyrannies And is not this a pretty Refutation of that Assertion to say that all that assert assist and share in Wrong are Rogues The reason of my instance was that such Pirates and Tyrants often seize on such as they have no Right of Dominion over and may perhaps threaten to torture or destroy them except they submit and contract
penal sanction but positive local and judicial does not oblige us but the natural reason substrate thereto supposes and indicates all obligations of Duty from all Relations whatsoever forfeited by Atheism and avowed Irreligion And accordingly Asa dishonoured his Mother in devesting her of her Royal Dignity because she had made an Idol in a Grove 1 King 15.13 2 Chron. 15.16 Nor is this any breach of the Law of Nature but the observation of it for the Law of Nature being nothing else but pure Abstract Reason and Equity whatsoever is consonant to this Equity comports with the Laws of our Nature By these Laws the sins of Men-rescind their Rights in many benefits which had been due to them in a state of Innocency The Law of God requires us simply to honour all men it being the natural due of our beings framed after the Image of God and yet wicked and ungodly men are to be shunned as spots and blemishes by the Law of Nature and to be made Anathema by the Censure of the Church For the Foundation of all Authority whatsoever is God and all Obligations to all Duties Civil Moral and Religious are founded in him so that an avowed rejection of God puts men out of all claims of Authority which alone is originally Gods for a renunciation of God is an effectual renunciation of all just and real Authority whatsoever The Fifth Commandment therefore being not a meer positive Precept but a dictate of Natural Equity is interpretable to particular Acts according to the Rules of Equity and must concede to superiour and more important Obligations which will sometimes require us to hate Father and Mother that is to disregard their Commands and forsake their Persons to keep Gods Commandments Luke 14.26 If a Son be a King and the Father a Subject he must deal with his own Father as a Subject in Civil Causes nay as a Malefactor if necessity requires A Son is bound to defend even by the Sword if there be no other way his Wife and Children from the Sword of his Father and to save his Country by the Detection of his Fathers Treasons And many such Cases more there may be wherein intolerable wickedness on one hand and greater Obligations on the other cut off the Ties of Honour and Union between Parents and Children Husbands and Wives and all other Temporal Relations since what separates men from God may well disengage them one from another And to put a particular Case if a Prince marry a Kings Daughter and Heiress and the King after becomes suspected of an Imposture to pervert that Daughters inheritance and upon demand will not refer that doubt to the Arbitration of his own Senate but to elude the Hopes and just Expectations of his Son in Law Daughter and his own People in this and other momentous Concernments he puts all the Laws Liberties and Religion of his Kingdoms in a Course of Subversion and ruin under Arbitrary and Foreign Powers may not such a Son in Law endeavour to put a stop to these Measures and to force such a King to do right And is such Prince's Wife bound to oppose her Husband in these just Causes to abet her Fathers injustice and unnatural Impiety And if the Father being thus pressed by the Son in Law rather than do the justice demanded will fly for the succour of his injustice to another unjust King the Enemy of his People and in the mean time leave his Kingdom in Confusion which shall subject it more effectually to his Scourge upon his return with Foreign Forces may not such Prince and such Kings Daughter and a confused Nation unite and settle it against the ruins otherwise inevitable to them all For if Natural Ties sometimes give place to Civils of greater weight here surely is as fair and just an instance for it as well can be imagined or alledged out of History And that Civil Obligations of greater moment do preponderate against Natural you your self confess when you rightly say had not the constitution been for the time being lawfully altered the Crown coming to the Princess of Orange by meer Descent the Prince here must have been her Subject tho' by the Matrimonial Laws of Nature he is her Lord. It is indeed a melancholy Speculation when the impieties of such near Relations break off all the Natural Links of Duty and Union which must never be receded from as long as the Union is tolerable and consistent with Superior Obligations but of two Evils the least is always to be chosen and where two Offices are incompetible the more important is to be prosecuted And yet tho' this be lawful and necessary 't is sometimes a Tragical Scene under which even the Righteous Parties are to mourn and lament their infelicity in falling into such Straits and Temptations and are incessantly to pray that God would put a just and good End to the Disaster and in the mean time to make necessary Justice and Piety the only Rule and Reason of their Actions in such a State of Division and inevitable Contention And such being the form of the present Affairs if you needs will censure the Morals of your Sovereigns you ought to allow their Measures all the Charity the Case will bear which hitherto seems the Care of Gods Especial Providence for us And if it be so it is a dangerous thing to Curse whom the Lord hath Blessed But I have told you these things concern not us in our Civils and it is therefore best to leave things secret and above us unto God the Lord and Judge of all men But as to the Change it self it is an apparent delivery and blessing to the Nation in the best manner attainable by any means less than supernatural For a deliverance it is plain we needed which could never have been secured had King James continued undisturbed in his Reign Now if an unrelated Prince had desired to help us yet he had had no Civil Interests to have grounded a defence or rescue us from any Civil Laws or Laws of War Then the Sovereignty given to a Stranger had been a cutting off the Line Royal which neither Atwood or Johnson have * Since Johnson will give Richard Rich a Right yet asserted lawful by our Rules It would also have been a punishing the sins of the Father upon the Children and inevitably have involved us in intestine Wars Then again if the Princess of Orange had invaded her Fathers Kingdom and Crown by any Hostile Forms this would have looked more violent and unnatural and seems more than the Princely Lady in Temper or Duty could well or easily have attempted Time was before a calm and thorow consideration of things that matters seemed hard but I am now convinced that no other Person under Heaven could in human prospect be so proper a Redeemer as his present Majesty nor any Form of Settlement devised to fore-fend the Ruin of this Nation upon whose Strength the Security of
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
and the Sovereign too and can you say that he violated not our Laws in his way to the Crown Eucher The Prince of Orange being no Subject of England the process of his Expedition was in him no violation of Duty by him owing to our Laws which is the only form of Guilt that could have attainted his Right If then he cannot be charged with the breach of Civil Duties incumbent on him he is not incapacitated of Rights by any passages in that Expedition But moreover he came to preserve our Laws and Forms Liberties and Religion when they were all in a fervent Course of subversion And therefore tho' during his Marches the Execution of the Laws for the time being was interrupted in particular Cases and Military Officers were by him constituted in the Countries thro' which he passed all this was necessary as methods of Medicine for the time to recover the diseased state of the Patient to the Antient vigour of its Laws and soundness of Constitution But when King James left the languishing Nation unhealed the Prince left all to be legally Cured and firmly setled to the great Council of the Land that so no Man might have a Colour for Complaint that he affected our Conquest Vassalage or Suppression in our Civil Rights by any Arbitrary Power For which great Service they found out a fair way without Violence to any ones Right to gratify and honour him with the Crown or rather to secure all we had by such a Constitution If then the Prince of Orange was no Subject nor Enemy to the Nation but Friend and Patron to us and our Laws how can he be charged with an injurious violation of them And her present Majesty tho' more obliged to her Husband than her Father by the ties of Nature being a Native of England and so the King 's Subject in this Land never appeared here to disturb her Father or break her Native Allegiance But when her Father had fled out of the Kingdom from before her Husband as not daring to abide a Parliamentary discussion of their Causes and the Estates of the Nation determined to settle her Highness with her Husband in this Sovereignty she being thereupon sent to comes over and accepts that Settlement which the Nation thought so just and necessary and to which as such the Princess Ann conceded without any Remonstrance So that neither can her present Majesty be charged with any breach of our Constitutions herein which might obstruct her Civil Title of being Queen de Jure upon the Cession of her Father and her next Place in the Succession Which is I think so fair a Plea for the Recognition de Jure that if it cannot annihilate all prejudices to the contrary in all Persons yet is a just Reason to inhibit Contradictions in private Men who have very little Authority to Censure Publick Counsels and Determinations But tho' we have thus defended the Title de Jure yet as I said before we were not obliged to Swear it Nor did I ever hear of any Courts that loaded the Oath with such an Assertion of Right when their directive Judgments were required thereupon Dyscher This last is a lucky Hit I am glad you have awakened my Memory of some of your former Passages upon Interpretations of Courts for which you ought to be a little chastised For you say * Sol. Ab. pag. 10. That if they took not the Oath as the Parliament intended they took it as directed by their Majesties Judges What did their Majesties Judges direct the Oath to be taken otherwise than as the Parliament intended I desire that may be made out Did they do it judicially in Court I think that will not be so much as pretended If it be I desire to know when where and how If you say that a Judge did only discourse it privately that is no more than if any private Man had said so But to take off the pretence of this Salvo the Judges are not nor do pretend to be the Imposers And the Imposers King William and Queen Mary and both Houses of Parliament have declared what their Sense of the Oath is viz. that King William and Queen Mary are King and Queen de Jure M. S. Reflex Eucher This is no fairer in one respect than it is convincing in any For you repeat me as if I had asserted some general Sense of the Judges given to the Nation plainly contrary to the Sense of the Parliament according to which Judicial contrary Sense all Conformists had Sworn and so require me to make this out But my Senses are not so easy to be imposed on in my own Sentiments My Discourse therefore was * Sol. Ab. pag. 9 10. of the Senses of some particular Courts given or admitted to particular Persons upon occasional Consultations And I alledge that these Persons who were allowed an innocent Sense to Swear to did not prevaricate with the State tho' the Courts perhaps had really misinterpreted the Law But so far am I from the positive Charge of any Court herewith that I profess I neither know nor believe any Court to have incurred such a failure tho' this I have heard some of them burthened with by some of your greatest Woâ—â—hies And upon supposition of Truth in that impuâ—â—tion I yet assumed the Cause of the Swearers notwithstanding such supposed Error in such Courts according to whose Interpretation of the Oath if they Swore they could not be perjured or prevaricate For tho' the Judges of those Courts be not the Legislative yet are they Ministerial and Executive Imposers Judges and Interpreters for the Legislative to particular Persons on all emergent Questions in Law and what they herein do is valid to all Civil Constructions and Effects and to be taken as their Majesties own legal determinations of whom you too unwarily as well as untruly say that they and the Parliament have declared the Assertion or sense de Jure to be in the Oath for tho' that be the recognized Sense of their Title yet it is not their declared Sense of the Oath Which being cleared I need no Succour from the private Opinions of any Judges out of Court of which I made no mention which can indeed have no judicial obligations tho' by your Favour they may be of great weight to the satisfaction or Ease of a doubting Conscience towards its Conformity with the Laws Dyscher Indeed if the real Sense of the Imposer could be avoided and what Sense others please imposed the Oath might be taken in a thousand several Senses and not one come up with the Sense and design of the Imposers which in this Case always is the security of the Government Besides a thousand other Mischiefs would follow vacating all Oaths and destructive to all Governments and Human Society For if Oaths may be thus eluded Promises and Contracts would soon follow their Fortune as being less Sacred Now Sir you would do well to answer these and
seasonably tell you that the alteration of our Sovereigns was more legal than the change of the Theocracy to Chaldaean Persian Graecian and Roman Sovereigns yet even for these the Jews were to offer Prayers and Sacrifices and so is the Greek Church to pray for the new Grand Seigniors brought into the Sovereignty upon the rebellious expulsion of the former yet surviving in Bonds and Prison without any scruple of Allegiance to their new Master hereupon Now if they ought to make an Ecclesiastical Opposition to such an Imperial Change then their ready conformity thereto puts them into that same state of sinful Religion which you charge upon us and how then are they in and we out of Right to Ecclesical Communion But to speak truth I could not have thought that men of such Primitive Rigour and Purity could Ligitimate that great corruption in the Greek Church which tho' of it self it doth not actually and totally Unchurch them yet it is a most deplorable profanation of the supreamest Order in their Hierarchy and such as a General Council upon the perpetual Sense and Principles of the Church Catholick cannot but condemn for impious and irregular But now I am under a passionate concern for this Author lest this Principle of his bring him under that Heresie which your learned Vindicator of the deprived Bishops if he keeps up an impregnable impartiality against all Errors will be apt to find in it Sure I am here is laid a Rule for our Church to admit from the State even the most arbitrary removes and changes of Bishops for no cause at all but only to humour the State in Tyranny or Simony according to Doct. Hody's Doctrine and here is conceded far more than was by the subscription of a Popish Convocation for fear of a Premunire and more than the Pope or Henry VIII ever arrogated to their Headship or Supremacy and to use your former words * Sol. Ab. p. 29. a blemish not to be endured in any Church whatsoever it incurs for the Opposition But so it is and so it will be when men are pressed too hard in point of Argument that to avoid one absurdity they run into another which is many times worse and more notoriously offensive Dyscher Well then we 'll let alone the Greek Church herein to Gods Judgment But as for you that think to shelter your selves under their shade you are not capable of that their Plea For I do not know that we want an Ecclesiastical Judge Our Metropolitan with his Suffragans are a sufficient and proper Judge And if they have not lata sententia which there may be great Reason to forbear yet in Praxi their Judgments are sufficiently declared T. B's 2d Lett. p. â—1 Eucher That the deprived Metropolitan and Fathers are a proper Court or Council of Ecclesiastical Judges upon all conforming Bishops Clergy and Laity of the Realm I do utterly deny for many Reasons In the Province of York they have no jurisdiction nor can they make a distinct Synod from the rest of their Colleagues within the Province of Canterbury So that had a Synod of meer Bishops been called therein before any Bishops made by King William this had been a Synod against which no Uncanonical Ordination or Enthronement could have been objected and yet the Majority of these would have condemned their Recusancy if we may judge of their Sentence by their Conformity But further by our Constitution the Body of the Clergy are concerned in our Synods and which way think you would your Cause have gone in a full and Canonical Convocation This your wife Author of Christian Communion well saw and therefore would not adventure the issue * Part 2. Ch. 4. to a Synodical Determination But yet neither have these Fathers given a definitive Sentence of Excision upon us which yet is necessary where the actual Excision passes not meerly on the uncontested notoriety and malignity of the Crime which we suppose at present not to be our State And let the Reasons of their forbearing Sentence be what they will yet as long as we are not self-condemned but stand upon our Defence we are not yet actually excommunicate by any effectual judgment of these Fathers Nor can their practice amount to so much either Legally or intentionally Time was and yet is I believe when several of these Fathers would not censure our Submission to the present Civil Government as criminal and heinous And one of those Prelates in a publick Oration to his Clergy strictly charged them to abstain from all oblique Reflections on each other for refusing or admitting the Oath of New Allegiance but to retain Charitable Opinions each toward the other which being a publick act of that Father 's at the head of his Diocess will not I hope be denyed as a Lye nor may I be condemned for uncovering a secret since this was not such nor transacted in a corner nor need that Reverend Father be ashamed or unwilling to own it since it was a most Illustrious Indication of his Excellent Piety and Moderation but withal a clear confutation of that pretended censure which you place in their Practice For the Practice of not Swearing may in several Men have several causes some may condemn the Allegiance some may doubt only some may have aspects on another Revolution others to the reproach of our and to the esteem of another Party some to their former Writings or Pretensions points of honour or the Fatigues of a Publick Station So that except one unanimous Sentence against the Allegiance be judicially given the argument from practice is very unconcluding But besides the Practice of the Majority will as much condemn them as theirs can us if this be of any such importance toward a Judicial Excommunication So silly it is for Men to hunt after such feeble Cavils on purpose that they may seem to have somewhat to say and not be born down by that Truth against which they have formed a Faction Dyscher Well However I told you that there is danger in your Communion and I should have added that the sin is unavoidable in it because the Secession was on your side from us and Righteousness we still continuing as we were but see I pray what answer you made me hereupon that I may take off the vizor and lay open your Hypocrisie You say * Sol. Ab. p. 6. that though our Church Justly and Absolutely rejects the Roman Monarchy yet she will not refuse any Lawful Communion or correspondence with it in any good Ecclesiastical Negotiations consistent with Integrity saving still a Publick Remonstrance to all her Pollutions What can be the meaning of this but that your Church is ready and willing to joyn in Communion with the Church of Rome as many of your Brethren take the Oath with a Declaration This and no other can be your meaning else your Argument and Parallel is sensless and insignificant for thus it follows so should you
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
the Learned Casuist to Suit his Principles if he can with the Conditions and Capacities of Human Life and after Good endeavours this way he will find that these Civil Questions are not of Private Determination But if there be such Dreadful Dangers of Immoral Devotions on such Contested Rights of Government they Naturally ly on them who in Civil matters Oppose their Private Conceptions and Practices to Publick and Judicial Constitutions which is a Course in its own Nature formally Seditious and for that cause Un-Christian and may too truly and sadly Corrupt their Communion and Defile their Devotions who will not know the ways of Peace Dyscher You will needs suppose that if it be the Life of King James then it is not the Breach of Gods Commandments that Incapacitates the Prince of this Crown But why may not both do it For because the Lawful King is Living and Claiming therefore the Commandments of God require of all his Subjects that they Pay him their Dutiful and Loyal Obedience They ought by all means to Support him in his Throne or Restore him to it as his Condition requires T. B. 2d Let. p. 20. Eucher In the Murther of a Parent King by his Son and Heir * Sol. Ab. p. 8. I proved that the sin did not Incapacitate the Parricide but that our Constitutions admit him to the Crown which you not being able to deny I conclude that Breach of Gods Commandments Nulls not a Title procured thereby And then you Assign the cause hereof that the Parent and all his Rights are Extinct by his Death but King James's Life and Contestation Diversifies his Case Then I rejoyn that it is not the Breach of Gods Commandments that Incapacitates the Princes of this Crown but the Life and Contention of King James And is not this an Accurate and an undeniable Observation For if Breach of Gods Commandments either alone creates or with other Causes concurs to a Civil Incapacity then such Breach doth either partially or solely obstruct such capacity And if so the Murther of a Royal Father must be some Bar to the Succession of the Parricide But if it be none at all in that Case why should a less Sin against God Preclude a Title in another Case in Conjunction with another Cause which yet your selves will not dare deny to be alone Enclusive of King Williams Title Here then I will sift you upon this Point Would the continued being and Claim of King James Incapacitate King William of the Royal Title if King William had never broken any Commandment of God or No If you say Yea then the Breach of Gods Commandments Contributes nothing to King Williams Incapacity which alone ariseth by it self from the Life and Claim of King James it being Naturally impossible for two Men to be Total and Separate Proprietors of the same Right at one time a truth not at all belonging to Ethic's or Divinity If you say No then you yield that King William may be Entitled to King James's his Throne without breaking Gods Commandments even during the permanency of King James his Life and Right And han't you hereby well amended the matter But such are the results of affected Sophistries especially when they are Impertinent also Now that yours are so will be hence Manifest For our Question last was whether no Settlements procured by Breach of Gods Commandments must be Submitted to and particularly such as follow the Extinction of the former Proprietors Tenure and Title through such ill means And now you Answer me that Gods Commandments do Incapacitate King William of King James's Crown because King James's Title is not Extinct but Lives with him Which if it had been true I should also have denied King William a capacity to the Title not from the Moral Law but from Natural and Legal Impossibility And therefore I suppose King James's Tenure first Extinct when I say * Sol. Ab. p. 8. But if His Tenure be Extinct as it hath been Publickly judged by this Nation our Oath to him Ceases tho' be contend never so much for the Recovery And there I take it for necessary that the Judgment of the Nation must overballance all your contrary private Opinions as to all our publick Duties and Obligations Now when your words are disinvolved they amount to no more than this that the Law of God forbids one Man to seize on another Mans Permanent Right and Title in which as it is nothing to the Rhombus so you have no adversary But this is not your second or single Failure but here appears a third point of Ignorance for our Question was not what Gods Comments do forbid but whether the doing what God forbids in order to the procuring formal Titles and Tenures in Law by the real or Judicial Extinction of another Mans Tenures does Create a Civil Incapacity or Nullity in the Tenure so acquired This is what I deny and I defie you to Prove The instance of a Royal Heir upon the Murther of his Father is an unmovable Argument for me for tho' the Laws of God forbid him to procure the Crown that way yet if he violates those Duties the Laws of God do not null the Tenure acquired by forbidden Wickedness The Law of God forbad David to Usurp Vriah's wife while the Hittite's Title in her continued with his Life and the King might actually keep her but by no Legal form of Tenure The same Law of God forbad the King to Murther Vriah with the Sword of the Children of Ammon in order to a Matrimonial Tenure of his wife Yet when that wickedness was compleated the Title of the King in Bathsheba was Legal and valid even by the Judgment and Ratification of God himself Nay when Ahab had slain Naboth by Judicial Condemnation for falsly imputed Blasphemy the form of Title by which he after enjoyed Naboths Vine yard was Legal by Judicial Forfeiture tho' it were Morally unjust in the sight of God for had there been a Civil Nullity therein it had been necessary for him to have compassed Naboths Death by Capital Sentence in order to a Civil Title which Jezebel procured for him this way to avoid the Odium of open and formal Un-entitled Usurpation So that had your Loud Obloquies against their Majesties morals been never so true Yet King James's Tenure being Extinct doth not preclude a Civil Title in their present Majesties which we are now to abide by and defend by the greatest Suffrage of Gods Laws Reason and the Laws of Nations at which expression I have heard that your Friend T. B. winds up his Mouth and * T. B's 2d Lett. p. 26. thanks God he hath not so Learned Jesus Christ And it is like to be true for he seems to have Learn'd but little of him at least in his Doctrine Learn of me for I am Meek and Lowly of heart and ye shall find rest to your Souls Dyscher To the Objection that Allegiance seemeth to imply
and in their visible Communion During this Tract of time can any Man think that no Clergy Men had any Conferences with their Dissenting Bishops hereupon And in those Conferences did those Fathers Condemn and forbid these Prayers at which themselves were daily present No I believe no where and somewhere in several instances I know the contrary that directions have been given to use our present Forms But one thing I will further tell you that these innocent Fathers were not so gulled as you pretend in the first motions For upon the Enthroning of their present Majesties and the Change of the Prayers and Oath of new Allegiance the Recusant Bishops met together in Consultation how to act in these Affairs and after all Debates agitated they came to this Resolution that they would not oppose the Prayers for that it would seem too invidious and uncharitable to deny their Majesties our Devotions but determined only to stick at the Oath This I presume those Fathers will not deny and if any of them should hereafter challenge me for this Report I will give them my Author whom I presume no Man can Impeach of falsehood or Detraction But I would not have mentioned this had not you reproached me with the Lye even while you endeavour to cover the most evident Truths with Clouds and Darkness Nor do I mention this to cast a blemish on them For did not their Deprivations seem to them Schismatical I believe they would not have repudiated our Communion upon the mere account of our Prayers as neither did your great Coryphaeus till the Deprivation of the Primate All which is open Truth tho' these Fathers never read these Prayers which I never charged on them since 't is otherwise very rare to hear Bishops reading the Prayers in any Church whatsoever And this Concession to these Prayers being past on their most serious considerations there was no Cause why they should blow the Trumpet against what they judged lawful But had they really judged the contrary this concurrence had been worse than the neglect of winking Watch-Men or the silence of dumb Dogs to which I never compared them tho' your Censorious Rigours must brand this moderation with more infamous Characters as is evident from this Discourse of yours and the second Chapter of the first Part of your Treatise of Christian Communion And having thus vindicated their Equity and my Reverence thereof methinks such a Man of Manners as you have approved your self hitherto to be should have besprinkled our Fathers also a little more decently and not as generally you do with Tinctures drawn from the Lake of Sodom But to leave you to the felicity of your own good Humours I shall only observe what a silly innuendo you flurt upon the Secretaries or Council of State that they were in great fear what stirs these Bishops would make had they not concerted with Mr. Jones at the Savoy to carry on this Religious Intrigue in the Blind whereas these Fathers expected their determined Fate with all imaginable calmness and serenity as Men that well understood the patience of Saints And in that exemplary Patience they were impatient at those who thro' too great bitterness called our Conformity the Apostacy of the Church of England for the truth of which if you will not believe me I hope you will Mr. Dodwell to whom I therefore refer you for satisfaction And therefore you that would raise you a Monument out of those Flames you kindle by reproaching us with infamous Imputations recede from the pattern and act without the direction of your Fathers Dyscher Another Reason why we may lawfully join in those Prayers is because as you would Perswade us King James and your King William are very good Friends That King James is not among the number of King William and Queen Mary's Enemies MS. Reflex And you prove it for that the Prayers express him not and that you rank him not among the number of King William and Queen Mrry's Enemies For an Enemy is one that designeth to injure a Man and we are not sure that King James doth so design against King William But do you not verily believe that K. James would willingly regain his Crown if he could and consequently dispossess King William Or do you think this no Injury to K. William And no more say you can be intended in those Prayers of the Liturgy for King William than to defeat him King James in that Injurious intention For we pray for no Mans nor Kings Destruction or hurt These are * Sol. Ab. pag. 14. your reasons why no Jacobite ought to Scruple to join with you in the Common-Prayers for King William viz. To strengthen him that he may Vanquish and overcome all his Enemies because King James intends him no Injury Transubstantiation is easie to this This is perswading us out of all our Senses at once King James and King William appear upon the Head of two Armies * These two words might well have been spared to cover c. and Fight and each calls those Rebels that adhere to the other and yet they are not Enemies It is no hurt to the one if the other get the Victory and therefore you may Pray for Victory to King William without meaning any hurt to King James Why then are you offended at those that Pray for Victory to King James against King William Here is no Injury intended to King William only that King James may have a Victory that is all Is this the Argument to perswade Mens Consciences to join in your Common Prayers Is this the strength of your Cause The strong and solid Conviction of the sincerity and plainness of your Dealing MS. Reflex But supposing he will do no Wrong yet sure he may demand and endeavour to recover his Right And I am apt to think that your little ambitious Dutch Saviour would think no Man in the World so much his Enemy as he that demands three Kingdoms from him Nor do we call only those Enemies who design Injuries but even all who actually oppose each other or between whom there is any Contest let their Designs be what they will or their Cause right or wrong And after all your daubing he certainly is accounted the greatest Enemy for whose sake all others are judged Enemies Now tho' the King of France be such an abominable Enemy he should soon he esteemed the best Friend if he would but renounce the Interest of K. James and suport the Usurpation of the Prince of Orange T. B. Sec. Lett. pag. 32 33. Eucher In this Triumphant and fastidious Harangue these things severally offer themselves to our Consideration 1st Whether the Strength of our Cause lies in this Account of our Prayers 2dly Whether this be not the Sense of many Jacobites 3dly What is the full importance of the word Enemy 4thly What the importance of Vanquishment and overcoming 5thly What really is the lawful Sense of these words in the
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
and there is no Wisdom against Right But the Phrase of leaving things to our Wisdom imports a Liberty undetermined by God which we may use as we judge expedient and what God hath so left by the Silence of his Word is under no Divine Law and consequently by this Law we are at liberty to take or choose whether of the two Competitours we in our Wisdom think most convenient to the good of the Church and hereupon as many violent Competitors as any Illegal Rout shall obtrude against Right may draw after them so many several Parties according as they in their Elective Wisdom shall determin And is this the way of Ecclesiastick Peace Unity and Happiness against the danger of exteriour Persecutions For if force shall put in Competitions I doubt the Competitions must be ended by force where divided Wisdom cannot fix a determinate Unity But the Eighth and Tenth Commandments expesly forbid men to take or covet anothers Right and leave us no liberty to determin otherwise So that no man ought to intrude into anothers Bishoprick For a Deprivation that is apparently invalid cuts off no Right or Title before Rightly and Authoritatively vested And he sins whosoever puts himself into possession of such Right which is canonically permanent in the former Possessor Had the Emperors pretended a Deprivation of the Apostles Episcopacy had it been lawful for any other Bishop to have rejected them or seized their Archiepiscopacy and have subjected the Apostles to their Ecclesiastical Government Or will the fear of force necessitate a Man to admit an injurious consecration to another Divine Authority But what shall be done if no Bishops will confer the Sacred Order on him What must they be also obliged by a Rout to give the Holy Ghost to qualify the Intruder If not then this is what they may refuse to sacrifice to the present secular Tranquillity of the Church And if the Bishops may refuse to ordain a man may refuse to be ordained to an Intrusion because it is an Intrusion And if so the whole Church may refuse the Intrusion But if the Bishops are obliged hereto for fear of force then even the injured Bishops may be bound to consecrate others into their own injuriously deprived Authorities and so the Apostles had likewise been obliged against their own Divine Commission But if this be allowed the result will really be that the Apostles and all Bishops Authority either actually ceases or ought to be quitted by their own Cession or Concession at the command of mere Force out then the producer is not invalid unjust or uncanonical in the Ejection and consequently agrees not with the Drs. Hypothesis But God that is a God of order not of confusion would not permit the deturbation of Aaron nor the Substitution of any Intruder by the Mob or Princes Numb Ch. 16. Ch. 17. Nor would the Ancients have confirmed Novatian had he driven away Cornelius from the See of Rome upon a presumption that they were left at discretion or obliged to sacrifice the Laws of the Sacred Union For they had other Senses and Wisdom when they so severely provided against such forcible Entries by the 30th Canon Apostolick If any Bishop say's that Holy Canon making use of worldly Princes does by them get himself possessed of a Church let him be Deprived and Excommunicated and all that Communicate with him Now if necessity vacates the obligations of all Canons not excepting those of Episcopal Constitutions how came these Wise Men of the East to make a Canon against irresistible necessity if the terrour of Temporal Persecution be such And why does Athanasius and other Fathers object this Impiety to the Arian Intruders For if there were no fault in the Intrusion but only the Arianism then those Fathers ought only to have upbraided them with the Arianism not the Intrusion But if the Fathers justly condemn the Intrusion then they were not to admit what they righteously censured And if the Fathers were not to admit Intrusions neither were the people to admit them for by so doing they would become accomplices to the Evil and for that cause are Excommunicate by the said Apostolick Canon And what I pray has the Doctor to evince the contrary Eucher If saith he a Landlord be unjustly and invalidly dispossessed of his Estate by an incompetent Authority who thinks the Tenant an Accomplice to the injustice because he pays his Rent to the present Possessor Should the Clergy refuse to submit to the Bishops in possession it could only serve to draw down Ruin upon themselves it cannot restore those whom the State has Deposed It is not our Submission to the present Possessors that ejects the former for they are already irretrievably deposed and more to this purpose Chap. 1. Pag. 5. Dyscher Here the Dr. hath out-pitch'd you two bars length between Lord and Tenant for * Sol. Ab. p. 6. 7. you assign Rents and Homage to the actual Landlord who is visibly Legal tho' not honestly Rightful since all Lords and Tenants must be admitted for such that are in by Law But the Dr. requires no Forms or Formalities of Law to warrant the payment of Rents or Oath of Fealty For he say's * Case of Sees c. p. 6. If a Lord be dispossessed of his Mannor by an incompetent Authority that cannot be resisted a Conqueror suppose or an unlawful Court who thinks the forsworn for submitting to the new Tenants Possessor Who makes a difference there between a Competent and Incompetent Authority Why does the Oath which he took to the Rightful Lord cease to oblige him 'T is because when he took the Oath he took it only on this Supposition that the Lord was possessed of the Mannor The Peace and Tranquillity of the Publick and the good of Tenants in general give that Restriction to the Oath Now here I must set you upon the Dr. who would never allow forcible Entry or Possession to be legal or valid and thereupon assert the Resistance of O. C. to be just whereas the Drs. Principles justifie the Engagement to his Government against King and House of Lord's But now for the present I will assume your Notions and reply upon the Dr. First of all that upon all Conquests a Publick Settlement gives a legal form of Title and secondly in a Government full settled there cannot be an Unlawful Court nor can any Man be ejected by an Incompetent Court if he will legally except against the Incompetency Otherwise if an Alien get in by a mere Formal Rout of Robbers the Tenant owes him no Duty and pays it on Peril of Repayment or Penalty to the Legal Proprietor And Men are always wary upon the Competitions of several pretending Landlords to be secured in their Payments from the other Claimers from which they know the mere present Possession is not a Legal Security always But beside this is not a Parallel Case nor is there the same parity of Reason in a Real
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
A DEBATE ON THE Justice and Piety Of the Present CONSTITUTION UNDER K. William In Two Parts The First relating to the State The Second to the Church BETWEEN Eucheres a CONFORMIST AND Dysoheres 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. Erudito Reverendo Sanctóque Sacerdotum Collegio Diaecesews Bathoniensis Wellensis Clero florentissimo Post Patrum Primaevorum in causâ fidei Vindicias ab imbelli praevaricatorum nequitiâ Usquequaque tutas adhuc inconcussas Vestro quinetiam pro Authore Suffragio publico Invidiae adversùs obloquii tela Munitas pariter ac cohonestatas Amicas hasce denuò Ecclesiae pariter ac Patriae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 PacÃsque sacraë conciliatrices Pro Justitiâ publicâ Pietate Contra Seditionis Schismatis Erastianismi dmissi opprobrium admittendÃque periculum susceptas Apologias Integerrimâ fide Summo studio Conscientiâque quà m maximè castâ Votivas dicat Perque gratas optat Vester S. Hill ERRATA PRef p. 1. l. 17. for dismissed r. discussed ibid. l. ult r. appear or seem Booâ— p. 21. l. 14. r. Desertion p. 22. l. 5 6. r. Desertion p. 42. l. 32. r. Anticyrae p. 43. l. 1. r. Prosecute p. 45. l. 27. r. IVs p. 57. l. 24. r. Construction p. 63. l. 26. r. off p. 64. l. 7. for and r. an p. 65. l. 12. dele an p. 71. l. 8. County p. 82. l. 29. r. there can be p. 83. l. 34. r. at full p. 87. l. 25. for thoâ—… r. the oath p. 91. l. 15. r. title ibid. l. 31. r. to surmise p. 95. l. 71. r. to shiâ—… for p. 96. l. 33. r. the moral p. 104. l. 8. r. if we admit p. 105. l. 8. r. say p. 10â—… l. 12. for of Constitions r. of Constitution p. 110. l. 23. r. it had not been p. 15â—… l. 21 22. for excession r. excision p. 156. l. 35. r. invert p. 163. l. 27. for frâ—… r. for p. 165. l. 4. r. takes it in p. 165. l. 31. r. marte p. 168. l. 9. r. Pâ—… p. 170. l. 27. r. imprudently p. 172. l. 3. r. I never look ibid. l. 27. r. Possessâ—… p. 185. l. 9. for sending r. sounding p. 162. l. 8. r. Notion p. 162. l. 37â—… comes into p. 163. l. 32. for using r. refusing p. 167 l. 23. r. presumed p. 17â—… l. 17. r. on evil p. 174. l. 10. r. a form p. 176. l. 10. r. was from p. 172 â—… 17. r. Office p. 8. l. 31. for excuse r. execute p. 199. l. 12. dele which p. 20â—… ult r. Frischmuth p. 205 l. 19. r. peculiarly p. 209. l. 27. r. anothers p. 210 â—… 8. r. procedure p. 211. l. 30 31. r. who thinks the Tenant for sworn for submitâ—… to the new Possessor p. 213. l. 30. r. all to the Secular c. p. 225. l. 6 7. r. sâ—… any thing against him himself ibid. l. 32. r. in dubitable p. 230. l. 36. foâ—… Gase r. the Case p. 231. 32. for and r. am p. 233. l. 31. r. is it p. 235. l. â—… r. validly p. 137. l. 1. dele of p. 239. l. 18. r. Aerianism p. 248. l. 12. â—… and r. an p. 242. l. 22. for if r. is p. 252. l. 30. after c. dele and p. 2â—… l. 8. r. to do good p. 265. for but will r. that will ibid. l. 15. r. Capacity to Ecchâ—… p. 97. l. 13. for might r. weight TO THE READER I Here present thee with a Book which either Destiny or Calumny will drag out into the Public whether I will or no. The pretended University-man in his Remarks upon my Defence of the Fathers having descended to the humble Glory of traducing it and me in his Post-script to Mr. Chiswell by ill Characters and false Histories has enforced this involuntary Publication The Character he gives of it is that it is a Trifle which he presumes of it of his own Sagacity without ever seeing it that he is told by a good Hand that it falls on Mr. Dod ll's Principle with great Fury and treats the Jacobites very brutally The Design herein is to preclude my Interest with the Jacobites to whom he says I am relapsed His historical Account is that it was written and sent up to a Bishop for Publication to divert a Storm expected on the Vindication c. by engaging my Lord of Canterbury and all the Bishops against my Adversary that however finding the Trifle slighted I earnestly desired that Bishop that it might not be printed that so if I could get it again into my Hands I might deny the Writing thereof to the Jacobites as I begin to deny the other The Intention of this is to represent me to all the Powers as an Apostate against the Government Fool and Knave all over that so I may have no Countenance in it but be abandoned by all Mankind Before therefore I offer my own true Account and Apology against this Slander it is easily observable that his Passion has marred his Art of Detraction in giving Marks of its apparent Falshood For what Clergy-man can presume to put a servile Office on a Bishop or what Bishop can be imagined so unresenting as to admit it or after Admission to endure a Countermand from the vain Presumer Besides if it were rejected as a Trifle the Bishop cannot be supposed to promote its Publication without Disgrace and Reproach which none of them have reason to incur for any of their Clergy especially against the Sense of the whole College Episcopal And if so then how could I earnestly desire the Bishop that it might not be printed when it had been before rejected to me as a Trifle He seems as vain also in hopong that that Bishop would keep it from me to refute my supposed denial thereof as if a Trifle were worth a Bishop's keeping or as if any Bishop can be so unjust as to detain from any Man what has been for a while entrusted with him I think this is rather an unhandsome and rude Usage of that Prelate than of me to whom I leave him to make satisfaction The truth is this Book was first written about Whitsuntide Anno 93. before the very Oral Discourse of Warminster it self and while the Heat of its first Conception animated by the Advices of Learned Friends lasted was designed then for the Press But that Ardor being soon cooled I designed to review it and procure a Friend by it if I could among the Fathers not by its Publication but by private Oblation Accordingly after some Deliberation I resolved not to present it any Bishop introduced into a deprived Diocese lest at the same time I should seem to flatter and abuse him with a pretence of bringing succour to
their Cause as if it needed any Advocateship especially such as mine For truly they that write honestly for a public Constitution must not pretend a service to Authority but the Benefit only of those that are under it So I resolved to seek a Patron among the other unconcerned Bishops with whom I could hope my Principles would find favour and so adventured it into the Hands of a Prelate whose universal merits are superior to his Character by him it was recommended to my own Right Reverend Diocesan and he by Letters from London acquaints me with his desire of seeing it and as my Duty was to obey herein I sent it him Upon the reading of it he greatly inclined me to the Publication yet withal forewarning me that it would stir up Adversaries he would not press me against my own Judgment During this intercourse the other Book was in the Press and almost finished and as yet my Diocesan knew nothing of it Whereupon I Wrote to his Lordship that I was engaged for the Faith for which I expected much trouble and I knew not what would become of me but his Lordship not knowing any thing more particularly in the matter supposed my fears as he reputed them causeless Upon which I conceded to what his Lordship pleased to do or have done He thereupon puts it under the judgment of other learned Men and it being by them well liked designed with some little variations offered me that it should be Printed In the mean while the storm pursued me without any hopes or intermission and it was loudly given out that it was intended by the agreement of the Bishops that I should be suspended by my Bishop and Prosecuted upon the ruining Statute except I would prevent it by Humiliation c. The good Offices of Friendship that were really done me among several of my Lords the Bishops were concealed from me and so I expected nothing else but an Excommunication or such a Persecution for the Faith as must have forced me from the present Communion Whereupon I had many causes to stop the Publication of this Book for having but bad Eyes to engage in long Studies and against many Adversaries and under such prospects of Expulsion cut of this Church I thought it not only imprudent to draw on me more quarrels in the defense of a Communion from which I expected ejection but ridiculous also which I am resolved no terrors nor Persecutions by God's help shall render me But I must with Honour acknowledg that all this Authors incentives have not been able to whet my Metropolitan nor any others that I know of to that Spirit of Persecution which this Postscript has ascribed to him so that I have no need of a Sanctuary among the Jacobites tho' I hereupon shall take occasion to let this Author know that such as steer by their private Interest in their choice of Parties and are as ready to change their Faith as their Allegiance and dispose Men by the same Arts to follow them in Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Turns do make more Jacobites by their Prevarications and thereby become more injurious to the public Peace and Powers by far than any the most important and importunate Remonstrants against the Government I have but one thing more to add in a Apology for the Air and Structure of this Book I hope there is no Man no not the raging T. B. nor the more raging Postscriber will be able henceforth to call the Style Brutal I press indeed the Arguments between the Parties and their principal Authors with the utmost Vigour as without any Incivility so without any partiality to either side and this not only as a Disputant but as a Casuist which ought to drive on all considerations home thro' and thro' the Conscience This Justice requires in a Dialogue between Parties where not only the reasons are to be stretched to the utmost but the Zeal of them also personated In this T. B. pretended Solomon and Abiathar to be defective and treacherous which Accusation tho' false and causeless yet has made me to carry on their Person here with much more Acrimony against their Opponents than otherwise I should have done This may indeed displease the Learned Men concerned herein against them for ought I know but to convert the divided I thought it expedient to shew my self severely equal and indifferent in speaking for them in their own Spirit rather than my own and freely owning their Truths as well as ours And if this does not satisfy the great Men whose Hypotheses are here necessarily dismissed I hope they will consider however that I have a Right to defend my own Principles in Solomon and Abiathar with as much strength and ardour as they have asserted theirs And they that have particularly and by name taxed that Pamphlet who were never touched by me for any of their Writings before must concede me a liberty to examin what they have said against it and it's Principle It is an unhappy Misfortune that two of the greatest Ornaments of the Nation should herein run so widely to the Extremes the one so far as to overthrow the Right of the English Reformation the other to the prostitution of the Powers Hirarchical to Rapine and Violence by laying Principles which yet both of them think necessary to the Churches Preservation I have gone the middle way between these admirable Men who are indeed above all the praises that I can give them and since I find that a new Disputation will be moved herein I do most heartily beseech those two great Men calmly and candidly to treat of their Principles and their Consequences in private first and equally endeavour to remove all Prejudices and to quit whatsoever mistakes shall be joyntly discovered between them and when that is done shew such an example of mutual Charity and Self-denial as may render them if possible more admirable to the World than they already are that so we may hasten with all possible earnestness to an happy Union or at least that the fairest grounds may be laid for it The Edition of this Book is indeed very uneasie to me but since necessity is laid upon me to publish it and that as it was Written I shall be glad if it may prevent a reen-flamed Controversie which is threatned in Print by a Learned Jacobite or may offer any such notices as may contribute to their exacter considerations But for my own part I resolve never to appear in this Controversie more for as it may be easie for learned Men to refute and inform me so I can bear instruction not only with ease but with gratitude also Whereupon I have nothing more to offer to all Authors of worth concerned but that they will not think themselves wronged till they have throughly discussed the matters between us impartially and if after that I shall appear to seem to have done amiss I do hereby proleptically beg their forgiveness and upon the discovery