of the present Oaths I wish he had told us what he means by Scruples and what the Scruples are for we commonly account Scruples to be odd troublesome things which proceed from a Mind well inclined but a weak Understanding not able to support it self whereby men are desirous to do well but strangely timorous and over fearful of the lawfulness of every thing they go about So that at first dash he represents all the Non-Swearers to be at best only a Parcel of well meaning Fools For my own part I have no Scruples but am well satisfied without any Scruple that I cannot lawfully take the Oaths And though this Author writes as triumphantly as if he had the Reason Sense and Conscience of all Mankind in his keeping yet am I so nnfortunate as to think my Foundation unshaken But before I can proceed I must inform you that he hath not fairly and truly stated the Case For the Question is not nakedly and simply whether the Oaths may or may not be lawfully taken though I will discourse that with him in fit place but whether Oaths imposed under such unjust and merciless Penalties and attended with such fatal Consequences will not warrant the Non-takers in a Separation from such as do And to clear up this I must crave leave to open the Case more fully After six Months Warning frequent Rabling if we take not the Oaths we are silenced for six Months more so that if the Oaths be not taken all the Churches in England must be shut up I know not any considerable difference betwixt this and a Popish Interdict neither matters it much whether we lie at the mercy of the Pope or a Parliament whether God shall be worshipped in the Land or not This time being elapsed and the Oaths not taken then are we absolutely deprived and not only our legal Estates taken away and our Wives and Children sent to wander like Vagabonds and beg their Bread but our Flocks taken from us and we not suffered to discharge our Duties towards God and his Church and the Souls committed to our Care which our Orders and Institution enable us to and require from us And when without taking the Oaths we are not suffered to discharge our Duties nor act in any Communion as Ministers I desire to know what this wants of being made a Condition of Communion to us quatenus Ministers But perhaps he will say That we are not hereby forced to break Communion but may still joyn in the same Communion as Lay-men I thank him kindly when some men have betrayed their Consciences for large Preferments that they may enjoy them quietly we must part with all and our Ministry to boot But though this may serve their turn it will not ours for if no Lay-power can make or unmake a Bishop Priest or Deacon then the Charge of our Ministry will still lie upon us notwithstanding this depriving Act and necessity will lie upon us to discharge it at our Peril To this end I would desire this learned Author to tell me whether he takes us for Baal's Priests or Jeroboam's Priests or Parliament Priests or Convention Priests or God's Priests If he will with Erastus throw all into the Civil Power I have nothing to do with him nor any more to account of him than as one of the common Herd But if he thinks the Power of the Clergy as Clergy is derived from Christ to whom the Father gave all Power and to be received by a Succession of Authority who received it from them whom Christ sent as the Father sent him and if he think that the Bishops of the Christian Church were the Successors of the Apostles in their ordinary and standing Authority for all Ages and that they were empowered to derive Authority to several Orders of men to exercise Spiritual Offices for the Benefit of the Church still retaining the supream Ecclesiastical Authority in their own Order in their own Churches as all Antiquity thought and most sober men since Then he must acknowledge that a Clergy-man's Authority is from God and that notwithstanding any Civil Act to the contrary he is bound to take care of his Office and give account of his Stewardship though the most bitter Persecutions attend him for so doing And therefore if they will warrant a Civil Act to disable us from doing our Duties they must excuse us if we have these dreadful apprehensions of the Account we have to give That we endeavour to do it as we can at our hazard when we are not suffered to do it in Communion with them And yet this is not all for there is one thing more which seems unavoidably to necessitate a Schism if we are discharged from our Office upon account of these Oaths though the Crime will lie at their Door not ours Our Author has been as great a Trimmer of Ecclesiastical Orders as any man I know but now being commonly styled a Bishop I hope he will prove Strenuus sui Ordinis Assertor and being he is as well seen in Antiquity as any man in Europe I hope he will not quarrel me who am only a Presbyter for asserting that Prerogative of his Order which genuine Antiquity always appropriated to it Now in the Primitive Times whose Example and Rule our Church follows in every Church or Diocess as now called all the inferiour Clergy were subject to their Bishops and the Bishops of their several Churches or Diocesses were not to transact any Ecclesiastical Matter of moment and common concern without the Consent of him who was Episcopus primae Sedis or Metropolitan And though sometimes Persecutions made fearful Squanders amongst them yet it was never thought to take away the Subjection of the inferiour Clergy to their Bishop nor the Dependance of the Bishops upon their Metropolitan And if any Clerk withdrew his Obedience to his Bishop or any Bishop denyed his Dependance upon his Metropolitan he was lyable to and certainly struck with the Censures of the Church though he suffered never so deeply And if either by the Levity or Apostacy of the Clergy or People or the Impetuosity of the Secular Power a Bishop was set over a Church or Diocess in opposition to one there Canonically placed already or a Metropolitan placed over a Province in opposition to one already Canonically placed there it always in course produced a Schism and the Church was ever accounted to be with those who adhered to them who were first rightly fixed and they always were esteemed Schismaticks who sided with that Bishop or Metropolitan who was set up in opposition Now this is very like to be our Case and is the very thing which our Author ought to have stated For our Metropolitan and several other Bishops are now actually by a Secular Act Deprived But are they Deprived by any Canons or Canonical Censures of the Church Or are they Discharged from their Office and Trust which God hath committed to them Did ever any Secular Act
much less such an Act as this pretend to Unbishop and Unpriest Men I shall easily grant That the Secular Power hath often Seized Bishops Estates and Imprisoned and Banished their Persons But still they were accounted Bishops of those Churches and ceased not to discharge their Duties as their Circumstances would permit and neither their Clergy nor People renounced them unless they were guilty of such Crimes for which the Censures of the Church did Depose them or the Canons ipso Facto Deprive them But where 's the Heresie Where are any of all those Crimes for which these our Bishops merit Deposition Or what just Censure of the Church hath passed upon them For any thing I can see if they be not Lords they are Bishops still and bound by their Sacred Function and their Duty to God to take care of their Churches and consequently the Clergy of their Diocesses whether Swearers or Non-swearers ought to live in Subordination and Subjection to them and the People to pay them Obedience in all Things appeartaining to God So that if any other Bishop be thrust into a Church belonging to any of these Bishops he can be no other than an Intruder and if he claim a Right to the Church and Act in Opposition to the first Canonical Bishops he must be a Schismatick for both People and Clergy are bound to adhere to their first and true Bishop and oppose the other and refuse Communion with him But upon our Constitution we of the Clergy have a further Obligation to this for we are Sworn to pay him Canonical Obedience and therefore we must either oppose any Man who Uncanonically sets up against him or be Perjured And this will reach to you Swearers as well as the Non-swearers and there is no way to free us from this but either his Death or Desecration or Renunciation though this last was never accounted commendable in a Bishop But then if one be put into the place of the Metropolitan the Schism will be wider and more pernicious for both People and Clergy and all the Bishops of the Province so that our Author himself is here caught in a Noose and shall be in a streight betwixt two are bound to adhere to the first and true Metropolitan and to refuse Communion with him who sets up against him so that if the extravagant Penalties of this Act take place and others be put into the Churches of the pretended Deprived of necessity a Schism must follow And according to the Sense Judgment and Practise of the antient Church the Church will be with us and the Schism with them and their Schism will be much of the contrary Nature with that of the Donatists the Terms of Communion with the one being as much too loose as with the other too streight Our Author who is old excellent at Mustering up the ill Presidents I know will think to slur this by telling us Tales how Emperors have put out Bishops translated Metropolitans or erected new ones and the like But it is one thing to act in pursuance to the Canons of the Church and another to act against them it is one thing to shew particular favour to a Place or Person and that with the consent of the Church and another thing to impose upon the Church against her Laws and the Laws of God If he have other Instances I shall either prove that they were Unjust or come not up to our Case or else I will yield him the Cause I know not whether I can be so apprehensive of the Mischiefs of Schism as our Author pretends to be but I think I dread them as much and the more because by woful Experience it is evident to the World that the sad Divisions amongst Christians have rendred Christianity little more than a bare Name And therefore I am unwilling to lay on Load though to help the right Side But I will immind our Author and I am apt to think he will quickly guess what I mean that there are some Scandalous Persons mentioned in Antiquity to whom I could so parallel a sort of Persons amongst us that scarce one Egg should seem more like another and if things are thus push'd on to the height I hope whatever we suffer we shall not basely desert God and his Church and our Duty and though they may go clothed in Purple and fine Linnen and fare Sumptuously every Day whilst care is taken that we may be Starved yet they must expect to be Pelted and then Men will speak and write their Minds freely For in vain do you imagine that when Men have nothing to lose they have any thing to fear Whether I have stated the Case right I must leave to indifferent Persons to judge but if it be right then I think it is clear That a Schism will be unavoidable and that they may wash their Hands with Pilate but cannot wipe off the Crime And if I have stated the Case rightly I need not trouble my self to give any Answer to his Arguments because upon this State they are all beside the Business and nothing to the purpose But because under a pretence of Arguing against Schism he really undertakes the defence of the Oaths and to cover their own Perjury would make it a Crime in us not to do the same thing I shall take some notice of them on that account but very briefly and without any particular relation to the Case of the supposed Schism as to which they are Impertinent And here I need not follow him through all his copious Eloquence pretty Disguises variety of Reading and subordinate Reasonings For it is apparent to any Man who hath but half an Eye that the whole stress of his Discourse is founded on this single Point That the consideration of the publick Good doth dissolve the Obligation of an Oath to a Sovereign Prince rightfully claiming For this he must mean if he speak home to the purpose and if this Foundation prove Sandy then he hath only raised a ruinous Building But to prevent slanderous Tongues I must first premise some Things First That I do think that all Sovereign Princes are bound to have Respect to the publick Good that as their Station is above all other Men so their Actions are of a more publick Influence and Concern and of all they shall give a more severe Account to God than other Men by how much their Trust from him is greater Secondly That Kings deviating from the publick Good may be Informed Advised and Admonished by proper Persons in a fit manner yea that in some Cases they may be sharply Reproved perhaps it is particularly the Duty of some Men to do this though at their Peril Thirdly That if a Lawful King command me to any thing that is Wicked or palpably against the publick Good I ought not therein actually to obey him and that I may use all Lawful means to prevent such Mischief but not by Resisting or by being Injurious to the Person or
really prove to be a personal good and that which makes for the Walfare of every one in the Community then I am willing to put in for my share and I think every Man hath or ought to have a share and Kings the greatest of all And if we leave off these nice thin Distinctions and suffer Publick Good to be as it ought for the sake and benefit of Persons then we shall find that she is a most sweet natur'd Creature that doth good to all and if at any time by chance she seem to have done any particular Person an unkindness yet one way or other she abundantly makes him amends for it But Alas such a Publick Good would do our Author's Argument no service for this Publick Good would never have taught us to Depose a Rightful King to lose our Trade our Men our Money and bring our selves under the just apprehension of those dreadful Judgments which a People ought to expect who have rebell'd against God and Man The destroying the Community for the Publick Good is a thing that passeth my Understanding Further I desire our Author to instruct me whether the Publick Good be not only consistent with manifest Injustice and Wrong but also an encouragement and sufficient Warrant for Men to do that which is palpably unjust and wrongful If he do not affirm this then his Publick Good doth him no Service because it comes not up to our case and if he do affirm it then I desire him to acquit St. Paul from Preaching false Doctrine when he tells us That their Damnation is just who say they may do evil that good may come of it And a shame take those silly Heathen Athenians who rejected the Counsel of Themistocles be-cause Aristides made this report of it to them that it was indeed profitable to the Common-Wealth but not honest had they been Christians they might easily have got over such a pitiful Scruple and a learned Doctor nay God be merciful to us a Bishop commonly so stiled of our Church would have taught them that the Publick Good sanctified all and that we ought to boggle at nothing to procure it When O Lord shall be we delivered from these mortified Hipocrites who fast for strife and debate and make long Prayers for Pretences whilst like Locusts they devour all the good of the Land The Publick Good is a very honest harmless thing in its self but as used of late hath done a World of mischief and now I think our Author is improving it to the height to make it dissolve the obligation of Oaths which are the most Sacred Tye can be laid on Man and yet at the same time he destroys the obligation of those very Oaths he perswades Men to take For if Men should think it for the Publick Good to recal their Lawful Prince upon honest terms What would become of the obligation of his new Oaths And indeed in his sense all Oaths to the Supreme Governor are not only Elusory a mocking both of God and Man but mischievous and destructive of the Publick Peace For he grants that the End and Design of administring such Oaths is to ensure the Subject to the Prince and certainly the Publick Good and Peace requires that in all honest ways they be fast to him But if the true and just measure as he calls it of the obligation of these Oaths be the Publick Good so that they bind a Man to pursue that though to the destruction of the Person to whom they Swear they are so far from being a security to him that upon the Plea of Publick Good they may be set up as a pretence yea as an obligation to Rebel against him At this rate every Oath will be dangerous and seditious and it would be the wisdom and safety of the Prince never to suffer any to be administred Even those he calls Political Oaths were ever intended as a Personal Security and ever thought so and the Publick Good requires they should be so but in our Author's sense they never can be so And it is somewhat strange to me that he who has despised all sorts of Persons as ignorant and silly in respect of himsef should now endeavour to perswade us that all Mankind has ever been so cunning as to Swear in his abstracted Metaphysical Notion I as heartily desire the Publick Good as any Man and think it every Man's duty in his Station and to his Power to promote it but I think it never can be done by expelling Kings and that rather it is against the Publick Good by violence to oppose the Supreme Governor much more to Dethrone him for it is always accompanied with such heart-burnings with such discontents and factions with such disorders and open violence with such overturnings and unsettledness with the ruin of many Families and often with so much Blood and Slaughter and long Wars that the worst of Tyranny which can never last long were better to be born than to seek a remedy against it by such unhappy means And besides all this the ill example of such proceedings influenceth Posterity and becomes the occasion and promoter of Eternal Troubles wherein the Peaceable and Good are always the greatest Sufferers And since he thinks the Publick Good is so much advanced by the late Revolution I desire him to cast up the account and tell us how much better we now are than we were in K. J's Reign For my part I do not think so many losses so great charges such threatning dangers to be compensated by his gaining a Bishoprick I grow weary of discoursing of a Publick Good which is set up to destroy it self I shall now give a brief Answer to such other things in the Discourse as may any way seem to require it and conclude To secure the Law on his side he cites Glanvil and Bracton but forgets what St. Paul and St. Peter said let him take his share with the Lawyers I will venture my Soul with the Apostles Nor need I Answer the Citation for as I ever thought that it was the Duty of a Sovereign Prince to his Power not only to protect his Subjects but to be tender of them so I could never be perswaded that it was Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to Rebel or countenance Rebellion against him and not long since I am sure this was both the Doctrine of the Church of England and the Law of the Land The History of Passive Obedience he hath answered with the greatest ease imaginable for he tells us that it is impertinent to this purpose because heve is no renouncing the Doctrine of Passive Obedience or asserting the lawfulness of Resistence but the single point is Whether the Law of our Nation doth not bind us c. Now though I think a Divine might have made a double point of it yet for once let it pass Gentlemen you have only changed the Object of your Obedience it may be as Passive as you will but if some
blunt Fellow were to put this into plain English I fancy I should hear him speak after this manner My Masters you have been all this while mistaken as to Passive Obedience for it is only a Doctrine which teacheth or at least leaves all Men at liberty to be Weathercocks to turn with every Wind and comply with every turn and is as good a Doctrine as any Turncoat could wish for I confess I did not understand the Mystery before and I think our Author has made a very seasonable discovery if it and I wish he alone may have the Honour of it He thinks three Objections may be raised against him out of the History of Passive Obedience which he branches into several particulars but stops all their Mouths with Publick Good but to prevent their choaking I have pulled it out and left their mouths open agen and therefore need not trouble my self farther in that matter unless he should get another stopple His comparison of a Vow and an Oath is nothing to the purpose for who ever thought that either a Vow or an Oath bound a Man contrary to his real Duty The Sin in such a case is in making them not in breaking them But let our Author speak out and tell me that taking an Oath of Allegiance to a Lawful Prince is contrary to my Duty and then I will thank him for proving that it is Lawful to take an Oath to him who expells him He adds That if Parents instead of regarding the good of their Children do openly design their ruine and contrive ways to bring it about none will say but that they are bound to take care of their own welfare Now I know not what a Madman may do but none will suppose that a Parent in his right Wits will do thus as it is both unnatural and unreasonable to think that a King should contrive the destruction of his Subjects without whom he hath none to Reign over or assist him But he should have told us that the Children in such a case might have taken away all the Father's subsistence and done their utmost endeavour to starve him or cut his throat and no doubt but this had been an excellent Comment on the Fifth Commandment I know not to what purpose he so labours to prove That a Natural Equity or Common Right is due to Subjects yea even to Slaves For who ever thought that being under Government Metamorphos'd us into Beasts or worse Whereas it has been ever judged the great advantage of the reasonable Creature that he is both Sociable and Governable But he should have proved that because the Subject has a Common Right therefore he can receive no wrong or if he do or apprehend he shall then he may cry out the Publick Good and raise Rebellion and overturn any Government Nor was it kindly done to condemn Mr. Hobb's for laying down a Proposition which tended to the securing of Government when once established in his way when any Man may see that he hath borrow'd the worst of Mr. Hrbbs's Principles to patch up his Discourse nor is there any thing material in his whole Discourse but it might have been brought mutatis mutandis to vindicate the Long Parliament and Oliver and condemn K. Charles the Martyr and his Loyal Sufferers But if you examine their Principles narrowly you may observe that they are fitted to overturn any Government but secure none so that I wonder any Government can endure them or the Men that teach them The Casuists have displeased him for allowing men under a State of Usurpation to do those things which tend to the Publick Safety and in another Paragraph he discovers the reason of his displeasure to be this that they have not allowed them to do every thing in a State of Usurpation which they might do under their Lawful Sovereign But he is even with them and roundly condemns them all for founding it on the presumptive consent of the absent Prince but it is his own mistake for quite contrary they found the presumptive Consent of the absent Prince upon the Publick Good and his desire of the preservation of his Subjects and Bishop Sanderson Obl. Cons Prael 5. over whom he seems peculiarly in this place to insult gives this reason of the Prince's presumptive will Ejusmodi obsequio non tam injuste dominanti quam toti communitati hoc est Reipublicae serviisse existimandus est quam salvam esse justi haeredis nihilo minus interest quam illius qui de facto in eâ dominatur Fortasse an multo etiam magis quo sincerius patriam diligere censendus est ei omnia bona velle qui genuinus Pater Patriae est quam quo eo excluso in ipsius aedes se ingessit in familiam ipsius jus Imperium exercet c. I do not remember any thing more in his discourse material except a numerous heap of Instances and in the Van comes the Unfortunate Vortigern whom his Nobles forsook for endeavouring to bring in a Forreign Power But if that be a sufficient discharge of Subjects Obligation to their Prince as he tells us and they thought and endeavours to perswade us to be of the same mind I believe Some-Body will give him no thanks for it To run through all his Instances would be extreamly troublesome and therefore I will make short work of them for what a miserable streight had this Great Man been reduced to if a wicked World and the madness of the People had not furnished him with Instances of strange Disorders Irregularities and mischievous overturnings of government But when those very Instances shew us the Confusions Calamities and Miseries which attend such doings to make them the Rule and Measure of our Actions is to be madder than Madmen and to take away all hopes of ever arriving at any settled and firm establishment But what can we expect better from a Man who lays aside all his Divinity for a little bad Law and worse History He is so elevated with his last Instance about the determination of our Saviour of paying Tribute to Tiberius that in zeal he cannot forbear to call the Non-swearers perjur'd and Apostates Some men surely are not only privileged but admired for speaking Contradictions But to be short I think the the testimony of Velleius Paterculus concerning the Authority of Tiberius to be better than our Author's though he so scornfully reject him and I could wish that if it had been but for the sake of Dio's reason that some others had imitated the Wisdom he commends in Augustus in declining the imposition of Oaths He boasts what he had gained upon the account of the Jews paying Tribute but it will impose upon none but Fools and Partizans and I will give it no particular answer because he misrepresents the case both of the Jews and Tiberius as to which I will only mention some few particulars and then let him reckon his gains First That none should rule over the Jews but one of their Brethren was designed as a Blessing if they continued in Obedience and an encouragement to do so so their being given up to a Foreign Power was a Judgment and Curse upon them for their Sins and which had not befallen them but for their wickedness Secondly That they were under a State of Conquest and that to such a Power as they were no way able to oppose Thirdly That the Question to our Saviour was not concerning Oaths but Tribute which he himself grants all Casuists do allow may be paid even to an Usurper Fourthly That at that time no Man had Jus potius nor had there been any prior Oaths taken in Bar against Tiberius so that though he calls him an Usurper I know not where he will find one with a better Title And by this it appears that our Saviour gave not the least encouragement to take contradictory Oaths and I think our Author might have been better imployed than thus to attempt to fasten such a scandal upon the Great Preacher of Righteousness and Saviour of the World But I forbear too though I scarce know how a Man can in such a case for many reasons I am unwilling to judge severely of my Brethren who have sworn nor hath any Man been more forbearing yet since he so boldly accuseth those as Men of much greater Heat than Judgment who call it Perjury I will let pass their heat and interpose for their Judgment and if I may have liberty to Write I will undertake to prove it so and if I fail in the Judgment of my Bishop and Metropolitan then to submit to any Censure he shall inflict upon me To conclude the Sectaries are all run mad and become more ungovernable than the Possessed in the Evangelist and daily increase and I see not how a Schism in the Church of England can be avoided if these Oaths be imposed We have made wise work of it and the Lord have Mercy upon us FINIS