A VINDICATION OF A DISCOURSE CONCERNING THE UNREASONABLENESS OF A New Separation On Account of the OATHS FROM THE Exceptions made against it in a Tract called A Brief Answer to a Late Discourse c. LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCI TO THE READER THE last Year there was Publish'd a Discourse concerning the Unreasonableness of a New Separation on account of the present Oaths in which the Learned Author endeavoured to prevent that Schism which we were then threatned with and hath since broke out amongst us begun by some few that were dissatisfied about the Oaths and upon that account quitted their Preferments but improved by others tho thanks be to God with little Success who are disaffected to the present Government and take all ways to render it uneasie To the foresaid Book at last Two Answers have been given the one called A Brief Answer the other An Enquiry into the remarkable Instances of History used by the Author of the Unreasonableness c. The former with much Virulence and more Heat than Judgment directly vindicates the New Separation in the examination of which I have concerned my self and no further with the Second than the Reasons there insinuated and touched upon fall in with the former As for what concerns the Enquiry into the Instances and their Vindication against the Cavils of that Pretender to English History for so I call him because I find him to be a downright Plagiary from Dr. Brady's Writings I shall leave it to the Author who Himself in a short time will give the World an Account of that Matter A VINDICATION OF A Discourse concerning the Vnreasonableness of a New Separation c. THE Author of the Brief Answer toward the Close of his Paper thus professeth of himself For many Reasons I am unwilling to judge severely of my Brethren who have sworn nor hath any Man been more forbearing If this Champion of the Cause he appears in had entred the Lists and begun his Pamphlet with such a Declaration there might have been some favourable Construction put upon it tho' in the process of his Discourse he had been transported beyond his first intention by a zeal for his own Cause on one hand and the force of his Adversary's Arguments on the other But to conclude with an I am unwilling to judge severely after he had spared neither the Order he professeth himself to be of nor his Adversary whose Character Dignity and Learning he sometimes is pleased to acknowledge is a sort of refining not subtil enough to take with the present Age and a practice too gross to put upon an impartial and considerate Reader For as for those he once in an over-flowing sit of Charity calls Brethren they are in his Dialect a Pack of Jolly Swearers pag. 2. Such as betray their Consciences for large Preferments p. 4. And he might have added when his hand was in that damn their Souls by the Perjury he charges them with p. 7. As for his Adversary He is one according to the Character this Author frames for him that is old-excellent at mustering up the Ill Presidents p. 6. That hath despised all sorts of Persons as ignorant and silly in respect of himself p. 11. A Man who lays aside all his Divinity for a little bad Law and worse History p. 15. And to clinch the whole thus sets him off A learned Doctor nay God be merciful to us a Bishop so stiled of our Church This in his Language is no severe Judgment and after all if you will believe him no man hath been more forbearing than himself So much shall serve for a Proof of his Candour and Sincerity let us now try how this huffing Philistine who thus struts over his Adversary behaves himself in close fighting The whole of what he saith may be reduced to these Three Heads I. Church Communion and Schism II. Publick Good III. Obedience to Authority §. 1. Of church-Church-Communion and Schism The Author of the Discourse concerning the Vnreasonableness c. professeth That he was not a little surprized 1. That these New Separatists that express'd so great a sense of Schism in others should be so ready to fall into it themselves 2. That they do it upon the account of scruples when the difference is only about the Resolution of a Case of Conscience wherein Wise and Good Men may easily differ To the first the Author of the Brief Answer replies They do not fall but are forced into it Which I shall consider in its due place when he undertakes to prove it To the second he gives a spiteful return But is then a Case of Conscience really so trivial a thing And after he hath gravely prov'd the contrary for a Column together concludes with a special piece of Admonition to his Adversary Therefore whatsoever our Author may think I shall desire him henceforward to speak more reverendly of a Case of Conscience c. But here this Author has over-run the Point for the word Only is not as he perversly will have it as if a Case of Conscience was not a matter of consequence but that the taking or not taking the Oaths is only a Case of Conscience not Matter of Doctrine For the Dispute is not Whether an Oath be lawful or not but Whether this present Oath be so Which being a matter of a Civil Nature must depend upon the knowledge of the Constitution and Laws of this Realm for its resolution which Wise and Good Men may easily differ in as the Author of the Discourse observes and so there can be no reason for those that scruple the Oath to separate from the Communion of those that take it This premised that learned Author seasonably prevents and removes the Pleas that may be made for such a Separation As 1. When any thing Unlawful is made a Condition of Communion 2. That it 's unlawful to join with those that have taken the Oaths and so have done and continue to do and defend what they that refuse Communion account unlawful As to the first the Discourse shews That the Terms of our Communion are not altered and that taking the Oaths is made no Condition of Communion with us As to the second It observes That this is the Scruple about Mix'd Communion which hath been so long exploded among us Upon the first our Author coldly replies I could have told him forty things which they are not and if he should be out in that one he mentions it would be very unlucky and that he is so I shall endeavour in its proper place to prove But in the mean time if amongst the forty things the Oaths are not they shall not be found to be the Condition of Communion they can be no reason for breaking off from that Communion And I grant he may sooner tell of forty things the Oaths are not than prove that they are made the Conditions of Communion or that They may
in their room then why is there a Separation before it and his Argument proceeds upon this that they are bound to join and go along with the Bishops Why must this necessitate a Schism to all For are those Diocesses and Clergy who have their Bishops equally involved in the same case with those that are deprived of theirs Or why must it necessitate a Schism when the Metropolitan and Bishops deprived declare their Aversion to any such Separation This Argument will serve either way for if the Clergy and People are obliged to submit to and obey their Bishops and the Bishops their Metropolitans Then those that are of the Province and Diocesses where their Metropolitan and Bishops have taken the Oaths are obliged to adhere to their Metropolitan and Bishops and may as warrantably and as much ought to separate from these that set themselves against Authority and refuse to swear Allegiance to it as they on the other side think they may and ought to separate from those that do comply with it Again if they are obliged thus to go with their Metropolitan and Bishops then if the Metropolitan and Bishops notwithstanding their Deprivation continue in the Communion of the Church then they are obliged also to continue and if they separate when those don't separate they must by his Argument become Schismaticks Lastly If they separate because they proceed as he saith according to the Sense Judgment and Practice of the Ancient Church I would fain understand when the Christians ever refused Communion with a Church because of Matters of State or divided from others because those they divide from thought it lawful and their Duty to swear Allegiance to the Sovereign Power In fine a Schism it must be and a Schism they are resolved to make let there be a reason or none for it And as Truth will out so he hath at last revealed the Mystery and after all the pretences they make that it 's for not deserting God his Church and their Duty there seems to be something else at the bottom and whether it be so or no I leave the Reader to judg by what he tells us we must expect and why viz. Though they may go clothed in Purple and fine Linen as some others would have done or thought to have done had the happy days of the last Reign continued 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 No Sirs if nothing else will do it we will humble you and throw such a Fioe into your Church by the Schism we will make that you may be sensible you have provoked Men of Spirit and that if we cannot have Purple and fine Linnen and sumptuous Fare with you will make you as miserable as our selves Look you to it for betwixt Dissenter and Dissenter we will grind you to Death and make you rue that ever we left your Church or that the Government hath made us thus uneasy under it This I take to be but a just Comment on this bold Text of his But let him and those of his Mind cherish this malignant humour I am confident no wise or good Man but will think those that are of this Kidney had better be out of the Church than in it They are such as there was no great reason to oblige when in our Communion nor to fear threaten as they will when out of it But as for those whom by their frantick Zeal and fair Pretences they delude we ought to pity and to pray for them and with Meekness to shew them their Error Whether our Author hath stated the case righly I shall with him leave to indifferent Persons to judg but if he hath not as I think has been sufficiently proved then to use his Words they may wash their Hands with Pilate but they cannot wipe of the Crime of Schism they are by this new Separation justly charged with §. II. Of the Publick Good But now he opens a new Scene Before he considered the case with respect to the Church but now he comes to consider it with respect to the State His Design before was to vindicate themselves if he could from a Schism and to charge it upon us But now his Design is to expose the Arguments for the Oaths and to make those that take them guilty of Perjury In order to which he thus states the case for his Adversary The whole stress of his Discourse saith he 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 will speak to the Purpose In Opposition to this he saith That no Pretence of publick Good whatsoever can warrant us to destroy a lawful King or take off the Obligations of an Oath whereby we have bound our selves in all things lawful and honest to obey him And he immediately adds The contrary our R. Author undertakes to prove which I cannot reflect upon without Grief because it seems to me a task which would much better become a Committee-Man or Sequestrator than a Divine of the Church of England And certainly so it would if the Author of the Discourse had undertaken to prove what he here charges him with viz. That the publick Good will warrant us to destroy a lawful King c. But all the while this Man cannot believe himself and therefore he returns to the Consideration of the Proposition concerning the dissolving of an Oath for the sake of the publick Good or as the Discourse words it p. 7. The publick Good is the true and just Measure of the Obligation in publick Oaths Against which he saith If we should grant that he had proved it in Thesi yet he has no where so much as offered to prove it in Hypothesi and apply it to our particular case Surely our Author never read the Book he pretends to answer or if he did he must have a bad Memory or a very bad Conscience for the Discourse thus proceeds upon it p. 3. I shall enquire into two Things 1. The Nature and Measure and Obligation of political Oaths in general 2. The Difficulties which relate to our Oaths in particular upon the last of which he spends two thirds of the Book And now let us see what our Author has to offer in Confutation of what is rightly called the single Point in the Discourse about the Obligation of Political Oaths and the Influence the Consideration of the publick Good has in them I shall try in his Phrase to bring his rambling Arguments into some order and what he has to say is 1. That the publick Good is impracticable and liable to be abused 2. Who shall be the Judg 3. What is the publick Good I hope
their Separation with the Ministers upon whom no such Obligations were laid as on the Ministers So that tho the Non-swearing Clergy might lawfully separate without sin from our Communion yet they must separate alone while none of the People could join with them in their Separation without being guilty of a notorious Schism For what reason would there have been for the Ministers Separation if the Oaths had not been required of them And what reason can there be then for the Peoples Non Communion who as Church Members stand as free from such Obligations as if no such Revolution as the present had hapned and no such Oaths had been at all imposed 2. Though there be this obligation laid upon Ministers yet what is this Political Security required of them to their Communion with the Church May Persons when grieved by the Secular Power and deprived of their Livelihoods by an Act of Parliament revenge it upon the Church And will they interdict themselves its Communion and break it in pieces because they are thus injured as they suppose 3. If they are not suffered to officiate as Ministers yet they may still join in the same Communion as Lay-men To this he answers If no Lay-Power can make or unmake a Bishop Priest or Deacon then the Charge of our Ministry will still lye upon us notwithstanding this depriving Act and necessity will lye upon us to discharge it at our Peril This leads me to his Second Argument but before I proceed to it let him understand That he proceeds upon a gross mistake by confounding Deprivation with Degradation For what Act is there that doth in his Phrase p. 5. Vn Bishop and Vn-Priest men All that the Civil Power here pretends to is to secure it felf against the practices of Dissatisfied Persons and to try who are such it requires an Oath of Allegiance to be taken to their Majesties by all in Office Ecclesiastical Civil or Military And in case of Refusal by Deprivation to disable such as far as they can from endangering the Publick Safety But if the Clergy so deprived think fit to take the Oaths they are in statu quo without any New Consecration or Re-Ordination Having cleared the Argument of this mistake I shall now consider it Arg. 2. A Clergy man's Authority is from God and notwithstanding any Civil Act to the contrary he is bound to take care of his Office 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 p. 4. The Sum of his Argument is That being they receive their Authority from God no Civil Power can disable them from the exercise of their duty And if it doth they are bound to quit the Communion of the Church where so disabled The Force of which may be resolved into these Three Questions Q. 1. Whether a Bishop duly Consecrated or a Minister duly Ordain'd may not be lawfully suspended and deprived from the execution of his Office by the Secular Power where there is sufficient reason for it 2. Whether a Refusal to give Security to the Secular Power for a peaceable behaviour and Obedience by Oath may not be a sufficient reason 3. Whether if so deprived he is notwithstanding bound as a private Member to join in Communion with that Church whereof he was a Minister before if nothing unlawful be required of him in that Communion and not to separate from it Q. 1. As to the first Whether a Bishop duly consecrated c. our Author is not very clear but if he is to be understood he takes away all such Power from the Secular Authority So p. 5. 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 And he makes a sutable Distinction betwixt what he allows to the One and not to the Other viz. I shall easily grant that the Secular Power hath often seized Estates and imprisoned and banished their Persons but still they were accounted Bishops of Those Churches and ceased not to discharge their Duty c. And p. 6. Our Author will think to tell us Tales How Emperours have put our Bishops c. But it is one thing to act in pursuance of the Canons of the Church and another thing to act against them c. Now in answer to all this ramble I shall transcribe what the judicious Mason reply'd to two or three Objections of this kind De Minist Angl. l. 3. c. 6. Object Is not the Deposition of a Bishop a Spiritual Censure how therefore can it be ascribed to Secular Powers Answ. The Secular Powers depose a Bishop not by way of Degradation but Exclusion They exclude him not from his Orders as if he had them not but from the Gift that he may not exercise it And not from that neither absolutely but after a sort that he should not exercise his Office as to their Subjects nor in their Dominions Which the holiest Princes in the Best and Primitive Times have often exercised Object Can a Prince take away what he cannot give Answ. He cannot give and so cannot take away the intrinsick Power of the Word and Sacraments proceeding from the Keys of Ordination but the extrinsical Power and License of exercising the Ministerial Office received by Ordination he can in his Dominions confer and again take away if the Case so requires I leave the rest about an Act of Parliament to this Author's perusal at his leisure Q. 2. Whether it may not be lawful for the Secular Power to deprive Persons in Orders for Crimes committed against the State and particularly upon refusal to give Security to the Government for their peaceable Behaviour and Allegiance by Oath The General our Author expresly denies and the Particular Case he will not allow because it 's the reason why the General was maintained So he saith p. 5. Neither the Clergy nor People in the Primitive Times renounced their Bishops 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 these Crimes for which these our Bishops merit Deposition or what just Censure of the Church hath pass'd upon them Now I answer with Mason Where was the Act of the Church in the Deposition of Abiathar And where was the Ecclesiastical Crime he was charg'd with And as to the Oaths I shall answer again in the words of the same celebrated Author Not without Cause was there a Law made That all Magistrates whether Sacerdotal or Civil should take an Oath That the Queen Eliz. was Supreme Governour and under
the pain of Deposition Which Oath since the Popish Bishops refused they were deprived of their Honours and Churches nor undeservedly because they were presumed to be for the Pope's Supremacy And the same parity of reason may hold for Administring and Taking the Oath of Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary since they that refuse to take That may be presumed to think their Allegiance due to another And that Author adds further when the said Oath was tendred to those Bishops by illustrious Persons deputed thereunto and they would not be perswaded to take it Episcopatibus suis tandem aliquando juxta legem Parliamentariam sunt abdicati which I leave to our Author to English I think this Case is at an end Q. 3. Whether if a Person be lawfully deprived of the exercise of his Ministry he is notwithstanding bound as a private Member to communicate in that Church c. This our Author denies for he would have it that they are bound to continue in the exercise of their Office to do it as they can when not suffered to do it in Communion with them Not suffered he means without taking the Oaths The Sum is That if they are not permitted to exercise their Ministerial Function they think themselves obliged to set up Conventicles and maintain a separate Communion Now this may make two Questions Whether Ordination obliges such an one to the actual exercise of his Office when forbid by the Magistrate And then whether for the exercise of his Ministry he may and is obliged to set up and maintain a separate Communion 1. Whether Ordination obliges such an one c. To this I answer If a Magistrate may lawfully deprive as I have shewed he may then the Clerk may be lawfully deprived And if lawfully deprived he is bound to submit to such Deprivation And that in obedience to the Magistrate whom we are taught as he knows not to resist But to officiate notwithstanding such a Prohibition is in our way to take up Arms against him and in a lower to do what the Pope doth in a higher Station and to controul his Jurisdiction Our Author undertakes to tell us what was done in the Primitive Times but if he had consulted them he would have found that when by the Imperial Power Eustathius was put out of Antioch Athanasius out of Alexandria and Paulus out of Constantinople though the Orthodox complained of the Injustice of it as done upon the malicious suggestion of the Arians yet they never questioned the Emperour's Power But supposing that he is not bound in this case and that he may as lawfully and is as much obliged to exercise his Office as ever Yet what is this to a Separation For is he so obliged that rather than not officiate he may and ought to break off from Communion with the Church It 's agreed to by all that we are to continue in the Communion of the Church we are of as long as we can and that a Separation from it is like a Divorce which is the last Extremity and which nothing can justify but when the Terms of Communion are unlawful But one deprived of his Ministry may hold Communion with the Church if he will since there is no change in the Terms and the Church is as much the same when he is not a Minister in it as when he is And his officiating as a Minister being not a Term of Communion the Communion with it is the same when he is not a Minister as when he is This was true Doctrine against the Dissenters when time was he was a Schismatick who gave this as a reason for his Separation And if they now proceed on the same Principles with the Dissenters and take up their Arguments there is as much reason to charge them with Schism as they had to charge the Dissenters Arg. 3. He argues from the Subjection the People and Clergy owe to the Bishops and the Bishops owe to their Metropolitan So that if Bishops or Metropolitan be deprived and others substituted in their room it will unavoidably necessitate a Schism Our Author that undertakes to give us an account of the Sense Judgment and Practice of the primitive times would have done well to have given us a touch or two of his Skill that way by some credible Authorities and particularly of such a Subjection of the Bishop to the Metropolitan to the Confutation of some of St. Cyprian's Epistles And that Bishops after the Proceedings against them by Imperial Authority were still accounted Bishops of those Churches they before were Bishops of and neither 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 as Heresie or that there is no way to free us from the Subjection and Obedience we owe to them but either Death Deprivation or their own Renuntiation which last he saith was never accounted commendable in a Bishop For the Christian World has hitherto been persuaded that in sitting Cases both Bishops might be deprived and both Clergy and People discharged of any Obedience owing to them by a secular Authority as has been shewed But if what this Author suggests be a just Enumeration of all the cases for which Bishops may be deprived then there is no case in reserve for the secular Power to forbid or deprive and if by the Impetuosity of that Power as his Words are a Bishop was set over a Church or Diocess in opposition to one there canonically placed already it would always in course produce a Schism This he saith was and this is the case for our Metropolitan and several other Bishops are now actually by a Secular Act deprived and because by a secular Act deprived and for no Crimes for which the Censures of the Church depose them they are Bishops still and they are bound to take care of their Churches and their Churches to live in Subjection to them This Subject cannot be thorowly handled without passing some Limits I desire not to transgress though the way that he has handled it in and the small Deference he gives to nay the Contempt he casts upon the secular Power concerning it self and interposing in the case deserves a severe Rebuke and which is so far from doing any real Service to the Right Reverend Persons he takes upon him to defend that it would be to their Disadvantage had not the Impertinency of the Person plainly discovered there are none of them in his Counsel But to return to our Author suppose the case be as he represents it how comes this to necessitate a Schism with us Is it because these venerable Persons stand deprived Then it is not because of any thing unlawful in the Church but because of the Bishops that suffer by the State a Schism may warrantably be made by the Clergy and People Is it not for that reason alone but because others are to be substituted