For if all the Bishops Priests and Christian Laity with them will adhere to those whom the Statute dooms to Deprivation how can the Statute pass into an Ecclesiastical Effect And so the Church ought always to do if they shall apparently persecute her Bishops for Righteousness sake to hinder their temporal Laws from attaining an Ecclesiastical Effect against the innocent whatsoever afflictions they may suffer for the opposition And if ever Popery Arianism Socinianism or Erastianism should which God forbid press it self upon us by Act of Parliament I doubt not but our Church also will herein become Recusant against such Laws and seal their Integrity with their Blood So that in our Case the only Question herein is whether this Law upon the Church to admit the Deprivation be unjust or no If it be in the Churches Judgment she ought to refuse it if not unjust 't is admissible Now this we believe and you the contrary and God must judge between us but in the mean time the church must act according to her present Convictions Dyscher But the form of the Statute is that the Recusants shall be ipso facto Deprived which must import the actual Deprivation to be completed purely by the mere virtue of this Act antecedently to the Concurrence of the Church Eucher I would willingly allow you that this is the Sense of the Parliament if you can clear it from Non-sense of which I am not willing that great Assembly should be impeached And I will also grant you that the mere Virtue of the Statute alone can deprive them of their Temporalities without the Churches Concurrence But perhaps all Decrees of Humane Power in things dubious and future have this tacit yet necessary Supposition quantum in nobis est as much as in them lies for farther certainly no Power can go And further as to the Spiritualties 't is possible the Parliament might intend no more than this that the Recusants should be ejected or quitted by the Church upon and undoubted presumption of her submissive Concurrence or the Recusants own Cession when the Temporalities were gone and their Non-resistance to such necessary and valid Laws But the Senses of Statutes I leave to the Parliament and the Judges while yet you and I know our Ecclesiastical Principles and Obligations in matters truly Spiritual and Christian and must act accordingly whatsoever Lay-men or Lawyers think hereupon And agreeably the Dean and Chapter of the Metropolitical Church looking upon the Sees of the Recusant Bishops de jure vacant discharged the Recusants of their Authority by taking the Jurisdiction to themselves which in such Cases they judged lawful by the Laws of God as well as Man as also Canonical according to our Constitutions tho' herein they assume no ordinary or proper form of Jurisdiction over Bishops not fallen de jure from their Sees and you may very well remember that I noted against this expected Objection in our last Conference †Sol. Ab. pag. 29. that this was and might be done upon judgment of Conscience for themselves and the Church but not of ordinary Jurisdiction over the Bishop And therefore you ought not to have charged this upon us as if we herein own such a Jurisdiction which we disclaim but have proved that the Church may not upon just and necessary Causes desert her Bishop over whom otherwise she confessedly has no proper formal or ordinary Jurisdiction It is most evidently plain that if the Causes be just our Canonical and Legal Constitutions not only allow but require such a Divorce from the fallen Bishop and assign the Jurisdiction to the Church Metropolitical Now if this our Constitution be irregular and invalid why did the Deprived ever own it till now the operation of it came upon them And therefore whether this imports such a formal Jurisdiction or no which yet I deny it cannot be reproached for Uncanonical without condemning our first Reformation and those Models to which your selves have hitherto sworn Canonical observance Dyscher What I have said saves me the pains of reflecting further on what you say in calling the Concurrence of some of the Clergy the Act and Concurrence of the whole Church of England But how the whole Church of England can be represented not only without the Metropolitan and many of his Suffragan Bishops by anumber no matter how many of the inferior Clergy in direct opposition and rebellion against their Lawful Superiors how this can be justified to be a true and Canonical Repre-sentation of the Church of England I leave to you to explain and to distinguish from the gainsaying of Korah Ms Reflex Eucher Except I much forget my self I never asserted any number of inferiour Clergy-men to be Representatives to the whole Church of England nor yet that the Bishops were deprived by the Representative Body of the whole Church but this I say that the actual Ecclesiastical ejection is performed successively by several Representative parts of the whole Church as first by the Metropolitical Church and then the Diocesan Chapters representing their respective Province and Dioceses Now upon an Act for Deprivation the See upon just causes becoming de jure vacant the Course of our Ecclesiastical Politie is such The Metropolitical Church first takes and deputes the jurisdiction the Diocesan Chapters omit their acknowledgments of their former Bishops and at length upon precept proceed to a new Election Bishops upon this except in mere Translations consecrate the Elected thence the whole Episcopal Colledge own the new as do the Cathedral Clergy in their offices and devotions and all the Clergy in person and the Laity by their representative Churchwardens in admitting the Visitations of the new Prelates and executing their precepts Ecclesiastical and all Lay-men personally own them that recieve their Confirmations Benedictions or any other Sacred Ordinances from them or with them as Bishops All which being uniformly and peaceably promoted by these gradations if of much more Weight and Efficacie than a mere Synodical Censure before it has attained to such an actual consequent Reception in the whole Church And therefore when this Process is complete we may truly say the Bishops are Ecclesiastically outed not by the Church representative but by the Church original And hence such a plenary consent of the Church diffusive against a few Bishops and Clergy on the account of their Recusancy must in legal and equitable construction be presumed to proceed from a common uniform Sense of their notorious incapacity and ineptitude of guiding Consciences and exercising Episcopal Functions and Authorities under the present State And upon notorious incapacities the Church may alienate her self from the incapacitated and recurr to other Bishops for new Consecrations or Investitures especially when justly required thereto by the offended Powers And if any incapacity of exercising the Pontifical Authority had been upon Aaron especially from disowning the Principality of Moses which is or comes very near your Case and Korah had opposed him
give way to a Successor of the Conquerors Nomination But this the Church is obliged to not for mere wrath but also for Conscience sake towards the reason of the Cause and the Law of God that requires Subjection to humane Constitutions But the Drs. Hypothesis puts the whole Proceeding against the deprived as injust and formally invalid to all intents whatsoever and makes the act of Deposition simply Secular without any Concurrence of the Church Eucher If a Bishop should be by the Civil Power Condâ—mned to perpetual and close Imprisonment or be banished for ever from his Country so that it is impossible for him to perform the Duties of a Bishop or should he be carried away Captive we know not where or from whence we cannot redeem him Nay suppose the Banished the Imprisoned the Captive Bishop should expresly require them upon their Duty oâ— Câ—â—onical Oath never to accept of any other Bishop as long as he by the common Course of Nature may be supposed to be living or till they be assured he is dead what must be done in such Cases c Case of Sees pag. 6 7. Dyscher The Church must abide by the Government of their Clergy in such Cases and in all Cases where the peculiar Office of the Bishops is wanting apply to other Bishops for their Succour and Aid Eucher But what if the Diocese be so set or restrained that the Church cannot have recourse to other Bishops as suppose in the Isle of Man or any other impediments preclude a Capacity of such Negotiations with other Bishops who can bear such an hard saying that the Church must not admit a new Bishop of her own when she may meerly because the ejected Bishop with whom we can have no correspondence is ill natur'd and grudges that benefit to the Church Dyscher I am hard pressed here I pray how will you steer in this dangerous difficulty between the quick Sands that lie on both sides on the Drs. loose Principles for your Cause and the strict Rules of ours Eucher Why truly I must so far concur with the Dr. as to grant that the Church has a Liberty to admit a new Bishop in such Cases if he be otherwise Canonically qualified Dyscher Does Banishment Imprisonment or Captivity cutting off all capacity of commerce vacate the See and exauctorate the injured Bishop Eucher It does render the See actually empty for the time but yet I will allow you that the Bishop is not exauctorated but that upon removal of the impediments his Authority would immediately exert it self and run on in its old Channel and ought to be received on the Original Title as being still Bishop of his Diocese except his supposed prohibition of another substitute Bishop forfeits his Right Title and Authority Dyscher This is odd Doctrine If the Bishop does not forbid the Church to substitute another which not to do may be presumed for a Cession then he still continues Bishop if he forbids a Substitution then he quits it by forfeiture I pray how can you make out these Paradoxes Eucher Thus if a Bishop shall enjoyn Orders to the Dissolution of Discipline he ipso facto becomes irregular and forfeits And such would be the effect of this supposed Prohibition of a Substitute But if he admits a Substitute upon the necessity of Discipline not otherwise to be supported he still continues Bishop and is to be received for such in full Authority immediately upon his enlargment and recovery Dyscher This does not extricate but involve and double the Paradox For thus there may be two Bishops of the same See at once and a Successor to a present Proprietary which Successor is to be again thrust out as uncanonical and no Bishop of such Diocese on the return of the former Eucher Two Bishops there then will be at the same time of one and the same See though not in it But the second will not be a proper Successor but a Sagan or Vicar to the absent and so to give place to the returning Proprietary till the See shall become wholly vacant of the Proprietary Bishop by death or otherwise except there be some other exceptive provision in such extraordinary Cases For according to this Rule of Prudence the Church of Jerusalem proceeded in the case of Narcissus * Case of Sees c. Chap. 1. pag. 6. alledged by the Dr. which is much like this supposed Case before us Oppressed with calumnious Perjuries Narcissus retires from his See to deserts and unknown Fields for many years not plainly renouncing his Station however Upon this the Prelates of the bordering Churches fill his Place with other Successors in all three before his return never undoubtedly designing to exclude Narcissus if he should return whose Glory and Innocency Heaven it self had signally vindicated But so it happen'd that after the death of the third intermediate Bishop Gordius Narcissus returns and the Church requires him to resume the Throne Episcopal not on a new but his old Title But because through the great infirmities of his old Age he could not bear the fatigue of his Office it was agreed that one Alexander should be his Sagan or Partner in that Prelacy the original Authority of Narcissus being thus derived to Alexander and by him to be administred in ease to Narcissus Dyscher But this does no Service in our case for our former Proprietaries are ejected and others set in to exclude them though present and claiming their proper Relation to their Dioceses Nor does this account of yours reach the design of those instances given by the Dr. in which the Intruders asserted a Title against the unjustly and invalidly expelled Proprietors Eucher I am not yet come to those Instances I only tell you what may be done in the Case of a Banished Deprived or Captive Bishop hereby rendred uncapable of his Functions which I here proposed from the Dr. though I confess to you as a Friend that this Plea and Case of the Drs. as well as all his Lay-instances throughout his Book are far more Impertinent to our present Case than as he says your Vindicators discourses were to the Baroccian Hypothesis Dyscher This is pretty Inadvertency if you can make it out Eucher Why look ye Deprivation or Deposition in our Sense and Case is the Divorce or Dissolution of the spiritual Relation between Priest and People but Banishment Imprisonment and Captivity makes no such divorce And this the Dr. Fundamentally grants in supposing his Lay-ejections to be invalid Deprivations or Depositions and though he generally calls these Lay-ejections and Banishments by the name of Depositions yet upon a cogent pinch he grants that Banishment from a Bishoprick though inflicted on purpose to part the Bishop from his people is no Deposition for so he †Case of Sees c. Ch. 4. pag. 56. expresly asserts of S. Hilary that he was never Deposed but only Banished and allows him to be still actual Bishop of Poictiers since there
none away nor made them break off from any just and due Spiritual Dependence on their former Bishops whose own heretical Doctrine and corrupt Ministrations had made the people cease from depending any longer in Conscience upon them They wanted only to be Lawfully empowered and regularly ordained themselves by Episcopal Imposition of hands as all those reformed Bishops plainly were and so were no Spiritual Intruders nor guilty of any Civil Vsurpation or Injustice But where Bishops are Orthodox and are deprived for their adherence to Truth and Righteousness both in their private Practice and Publick Ministrations the people are still left Spiritually to depend on them And so we our selves should have thought at least we all seem as if we should if by Gods Providence the Civil State had gone on to ddprive our reformed Bishops for sticking to the Doctrines and Worship of the Reformation and had set up Popish Bishops in their places c. Vide. Eucher This Doctrine of that learned Person must be admitted with a grain of Salt or else it will be very unwholesom and prove very convulsive in the Ecclesiastick Body For tho every single Christian is to abhor and defie all false Doctrine condemned by the unanimous Sense and suffrage of the Universal Church from Divine Authorities yet single Persons cannot distributively and alone reject their Bishops as not Bishops for heretical Opinions or corrupt Ministrations which the general Body and all Orders of the Church do not uniformly censure irregular and renounce their Authors except a just and regular Sentence pass in form against them When Churches are concorporated into Provincial and Diocesan Unions there must be some public conduct for the diffusive multitude to a due discussion of Principles in order to such Divorces Thus of old when grievances arose from suspected Bishops the people appealed to Synods to judge upon their Cause but in Cases notorious they addressed to other Churches Bishops and Synods to allow their necessary Rejection of their irregular Bishop and ordain them others And this usage was as common as useful till the Papal Usurpations rendred it impracticable in the Western Church and so necessitated extraordinary forms of reformation For here the Prince and the People and a great Body of the Clergy having an Ecclesiastical Cause of Controversie against the Marian Bishops unrelievable by any fair domestic or foreign Synod were forced upon the Notoriety of the Evil to use extraordinary measures of purgation not by rabble or incoherent Partitions but by a National Judgment in Parliament as a middle expedient as well against intestine Schisms as Romish abuses upon which discharge of Papal Tyranny a way was opened to that true and uniform Sense of true Religion which the whole emancipated Church presently received with a glad and chearful Uniformity which was a felicity however not atchievable by a loose unorganized Multitude Since then the whole People of this Land did in their National Senate Vindicate the pure Religion established in former Convocations from the Marian Bishops the enacted Deprivation was designed more against their Spiritual Conduct than their Temporal fortunes and the People followed that publick intention not their own private counsel in the reception of new Bishops and the models of reformation And herein such measures of prudence were observed which cannot be secured in a promiscuous multitude which I wonder that Author did not consider For a Priest is not immediatly upon dropping of an Error materially heretical to be taken by all at random for a formal and self-deprived heretic or Anathema but he must be previously heard and admonished and only upon incorrigible Obstinacy to be rejected with appeal unto God and an apology to all Churches or Spiritual Fathers unconcerned and untainted But then this is a Canonical form of exauctoration by the Church not a formal Self-deprivation otherwise upon this Authors Principle all the Hierarchy of the Romish Communion was long self-deprived before the Reformation and totally exauctorated and how then will he justify our Episcopal Succession For such ipso facto irregularities that are so in their own nature and not by mere Canonical Ordinance degrade as well as deprive from not only Order but Communion to which of old upon Penitence they were wont to be restored not as Priests but as Laymen for that such a fall was an ipso facto Degradation of Order in which there were to be no public Penitents But now if we make such Deprivation the Act of the Christian People as we must then it and all the previous process thereunto must be executed by some formed Session or Council for the Place and People concerned but for the whole People of this Land we have no Council but that of Parliament And here it must be noted that a Christian Parliament hath as much Spiritual Right against heretical Priests as the common Christian Multitude and if the Multitude may on such notorious Corruptions eject one and procure another Bishop even without the Consent of civil Powers according to this Authors Doctrine surely such Right much more belongs to the Christian Legislative to which the Care of Religion does by Divine Ordinances belong as well as to the Hierarchy and common Multitude which had a real need of their Counsel and Conduct in so great a Difficulty The People therefore in Parliament did their Part in the Ejection of the Marian Bishops and all the Chapters and other Ecclesiastical Orders sequaciously concurred and completed the Design of that Act in their Alienation from the condemned Recusants And tho' all this was done for refusing the Oath of Supremacy yet that Recusancy being grounded on false Principles in Religion and maintained in Defence of the Romish Usurpations and Corruptions the Statute of Deprivation had not only a civil Intention but Religious also and was received accordingly But all this while I find no Answer to that famous Passage quoted by me †Sol. and Ab. Pag. 32. out of Dr. Hammond's Tract of Schism tho' of so great Moment and of so great Strength to justifie such Statutes of Deprivation for the Security of the civil Government against Seducements and Seditions But if you would take my Counsel I would advise you not to lay the Cause of this Controversie in Points of Religion nor make common People the Judges of them for fear of a Snap that perhaps you are not aware of Dyscher What what do you mean I am a little startled at this Suggestion since we are where we were and have neither altered the old Doctrines nor the Practices they direct to Eucher Do not you remember that that great Man who wrote the Vindication of the Deprived Bishops vehemently argues †Vindic. of Depr Bish pag. 24.25 26 27. that not only Errors whether great or small but even unnecessary Truths become Heresies when they are made the Causes or Characters of different Communions And such all Principles and Rules of Christian Morals inforced on peril of Sin
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
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
crime deserved tho' the Dr. to serve his Hypothesis extenuates the guilt of his Rebellion And if this be in fact so then it seems rather a Concession with a mixture of Counsel than a mere austere command of Retirement for so verbs of the imperative Mood very ordinarily signifie and Solomons kind reflection on his Liturgies and Sufferings in the days of David fairly appear to intend so much If a Traytor were thus spoken to by his Prince never see my face more get the out of this place for this shall satisfy me instead of thy forfeited life or else thou art a dead man even to day the Traytor would interpret the recession to be a condition of Life rather than a precept of Civil Duty And his submission would be rather his choice for himself than any Service to his King And certainly he might refuse such offer at his choice and peril as Malefactors sometimes chose the Gallows rather than Transportation This option proposed to Abiathar in this Form the whole Text in every version sufficiently exhibits but the Septuagint most expresly in the citra position of these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 within the first Clause and comes more up to the Hebrew than our Translation for the Hebrew and the Septuagint by a man of death intend the sense of a dead man and this signifies rather a Menace or Sentence of actual death especially when joyned with these words in this very day than a mere merit of death as we render it But such a Menace with a Concession of voluntary exile to Anathoth must be conditional if he went not thither and so admits option And moreover according to the Hebrew Structure of the words we must admit this interpretation from the Drs. own Authorities For thus Abravanel alledged * Case of Sees pag. 21. by the Dr. out of Areschmuth gives his formal sense upon this place Solomon commanded Abiathar not to stir a foot from the place assigned him i. e. Anathot For otherwise if he should dare to sally out hence his Blood should be on his own head as he had also intimated unto Simei the Son of Gera. And this is manifest from the words of Solomon but to day I will not slay thee as if he should say but I will slay thee on that day on which thou shalt dare to go from thence any whether Now if hereupon the Blood was to be on his own head if he stirred was it not put to his option in the sense of Abravanel whether he would confine himself within Anathot or die And if there were such option in his Continuance there was so in the first Recession There are * Vindic. of Depr Bish pag. 71. Christ Com. part 2. ch 3. p. 31 32. some of us make this act of Solomons a Banishment and not a proper Deposition the natural consequent of which Banishment was the debarring him the exercise of the Pontifical Office which Abiathar must be supposed to accept as a Favour and not insist upon his Right But then this Exile must be voluntary and that makes the Cession And I desire the Dr. if he can to discover any other form or importance in the words of Solomon For tho' he says the following words so Solomon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thrust out Abiathar make it more plainly to appear a mere absolute Deprivation by the alone act of Solomon without any Cession in Abiathar yet he cannot but feel a conviction within himself that this note is far from Cogent For he well knows that in all Languages verbs Actives have a great Latitude of signification as to the Forms and Manners of action and denote as well a moral as a natural influence And here the manner of Solomons ejecting Abiathar is at full declared moral only by enjoyning him to retire from Jerusalem to Anathoth on pain of death and it is in vain to strain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to any other conception And truly since so many Learned men not concerned in our Case have had various notions of this procedure I wonder why the Dr. is so earnest to force this instance to an absolute Deprivation Why should he be fond of multiplying examples of Lay or Invalid Depositions Are there not too many such injurious Attempts at the fewest but we must needs rake and hale in more than really are to swell the number and improve the mischief of ill Precedents only to give colour to an odd and invidious Hypothesis Is the Baroccian trifle tanti Is there so much of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in it as to enflame the Church of England I am afraid there is and nothing hinders the present accension but dearth of paper scarcity of money and the danger of unlicensed Printing But however I hope I shall stifle it in this instance in which I only am engaged let others try and take their Fortunes in the rest Eucher But by your good leave Sir you shall not escape so for your Arguments and the Drs. drawing me contrary ways I would gladly see my way clear between you and get me out of the maze if possible Dyscher Then go you on as you think fit Eucher The Dr. then first of all tells us * that whatsoever is necessary for the present Peace and Tranquillity of the Church ought to be made use of †Case of Sees c. Chap. 1. provided it is not in it self Sinful and the ill Consequences which may possibly attend it are either not so mischievous to the Church or at least not so likely to happen as the Evils we endeavour to avoid Vpon this Maxim the Antients always prefer'd the Peace and Tranquillity of the Church to all other things the Essentials of Religion excepted There was no Custom or Law of the Church so Sacred or inviolable but what they readily sacrificed whensoever necessity required to the Peace and Tranquillity of it And in proof hereof the Dr. brings you several full Instances and Authorities to which I refer you and on which I demand your Opinion Dyscher I may allow every jot of this to be true but who shall judge for the Churches Practtice concerning the necessity and the Exigences the Evils and the Dangers thus to be balanced Eucher For a Province the Metropolitan and Bishops and where the Clergy have a Canonical Right they also are to be admitted In a single Diocese the Bishop and his Clergy especially the Chapters and if the Laity be concerned it is fit these Debates be managed in the presence of such standing and communicant Laic's as shall there appear in their own concernments Dyscher Can any resolves be valid against the Colledge of Bishops in a Provincial Synod or against the Bishop in a Diocesan Consultation Eucher No. Dyscher Will not the College of Bishops and the body of the Clergy think it Essential to Christian Religion to preserve the Hierarchy and Authority of the Priests Sacred and
inviolate against all routs and tyrannical confusions Will not they think a temporal distress incurred for adherence to the fundamental Laws of Catholic Communion less hurtful than a general and causeless deturbation of the pious and regular Priests of God Almighty Can they think it sinless to permit an arbitrary divorce of themselves from their relation to God and the Souls of their People and to let in greedy wolves who covet nothing but the promotions of the Church and for that Cause will pretend an outside Orthodoxy in all other points For put the Case in Fact that once again an O. C. should oppress all by the Sword and turn out at once all the Bishops and Clergy of this Realm and bring in another Set into their Places must the Christian Laity renounce their Canonical relation to the former and embrace that of the imposed and irregular Ministers Or let us look up unto God and enquire within our selves whether of these will God accept for his Servants Must God submit to an irresistible Mob or Hector too Or must we admit those for Gods Messengers whom God never sent and will never own And must this be yielded by us toties quoties whensoever our too mighty Enemies will sport themselves upon us with such a form of persecution I am afraid if this mysterious Secret had been known in the three first Centuries the Heathen Powers when baffled in their other methods of hostility against the Church would have took up this as the most successful because most Orthodox and Christian way of persecution Now suppose such a design had been projected against the Apostles to deprive them of the places and exercise of their Apostleship and to fill their Room with other Orthodox pretenders would the Apostles in Council have allowed people to reject them and receive the intruding Apostles Or could any intrude by the help of the Secular Powers without Sin and Schism and Sacriledge Or would the Apostles have censured these Invaders and have still maintained their own Functions Eucher As to the Office which was peculiar Apostolic necessity was laid upon them and wo had been unto them had they not preached the Gospel in obedience to God rather than man But in that Office as such there could be no successor and so they were to be continued as foundation stones whereas the Episcopal Office is not peculiarly personal but successive Dyscher I will not here except against the validity of this Distinction in these Offices but will put the Case as you set it Suppose the Heathen Powers had passed Seâ—â—ence on the Apostles that being permitted the functions distinctly Apostolical they should not execute their Episcopal Authorities any where nor be received by the Churches as their Bishops but that others provided by the Heathen Enemies should be vested in their Episcopacy would the Apostles have quitted their Episcopacy to which Christ gave them Commission When St. Paul bids the Elders of the Asian Church to take heed to the Flock of which the Holy Ghost had made them Bishops Act 20.28 must that Authority received from the Holy Spirit have conceded to an enstallment of Nero or Domitian Or would the Holy Ghost have truckled under the persecuting Powers and have hallowed the Intruders and deserted those of his former constitution by Apostolic designation And would the Apostles and their first successors with their flocks have judged persecution of their bodies greater than this of their Spirituals that so they should concur in this to avoid the other and be content to submit to the Conduct and Communion of Neronian Bishops that had dethroned the Apostles of our Blessed Saviour and by the heathen sword assumed a Spiritual Jurisdiction over them When Ignatius says that the Bishop and his Presbytery are to be received as Christ and his Apostles with several other earnest and Seraphic Elogies would he have allowed them to be forsaken at the pleasure of an Heathen Mob or Tyrant in exchange for others set up by Idolatrous craft and force Clemens Romanus would not allow this in a domestic Mob in the Church of Corinth and would he concede it to a Mob of aliens and Pagans Eucher I cannot tell how to answer this but perhaps the Dr. may when it shall be offered him Dyscher In the mean time then I take the Bishops to be the Supreme Ecclesiastic Judges as well in the dispensation with as the execution of all secondary Canons whensoever exigences unforeseen or more important than those Canons require their present Relaxation But such dispensing Power lies not upon the fundamental Rules of their Order and Union to dissolve their own being and Authority at the pleasure of the Churches Enemies for no other motives but those of secular terrour for mere fear whereof no Bishop can dispense with his union towards his Colleagues nor Clergy or People be dispensed with as to the Laws of their subordination in the Ecclesiastic unity Eucher Why then you must bring this admission of new Bishops c. violently obtruded upon the violent expulsion of the former into the Catalogue of Sins which the Dr. excepts out of his Principle But he withal denies such admission to be sinful because they are not against the Law of God nor do they make us accomplices to the injustice nor violate the Obligations to our Canonical Obedience nor is the Ordination of the obtruded a mere nullity Dyscher As to the two last Suggestions I shall say nothing to them if the two former are not provable against the Doctor For my Canonical Obedience belongs to my proper Bishop whoever he be and the Ordination of Anti-Bishops is †Treat of Ch. Com. Part. 3. Ch. 6. not censured for a mere Nullity by all our Worthies tho' it is by our Vindicator Let us then begin with the first Consideration whether it be not a Sin by the Law of God I pray how does the Doctor make out the Negative Eucher He says That the Scripture in our Case is altogether silent 'T is true it bids us be obedient to our Governours and that Command reaches as well to the Spiritual as to the Temporal But when there are two that stand Competitors and both claim our Obedience to which of these two our Obedience ought to be paid it leaves to our Wisdom to determine Dyscher You ought here to observe that our Question runs about the Duty or Lawfulness of admitting Intruders upon an open and contested Expulsion of Right not where the Title or Right is dubitable Now when an Intruder contests for the holding an Ecclesiastical Function against the Rightful Proprietor that is invalidly and uncanonically thrust out doth the Law of God leave it to our Wisdom and not to our Justice to determine or does it leave it to our Wisdom to determine according to regular and confessed Justice or according to irregular and confessed Wrong For the Law of God requires us to render suum cuique every Man his due
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
Estate and the Personal Authority Here is a Man that really was and still Asserts himself Christ's Ambassador Residentiary Vicar and Vice-gerent Comes a Tyrant or a Rout and violently expells this Ambassador This is a Crime against the Laws of Nations and the Rights of Royal Majesty and is a direct affront to our Lord Christ But this is not all This Tyrant or Rout corrupts a few of other our Lord's Ministers and they in their Lord's name give Credential Commissions to an impostor set up by these Enemies of our Lord to supply the defect of the ejected Ambassador this augments surely not lessens the insolence and no Prince whatsoever can connive thereat without severe and vindicative Resentments Now whether shall the Church own for Christ's Messenger him that he sent but others barbarously expelled or him that he sent not but others impudently obtruded Doth not our Saviour say to them whom he sent as his Father sent him He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth 〈◊〉 dâ—spiseth him that sent me And can we admit this contempt upon his Messengers without being Accomplices therein And what if this is necessary for the Clergy at present to save their promotions Must we value these before the Divine Laws of the Hierarchy and Communion Are we thus taught to contemn the World indeed as to quit all the Authorities of our Lord's Dignation rather than loose a little Worldly Interest When our Lord saith He that loveth the World or the things that are in the World more than him the love of the Father is not in him nor can he be Christ's Disciple But however if the Clergy be not degenerous they can preserve their Bishops in the exercise of their Spiritual Auâ—â—oâ—â—ties tho' not in the Enjoyment of their Estates and Temporalities For from what is Spiritual no Secular force can alone Depose them without Câ—usâ— and the concurrence of the Church Shall outward force force us into Intestine Schism or Disorder or can no Division from our Fathers be Schismatical admitted for fear of Temporal force But one thing more will I ask the Dr. whether we must admit such Deposition as violent Power pretends to before a new violent filling of the Sees with others If not then are we not to Sacrifice all the Secular Peace and then the See being not vacant by such pretended Deposition either the Deposition formally consists in the new Intrusion and so the Intrusion must on the Drs. Hypothesis be invalid and so cannot oblige us to admit it or if the Intrusion be not the Deposition then the former Bishop c. is not Deposed and the latter either is not possessed or two Anti-Bishops can be and are joyntly possessed of the same Episcopal See and Authority But if we may or must abide by the pretended Secular Deposition before a new Intruder then what if the Secular Tyranny will not concede us any Bishop Must we Sacrifice here too No here the Dr. is tender and will not Sacrifice he will have some Bishop or other by Mr. Mobs favour whether his Irrestibleship will or no. Now then let us reduce this Prudential Principle into Practice and if you can bear a little teizing I will discuss its Virtue Eucher Proceed Dyscher Suppose then upon an Irretrievable Deposition of Bishops by mere force the Tyrannick Powers neglect to new furnish the Churches what course must they take for a Supply Eucher Petition those Powers thereunto Dyscher What if these Powers Conscious of this your Drs. Principle always give fair Promises but never intend to repair the Breach how long must the Church wait Eucher Till such time as they see no hope of relief and as long as the Church can forbear without damage to the Substance of Religion Dyscher Well then suppose the Church can forbear no longer or the Tyranny absolutely denies to fill the Sees who shall then provide for the Church Eucher The other Undeprived Bishops and Clergy Dyscher But while or before they go about this the Irresistible Irretrievably deprives them also how shall the Cut go then Eucher Then the Church-wardens must try what they can do for their People Dyscher But let them be Irretreivably Deposed too and how then Eucher Then the multitude of Christian Churches Dyscher Tho' here I could demand how an unorganized Multitude can Act Uniformly yet I will not pinch you that way but what Priests must or can they provide the Old that are Deprived or New Eucher The old Case of Sees c. pag. 41. Dyscher What upon their Old Title or your New Investiture Eucher Here I am in a strait but let it be on their Old Title what then Dyscher Then they may not abide by the pretended Forcible Deposition till a new Intrusion nor is that Deposition Irretrievable as the Dr. sometimes supposes it for an Irretrievable Deposition is an effectual one whose effect cannot be vacated or reversed while yet at another time the Dr. allows the Deposition to be Invalid but an Invalid Deposition is null 't is no Deposition whereas an Irretrievable Deposition is a most effectual and real one as I have said Eucher Well then what if to avoid these difficulties we allow the reinvestiture of the former Priests by a new Title Dyscher But they will not accept it as knowing that their old Title is permanent and unimpaired by the null pretended Deposition and consequently that a pretended new Investiture is null because needless and anticipated besides we know that the acts of mere Laity cannot Canonically erect an Hierarchy Eucher Let them then procure a new Sett Dyscher But where will they find Persons qualified or willing to enter into such a deposable Office or to ordain them against Mr. Irresistibles will who will presently Irretrievably Depose them To this issue of Absurdity and Contradiction the Drs. Principle must of necessity bring him And he were better resolve that the Church may admit an open and utter Dissolution of the Hierarchy than dwindle it away after this poor precarious manner of Sophistry Have you any thing more to alledge from the Doctor Eucher Yes yes If the Bishop of a Frontier Town will not own the Authority of a Conqueror and is therefore Deposed by that Conquerour I desire to know of you whether the Clergy of that Town are Perjur'd if they own that Bishop whom the Conqueror thinks fit to set over them Case of Sees p. 6. Dyscher I smell your design well enough to bring me into a snare but I can answer the Dr. upon your Principles For if the Conqueror be not settled in Form of Law all he does is of no Validity and the Clergy are to have no regard to his violences upon the Bishop nor his Illegal intrusion of another But if he upon Conquest hath attained to a Formal Settlement there is a just Cause on the Merits of which the Recusant Bishop at the Command of the Conqueror may be ejected by the Church and
was no other Orthodox Bishop there Now our enquiry as the Dr. sets it is of an unjust and invalid Deposition by a Lay-power or Irresistible Force and the Admission of a Successor consequent thereupon Now if Banishment and by parity of Reason Imprisonment and Captivity is not a Deposition how are these pertinently alledged for such in our Question Then again if upon Banishment the Deposition consists in the intrusion of another and this be unjust and invalid how is the intruded a right Successor to whom the Churches obedience is due Or if he be not right i. e. Canonical how is this obedience due Must we pay obedience where it is not due Or is there any due where there is no form of Right Or is there any form of Right created by an Act not only unjust but even invalid and consequently null Then again every one of the Drs. instances of Lay-deprivations are nothing but meer Banishments and Imprisonments and so no Depositions from their Spiritual Powers or Relations as he confesses in St. Hilaries case though elsewhere he commonly calls them Depositions without thinking of it But if the Depositions consist in the consequent intrusions these being invalid as well as unjust oblige to nothing but Repentance and Restitution And so his infinite expence of Reading and Criticism is all at once unfortunately thrown away But there is one thing farther considerable in the last Question of the Dr. and that is the impossibility of performing the Episcopal Functions consequent to these Lay-Banishments and Imprisonments For if this incapacity gives those violences the forms of Depositions then it appears not that all the Lay-instances produced by the Dr. were Depositions and perhaps none of them since the Episcopal conduct might be carried on by Communicatory Letters to the Dioceses and other Social Bishops to act for them according to the constant practice of Exiled and Imprisoned Bishops from the days of the Apostles But if the persecution be so straight as to preclude all capacity of such Pastoral care a new Bishop may be set to supply the defect but not to exclude the Right of the ejected to govern for him not against him and to resign upon the return of the Proprietor On this account it must be resolved how the ejected Bishops reteining their Claim or Right mentioned by the Dr. or his Baroccian Treatise owned those Orthodox Persons that filled their places in their Absence Thus * Case of Sees c. pag. 59. Briccius might call Armentius Brother and Bishop of Tours while he was returning to lay Armentius aside upon a Presumption that Armentius never set up against him nor would oppose his Restitution if yet there be any credit due to the Story On some such confidence * Case of c. Ch. 7. pag. 82.90 c. Elias might Communicate with John and his Communicants at Jerusalem not only because John was Orthodox but because he kept not the See from Elias as a Rival or anti-Anti-Bishop but only continued that Care for the Church during Elias's Incapacity For their Mutual Friendship is a demonstration that John did not still oppose Elias and Elias ratified John's Present Government by his Communion which was if not a Cession as your Vindicator conceived yet a Valid Concession for the time being For tho' John was one of Elias's Expellers yet after John had opposed and baffled the Emperor and therein seconded Elias's Cause This with the Mediation of those Martial Monks Theodosius and Sabas might cool all Elias's former Resentments and procure his Peace and Ratification of John's Government That Elias was not obliged by Canon to acquiesce is manifest not only from many Canons to the contrary but the practice of many others produced by the Dr. who endeavoured to recover against the Orthodox Intruder received by the Church on the Drs. Fundamental Law of Necessity If then Elias acquiesced not by Law but Choice this made a Ratifying Concession to John's Government and hereupon Theodosius and Sabas might well Communicate with both since they both held Communion one with the other either by the Cession or Concession of Elias But here a shrew'd hard Question Intervenes If the Church always owned the Orthodox Possessor of anothers Chair without Schism how could the Orthodox ejected Bishop rival and contest the Intruded Possessor without Schism or injury done in challenging his Right while yet his Right would be taken for quitted if he should not challenge it Now during the Challenge he must renounce the Possessor and all Communion with him as such whom yet the whole Church according to the Dr. lawfully receives for the Diocesan Now if the Ejected will be in the Communion of the whole Church they must own their Anti-Bishops and so it will be their Duty to loose their Right to Intruders or if they may refuse the Anti-Bishops without Fault how can others lawfully own them and their Possession of other Men's Sees never validly vacated Methinks Apparent and Confessed Right should obtain in Judgment against possession manifestly without Right nor is it a Rule of Conscience or Religious Peace but Carnal Fear and base Interest that inclines to the contrary Hereupon I conclude that the best Title John had to the Churches Communion was from the Concession of Elias And your Vindicator had great reason to suppose something done on Elias's part to the confirming of John's Prelacy from the Communion that is asserted to have been between them For being apparently no anti-Anti-Bishops the Natural and Legal Presumption must be that Elias allowed him and that was a Canonical ground for the Churches regular Communion with him tho' before there seems none except Elias had been removed beyond all Capacity of Communion which it's plain he was not So then it is not the Substitution of a New Bishop in the Chair of another utterly latent or removed from all possible Communication that makes a Schism but when one is set up to Exclude the other Violently and Invalidly Ejected from the Administration of his Office either at present or hereafter while in a Capacity and Readiness to perform his Functions Thus Pope Martin whom the Dr. hath also instanced pronounces it Unlawful for the Church of Rome to admit another Bishop during his Life and Spalatensis alledges that Authority and Rule for Canonical and Good Yet when he was Condemned at Constantinople and the Church of Rome had taken him for dead and so chose Eugenius no wonder that Pope Martin receiving News of this before his death prayed for Eugenius thus chosen because he knew the Romans had not set him up as an anti-Anti-Bishop and could not doubt had his return been possible but that his Church and Eugenius too would have joyfully re-inthroned him But in cases of Competition as in the Ignatian and Photian War if the Church or the Competitors can be on both sides excused from Schism upon every turn and invalid Act of Lay-Power against which a good and valid Title
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-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
thereby that he neither was nor would be an anti-Anti-bishop to him tho' Euphemius in begging his Protection in his way to Exile seems to have conceded without Remonstrance that Macedonius should supply the Church for him during his Exile but not against him upon which joynt accord they continued saithful Friends even unto Death And hence well might those who refused to subscribe Euphemius's Condemnation fairly Communicate with Macedonius as being no anti-Anti-bishop to Euphemius but in perfect Charity and Communion with him All which procedures are grounded on that Maxim owned by St. Chrysostom that the Church cannot be viz. well without a Bishop So that it is the actual want of a Bishop for the time being that Justifies new Admissions not to exclude but to supply the defect of the Proprietor till his Recovery from Banishment or Bondage And to apply the Drs. Concession to our present State If their Majesties had not filled the Sees with New Bishops the Old ones had been our Bishops still and then how were the Sees before vacant by the Statute of Lay-Deprivation And how long should we have waited their Majesties leisure had they continued longer the Diocese in Suspence before the Dr. would have remonstrated for the Old Bishops Or how shall the Church know when their King's design to destroy the Church by not yielding it Bishops while the crafty Persecution is carried on under false promises and fair pretences of care for the Churches Interest These are pretty hard Morsels to digest and I leave it to the more judicious to resolve them Dyscher But to what Rules can you reduce the usage of the Greek Church in admitting new Patriarch's erected by the Grand Seignior upon his Arbitrary Dethroning a former who yet is present to his People and capable of his Pastoral Care For the Dr. puts us this strict Question †Case of c. Ch. 15. Pag. 174.175 whether an ejected Patriarch of Constantinople would do well if after he was deposed he should separate from the Communion of his Successor and make a Division in the Church To this he adds another Questions It is certain saith he that when the Patriarch of Constantinople is deposed by the Sultan the Church submits immediately to the Successor without asking the Old Patriarch leave Is now the Greek Church herein Schismatical If the ejected Patriarch should actually lay claim to his See would the Church be Schismatical for adhering to the present Possessor Eucher In this point I find the Dr. and some of you very well agreed to excuse and in a manner to justifie this Submission in the Greek Church This the Dr. observes in one of his Opponents and so have you and I in your learned Author of Christian Communion But herein my opinion is that the whole Greek Church was culpable in the first Admission of such Changes and stil is so in continuing such submission whic has nothing in it to Excuse it but fear of persecution It is true it would be odd for one single Patriarch to refuse such Ejection against the temper and humour of the whole Church especially if himself were advanced so upon the Imperial Expulsion of his Predecessor for if a whole Church will perversely urge her Bishop to yield to violence and lay down his Mitre I think in many Cases he may do well to yield to an unjust and inflexible importunity as Gregory Nazianzen did but the Churches are to blame that do not animate and maintain their Bishops against such Tyrannies in their Spiritual Authorities which ought not to lacquey it to Simoniacal and barbarous insolences For since the Greek Churches are as to their Temporal Condition in the same State with the Primitive they ought to do as the Primitive Church would have bravely done and to follow the rules of Succession that were observed in those purest Ages It is true the whole Greek Church having by a long and consuetudinary consent and prescription made this Usage to themselves as it were Canonical would not seem Schismatical in neglecting the claim of an Ejected Patriarch because he himself in his first advancement came in by the pleasure of the Sultan and assumed the Patriarchate under the same servile Terms and Conditions And therefore that first Consent tho' faulty and vicious incapacitates him to reform and reverse the ill custom singly by himself without the concurrence of his Episcopal Colleagues or the general Councils of that Church at least he cannot condemn them as Schismatical in this Customary Servility And here I must put this Quaere whether this Submission of the Greek Church to such Changes be simply Sinful If so then the Dr. ought not to prescribe from them as exemplary or excusable If not sinful then Custom and Ecclesiastical Consent hath made those deprivations and successions Valid and Canonical and then they are alien to the Drs. Hypothesis and are impertinently alledged But as if Case of the Greek Church now actually stands the ejected Patriarch making no challenges 't is no domestick Schism within themselves tho it be a wretched Dehonestation of that Churches Sanctity And so if as the Dr. confesses these Patriarchs do not merit by their Learning or Wisdom to be guides and patterns to the Bishops of England he should not urge us with their corrupt and profane examples to sacrifice our Hierarchies to the arbitrary lusts of Secular Powers For if it be not a formal Schism in the Greek 't is a radicated vice and corruption there and which for that reason we are to oppose and prevent here against all imprudent perils that it may not become an irremediable and common Evil. Dyscher You are a strange thing of a man you will neither side with us nor our Adversaries but pick out between us matters of dislike as if you would be of neither interest but a certain mixt kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but this is the ready way to lose your self with both Parties Eucher I have long since learned from the Apostle that if in such Cases of Conscience I should seek to please men I should not be the servant of Christ And truly you on your part and those of the Baroccian Principles seem to me to be equally in such extremes as are destructive to the true happiness and integrity of the Church By which means you have the advantage of reproaching each other for your manifest absurdities which the defence of your principles hurries you into and thus are in a fair way for an eternal wrangle but never like to settle in a grave and impartial temper ease or satisfaction And therefore I that have been so long a seeker between you and but little the Wiser amidst your contentions and so must make the best use and practice of my own Sentiments till I can experience between you others more improving or convincing Dyscher I have been very calm all this while we have been upon the Speculation of the Baroccian hypothesis But now you
remind me of your own Principles and Senses I fear I shall fall into the Spirit of T. B. again and not use you very partially in some of my Reflexions Eucher I am sensible by experience of your infirmity And since good natur'd Men are sometimes passionate I know how to bear as well as to correct a little rudeness I pray good Brother let me know what 't is now that begins to provoke your choler Dyscher When you had spent a great many Arguments drawn out with much Pomp and Ostentation being basted in them you grow weary with strugling and fairly give up all and acknowledg that †Sol. ab pag. 27.29 an Act of State Christian cannot alone vacate a Spiritual Charge Charge by any Divine Law primitive Canon or Prescription This is as full as can be worded against the Power of the State to deprive Bishops Now see how you come about again in the very next words Yet such an Act received and admitted by the Church may from her concurrence have a just and legal Effect And then upon this Notion the Statute of Deprivation ipso facto must be taken as a Law upon the Church to reject the Recusants totally from their Stations Here you will not have the Deprivation to proceed from the Act of the State alone but to save some Honour to the Clergy you make their Deprivation valid by their Concurrence to the Act of Deprivation But I pray how did they concur Was it otherwise than by submitting to the Act when it was made And is such Submission any Authority I thought they had been quite different things Did the Clergy shew any signs or make any protestations for their Right viz. that the Act of Parliament for the Deprivation of the Bishops was not valid without their Concurrence No not a word but when it is done they submit to it and acknowledg it And you would make a Protestation against Fact that their Concurrence was necessary to it that themselves did not pretend nor dare they do it to this day It is certain the Parliament thought their own Authority sufficient to deprive the Bishops and did not ask or think they needed the Concurrence of the Clergy to make their Act valid On the contrary no Clergy-men have dared to dispute it but those who are deprived And for others to imagin to come in by their Concurrence into a share of the Authority is like the fly on a Wheel of the Chariot that thought he contributed to the dust that was raised for he too gave his concurrence It is possible such Men as you should not see how contemptible it renders them to pretend to an Authority they dare not avow And upon this Foundation to raise Arguments to justify their proceedings which they cannot maintain any other way For these Men to deny themselves to be Erastians or ever to name any Ecclesiastical Authority I had almost said to call them a Church Or to speak as †Sol. c. Ab. Pag. 29. you do that the Church ought not to admit Deprivations on improper or unreasonable Demands As if the Parliament did request it from the Convocation or left it to their admitting or not admitting As if they durst dispute the validity of an Act of Parliament for want of their Concurrence As if any of them durst let such a word come out of their Mouth Behold the Ghost the Echo of a Church c. M. S. Reflex and that the consent publick and actual Concurrence of the Church is necessary to give an Ecclesiastical Effect to Civil Ordinances in Matters of the Church Now this Concession overthrows your whole Cause and being placed after the main Body of your Arguments is it self an Argument that you had little faith in them So then our Bishops being never Canonically Deprived are the yet proper Bishops of their Sees But you come like a Spiritual Jugler and perswade us that this hath been Canonically done For the Church say you ought to empty the Sees of such Incumbents that are dangerous to the Civil State But Sir must the Church cast out her Bishops as oft as they will not comply with Vsurpers c. But you say this was done by Acts of Separation properly Ecclesiastical the Dean and Chapter of the Metropolitical Church taking the Jurisdiction till the Chapter elect and Bishops consecrate another But Sir you cannot but know that the Dean and Chapter have no Jurisdiction over their Metropolitane and the See must be vacant before they can proceed to Election T. B. Sect. Pag. 37.38 Eucher I have heard with much patience yea pleasure all your Noble strains of Rhetoric and need only say If I have spoken evil bare witness to the evil but if well why smitest thou me For if the Deprived assert the Churches Concurrence necessary to give Acts of State an Ecclesiastical Effect and I grant it what Cause have you to fly in my face for even that very Concession But for you to upbraid me with my Candour who are so heedless in attending to my words as to take or set them off in other Senses than rationally can be fixed on them in their clear account of this Concurrence is neither very courteous nor prudential Let us therefore again look over these oversights and see whether we can come again to our selves First then I never said that the Concurrence of the Church was necessary either to make an Act of Parliament or to make it valid in Ecclesiasticals and particularly in Acts of Deprivation But I admitted your Principle so far and no further that her Concurrence is necessary to give Statutes an Ecclesiastical Effect and Issue For an Act of Parliament may justly require of the Church some certain Ecclesiastical proceedings without any joynt Session or Consultation of the Church And such Acts shall be just and valid of themselves to oblige the Conscience of the Church to obedience or executive Concurrence As suppose an Act of Parliament repealing all the Statutes of Premunire which cramp the liberties of the Church in the Episcopal Successions and Synodical Consultations for a perfect reformation to a Primitive purity should consequently require our Bishops or Convocations to proceed upon such relaxation to provide and execute better rules of Discipline on the morals and duties of the Christian Church under their care and to renew the Commercium formatarum with foreign Churches for a general Restitution of Piety and Order to its Primitive State such a Law I think would valioly oblige the Church to Concurrence without which however actually given it could not have its Ecclesiastical Effect When King Joash commanded the Priests to employ the sacred Money to the reparation of the Lords House it was a valid command to oblige but while the Priests neglected it it had no Sacred effect 2 King 12. So when Moses spake unto Aaron Eleazar and Ithamar to eat the meat offering and heave shoulder according to set Rules the precept was very
valid yet because of their actual Omission it wanted an Ecclesiastical Effect Lev. 10. So when a Statute of Deprivation requires the Church to eject Recusants from their Stations if the cause be necessary or just the Statute is valid to oblige the Conscience of the Church to an executive and concurrent obedience yet if the Church will by no means yield to such command of the State whether just or unjust valid or invalid in its obligatory intentions it cannot actually pass into an Ecclesiastical Effect and Issue and all that the Civil Powers can do on the refusal is to subject the Church to temporal Punishments Nay in the same Genus of Civil Government the Decrees and Judgments of the Kings Courts notwithstanding their perfect justice and validity cannot have their Civil Effect if the subordinate officers neglect or refuse to execute them T is true there is a difference between the Civil obligations of Under-Officers to their Superiors in Secular Authorities and those of the Church to the Civil Powers in matters Ecclesiastical For that Civil Officers are obliged only to observe the Legal forms of process in the Orders of their Superiors and are not tied to enquire into the inner justice of those Orders But the Church when under any Laws or Commands of the State may and ought to judge for her self and her conscience toward God Whether the matters enjoyned her by the Laws be consistent with the Laws and Principles of Christianity and the Churches fundamental Constitution against which she is never to admit them to an Ecclesiastical Effect but must bear the penal Consequences with all meeknes and resignation And this is not only the Right and Duty of all Churches as sacred Corporations toward all humane laws in matters moral or Religious but of every single Christian also And if this be not admitted up goes Hobbism and the Civil Powers may enact Deprivations Excommunications and Anathema's for mens refusing the Alcoran Paganism Socinianisme and even Atheism it self and for owning the Scriptures Creeds and Sacraments But you that think us such a soft and waxen generation would have found this Right asserted even unto Martyrdom against all such deprivations had they been enacted upon causes apparently injurious or imposed on the Church For in the late Reign not only you but others also opposed the growth and menaces of Popery with a burning zeal when we had no present prospect of any thing but Fagots Dragons and most Christian Bridles And that all these Armies of Worthies should all of a sudden grow base abject and irreligious cannot easily I am sure not fairly be presumed But in cases which the Church judges equal she may concur and submitt and when she may so do it can be neither religious or prudential to provoke or incur a persecution by a needles and obstinate refusal which is our Sense upon the Causes and Law of the present Deprivations But is it not a pretty exception against this Concurrence because it is yielded by Submission not Authority For did I ever assert of an Authority in the Church to refuse her Duty against which certainly there lies no Authority And I told you †Sol. and Ab. pag. 28. that the Church here concurs by Submission as judging it her duty herein to yield to the State But in such Cases if you will needs require the Churches Authority I will remind you what I told you †Sol. and Ab. Pag. 29. last time that the Church has an Authoritative Right to judge in such Cases whether she may or must concur or no. And hence a Right essentially belongs to it to examin all the Causes of the Secular Demands so that if she finds there be no grave Reasons to move the Church to the required Severities she ought to disobey as my Lord Bishop of London well did when required to suspend Dr. Sharp indictâ Causâ c. And for this I alledged out of Nazianzen one of the Noblest Instances in all Antiquity wherein the Bishops of Cappadocia refused to depose or reject the canonically settled Bishop of Cesarea notwithstanding all Julians terrors and commands of which I wonder Dr. Hody took no notice But I add also that if the Church finds those Causes sufficient she may if necessary she must admit the Laws enforcing them and not wantonly pretend Authority against duty nor use her liberty for a cloak of maliciousness And I can never imagine that this Right of the Church was ever suspected much less opposed by any Powers or Legislators truly Christian But if Civil Powers will make irreligious Laws in maters Spiritual will you immediatly oblige the Christian Councils to invade the Senate House or Courts of Civil Judicature with Protestations against their Procedures before the Laws come home upon us and press us to actual Concurrence Surely the Primitive Christians did not so against the Edicts of Heathen Powers For tho' Christianity will warrant meek and petitionary Apologies yet will it not justifie sawcy Remonstrances and Prohibitions upon Legislators who must pass undisturbed and unaffronted in their measures and we must with all meekness of behaviour wait the eventual prosecution of the Laws if we cannot divert it by fair atonement and when it comes refusing calmly the required Sins commit our selves and Cause to him that judgeth righteously So that all your Harangues about running into Parliament House with Proclamations or Protestations for our against their Authority are injudicious immodest and seditious proposals tho' we had known the demands of the State to have been unlawful which we yet acknowledge to be otherwise And that we should cease to be a Church because we are not officiously rude to the Legislators who may sometimes happen to be causelesly unkind or hard hearted to us We are neither to precipitate our zeal manners confession or sufferings but let the will of God be done upon us when his own time comes Since even the vilest Laws of men have this obligation and validity upon the Consciences of Subjects to restrain all indecencies and disturbances against them and the Legislative For if the Senate has not Authority to oblige us to evil it has to modesty and abstinence from their Presence and Consultations But the Parliament thought their Authority alone sufficient to deprive the Bishops and did not ask nor think they wanted the concurrence of the Clergy to make their Act valid very well they did not think so And if you confine this sufficiency to a valid Obligation on the Church to submit and concur this opinion of the Parliament is very true tho' I believe they ground it not upon any mere pretended Arbitrary Despotick Power but upon the Weight and Sanctity of the Causes on which they founded the Law But if you think it the opinion of the Parliament that their Acts can actually pass into an Ecclesiastical Effect without Ecclesiastical Concurrence you fix an opinion on them rather to be charged with Non-sense than Falshood
the Election of Bishops had been freely left to our Convocations they would have admitted few or none of those whom our Kings have advanced but yet the Chapters electing have consented to the Legality of those Nominations which they have not always judged so expedient and the Episcopal Colledge have consented to their Communion with the rest of the Clergy as well in as out of Convocation as no doubt they will with the new Archbishop at their next meeting without breaking any Silence against him by way of Dissent And now at last I am come to your Questions about the Deposition of Episcopacy And first you say the Bishops and Clergy of Scotland are silent under the Abolition of Episcopacy it self and twit me that hereby belike they concur to that Act of Abolition No Brother this does not follow from me but according to you their Silence is a betraying their Right But here again you cannot distinguish the Case of quitting a Personal Right to an Authority which is our Case from the Abolition of the Authority it self Universally which is the Case of Scotland For they that can legally do the former may not legally do the latter For the King can depose the Judges but not the Courts and dismiss other Officers whose Offices he cannot abrogate And the Church can depose Priests and Bishops but not the Priesthood or Episcopacy And whether any Civil State has more intrinsick Power in the Spirituals of the Church than the Church her self ever had in most perfect Freedom judge you But here I must Advocate for the Bishops and Clergy of Scotland against your Calumnies For tho' they made no formal Protestation at Parliament yet they assert their Episcopacy by an avowed Communion of their own and a renunciation of the Presbyterian Model But as to the Civil Power of abrogating Episcopacy here I answer 't is as great as 't is any where but I find not our Parliaments to pretend to the same Opinions here as they do in Scotland and I hope you will not require me to justifie Scottish Pretensions I think the Constitutions of our Orders are founded on Divine Rules and have descended to us by Traditions truly Catholic and Primitive which here we are not so rude to profane or violate by any wanton Claims of Arbitrary Power and in my Opinion the Scots will never acquit themselves well to God his Church and the King till they copy after us where Episcopacy is as well secured as the Scriptures and Sacraments and all the most essential Parts of Christianity But if any of these ever happen to be persecuted here I hope we shall remember Him who on all such Occasions requires us to take up the Cross and follow him And now we are upon this melancholy Speculation of the Church of Scotland I fear the Presages you have made from their fall have been most influential with you to your present Recusancy to those Powers from whom you expect our Dissolution This I confess is a very deplorable jealousie for which if there had been sufficient ground as there was not yet this will not justifie Recusancy to the Civil Powers But the mischief of it is more than Personal and Temporary For hereby the Deprived Fathers who by their glorious merits in the last Reign might have been useful Mediators for the Scotch Church and Promoters of our own are now become uncapable of this second Glory and useless to the Churches happiness by this unfortunate Recusancy But herein I charge no man's Conscience but only bewail the infelicity And shall pray that the Goodness of God will so graciously dispose our Tempers and Affairs as in his own good time to set all things at Right and shew us at length the Light of his countenance Dyscher But let me put these things closely to your Conscience do you verily believe that your Church and Chapters admit the Ecclesiastical Change upon the merits of the Cause and not merely on the fear or acknowledged Authority of the State Eucher I do believe so in very deed just as I have spoken and my reason is because had the Act of Deprivation past for recusancy of Mahometism c. and the Church would never have forsaken their Diocesans nor elected any other even Orthodox Bishops the Act for Deprivation being impious and for that cause unobliging and as loose as Dr. Hody's Rules and as strait as your Principles are I put it close home to his and your Consciences whether on a Case so put or supposed you can think the contrary Dyscher Your jumble of Queen Mary's and Queen Elizabeth Bishops I shall not examine because a full answer to that either already is or suddenly will come abroad Eucher This is what above all I have ever greatly coveted and I have of late been so lucky as to meet with the Sense of †Part 2. Chap. 3. Pag. 33 34. your excellent Author of Christian Communion on this point But because you have hinted to me my shortness of memory I had rather have it repeated from your memory that we may discuss it Dyscher Indeed it was almost lapsed but now upon your Suggestion I have recovered it and will accordingly lay it before you As to this Case of the Marian Bishops saith he or of other Popish Bishops ander Edward the Sixth two things are to be noted in their removal and ejection out of their Bishoprick's One is from the Temporalities the Benefices and Preferments thereof and these Temporal Endowments are directly subjects to the Temporal Power c. The other is from the Spiritual adherence and dependence of the People on them as on heads of Church unity and Communion for religious ministrations And this there was no need to deprive the Popish Bishops of for they had already deprived themselves of it by their own Corruptions both in Doctrines and Devotions Adulterations of Religion and corrupt ministrations of the word of Prayers and Sacraments break the Ligaments which tye on People to this adherence to any Bishops or Pastors yea tho' they were Apostles themselves Tho' we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you let him be anathema or accursed saith St. Paul Gal. 1.8 When therefore any Bishops and Pastors instead of heading Christian Truth appear at the head of Vn-Christian Errors the people are discharged from their Obligation and Dependence upon them and are to unite themselves as they can to others who still keep firm to that necessary Truth and Gospel Worship which they have forsaken And this was done by the Popish Bishops who fed the people with false Doctrines and polluted Prayers and Ministrations which left no need of any thing more to deprive them of the Peoples Communion and Dependence these Papal Corruptions of Religious Ministrations being enough to discharge and drive them away of themselves So that the reformed Bishops when they were set at the heads of those Dioceses called
Union Eucher As to that Principle of the Identity of Church and State and the Consequences Men draw from thence to assert the Right of Civil Authority in Spiritual Processes I leave it to them whose Heads are clear enough to justifie it But for my own part allowing your exceptions to the contrary yet our Case has justified it self ex naturâ Rei And I must further advertise you that this Church has long submitted to the use of such Powers over us and that fundamentally in Q. Elizabeth's Reformation and in many other matters in which the State had not so much pretence of Right or Necessity all which have passed uncensured by us but in this whether well or ill God must judge The Subscription of a Popish Clergy to avoid a Premunire drew after it such Acts of Parliament as thro' which we can make no provision for the Church noâ— move a question for her good without Royal License nor have so much freedom in our Concernments and Duties as every little Corporated Burrough has in it's voluntary Councils which tho' it be a tolerable Condition under a good King that has a Zeal for Christianity yet under an Irreligious King 't is an absolute Bondage and bar to the Primitive Purity Course and Vigour of Religion In the Reign of Edward the VI. they struck out the Ordinaries names out of all Processes Ecclesiastical and set in the Kings as if all Church Power had been derived from the Crown the non-payment of Tenths tho' omitted by mere neglect and not on any Principle of Opinion remains yet a Cause of Deprivation And those shackles which the State of old thought necessary to restrain us from Popery now the reasons of that Conduct are cessant become great Obstacles to the Primitive and Catholic Reformation of our yet remaining defects of which thâ—s Church upon a just liberty and Authority restored her would become the first Example and the noblest Standard Yet all this Subjection we have born in Silence tho' hereby only can Popery be reduced whensoever a Popish Conjuncture shall arise upon us and no Body has yet dared to offer a good mediation with the Public for a Temperament in these things And if our dulness herein has not been by us or you accounted Schismatical shall we be judged Schismatics in admitting these much more reasonable Deprivations in which the Lay-powers are concerned not only in point of Care and Interest but even in certain and undubitable measures of Right Dyscher How so Sir Eucher As the State is the Churches Hospital so a Corporal or Civil Communion is substrate to the visible Communion of the Church For tho' I allow you what you * Sol. ab pag. 25. justly challenge to the innocent a primitive fundamental and undeniable Right to good as well in common as in consecrated Places yet it is certain that in order to this Claim they must give all just security and assurance of their innocency upon Test demanded by the Civil Powers that are Guardians of these fundamental Liberties to all good Subjects of which innocency an Oath of Allegiance seems the most obvious proper and usual Form of security between Subjects and Sovereigns Otherwise the Civil Powers may restrain those Libeties of which they are the Trustees Thus a Civil Soveraign may prohibit and punish all conversation with the Enemies or Recusants of his Civil Authority Now conversation simply in it self alone is a secular communication but absolutely Fundamental to the Ecclesiastical which is a visible Communion in Spirituals Though then the Secular Authority alone as such does not touch the Spirituals yet it may upon just and legal Causes take away all that secular and local Communion that is substrate to the Ecclesiastical And he that may upon Recusancies of Subjection forbid all personal Communication with a Recusant may forbid it in any certain Place Time Matter or Measure and consequently at all such Times and Places when and where the Recusant may call upon him to attend in Spirituals But this Right and Authority of the Magistrate I lodge not in arbitrary will respectively but on the nature and merit of the provocation And the Right which the Christians have to the Liberty of their Sacred Functions is not peculiar to them as Christians by a Charter altogether unconditionally exempt from Civil Powers and so a Right of Gods positive constitution in the Church as a Society founded by Christ liable to no secular Reflections for any Cause whatsoever but is a common and natural Right to all Persons of clear and unspotted innocency as such to do that which is good originally due to them from the Creation And hence Civil Powers becoming Judges of our Morals and Innocency are Guardians of that natural Right but may justly deny it to others but will not approve their innocency by due Tests to the Public Peace of the Government to which Recusants therefore the rightful Capacity Ecclesiastical Communion is lost when the natural Right to Society is either totally or in the proper opportunities of sacred Communion justly denied by the Civil Powers And to say true he that by ill Principles or Practices deserves the loss and deprivation of all common Society much more deserves the deprivation of the Spiritual that stands as a Super-structure on the other And therefore if our ill merits Authorize the Powers to take away at the bottom the Foundation of our Religious Commuion they can tho' not directly and immediatly touch yet undermine the spiritual Structure by destroying its secular Foundation which lies within the Authority and Care of Civil Powers So that in this respect and form an Heathen Prince may rightly deprive seditious or disloyal Priests of the Priviledge of actually using their Ecclesiastical Functions by rightly denying them so much secular Society as is Fundamentally requisite to the exercise of them And thus far a Statute of Deprivation may have this Civil obligation that no Subject shall yield corporal Communion with Recusant Priests when they call him to sacred Offices any where and Laws may shut them out from consecrated Places that there may be no such local Society in them And if such Recusancy against civil Powers be notorious confessed or avowed then is such Act of State both just and civil only but at the same time the bottom of the Recusants Ecclesiastical Offices is righteously and validly taken away Dyscher Well well notwithstanding these Subtilties yet the Temporal Powers cannot take away the actual Relation between Priest and People tho' they may suspend or incapacitate them hereby from the actual Ministeries of their Orders And so hence accrues no Right to civil Powers to impose new Bishops on the Church Eucher There are two known Canonical Causes of depriving Spiritual Persons Immoralities and erroneous Principles So that if either of these hath merited and drawn after it a Forfeiture and Deprivation of all that secular and local Communion and Society which is necessary to the
sacred Functions the Church upon certain Notoriety of that Guilt Forfeiture and civil Incapacity may elect and consecrate others who have contracted no such Blemish or Incapacity Nor needs there here the Judgment of a Synod as is confessed in the like Case of Callinicus and Cyrus before mentioned which is only necessary to discuss and determine things dubious in Fact or Right So that in such Cases where there is no Rule set to the contrary the Church on her old original Liberties may of her own accord proceed to a new Promotion and I think ought to do so when the Blemish and consequent Incapacity are irremediable And what the Church in freedom may do without Command she may do when commanded even by those Powers which have no direct Right to manage our Ecclesiasticals as Infidel and Un-Christian Powers have not Yet indirectly I grant a new Settlement in the Church may be necessary to the weal of an Un-Christian State which then has an indirect Right to command the Church within it to fill the Vacancies and then she is in Duty bound to obey not only for Wrath but also for Conscience sake whensoever so commanded as having no Authority to oppose those actual Reasons or the civil Causes of such the secular Commands so that in the lawful Vacancy she must be obedient And if this be a just Rule for the Christian Church under Un-Christian Princes much more ought it to be so under Christian ones to whom as nursing Fathers you know our Church gives great Homage and Deference Have you any thing more to object Dyscher Nothing at all except you will hear me repeat the three last Pages of T. B. spent wholly in charging you with soliciting our total Ruin and Misusage of your deprived Metropolitan and Diocesan on their refusal of a Petition with the same pernicious Design but because I must confess you were most carefully tender of censuring the Counsels of those Fathers and T. B. discovers himself too openly calumnious in those Impeachments I have done and commend us all to God's Grace and Mercy Eucher T. B. is one of those Men who love to speak evil of Dignities and the things they know not supplying the Narrowness of his Understanding with Rage and Bitterness for which I heartily remit him to God's Mercy But as for your Fathers and all the venerable Numbers of good Men fallen in this Change I compassionately beseech them tenderly to lay these things to heart and unanimously to think of some healing Expedient for our mutual Peace and Joy There have been who upon the bare dry Inferences of their Arguments have desired them to desist and quit claim only which is to ask not shew them Charity But might it not be thought too assuming I think I could propose such a certain Scheme of Resolutions as would so effectually close up our present Wounds as to turn all our Sighs and Sorrows into Joys and the Voice of Melody But being conscious of my Station and Measures and doubtful of your Misapprehensions I forbear and leave you and your Counsels to the Divine Conduct and your own Piety that you may happily recover that Union from which your Errors and Infirmities have too much alienated you being willing to hope that as St. Paul said of Onesimus Perhaps you are departed from us for a Season that we should receive you again for ever Amen ADVERTISEMENT WHereas T. B. Sec Let. pag. 29. and the impartial Reflecter vehemently contend against my Suggestion in Sol Ab. pag. 11. that K. James's Dispensation with the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy might look like a Concession to us to transfer our Allegiance they dealt with me disingenuously for that I made for them an effectual Answer against that Argument before in which my Conformist silently acquiesced And that Answer I made is stronger and sincerer than theirs which I could teize to purpose were I minded to wrangle But as I made Eucheres abide by just Reason then so will I use no perverseness now And in truth that Passage was brought in not with a Design to insist on it but only to introduce it for a smoother Passage to the Liberties granted us by K. James's Coronation-Oath For which Cause I laying no stress upon that Argument from the Dispensation have wholly omitted to contend with my Adversaries on it in this Debate I hope the wicked Surmise of T. B. that His Majesty would murther the Princess of Denmark and the Duke of Gloucester Sec. Lett. p. 22 if her Royal Highness should outlive the Queen is now fully refuted since her Excellent Majesties Death and it will become T. B. torepent for it in Dust and Ashes A Postscript to Mr. Richard Chiswell SIR SInce I was once an Author of yours in Solomon and Abiathar which you Printed and this very Debate was offered to your Edition once Anno 93 which you declined with thanks to me however for the respect I desire you to consider what an ungrateful office you have undertaken in publishing a Reproach against me and these very Books in the Vniversity Man's Postscript to you I am not offended at this miscarriage in you that are a Man of Interest but yet as you may justly reprove your self and your Sollicitor for this indecent way of abusing your own Authors and Books so I challenge you for a witness of the Falshood he has caused you to Print Look upon my Letter to you sometime in the Summer 93. and therein you will find this Book offered you which this Vniversity Man tells you and by your Press the Nation that it was written since the Book remarked on to secure my self against a Storm I shall makeshort however and desire you to remember my love to him and tell him that it is the most undâ—cent sort of confidence in him of all Men living to despise any Man's Writings for the present Government and to accuse any Pen for Brutality towards the Jacobites He will know the meaning at your first suggestion by the interpreting Conscience within him or that part thereof that is left And so I dismiss you with assurance that I am Your much obliged Servant S. Hill A General Remonstrance to all Good Christians IN the name of God the Sovereign Lord and Judge I remonstrate and protest that I measure not any Men by their Fortunes but their Merits and that the Sufferings of good Men increase my Affections towards them 2. That I published Solomon and Abiathar not for worldly Interest nor with any injurious design nor thro' a vanity of Affectation but on purpose to get satisfaction from the learned in the Right of Communion to the avoiding of Schism 3. That particular provocations made that discussion and it's publication absolutely and inevitably necessary 4. That after its Publication I waited two years for Satisfaction before ever I entred into the present Communion 5. That the Meditations in this Debate have satisfy'd me that our Communion is consistent with the most Catholic and Primitive Rules or else I could not have joyned in it 6. That for my own part I renounce all Ecclesiastic Servitude and all Principles leading thereto and I do declare for an assertion of the Rights and Liberties Hierarchical in contempt of all Persecutions yet not to arrogate that Liberty as a Cloak for Maliciousness 7. That tho' Calumny urged the Publication of this Debate yet that alone should not have prevailed thereunto had I not thought it of good use to reconcile Dissensions and to obviate many growing Prejudices 8. That tho' it be a public blemish that the great Authors of our present Heresies are not yet censured by Authority yet this does not illegitimate our public Communion with the Innocent who have no power to reform it nor can it in the least affect those that make their uttermost remonstrances against it 9. That all Spiteful and Insincere Writers on the point of Communion design to widen our Breaches and are therefore utter Enemies to the Church of God and their Native Country 10. That tho' I had many inducements to have collected all T. B's Flowers of barbarous and unparallelâ—d Railery into one view yet that the odium thereof may not reflect any prejudice on the better part of that side I have forborn remitting him to the friendly correction of his wiser and better Brethren and have so endeavoured to temper this Discourse as that all along Mercy and Truth might meet together that Righteousness and Peace may kiss each other Amen After all whosever is not satisfied to the full may hereby be however induced to beware of censuring us for Men wilfully Perjured and Schismatical since I suppose the reasons here offered are not all contemptible but may justify the Author in his Design of quitting himself from the guilt of those black and horrid Imputations the natural Right of every suspected or accused Innocent FINIS Books Printed for John Everingham at the Star in Ludgate-street THE Spirit of Jacobitism or Remarks upon a Dialogue between K. W. and Benting in a Dialogue between two Friends of the present Government A Sermon Preached before the H. of Lords at the Abbey-Church of St. Peter's Westminster on Thursday the 30th of Jan. 1695 6. being the Martyrdom of K. Ch. I. By the Right Reverend Father in God Humphrey L. Bishop of Bangor A Sermon Preach'd before the House of Lords at the abbey-Abbey-church of St. Peter's Westm on Wednesday the 11th of Dec. 1695. being the Day Appointed for a Solemn Fast and Humiliation by the Right Rev. Father in God James L. Bishop of Lincoln Eight Serm. Preach'd on sev Occasions 1. Of the Power and Efficacy of Faith 2. The danger of Mis-informed Conscience or Mistaken Principles in Religion 3. Of the Different Dispensations of Grace and of Impenitency under the best Means of Salvation 4. The Case of a late or Death-bed Repentance 5. The Streight and Certain way to Happiness 6. Of Growth in Grace 7. Of Murther particularly Duelling and Self-Murther 8. Of the Shortness and Instability of Humane Life