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
uncertain Rochester Letter make the Abdication manifestly false since he says it makes the Disertion so Here I doubt his Courage will fail him lest his Argument and his Dedication follow the fate of the Pastoral Letter And yet it is manifest that though K. James made many large and previous steps to the Subverting our Constitution yet the Final Abdication of the whole Government consisted in his Desertion from whence the Vacancy Commenced and if this were no otherwise manifest we have Mr. Johnson's own Averment who tells us * ibid page 29. That we have an Act of Parliament which declares the Realm of England to have been Sovereign during that time of Vacancy between K. James's second flight and K. William's Admission by ordering all Indictments from the time of K. James ' s withdrawing till the 13th of February to run in their Name 'T is true indeed that meer Local Desertion of the Land of which there may be many Causes does not ipso facto extinguish the Sovereignty except it be judicially interpretable to an Abdication from other concurrent Circumstances and Indications on want of which a demand of Return becomes reasonable and the neglect thereof interprets the Recession to an Abdication but when there are evident tokens of yielding up a Government in the form manner causes and circumstances of such Local Desertion then a summons of Return is not necessary in point of Law or National Duty upon the antecedent forms of Virtual Abdication apparent in such Departure If therefore his Act of Disertion in its own form made a Legal and Effectual Abdication his Rochester Letter imports no more than that his words and actions are contradictory in quitting by deed and claiming by word the same Right at the same time Upon this Abdication therefore the Throne becoming actually Vacant was by the Act of the Nation filled up with their Majesties And here upon whatsoever powers K. James endeavours to Exert as they do not reach us nor send out their vertue by legal ways of course so are they too late and out of season not to mention that his late ways of Exertion under French Conduct how honest soever you may call them look not very natural or smiling upon English Men If we sum up the matter he was ruining all the Laws and Liberties with the Religion of the Lands he Ruled and they were just on the Precipice under his Exertions so that the Nation needed and gasped for relief under them Upon this the Prince of Orange having Great Interests and Legal Expectations here comes over with a declared Intention to set all things at Right in such order as the English Parliament should adjust which was a fair and most equal design this then was the time for K. James to have Exerted his Royal Power Justice too in calling a Parliament for such purposes according to the sense of the whole Nation earnestly recommended to him by his Prelates Nobles and Counsellors for a long time by sundry Addresses even to the last and he having sent out some writs thereunto seemed a while enclined but upon Romish Advice recalls that purpose and instead of doing us that Justice was resolved to contest it with the Sword Hereupon his Army which had he called a Parliament to have healed the Nation would have secured him against all Forreign and Domestick Violence sunk their Affections as having no maw to Fight for him against their Native Country Liberties and Religion disperse by degrees and great part go over to that which they knew to be the Juster Cause and he being thus daily weakned retires disbands the rest and even not then calling a Parliament to help himself and us out of the Confusion he flies away to the Grand Enemy and Terrour of this Nation and leaves us to shift for our selves under those Aspects and apprehensions of dangers that lay before us If then he would not exert a Legal Power when he might 't is too late to offer at any Forreign ways of Exertion after a New Settlement or 't is at least unreasonable to demand our Reception of them to the destroying of our Redeemer after a National Allegiance given him for his sake who ever pursued our general Ruine against the Laws his Oath the ties of Natural Affection and the Sighs Groans and Requests of his Loyal People And whereas you say we may have his Power and Presence too if we will as lovely as that may be fancied 't is more than you can warrant For if we were disposed to accept your offers if he should come with a French force are you secured that the French would permit him to be as free and independent a Monarch as before 'T is possible they might erect him for a Vassal titularly Royal till their strength were fixed and then upon demand of Expences or other pretexts pick a quarrel with him to annihilate him for their Masters Glory Or supposing the French King for once a true Friend to King James would not his Forces make King James an Arbitrary Monarch here to exert more than a legal Power over all the Bodies and Souls Estates Coffers and Purses of the Nation If we had had any maw for such Power we might easily have had it while he was here and not have been beholden to the French for the Commodity But if King James should concert privately with us to return without any French measures or services can you assure us to keep this secret from the French King Or if you fail in point of secrecy are you sure he will let King James go or treat with us in neglect of his Interests and Pleasure Or would he not rather Bastile him for Ingratitude and treat him hereupon after his usual methods of humanity Thus pretty are your Projects to expose the Fate and Fortunes of Nations upon and discover such a distemper in the Brain as requires the Law of Bedlam rather than any other consideration Dyscher When we deny the Authority by which your Estates sate you ask us by what Authority was that Free Parliament called or sate that voted in King Charles the Second Sir if you please let another be called and vote in King James the Second When things are out of Order and good men set them to Rights again I do not think any man will oppose it upon the score of some small niceties but when subjects rebel against their Prince and drive him away and make that the ground of their going on and doing farther wickedness I cannot understand the Authority of this There is certainly in every man an innate natural Power and Authority to wish well to and vote for Right By virtue of this when things were in confusion the Subjects of King Charles the Second returning to their Wits and Allegiance send a convenient number to act for the whole who recall their rightful King and if you should do so likewise I should not be very quarrelsom with you But whatever
Subjects of any Sovereign Prince may combine with and invite in a foreign Prince and when he comes tho' with a contemptible force they may forsake their lawful Prince and then by their Treachery having left him helpless and hopeless may treat with a Foreigner drive away their own King give his Crown to the Foreigner and maintain it with their Swords and Purses without which he could not keep his illgotten Goods T. B's 2d Lett. p. 18. Eucher It confessedly seems as I stated the Proposition you cannot deny the perspicuity of its Truth and therefore you invert it to an invidious Paraphrase which in many parts of it is not truly applicable to that which was the Subject of my Apology viz. the Authority of the Convention For all your aggravated Invitations Combinations Revolts Treacheries and Derelictions allowing or supposing them to be no other than you describe them are not chargeable on the whole Estates of the Land especially when in Convention And even thus I will renew my Position That by the Laws of Nations if a foreign Prince procure the Revolt of a vast part of another Princes Subjects thro' the terror of which the helpless Prince leaves his Kingdoms in Anarchy under the Army of the foreign Potentate who thereupon calls the Estates of such deserted Nation to treat for a Settlement they may convene and treat with him upon such invitation For it is the necessity the subject Nation stands in for a Settlement that warrants and legitimates such Treaties by what means soever those exigencies are introduced whether by foreign Force or intestine Commotions jointly or severally throwing all into Anarchy and Disorder But if the charge of the Revolt preclude the legality of any mans Session that incapacity ought to have been objected and if over-ruled protested against in Convention as I have already told you which not being done they were all in Law Reason and Civil Construction lawful Agents and Councellors As to the word Unresisted Power I confess I used care indeed but no trick for it was too hard for me to judge whether the Prince's Power were irresistible or no and so it is in many cases in which Parties yield rather than run the hazard of a Battle But every one can tell when it is or is not actually resisted and the Proposition is as true of an unresisted as well as irresistible Power Tho' take you all the Forces foreign and domestick joyned to the Prince when the Convention was called you will think it hard for any Subjects to have resisted them when the King himself long before durst not but disbanded and quitted thereby all pretensible Duties in the Subjects to take Arms. And the Conventioners deserve to be your humble Servants for putting them upon such an Essay But if you will require where the fault of this non-resistance really lies I think you may find it in him that neither could be induced to call a Parliament nor to fight it out After which double miscarriage and flight out of the Kingdom I think no man was obliged to resist or take up Arms but to desire such a Settlement as the State of Affairs would admit As for the Wars we maintain with our Purses against all the Enemies of our present Settlement they are just according to all the Rules and Forms of Civil Laws to which you your selves contribute as well as we only with more Crime as doing that against your Consciences which we admit upon Principles to us appearing good But if you think your Exigencies legitimate your payment of Taxes to prevent new danger so we think the general Exigencies of the Nation did legitimate this Settlement and do still justifie our plenary Submission thereunto according to the Sense Laws and Usages of all Nations As for those you call Revolters they were not the Subject of my Discourse whom I therefore leave to God who as he saw the provocations so did he also every mans purposes and trains of thought in that Insurrection according to which at the last day they shall each man be judged But for those that lay still I know no legal summons they had from King James to rise in Arms to make that quietness a breach of Allegiance in which certainly you Jacobites are as culpable as the others and in one degree more in that when you might and upon your Principles ought to have taken Arms for him you would not and now when you neither can nor ought clamour for new Seditions and Commotions by which we must inevitably fall a prey to France and a Burnt-Sacrifice to Rome Dyscher I will now for the present intermit the Remarks I collected at Gilman's Coffee-House and bestow some other impartial Reflexions on your Grand State-Principle on which you raise your other Arguments Here then I must tell you That you set up new Principles which the Church of England hath always declared to be erroncous and grounds of Rebellion viz. you set up the Parliament above the King and that we must take our measures of obedience only from the Parliament * Sol. Ab. p. 31. to whose Judgment say you in all Civils all Subjects must submit And upon this you Ground all your Superstructure as that King James's * Ibid. p. 8. Tenure has been publickly judged by this Natition to be extinct * p. 9. and that this Nation hath justified King William 's Cause which is to conclude upon us Beyond this you allow no no man to look or enquire The whole Body of the Church are to be taught by the Parliament and to have an implicit faith in them against the King in all Cases whatsoever so that * Ibid. p. 4. the Churches Loyalty is to follow the Civil Judgment concerning the Object of our Allegiance and the Tenure of Sovereignty And by this Rule if a Parliament change a King every day the Church is bound to swear to every one the Parliament can solve their Oaths But there was a time when the Church thought it their Duty to be Teachers and particularly as to Loyalty as being a principal part of Religion and even against a Parliament Here unfortunately four or five lines were broken off the MS. Reflections but as I well remember the sense was such as is included within these brackers and their Doctrine was owned by all true Sons of the Church of England I mean the Old Church of England in the Reign of King Charles II. This was their Doctrine and Practice and generally of the whole Church of England ever since the Reformation as is plain in her Homilies Articles and Canons c. And you do not attempt to disprove these but only assert the contrary and so leave it as a thing settled and sure MS. Reflections That the Churches Loyalty as to the Object is to be guided by the true Constitution of the State I deny not but I shall never yield what you would thence slur upon us that it is to
for future Ages do by the Laws of all Nations bind their Posterities that are yet in their Loins as in the lowest degree of minority till they are validly vacated And such Obligations are justified by sacred Instances as in the Oath of Jacob's Children to carry Joseph's Bones out of Egypt in the Covenants between God and Noah Abraham Moses in the League of Israel with Gibcon and all other their National Contracts and the Laws of Jonadab on the Rechabites c. So that fidelity to the Contracts Ordinances and Compositions Real of our Fathers and Ancestors obliges us to the Customs that yet continue as the Common Laws of England from that supposed Original And thus their Legal Obligation is founded not in Force but in Truth and Honesty Which being premised I add that our Nation in these two last Parliaments after a full Debate hath judged their Admission of King William and Queen Mary according to our Laws Legal and the second Parliament hath moreover recognized them King and Queen of Right according to those Laws And the first Parliament upon this Constitution fixed on them the full Allegiance of the Subject to be secured by Oath as much as to any other Kings whatsoever that so they might thro'ly make this present Settlement full and entire which therefore they judged to be such according to our Laws without any concurrence and notwithstanding the opposition of the Late King which on his Cession or Abdication could in their Judgment create no defect in this present Settlement since the Confusion and Anarchy we were put into thereby did in their Judgments give them a Legal Right to resettle as they could under the then Exigences for the Common Preservation nor did they judge us tied to a State of continued Anarchy during King James's pleasure that while he provided for himself in France by his own private Counsels without the consent of the Nation we should be at no liberty at home to provide for our selves against a Ruin otherwise impendent and inevitable And if we look back to all the Changes in the Succession ever since there have been two Houses of Parliament the full and final Settlement after all Ruptures Disorders and Disputes hath determined in the Recognitions and Allegiances enacted by these Parliaments even without the consent and against the presumed claim of the outed Competitors tho' these were sometimes Lineal Heirs and present in the Land Much less then is such consent or cessation of pretence or claim in the relinquishing and absent Competitors necessary to the fulness and validity of such Settlements And tho' the Dispossessed afterward moved Stirs and Wars against those past Settlements that becomes no Argument against their real plenitude for the time being in form of Law for by those new Commotions they designed to reduce themselves into such a full form of Settlement by Parliamentary Recognitions out of which by present Wars they designed to eject their settled Adversaries for to a fuller Advancement they could never raise themselves by the greatest force and successes whatsoever Thus all the precedent Usages in such cases lay before our Estates first in Convention and since that in Parliament and according to these have they made this Settlement as legally full and Obligatory as 't was possible as judging it to be so full in its own Nature and Reason without any present Defects or Capacities of addition Dyscher I wonder you cannot observe here what you readily can when it makes for you that the first Constituting Parliament did not recognize King William and Queen Mary to be de jure but excluded that Assertion out of the Oath But the second Parliament recognized their Right tho' hereby as you will say they added nothing of that intention to the Oath Now then the first Settlement to which those being tacked bears proportion going no further than a Constitution de facto was not at the full because it came not up to the fuller Recognition de jure which being judicially apparent is with you the Legal Form of Title and Ground of Allegiance And so the Oath being required to a Settlement that was not thro'ly full cannot by Bishop Overals Convocation Book be proved due from both Clergy and Laity for that the Settlement to be sworn to was herein defective And herein even Mr. Johnson is more sincere and honest than you who scorns to pay * Pres to the Argument p. 12 13 14. Allegiance upon any kind of Success or forms of Settlement except they are really founded upon Legal Right Eucher It will be as easie for you to observe as for me to remark that the Recognition is but a Declaration not a Constitution of Right and so adds nothing of Right that before was really wanting but more fully declares the Right that stands and is founded in the first Constitution which actually was at full before tho' not so fully declared this Recognition being designed not only to repress the Contradictions of their Majesties Right and Title but to compose as much as might be mens Doubts and Surmises and perhaps this your very Objection hereupon But whatsoever be the Rights Titles or Pretensions of Princes to Crowns antecedent to the actual Settlement they may be fair preparations and grounds of claim but they enter not into the essential form and constituent Reason of a full actual Settlement which commences and consists purely in a Legal Form of Admission by the Estates of this Realm judging for themselves that they may lawfully admit this or that Pretender or Sollicitor even when they are not permitted to judge any thing on the Right of his demand of such Admission which belongs to the Question de jure And to those that are thus de facto settled whether they had any real antecedent Right of claiming or no the National Allegiance is by publick Contract always given to the full without any distinguishing Measures Forms or Abatements And this is not only otherwise evident but is made more so by this present Recognition For this second Parliament that enacted this declarative Recognition of Right gave and could give no further Allegiance than had been before given on the meer Legal Form of Actual Settlement which they in their zeal would have done undoubtedly had they judged the first Settlement any wise deficient in it self or its Obligations to a plenary Allegiance which yet however is of no other form or virtue than that Allegiance which is always given even to meer Kings de facto Which shews the sense of our Nation to be that by our Law Allegiance is given to Kings not on the account of an antecedent real Title to the Crown but on the account of the Legal Form of Settlement into the Actual Possession thereof upon which there is no superiour Judge to hear nor determin Quarrels and Claims of Titles And you that require more to the nature of a full Settlement require more than the Convocation has done which assigns your
to O. C. by our old Laws which was the first thing in question But then I proceeded further and shewed * Sol. Ab. pag. 12 13. that he had no legal Form of Settlement in the Sovereignty by any other Laws to which I refer your Memory and Consideration For the improvement of which I will further demonstrate that he was no King either in Name or Thing For first he was Created even by his own Faction not Sovereign but Protector only of the People And that Office was not Royal as appears by the third and fourth Articles of the Instrument of his Government instituted by his Officers first and after again pretendedly confirmed by his pretended House of Commons which he had first purged of all suspected Persons and this after he had refused the Style of King which he saw would not pass Muster in his Army Tho' therefore he Ruled by the force of his Confederacy yet not as legal Sovereign nor according to any Law or lawful â—orm of Constitution even in that false Authority But if you will allow meer Force to be sufficient to a Settlement and Constitution then all the little Elves and Goblins of Power that after him pretended to sit at Helm in the whole course of those Changes till the Return of the Royal Family were all worshipful Mushroom Sovereigns forsooth And what I have heard a Person of great Parts Honour and Authority sometimes say that tho he is no very Old Man yet he hath seen five and twenty Governments in England was perhaps as severely true as it seemed pleasantly spoken Have you any more Straws to pick in this Matter or will you dismiss me in peace Dyscher No no Friend you must not think to slip your Collar so You say that O. C. did not and could not pretend a National Contract as having no House of Lords nor free House of Commons Whatever he might do I am sure that he did pretend that he was advanced to the Government by the Consent and even Grant of the People of England What was it else he did pretend M. S. Reflex Eucher Tho' I mentioned his Non-pretension as well as incapacity to pretend a National Contract to argue thence that really he had none yet the intended force of my Reasoning lies in his real want of such Contract of which his Non-pretension in his Case and care for Pretensions is a Moral Argument For had he really had it the Civil effect had been the same without a Pretension which alone can have no Civil Efficacie or Obligation But however that I may not seem to neglect your Pretences let us examine his I allow therefore that he made some Pretence but none to the Lord's House which he utterly cashier'd which yet however had been and still is necessary to a National Contract I allow you also that he pretended his Advancement by the People as the word restrainedly signifies the Commons of England and he had a small Colour for this in the acknowledgment of the Usurping Pack that pretended to sit for the Common People of England against all the Laws and Rights of the People And yet had these been a free fair and full Representative they could not have given O. C. a Legal Dominion over the superior Estate of Peers because the Commons never had it themselves But as the word People properly comprehends all subject Orders Estates or Persons of the Realm so neither did nor could he pretend an Advancement by the People But the main point we are concerned in and which you can say nothing for pertinent to our Debate is to what State Stile or Character he was advanced or pretended to be advanced by them whom he called the People Was it to a real Royal Soveraignty No no his Mouth Watered his Bowels hanker'd at it but he was however forc'd to sit down and pretend only to a Protectory Trust for the Commons of England Dyscher This I confess reduces me to some difficulty and unexpected Surprize Yet will I repeat to you the remainder of what my reflecting Friend remarked that in the next place for the justice of his pretence that he had no House of Lords I suppose he made that no pretence against himself as you would have me believe MS. Reflex Eucher Truly I never perswaded or tempted you to believe that O. C. made any pretence against himself I only told you that he neither did nor could pretend the Contract of the Lords House and can you prove the contrary Dyscher But he did not think a Lords House necessary to make a National Representation It could not be so originally And therefore they as Lords are no Parties in the Original Contract We know an * This is false for there were near 200 excluded Members that could not sit to make it an entire House House of Commons hath Voted them useless And at this Day the Lords do not pretend to the Right of granting away the Money of the People And I suppose it is upon this Account that they do not look upon themselves as the Representatives of the People MS. Reflex Eucher Here I think my self obliged to do your Party right that these are not their common Sentiments This was a singular Nostrum of your assuming Emperick to heal a diseased Cause But by the good leave of the Lords and Commons whom I have no mind to set at variance we will sift these odd Politicks Is it then first of all likely that O. C. did not think a Lords House necessary to a National Contract If he did it 's no matter if he did not think them National Representatives The Language of Men herein is various many Men commonly assert the whole Parliament to represent the Nation since what is Enacted by them and the King altogether is taken for the Act of the Nation But strictly speaking the Lords are no formal Representatives nor did I ever say they were tho' you would trump the term of Representation upon me to ensnare me to a concession that the Lords represent But I am not so to be tricked I know the Lords to be an Estate Originally Principal acting Personally for themselves in their own Right and Name not in the Name or on the Mission of others and under the King they are the upper part of the Parliament and People in the most comprehensive Sense of this word But the lower House only are the Representatives of their Respective Counties Cities and Burroughs in whose Name and Right they Act for all the Commons of England But if O. C. knew the Lords House necessary to the King himself to Enact the Bills even of the Commons into Laws could he think them needless to the legitimating his Order or his Acts Surely he could not except upon this one only supposition that he thought nothing could legitimate it which is indeed not improbable but then that exauctorates the Commons also of that Power by which he pretended himself advanced
purely on that account that contradiction had never been recorded to his infamy but his praise for ever But as to your idle Question about complying with Usurpers which like Altar against Altar is the Incipe Maenalios of your whole Ditty as it has received full answers already so here 't is nothing to our present purpose since our discourse now is founded on a Supposition of a due and full Settlement of Legal Powers in the State which ought not to be charged with formal Usurpation Dyscher We will then let alone at present the Disquisition of our capacity and proceed further in our Enquiry concerning your Churches Concurrence For least the Dean and the Chapter should not be strong enough Did they then in their Convocation make the least scruple or vote that their Concurrence was necessary to that Statute No not a syllable But you tell us how they did it The †Sol. Ab p. 28. Silence of the Convocation under the Statute of Deprivation argues their opinion to be that they were in this to yield to the State This is according to the old Proverb Silence gives consent And at this Rate the Statute of abolishing Episcopacy in Scotland must be supposed to have it's validity from the Concurrence of the Bishops and Clergy there for they too are silent And some of the inferior Clergy there But in good truth have any Clergy men in England complyed to an enacted abolition of Episcopacy here but not half so many as in England have complyed I pray you to answer me in plain terms whether you do not think the Parliament in England to have as great Power as the Parliament of Scotland And consequently might abolish the whole Order of Episcopacy in England as they have done in Scotland And for their Silence it is a strange Plea Have they liberty to assert without danger I mean in England as well as Scotland And if Silence perforce argues Consent then they are the freest Subjects of the world in France and in Turkey whose Mâ—tes are happier by this Argument and have greater Authority than our House of Commons I thought Authority could not be exerted by Silence Tho the Turk will have his Executioners to be mute he cannot command them by his Silence Doth the King say nothing when he refuses a Bill Or doth he return them a decent answer with promise of Consideration If the King says nothing when both Houses present a Bill for the Royal Assent this is a refusal of that Bill So that it is not in all Cases you see that Silence gives consent indeed in no Case of Authority That was a saying only adapted to the grant of some private favours and is but a Jest or Complement at the best When the Church saw the Bill of Deprivation pass wholly and solely in the Name and by the Authority of the State they ought to have entred their Protestation and asserted their own Right Their Silence in that Case was an yielding up and betraying their Right as it is if a Peer does not protest against any vote that passes his consent to it is implyed And therefore the Churches Silence in that Case is so far from being an asserting of their Right that it is against the common Sense and Practice of mankind so much as to alledge it M. S. Reflex you call in the Convocation for help And first you tell us what your worthy Conformists did and what was their opinion But this is just the Proverb Ask my fellow if I am a Thief But say you their sending a Convocation shews their Subjection and condemns Recusancy as an Error But the silence of the Convocation you think will work Miracles for that argues their opinion to be that they were in this to yield to the State And thus we are utterly undone with the Argument of Lovers and Fools Silence gives consent There must be many other concurrent circumstances before the least consent can be presumed from Silence For otherwise it is often a sign of indignation scorn sullennes yea even of obstinate denial it self And what they meant by their Silence you may better guess when you have resolved this Quaere whether you can reasonably think that they would have chosen him for their Archbishop whom they refused for their Prolocutor But what if they were not so silent as here you make them 'T is pity your memory is not better for thro' forgetfulness you give in evidence against your self for you tell us of a motion in the lower house of Convocation for the Restitution of the Bishops and then suspended Clergy Now would any men take petitioning for men for appearing against them But what if there had been none of this Were ever Bishops deposed by Slence T. B. Sec. Lett. pag. 39. Eucher By what Arguments soever you are undone that is to your selves but I am sure I can find in you but few Arguments of Love or Wisdom in this clamorous Rant which seems designed in spite to the poor Proverb lest your Silence should seem to consent But since it is now my turn to break Silence I will speak to this point but this once and if you will not I will for ever hereafter hold my peace First then I must it seems talk of Silence of which I am taxed as if I had ascribed to it not only Consent but Authority too and actual Deprivation which are two points beyond the lines of the Proverb Consider we then at first the proverbial Importance here in the Carriage of the Convocation We were * Sol Ab. pag. 28. enquiring into the Sense of the Churches in common which you excepting against challenged a Sense of our Convocations and I tell you That their Silence under the Statute of Deprivation argues their opinion to be that they were in this to yield to the State But I well observing that bare Silence is Non-action and mere nothing and in it self simply of no determinate signification set such other positive Acts in †Grot. de Jure c. l. 2. c. 4. Parag. 5. conjunction with which this Non-action or Silence might legally and morally be interpreted to a consent of yielding herein to the State To this purpose I premised the general Conformity of most Bishops and Clergy and Laity that our sending a Convocation at their Majesties Precept shows that we own Subjection to them and condemns the Recusancy as an incapacitating Error for so I meant by softer forms of expression that I might not gaul you and so I conjoyn the Silence of the Convocation with those other positive indications that it might joyntly ground a legal Argument that in their Judgment they ought to yield to the State So that you had united Circumstances enough to have fore-strangled your Cavils if your prejudice had not blinded you On the Session of the second Convocation the Recusants were in a State of actual Suspension and the Day of Deprivation drew on Now this