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
name they might give it to put a better gloss upon the thing they were no Parliament till King Charles made them so for he their lawful King by an Act in Legal Parliament might stamp on them that Character and give them that Authority and Force which they had not before and thus several of their Acts might become Laws by virtue of that after Ratification not by any force of their own But as for calling back the King that was not making any new Law but enforcing the old and was not so much an Act of Authority as Obedience and Duty And if you could find out the same way you would be the best Friends to your Country and your selves T. B's 2d Lett. p. 17 18. Eucher To answer according to the way and order you lead me as I have before told you we are now under no obligation to call in King James so being under another settlement things are not out of Order and Unsettled as they were upon the convening of that Free Parliament and as there is no occasion so there is no opportunity to attempt it But whereas you charge the Subjects in general with Rebellion and Expulsion of their King 't is a broad slander and falshood for beside the far greater numbers of the people that never moved it seems that very few that actually went over to the Prince ever designed the expulsion of King James but only the secure reduction of him and his exorbitant claims of omnipotent Prerogative to the just limits of Law and Reason by Parliamentary ways of Composure Which tho' they could not procure yet did they not expel him but he went off himself either for fear of Life or obstinacy against a Parliamentary Discussion or because of the fatigues of an unsuitable Government But as to the Convention it self it rebelled not against him for had he continued his Presence they would have desired to meet by his Call and then I believe not an Hair of his Head had fallen to the Ground whatsoever his too conscious fears and apprehensions were since the only Argument for the Vacancy of the Throne was founded in his Abdication and that in his Departure from us and leaving us in a state of Anarchy upon which it was not possible that they could rebel against him without his Presence As for your innate Authority to wish and vote for Right I allow your meaning tho' not the impropriety of your words for an inward Right of wishing well is no proper Authority which imports a Superiority over Inferiors nor are private wishes formal votes in Civil Matters in which an Authority to vote is not a natural Right of every man but a positive Power of constituting Orders And in Civil Negotiations all private wishes must concede to publick Suffrages and Determinations And the Land sent up that Free Parliament not on their Natural Rights but Civil Capacities of voting and doing the best Right they could And tho' they did well in bringing back the King de jure having no other King de facto established nor any impediment to the Reduction of the Heir Lineal yet if there had appeared to them any such obstacle as would have rendred his Reduction destructive to the Nation and its Fundamental Liberties and Constitutions according to the Aspects of our Case they would have made some other provision for the time being with which the Nation would then and ought to have acquiesced and so would a good Prince too but there being no difficulty in that Juncture they did their Duty in restoring the King And as for the Name and Character of Parliament whensoever de jure enstamped on them it matters not for they were in that Juncture and those Circumstances a Legal and Authentick Council of the Land tho' extraordinary and whatsoever Settlement they had made for the time being had been valid from their Authority as well as what they did had also authority both from their Duty and the Kings consequent Ratifications for single Acts may have sometimes plural Authorities and Confirmations But to convince you that Conventions of Estates in such Junctures and Confusions are by themselves authoritative to resettle I will discuss it with you and I pray answer me fairly Dyscher Pray try your skill Eucher First then in such a State of Confusion as that in which King James left us has the Nation any Right or Reason to consult for some security order and settlement Dyscher It seems reasonable that this be allowed Eucher By whom then should a National Consultation be transacted Or who should or can be so regularly and efficaciously entrusted as the old standing Council of the Land Dyscher I must confess I cannot assign any Council so proper as that and none else that can be pretended legal Eucher Must the Determination of this Council be allowed any publick Efficacy or Virtue to oblige Dyscher Yes if it pass according to Right Eucher But if they judge their Determination to be right must their Judgment take place to all Civil Effects against all private and extrajudicial Objections or no Dyscher Yes except the prevarication is notorious Eucher Notorious To whom notorious Dyscher To all men to the whole Nation to their own Consciences as the Exclusion of King James was Eucher Then no Notoriety less than National shall justifie a Recusancy to such publick Decision Dyscher I were as good as allow it for it seems so Eucher But how shall we discern such a general Notoriety Dyscher By the general and unanimous Censure of all Orders of Men that adhere to the ancient Laws of the Government and fundamental Principles of our Constitution Eucher This will become such an intricate and endless debate whose are the Legal Principles that it will create an intestine War in order to a Decision You must therefore admit a notorious generality or majority of the People or all Orders in it comprehensively or else we shall never get out of the brake or be relieved by any National Consultation if such indeterminate Surmises or Pretensions shall interrupt its Obligation Dyscher Be it so what then Eucher Then I think I have fairly gained my Points for these Concessions admit in a State of Anarchy upon an Abdicant Desertion a Convention of Estates to be Lawful and Authoritative without a Kings Commission or Presence Secondly That the Acts of our Covention were and are valid as not being censured for other but admitted as such by the generality or notorious majority of the Nation which is sensibly apparent by comparing the numbers conforming with the Recusant Conformity and Recusancy being the only proper and legal Tests of Mens Senses hereupon Tho' the Authority of our National Council is such as needs no after Ratification from the disfusive Multitude or the original Freeholders or Burgers of the Land because as the Lords are primitively Councellors for themselves so the Trust signed to the Representative House is total and absolute without need of any
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
But could O. C. otherwise think the Lords needless to his Legitimation upon this empty and impertinent Speculation that there could be no Lords in the Original Contract Which can be true neither in any other sense but this that in the first Constitution of Civil Government in this Land there could be no House of Lords No verily for before or till then they were in a mere rustic Pastoral and agricolarian Habit Quality and Condition But since that there have been many Changes of Governments and in them of Sovereigns by National Contract And hence I say ever since there have been Baronies and Peerage in England in every settled Change of Government and Sovereigns made by National Contract the Lords were in those Acts that originated those Settlements Titles and Sovereigns and so would have been originally necessary to an Original Contract for O. C's Constitution tho once in a state of Rebellion a seditious Party of the Commons voted them useless But I ask you fairly Was that Vote of theirs Truth or Law If so why have the Kings and Commons ever since admitted their Use as well as Right If not why did you alledge it in Bar to the Rights of Peer rage But supposing that wicked Vote had been at that time true yet who had made them so useless but they by seditious Violences Now would you think it reasonable to cut off a Man's Hands and then reproach him and cast him out as useless But I will beat back this dull Weapon on your own Head and mind you that these County City and Burrough-Charters of sending Representatives could not be in the first Original Contract for Civil Government as being also of later Extraction So that upon your Theory O. C. must think them also needless in order to his Constitution who pleasantly new named Magna Charta Magna F ta And so at last the Truth will come about unawares that O. C. had no form of Title from King Lords or Commons of England Again if the Lords House should upon a critical Juncture turn Demagogue and rabble the Commons out of Heart and House would it be fair for the Lords hereupon to vote them off as useless 'T is scandalous therefore to draw Arguments from Confessed and notorious Violences to justifie a wrong Cause and therefore henceforward give us in Truth what you seem to Challenge and glory in just Weights and Measures at least be not so shamefully disloyal as to dry up in the King that Fountain of Honour by which he Creates the Peerage and who is the original Founder of all Charters As for the Lords not assuming to give away the Peoples Money as not being their Representatives 't is nothing to the purpose against their concurring Interest in Contracting for new Constitutions tho' neither House can separately give away the Peoples Money altho' those Bills are by regular custom prepared in the Lower House Nor are these Rights of the Peerage so alien from the good of the general Body but that we and the better part of the lower House have sensibly owed our Peace and Preservation to the Integrity Care Wisdom and Honour of that Upper House when many of our own over-heated Charioteers have been furiously driving on all to the Precipice Dyscher We will then dismiss the Lords in peace and come to the Commons on whom O. C. relyed and Whereas you say O. C. had no free House of Commons I answer first he did not pretend that which is a sufficient Answer thereto MS. Reflex Eucher Are you awaked in good sober sadness or have you almost talked your self into sleep and Dreams For tho' your Answer be sufficient to some purpose yet 't is so to mine not yours For not having a just freedom as well as Title to act for the Interest and Sense of the People their Acts were not the Acts of the People but either private Acts of Cowardise or rather the Acts of him that forced or managed them to his own Counsels and had no more legal validity than what meer Force and Fraud could give them Dyscher All that I will further say to this point is that they called themselves free and no Man durst say the contrary While they had the Power O. C. owned them and they owned him and he had as Universal and seeming a Consent of the Nation as can well be imagined he was obeyed at home and owned abroad if not in all yet in most of the Courts in Christendome Eucher How your Discourse consents to it self I do not well understand Just now you said O. C. did not pretend to have a free House of Commons now in the same Breath you say they called themselves free and no Man durst say the contrary and O. C. owned them Now did he own them to be free as they called themselves If so then he pretended to have a free House of Commons contrary to what you say If he did not own them as free as they owned themselves he must then either not own them at all or only as Vassals and I leave it to your Choice to take either of those Handles for there is no way to extricate you from the ties of Contradiction But whatsoever freedom this knot of Men had it could amount to no more than the freedom of Banditi or Rapparees or any unsuppressible Rout which is but a mere impunity to do Evil and wrong the innocent But the freedom we are speaking of is Civil consisting in the Popular liberty of Election Session Debates and Votes Yet the very House that Constituted him Protector was first purged of all suspected Members and upon their after admission his Constitution began to be questioned as much and for this O. C. dissolved them in most sacred Rage And for the truth hereof also I call in Testimony the Sense of the whole Nation who as soon as opportunity offer'd it self by Monk declared for and after met in a free Parliament which before they had long wanted And hence it appears also the Sense of the Nation that neither the Rights of Peerage nor the Freedom of Corporations had been Legally vacated by the former Tyranny As for the Negotiations of Foreign Courts they are no Demonstrations of a National Contract or Form of Legal Settlement here For as Foreigners are no Judges of our Tenures so they meddle not with them but only treat with the actual prevailing Powers whether Legal or Usurpant Tyrants or Rebels it s almost all one to Strangers They give them all good words to serve themselves of them but if disgusted they then change the Tune into all the juster Names and Titles of Oppression and Villany if they can do it safely So that there is no concludency in this sort of Reasoning tho' yet at the best his Complices and Strangers owned him no otherwise than he stiled himself not the Sovereign but the Protector only of the People But the boldest stroke of all is that he had as universal
the Convocation in their Judgment were to yield to or oppose for 't is impossible but they must judge one or the other to be their Duty Now if they had been of opinion for the opposition this must have been done by Synodical Remonstrance if their Judgments was for the Submission then they were to break no Silence to the contrary Now then is not their actual Silence hereupon a legal token that they thought it their Duty to yield in Silence Except we will perversly judge them silent against the Dictates of their Conscience which if you will it will lye upon you to prove it out Whensoever things are brought into such a Strait that either Silence or Contradiction must become a Duty there Silence is as moral a Token of Consent as Contradiction is of Dissent And in all cases where either Assent or Dissent is inevitably requisite and the Rule is that all Dissents must be express and protested as the forms are in the Lord's House and process of Actions in the Civil Law there Silence in Law is taken for Consent But here is yet more the King had graciously conceded a liberty to the Convocation to propose their Grievances in order to his Royal Redress So that tho' they had no Civil or Legal Liberty to remonstrate against the Statute yet they had an opportunity to have presented an humble Supplication for a relaxing Expedient or a Temperament on just Security for the inoffensiveness of the suspended Yet neither did they think themselves obliged in Duty so much as to break Silence in this manner herein And must not the State then conclude that the Church by this Silence thought it fit to yield However I hope you do not think in good sadness that their Silence did signifie indignation scorn sullenness or denial to the State For 't is true in cases of request and contract Silence is no grant of a Proposal but Silence under a Law together with a consequent Obedience to the Precept thereof is an indubitable Token of Consent which was the Churches case here while silent in her Convocation and obedient in her Metropolitical and Diocesan Bodies So much then for Consent next for the Authority which you say is not asserted but betrayed by this Silence But neither here can I agree with you For as I never said that Silence asserts Authority so neither does it betray it For your instance from the Peers does not import a Right betrayed but only a Vote consented to by Silence and this confirms my Observation and refutes you For as the Silence of a Peer surrenders not his Peerage so neither does such Silence in the Church forfeit or vacate her Authority No tho' the Church had had Right to have entred the Parliament House with Votes and Protestations But suppose it for once that the Churches Silence had betrayed her Right see upon whom the Treachery must be most unfortunately charged Did the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and his other Recusant Colleagues that had a legal Right of Session in the Lord's House enter and enter a Protestation against the Validity of that Act as wanting their and the Churches Suffrage or Synodical Concurrence No not a jot of this And yet they by their Station as well as Cause ought to have been the first in the Protestation which if they would not make for themselevs and the Churches Rights then according to you they are Proditors and so 't is unreasonable in them or you to require the Protestation of others less concerned or obliged by their Order Cause and Principles But the truth is we had no just Cause or legal Authority of making such Remonstrant Protestations and so our Silence is not perfidious but dutiful Now this being so clearly stated all your childish trifling upon French Subjects and Turkey Mutes is very idle and impertinent since Silence does not indeed import Authority against but Submission under Laws Yet even in these French and Turkish oppressions the Silence argues an opinion that they either in Duty or Prudence are to be silent and quietly submissive And this certainly was the Sense of our Saviour in his Silence when he was led as a Lamb to the Slaughter But to deal plainly these Instances pertain not to our present Case for here ours was Silence and obedient Submission to the Commands of the State the comporting with which in Silence is a Consent to and Comprobation of its Justice and is more than a meer silent Patience under unjust Oppressions So inartificial and improper is the Objection from these poor Mutes and Vassals Thirdly you assure me that Silence is no Deprivation No verily nor did I ever hear that it was But to intercept your hast whose Silence was I speaking of And to whom did I ascribe the Ecclesiastical Acts of Deprivation Why truly I spake of the Silence in Convocation as importing their Opinion that they ought not to oppose the Laws of the State But I never said that the Convocation did deprive the Deprived No surely they sate not at the time or on the Day of Deprivation But I told you before that the Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Acts of Deprivation consisted in the Metropolitical and Diocesan Alienations effected not by mere Silence but Canonical Acts and forms of procedure And now let us see whether my Memory hath failed me any more than my Cause I here assert the Silence of the Convocation but afterward told you * Sol. Ab. Pag. 34. that a Motion for a Petition was stifled in the Lower House of Convocation †T. B. Repeats it thus You tell us of a Motion in the lower House of Convocation but leaves out the word Stifled fraudulently tho' you clip my words on purpose to abuse me For a Motion may be stifled before it is offered by one that knows that it is intended to be made But however an actual Motion of one Member may consist with the Silence of the whole Body For if the Majority Vote Silence against the Motion for a Petition the Convocation is silent and silenceth all its Members as to the Petition it self tho' some brake Silence in the silenced Motion but keep it after thro' voluntary desistence or Canonical Order Now here in fact a Motion was offered by one excellent Person but upon the report then tendred to him of my Lord Archbishop Sancroft's request to the contrary he desisted in Silence tho' you however in this Conference have thus barbarously bespatter'd him when there was just reason for your Silence But however herein you own T. B. has a very contracted Memory too when †T. B. See Lett. Pag. 42. he endeavours to discredit the Story of this Motion so stifled on the said Report But you have one Argument that will confound me into Eternal Silence or Amazement namely that they that refused Dr. Tillotson for their Prolocutor would not have consented to have had him their Archbishop Well be it so what then Perhaps if
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-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