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
is that which you promise me from the Scriptures I pray out with that too that I may either reply to it or send it to the Censure of Gilman's Coffee-House or the Impartial Reflections of a Private Friend Eucher I cannot be sullen to you to whose Felicity and sound Judgment I wish with all my Soul I could contribute And you being men of Religion that can dare to suffer for what you think right and sacred will be like to have greater respect to good and clever Arguments from the Holy Oracles We will therefore consider the several Settlements of the Children of Israel under Civil Forms of Government and try whether their actual plenitude consisted in a National Contract or any other bottom And in order hereunto I shall observe two sorts of Settlements among them one Consequent to an Antecedent Right and Title the other constituent of the Title to and in the Sovereignty And according to this Order I begin with the former First Then God upon a good original and antecedent Title actually settles himself in the political Royalty and Government of that People hence by Divines usually called the Theocracy by that Covenant at Sinai by which he properly and peculiarly became their God and King also and they his peculiar People not only under a Religious and Ecclesiastical but also a Civil Relation Exod. 19. Exod. 24. alib passim When God himself and Samuel the Prophet in God's Name had entitled Saul to the Throne of Israel by a sacred Unction yet was he afterwards actually and fully settled therein by the Popular Engagement of true Allegiance to him and was hence said to be made and chosen King as well by the People as by God and Samuel 1 Sam. chap. 9. Chap. 10. Chap. 11. Chap. 12. Thus tho' David's Title to that Succession was divinely originated in the Unction of Samuel 1 Sam. 16. yet his full and actual Settlement over Judah consisting in his Unction by the People in Hebron 2 Sam. 2. and after the death of Ishbosheth he was thro'ly and actually settled over the other Tribes by their Covenant and Unction transacted by their Elders 2 Sam. 5. And Solomon tho' designed by God and advanced by David and anointed by Zadock into the full Title unto that Sovereignty was yet finally and compleatly settled in that Throne of the Lord by the consequent Acts and Unction of that People as an Induction on an antecedent Presentation and Institution 1 Kings 1. 1 Chron. Chap. 24. Chap. 25. And thus to Rehoboams Paternal Title the People were to add their Actual Consummation of his Settlement in like manner 1 King 11. 2 Chron. 10. And last of all Jehu who by a Prophetick Unction and Gods Designation had a Divine Right and Title to the Sovereignty of the Ten Tribes and began to make way to his Actual Settlement by the slaughter of Joram Ahaziah and Jezabel yet sends to the Council at the Royal City Samaria and bids them settle the best and meetest of their Masters Sons on the Throne of their Father Ahab as knowing that that had been the usual Office of the Senate But they not daring to oppose Jehu tho' perhaps they knew nothing of his Prophetick Unction reply that they would not make any King i. e. any but himself but they contract a total submission to him and sealed that Contract in the Blood of Ahab's Sons and so actually admitted him into the full Settlement and Possession of that Sovereignty 2 Kings Chap. 9. Chap. 10. So that tho' these Titles to the Sovereignty were not founded in the Grant of the People but of God yet the full Settlement of all these New Kings consequent to their Titles did consist in the Publick Contract and Recognition of the People Secondly The Peoples Concurrence was sometimes constituent of a Title meerly human as well as a full and formal Settlement Thus the People would have given Gideon an hereditary Monarchy Judges 8. as the Elders of Gilead made Jephthah their Captain Judges 11. and as the Shechemites did what in them lay entitle Abimelech Judges 9. The Ten Tribes made Jeroboam King which God that had preingaged it by his Prophet ratified by an inhibition against Rehoboams recovery 2 Kings 12. 2 Chron. Chap. 10. Chap. 11. But Zimri who reigned but seven days in Tirzah without the full consent of the whole People wanted a good Title as well as a full Settlement thereupon and so was opposed by the Camp at Gibbethon who set up Omri against him and so he perished in a Fire of his own kindling 1 Kings 16. And this was that perhaps which Jezabel objects to Jehu 2 Kings 9. Had Zimri peace who slew his Master Did the people permit him a full and peaceable Settlement in the Throne who slow his own Sovereign Which Omri however obtained after the extinction of Tibni his Competitor 1 Kings 16.22 23. Thus in the Kingdom of Judah after Josiah's death the People of the Land took Jehoahaz probably the younger Brother to Eliakim and made him King And in that Act of the People the fulness of his Title as well as his Actual Settlement seems to have consisted 2 Kings 23. 2 Chron. 36. So that in short the Regular Constitution of their Native Kings was that subordinately to Gods Election the People should settle each New Line according to the direction of the Law Deut. 17.14 15. When thou shalt say I will set a King over me thou shalt in any wise set him King over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose c. But in the degeneracy of the Ten Tribes they set up Kings by their own Act alone without waiting or consulting the Will of God as he complains Osee 8.4 They have set up Kings but not by me they have made them Princes but I knew it not Yet God's permission hereof made the usage valid to a Title meerly human tho' done contrary to the Law And therefore to Baasha who came in this way God says 1 Kings 16.2 I have exalted thee out of the Dust and made thee Prince over my People Israel Now these things in fact were done as well in injury to the Heirs-Royal as to God and yet the full and actual Settlement by the People according to their modes gave them a form of human Title which was civily valid tho' not otherwise and especially Sacred And to conclude since it is recorded that God at first granted them Kings at their request after the manner of the Nations 1 Sam. 8. it intimates that this was then the Formal Rule of New Settlements at least among all the bordering Nations However this Office of the People being always the final Act must needs give the last plenitude to the Settlement and God surely in the admission of these Forms must be granted to know and judge them to be full and final whatsoever else was or might be sometimes constituent of an antecedent Title which the Convocation-Book does not make essentially
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
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