Impositions more prejudicial to her spiritual Society than his Favour was advantageous and when that Case fell she was to Judge Thus much therefore may be allowed the Magistrate on account of his own Right without any thoughts of Cession of the Church's Rights and without any acknowledgment of Obligation from the Magistrate that should make a Cession necessary or so much as reasonable And the acknowledging a Liberty in the Magistrate to keep out does not in any Equity of Interpretation infer a Right to turn out Bishops and absolve their Subjects from their duties to them in spirituals and with regard to Conscience this being greater than the Right that is confessed Thus therefore there is not the least ground for an implicite compact on the Church's side for Cession of her Rights and Liberties For this cannot be proved but from the Nature of a greater Obligation than can be othewise made amends for without a Cession or a grant of things greater than that of deprivation Neither of which can be here so much as pretended and therefore the Church cannot in reason be pretended to have done it by a tacite consent or an implicite compact And for an explicite compact that may seem to have agreed to it I do not think our Adversaries can pretend any before that Reign of Violence against Sacred Rights especially of Henry VIII a Prince unbounded by any sense of Right whatsoever whether Sacred or Secular § LXIII The Power of turning out Bishops once Possessed too great to be granted on any Consideration whatsoever Indeed the Nature of this is such as cannot be granted by any Society that is absolute on any Consideration whatsoever No Obligations that can be lay'd on a Society can be valued by it more than its own subsistence It must Be to be capable of receiving Obligations and it must have a Security of its continuance in order to its having a Security that the Obligations shall be continued also It s subsistence therefore is antecedent to all possible Obligations and therefore the securing that is of more importance to it than any possible Obligations No present Obligations can be a sufficient recompence for them to put it in the Power of another to dissolve and destroy them as a Society Especially such Obligations which concern them principally as they are a Society They are therefore only Obligations Perpetual that can pretend to be an equivalent for a Society that may promise to it self Perpetuity if governed by it self to put it self in the power of another Society of interests seperable from its own But that such Obligations to their Society shall be perpetual they can have no Security unless they be first secured that the Society it self shall be so And for this it is a very justly suspicious circumstance if the Magistrate who pretends to confer the Obligations refuses to do it but on condition that the Bishops will submit to hold during his pleasure He who designs to weaken the security they have already is justly to be suspected of a design on the security it self And the Church must needs look on it as a Diminution of the security for her subsistence if from subsisting as long as her self pleases so she may do whilst she has her own Government in her own hands she must be reduced to depend on the pleasure of another of affections variable from her Interests She has therefore reason to break off all Treaty with a Magistrate who should openly treat with her on such terms as the Sheep were obliged to do in the Apologue of Demosthenes when the Wolves are said to have made specious proffers of Peace and future kindnesses on a like condition that the Dogs which were the only real security the Sheep had to oblige the Wolves to performance should be delivered up to be destroyed by them So Semiramis when no doubt with great professions of good will she had prevailed with Ninus to allow her the Liberty of commanding his Dominions for one only day secured it to her self for ever by destroying him before the time appointed for her resignation For to allow this Power to the Prince of depriving the Supreme Governours of the Church I know not how it can be contrived without danger of ruine to the whole Society or at least without lessening the security it has whilst it is confined to the Ecclesiasticks To allow him a power of derpiving alone without a power of filling their Sees by substituting Successors will not indeed involve us in Schisms by communicating with those who administer their Jurisdiction for them by Authority derived from themselves tho' the Bishops themselves cannot interpose in the Administration of it But it will at least disable the incumbent Ordinary to perform any Episcopal Office for his life if the the Magistrate be pleased so long to disable him for it And by the same reason as this is granted concerning any one it may hold concerning the whole Episcopal College in the Dominions if he be pleased with a design of ruining the spiritual Society to deprive them all for the same term of their several Lives For this must evidently hazard the whole succession and dissolve the Constitution of the Church and in the next Age at least in the opinion of the greatest part of Christendom if none of the Bishops in being be permitted to secure the succession by new consecrations For this is a power greater than what is supposed to be in those who exercise their Jurisdiction in their Absence The Presbyteries may perform what is requisite for their own time But the Power of Ordination is not given them without which a succesion cannot be secured to posterity To provide against this intolerable consequence The Church is obliged to take care that the supplying the Sees with new Bishops be not deferred so long till the whole Episcopal Order be Extinguished Either therefore the Magistrates deprivation must discharge the Subjects from their Obligations in Conscience to the First Bishops or it must not If it do not discharge them the Second Bishop who is consecrated into a full See where duty is still obliging must be a Schismatick and break the spiritual Society in pieces by intestine divisions among themselves If he may discharge them then his depriving all the Bishops must be taken for a discharge of the Subjects of all the Diocesses in his Dominions from their duty to all their Bishops which must consequently disable them to do any Episcopal Act in any of them all for preservation of the Church or of their own Order if the Obligation of such deprivations may be supposed to extend to Conscience Thus the Church must necessarily be dissolved and destroyed whenever the Magistrate with the consent and assistance of the greater Society shall be pleased to dissolve it This is inevitable wherever two absolute independent Societies by compacts do Unite in one under the Government of one of them as absolutely Supreme Our Adversaries themselves will
ratify them if they had been Invasions of the Right of the Magistrate But the Districts were then absolutely necessary for making the Churches Censures as settled out by Lord and his Apostles practicable By them the Bishops knew what Persons were liable to their particular respective Jurisdictions By those the Subjects olso knew the particular Bishops to whose Censures they were obliged to pay a Deference If the Bishop had censured Persons not belonging to his Jurisdiction by the settlement then made by the Apostles they could not think GOD obliged to second him in his Usurpations and therefore could be under no Obligation to regard such Censures It was therefore absolutely necessary that the Right of Preaching the Gospel and settling districts without the leave of the Possessing Magistrates must by GOD have been made the Right of the Ecclesiasticks in reference to Conscience and therefore could not at the same time have been the Right of the Civil Magistrate What then will become of the Doctor 's imaginary Contract Bellarmine fancies that when the Magistrate was baptized he also was supposed to make an implicite Contract with the Bishop that his Crown should be at the Bishops disposal whenever the Bishop should judge that his holding it would be inconsistent with the Churches Interest This is as reasonable as the Doctor 's pretended Contract that on consideration of the leave allowed by the Magistrate for Preaching and settling districts in his Dominions the Bishops make an implicit contract with the Magistrate that they will submit to be deposed by him when he shall judge their holding their places hurtful to his Worldly Interests If either of these implicite Contracts would hold Bellermines is the more likely of the two that the lesser Worldly Interests should give way to the Spiritual But from what has been said it appears that the Right of making Districts was a Right inseparable from the Authority given by GOD for making and governing Proselytes all the World over If therefore it be not the Magistrates but their own what reason have they to make any however implicite Contracts for that which is their own already § LIV. Our Reasoning against the Magistrates Right of deprivation in Spiritual proceed Universally and therefore in Case of Temporal Crimes also the owning such a Power would have been Pernicious to the Primitive Christians also who were charged with Temporal Crimes The Magistrate therefore cannot by the Constitutions of the Gospel pretend to any â—ight whether direct or indirect for depriving our Bishops of their Spiritual Power This our Adversaries themselves do not deny where the Causes pretended for their deprivation are purely Spiritual But where the Case is Temporal as it is here in our Fathers Case there they think that the Magistrate may punish them not only by Secular Punishments but by Deprivations as to the exercising of their Spiritual Right in Districts contained within his Dominions But all that can fairly follow from their Crime being Secular is no more but this that it properly belongs to the Cognizance of the Secular Magistrate and is therefore justly punishable by them who have a JUST TITLE to the Supream Secular Authority That is in such a way of Punishment as properly belongs to the Right of the Magistrate And we allow that to extend as far as the Secular Honours and Revenues by the Secular Laws annexed to their Office nay to their Persons also as to what is Personal to them This is perfectly sufficient to secure the Magistrate in Case not only a single Bishop but the whole Synod should prove guilty of violating their Duty to him whatever the Doctor pretends to the contrary But that this will give him any new Right of punishing which he cannot pretend to by the Nature of his Office our Adversaries have not yet pretended to prove Till they do so or till they Answer what has now been produced to prove the contrary that his Right of Magistracy does no way reach the Spirituals of our Bishops no nor their Right to exercise them in Jurisdictions contained in his Dominions we may as easily deny as they assert that Power of Deprivation by them ascribed to the Magistrate One would think that when we have proved the Nature of the Spiritual Power such as that it is not in the Power of any but GOD or those Authorized by GOD for this purpose to deprive them of that Power who have once received it and that neither the things themselves transacted by the Spiritual Power are in the Power of the Magistrate nor that GOD has given the Magistrate any Authority to represent him in these matters which may oblige him to ratify in Heaven what the Magistrate in his name pretends to Act on Earth It should unavoidably follow that the Magistrate has not this Power at all which if he have not in general he cannot have in this nor in any other particular Case assignable by our Adversaries Why are they therefore so unreasonable as to expect after we have disproved this Power in general that we must be put to the further trouble of disproving it in a particular Case They themselves can easily perceive the partiality of their demands in other the like Cases They who on the other side are for the encroachments of the Clergy upon the Rights of the Magistracy in order to Spirituals in Case of Heresy do so far proceed successfully when they shew that Heresy is a Crime properly cognizable by the Spiritual Judicatories and that Magistrates as well as others are Subject to such Judicatories in matters purely Spiritual But then the consequence would only be that a Magistrate so convicted of Heresy might by such Spiritual Judges be deprived of his Right to Communion and consequently of all the Spiritual Rights and benefits to which he is entitled as a Member of the true Communion This is the utmost that Spiritual Judges can pretend to or wherein they can expect that GOD will second and ratify their Determinations But when they proceed further to forbid all Civil Conversation with the Magistrate to deprive him of his Civil Rights to absolve his Subjects from their Duty of Civil Obedience These are consequences which I believe our Adversaries will not defend Yet how they can avoid being obliged to it if they will be true to the Consequences of their reasonings in this Case for my part I cannot understand For why may not the Church assume a Right of punishing Temporally a Crime that is really allowed to be of Spritual Cognizance if the Magistrate for a Temporal Crime may inflict a deprivation of Spirituals I do not now insist on what we have to say as to the validity of the Sentence given against our Fathers in respect of the Temporal Authority that can be pretended for it However that is at least sufficient to shew that it is only the Judgment of those who have given Judgment against them that they had even Temporal Authority sufficient for
it And if the Secular Powers may deprive Bishops for any Crime which they who deprive them shall be pleased to call Temporal and if we also are obliged to think such deprivatons sufficient to discharge Us from the Duty we owe them with regard to our Conscience I cannot see how the Primitive Christian Bishops could have escaped such deprivation Julion the Apostate pretended Temporal Reasons for most of his Persecutions purposely to hinder the Sufferers from the Glory of Matyrdome And even in the earlyer Persecutions Secular Crimes were imputed to the Christians That was the Case when the Burning of Rome was charged upon them in Nero's time and the burning of the Palace at Nicomedia in Diocletian's when the Stories of the Dog and Candle and Oedipodean incests and the Mothers of Children were pretended to be proved against them by the extorted confession of some Slaves in the time of Marcus Antoninus Their very Meetings came under the Laws de Sodalitijs and de Hetaerijs and de Factionibus And their refusing to Swear by the Genij of the Emperors or to Sacrifice for them were by the Interpretation of those times reducible to the Laws of loesa Majestas which we call Treason Will our adversaries therefore grant that on these accounts those Pagan Emperors might have deposed the Christian Bishops and Absolved their Subjects from their Duties in Conscience owing to them If they will we are very sure our glorious Ancestors of those Ages were not of their mind And let our Adversaries themselves judge whether we have most reason to follow as Guides of our Conscience Besides the Advantage the Primitive Christians had for knowing Tradition better this was also a manifest one That our late Brethren's Practice goes along with their Worldly Interests and indeed never began till motives of such Interest inclined them to it but the Practice of the Primitive Christians was directly contradictory to such Interests § LV. The Spiritual Rights of Our Fathers have been now invaded by Civil Force Bare Characters without Districts not sufficient to preserve the Church as a Body But the strangest Answer of all is That our Adversaries cannot yet be perswaded that our H. Fathers Spiritual Rights have yet been invaded by secular Force As this way of defence signifies their unwillingness to undertake the Patronage of such Invasions I confess I am not a little pleased with it in regard to the Liberty it may allow them hereafter if GOD shall be pleased to turn our Captivity to defend the Rights of their own Function when they may be defended without danger And I do not know why even now the Clergy should be forward and Active in promoting a Casuistry that may absolve the Magistrate from the obligation incumbent on him in Conscience for their Protection But it is a strange degree of Confidence to deny the Fact Had they not set up other Bishops to exercise Spiritual Power in the same Jurisdictions they might indeed pretend to it But having done so it is from thence we date their Schism Nor do I see how they can avoid the Charge of it For if the Spirituals of our Fathers be yet untouched then they must still have the same Right over those same Jurisdictions as to Spirituals as they had and as was own'd by our Adversaries themselves formerly If so their Rivals exercising Spiritual Power in the same Jurisdiction without their leave must be looked on as Invaders of their yet untouched uninvaded Spirituals Rights If so they must in the Language of St. Cyprian be foras be aliens be non secundi sed nulli Not barely on the Authority of that Holy Martyrs saying but as the Vindicator proved from the Nature of the Spiritual Monarchy which allows no more than one at once without conscent to have a Right within the same Jurisdiction It is very plain from hence that their Right to their particular districts and Jurisdiction even as to Spirituals is actually invaded by their Intruders And we have now and so had the Vindicator formerly shewn the settling of districts in order to Spiritual Jurisdiction to be a Right of the Church independent on the Favour of the Civil Magistrate We have shewn that the Church as well as the State was by CHRIST and his Apostles made a visible Body and that their way of knowing the visible Governours and Subjects of this visible Body was even from the Apostles Time taken from the extent of those visible Districts that they who lived in these districts were all Subjects to the Governours of the districts and that the Governours of those districts as to Spirituals were the particular Governours to whom the Christian inhabitants of those Districts ow'd Obedience as to Spiritual That whatever Right the Magistrate had formerly that might seem inconsistent with these Rights was by GOD himself taken away from the Magistrate in order to the making this way of propagating the Gospel Practicable yet so that Power enough was still left for securing the Authority of the Magistrate as to Temporals That the first Christian Magistrates found the Church possessed of these Districts and the Bodies of the Christians in the several Districts possessed also of the Opinion of the Independency of those Districts as to Spirituals on the Civil Magistrates which they had always made appear in all Difference between the Magistrate and the Bishops by their unanimous adherence to the Bishops as to Spirituals That therefore those Districts as to Spirituals were never derived from the Favour of the Magistrate and therefore not obnoxious to his disposal Here therefore this whole Dispute is reducible to a short Dilemma If the presumed Magistrate has not invaded the Spiritual Districts of our Fathers then the Intruders are Schismaticks for intermeddling with those Rights which their Predecessors are not deprived of And all others also must be Schismaticks who own and Communicate with the Intruders If the Rivals be not Intruders they must needs say that the Predecessors have lost their Right even to those Districts as to Spirituals And how they should come to lose it but by the Sole Act of their Magistrate I know nothing that our Adversaries can pretend There is manifestly no Act of the Church that they can so much as pretend for it Their Character they say is not yet touched No wonder it should not since the Schoolmen from whom they borrow the term of Character hold Characters to be indelible by any Humane Authority whatsoever not only secular but Ecclesiastical also However all the Use our Adversaries make of their remaining Character is only to make them restorable to their old Jurisdictions without a new Consecration and in the mean time to legitimate some Acts of Epicopal Power which must no be supposed to depend on a relation to a particular Jurisdiction But this Character that has no relation to a particular District could not be sufficient for preserving Bodies such as the Church was designed to be by them who
ultimately useful for the publick good of their Souls This would oblige him further to mind that in the first place and principally those Expedients which more immediately tend to the promoting it and all other Temporal Politicks no otherwise nor further than as they also may promote it or at least be consistent with it And in this way of Reasoning I know not how he could avoid preferring the Spiritual before his own Authority and therefore managing his own Authority in subserviency to it for the promoting and supporting it not for diminishing it This I am sure every truly Christian Magistrate must look on as more solid and Judicious Reasoning from the Principles of the Christian Religion and securer therefore for his last Accounts to GOD and his Soul 's Eternal Interest than to suffer himself to be influenced in matters of so momentous a nature by Atheistical fooleries and flirts of being Priest-ridden This therefore being supposed how conscious soever such a Magistrate might be of his own good Will to the Church yet he would not be willing to accept of any branch of that Power which GOD had judged necessary for her that himself might have the managing it for her interest He would not think it for the Glory of his time upon any pretence whatsoever to leave that Holy Society more destitute of Power than he found her He must needs think that GOD's own settlement of it was the wisest that they were fittest for administring the Power who by the Nature of their Function were best qualified to understand the Causes in which it was conversant and who were most concerned for the good of the Society for whose use GOD had given it and who by Obligations of Conscience and by being destitute of external force were the least likely to design and least able to carry on encroachments to the injury of lriva powers He would not be willing that a Successor should be trusted with an administration of such a Power which if ill administred might prove of so dangerous consequence to the Church's walfare and for whose good meaning he has not that security as he has for his own He would not easily trust even his own partiality of his own mutability with it These would be the natural Reasonings of a generous and well minded Prince And methinks they should be so of pious and generous Parliaments also Here has been very much Zeal pretended for securing our Church against a Popish Successor This should make those who call themselves Protestant Parliaments unwilling to challenge that as a Right of Parliaments in general which may put it in the power of a Popish Parliament and indeed of any other that may be of another Communion to dissolve our Church as this Power of Lay deprivations will certainly do if they may be allowed as sufficient to discharge Us from our Spiritual duties to our so deprived Bishops § LXII Princes have been allowed by the Church a Right to keep Persons out not yet Canonically possessed but not to turn any out who were already in Possession of Bishopricks And that without any proper Cession of Right on the Church's part Thus it has appear'd that a well meaning Magistrate to the Interest of the Church and Religion has neither Obligation nor Equity to expect such a cession of Spiritual Rights on the Churches part as a compensation for his Protection nor would himself be inclinable to think he had any What ill meaning ones may expect is not worthy our regard Such are too partially concerned to be taken for competent Judges in Affairs of this nature They neither deserve such a Cession nor indeed are fit to be trusted with it However we deny not but that the Magistrate has a Right in the disposal of those favours which are requisite for the Churches interest in order to a legal Settlement and Protection And he has withal thereupon a Right to expect a Security to be given him for his own Temporal Power against invasions from the Ecclesiasticks in consideration even of that Act of Justice of securing them also from the like Invasions from the Temporal Power by his employing it in their defence though he be otherwise obliged in Conscience to protect that which himself believes to be the true Religion and the true Communion But then this is no proper Cession of Spiritual Rights For even antecedently to the amicable correspondence between the Church and State the Church was as much obliged in Conscience to forbear encroachments on the Temporal Rights as the Magistrate was on the Spiritual Only the difference was that before the correspondence the Church her self took upon her to judge concerning the trustiness of the Persons put in Office by her having then no access to the Civil Magistrate but afterwards she suffered him to judge himself of his own security That was by not having Bishops imposed upon him to enjoy his Temporals annexed to their Office without his own approbation which was no more than what was generally reasonable on equal terms This sometimes allowed him a power at first of stopping any Person proposed if he did not like him sometimes of pitching on the Person by the Right of a Lay Patron So also he was allowed to judge concerning Canons whether they might prove prejudical to the Temporal Government before he seconded them with his Temporal Government and by secular Coercions which was also very just and equal without any cession on the Churches side For this was only allowing him to judge where his own Power and Right was concerned But then this Right was only to keep out a Person who was not yet possessed of the Power he pretended to by even the spiritual Right of Consecration and therefore no Act of Authority upon a Bishop properly so called but only on a Candidate for the Office But there was never any Act of the Ancient Church so much as pretended that I know of that ever Allowed Princes to turn Bishops out of their spiritual Rights without Synods when they were once Canonically possessed of them No Emperors of the same Communion that acted sedately and like Persons who regarded Principles who ever attempted it without at least packing or pretending Synods for the deprivation of Bishops The Canons omitted by the Doctor are sufficient if there were no more to shew that this was at least the sense of the Church and Jurisdiction of the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate And even this Power that was allowed was allowed on Obligation of Interest not of Conscience None could pretend to the Temporals annexed to the Episcopal Office without the Princes consent And whilst the Correspondence between the Church and the Prince held there was no need of separating the spiritual Rights form the Temporal But the Church was at perfect Liberty in Conscience if she was willing to want the Temporals to give the spiritual Power alone and much more to continue it where it was already given if she Judged the Prince's
A DEFENCE OF THE VINDICATION OF THE Deprived Bishops Wherein The Case of Abiathar is particularly considered and the Invaliditly of Lay-Deprivations is further proved from the Doctrine received under the Old Testament continued in the first Ages of Christianity and from our own Fundamental Laws IN A REPLY to Dr. Hody and another Author To which is Annexed The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Independency of the Clergy on the Lay-Power as to those Rights of theirs which are purely Spiritual reconciled with our Oath of supremacy and the Lay-Deprivations of the Popish Bishops in the beginning of the Reformation By the Author of the Vindication of the Deprived Bishops LONDON Printed MDCXCV THE CONTENTS § I. THE Doctor 's late Book no answer to the Vindication Page 1 § II. The Baroccian M. S. disproved by the Vindicator and not defended by the Doctor P. 2. § III. The Doctor has not offered at any Answer to the Argument against him in the first part of the Vindication P. 3. § IV. He grants the Proposition principally disputed between us concerning the Invalidity of Lay-deprivations and takes no care to prevent the Consequences of that Confession P. 4 § V. The Doctor gains nothing by his changing the State of the Question P. 4. § VI. The Doctor 's whole Proof unconclusive admitting the invalidity of Lay-deprivations P. 5. § VII The Doctor 's Limitation of his own pretended self-evident maxims do all of them prove our Case unconcerned in it Chap. I P. 6. § VIII Submission of Subjects to the Ecclesiastical Usurpers is sinful by the Law of God P. 7. § IX Such submissions would make the Ecclesiastical Subjects Accomplices in the Injustice P. 9. § X. The same Submission in the Clergy is sinful on account of the Oaths of Canonical obedience they have taken to the rightful Possession P. 10. § XI Our Principles afford better Reasons why the unjust Deprivations of Synods may be received without the Deprived Bishops consent than those insisted on by the Doctor P. 12. § XII There is great disparity between the obligations of a competent and an incompetent Authority P. 13. § XIII No reason to reckon on the presumed consent of the Injured Bishops by an invalid deprivation for discharging their Subjects Consciences from Duty to them P. 14. § XIV Our Deprived Fathers gives publick Significations that they do challenge their Old Rights as far as is necessary in their circumstances P. 15. § XV. The Oaths of canonical Obedience to our Fathers still obliging P. 17. § XVI The complyance with Usurpers is also therefore sinful because Usurping Bishops are really no Bishops at all P. 20. § XVII The evil of Sin and Scandal in complying greater than that of Persecution which is avoided by it P. 22. § XVIII The Evill of Schism not avoided but incurred by complying with the Usurper P. 24. § XIX The abuses that may follow on compliance are a just reason to refuse it where it is not otherwise in Conscience due P. 25. § XX. No security that have compliance will not be abused P. 26. § XXI That abuse is a greater mischief than that it can be made amends for by the Doctor 's expedients P. 29. § XXII The main design of the Doctor 's New Book in arguing from Facts already overthrown by the Vindicator P. 32. § XXIII The Doctor himself is unwilling to stand by the consequences of such Facts as himself produces P. 33. § XXIV The Doctor 's remarks against the reasoning of the first part of the Vindication concerning the possession of Cornelius turned against himself P. 33. § XXV The Doctor 's Book afforded no Subject for a Reply but what would be Personal P. 35. § XXVI The Doctor 's turning the dispute to later Facts draws it from a short and Decisive to a tedious and litigious Issue P. 35. § XXVII We have no reason to suffer our selves to be overruled by him in these Arts of diverting us P. 36. § XXVIII We decline his Topick of Facts rather because it is undecisive than because we think it dis advantagious to us P. 36. § XXIX For want of some other Subject relating to the Vindication we pitch on the Case of Abiathar P. 37. § XXX This Fact is not commended in the Scripturs as a Precedent P. 37. § XXXI The Magistrate could not by the Doctrine of that Age have any direct Power over the Priest-hood P. 38. § XXXII The Benefits of the Priest-hood out of the Power and far greater than any in the Power of the Civil Magistrate P. 39. § XXXIII The Ancient Jews of the Apostle's Age did believe their Priest-hood available to a future and eternal State P. 40. § XXXIV And consequently did expressly own it far more Honourable than the Magistracy its self P. 42. § XXXV This same reasoning holds on account of the Priest-hood representing God tho' without relation to a future State P. 45. § XXXVI And that also according to the opinions of those Times P. 46. § XXXVII Solomon's Act of Abiathar was only of force P. 47. § XXXVIII Which force might in the consequence render the exercise of his Right unpracticable P. 48. § XXXIX Yet Solomon was in Conscience obliged to be cautious in exercising this Force against the Priest-hood P. 49 § XL. What Solomon did was only to fulfil what God has before Threatned against the House of Eli. P. 51. § XLI Abiathar was not then the High-Priest properly so called but Zadoc P. 53. § XLII There were in those times two High-Priest at once the chief such as Zadoc was of the Family of Eleazar the lower such as Abiathar of the Family of Ithamar P. 54. § XLIII No Deprivation of the Posterity of Phineas in those Times P. 56. § XLIV Zadoc put in the room of Abiathar as to the Courses of Ithamar which were not under him before P. 58. § XLV The Jews by our Principles could not justifie a Separation on account of Abiathar Their Case not like ours P. 59 § XLVI When Invasion had passed into a Prescription as in our Saviours time he that was in Possession had really the best Title P. 60. § XLVII Among the Jews the true High-Priest was to be known by his possessing the One Altar Among the Christians the true Altar was known by its being possessed by the true Bishop P. 62. § XLVIII The Reasons for exemption from the Power of the Prince stronger in our deprived Fathers Case than in the Case of Abiathar Our Bishops are properly Priests P. 64. § XLIX The Gospel Priest-hood more noble than that of Abiathar c. P. 66. § L. This Reasoning admitted in the Apostolical Age c. by Clemens Romanus c. P. 68. § LI. He does it by the same Principles as agreable to the Constitution of the Gospel P. 70. § LII He draws the like Inferences in Practice as we do P. 72. § LIII The Laity cannot now pretend to any indirect Right of depriving
Bishops as the Jewish Princes could in the Case of the Jewish Priest-hood P. 75. § LIV. Our Reasoning against the Magistrates Rights of deprivation in Spirituals proceeds universally and therefore in the Case of temporal Crimes also the owning such a Power would have been pernitious to the Primitive Christians also whowere charg de with Temporal Crimes P. 77. § LV. The Spiritual Rights of our Fathers have been now invaded by Civil Force Bare Characters without Districts not sufficient to preserve the Church as a Body P. 79. § LVI Supposing the Church and Christian State had made one Body ret more had been required to make that Supposition applicable to our present Case which is not yet taken notice of P. 82. § LVII The Prince on account of his being a Christian has no Title to any Spiritual Authority P. 83. § LVIII A whole Nation by Baptism may be made one Society in the Church without prejudice to their being still a Society distinct from it P. 85. § LIX The Churches Obligations are more necessary for the subsisting of the State than these she receives from the State are for hers P. 87. § LX. The Benefits received by the State from the Church are also greater then those which the Church receives from the State P. 89. § LXI If the State had been capable of conferring the greater Obligations yet a good Pious Magistrate could not in reason desire such a recompence as should oblige the Church to yeild any of her ancient Rights P. 90. § LXII Princes have been allowed by the Church a Right to keep persons out not yet Canonically possessed but not to turn any out who were already in Possession of Bishopricks And that without any proper Cession of Right on the Church's part P. 92. § LXIII The Power of turning out Bishops once possessed too great to be granted on any consideration whatsoever P. 94. § LXIV In this Case particularly no Temporal Favour whatsoever can make amends for the loss of the Benefits of the Spiritual Society There can therefore be no implicite Contracts for such an Exchange that can in Equity oblige the Ecclesiastical Governours to performance tho' it had been in their Power to make such a Contract P. 96. § LXV But here it is not in the Power of Ecclesiastical Governours to make such a Contract P. 98. § LXVI It is not agreable to the mind of God that the Church should so incorporate with the State as that the Bishops should be deprivable at the pleasure of the Civil Magistrate P. 100. § LXVII The Magistate is by no means a Competent Judge of the Church's Interests P. 102. LXVIII The Surrender of the Clergy in Henry the VIIIths time cannot oblige their Posterity now LXIX No reasoning from the rights of the Jewish Princes to the Rights of Christian Princes now § LXX Our present deprivations not justifiable by even our present Secular Laws P. 107. § LXXI The Conclusion P. 110. A DEFENCE OF THE VINDICATION OF THE Deprived Bishops § I. The Doctor 's late Book no Answer to the Vindication WHAT the Vindicator thinks of the Answers that have been made to his Defence of our Deprived Fathers himself best knows For my part I should not have concerned my self for him if I had not been over-rul'd by the Judgments of others for whom I profess a Veneration rather than my own I have that due esteem for his Adversaries which their excellent Abilities deserve particularly for Dr. Hody His diligence in History none questions that I know of I also value his Skill and Judgment in it much more than many who are concern'd on his side of the Question here debated Nor do I deny but several things are very well observed by him in this very Work I am now considering at present though I think it more hastily and tumultuarily laid together than several of his other Writings The only thing that made me think a Reply needless was that in all the Learning he has shewn I could find nothing that I thought any indifferent Person could think proper for satisfying Conscience in the single point here in Question nothing that could give me the least reason to doubt of the Arguments principally insisted on by the Vindicator For other things not relating to that I thought our candid Adversaries themselves would excuse us when they considered the Disadvantages on our side the Difficulties of the Press the Displeasure of our pretended Superiors much more considerable than any Argument that I could find produced either by him or any other Adversary § II. The Baroccian M S disproved by the Vindicator and not defended by the Doctor So far I am from trusting my own Opinion in this matter that I would gladly know some particular of the Doctor 's Book that even our Adversaries who are so clamorous for a Reply think sufficient to excuse their Schism against the Charge of the Vindicator His Baroccain M S has already been proved impertinent to our present Dispute The Vindicator has shewn that the occasion of his writing did not oblige his Author to defend the validity of Lay-deprivations he might have added that his Author himself was not ignorant that Synods did intervene in several of his Instances which must have made so many of them perfectly impertinent to his design if that had been to vindicate the Validity of Lay deprivations That is not all The Vindicator has also shewn from the Canons subjoyned at the end and suppressed by the Doctor that the Author could not design the Defence of Lay Deprivations Nor has the Doctor offered at any thing that might shew such a Design consistent with those Canons or the Author's Subjection to them Yet those Canons alone are decisive to our purpose both as to the sense of the Constantinoplitane Church and of that Author as a Member of it whether they were part of his Work or not concerning which the Impartial Reader is to judge whether what the Doctor has said be sufficient to purge his wilful suppressing them The Vindicator has also shewn the Author not only remoteness from but ignorance of the times he writes of Nor has the Doctor proved or pretended any thing to the contrary Nay even of the Facts enumerated by him there are but few that the Doctor has thought fit on second thoughts to assert independently on his Authority It cannot therefore be on this account of vindicating his M S that any Impartial Reader can judge the Doctor 's performance to be a just Reply to the Vindicatoin § III. He has not offered at any Answer to the Arguments against him in the first part of the Vindication But whatever becomes of the so boasted M. S a Conscientious Person who was only sollicitous for Truth not Victory will easily excuse the Doctor if he had at least been pleas'd to clear our present Case relating to the Lay-deprivation of our Holy Fathers and the Schism that necessarily follow'd upon it Yet even here
Bishop in opposition to the publick intention of the Church It is an invidious Interpretation and a very false one which he gives of the Oath when he makes it in effect the same as if they should swear That they will for the Bishop's sake oppose the welfare of the Publick and break the Union of the Church and leave the Communion of it and adhere to the Bishop though they should have no reason to do so besides this bare Oath No need of this The welfare of the Publick and the Union of the Church require that in affairs of Publick Spiritual Interest the judgment of the Subject ought to be concluded by the judgment of the Bishop at least to the practice which perfectly overthrows the Doctor 's Interpretation and makes it impossible that those considerations should ever really interfere which the Doctor makes so opposite And St. Cyprian's definition of a Church that it is a flock united with the Bishop makes it impossible that the true Church's Communion can ever be left in adhering to the Bishop But this perhaps the Doctor will call a Saying of St. Cyprian and a sort of Theological Pedantry as he is used to stile other the like Doctrines and Principales of the Cyprianick and purest Ages when they are urged to oblige him to any thing that may give him occasion to shew what he calls his fortitude What he pretends with his usual confidence without the least offer of proof that particularly here in the Church of England the Oath of Canonical Obe dience is always taken with this supposition That the Civil Power as well as the Ecclesiastical do allow the Bishop to govern we shall then believe when he shall be pleased to prove it by some stronger Topick than his own Authority The Oath it self has no such matter expressed in it And he should have pitched on some expression in it if there had been any which in his opinion might seem to imply it Our Civil Laws require that our Ecclesiastical Causes should be determined by Ecclesiastical Judges which if they had been observed had left no room for the Case of Lay deprivations § XI Our Principles afford better Reasons why the unjust deprivations of Synods may be received without the deprivea Bishops consent than those insisted on by the Doctor That a Synodical deprivation though unjust discharges the Subjects from the Obligation of the Oath of Cononical Obedience is usually admitted But not for that reason which the Doctor has given for it The division which might otherwise follow in the Church and the publick disturbance which might follow thereupon if they were not so discharged are equally applicable to the opposite Pretenders and could afford the Subjects no directions with whether of them they ought to joyn The true reason ought to decide the Title and therefore ought to be such as one only of the Rivals can pretend to That is that the Synod however unjust in its way of proceeding is notwithstanding to be allowed as a conpetent Judge and therefore that on that account its Sentences ought to hold in Practice till repealed by a higher Authority of the same kind that is by a greater Synod But an incompetent Jude leaves things in the same condition in which it found them and ought not in Conscience or Equity to have an effect at all Nor can it therefore impose on the Consciences of the Subjects any the least Obligation even to acquiescence Nor does it follow that because the Bishop's conscent may not be necessary to oblige him to stand to the unjust Sentence that therefore the reason of his obligation to acquiescences is not grounded on Episcopal consent The consent of his Predecessors on the valuable consideration of having the conveniences of Synodical debates may conclude him while he enjoys the same valuable considerations And the consent of his Collegues may oblige him also who have the Right of judging with whom they will observe the Commerce of their Communicatory Letters Their agreement in denying him their Communicatory Letters is in effect a Deprivation when what he does is not ratified in the Catholick Church This will go far to hinder his Cummunion from being Catholick which may go far also towards the absolving his Subjects from Duty to him if by joyning with any other they may have the benefit of Catholick Communion But this following the judgment of Episcopal Predecessors or of the Episcopal Colledge will by no means allow the Subject that Liberty which the Doctor disputes for of deserting their Bishops on their own private Judgments concerning the publick good It will not follow that that Necessity must excuse them which has no other consideration on which it may be grounded desides that of an irresistible force § XII There is greâ—â— disparity between the Obligations of a competent and an incompetent Authority But the Doctor it seems can see no difference as to Acquiescence in a Case of Necessity between what is done by a competent and what by an incompetent Authority It is strange that a Person so able to judge in other Cases where Interest permits him to judge impertially should not see it The obvious difference now mentioned is that the Deprivation by an incompetent Authority leaves Subjects under obligation to Duty from which they are discharged when the Authority though acting unjustly is notwithstanding competent Thence it plainly follows that where the obligation to Duty is taken away there compliance is not sinful And where it is not sinful it may be born with in the Case of that Necessity which is the result of an irresistible Force But where the Obligation to Duty remains and the compliance is therefore sinful I know no tolerable Casuisty that allows it upon such Necessity The Doctor himself as we have seen already excepts it in his own stating of the Case Tenants do not usually hold their Tenures by Oaths But where they do I am sure all creditable Antiquity thought them under stricter Obligations to performance than it seems the Doctor does The Peace and Tranquillity of the Publick are no doubt useful considerations for understanding the sense of Oaths in which they oblige to performance But the Doctor might have been pleased to consider that here are two publick oftentimes incompareble Interests concerned in the Obligation of Oaths There is the publick Interest of those to whom as well as of those by whom the Faith is given And all fair and equal dealing Casuists prefer the former before the later in Oaths given for the Security of others How than can the Doctor make the good of Sworn Tenants in general to put restrictions on Oaths given for the Security not of the Sworn Tenants but of the liege Lords in general for whose Security the Obligations are undertaken He ought to prove that a Conqueror can daprive a Bishop of his Spiritual Power if he be pleased to reason upon it That the Church of Jerusalem supplyed the place of Narcissus
Constitution Upon this account it has been accounted the Interest of Societies in general that they be unanimous in defending it For this will make the Government better able to defend it self and protect its Subjects in their Rights if it have the united assistance of the whole Society not subdivided into several little Interests It has also been thought the publick Interest of Societies rather to be concluded by their Governours as to their Practice in their Judgment concerning the publick good than to be permited to embroyl their whole Bodies by forming subdivided Factions and intestine animosities which is the natural consequence of being allowed the use of their private Judgements even concerning the publick good in a Society already constituted Thus the Doctor may see how even the regard of the publick good may oblige him to hazard all that he calls Ruin in asserting the Rights of Suprem Governours by reasons anticedent to the Oath it self and independent on his pretended false Principle that Oaths are taken only for the sake of Governours These Reasons proceed though the Government of the Churches had been like many Humane Governments founded on Humane Institution and the agreeing consent of its respective Members But the reason of hazarding all for the Rights of our Ecclesiastical Superiors holds more strongly For God himself has so constituted his own Church as to oblige us in regard of all Interests to the strict dependence on our Ecclesiastical Governours As Schism is the greatest mischief that can befall any Society so a Society such as the Church is that must subsist over all the World independent on the Secular arm nay under Pesecution from it must be in the greatest danger of Schism And God has accordingly most wisely contrived his Spiritual Society so as to secure it from that danger by making it the greatest Interest of the Church in general and of all its Members considered severally to adhere to their Spiritual Monarch It is certainly their greatest Interest to keep their Mystical Communion with God the head of Christ and with Christ the head of his Mystical Body the Church But this God has made no otherwise attainable but by maintaining a Communion with his visible Body by visible Sacraments obliging himself to ratify in Heaven what is transacted by the visible Governours of the Church on Earth Thus he admits to his Mystical Union those who are admitted by the visible Governours of his Church into his visible Body and excludes from the Mystical Union those who are by the Church Governours excluded from the Union that is visible So the Apostle St. John reasons that whosoever would have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Communion with the Father and the Son must not expect it otherwise than by the Communion with that visible Body of which the Apostle himself was a Member 1 St. Joh. I. 3. So our Saviour himself makes the despising of those who are Authorized by him to be the despising of himself and not only so but of him also who sent him And in St. Joh. XVII he makes his Mystical Union to be of Christians among themselves as well as with himself and the Father And upon this dependend the dreadfulness of Excommunication and indeed all obligation to Discipline and the Penances imposed by it in the Primitive Church But there was none in the visible constitution of the Church that represented God and Christ under the Notion of a Head but the Biship And therefore he was taken for the principle of Unity without Union to whom there could be no pretensions to Union with God and Christ. This was the Doctrine of St. Cyprians Age and not his only but of that of Ignatius and not only of Ignatius but of that which was Apostolical grounded on the Notions then received among the Jews concerning their Union with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Archetypal High Priest by their Union with the High Priest who was visible How then can the Doctor make any Interests either publick or private separable from those of adhering to our Bishops and thereby avoiding Schism by discountenancing Usurpers of their lawful Thrones § XVI The complyance with Usurpers is also therefore sinful because Usurping Bishops are really no Bishops at all The Doctor now proceeds in the 4th and last place to shew that this complyance with the new Intruders is not sinful on account of the Objection insisted on by the Vindicator that the Usurpers are in reality no Bishops at all This matter were indeed very easy if all the Vindicator had produced for his purpose had been only a saying of St. Cyprian and a saying nothing to his purpose He might then indeed wonder that the Vindicator should pretend to raise so great a structure on so weak a foundation But considering what the Vindicator had said to prove the saying true one might rather wonder at the Doctors confidence in slighting and overlooking what one would therefore think him conscious that his Cause would not afford an Answer to The Vindicator had proved it more than a saying that it was the Sense not only of St. Cyprian but of all the Bishops of that Age who all of them denyed their Communicatory Letters to such an Intruder into a Throne not validly vacated thereby implying that they did not own him of their Episcopal Colledge and therefore took him for no Bishop at all The Vindicator shewed withal that it was agreable to the Principles and Traditions of that Age derived by Tradition from the Apostles and therefore that they had reason to say and think so too The Vindicator farther proved it independently on their saying or thoughts however otherwise creditable in an affair of this kind from the nature of the thing it self that where there could be but one of a kind and two Pretenders could not therefore be both genuine the validity of one Title is to be gathered from the invalidity of the other But to what purpose is it to produce proofs if the Doctor will take no notice of them But Cornelious with relation to whose Case St. Cyprian uses this Expression that the latr Bishop is not second but none the Doctor says had never been deposed but was still the possessor which he takes for a disparity from our deprived Fathers Case He was deposed as much as it lay in the Power of the Pagan Emperour to do so He was set up not only as the Christian Bishops then generally were without his consent but notoriously against it He was as much grieved at it as if a Rival had been set up against him for the Empire And he had kept the See vacant for a considerable time after the Martyrdom of Fabianus doing all that he could do to hinder the Clergy from meeting in such a way as was requisite for supplying the vacancy Let the Doctor himself Judge what Decius could have done more for deposing him However the Doctor tells us that Cornelius was the Possessor Very true But
Heroical ardor of that Age by the cold and degenerous Notions of his own our most learned Bishop Pearson has proved his Actions far from beīng singular by many more very express Testimonies of those most glorious times of our Christian Religion Nor are the Canons against the provoking Persecutors which the Doctor takes notice of near so old as these great examples of desiring and meeting Persecution nor indeed till the abatement of the first zeal appeared in the scandalous lapses of warm pretenders None such were made whilst they were true to their profession so that the consenting Practice of the best times was far from the Doctors mind in reckoning Persecution among the greatest Evils that can possibly befal the Church They did not take it for an evil but rather for a favour and a benefit And though it were allowed to be an evil yet the utmost that can be made of it is that it is an evil only of Calamity the greatest of which kind Conscientious Casuists have never thought comparable with the least evil of Sin I might add also that Scandal also as it is a cause of Sin is a greater Evil than Persecution Our Saviour himself pronounces wo to him by whom the Scandel cometh and the Fire of Hell which never shall he quenched And these are Evils which the Doctor himself must own to be worse than that of Persecution The Doctor therefore must not insist on the Persecution avoided by this complyance with the Intruders till he has cleared the condition of avoiding it from not only Sin but Scandal also If he thinks deposing all Bishops in general to be in earnest a just cause for him to shew his fortitude let him bethink himself how the matter is now in Scotland It were easie by just consequences from the Grounds and Principles of Ecclesiastical Commerce to shew how that Case would concern him in England if it were convenient If Christ were equally to be enjoyed in the Communion of the true Bishops and their Schismatical Rivals we should be as willing as he to keep off the Evil day as long as we could Flesh and Blood would easily perswade us to it if it were safe But he knows very well that the Catholick Church in the purest Ages never believed our mordern Latitudinarian Fancies that Schismaticks have any Union with Christ whilst they are divided from his Mystical Body the Church If this were true or if he thought it himself true I do not understand how he could reckon Schism among the greatest Evils that can befal the Church if even Schismaticks may enjoy Christ though they be in open Hostility with his Authorized Representative §. XVIII The Evil of Schism not avoided but incurred by complying with the Usurpers As for the Case of Schism which he pretends to be avoided by them by their compliance with the Usurpers this Evil is so far from being avoided as that it has been occasioned by it The Doctor cannot deny but that their communicating with the Intruders has occasioned a notorious breach of Communion which on one side or the other must needs be Schismatical All therefore that he can pretend is that they by complying are not chargable with the crime of the Schism that has been occasion'd by it How so it is because if we had also done as they have done there had been no Schism Very true But it had been full as true if they had done as we have done This pretence therefore leaves the Criminalness of the breach as uncertain as before and necessarily puts them for tryal of that on the merit of the Cause And if that be enquired into all the Presumptions as well as the particular Proofs are in favour of us and against them We were plainly one before this breach As therefore the branch it self is new so the guilt of it must be resolved into the Innovations that occasion'd it which will by unavoidable consequence make them chargeable with the breach who were guilty of the Innovations The Innovations that have caused the breach are the disowning our old Bishops and substituting others in their Places whilst themselves are living and continue their Claim and are not deprived by any Authority that had really a Power to deprive them But in these instances they not we have been the Aggressors and Innovators Do we own the Old Bishops for the true Bishops of these Sees of which they have pretended to deprive them And did not they do so too as well as we before the Deprivation And what had they to pretend for themselves why they do not so still Besides this very Sentence of Deprivation which the Doctor owns to be invalid And how can they justify their disowning them upon a Sentence confessedly invalid This new behaviour of theirs they must wholly own as it is new to be their own We only continue to own our Holy Fathers as Dr. Hody himself and his Brethren did formerly As for the Second Act the setting up new Bishops in opposition to our Fathers they cannot excuse themselves from being the Innovators and concerning us they cannot pretend it They have made the new Bishops who consecrated them and they also who own them by communicating with them or their Consecrators These have intirely been the Acts of the Ecclesiasticks Yet without these all that the lay-Lay-Power could have done could never have formed a Schism nor divided our Communion And as to what has been done on both sides we can better excuse our selves than they can Could they and we have consented to have acted Uniformly there could have been no Schism But we can better account for our not complying with them than they can for not complying with us On their side they have nothing to plead but worldly Considerations They could not doubt of the Lawfulness with regard to conscience of doing that on their side which if done had prevented the Schism They can pretend no obligation in Conscience for setting up other Bishops as we can for not owning them till they can prove us fairly discharged in Conscience which they as well as we were obliged in in regard of the old true Proprietors They could pretend no cementing Principles essential to the subsistence of the Church as a Society and a Communion independent on the State obliging them to comply with these encroachments of the Politicions for making Spiritual considerations to give way to Temporals They could pretend no Catholick Authority of the Church in any Age approving what was done by them as we can of the best and purest Ages for what has been done by Us. They could not pretend any such united Authority of even the Church of England before this change for many things wherein we differ now as we can So far thay have been from avoiding Schism by these compliances or from purging themselves from the guilt of the Schism which has followed thereupon § XXI The abuses that may follow on Compliance are a just reason
to refuse it where it is not otherwise in Conscience due One Inconvenience the Doctor himself foresees which he seems to own as justly chargeable on their Principle That by a submission to the Possessor the Civil Governour is like to be encouraged to tyrannize over the Church and to turn out such Bishops as he does not like whensoever he pleases though never so unjustly This must necessarily be the Consequence of defending such Practices in such a way as the Doctor has done not by conside rations particular to the present Case but by such Topicks as the Doctor has insisted on which if they prove any thing proceed in general that is prove Bishops obliged in general to yield their Rights as often as they are invaded and Subjects as generally absolved from their Duty to such Bishops though the Bishop should think fit to assert their Rights Both of these are asserted by him on account of the irresistibleness of the force which brings on the violence which is an Argument that must always hold on the side of the State in all Disputes that she has with the Church These things asserted by Ecclesiasticks such as the Doctor is must for ever encourage the Laity who are not acted by great skill as well as good inclinations to Religion to believe they do well in what they do of this kind and therefore to repeat it without any scruple But how does the Doctor pretend to avoid this Consequence He first pretends that the same Inconvenience is in all manner of Government Particularly that a Synod may also be encouraged to unjust Sentences by our acknowledging an Obligation to submit to such Sentences if passed Synodically But we are far from making Abuses Arguments for denying just Rights Nor does our Cause require it We are only for denying Obedience to an incompetent Authority that invades Rights which do not belong to it And for this it is certainly a very just reason for denying them what they have no Right to if yielding will encourage them to the like Injuries and Usurpations frequently which it must needs do if they must never expect opposition how frequently soever they are pleased to renew the Injuries nay if Persons concerned against them shall encourage them in the belief that they are no Injuries at all However if the Injustice had been equal in the encroachments of incompetent Judges and Synods yet the danger is not In Synods nothing can be transacted but by a majority of the Episcopal Order So the Episcopacy it self is secured by a majority of Suffrages against any mischief that can be acted against it Synodically But in a Lay Judicatory the whole Authority may combine against them and God knows is too likely to do so in these days of Irreligion when their Revenues are more regarded than their Function This Authority therefore is not to be trusted to dearest Friends who are in any disposition to be otherwise Much less to those who are under present jealousies and disaffections to their whole Order § XX. No security â—ere that compliance will not be abused The Doctor adds Secondly that here in England it is not the will of the Prince that can turn out a Bishop And that King and Parliament may by compliance be encouraged to depose Bishops at pleasure that Supposition he says is wild and extravagant As if he had never heard of a Parliament even in England that did not only deprive Bishops at pleasure but Episcopacy it self As if he knew not that Men of the same principles are notwithstanding qualified to serve in our Parliaments As if he were perfectly ignorant of the Case of Scotland where notwithstanding the interest the Bishop have by the Fundamentals of the Government as on of the Three States in which the Legistative Power is seated Yet not Bishops only but Episcopacy has been extirpated as far as the Votes of the Laity can contribute to the extirpation of it There the Doctor may see what he seys he cannot imagine that what he calls King and Parliament can concur for the deprivation not of a Bishop only but of Episcopacy And we have little security that it shall not be put in Practice if we must by Principles as he does allow them to do it here upon an occasion that they shall judge Extraordinary That Extraordinary occasion is not very difficult to be found by them who make Spiritual considerations give way to Temporal The use of the Cathedral Revenues for carrying on the present expensive War is likely enough to be judged so And the Psalmist who was himself a King has warned us not to put confidence in Princes The Doctor indeed tells us that the Bishops here have the same Security that other Subjects have I am sure they ought to have it not only for the reason of the things but by our Constitution Their Rights ought to be accounted more sacred than any other Rights or Liberties of the Subjects and therefore more inviolable All the Sacredness that has been made use of by our Legislators for securing them has been derived from the interposition of the Clergy who if they be not treated as sacred themselves can never secure other Rights which have no other sacredness than what they derive from the intervention of the Clergy But if he considers how little Laws often signify considering those who are allowed the Authority of Authentically Interpreting and Executing them and what Principles are now allowed in those who are thought qualified for that Authentical Interpretation and Execution I know no sort of Subject that he could pitch on that either have been or are likely to be treated so arbitrarily by our Legislators The Laity in Henry the VIII ths time dissolved whole Bodies of the Clergy and alienated their revenues without any consent of those Bodies or of any Authorized to represent them without any Legal trial or eviction in any form of Law When has any such thing been ever attempted against any Lay Bodies by their Representatives in Parliament who were chosen to preserve not to oppress the Liberties of those who chose them The other States have presumed to eject the Spiritual State who as a State have as sacred a Right in the Fundamental Constitution of the Legislative Power as themselves And the Commons have turned that President against the Temporal Lords What if the Lords Spiritual and Temporal should turn it upon the Commons also Could they think this agreeable to the design of the Constitution The Law certainly never intended such violences between those who are equally fundamental to the Legislative Power and who have no Legal Judges or Tribunals appointed by the Law for determining differences between them by way of Judicial process and Authority Thus the Doctor may plainly see that in the Opinion of those who justify these proceedings and who are therefore likely to plead them as Precedents Clergy-men have not the same Securities that othe Subjects have if Persons so Principled make
their Schisinatical preheminence He tells us that it is no small crime if we cast them out of their Bishoprick who have offered their Sacrifical Gifts unreprovably and holily He accordingly adds It behoves us therefore Brethren to cleave to such Examples For it is written Cleave unto those who are holy for they who cleave to them shall be made holy And again in another place he says with the innocent thou wilt be innocent and with the perverse thou wilt be perverse He supposes no Holiness reputed by GOD for such but in the true Communion Thence he adds Let us cleave therefore to the Innocent and Righteous for those are the Elect of God One of the Prerogatives of the Peculium is to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chosen Generation So that in confining the Elect of God to the true Communion he must necessarily be supposed to confine the Peculium to it also His following Exhortation therefore firts our Circumstances as well as it did his Why are there Strifes and Anger 's and Divisions and Schisms and War among you Have we not one God and one Christ and one Spirit of Grace that is shed upon Us And is there not one calling in Christ Why do we draw and tear asunder the Members of Christ and foment Seditions against our own Body and come to such Madness as to forget that we are Members of each other May this Pathetical Exhortation of so great a Person prevail with our Brethren to study some Expedient for securing our Ecclesiastical Liberties and healing the Breach they have been driven into by Carnal Politicks What a Glory wou'd it be to them who are princpally engaged in it to do what he invites them to Who is there among you Generous Who is Merciful Who full of Charity Let him say If the Sedition and Strife and Schisms be for my sake I depart I go away where you please and do whatsoever is required by the Multitude Only let the Flock of Christ have peace with the Presbyters who are set over it He who would do so would gain to himself great Glory in the LORD How much would it advance their Honour here and their Peace hereafter if they would turn their Emulations for Preheminence into those more Noble ones of Humility and Peace and Condescention The worthy Doctor since his ingenuous owing his Mistake of the Design of Clemens discover'd since by the Vindicator may be presumed by this time to be sensible now much it is more proper to make such Addresses to his Fathers than ours He must at least acknowledge the making them so to be more agreeable to the Design of St. Clement § LIII The Laity cannot now pretend to any Indirect Right of depriving Bishops as the Jewish Princes could in the Case of the Jewish Priesthood Thus it appears that by the Principles even of the Apostolick Age no Laity whatsoever can pretend to any direct Power over our Ecclesiastical Governours with regard to their purely Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Rights I now proceed to shew 4thly that they cannot now pretend even to an indirect Power such as I shewed that Princes might pretend to the◠of depriving our Bishops with regard to Conscience For neither of the reasons given there will hold her They cannot make their Right impracticable now as they could do then by excluding them from any particular place from which it is in their Power to exclude them Their Consecrations and Eucharists are not now confined to Cathedrals as the Sacerdotal Acts of the Jewish Priesthood were to the Temple but are equally valid where ever they are exercised within their ow Jurisdictions This hinders them from being perfectly useless when they are excluded from Cathedrals Nor has GOD fixed upon any particular Places to which he has confined his own acceptance of them under the Gospel But as we have seen from Ignatius for I now descend no lower the one acceptable Altar now follows the one Bishop not the Bishop the Altar This hinders the Additional Right formerly accruing to a Possessor purely on account of his Possession which was then sufficient to make a Possessor's Right better which without Possession would have been worse than that of an excluded Predecessor Nor indeed is there that Reason now as was then to expect that GOD should confine the Exercises of the Evangelical Priesthood to a particular place Their Religion then was confined to a particular Nation and was part of the National Constitution as it was Theocratical There was therefore all the Security given that Laws could give that their Princes should always Patronize it One of another Nation was uncapable of the Office any other way than by Conquest And that did necessarily suppose the Subversion of the Laws themselves and therefore of all the Security that could be given by Law But the Evangelical Priesthood was first instituted by Christ and settled by the Apostles in a time when the Kings of the Earth stood up and the Rulers were gathered together a-against the Lord and against his Christ Acts IV. 26 Not only without the consent of but in opposition to all the Civil Powers then being And therefore to have made it depend on the Pleasure of the Magistrate then had been perfectly inconsistent with a Design of securing and perpetuating it And that could not have been avoided if it had depended on any thing that was in the Power of the Persecuting Magistrate It was instituted and established under actual and violent Persecutions and therefore must have been fitted with Provisions that might enable it to subsist under a state of Persecution by a Power perfectly disentangled from the Secular Power To this it was requisite that it should be under no obligation of Conscience to depend on any thing that was in the Power of the Persecuting Magistrate as it must have done if it had been obliged by GOD to any one particular Place It was also requisite that this Priesthood being constituted by GOD as the cement of a Spiritual Society all that was requisite for managing that Society should have been by God who was pleas'd to found that Society conferred on the Priesthood as its Right in Conscience and therefore by the same Divine Power exempted from the Right of the Civil Magistrate For all that this Priesthood could have to recommend Duty to the Consciences of its Subjects in a state of Persecution was only its Sacredness and the Obligation that lay on GOD to ratify his own Act in inflicting the Censures denounced by it against refractory Persons and therefore they must be very well satisfied that the Censures were denounced by one to whom GOD had given a Lawful Authority to denounce them Otherwise they could not think GOD obliged to ratify them And for this it was absolutely requisite that they should believe the Magistrate to have no Right in those Cases wherein those Censures were concerned Otherwise they could not think God oblig'd to
be no such Contract at all as an implicite one which can be no otherwise proved but by reasonable equitable Interpretation § LXV But here it is not in the Power of the Ecclesiastical Governours to make such a Contract Thus much might have been pleaded for discharging the Church Officers from these Obligations though they had indeed a Power to oblige themselves thus far and had no more to do in this matter than to consider whether there were prospects of present Interest sufficient to induce them to it But that is not the Case here All they can do on any consideration whatsoever by any however Explicite Compact is not sufficient to Alienate that Power by which the Church must again subsist whenever the Magistrate deserts her For this Power is not her own but a trust commited to her by GOD and a trust committed to her with a design the Power should be perpetuated Whatsoever therefore she does she cannot oblige God by an Act of Alienation of it So a Servant that should Alienate his Lord's Rights without his leave cannot hinder his Lord from challenging them again nor any other Servant who is impower'd by his Lord to demand them This is allowed among our hired Servants and much more with the Roman Slaves to whom the Scriptures allude in this matter The Apostles themselves call their Office a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Words in the Language of that time importing Slavery such were usually then intrusted with Stewardships And the lower degree of Slavery that of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Paul looks on as a higher dignity of his Apostolical Office And he calls his Power a trust and a dispensation and looks on himself as under an Obligation of fidelity to discharge it according to the mind of him who had committed the trust to him This was undoubtedly to signify the Nature of his Power by the Roman Civil Laws received at that time which allowed Servants to acquire Actions to their Masters but not Alienate them without their express command The Apostles themselves therefore were not at Liberty to Alienate this trust committed to them upon any considerations whatsoever of their own private convenience nor much less can they do it who now succeed them in a Power indeed derived from them but in many particulars more limited than theirs was Besides this Power is intrusted with them not for themselves only but for the interest also of Souls in general Thence it appears that they cannot be allowed to dispose of it on considerations relating to their private Interests As it is a Trust for others the same Notions will take place here which did with the Roman Tutors and Curators who where also Officers in Trust for managing an Interest which was none of their own Nothing they did to the Prejudice of the Pupil could oblige him to performance Especially if they presumed to Alienate any part of the Inheritance entrusted with them on considerations of private Interests of their own Such Contracts were perfectly rescinded and left no Obligation on him to ratify them when he came to age as other Contracts might which were beneficial to him Here therefore they could lay no Obligation on GOD to ratify their Alienation of the Power intrusted with them to the Civil Magistrate And yet without a Right obliging GOD to ratify what was transacted by the Ecclesiastical Governours all the Conveyances they could pretend to make of their Spiritual Rights to the Magistrate must be perfectly insignificant For then GOD may still own him for a Bishop who is deprived by the Magistrate and disown that Person as an Intruder who is substituted into his Office by the Lay Power For it is GOD'S Act alone that can determine the Question as to Right and with regard to Conscience Seeing therefore the Ecclesiastical Governours cannot confer a Right upon the Magistrate to have his Acts ratified by GOD after all the Compacts they can make the Right continues as it was before They who had the Right of making and depriving Bishops have the same Right still and may resume the exercise of it when they please and are obliged to do so as they will approve themselves faithful to their Trust when they shall judge the exigences of the Church to require it What then can their Contract signify be it never so express It on the contrary appears that no consideration whatsoever of private Interest can be a reasonable inducement for Ecclesiastical Governours to enter into such Contracts not only because they cannot validly oblige themselves or confer any valid Right upon the Magistrate in this matter which he had not before but even in Consideration of their own Interest Suppose the Favours of the Magistrate were indeed sufficient to countervail the Personal benefits they enjoyed purely on account of their being the Heads of a distinct independent Body yet it cannot be denyed but that the Punishment they have reason to fear from GOD on account of their Falshood to their Trust is without comparison greater than what can be recompenced by the Civil Magistrate § LXVI It is not agreeable to the mind of GOD that the Church should so concorporate with the State as that the Bishops should be deprivable at the pleasure of the Civil Magistrate Indeed the Nature of the spiritual Society as constituted by GOD is such as that it cannot be thought agreeable to the mind of GOD that it should so concorporate with the State as wholly to depend on the Authority of the Civil Magistrate so as that its Supream Governours the Bishops should be subject to him in Spirituals also It is not agreeable to his mind that the more Noble Society should be subjected to that which is less Noble that the Interests of Souls which are more valuable in his esteem than all the Kingdoms of the World should depend on the pleasures of particular Princes and the Interests of their particular little Districts It is not agreeable that he should trust a Government of principal importance in the hands of those who are not likely to regard it as their principal employment who make the World their principal Study and take their understanding that and its concers throughly to be the principal accomplishment they are capable of for the discharging of that which they take to be their principal Office and who either take no pains at all to understand the concerns of Religion or do it no otherwise than as it is consistent with their other employments which are not indeed of that importance as matters of Religion are It is much more likely that he intended that it should continue as himself had settled it at its first establishment in the hands of those whose Principal care it should be to mind it as it deserves That is Principally and other things no otherwise than as they may prove subservient to it It is no way likely that he
would have Religion left to their disposal who by their Office think themselves obliged to be swayed Principally by their Worldly interests than which there is hardly any thing more contradictory to the great ends of Religion to make Reformation of Manners necessary to be begun by Courts which are usually the Originals of the corruptions of that kind and the great hindrances to well meant designs of Reformation An obvious consequence of such a trust would be that Religion which Princes do not take for their Principal Work must be made subservient to their worldly Politicks which Princes generally take for their Principal employment And who can think that GOD would ever intend that a Religion at first established in a State of Independency on the secular Power should afterwards be brought to a State precarious and depending on the pleasure of the secular Magistrate GODS establishing it otherwife at first shewed plainly that it was better for the Church to be independent on the State whensoever there should be any difference between it and the secular Magistrate This withal we are certain of that GOD is not changeable as man is but that whilst the same Reason holds or when the same Case returns his mind will be the same as it was before When ever therefore the Magistrate who has once favoured the Church shall again desert it and withdraw his Protection from it we must then conclude that the Church is in the same condition she was in before the Magistrate received her into his Protection and therefore that it is GODS Pleasure also that she should subsist then as she had done before on her own Government On her own Government I say as well qualified now as formerly for continuance and perpetuity by its independence on the pleasure of the Magistrate This is indeed the only way of knowing GODS pleasure concerning a Case where no now Revelation is so much as pretended as none is here even by our Adversaries This therefore being certain that in Case of a New breach GODS pleasure is that the Church should again be independent it will be also certain that in the Interval whilst the good correspondence holds between the two Societies GOD cannot allow such an Alienation of Power as shall disable her in Case of a now breach to persist on her old terms This will requite that the old Society be preserved with the old Government of Bishops during the Interval For the Church is not such a Society as other Humane ones that can be set up at pleasure by the Agreement of the particular Members of which it consists whenever they are Free from other antecedent inconsistent Obligations This is a Society erected by GOD and requires Governours Authorized by him more than other Civil Societies do for Obliging him to confer spiritual Blessings exceeding the Power of the Members considered in themselve GOD has given them no reason to expect when the breach shall fall that he will extraordinarily empower Men immediatly as he did the Apostles The only way therefore for securing the continuance of the Church is to keep up a Body of Governours Authorized by the Apostles in that Succession which has been derived from them to our present times which cannot be unless the Succession it self be continued on in all the Interval of good Correspondence This therefore requires that they do not suffer themselves so to be Incorporated into the State as to have no Governours of their own Acting by a highery Authority than what can be derived from the Prince This consideration alone is sufficient to disprove our Adversaries fancy concerning the coalition of the Two Bodies under the King as the Common Head of both of them when in the mean time the Church is obliged to continue in her Bishops a power not derivable by any Patents from the KING This Power therefore not derived from him must be perfectly independent on him And indeed no Power but what is so can justify and make Practicable a Resumption of ancient Rights For what ever depends on the Magistrate may and will in course be taken from the Bishop when the correspondence is interrupted If therefore when it is taken away the Bishop has then no Right to Govern he cannot expect GOD will ratify any exercise of a Power to which he can pretend no Right But without GOD's ratifying what is done by the Authority and good reason to presume that GOD is obliged to ractify it such a Government can signify nothing for keeping the Society in a Body that has nothing to recommend it but consideratinos relating to GOD and Conscience The Alienation therefore of this Power so necessary for securing the Society being so plainly against the Mind of GOD in giving the Power no Act of Alienation of it can expect a ratification from GOD and therefore it must be Originally null and invalid § LXVII The Magistrate is by no means a Competent Iudge of the Church's Interests Besides there are other things so peculiar to the design of GOD in instituting the Spiritual Society that make it by no means probable that it was his pleasure that it should coalesce into one Society with the State under one common Supream Government both for Spiritisals and Temporals It is inconsistent with the Office of the Supream Magistrate to endure that his Subjects should live under a state of perpetual Violence from another Power without using his utmost endeavours to resit it The Church may and often must submit to a Persucution when it is not otherwise in her Power to avoid it but by resistance She may with great generosity choose a Persecution when she judges it to be for the Interests of Religion and it is her Glory to overcome Evil with Good and to subdue her Enemies rather with Patience and Constancy than Arms and open violence She can still subsist and gain by such a state whereas the Civil state is perfectly dissolved when once that violence becomes irresistable The Magistrate is by the Law of Nations allowed to return violence for violence and to do many things when provoked by his Enemy which the Church can never decently do on any Provocation whatsoever It is for the Interest of the Magistrate if he look on Religion as his Interest that the Church should be free in her Actings for Reformation of manners which she cannot be if the Bishops must at his pleasure be turned out of their Office for no other reason but their being faithful to it The Church withal was designed by GOD for a Society that should correspond all the World over as they did anciently by their Communicatory Letters as to Spirituals For her Censures can significe nothing for reclaiming Hereticks or ill Livers if they extend no further than her own Jurisdiction if they exclude not from Catholick as well as Diocesan Communion She ought therefore to enquire into new Opinions as they may occasion difference of Communion that she may neither recommend Heriticks
Swerve unnecessarily from the Custom which had been used in the Church even when it lived under Infidels I know not why others should not emulate the Example of so great a Prince if they also would be esteem'd in the Judgment of so great a Person Virtuous I know not why it should not be counted commendable also in them if they also had made Conscience to Swerve unnecessarily from these acknowledged antient Ecclesiastical Liberties He owns that this same Excellent Prince ratified the Order which had been before exhorting the Bishops to look to the Church and promising that he would do the Office of a Bishops over the Commonwealth and when he did take cognizance of Causes of this kind yet this great Person doubts whether he did so as purposing to give them Judicially any Sentence Here we find plain confessions that the Church was in possession of these Liberties before the Conversion of this first Christian Emperor and that Emperor himself was so sensible of this Possession that he made a Conscience of invading it And who could better Judge of his Right as a Christian Prince than he who was the first example of it Mr. Hooker does indeed think that Constantine abstained from what he might lawfully do But he seems plainly to grant that the Emperor was of another mind when he says he made a Conscience of doing what Mr. Hooker thinks he might have done That same Judicious Person adds further with reference to our particular Laws in England There is no Cause given unto any to make Supplication as Hilary did that Civil Governours to whom Common wealth matters only belong may not presume to take upon them the Judgment of Ecclesiastical Causes If the Cause be Spiritual Secular Courts do not meddle with it We need not excuse our selves with Ambrose but boldly and lawfully we may refuse to answer before any Civil Judge in a matter which is not Civil so that we do not mistake either the Nature of the Cause or of the Court as we easily may do both without some better direction than can be by the Rules of this new sound Discipline But of this most CERTAIN we are that our Laws do neither suffer a Spiritual Court to entertain in those Causes which by the Law are Civil nor yet if the matter be indeed Spiritual a meer Civil Court to give Judgment of it Thus Mr. Hookeer And he proves what he says in the Margin from passages of the Laws themselves and the Book de Nat. Brevium and Bracton plainly asserting the difference of those two Jurisdictions I am sensible what a Scope I have here of enquiring into the Laws themselves and proving this Independently on the Testimony of this admirable Man But perhaps I have already said more than can be Printed in this difficulty of our Circumstances I therefore say no more at present but refer our Adversaries to him The rather because he is indeed against me in making the Church one Body with the believing State and because one of our Adversaries has expresly insisted on his Authority Both these reasons as well as the distance of the Age he lived in are sufficient to clear him of any the least suspicion of partiality on our side Even in this very Cause he defends the Use of Lay Persons joyn'd in Commission with Spiritual ones for determining Spiritual Affairs And possibly he may do so by Examples if all Examples must pass for Precedents since Henry VIIIths Usurpations But when King JAMES the II added Laymen in the same Commission with the Bishops concerned in the Case of the Bishop of London with a Power of Deprivation or Suspension ab Officio as well as a Beneficio it is very well known that his Lordship excepted against the competency of his Lay Judges that as a Bishop of the Catholick Church he ought to be tryed by Bishops only His Lorpship would do well now to remember his own Plea then in order to the judging of his own Case now how he can justify his Communicating with those who are set up against his Colleagues deprived no otherwise than by a Lay Power It is well known that his Council then Learned in our Laws insisted on this Plea as maintainable by our present Laws made since the Constitution of the Ecclesiastical Supremacy And what good Church of England Man was there then that did not think the Plea very just and reasonable Let those Lawyers be pleased to recollect what they had to say on that Case and try whether it will not also affect our present deprivations It is very certain that the Liberties of H. Church are the very first things provided for in Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath so that if these things be not inviolable nothing else can be so being Fundamental to all the Security that can be given by our present Constitution And it is no way reasonable that bare Precedents without express Acts for Alienating such Rights as these are should be thought sufficient for extinguishing a Claim grounded on so inviolable a Security If they be so Henry the VIIIth made such Precedents for violating Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath too that no Liberties of the People can now be secure And it is withal as certain that in the Disputes which occasioned the passing Magna Charta this particular of the exemption of the Clergy was one point principally insisted on Nay it was insisted on then to higher purposes than were reasonable or than I am concerned for now so far as to exempt them from Secular Courts even when they were guilty of Secular Crimes and even so it was most frequently determined in favour of the Clergy That was Becket's Dispute which generally prevailed in the following Ages when he was Canonized and when Henry the IId had submitted to Pennance for what he had done in opposition to him This Case of their Exemption as to their Spirituals which is all for which I am now concerned was than so generally acknowledged even by the Laity themselves that there was very little occasion of disputing it Rarely was it ever invaded and more rarely yet if ever was that Invasion defended by themselves who were guilty of it till the Unhappy Times of Henry the VIIIth So uncontroverted was the Right for which I plead that I do not think our Adversaries can give one single Instance of substituting a Successor into a See vacated by no better than a Lay deprivation This privilege therefore against Lay deprivations was so undoubtedly the sense of Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath that on that account as well as in point of Right all Patriots ought to be Zealous for it as well as all good Christians all who have a true Concern for those Two Fundamental Securities of Property as well as of Religion all who are so wise as to foresee how far Precedents of violating them in one Instance may proceed for violating them in others also §