is that which you promise me from the Scriptures I pray out with that too that I may either reply to it or send it to the Censure of Gilman's Coffee-House or the Impartial Reflections of a Private Friend Eucher I cannot be sullen to you to whose Felicity and sound Judgment I wish with all my Soul I could contribute And you being men of Religion that can dare to suffer for what you think right and sacred will be like to have greater respect to good and clever Arguments from the Holy Oracles We will therefore consider the several Settlements of the Children of Israel under Civil Forms of Government and try whether their actual plenitude consisted in a National Contract or any other bottom And in order hereunto I shall observe two sorts of Settlements among them one Consequent to an Antecedent Right and Title the other constituent of the Title to and in the Sovereignty And according to this Order I begin with the former First Then God upon a good original and antecedent Title actually settles himself in the political Royalty and Government of that People hence by Divines usually called the Theocracy by that Covenant at Sinai by which he properly and peculiarly became their God and King also and they his peculiar People not only under a Religious and Ecclesiastical but also a Civil Relation Exod. 19. Exod. 24. alib passim When God himself and Samuel the Prophet in God's Name had entitled Saul to the Throne of Israel by a sacred Unction yet was he afterwards actually and fully settled therein by the Popular Engagement of true Allegiance to him and was hence said to be made and chosen King as well by the People as by God and Samuel 1 Sam. chap. 9. Chap. 10. Chap. 11. Chap. 12. Thus tho' David's Title to that Succession was divinely originated in the Unction of Samuel 1 Sam. 16. yet his full and actual Settlement over Judah consisting in his Unction by the People in Hebron 2 Sam. 2. and after the death of Ishbosheth he was thro'ly and actually settled over the other Tribes by their Covenant and Unction transacted by their Elders 2 Sam. 5. And Solomon tho' designed by God and advanced by David and anointed by Zadock into the full Title unto that Sovereignty was yet finally and compleatly settled in that Throne of the Lord by the consequent Acts and Unction of that People as an Induction on an antecedent Presentation and Institution 1 Kings 1. 1 Chron. Chap. 24. Chap. 25. And thus to Rehoboams Paternal Title the People were to add their Actual Consummation of his Settlement in like manner 1 King 11. 2 Chron. 10. And last of all Jehu who by a Prophetick Unction and Gods Designation had a Divine Right and Title to the Sovereignty of the Ten Tribes and began to make way to his Actual Settlement by the slaughter of Joram Ahaziah and Jezabel yet sends to the Council at the Royal City Samaria and bids them settle the best and meetest of their Masters Sons on the Throne of their Father Ahab as knowing that that had been the usual Office of the Senate But they not daring to oppose Jehu tho' perhaps they knew nothing of his Prophetick Unction reply that they would not make any King i. e. any but himself but they contract a total submission to him and sealed that Contract in the Blood of Ahab's Sons and so actually admitted him into the full Settlement and Possession of that Sovereignty 2 Kings Chap. 9. Chap. 10. So that tho' these Titles to the Sovereignty were not founded in the Grant of the People but of God yet the full Settlement of all these New Kings consequent to their Titles did consist in the Publick Contract and Recognition of the People Secondly The Peoples Concurrence was sometimes constituent of a Title meerly human as well as a full and formal Settlement Thus the People would have given Gideon an hereditary Monarchy Judges 8. as the Elders of Gilead made Jephthah their Captain Judges 11. and as the Shechemites did what in them lay entitle Abimelech Judges 9. The Ten Tribes made Jeroboam King which God that had preingaged it by his Prophet ratified by an inhibition against Rehoboams recovery 2 Kings 12. 2 Chron. Chap. 10. Chap. 11. But Zimri who reigned but seven days in Tirzah without the full consent of the whole People wanted a good Title as well as a full Settlement thereupon and so was opposed by the Camp at Gibbethon who set up Omri against him and so he perished in a Fire of his own kindling 1 Kings 16. And this was that perhaps which Jezabel objects to Jehu 2 Kings 9. Had Zimri peace who slew his Master Did the people permit him a full and peaceable Settlement in the Throne who slow his own Sovereign Which Omri however obtained after the extinction of Tibni his Competitor 1 Kings 16.22 23. Thus in the Kingdom of Judah after Josiah's death the People of the Land took Jehoahaz probably the younger Brother to Eliakim and made him King And in that Act of the People the fulness of his Title as well as his Actual Settlement seems to have consisted 2 Kings 23. 2 Chron. 36. So that in short the Regular Constitution of their Native Kings was that subordinately to Gods Election the People should settle each New Line according to the direction of the Law Deut. 17.14 15. When thou shalt say I will set a King over me thou shalt in any wise set him King over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose c. But in the degeneracy of the Ten Tribes they set up Kings by their own Act alone without waiting or consulting the Will of God as he complains Osee 8.4 They have set up Kings but not by me they have made them Princes but I knew it not Yet God's permission hereof made the usage valid to a Title meerly human tho' done contrary to the Law And therefore to Baasha who came in this way God says 1 Kings 16.2 I have exalted thee out of the Dust and made thee Prince over my People Israel Now these things in fact were done as well in injury to the Heirs-Royal as to God and yet the full and actual Settlement by the People according to their modes gave them a form of human Title which was civily valid tho' not otherwise and especially Sacred And to conclude since it is recorded that God at first granted them Kings at their request after the manner of the Nations 1 Sam. 8. it intimates that this was then the Formal Rule of New Settlements at least among all the bordering Nations However this Office of the People being always the final Act must needs give the last plenitude to the Settlement and God surely in the admission of these Forms must be granted to know and judge them to be full and final whatsoever else was or might be sometimes constituent of an antecedent Title which the Convocation-Book does not make essentially
seasonably tell you that the alteration of our Sovereigns was more legal than the change of the Theocracy to Chaldaean Persian Graecian and Roman Sovereigns yet even for these the Jews were to offer Prayers and Sacrifices and so is the Greek Church to pray for the new Grand Seigniors brought into the Sovereignty upon the rebellious expulsion of the former yet surviving in Bonds and Prison without any scruple of Allegiance to their new Master hereupon Now if they ought to make an Ecclesiastical Opposition to such an Imperial Change then their ready conformity thereto puts them into that same state of sinful Religion which you charge upon us and how then are they in and we out of Right to Ecclesical Communion But to speak truth I could not have thought that men of such Primitive Rigour and Purity could Ligitimate that great corruption in the Greek Church which tho' of it self it doth not actually and totally Unchurch them yet it is a most deplorable profanation of the supreamest Order in their Hierarchy and such as a General Council upon the perpetual Sense and Principles of the Church Catholick cannot but condemn for impious and irregular But now I am under a passionate concern for this Author lest this Principle of his bring him under that Heresie which your learned Vindicator of the deprived Bishops if he keeps up an impregnable impartiality against all Errors will be apt to find in it Sure I am here is laid a Rule for our Church to admit from the State even the most arbitrary removes and changes of Bishops for no cause at all but only to humour the State in Tyranny or Simony according to Doct. Hody's Doctrine and here is conceded far more than was by the subscription of a Popish Convocation for fear of a Premunire and more than the Pope or Henry VIII ever arrogated to their Headship or Supremacy and to use your former words * Sol. Ab. p. 29. a blemish not to be endured in any Church whatsoever it incurs for the Opposition But so it is and so it will be when men are pressed too hard in point of Argument that to avoid one absurdity they run into another which is many times worse and more notoriously offensive Dyscher Well then we 'll let alone the Greek Church herein to Gods Judgment But as for you that think to shelter your selves under their shade you are not capable of that their Plea For I do not know that we want an Ecclesiastical Judge Our Metropolitan with his Suffragans are a sufficient and proper Judge And if they have not lata sententia which there may be great Reason to forbear yet in Praxi their Judgments are sufficiently declared T. B's 2d Lett. p. â—1 Eucher That the deprived Metropolitan and Fathers are a proper Court or Council of Ecclesiastical Judges upon all conforming Bishops Clergy and Laity of the Realm I do utterly deny for many Reasons In the Province of York they have no jurisdiction nor can they make a distinct Synod from the rest of their Colleagues within the Province of Canterbury So that had a Synod of meer Bishops been called therein before any Bishops made by King William this had been a Synod against which no Uncanonical Ordination or Enthronement could have been objected and yet the Majority of these would have condemned their Recusancy if we may judge of their Sentence by their Conformity But further by our Constitution the Body of the Clergy are concerned in our Synods and which way think you would your Cause have gone in a full and Canonical Convocation This your wife Author of Christian Communion well saw and therefore would not adventure the issue * Part 2. Ch. 4. to a Synodical Determination But yet neither have these Fathers given a definitive Sentence of Excision upon us which yet is necessary where the actual Excision passes not meerly on the uncontested notoriety and malignity of the Crime which we suppose at present not to be our State And let the Reasons of their forbearing Sentence be what they will yet as long as we are not self-condemned but stand upon our Defence we are not yet actually excommunicate by any effectual judgment of these Fathers Nor can their practice amount to so much either Legally or intentionally Time was and yet is I believe when several of these Fathers would not censure our Submission to the present Civil Government as criminal and heinous And one of those Prelates in a publick Oration to his Clergy strictly charged them to abstain from all oblique Reflections on each other for refusing or admitting the Oath of New Allegiance but to retain Charitable Opinions each toward the other which being a publick act of that Father 's at the head of his Diocess will not I hope be denyed as a Lye nor may I be condemned for uncovering a secret since this was not such nor transacted in a corner nor need that Reverend Father be ashamed or unwilling to own it since it was a most Illustrious Indication of his Excellent Piety and Moderation but withal a clear confutation of that pretended censure which you place in their Practice For the Practice of not Swearing may in several Men have several causes some may condemn the Allegiance some may doubt only some may have aspects on another Revolution others to the reproach of our and to the esteem of another Party some to their former Writings or Pretensions points of honour or the Fatigues of a Publick Station So that except one unanimous Sentence against the Allegiance be judicially given the argument from practice is very unconcluding But besides the Practice of the Majority will as much condemn them as theirs can us if this be of any such importance toward a Judicial Excommunication So silly it is for Men to hunt after such feeble Cavils on purpose that they may seem to have somewhat to say and not be born down by that Truth against which they have formed a Faction Dyscher Well However I told you that there is danger in your Communion and I should have added that the sin is unavoidable in it because the Secession was on your side from us and Righteousness we still continuing as we were but see I pray what answer you made me hereupon that I may take off the vizor and lay open your Hypocrisie You say * Sol. Ab. p. 6. that though our Church Justly and Absolutely rejects the Roman Monarchy yet she will not refuse any Lawful Communion or correspondence with it in any good Ecclesiastical Negotiations consistent with Integrity saving still a Publick Remonstrance to all her Pollutions What can be the meaning of this but that your Church is ready and willing to joyn in Communion with the Church of Rome as many of your Brethren take the Oath with a Declaration This and no other can be your meaning else your Argument and Parallel is sensless and insignificant for thus it follows so should you
uncertain Rochester Letter make the Abdication manifestly false since he says it makes the Disertion so Here I doubt his Courage will fail him lest his Argument and his Dedication follow the fate of the Pastoral Letter And yet it is manifest that though K. James made many large and previous steps to the Subverting our Constitution yet the Final Abdication of the whole Government consisted in his Desertion from whence the Vacancy Commenced and if this were no otherwise manifest we have Mr. Johnson's own Averment who tells us * ibid page 29. That we have an Act of Parliament which declares the Realm of England to have been Sovereign during that time of Vacancy between K. James's second flight and K. William's Admission by ordering all Indictments from the time of K. James ' s withdrawing till the 13th of February to run in their Name 'T is true indeed that meer Local Desertion of the Land of which there may be many Causes does not ipso facto extinguish the Sovereignty except it be judicially interpretable to an Abdication from other concurrent Circumstances and Indications on want of which a demand of Return becomes reasonable and the neglect thereof interprets the Recession to an Abdication but when there are evident tokens of yielding up a Government in the form manner causes and circumstances of such Local Desertion then a summons of Return is not necessary in point of Law or National Duty upon the antecedent forms of Virtual Abdication apparent in such Departure If therefore his Act of Disertion in its own form made a Legal and Effectual Abdication his Rochester Letter imports no more than that his words and actions are contradictory in quitting by deed and claiming by word the same Right at the same time Upon this Abdication therefore the Throne becoming actually Vacant was by the Act of the Nation filled up with their Majesties And here upon whatsoever powers K. James endeavours to Exert as they do not reach us nor send out their vertue by legal ways of course so are they too late and out of season not to mention that his late ways of Exertion under French Conduct how honest soever you may call them look not very natural or smiling upon English Men If we sum up the matter he was ruining all the Laws and Liberties with the Religion of the Lands he Ruled and they were just on the Precipice under his Exertions so that the Nation needed and gasped for relief under them Upon this the Prince of Orange having Great Interests and Legal Expectations here comes over with a declared Intention to set all things at Right in such order as the English Parliament should adjust which was a fair and most equal design this then was the time for K. James to have Exerted his Royal Power Justice too in calling a Parliament for such purposes according to the sense of the whole Nation earnestly recommended to him by his Prelates Nobles and Counsellors for a long time by sundry Addresses even to the last and he having sent out some writs thereunto seemed a while enclined but upon Romish Advice recalls that purpose and instead of doing us that Justice was resolved to contest it with the Sword Hereupon his Army which had he called a Parliament to have healed the Nation would have secured him against all Forreign and Domestick Violence sunk their Affections as having no maw to Fight for him against their Native Country Liberties and Religion disperse by degrees and great part go over to that which they knew to be the Juster Cause and he being thus daily weakned retires disbands the rest and even not then calling a Parliament to help himself and us out of the Confusion he flies away to the Grand Enemy and Terrour of this Nation and leaves us to shift for our selves under those Aspects and apprehensions of dangers that lay before us If then he would not exert a Legal Power when he might 't is too late to offer at any Forreign ways of Exertion after a New Settlement or 't is at least unreasonable to demand our Reception of them to the destroying of our Redeemer after a National Allegiance given him for his sake who ever pursued our general Ruine against the Laws his Oath the ties of Natural Affection and the Sighs Groans and Requests of his Loyal People And whereas you say we may have his Power and Presence too if we will as lovely as that may be fancied 't is more than you can warrant For if we were disposed to accept your offers if he should come with a French force are you secured that the French would permit him to be as free and independent a Monarch as before 'T is possible they might erect him for a Vassal titularly Royal till their strength were fixed and then upon demand of Expences or other pretexts pick a quarrel with him to annihilate him for their Masters Glory Or supposing the French King for once a true Friend to King James would not his Forces make King James an Arbitrary Monarch here to exert more than a legal Power over all the Bodies and Souls Estates Coffers and Purses of the Nation If we had had any maw for such Power we might easily have had it while he was here and not have been beholden to the French for the Commodity But if King James should concert privately with us to return without any French measures or services can you assure us to keep this secret from the French King Or if you fail in point of secrecy are you sure he will let King James go or treat with us in neglect of his Interests and Pleasure Or would he not rather Bastile him for Ingratitude and treat him hereupon after his usual methods of humanity Thus pretty are your Projects to expose the Fate and Fortunes of Nations upon and discover such a distemper in the Brain as requires the Law of Bedlam rather than any other consideration Dyscher When we deny the Authority by which your Estates sate you ask us by what Authority was that Free Parliament called or sate that voted in King Charles the Second Sir if you please let another be called and vote in King James the Second When things are out of Order and good men set them to Rights again I do not think any man will oppose it upon the score of some small niceties but when subjects rebel against their Prince and drive him away and make that the ground of their going on and doing farther wickedness I cannot understand the Authority of this There is certainly in every man an innate natural Power and Authority to wish well to and vote for Right By virtue of this when things were in confusion the Subjects of King Charles the Second returning to their Wits and Allegiance send a convenient number to act for the whole who recall their rightful King and if you should do so likewise I should not be very quarrelsom with you But whatever
particularly named above other Orders in these national Prayers against Enemies And the reason is obvious because the interest of the whole Nations is summed up in the Felicity of their Kings So that they that are his Enemies are taken for the Nations Enemies also in these Prayers In praying therefore against K. William's Enemies we consider him not merely as a single solitary Person but as our Sovereign Head on whose welfare our own also depends and so in his Enemies we pray against our own also Seventhly we must enquire whether K. James must in our Prayers inevitably come into the number of K. William's enemies and so by civil Construction the Nations enemies Now when these Prayers were first ordered and received K. James was in no part of his old Dominions nor in any actual sensible military Hostility against K. William any where For tho' the Irish were in Commotion yet K. James was not there nor does it appear that they acted on his Commission but mere presumption and that not against K. William till his Armies came thither but their domestic Protestants only It seemed a while as if K. James had sat down and yielded up to his fate and state of desertion After the settled course of these Prayers re-animated by the French King he enters â—â—â—land and K. William follows In the mean time â—he course and sense of the Prayers was still the same râ—â—ning in generals and not altering by those changes bâ—yond the Irish Channel as there was no reason they should And so K. James was no more particularized after than before this in our Prayers Yet if his personal behaviour toward K. William at the Boyne doth not evince the contrary I will allow you that then he was a military enemy But still the grand question is whether also he was a moral enemy and so within the intention of our Prayers by his then present breaking it off from England and his designs thereby to recover England And plain it is that the sence of our Nation which is valid and cogent to all Civil obligations doth conclude him an injurious and moral enemy to K. William and this Realm For Ireland belonging thro' a long fixed Right to the Crown of England it must appear injurious after an effectual Abdication of this Crown and a Settlement of a Title therein upon K. William to invade Ireland and so to reduce us here under war for a recovery thereof and a defence of our own land from his illegal claims and pretensions And whereas without any sense of modesty you say that I assert K. James and K. William not to be enemies but good friends viz. that K. James is so friendly to K. William for that he intends K. William no injury you may resume your forehead and remember that I only said we are not sure that K. James designs K. William injury But what we are not infallibly sure of we may verily believe and presume from all the Rules of humane Judgment upon acts of Hostility And in all humane opinion his Invasion of Ireland was injurious but since all judicial Determinations must be left and referred to God's Judgment we not mentioning K. James in the number of K. Williams Enemies do not pass our internal and personal Censure on the Conscience of K. James before our God but remit that to God the Judge of all Kings and Nations But if private Persons will intermix their own personal opinions upon such superiour Causes where they need not then they who think K. James a moral Enemy to K. William do use our forms against him on that presumption of his injury they that do not think so of K. James do not in this form of Liturgy pray against him And the Liturgy not compelling us in the acts of our Religion to condemn K. James as morally injurious does not oblige any man determinately to involve him under any of our imprecations And whereas our Prayers are upbraided in the second Chapter of your first Book of Christian Communion as directed against Right for the maintenance of wrong it hereby appears how much mistaken that great Author was for whosoever can but comport with the Sovereign Style of their present Majesties may use these Prayers without prejudice to any real Rights of K. James or his own private opinions concerning it As to K. James's Personal hurt or injury let them that can feed an evil wish it for me God hath disabled him from overturning our Constitutions and hath settled us under good and equal Governours and that is enough and if K. James be elsewhere happy as long as he hurts not us we need no further trouble our selves or him And I do verily believe their present Majesties as little require my Prayers for his hurt as you do For time was when he was in the hands of K. William who had he designed to hurt him might have done it and thereby have prevented all the pretensions that have cost so much Blood and Treasure in Ireland But 't was piously done to abstain his hands from Royal Blood and leave the Issues of his undertakings to the Rules of innocency on which only he could dare to pray for and expect God's blessing But further you have forgotten one Argument perhaps because it was inconsiderable whereby it appears that our prayers are not pointed against any Rights of K. James or to any hurt of his Person for that we pray for all Christian Kings Princes and Governours even thâ—se against whom we wage open war And out of these Prayers we do not except even the most Christian King but pray for the preservation of him also in all his Rights our war not obstructing this practice of Piety even to our greatest enemies which we observe from the precept and example of our most blessed Saviour And therefore though it were true what you would seem to prove in form of Argument that K. James is accounted a greater Enemy and if you please add a greater King too than the French King yet no Enmity ought to be great enough to overcome our Religion and Charity in praying for our very greatest Enemies even while we pray against their Enmities But let us however see whether K. William and his Subjects do take K. James for a greater Enemy than the French King who it seems to you is accounted an Enemy only for asserting K. James's Cause First then if we take the moral notion of Enemy no man can judge whether K. James or K. Lewis has the greater internal enmity against K. William If we go upon the military notion it is apparently false that K. James either is or is accounted a greater Enemy than he that is the greatest in Arms of all the Christian Monarchs So that your axiom from whence you form your Argument Propter quod unumquodque est tale id magis est tale tho' true in Physical Causalities and Operations yet fails in moral Influences and Inducements such as are the reasons
of Crimes * Sol and Ab. pag. 19 20. as Apostasie Heresie Schism c. and demanded whether the Clergy and People may desert a Bishop under such pestilential crimes and impostures and procure another from Social Bishops For if they may Canonically do this in such Cases then perhaps they may canonically do so in other which tho' not so designedly malignant yet necessitate an exauctoration tho' founded in meer infirmities and too pious prejudices as I explained my self in those very passages at which it seems the gall of T. B. is exasperated Dyscher Well I think it not decent for us to draw hard on this invidious subject let us if you please discuss the Canonical forms of your procedure herein which your party generally defends from pretended precedents of Civil Authorities over the Jewish High Priests and the Practice of Christian Churches in submission to Imperial Orders especially the Greek Church under Turkîsh Changes made in their Patriarchal See Now the most famous instance among the Jewish High Priest is that of Solomons deprivation of Abiathar Which tho' you endeavoured to parallel to our present Case yet herein I brought you such just exceptions as neither you nor all your Party will be able to take off For if the Crime was nothing like if there was such a difference between the Constitutions of the Jewish and Christian Churches if it was a manifest Cession on Abiathar's part all which I well proved then that Instance can by no means come up to this Case T. B. Sec. Lett. pag. 36. Eucher Tho' I could not deny the force of your reasonings upon this instance yet have I consulted my friends upon it as well as you have done upon me And the chiefest of their senses I will lay before you to which if you can make any weighty reply you must not thence conclude a vice or fault in the Cause for if I cannot defend it my self perhaps its proper Patrons may who as they have singular Opinions so have they as singular abilities to maintain them Dyscher This is a secure Caution for your own Reputation tho' it betrays an inward suspicion of the Arguments you intend to produce But however since it is but just that no personal defects should prejudice a good Cause and that one man's Errors should not affect another man's Estimation I grant you your Demand and therefore I pray proceed Eucher Have you not seen the Book entitled The Case of Sees Vacant c. whose learned Authors felicity is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This great man pretends to dissolve all your machins against this grand Precedent for a Lay-Deprivation and I will exhibite you his Argumentations according to your and his Order First then he observes that * Case of Sees Vacant c. Chap. 2. § 2. this perhaps may be the Plea of our Adversaries in answer to the examples of the Jewish High-Priest that the Office of a Bishop amonst us is much more Spiritual than the Office of those High-Priests To that Plea I answer that he that considers the true and full import of the Question now before us will find it to be no other than this whether a Person duly invested with an Ecclesiastical Office of God's own Institution and Ordinance being deposed by the Lay-power any other can lawfully succeed in that Office Now as to God's particular Institution and Appointment whatsoever otherwise the difference may be which is needless for us to contend about it is certain that the Jewish High-Priests were rather superior than inferior to our Bishops 'T was by God himself and that too in an extraordinary manner that the Office of the High-Priest was instituted and it was from God alone that he received his Authority If therefore a Person was accepted by God as a true and real High-Priest tho' put into the room of another deposed by Civil Authority then a Bishop likewise may be truly a Bishop and accordingly ought to be received tho' put into the place of a Bishop deposed by that Power To this I add that the annual Expiation for the Sins of the whole People was to be performed by the High-Priest This was the chief of the federal Rites of that Religion and that to which our Saviour's offering himself up a Sacrifice is particularly compared in the Epistle to the Hebrews And this they did ex opere operato so that it was of the greatest Consequence to the Jews to have this Divine Institution performed by one appointed to it by God And tho' no provision was made for Cases of necessity yet necessity was understood to be a provision for it self And it is certain these annual Expiations were accepted of God till our Saviour's days For that is a certain Consequence of their being still in Covenant with God since these Expiations were the yearly renewing of that Covenant Nor can any of the performances of the Christian Priesthood be compared to this unless we believe the Power of Transubstantiating These examples of the Jewish High-Priest alone were there no other to be alledged would sufficiently warrant our submission to our present Possessors Dyscher This Doctrine of that learned Doctors is very new and amazing in every Sentence of it as also is his original Principle But whether it be of sincere Metal or no must be tried by the proper Touchstone First then it is strange that he shou'd affirm it certain that the High-Priests are rather Superior to our Bishops as to the Divinity of their Institution For are not Bishops instituted originally by God himself and in a manner more extraordinary than that of Aaron's Consecration For this appears indeed in the Levitical Law to be divinely solemn and glorious as far as external Pomp and Ceremony could adorn it and an Oracular Power of Judgment in things Temporal sanctifie him but yet as the Agent for God in this Consecration was a Servant only viz. Moses so the Oracular Sanctity was not purely Spiritual But the first Bishops were the Apostles made so not by the Hand of a Servant but the Son of God himself in our own Flesh ordaining them with an extraordinary Power of Miracles of all kinds with the insufflation of the Holy Ghost in order to the remission and retaining of sins upon the Soul by the Acts of an Authority to be ratified in Heaven To them the Sacraments were committed the Laver of Regeneration and the Mystery of our Incorporation into Christ and Participation of his Holy Spirit besides the glorious Effusion of the Spirit on them at the Feast of Pentecost consecrating them Preachers of the Resurrection of Christ with an amazing Glory in the sight of all Nations gathered together at Jerusalem in a manner more superlatively divine than any the meaner Forms of Aaron's Investiture Besides the Doctor may as well prefer the Institution of the meanest Levites to that of the Highest Apostles upon the same grounds on which he hath so superexalted the Jewish Pontiff who was
will all cease and sink of Course when once men see we scorn them For Shame Conviction and Reproach of Conscience upon the sense of our magnanimous and meek Patience will naturally quench the Spirit of persecution and open a glorious liberty and venerable Authority to the Church of God But our base fears of worldly greatness on one hand and the baser affectation of it on the other hath universally effaced all the glories of Religion and Piety throughout the world and looks like a gloomy prognostic of Ecclesiastical Ruines and Confusion But that †This is the strain of Dr. Hody's great adversary Clergy men themselves should court and invite an Hierarchical servitude and apply the bowstring to the throat of their holy Mother by Principles contrived to strangle all her Apostolical Powers and Authorities is such a daring presumption as needs a greater than the annual Expiation And if the Dr. should live to see his Principles pursued by either Civil or Tyrannical Powers to the arbitrary Subversions of Gods Priests or if otherwise he shall live to think feelingly of that most holy Authority vested in Bishops by God himself whose Ambassadours Vicegerents and Representatives they are the contempt of whom affronts even Christ himself he will not think every violent Intruder that like a Robber comes not in by the door to be a regular Messenger of the Lord of Hosts and that the most audacious Sacriledge hath entitled him to a Divine Character and consecrated his Authority and Communion He will then with sighs and unappeasable groans of Spirit anathematize the instances and design of his Baroccian Treatise and the ill use of his own infinite reading and diligence to recommend the baseness and villanies of degenerous Churches concerning which at present I leave him and his Adversaries to fight it out at Argument In the mean time I will only note that tho' Civil power or force may put intruding Bishops into the Palaces and Revenues of the Bishopric's by un-canonical Violences yet they cannot be possessed of Spiritual Authorities by any mere secular or incompetent Power or Authority and so we on our part deny the Drs. Intruders the present possessors of the real Episcopacy in the abused Dioceses Eucher If the Dr. should hear you talk at this rate he would not take it very kindly I believe But I will make proof of your prowess against him in the famous instance of Solomon and Abiathar For the Dr. having asserted Abiathar properly deposed by the mere Royal act and power of Solomon refutes five or six principal opinions to the contrary and among them yours of Cession with such a contemptuous turn of hand as exposes it for ridiculous For he utterly baffles you with the bare repetition of the LXXII version on which you seem to lay the greatest stress and force of your opinion And it is no small impeachment of your understanding to take that as an Argument for your Cause which it notoriously condemns Let me therefore clear up your eyes with some of the Doctors Arguments You therefore say that * Sol. Ab. pag. 22. King Solomon did not properly and judicially deprive Abiathar of the High-Priesthood but only commanded or required him to quit it on pain of death And to this purpose you quote the words of Solomon to Abiathar according to the Hebrew and the LXXII which latter you paraphrase so as to infer an option in Abiathar whether he would with dishonour retire from his Office or suffer death this latter being in the rightful Power of the King if Abiathar would not yield in the former So that Abiathars Priesthood determined on his own volutary Cession not the Kings Ecclesiastical sure Now how does the Dr. cut off this * Case of Sees pag. 18. In answer to this saith he I need but produce the words of the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This excepting the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are removed from the latter Clause to the antecedent agrees exactly with the Hebrew and the natural Sense of these words is no other than what we have in our English Translation with which all Interpreters agree Josephus as is plain * Case of Sees pag. 18. from his words above produced the Chaldee Paraphrast the Syriac and the Arabic and the old Latin Translators who all understand the Texts of a Positive and Authoritative ejectment And that it was a positive command not an Opinion proposed to Abiathar but an absolute Deprivation is yet more plain from the words which immediately follow so Solomon thrust out Abiathar in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So the Doctor Dyscher 'T is strange that so Learned a man could fancy this to be an answer especially since I see not how he can clear himself from inconsistency or open error For if it were a positive command to Abiathar as he grants how could it be an absolute Deprivation which he asserts I owned it to be a command as positive and requiring as the Dr. but for that very reason denyed it to be a proper Act of Judicial Deprivation because judicial Sentences are not direct commands on the Offenders to excuse their own punishments but decrees of punishments to be executed by other hands as in Joabs Case which so apparently differs in Form from this of Abiathar Besides a command of self-execution as it may actually so may it lawfully be disobeyed and rendred ineffectual and it is in any such mans choice whether he will submit to it or no and the truth is no man will yield thereto but for fear of greater Danger Now if there had been no other prospect of Danger Abiathar would not have obeyed this so positive command of Solomon and if he had not actually obeyed the mere command being frustrate by his neglect had not been an absolute Deprivation that then which in it self was no absolute Deprivation without Abiathars consent and obedience which was not alone so as the Dr. contends and his office became void by Cession not mere Deprivation For it is a great mistake in the Dr. to imagine that positive commands destroy Option For tho' the commands of God upon our Practices are all as absolute as possible yet are they proposed to our option Thus saith God in his * Deuteronomy Ch. 30. v. 19. I set before you life and death blessing and cursing therefore choose life that thou and thy seed may live The Law and Gospel though in the preceptive part they are most properly Laws yet have also the nature and form of a Covenant in them and the punishments inflicted by vertue of them are justified not only from the nature of the crimes but our own option But let us see whether this command were so positive as these Laws whether it were so much the declaration of the Kings own will as a concessive indulgence to the will of Abiathar It is plain then herein K. Solomon offered him an easier condition than his
none away nor made them break off from any just and due Spiritual Dependence on their former Bishops whose own heretical Doctrine and corrupt Ministrations had made the people cease from depending any longer in Conscience upon them They wanted only to be Lawfully empowered and regularly ordained themselves by Episcopal Imposition of hands as all those reformed Bishops plainly were and so were no Spiritual Intruders nor guilty of any Civil Vsurpation or Injustice But where Bishops are Orthodox and are deprived for their adherence to Truth and Righteousness both in their private Practice and Publick Ministrations the people are still left Spiritually to depend on them And so we our selves should have thought at least we all seem as if we should if by Gods Providence the Civil State had gone on to ddprive our reformed Bishops for sticking to the Doctrines and Worship of the Reformation and had set up Popish Bishops in their places c. Vide. Eucher This Doctrine of that learned Person must be admitted with a grain of Salt or else it will be very unwholesom and prove very convulsive in the Ecclesiastick Body For tho every single Christian is to abhor and defie all false Doctrine condemned by the unanimous Sense and suffrage of the Universal Church from Divine Authorities yet single Persons cannot distributively and alone reject their Bishops as not Bishops for heretical Opinions or corrupt Ministrations which the general Body and all Orders of the Church do not uniformly censure irregular and renounce their Authors except a just and regular Sentence pass in form against them When Churches are concorporated into Provincial and Diocesan Unions there must be some public conduct for the diffusive multitude to a due discussion of Principles in order to such Divorces Thus of old when grievances arose from suspected Bishops the people appealed to Synods to judge upon their Cause but in Cases notorious they addressed to other Churches Bishops and Synods to allow their necessary Rejection of their irregular Bishop and ordain them others And this usage was as common as useful till the Papal Usurpations rendred it impracticable in the Western Church and so necessitated extraordinary forms of reformation For here the Prince and the People and a great Body of the Clergy having an Ecclesiastical Cause of Controversie against the Marian Bishops unrelievable by any fair domestic or foreign Synod were forced upon the Notoriety of the Evil to use extraordinary measures of purgation not by rabble or incoherent Partitions but by a National Judgment in Parliament as a middle expedient as well against intestine Schisms as Romish abuses upon which discharge of Papal Tyranny a way was opened to that true and uniform Sense of true Religion which the whole emancipated Church presently received with a glad and chearful Uniformity which was a felicity however not atchievable by a loose unorganized Multitude Since then the whole People of this Land did in their National Senate Vindicate the pure Religion established in former Convocations from the Marian Bishops the enacted Deprivation was designed more against their Spiritual Conduct than their Temporal fortunes and the People followed that publick intention not their own private counsel in the reception of new Bishops and the models of reformation And herein such measures of prudence were observed which cannot be secured in a promiscuous multitude which I wonder that Author did not consider For a Priest is not immediatly upon dropping of an Error materially heretical to be taken by all at random for a formal and self-deprived heretic or Anathema but he must be previously heard and admonished and only upon incorrigible Obstinacy to be rejected with appeal unto God and an apology to all Churches or Spiritual Fathers unconcerned and untainted But then this is a Canonical form of exauctoration by the Church not a formal Self-deprivation otherwise upon this Authors Principle all the Hierarchy of the Romish Communion was long self-deprived before the Reformation and totally exauctorated and how then will he justify our Episcopal Succession For such ipso facto irregularities that are so in their own nature and not by mere Canonical Ordinance degrade as well as deprive from not only Order but Communion to which of old upon Penitence they were wont to be restored not as Priests but as Laymen for that such a fall was an ipso facto Degradation of Order in which there were to be no public Penitents But now if we make such Deprivation the Act of the Christian People as we must then it and all the previous process thereunto must be executed by some formed Session or Council for the Place and People concerned but for the whole People of this Land we have no Council but that of Parliament And here it must be noted that a Christian Parliament hath as much Spiritual Right against heretical Priests as the common Christian Multitude and if the Multitude may on such notorious Corruptions eject one and procure another Bishop even without the Consent of civil Powers according to this Authors Doctrine surely such Right much more belongs to the Christian Legislative to which the Care of Religion does by Divine Ordinances belong as well as to the Hierarchy and common Multitude which had a real need of their Counsel and Conduct in so great a Difficulty The People therefore in Parliament did their Part in the Ejection of the Marian Bishops and all the Chapters and other Ecclesiastical Orders sequaciously concurred and completed the Design of that Act in their Alienation from the condemned Recusants And tho' all this was done for refusing the Oath of Supremacy yet that Recusancy being grounded on false Principles in Religion and maintained in Defence of the Romish Usurpations and Corruptions the Statute of Deprivation had not only a civil Intention but Religious also and was received accordingly But all this while I find no Answer to that famous Passage quoted by me †Sol. and Ab. Pag. 32. out of Dr. Hammond's Tract of Schism tho' of so great Moment and of so great Strength to justifie such Statutes of Deprivation for the Security of the civil Government against Seducements and Seditions But if you would take my Counsel I would advise you not to lay the Cause of this Controversie in Points of Religion nor make common People the Judges of them for fear of a Snap that perhaps you are not aware of Dyscher What what do you mean I am a little startled at this Suggestion since we are where we were and have neither altered the old Doctrines nor the Practices they direct to Eucher Do not you remember that that great Man who wrote the Vindication of the Deprived Bishops vehemently argues †Vindic. of Depr Bish pag. 24.25 26 27. that not only Errors whether great or small but even unnecessary Truths become Heresies when they are made the Causes or Characters of different Communions And such all Principles and Rules of Christian Morals inforced on peril of Sin