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A36614
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A defence of the papers written by the late king of blessed memory, and Duchess of York, against the answer made to them
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Dryden, John, 1631-1700.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing D2261; ESTC R22072
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76,147
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138
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How and by what Authority did we separate from that Church If the Power of Interpreting Scripture be in every Mans Brain what need have we of a Church or Church-men To what purpose then did our Saviour after He had given his Apostles Power to bind and loose in Heaven and Earth add to it That He would be with them even to the end of the World These Words were not spoken Parabolically or by way of Figure Christ was then ascending into his Glory and left his Power with his Church even to the end of the World All this the Answerer leaves out what relates to the Churches Authority and every Mans following his own Iudgment having he says been answered already I wish he had told us where For tho' I remember some Speech of Persons who separate from the Church and of their Pretences I cannot call one Word to mind of the Authority by which they separated If this be the Answer he means he compliments His Majesty's Papers For to insist upon it is to consess he has none He said too and that too often to be forgotten That every Man is to judge for himself tho' not for others What need then of a Church or Church men says His Majesty when every body is provided without them It seems he thinks they are indeed needless but had no mind to say so He takes the matter of Appeals more to heart in which he takes occasion to proceed from these words What Country can subsist in peace or quiet where there is not a Supreme Iudge from whence there can be no Appeal From whence the natural Consequence he says appears to be That every National Church ought to have the Supreme Power within it self In the Comparison here made a National to the Whole Church is as a Shire to a Kingdom And a very natural and very consistent Consequence it is That every Sheriff should be a King But how come Appeals to a Forreign Iurisdiction to tend to the Peace and Quiet of a Church He would peradventure if one should press him be hard enough put to it to make Sense of his Forreign Jurisdiction in our Case For how can any thing be Forreign but by not belonging to that Aggregate whether Civil or Spiritual in respect whereof they are said to be Forreigners Forreign I think comes from Foris and signifies out So that unless the ultimate Jurisdiction of the Church be out of the Church it seems as hard to understand how it can be Forreign to any part of the Church as how a Native of any part of England can be a Forreigner in England The several Nations which make the Church are Forreigners to one another in respect of the several Temporal Bodies which they compose too but Fellow-Citizens All in respect of the Ecclesiastical But let this pass and the Answerer if he please inform us how the Appeals of which we talk can be made but to what he calls Forreign Jurisdiction The King aim'd at an end of Differences in Religion and as he thought every one ought believe as the Catholic Church believes which Christ has here on Earth calls their Agreement in Faith a Decision and knowing or searching what it is an Appeal As no Particular can be the Catholic Church let him make it intelligible who can how the Faith of a Church compos'd of many Nations can be known without knowing the Faith of the Nations which compose it that is of those Churches which he calls Forreign It is therefore so far from hard to comprehend how Appeals to Forreigners tend to the Peace and Quiet of a National Church that when that Peace is disturbed by Dissentions in Matters of Religion it is absolutely impossible to resettle it without them We says the King in the Period before which the Answerer I know not why puts after have had these hundred years past the sad Effects of denying to the Church that Power in Matters Spiritual without an Appeal And our Ancestors says the Answerer for many hundred years last past found the intollerable Inconveniences of an Appeal to Forreign Iurisdiction Which after he has a little dilated by reckoning up the Particulars he tauntingly adds But these were slight things in comparison to what we have felt these hundred years for want of it This Taunt is unexpected and by his good favour might have been spared for more Reasons than one For what Do's he in earnest think that the Incoveniences he has thought of and may think of hereafter hold comparison with the Inconvenience of Heresie Are not all temporal Concerns let them be what they will slight things in respect of the eternal Ruine of so many as Heresie has swallow'd up in Perdition Will he compare the gain of the whole World to the loss even of a single Soul For the rest 't is strange a Man should toss a Word so long and never mind what it means The King us'd the Word Appeal with respect to the Allegory in which he speaks The Answerer will needs understand it in the Law-sense and talks all the while of another matter For the Impoverishment the Obstruction of Justice and what else he mentions are Consequences all of Legal Trials betwixt Plaintiff and Defendant according to the Methods of Courts In which where-ever those Courts be Princes can and when they see fit do preserve their own Prerogatives from diminution and their Subjects from Oppression without shocking their Religion There is nothing of all this in the Appeals of which the King speaks no feeing of Lawyers nor need to travel from home Who will but step to St. Iames's and see what they do and hear what they say has appeal'd as much as the King desir'd he should To his Conclusion That it is a very self-denying Humour for those to be most sensible of the want of Appeals who would really suffer the most by them I shall say no more than that it is very unreasonable because no body dreams of such Appeals as he understands and I wish that no body may think worse of it and of him and other Folks for it Can there be any Iustice done says the next Paragraph where the Offenders are their own Iudges and equal Interpreters of the Law with those that are appointed to administer Iustice He cross interrogates and asks Whether there be any likelihood Iustice should be better done in another Country by another Authority and proceeding by such Rules which in the last resort are but the arbitrary Will of a Stranger I have already observ'd That another Country and another Authority is unâ— ntelligible where all are Countrymen and arbitrary Rules are altogether as unintelligible where the Law is â— ixt and known At present I pray him to tell us how he answers the Question Can Iustice be done Or which is the same Is there a Judge without Appeal signifies he knows Can Controversies be ended And he knows the Answer is They can or They cannot And yet he will
Retail that it might not be thought she us'd the ordinary Means One thing I had omitted which was that the Bishop affirms in his letter to her Highness that she had made him a Promise in case any Writing were put into her Hand by those of the Roman Church she would send it either to him or the Bishop of Oxford Why do's our Author put down that Promise thus at large If he means any thing more by it besides a Justification of his Bishop for having done his part which signifies just nothing he would tacitely insinuate that she broke he Word by not sending any such Writing to him If so he is at his Legerdemain again He would have it thought she kept not her Promise but do's not positively affirm it But since it is manfsest by the order of time in her Paper that she neither sent for any Priest nor conferr'd with any Learn'd Catholic till after she had done with the two Bishops it may and ought to be suppos'd that she receiv'd no Writings from any of that Religion for if she had she would certainly have mention'd them If then the Bishop of Winchester would insinuate that she had such Papers which she sent not to him according to her Engagement I may at least answer with my Author That the Lady was dead long before the Bishop publish'd his Letter so that the Circumstances therein mention'd cannot be so fully clear'd But to return to our Answerer He has brought us at length to the several Discourses which her Highness had with the two Bishops his Grace of Canterbury and the Bishop of Worcester and since he has thought fit to put all that concern'd this Matter into one long Paragraph quoted from the Duchess I must follow his Example These are her Words After this I spoke severally to two of the best Bishops we have in England who both told me there were many things in the Roman Church which it were very much to be wish'd we had kept as Confession which was no doubt commanded of God that Praying for the Dead was one of the ancient things in Christianity that for their parts they did it daily tho' they would not own it And afterwards pressing one of them very much upon the other Points he told me That if he had been bred a Catholic he would not change his Religion but that being of another Church wherein he was sure were all things necessary to Salvation he thought it very ill to give that Scandal as to leave that Church wherein he had receiv'd his Baptism All these Discourses did but add more to the desire I had to be a Catholic and gave me the most terrible Agonies in the world c This he confesses seems to be to the purpose And where he confesses the least Advantage on our side the Reader may swear there is somewhat more than ordinary in the matter But he retrenches immediately and kicks down the Pail by adding this Restriction If there were not some Circumstances and Expressions very much mistaken in the Representation of it Yet in the next Line again as if he were asham'd of his own fearfulness he is for making a bold Sally and putting all to the push For supposing the utmost to be allow'd says he there could be no Argument from hence drawn for leaving the Communion of our Church But he restrains that too with this Caution If the Bishops Authority and Example did signifie any thing with her Thus from yielding at first he comes to modifie his Concession and from thence to strike out magnanimously But then he retreats again with another if 'T is a sign he is uneasie when he tosses and turns so often in a Breath and that he is diffident of his Cause when he shifts his Plea 'T is evident that the Duchess laid a great stress on these Concessions and well she might for what a startle would it give to a doubting Soul which already had taken the Alarm to hear two Bishops whereof one was Primate of All England renouncing and condemning two of the establish'd Articles of their Church But 't is well known that those two Prelates were not nor if they were now living would be the only Clergy-men of the Church of England who are of opinion they have over-reform'd themselves in casting off Prayers for the Dead and consequently the Doctrine of a Third Place But these are Church of England Men of the old stamp betwixt whom and the Faction of this Answerer there is just as much difference as betwixt a true Episcopal Man and a Latitudinarian and this latter in plain terms is no otherwise different from a Presbyterian then by whatsoever Titles and Dignities he is distinguish'd So that our Answerer was much in the right to skip over the first half of this Paragraph without answering in this place and to gallop to the last Sentence of it which begins with Bishop Blandford's saying That if he had been bred in the communion of the Roman Church he would not change his Religion Whither as in Duty bound I follow him To over-ballance the weight of these Concessions our Author would have us think that the subsequent Words of the Bishop ought to have had greater force to have kept her in the Communion of the Protestant Church than the former to have drawn her from it for the Bishop comes off with this Excuse That being of another Church wherein he was sure were all things necessary to Salvation he thought it very ill to give that Scandal as to leave that Church wherein he receiv'd his Baptism First take notice That the Duchess says the Bishop was pressed by her very much before he made the Concession That if he had been bred a Catholic he would not have chang'd which shews that a Truth was forc'd out of him which he would willingly have conceal'd For both in regard to his own Credit and the retaining of so Great a Person in his Church it was not his Interest to have yielded that a Catholic might be saved at least on as easie Terms as Protestant But he goes farther when he confesses That if he had been bred a Catholic he would not have alter'd his Religion For therein he seems even to regret his being bred a Protestant at least he yields that all things necessary to Salvation were in the Roman Catholic Church for otherwise had he been educated in it he ought in conscience to have chang'd which he owns he would not have done Now this is manifestly more than what he said for the Church of England for his following Words are rather an Excuse for his Continuance in his Church than Argument to dissuade her Highness from turning Catholic He thought it very ill to give that Scandal to leave the Church wherein he was Baptiz'd Now the Word Scandal plainly relates to his own Person and signifies no more than that he was asham'd to change For it was impossible for him to think he should sin