was no other Orthodox Bishop there Now our enquiry as the Dr. sets it is of an unjust and invalid Deposition by a Lay-power or Irresistible Force and the Admission of a Successor consequent thereupon Now if Banishment and by parity of Reason Imprisonment and Captivity is not a Deposition how are these pertinently alledged for such in our Question Then again if upon Banishment the Deposition consists in the intrusion of another and this be unjust and invalid how is the intruded a right Successor to whom the Churches obedience is due Or if he be not right i. e. Canonical how is this obedience due Must we pay obedience where it is not due Or is there any due where there is no form of Right Or is there any form of Right created by an Act not only unjust but even invalid and consequently null Then again every one of the Drs. instances of Lay-deprivations are nothing but meer Banishments and Imprisonments and so no Depositions from their Spiritual Powers or Relations as he confesses in St. Hilaries case though elsewhere he commonly calls them Depositions without thinking of it But if the Depositions consist in the consequent intrusions these being invalid as well as unjust oblige to nothing but Repentance and Restitution And so his infinite expence of Reading and Criticism is all at once unfortunately thrown away But there is one thing farther considerable in the last Question of the Dr. and that is the impossibility of performing the Episcopal Functions consequent to these Lay-Banishments and Imprisonments For if this incapacity gives those violences the forms of Depositions then it appears not that all the Lay-instances produced by the Dr. were Depositions and perhaps none of them since the Episcopal conduct might be carried on by Communicatory Letters to the Dioceses and other Social Bishops to act for them according to the constant practice of Exiled and Imprisoned Bishops from the days of the Apostles But if the persecution be so straight as to preclude all capacity of such Pastoral care a new Bishop may be set to supply the defect but not to exclude the Right of the ejected to govern for him not against him and to resign upon the return of the Proprietor On this account it must be resolved how the ejected Bishops reteining their Claim or Right mentioned by the Dr. or his Baroccian Treatise owned those Orthodox Persons that filled their places in their Absence Thus * Case of Sees c. pag. 59. Briccius might call Armentius Brother and Bishop of Tours while he was returning to lay Armentius aside upon a Presumption that Armentius never set up against him nor would oppose his Restitution if yet there be any credit due to the Story On some such confidence * Case of c. Ch. 7. pag. 82.90 c. Elias might Communicate with John and his Communicants at Jerusalem not only because John was Orthodox but because he kept not the See from Elias as a Rival or Anti-Bishop but only continued that Care for the Church during Elias's Incapacity For their Mutual Friendship is a demonstration that John did not still oppose Elias and Elias ratified John's Present Government by his Communion which was if not a Cession as your Vindicator conceived yet a Valid Concession for the time being For tho' John was one of Elias's Expellers yet after John had opposed and baffled the Emperor and therein seconded Elias's Cause This with the Mediation of those Martial Monks Theodosius and Sabas might cool all Elias's former Resentments and procure his Peace and Ratification of John's Government That Elias was not obliged by Canon to acquiesce is manifest not only from many Canons to the contrary but the practice of many others produced by the Dr. who endeavoured to recover against the Orthodox Intruder received by the Church on the Drs. Fundamental Law of Necessity If then Elias acquiesced not by Law but Choice this made a Ratifying Concession to John's Government and hereupon Theodosius and Sabas might well Communicate with both since they both held Communion one with the other either by the Cession or Concession of Elias But here a shrew'd hard Question Intervenes If the Church always owned the Orthodox Possessor of anothers Chair without Schism how could the Orthodox ejected Bishop rival and contest the Intruded Possessor without Schism or injury done in challenging his Right while yet his Right would be taken for quitted if he should not challenge it Now during the Challenge he must renounce the Possessor and all Communion with him as such whom yet the whole Church according to the Dr. lawfully receives for the Diocesan Now if the Ejected will be in the Communion of the whole Church they must own their Anti-Bishops and so it will be their Duty to loose their Right to Intruders or if they may refuse the Anti-Bishops without Fault how can others lawfully own them and their Possession of other Men's Sees never validly vacated Methinks Apparent and Confessed Right should obtain in Judgment against possession manifestly without Right nor is it a Rule of Conscience or Religious Peace but Carnal Fear and base Interest that inclines to the contrary Hereupon I conclude that the best Title John had to the Churches Communion was from the Concession of Elias And your Vindicator had great reason to suppose something done on Elias's part to the confirming of John's Prelacy from the Communion that is asserted to have been between them For being apparently no Anti-Bishops the Natural and Legal Presumption must be that Elias allowed him and that was a Canonical ground for the Churches regular Communion with him tho' before there seems none except Elias had been removed beyond all Capacity of Communion which it's plain he was not So then it is not the Substitution of a New Bishop in the Chair of another utterly latent or removed from all possible Communication that makes a Schism but when one is set up to Exclude the other Violently and Invalidly Ejected from the Administration of his Office either at present or hereafter while in a Capacity and Readiness to perform his Functions Thus Pope Martin whom the Dr. hath also instanced pronounces it Unlawful for the Church of Rome to admit another Bishop during his Life and Spalatensis alledges that Authority and Rule for Canonical and Good Yet when he was Condemned at Constantinople and the Church of Rome had taken him for dead and so chose Eugenius no wonder that Pope Martin receiving News of this before his death prayed for Eugenius thus chosen because he knew the Romans had not set him up as an Anti-Bishop and could not doubt had his return been possible but that his Church and Eugenius too would have joyfully re-inthroned him But in cases of Competition as in the Ignatian and Photian War if the Church or the Competitors can be on both sides excused from Schism upon every turn and invalid Act of Lay-Power against which a good and valid Title
valid yet because of their actual Omission it wanted an Ecclesiastical Effect Lev. 10. So when a Statute of Deprivation requires the Church to eject Recusants from their Stations if the cause be necessary or just the Statute is valid to oblige the Conscience of the Church to an executive and concurrent obedience yet if the Church will by no means yield to such command of the State whether just or unjust valid or invalid in its obligatory intentions it cannot actually pass into an Ecclesiastical Effect and Issue and all that the Civil Powers can do on the refusal is to subject the Church to temporal Punishments Nay in the same Genus of Civil Government the Decrees and Judgments of the Kings Courts notwithstanding their perfect justice and validity cannot have their Civil Effect if the subordinate officers neglect or refuse to execute them T is true there is a difference between the Civil obligations of Under-Officers to their Superiors in Secular Authorities and those of the Church to the Civil Powers in matters Ecclesiastical For that Civil Officers are obliged only to observe the Legal forms of process in the Orders of their Superiors and are not tied to enquire into the inner justice of those Orders But the Church when under any Laws or Commands of the State may and ought to judge for her self and her conscience toward God Whether the matters enjoyned her by the Laws be consistent with the Laws and Principles of Christianity and the Churches fundamental Constitution against which she is never to admit them to an Ecclesiastical Effect but must bear the penal Consequences with all meeknes and resignation And this is not only the Right and Duty of all Churches as sacred Corporations toward all humane laws in matters moral or Religious but of every single Christian also And if this be not admitted up goes Hobbism and the Civil Powers may enact Deprivations Excommunications and Anathema's for mens refusing the Alcoran Paganism Socinianisme and even Atheism it self and for owning the Scriptures Creeds and Sacraments But you that think us such a soft and waxen generation would have found this Right asserted even unto Martyrdom against all such deprivations had they been enacted upon causes apparently injurious or imposed on the Church For in the late Reign not only you but others also opposed the growth and menaces of Popery with a burning zeal when we had no present prospect of any thing but Fagots Dragons and most Christian Bridles And that all these Armies of Worthies should all of a sudden grow base abject and irreligious cannot easily I am sure not fairly be presumed But in cases which the Church judges equal she may concur and submitt and when she may so do it can be neither religious or prudential to provoke or incur a persecution by a needles and obstinate refusal which is our Sense upon the Causes and Law of the present Deprivations But is it not a pretty exception against this Concurrence because it is yielded by Submission not Authority For did I ever assert of an Authority in the Church to refuse her Duty against which certainly there lies no Authority And I told you †Sol. and Ab. pag. 28. that the Church here concurs by Submission as judging it her duty herein to yield to the State But in such Cases if you will needs require the Churches Authority I will remind you what I told you †Sol. and Ab. Pag. 29. last time that the Church has an Authoritative Right to judge in such Cases whether she may or must concur or no. And hence a Right essentially belongs to it to examin all the Causes of the Secular Demands so that if she finds there be no grave Reasons to move the Church to the required Severities she ought to disobey as my Lord Bishop of London well did when required to suspend Dr. Sharp indictâ Causâ c. And for this I alledged out of Nazianzen one of the Noblest Instances in all Antiquity wherein the Bishops of Cappadocia refused to depose or reject the canonically settled Bishop of Cesarea notwithstanding all Julians terrors and commands of which I wonder Dr. Hody took no notice But I add also that if the Church finds those Causes sufficient she may if necessary she must admit the Laws enforcing them and not wantonly pretend Authority against duty nor use her liberty for a cloak of maliciousness And I can never imagine that this Right of the Church was ever suspected much less opposed by any Powers or Legislators truly Christian But if Civil Powers will make irreligious Laws in maters Spiritual will you immediatly oblige the Christian Councils to invade the Senate House or Courts of Civil Judicature with Protestations against their Procedures before the Laws come home upon us and press us to actual Concurrence Surely the Primitive Christians did not so against the Edicts of Heathen Powers For tho' Christianity will warrant meek and petitionary Apologies yet will it not justifie sawcy Remonstrances and Prohibitions upon Legislators who must pass undisturbed and unaffronted in their measures and we must with all meekness of behaviour wait the eventual prosecution of the Laws if we cannot divert it by fair atonement and when it comes refusing calmly the required Sins commit our selves and Cause to him that judgeth righteously So that all your Harangues about running into Parliament House with Proclamations or Protestations for our against their Authority are injudicious immodest and seditious proposals tho' we had known the demands of the State to have been unlawful which we yet acknowledge to be otherwise And that we should cease to be a Church because we are not officiously rude to the Legislators who may sometimes happen to be causelesly unkind or hard hearted to us We are neither to precipitate our zeal manners confession or sufferings but let the will of God be done upon us when his own time comes Since even the vilest Laws of men have this obligation and validity upon the Consciences of Subjects to restrain all indecencies and disturbances against them and the Legislative For if the Senate has not Authority to oblige us to evil it has to modesty and abstinence from their Presence and Consultations But the Parliament thought their Authority alone sufficient to deprive the Bishops and did not ask nor think they wanted the concurrence of the Clergy to make their Act valid very well they did not think so And if you confine this sufficiency to a valid Obligation on the Church to submit and concur this opinion of the Parliament is very true tho' I believe they ground it not upon any mere pretended Arbitrary Despotick Power but upon the Weight and Sanctity of the Causes on which they founded the Law But if you think it the opinion of the Parliament that their Acts can actually pass into an Ecclesiastical Effect without Ecclesiastical Concurrence you fix an opinion on them rather to be charged with Non-sense than Falshood
the Election of Bishops had been freely left to our Convocations they would have admitted few or none of those whom our Kings have advanced but yet the Chapters electing have consented to the Legality of those Nominations which they have not always judged so expedient and the Episcopal Colledge have consented to their Communion with the rest of the Clergy as well in as out of Convocation as no doubt they will with the new Archbishop at their next meeting without breaking any Silence against him by way of Dissent And now at last I am come to your Questions about the Deposition of Episcopacy And first you say the Bishops and Clergy of Scotland are silent under the Abolition of Episcopacy it self and twit me that hereby belike they concur to that Act of Abolition No Brother this does not follow from me but according to you their Silence is a betraying their Right But here again you cannot distinguish the Case of quitting a Personal Right to an Authority which is our Case from the Abolition of the Authority it self Universally which is the Case of Scotland For they that can legally do the former may not legally do the latter For the King can depose the Judges but not the Courts and dismiss other Officers whose Offices he cannot abrogate And the Church can depose Priests and Bishops but not the Priesthood or Episcopacy And whether any Civil State has more intrinsick Power in the Spirituals of the Church than the Church her self ever had in most perfect Freedom judge you But here I must Advocate for the Bishops and Clergy of Scotland against your Calumnies For tho' they made no formal Protestation at Parliament yet they assert their Episcopacy by an avowed Communion of their own and a renunciation of the Presbyterian Model But as to the Civil Power of abrogating Episcopacy here I answer 't is as great as 't is any where but I find not our Parliaments to pretend to the same Opinions here as they do in Scotland and I hope you will not require me to justifie Scottish Pretensions I think the Constitutions of our Orders are founded on Divine Rules and have descended to us by Traditions truly Catholic and Primitive which here we are not so rude to profane or violate by any wanton Claims of Arbitrary Power and in my Opinion the Scots will never acquit themselves well to God his Church and the King till they copy after us where Episcopacy is as well secured as the Scriptures and Sacraments and all the most essential Parts of Christianity But if any of these ever happen to be persecuted here I hope we shall remember Him who on all such Occasions requires us to take up the Cross and follow him And now we are upon this melancholy Speculation of the Church of Scotland I fear the Presages you have made from their fall have been most influential with you to your present Recusancy to those Powers from whom you expect our Dissolution This I confess is a very deplorable jealousie for which if there had been sufficient ground as there was not yet this will not justifie Recusancy to the Civil Powers But the mischief of it is more than Personal and Temporary For hereby the Deprived Fathers who by their glorious merits in the last Reign might have been useful Mediators for the Scotch Church and Promoters of our own are now become uncapable of this second Glory and useless to the Churches happiness by this unfortunate Recusancy But herein I charge no man's Conscience but only bewail the infelicity And shall pray that the Goodness of God will so graciously dispose our Tempers and Affairs as in his own good time to set all things at Right and shew us at length the Light of his countenance Dyscher But let me put these things closely to your Conscience do you verily believe that your Church and Chapters admit the Ecclesiastical Change upon the merits of the Cause and not merely on the fear or acknowledged Authority of the State Eucher I do believe so in very deed just as I have spoken and my reason is because had the Act of Deprivation past for recusancy of Mahometism c. and the Church would never have forsaken their Diocesans nor elected any other even Orthodox Bishops the Act for Deprivation being impious and for that cause unobliging and as loose as Dr. Hody's Rules and as strait as your Principles are I put it close home to his and your Consciences whether on a Case so put or supposed you can think the contrary Dyscher Your jumble of Queen Mary's and Queen Elizabeth Bishops I shall not examine because a full answer to that either already is or suddenly will come abroad Eucher This is what above all I have ever greatly coveted and I have of late been so lucky as to meet with the Sense of †Part 2. Chap. 3. Pag. 33 34. your excellent Author of Christian Communion on this point But because you have hinted to me my shortness of memory I had rather have it repeated from your memory that we may discuss it Dyscher Indeed it was almost lapsed but now upon your Suggestion I have recovered it and will accordingly lay it before you As to this Case of the Marian Bishops saith he or of other Popish Bishops ander Edward the Sixth two things are to be noted in their removal and ejection out of their Bishoprick's One is from the Temporalities the Benefices and Preferments thereof and these Temporal Endowments are directly subjects to the Temporal Power c. The other is from the Spiritual adherence and dependence of the People on them as on heads of Church unity and Communion for religious ministrations And this there was no need to deprive the Popish Bishops of for they had already deprived themselves of it by their own Corruptions both in Doctrines and Devotions Adulterations of Religion and corrupt ministrations of the word of Prayers and Sacraments break the Ligaments which tye on People to this adherence to any Bishops or Pastors yea tho' they were Apostles themselves Tho' we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you let him be anathema or accursed saith St. Paul Gal. 1.8 When therefore any Bishops and Pastors instead of heading Christian Truth appear at the head of Vn-Christian Errors the people are discharged from their Obligation and Dependence upon them and are to unite themselves as they can to others who still keep firm to that necessary Truth and Gospel Worship which they have forsaken And this was done by the Popish Bishops who fed the people with false Doctrines and polluted Prayers and Ministrations which left no need of any thing more to deprive them of the Peoples Communion and Dependence these Papal Corruptions of Religious Ministrations being enough to discharge and drive them away of themselves So that the reformed Bishops when they were set at the heads of those Dioceses called
subsequent Ratification or Power of Revocation by their Principals Dyscher But notwithstanding all pretences they ought to have recalled King James and it being in their Pawer to do it 't was piacular wickedness to omit it and erect his Adversary this is obvious to common Sense and the first simple Notions of Right and Wrong against which no civil forms or combinations can oblige Eucher You are no competent Judge upon them or us what Right required them to do in their then exigencies and if in truth they could not do what you would have had them nor well and safely do otherwise than they did then all this black Charge turns to a blanck and comes to nothing Now 't is true the Prince had no setled or proper Jurisdiction or legal Authority strictly taken to enforce a Convention or any thing upon it nay they had liberty before the judgment of Abdication to have voted King James's Revocation But if they had done so and the Prince in bar thereto had pleaded the Desertion to have been an Abdication devolving the Title to his Princess according to the ordinary and legal course and so had required them to dissolve if they had dissolved what could such vote have effected If they had not dissolved the refusal might have opened a Scene of War between the Prince and the two Houses And considering how great the even minor number in the Houses which might have sided with the Prince would have been and the vast and zealous Army which he had about him with all the formed advantages and preparations of War together with the hearts of at least the general multitude are you sure that the naked Majority of the Convention could have safely adventured the dispute with cold Iron Or if upon a casual adventure they had been conquered how could they have evaded the Prince's Arbitrary Power Or if during the War King James or the French had supervened and carried it had not all the Laws and Liberties of the Nation dipt and sunk under Absolute and Popish Power and that most probably French or a la mode de France All this is obvious to common Sense and was undoubtedly much more so to that National Assembly which otherwise wisely composed all Domestick Riots as well as secured us from foreign Inrodes and little deserve the reproach of Riotous or Juglers which manners to your own deprived Fathers and other your Friends that sate there should have taught you to forbear Dyscher Whereas you tell us 't is a prodigious peevishness to require a Kings Presence or Commission when he is gone and hath left all in Anarchy I hope Sir you do not think I require a King to be present when he is absent and then with your good leave I think it no such peevishness to act by his Commission in his absence but that it is a thing which if it can be had ought rather to be done Richard the First was engaged in the Holy War when his Father died * This is false for he was King before he went and deputed the Bishop of Ely Chief Governor It was Edward the First that was proclaimed King while in the Holy Land but he was never Prisoner so that he was far enough from his Throne and unable to exert any Royal Power or Presence to his People And to make the matter worse in his return he was taken Prisoner and detained in Germany In this Case had you been one of the Estates you would have been for setting up another King that would exert his Royal Power and Presence to his People but they had another sense of their Duty they mourned under the common Calamity caused all proceedings to pass under his Nane and stretched their Purses to redeem him c. T. B's 2d Lett. p. 18. Eucher But here currente Rotâ you have omitted something considerable and inconsiderately offered what is not so For I only state the Case when a King that was actually in the Throne goes off from it and resigns all to Anarchy which is justly interpretable to an Abdication of Government which was not Richard's Case which is therefore instanced altogether impertinently Yet in that * See Sir Richard Bakers Reign of Richard the First very Case whatsoever had been the procedures of the then Estates for the time being the subject people must have acquiesced in their judicial determinations and presumed them Legal till reversed in as Legal and Authentick Forms of Judgment tho' Richard had lain for ever unredeemed because the multitude are uncapable of judging our National Laws Rights and Capacities and cannot act regularly to the recovery of Right or performance of a National Duty Yet it is bold in you to say that my Vote would have passed against Richard's restitution since I that have well known the motions and sympathies of my own Soul thro' all this Revolution should certainly have been carried by my Bowels for that unfortunate King James against the wiser and major part of that Assembly you traduce But besides your insincerity in this parallel and your Censoriousness on me you seem to pervert or misunderstand my meaning when I said it is prodigious peevishness to require a Kings Presence or Commission when he is gone and hath left all in Anarchy For tho' it is then only proper to require a King or any person to restore his Presence when he is absent when during his Absence his presence is needed yet I never was so silly as to think Presence and Absence competible and connecessary at once or that a Commission in time of Absence was improper to supply the desect of personal Presence according to that ridiculous guise you clap upon my words but my apparent palpable intention was that it is prodigious peevishness to require a Kings Presence or Commission as necessary to make the Session of Estates Authentick when he affords neither Presence nor Commission for want of which all is left in supine and gasping Anarchy which were my express words on purpose set to obviate this and other like Cavils tho' honestly omitted by you for inconsiderable tho' therein lies the main force and form of my Argument which is like to stand unmoved notwithstanding all the impotent flurts of unmanly peevishness Dyscher At last you say the Estates of any Nation being * Sol. Ab. p. 4. invited by a victorious and unresisted Power may come together and treat with him that thus calls them tho' he hath no antecedent Authority strictly taken to call them Here is a pretty fetch in the word unresisted Power for irresistible you knew it was not and if it was unresisted whose fault was that May they refuse to resist an invading Power when they are able And may they make that disobedience the reason of their Compliance with him and casting off their own Sovereign But if without dawbing you had put the Case as it was it ought to run thus The Estates of any Nation or the natural
all Christendom at this day principally seemeth to depend And this and all that I have said to you I speak with all sincerity which if it persuade not you I cannot help that but I think it is a reasonable ground for that Allegiance which I have not carelesly or inconsiderately given Dyscher You do us manifest injustice when you suppose or feign that we admit no Settlement under Powers procured by the breach of Gods Commandments And this in all reason you must do knowingly and wilfully because I think there is not one who on our behalf hath concerned himself in the matter of the Convocation-Book but hath stated this Question and always admitted a thorow Settlement whatever were the means whereby it was procured 'T is true we neither commend nor encourage such wicked doings but on the other hand we do not think Dominion to be founded in Grace and that a man cannot have a good Title unless he be a good Christian We can mourn over the bad man whilst we submit to the good Title But we complain that we have no Settlement nor any thing like a good Title to which we may submit For who can own that to be a good Title against which there are prior and better Titles in being contesting and claiming Or who can take that for a Settlement where a bad Title by bad means is maintained against a just and good Title T. B's 2d Lett. p. 25. We say that a full Settlement in one while another who has Right claims and endavours to recover his Right is contradictory nonsense T.B. ibid. p. 40. Eucher I very well know and freely own that all your Disputations upon the Convocation-Book do in terms allow a full Settlement however procured tho' you contradict the Convocation in your notions of a thorow Settlement But it does not therefore follow that all of your Party think so The most that I have orally discoursed stand upon the breach of the Moral Laws as the grand exception against the Right on which only they can swear Allegiance since say they Allegiance follows Right and Right cannot be founded in Acts morally Evil Note That in Sol. Ab. p. 8. I did not make Dyscheres positively to deny Submission to all Settlements procured by breach of Gods Commandments because I know they do not all deny it but because it is the common Objection with most of them in point of Conscience I made Dyscheres reply not should say No and essentially injurious and consequently by such there be be no full or thorow form of Settlement And if you will give me leave to deliver my Opinion I think if Gods Providence had not so disposed of things as to bring that absolutely No but what if I Book into publick Light by the hand of my Lord Arch-Bishop Sancroft in this very Juncture all your Pleas would have chiefly stuck in the Laws of God whose violation with you should have been alone sufficient to have nulled all Rights and Titles But now as it is you are pinched by the Authority and the Edition of that Book and forced against your wills to own it and have no relief but in forced Arts of Evasion Such is that demure Protestation that you do not think Dominion founded in Grace which you know was and is a pretence toto coelo distant from our matter as claiming all Secular Rights by virtue of their Religious Character or Election But will you allow that a full and legal form of Settlement can be founded in any Act really injurious I would have you speak out without boggling or clouting your Tongue If not then the Defect of Plenitude in such Settlements stands in the iniquity and breach of moral Justice and Gods Commandments And in truth this at last is the true English of all those Reasons on which you complain that we have no Settlement nor any thing like a good Title tho' those Reasons are wrapped up in forms of words chiefly relating to Civil Laws For the sum of all is the Possession of another mans Right is no full Settlement because it has no good Title as being a violation of Right and Gods Commandments Of which I shall have occasion perhaps to discourse more anon In the mean time as I have already given you part of my sense herein so will I now deliver and settle it as full viz. That when several persons claim Right then pendente lite either in Law or War the Legal Presumption of Right must be for the quiet Possessor but after judgment given to be in the person to whom it is adjudged till reverse of judgement and all other antecedent Titles and Pretensions are to be deemed null and cessant to all Civil Effects and Constructions whatsoever the Errors or mens private Senses herein may be and the condemned Titles must not be taken to be good and still in being tho' new claims and contestations may be promoted by the outed Party Which being premised I can easily yield you that that can be no good Title against which there are prior or better Titles apparently in being contesting and claiming and that it is no full and Legal Settlement where an apparently bad Title is by bad means apparently maintained against a Title apparently just and good But this is not to be taken in a judged Cause But who was Judge between King James and King William while the former disputed the new Possession of the later with the Sword to determine the Civil Practice of the Nation If none then were we to abide by King Williams quiet form of possession If there were any Judge it was foreign or domestick Now there neither was nor could be a foreign Judge to oblige us if domestick it was either private or publick if private that cannot oblige the whole Nation if publick then it was in the Estates convened but they have judged King James's Title void and Cessant and not in being and so tho' extrajudicially claimed neither just nor good But if you will neither allow quiet Possession nor publick Judgment as a Rule to State Titles Legally but will throw up all to private Opinions or Humours you dissolve all the ties of Civil Society into Eternal Wars and Commotions But because you clamour that we have no Settlement I will make further Advances and prove the Admission of their Majesties by the Estates of this Land to be a full and proper Settlement tho' against King James's claim and contest from the Laws of this Land the universal Usage of all Nations natural Reason and Holy Scripture Dyscher This is a teeming Promise have a care lest the Production be ridiculous Eucher First then I begin with the common Laws of this Nation which are nothing else but the constant and general Customs of England which Lawyers justifie for good and binding upon a fair presumption of their Descent to us from some immemorial Compositions Real and National made by our Fore-fathers whose Acts and Contracts
Allegiance to the * Lib. 1. Can. 27. King de facto * Ibid. Chap. 28. tho' he come into the full Settlement by wrong and injurious means and requires only a National Submission or a continuance of quiet possession to the form of * Ibid. Chap. 30. a full and thorow Settlement owning the original wickedness of the seizure to be no Legal Bar or impeachment to the Authority of their Government into which they are formally and fully settled And such was the State of the Caesars in the Empire when the two great Apostles required Christian Subjection to them not on the moral justice of their Titles of which they could be no Judges but on their actual settlement in the Concession and Submission of the Senate and other popular Powers And such also was the reason of subjection in those instanced Changes on which that Convocation wisely grounded this their now celebrious Determination But since you have again upbraided me with Mr. Johnson I cannot choose but observe how naturally men that run into contrary extreams do meet in the other side of the Sphere as you and your greatest Adversaries do in this present Controversie And you both therefore fall into the same absurdities Now here Mr. Johnson either understands not the formal Nature of a full Settlement of if he does he is inconsistent with himself For if as I have proved a National Admission constitutes a Settlement how can Mr. Johnson explode Settlement when he places the Right of Kings in the Admission of the People But if he requires any moral justice to make the Act of the People Rightful then if the People fail in that moral Justice how can their Constitution be really Right by which Justice it self is violated And such failure in a People is no impossibility except you will entitle them to an infallible Sanctity in all popular Actions As for example Mr. Johnson produces but one Authority * Arg. 1. p. 50 51. out of Knyghton to prove that Kings acting perversly against the Laws may be deposed and some one of the Royal Race advanced by the Peers and People I will not now strive to weaken the Authority and Credit of the Author herein nor the Truth of that Power which the then Lords and Commons claimed against their King neither will I alledge the many Changes and Statutes since that seem to have abrogated the popular right of Abrogation but suppose that this still is the Right of the Nation against their Kings yet if the People should on false pretences and imputations abrogate their King this Act could not be morally Just and Right tho' it were in form legal and if the Subjects that are innocent are not to admit what is thus externally Legal except it be also altogether Rightful then are they not bound to stand by any Popular Abrogations which they know or judge to be morally faulty and consequently may oppose all new Titles if they are founded in the real Right of such Abrogations And to come close home to the Case if King James were not really guilty of every one of those Enormities to a Title upon which such Statute did legitimate the Abrogation and the Convention had really abrogated their King without accurate conviction of all those guilts recited by that lost or undiscoverable Statute quoted by Knyghton then had their Abrogation been a nullity as not being Rightful But further if men shall object that Knyghtons relation of a Statute not seen by himself but only said to be objected by the Peers and the Commons is not a Record nor a valid Testimony to any Civil Consequences as being not upon Oath liable to Error and uncapable of judicial forms of Discussion besides its singularity where shall we find a bottom to authorize King James's abrogation For 't is not enough to a Judicial Conviction or effect or surmise that Richard destroyed that Statute in the Tower upon such a general crimination that he defaced Statutes of which there is no particular form of Conviction extant no not in Knyghton who yet is the only Traditor of this Transaction but you must bring us legal proof for what must legally concern us And yet nothing else that Mr. Johnson hath cited out of Law Books nor King John's Charter in the Pastoral Letter doth amount to a Popular Right of Abrogation but only to a limited power of resisting Kings on their oppression of the Laws and Constitutions So that whatsoever has in fact been done toward our several Changes must not all be taken or sworn to as Right but the consequent Settlements by National Acts must be taken for formally Legal for the time being and submitted to under that Notion leaving the real Right of the procedures to Gods judgment because there is none other under Heaven to adjust it above the National Sanctions Dyscher I did not interject the mention of Mr. Johnson to justifie all his Principles but only to alledge for our Cause those Right Concessions of our greatest Enemies as more candid and clear from jugling than you even in his greatest bitterness I will now dismiss him and produce you what a Friend of mine impartially reflected on this pretended Authority in the Judicial Opinions of Parliaments viz. that you cannot but know that this Power of Parliaments is absolutely denied by that Party against whom you dispute and we do not think it reasonable to be convinced without proof viz. that what is thus done is agreeable to the Laws of England MS. Reflect Eucher If you are not inwardly convinced of the truth of their Judgment upon their Power and of the lawfulness of their Constitution founded thereupon I cannot help that Neither is the Care of the State so much concerned to enforce such an inward conviction tho' it is to perswade it and to silence Contradictions But as I have often told you Judicial Opinions must overbear all private ones to the contrary as to all Civil Consequences This the peace of mankind the necessity of ending Controversies and the fundamental Reasons of Government do universally require so that you must assign some Superior Court or Judge within the Kingdom to be determined by if you will not stand to their Judgment or expose all to private judgments the first of which is impossible to be sworn and the later impracticable in a Society And to turn the dull point of this Objection on your self the Parliament doth not think it reasonable to be determined by Private Judgments especially those of the professed Enemies of their long-settled and immemorial Authority And what if I oppose the general Trust of the Nation in Civils to the publick Judgment of our Parliaments rather than the contrary Decisions of some private Zealots and Casuists whose Senses are seldom uniform often impracticable and always inauthoritative Will you here set your Private Judgments in battle array against the Authority and Judgment of the whole Nation and the Publick Estates thereof Or whether
Estate and the Personal Authority Here is a Man that really was and still Asserts himself Christ's Ambassador Residentiary Vicar and Vice-gerent Comes a Tyrant or a Rout and violently expells this Ambassador This is a Crime against the Laws of Nations and the Rights of Royal Majesty and is a direct affront to our Lord Christ But this is not all This Tyrant or Rout corrupts a few of other our Lord's Ministers and they in their Lord's name give Credential Commissions to an impostor set up by these Enemies of our Lord to supply the defect of the ejected Ambassador this augments surely not lessens the insolence and no Prince whatsoever can connive thereat without severe and vindicative Resentments Now whether shall the Church own for Christ's Messenger him that he sent but others barbarously expelled or him that he sent not but others impudently obtruded Doth not our Saviour say to them whom he sent as his Father sent him He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth 〈◊〉 dâ—spiseth him that sent me And can we admit this contempt upon his Messengers without being Accomplices therein And what if this is necessary for the Clergy at present to save their promotions Must we value these before the Divine Laws of the Hierarchy and Communion Are we thus taught to contemn the World indeed as to quit all the Authorities of our Lord's Dignation rather than loose a little Worldly Interest When our Lord saith He that loveth the World or the things that are in the World more than him the love of the Father is not in him nor can he be Christ's Disciple But however if the Clergy be not degenerous they can preserve their Bishops in the exercise of their Spiritual Auâ—â—oâ—â—ties tho' not in the Enjoyment of their Estates and Temporalities For from what is Spiritual no Secular force can alone Depose them without Câ—usâ— and the concurrence of the Church Shall outward force force us into Intestine Schism or Disorder or can no Division from our Fathers be Schismatical admitted for fear of Temporal force But one thing more will I ask the Dr. whether we must admit such Deposition as violent Power pretends to before a new violent filling of the Sees with others If not then are we not to Sacrifice all the Secular Peace and then the See being not vacant by such pretended Deposition either the Deposition formally consists in the new Intrusion and so the Intrusion must on the Drs. Hypothesis be invalid and so cannot oblige us to admit it or if the Intrusion be not the Deposition then the former Bishop c. is not Deposed and the latter either is not possessed or two Anti-Bishops can be and are joyntly possessed of the same Episcopal See and Authority But if we may or must abide by the pretended Secular Deposition before a new Intruder then what if the Secular Tyranny will not concede us any Bishop Must we Sacrifice here too No here the Dr. is tender and will not Sacrifice he will have some Bishop or other by Mr. Mobs favour whether his Irrestibleship will or no. Now then let us reduce this Prudential Principle into Practice and if you can bear a little teizing I will discuss its Virtue Eucher Proceed Dyscher Suppose then upon an Irretrievable Deposition of Bishops by mere force the Tyrannick Powers neglect to new furnish the Churches what course must they take for a Supply Eucher Petition those Powers thereunto Dyscher What if these Powers Conscious of this your Drs. Principle always give fair Promises but never intend to repair the Breach how long must the Church wait Eucher Till such time as they see no hope of relief and as long as the Church can forbear without damage to the Substance of Religion Dyscher Well then suppose the Church can forbear no longer or the Tyranny absolutely denies to fill the Sees who shall then provide for the Church Eucher The other Undeprived Bishops and Clergy Dyscher But while or before they go about this the Irresistible Irretrievably deprives them also how shall the Cut go then Eucher Then the Church-wardens must try what they can do for their People Dyscher But let them be Irretreivably Deposed too and how then Eucher Then the multitude of Christian Churches Dyscher Tho' here I could demand how an unorganized Multitude can Act Uniformly yet I will not pinch you that way but what Priests must or can they provide the Old that are Deprived or New Eucher The old Case of Sees c. pag. 41. Dyscher What upon their Old Title or your New Investiture Eucher Here I am in a strait but let it be on their Old Title what then Dyscher Then they may not abide by the pretended Forcible Deposition till a new Intrusion nor is that Deposition Irretrievable as the Dr. sometimes supposes it for an Irretrievable Deposition is an effectual one whose effect cannot be vacated or reversed while yet at another time the Dr. allows the Deposition to be Invalid but an Invalid Deposition is null 't is no Deposition whereas an Irretrievable Deposition is a most effectual and real one as I have said Eucher Well then what if to avoid these difficulties we allow the reinvestiture of the former Priests by a new Title Dyscher But they will not accept it as knowing that their old Title is permanent and unimpaired by the null pretended Deposition and consequently that a pretended new Investiture is null because needless and anticipated besides we know that the acts of mere Laity cannot Canonically erect an Hierarchy Eucher Let them then procure a new Sett Dyscher But where will they find Persons qualified or willing to enter into such a deposable Office or to ordain them against Mr. Irresistibles will who will presently Irretrievably Depose them To this issue of Absurdity and Contradiction the Drs. Principle must of necessity bring him And he were better resolve that the Church may admit an open and utter Dissolution of the Hierarchy than dwindle it away after this poor precarious manner of Sophistry Have you any thing more to alledge from the Doctor Eucher Yes yes If the Bishop of a Frontier Town will not own the Authority of a Conqueror and is therefore Deposed by that Conquerour I desire to know of you whether the Clergy of that Town are Perjur'd if they own that Bishop whom the Conqueror thinks fit to set over them Case of Sees p. 6. Dyscher I smell your design well enough to bring me into a snare but I can answer the Dr. upon your Principles For if the Conqueror be not settled in Form of Law all he does is of no Validity and the Clergy are to have no regard to his violences upon the Bishop nor his Illegal intrusion of another But if he upon Conquest hath attained to a Formal Settlement there is a just Cause on the Merits of which the Recusant Bishop at the Command of the Conqueror may be ejected by the Church and