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cause_n	civil_a	judge_n	matter_n	1,515	5	5.7205	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36241	A defence of the vindication of the deprived bishops wherein the case of Abiathar is particularly considered, and the invalidity of lay-deprivations is further proved, from the doctrine received under the Old Testament, continued in the first ages of christianity, and from our own fundamental laws, in a reply to Dr. Hody and another author : to which is annexed, the doctrine of the church of England, concerning the independency of the clergy on the lay-power, as to those rights of theirs which are purely spiritual, reconciled with our oath of supremancy, and the lay-deprivations of the popish bishops in the beginning of the reformation / by the author of the Vindication of the deprived bishops.	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1695 (1695)	Wing D1805; ESTC R18161	114,840	118

Swerve unnecessarily from the Custom which had been used in the Church even when it lived under Infidels I know not why others should not emulate the Example of so great a Prince if they also would be esteem'd in the Judgment of so great a Person Virtuous I know not why it should not be counted commendable also in them if they also had made Conscience to Swerve unnecessarily from these acknowledged antient Ecclesiastical Liberties He owns that this same Excellent Prince ratified the Order which had been before exhorting the Bishops to look to the Church and promising that he would do the Office of a Bishops over the Commonwealth and when he did take cognizance of Causes of this kind yet this great Person doubts whether he did so as purposing to give them Judicially any Sentence Here we find plain confessions that the Church was in possession of these Liberties before the Conversion of this first Christian Emperor and that Emperor himself was so sensible of this Possession that he made a Conscience of invading it And who could better Judge of his Right as a Christian Prince than he who was the first example of it Mr. Hooker does indeed think that Constantine abstained from what he might lawfully do But he seems plainly to grant that the Emperor was of another mind when he says he made a Conscience of doing what Mr. Hooker thinks he might have done That same Judicious Person adds further with reference to our particular Laws in England There is no Cause given unto any to make Supplication as Hilary did that Civil Governours to whom Common wealth matters only belong may not presume to take upon them the Judgment of Ecclesiastical Causes If the Cause be Spiritual Secular Courts do not meddle with it We need not excuse our selves with Ambrose but boldly and lawfully we may refuse to answer before any Civil Judge in a matter which is not Civil so that we do not mistake either the Nature of the Cause or of the Court as we easily may do both without some better direction than can be by the Rules of this new sound Discipline But of this most CERTAIN we are that our Laws do neither suffer a Spiritual Court to entertain in those Causes which by the Law are Civil nor yet if the matter be indeed Spiritual a meer Civil Court to give Judgment of it Thus Mr. Hookeer And he proves what he says in the Margin from passages of the Laws themselves and the Book de Nat. Brevium and Bracton plainly asserting the difference of those two Jurisdictions I am sensible what a Scope I have here of enquiring into the Laws themselves and proving this Independently on the Testimony of this admirable Man But perhaps I have already said more than can be Printed in this difficulty of our Circumstances I therefore say no more at present but refer our Adversaries to him The rather because he is indeed against me in making the Church one Body with the believing State and because one of our Adversaries has expresly insisted on his Authority Both these reasons as well as the distance of the Age he lived in are sufficient to clear him of any the least suspicion of partiality on our side Even in this very Cause he defends the Use of Lay Persons joyn'd in Commission with Spiritual ones for determining Spiritual Affairs And possibly he may do so by Examples if all Examples must pass for Precedents since Henry VIIIths Usurpations But when King JAMES the II added Laymen in the same Commission with the Bishops concerned in the Case of the Bishop of London with a Power of Deprivation or Suspension ab Officio as well as a Beneficio it is very well known that his Lordship excepted against the competency of his Lay Judges that as a Bishop of the Catholick Church he ought to be tryed by Bishops only His Lorpship would do well now to remember his own Plea then in order to the judging of his own Case now how he can justify his Communicating with those who are set up against his Colleagues deprived no otherwise than by a Lay Power It is well known that his Council then Learned in our Laws insisted on this Plea as maintainable by our present Laws made since the Constitution of the Ecclesiastical Supremacy And what good Church of England Man was there then that did not think the Plea very just and reasonable Let those Lawyers be pleased to recollect what they had to say on that Case and try whether it will not also affect our present deprivations It is very certain that the Liberties of H. Church are the very first things provided for in Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath so that if these things be not inviolable nothing else can be so being Fundamental to all the Security that can be given by our present Constitution And it is no way reasonable that bare Precedents without express Acts for Alienating such Rights as these are should be thought sufficient for extinguishing a Claim grounded on so inviolable a Security If they be so Henry the VIIIth made such Precedents for violating Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath too that no Liberties of the People can now be secure And it is withal as certain that in the Disputes which occasioned the passing Magna Charta this particular of the exemption of the Clergy was one point principally insisted on Nay it was insisted on then to higher purposes than were reasonable or than I am concerned for now so far as to exempt them from Secular Courts even when they were guilty of Secular Crimes and even so it was most frequently determined in favour of the Clergy That was Becket's Dispute which generally prevailed in the following Ages when he was Canonized and when Henry the IId had submitted to Pennance for what he had done in opposition to him This Case of their Exemption as to their Spirituals which is all for which I am now concerned was than so generally acknowledged even by the Laity themselves that there was very little occasion of disputing it Rarely was it ever invaded and more rarely yet if ever was that Invasion defended by themselves who were guilty of it till the Unhappy Times of Henry the VIIIth So uncontroverted was the Right for which I plead that I do not think our Adversaries can give one single Instance of substituting a Successor into a See vacated by no better than a Lay deprivation This privilege therefore against Lay deprivations was so undoubtedly the sense of Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath that on that account as well as in point of Right all Patriots ought to be Zealous for it as well as all good Christians all who have a true Concern for those Two Fundamental Securities of Property as well as of Religion all who are so wise as to foresee how far Precedents of violating them in one Instance may proceed for violating them in others also §

possible for him to prove Submission to the Usurper lawful and unsinful till the Subjects be first fairly discharged from their duty to the first Incumbent How can he prove them discharged from their first duty if the Lay deprivation be not sufficient to discharge them And how can he pretend it sufficient for that purpose if it was from the beginning null and invalid Thus he will find the disproof of the Power of the Lay-Magistrate for Spiritual deprivations to be more pertinent than perhaps himself could wish it for overthrowing his pretended Lawfulness of Submission in the Ecclesiastical Subjects to Persons obtruded on Sees no other way vacated than by the Authority of a Lay-deprivation of the Civil Magistrate § VII The Doctor 's limitations of his own pretended self-evident Maxime do all of them prove our Case unconcerned in it Chap. 1. But the Doctor pretends to demonstrate no softer word it seems would serve his turn the Truth of his Proposition and God forbid we should not yield to Demonstration But I confess I very rarely find great solidity joyned with great confidence However we must not prejudge it but examine whether it will answer the Character with which he has possessed us concerning it His demonstration therefore he draws First From the Reasonableness of it Secondly From the Authority and Practice of the Autients The Reasonableness of it he grounds on this certain and self eviden-Maxime That whatsoever is necessary for the present Peace and Tranquillity of the Church that ought to be made use of provided it is not in it self sinful and the ill Consequences which may possibly attend it are either not somischievous to the Church or at least not so likely to happen as the Evils we endeavour to avoid But upon the supposed Invalidity of Lay-deprivations this Submission of the Ecclesiastical Subjects to the Usurper of the Ecclesiastical Throne will not come under the limitations proposed by the Dr. himself of his self evident Maxim I have already shewn that on this supposal this Submission to the Usurper will be in it self sinful And the same Observation may be applied to his other limitations if the Case propos'd be judg'd by our Principles The Consequences which we think will follow from this Obligation he layson our Ecclesiastical Superiors to yield their Rights as often as they are invaded where nothing but the Right is concerned and the liberty he allows Ecclesiastical Subjects to desert their Superiors if they think fit to assert their Rights we think tend by inevitable Consequence to the perfect subvertion of the Church as a Society And this Consequence is worse than can be feared from the Persecutions of erresistible force if we can agree as the Primitive Christians did to keep our stations or from the divisions of them who will not agree to maintain Society with us in a state of Independance on the Civil Magistrate And natural Consequences from Principles are Evils more likely to hapen than any that depend on the wills of mutable Men. So that be his Maxim never so self-evident yet there is not one of the Doctor 's own limitations but excludes his own Case as judged by our Principles from being concerned in it This perfectly discharges us from all concern in the Instances by which he pretends to prove his Maxim received by the Antients as self-evident Yet it were easie to answer them if we were concerned to do so They are generally in things indifferent and changeable by their different Circumstances and the Dispensations were made by Persons in Authority without prejudice to any Third Persons Right So that not one of his Instances reach our Case But the Subjects of our Dispute are not mutable nor depend on Circumstances As the Ecclesiastical Society was designed by Christ not temporary but perpetual so the Essenital cements of it must have been so too And such are the Rights of Governours and the Duties of Subjects These if they be taken away for a moment dissolve the Society and therefore cannot be left to the Prudence of Governours for the time being because the very supposal of the Case destroys the very being of the Government and of the Society and therefore leaves no Governours in being that may consider such Circumstances and suit their Practices accordingly § VIII Submission of Subjects to the Ecclesiastical Usurpers is sinful by the Law of God But though the Doctor answers nothing produced by the Vindicator for proving such submission of the Subjects to an Intruder sinful yet he pretends to prove it unsinful But so unhappily that not one of his proofs hold for the purpose for which he has produced them First He pretends the Scripture silent in our Case and therefore that such Submission is not forbidden by any express Law of God Yet he denies not but that the Law of God commands us to be Obedient to our Governours to them also who are over us in the Lord. But where there are two Competitors and both claim our Obedience to which of these two our Obedience ought to be payed this he says it leaves to our wisdom to determine But will he therefore pretend that disobedience to any particular Governour in our Age is not against the express Law of God because no Law of God is express in determing any particular Person now living to be our Governour This will overthrow all Divine Obligations to any since the Apostles Age. Now only in this but in most other duties relating to Men the determining Circumstances are settled by Human Authority Yet none does therefore pretend but that the Offence against the Duty so Circumstantiated is against the Law of God The Law of God requires Duty to Parents But who are to be taken for our Parents not only Nature but the Laws of Men have determined in several Cases as in that of Adoption which is ancienter then Moses himself and in the other of our Civil and Spiritual Parents who are generally concluded in that Divine Commandment So in the Case of Murther it is certain that only Illegal Killing by a Person not authorized or for an unjust Cause is forbidden in the 6th Commandment But they are Human Laws which pitch upon the Person who is to be vested with the Authority of Life and Death and which determine the Cases wherein Death is to be inflicted So also in the Case of Adultery it cannot be jugded what Facts are chargeable with that Crime but by the Laws of Matrimony which depend on the particular Constitutions of the Places and are accordingly various But in no Case this is more evident than in that of the 8th Commandment Theft is all that is there forbidden which cannot be applied to any Fact but by supposing the determination of Human Laws concerning Property which are again very various For some Persons have been excluded from all Property as Slaves and unemancipated Children And the determinations of Property in Persons capable of it are so different in

Bishop in opposition to the publick intention of the Church It is an invidious Interpretation and a very false one which he gives of the Oath when he makes it in effect the same as if they should swear That they will for the Bishop's sake oppose the welfare of the Publick and break the Union of the Church and leave the Communion of it and adhere to the Bishop though they should have no reason to do so besides this bare Oath No need of this The welfare of the Publick and the Union of the Church require that in affairs of Publick Spiritual Interest the judgment of the Subject ought to be concluded by the judgment of the Bishop at least to the practice which perfectly overthrows the Doctor 's Interpretation and makes it impossible that those considerations should ever really interfere which the Doctor makes so opposite And St. Cyprian's definition of a Church that it is a flock united with the Bishop makes it impossible that the true Church's Communion can ever be left in adhering to the Bishop But this perhaps the Doctor will call a Saying of St. Cyprian and a sort of Theological Pedantry as he is used to stile other the like Doctrines and Principales of the Cyprianick and purest Ages when they are urged to oblige him to any thing that may give him occasion to shew what he calls his fortitude What he pretends with his usual confidence without the least offer of proof that particularly here in the Church of England the Oath of Canonical Obe dience is always taken with this supposition That the Civil Power as well as the Ecclesiastical do allow the Bishop to govern we shall then believe when he shall be pleased to prove it by some stronger Topick than his own Authority The Oath it self has no such matter expressed in it And he should have pitched on some expression in it if there had been any which in his opinion might seem to imply it Our Civil Laws require that our Ecclesiastical Causes should be determined by Ecclesiastical Judges which if they had been observed had left no room for the Case of Lay deprivations § XI Our Principles afford better Reasons why the unjust deprivations of Synods may be received without the deprivea Bishops consent than those insisted on by the Doctor That a Synodical deprivation though unjust discharges the Subjects from the Obligation of the Oath of Cononical Obedience is usually admitted But not for that reason which the Doctor has given for it The division which might otherwise follow in the Church and the publick disturbance which might follow thereupon if they were not so discharged are equally applicable to the opposite Pretenders and could afford the Subjects no directions with whether of them they ought to joyn The true reason ought to decide the Title and therefore ought to be such as one only of the Rivals can pretend to That is that the Synod however unjust in its way of proceeding is notwithstanding to be allowed as a conpetent Judge and therefore that on that account its Sentences ought to hold in Practice till repealed by a higher Authority of the same kind that is by a greater Synod But an incompetent Jude leaves things in the same condition in which it found them and ought not in Conscience or Equity to have an effect at all Nor can it therefore impose on the Consciences of the Subjects any the least Obligation even to acquiescence Nor does it follow that because the Bishop's conscent may not be necessary to oblige him to stand to the unjust Sentence that therefore the reason of his obligation to acquiescences is not grounded on Episcopal consent The consent of his Predecessors on the valuable consideration of having the conveniences of Synodical debates may conclude him while he enjoys the same valuable considerations And the consent of his Collegues may oblige him also who have the Right of judging with whom they will observe the Commerce of their Communicatory Letters Their agreement in denying him their Communicatory Letters is in effect a Deprivation when what he does is not ratified in the Catholick Church This will go far to hinder his Cummunion from being Catholick which may go far also towards the absolving his Subjects from Duty to him if by joyning with any other they may have the benefit of Catholick Communion But this following the judgment of Episcopal Predecessors or of the Episcopal Colledge will by no means allow the Subject that Liberty which the Doctor disputes for of deserting their Bishops on their own private Judgments concerning the publick good It will not follow that that Necessity must excuse them which has no other consideration on which it may be grounded desides that of an irresistible force § XII There is gre●● disparity between the Obligations of a competent and an incompetent Authority But the Doctor it seems can see no difference as to Acquiescence in a Case of Necessity between what is done by a competent and what by an incompetent Authority It is strange that a Person so able to judge in other Cases where Interest permits him to judge impertially should not see it The obvious difference now mentioned is that the Deprivation by an incompetent Authority leaves Subjects under obligation to Duty from which they are discharged when the Authority though acting unjustly is notwithstanding competent Thence it plainly follows that where the obligation to Duty is taken away there compliance is not sinful And where it is not sinful it may be born with in the Case of that Necessity which is the result of an irresistible Force But where the Obligation to Duty remains and the compliance is therefore sinful I know no tolerable Casuisty that allows it upon such Necessity The Doctor himself as we have seen already excepts it in his own stating of the Case Tenants do not usually hold their Tenures by Oaths But where they do I am sure all creditable Antiquity thought them under stricter Obligations to performance than it seems the Doctor does The Peace and Tranquillity of the Publick are no doubt useful considerations for understanding the sense of Oaths in which they oblige to performance But the Doctor might have been pleased to consider that here are two publick oftentimes incompareble Interests concerned in the Obligation of Oaths There is the publick Interest of those to whom as well as of those by whom the Faith is given And all fair and equal dealing Casuists prefer the former before the later in Oaths given for the Security of others How than can the Doctor make the good of Sworn Tenants in general to put restrictions on Oaths given for the Security not of the Sworn Tenants but of the liege Lords in general for whose Security the Obligations are undertaken He ought to prove that a Conqueror can daprive a Bishop of his Spiritual Power if he be pleased to reason upon it That the Church of Jerusalem supplyed the place of Narcissus

Heroical ardor of that Age by the cold and degenerous Notions of his own our most learned Bishop Pearson has proved his Actions far from beīng singular by many more very express Testimonies of those most glorious times of our Christian Religion Nor are the Canons against the provoking Persecutors which the Doctor takes notice of near so old as these great examples of desiring and meeting Persecution nor indeed till the abatement of the first zeal appeared in the scandalous lapses of warm pretenders None such were made whilst they were true to their profession so that the consenting Practice of the best times was far from the Doctors mind in reckoning Persecution among the greatest Evils that can possibly befal the Church They did not take it for an evil but rather for a favour and a benefit And though it were allowed to be an evil yet the utmost that can be made of it is that it is an evil only of Calamity the greatest of which kind Conscientious Casuists have never thought comparable with the least evil of Sin I might add also that Scandal also as it is a cause of Sin is a greater Evil than Persecution Our Saviour himself pronounces wo to him by whom the Scandel cometh and the Fire of Hell which never shall he quenched And these are Evils which the Doctor himself must own to be worse than that of Persecution The Doctor therefore must not insist on the Persecution avoided by this complyance with the Intruders till he has cleared the condition of avoiding it from not only Sin but Scandal also If he thinks deposing all Bishops in general to be in earnest a just cause for him to shew his fortitude let him bethink himself how the matter is now in Scotland It were easie by just consequences from the Grounds and Principles of Ecclesiastical Commerce to shew how that Case would concern him in England if it were convenient If Christ were equally to be enjoyed in the Communion of the true Bishops and their Schismatical Rivals we should be as willing as he to keep off the Evil day as long as we could Flesh and Blood would easily perswade us to it if it were safe But he knows very well that the Catholick Church in the purest Ages never believed our mordern Latitudinarian Fancies that Schismaticks have any Union with Christ whilst they are divided from his Mystical Body the Church If this were true or if he thought it himself true I do not understand how he could reckon Schism among the greatest Evils that can befal the Church if even Schismaticks may enjoy Christ though they be in open Hostility with his Authorized Representative §. XVIII The Evil of Schism not avoided but incurred by complying with the Usurpers As for the Case of Schism which he pretends to be avoided by them by their compliance with the Usurpers this Evil is so far from being avoided as that it has been occasioned by it The Doctor cannot deny but that their communicating with the Intruders has occasioned a notorious breach of Communion which on one side or the other must needs be Schismatical All therefore that he can pretend is that they by complying are not chargable with the crime of the Schism that has been occasion'd by it How so it is because if we had also done as they have done there had been no Schism Very true But it had been full as true if they had done as we have done This pretence therefore leaves the Criminalness of the breach as uncertain as before and necessarily puts them for tryal of that on the merit of the Cause And if that be enquired into all the Presumptions as well as the particular Proofs are in favour of us and against them We were plainly one before this breach As therefore the branch it self is new so the guilt of it must be resolved into the Innovations that occasion'd it which will by unavoidable consequence make them chargeable with the breach who were guilty of the Innovations The Innovations that have caused the breach are the disowning our old Bishops and substituting others in their Places whilst themselves are living and continue their Claim and are not deprived by any Authority that had really a Power to deprive them But in these instances they not we have been the Aggressors and Innovators Do we own the Old Bishops for the true Bishops of these Sees of which they have pretended to deprive them And did not they do so too as well as we before the Deprivation And what had they to pretend for themselves why they do not so still Besides this very Sentence of Deprivation which the Doctor owns to be invalid And how can they justify their disowning them upon a Sentence confessedly invalid This new behaviour of theirs they must wholly own as it is new to be their own We only continue to own our Holy Fathers as Dr. Hody himself and his Brethren did formerly As for the Second Act the setting up new Bishops in opposition to our Fathers they cannot excuse themselves from being the Innovators and concerning us they cannot pretend it They have made the new Bishops who consecrated them and they also who own them by communicating with them or their Consecrators These have intirely been the Acts of the Ecclesiasticks Yet without these all that the Lay-Power could have done could never have formed a Schism nor divided our Communion And as to what has been done on both sides we can better excuse our selves than they can Could they and we have consented to have acted Uniformly there could have been no Schism But we can better account for our not complying with them than they can for not complying with us On their side they have nothing to plead but worldly Considerations They could not doubt of the Lawfulness with regard to conscience of doing that on their side which if done had prevented the Schism They can pretend no obligation in Conscience for setting up other Bishops as we can for not owning them till they can prove us fairly discharged in Conscience which they as well as we were obliged in in regard of the old true Proprietors They could pretend no cementing Principles essential to the subsistence of the Church as a Society and a Communion independent on the State obliging them to comply with these encroachments of the Politicions for making Spiritual considerations to give way to Temporals They could pretend no Catholick Authority of the Church in any Age approving what was done by them as we can of the best and purest Ages for what has been done by Us. They could not pretend any such united Authority of even the Church of England before this change for many things wherein we differ now as we can So far thay have been from avoiding Schism by these compliances or from purging themselves from the guilt of the Schism which has followed thereupon § XXI The abuses that may follow on Compliance are a just reason

the force now mentioned which might make the Exercise of his Right impracticable This Solomon might do by banishing him from Jerusalem and confining him to Anathoth § XXXVIII VVhich Force might in the Consequence render the Exercise of his Right impracticable For it is to be remembered that the Jewish Priest-hood included seveveral Secular Rights which must therefore have been in the Power of the Secular Magistracy and as to the Spiritual Offices was so confined to places which the Magistrate could hinder the Priests from by his Power of External Force that in case he would make use of his Force to hinder them the whole Exercise of the Right of Priest-hood would thereby be rendered impractable It included by Divine Institution many Secular Rights Particularly as to the Oracle of Urim by which many Secular Causes were to be determined and by which on account of the Governments being Theocratical the Supream Civil Magistrate as well as the Subject was in Conscience to be concluded This was consulted by the Elders of Israel concerning their designed Expedition against the Benjamits by Saul on the miraculous victory of Jonathan by David in the Cases of Sauls Exepedition against him and the treachery of the Men of Keilah and his own Expedition against the Philistians And the Elders of Israel even in the time of Joshua are blamed for not Asking Counsel at the Mouth of the Lord in the Case of the Peace made with the Gibeonites by which we understand the Obligation of the Civil Magistrate as well to consult as to observe this Oracle And in private Cases when a Cause fell out too hard in Judgment that is for the Decision of the Ordinary Judges between blood and blood between plea and plea and between stroke and stroke as in the time of Moses they consulted him and he consulted GOD so afterwards the ordinary course was to make the Ultimate Appeal to the Priests no doubt the High Priest more principally and to stand to their award under of pain Death These Causes which concerned blood and blood and stroke and stroke were undoubtedly Secular as also the Capital punishment to be afflicted on those that proved refactory These Secular Rights GOD annext inseparably to the Priest-hood But the execution of them wholly depended on the Power of the Sword which GOD was pleas'd intirely to permit to the Civil Magistrate whom the Priests could therefore only oblige in Conscience which obligation if the Magistrate would not regard it was fully in his Power to hinder the Execution of such Decrees So also even the Spirituals of that Sacerdotal Office depended on things in the Power of the Civil Magistrate The Lawful Priest himself could Sacrifice no where but in the Temple and at the Altar of Jerusalem and in the particular Vestments prescribed by the Law If he did such Sacrifices would not only be unacceptable but Piacular This the Romans very well understood when by locking up the Vestments in the Fort Antonia and by keeping a guard there that should command the Temple to which the Fort was contiguous they engrossed the disposal of the High Priest hood intirely to themselves And it was also in the Power of Solomon to make the whole Exercise of Abiathar's Priest-hood impracticable by the like force which he had a Right as a Prince to exercise where he should judge it necessary for the good of the Secular Society for which he was principally concerned This was an indirect Power over Abiathar's Spirituals in order to his own Temporals § XXXIX Yet Solomon was in Conscience obliged to be cautions in exercising this Force against the Priest-hood But then it is to be considered further 4ly by the opinions of those times grounded on Reasons lasting still Princes though they had that Power annext to their Office were notwithstanding obliged in Conscience to be sparing in the Use of it against such Holy Persons as Abiathar was Holy places were every where by the consent of Civilized Nations allowed the Right of protecting such as fled to them if they were not guilty of the highest Piacular Crimes Thus it was in the Case of Adonijah and others mentioned in the Old Testament Thus in the Cases of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Supplices among the Greeks and Romans The Piaculum Cylonianum among the Athenians was famous Though Cylon justly deserved what he suffered yet because some of his party were killed in the Sanctuary the displeasure of the Deity on that account was to be atoned by a Solemn Expiation which was performed by Epimenides And if the places were thus reverenced on account of their Consecration much more the Priests from whom they received it This is exactly the Reasoning of our Blessed Saviour in a Like Case Accordingly it was a general Rule Touch not mine Anointed for whose sakes even Kings also are said to have been reprov'd This was the Security of the whole Peculium of Israel among the many Nations through whom they passed in their Expedition from Aegypt to Canaan This was the Security of the Prince himself that none could Stretch out his hand against the Lord 's Anointed and be guiltless That is without being guilty of a Piacular Crime And how could Solomon hope that Assassinates would regard his own Anointing if himself had violated an Anointing so much greater and Holyer then his own from whence his own was derived This reverance also to Holy Persons obtained by the consent of Civilized Nations which is to us an Argument of the Law of Nations Aesop as a Person Holy and beloved of the GODS was revenged by them The like was their Opinion of several Poets also as Pindar Stesichorus c. And this also was among them Translated to the Interests of the Civil Magestrate The Tribunes of the People among the Romans were first secured by it Afterwards the Emperours were so also by having the Tribunitian Power and the Pontificate annexed to their Office And how far this opinion prevailed even among the Jews of those Earlier Ages appears plainly in the Murder of Abimeleck and the Priests by Saul His own Servants could not be prevailed upon to do it None indeed but Doeg the Edomite who being of an other Nations might be supposed to have less regard for the Jewish Consecration And there was particular reason for this revernce to the Priest-hood in the Jewish Governments as it was Theocratical As it was such the Magistrate was more particularly obliged to do every thing according to the mind of GOD himself whose Vicegerent he was And GOD being the principal and Supream Governour he was as much concerned in every thing to take care that it were performed according to his pleasure as every inferior Magistrate is bound at his peril to do every thing according to the mind of the Supreme Legislator rather than his own This would oblige the Prince to value every thing according to the esteem