their Remonstrances then such a forced Compliance might have been censurable for Cowardice but here being nothing of this but a calm and constant quiet under the Procedures of the State it must be resolved that the Sence of the Convocation judged it allowable Dyscher But if the Church shall yield without any Remonstrance to such Intrusions of Civil Powers upon the Churches Liberties Censures and Authorities then for Cause or no Cause we shall be liable to Suspensions and Deprivations according to the Tydes of Humour and Temper in our Legislatours and thus fall under the Arbitrary Disposals which the High-Priesthood of the Jews suffered under Heathen and the Greek Patriarchals now suffers under Mahumetan Princes a Blemish not to be endured by any Church whatsoever it incurs for the Opposition Eucher You may remember that I have yielded to you that the Consent Publick and Actual Concurrence of the Church is necessary to give an Ecclesiastical Effect to Civil Ordinances in Matters of the Church And so here the Church is to Judge whether she may or must in Duty concurr or no and hence a Right essentially belongs to it to examine all the Causes of the Secular Demands So that if she finds there are 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 Nay so he ought to have done had the King been de jure Arbitrary and of Despotick Power Thus if a Prince shall trifle and require a Bishop to Hawk Hunt play at Tables run Races c. up on pain of Deprivation though none of these things be simply Unlawful for Men in General or for a Bishop to avoid a Persecution yet upon neglect of such injoyned Follies no Man will judge a Deprivation Just nor the neglect a Sin nor ought the Church to admit Deprivations on such improper and unreasonable Demands Thus †Naz. in Epitaph Patr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gregory Nazianzen the Father in the behalf of the Church of Cappadocia tells Julian That they will stand by the Bishop they had set in the Church of Cesarea whatsoever Law or Violence he should offer to the contrary And I will grant you that the Church hath this Right against the Violence of Christian as well as Heathen Princes since 't is the quality of the Cause not the Prince upon which the Church is to Act Else under the Name of Christian many Un-Christian Pranks may be obtruded on the Church to the Reproach and Ruine of Christianity And whether the Church yields to or opposes the Laws of the State justly or unjustly must not be judged alone from the Rights of Civil Sovereignty but upon the Reasons of the Subject Matter in which the Concurrence of the Church is required And in our Case the Church judges it Lawful and Rational for her to admit the present Law of Deprivation from the Weight and Reasons thereof against the present Recusancy And our Judgment herein hath greater Foundation than those Concurrences and Acts of the Church in the High Commissions Ecclesiastical had heretofore in the Suspensions Deprivations in several Reigns of Reformed Princes that were purely the Executions of a Royal Authority delegated to the Judges upon little many times and captious Exceptions relating sometimes to Civils sometimes to Ecclesiasticals Dyscher But here the chief Delegates pronouncing Ecclesiastical Censures were generally Bishops tho' the Assessours were several of them Lay Personages without whose Vote or Privity nothing was to be done And this with good Reason the Causes censurable being many times mixt and so likewise the Judgments that is partly of Civil partly of Ecclesiastical Importance But tho' the King's Commission did give them License as to Place Matter Form and time of Proceeding yet the Ecclesiastical Censures had their Ecclesiastical Virtue from the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Ecclesiastical Delegates pronouncing them as in the Censures of Excommunication is most Evident this being plainly not of Regal but Apostolick Authority and the Power of the Keys which none of our Reformed Princes would assume to themselves or delegate to mere Lay-Judges Eucher But what think you of the Deprivation past on the Bishops c. Recusant to the Royal Supremacy of Queen Elizabeth by Vertue of an Act of Parliament which by their Lay Power did overbear the Episcopal and upon whose Order herein standeth our Ecclesiastical Succession from those Bishops that succeeded in the room of the Deprived Dyscher You must note that these Recusants were guilty of the false Doctrine of the Papal against the Regal Supremacy Which false Doctrine had been before Synodically condemned in the Reign of H. VIII and so effectually stood tho' Q. Mary martyred deprived and exiled both the Orthodox Bishops and Clergy for this really as well as for other Orthodoxies Therefore those deprived by Q. Eliz. were either Apostate from the Doctrine they had before professed in entrance into their Stations and so were ipso facto irregular and to be de jure Canonico deserted of all or else they came into the rooms of Men unjustly deprived and so were Usurpers or into Places really vacant which for not owning by Oath and Doctrine the Regal Supremacy they were not capable of by the still unrepealed Canons of the Church and so were in truth not true Bishops nor Ministers of the Places they assumed Well therefore might they deprive them of the Bishopricks c. that were in no Canonical Title the true Proprietors But here ours deprived were all true Proprietors under no Irregularity through Apostasie false Doctrine or uncanonical Deficiencies Eucher You frame new Notions now not started nor conceived then For upon your Plea they should never have sate in that Parliament nor have been owned as Bishops before that Act past but yet so they were in all their Titles And in the Disputation at Westminster in the beginning of the Queens Reign the five Popish Bishops were owned with all their Titles by the Lords of the Queen 's Privy Council and by the Protestant Disputants themselves Even as Hooper also owns them for such and the whole Popish Convocation for such in his Epistle that he wrote to it in the days of Q. Mary And in that Station they had continued upon their former Installations except only such who had offended or usurped the Places of Men yet in being and expecting restitution if they would have taken the Oath of Supremacy Here therefore the State enacts and Ecclesiastical Deprivation and it is all one whether you will say on a Civil or Ecclesiastical Point if on a Civil then the Case is the same with ours if Ecclesiastical also then that Parliament entred more upon Ecclesiastical Matters and Authorities than this hath done and yet you condemn not that Parliament as Schismatical nor the Church admitting it Apostate Why then charge you this upon our State and Church now Here is no
justified but the Legal Consequences may be admitted even upon Oath Wars and Victories are many times unjust yet they that suffer the Injury lawfully submit to the unlawful and injurious Demand of Submission as in Piracies and other like Tyrannies A Son by fraudulent Arts gets judgment in Law and seizes his Fathers Estate and Body by Execution and starves his Father in Prison This Man's Immorality is damnable yet the Judges Sheriffs and the other Officers are innocent because their Offices are not concerned in the Natural Relations or Duties but only in what is of Civil Importance and Cognisance A Lord of a Mannor to which adheres a Court Baron is unjustly outed in Law by his Son to the certain knowledge of several Reversioners These when the Estates revert to them must be sworn to the Homage and Fealty of the Lord that is in by Law Must these Men refuse Homage and lose their Estates or may they swear it to the actual Land-Lord who is visibly Legal though not honestly Rightful I for my Part must determine for the Swearing since all Lords and Tenants must be admitted for such that are in by the Law though at the same time Men are to detest the turpitude and baseness of the Recovery And in such Cases the ejected Lord never blames the Tenants for Perjury Upon which clear Resolution in the General I will descend to the Particular before us and suggest that Men should be very careful of judging others especially Supream Powers and much more how they act upon such private Judgment to the endangering the Peace of humane Societies Which I offer not that Their Majesties Cause needs such a Shade but to oppose the Command of Christ against Men's nimble Censoriousness And indeed here it would be an hard Task from the Fifth Commandment to Charge K. William with subjection to K. James either upon his being his Nephew or Son-in-law were I willing to urge or be urged upon that invidious Point And the Princess of Orange was in Duty bound to follow her Husband's Fortune Order and Authority even against the Will of her Father and this with a more plenary Consent if she judged her Husband's Cause to be just she violating no Decencies due by the Fifth Commandment to her Father which are consistent with her Husband's Rights and Interests and in her rightful Power to perform As for the inner Motions and Counsels of Their Majesties Minds they are not of Human much less of Civil Cognisance and 't is fit for us to leave them to their proper Judge that is God Tho' if the King's Design be what his Actions apparently tend to to spend himself for the Delivery of Nations from Tyranny and Bondage against all the Enemies of humane Liberties and Peace he is certainly the greatest and most desirable and will be by God's Blessing the most Honourable and Glorious Prince that perhaps ever arose since the Days of Constantine the Great I am sure we feel the Blessings of his Care for which many of us ungratefully traduce him And so much for that All that we are concerned in for our selves is not whether in Moral Justice they might desire or accept this Crown but whether this Nation might under its then Exigences yield it them or whether it being yielded them by the Publick Act of this Nation private Subjects may not or ought not to acquiesce in this Settlement and give assurance thereof by Oath or otherwise for if we might have thus yielded in those Straits to an unrelated Prince we may as well to the related because the Personal Relation affects not otherwise our Civils the Settlement of which we must admit if not as we could wish yet as things will bear And I ask you whether in good earnest you think no Settlement must be admitted under Powers procured by breach of God's Commandments Dyscher What if I should say No Eucher Then I will say few or no Changes of Government must be submitted to in the whole World which Perswasion as it is opposite perhaps to the First Introduction of Armed Powers so it must afterward assert them de jure unchangeable Since there is never any such Change without the Breach of many Divine and Moral Precepts Killing Robbery Deceit Covetousness false Accusations Lyes Pretences Subornations Perjuries Treasons c. are the usual Methods and Introductories to such Changes And yet when Settled all Ages Heathen and Christian abide by them By our Laws though the next Heir to the Crown kill the King though his Natural Parent he shall not be barred the Succession by Inheritance though by all moral Equity and supposable Intentions of Royal Parents were there no positive Constitution herein he should be disinherited Dyscher But in such Cases the King would be Dead and all his Rights and Titles with him and the Heir without Competitour But in our Case 't is and 't was far otherwise the King being alive and pursuing the Recovery of his own Dominions Eucher Then it is not the Breach of God's Commandments that incapacitates the Prince of this Crown but the Life and Contention of K. James But if his Tenure be extinct as it hath been publickly judged by this Nation our Oath to him ceases though he contends never so much for the Recovery Dyscher But this new Oath obliges me to act unjustly against K. James's Recovery whereas the whole World knows this Crown to be his in Right Eucher That it was his the World knows but the World is not so knowing that it is his neither from the Moral Justice nor Civil Forms of Law The Question of Justice depends upon the first Originals Process and Issues of the War and of this there is no Authentick Judge but God between the Two Princes though as to us this Nation hath justified K. William's Cause which is to conclude upon us and as to the Forms of Law K. William is now legally Invested I do not say these things bind K. James from endeavouring a Restitution as being without the Power of them never in Law subject to them but they bind us to defend our selves and our present Governours under this Settlement with the Suffrage of the greatest Laws of God Reason and Nations Dyscher But this Oath of Allegiance seems to imply an Assertion of Right to this Crown in K. William and Q Mary since Allegiance follows the Right and this you will yield to be a tender Point to be sworn to Eucher But First it is certain that this Oath expresses no Form of Affirmation concerning Right but is purely promissory of Allegiance to the Sovereigns actually Regnant And it is certain that the Estates in Parliament imposing it intended no more to be sworn since they rejected the Motions made for an Assertion of Right And though that and the ensuing Parliament judged their Admission of K. William and Q. Mary to be in their Lawful Right rebus sic stantibus yet they bound not us to swear so but only upon
Oath to promise that Allegiance due by our Laws to Kings thus actually admitted which I here Remark that you may not here Object the Intention of the Imposer to make us swear what they judged to be Right And here also I must further advertise you that the Courts Assigned to Administer this Oath being the Authentick Interpreters thereof and the Imposers Intention never gave an Interpretation Affirmative of Right that I ever heard of when consulted hereupon but on the contrary I am very well assured that several Courts have given and admitted such Sences as the most tender Recusant might have sworn to and in which Men as Loyal as themselves concurred Dyscher The Laws and Judgments of Men many times permit and require Iniquity and the Prevarication of Courts in the admitting Sences not intended in the Oath on purpose to elude it is a mere mockery of God Humane Powers and Mens Consciences Eucher Whether Courts prevaricate in their Judgments or no private Persons cannot judge to any Civil Effect or Obligation and so what they determine must be taken for Law till Condemned by a Superiour Court or nulled by the Legislative And as to their inward Sincerity God alone is to be their Judge But supposing the Courts may warp the Design of the Oath and the Law on purpose to ease tender Consciences what prevarication is there in these tender Consciences that Religiously took care to have an innocent Sence Authoritatively admitted on which and no other they would take the Oath Dyscher This was a colour pretended only to save their Estates for if they took the Oath really they took it in the Sence of the Imposer and not the feigned Intention but if they did not take the Oath at all then is the State beguiled by a Pretence which is not agreeable to a Christian much less to Priestly Sincerity Eucher If these Men had made Reservations in the Oath they took Insincerity might have been justly chargeable on them but if they demanded of the Court the Imposers Sence and the Court gave an Innocent one and they declared they took it in that Sence so given in Form of Law and no other they certainly did not prevaricate with the State nay it had been a Prevarication to have taken it in any other Sence than what the Court had given And if they really took not the Oath as the Parliament intended they took it as directed by Their Majesty's Judges and could take it no otherwise and if Their Majesties by Their Courts declared their Sence in the passing the Act for the Oath in favour to all innocent and tender Consciences I hope it was no Insincerity to accept that Lenity and Ease and at once to save their Stations and their Consciences and the Publick Peace of Church and State Dyscher But what if a Man be perswaded of the Impiety of this whole Revolution and thinks that the Vengeance of God will fall upon the Nation hereupon can he in Piety swear himself a Party to those Sins on which he expects God's dreadful Judgments Eucher If Men's Minds be entangled in wrong Notions they can act well no way neither with nor against their Perswasions But then such Men's Infirmities how pitiable soever must not obstruct Publick Constitutions Now if such Perswasions be well grounded there must be a Publick Rule of Conscience to justifie them And here I demand what Law of God manifestly makes it a Sin to comport with Civil Powers settled according to the Forms and Laws of Nations though many Immoralities have led the way and Preparations to such Settlements They that act sinfully to introduce such new Powers have Cause to expect God's heavy Displeasure but they that contribute no evil to the Change but submit to it when publickly settled are perhaps one sort of the Meek that shall inherit the Earth in yielding that active Obedience which St. Paul requires to the Powers or Authorities in being and St. Peter to the Humane Constitution And therefore were there no other crying Sins of the Nation The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Per. 2.13 Denotes the Acts of Settlement to be of Humane Law Right and Forms though the Authority of the Persons thus Settled or Constituted be Divine And 't is very harsh to understand it for Mankind this peaceable yielding to Humane Constitutions needs not be dreaded So little ground is there for those your Superstitious Jealousies Dyscher 'T is easie for Sophistry to put fair Glosses upon foul Matters but if K. James ever return these Recusants will be able to make a better Plea son their Cause than you will for yours And though they may be Persecuted again for their Religion yet can they not suffer as Traitors and Evil-doers And herein they comfort themselves though they are for Conscience sake killed all the day long and are counted as Sheep appointed to be slain But you What will you say when it shall be demanded of you by what Authority you transferred your Allegiance without his Will When it shall be objected That you were sworn to him not the Estates of this Realm and he not they had the only Right of disposing your Allegiance Eucher Upon such a Turn as you mention I grant you good Answers may have no Reception for Swords and Guns have no Ears But yet a good Answer may be given to wit That we had his Authentick Grant for so doing Dyscher That is strange Eucher Did not K. James in his Declaration for Indulgence Dispense with the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to all his Subjects Dyscher That was an ineffectual and null Act in it self as being contrary to Law Eucher Must the Law then be the Rule of Civil Actions both in King and People Dyscher It must so Eucher Was K. James's Coronation Oath a Legal Act Dyscher It was so Eucher Then by that he swore to assert unto this People their Laws Rights and Liberties Which Laws and Liberties do assign our Allegiance to the King for the time being though extralineal And if the Lineal Heir may hang me as a Traitor for breach of that Allegiance to an extralineal King by which himself was a while excluded whether this Law be equal or no though I believe it is very equal yet it is equal that the Subject should not be hanged for observing that Law by the same Prince who may by the Law hang him for not observing it And they that venture so much upon their Integrity to K. James if they break the Laws of Allegiance to K. William may be hanged by K. James as Traytors when he returns according to Law A fine colour for Papists to dispatch those Protestants that by their being intowered blasted all their fine Projects upon our Liberties and Religion Dysch But will not this inferr Subjection due to O. C was he not settled much more absolutely and strongly than K. William And yet we see upon the return of K. Charles the Second all his Laws
old nor inferr a Title to a New Bishop which is the Point before us Nor can they justly deny those Externals to the Church though they may to those that offend against her on a just presumption of the Churches consent or her express Petition thereunto And this was the Sence of St. Athanasius when he denied Constantius a Church for Arians in Alexandria and of St. Ambrose when he and his Flock kept their Churches at Milan against the Commands and Terrours of the Emperour Valentinian Junior on the behalf of the Arians and of St. Chrysostom when he at Constantinople denied the Emperour Arcadius a Church for Gamas his Arian General And even in Places not Consecrated Place Time and Air and Liberty to do good are the Primitive Fundamental and undeniable Rights of the Innocent Else the Christians had sinned in using these for Christian Worship against the Laws Imperial So that as yet you can fix no Spiritual Powers in Secular States that can extinguish a Christian Man's Christian Graces Rights and Orders Eucher But our Lawyers tell us that our Kings are mixt Persons and not mere Laity and so by a joint Act of Sacred and Civil Authority may execute Spiritual Censures as far as their Authority hath a mixture of Spirituals Dyscher The Doctrine of Lawyers is with us no Divinity and St. Ambrose and Theodosius the Emperour had other Sences when the Bishop would not permit the Emperour being of the Laity to come within the Chancel or the Rails of the Altar and the Emperour acknowledged the Prohibition to be properly Just and Episcopal and the Rule Ecclesiastical which he would never more neglect during his Life Eucher But though he is of the Laity yet being Christian by virtue of his Christianity and Civil Sovereignty too he may have Christian joyntly with his Civil Authorities For as Christian he may be reputed as Head and Representative of the whole Christian Laity whom you grant before at Liberty to separate from an offensive Bishop and to procure another from Social Bishops Or if you will not admit him the alone Representative of the Laity then you may take in the Lords and Commons the whole Christian Legislative into that Number or Body of Representatives Dyscher This Notion as specious as it is will not hold for then the King and the Legislative must be professed Members of our Churches Communion but they claim this Right by virtue of the Royalty and Legislative Power though the King be not of our Religious Communion They will stand by all their Acts in or about Ecclesiasticals though contrary to all the Canons of Ecclesiastical Integrity or else I will not give Two-pence for the Act of Toleration And in this Case before us they deprive the Bishops on a pretended Title of the Civil Sovereignty for the just and necessary security thereof and there is the same Reason for Heathen Monarchs to deprive Christian Bishops on the same Pretensions Eucher I am almost weary with struggling and for that Cause will admit that an Act of a State Christian cannot not alone vacate a Spiritual Charge by any Divine Law or Primitive Canon or Prescription yet such an Act received and admitted by the Church may from her concurrence have a just and legal Effect And then upon this Notion the Statute of Deprivation ipso facto must be taken for a Law upon the Church to eject such Recusants totally from their Stations and the other Laws for Conge deslire c. as Commands on the Church to admit those the King Recommends to the Sees which either are or by the State are reputed Vacant And then the concurrence of the Church to these Laws of the State doth actually and upon just Causes rightfully exauctorate those whom the Statute dooms to Deprivation And to say Truth in all Ecclesiasticals 't is the actual Concurrence of the Church that gives the Statutes an Ecclesiastical Effect and Issue and so though the Original of the Deprivation be Secular yet the Form is Ecclesiastical and in this the Essential Vertue thereof lies and is properly Spiritual and Christian Tho' then the Laws require yet the Chapters Bishops Clergy and Laity do thereupon actually reject and deprive one and admit another Bishop c. Dyscher Then neither the Act for Deprivation nor the Writ of Conge deslire do alone vacate the Sees and if not by what Authority can Chapters proceed to Elect and Bishops proceed to Consecrate new ones in the stead of the actual Incumbents Eucher Because under all the Obligations Causes herein the Church ought to empt the Sees of such Incumbents that are dangerous to the Civil State by Acts of Separation properly Ecclesiastical and so it doth the Dean and Chapter of the Metropolitical Church taking the Jurisdiction till the Chapter Elect and Bishops Consecrate another c. Dyscher Who are the proper Judges of this Duty to eject a Bishop at the Command of the State Eucher All Parties pressed thereunto by the Civil Powers with a proper Judgment of Conscience for themselves and the Church tho' not of ordinary Jurisdiction over the Bishop For when two powers contest and require my concurrence I must then judge on which side Justice lies and to which thereupon Duty binds me and to that I must adhere and do my Part to hinder the other Party from opposing that which I am in Duty bound to And when Chapters and Bishops thus acting obtain the consequent Concurrence and Comprobation of the whole Church their Acts have as good an Authority from Humane Consent as the received Docrees of Councils whose Validity stands or falls with the subsequent Sence of the Churches in common Dyscher The silence and yielding of the Churches in common consequent upon the Violences Men admit for fear of Persecution signifies no certain Perswasion or Conviction that the Deprived suffer nothing but Justice If our Cause had been Condemned in your Convocations you had brought a more specious Argument for the Sence and Censure of the Church than this thin Pretence that carries no Colour nor Shadow of Probability Eucher Even here I will endeavour to satisfie you tho' I shall not gratifie you The General Conformity of most Bishops Clergy and Laity our sending a Convocation at Their Majesties Precept shews we own Subjection to them and Condemns the Recusancy as an Errour which of what Consequence it is every Man that thinks it Errour sees And the silence of the Convocations under this Statute of Deprivation argues their Opinion to be that they were in this to yield to the State Dyscher As if this silence was not the result of Fear and Treachery rather than Judgment for this we charge upon Liberius and the Council of Ariminum when their concurrence with the Arians is urged in Defence of Arianism Eucher Had the Convocation first stoutly decried the Statute as Liberius and that Council at first did Arianism and had upon Menaces or Experiences of bodily Persecution retracted