AN ARGUMENT FOR THE Bishops Right In Judging in CAPITAL CAUSES IN PARLIAMENT For their RIGHT unalterable to that Place in the GOVERNMENT that they now enjoy With several Observations upon the Change of our English Government since the Conquest To which is added a Postscript being a Letter to a Friend for Vindicating the Clergy and rectifying some mistakes that are mischievous and dangerous to our Government and Religion By THO. HUNT Esquire In Turbas Discordias pessimo cuique plurima vis Pax quies bonis artibus indigent Tacit. Hist l. 4. LONDON Printed for Thomas Fox at the Angel and Star in Westminster-Hall 1682. THE PREFACE THis Argument for the Bishops Right of judging in Capital Causes in Parliament for their being one of the three States of the Realm and that their Right is unalterable by Law was written above two years since and prepared for the Press time enough to be made publick against an expected Session of Parliament in October 1679. But the Parliament being prorogued from that time until January the Author was willing to respite the Publication to advise with his second thoughts and again to review what he had written in a case of this weight and moment and the rather for that he had but a short time allowed him for its composure Since that there has been published by an excellent person a Book in vindication of their Right of judging called The Grand Question sufficient to give satisfaction if the world were just and impartial and disposed to make right Judgment in the Cause It may well be reasonably expected that Christian People should not be only just but favourable to any pretence of a Christian Bishop to any secular trust that does not lessen the dignity of the Office and seems unworthy of his Character which as it exempts him from mean and sordid offices and affairs of an inferior and more private concernment so it commends him to the Government of matters of a more publick and universal influence such as require the most improved wisdom and learning and a noble virtue It seems to me most unreasonable that those that are the great and principal Expounders of the Christian Law which gives Law to all Laws and instructs men to discharge their several Offices both publick and private that those who are the great Guides of our Consciences and by whose Directions and Institutions we form our Judgments in the greatest intricacies and doubts that perplex humane affairs that the Guides of a Religion which is formed all to life and practice for the making Governments equal and private men good and obedient which is little else but an Obligation to Justice and Charity and principally pursues that which is the end design and whole business of Government I say it seems to me most absurd and incongruous that this Order of men at any time ought to be shut out of that Council and Court where Laws are made and Rules given for the Government of a Christian Common-wealth where the most difficult and intricate causes are to be heard and determined and where an unlimited power remains of censuring the Actions of the greatest men and the administration of publick affairs and the safety of the Nation are consulted which cannot be long preserved but by pursuing the dictates of a wise Religion Such is the Christian Religion if any other we should dishonour it by comparing it to the best Paganism became despicable and abandoned soon after its publication Yet Tully in his Oration ad Pontifices magnifies the wisdom of the Romans as Divine in advancing the Pagan Priests to the highest places in their Common-wealth by which the Common-wealth he saith was preserved Cum multa Divinitùs Pontifices à Majoribus nostris inventa atque instituta sunt tum nihil praeclarius quam quod vos eosdem Religionibus Deorum immortalium summae Reipublicae praeesse voluerunt Vt amplissimi clarissimi Cives Rempublicam bene gerendo Religiones sapientèr interpretando Rempublicam conservarent Such an Opinion more duly and with better reason our Ancestors conceived of the advantage that might accrue to the Nation by advancing the Prelates of the Church into the Civil Government Thereupon they have made them necessary to it and framed the Government in a sort to depend upon them and left it scarce able to maintain it self without them in its present constitution The Temporal Barons will soon find themselves unable to maintain their own dignity and to sustain that province that is allotted to them in the Government unassisted with the Interest and authority of the Prelates the Spiritual Barons a mighty Power if they be as they ought to be of venerable esteem with the people If the present Bishops are not all so happy as to possess such an esteem we know what cause to assign for the same viz. the unhappy Schism that hath too long continued in our Church hath for its own Justification after they are almost sham'd out of the scruples which first caused the separation sought occasions against the Persons of the Bishops and rather than they will want faults to complain of the Order it self must be loaded with all the faults of all the Bishops in all Countries and Ages and they adventure now to disparage their persons for the sake of their office But sure it is a folly that can fall upon no people but such who by the evils they feel or fear are vext out of their understanding to suppress any Office that is necessary to any Common-wealth in any form of Government for the faults of the Officers for the time being But too true it is that a form of Government while established may be so utterly misunderstood by the most when it is not or not duly administred that a true and exact description of it and a discourse of the Offices and Functions of the several parts of the Government would be taken by them for some Vtopian Common wealth or no better please them than a description of the strength of an impregnable Fort once the Security of the Nation when invested by the Enemy A Lecture of a learned Physician of the Vsus Partium will not give sight to a blind Eye nor motion to a withered hand and no body is warmed or comforted by a painted fire But God be thanked we are not yet destitute of the benefits of a good Government Another cause I apprehend may much lessen the Bishops in the esteem of the People and make them want that Reputation that is necessary to every Governour in proportion to his Charge is their manner of promotion The Ministers of State whose business it ought to be to understand the true Characters of men that are preferred to that Office are often mistaken however in this Course they seem not to be promoted for their own Merit but at the pleasure of the great Courtiers and at best the Ministers of State can do no more than recommend to
to whom such Judgment doth of Right appertain did give their Judgment He concludes that the Bishops could not he said to be his Peers which shews they were not there But he must give us leave with much better Logick to conclude that they were present and We with reason presume because they are Peers of Parliament for so the Record is not his Peers for he fallaciously changeth the Terms they were there except he can prove them absent if common Right is not Reason of presumption no presumption can be reasonable But we can prove to him they were there And thereby in consequence we have another proof that they are Peers Sir Robert Cottons Abridgment tells us 5 H. 4. Fol. 426. that at the same time the Arch-Bishops and Bishops at their own request and therefore certainly then present were purged from suspicion of Treason by the said Earl And at the same time I pray observe Sir Henry Piercy his levying of War was adjudged Treason by the King and Lords in full Parliament Note that here is said to be a full Parliament and yet nothing in the Entry but the stile of Lords So various and contingent in respect of form are the Entries which ought to be observed But to review and consider again the Case of John Hall condemned in Parliament for Treason for murdering the Duke of Glocester And to this place I have reserved the Case of the two Merchants that killed John Imperial an Ambassadour of Genoua for both Cases are of the same nature and must receive the same answer and that is this The Statute of the 25 E. 3. was made to declare certain matters Treason and to be so judged in ordinary Judicatures but withall that Statute did provide that if any other Case supposed Treason do happen it shall be shewed to the King and Parliament whether it ought to be judged Treason Concerning which the King and Parliament do and are to declare by their Legislative power as it is agreed by all and as they did in the Case of John Imperial as appears by that Record expresly So that though the Bishops were not present at the Judgment of John Hall they might have been it must be confessed by our Adversary if the Judgment against John Hall was by the Legislative Power as it must be By this it appears how false an Argument this of his is To conclude no Right from absence for it is plain here it proves too much it proves a thing notoriously false a thing false by the confession of our Adversary and from what any falshood may be inferred is not it self true but stands reproved by the falshood and absurdity of what follows in consequence thereof But this is too Solemn Reproof of so frivolous an Argument for it is no more in effect than this That no man can have an Authority but what he is always in the exercise of The Octavo goes on and remembers that in the 2 H. 4. the first Writ de Haeretico comburendo was framed by the Lords Temporal only and without question it was so For the order of proceedings in Case of Hereticks Convict so required it The Bishops are upon the Matter the pars laesa in Heresy The authority of the Church is therein offended and it was not therefore proper for an Ecclesiastick to be an Actor therein The Author doth improve this as he doth all things that he can with any manner of colour to render the Order of Bishops hated and disesteemed which is the publick establishment the legal provision for the Government and guidance of Religion What mischief then is he a doing How great is his fault to deprave that provision to destroy their Reputation and Esteem with the people to destroy all their authority as much as in him lyeth His utmost endeavours are not thereto wanting to make their Ministries useless and to frustrate the provisions of the Law and the care of the Government in the highest concernment of the Nation Doth this become a great man I will not say a good man God rebuke him To lessen the Authority and disrepute and dishonour any Order of men or any Constitution that can be any ways useful to the publick is a great fault but this of his is a most enormous offence But what can be inferred from hence against the Order of the Bishops may be with like unworthiness inferred against the Christian Religion it self For it may be as well concluded that the Christian Religion is a bad Religion for that men of that denomination in the general Apostasie by pretence of Warranty from that Religion though it gave none murdered innocents As that the practices of the Bishops of that Religion so depraved do reflect any dishonour against the Bishops of reformed Christianity And this Answer will suffice too for the Case of Sir John Old-Castle As for the Earls of Kent Huntingdon and Salisbury the Lord le Despencer and Sir Ralph Lumley before that executed and declared Traytors in Parliament by the Lords Temporal only in the Parliament of the 2 H. 4. and the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Bardolph against whom it was proceeded in a Court of Chivalry after their death who were declared Traytors after they were dead in the Parliament in the 7 H. 4. I hope the Octavo Gentleman and all that are at present of his Opinion will take this for a sufficient Answer if we had no more to say that it was irregular very irregular indeed to condemn men after they were dead when he himself would set aside the Authority of the Case of William de la Poole in 28 H. 6. in Parliament where the Bishops were present which though he saith is the sole single precedent of Bishops acting in Capital Causes We shall therein convict him to be a man of Will to have lost himself in his passions and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And enter that Case with a cloud of other testimonies and reasons that affirm I will not stick to say demonstrate so as such matters can be demonstrated with a moral demonstration such as shall leave no doubt with any man of the Bishops Right of judging in Capital causes in Parliament But We shall further add for Answer that the Temporal Lords did not herein exercise the Office of a Judge For it could be no Judgment they delivered It was only an officious declaration an avowing of the justness of the slaughter of these great men and to enter themselves of the other side But is it as reasonable for this Writer to fore-judge the Bishops of their Franchise and to have it seized because they would not be guilty of a misuser thereof and would not consent to so insolent a thing as to judge men unheard nay when dead and they could not be heard And to kill over again the murdered Lords for so they are in consideration of the Law who are not by legal process condemned and executed I cannot but observe in many of
Law was publickly professed in England before the end of the 12th Century for Mat. Paris tells us of a Monk of Evesham Anno Dom. 1196. that suo tempore eorum quos Decretistas Legistas appellant peritissimus habebatur earum etiam facultatum auditores quamplurimos instituerat and from that time the study of the Caesarean and Pontificial Law did flourish amongst us until the beginning of E. 3. But in all that time saith Mr. Selden in his Fleta gens ipsa Anglicana ac qui in judiciis praeerant morum patriorum viz. Juris Communis Angliae per intervallum illud tenacissimi fuere A remarkable instance we have of this Nations steady aversion from admitting here either the Civil or Canon Law in the Parliament of Merton which rejected a Bill for Legitimation of Children born before marriage in Concubinate in these Terms Nolumus leges Angliae mutari meaning that they would not make Laws conformable to the Civil or Canon Law The great Policy that the Popes used to effect their Ambitious design of making themselves Monarchs of the Christian World were The assuming to themselves the entire rule and Government of Religion and endeavouring to make every where the Bishops and the whole Clergy together with the Regulars dependant upon them by pretending them to be exempt from all Civil Authority and Jurisdiction and by interdicting to them the exercise of any Civil Authority and shutting them out from all intromissions into the Civil Government and from any interest or dependance thereupon So far as he prevailed in these designs he acquired an Imperium in Imperio and if besides these he could have fixt a Spiritual handle to the Temporal Sword and have got the Government of secular affairs in ordine ad spiritualia his design had been compleated and he had arrived to a more absolute and extensive Empire than that of the Roman Caesars To these purposes the Canon Law provided that the Ecclesiasticks were neither to exercise nor be subject to any Civil Authority But this policy of the Pope had no success in England the endeavours of the Papalins herein met with constant opposition and at last they were made desperate by the Assise of Clarendon where it was declared and enacted accordingly agreeable to the Avitae Consuetudines Regni that the Bishops should be retained and continue to be a part of the Government and exercise Jurisdiction in all Causes in the Kings Court as other Barons as is before observed and that the Clergy should stand submitted to the Jurisdiction of the Kings Courts For this purpose it was also in that Parliament enacted as followeth Si controversia emerserit inter Laicos vel Laicos Clericos in Curia Domini Regis tractetur determinetur and also quod clerici rectati accusati de quacunque re summoniti à Justitia Regis venient in Curiam Domini Regis responsuri ibidem c. And so far were the Bishops and Clergy from observing that part of the Canon Law that was to detrude them from all secular Authority and Jurisdiction that they were from time to time Chancellors Treasurers Keepers of the Privy Seal and Judges and while that Ancient Office continued of Capitalis Justiciarius Angliae to whom was committed the Justice of the Kingdom who were called Custodes Regni Vice-Domini Angliae and sometimes the abstract Justitia He did preside in the Curia Regis which Office was afterwards divided for there were Justitiarii Angliae Boreales Justitiarii Angliae Australes this Office was often executed by Bishops as you may see in Sir Hen. Spelmans Glossary in the word Justitiarius Bishops and Church-men administred the greatest Offices of State and Justice this was matter of Envy to the Temporal Lords and they complain'd in Parliament 45 E. 3. as is before observed That the Government of the Kingdom had been a long time in the hand of the Clergy Mr. Selden in his Fleta tells us that in the times before and after the Assise of Clarendon Mos fuit Judices Regios ex genere hieratico veluti Episcopis Abbatibus Decanis id genus aliis constituendi And it is provided by 28 E. 1. Cap. 3. That if a Clergy-man was a Judge of Assise another should be joyned in Commission with him to deliver the Goals which was to the end that the Ecclesiastical Judge might use that liberty which was indulged to him by the Assise of Clarendon of not pronouncing the Sentence for it must be observed that by that Statute a Clergy-man might be a Judge in a Goal-delivery for that a Laick was by the provision of that Statute to be join'd to him in Commission and Pleas of the Crown are to be found purporting them to be held before two Judges whereof one a Clerk after this Law which could not possibly have been if the Clerk had not been in Commission Besides for after Ages it is well known that all the great Officers and Ministers of State and Justice have been always intrusted with the conservancy of the peace are in Commissions of the peace and Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer for judging capital Causes so that the constant practice in all times as well as the express declaration of the Assise of Clarendon doth assure us that the Canon Law that prohibits Clergy-men being Judges in capital Causes was never received here or became the common Law of England Besides what regard our Clergy had of the Canon Law what opinion they had of the Right in question and how far the Laws did intend to prohibit the exercise of it And that such right was used and exercised will appear by the Canon of Toledo Concil Toletan 11. Cap. 6. fo 553. and the Canon of Lanfrank Spelmans Concil 2 vol. fol. 11. these were made before the Assise of Clarendon That of Toledo is this His à quibus Domini Sacramenta tractanda sunt judicium sanguinis agitare non licet ideo magnopere talium excessibus prohibendum est ne qui praesumptionis motibus agitati aut quod morte plectendum est sententia propria judicandi mant aut truncationes quaslibet membrorum quibuslibet personis aut per se inferant aut inferendas precipiant This being a Foreign Council this Canon carries not with it the Authority of a Canon with us only we may observe whatever the Opinion of that Council was that it was not convenient for licet can have no ocher sence here for Clergy-men agitare judicium Sanguinis Yet this Canon prohibits only the pronouncing the Sentence by themselves or others I am sure that by a positive Law as this Canon must be so far as it participates of the nature of a Law nothing becomes unlawful but what is forbidden whatever the reason be of that Prohibition That of Lanfrank follows thus Vt nullus Episcopus vel Abbas seu quilibet ex Clero hominem occidendum vel membris truncandam judicet vel judicantibus suae authoritatis favorem
accomodet This may be a Canon for all that I know but I suspect it had never the Royal Assent to make it so it not being likely that the Conqueror would discharge the Bishops from those Services of the Crown which he had so lately obliged them to by his tenure but surely it was never intended by this Canon that the Prelates and great Abbots should or that they did depart from their Royal Franchises and not make their Officers for administring Justice according to their Authorities in their Charters of Liberties and Priviledges For the words of the Canon Vel judicantibus tuae authoritatis favorem accomodet if they signifie any thing more than what weallow must sound to that purpose But I suppose the Gentlemen that appear'd against the Bishops had rather than affirm so against the known practice of all Ages be content to agree that this Canon did only intend to prohibit their pronouncing or encouraging or promoting the Sentence of Death or Mutilation and indeed this was all that truly could be pretended to from them in comporting themselves decently with respect as the Opinion of those times was to their Function which is expressed to be the Inducement to that Canon of Toledo as it was the only avowed Reason of all others that is that it did not become as they thought those that administred the Sacraments which were the Seals of God's Pardon to pronounce an exterminating Sentence of Life and Member though they might have a farther Secret purpose therein of carrying on the Design of a Church-Sovereignty by imbodying the Clergy and dividing them from all Secular Dependencies but this was nor always to be owned neither is it an agreable Employment to any person who pretends himself a Protestant to urge these ill-designing Canons as a pretence to divest the Bishops of those their Legal Rights which were so prejudicial to the high Growth of the Papal Power upon any pretence whatsoever or to go about to deprave the Reformation as if the true Christian Religion would not allow to the Bishops Honors and Trusts as great as they now enjoy by the Constitution of the Government who are the Chief Ministers of it which is a Religion that makes men wise and good the Religion of the State and is the greatest Support of it and reciprocally this Religion it self is honored assisted and greatly advantaged for obtaining its ends by those Honors and the place at present appointed to them in the Government But it is deplorable to find any man so madly set upon so bad a Design that he should be thereby transported from Common Sence and think to displace them and degrade them by Popish Canons that when they were made did not oblige were never observed and can no more bind our present Church to observe them than the Fathers of Toledo or Lanfrank and his Suffragans and Clerks can be blam'd for not being agreable to the Canons that have been made since the Reformation or hereafter shall be made by our Church in any after Age of the World But there are two Canons yet behind which have been mentioned in this Controversie which we will likewise take notice of or we shall have said nothing though I almost despair that any thing will be a Satisfaction to such Opposers as this Right hath met withall The first whereof was made by Richard Archbishop of Canterbury Anno Domini 1175. in 21 H. 2. about Eleven Years after the Assize of Clarendon in these Words as Hoveden p. 310. ac Gervase Dorob relates them His qui in sacris Ordinibus constituti sunt judicium sanguinis agitare non licet unde prohibemus ne aut per se membrorum truncationes faciant aut inferendas judicent quod si quis tale fecerit concessi Ordinis privetur officio loco inhibemus etiam sub interminatione Anathematis ne quis Sacerdos habeat Vicecomitum aut praepositi secularis officium The other was made Anno 1222 about 47 years after the first which is to be found in Linwood p. 146. among the Constitutions of Stephen Arch-bishop of Canterbury as follows Praesenti Decreto statuimus ne Clerici beneficiati aut in sacris ordinibus constituti villarum procuratores admittantur viz. ut sint Seneschalli aut Ballivi talium administrationum occasione quarum laicis in reddendis ratiociniis obligentur veljurisdictiones exerceant seculares presertim illas quibus sanguinis judicium in locis sacris tractetur in Ecclesia viz. aut in Coemiterio Authoritate quoque Concilii districtiùs inhibemus ne quis Clericus beneficiatus vel in Sacris Ordinibus constitutus literas pro poena sanguinis infligenda scribere vel dictare presumat vel ubi judicium sanguinis tractatur vel exercetur intersit Noverint enim hujusmodi se Ecclesiastica indignos protectione cum per eos in Ecclesia Dei per talia presumpta scandalum generetur Upon both these Canons we observe first that the Pope's Canon-Law had not obtained in England For then there had been no need of these Canons or however their Denunciations and Censures would have been the same That the Inhibition is repeated by a Second Council but in milder Terms signifies to me the Continuance of the thing prohibited and that it was so much in use after the first Canon that the second Council thought fit rather to direct and admonish by their Canon than to pronounce either Anathema's or Privation against those that break that Canon Secondly That neither of these Canons extend to Bishops not the first not only for that I question whether Bishops can be intended in such general words In Sacris Ordinibus constituti But because the Denunciation of the Canon cannot have effect as to them no Ecclesiastical Authority can depose a Metropolitan and also because the Second cannot by any Construction extend to them for Clerici beneficiali does not mean them and that which comes after aut in Sacris Ordinibus constituti cannot ascend in meaning and intend the Bishops especially in a Canon Law which we must suppose penn'd with special Care and Observance of Decency and Reverence to that Order Now to consider them apart I find the first agreable to and to prohibit no more than what the Bishops if here meant are licenced and priviledged from in the Assize of Clarendon And to intend more is unreasonable when it was made in time so near to Thomas of Becket that his Fate could not be forgotten And farther we must distinguish between the Preamble which contains the Reason and Inducement of a Law and what is for that reason prohibited For let the Reason be as large as it will yet the Law is no other than what is enjoyned Reason makes no Law but the Legislators for Reasons which they may tell us if they please though the Nature of Canons requires that they should The Preamble of this Canon was an opinion taken up amongst some of the Clergy viz Non licet
to depend upon the Will of the Prince nor of Single Persons that bore a part in the Government for their time nor be prejudiced in Succession by their Lachesse The same Priviledge doth belong to the Spiritual Baronage the successive Nobility of this Realm and a Writ of Summons to Parliament can be no more refused any of them or any of their Successors than it can to any of the Temporal Baronage I cannot but upon a review of our Government applaud our happiness that we enjoy and were born to so excellent a Government without our Sweat and Contrivance which was arrived to by several slow Steps and beaten out by the long experience of former Ages But it is a portentous thing and of ill very ill Omen that a Government so Venerable and August so Wise Beneficial and desireable should be assaulted with peevish Dotages froward Petulances and childish Cavillations And that some Brain-sick foolish Antiquaries Rakers in the Rubbish of Time should imagine that they can barter away our Government for mouldy Bread and clouted Shoes But these we have before obviated Another sort we have before engaged to consider in their ill Treatment of the Bishops in their handling this Question of their Right we now defend To which I will now proceed CHAP. XXIV FOr I am not now insensible of the great Prejudices that lie against the Right of the question from those Calumnies that are thrown upon the Order And that no reason not the clearest Demonstration will be admitted to any Degree of satisfaction until this be removed Men's understandings are mingled with their interests and Passions It is a hard matter not to see the person in the Cause and if the person is dis-esteemed his Right cannot be equally favour'd Nay which is more if our Adversaries can persuade the World that the Bishops will abuse this their Right nothing will be able to keep off this Conclusion that they have none We most duly therefore here complain of the dishonest Artifice used by the Gentlemen that we have undertaken in this Cause viz. That they seek all occasions of lessening the esteem of the Bishops and of them they speak what they will He that can believe what he will is an Infidel and he that does what he will is a man of no Conscience and he that can speak what he will wants Truth and Candor But of a culpable sort of Wilfulness we finde these two Authors very blameable We must complain of these fierce disputants that they strive unlawfully they contend with passion and a keen Animosity they strike as well as argue they lay about them right or wrong to assault and wound the Persons whose Right they oppose A wound and Dishonour do they give to their own hurt Animosque in Vulnere ponunt The first and greatest Injustice they do to the Cause against all Right and Reason of which sure they must be self-condemned is an odious Remembrance of any thing culpable in the whole Succession of Bishops in the times of the lowest Degeneracy of the Christian Religion and of the heighth of Papal Usurpation and Tyranny which was more heavy in those times upon the Rights of the Bishops than upon those of the Crown When Princes thorough their own Weakness or to serve their Interest or to support their defective Titles to their Crowns or for obtaining dispensations from his Holiness for an unwarrantable Marriage or for other Ends and Reasons could not or would not defend the Bishops and their Rights The very order of Bishops in those times was attempted upon to be annulled by that Oecumecall Usurper It was disputed and boldly maintained in the Council of Trent that the Bishops were only jure Pontificio and had no Authority in the Church but such as his Holiness would vouchsafe them It was endeavoured to make them but his Substitutes He pretended Powers to create and translate them diminish or enlarge their Dioceses gave them more or less Authority did suspend them also and deprive them and pretended that they had only a vicarious and precarious Authority from him and in such Measures as he should think fit to limit and appoint Were not Provisions and Reservations first made by the Pope upon Benefices belonging to Churchmen The Statute of the 25 E. 3. gave their Presentations to the King when the Pope usurped upon them as a Fortification against his Usurpation and Invasion Did he not urge his Canon upon them that they should not agitare judicium sanguinis so much talk'd of in this Question that he might strip them out of their Secular Greatness that he might the better go over them and tread upon them and their Ecclesiastical Rights Is there no Consideration to be had by those Gentlemen in this Case of the Error temporis or Vitia Temporum They will snatch at this unduely when it seems for their turn but can they think that any Bishop under a Protestant Sovereign will ever return under the old Yoak And yet the business of Provisions Reservations and Dispensations and of Pluralties must be laid at the Bishops Door yea though Dispensation of Pluralties is now established by Statute Law with all the Usurpations exercised by the Pope the First-born of the Children of Pride to which they willingly-unwillingly were forced to submit But how unrighteous a thing is it to load the Order it self with all the Miscarriages of a long Course of Succession as if the Faults of the Bishops in all Ages did stick to their respective Chairs and had passed into the Office it self But it is no wonder that they remember the Faults of those Bishops unduely to the Disparagement and Dishonor of the Order and Succession When the Folio turns matter of Commendation into Reproach and calls their contending for due Administration of Justice and Laws Clamors for the Breach of Magna Charta Invisos seu bene seu male facta premunt By this he sems to argue them guilty of affecting Temporal Power and intermedling unduely in Secular Affairs CHAP. XXV BUT to discharge this Imputation we will shortly remember how modest they have always been in the exercise of their Ecclesiastical Office and how faithful they have always been in former Ages to that Temporal Trust which the Laws and Constitutions of this Government hath annexed to the Spiritual Office of a Bishop The Bishops challenge nothing to belong to them of Divine Right but the Exercise of their Ministry in the Cure of Souls They do not assume the Office of themselves but are appointed thereto by the Sovereign Power and therefore the Bench of Bishops are not answerable for every one of their Order They rightfully acknowledge the Right of Investiture and Collation of Bishopricks to be in the King subject to Royal Exemptions and Priviledges from their ordinary Right From which Exemptions Mr. Selden is too forward to conclude his Doctrine of Erastianism for that the Exercise of their Function may be restrained as well in reference
wherewith shall it be Seasoned And if our Light be darkened how great is our Darkness The Bishops know that the World will not be kept in Order by meer Designations of Trust but by Execution of their Trusts not by abstract of Characters unless they are put on and effectively worn The World will not be put off that there is no Provision made in the Government for reasonable Expectancies of all that can make a People happy if we are disappointed in our just Expectations They know for what high Ends they are advanced to their Secular Dignities what was it that hath thus advanced them Was it not the reasonable Expectation that Christian Princes and Governors conceived of their excellent Virtues that they would out-doe all mankind in firm Constancy a vast and extensive Charity unrelenting Fortitude inflexible Justice unmoveable Faith and Loyalty and unbyassed Sincerity What Temptations can their Lordships have that they should not or we Reasons to believe that they will not put forth all those Christian Vertues in Heroical Degrees which the World will not give them leave to exert only in common measures They will find it necessary sure to be now Confessors for the Support and Happiness of a poor distracted Nation a vast and great People They will no doubt subdue the Greatest Potentate to Justice if there be any such who hath unhing'd the Government and sap'd the very Foundations of our Constitution and will never consent to the Pardon of such Sins that are not to be pardoned in this World nor in the World to come Can they suffer the true Christian Religion of which they are the chief Ministers and Curators to perish by their timidity and cowardise Can they suffer a great People committed to their charge to be destroyed into an Anarchy and desert that Prince whose Beneficiaries they are and not interpose for the saving of him and his Government by faithful and wise Counsel To suppose such things as are morally impossible is unreasonable and to fear where no fear is For they if they were wholly secular and were guided by nothing but a secular Interest can consider that the world is impatient of disappointments That they hate nothing more than deceits and abuse of trusts and that he that falls short and goes less than a just expectation falls into the lowest and vilest contempt and deepest scorn But this is not a time sure to lessen the Prelates to take from the Bishops any just advantage or honour when that the contempt in this later age thrown upon them and the whole Order Ecclesiastical and the mischiefs that have naturally ensued thereupon have brought our Nation Religion and Government to a most miserable state a most desperate plunge out of which I pray God we may be able to emerge The Contempt of the Bishops and Clergy made the People despise the publick Establishment chuse Teachers not much wiser than themselves And they have thereupon multiplied vain Opinions and Divisions and true Christianity is scarce had in any Consideration Atheism and Profaneness upon this Stock is come to an enormous Growth which thrives the faster by the vain Opinions and Immoralities of the mistaken Religionists by which the Atheists take the Measures of true Christianity and in Consequence of this Popery is arrived to a vast Increase in Power and Interest and threatens us and the little Remains of true Reformed Christianity with an utter Overthrow The true Christian Religion is not generally understood and hath lost almost all Credit and Belief in a Christian Nation So that it seems to me upon the Consideration of our present State almost necessary that the Truth of the Christian Faith should be again demonstrated in Flames to this Infidel flagitious and degenerate Age that the Stains of the Christian Religion must be washed off by the Blood of the Sincere Professors That the true Faith should be better understood as it will be by dying Thoughts and vain Opinions be destroyed and burn up like Hay and Stubble in the Fire of Persecution For then we shall understand what it is that is worth dying for and that which is not worth dying for is not worth disputing and dividing for in our Christian Communions with breach of Charity Then our Guides the Holy Order of Bishops and other Faithful Pastors of the Church may shew their Sincerity and appear of what Value they are of in the Conduct of Souls by their wise Apologies and Noble Confessions and Martyrdoms for the true Christian Faith and recover a due place in the Peoples Reverence and Esteem for their Successors And if God in all his wise Providence and Care which will never be wanting to his true Religion shall think it necessary by this means to recover and restore it let this Fiery Tryal come let it come And then I doubt not but we shall have our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in Scrripture for the Prelates of the Church to signifie the high Esteem they had of them and are the same with Leaders Captains and Commanders many Cranmers Ridleys and Latimers leading up their Troops of Confessors and a Noble Army of Martyrs who will again seal the Christan Religion with their Blood and a more Glorious Church shall recover out of the Ashes of this But God grant that we may dispose our selves by more easie Methods to recover out of our sickly Estate when we know our Disease and may be cured by more gentle Remedies But I am sure that nothing can save our Nation and Religion but an excellent Clergy and a high Esteem of them amongst the Laity And for this Reason I have earnestly concerned my self for the Bishops Right of judging in Capital Causes in Parliament that they may want no Capacity of making a gasping Nation live and thereby of recovering themselves and their Order into a high Veneration that they may more effectually administer to the Advancement of God's True Religion and Vertue and making this Kingdom happy for Succeeding Generations THE POSTSCIPT The POSTSCRIPT SIR I Now render you my hearty thanks for your free advise you gave me concerning the publishing of the Argument for the Bishops Right of Judging in Capital Causes in Parliament and for asserting their civil Honors and Rights in the Government Because it hath given me an occasion both of vindicating the most of the Inferiour Clergy from those Imputations which you have remembred to me and are commonly discoursed to their disadvantage whereby they have lost their Esteem with the People and also of rectifying the mistakes of some for their number is not great who have given too much cause therein of publick complaints You diswade me from giving any assistance to the Rights of the present Bishops for that the Clergy out of whom the Bishops must be made have entertained Principles that are destructive to the Government They affirm you say That it is in the power of a Prince by Divine Right to
ought not to loose our Lives Liberties and Estates but where forfeited by Law we ought much rather not to loose them for the profession of the best Religion which by Law is made the publick national Religion And it is strange that some men of the same Religion in profession can think that notwithstanding it makes no matter what is done to a man if he be Religious but if he be not so the least publick injuries and injustice may be resisted vindicated remedyed and by right defended by old Laws or new ones to be made for that purpose The Christian Religion was publisht when the whole world was Pagan and therefore it was submitted to such usage as the Governments would give it But when the Christian Faith had by miracles of patience declared it self to be of Heaven and of a Divine Original According to the Prophecies on that behalf it took possession of the Empire and Crowns and Scepters became submitted to the Cross and the Christians acquir'd a civil right of Protection and Immunity which they ought not they cannot relinquish and abandon no more than they can destroy themselves or suffer violence and cruelty to destroy the Innocent Such as thus perish shall never wear a Martyrs Crown but perish in the next world for perishing in this This will be interpretatively Crucifying Christ afresh after he is received up into Glory i. e. After his Religion is exalted into dignity and honor and civil Authority If the senate of Rome had been Christians they would never have given up the Government to a Pagan Augustus with a power to him and his Successors to make laws for extirpating the Christian Faith what is said of the Christian Religion and Paganism holds between the Reformed Religion and Popery If any man is so vain as to say that an unalterable course of Succession is established amongst us by Divine Right I say he is a man fitted to believe transubstantiation and the infallibility of the Pope he is deeply lapsed into fanaticism he dreams when he is awake and his dreams are dreams of phrensie There are somethings so false that they cannot be disproved as somethings are so evidently true that they cannot be proved This proposition hath no color to ground it self upon no medium to prove it no argument for it which is to be answered nor nothing more absurd than it self to reduce it to But if any shall add that this Doctrin is the Doctrin of the Reformation and adventure to tell the people so they are the most impudent falsaries that ever any age produced when there is scarce a Child but hath heard what was done said and maintained by the Clergy of England in the case of Mary Queen of Scots a Popish Successor in the earliest time of our Reformation here in England Our Age is blessed with a Clergy renownedly Learned and Prudent by the Providence of God and the piety of our Ancestors they possess good though not to be envyed Revenues and Honors It is scarce possible they should have many among them that can countenance a proposition so wickedly impious and sacrilegious that we cannot have new Laws but must loose the old at the pleasure of a Popish Successor against not their own interest and the Rights of the Church but against the Rights and Liberty of Religion it self For she is capable of Franchises and Immunitys which ought above all things to be most zealously asserted and defended by her Ministers can they themselves with their own hands ever pull down her Hedg and destroy her Defensatives and expose her helpless to the rage of her implacable Enemies and suspend all the Legal security she hath for her preservation upon the Life of our present King whom God long preserve If Kings be admitted to have a power to make Laws One Proclamation may establish the Popish Religion amongst us which the Papal Bulls so long as that See continues will never be able to effect Next to Religion her self the Revenues of the Church challenge their faithful care for they are at best but Usu-fructuary Trustees of her Endowments for the Succession which they will wretchedly betray to an Arbitrary Successor if they do not repress such Opinions that pretend to change the Government into an absolute jure Divinity Monarchy which will leave nothing jure divino but it self and the Popedom Kings for their so doing have the authority of Sir Robert Filmer who affirms in his Treatise called the Power of Kings Fol. 1. That the Laws Ordinances Letters Patents Priviledges and Grants of Princes have no force but during their Life if they be not ratified by the express consent or at least by the sufferance of the Prince following who had a knowledge thereof This is but the necessary consequence and result from the Doctrine of the absolute power of a Prince for in such Government the Concessions of a Predecessor can no more oblige the Successor than he can Govern when he is dead and the Successor must be absolute in his time as the Predecessors were in theirs But in vain is the Net spread in the sight of any Bird this deceit is of so gross a thread that it cannot pass with the common people much less upon our Clergy but I will not dissemble what may be the true reason of the seduction of some young good natured Gentlemen of the Clergy They perswade themselves that if these principles and opinions of the Unlimited Power of Kings had been received the late Wars had been prevented Not rightly considering that if such opinions had never been broached or Universally rejected that War could never have ensued and we should together with peace have enjoyed our ancient Government which our Ancestors transmitted to us without that miserable inter-regnum I would not be perversely understood by any man as if I went about to justify our late War This is all I say that every Government once established will continue for ever if all the parts of it would unalterably consent to preserve it to which their narural Allegiance doth oblige them And never any Prince endeavored to change the Government but where part of the people were first willing or content to have it so Those false flatterers that go about to remove the boundaries of power and change the Government are the greatest enemies to the quiet and happy Reigns of the Kings and the peace and prosperity of Kingdoms And if they do adventure to call the ir fellow Subjects by any opprobrious names of disloyalty because they will not joyn with them in such change they are as absurdly impious and insolent as any Prince or State would be who should challenge another as free and absolute as himself for his Tributary and Vassal and traduce him for a troubler of the World because he would not Compose the Quarrel thus injuriously sought with the surrender of his Crown and dignity I desire these Gentlemen to consider that the happiness of a Nation is best
the Jurisdiction of Bishops Novel 83. he decrees the like for Clerks as well for matters Civil as for Ecclesiastical Crimes reserving others to his officers and furthermore in case the Bishops cannot or will not take cognisance of them he refers them to his Magistrates Nay the Emperours proceeded further and did give Jurisdiction to Bishops not only over Clerks but also over Laymen Constantine the Great whose Law the Canonists ascribe to Theodosius made a very favourable constitution in behalf of Bishops whereupon he gives them the Cognisance of all civil Causes betwixt Lay-men upon the bare demand of one of the Parties albeit the other did not consent unto it in such sort as the Magistrates are bound to desist from the Cognisance of it as soon as one of the parties shall require to be dismist and sent thither whether it be at the beginning or middle or end of the suit Arcadius and Honorius derogating from this Law will have it to be by the joint consent of both parties and that by way of Arbitrement The same Emperours together with Theodosius do ordain That there shall be no appeal from the Episcopal Judgment and that their sentence shall be put in execution by the Serjeants and Officers of the Judges The two last Justinian would have to be observed for as for that of Constantine he did not insert it in his Books which Gratian hath confest in his decrees and whereas in the Code of Theodosius the inscription of the Title runs thus De Episcopali Judicio Justinian instead of it hath put De Episcopali audientia to shew that it is not properly any Jurisdiction that is bestowed upon them but a friendly and arbitrary composition to abridge process After this the Emperor Charles the Great in his Capitulary renewed the Law of Constantine and gave the same jurisdiction therein contained unto all the Bishops repeating the same Law word for word which the Popes have not forgot in their Decrees where they have inserted the Constitution of Constantine under the name of Theodosius just as Justinian did in his Books the Responses and Commentaries of Lawyers to give them the strength of a Law But I know there is a Question made by very Learned men Whether that Law of Constantine is not supposititious But whether it be or be not we have alledged enough without it to prove that Christian Emperors and the ancient Christian Church was not of the opinion of this Author and that his Citations so much as they are true are nothing to his purpose The cause or reason of those two Laws expressed in the Laws are For that the authority of Sacred Religion invents and finds out many means of allaying Suits which the Tyes and Forms of captious Pleadings will not admit of That the judgments of Bishops are true and uncorrupted That this is the choaking of those malicious seeds of Suits To the intent that poor men intangled in the long and lasting snares of tedious Actions may see how to put a speedy end to those unjust demands which were proposed to them But the Pope his Decretals the Court of Rome and other Ecclesiastical Courts are of old complained of as the source of Iniquity and injustice and of all the shufflings and tricks that ever could be invented in matter of pleading and that all Papal Christendome hath groaned miserably under them and I wish that we may never hear duly of any such complaints of our Ecclesiastical Courts It is worth observing how the Church and Common-wealth did Actions contrary to each other in pursuance of their several interests The Common-wealth endeavour'd to engage Bishops in the highest secular affairs and in their supream Judicatures and so the people would have it not doubting of such administrations as they might fairly expect from the Bishops ability Authority and Religion But on the other side the Church did as much decline them as she could and so far as she might she used her Restraint only in prohibiting them from medling for their own private gain in Temporal affairs Can. 14. Arles clericus turpis lucri gratia aliquid genus negotii non admittat but they did not take from them all opportunities both of doing good to their people and securing the Secular power of which they became part to their own assistance and without refusing their services to the Prince when required from which practice of the Church the Pope took advantage to put his peremptory restraints upon the Bishops and Clergy from intermedling in Secular affairs to make them the more submitted and dependent upon himself the better to arrive to his Ecclesiastical Monarchy The Dignities and favours that Bishops received at the Courts of Princes was the envy of the Pope and matter of quarrel against them and Petrus Blissensis upon such an occasion makes an Apologie to Pope Alexander the Third in an Epistle writ in the Name of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in defence of the Bishops of Ely Worcester and Norwich who attended then at Court upon the service of the King which because he hath been an Author produced by the other side in this Cause and because what he says for their being admitted into the Councels of Princes contains so many advantages to the Church and State I shall here transcribe Non est novum quod Regum Conciliis intersint Episcopi sicut enim honestate sapientia caeteros antecedunt sic expeditiores efficaciores in Reipub. administratione censentur quia sicut scriptum est minus salubriter disponitur regnum quod non regitur consilio Sapientum in quo notatur eos consiliis regum debere assistere qui sciant velint possint patientibus compati terrae ac populi saluti prospicere erudire adjustitiam Reges imminentibus occursare periculis vitaeque maturioris exemplis informare subditos quadam Authoritate potestativa praesumptionem malignantium cohibere He proceeds in his discourse and brings the examples of Samuel Isaiah Elisha Jehojada Zachary who were Priests and Prophets respectively and yet imployed in Princes Courts and Councels of Kings and adds Vnum noveritis quia nisi familiares Consiliarii Regis essent Episcopi supra dorsum Ecclesiae hodie fabricarent peccatores immaniter intolerabiliter opprimeret Clerum praesumptio laicalis then he adds advantages to Religion and policy hereby Istis mediantibus mansuescit circa simplices judicarius rigor admittitur clamor pauperum Ecclesiarum Dignitas erigitu relevatur pauperum indigentia firmatur in Clero libertas pax in populis justitia libere exercetur superbia opprimitur augetur laicorum devotio religio fovetur diriguntur judicia It is well known and I will not be so impertinent as to go about to prove that the chief Ministers of Religion have been the greatest men in Civil Government in all Nations and in all Religions as well as in ours and as certain it is this Author will never find reason or precedent of
to Persons or Territories by the Civil Authority Their Convocations are convened by the King 's Writ they debate nothing without his Leave Their Results become Canons and receive Sanction by the Royal Authority and do not pretend to infringe any Temporal or Civil Right or Law And besides their Convocations are always to be held sittting Parliaments and no longer not at any other times And whatever they debate or resolve is under the Observation of Parliament Nequid detrimenti capiat Respublica The Bishops make no Laws about Religion apart by themselves neither have they any Negative against any that are propounded and therefore are not answerable for any that are made or not made They have not the definition of Heresie but the Law hath declared it since the Reformation And the Writ De Heretico comburendo is since abrogated by the Christian Temper of a Parliament principally consisting of such Members that were conformable to the Institutions of the Church of England that is the legal Establishments of this our Christian Commonwealth The Church of England is no more her own present Establishments than the present thoughts of any man is the man himself as the thoughts of a man are more refined and unreprovable as the man grows wiser so do the Laws and Constitutions the Orders and Rules of a Church or Christian Republick alter amend and improve as the Wisdom and Virtue Religion and Devotion of the Government and the principal parts thereof in Church or State increaseth or advanceth Our Bishops have had and that with the greatest reason greater apprehensions of Schism and Separation than of Errors in Opinion which occasioned it as of worse importance to the Christian Faith than the Errors themselves Besides that a man cannot help being mistaken in many things but it is in every mans power to be modest and peaceable and wise to sobriety and hold the unity of the faith in the bond of peace and charity and not to revile and deprave that which hath the publick approbation though he cannot thereto fully assent It is great iniquity and unrighteousness to pretend to Liberty of Conscience as their right and in the mean time not to tolerate the publick appointments and what is authoritatively allowed and approved If Controvertible Opinions are allowed a Warrant for making a Sect and separate Communion and Churches are denominated and distinguished by them and consequently such Opinions are advanced unduly unto the same necessity of belief as Articles of Faith what will become of the Christian Verity where will it be recognized and purely professed how distinguished how understood how ascertained amidst the number of Opinions contended for by the several dogmatizing Sectaries with more zele than the undoubted and uncontrovertible Articles of Faith Nay I will adventure to say further on their behalf that Schismatical Separations would not offend them so little do they affect to be Magisterial but for that if this Disease should grow Epidemical there would be no such thing as a Christian Church and the Christian Religion would perish from the earth without a miracle It is onely designed by our Church that those whose Subscriptions are required should thereby onely signifie their allowance of the Liturgy and Articles as fit to be used and allowable What Plea then can our Separatists have for a Toleration for themselves who by their Separation seem unwilling to tolerate the publick Establishment either from our Governours Civil or Ecclesiastical or from one another in their divided ways To reform or change to these mens pleasures is impossible for that they cannot they positively differing from each other be all pleased in any one possible Establishment Besides that untill we cease to be Schismaticks and to be of separate and divided Communions upon the score of any dislike or but probable exception to what is publickly received or allowed the altering any thing for our satisfaction will be but applying the Cure to the Symptoms a cutting off one head of the Hydra By this way to effect an union is as impossible as it would be to empty the Ocean without stopping the cur-of the Rivers The Bishops are as all men by how much they are better learned are of the greatest Moderation in Opinions and can tell how duely to rate and value them according to the Prejudice or Advantage they do to the Ends of our Religon those several Opinions that have been contended with furious and rending Zeal in the several Ages of the Church to the Scandal of that peaceable Institution They can have a better Opinion of that man who hath unhappily entertained the less probable side of the Questions controverted if he opines with Modesty than they have of him that holds the most probable part thereof with a Sectary-Zeal Seperation from Contempt and Disdain of those of a different persuasion Their Moderation is known unto all men of it their Opposers have had very sensible Experience the several Dissenters cannot disown it but must confess that they have had severally kinder Usage from the Episcopal Men than their several Parties have from one another By their Learning Wisdom and Moderation which is most eminently known and observed in many of them and hath recommended them to the highest Esteem they must be allowed their Enemies being Judges to be the fittest Arbiters of the Controversies and the most likely and probable Procurers of the Peace of Christendome All the Dissenting Parties have reason to look upon them as their Common Sanctuary and Defence against the Outrages of each other But in this they must be pardoned if they being under a Law or Rule of their Superiors made as they think in a matter lawful act accordingly and do not disobey for their sake who think otherwise though in the mean time they pity their Scruples Indeed the Terms of the Nonconforming Ministers have been made hard upon them But that hath been from Reasons of State which the late unhappy Wars occasioned and they were ejected out of their Livings by Statute-Law And on the other side it is true that many men not to fit for that Holy Function have enjoyed Church Benefices but neither this can the Bishops help For they cannot reject a Clerk presented to a Benefice or eject him but as the Law will so sacred is the Right of Patronage and so fixed by the Law are Ministers in their Livings which is not Nice in the manners of Clerks and the Bishops cannot be severer than the Laws So that if some men not of the most unblamable conversations have kept their Livings and some of very unexceptionable Lives have been ejected The unhappy Nonconformists are directed where to make their Complaint But as there is little Cause of complaint on this part of the Episcopal Authority and function viz. Their Superintendency over the Pastors of their Dioceses So we shall observe how they have behaved themselves in the Exercise of the Power of the Keys For what is done therein by their Chancellors
the Reformation to which the Bishops did not assent and would never have passed if they had had a Negative upon them But by his Favor these Instances of his are great Arguments of those Bishops their Sincerity For they must needs be under great and violent Prejudices Besides every great man as the Author of the Letter well knows is apt to value himself and cares not to be accounted a light man and the higher in place the more unwilling to be found in a Mistake and they are not content if Old Men Quae juvenes dedicere senes perdenda fateri There is good Hopes therefore that our Rightfully Reformed Bishops will be the last that will give up the Cause of Reformed Christianity and will not be out-done by the Popish Bishops in Constancy when they have a better Cause I must likewise take notice to do the Spiritual Lords Justice of the Behavior of the Gentleman in Folio towards the Bishops He takes notice and that dutifully of the Satyrical so he calls it Language of the Pamphleteers against the Court and the greatest Scurrilities with which the House of Commons are aspersed but has not heard sure of any against the Bishops and the whole Ecclesiastical Order For he makes not the least mention of any such But because they shall not escape besides that in his Book he declaims 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the Order and seems so fond of this Office that he forbids all other the use of the Cart he tells the Story of Hephestion and Craterus the one of which loved Alexander and the other the King By this Apologue I doubt not but he intended a Slander and to signifie thereby supprestly a lewd Reproach viz. that the Bishops are not true Servants of the King and Government but of themselves than which a falser thing I hope cannot be said nor a more malitious thing imagined if not true For he may know that they are better men in their true Character than his Loyal Patriots that are true to the King and House of Commons For they have I doubt not I am sure they ought to have a care of the whole Government in the Integrity of its Constitution The Bishops well know how much the People are concerned in the Greatness of the House of Lords which establisheth the Throne and makes and supports the King Great and by their Power and Interest make his Government equal to which they contribute no small Share for to them is entrusted by the Authothority of our Lord Christ the Conduct of Religion and that mighty and momentous Office hath commended them and advanced them to the State of Peerage and will continue them in great Authority with the People as long as the Nation continues in any degree Religious The Temporal Baronage cannot want them in the Support of that mighty Province that belongs to that House In them the People will find their Interest as long as they can value Wisdom and Religion that is as long as they are Christian Men and by them the Kingly Office will find it self served as long as true Religion and Wisdom can minister to the Support of Government and wise and good men under the greatest Trust and in the highest Dignity in the Government can be fit Councellors and Ministers of State The Octavo hath also a hint to this purpose for pag. 30. where he brings in the Case of Thomas Arundel Arch-bishop of Canterbury when all the Bishops made Sir Thomas Piercy their Procurator he says That uniting in one man argued a great Unanimity in the Voting of the Prelates which seems saith he hath ever been The meaning of this is a sly Disparagement of the Bishops in their Voting viz. that have one Common Tie and Dependency upon the Crown that determines them to their Interest and produces the Unanimity of Voting But are the Bishops more depending because they once for all received their Temporalities from the King than the Temporal Lords who are commoly Officers of State and otherwise depend upon their Prince's Favor Is not the Bishops Advancement rather a Reward to their Eminent Services performed in the matter of Religon of the greatest Importance certainly to the State and a Recognition of the excellent Character of those men that are preferred to that Office than a Bribe upon their Actings after they have that Favor irrevocable Do not we know that the Services of Church-men are rewardable upon the Churches Stock and that the King need not impair the Royal Treasure to pay Thanks to Episcopal Men whose Worth doth bespeak the Royal Favor to that Preferment and Advancement Are not the Temporalities of the Church the King 's only to give but not to retain What evil Prejudice or Obligation can this be to any man to serve the King unfaithfully who hath chosen him perhaps though there were others but as equally fit for that Office For we ought to suppose no other disposition of those Dignities than what is just and fit in our general Discourses however things are administred in particular Cases Is not this an Office together with its maintenance of the Provision of the Law and not of the King But to remove that Scandal of their Unanimity in voting which some have reproached with a scoffing Term of a dead Weight it may be considered that Men of the best Judgments and Honesty mostly agree That Variety of Judgments proceeds oftner from Passion and Interest than from Difficulty of the matter debated It mostly grows either from want of Integrity or want of Judgment Agreement in Votes is an Argument therefore of true Judgment and unbiassed Integrity As it is also farther of a good Correspondence amongst themselves of previous Debates and more mature Deliberation Besides that it is no unusual thing in difficult and lubricous Affairs for many to compromise the matters to a few or to the Majority of their own Numbers and abide the Result of the major part But because this matter of Exception to the Integrity of my Lords the Bishops in the great Affair now in Agitation is argumentum ad hominem and gives Prejudice to the true Right and Merits of the Cause and is the most prevalent and hopeful Argument if not the only one that our Adversaries can rely upon For whatever the Causa justifica or Pretence be for the espousing of any Opinion or part of any Controversie if the Causa suasoria the Inducement and true moving cause thereto be strong and persuasive the slightest Reasons will be a pretence for Confidence and the smallest Color of Right shall prevail finally and in the last Issue especially where the Parties concerned must judge or by their Power can make their Will and determinate Resolves to obtain to the biggest purposes I will therefore farther add that we well know what a high Esteem their true Character doth deserve That they are intended the Light of the World the Salt of the Earth If the Salt hath lost its Savor
govern as he pleaseth that the power of the Laws is solely in him that he may if he please use the consent of Parliaments to assist the reason of his Laws when he shall give any but it is great condescention in Kings to give a reason for what they do and a diminution to their most unaccountable Prerogative You say That they are for a Popish Successor and no Parliament and do as much as in them lies give up our antient Government and the Protestant Religion the true Christian Faith to the absolute will of a Popish Successor giving him a Divine Right to extirpate God's true Religion established amongst us by Law and to evacuate our Government by his absolute pleasure Our Government by a King and Estates of Parliament is as antient as any thing can be remembred of the Nation The attempt of altering it in all ages accounted treason and the punishment thereof reserved to the Parliament by 25. Ed. 3. The conservancy of the Government being not safely to be lodg'd any where but with the government it self Offences of this kind not pardonable by the King because it is not in his power to change it This is our Government and thus it is established and for ages and immemorial time hath thus continued a long Succession of Kings have recognized it to be such And just now when we are under the dread of a Popish Successor some of our Clergy are illuminated into a mystery that hath been concealed from the beginning of Governments to this day from the wisdom of all Princes and Ministers of State That any authority in the Government not derived from the King and that is not to yield to his absolute Will was rebellious and against the Divine Right and Authority of Kings in the Establishment against which no usage or prescription to the contrary or in abatement of it is to be allowed That all Rights are ambulatory and depend for their continuance upon his pleasure So that though the Reformation was made here by the Government established by Law and hath acquired civil Rights not to be altered but by the King and the three Estates These men yet speak say you as if they envied the Rights of their own Religion and had a mind to reduce the Church back again into a state and condition of being persecuted and designed she should be stript of her Legal Immunities and Defensatives and brought back to the deplorable helpless condition of Prayers and Tears do utterly abandon and neglect all the Provisions that God 's providence hath made for her protection Nay by this their new Hypothesis they put it by Divine Right into the power of a Popish Successor when he pleaseth at once by a single indisputable and irresistable Edict to destroy our Religion and Government And these opinions you say they are the more inclined to entertain For That they believe no Plot but a Presbyterian Plot for of them they believe all ill and call whom they please by that hated name and boldly avow that Popery is more eligible than Presbytery for by that they shall have greater revenues and more Authority and Rule over the Lay-men This is a heavy charge if true but it is imputable I am sure but to a few and not so generally as some malevolent men of the Popish Faction are industriously busie to have it For if it were I confess it might choque the constancy Resolution and Zeal of the most addicted to the service of the Church men and make them at least very indifferent in their concerns For these mistakes are so gross and inexcusable that they ought to be permitted to suffer the smart of their own follies and to be corrected by the evils they are drawing down upon themselves with their own hands They deserve to suffer as betrayers of their own Country and to be prosecuted with greater shame and ignominy by all of the Reformed Religion than the Traditores were by the antient Christians These their diserting of the true Christian Faith being much less excusable then that of theirs and of greater mischief as of deeper malignity How many of the Clergy-men are thus misled we know not but they seem many more than they are because they are most in view and come often under observation frequent publick houses and talk loud because they want the Complement of their preferments But certainly Sir what you say to be the declared opinions of some Clergy-men is the business now of the Papists to propagate Hoc Ithacus velit magno mercantur Atridae These are agreeable to and indeed make up the most modern Project and Schem of the Popish Plot. Since the discovery of their first design of killing the King and massacring of the Protestants They have taken such courage by observing how little power we have to prevent their design that they have us in scorn and in the vilest contempt They now think that we are not worth destroying but by our own hands that we are not worthy of their trouble or the charge of Executioners of their providing How entertaining is it to his Holiness to find the Church of England the impregnable Bulwark of the Reformed Religion easily fall into his hands by the unpresidented folly of some of her Sons without the trouble of attacking her either by force or Argument which hath hitherto wanted success and the attempts always attended with dishonor and mischief to his See How pleasant will it be to him to see us perish and our destruction to be from our selves With this he will answer all the irrefragable Apologies of the Church of England for her departure from the Communion of the Romish Church Then he will say with triumph our Church destroyed her self and perished by a Divine Fate for her unwarrantable and Sacrilegious Schism for so he will call our follies and impute them to Divine infatuations The manner of our destruction will be a better Argument and of more force against the Doctrine of the Reformation than all the Arguments of all the Doctors of that Church to this day For this purpose since the Discovery of the Popish Plot it is that Sir Robert Filmers Books were Re-printed together and recommended by the Title Page and the publick Gazet to our reading Since the Discovery of the Plot we have had variety of Books Printed to the same purpose viz. To prove that all Kings as Kings are absolute by Divine Right Since the Discovery of the Popish Plot we have had men imployed to search all our antient Records and Histories to find out something more antient than our Parliaments as now constituted that it may serve as a pretence to take them away Since the Discovery of the Popish Plot we have the memory of our late calamitous War revived to raise a Pannick fear of another and to make the King believe that the genius of the Nation is Rebellious and that the Protestant Religion it self is to be apprehended by Kings It is
needs no more than to raise a fit of laughter upon it which has the same effect with the men of Wit and their vain admirers as reducing a false proposition to an absurdity Thus the reason of this age is governed by our risibility The Popish Writers have thus tickled us with their Wit that we are ready to dye and perish laughing and we know not nor care to Judge what does truly concern our preservation And by improving the vanity of some youngsters they have drawn them to question the Truth of the Popish Plot and some can believe every hour of the day when they meet with a merry Popish Pamphlet that there is a Protestant Plot on foot though they believe it I am sure not much longer than they are reading it I will not grudge my pains in furnishing a short Demonstration of the Popish Plot since it is of such importance to the saving of these men and the whole Nation which possibly may fix their minds notwithstanding so vain they be into a belief of it which I have made short that it may be the better remembred which I do in kindness to them since it was lately and may be so again shortly a criminal matter to bring the truth of it into question and they are by all honest men reckoned as Plotters themselves who doubt it The Plot has been declared by the Kings Proclamation and four Parliaments one of them consisting of Pensioners and Dependents on the Court which for eighteen years together were giving Demonstrations of their Loyalty to their Prince almost forgetting the publick Weal A solemn National Fast has been Indicted by the Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority of the Kingdom for averting the mischiefs thereby designed and solemnly Celebrated by the whole Nation in which certainly they did not mock God and deride his providence Many unparalleld Villanies have been committed for the stifling concealing and suppressing the discovery of it which however wicked the Papistical sort of base false and degenerate Christians are we cannot without breach of Charity towards them think they would commit cheaply and without cause and to no purpose They have murdered a Minister of Justice because he had the knowledge of it and left nothing undone that they thought necessary to Assacinate another for strenuously opposing it They have attempted upon the Lives of our Witnesses by perjuries and forgeries they have endeavored to charge them with the most infamous crimes endeavored to destroy them in their Lives and Reputations too in a forme of Justice They have attempted by fears and rewards upon the integrity of all our Witnesses to draw them to retract their Testimony against the Plot for which some of their Agents have been judicially censured One Gentleman to the Pillory Fined a 1000 l. and Condemned to a years imprisonment so evident and notorious was his offence and by the Court thought so heinous That it provoked the passion of the Court and they seemed to exceed the ordinary Rules of Justice for that they judged the Case to be of an exorbitant and transcendent nature The Plot of the Meal Tub is so sublimated a piece of wickedness the last accomplishment of villany it hath out-done all former and will never be out-done in after ages The Papists by the Discovery of the first Plot became less hopeful in a Massacre and of effecting their purpose by force They dare not now kill the King for that the World would not now believe it to be done by Mr. Claypole and his accomplices which must have born the blame from the Papists and he and they long since Executed as Traitors if that part of the Plot against the Kings Life had not been prevented by being detected I say the first design of the Plot being rendered less feasible by the discovery they keep the King alive with care as well for their avoiding the rage of the Nation as to lessen the credit of the Plot But contrive to destroy as many as they thought fit to be Massacred in forme of a legal process and to charge them with a design of raising Rebellion against the King They had made a List of a great number whom they intended to charge principal Nobles and worthy Gentlemen about the Town had prepared witnesses to swear the charge against them and would with more ease after the first Conviction and Execution have sworn all that they had a mind to destroy into the same guilt And thus all the truly Religious the noble good and virtuous of our Nation that had courage enough to own assert and defend the true Christianity and our Government must to the eternal dishonor of our Nation and Religion have suffered the execrable death of Traitors We have reason to think them humane when they only designed a Gun-powder Treason or a Massacre and our abhorrence of this usage dischargeth in us all reluctancy to Martyrdom Let them bring us to the Stake as Martyrs then we shall bear our Testimony to the truth of the best Religion and our Lives will not be cheaply lost but by this means we must be forced to dishonor this Religion by our deaths by a Massacre or a Gun-powder Plot the vileness cruelty and treachery of that Apostate Church had been declared to all the World and that false Religion as well as the professors of it had been rendered detestable for which end a good man would scarce refuse to dye but by this means they would have forced us to personate their own proper Crimes and Villanies and dishonor our own peaceable and holy Religion A man of Honor prefers his Honor to his Life and would redeem it by his Death But by this means we were though innocent to lose our Lives by dishonor and to fasten a stain upon our Memories by our death The Priests their impudent Lyes at their deaths in denying the matters of the Plot of which they were upon clear evidence Convicted and Sentenced must have past for truths and all our worthy men dying with protestations of their innocence must to the everlasting infamy of our Religion and Nation been accounted false and impious at their last breath there is no reason to be assign'd of the patience of God or Man towards such miscreants but that they may have time to add one impiety to another until an easie vengeance triumphs over them for though this last mentioned Plot is cleared beyond all exception their Faces are hardened and they are not yet ashamed but have since contrived and suborned Witnesses to swear the very Discovery of the first Plot to be a false contrivance of a Plot against the Papists To this purpose they suborned a Son by perjury to commit parricide against his Father the greatest Sin against Earth the other the greatest affront against Heaven What a Religion is this that must be thus supported Nay as if they did not fear or care to loose the favour of their most indulgent Prince which they have possest since he
all I cannot imagine they can pretend an umbrage from the Holy Scriptures for such unheard of opinions The Jews indeed had a Government and Laws of Gods framing and appointment and a King of their own choosing and such a King as they desired by God's permission they had But their form of Government ought with less reason to be the Rule of all kingly Governors because it was a Government chosen by themselves then the Laws of the Jews ought to be the Laws of all Nations which they are not though made and enacted by God himself Christ would not make himself a Judge in a private Right submitted to him He determined the right of the Roman Empire by the possession of Soveraign Authority and such as the whole world had made it his Disciples were obliged to acknowledge it by their Obedience and Submissions which is the summ of the Apostles Doctrin in this matter The Christian Religion instituted no form of Governments but enjoyns us to be obedient to those we have not only by express command in the case but by its general Rules of a most refined improved and extensive morality But though I said the Scriptures have not prescribed or directed any universal Form of Government yet the Scripture hath declared the falshood of this new Hypothesis of Kingly Government to be Jure Divino or by Divine Right For St. Peter 1 Peter 2.13 and 14. stiles Kings as well as the Governors under him the ordinance of man which cannot have any other sense but that men make them and give them their powers By St. Paul the power of Government indeed is called Gods Ordnance Rom. 13.2 but that is for this reason because in general God approves of Governments as necessary to the well being of Mankind for the improvement of humane nature for the punishing of Vice Encouragement and security of virtue without them it being impossible to live honestly and in peace And he hath made them the under Ministers of his providence and care over Mankind and expects of them that they should promote his true Honor and Worship in the World which will be always accompanied with the exercise of all civil Virtues These two different places must be so understood that they may be both true and by no other interpretation can they be reconciled and made consistent It is impossible that any thing can be of mans appointment which is of Gods Ordination there can be no such thing as a Co-legislative power of Men with their Maker Government therefore is from God as he hath made Governments necessary in the general order of things but the specification thereof is from Men and the best definition that can be made of Government is in the words of both the Apostles put together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such Governments which men make God approves and requires our obedience to them upon all those reasons which make Governments necessary The natural and easie consequence and result of these Scriptures is this which I desire those Gentlemen to observe That whatsoever is not lawfully established by men no Law of God not the Christian Law doth oblige us to obey The Christian Religion doth equally condemn in the reason of its Institutions Usurpation and Contumacy Where the Apostle admonisheth us that if we be free we should not become servants he hath by virtue of that Admonition made it commendable not to suffer the Encroachments of power over us Most certainly therefore as the Christian Religion doth not prejudice the Soveraign Rights of Princes such as they are in the several forms and Modells of Monarchical Governments non eripit terrestria qui regna dat coelestia as Sedulius so doth it not enlarge them when by the Gospel God made us free from his own positive Laws to the Jews he did not intend thereby de Jure to render us slaves to the Arbitrary pleasure of Men. No Man intends by any thing in the Scripture that all mankind is obliged to any one form of Government and therefore all Men are left to their own It hath not therefore altered the terms of Government and Obedience that every Nation hath Established for themselves but hath confirmed and strictly obliged the observance of them To Obedience to Government we are obliged by as many ties as there are Christian Virtues and he must disown his Christianity that departs from his due Allegiance And since our Saviour is declared King of Kings and Lord of Lords all Kings Christian Kings especially are to govern in Imitation of his mercy and goodness and in subserviency to the Interest of his Religion and Kingdom Regum timendorum in proprios greges Reges in ipsos imperium est Javis cuncta supercilio moventis Whence then is this absolute Authority of Kings if it come neither from God nor Man Give me leave now to inform you that these opinions render you all Traytors guilty of Treason of State perduellionis rei obnoxious to be punished as Traytors by an Authority lodged in Parliament In the Constitution of the Government You your selves must needs condemn your selves to have forfeited all your own who hold such Principles that tend to destroy every Mans Right by resolving all things into the absolute pleasure of a Monarch in which you mostly disserve the King and are contrary to His Majesties late Declaration The Men of these Principles the less of the Government they are entrusted with the better for the less they have to give up and betray I confess if I could believe that this Doctrin was become Orthodox among them and the prevailing opinion of the Clergy I should conclude us to be the most unhappy people under the Sun This is an Hypothesis indeed that will bring on new Heavens and a new Earth but such wherein no peace or Righteousness can ever dwell But I deem all such as are Defenders and Promoters of it do deserve a civil Excommunication more smarting then their Ecclesiastical and to be condemned to live upon and only feed themselves with their thin speculations and to be excluded from any share of that Government that they professedly in their Principles betray to be punished as seditious persons and most mischievous Schismaticks far more intolerable in this matter than the scrupulous brother-hood for their boglings at an indifferent and insignificant Ceremony For that to the ruin of our Religion and destruction of the publick peace they divide from that polity to which by drawing here their first breath they made Faith and to which the condition of their birth doth oblige them they falsify that which Arrian in his Epictetus calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than which nothing is more sacred and inviolable By creating themselves a new Allegiance and obtruding it upon their fellow Citizens and Members of the same Kingdom they set up a Kingdom within a Kingdom more dangerous and mischievous than the Papal Imperium in Imperio which certainly will be introduced if this Modern and
monstrously extravagant opinion can prevail by a general Credence It is criminal and no less dangerous to the being of any policy to restrain the legislative Authority and to entertain Principles that disables it to provide remedy against the greatest mischiefs that can happen to any Community No Government can support it self without an unlimited Power in providing for the happiness of the people No Civil establishment but is controlable and alterable to the publick Weale What ever is not of Divine Institution ought to yield and submit to this Power and Authority The Succession to the Crown is of a civil nature not established by any Divine Right Several Kingdoms have several Laws of Succession some are Elective others Haereditary under several Limitations All humane Constitutions are made tum sensu humanae imbecillitatis under reasonable exceptions of unforeseen accidents and Emergencies that may happen in humane Affairs and so they must be intended and so interpreted The several limitations of the descent of the Crown must be made by the people in conferring the Royal Dignitie and power which is more or less in several Kingdoms The descent of the Crown is governed according to the presumed will of the People and the presumption of the peoples will is made by measuring and considering what is most expedient to the publick good whereas private Estates are directed in their descent according to the descendents And this is the reason that the descent of the Crown is governed by other rules than private Estates Only one daughter and not all as in private Estates shall succeed to the Crown because the strength of the Kingdom is preserved when continueds united and the peace and concord of the people better Established A son of the second venter shall inherit which is not allowed in private Estates because a son of the second venter is equally of the blood of the great Ancestor upon whom the Crown was first conferred by the people or after he had got into the Throne obtain'd their Submissions may equally participate of his Virtues If the Royal Family be extinct it belongs to the people to make a new King under what limitations they please or to make none for the Polity is not destroyed if there be no King created and consequently in case of this cesser or discontinuance of the Regnum there may be Treason committed against the people By all which it is evident that the succession to the Crown is the peoples right And though the succession to the Crown is Hereditary because the people so appointed it would have it so or consented to have it so Yet in a particular case for the saving the Nation the whole line and Monarchy it self it may be altered by the unlimited Power of the Legislative Authority We have been more just to the Royal Succession than the wonderful Sir Robert Filmer for his Hypotheses will not allow at all of Hereditary rightful Succession For the establishing the right of the Universal Empire of the World in Adams right heir since this illuminato hath enlightned the world in this secret no Successor can derive any hereditary right from his Predecessor His Title can be only his own possession for no man can claim by descent the Usurpation of his Father but he that is not conscious to the wrong and is bonae fidei possessor under the presumed right and title of his Father I would be understood to speak as the matter can be considered in a free Reason not under the prejudice of any positive municipal law for to such laws the right of Crowns as the Renowned Knight will have it are not submitted So that here in this matter their Knight fails them and can give them no help Their other Friend the great Leviathan Maker is so far from establishing an Hereditary Succession that he leaves Kings to be rightfully assaulted deposed and destroyed by any person that can who stands in danger of being destroyed by the King though justly condemned to death Leviathan Part. 2. Cap. 21. Those saith he that have committed a Capital Crime for which they expect death have the liberty to defend themselves by Arms as well as the Innocent But I mention him only to render him detestable for I take his Books to be the dehonestamenta humani generis But I desire them to regard the sense of all Mankind in the words of Isiodorus Pelusiota 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Governed the Judicious and Learned Dr. Falkner for when he had carried Christian Loyalty as high as he could to the honor of our Religion and the benefit of the World for which we are all extreamly beholden to him he concludes thus in his excellent Book called Christian Loyalty That if any Prince undertakes to alienate his Kingdom or to give it up into the hands of another Sovereign Power or that really acts the Destruction or the Universal calamity of his People he tells us Grotius thinks that in his utmost extremity the use of a defence as a last refuge ultimo necessitatis presidio is not to be condemned provided the care of the Common good be preserved And if this be true saith he it must be upon this ground that such attempts of ruining de ipso facto include a disclaiming the governing of these persons as Subjects and consequently of being their Prince or King what unreasonableness is there then in shutting the door upon him and making it fast against him by an act of State who hath excluded himself by his principles and designs For the truth of the fact I shall only refer you to Secretary Coleman his Letters wherein he saith that his Masters interest and the King of France his interest is one and the same and their design their glorious design the same viz the extirpating the Northern Heresie how far the King of France hath complied with the design the cruel Persecution and exils of his Protestant Subjects who at the time of that letter were under the security and protection of the Laws of that Kingdom the Faith of that Crown do declare to the world And by what secret influences I know no the is made so great his conquests so easie and expedite that he is like to do the work himself here in England and go away with all the Glory But if the work must lye upon our hands let no man think with himself that Popery is not to be introduced here because the numbers of Papists are few for that will not render the design impracticable but the execution of it were cruel and barbarous a whole Nation upon the matter must be corrupted from the Faith of the true Religion or destroy'd One single arm of an ordinary strength not resisted may assassinate a whole Nation Let no man betray his Country and Religion by pretending the example of the patience and sufferance of the Primitive Christians for our rule The Reformed Religion hath acquired a civil right and the protection of Laws if we
will not assist to bring on the Popish Plot by disbelieving it and put us in fear of the Fanaticks by taking all the courses imaginable to provoke and exasperate them and upon their discontents which they maliciously heighten and by falshood and forgeries misrepresent To graft thereupon a Pretens of a Protestant Plot for a pretext to extirpate Protestanism and introduce Popery which they impudently pretend to be of a more firm Allegiance to the Government than the Reformed Religion I pray let it be considered that that which is tolerated is put under disgrace even for that it is tolerated and that which tolerates even for that it tolerats hath the Governing Authority and in so much as it indulgeth it obligeth to modesty and reason and. if that indulgence should be abused it may and will be retracted It was never intended by the House of Commons that the Church of England should be altered or modelled to an agreeableness to any form or sect of the separation or prescrib'd to by any of the Dissenters or that she should be made subject to any of their rules or opinions or her Liturgy laid aside for directories or which is worse undervalued to the profane way of extemporizing For as generally used and exercised it deserves no milder a stile That the Church should always govern by her own Wisdom in her own Province and in those things that appertain to her can never be deny'd her No man hath reason to say tho he hath great cause to dislike the separation and to have a bad opinion of the Dissenters that he had rather submit to Popery than to any form of the Separation for he need do neither except he pleaseth No man that thus expresseth himself but will be suspected to seek an occasion and pretens to become a Papist and to make a defection from the Church of England But if these Gentlemen have such a displeasure against Schism and Separation which certainly is the worst disease any Church can labor under and at this time threatens the destruction as well of the Protestant Religion it self as it doth to the Professors of all denominations let this sharpen their zeal against Popery which by its unhallowed arts hath occasioned and exasperated our Schism and put them upon the use of all means to reconcile if possible the Schism that the Papists have already made and by all means endeavor to continue and take away if possible the occasion of it for the time to come And thus defeat the Arts of the Priests and Jesuits for supplanting our Church It is a most deplorable thing that our Church should be kept rent and divided in danger of being lost between Rituality and scrupulosity Though the Scruples of the Nonconformists which I always thought and do still think groundless and unreasonable have often moved me into some passion against them yet upon consideration I think this their Scrupulosity may be of God and that some Men are by him framed to it That he hath provided it as a bare and obstacle in the Natures and Complexions of some devout Men against any Innovations whatsoever that dangerous ones may not steal upon the Church for the better maintaining the simplicity and purity of the Christian Religion and Worship But in saying this I have said nothing that is apt to give them a conceit of themselves but rather to humble them For the best Men are not govern'd by their Temper and Constitution but correct them by their reason and determine themselves by a clear and firm Judgement What affrightment all this while either to Church or State from this weak and pittyable Scrupulosity Where lyes the Treason or Sacriledge nay or so much as contumacy against our Ecclesiastical Governors which is so much upbraided to them The Christian Religion may be prejudiced by addition to as well as substraction from her rule The Church of Rome by her additions hath almost evacuated the Christian faith Besides there may be a fineness in the outward mode of religious Worship in its self very justifiable which may be not congenial to men of a course make The Worship of God will always savor of the manners of the People Men of dull capacity can scarce admit of any Ceremonys without danger of falling into superstition or being vext with endless and incurable scruple until for ease of their minds they throw them off But the wisdom of the best Law-makers hath considered in giving Laws what the People would bare and not what is best to be enjoyned and many things have been tolerated by them which they did not approve ne majoribus mal is detur occasio aut etiam ne vilescant sine moribus leges There is nothing more exposeth the Authority of Government to contempt then a publick and an open neglect of its Injunctions But where obedience to Laws is exacted under severe penalties where it doth not greatly import the common good to have them observed that Government is unequal and useth its Authority unjustifiable Leges cupiunt ut jure regantur The consideration of the sad effects the Schism in our Church hath occasioned the contempt that it hath brought upon our Ecclesiastical Governors That Religion it self is thereby made the scorn of Atheists That the Papists are thereby furnished with matter of objection reproach and scandal to the Reformation That every Age since it begun hath heightned the malignity of the Schism that it seems now to despise the Cure of the greatest Cassanders These considerations make it infinitely desirable to have it utterly extinguished There seems to be now left but one way of accommodating our Divisions and that is that we do not hereafter make those things wherein we differ matter and reason of Division That the Children of the Light and Reformation be at length as wise in this matter as the Church of Rome which is at unity with itself under more and greater differences then those that have troubled the peace of our Church which is sufficiently known to all Learned men Had it not been happy that this Schism had been prevented by the use of the power of the Church in Ecclesiastical dispensations If no Law had been made touching the matters that gave the first occasion to the Schism it had been in the Power of the Church to have prevented it No good Bishop but would have relaxed the Canons that enjoyned these Ceremonies about whose lawfulness there hath been so much Zeal mispent and unwarrantable heat and contention raised for the sake of peace and preservation of the Unity of the Church to men peaceable and otherwise obedient to her injunctions So dangerous it is to make Laws in matters of Religion which takes the conduct of Religion in so much from the guides of the Church The beginning of contention is like the breaking out of waters saith the wise man and they are assoon as begun more easily ended Before the Contenders have exasperated one another with mutual severities
compensation may be given to the Crown and some way will be found out for Augmentation of Vicaridges and reindowment of Churches that lost all in that unparrallel'd Sacriledge committed by the unsatiable Avarice of that haughty and luxurious Prince These designs employ the care of a great Number of our principal gentlemen to purge the sin and dishonor brought upon the Nation by that extraordinary King But if there were reason for any fear that the Nation could again incur the guilt of sacriledge What Warranty can this give to any of her Clergy to slack or abate the Zeal that is due for the purity of her Doctrine prudence of her discipline and her commendable decent and intelligible devotion Are they worthy to be named of her that are ready to dissert her out of fear of a remote possibility that she may not always have such largesses as she now bestows upon her Sons Will they prefer the gift to the Altar and declare all their godliness to be gain To suffer Popery for such a consideration to be induc'd upon her is a far worse and more detestable sacriledge than that they pretend to fear This is to make the Anathemata of the Temple to inserve to the dishonor of the Numen To desecrate the Altar for the sake of the gift and will by the just judgment of God I fear bring the abomination of desolation again into our holy places Let none of her Sons for the obtaining a dignity or a capacity for a double benefice betray her by neglecting her interest thinking with themselves that she will otherwise be supported for this their doings is no less than the sin of Judas who took money to betray our Lord imagining that he would by a Miracle rescue himself from the hands of those to whom he sold and betray'd him The honest of our Clergy will have little satisfaction when that day comes when they shall be reduc'd to Prayers and Tears if they are failing in any thing that they may lawfully do to prevent that miserable State Their Tears will be as water spilt upon the ground and their Prayers wiil never find acceptance with God nor be returned into their own bosom Disce Miser pigris non flecti numina votis Proesentemque adhibe dum facis ipse Deum But above all those fine men are not to pass unreproved who are preparing Pretences for their Revolt to the Roman Church They tell us that the Reformation is depraved and Popery it self is much amended since the Reformation that it is not so grosly superstitious tho her superstitions are still enough to stifle Religion nor so fabulous in her Legends she need make no new ones since she gives Authority still to the old nor so imposterous in her cheats for her Priests have not been hocus pocuses of late us'd so many tricks of Legerdemain and presented their puppey plays of moving squeaking images since the Reformation as before But they may know that the reason why we have not maintained the dignity of the Reformation intire is this for that Popery hath not been utterly extirpated from amongst us tho their frequent Treasons and their notorious seductious have deserved it By its continuance amongst us and the resorts of their Priests hither it hath created and fomented divisions amongst us and corrupted her Children from their obedience to her guidance and instructions but she her self is still the same she was the Reformation of the Church is still intire She hath made good her departure from the Church of Rome her Adversaries have not been able to convict her of any fault therein and by an easie victory she hath triumphed over all their oppositions And tho Popery appear not altogether so deformed by her Priests Artificial dress and the Representations they make of her to seduce us and entice us to come again under her yoke yet we know she hath more established her Tyranny by the Council of Trent and more corrupted her Morals by her modern Casuists since the Reformation and thereby hath rendred her self more detestable and for ever to be avoided But though it may be true that the Popish world is beholden to the Reformation and Popery it self is thereby amended in some overt things and reformed in those Countries that have not reformed from her For in the Light of the Reformation they have seen Light and have been ashamed of some of their works of darkness do not bring into present use some of their gross Impostures and some worse than Pagan superstitions Yet when this Light is extinguished it will be a most dismal and eternal Night upon the Christian world If we return to her our Ears will be bor'd and we shall be irredeemably enslaved The spirit of Popery if it returns and possesseth us again that hath been walking in the reformed Countries as in dry places seeking Rest and finding none and finds us thus swept and garnished will bring with it seven Devils more wicked than it self and our last estate will be worse than the first The Pride Cruelty and Avarice Domination and Luxury of their Priest-hood will be aggravated upon us and the minds of the Laity more lowly depressed by superstition and ignorance The Gospel of Cardinal Palavicini will be the Canon of the Christian Religion or it may be something worse for who can tell what will be the Religion that that Church will offer in process of time to the World under the Christian Name When the Pope by his pretended infallibility may make the Christian Religion what he please by interpreting adding altering or detracting with an uncontroulable Authority For us therefore to become Papists to return to the Church of Rome acknowledge the Popes infallibility there is no other way to become Papists is virtually to betray the Christian Faith to renounce our Allegiance to our Lord Christ to prefer the Bulls of a Prophane Pope to the Holy Oracles of God and the Revelation of Jesus God Blessed for ever With this Religion therefore we can never make an accommodation We may as well make a Covenant with Hell This as Dr. Jackson one of the glories of the Church of England in his Book call'd the Eternal Truth of Scriptures vehemently admonisheth us admits no terms of Parly for any possible Reconcilement whose following words to this purpose I shall here transcribe The natural separation of this Island from those Countries wherein this Doctrine is professe shall serve as an Everlasting Emblem of the Inhabitants divided Hearts at least in this point of Religion And let them O Lord be cut off speedily from amongst us and their posterity transported hence never to enjoy again the least good thing this Land affords Let no print of their Memory be extant so much as in a Tree or Stone within our Coast Or let thir Names be such as remain here after them be never mentioned or always to their Endless shame Who living here amongst us will not imprint these or the like wishes in their Hearts and daily mention them in their Prayers Littora Littoribus contraria fluctibus undas Imprecor arma armis pugnent ipsique Nepotes which he thus renders Let our forain Coasts joyn Battel in the Main Ere this fowl Blasphemy Great Britain ever stain Where never let it come but floating in a Flood Of our our Nephews their Childrens Blood I shall only subjoyn my hearty Desires and Prayers that we may all fear God and be zealous for his true Religion Honor the King and firmly adhere to the Government and in our several places steadily oppose and resist those Villains that are given to change And that by our Union we may defeat the crafty Designs of our cruel and implacable Enemies who if they can continue those Divisions they have made amongst us by their wicked Arts will certainly at length destroy us Who are bent upon our Destruction though they themselves perish with us and we cease to be a Nation and our Language be forgotten in a forain Captivity Sir Now I have given you my Answer to your Reasons to disswade me from publishing the Argument for the Bishops by representing how few of the Clergy can with Reason be thought guilty of Opinions so mischievous to the Church and State which you charge to have generally corrupted them and how easily and with little consideration they will be laid aside by them I will make no other Apology for the publishing this than that I have communicated these thoughts to no Man alive either of the Church of England or any other Demomination or consulted any Mans advice about it That I can serve the design of no party of men herein nor any particular design of my own I wish they can be serviceable in the least Degree to publick Good I have had them by me a great while and have consider'd them under the several Varieties of Temper that our Bodies are disposed to which induce different thoughts and various Apprehensions in most things under the several passions that the fluctuation of publick Affairs have occasioned under the Ebs and Flows of Hopes and Fears in reference to the state of the Kingdom for some length of time And finding them to have the same appearance and to give me the same satisfaction in all the several Postures and Views that I could take of them I assure my self I was sincere when I thought and that they result meerly from my Judgment such as it is uncorrupted that I am not perverted or biased by any secret passion or desire of any sort which many times lurk and steel upon us deceive us unawar's and undiscernedly abuse us Sir the Summ of my Apology is this that I know my self sincere of honest Intentions mov'd by nothing but a hearty love and affection to our King Religion and Country and for what any man shall think of me I am not Solicitous Yours T. H. FINIS