Page images
PDF
EPUB

Antecedent is falfe, and fo then muft his Confequent be. For our Bishops, as all other Bishops, who live now, or formerly liv'd, where there are no fuch Civil Laws, derive their Power of confecrating from God, tho' in our Nation they happen to be so restrained, and limited in the Exercise of it; and to prove this I need fay no more, than that if it were otherwife, as our Author vainly endeavours to prove, the King might then indeed authorize any Layman, or Civil Magiftrate, to confecrate Bishops, which is not only falfe, but impious for any Christian to affert. The World (praised be God) is not yet arrived to his degree of Impudence, and Profaneness, as to believe, or affert, that the King by his Commiffion may make Bishops, as he *doth Judges, or other Civil Officers; and I doubt not but her Majesty, and all her Judges, both of the Common and Civil Law, will deteft this impious Notion, when they hear of it, and think his perverting, and wrefting the Laws of the Land, to fuch an evil defign and purpose, to be a Crime of a Civil nature, as well as a Sin against God. He was fenfible the Scriptures were not reconcileable to his Deduction of the Bishops Authority and Jurifdiction from the Magiftrate, and therefore faith, nor can this be evaded by faying the Scripture requires Obedience to Bishops, for fo it doth to Judges, and other Civil Officers and yet none can have a Right to make them, except he who is a Legiflator himself, or acts by his Authority. But the Scripture requires Obedi❤ ence to Bishops, as to God's Minifters, and not as the Magistrates, as to thofe who watch for our Souls, the Souls of Kings as well as other Men, for which they must give an account to God; as to the Minifters of Chrift, and Stewards of his Houfe, which is the Church, to whofe Spiritual Authority Kings and

* Pref. p. xxix.

+ Ibid.

13

Senators

Senators, when they become Members of it, are to fubmit, as well as other Men. I have given him Examples of many godly and great Princes, who upon Principle fo fubmitted to them, as their Spiritual Superiors, and who were Men of found Underftandings, and as free from Superftit on and Bigotry, as from Profanenefs, and who had too great Souls to fubmit to any Power, but what they believed was fet over them by God.

What I have here faid fhews the Vanity of his Argument, by which he would prove, that the Bifhops in confecrating other Bishops at minifterially by virtue of the Royal Authority; for they act as their Predeceffors did in all Countries before fuch Laws were made, as God's Minifiers; who have Power from him to confecrate other Bifhops; which Power, as to Circumftantials, and particularly as to Perfons, they exercife and b ing into act, as the Magiftrate by Law appoints; but if the Magiftrate either refufes to have any more Bishops confecrated, or will have them confecrate none but unqualified, or unworthy Perfons, in fuch fad cafes they owe no Obedience to him, or other Submiffion to his Laws, than with exemplary Patience, and Meckness, to undergo the Penalties; and in fuch Ruptures, and Perfecutions, it is their Duty to exercise that Original Power they derived from God prior to all Human Laws, and truiting in him to provide, as well as they can, for the Being, and Prefervation of the Church. Against this Original Power of Bishops to make Bishops he faith: But if the Bishops had 1 Power from God to make Bishops, nothing could be more facrilegious, than for a Prince to command his Ecclefiaftical Sovereigas, on the greatest Penalty except Death, in a matter on which the whole Government of the Church depends. The antecedent of this Argument, † Pref, p. xxxiv.

Ibid.

that

that Bishops have fuch a Power from God, is cer ́tainly true, and fo owned to be by our Laws, which confirm the Ferm, and Marner of ordaining, and confecrating, &c. But the confequent, which reflects on our Princes, and their reltraining Penal Laws as facrilegious, is his own Inference, and he muft look to that. For he takes the liberty, in his Book, to treat the Magiftrate in a very rude, and fawcy manner, telling him, that he receives his Power, and Authority in tru? from the People, and that he is their Servant and Minifter, and accountable to them, contrary, I am fure, to the Style, and Intendment of our Laws; and I cannot guefs at his Meaning in it, which cannot be good, unless it be to stir up our Sovereign Lord the People to levy a Standing Army, that is, to keep them felves always ready armed to defend themselves, and their Natural Rights against their Minifters, or to provoke their Minifters to keep up Standing Armies to reftrain, and overaw them. This they must do, if they permit their People to be corrupted with this rebellious Doctrine, which makes them hold their Crowns, and their Lives too, by the bafeft and most precarious of Tenures, the Pleafure of the People. But to return to his Argument, I will retort it in form upon himself, and in his own Words: If the Bishops have Power from God to make Bishops, nothing can be more facrilegious and offenfive to God, than to write a Book, as he hath done, with the Malice, and Calumny of a Devil, against that Power, and against the BiShops, as if they had affumed it to themfelves. Either all the Bishops fince the time of the Apostles have been guilty of Sacrilege, or this Impeacher of them, and their Sacred Power, is highly guilty of it; and let God and Men judge, which of the two it is.

After writing against the Clergy, and their Spiritual Independent Power, with all the Contenipt and Malice, that Man could write; after endeavour

ing to prove, by many Sophifms, that they are no better than the Peoples Servants, whom they may difmifs at pleasure, and that the * Clergy have not fo much Power as every petty Corporation, who can make By-Laws for themselves without the Confent of our Kings; in a word, after mifrepresenting them without distinction as Enflavers of Mankind, and the vileft of Men, he demurely wipes his foul Mouth at laft, and faith, Good Man, he did all this to defend the Church of England against Papifts, Jacobites, and other Highflyers, who caufed him to engage in this Controversy, and profeffeth that none can have a jufter Efteem for all her Clergy, who according to the Doctrine of the best constituted Church, difown all Independency, by which, according to the Principles of his Book, he must mean disowning all Independency upon the People, as well as the Prince; and I am at a lofs to know where the Church difowns all Independency on the one, or the other, I know no fuch Declaration fhe hath made. And then as for those who do not difown all Independency, after all his ridiculous outrageous Abuses of them, and their truly Chriftian Principles, which oblige 'em to think the Church to be a Society different from the State, and independent of it, he is all of a fudden full of Kindness to them: As for them, faith he, who do not difown all Independency, I cannot do 'em a greater Kindness, than to fhew them the pernicious Confequences of their Errour, and how it neceffarily makes all, who are governed by it, guilty of the most villanous Practices. Vain Man! who thinks to wheedle us after fo much Rudeness, and inhuman and unchristian Ufage, who hath charged us with an Error, which with all his Subtleties he cannot prove to be fuch, with a pretended Error, which is a Chriftian Truth, and must fhew it felf to be fuch in all Times of violent Perfe

* Pref. p. XII.

+ P. 303.

Ibid.

cution,

cution, and which he not only precariously, but falfely, and impudently faith, makes all those who believe it, guilty of most villanous Practices; he means, as it appears by his Citations, against the Civil Power. The first of them is taken out of my Lord Chancellour Clarendon's † Animadverfions on Creffy's Fanaticism, in defence of Dr. Stilling fleet; and it is not against the Spiritual Power of the Church, as a Society diftinct from the State, but against the unreasonable,and mischievous Abuse of it in the Church of Rome, which exempts the things, and Perfons of Clergy-men, from the Civil Juftice of the Kingdom, and the cognifance of the Civil Tribunals; even, as he obferves, in cafes of Treafon, fetting up another Sovereign Power, another Tribunal and Jurifdiction, to which Criminal Clergymen may appeal from the Civil Power and Tribunals; a Doctrine not practifed, or thought of among the Chriftians of the pure antient Churches, who yet believed the Church to be a Society of Chrift's erection, diftinct from the Empire, and independent of it, and which the Church of England exprefly difowns, and her Clergy ever fince the Reformation have strenuously impugned in their Writings, nay which many Divines of the Church of Rome it felf have written againft, in defence of the Civil Power. The next long Tranfcript out of Dr. Barrow of the Pope's Supremacy, is against the Pope's Supremacy, and immenfe Power, who, as the Doctor obferves, allows Men to tell him to his Face, that all Power in Heaven and Earth is given unto him. Such a Power it is against which he writes, as the Popes ufurp over the Church, as well as the State, a boundless and truly tyrannical Power, which cannot but interfere, and clash with the Peace of one, as well as the other, and is equally

*P. 304, 305, 306, 307, 308. P. 136.

† P. 130, 13

« PreviousContinue »