I Once had the Happiness to hear you preach an excellent Sermon in which you spoke many excellent things that were true and just, with all that serious Air and Authority that could become a sincere Preacher, I often had occasion since to wish it had been put in Print; it was preached at St. Margaret's Westminster, on the 30th of January was two years, before the Gentlemen of the Con­vention, and remembring the excellent Discourse you then made, and pressed upon the Consciences of the Conventioners, I had a great Desire and Curiosity to read your late fare-well Sermon, to see if you stood firm in these times of Defection to your former Principles: But to be plain and serious with you, I find you so altered, like many of your Brethren, from your self, that though Dr. Sharpe is still the same Per­son, yet I do not find that the Dead of Norwich and the Archbishop are the same Man: For then, my Lord, you preach'd with great appea­rance of Zeal and Sincerity against the resisting and deposing Doctrines; for which you had the Honour to be censured by many of the House; but now in the very Phrase and Language of those Authors who have taught the World those damnable Doctrines,Page 30: you tell us that we must be more concerned for our Countrey and Nation, than the Interest of any single Man in it; A Saying certainly in the sense you must needs mean it, fitter for a Bishop of the Romish than the English Church, which, conformably to our Laws, and the eternal Reasons of them, teacheth her Children, That the Interest of the People is wrapt up with the Safety and Interest of the Prince, and that they can never be happy without him. This our Ancestors have often felt, and confessed upon Experience, particularly Mr. Pryn, in his Preface to Cotton's Abridgment, to whose Words I refer you: But you, my Lord, contrary to all Law, Reason, and Experience, have taught the People in this Sermon to set up a se­parate and distinct Interest against that of the Prince, and by conse­quence to resist or depose him, to turn or keep him out of his King­dom, [Page 2]be he who he will, even the present, as well as any of our for­mer Kings.

You cannot but know that there are a party of Men among us, who are more concerned for another Interest than the Interest of the King, I mean the Comman wealthsmen, and they thinking that Interest; which I assure you is a growing Interest, the Interest of their Countrey; they may upon your Principles do as much for his Majesty as the Pretenders of Publick Good in former Ages have done by some of his Royal Ance­stors, if they can but once persuade the People, who are easily decei­ved, or a considerable number of them, that it is not for the Interest of the Nation that he should longer reign over them. The least the People so persuaded would probaly say of their Majesties in a time of general defection would be in the Words of Dr. Sherlock, Let them go, if they cannot defend-themselves; and when they were gone, (which all their faithfull Subjects pray God to forbid,) they would think it their Duty to shut the door after them; for you, and such as you, would presently exhort them to study to be quiet, and doe their own business; and to be more concerned for their Countrey and Nation, than [to break the Peace of] for the Interest of any single Man, or Woman in it, as their Majesties would then be styled. Nay, this great Concern of yours for our Country and Nation, in opposition to the Interest of the Prince, will justifie any thing as well as being quiet or sitting still. It exposes him to Ehud's Dagger, as well as Gideon's Sword, to Assassins and Bra­voes, as well as to Rebels, Deposers, and High Courts of Justice, for a Prince in your Arithmetick is but a single Man, and if his Safety and Interest is not in Reality or Opinion consistent with that of the People, they may dispatch or depose him any way, it matters not how, a Ra­villiac or a Clement may doe the Work with a Steletto, when a League or Association cannot doe it. Princes at this rate can be no longer safe than they continue in the good opinion of the People,Page 29. and are looked upon to be good Men, and encouragers of true Religion. As long as the Case is so, you say, they are not onely to be submitted to, bus to be ac­knowledged as Blessings: But by the Rule of Contraries, If they come to be, or, which is all one, happen to be thought bad Men by the People, and Encouragers of false Religion, as Henry the 4th of France, and Charles the 1st of England were, then they are no longer to be ac­knowledged as Blessings, but to be resisted, deposed or murthered as Curses, and no Man ought to be concerned at it, but to be quiet, and let the Deliverers of the People doe their Word their own way; for as you intimate the King is but a single Man, and the Interest of the Coun­trey which others call the Publick Good, is to be preferred without Ex­ception before the Interest, i. e. before the Welfare and safety of any Particular Man.

I profess, my Lord, I cannot but wonder that any Government should prefer Men that turn Subjects to it upon such loose and dangerous Prin­ciples, as are equally destructive of all Governments, and can secure none: For this Doctrine upon which your Exhortation is founded; un­dermines Senates, as well as Kings; for as a King, my Lord, is with you but a single Man; so by the same figure in Politicks, Senates are but a few single Men met together, and so the People in parity of Rea­son [Page 3]ought at all times to be more concerned for their Countrey than a sew single Men. Nay, my Lord, by this Doctrine the minor Part, in a pure Democracy, can never want a plausible pretence of resisting the major, in whose Determinations they ought to acquiesce; for though they are the minor, they may always pretend to be a sounder Part, that are more concerned for their Countrey than for the Interest of any num­ber of Men, though never so great; and so at this rate there can be no Peace in any Nation or Government, but eternal Opposition without a powerful standing Army, which is an uncertain state of Peace; a Peace as long as it endures attended with Oppression; Poverty, and Slavery, and not much better for the People than a State of War. Nay, my Lord, you will find that this Principle of yours will ruine Bishops as well as Kings; for when Sir George Mackenzy, and others of the Epis­copal Party, defended the Bishops of Scotland in the Convention of that Kingdom, What a doe, said a Presbyterian Lord, is here about the Bi­shops, I think we ought to be more concerned for our Countrey than the In­terest of Twelve Man.

It was of such Latitude as this of yours, and such Latitudinarians as you are, that Dr. Sherlock complained, not long before he had taken the Oaths, had ruined both the Church and State. He then saw how such loose Doctrines as yours made them both Ohnoxious to an everlasting rotation of Turns and Revolutions, and was not sparing in his Refle­ctions and Invectives upon one whom he thought the Arth-Latitudina­rian; but as Dr. Collins said, at Cambridge—Then was then, but now is now; for since that he hath left the narrow for the wide and easie Way, or it I may compare Principles, as you do Religion to Cloaths,Page 14. he hath changed his old streight uneasie Fashion, for the never easie Mode; he hath cast off the slavish Principles of strict and inflexible Loyalty to his Prince, his Soul is no longer fettered with them, but is as free as the happy Liberty of Obeying and Regnant Powers can make him. It mat­ters not with you or him, my Lord, what the King be, lawful or un­lawful, real or titular, rightful or wrongful, provided he be in Posses­sion of the Throne. Thus let Twenty Kings supplant one another, and you can transfer you: Allegiance to the later, though you have recog­nized and sworn Allegiance never so solemnly to the former, and decla­red that [...] Power can absolve you from that Oath, nay though you have made a vow to God of Obedience to him, and he actually claims his Right, and prosecutes his Claim, and charges his Subject, to keep their Allegiance entire for him; yet notwithstanding all this you can turn Subjects to him that usurps his Throne, though he got it and keep it never so unjustly. like the Gentleman's Spaniel, who forsook his Ma­ster, and followed the Thief, after he had knocked him down and got upon his Horse.

Thus with you, and such as you, my Lord, whoever can mount Bu­cephalus will be your Alexander, whoever can get into the Throne shall certainly be your Caesar; if God should suffer a Cromwell to destroy their Majesties, and seize the Crown, you would own him and be Sub­ject to him, and pray publickly for him in the Regal Style, because St. Paul hath said, That every Soul must be subject,Page 28. and hath bad us put up Prayers, and Supplications, and Intercessions for all Men, especially [Page 4]for Kings, and all that are in Authority, without any distinction or restriction what Kings, or what Persons in Authority we are to pray for, and what not:

From these Words, my Lord, I presume to conjecture upon what Principles you took the Oath; for being asked in Company some time since why you did not write a Book to persuade men to take the New Oath, you replied to this effect, That you believed you could write Sa­tisfactorily upon the Subject; but you were afraid the Government would not like your Reasons; and in truth, my Lord, you had reason for what you said; for no Government can like this time-serving and pre­carious Principle of swearing Allegiance unto Princes. Indeed a di­stressed Government may connive at it in a time of Exigence, but it can never approve it; it may be content with it upon Force, when it can have Allegiance paid upon no better terms; but when it grows strong enough it will despise such beggarly Elements of Subjection, being the Anthers of then, to condign Punishment, and order their Books to be burnt by the hand of the Common Hang-man.

For my own part I am not afraid to tell your Grace, that I hope to see such Bishop and Priests become Base and Contemptible, in the Eyes Loth of King and People, that expound St. Paul as you and Dr. Sherlock have done, contrary to the Rules of moral Equity and Justice, and ad­vance Allegiance to the Government upon a Principle that is destru­ctive to it, and the true and lasting Peace of the Kingdom in which our Happiness does consist. No Divines of the Church of England but you and Dr. Sherlock, and a few more since the Revolution, ever so ex­pounded Rom. 13.1. and 1 Tim. 11.1, 2. and I have so good Opinion of the Constancy of our Clergy to their Principles, that I verily believe were your Exposition proposed to the Convocation, they would con­demn it as contrary to right Reason, and the moral Duties of Religion, acording to which all the general and unlimitted Precepts in the Gospel concerning relative Duties, ought to be limitted and understood. Doth not Nature it self, at first hearing, teach us that the Apostle by higher Powers and Kings, in those two places, meant rightful higher Powers and Kings? And will not you your self grant, that in other places where he, or other Apostles exhorts, Children to obey their Parents, Wives to obey their Husbands, Servants their Masters, and the People their Pastors. that he me us only such as are truly and rightfully so, though according to you own Observation, He makes no restriction, or distinction what Father, Husbands, Masters and Pastors, are to be obey­ed, and what not? But you imply that the reason of this Exhortation to pray for Kings is general; and are not the Reasons as general upon which he exhorts us to perform our relative Duties of our other Supe­riours, as hath been observed in the several learned Answers to Dr Sher­lock? to which I humbly refer your Grace for your better information in the following Order, as I have read them with great Delight and Satis­faction: The Title of an Ʋjurper after a through Settelement examined, p. 39 and forwards. The Duty of Alleg ance settled upon its true Grounds according to Scripture and Reason, Chap. 3. Dr. Sherlock 's Case of Alle­giance considered, Sect. 3. The Examination of the Arguments drawn from Scripture and Reason, in Dr. Sherlock's Case of Allegiance; in the Examination of Sect. 4. Pag. 28

I have taken upon me to direct your Grace to these particular places, in hopes that you will read them, and impartially examine the Reason of these learned Anthours against Dr. Sherlock's way of Expounding the Apostle, Rom. 13.1. and by consequence against your own, who after this manner have expounded the Apostle's Precept of Praying for Kings, in a Sense as unlimitted, as he hath done the other of Subjection to them; viz. of Praying for Kings without distinction, provided they are in Possession of the Throne.

These Expositions, my Lord, as some Men think, reflect upon their Majesties and the Acts of Recognition; and if you have no more to say to justifie your Praying for them, Exaltabunt Jacebei, the Adversaries, I fear, will have occasion to triumph.

My Lord, I could name some great Men among you, who when they were directed to read some of their Books, replied that they were satis­fied, and desired not to be unsettled, but I expect better things from a Person of your Candour and Ingenuity: Nay, my Lord, I think you are bound in Honour and Conscience, to examine your Adversaries Rea­sons against the unlimitted Sense of the Apostle's Exhortations, for fear you should happen to be in the wrong, and continue to delude the People by an Exposition of his Words apparently contrary to the di­ctates of natural Reason, and by consequence to the meaning of that holy Spirit by which the Apostle wrote.

You cannot but know that this unlimitted Sense, in which you ex­pounded the Apostle, is of ill Fame, and hath been generally disappro­ved by the learned Divines of our Church; it was insisted on it the times of the late Usurpation by Phanatical time-serving Writers, but rejected with disdain by the Martyrs and Confessors of Loyalty among the Suf­fering Clergy-men, as it now is by Jacobeans. It was so expounded by Mr. Jenkins, who in the late Usurpation argued for Subjection, as Dr. Sherlock doth now, and was ever after Infamous for it, and exposed without Mercy for it by your old Acquaintance Dr. Grove, now Bishop of Chichester, as you may see in the Margent.Answer to Mr. Jenkins's Farewell Ser­mon, p. 15. It is a most excellent Presertative against Tower-hill. But what is this famed Position of the Doctor's? As far as I can learn it was laid down in these very Words, or to this purpose, Regimen Politicum fundatur in Provident à D [...]i Extraordinarià. This Mr. Jenkins calls his asserting Providential Disposal, though one might conjecture what this means, yet it had not been so clear without the Comment, which he has made upon it in the beginning of his humble Petition to the Supreme Authority, the Parliament of the Common-wealth of England; in short it is this: That whoever they be that get the Power into their hands, the Providence of God evidently appears in removing others, and investing them with the Government, And he looks upon it as his Duty to yield to this Authority all active and chearful Obedience, even for Conscience sake. This is a fine pleable Principle as a Man can wish, 'twill lap about your Finger like Barbary Gold. Thus when King Charles the First, of blessed Memory, had the Power in his hands, this was an Extraordinary Providence, and the Right of Government was in him: But stay, it may be the Dector had not studied the point so soon. but to be sure when the Parliament got the better, that was an Extraordinary Providence ideed, and then indeed without doubt they were the Supreme Authority, as this Petitioner styles them; and so was Oliver Cromwel, and so was Richard, and so was the Rump, and so was the Com­mittee [Page 6]of Safety, and so was I know not who, and so round until his Majesties most happy Restauration; and then because there was an Extraordinary Providence in that, so is he too, and so Mr. Jenkins is as good a Subject as can be desired, and so he had been whoever had come. And thus if the Turk should happen to over-run the Kingdom of Poland, and deliver the People from Popish Tyranny, this were an Extraordinary Providence, and the Grand Seignior would presently became the lawful Sovereign of that Realm, and that (which the proud Mahometan little thinks) by virtue of a Position made at Cambridge above Twenty Years ago. I have considered it as well as I am able, and cannot make the Doctor's Providentia Extraordinaria to signifie any more in effect, than what they call Mr. Hobbs's Potentia Irresistibilis, and then the Doctor, and he, and our Author, have been the only Three, for ought I know, that have perfectly agreed in this uncouth, and 'till of late unheard of Point, that unsettles the Foundations of the Earth, and gives a liberty to every bold-Usurper that invades the Crown, at least legimates his Claim, if he can be but Success­ful enough to place it on his own Head. But Mr. Jenkins must know, that though this assertion be a good Expedient to secure ones Neck under an illegal and tyrannical Power, yet it never can make him a faithful Subject to his natural and lawful Prince; or it robs him of Title, which he hath by Inheritance, and justifies every thing by Event onely. It adds Affliction to the Misery of unfortunate Kings, and flatters the prosperous Traitor, as if he were the Darling of Heaven.

Nay, you cannot but be conscious to your self, that two Years ago you were not of opinion, at least you were not fully persuaded, that the Text allowed us to pray in behalf of a King de Facto against the King de Jure, or in behalf of a King in Possession against the legal King, as you and Dr. Sherlock still acknowledge King James to be, though he is out of Possession; or, else why did you at his House, in the Temple, express so much dislike and dissatisfaction at the Prayers in the Office of the first general Fast: But the World is since well mended with you, and what was matter of Difficulty to you then is no: so now; for since that time you have better Studied the great Apostle at Canterbury than you did at Norwich, and plainly discovered that he is, and always was for the Ʋppermost, and directs us to pay our Alle­giance and Devotion, without enquiring into Titles, to the King in the Throne.

I wish for the Honour of our Religion, and the better Settlement of the Nation, that these Notions had still remained among those with­out, and not obtained admission within the pale of the Church, more especially I wish, for the Honour of the holy Order, that they had never been taught in Pulpits, at least by our Bishops and Dignified Church­men, who are the more conspicuous Lights, and upon whom the Reputation of the Clergy depends. Certainly, my Lord, such insecure Doctrines to Princes, when once they come to understand them, cannot be very acceptable to them, nor can they much value such Protean Sub­jects, as will how the Knee to them to day, and do the same to their greatest Enemies to morrow, if they can get into their Thrones I doubt not but their Majesties, when they have leisure to reflect, will be sensible how much such Men impose upon them, and how little Security they [Page 7]have in their Allegiance, though they pretend to transfer it all unto them, because it is a temporary and a moveable Allegiance, which they can transfer in infinitum, and vear backwards and forwards, or come about to every point of the Compass, like the Weather-cocks upon their Church steeples, as the Wind shall blow. My Lord, one Jacobite, cou'd he turn to their Majesties upon his own Principles, would be worth an hundred such Subjects as you and Dr. Sherlock; and whenever Providence shall remove the Obstacles which lie in the way of their Al­legiance to them, they will have reason to value them as so many Jewels of their Crown.

My Lord, I cannot deny but that I like the Conversation of the Men, cause they are Men of Conscience, and Honour, and discourse, and write like Scholars and Christians, though Dr. Sherlock calls then little Writers; this makes me keep Company with them, and so I do with some Men of Parts among the Republicans, and so I would do with Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, were they alive, and see how they liked your Principle of tying Allegiance to actual Administration. I will not tell you what they say of you at Richards, for I am afraid it might ruffle your smooth Tem­per, to let you know how unmercifully those Gentlemen tear your Rocket without any regard to your venerable Character, but the Jaco­bites are more respectful to it upon Principle; and I will spend the rest of my Time and Paper in letting you know what they reply to every thing you have said against them, from the 25th Page to the end of your Sermon, in which you have exposed them as on a Stage, first to your Parish, and then to the whole Kingdom.

They observe then, my Lord,Page 26. that you might have exhorted your People to study Peace and Ʋnity, and endeavour in their several Stations to promote the publick Tranquillity, without pointing at them as distur­bers of it; and they say they have reason to think that you have done it, with a design to provoke both the Government and People against them, and to that end they suspect it is that you represent them as a Faction, more especially as a Faction in Religion, Page 29. and tell the World they ground their Faction on a State-point, or, as you afterwards explain your self, upon a mere State point. This, my Lord, is the great Charge you draw up against them; and they pretend that it is none of the things of your Text, as being neither True, Honest, nor Just; and they wonder they could be so falsly charged by a learned Man, who can distinguish very well, though common Readers and Hearers cannot, betwixt a State-point, and a mere point of State. These two things they say are very different, though you fallaciously confound them together, and there­fore they distinguish betwixt a State-point, which is purely such, and a State-point which happens also to be a point of Morality or practical Religion, and in its Nature affects the Consciences of Men. As for Ex­ample— The Spanish Match, say they, in the time of James the First, was a State point, i.e. a mere State-point, which, had it been ef­fected, could not have obliged any Man in Conscience (though the Clergy preached against it) to refuse Communion with the Church, or Subjection to the State. The Vote of Non-addressing was also a State-point; but then say they, not a mere State-point, but such an one as [Page 8]was withall a matter of Morality, which many of the Members thought in their Consciences a great breach of their Duty to concur with, and therefore left the House.

Wherefore, my Lord, they appeal to you, and the whole Casuistical World, if a Safe point, and more particularly a point of Government or Policy, may not become a Case of Conscience in a Kingdom, as well as in a Family, College, or Diocese; and whether Questions about Right and Wrong, Lawful and Unlawful, Just and Unjust, may not happen to arise in a Point, or Act of State, as well as in other practical Points?

Was not the Engagement a State-point in those times? And did not the Presbyterians make a Case of Conscience of it, and chose many of them to suffer rather than to take it, because they thought the matter of it Sinful? Was it not a State-point with the Loyal Nobility, Gentry, and Clergy, whether they should turn Liege-subject, to Oliver? And yet because it was not a mere State-point, but such an one as touched their Consciences, they chose to be sequestred rather than sin in closing with the Usurpers, and transfer their Allegiance from the King to whom they thought it due: The Clergy also then set up separate Meetings from the Churches, and Private Worship in opposition to the Publick, in many places of the Kingdom, as Dr. Wild and Dr. Gunning in London, and Dr. Fell in Oxon; for then they thought it was not the Place, or the Numbers, but the Cause that made the Separation a Schisme; and the Jacobites in like manner think (how truly I shall not now dispute) that they have just Cause of Separation given them, and that therefore their Separation is no Schism. The New Oath of Allegiance which you intimate to be a mere State-point, they think withall to be a great Point of Religion, in which the Interests of Truth, Justice, and moral Honesty are concerned, and they verily believe they cannot take it with­out breaking three or four of the Commandments, which they think to be as sacred in themselves, and as dear to God that made them, as any Articles in the Creed: For the same Reason they profess they cannot join in the Prayers as they stand altered, nor with the additional Prayers; and to speak my own Judgment, I think no Party of Men ever made a more plausible Apology or Defence for themselves, than is made for them in a Book called Christian Prudence, to which I refer your Grace, and I dare say you will not think your Pains ill spent in reading of it, if you please to peruse it with a free and unprejudicate Mind.

But, my Lord, besides that which you call a State-point, there is al­so a Church-point, of which you take no notice, though it be another known Cause of their Separation, and that is the putting of New Bi­shops into the Thrones of the Old ones, whose Deprivation they pre­tend to be null and unjust, and give such Reasons for it, as the tender Regard I have for the Government, and these Erastian Times will not suffer me to recite. I have urged the Authority of the Baroccian Manu­script against them; but to that they answer many ways very well, and, which troubles me not a little, they assure from their Friends at Ox­ford, that Mr. Hody hath not printed the whole Manuscript, but omitted a Collection of Canons, which immediately follows where he left off, written in the same Hand, which shews that the Author is to be under­stood [Page 9]of Synodical Deprivations; and if this be so indeed, as I fear it is, then I must say, that Mr. Hody hath not strictly kept hisJam ad alia, Lector, procedas; at priusquam pro­cedas, Votorum quorundam mihi testis esto; & olim, si unquam violavero, Monitor; Vo torum quorundam eruditis Viris, proh dolor! hucusque ignotorum; sed quae ego pertetuò à primis literis, ut facio, feci ex Corde: Faxit Numen, Ʋt vel aeterno ego silentio inter non scribentes deliteseam, Vel semper, ut virum ingenuum, liberalis ac generosae Educationis, Veraeque Philosopiae studi [...]sum decet, scribam: Verita [...]is unicae Indagator, Absique omni Styli Acerbitate, Mitis, urbanus, candidus, Ad id quod indecens est adeo non pronus, ut nec movendus, Nugarum demque Contemptor. I do not know whether Ger. Joh. and Isaac Vossius, Uther and Dodwell, ever made such a Vow; but this I dare say, if they had printed this [...] Manuscript, they would have had so much Ingenuity as to have printed the whole, at least to have given Reasons to the World why they did not.

Thus, my Lord, you see that the Non-compliance and Separation of our New Nonconformists is not grounded upon a mere State point; so nei­ther merely upon a Point of State, and they think they have R [...]s [...]n to expect satisfaction from your Grace, not onely for wrong assigning one Cause of their Separation, but also for not assigning both. I confess their Opinion is dreadfull in its consequence, as being like to involve all the Nation except themselves in Schism, and I have been so free as to tell them of it, and also prayed them to consider what an Odium they will bring upon themselves by it; but to that they say, they cannot hinder the Consequences of things, and wished me to conside, That as a Nation, or Province, may fall into Indolatry, Rebellion, or Sacrilege, so also into Schism, and that our Nation fell into the first of those Sins in the time of Queen Mary, into the second and third in the time of the Rump and Cron [...]well, and if they now charge it with the fourth Sin, it is no more than what your Grace, and your complying Brethren do for Scot­land, and the same Apology they think will serve for both, though of the two they acknowledge the Scottish to be the more grievous Schism.

Thus much, my Lord, I have said by way of Enquiry into the Grounds of the Separation of the Jacobites, to acquit them from the Charge of Fa­ction and Schism, I now come to your Reflections, which they say are as unjust as your Charge, and as groundless and impertinent as it. You re­present them in p. 26. as Men that have different Notions about Poli­ticks, and framers of Hypotheses about Government. To which they reply, That if you mean that their Notions of Politicks are different from yours, that they confess to be true; but if you mean that their Notions about Po­liticks are different from the true English Polity, or antient Government of this Kingdom, or that they frame any other Hypothesis about it, than what the Law hath framed; this they deny, and desire all the World to take notice, That they are by Principle so far from making Hypo­theses [Page 10]against the Government of England, or Alterations in it, that they suffer both as Christians and Englishmen for their strict adherence to it, and that you are the Men that have different Notions of Politicks, from the National Polity or Constitution, and that you have actually framed six or seven Hypotheses about Government, as different from one ano­ther as from the Law it self.

For the truth of this they appeal to your own Writings, out of which they intend to collect such notorious Schemes of State-Notions, and Doctrines of Politicks, that they that dwell on the Earth shall won­der at them, as at the Beast in the Revelations, when they behold them. One of them, as I am told, hath been at the pains to compare Dr. Sher­lock's Notions about Politicks with those of Julian Johnson's, and can make it appear from that Collation, that Julian is much the better Church-man, and the more Orthodox Apostate of the two. In short, my Lord, in answer to this Reflexion upon them, as Coiners of Nations about Politicks, they stick not to say, that you are the Statists and Po­lincians, who with your humane Policies have corrupted your Religion, defiled the Priesthood, dishonoured the Church, scandalized her Friends, and caused her Enemies to triumph.

In the next Paragraph you say, That it is very grievous for those that promote a Separation, Page 27. who have always declared themselves Friends to the Church, and Enemies to Schism. To this Reflexion they reply, That they are still as much Friends of the Church, and Enemies of Schism, as ever; but then by the Church they understand the True Old Church of England, with all her venerable Doctrines of Faith, Justice, and moral Honesty, and all her strict Decrees against the resisting, deposing, and forferting Doctrines; the Church of England with all her plain Primitive Doctrines of Christian Honesty and Simplicity, against Equivocations and Mental Reservations; the Church that always abhorred Treason and Perjury, as well as Idolatry; that never allowed her Children to do any moral Evil for a good End, or with a good Intention: In a word, the Church that equally condemus both the Parts of Popery, that which teaches us to be false to Men, as well as that which is injurious to God; that which pollutes our Morals, as well as that which pollutes our Faith and Wor­ship. This pure Virgin Church, which they think is now driven once more into the Wilderness, they say is the Church which they adhere to, and to which they think you ought to have adhered with them, and that you have separated from her, and them, and not they from you: For they say, they are just where they were when you were last with them, and have not budged a Foot since from that Church, and that you cannot say they have broken from you, unless you will affirm that when a Ship breaks from the Shoar where she lay at Anchor, the Shoar removes from her, and not she from the Shoar.

And then as to the next Reflexion, of being distasted at the establisht Worship, for which they were zealous before, they say they are as zealous for it as ever, as far as the Matter of the Prayers is the same; but the Matter of some of the old Prayers they say is changed, and this Matter, with that of all the New ones, being the subject Matter of the New Oath of Allegiance, they have the same difficulty of Conscience upon them, as to saying of these, as taking of those: Wherefore, in An­swer [Page 11]to your fallacious Question about the Liturgie and Prayers, they desire to know if you put the Question of the whole Liturgie, and all the Prayers in it, or not: If not, then the Question is not to your purpose; but if you indeed mean the whole Liturgy, and all the Pray­ers in it, as you would be understood, then, they say, they must tell you that the Liturgy and Prayers are not the same they were, and by consequence, that the Proposition implied in your Question is false: For as Changing the Name of God for the Virgin Mary, in the invoca­tory part of any Collect in the Liturgy, would change the Object of Worship, and make it not as it was, a Prayer to God, but to the Vir­gin; so changing the Name of a Man for that of his Enemy, in the petitionary part of any Collect, makes it quite another Prayer, not for the Man as it was before the Change of Names, but for his Enemy; and by consequence, alteration of Names alters the Matter and Intention of the Prayer, and makes it as different from it self, as the two Men and their Interests happen to be. They suppose, that if a Man should raze the Names out of a Petition to their Majesties, and put the French King's Name in their place, that it would no longer be a Petition to them, but to their mortal Enemy; and therefore in Reply to the next Question which follows about the same Liturgie, they say, this change of Names has changed the Prayers in the Liturgie, and that this change disgusts their Consciences, and helps to drive them from your Churches, being one cause of their Separation from the Publick, and but one; for as I just now shewed your Grace, there was another, of which you were pleased to take no notice.

Ay, but you say, they proceed so far as to declare open War, and set up separate Congregations in opposition to the publick. To this they say, for the foresaid Reasons, That they did not begin this spiritual War, which on their side is purely Defensive, because they are driven from the Pub­lick, and that the same Reasons that will justifie their Separation from it, will also justifie setting up separate Meetings in opposition to it, in which they think the pure Church of England, with her pure Worship, may be seen and heard like the Church of Jerusalem, in the first perse­cution of Christianity, in the upper rooms. And in reply to the great Emphasis, which, to supply the want of Argument, you put upon Se­parating from the Publick, and Setting up Congregations in opposition to the Publick, they pray you to consider, That the Multitude, or great Majority which usually makes the Publick, is often in the wrong. You will not deny but the Multitude or Publick are now the Schismaticks in Scotland; they were so under the Donatist Bishops in Africk; they were so in England under the Popish Marian Bishops; they were so under Aaron in the business of the Calf; they were so in Israel under Ahab and the Idolatrous Priests; and, lastly, they were so under the Arian Emperours and Bishops, throughout the whole Roman Empire. In short, my Lord, they say when the Publick is in the right, and gives no just cause of separating from it, that then it is a great Sin, to set up private Meetings against it; but when it is in the wrong, and gives just cause of separating, it then becomes innocent, and a Duty to doe so, though the Publick be in Possession of all the Churches, as it usually is, when Safety, Honour, and Riches attend the erring side.

I hope by this time, my Lord, you understand what their Meaning is in Setting up separate Congregations; for it is the Cause, and not the local Churches and Revenues that make, say they, a true Church; and therefore, in Answer to your Question, they pray your Grace to consider, that Men that have been branders of Schism, may think it not onely innocent, but their Duty to separate from the Publick, or pub­lick Worship, without changing their Principles. Nay, sometimes their Principles, unless they can change them, will oblige them to doe so, though they do not think Schism can change its Nature; and this they think is their own Case; and therefore they challenge you, and the whole Regnant Church of England, with all the advantage if its Churches and Revenues, but more particularly the Intruders, as they do not stick to call them, and all their Electors and Consecrators, to prove that their Separation is a Schism. All your Arguments about it are couched in a few trifling Questions, of which this that follows is a terrible one, Have we not the sam: Government in Church and State that we formerly had? And they appeal to your Grace's Conscience, upon second Thoughts, and as you expect to be called to Account for the Since­rity of your Ansiver at the dreadfull Tribunal of God, if we have the same Government we formerly had. Do you know of no Changes it hath undergone, which may reasonably aflect the Mind of every true En­glishman, as well as the Conscience of a good Subject? Was there no substantial Reason for throwing the Word rightfull out of the New Oath of Allegiance? Or for the Declaration that so many made for the ease of their Consciences at the taking of it? And do not many among you still complain in private of the Alterations that the Revolution hath made in the Government, and wish them unmade again. You cannot but know, they say, that there are many Grumbletonians, and half Pe­nitents among you; and therefore they wonder with what Confidence you could put this Question about the Government, as well as that about the Prayers.

But they say your Question is fallacious, because it is not to be put about the Government but about the Governours, and they think you will not say, that they are the same. They also make some distinctions about Things and Titles, which I shall not here recite, because, I be­lieve, your Grace hath heard of them, and knows them to be very ma­terial in Controversies of Allegiance, of which Praying for the King, next to Fighting for him, is a principal part; and therefore they say that in contests about Crowns in Christian Kingdoms, the Subjects at the peril of their Souls are bound to consider for which of the contest­ing Princes it is their Duty to pray, as well as for which it is to fight.

The next Question to this, say they, is as little to the purpose, wherein you ask, Have we not the same Articles and Doctrines of Religion pub­lickly owned, and professed, and taught, without the least alteration? To this they Answer, That there are many Doctrines relating to the Con­trovertie between you and them, taught, licensed, and allowed, which have been condemned by your Predecessors of the Church of England in the late Usurparion, and formerly, and of late censured by the famous University of Oxford, and which they verily believe a free Convocation would yet censure, as contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of En­gland; [Page 13]such as these are, the Resisting, the Deposing, the Forfeiting Do­ctrines, which are to be seen in your licensed Tracts. The Doctrine in behalf of bare Possession, that it gives a Right to a Crown, to which another King hath a legal Title, that will justifie a recuperative War; the Doctrine of Providence, and actual Administration, the Doctrine which makes War God's Court, and Victory his Sentence lately asserted by the Bishop of St. Asaph. The Doctrine of laying aside Kings for Mocal Incapacity, and another fine Doctrine, that Force from what Cause soever will disengage Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance, and justifie their entring into contrary Obligations; and they appeal to your Grace's Conscience, if these Doctrines, not to mention others, which used to be so much branded and decryed by our Divines in Popish and Presbyterian Writers, be Articles of our Religion, or Doctrines of the Church of England— and the Preaching and Printing these Doctrines with Allowance, not mentioning the Preferments Men have for Teach­ing of them, is an Argument, they say, that the Articles and Doctrines you speak of are not owned, but disowned, not professed but suppressed; and that they are not taught so publickly as formerly, because they are not pleasing, and some Men you know do not love to teach displea­sing Things, though they be true, lovely, honest, and just.

But say you again, What Government is there in the World will not meet with such Subjects that are not satisfied with it, and if that disaffec­tion be a just Reason to break Communion with the Established Church, what Ligaments have we to tie Christians together? Here they say, my Lord, you couch a Fallacy, which it did not become your Grace to make for the dissatisfaction of Subjects, or rather, if you please, of the People against any Government, is, they say, of two sorts, one upon the ac­count of want of a good Title in the Governours, and another upon the account of want of good Administration, and with respect to the later, they acknowledge, there are very few Governments, which have not in some measure dissatisfied their Subjects, but this sort of dissatisfaction, they say, is very consistent with Church Communion under any Go­vernment, though the Church-men should happen to favour the Male­administration, as sometimes they chance to do.

But then with respect to the former sort of dissatisfaction, which is upon a moral Account, they say, it becomes a just Reason to break off Communion with the Church, when an acknowledgment of Right in wrongful Governours, at whom they are so dissatisfied, is made a con­dition, or part of the Communion in the Prayers, and Sacraments of the Church, in the partaking of which Communion doth consift: In this case they say the change of Names in the Prayers, as to the use of them, affects the Consciences of People, as much as the change of them in the Oath of Allegiance; and therfore for the People to joyn in them, would not be to hold the unity of the Spirit, but to make themselves Par­ties to that which they think an unrighteous Usurpation, which would be a great Sin.

But you tell us again, That great Revolutions have happened in all Ages and Countries, and that you believe it will not easily be found, that ever any Christians separated from the Church upon the account of them. Here, my Lord, they distinguish again, and say, that Revolutions of Govern­ment [Page 14]are also of two sorts; one in which the new Governours happen to acquire a clear and undoubted Title to the Government, and the other when they acquire the Government without a clear and undoubted Title, which happens when another claims it by a clearer Title, and prosecutes his Claim. As to the first sort of Revolutions they acknow­ledged with your Grace, that never any Christians did, or ought to se­parate from the Church upon the account of them: But as to the second they assert, that they commence just. Causes, as of Non-subjection, so of Separation, when owning the Right of the new Governours against the better Title, becomes not only a Condition to the Clergy of exer­cising their Ministry, but also a part both in Prayers and Sacraments of the daily Offices of the Church.

This, my Lord, is their Opinion; and had this ever been the Case of the Primitive Christians, as you wrongfully suggest it was, they doubt not but their Practice would have been answerable thereunto: For the Primitive Christians. say they, were Christians all over, who served God faithfully in the most difficult, as well as most easie parts of Reli­gion; they were as zealous for the practical as the speculative Doc­trines of Christianity, and stood up as much for probity of Life, as purity of Faith, and Worship. In a word, they were as Righteous towards their Kings as towards God, and would have suffered as much for the Third, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Commandments, as for the First or Second, or any Doctrine of the Creed.

I have now, my Lord, repeated all the Answers which I have heard your Adversaries make to your Querres, and I must needs beg so much favour from you, as to consider me as the bare recite of them; for the sufficiency of which, it is their part to undertake and not mine. But if they chance to prove sufficient Answers, to say no more of them, then to espouse the Party of those Men, will not, as you tell your Parishoners, be to espouse a Faction, or a Communion which is not the Communion of the Church.

But you tell them how uneasie soever some of them may be in joyning with the [altered and additiona] Prayers [then it seems some are un­easie at the Prayers, and what is the reason of that that? but] they will be ten times more uneasie in separating from you; which may be true, say they, with respect to outward ease, but not to the ease that is within And truly, my Lord, they themselves are a sensible Example of what. they say, for you may read perfect Contentment in their looks, and perceive by conversing with them, that they enjoy their Deprivations more than ever they enjoyed the Possessions of which they are depriv'd. Oh! my Lord, had you seen Him of Palsgrave-Court. after his Extrution, you would have seen him look more Chearful, and Great, and Vene­rable than ever; and I seriously profess to you, I had rather have his in­ward Peace and Satisfaction, than his Throne with all its Revenues, and be in his Condition rather than that of any arrogant intruding Politi­cian, who can scoff at him now, to whom he would have formerly cringed, and from whom, before the Revolution, he would have coun­ted a smile a great favour; I wish the time may come, when both the insulting Scoffers may repent of it, least another time should come upon them like travel a Woman, when they shall say in anguish of [Page 15]Spirit— O let me die the Death of That righteous Man, and let my latter end be like his.

Fathermore you tell your Parishoners of the Heat and Turbulency, the Passion and Peevishness, the bitter Zeal and Ʋncharitableness, that the be­ing of a Party doth naturally engage Men in. This, my Lord, they ac­knowledge to be true in all Church and State Divisions, especially with respect to them that are engaged on the wrong Side. It is not my un­dertaking now to determine in this Division of our Church-men which Side is in the right; but this I can say, by experience from their Con­versation, that those who have separated from the Publick, have for the kind as few, and for the degree as little of those troublesome Passions, as any sort of Men in the World: I appeal to your worthy Successor, in St. Giles's-Parish, if one of the new Bishops was not in a very di­sturbed, and uneasie paroxism of Spirit about accepting his Bishoprick, and whether in a great heat of Passion he was not ready to go to her Majesty, like Dr.B. to desire to be excused. None of the deprived Bi­shops parted with their Bishopricks with half that reluctancy, that some of the accepters took them: The Episcopal Seals were bespoke, and unbespoke, and at last after many Agonies and Fluctuations finally be­spoke again. But the deprived are calm, and smooth, and uniform within, their Hearts are fixt on God, and their good Principles, they are as free from bitter Zeal, as from Shame and Remorse; and if you do not envy the Felicity of their Deprivations, I dare say they do not envy you their Revenues, and think you no reproach to them, if you do not think them so to you. But farther, my Lord, be the Passions never so great on both, or either side, upon the account of the Separation, Who must answer for that? Casnists say, that those that are the Cause of any War must answer to God for all the Blood that is shed, and all the De­vastations that are committed in it; and so, I think, those that are the Cause of any Separation must answer to the God of Peace and Unity for the Division, and all the Heats and Passions and irregular Zeal, and Un­charitableness on both sides that's occasioned thereby. When there is Pope against Pope, Bishop against Bishop, there will be Feuds and Ani­mosities; this is now the sad Condition of our other World, and let them look to it who have set up the Seconds, who in the Judgment of the African Church are none at all.

But you call the deprived, warm Men, and some that is a few warm Men. But as for their fewness, my Lord, they say as the Orthodox, or Catholicks used to say to the World of Arians, That no Cause is to be tried by Numbers, that the Number is often in the wrong, and that they are but some that will be saved; for the Truth of this I refer to their former instances, with which you used to stop the Mouths of the Papists, when they boasted of their Numbers; but I perceive from your Writers, that Numbers, and the Publick, are now become excellent Arguments for Truth. But then as for the imputation of heat, as they think it signifies not much, so they wonder you should reproach them as hot Men, who apparently have so many Hot-heads among your selves. Certainly, my Lord, had you called to mind your PP—cks. and T—ns. and P—ns. and F—rs. and H—ns. and W—ms. you would have spoken more respectfully of heat, and not have been so ready to reproach the Jacobites as warm [Page 16]Men: For the Philosophers, my Lord, that treat of the Passions, and the Use of them, tell us, that Heat is the active Principle, and as neces­sary in the moral as in the natural World, and a very cool Man, who since proved a Jacobite, once saying to another, Brother, Brother, God send you Patience: Brother, replied the warm Gentleman God send you more Passion; I am zealously affected in a good thing, and I wish you were so too. And I remember your good old Friend, Dr. Calamy, reflecting on some Men, whom you know, who condemned others as Hot-heads, for preaching against the Faction in the Popish Plot-time, Discourse a­bout a Scru­pulous Con­science. Epist. Dedicatory, preach'd at Aldermanbu­ry, 1683. said, I am very sensible that in this Age we live in, some are so extraordinary Wise and Wary, as to censure and discourage all Men that speak roundly, and act vigorously for the King and Church, as being more forward and busie than is needful; but I am also sensible that if some Men had not shewn more Courage and Ho­nesty, than those prudent Persons, bot would have been by this time in far greater Danger than at this present, thanks be to God, they are.

But now, my Lord, to apologize no longer for Heat, (which is good or bad, as the Occasion upon, or the Cause in which it is used,) I ap­peal to your own Conscience, Whether you do not know among the Jacobeans, as cool, and as considering Tempers as any you know among your Acquaintance, who yet separate from the Publick upon the same Pretences, which you tell the People some warm Men suggest. I wish, my Lord, for the future you would take the Counsel of Gamaliel, and let these Men alone; for if this Counsel, or this Work of theirs, be but the effect of Heat, orPage 29. unaccountable Humour, it will come to naught of it self; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, though you may persecute them to destruction, lest haply ye be found to fight against God.

I have now given your Grace an occasion to review your Faremwel-Ser­mon; in which, by the leave of the Gentlemen of the Vestry, I must needs say, I think, you have reasoned very indifferently, and-noot like your self. And though those Gentlemen, through the great veneration they deservedly had for you, did not perceive the weakness of your Reason­ing, yet many others who can distinguish betwixt the Speaker, and what is spoken, did. Nay, I can assure you that some of the weaker Sex were sensible of it: Madam, said a Lady to another of great Quality, You hear what my Lord says; Yes, saith she, I have heard what be says as well as your Ladiship, but he hath said nothing to convince me: And if this be all he hath to say, I shall be more confirmed than I was, for I think I am able to answer all that I heard him say. To this purpose spoke that Noble and most Vertuous Lady; and I could do no less then tell your Grace of it, that hereafter you may take care to print none but rational Ser­mons, which it concerns you to do, not only as a Person of most vene­rable Character, but as a great pretender to Reason, who in a certain time, and place, doubted if the Bishops then suspended were good Rea­soners, though you could not but grant that they were good Men.