I Am extremely sorry it so happens through that unhappy po­sture of my Affairs, to which the Importunities of an unjust and barbarous Antagonist have reduced me, that I must be forced to run so great an hazard of incurring your Lordship's and the Courts displeasure, by this my repeated Vindicati­on of my self against the ill practices of so bad a Man; because I am sensible I cannot do it without calling in question the Validity and Obligation of those several Orders which have been made by you in his behalf; for if those Orders are as valid and binding upon me, as they are Categorical and positive in themselves, I must be guilty in not paying them the Obedience they deserve of a most unpar­donable Contempt, for which no Censure of offended Justice, no Instance of your Lordship's Indignation and Resentment could be too great or heavy. But, my Lord, I beg your Lordship would con­sider, that tho there have been three several Orders passed for my Ejectment, the first only general, and equally respecting all the se­veral Members and Officers of this House, that were ejected out of it by the late Commission, together with us, that by the same Authority were substituted and appointed in their room; the other two particularly directed against me, which as yet I have not been able to perswade my self, that I am bound in Duty to comply with them; yet this was not done out of any stiff, or disobedient Humor, which is a thing I am as far from as any Man living, being so throughly convinced of its pernicious tendency to the disturbance of Peace and Order amongst Men. But it was upon this Consi­deration, that the whole proceeding seemed to me, upon the best and most impartial Judgment I was capable of making to be ground­ed; First, upon a wrong bottom of the Restitution of the Charter, and Secondly, upon a defective Jurisdiction, which could not legally extend it self so far as to the making or passing any Order of this nature.

As to the business of the Charter's being restored, that it hath no necessary influence upon the Affairs or Officers of our House; That this Regulation might have been made tho the Charter had stood, [Page 4] and that it is not at all affected by its Restitution, tho the whole matter had been referred to your Lordship, and your worthy Bre­thren, without any Interposition of an higher Power, or any ap­peal thereunto; I hope I have demonstrated beyond all Exception in my former Paper addressed to your Lordship and the Court; and in this I have not spoken only my own fence, but that of the best Lawyers this Kingdom affords, whose Opinions, and the Reasons of them I have at large transcribed from an Authentick Copy, the Original of which, if required, we are ready to produce; and we doubt not in the least but those learned Gentlemen, the just Pride and Ornament of the Long-Robe, whose Opinions seldom want the authority and effect of Laws, will firmly abide and stand by what they have written, and what they have so unanimously conspired and consented in, led by the force of Truth, which is every where the same, without consulting with or borrowing from each other.

Now, my Lord, with your Lordships good leave, by this it plain­ly appears, that neither Mr. Hughes, nor any other of those Gentle­men that have been restored by your Order, had any legal Pretenti­on to their places, by the meer force and virtue of the Charters Resti­tution, and upon supposition that they had had any, the Charters being restored would have restored them ipso facto together with it self, and they might have compelled us by Law to relinquish our Places, without any Order of Court; which could have no au­thority, and which pretends to none but from the Restitution of the Charter, which was, it seems, sufficient of it self to have ejected us without it, and to have put them in possession of their several Places.

So that Mr. Hughes having no pretention in Law, by vertue of any right annexed to his Person by the return of the Charter; yet supposing the Cognizance of that whole Matter to have layn be­fore your Lordship, and the Court of Aldermen, as I humbly con­ceive it did not, though you might have ejected me, and put him into my Place by vertue of that legally arbitrary and unaccountable Power, that was lodged and vested in you; yet it would have been highly for the Reputation and Honour of your Court, which I do sincerely prefer in my own private thoughts before any advantage or interest of my own, when all things were equal betwixt Mr. Hughes and me, as to any strict Property, or legal Right, which neither of us could with any justice claim, to have considered which of us two had the most equitable things to be said in our behalfs; and here [Page 5] tho all other things had been alike between us, yet it is, and hath always been taken as a Maxim, in equali jure melior est conditio pos­sidentis, that is, If a Controversie shall arise or happen between two about a matter of Right, if both of the Pretenders appear to have equal Right, or if neither have any, that is strictly legal; the con­siderations of equity being equal betwixt them, and the one being in possession, the other not, the decision ought to be in favor of the Possessor, and your Lordship knows we have a Proverb to the same purpose in our English Tongue, That Possession is eleven Points of the Law, so that according to this Maxim; I being in Possession, and all other Circumstances ex Hypothesi admitted to be equal and alike between us, the Right, if there be any, is mine, and not Mr. Hughes's, because I am in Possession, which he is not.

In the second place, my Lord, I have another advantage, and that a very great one above him, in that I am so nearly related to the City, I am my self a Citizen at the first remove, and with Submission to your Lordship, and the Honorable Court, I do affirm that it is your unquestionable Duty to favor me before Mr. Hughes, supposing all other Circumstances to be but equal between us, and to do otherwise falls but little short of a Breach of that Trust that is reposed in you, for the good of the City and Citizens, and their Children.

But things are so far from being equal between us, that it appears he never had any Title to this Place, even when he was formerly in Possession of it; because for the first three years he was not in Holy Orders according to the usage of the Church of England, he never had any Episcopal Ordination, neither did he ever conform for all that space of time, which in Construction of Law is near one half of a Life, to the Discipline and Ceremonies of the Established Church; and Sir Simon Degg speaking of Donatives, as this Chappel is, affirms expresly upon good authority, besides what I Parson's Coun­cellor, par. 1. o. 13. p. 164. have already represented in my former Paper, that the Patron, (who is in this Case the King, or Court of Aldermen, or Go­vernors acting under them) cannot collate a Lay-man, as some have thought, but a Spiritual Person in Holy Orders; and to this it is still further to be added, that this Hospital being founded by the Piety and Royal Bounty of Edward VI. who was in some sence likewise the Founder and Establisher of the Church of England, there being but ve­ry little difference between his Reformation and ours, as it stands improved and Rectified at this day; the design of which Reforma­tion [Page 6] was on the one hand to abolish and extirpate Popery, with all its gross Idolatries and Superstitions; and on the other, to prevent Schism and Disorder from tearing and rending the Seamless Coat of Christ, and shattering the Church by infinite Separations, it was an affront to the Memory of that Glorious King, to put a Man into his House, and feed him with his Bread, who was as great an Enemy to his Establishment, as to Popery it self; and thought himself obliged in Conscience, if his Heart and his outward Profession went toge­ther, to pull down one Church as well as the other. For in this Case, that Will of King Edward, which in distinction to written, and nun­cupatory Wills, may be called his Testamentum implicitum, his Will or Testament by implication, or by way of innuendo, was manifestly and foully violated and broken, to allow a Dissenting Minister in his own House, that would ruine and destroy the Reformation he had made, by endeavouring to spread and encourage a departure from it, and all this at his proper Cost and Charge, out of the publick Re­venue, being certainly as much against the true meaning and intenti­on of that Prince, and of those good Men under him, who put him upon this Charitable design, and were themselves great Instruments in the Reformation; as if a Mass Priest, or Popish Monk or Friar had been placed here at the same time, for the Medium perfectly by being what it is, hath a natural aversion for both of the extremes, and cannot comply with or reconcile it self to either of them, without quitting its Station and forseiting its Nature; so that I cannot un­derstand how Mr. Hughes could be placed here, without a plain Con­tradiction to the certain, though implicit Will of our Royal Found­er, neither can I comprehend how the living discharge their Trust, by violating and affronting the Will of the dead, especially when the Laws, which are always supposed to speak the King's Mind, continue still the same as they were before.

For I grant, that in the late Times the Case was otherwise, and that it was perhaps better to have a Dissenting Minister in this House, than no Minister at all; and that in such case such a Dis­senting Preacher ought in justice to receive the Wages of the House, though he did not do all the work, that the Founder himself, had he been living, would have expected from him, or that the Laws put in Execution would have exacted, and this was much more true of other Officers belonging to this Place, that it was more eligible, so they were but honest, and fit for their Stations, that Dissenters [Page 7] should be trusted, than that so useful and so great a Charity should be, disappointed.

I grant still further, my Lord, that even at this time, or at any other before it, when the Laws were most rigorously put in Exe­cution, yet no man more than usually eminent in the Profession of Physick, or in the skill of Surgery, or in the dexterity of manual Operation, belonging or appertaining to it, ought to be or to have been discarded from his Employment, meerly for his dissent; be­cause this were to do an injury to the House, and to deprive it of that benefit which it receives by them; but where Men equally or perhaps more skilful and diligent in their Employments may be had that conform to the Establishment, as it is setled by Law, there it is more agreeable to the Will of our Royal Founder, and to the Inten­tion of the Law it self, which in no case designs to encourage or reward Disobedience, as such, that Persons fully qualified by their Conformity to it, should be retained in every publick Service, and receive the Pentions and Salaries of the State.

And it is still more eminently and universally true, that in the Patients themselves, who are the objects of this Charity, the Per­sons intended to be relieved and succoured by it, and for whose sake all Officers and Ministers are employed and paid; no Consi­deration so much as that of Necessity and Want, the greater or lesser need that one or other may have of the assistance of this House, ought to discriminate one Person from another, without any regard to a Religious Perswasion, which it would be the worst and most inexcuseable sort of Persecution in such a Case to consider.

But none of all this was Mr. Hughes his Case, the Law allowing no Preacher but a Conformist, and much less rewarding him for such his Service out of the publick Revenue, and without having recourse to the Implicit will of our Royal Patron and Founder King Edward VI. (though that be so manifest, by Indications that cannot deceive, that there can be no longer doubt of the matter) by the plain, explicit and positive Institution of his Royal Charter, It is ordained among other things, that he shall be a Priest or a Person qualified, not only to Preach or Pray, but also to administer the Sacrament upon occasion, and this is an Office which none but a Priest rightly qualified and ordained according to the Constitution of the Church of England can legally perform; so that Mr. Hughes was unqualified, not only according to the Laws of this Land, [Page 8] and the implicit Will, but according to the express and positive Institution of that blessed King, who had certainly the greatest and most unquestionable Right, to impose what lawful terms he pleas­ed upon his Servants, and they are all lawful Conditions, when we speak in a civil and political Sence, that are Conditions according to Law; for I do not enter into the merits of the Cause betwixt the Dissenters and us.

Your Lordship, I hope, will pardon me, that I suggest so many things in this my second Paper, that have been already represent­in my first; you may perceive Sir, that I do it in a some what dif­ferent Method from what I did before, leaving out those Reflecti­ons in this short review, which however true and certain in them­selves, afforded but too much occasion for Offence, and starting new matter for Remark and Observation as I go along; it being my de­sign to set all things as near as I can in a somewhat clearer light, and to contract the whole into a shorter compass, that so your Lordship may consider it with the lesser trouble, and at a nearer view, with­out so much disturbance to the great Affairs that are the Employ­ment of those busie hours, of which the Publick neither must nor will be defrauded.

My Lord, all that Mr. Hughes hath to urge in his own defence, when he is charged with Non-conformity for three years together, while as a Minister he received the Wages of this House, is this, he doth not deny, nay, not so much as extenuate or excuse the thing, but all is well, saith he, that ends well; he was in Orders for a twelve Month or thereabouts, before he left the Place; and this he thinks was a Confirmation without a new Choice, and that his con­tinuance in the House for so long after his aforesaid Ordination, a­mounted to as much as if after Resignation he had been formally elected by a Majority of those that had a Right to do it, but be­sides what I have said already upon this occasion, which, I hope, your Lordship in Justice to me, will, at your leisure consider, Mr. Hughes either never knew or is not willing to remember, that it is a Maxim in the Civil Law, which in this is founded on the highest Reason; Quod ab initio non valet tractu temporis non convalescit: That title which is defective and faulty in its beginning, cannot be strengthened by continuance, usance, or by length of Time; and the learned Lawyer whom I have above-cited in the Case of Donatives, alledging this very Reason, puts this Case in the business of Plurali­ties, [Page 9] which I have a little enquired into for Mr. Hughes's Part 1. c. 4. p. 28. sake. If the eldest Son of a Duke, Marquess, &c. retain Chaplains in the life-time of his Father, who after dyes, and the Honour descends upon such Son, yet this retainer will not qualifie his Chaplains to have Pluralities within the Statute, (by which a Duke, Marquess, &c. may qualifie their Chaplains to hold Plura­lities at the same time,) because at the time of the retainer he was not capable to qualifie them, Et quod ab initio non valet tractu tem­poris non convalescit. From whence the Application is easie to our present Case; for if a Clerk being Chaplain to the Son of a Duke or Marquess, who as such cannot qualifie his Chaplain for a Plurality, shall yet notwithstanding under this pretence possess and occupy two Livings at the same time, and this without controll till the death of his Patrons Father, when he, becoming Duke or Marquess him­self, hath a legal Title to qualifie his Chaplain; and the said Chap­lain by his being such, is in a legal capacity of being qualified by him; but yet notwithstanding this, he shall not hold both of those Spiritual Preferments together, by virtue of his former retainer: but upon Information exhibited against him, he shall be obliged to surrender the first of his Preferments, which became void in Law at the very moment of his being fully and peaceably possest of the latter, and hath continued in Law to be void ever since that time: Then the Case is clear in Opposition to Mr. Hughes, that his posses­sion being illegal, and his Election void in Law at the very in­stant when he was chosen, though he were afterwards in a Capa­city to be legally elected, yet without an actual Resignation on his part, and an actual Re-election on the part of those that chose him, or of others fitly qualified to appoint and chuse him; no connivance or sufferance was sufficient for his purpose in this Case, any more than in the other; for the Rule is equally applicable to both Cases; quod ab initio non valet, tractu temporis non convalescit; That title which is vitious and faulty in the beginning, cannot be mended after­wards by length of Time, which is not to be understood in Prejudice to Prescription, which is a legal Title; but of those lesser periods of time that are confined within the narrow compass of a few years, or wherein one Man's Life or Possession is concerned.

If the Clerk in the first Case resigning his Living, shall afterwards obtain a new Presentation to it from the Patron, which in this Case must generally be the Bishop or the King, the Living being supposed [Page 10] to be lapsed for want of a legal Incumbent; he may then by ap­plication to the Duke or Marquess or other qualifying Personage that retains him, obtain a legal qualification for the re-enjoyment of it, together with his other Preferment, but not else: And by the same reason Mr. Hughes having actually resigned, and being actually re­chosen, might have pretended something of a Title to his last years Possession of this Place; but his first choice being void, and no new choice being made, no connivance or sufferance can avail him any thing in this affair, any more than it would in the other; so that it is plain he never had any Title, and if to this we add his gross and foul neglect in the Execution of his pretended Charge, from which he can never purge and vindicate himself. I presume it will be granted by all Men, that a weaker Cause never had the Honor of so great a Patronage, as that of your Lordship, and those other Gentlemen, that through misinformation in the true State of Mr. Hughes his Case, have been so unfortunately Charitable to believe, and so in­juriously kind as to protect him.

This is the third Consideration, by which it may appear not only that Mr. Hughes hath no such legal Right as he pretends to, but that in Equity I have much the advantage of him, upon Sup­position that my first appointment and mission to this Place was le­gal, (which his was not) of which I shall say more hereafter; and I think two Talleys or Indentures cannot strike more exactly than the Case of Mr. Hughes doth with that other above mentioned, which, it seems, is a ruled Case, and therefore concludes the more strongly against his Pretences; let him wash his Hands of it as he can.

A fourth Consideration in Equity, is this, That Mr. Hughes short­ly after his Ejection out of this Place, had another bestowed upon him of double the value; and a Freehold instead of an arbitrary Dependance; for which no Man would give a years Purchase if it were to be sold, considering how ticklish and uncertain words duran­te beneplacito are usually found to be; whereas a Freehold in com­mon acceptation is, for one Life, worth seven; and the intrinsick Value is the same in Spiritual Preferments, though they are nei­ther to bought or sold: So that admitting Mr. Hughes his Living to be double the value of his late Preferment here, which is the low­est account it can be computed at; the advantage he hath gotten by his remove from this to that, is in the proportion of fourteen to [Page 11] one; an exchange for which I think he ought to be thankful to the kind Providence that ejected him from hence, without endeavour­ing to reinstate himself against so many and great reasons as con­tend against him, and which he can answer with nothing but an hard forehead, which is proof against Conviction, and is placed above the bashful Region where modesty and blushes dwell; nay, suppose that placing a Curate in his Country-Living, for I take it for granted your Lordship will not endure a Non-resident in this Place, he can after all secure twenty Pound per annum de claro to him­self, yet this according to our former Computation, is an advantage no greater than one in Forty Two; and what sort of Creature, or rather Monster of Covetousness and Envy must this Mr. Hughes be, who will eject me out of two thirds to gain one to himself, and that one but the two and fortieth part in common Estimation, of what I was the contingent occasion of his getting, by being substituted in his room in this House?

His Living, my Lord, as I have been informed is at a place called Little Stoughton in the County of Bedford, and he lets it at this time for an hundred and ten pounds a year, and by that its true value should be about sevenscore, that is, about twenty or thirty pound per annum more then his Tenant pays; for no Man will take the trouble of farming it upon him, without a prospect of ad­vantage amounting to thus much at least; now being resident up­on the place, he may if he pleaseth take his Tithes as they arise in kind, without injury or so much as inconvenience to any, for the Farmer will be sure to make all the advantage, which he him­self might lawfully have done; but if he be non-resident, as he must be in this case, if your Lordship and the Court persist in your resolution of bestowing the Hospital upon him, and he in his of accepting what you offer, it will then be his best way to set the profits of his Living to Farm, but then nothing is more clear than that at the foot of the account he will not get one farthing [...]y the bargain, and will you, my Lord, do me so great an injury who am a Citizens Son, for the sake of an Alien, a Foreiner, and an ill Man, who can get nothing by it, but the gratification of a groundless malice and prejudice against me, a passion which it ill becomes the honour and justice of your Court, to countenance and encourage in any Man whatsoever, and much more in one of Mr. Hughes his Character and profession. Mr. Hughes indeed is pleased to [Page 12] say betwixt jest and earnest; for it looks like a jest, though it be spoken seriously, that this Living was not given him in considera­tion of the Hospital which he lost, but for some other reason, God knows what, but I am so bold to affirm that I have proved plain­ly from the nature of the gift it self, compared with the small Preferment he was deprived of, that it was for this very reason, and that it could be for no other. And besides this, I have ap­pealed to the sacred testimony of a right noble and right Reverend Prelate of our Church, together with several other eminent and learned Persons of the greatest repute and Authority belonging to it, before whom Mr. Hughes dare not shew his hypocritical and dishonest face, out of a sense of the ingratitude and baseness of this pretence, which is so great a diminution to the kindness and hu­manity they shewed him at that time, and includes moreover an arrogant and proud assuming to himself, as if his merit and not their compassion had extorted and snatcht that generous benefaction from them.

I never heard any thing urged to palliate so gross and palpable a falshood, but that the consideration was not given him by the same Persons that ejected him from hence, and therefore they conclude and argue like themselves, who understand neither Premisses nor Conclu­sions as they ought to do, that one was not given him in lieu of the other: but those Gentlemen know best upon what motive they did it, and to them I make my humble, but yet confident Appeal, which Mr. Hughes with all his impudence dare not do, and I do really resent the injury, and affront which is done to the City and the Court of Aldermen by such a barefac'd Lye, insinuated with all the seeming sincerity and address, which is only natural to truth, and very ill becomes that Falshood and disguise, which incapable of a modest and just asseveration, needs a meretricious and feigned one to support it. One worthy Member of the honourable Court was pleased to tell me in the Court it self, that Mr. Hughes his Living was not given him in consideration of his loss, to which with all humility I reply'd, That though I had several other things to urge against him, yet I was very willing to put the Issue of the whole matter upon this single Point, and I continue still firmly in the same resolution, notwithstanding he cannot answer or vindicate himself from any one thing that I have urged against him, and if there were nothing else but this to be considered, by this you may [Page 13] see my Lord, what manner of Man it is that pretends and would be thought to fly to you for Refuge; but hath indeed no other but only in shams and evasions: I shall wonder very much, upon so fair a detection, if your Lordship and the Court shall patronize him any longer, who hath abused and imposed upon the Charity and goodness of the Bench you sit on, at so unmannerly and so vile a rate. I refer my self very willingly to your Honor and Judgment, whether that Man ought to be entrusted with the Consciences of others, who discovers so plainly that he hath none of his own? who pimps and prostitutes his Word and Soul upon no other conceiv­able advantage, but only the gratification of an unchristian Ma­lice, very disagreeable to a Man of his Cloth and Function, and the fruitless purgation of an inexhaustible Spleen, which re­news it self by wasting, like the Widows Cruize, and knows nei­ther end nor measure? nay, I cannot chuse but smile within my self, at such an extremely pleasant and surprising Notion, that nothing could be given him in lieu of what he had lost; unless it had been given him by the same hands that deprived him of his ill-gotten and ill-deserved Possession in this House; which yet it is manifest they could not do without a disowning of their own Act, and an implicit acknowledgment that they had done him wrong; whereas it is but too apparent, with shame for Mr. Hughes I speak it, because he seems to have none left for himself, that they proceeded but upon too just and justifiable grounds.

In the fifth place, let me intreat your Lordship to consider, that this intended Preferment or Restitution of Mr. Hughes, added to the Country Living already in his Possession, makes him in Conscience a Pluralist, whatever he be in Law: and this with respect to him is argumentum ad hominem; It is a Wea­pon of his own making, drawn against himself; he being a pro­fest and printed Enemy to Pluralities and Non residence, and if he hath either Shame, Conscience or Honesty left about him, he must either relinquish one of these two Places, or give some publick Reasons in defence of a Practice, which he formerly exploded, that we may be satisfied upon what Grounds this strange and avowed Alteration of his Opinion depends. It is not only a Plurality in Rea­son and in Conscience, but it is likewise a Plura­lity So also in Attic. Regin. Eliz. 1584. & 1597. in the Canons of 1571. the difference is but twenty six Miles. out of distance, thirty Miles being the farthest that the Canon of K. James I. in that behalf al­lows, Can. 41. whereas these two Places are forty [Page 14] Miles apart, that is, ten Miles more than the Canon permits to Per­sons qualified by Law for two Benefices with cure of Souls, which I conceive Mr. Hughes is not; and the Reason against Pluralities, which is the very same upon which our Law proceeds, is alledged by Sir Simon Degg out of an ancient Councel in these words, Res ipsa loquitur plura Beneficia, potissimum quibus cura Parson's Coun­cellor. part 1. p. 18. animarum submissa est, non sine gravi Ecclesiarum dam­ro ab uno obtineri; cum unus in pluribus Ecclesiis rite officia persolve­re, aut rebus earum necessariam curam impendere nequeat; That is, the thing speaks very plainly for it self; that two Benefices, especial­ly with cure of Souls, cannot be enjoyed or occupied by one Person without great damage and detriment to the Church, because one and the same Person cannot attend so particularly as he ought to do in several Churches, to the necessary and indispenseable Duties that are incumbent upon him, and if this cannot well be done at thirty Miles distance, which is the utmost distance that our Law allows, it can much less at forty, which is Mr. Hughes's Case; and though the Hospital do not require Institution from the Bishop, which is the thing that makes a strict and legal Plurality; yet the Conscience of the Case does perhaps sit more closely upon him, than it would do in a legal Benefice at the same distance, because of the number of sick that are always in this Place, and the Personal attendance that is re­quired upon them: to say nothing of the lewd lives of so many of the Patients before their admission into this House for cure: So that tho the letter of the Statute do not press him, yet the Consci­ence and the Reason of it, which to every honest Man ought to be more sacred and obligatory than the other, can never be shaken off by any Man that hath a Conscience, and much less by him that hath written so expresly, not to say so passionately against this practice in others; therefore he can do no less in common Honesty and Ju­stice, before he accepts this kindness from your Lordship and the Court, than satisfie the World what Reasons have induced him to alter his Opinion, for without this, I am sure, he can never justifie so foul a Practice. And, my Lord, I beg of your Lordship to take no­tice, that it hath been resolved by the Judges, as my Parson's Coun­cellor informs me, That the King himself cannot dispense with this Statute against Pluralities, where the Statute it self Ib. p. 29. does not dispense with them, of which there are several instances to be met with in it, though in some Particulars, and to some Persons, [Page 15] and in some certain Circumstances, the Lawyers have agreed, whether right or wrong is none of my business to determine, that the King may dispence; and how then can your Lordship and the Honour­able Court, by giving Mr, Hughes the Hospital at this time, dispence with the Reason and Conscience of a Statute, when the King him­self, because of the apparent Equity upon which it is founded, can­not dispence so much as with the letter of it? Though the first be much more Sacred than the latter, for the Law, as meerly written, is positive and changeable, but as founded upon Reasons of com­mon and unchangeable good; it is essential, unalterable, and eternal.

These things, my Lord, are so very plain and strong upon Mr. Hughes, and he begins as thick and impenetrable as his Skull is (as hard almost as his heart and conscience themselves) to be so sensible of it, that I have been well inform'd by those that have it from his Confidents and Friends, that he now gives it out as a Se­cret in trust, to be whispered abroad, as there shall be a fit occa­sion; that he designs not to hold both of these Places together, but that upon his restitution to this house, he will immediately relin­quish it again and leave the Governours to a new choice, and if they were left to it, I should be very sorry it should appear I had behaved my self so, as that I should not deserve the favour of their Votes against any other Pretender, however the Court of Alder­men, without giving me a fair and equal hearing, and without dis­covering the reasons upon which they did it, have been pleased to carry it against me.

This account given by Mr. Hughes and his Friends of his ex­pedition out of the Land of Bedford, into that of Middlesex and Surrey, hath at first sight a very malicious and spiteful aspect upon me, and I doubt not after all, but it is more than a Copy of his countenance, it shews the true face and feature of his de­sign, though he was not willing to venture it abroad without a Masque to conceal it from every common view, and make it walk incognito about the streets under the disguise of better and more specious Names. The reason given out by him, as I have really been told and am ready to produce a much honester Man than ever Mr. Hughes was or will be for my witness, is, that he came out of tenderness to the poor and sick of this House, about whom he hath been strangely sollicitous for these five years past, though it is well known they were never more slende [...]ly r [...]garded, than [Page 16] when he himself was here, and it must be confessed, my Lord, to be very frank and generous in him, and without any mixture of In­terest or self-design, that he is so very watchful and jealous for the Souls of other People, with which he hath not so immediately to do, and for which he is to give no account, when he is at the same time so lavish of his own, as if it were good for nothing but to be lost and thrown away. He saith, I am unfit for my Employment; and I confess it; For [...]; who is sufficient for these things? but if all Men that are unworthy of their Employments must be turned out of what they legally enjoy, because there may be o­thers upon the comparison more worthy, what will become of Mr. Hughes himself? Or would it not have been better for him to have staid, as he might have done quietly at home, than to have come so far to draw up an invidious impeachment against me, which reflects back again from whence it came, with much more severity and justice upon himself? For if the account I have given your Lord­ship and the Court in my former Paper be true, and I will be an­swerable for the truth of it, however mean and unworthy I may be in my self, yet upon a fair hearing of the matter between both Par­ties, upon a true representation of the management of this House, so far as the spiritual Province is concerned, in Mr. Hughes his time and mine, I doubt not, nay, I am very well assured, though he were to pack and pick a Pannel of his own Friends to try the Issue betwixt us, that the Verdict would and must be very much to my advantage, and Mr. Hughes may see, if he will cast his Eye that way, That I am no such lazy, unperforming Creature as he would represent me, by this my double Apology for my self, and defence of my most just and righteous Cause, against the injustice and bar­barity of his, which he will never be able to answer while he lives, and by not answering, confesseth that he hath done me wrong, and that he puts your Lordship and the Honourable Bench upon doing those things in his favour, by the mist which he hath cast before the Truth of the matter, which he himself cannot justifie to him­self or you.

My Lord, I am very sensible that Mr. Hughes values himself ve­ry much upon his Preaching, and that it is some defect of mine in this part of my Employment, which is the ground and root of that unfitness, for which he would eject me, and will most certainly if ever he be advanced, to the formidable stile and dignity of a tryer; but in [Page 17] the mean time, my Lord, let us play a Prize of Preaching if you please upon a Text and Subject whch your Lordship shall assign, and if I do not pass upon the comparison for a pretty midling Divine, and Mr. Hughes for the same Tub-preacher that ever he was, then he shall eject me, and do what else he pleaseth to gratifie this Christian zeal of his, though he can get nothing but infamy by the bargain.

My Lord, I do not pretend to great things, but plain Sermons among plain People are best, and several such I have preached; if Mr. Hughes after a long course of Hypocrisie and time, have arrived to a greater Perfection than simple Men pretend to in the two great Accomplishments of Cant and Grimace, I can as little help and do as little envy his Attainments, as I am Master of them: but true Edification, if I take it right, is onely to be had from sober sense, from plain and instructive Discourses, otherwise Men may edifie, that is, they may without question work themselves into a serious and devout temper, by worshipping of Images and Re­licks, by sprinkling with holy Water, or whipping with a Cat of Nine-Tails, and by many other extravagancies of the Church of Rome: but a Man is not edified every time he thinks or vainly con­ceits he is, upon grounds of meer Fansie and Imagination; but when he understands his Duty and the reasons of it, and upon this is excited to a Manly Repentance, and to a wise resolution of a­mendment; but after all the good that is attained by one Man's affected Tone, or by anothers Gesture and Phrase, though it may possibly have an wholesom influence upon the lives and man­ners of some men, yet in it self it is an edg-tool dangerous to meddle with, it is the method by which all religious madness and Enthusiasm proceeds, and he that affixes Edification or Salvation to any such Whimsies as these, for in very truth and reality they are no better, after all his bitter Invectives against Popery, is him­self nothing else but a worshipper of Idols.

It is very strange to me how Mr. Hughes should bring so much Conscience with him out of the Countrey when he carried so little with him thither: one great reason of his ejectment from hence, and by consequence of what followed after it, his going into the Countrey, was, because of his gross neglect in the discharge of his Duty, and now he would be thought to return because of mine; and how very likely it is that the neglect of my Duty, if any [Page 18] such there were, should go so near his Heart, when for four years together, he never had any sence of his own; I leave it to your Lordship and to all Mankind to determine.

How little sence of Religion, and even of common Honesty, Mr. Hughes carried down with him to his Country Living, for an Ex­ample to the Flock committed to his care, may be gessed from his usage of the Reverend Incumbent to whom he succeeded in it, whom he had the Grace to Persecute; and it is thought would have prosecuted for dilapidations, notwithstanding he resigned a consider­able time, and quitted all Profits before he need to have done it, to Mr. Hughes his incomparably greater benefit and advantage; for the sum he demanded was no more than fifteen Pounds; though this is the more remarkable by what hath hapned since, that this was the very same Sum which the other day he had the con­fidence to demand of mine, it being my last Quarters Salary for this House, which I earned every penny without any assistance of his. And our Saviour himself tells us, applying what he saith to our very Function and Business, That the Labourer is worthy of his hire. He did not so much as put in his claim to my Place till two thirds or more of the Quarter were expired, and he may re­member My Order was dated, No­vember 13. 1683. that is six weeks be­fore Quar­ter day, tho I did not enter upon the Place so soon., that upon his own Resignation, which was somewhat above a Fortnight before the Quarter day, he had the whole Sala­ry of that Quarter allowed him, though about fifty Shillings of it in strictness would have been mine; and now he would have all my Salary for doing nothing, which was so far from the usage that I have offered others, that upon the late Incumbent of St. Thomas's Death, I allowed the whole Salary of the next Quarter to the Wi­dow, as I thought in custom and civility I ought to do, he dying somewhat after Quarter day, though I took care of that whole Quarter my self, and paid the Curate out of my own Pocket.

I am not ignorant he pretends an Order of Court, and for ought I know he doth but pretend it, for the Original I never saw, nor any Copy well attested, for his excuse in this matter; but I am so well satisfied of the Honour of that Illustrious Body, notwith­standing they have been very much imposed upon by false Repre­sentations, and through multitiplicity of Business at this time, have not had the leisure to enter into the merits of so inconsiderable a Cause as this is; I say, I am so well satisfied, that I am sure they would not have passed an Order of this nature, but only for these [Page 19] two Reasons: First, That they thought upon the mistaken Sug­gestions that had been made to them; that the undoubted Right was in Mr. Hughes, and therefore they gave this Order in ter­rorem, that so his Right might take place, and I be compelled, or at least very strongly enclined to pay an Obedience to it, out of a prospect of advantage on the one hand, or else of punishment for my Contempt on the other, not that they intended this Order should ever be executed in its literal strictness and severity; but it was by way of Experiment or by way of valeat quantum valere potest, to try what I would do upon the Advertisement I received of it; and indeed I had submitted to it, and I should still be very wil­ling to do the same, but only for these two Considerations, first, That by so doing I should seem to allow that the Authority that made this Order, for the Quarters salary becoming due at the Feast of the Annunciation last past, which I had earned with my Labours in this House, might with equal Reason make another to entitle him to all the mean Profits for these five years together, which I must either obey or go to Prison for not doing it, if such an Order had been good in Law, which tho I did not believe that ever it would be done, yet not to dispute this Order, was in effect to acknowledge the Legality of that, and to call my self by those names which Mr. Hughes only deserves, for having unjustly received the Wages of this House for so many years together, neither would it be pru­dent or adviseable in any Man in the World, out of a too profuse respect and deference to any limited Authority whatsoever, to run the hazard of the minutest possibility of such a fatal Consequence as this.

That your Lordship and the Court did not intend to use all that extremity of Rigour with me, which such an Order at first view might seem to threaten me with, appears very plain and evident to me by this, that Mr. Hughes was denied his Money when he came for it; and Mr. Hughes by claiming it, so contrary to Sense and Justice, hath pronounced a greater Satyr against him­self than it is possible for Wit and Indignation in confederacy toge­ther to write or invent against him; and your Lordship, I hope, will be pleased for the future, having made this Experiment of Mr. Hughes as well as me, not to hearken too much to his clamo­rous Pretences of a legal Claim, when you see so plainly, that all is Fish with him that comes to Net; and that his legal Claims have no other bound or measure, than the Arbitrary Dependences of the [Page 20] French King, that is, every thing is his, and legally too by the ge­neral Law that runs through all his designs, and equally justifies every thing he does, which he can grasp or come at, at the instiga­tion of a will, that admits no practical Conscience for its guide, and by the help of all the little Power he is Master of, and all the crafty, circumventing Arts he can use.

The second thing, besides the uncertainty of the Order it self, which does not yet appear to me to be authentick, why I neither did nor could pay it that submission, which otherwise no Man should have done more chearfully than my self, was that it seemed to me to be too hard measure while I am under the apprehension that my Possession is legal, for me to submit to an Order, which with all humble Duty and submission I must affirm, I cannot believe to be so, which would be for me to justifie by my own act of con­sent, and in a manner to acknowledg the legality of a proceeding against my Conscience and my Interest together, which is too great an hardship even for Slaves and Vassals to endure; but if the Law will eject me, currat lex, I desire no other favour than what the Law will afford me; but in all other things I am and shall always be ready to pay my lawful Superiours all possible obedience, so far as is consistent with my honest Interest, in conjunction with my unquestionable Duty; For, my Lord, I have a Family to provide for besides my self, and it is therefore my duty to assert any law­ful Interest that may tend to our common support, but in any o­ther case where my Duty and my present advantage cut upon and interfere with one another, I hope I shall always have the grace to look to the peace of my Conscience, the honour of my Profession, the reputation of my Name among good Men, and so to consider my whole interest together, which my Antagonist does not seem to do, as not to forfeit my Title to a blessed immortality, and my prospect of seeing the face of God with comfort, for the sake of any perishing and momentany advantage.

May it please your Lordship, when I began this my humble Re­presentation and Address, which I did not intend to spin out to so great a length, in the midst of so great importunities of publick business, as every moment sollicit and invite your care; I mentio­ned these two considerations as the reasons, why I did not pay that deference to the Orders of the Honourable Court for my Eject­ment, which was expected from me; The first, That the said Or­ders [Page 21] proceeded upon a wrong bottom of the restitution of the Charter; And secondly, upon a defective Jurisdiction, which could not legally extend it self so far, as to the making or passing any Order of this nature.

The first of these, after all that hath been said upon it, is, I presume, so clear, if there be any such thing as Law or Reason in the World, that, I hope, your Lordship and the Court will be through­ly satisfied as to that point, that Mr. Hughes hath no legal Right naturally accruing to and devolving upon him by this new and happy settlement of Affairs upon their ancient Basis and Foundati­on, so that so far as your Lordship and the Court of Aldermens Ju­risdiction is concerned, if there were no Superiour Authority, no higher Appeal, it is a matter of Equity that lies before you, be­twixt Mr. Hughes and my self, whether he should be restored or I continued in the Possession I have; and I am willing to refer my self after a due Reflection upon what I have here humbly represent­ed to your Lordship, to Mr. Hughes himself, who shall be Judge and Party in his own Cause, whether all the equitable Pretensions are not mine, or whether it be possible in point of Equity, which is the Law of Conscience, the Light of Nature, the bless'd result of Goodness and Justice together, for any Cause to have more to be said in its defence than mine hath, or more to be said against it than his.

As to the second point of defective Jurisdiction, I must again take the Liberty, and I hope I shall do it without Offence to your Lordship, any just and unprovoked Occasion of which I am natu­rally very tender of giving, to assert the Kings Title in opposition to that of any subordinate Authority acting under it, and to say that what the supreme Power hath lawfully established, that no in­ferior can disanull, unless upon emergent Necessity, or apparent Reason, without unhinging of Government, and inverting the Na­ture and the Order of things. I grant indeed though the first Orders proceeded upon the Supposition of the Restitution of the Charter, (for the last of the three hath made no mention of it) which said supposition was plainly mistaken and ungrounded; yet if the sole, entire and absolute Disposal of this matter had layn properly before you, without any further Appeal, which, (when the King hath already determined) it doth not; that in such Case the mistaken ground would not have evacuated the Order that [Page 22] was built upon it, unless you should please to recall it, or to let it fall of it self, because absolute Power is under no Obligation to assign a Reason; it may act without giving a Reason, as well as with it, and a bad Reason can never disanull that Order, merely because it cannot justifie it self, whose true Authority consists in the suffi­cient Promulgation of the Will of the ordaining Power, which Will if it continues, the Order is valid to all Intents and Purposes, tho the Reason, upon which it is or may be built, be never so weak and infirm: But in this Case where the will of the Ordainer doth not extend so far, the Order is invalid by defect of Jurisdiction.

Sir Simon Degg, who is my Counsel, tells me, that the King may give a Licence to a Subject to erect, or found P. C. part. 1. c. 13. p. 164. a Church or Chappel donative, and exempt it from the Ordinaries Visitation; and the Patron may in such Case, visit by his own Commissioners: And shall not the King, My Lord, be al­lowed to do that legally by his own immediate Power, that is, to visit, by his own Commissioners, in his own House and Chappel, which, at the same time, he may empower and priviledge any pri­vate Patron to do in his or her proper Gift, without Remedy or Appeal? And as to the Union of the two places, the same Author tells us, that the Canonists allow even of Pluralities in p. 18. ib. six Cases, of which one is the smalness of each Living by it self, and another where two Churches are united (he must mean either by Contiguity or Authority, one of which is a natural, the other a legal Union) or depend the one upon another. And in another Place he saith, the uniting of Churches ought p. 170. ib. to be, causâ utilitatis five necessitatis, as Vicinity, Pau­city of Inhabitants, Smalness of the Livings, &c. and the Persons that must concur to the Union, are the King, the Ordinary, and the Patron, and if any of the Places be full, the Consent p. 169. ib. of the Incumbent likewise is necessary to it; of my Con­sent to my own advantage, I suppose no body will make a Questi­on, especially when I am pleading for the Continuance of it, and the King, the Ordinary and Patron, being in this Case all of them the same, it is impossible there should be a stronger Consent, or by consequence a firmer and more inseparable Union, so far as my Person is concerned, (for it extends no farther) than this is.

It is no Contempt of any Court, whatsoever not to submit to its Decrees in a matter of Right, if any Party think himself ag­grieved, [Page 23] or if there be any legal Remedy, or any further Ap­peal; for even the King frequently suffers himself in such Matters to be cast and over-ruled in his own Courts of Justice, and the Subject may try a Matter of Right with the Prince, without a­ny diminution to his Majesty and Greatness, and without so much as incurring the least Tittle of Displeasure: for the King who is the great Fountain of Justice, as well as Honour, is always sup­pos'd to desire that Right may be done, though it be against him­self, who is and ought to be content with the Enjoyment of his own just Regalities, Prerogatives and Rights, without invading the Property of his Subjects, which by his Trust and Character he is obliged to protect; and the Case though in a lesser Propor­tion is the same, in every subordinate Magistrate whatsoever, who are what they are for this Intent and Purpose, that Right may be done in their respective Spheres, and that the Peace of the whole may be preserved by the honorable, just, and candid Administration of all the several Parts, of which it consists; and they ought to be so far from taking it ill, that [...] any of their Or­ders or Determinations are at any time disputed, by a fair Re­presentation, or by an higher Appeal, that it concerns them in point of Justice to favour it, and to review impartially and can­didly what they have done; unless it be in such Cases where the Representation is manifestly litigious, without any colour of Ju­stice to support it, which when it is so, it is easie to discern: but if there be a specious Pretence, and the Law allows a farther en­quiry and research into the matter, though perhaps at the long run it will not be able to justifie it self; in this Case it is for the Honour and Vindication of Justice, that the whole Cause should be brought under a new Examination; and for this Reason it is that our Law suffers so many Suits to be commenced, that in their Commence­ment have a quarrelsome and vexatious Face, a litigious appearance, and a frivolous or a false Pretence, and in their issue prove to be no better, because it is so very tender of denying Justice to any, and therefore in pursuance of this its great Design, it must submit to many troublesom and impertinent things, to prevent the least ha­zard or shadow of doing wrong, though it always takes care by what is past, to prevent the like vexations to it self and the Sub­ject for the Future, by bringing those Persons to Punishment, or branding them with Shame; and by that means disabling them from [Page 24] the like Practices and Designs in time to come, who are the Au­thors of such Mischief and Inquietude to their Neighbours, by pro­moting Strife and Variance among them, or by seeking causes of Action and Complaint upon every slight or else upon no occasion or upon false or frivolous Accusations. But my Case, my Lord, is still more favourable than any of these things, for either Mr. Hughes insists upon his [...] reall or pretended Right, which he saith returns again with the Restitution of the Charter; or else tak­ing it for granted, that you may put in and put out whom you please, he depends upon your Order in the nature of a legal Pre­sentation, as I do upon that of the Commissioners, with the King's particular Knowledge and Consent, granted in my behalf; and I am willing and ready at any time to bring either or both of these Points to a fair Tryal with him.

First, Whether he be restored upon the Restitution of the Char­ter, and in that Case he may claim without any Order of your Lordship and the Court, and for ought I know, may sue for and recover the mean Profits for these five years last past.

Secondly, Whether the King's Order, which is in some sort his Presentation, or yours be Superiour, or whether your Order can cancel or evacuate his. I beseeeh your Lordship to consider and apply it favourably to my particular Case, that when two several Patrons have presented to the same Living two several Clerks; it is never accounted any rudeness or indignity in either of them in the asserting of Right, which is much more sacred than the Authority of any Person, and more inviolable than the respect that is due to him: I say, it is never accounted any affront or injury in this Case, for either of these Clerks to dispute the Right and Title of that Patron by whom his Competitors Preten­tions are supported; and it is always left to the Clerks to fight it out at Law between themselves, without any offence to the Patrons on either side, who must not take it ill that the Law hath its course, or that a Person who thinks himself injured seeks for Justice, as in bounden Duty to his own Welfare and Safety he is obliged to do, much less then, my Lord, have you and your worthy Brethren any Reason to take it ill, that I assert the King's Title and my own, which is founded upon it, in Oppo­sition to yours, and that, I say, his legal Order cannot be rever­sed by any Authority inferiour to it self.

If you leave Mr. Hughes and me to the Law, as in fairness, I humbly conceive, you ought to do, this being an Argument that you pretend to no Power, but what in Justice you may, then I doubt not in the least of an Event suitable to the manifest Honour and Equity of my Cause.

If you apply to the King and Queen, you acknowledge by so doing, that the ordinary Methods of Law will not decide it to Mr. Hughes his advantage; and that your Orders are not found­ed upon Justice but only upon Will and Power, and yet when all is done, I humby hope their Majesties will be graciously pleased to consider in my Favour, that it is their Title I assert as well as my own; that very individual Power being now lodged in them, which was formerly in Charles and James the Second, and that the legal Acts of those two preceding Princes, cannot be rever­sed without the Consent of the Present, and ought not to be re­scinded without a Reason, though they are the Judges whether there be Reason or no; and to their Royal Wisdom and Good­ness, I submit it with all the Chearfulness and Resignation that becomes me.

I know their Sacred Majesties will graciously consider the En­gagements they have been pleased so lately to condescend to, to maintain this poor Church of England, and to protect its Bishops and its Clergy in all their just and legal Rights; and I have great Ground to hope and to believe, though I am not arrogantly to prescribe to Princes; and cannot see so far as my Sovereign Lord and Lady, who are as the Angels of God, to discern betwixt Good and Evil, Just and Unjust, Right and Wrong, so far consider my Title to this small Pteferment, not worth the noise and dust that hath been raised about it, as to assert and vindicate their own, and so far blend the Exercise of their Sovereign Power, with the more God-like Attributes of Wisdom, Justice and Goodness, with­out which the Divinity it self would be all thunderbolt, and his Omnipotence would be feared and hated, instead of being hum­bly worshipped and adored; as to reflect a little, if so mean a care can find entertainment in a Royal Breast, upon the diffe­rent Circumstances betwixt my Antagonist and me, and let them decide the Controversie between us.

I rely upon the Royal Assurances they have given, not only the Church in general, but every individual Clergy-man belong­ing [Page 26] to it, with a Divine Faith, as knowing they are God's Vice­gerents, that have spoken it, whose word is as firm and as im­moveable as the Pillars of Heaven from whence good Princes come, or the Foundations of the Earth committed to their Charge; the Sce­pter of whose Kingdom is a right Scepter; and because they have loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity, therefore God, even their God, hath anointed them with the Oyl of Gladness above their fellows.

To eject without Reason, out of a just and legal, though Ar­bitrary Possession, with all profound Reverence and Duty be it spoken, is not that Protection, which their Majesties have promi­sed; which we their joyful and exultant Subjects expect, and which all that are not perfect Strangers to the Fame and Brightness of their Princely Virtues, whose Line is gone out through all the Earth, and their words to the end of the World, are satisfied and well assured they intend. The Globe of Majesty put into their hands, was an Emblem of the firmness and stability of their Councels; and of that immoveable centre of Magnanimity and Justice, from whence all the Lines of Action and Administration are drawn, all equi-di­stant from their Sacred Head, and preserving an inviolable Har­mony and Agreement, a fixt and unchangeable Proportion with each other; and the Scepter never moves to bruise, or to op­press, but as a sign of Condescension, and a mark of Grace; and we are bless'd with Princes made by Heaven for Empire, that are not only as Auspicious, and Fortunate as Augustus, but as Good and Virtuous, as Trajan.

His Majesty did not onely declare at his first happy landing upon English ground, that the great and onely designs of that Glo­rious Expedition, were to assert the liberty of the Subject, and to vindicate the oppress'd, and every day more and more endangered Rights of the Church of England, but of his continu'd resolution to do both of these, he hath given us many fresh assurances, and to remove more effectually all sort of doubt or scruple out of the minds of the most jealous and dissatisfi'd Men, who because they have been once deceived, are for ever after very difficult of enter­taining belief, to the most solemn and serious asseverations that can be made, he hath bound himself and the illustrious Consort of his Throne and Bed under the sacred Obligation of an Oath, and the Parliament have unanimously address'd and thanked him for these [Page 27] his gracious purposes and resolutions so solemnly made and so fre­quently repeated; so that being legally put into this Place, being now in the actual Possession of the same, and having no reason, that I know of, lying so hard upon me as to eject me from it, especially for the sake of Mr. Hughes, who hath no colour of a legal Claim, I have the Promise of their Majesties Protection, and the concur­rence of that great Assembly with them, and I do as little doubt, upon a farther inspection into this little Affair, when those of greater moment will give you leave; but your Lordship and the Court of Aldermen will likewise think fit to confirm me in a Pos­session that hath some small share in the Parliaments Address of thanks, and lays so just a Claim to the Assurances their Majesties have given, and which in its root I take to be as legal, and almost as firm, as any other Possession whatsoever.

For though the tenure of a Man's Employment be onely durante beneplacito, as mine indeed is with respect to a Power Superiour to yours, yet the general Law of Equity in all Possessions is, that all Persons actually possess'd and capable of their respective Em­ployments, and not misdemeaning themselves, should continue in the Possession they are in: for all Possessions by nature are primi occupantis, they belong to the first Possessor and to his Assigns af­ter him; all legal Possessions, as there is no just one in a Govern­ment but what is so, if they are not limited to a certain time, are in reason inseparable from the present actual Possessor, unless he shall voluntarily resign it up, or shall incur some legal forfeiture or disability, though the tenure be never so expresly during pleasure. It is true, a Master may turn away his Servant, as he pleaseth; but if this Servant have behaved himself well, if the Master cannot serve himself better of another, and if besides all this he have a desire and ambition to continue in the Service, then there is an Obligation of some sort of gratitude, as well as of the fundamen­tal equity of all Possessions, not to deprive such a Servant of his Employment for no Reason: acting without Reason being the first step to Arbitrary Government in private or in publick Affairs, and the very next to acting against it; for he that acts without Rea­son, that is, without the impulse and guidance of his Understand­ing, does manifestly yield too much to the blind and fantastick motions of his will, and this if we give it an Inch, will very soon take an Ell, it will act first without the leave o [...] the Understanding [Page 28] and Conscience, and then in a direct opposition to them both, which is the heighth of Tyranny and Usurpation, the root, stock and branch of Arbitrary Power, whose fruits are almost as fatal and destructive as those of the forbidden Tree it self, that bring us to the knowledg of Good by the want, of Evil by the deplorable expe­rience of it, and intercept the way to Paradise with a Flaming Sword, branded by the Arm of a despotick Cherub to hinder us from coming any more at the Tree of Liberty and Life; not but that an Arbitrary dependence is what it is, and a Man may with­out remedy be ejected out of it, though no reason be given, nor any shadow of a reason can be afforded; but then in this case the saying holds good, that summum jus est summa injuria, especially if the Person thus displaced be destitute of any other equal or proportionable Subsistence, to that of which he is deprived, and hath not any Provision of the same, or near the same value to be­take himself unto, and much more when he that is substituted in his room can get little or nothing by supplanting the other, but only the gratification of an unchristian, uncharitable and inde­fensible Spleen; both of which are Mr. Hughes's Case with refe­rence to me, so that my Ejection out of this Service, by the Au­thority that hath ordained it, though it could be supported by the utmost Rigour of the Law, which I am well assured it can never be, yet would that Rigour be unjust, if not barbarous in it self; and it would be an Offence, though not against the dry and dead letter of the Law, yet against that Soul and Life that gives the true Sanction and Authority to it; and that is the Con­science and the Equity upon which it proceeds; it would be an Offence against that universal Reason by which all and all man­ner of Possessions are ensured; and that is founded in nothing else, but a just Possession, without Injury or Oppression to any o­ther, a Performance of those Conditions which are required re­spectively to the peaceable Enjoyment of this or that Advantage, and an equitable Consent in the Over-seers of the Trust, which is derived from both; for even a Freehold may be forfeited upon some Reasons, and where there are no Reasons moving to the con­trary, but only Will and Pleasure; there Will and Pleasure ought not in Justice and Conscience to take place, but even the most Arbitrary Dependence ought to be secure.

The sacred and strict regard that is always had to an honest and just Possession in the Law, is the Reason why a Tenant, tho without a Lease, cannot be ejected at pleasure, and much less with it, by a concurrent Lease, to take place at the exspiration of the term of the former, the said Tenant paying and doing as by the Bargain and mutual Agreement he is obliged to do, and the same Reason holds in all manner of Rights, Possessions and Ejoyments, if in all Cases it were equally attended to, as in strict Justice and Conscience it ought to be.

But of all sorts of Possessions, there are none more Sacred than those that belong to the Function that is so, and so it hath been always taken from the highest and most remote Antiquity of for­mer Ages, down to this very moment in which I am writing. By the Law of Moses there was a Proportion set apart out of eve­ry Man's Offering, every Man's Estate, for the maintenance of the Priesthood; which could not be alienated or converted to any other Use upon any pretence whatsoever; and this depended up­on a Reason of Equity, which is certainly of Divine and Eternal Right, that they that attend upon the Altar should also live up­on it, and that the Thoughts of those that ministred in the ho­ly things belonging to the Sanctuary, should not be perplexed and troubled with any Secular Cares, and by that means hindred in the awful, reverent and decent Performance of their Duty, which ought not and can never be performed, as it should be, with a distracted Mind: the Reason of which holds still more strongly un­der the Gospel Dispensation, which is much more internal and thoughtful than the other, and differs as much as the Religion of a Philosopher from that of a Mechanick, or the noble and refi­ned Operations of the Mind, (all which the study of an useful and instructive Divinity will employ) from the gross and exter­nal Services of the Body: It is a Religion which consists not in so poor a thing as Sacrifice, which very little Manual Opera­tion may perform, but in Obedience, in Virtue, in Praise, Ad­miration and Instruction, in the Exercise, Exaltation and Improve­ment of those best Faculties belonging to our Natures, by which we are Men, and by which we resemble God, and by which alone we can be rendred capable of an happy Fruition and Enjoyment of him, of seeing and knowing him, not through a Glass, dark­ly, but in some competent measure, as he is in himself, full of [Page 30] his own Excellence, and discerned by his own Light, by tran­scribing and transplanting into the habit of our Minds, the Image of those Attributes and Perfections we adore.

And in pursuance of the Reason of this Levitical Institution, it was, That in all Christian Nations, from an high and remote An­tiquity to this time, there hath been a standing and immoveable Provision for the Clergy, out of the Lands, Profits and Demesns of Secular and Lay Persons, by such and such stated Proportions, which may be demanded, sued for, and recovered by Law as a Due; and which are settled upon the respective Incumbents for their Lives, if they do not of themselves relinquish their said Pre­ferments, or are not guilty of such scandalous and repeated Crimes, as to incur Suspension à Beneficio, or absolute Deprivation from the exercise of their Office, and from the Profits and Emoluments accruing by it; they are provided for with a present Subsistence, that they may not be diverted by the importunity of emergent Cares from a present actual Attendance upon their Duty, and this Subsistence of theirs was made perpetual, (and was much more competent in the smallest Livings in former Times than it is now) that so they might be rendered easie in their Minds, and void of an anxious Sollicitude for the future, which though not so great an impediment to the discharge of their Office, as present want and indigence must in Reason be, yet in some lesser Proportion it will always be a Thorn of Vexation in their sides; it will affect them more or less, according to the different Persons they have to do with, and upon whom their dependence relies, it will have a great Influence upon some Tempers, beyond what it will have upon others; and lastly it will be a means of an unreasonable Subjection of the Clergy to the Laity, and the occasion of many base Arts, and most unworthy Compliances with the Humours and Interests of unreasonable People, whereby to reprieve them­selves from an impending Ruine, and get some further momenta­ny, uncertain and despicable Respite in a slavish and arbitrary Dependence, fit for none but such wretches as are capable of be­ing molded into all shapes, and of receiving all sorts of servile and mean Impressions from ill Men, instead of being the happy Instru­ments of Amendment and Reformation to them, by good ones of their own, made boldly and frankly without Fear or Favour, [Page 31] though not without a becoming Modesty and Discretion, upon every fit and suitable Occasion.

Now the Reason upon which all those Laws were made, is every whit as applicable to my own Case, though in outward form and appearance I hold by another Tenure, as it is to the rest of my Brethren of the Clergy, who have a legal Freehold in what they enjoy; for Tithes were no otherwise of Divine Right, than as they were ordained by God upon an equitable and eternal Rea­son, and are still continued by Men upon the same, as to the substantial meaning of the Institution, which was the support and maintenance of the Clergy, or of that Order of Men, (as such there ought to be in every Nation) that were dedicated and devoted to the Service of God, though as to the minute Propor­tion of such a Maintenance as that is, and as to the ways of Levying, Collecting or Distributing the same, it may admit of Change and Variation in different Times and Places. The Law of Tithes obligeth not so much by virtue of that Humane Au­thority, no, nor of that Divine Authority neither, that first establish'd it, either among the Jews or in any other Nation, for both of these Authorities, as sacred as they are, and especially the latter of them, yet separate from Nature and eternal Reason, they are at best but positive and changeable things; but that which gives those Laws, in the general considered, which are made for the support and subsistence of the Clergy, an intrinsick and essential Character of Obligation, is the apparent Reasonable­ness, Equity and Justice of them, and that Equity appears as much in making the support perpetual, as in giving it at all, because the design of the one, for Reasons that have been given, would be defeated and disappointed without the other: and if this be equally the Case of all Ecclesiastical Preferments whatsoever, where a Subsistence for a Clergy man is appointed in Consideration of a Duty to be done; the Tenure by which I hold, though it be onely durante beneplacito, will not evacuate the general Equity of the Case, but all Men that have a Reverence to the Laws, a due regard to Religion, and the Ministers of it, or a due sence of the great and fundamental Reasons upon which Bodies Poli­tick and Societies are built, and by which equal Justice is ad­ministred to all, will never do any thing deliberately, and of set purpose against the manifest Equity upon which those Laws are [Page 32] built, whose Obligation they will and ought always to acknow­ledge to be valid and binding upon them, even where the posi­tive Letter doth not oblige.

If a Man keep a Chaplain in his House, as his Domestick, he may discard him when he pleaseth for no Reason at all, unless it be that of retrenching his Expences, because the Law doth not oblige him to retain such a Person in his House, but yet it must be confessed to be very hard, and by Consequence next kin to unjust, to turn a Man of that Character out of doors, with­out any other competent Provision, after he had deserved well of the Family and his Patron for several years together; but where the Publick hath allowed a Maintenance out of the publick Re­venue, there the Case and the Equity arising from it, is plain­ly as strong and as clearly indispensible in one Ecclesiastical Pro­motion as in another: all which if your Lordship will please candidly and impartially to apply to Mr. Hughes his Circumstan­ces and mine, that he was legally ejected for many and great Causes, and that I was legally substituted in his Place, that he can get nothing by his Restitution, and that he hath as little Right to it, as he can get profit or advantage by it, and that I must only be a great and unreasonable Looser, with little or no profit accruing and redounding to him, besides many other Rea­sons, which, I hope, your Lordship will some time or other take the leisure to consider; I doubt not but you will recall the Sen­tence, you have past, and think it more for the Reputation and Interest of your Court to discard Mr. Hughes than to protect him any longer; but if this be the meaning of an Arbitrary De­pendence, (and such I acknowledge mine in some sence to be, though, by Reason of my Character and Function, it be the least Arbitrary of any in this House) that it is a dependence so per­fectly and entirely holding of unaccountable Will and Pleasure, that a Man may be ejected out of it for no reason and against a great many, and all by those who are not the proper and im­mediate Judges, to whom the determination of his Cause belongs, I see not but a Tenure from the Wind and Weather, may be every whit as certain and as firm as this, and I perceive I was mistaken when I valued it at a Years Purchase, when in reality it is not worth one day.

Suppose, my Lord, that the Living of St. Thomas's had not been united to the Hospital in my Person, would you then have stript me of this my only dependence for the sake of so small an advantage to Mr. Hughes, as it is so plainly demonstrable this will amount to? And yet if in strict Justice you had been ob­liged to do it, you would have been equally obliged in that Case, as you are in this; but if you are not obliged in strict Justice to deal with me after this manner, then, I hope, you will reflect upon the Reasons of Equity which I have offered on my behalf; and upon the many Arguments that strike with so much force, and unanimity against his Pretensions, and shew so plainly beyond all Exception, that there is nothing but Injustice and Malice on his part, nothing but Fairness and Honesty on mine.

Besides, that he cannot be resident upon both Places at once; if he supplies this Place by a Curate, as I am just now inform­ed he is about to do, and I know the Person who it is, One that can­not attend the Hospi­tal at any time but on Sunday. that I hope you will not, and I am very sure in so inconsiderable a Preferment, but yet requiring so great and constant attendance as this does, you ought not to allow; Sisters and Cooks, and But­lers Helpers have been heard of in this House, but the Hospital­lers Helper, and that in his absence too was never heard of be­fore; but if he resides here, which I am morally certain he will never do, and puts a Curate into his other Place; this is directly op­posite to the Law against Pluralities, which will not permit a Man to be absent and resiant forty Miles from any of his Cures.

Let us suppose again, my Lord, I beg your Lordship to excuse the plainness of the Comparison, that at the time when you were pleased to make an Order for me to resign up my Place to Mr. Hughes, and as I have been inform'd, in case of Non-obedience to the said Order on my part, that Mr. Hughes should have all past Arrears, and all growing Profits, becoming due for the future, that you had further ordained, that I should deliver up my Books, and whatsoever else I had in my Possession to him. Would it in this Case have been interpreted a Contempt to the Court of Aldermen, if I should refuse to do as that Order appointed? No certainly, but all Men would purge and vindicate me by say­ing, that your Lordship's and the Courts Jurisdiction did not ex­tend so far, and that it was no Contempt of a lawful Authori­ty, not to obey an Order that was illegal and [...]ceeded the just [Page 34] bounds and measures of the Court, from whence it proceeded; so that to apply this matter to the purpose: I beseech your Lord­ship and the rest of the worthy Gentlemen concerned, to consi­der first seriously whether your Order be legal, and within the Jurisdiction to which you may justly pretend, before you accuse me of a rude Contempt, or affronting Disobedience to so great and honourable a Court, a thing which I will never be guilty of to any of my Superiours, to the best of my Understanding, so long as I live, and upon this one point, my Lord, the whole Controversie turns, whether your said Order, which I cannot help saying, is very far equitable; be so much as strictly legal or no.

And to all this it is still further to be added, that Mr. Hughes having received his just doom of ejection from above, made his actual Resignation before a general Court, and I at the same time was actually substituted in his Room and Place, and he af­terwards made a Sale of the Furniture of his Chamber to me; which I accordingly paid him for: So that here were all the Signs and Indications of a voluntary Resignation on his Part, who did not stand it out, as thinking himself injured, as I have done, and all the Formalities of a legal and orderly Possession on mine, which Possession I am still desirous to keep till I am legally ejected from it.

Another thing which in point of Argument I shall insist upon, shall be taken from an Act of Parliament 25. Car. 2. and enti­tuled, an Act for preventing Dangers, which may happen from Po­pish Recusants, and in the Preface of the said Act, the design of it is said to be, for quieting the minds of his Majesties good Subjects, by which Act it is ordained and enacted that all and every Per­son or Persons, as well Peers as Commoners, that shall bear any Office or Offices Civil or Military, or shall receive any Pay, Sa­lary, Fee or Wages, by reason of any Patent or Grant from his Majesty; or shall have Command or place of Trust, from or un­der his Majesty, or from any of his Majesties Predecessors, or by his or their Authority, or by Authority derived from him or them, within the Realm of England, &c. or shall be of the Houshold, or in the Service or Employment of his Majesty, &c. should within a time limited, be obliged to take the Oaths of Al­legiance and Supremacy, and also to receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper, according to the usage of the Church of England, [Page 35] publickly on a Lords day, commonly called Sunday, immediate­ly after divine Service and Sermon, within a certain and prefix­ed time; and further at the making and taking of the Oaths a­foresaid, they should likewise make and subscribe a Declaration in Manner and Form, as by the said Act is ordained, under the same Penalties and Forfeitures as are appointed by it; which said Penalties and Forfeitures were two-fold.

First, that all and every the Person or Persons aforesaid, that do or shall neglect or refuse to take the said Oaths and Sacrament, in the said Courts and Places, and at the respective times aforesaid, shall be ipso facto adjudged incapable, and disabled in Law, to all Inrents and Purposes whatsoever, to have, occupy, or enjoy the said Office or Offices, Employment or Employments, which shall be void, and are hereby adjudged void.

Secondly, it is further enacted, that all and every such Person or Persons that shall neglect or refuse to take the said Oaths, or the Sacrament as aforesaid, within the Times and in the Places aforesaid, and in the manner aforesaid, and yet after such Neg­lect and Refusal shall exercise any of the said Offices and Employ­ments after the said times expired, wherein he or they ought to have taken the same; and being thereupon lawfully convicted, &c. every such Person or Persons shall be disabled from thence­forth to sue or use any Action, Plaint, Bill or Information in Course of Law, or to prosecute any Writ, in any Court of E­quity, or to be Guardian of any Child, or Executor, or Admi­nistrator of any Person, or capable of any Legacy or deed of Gift, or to bear any Office within this Realm of England, &c. and shall forfeit five hundred Pounds, to be recovered by him, or them that shall sue for the same, &c.

From which brief Summary of the aforesaid Act of Parliament, I shall make these following Observations.

First that Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Persons, considered purely as such, are exempted from the Obligations and Penalties of the same; and that for several Reasons.

First, because the Act mentions no other Employments, but only Civil and Military, and by consequence the Ecclesiastical by not being taken Notice of, are excluded.

Secondly, it is a Maxim among Naturalists, Natura nihil fa­cit frustra; and so it is also in Reason, frustra fit per plura quod [Page 36] fieri potest per pauciora: And for this cause it was not designed that this Act should extend to Clergy-men, or Spiritual Persons, as such; because they were sufficiently secured to the Protestant Interest before; as far as Oaths or Declarations, or any other out­ward Significations of an inward meaning could do it; for there is no Clergy-man, nay, no Graduate in either of the Universi­ties, but as often as he hath taken any Degree whatsoever, hath taken, as a necessary Adjunct and Appendix to it, the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance; he is bound to recognize the Kings Supremacy, as well in sacred as in civil Causes, by the express Institution of that Directory for Prayer before Sermon, which the Canon hath enjoyned, and it is thought that the Forms of bidding Prayer in the injunctions of Ed. 6. and Q. Elizabeth, were enjoyn'd for nothing more (and some say only for that, it seeming otherwise unnecessary after the morning Service,) but only to extort this repeated Recognition of the King or Queens Supre­macy in all Causes, as often as ever he either preached himself, or read an appointed Homily to the People. Furthermore, eve­ry beneficed Clergy-man is obliged by his Office and Duty, as he is such; at least thrice every year, besides what private Oc­casions there may be, in the Visitation of the Sick, which he cannot refuse, both to take and give the Sacrament, according to the usage of the Church of England: He subscribes to the 39 Articles where Transubstantiation is expresly condemned, and to the Homilies wherein the Charge of the most gross Idolatry is pathetically and elaborately laid, in three excellent Discourses to the Church of Rome, and in the Office of Consecration of the Elements of Bread and Wine, which he that Administers must always recite, otherwise there can be no Consecration of them, according to the usage of the Church of England, they are ex­presly called, These thy Creatures of Bread and Wine, even after the said Consecration is over, for there is no Perception or Com­munication of or in them before that time, and yet these are the very words of the Consecrating Prayer, at the end of the Com­munion Service; Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly be­seech thee, and grant that we receiving these thy Creatures of Bread and Wine, &c. Now we cannot receive the Creatures of Bread and Wine, if after the words of Consecration pronounced by the Priest, they do not continue to be such, as well as they were [Page 37] before; and therefore this is a plain Declaration of the Consecra­ting Priest, that the said Elements do still remain to be what they were, before the Office of Consecration began, in Opposi­tion to the Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation, as any thing can be imagined. So that, I think, it is plain from all this, not on­ly that Spiritual Persons as such, are not mentioned in this Act, but that they were under such very strict Antecedent Obligati­ons before it, that it was impossible for them to give any further Satisfaction, than by Law they were already obliged to do: and that only Civil or Military Officers, and those receiving Wages, Fee or Salary from the King, or by Autho­rity derived from him, were intended, appears to me very plain by a Proviso, which is the last Clause of this Act, where­in it is provided, with all the particularity and Caution that can be imagined, that this Act or any thing therein contained, shall not extend to the Office of any High Constable, Petty-Constable, Tithing-man, Head borough, Over-seer of the Poor, Church-War­den, Surveyor of the High-Ways, or any like inferiour civil Of­fice, (inferiour, because not receiving Wages or Salary from the Publick and excepted out of this Act likewise for another Reason, because the Government of Parishes being every where in Protestant hands; there was little or no danger of any Pa­pists creeping into any of the afore-mentioned Places of inferiour Trust or to any Office of Forrester, or Keeper of any Park, Chace, Warren or Game, or of Bayliff of any Mannor or Lands, or to any like private Offices, which are here called private, be­cause not receiving Wages or Salary from the King; not but that the Clergy have taken and do still generally take this Test, as well as other Men; but this I conceive to be a Protestant Work of Supererrogation, unless it be done for Example to the People, which I confess to be a Reason of Prudence, though it be none of Obligation.

Secondly, The second Observation I shall make, shall be, that the Lemma or Title of this Act, being; An Act for preventing Dangers that may happen from Popish Recusants; and the declared Intention of it in the Preface of the Act, being, For the quieting the Minds of his Majesties good Subjects: It is certain, that it ought to be interpreted in particular Cases, in all the reasonable lati­tude that can be imagined; the Act it self being made out of [Page 38] extreme caution, after many other antecedent Provisions, that had been made against Popery in former times, and it being impos­sible, as all good Protestants will very readily grant, to be too sollicitous and careful, for preventing the dangers that may happen from Popish Recusants, or as all good Patriots and good Men will say, to take too great Care for preserving of the Peace, (which by Fears and Jealousies is in danger of being disturbed) and for the quieting the Minds of his Majesties good Subjects.

And how very careful the makers of this Act were, for the avoiding the dangers that were intended to be prevented and obviated by it, besides the general Scope, and declared Intenti­on of the same, and besides that this is but one Act amongst, and after many that were then in force, to root out the Fears and Dangers of Popery from amongst us, and to quash all attempts of introducing it any more, will further appear by these three Clauses to be met with in it.

The first is, p. 145, 146. a Clause concerning a married Wo­man, or Person under the Age of eighteen years or beyond or upon the Seas or found by the lawful Oaths of twelve Men to be non compos mentis, and it is provided with particularities needless to my purpose to be here recited, that no such Person shall by virtue of this Act lose or forfeit any such his or her Of­fice, (other than such married Woman during the Life of her Husband only) for any neglect or refusal of taking the Oaths, and doing the other things required by this Act to be done by Persons having Offices, &c. where (to omit Minors and Persons that are not of a sound Mind, who may have civil Offices by in­heritance; or by virtue of some grant before the time of their falling into Distraction) when even Women are here mentioned, and are obliged to take the Oaths, and do other things requi­red, as appears immediately after, within four Months after the death of the Husband; this shews that civil Offices in the true intent and meaning of this Act, must needs be taken in a very large and comprehensive Sense, and that any Employment is a civil Office, if it be neither Military nor Ecclesiastical, which receives Salary and Wages from the King.

Secondly, p. 146, 147. of the said Act there is another Provi­so, that nothing in that Act contained shall extend to make any forfeiture, disability, or incapacity, in, by, or upon any Non-commission [Page 39] Officer of Officers, in his Majesties Navy, if such Of­ficer or Officers shall only subscribe the Declaration therein re­quired, in manner as the same is directed.

Now by this Clause, it appears, that the Master and his Mate in a King's Ship, who, I have been informed, are not Commis­sion Officers, and who are indeed in no other quality on board of a Man of War, than the same Persons with the same Titles, would have been on board of a Merchant, are to take this Test, as to the substance and fundamental point thereof, which is the re­nouncing the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, by a written Decla­ration or Subscription under their respective Hands; and all this though they have no immediate Commission from the King, and are not so much as Military Officers, only because they receive a certain Salary or Wages from him; so that this is another ve­ry plain indication in how great latitude the term of civil Of­fice is in this Act of Parliament to be understood, as in the King's Houshold every respective Domestick, though of never so infe­rior quality, and though in any other Family, being in the same Employments, they would be under no Obligation to take this Test by virtue of this Act, yet being of his Majesties own pro­per Family, (though a Porter, a Cook, a Butler, a Launderer, &c. be Officers rather to be called Oeconomical than Civil) meer­ly by virtue of their receiving Salary and Wages from the King, and being in an Employment of what nature soever under him, they shall be obliged to take the Oaths, and make the Decla­ration in manner and form, as by that Act is prescribed.

The third thing I intended, to prove the great extent and la­titude in which this Act is to be understood, is what hath been said already of High-Constables, Tithing men, and other Officers of Parishes, or Hundreds, who are excepted out of it; first be­cause there is no great danger of such being Popish Recusants, they being generally so well known to their Neighbours before their entrance into their respective Charges and Employments, and secondly, because they do not act immediately by the King's Commission, neither, thirdly and lastly, do they receive any Fee, Salary or Wages from him; but then exceptio firmat regulam in non exceptis, in those Places or Offices, that are not here excep­ted, in those Offices where there may be danger from Popish Re­cusants, acting by the King's Commission, or by Authority deri­ved [Page 40] from him or his Predecessors, and receiving the King's Pay, or which is all one a Salary, Fee or Wages out of the Publick Re­venue; the Obligation of this Act is still so much the stronger, and is supposed to extend the more indispensably to them; and though in this Clause the Office of Forrester, or Keeper of any Park, Chace, Warren, &c. be likewise excepted, yet this I conceive is to be understood only of the Parks, &c. of the Nobility and Gentry, and that the Lord-warden of the Forrests, or the Ranger of any of the King's Parks, receiving Wages or Perqui­sites from under the King, by virtue of their Places, shall not be exempted by virtue of this Clause, or any thing therein contained.

My Lord, I humbly beg your Pardon, that I am thus tedious and importunate to your Lordship, but I must not be wanting to my necessary defence, and must rather chuse, (though it be an hard necessity, and such a dilemma as I could be very glad to have been freed from both its Parts,) to be rude and troublesome to your Lordships Leisure, which hath so many things of greater Consequence to employ it self about, than fail in the first and most essential Duty belonging to humane Life, which is cal­led self-preservation, so far and no farther, as that end may be compassed by Means that are good and lawful.

Therefore as a third general Head of Observation, arising from the Act of Parliament above-mentioned, your Lordship may be pleased to take Notice, not only that to avoid any too nice Dispute about what are Military, Civil, or Oeconomical Employ­ments, any Service or Employment of His Majesty, receiving Sa­lary and Wages from him (For that is always to be under­stood) is lyable and obnoxious to the Obligation and Penalty of this Law, p. 136. but that it is sufficient as is declared in the Words immediately foregoing, if it be an Employment holding from any of his Majesties Predecessors, or by his or their Autho­rity, or by Authority derived from him or them, within the Realm of England, &c. and so having made these general Ob­servations, with your Lordships good Leave, I shall apply these Preliminaries to Mr. Hughes's Case, and see how far he is con­cerned in this Parliamentary Act, and in the Penalties and For­feitures accruing by it, and redounding from it, in Case of Dis­obedience to what it enjoyns.

First then, Mr. Hughes's Office is manifestly an Office receiv­ving [Page 41] Wages or Salary, by Virtue of a Grant or Patent from his Majesties Royal Predecessor King Edward VI.

Secondly, admitting that it was an Employment purely Spi­ritual or Ecclesiastical, yet Mr. Hughes at his admission into it, and for some years after, was no spiritual Person in any legal Construction, so that receiving Wages from the King, for the discharge of an Office which could not be spiritual, unless the Person discharging it had been so, he was obliged to give that Security, which this Act requires, that he was no popish Recu­sant, and for default of so doing he was legally ejected, and was, and is still obnoxious to all the Penalties and Forfeitures of the said Act.

His being at the same time a non-conforming Minister, bound the Obligation of taking this Paliamentary Test, still the more in­dispensably upon him, for they are many times (without disparage­ment to any honest Man of any dissenting Persuasion) Wolves in Sheeps Clothing, the very first beginnings of Separation and Divisi­on from the Church of England, were from the Church of Rome, as your Lordship may be satisfi'd, by the Perusal of a little but ve­ry useful Book, entituled Foxes and Firebrands, wherein this is made out by undeniable Matters of Fact, that will not bear any Shadow of Dispute.

The Congregation de propagandâ fide at Rome, have determined this to be the most effectual Way to restore the pretended Catho­lique Religion, to sow Divisions and Animosities among those that have separated from it, and have forsaken that Superstitious and I­dolatrous Communion, and the late Project of an universal Tole­ration endeavoured first by Coleman, as appears by his Letters that were produced at his Tryal, and owned by himself, and since pub­lished, and afterwards put in practice by others of the same Party, for the same reasons, is a sensible demonstration, of which we are all Witnesses, that in the Judgment of the Papists themselves, the Pro­testant Religion in general is highly endangered, by the disagreements of Protestants among themselves, and that not only by those Feuds and Animosities, which do but too naturally arise from a religious dissent, through the heat and zeal of the contending Parties, but also by the secret practices of Seminaries and Popish Priests, who appear in all shapes, and have their Incendiaries every where to blow up every coal, wheresoever they see any thing of combustible Matter [Page 42] that hath but never so faint a possibility of being improved into an actual Flame.

I do not say, neither do I indeed believe it, that Mr. Hughes is a Papist or so much as Popishly affected, though such Tools as he may drive on Popish Designs without so much as knowing that they do so. But this I say, my Lord, that this Act being made expresly, af­ter many other Provisions of a like nature, for the preventing of dangers that may happen from Popish Recusants, and for the quiet­ing the Minds of his Majesties good Subjects, and the only Reason why Clergy men, or Ecclesiasticks, or Spiritual Persons in the legal sense are not, as such, obliged by this Act to give the security requi­red by it, in manner and form as is prescribed, being that they were beforehand with the Act it self, and were all of them under very strong antecedent Obligations, to give undoubted satisfaction, so far as Oaths and Subscriptions can oblige Men, of their firm adherence to the Protestant Religion and Interest. It follows unavoidably, that Mr. Hughes, who received a Salary from the King for the dis­charge of a Trust, having never given that security which the Go­vernment required from all that were so trusted, and so paid, and be­ing besides a suspicious Person, upon account of his dissent, there ha­ving been several such that were Priests and Seminaries of the Church of Rome; I say, it follows inevitably that he must needs come with­in the reach of this Act, for the preventing of dangers that may hap­pen from Popish Recusants, and for the quieting the minds of his Majesties Good Subjects, and that for not doing as that Act requi­red, he hath incurred the forfeitures and disabilities arising from the Breach and Violation of it.

I take it, that all the Officers belonging to this House, receiving Wages or Salary by virtue of a Grant or Patent from their Majesties Royal Predecessor, and by Authority derived from it, were obliged to take this Test, and for not doing it, all Mr. Hughes his Collegues, as well as himself, were legally incapacitated to hold their respective Employments; but this, for the Reasons that have been mentioned, concerns Mr. Hughes much more than it doth any other. For it is plain the makers of this Act thought there was no security, that might be rely'd upon, that a Man was no Popish Recusant, but by doing, subscribing, and swearing as that Act requires; and how dan­gerous it must needs be to put, though but a suspected or a possible Papist into such a Post as his, where there are continually so many, [Page 43] not only sick, but dying Persons, I leave your Lordship and all Pro­testants to determine: and I appeal to all the World, whether a pro­fest Papist might not every whit as legally have been chosen into this House in Mr. Hughes his Station, as Mr. Hughes himself in a religi­ous Post, having the cure of the Souls of this Hospital committed to him, receiving Wages out of the publick Revenue for his Service, and not giving that security which the Act requires.

Neither doth it signifie any thing in this case, that we are all hi­red Servants, as the printed Ordinances of St. Bartholo­mew's Hospital do expresly call us, and that we are all Printed at Lon­don, 1652. p. 1. of us dependent upon pleasure, (notwithstanding as I have said, we may lay claim to an equitable Right) for just so are most of the Officers of the King's Houshold, as also of the Customs and Excise; and yet they shall be and they are all of them in common practice, obliged to take this Test by virtue of this Act, meerly up­on account of their receiving Wages and Salary from the King, let their Places be never so arbitrary and dependent; and in case of Competition, for Example, betwixt Mr. Hughes and me, the one to be continued in his Possession, the other to be restored, I suppose these three things will be granted, first, that he that was legally ele­cted into his Possession, being of that Communion, that Order of Men, of which he ought by Law to be, is preferrable to him that was not, in point of right, though the tenure be only durante beneplacito, because that beneplacitum can never extend to any thing repugnant to or inconsistent with the Law.

Secondly, That he that after Election did within the time limited qualifie himself, by doing those things required by this Act, for the peaceable Enjoyment of his Place, hath also another Title which the other wants, so that he is in two respects preferrable before him, and ought to be considered without regard to the other, by all that will make the Law the measure and rule of their Actions.

Thirdly, It is no less plain from the words of the Act it self, that Mr. Hughes having formerly incurred a disability, though he have possibly since taken this Parliamentary-Test, yet he cannot be resto­red to his Place again in prejudice to any that was substituted in his room, and had an antecedent Qualification for the Place by virtue of his being actually in Holy Orders, according to Law, and a Subse­quent, by doing within the time limited, as this Act required; for these are the very express words of the Act it self, and, I hope, your [Page 44] Lordship and the Court of Aldermen will not think it fit or reasonable to dispense with an Act of Parliament, an Act of such Consequence as this is, for the security of the Protestant Religion, at the very time when the Parliament is sitting, and is considering even of further Se­curities to obviate the dangers arising from Popish Recusants.

‘Provided also that any Person, who by his or her neglect or refu­sal, according to this Act, shall lose or forfeit any Office, p. 146. may be capable by a new Grant of the said Office or of any other, and to have and hold the same again, such person taking the said Oaths, and doing all other things required by this Act, so as such Office be not granted unto and actually enjoyed by some other per­son, at the time of the re-granting thereof:’ Therefore either this Act is not good Law, which I know your Lordship, as well out of piety and zeal to the Protestant Religion, as for other Reasons will be very far from allowing, or Mr. Hughes cannot be restored, by any thing less than an Act of Parliament made in his behalf, in preju­dice to me.

The last thing which I shall mention to prove that the Hospital­ler's place, though Mr. Hughes had been in Orders as he was not, comes within the Obligation of this Act, shall be taken from this Consideration, that the place is of a mixt nature, and is not wholly Spiritual or Ecclesiastick; I shall lay down the full and entire De­scription of it, as I find it in the printed Orders of St. Bartholomew's Hospital above cited, which are the same with ours, as to the nature of the respective places, and the Obligations depending on them, and then leave it to be considered, whether Mr. Hughes in his Oecono­mical Capacity, whatever becomes of his Sacred, receiving Wages from the King, was not equally obliged to take the Test with a wo­man in Office, whose Office can hardly be said to be civil in any other, than a very large and comprehensive sence of that word, or with an hired Servant of the King's Houshold, or an Officer of his Customs or Excise, or a Non-commission Officer of a Ship, receiving Pay from the King or from those that act by Authority derived from him.

The words of that Book are as follows, p. 17.

It is true indeed, that all the burthen, besides what is Spiritual, is now by Custom taken off of the Hospitallers shoulders, but yet still the original Charge deriving from the sacred and indispensible Will of the Founder is the same; and he is to see, that they that in many of these things are but Substitutes acting under him, though appointed by the Governors, or by the King thereto, be not wanting in the discharge of the Trust committed to them; and this implies likewise, that he should be resident, which Mr. Hughes never was, and consequently could not see to the Management of the House; it implies likewise, that he ought not to be allowed to supply this place by a Curate, as he intends to do, because he cannot transfer the authority committed to him, neither can the Curate by virtue of any such delegated Power, correct or set right the abuses, if any such shall happen, of the Steward or other Officers, who are more or less under his Charge; and indeed if there were nothing, but the Spiri­tual concern to be considered, yet it is so great a Trust of that kind, where there are so many sick, and so many wicked People, that it is easie to be discerned, that his actual residence at or near the Place, can never be excused or dispensed with upon any pretence whatso­ever, unless it be such as our Statutes of Christ's College in Cambridge, call gravis aegrotatio, or violenta detentio, a constraint laid upon him by sickness or by force. It was the Will of the Founder, that it should be a Civil or Oeconomical Office, as well as a Spiritual; and therefore it is so still, and he is paid his Wages upon both of these ac­counts, notwithstanding the ordinary and immediate care of some things be by custom and length of time, devolved upon others, that he may be the more at leisure to attend to his Spiritual Charge.

I have still further to add, as to the business of Pluralities, that the Law makes a Living of eight pounds a year value in the K. Books; and Mr. Hughes's is thirteen, to be such a Living, as another cannot be held together with it, but within the distance, and with the qua­lifications required, and the Canon Law, which so far as it is conso­nant to natural Reason and Justice is of eternal Obligation, is so strict that even a smaller Living than this cannot and may not be held to­gether with another, and by this Law since the Reformation, Good­man, Dean of Wells was deprived of his Deanery, be­cause he had accepted a Prebend in the same Church Dyer, 273. p. 35. cit. P. C. p. 19. though neither of these Preferments were with Cure of Souls, and yet at the same time the Law is so favourable to conti­guous [Page 47] Churches, that it hath been adjudged that two Rectories un­der one roof, are no plurality, because they are not in pluribus Ec▪ p. 31. ib. cles [...]is, in more Churches than one; I have further to repre­sent, that at the same time that I was put into this Place, my Father, as your Lordship well knows, was ejected out of another, which tho mean in it self, was yet of a greater value than the advantage Mr. Hughes can make, by holding this Hospital and his Living together; so that Mr. Hughes having no legal injury done him, as I have suffi­ciently proved, and there being so many other equitable Considera­tions, besides legal Pretentions on my side; I hope your Lordship will add to all this the loss which my Father, your fellow Citizen sustained, and will suffer that to intercede with you in behalf of his Son.

And so I humbly beg your Lordship's Pardon, for this long but ne­cessary trouble, wishing you with all my heart an happy Year, a pro­sperous Government, a good old Age, and an eternal Youth in the Kingdom of the blessed, where there are Joys and Pleasures at the Right hand of God for ever-more; and I am,

YOU see I have been at no small pains to assert the Justice of my Cause against you. It is now your part, if you have any thing to say for your self to produce it as publickly as I have done, that so the World and the Reason of Mankind may be the Judge of the Controversie between us. I leave you to consider what indifferent Persons will say of you, especially in your Circumstances, who either are or ought to be an Example of Truth and Justice, if you still persist in snatching and extorting that by Power and Force, whose just Possession you cannot ho­nestly vindicate or defend, nor shew one Reason either from Law or Conscience, why I should be obliged to make a surrender to you. I do not despair, but the Reason and Equity of my Cause will be too hard for the real or pretended Inter [...]st of yours; and I have here enclosed sent you the true Copy of a Testimonial, which that learned and good Society, where I had my Education, were so kind to send me, hoping that their knowledge of that little merit, which they are pleased to say they discerned in me, might be of some Service to me in this present juncture, to shield me from the Violence and Injustice of your Persecution against me. I doubt not, but I may obtain the same Honor and Obligation from the Professors and Heads of Houses in that University, if I desire it; in the mean time take this, which I have set down without the names, because I hope you will believe me, when it is so easie to convince me of a falshood, [Page 48] if I have imposed upon you or any body else, and because these names shall be seen, God willing, together with others, if you have a mind to come to a Poll of our Bre­thren of the Clergy, and of the best and learnedst among them, whether in common sense and justice, to which we ought all to submit, the place of Hospitaller of St. Thomas Southwark, be either yours or mine.

THese are to certifie whom it may concern, that we the Master and Fellows of Christ's College, to whom Mr. John Turner, Master of Arts, and late Fellow of this our College was very well known; do hereby certifie, that the said Mr. Turner had justly that Reputation among us, of a Person of great Learning, Integrity and peaceableness of Temper, whilst Fellow with us, that we could have heartily recommended him, as very capable and deserving of Preferment in the Church. Christ College, May 7th 1680.

And now if after all this I must be run down by number and by force, which I can by no means induce my self to believe I shall, yet it is my comfort that I have not yielded, and it is my firm Resolution, that I never will, whatever becomes of me or of my Fortunes in the World, the loss of which I value much less, than I do the com­mon Interest and well-fare of Mankind, which cannot be supported otherwise than by every honest Man's standing up in the defence of Justice, in their respective Sta­tions, as far as it is proper for them, and as far as without Sedition and Turbu­lence they may. It was old Caeneus's Case, an Hero of whom the Grecian Bards make Honorable mention, to be driven into the Earth, by the dry strength of blows, as a Pile to support the weight that was upon it, when he could not be conquered and knew not how to yield.

I leave it to you to construe if you can, and I am, Sir, your humble Servant, expecting your Answer,