Case of error in exercising judicial power. 181 TION, &c. though in all countries they are sworn to the best of their DEPRIVAunderstandings to administer true judgment. Secondly, that though they condemn an innocent, and acquit a guilty man, be it by pure error or corruption, the sovereign is bound to execute their sentences, that is, to let them be executed, be they right, or wrong. Thirdly, that it is no matter how the people live, could they be acquitted by these judges, 'to whom men ought to pay more honour, than to the sovereign himself, since the power of condemning and saving is in them, and the sovereign is no more than their executioner.' As many falsities, and fallacies, as there are in this case, so many there are in what he hath said against the judicial power of Church governors, who judge for, and under God in spirituals, as the twelve judges of this kingdom judge in temporals for, and under our kings and queens, who are bound in conscience, and I think by oath, to shew mercy, in the cases of corrupt verdicts and erroneous judgments; and so, when the same case happens in ecclesiastical censures, the great and righteous Judge will of His infinite mercy do; as the Catholic Church hath always taught". The folly and blasphemy of his Horeb contract* hath been [Hickes seems to allude to the second article of the coronation oath. "Will you to your power cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in your dominions? I will."] Si Cyprian. in Epist. ad Antonianum. [Ep. lii.] Neque enim præjudicamus Domino judicaturo, quo minus si pœnitentiam plenam et justam peccatoris invenerit, tunc ratum faciat quod a nobis fuerit hic statutum. vero nos aliquis pœnitentiæ simulatione deluserit, Deus qui non deridetur, et qui cor hominis intuetur, de his quæ nos minus perspeximus judicet, et servorum suorum sententiam Dominus emendet. [p. 71. ed. Ben.] Et quia [apud inferos confessio non est, nec exomologesis illic fieri potest; qui ex toto corde pœnituerint, et rogaverint, in Ecclesiam debent interius suscipi, et in ipsa Domino reservari, qui ad Ecclesiam suam venturus de illis utique quos in ea intus invenerit, judicabit. [Ibid., p. 75.] So in the Epistle of the African bishops to Cornelius, p. 118. [ed. Oxon.] Si autem, quod Dominus avertat a fratribus nos tris, aliquis lapsorum fefellerit, ut pacem [See Rights, Introduction, p. 9. 182 'Horeb contract,' and State of nature,' refuted. DISCOURSE, PREFAT. clearly and convincingly set forth in the Rehearsaly, and that SECT. IX. being one of the pillars of his work, the superstructure of his book is utterly ruined with it, and therefore I shall take no farther notice of it. In his introduction", which is as it were the ground-work of the whole book, he supposes there was an antecedent "state of nature" in which men lived before political government was erected, though this wild notion hath been so many times unanswerably confuted by the writers against Hobbes, and of late by the Rehearsal against Mr. Locke. There also he hath confounded the laws and rights of nature, miscalling the latter by the name of the former, though this sophism, which affects the whole [The following are extracts from the Rehearsal. No. 172, Jan. 8, 1706. "This book of the Rights places the authority and right of dominion which God had over the Jews, in the original right they had to choose a king for themselves, whom they pleased, or to have had none, as they pleased. 'Tis true he makes God offer Himself to them as a candidate in the election for the crown, and that the choice of the people fell upon Him, which made Him their king. He says it [the election] Iwas made at Horeb when the law was given, which therefore he calls the Horeb contract." ... But in answer Leslie argues, "If it was their authority which made Him their king, then they had authority to call Him to an account, and to depose Him." Again, "It seems God took upon Him to be their king, and gave them laws, (the circumcision, the passover, &c.) without staying for the grace of their election." Again, No. 173, Jan. 11, 1706. "He was their king before, and the people did own Him as such always, and He gave them laws and punished them for the breach of them, before He appeared to them at Horeb, so that could not be the original contract." And No. 174, Jan. 15. "This fancied Horeb contract made no alteration at all in their government. It remained just as it was before, and the end of that glorious and terrible appearance at Horeb was to confirm that government which God had already placed them under, that they might the more fear God and His servant Moses. "There were many miraculous in terpositions before that time, not only of wonders wrought, but as to the settlement of the government both in Church and State. The supreme civil government having been given to Moses, by the special command of God, not through any intervention or so much as recommendation of the people." No. 175, Jan. 18, 1706. "As to the people they are obliged to consent to whatever God commands them. If they will not consent they are rebels, and under His displeasure."] z [Rights, Introduction, § 4, sqq. pp. 3, &c.] a [See the Rehearsal, No. 55. Aug. 11, to Aug. 18, 1705. "Government is dependency, when one depends upon another. It is superiority, when one is superior and another inferior. Therefore they who would have the original of governments in the people are obliged to suppose a state of independency among all mankind, when no man in the world had any dependence on any other man, and when no man was superior to another. This they call the state of nature. And if such a state cannot be shewed their whole scheme falls to the ground. But they happened ill to call this the state of nature, among a race of mankind who came into the world by generation. . . . Therefore this supposed independent state of mankind must be looked for among the Præadamites. Or we must suppose a shower of men dropping out of the clouds, without fathers or mothers, all upon the level. Or, that men were created in multitudes like the beasts, birds, fish, and fowl." The argument is continued in the following Nos. See note p, p. 203, and note r, p. 204. 183 TION, &c. Revenues given to Priests by the Divine Law. discourse, hath been long since excellently solved by the DEPRIVAbishop of Sarum, in his Vindication of the Authority, Constitution, and Laws of the Church and State of Scotland", where his lordship distinguishes, like a learned casuist and civilian, between them; and there in a few pages, cited in the margin, our author may see his whole scheme, and all he hath erected upon it, overturned. Of Church revenues. What he hath said against annexing preferments to reli- SECT. X. gion, or settling revenues upon the clergy, or, as he hath a talent for invidious expressions, "of tacking the priests' preferments to such opinions," is a downright impeachment of the Divine wisdom, who annexed such large profits, and revenues in cities, lands, tithes, offerings, and other privileges upon the Jewish priesthood; of which Philod the Jew makes this observation: "That as to revenues, the law made the priests equal in honour and veneration to kings, which commanded the people to bring their tributes to them from all quarters, but in a different manner," saith he, "from that in which people pay tribute to kings, which they pay with compulsion and complaints, hating the gatherers of their taxes as public pests, and finding pretences not to pay them at the appointed times. But they never failed to pay the priests' dues, with such willingness and joy, without being asked, as if they rather were the receivers than givers; men and women b pp. 7-12. [The full title of this work is "a Vindication of the Authority, Constitution, and Laws of the Church and State of Scotland, in four conferences, by Gilbert Burnet, Professor of Theology in Glasgow." Glasgow, 1673. The passage referred to is, "To examine what you have said you must distinguish well betwixt the laws of nature and the rights or permissions of nature the first are unalterable obligations, by which all men are bound, which can be reversed by no positive law, and transgressed by no person upon no occasion. Now selfdefence cannot be a law of nature, otherwise it could never be dispensed with without a sin; nay were a man never so criminal. Forcible self-defence cannot be a law of nature, but only a right; otherwise we could not thus dispense with it."-p. 8.] с Rights, Introduction, pp. 17, 22, 28, 25. α [ἐξ ὧν ἁπάντων ἐστὶ δῆλον, ὁτὶ βασιλέων σεμνότητα καὶ τιμὴν περιάπτει τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν ὁ νόμος· ὡς γοῦν ἡγέ μοσι φόρους ἀπὸ παντὸς μέρους κτήσεως δίδοσθαι κελεύει· καὶ δίδονται τὸν ἐνάντ τιον τρόπον ἢ ὂν αἱ πόλεις τοῖς δυνάσ ταις εἰσφέρουσιν· αἱ μὲν γὰρ ἐξ ἀνάγκης καὶ μόλις, ἐπιστένουσαι, τοὺς ἐκλογεῖς τῶν χρημάτων ὡς κοινοὺς λυμεῶνας ὑποβλεπόμεναι, καὶ προφάσεις ἄλλοτε ἀλλοίας σκηπτόμεναι, καὶ τῶν προθεσμιῶν ἀλογοῦσαι, τὰ ὁρισθέντα τέλη καὶ δασμοὺς κατατιθέασιν· οἱ δ ̓ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἔθνους τὰ ἱερατικὰ γεγηθότες, χαίροντες, τοὺς αἰτοῦντας φθάνοντες, τὰς προθεσμίας ἐπιτέμοντες, λαμβάνειν ἀλλ ̓ οὐ διδόναι νομίζοντες, μετ ̓ εὐφημίας καὶ εὐχαρισ τίας καθ ̓ ἑκάστην τῶν ἐτησίων ὥρων ποιοῦντες τὰς εἰσφορὰς, ἄνδρες ὁμοῦ καὶ γυναῖκες, αὐτοκελεύστῳ προθυμίᾳ καὶ ἑτοιμότητι καὶ σπουδῇ παντὸς λόγου KрEITTOVI.-Philo Jud. de Præmiis Sacerdotum, Op., tom. ii. p. 234.] PREFAT. DISCOURSE, 184 Contrast of old and new schemes of religion. at the set anniversary times bringing their tithes and offerSECT. X. ings with such good presages, gratulations, and alacrity, as cannot be expressed." I wish he were as fit and worthy to read this tract, as it is worthy to be read by him and others; but no reading, no authority will make impressions upon men who envy priests their revenues, and write against them because they would share in the sacrilegious spoil of them, and who have the spite of infernal spirits against the Christian priesthood and Church. He saith", "hereafter" he will "fully prove,” that in the first ages "they subsisted by the alms of the people, and were in all other matters wholly dependent on them in their choice, as well as their alms." This and many other things we are to expect against the clergy from this formidable hereafter-book. Well, che venga, let it come; I hope the clergy are prepared for it; it will be morientis bestiæ ultimus morsus, the last hiss, I trust, of the old serpent, and then he will have done his worst. The Christians of old were but one society, one sect, which had one Faith, one Baptism for the remission of sins; one Lord Jesus, through whom they worshipped the one God; one visible head, or principle of unity in every Church, under the invisible Bishop of their souls, and High-Priest of their profession, the same Lord Jesus; one Catholic Communion in all places of the earth; one Priesthood, and one representative Sacrifice of memorial, SECT. XI. the bond of unity and peace in that one Communion. This, I hope, I have shewed in the following letters; but these men's new scheme of religions, if we may believe their speaker in his book of the Rights, is destructive of Christianity, as one society and one sect: for all the principles of religion that they are pleased to own is only the "being of a Godh and His providence," which he saith whosoever denies, "may not only be justly punished by the magistrate, but also by every one in the state of nature," upon supposition of which imaginary state nothing can be more absurd. But then as to the worship of God he saith', "All men are free to wor The new scheme. e Rights, c. vi. § 37. p. 219. [This second part, frequently promised in the Rights, (see above, end of note, p. 80,) was never published. The second volume of the edition of 1709 consists of defences of the first.] g Rights, Introduction, § 16-20. pp. 11-15. h Ibid., p. 12. i Ibid., pp. 14, 15. Tindal makes the magistrate unconcerned in religion. 185 ship Him according to their consciences, and after the man- k still in a state of nature, subject to God and their own consciences, without any sovereign to determine what they shall believe or profess," and "that the magistrate is bound to protect men in the way they choose of worshipping God, as in other indifferent matters." So that men, but why do I say men? for Christians, if they like it, are now free to worship God after the patriarchal, Jewish, or Mahometan manner, or any other way which may be devised of worshipping of Him, without Christ as well as with Him, altogether as well in a synagogue, or mosque, as in a Christian church; nay, they may if they please, worship God and particularly administer the Eucharist, after the impure Gnostical manner, (which I am ashamed to mention,) according to his wild scheme, which is erected on many absurdities and presumptions, as that "the magistrate hath no power about indifferent things; that men may form themselves into what companies, clubs, and meetings they please, which the magistrate" (he means the supreme magistrate), "as long as the public sustains no damage, cannot hinder without manifest injustice, and acting contrary to the end for which he is entrusted." Where he supposes what he should prove, that the people, and not the magistrate, is judge of public good and hurt, and that he is their trustee. It also involves a manifest contradiction; because if men, as to speculative matters of belief, are still in a state of natural freedom to believe and follow the dictates of their own consciences, then the atheist, who cannot believe the being and providence of God, ought to be free as to his conscience: for whether there is a God, and whether or no He minds human affairs, is a "speculative" point, and by consequence, he that after "impartial examination" cannot believe there is a God and providence, but thinks that belief false and superstitious, and that it is hurtful to mankind to possess them with such slavish fears, ought to have his natural freedom, and not to be THE NEW |