can be wiser and safer lodged than in the Care and Conduct of the King. The whole Government was by the People at first entrusted to no other Law but the confidence they had in the Love and Wisdom and Care and Conduct of their Princes And if it proved otherwise than they expected there was no remedy but Patience Ferenda sunt regum ingenia says Tacitus and perhaps much better than Parliamentorum Ingenia ut Sterilitas caetera naturae mala As unfruitful Seasons and other Evils of Nature we cannot help When the people of Israel asked of Samuel a King to judge them and to go out before them and fight their Battels like as all the other Nations had round about them Samuel told them what would be the manner of such a King as they desired like to the Kings of other Nations 1 Sam. 8.11 He will take your Sons and appoint them for himself for his Chariots and to be his horsemen and some shall run before his chariots 12. And he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest and to make instruments of war and instruments of his chariots 13. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and to be bakers 14. And he will take your fields and your vineyards and your olive-yards even the best of them and given them to his servants 15. And he will take the tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give them to his officers and to his servants 16. And he will take your men-servants and your maid-servants and your goodliest young men and your asses and put them to his works 17. He will take the tenth of your sheep and ye shall be his servants And ver 18. Ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you and the Lord will not hear you in that day This might be the manner of Kings you see even of Gods own allowing v. 22. And against whom 1 Sam. 23.6 Even David himself dare not stretch forth his Hand yet such a Government God protected and owned and was generally the manner of Kings both with the Israelites and all other nations Such Governments the Gospel found established generally over the world and to such Christ himself was subject and owned such as a legal Government by paying Tribute to Caesar To such Principalities and Powers St. Paul would have Christians put in mind to be subject and such Magistrates to obey And such as was then the Imperial Authority of the Romans it is more than probable was the manner of Government taken up and continued by such Princes into whose hands the several parts of the Empire were broken afterward As for our Princes of this Nation that they were not admitted to their Regal Authority by Compact with the People and on performance of Covenants or Laws to them to omit other Arguments at present has sufficient evidence that our Laws have been all along and are at this day impetrated from His Majesty by the humble Request and Petition of our Representatives in Parliament Bargains do not use to be driven but Favours begged in that precarious style The Kings of England will hereafter turn a deaf Ear to our Requests when they understand what we ask of them is by degrees to part with and steal away their Prerogative and by every new Law they Grant us to make themselves so much the less Kings It is no wonder that our Kings have been in these later days surprized they have not been aware of the Train laid to cause them to diminish their own Power and by little and little to Grant away their Crown and leave nothing but that which will almost of it self turn into a Common-Wealth This is a Mine underground in which there have been a long while and are now more Hands at Work than over before English-men have not heretofore wonted to be so disingenious toward their Princes and it can be for no good end that with such obdurate Stiffness some have hardned others against all compliance with His Majesty to the Repeal or but to endure the Suspension of a Law by which Himself and perhaps two parts in three of the Nation is incommoded and aggrieved and by parting with it no injury done by the rest while they know too in the mean time that it is all by His Indulgence and Favour that they have had or can have for the future the grant of such Laws as they want for their own Accommodation And that it is in His Power to hinder the Revocation or Repeal of the same Laws when we complain never so much of their Evil or Inexpediency It may come in the way of our Princes shrewdly to Retaliate this our Injustice towards Them as well as Ingratitude and Insensibleness of their Favours They are such Measures as we would not have meted to our Selves However it is and of Right ought to be in the Power of His Majesty to help Himself if we will not And that will appear from what I have said that our Laws are all Acts of Grace and Grant from our Kings Many of them are such whereby he has Graciously vouchsaf'd to divest Himself off and release the Subject from part of that Absolute and Arbitrary Power which the King had over us in those instances and wherein they complain'd and begg'd to be delivered of the uneasiness Others are Grants and Condescensions in complyance with us for the promoting our Good or averting the prospect of some publick Evil. In all which Grants as it is certain that as the King at present apprehended no evil to Himself by them for else he would not have granted them so when he admits them to pass into Laws it must be supposed with a Reservation of His Prerogative and a Power of Dispensing with them in all such Cases or Emergencies as they shall appear to be so afterward Especially in matters of so high concern wherein His Life either Temporal or Eternal is indangered I mean His Person or His Conscience And though with other lesser instances our Kings do for the most part Graciously bear for the quiet and content of the People yet in such as these they cannot they ought not to forbear the use of their Royal Prerogative With this Caution and Reservation Justinian notes the Laws granted to the People of Rome by himself and other his Predecessors Omnibus a nobis dictis Imperatoris excipiatur fortuna cui ipsas Deus leges Subjecit From all those before recited Laws says he the Fortune of the Emperor is to be excepted for to that the Divine Providence over Princes has subjected the Laws themselves This therefore take along with you as a thing of most remarkable Note That for as much as the King is as it were the Vitals the Soul and Centre of the whole Body Politique whatever does tend to the
indangering the Safety of His Person the retrenching His Power the violating His Honour or His Conscience is to be judged of like Malign Influence on all there can be no Salus Corporis where there is not Salus Capitis And therefore the like Security to be provided for it if need be by the like extraordinary Remedies That is to say by the Prerogative out of the common Rode of Parliamentary Proceedings Dispensing in the mean time with the Obligation of all such Laws as stand in the way of this otherwise insuperable Difficulty and suspending the Penalties of them till a fitting Season for a Convention of Parliament to take farther Order Now at such a Dispensing Power and in such Circumstances some especially of the Church of England are highly offended They will not be subject to it though it be clear as the Dictates of Right Reason can make it And not against Law as they suggest for it is founded upon the Supremest Law the most Sacred and Fundamental Law of all Nations which is as I said Salus Populi I mean of the Body together with the Head for which in such Junctures he who would reject this is to be intreated that he would first enlighten the World with a Discovery of some safer and wiser Expedient in its stead And yet with how much Moderation and Princely Clemency and Tenderness and especially towards the Church of England does His Majesty exert this His necessary Prerogative at this time Such as I think might have more especially obliged them above others to an Address of Thanks among the rest of His grateful Subjects Bona si sua norint Well having thus far cleared a Necessity of such a Trust as we call Prerogative in the King to be lodged somewhere as a Provision against such Contingencies in all wisely-constituted and not self-confounding Societies What remains now is to vindicate His Majesty in the Use and Exercise of it at this time as necessary 1. For the Preservation of Himself And 2. For the Common Good of All. 1. For Himself with respect to the Preservation especially of His Person and His Conscience from outward Violence But first of His Person That His Majesty Himself in His Person with whose Safety the whole Government and the Publick Good is so complicate was and would still be in apparent danger if His Prerogative had not interposed with a Suspension of some of the formerly established Laws is a thing of which any Man may be convinced who is not resolved otherwise What is the Support and Safety of a Prince especially surrounded with a multitude of Enemies but Power to suppress them by more or at least equal Numbers Now let any Man take the Measures of His Majesties Power and Numbers at the time of His coming to the Succession of the Crown with proportion to the Number and Power of those who had given Him just Reason to suspect and fear them as His Enemies who had always been before His Brothers Enemies His Fathers Enemies had taken away the Life of the one and narrowly missed the Destruction of the other and that but upon Jealousie of their Inclination much more bitter Enemies to His Majesty upon the Declaration of Himself and publickly owning the Roman Catholique Religion Alas His whole Strength except that of the Almighty God what was it but a few Roman Catholiques added to the Loyal of the Church of England If it had been the whole Church of England we know how few they were in respect of the Shoales of the Factious and Discontented How often had they been over-powered and baffled by them in the Election of Knights Burgesses Sheriffs of the City c. and no way able to support their Interest against them with their whole Strength But how great a Defalcation of that is to be made from those who adhered to His Majesty may be computed from the small Number of those in the House of Commons who stood with Him against the Exclusion-Bill on the one Side And from the no small Number of those of the Church of England who were divided from the Loyal in that Traiterous Practice of supplanting Him by the Intrusion of the unhappy Duke of Monmouth into the Succession on the other Side And though indeed many of the Excluding Members recovered their Honour and their Loyalty in the first Session of His Majesties Parliament when they declared their adhering to him with their Lives and Fortunes against the Pretensions and Practices of the Rebels yet could they not lay again the Spirit they had Conjur'd up the common People I mean so generally prejudic'd by their Exclusion-Vote that notwithstanding His Majesties almost Miraculous Success and Victory over them in the West they still persisted in the Alienation of their Minds from their Lawful Prince and no corner of the whole Nation but was stuffed full of them who were content to beleive the Duke of Mommouth yet alive and that they should have another day to try their Fortunes against his Majesty in Rebellious Armes Against this multitude nevertheless he doubted not but to support Himself and His Crown by uniting His Catholick Subjects into one State-interest with those of the Church of England neither of them alone being sufficient to make any considerable Balance To this purpose in the next Session of Parliament he moved that to have the benefit and Service of all His Loyal Subjects and that none of them might be under any disability for the future that they would joyn with him in a Repeal of certain Acts of Parliament made in the 25 and 30 of Carol. 2. whereby certain Oaths and Tests and Subscriptions were required to be made and taken of such as were admitted into any publick imployment The Consideration of the Seate of things and Circumstances of His Majesties Affaires together with their Loyalty so signally shewed in the former Session of Parliament made Him believe He should not be denied what to Him seemed so reasonable and necessary for the preservation of Himself and all But instead of that all He could obtain was no more than an Indemnity of what was past for which they expected to be thanked of those Catholicks who had merited so much from His Majesty and the whole Nation by their signal Service against the Rebels in the West Which was an Answer so surprizing to His Majesty as he told them he did not expect from such a Parliament So that His Majesties Measures being broken here and finding himself by this defeat of his Expectation much weaker and the Power and Confederacy of his Enemies stronger And the Laws which should in the first place preserve him as the Centre of the publick good barring him of his just and sufficient Defence He is forced by his Prerogative to provide for his own safety and His Friends and to suspend the force of such Laws as stood in the way of it till the Nation should be better disposed to take a right understanding of the
abrogate them he can in time of necessity Govern by the Laws of Reason without any written Law and he is Judge of the necessity and in all this he warrants him as the Canon does by the Power which the Kings of Judah had and in the later end of that Chapter says that this Prerogative of Kings is not against Law but by Law and that the Laws themselves imply so much and have given this leave The same Loyal Bishop in the said Treatise further notes the great submission which the Bishops of Rome themselves made to the Imperial Laws and that even when they liked them and when they lik'd them not and of all most material says he is the Obedience of St. Gregory the Great to Mauritius the Emperor who made a Law that no Soldier should turn Monk without his leave This St. Gregory esteem'd to be an impious Law he modestly admonished the Emperor of the irreligion of it But Maurice nevertheless commanded him to publish that Law. The good Bishop knew his Duty obeyed his Prince sent it up and down the Empire and gave this account of it Vtrobique quae debui exolvi qui Imperat ri obedientiam praebui pro Deo quod sensi minimè tacui I have done both my Duties I have declared my Mind for God and have paid my Duty and Obedience to the Emperor Ductor Dubit Vol. 3. Lib. 2. p. 176. This that Learned and Loyal Bishop remarks as a president to Guide and Govern Church-men in the like Cases And by the way we may note upon the Story that in those days when St. Gregory publish'd an Edict of the Emperor's which to him seemed impious Reading was not thought to be Teaching If you reply that the model and measures of our Government are different and will not admit of so high a Prerogative in our Princes as was exercised in those unbounded and absolute Monarchies What! not in Causes Ecclesiastical Was it well done then of the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of our Church in Convocation to run the parallel of that Obedience we owe to His Majesty in Causes Ecclesiastical up to the height of what was used by the Godly Kings among the Jews and Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church and to hold him Excommunicate ipso facto Whosoever should affirm the contrary and not restored but only by the Archbishop after his Repentance and publick Revocation of those his wicked Errors And had not you better have held your peace than on this occasion to have medled with the Constitution of the Church of England to which you have subscribed I think this a time to have been more reserved 2. Your Second Reason wherefore we cannot Consent and consequently not Read follows Because it is to Teach an unlimited and universal Toleration which the Parliament in 72 Declared illegal and which has been condemned in the Christian Church in all ages How well you have reasoned from the Constitution of the Church of England in such points of it as relate to this matter let others Judge Your next proof is drawn from the Civil Constitution with Respect to the Parliament of England that says it is illegal How the Parliament of England Where are the Three Estates Where the King Did all these Declare it illegal I wonder you will so much reproach the Clergy of England with whom you deal in this Discourse as to think them such as may be shammed again with the old Wheadle of 41. No no Sir we know enough and have felt enough and too lately yet to forget it of such Parliaments as would have their Votes and Ordinances Obligatory to the Subject without the Assent and Authority of the King And yet this is the Authority and the best you have to alledge or say for yourself in justification of your Disobedience and Opposition to His Majesty in this Affair The Parliament say you in 72. Declared it illegal What then What is the Parliaments Declaration to us in this or in any other matter so as to make it illegal ever the more without the King Is this after the Constitution of a Monarchical Government Does not a pretence to such a Power in a Parliament without the concurrent Authority of the King subvert the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom But I assure myself that they in that matter assumed not to themselves such a Power as your Letter would give them Why may not a Vote of the House of Lords and Commons in 41. the King dissenting be as good an Authority as one in 72. the King dissenting On the same grounds you may as well determine against the Kings Soveraign and his Negative Voice as his dispensing Power For it was then resolved and while they were yet a legal Parliament as that in I mean that of 41. That the Sovereign Power resides in both Houses and that the King ought to have no Negative Voice Resolved also That whatsoever they Declared to be Law ought not to be questioned by the King. But to these Votes the King never gave his Assent wherefore they signifie nothing to us but the Opinion of those men at that time The Sovereign Power and the Negative Voice and the Authority of Declaring what is Law and what is not Law standing where it did before for all their Declaring otherwise then or the Parliament in 72. Declaring afterward But I humbly conceive as I said before that the Parliament in 72. never meant to extend their Vote to the Uses you have made of it in your Letter The worst which can be made of it is no more than that the Question being at that time moved about the Dispensing Power in the King they shewed their Judgment but left the matter remaining undertermin'd For you must know it was no more than the Opinion and not the Sentence of Illegality which was passed on the King's Dispensing Power at that time They knew well enough that to be an Unparliamentary proceeding and that they had no Authority to drive that business so far without the joynt Concurrence of the King only it is some Mens presumption or ignorance to give them more Where there is a matter of Question or Doubt between the King and the Parliament the House of Lords or the House of Commons or both having by the King's leave the liberty of free speaking there may give their Judgment by passing a Vote so as to incline to their Opinion and obtain the Kings if they can to a Consent and Concurrence with them but not so as to bind the Subject or to defend them in their Disobedience to the King In the mean time till the matter be more Legally and Authentically according to the Fundamental Laws and Constitutions of this Kingdom determined which can be no otherwise than with the joynt consent of the King and His two Houses of Parliament together Till then however problematically illegal the thing is not Authoritatively illegal and so however shaken by the Opinions of some Great
Persons yet still left standing within the Verge of the King's Command and the Subjects Obedience For by the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom and by a natural Allegiance to our Sovereign and Union to him as Members to our Politique Head we are bound to obey the King not only in all instances Legal but in all matters not Illegal Of which nature are all things neither forbidden by God nor by such Persons as have the sufficient and plenary Authority to do the same according to the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of this Monarchy And of that nature is the Dispensing Power which the Kings of England have always claimed to have over the Laws of their own or of their Predecessors Enacting in all such Emergencies as with the change of Times and Circumstances they become destructive and noxious as first and principally to the Head so to the other parts which make up together with Himself the whole Body Politique It is ordinary for some discontented Persons discountenanced at Court displaced from Office defeated in their Expectations c. to draw a Parry along with them or to sute themselves to one formed to their hands and by these especially in Parliaments to shew their resentments by their perverseness and crossness to the King's Affairs which nevertheless may be and are for the most part frustrated without any considerable detriment to the Publick through the wise Constitution of this Kingdom which soon leaves these weak and spiteful Efforts to turn to nothing but froth and bubble wanting the Support and Authority of the Royal Assent But how disingenious and disagreeing to Men especially of our Order is it to rake into the ashes of such long since departed Feuds and Factions and to raise up again what Time and Oblivion had buried to serve us in this Cause against the King. If we measure and form our Obedience by such Precedents and make such Votes of Parliament serve instead of Laws when our Interest wants them What hints will others be apt to take from our examples and perhaps when they want a better Reason for their Disobedience to remember the King of that Vote of Parliament which Declared The Legality of excluding Him from the Inheritance and Succession to the Crown Or that which Declared All those to be reputed and taken as Enemies to Parliaments who should lend the King any Money And yet suchas this is the best Authority you produce for us to depend upon and to justifie our present manage against His Majesty before God and the World. Well what is it then the Parliament as you call it in 72. Declared illegal Why an Vniversal and Vnlimited Toleration you say was that all The extent and latitude of the Indulgence then Granted against which they excepted I believe it was rather the Authority on which it was founded if an Universal and Unlimited Toleration be all against which you except From whom or what part of the Dissenters would you have His Majesty withdraw his Indulgence to make it ever the more Legal on your Principle to the rest I doubt your Parliament of 72. would not have thanked you for this But let that pass among your other Inconsistencies with yourself into which I perceive you often unwarily fall Whatever was done then here I am sure His Majesty by express words in the Declaration is so far from excluding His Parliament from their share either in the Authority of passing it into a Law or of the Wisdom and Council to be used within what Latitude or Limits to bound it as he refers all to the Concurrence of His two Houses in Parliament As for the Universality and Unlimitedness of the Toleration if that so much offend you and that you and your Parliament of 72. place all your Illegality of the King's Indulgence there I hope you will have content with a little patience there shall be no Toleration of Vice of Blasphemy and Immorality and Profanation of the Lords day as I hear some complain there is none I am sure intended now However the Toleration at present is to be accounted on that score but in the nature of an Interim or Suspension as the State of things will permit till such a meeting of the King with his Parliament for a further Regulation But this Reason is not done with yet for such a Toleration is not only declared Illegal by the Parliament of 72 but condemned by the Church in all Ages I wonder Sir how you come so Heterogenously here to yoke together the Parliament of 72 and the Christian Church of all Ages I should have thought that would have sorted better with a part of it self the Church of England Sir do you know of any unkindness between them that having in your first Reason so fair an occasion to have brought them in and have set them down by our own Church as both agreeing in the same Sentiment You have rather chose to place them in the Parliament of 72 as if they were Members of that but that I could forgive you if you had not proceeded with Representing them Falsly to have condemned such a Toleration in all Ages as the King has Granted by His present Declaration If you did but use your self a little more to Think before you Write it would have been obvious to you from the account the Scriptures give of the First Age that you had stumbled at the Threshold Our Saviour himself the Head of the Church gave an early check to that manner of Spirit As for the descending Ages of the Church I have given you under the Head of your first Reason some account how matters stood in the Age of Constantine with respect to Toleration and refer you further to other Pens who have industriously treated on this Subject and have sufficiently shewed your Error If you mean that the Christian Church in all Ages did never so Tolerate Dissenters from Her declared Doctrines as not to note and discover them and expose them to her Anathema's I grant you all this In Gods Name let not the Church spare Her Censures The Declaration pretends not to take from them any thing of their own I mean their Spiritual Power but only to Suspend such Temporal Penalties as belong to him only to inflict Which is a thing so far from being condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages that the first three Ages were merely Passive themselves and as in no disposition so in no condition to inflict Temporal Penalties upon others In the three following Ages indeed when the Emperors themselves became Christians they had not only the favour and protection of the Laws for themselves but the Civil Sword also sometimes turned upon their Adversaries but this was precarious only and of special Grace and Favour for which they were Thankful and not pretended a standing and unalterable Law by which Princes were bound to it whether they would or no and with whatsoever hazard of their Persons disturbance of their Governments or regret to
event is evidently cast upon him From what has been said on this Head First with respect to that Conspiracy you see the necessity of the King 's asserting His Honour by His Prerogative at this time seeing we do yet so tenaciously hold our Resolution of retaining such Laws nevertheless for the reflections from them on His Majesties Honour and the evil consequences of that upon His Government Another reflection on His Majesties Honour for the preserving of which he is constrained to make use of His Dispensing Power and particularly against that established Law called the Test is this That in the using of it and so long as it continues and so often as occasion returns for the iterating of it His Majesty is inferred and publiquely marked for an Idolater Which odious Inference so perpetually injected into the Minds of the Mobile it cannot but beget in them an Aversation from His Majesty and an Alienation of the Affections of His Liege People making them turbulent uneasie and unmanageble by the Government You may say perhaps we cannot help that People will think as they list It 's true but in the mean time I think according to the maxims of Government it is neither politique nor decent that the Laws themselves should set a Brand upon the King and administer Fuel to their Fire Though the People will not be Tongue ty'd yet the Laws may and ought if as I said they will be consistent with themselves for that were a contradiction so severely to censure whatever does alienate from the King the Affections of His Liege People at one time and yet admit and encourage it at another can such Laws Honour the King as the Scriptures have commanded which do constrain all Men before they can be capable of serving His Majesty aloud and in open Courts of Justice every where dispersed over the whole Nation and with the Sanction of a Sacrament to declare their abhorrence and renunciation of certain Doctrines and Tenets of Religion by which they do infer His Majesty to be a gross Idolater which Doctrines they nevertheless know at the same time as by our King so by most of the Princes of the Christian World to be conscientiously owned and professed What higher contempt affront and dishonour can there be put upon a King by His Subjects and still higher That His own Authority shall be forced to justifie and encourage and give them only Rewards and Honors and Offices for so doing and to exclude all others who think it becomes them to be more modest and in such a matter to suppress their censure and keep their Sentiment to themselves If His Majesty should require of us with all this Solemnity to Declare that we believed the worship of the Host Invocation of Saints c. to be no Idolatry and that consequently neither himself nor any of His Church and Communion were Idolaters in so doing what less opposition and clamour of Popery could we make than we do now when His Majesty only desires that we would take the liberty of Thinking Discoursing also modestly what we list ourselves in this matter so we would not force others to make a publick Declaration of it and solemnly to Swear to it too who perhaps are not so satisfied in the thing or if they are think it no good manners to His Majesty to do it at this time The King would not exclude us but admit all His good Subjects indifferently to His Service and His Favour nay the very Roman Catholicks shall not be capable of the like Places and Offices but as they shall be bound and disabled from doing any injury to others or infringing the least Liberty Advantage or Honor of Protestants But by His Laws whether He will or no to constrain Him to admit no other Persons about Him none to attend in His Houshould none to Serve Him in the Ministring of publick Affairs but such as have taken such Oaths as imply Him to be an Idolater Shall he have no other Objects when ever he lift up His Eyes or which way soever he look but such as may stir up in Him a regreting remembrance of the constraint we put upon Him and our ill usage of Him These are things not to be endured by Blesh and Blood I am confident no Gentleman in England could be content to make it His own case nor will they I hope when they more nearly look into the thing and see what evil consequences it is likely to produce Censure His Majesty for using His Power of Dispensing with such Laws till a fit time for the Convention of Parliament and that the rather for that His Majesty Declares His willingness to concur with them there to the establishing any other Law equivalent in its stead which without those oblique wipes upon His Majesties Religion His Honour and His Conscience may be as effectual to secure us in the profession of our Religion as that we enjoy And not only His Honour but his Life also may be in danger from this Insinuation There being no small number of zealous Protestants some of which I have met with holding Idolatry to be a Crime punishable with Death by Christian Magistrates and some worse than that that every Mans Hand is to be upon them to put them to Death that their Eye is not to pity or spare so much as an Inticer to Idolatry though our own Father or Mother c. This is said in Vindication of the dispensing Power His Majesty now uses as necessary for the Preservation of His Person His Conscience and his Honour And though as I said what concerns His Majesties and the common good are so interwoven as the publick must have sustained a very great Evil if not a probable Ruine and Dissolution of the Government by any Rebellious or violent attempt on His Person so Naked and Defenceless as we would have left Him and that His Majesty by these Measures saves His Person His Conscience and His Honour Yet since His Majesty has been pleased in His Declaration to justifie the exerting of His Prerogative at this time not only on the account of Himself but of many other advantages which may thence accrew to His People I shall desire you to consider them also as they stand commended to us in the Declaration it self and with those further enlargements on that subject lately published from other Excellent Pens to which I refer you And go on to the next Reason on the account of which a Minister of the Church of England cannot according to you Consent to the Declaration In which and the rest that follow I may be short for I reckon the business of your Letter is done If I have cleared in all wisely constituted Societies the Reason and Necessity of a Power dispensing with the established Laws in some extraordinary Cases without which the publick Good which is the main end of all Laws and Governments cannot be secured at all times That some body must be trusted
Moral Certainty be grounded upon that It seems you were before aware of this Retort and you think fit to grant it in these words which follow which are by way of Question Whether the King cannot keep his Promise to the Church of England if the Test and Penal Laws be repealed To which your self make answer You cannot say but this may be so that you grant as Moral a Certainty on this side as on the other But the Kings Moral Certainty is not to be believ'd though yours must But for Reasons wherefore you are wont to be sparing where the Matter pinches but if we will take your Word there are some very substantial ones behind the Curtain Wherefore as you say the Nation does not think fit to try it and we commend the great Men who deny it If we will take such Reasons as you think fit to make show of at present why here they are The King is an Immoral Man and therefore no Moral certainty of what otherwise might be possible enough in it self The King professes an Immoral Religion and he converses with a sort of Immoral Men called Jesuits who can presently furnish him with a Salvo for his inclination to forget his promise to the Church of England Is not this to make the matter almost as evident a Demonstration as you promis'd us Why Sir I confess this is a young Phoenix Argument sprung out of the Ashes of that old one said to be of the Earl of Shaftburies which was burnt by the hand of the Common Hangman We must have a King we can trust And the Nobility and Gentry are called to take notice of it and to be supposed they go on the same ground Nay the whole Nation do not think fit to try it you say And all must be thanked the Nobility and Gentry especially most tenderly treated and their Ears by no means grated with this Declaration which may discourage provoke or misguide them from their opposition to the King on this account and then we are finally ruin'd indeed Now if the Church of England can be beholding to you for furnishing her Ministers with an Argument against the Kings Declaration which smells so rank of the Hangman I am mistaken in her which I am sure I am not among those who are Israelites indeed Wherefore I think it needless to spend any more words about it But having made sure of the Nobility and Gentry as you would have us think Now but a word to the Wife and you have done and that is to the Dissenters Who say you are so wise and considering as out of our opposition to the King on this Proposal to smell in us something of a persecuting spirit Well how shall the Matter be handled then that they be not provoked for there is no Policy in that at this time of the day however we have provoked them heretofore The Dissenters you say whom we ought not to provoke will expound our not reading to be the effect of a persecuting spirit Then it seems not reading is teaching too as well as reading what you will for that But how shall we split the hair between the Nobility and Gentry on the one side and the Dissenters on the other If we can draw both to to our side nothing can resist us To disoblige the Nobility and Gentry were more fatal indeed as you say than to anger the Dissenters But they are numerous and rich there is no parting with them at this time neither some cunning and fineness must be used then to bring over the Dissenters to the Confederate Army for God's sake what is the meaning of all this Plotting and Projecting and making Leagues and Alliances and mustering our Forces Where 's the Enemy May a Man venture to peep his Head over the Wall to see this same Hanibal ad portas which comes threatning thus with Fire and Fagot to discharge our new Alliance the Dissenters From all Pains Penalties Forfeitures Imprisonments by them or any of them incurred or forfeited or which they shall or may at any time hereafter be liable to by reason of their Nonconformity or the exercise of their Religion and from all Suits Troubles or Disturbances for the same And as for our selves there is no more mercy to be looked for at his hands than for our Brethren the poor Dissenters For all our Archbishops Bishops Clergy and all other of the Church of England in the first place Alas they must be every Scul of them protected and maintained in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law establish'd and in the full and quiet enjoyment of all their Possessions without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever It is time one would think to project a way of joyning the Church of England and the Dissenters to keep one another For these Dissenters are wise and considering Men and they are sensible of themselves that all this is but Anguis in Herbâ a mere Trap a Gin a pitfall And although they desire Ease and Liberty they are not willing to have it with such apparent hazard of Church and State. Let them but stay their longing a while for when there is but the first opportunity of shewing our inclinations without danger they will find that we are not such Persecutors as we have been represented Where then and what has been the danger that no such Inclinations have appeared toward the Dissenters these twenty eight years back Have not our Protestant Princes as well as this been always oppos'd in their Inclinations to any such Indulgence King Charles the Second made them a Promise of it at Breda he made several Intimations of that Promise in future Parliaments and how his Honor lay at stake but met with no Inclination in us unless it were to lay on more lode And after when that gracious Prince was fain to breake from us by main force and upon his own Prerogative issue out his promised Indulgence he could have no peace with us again nor any compliance with him in his other Affairs of State till we almost compelled him to a Revocation And yet what manner of Men should the Dissenters see we are towards them if we had but opportunity But now you say there is danger yes now we have carried our selves so as to apprehend danger to our selves there comes an opportunity for cokesing the Dissenters to help us to turn the danger upon the King and they must be made to believe they are in the saddest danger now that ever they were who in truth were never so much out of it for above twenty years past nor in such probability of shaking off the fear of any such danger for the future if they are not seduced and infatuated to be unthankful to their gracious King and wanting to themselves Now the reason wherefore I call the Dissenters to look back upon our Inclinations towards them is not to censure the Wisdom and Honor of those Parliaments which made such Laws against Dissenters