the late King's moderation in the matter which is That having consulted the Judges and others Learned in the Law and finding them not only ready to countenance the Vndertaking but assuring him he had a Power of Dispensing with the Penalties of those Statutes he might therefore lawfully exercise that Power so confidently declared in him To this I say that thô it should be granted that such a Dispensing Power had been vested in him yet it cannot be denyed but that it was accompanied with a Trust not to make use thereof but for the Good of his People and it can never be made out that what he did was so so long as the preservation of the Protestant Religion is the great Interest of the Nation This Answer supposes the King acting according to Law but if we take the Case as it really was we shall find that the Long Robe did not make the King of their pretended Opinion but that he made them of his which is plain by the many Removes he made on the Benches before he could get a Sett for his purpose and then the famous Judgment so much insisted on was such a piece of pageantry as was never acted in Westminster-Hall The Judges may deny as they do that they knew who was Plantiff or that he wore the Defendant's Livery or that the Defendant or Graham paid the Fees of both sides but herein their luck was very bad to be ignorant of what few of the Nation were But supposing this the dispatch they made was very extraordinary for it was obvious to all Men of Sence as well as Law that the Case was of some consequence and deserved more than a short Vacations Consideration and more Arguments than one and if what a late Author tells us be true and one that had any regard to his Credit could scarce publish a Lye in so notorious a matter and so easie to be disproved the Court denied to hear Mr. Wallop argue the Case for which Sir Edward Herbert makes no excuse in his Book neither could he if it be true But what further clears the matter beyond all dispute is that in delivering the Judgment they carried the matter further then the necessity of the Case before them required which amongst Lawyers always lessens the Authority of such Resolutions but I forbear entring on the Legal part of this Controversie because it has already been done and is not within the Task I have undertaken The rest of this Page is taken up in magnifying the late King's kindness to the Church of England in assuring them all their Rights and the sole Injoyment of their Dignities Offices and Benefices thereto belonging and that no Persons were presented to any Ecclesiastical Dignities belonging to the Hierarchy but Members of the Church Something has been already said to the kindness designed for the Church in general and more shall be said when we consider the Author's Objections in the mean time it is sufficient to say we have heard of the Reproaches thrown by him on the Church where in one of his kind fits to Alsop he threatned Ours should be the last Church to which he would turn And that we know not whether Sam. Oxon or his Brother of Chester should be accounted of our Church but if they were we know no difference between imposing such Men and professed Papists on us That we look upon the Preferments in our Universities to be of great concern to our Church yet there we find Obadiah Walker a great Ruler and a whole swarm at Magdalen-Colledge If theirs were not Ecclesiastical Preferments what had our late Ecclesiastical Commissioners to do with them though they deprived the Fellows as Visitors yet sure their incapacitating Decree was by vertue of their Ecclesiastical Supremacy Next we find our Author giving some instances of the late King's with-drawing his Protection from the Church of England which he modestly calls one Objection instead of many For the clearing whereof he tells us That as soon as the King published his Declaration for Indulgence there presently began a great ferment in the Nation and that the Roman Catholicks finding the Church of England imbittered against them he means unwilling to submit to the Romish Yoke which our Forefathers were not able to bear they fell a Caressing the Dissenters vainly supposing them the most powerful Interest of the Nation All that I shall observe from hence is That this procedure exactly follows their old measures in keeping up the Divisions amongst Protestants they had not forgotten the Old saying Divide impera But I have not seen the end of keeping up these differences so plainly owned by any of the Party as by our Author who says plainly That when the Church of England would not serve their turn they joyned with the Dissenters in confidence that in conjunction with them they had the most powerful interest of the Nation which I always looked upon as the true reason of the Indulgence when I reflected on the time when we were blessed with it it was then that the generality of the Dissenters were better satisfied with the Church than ever they had been they were then fully satisfied the Church had no inclination or warping towards Popery so that it was really timed so as to blast the fair hopes we had of a perfect Union amongst our selves From hence let us learn how to regard such as promote the old or any new difference amongst us for let the Pretensions be never so plausible the Design is to weaken us by dividing us which hopes are not quite dead in the Author as we may imagine by his attributing all that was done against any Member of the Church os England to their struggle with the Dissenter I am confident the Bishop of London and the Fellows of Magdalen know where to place it better viz. to their struggle with the Papists which is plain if we consider the time when these things happened the Bishop of London's Persecution began the 14th of July 86 that being the Date of the King's Letter to him and his first Appearance was on the 4th of August following and the King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience was not until the 4th of April after so that it is impossible to ascribe what was done to this Member of the Church to any struggle with the Dissenter occasioned by the Declaration of Liberty and how the business of Magdalen should be attributed to that I cannot see when the Letter in behalf of Farmer bore date the day after the Indulgence it was of a mighty force if it could set the Nation so soon in a ferment as the Author says it did and Alban Francis's Letter bore date the 7th of March before the Indulgence on which Dr. Peachell was deprived so that our Author must either mean that these were no Members of the Church of England or what is as ridiculous that there was nothing done against them or his Proposition is false that the Dissenters
regulation of Corporations shewed them but little respect with many other things of this sort that might be mentioned I am sorry the Author's indiscretion should have forced me to give so many instances of that Man's failings he fancied had all that could be wished and do now leave it to you and all indifferent persons to judge whether the Author has made out his first Proposition of King James's good intentions The second Proposition laid down by our Author is That the late King's designs were totally frustrated but whether by ignorance or treachery or both is not worth while to examine In his discourse on this Head he mentions several over fights in the then Ministers of State but instead of four he should have given us many more wherewith I will not trouble my self at present my design being to Answer his Book not to Mend it I will therefore hasten to the third Proposition which is That our condition in respect of our Laws Liberties and Properties is now worse than it was or was like to have been under King James In the handling whereof our Author pretends to consider the several Grievances we laboured under in King James his time as they are summed up in the Declaration of the 12th of February last which filled up our vacant Throne and that he will draw the Parallel between the late and present Times impartially This I must confess is a very proper method for his design which is all the good I can say of the undertaking I will follow him through the several Articles as laid down and hope plainly to demonstrate the malice and false glosses of all he says and if that be well done I think little more need be said in Confutation of the rest of the Book The first Article is That King James did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom the other Articles are only the means which he used to this end In answer to which he says The late King aimed at nothing but Liberty to all sorts of Dissenters and that Roman Catholicks might have their share of ease 2. That few Converts were made in his time 3. And that having armed his Roman Catholicks in his last extremity they did not amount to the fortieth part of his Army nor to the 300 fighting Men in his Kingdom therefore they could afford him small assistance 4. That the Church flourished in his time many Dissenters being then brought into its Communion 5. That now the Church of England and Episcopacy is in danger if Protestancy be not as appears by the late Act of Toleration wherein Turcism is not excepted though Popery be 6. That Episcopacy is abolished in Scotland and they have a Party in the Convention here endeavouring the same thing 7. That we have lost the Doctrine of our Church-Loyalty and Non-resistance 8. That we have seen a total Abolition of the Laws for we have changed the Hereditary Monarchy into an Elective one and destroyed all Government by declaring an Original Power in the People This with some scandalous and unjust Reflections on his present Majesty to which I will not give so much countenance as an Answer is the substance of what he says on the first Article which for Method's sake I have sub-divided into eight Particulars to each of which I will propose some Considerations except to the first of which I have said so much already that it is needless to say more But that if the late King had been as our Author says Master of the Wisdom we could have wished him he would never have done so many mean harsh and superstitious things for no purpose whatsoever unless it were to hinder what our Author says he only designed From hence I think we may strongly conclude that he designed more than Ease for Roman Dissenters To the second no body would have said that few Converts were made in his time that did not wish them more Was there any Order of Men amongst us free Some of the Nobility in all the three Kingdoms some of our Clergy Lawyers Souldiers and of all other ranks had actually declared and it is too much to be feared that many waited only for the Repeal of the Penal Laws though they cared not for their Souls nor stood in awe of Damnation yet they dreaded the Statute against being reconciled But then if their Numbers were but small the fault was not the King 's for he made the full use of the Arguments in his Power discountenancing the stedfast and rewarding those that came over to him the Great Seals of two of the Three Kingdoms were in such hands and surely England will not brag much of their Protestant Chancellor to go to Mass was the certain way to Preferment as might be instanced in many particulars and we cannot forget what took the Treasurer's Staff from the Earl of Rochester To the third That the Papists of Fngland are not the 300th fighting Man I will not dispute but that they were not the 40th Man of the late Army is certainly false if he had told us in plain English that there was but one or two of them in a Company all persons that had been conversant in the places where they were Quarter'd would have known the contrary therefore he chose other words and yet says the same thing which is plain when we consider that our Companies consisted of about 50 Men but for easiness of computation we will allow them to be 60 which by our Author's proportion is only three Papists to two Companies I might here mind our Author that the Irish Army was Papist which multiplied by 40 had made an Army big enough for the Great Mogull But I will yield that our Author did not include the Irish Army when he made the 40th Man the proportion of Papist and yet they ought not to be forgotten when we are speaking of King James's Popish Forces But his Expression being That the Papists armed in his last extremity were not the 40th part of his Army The Party that came from Ireland in October 88 must be included or he was not then or afterwards in extremity Now supposing no Papists in his Army before and that Party being at least 3000 by the Author's Rule of proportion his Army ought to have consisted of 120000 Men but his Army was not so great and the Papists of it more so that another estimate of them must be taken if we throw away the cypher and read a 4th instead of a 40th part I believe we shall be nearer the matter But since that and a much greater force was not sufficient to enslave this Nation we must conclude he had other Tools Forreign or Domestick to carry on the Cause To the fourth That the Church flourished in the late King's time if our Author means that we had many good and learned Men then in it I must grant it but then it must be granted to me that he
Council and put them upon some difficulty and that there was no expedient to be found but either to acquit or commit them This seems strange and is not only a reflection on the Lawyers of the Board but on those learned Gentlemen that were attending for surely none of the four were so ignorant they could have told the King you may and ought to dismiss them for this time with a Reprimand and acquaint them that as soon as the Term comes which was not far off an Information should be exhibited against them for their Seditious Libel and that if they did not appear to answer the same Process would issue against them those that had been Chief Justices of that Court and the King's Council knew this very well but that did not answer their ends they were in hast and by this method the Term might have been spent without any Tryal And what is more they would not have known how to have avoided the Archbishop's Presence to the affair they were to have in hand soon this looks so like their Politicks that it finds greater belief than any positive proof we have for it deserves The next Assertion is That the Bishop's Tryal was managed favourably and that over-sights were committed in the want of proof and suffering the dispencing Power to be so fully argued These were certainly over sights but they were such as were not to be remedied by any diligence and should have been considered before the Prosecution was resolved on for it was obvious to the meanest capacity that the Bishops would make that defence but their rage blinded them in more particulars than our Author mentions else they had never forgotten that the Archbishop was not at White hall or that he had not done any Act in the County where they laid their Venue I formerly mentioned their want of proof of the publishing and I might here add those other ingredients of a Libel Falsity and Malice had they not been transported with Rage or something more extravagant could they hope that twelve English-men would believe it unlawful to Petition the King had not their former success with Juries been great they would never have attempted so extravagant a thing With what patience the late King endured the rejoycing at the Bishop's acquittal I know not but it would seem by the Proceedings of his Ecclesiastical Commissioners and their Order of the 12th of July to all the Chancellors of the Kingdom to return them the Names of all such of our Clergy as did not Read the King's Declaration on the 16th day of August following that he was not resolved to let the matter end so and though the Jury had acquit them he had a Sett of Commissioners that knew better the sin of disobeying his Majesty's Commands and if destruction had not come suddenly upon them it is not to be imagined what Examples we should have had of his fury if we compute according to the Durham pattern we should have had at least Five thousand suspended Ministers in the Kingdom which does many times exceed the Numbers that were deprived either on King Edward or Queen Elizabeth's Reformation And then as to the King's Justice in the matter of which our Author says none have reason to complain it was making a Petition a Libel and the delivery of it to himself in his Bed-chamber or Closet a Publishing of it and surely there was as little Justice or Clemency in the last part of the Tragedy to displace the Judges for discharging their Consciences and declaring the Law to be as really it was was so arbitrary that the Great Lewis could have done no more if his Commands had been contradicted and to do that so suddenly after the Tryal and to supersede them before they had finished the Circults to which they had been appointed did so much proclaim his rage that few people will be perswaded that he would patiently have endured the Huzza's our Author speaks of if he had known how to help it He supposes we will lay no great stress upon the King 's placing some Roman Catholicks in Colledges it being known that the Kings of England have in all Ages dispenced with Qualifications required by the Vniversity-Statutes especially since the Judgment for the Dispencing Power How this Judgment comes to be urged here I do not see unless it be because the word Dispence is used in both for that Judgment as extravagant as it was had no influence on our Universities for that great reason That nothing ought to hinder the King of the Use and Service of his Subjects has no force here unless we allow that the corrupting the Youth of the Nation was the service the King had for those Popish Emissaries and then that other reason That the Laws of England are the King's Laws does not come up to the present case because the Magdalen-Statutes are also the Founder's Laws and therefore not to be changed without his or his Successor's consent but supposing the King had such a Power by the Law was that the way he swore to support the Church of England was not that trusting our Sheep and Lambs to the Wolf to keep In this particular as in all others of Honour or Profit the Papist had the better much of the Dissenter in whose favour we do not find one Mandate to the University These are the particulars our Author says gave the greatest cause of clamour and the reason was because they shaked the Foundations of our security and vested the whole Legislature in the King in the support of which Usurpation he was resolved to ruin all that thwarted him on the meanest pretence this made his Rule odious and terrible to the Subject How could we account any thing either of Religion or Property our own when the doors were opened and we were only beholden to the Jesuit's modesty for not entring and stripping us of as much of either of them as they thought fit Before I have done with this Head I must desire you to take notice of our Author'â— modesty in reckoning the late King's injuries to the Church of â—ngland if he had pleased he might have instanced more as the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge's Case who for refusing to admit Alban Francis a Benedictine Monk on the King's Mandate to the degree of Master of Arts without taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy appointed to be taken by several Acts of Parliament was deprived of that Office and also suspended ab officio beneficio of his Mastership of Magdaten-Colledge during his Majesty's pleasure This sentence was pronounced the 7 th of May 87 and never relaxed until the General Jubilee on the Bishop's Address October 88. His four new Bishops and keeping Bishopricks vacant all that fell in his time in Ireland and making worse use of some in England entertaining a Nuntio publickly at Court setting a Jesuit at Council-Table were no great Complements to the Church of England nor their publick Schools and Mass-houses the
parts thereof And as to the first we will find That he was so far from Governing according to Law that so soon as he thought himself out of the danger of the Monmouth Rebellion by his Victory over him in the West and Triumph on Tower-hill and that his severe Prosecution of the remainder of that Party had secured him against all other opposition his whole Government was a perfect opposition to the Law after that most of the great Employments of the Nation were disposed of by him to persons by Law uncapable of them At Court we had a Secretary and Privy-Seal Lords of the Treasury and Privy-Counsellors with their President of that sort in the Administration of Justice we had Judges Sheriffs Justices of the Peace with a long c. of unqualified persons in the Cities our Mayors and other Magistrates were so the Army which was wholly against Law was made more illegal by its unqualified Officers and the other persons whereof it consisted the Tower in ill hands and the very Church not free of such Vermin the chief Government of Ireland given to one that designed to dismember it from this Crown Were not our Persons imprisoned against Law witness the Seven Bishops Were we not disseised of our Estates against Law and without Tryal witness Dr. Hough Were not Taxes levied on us without and against Law witness the Custom-house Books Were not some of us Hanged up as Criminals without any colour of Law at least less than was for the Dispensing Power or Ecclesiastical Commission so little as could not satisfie him that was well satisfied in both the other These are Instances of the breach of the Law in the case of our Liberties Lives and Properties and that our Souls might be endangered were not Schools and Churches opened to the Romish Clergy Had any of their Converts the reward due to them by Law and to keep us under these Oppressions without redress Were not our Parliaments put off and Prorogued from time to time and not suffered to sit at the end of three years as the Law requires This was the condition of the Executive Power And as for the Legislative it was far worse and wholly over-thrown by the claim of an Absolute power to which we were to submit without reserve the Dispensing with the Ecclesiastical Laws implied a Power of Dispensing with all the rest and the Dispensing with any one was an Usurpation on the Legislative For to what end should the Parliament make Laws if they were to be of force only during the King's pleasure If that were so all their costs and pains could not ensure them one Law for so long time as would be requisite for their Journey home and as the Suspension of one Law is certainly the making of another As for instance the Law imposes Twelve-pence for not coming to Church on Sunday the Proclamation suspending that Act enacts that I may stay at home or go to a worse place without paying any thing so it seems to me that the last is the higher Power for to controle an Act requires more Authority than contributed to the first making of it as the daily experience of our Courts shews us the King's-Bench controles the rest but no inferiour Court puts any check to the proceedings thereof Lastly The Kings of England never claimed nor exercised such a Power before 62 and 72 and then the Endeavours were but faint the Crown wished for such a Power and afterwards on the Remonstrance of the Commons promised it should never be drawn into Consequence or Example The imposing Taxes and Oaths on the Subject was always looked upon as another branch of the Legislative Power but both were exercised by the late King As to the last part mentioned we have seen the late King corrupting the Elections by the meanest Arts a perpetual regulation of the Corporations until they could find a Sett of Men that would engage to chuse such persons as should be recommendeâ— by the Court and daily displacing all persons that would not engage their Votes But this was not all the injury done us in relation to the House of Commons we had Sheriffs and Mayors not qualified for their Offices so not capable of guiding the Elections Formerly under weak Princes and in ill times there has been attempts made against the Constitution of the Kingdom but never so Universal an one or with such success as now neither was it ever attempted before this Reign to pack a whole House of Commons New Creations has done something of that sort on the Peers and there has been Irregularities in particular Elections but it was never attempted before to rob us of the whole House of Commons at present the Crown neither claims nor aims at any of these things now the Law runs in its old channel and that it may still do so the King has given us Judges of the ablest of their profession and the Chancery from a State-Courtâ— is now become a Court of Conscience the Crown pretends to no absolute Authority either in suspending or altering our Laws the King concurs with his People in all Laws they have prâ—pared for his Royal Assent and wishes to be no greater than the Laws of England make him with respect to the House of Commons he has seized on no Charters nor used any Regulations but the present Members of that House are the most unanimously chosen that ever any were And now let the World judge whether our Religion Laws and Liberties are not in a better condition than in the late Reign Our Author tells us that the second Article shews the ways and means King James used to effect what he was charged with in the first which is an assuming and exercising a Power of dispensing with and suspending Laws and the execution of them without Act of Parliament Our Author is so modest as not to deny this or the fatal consequences thereof to the Kingdom but excuses it as done by colour of the Prerogative whereas the Prerogative is nothing but the Law of the Land and a part of it with which the King is intrusted for the good of his People He then tells us That the present Parliament have made some Acts that Abrogate old and others that are new Laws But unless he shews us that the King assumes 〈◊〉 Power to himself the Times are not parallel and that is what he promised to make appear Our Author in this and in other Sections is witty or thinks himself so upon our present Parliament calling them Self-created and that they have assumed God's Prerogative of creating themselves out of nothing as if God had done so For the taking off that Assertion and clearing of that matter I must desire you to remember that the Essential parts of an English Parliament are the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons chosen by the several Shires and Towns of the Nation as their Representatives Now the Convention that met at Westminster the 22d of