Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n
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A61170
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The Bishop of Rochester's second letter to the Right Honourable the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex Lord Chamberlain of His Majesty's household
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Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing S5049; ESTC R15013
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15,012
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68
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Imprimatur W. CANT March 27 1689 THE Bishop of Rochester's SECOND LETTER To the Right Honourable The Earl of Dorset and Middlesex LORD-CHAMBERLAIN OF His MAJESTY's Houshold In the Savoy Printed by Edward Iones MDCLXXXIX THE Bishop of Rochester's SECOND LETTER To the Rig ht Honourable The Earl of Dorset and Middlesex c. MY LORD I Cannot in Good Manners make my Address to your Lordship in another Letter without premising my most Humble Thanks for your favourable Acceptance of the former and for your kind Recommendation of my Plea to Men of Honour and Goodness by the Powerful Authority of your Approving it And now My Lord since you have in so generous a Manner admitted me once to be your Client I am come again to put my whole Cause into your Hands For it was my Chance I know not how to have such a share in One or Two other Public Affairs of the late Times as obliges me to make a Second Defence Though I have always thought that next to the committing Offences nothing can be more Greivous to an Ingenuous Mind than to be put upon the necessity of making Apologies However upon the Encouragement your Lordship has given Me I take the boldness to say that in the Matters about which I trouble you this once more I trust I have good Ground for an honest and open Vindication of my self The One was My Part in King Charles the Second's Declaration touching the Conspiracy the other was My acting in the Commission for the Diocese of London during the Suspension of my Lord Bishop But then my Lord after my Apology I shall crave leave to add that which needs None I mean an Account of what past between King Iames and some of the Bishops a little before the late wonderful Revolution which tho' the Circumstances of it are not so generally known as they ought to be yet I am sure had a very considerable effect for the benefit both of Church and State in that Critical time And therein I may presume to say that I had some part So that when I come to that perhaps I shall be able to Speak more freely and shall venture to insist upon it as a manifest proof to the World that the Bishops had then as difficult a Post to Maintain and Maintain'd it as firmly as any other Order of Men in the Kingdom could do Theirs for preserving the Liberties and Properties of the Subject as well as the Interest of the Protestant Religion First my Lord as for the Book of the Conspiracy 't is true I have often heard that some Noble and Eminent Persons whose Kindred or Friends were unhappily concern'd in the Subject of that History had entertain'd a prejudice against me thereupon But to them I shall make this equitable Request that they would suspend any farther Censure of me for what I did write till they shall be fairly informed how much there is that I have not written I will not deny that it was at the Request or rather the Command of King Charles the Second that I drew up a Relation of that Plot And to that end I had free liberty to consult the Paper-Office and Council-Books whence I was plentifully furnish'd with such Authentic Materials either of Papers Printed by Authority or of Sworn Depositions and Confessions as have been always thought the best Ground for an Historian to work upon But now my Lord I can still allege That tho' a vast heap of such Matter was immediately supplied to my hands and tho' I often received earnest Messages and some Sharp words from that gentle King to quicken my Slowness yet more than twelve Months had past before I could be brought to put Pen to Paper out of my Natural Aversion to any Business that might reflect severely upon any Man my own Inclination rather leading me to the other Extream that is Rather to Commend too much what in the least seems Well-done than to Aggravate what is Ill-done by others However upon King Charles's frequent Commands and continued Importunity I did at length obey and the rather because I had formerly somewhat incurr'd that King 's and his Brother's Displeasure by my declining to write against the States of Holland during the time of the First and Second Dutch-Wars Being thus over-persuaded I made my Collections and Presented them to that King Which his Majesty having himself perused was pleased to direct me to put them into the Hands of the Lord Keeper North who carefully Read and Corrected what I had done and added divers matters of Fact which had escaped my Observation Thus the Work stood in Preparation for the Press when the deplorable Death of that King hapned And shortly after King Iames the Second calling for the Papers and having read them and Altered divers Passages caused them to be printed by his own Authority as is to be seen before the Book But now my Lord I can truly declare that during my composing those Collections I earnestly requested King Charles the Second and your Lordship knows as well as any Man how agreeable such a Request was to the Benign Temper of that King I requested him I say that few or no Names of Persons should be mentioned whatever probable suggestions might be against them but only such upon whom public Judgment had passed which it could be to no purpose for me to conceal I could indeed have wish'd that my Lord Russel's and some other Names of Persons of Honour might have been of the Number to be omitted upon that very account But 't was none of my fault that they were not I could not hinder nor did I in the least contribute to their Fall. Nay I lamented it especially my Lord Russel's after I was fully convinc'd by Discourse with the Reverend Dean of Canterbury of that Noble Gentleman's great Probity and Constant Abhorrence of Falshood But that was a good while after All that I did was the Publishing or rather indeed the putting together methodically what before was sufficiently published in printed Papers that were Licensed And out of them to draw the Substance of a Declaration of State in Vindication of that which the Authority of the Nation at that time called The Public Justice of the Kingdom But my Lord to return to what I was saying King Charles having granted my desire of Concealing divers Names according to this Allowance I proceeded leaving out some and abbreviating others endeavouring all along to spare Parties and Families and particular Persons as much as would be allowed All which may be demonstrated from the Copies of the Depositions as they went out of my hands where there were several Names visibly marked by my own Pen to be passed by in the Publication So that if some Indifferent Man should now compare the Informations as they are in Print with the Originals in the Secretary's or the Paper-Office he would it may be be apter to suspect Me of Connivance than of Calumny on that side If
we hold in Both. If your Lordship's Leisure would permit me to look farther back and to recount what was Written Acted or Suffered by the Members of the Church of England in general during that Reign 't were easie to recollect so many Memorable Instances of unshaken Truth and Courage in the Nobility Gentry Clergy and Commonalty of our Communion in maintaining our Religion against Rome and our Laws against unlimited Power as might well furnish sufficient Materials for an ample Relation I know it was formerly a popular Objection of divers misguided Dissenters from the Church of England that our Principles were too Monarchical and that we carried the Doctrine of Obedience farther than might be consistent with the safety of a Protestant Church or the Privileges of a free-born People But it is now to be hoped that the strongest Argument of all others which is Experience from undoubted Matter of Fact has put this Objection for ever out of Countenance Since it is undeniable that during that whole time when our Civil and Spiritual Liberties were in so much Danger the greatest and most considerable stop that was here put to the Arts of Rome and Intrigues of France was Put by the steddy Resolution of the true Sons of the Church of England I pretend not to upbraid any Party or Sect among us for any undue Compliance in that Time. But this I will Assert that generally Speaking the whole Body of the Church of England both Laity and Clergy did not Comply Nay it were Infinite to reckon up the Examples we then saw every Day of Men of all Conditions from the highest to the lowest All Members of the Church of England who preferred the saving of the Establisht Government in Church and State before any Temptations of private Profit or Interest Not to say any thing more of the Learned and Unanswerable Writings of that time against Popery For in that Merit I suppose none of any other Persuation will enter into any Competition with the Orthodox Clergy But I now only Speak of those many Honourable Self-Denials which the Church of England-Men then Practised for the Sake of the true English Liberty and Reformation What Officers and Commanders were there almost in the whole Army besides the Sons of the Church of England who chose to be Discarded from those very Troops and Regiments which their own Interest and Money had raised rather than contribute to take away the great Fences of our Liberty and Religion What Officers in the Courts of Justice and in the several Branches of the Revenue What Members of Boroughs Corporations and Cities in Comparison of those of the Church of England endured the loss of their Places of Trust and Profit for not Consenting to Abolish the Tests and Penal Laws against Papists What eminent Nobility and Gentry in all Counties submitted chearfully to be flighted and deprived of all Authority and Power among their Neighbours in Peace or War Were they not generally and almost to a Man of the Church of England Was not a considerable Part of the Court it self turn'd out Did not divers Persons of the highest Titles and Dignities there endure to lose their Princes Favour upon this very Account Did we not see the most Advantageous and most Honorable Offices the very White Staves and the greatest of them not valued but easily parted with when Religion came in Question 's I need not go on to recite more particularly all these Things especially to your Lordship who were your Self one of the Noble Sufferers in the same Cause 'T will be sufficient to affirm once for all that the main Body of those who made so brave a Stand were all of the Church of England and the Principles on which they stood were all Church of England Principles My Lord it was by these Persons and these Principles that â—opery was stopt in its full Career by these it was then hindred from Conquering and put into a Condition to be shortly after Conquer'd it self in this Nation After having troubled your Lordship so long with my own Private Cause and having said something too in the behalf of what is much more dear to me the Public pray let me conclude with that which in this Juncture of Affairs may be counted well high another Public Cause Let me Present you with my Humbly well-meaning Opinion what Moderation is to be shewn towards those who happen'd to be employed in the late Times My Lord 't would be great Presumption in me having been my self too far engaged to offer at an Apology for other Persons concern'd then either with me in the Commission or in any other Public Business particularly for some of your Lordships Acquaintance whose Cause may be more Defensible than mine and I am sure their Abilities to defend it are much greater Only in general I will take the freedom to say That I make no Question but divers Good Men who were then in Imployments did in Prudence submit to some things in Order to hinder Worse I doubt not but many Acted then not to Increase but to Mitigate the Violence of those Times Some were in such Stations which perhaps 't was well done of them not suddenly to Desert lest worse Men should come in to do that which they design'd to prevent I believe some being as it were in the middle of the Stream when the Tide turn'd so Violently against our Establisht Church and Laws were driven down lower than they expected before they could resist the Current or get to Shore Wherefore considering all Circumstances 't was well so many mistook not the true Interest of the Nation 'T was happy so many preserv'd their Integrity so many had the honest Hardiness to stand unmoved by the Importunity of their King whom they were bred up to Honor and in all things else to Obey And in common Sense of human Frailty are not many Infirmities at such a time as that to be overlook'd now by wise and good Men Do not many false Steps so made deserve to be pitied May it not be thought some kind of Merit or some degree of Innocence at least not to have made more in such a slippery Ground as we then trod on If my Lord every Failure of that Time should be esteemed a Criminal Compliance every Compliance should be judg'd unpardonable VVho then that remain'd under the Government can be counted Innocent VVho shall be able justly to throw the first Stone VVhat Place will be then left for the Offender's Hope or for a Prince's Forgiveness the Noblest and most Divine Part of Power My Lord the constant Experience of all wise Times has shewed that all Civil Dissentions and Quarrels are best ended by the largest Acts of Indemnity and Oblivion In England especially where Good Nature is soon apt to have Compassion upon the Afflicted Here perhaps scarce any thing can be more dangerous to the Party that is uppermost than to put English-men upon pitying those that suffer under it And certainly this Revolution if ever any should be Mild in the Event since it was Bloodless in the whole Course of it in a time when there was most danger of Effusion of Blood. I will say no more my Lord but this that after great and unexpected Changes That hath been always found the firmest Settlement of any State or Government where the Prevailing Party hath look'd but very little backward and very much forward where Private Animosity and Revenge have wisely given way to the greater Benefits of Public Pardon and Indulgence Perhaps towards the Beginning of great Reformations a VVarm impetuous Spirit may have its use but to Compose Things after sudden Commotions to Calm Men's Minds for the future to Settle Affairs in a secure and lasting Peace most certainly a Gentle Generous Charitable Temper is the best And to say all in one word Such a Temper as is your Lordships MY LORD I am Your Lordship's Most Faithful Humble and Obedient Servant Tho. Roffen Westminster Mar. 26. 1689. FINIS The Bishop of Bath and Wells