Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A55530
|
An answer to a letter from a clergyman in the city, to his friend in the country containing his reasons for not reading the declaration.
|
Poulton.; Halifax, George Savile, Marquis of, 1633-1695. Letter from a clergyman in the city to his friend in the country.
|
1688
(1688)
|
Wing P3039; ESTC R25
|
16,451
|
21
|
censures of the People for reading it since the business admits such a positive variety of Opinion The Loyal and Obedient may read it but the Scrupulous and Refractory will not Well then if the case be so the City Clergyman should have done well to have reserv'd his Niceties and Slicing of significations to himself and not have gone about so Zealously to spread the infection of his Scruples to the discouragement of others But he has past the Rubicon and will forward LETTER To return then to our Argument If reading the Declaration in our Churches be in the nature of the action in the intention of the command in the opinion of the People an interpretative consent to it I think my self bound in conscience not to read it because I am bound in conscience not to approve it ANSWER To this the Loyal Gentlemen that read it reply That if Reading the Declaration in their Churches be neither in the nature of the Action nor in the Intention of the Command nor in the Opinion of the People an Interpretative Consent to it they think themselves bound in conscience to read it because they are bound in conscience to approve it But says he LETTER It is against the Constitution of the Church of England which is established by Law and to which I have subscribed and therefore am bound in conscience to teach nothing contrary to it while this Obligation lasts ANSWER He must of necessity allow the Constitution of the Church of England to be a strange uncharitable constition that will not allow Liberty of Conscience to any but it self And it is his misfortune that he has subscribed to a Church that wants the bond of Perfection which is the reason that many believes he mistakes the Constitution of the Church of England LETTER It is to teach an Vnlimited and Vniversal Toleration which the Parliament in 72. declared Illegal and which has been Condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages ANSWER What the Parliament Declared in 72 signifies nothing against the Authority of the Scripture which all along declares the contrary And whereas the Gentleman is pleased to say That Universal Toleration has been condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages There is nothing more contrary to the infinite Sayings of the Primitive Fathers and their Successors and that celebrated Maxim of Tertullian Religionis non est Religionem cogere LETTER It is to teach my People that they need never come to Church more but have my free Leave as they have the King 's to go to a Conventicle or to Mass. ANSWER This is like Cardinal Wolsey Ego Rex His leave and the King 's But they are a sorry sort of People That do not know already That a Rector of a Parish is no Sovereign but that the People may come and go where they please without his Leave LETTER It is to teach the Dispensing Power which alters what has been formerly thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom which we dare not do till we have the Authority of Parliament for it ANSWER It seems the King's Authority signifies nothing with this City Clergyman But if he had the Authority of Parliament for it he would stretch his Conscience and Read the Declaration In the mean time The King 's Dispensive Power is no Business for a Man in his Station to meddle with Nor is he to be such a Judge of Royal Declarations as to be the Interpreter of their Meaning or Intention That Power is not within the Verge of his Desk or Pulpit either neither can the Authority of Parliament warrant any such Boldness among Ecclesiasticks LETTER It is to Recommend to our People the Choice of such Persons to sit its Parliament as shall take away the Test and Penal Laws which most of the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation have declared their Iudgment against ANSWER Then not to Read the Declaration is to recommend to the People the Choice of such Persons as shall not take away the Test and Penal Laws as if the Peoples Election of Parliament Men depended upon the Recommendation of the City-Clergymen But the Declaration requires no such Officious Recommendation from them And therefore the Gentleman might have spared his Complement to the Nobility and Gentry LETTER It is to condemn all those Great and Worthy Patriots of their Country who forfeited the dearest thing in the World to them next a good Conscience viz. The Favour of their Prince and a great many Honourable and Profitable Imployments with it rather than consent to that Proposal of taking away the Test and Penal Laws which they apprehend destructive to the Church of England and the Protestant Religion and he who can in Conscience do all this I think need scruple nothing ANSWER The Nobility and Gentry are mightily beholding to the City-Clergyman for his kind Encomiums But whether they would have thought it any Condemnation of their Resolutions in Reference to the Penal Laws and Test is uncertain for the Nobility and Gentry do not depend upon this Gentleman's Divinity their Motions and the Circumstances that guide their Actions being of a higher Nature than to care for the Condemnation of their Chaplains However if the Nobility and Gentry were so Kind to do what they did for their sakes the City-Clergyman has ill retaliated their Favour to lay the Load of his Actual Disobedience upon the Shoulders of the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation But now he 's come to his Effects and ill Consequences for says he LETTER For let us consider further What the Effects and Consequences of our Reading the Declaration are likely to be and I think they are Matter of Conscience too when they are Evident and Apparent This will certainly render our Persons and Ministry infinitely Contemptible which is against that Apostolick Canon Let no man despise thee Tit. 2. 15. That is so to Behave himself in his Ministerial Office as not to fall under Contempt and therefore this obliges the Conscience not to make our selves Ridiculous nor to render our Ministry our Counsels Exhortations Preaching Writing of no effect which is a thousand times worse than being Silenced Our Sufferings will Preach more effectually to the People when we cannot Speak to them But he who for Fear or Cowardize or the Love of this World betrays his Church and Religion by undue Compliances and will certainly be thought to do so may continue to Preach but to no purpose and when we have rendred our selves Ridiculous and contemptible we shall then quickly Fall and Fall unpitied ANSWER He is now wrapt up in the Spirit of Prophesie what Strange things will befal him for reading the Declaration which he calls a Betraying the Church by undue Complyances But the Prophet mistakes the Points that renders the Ministerial Office he means Ridiculous for while they keep to the Business of Sound Doctrine and meerly True Divinity there is not a more Profound or Learned Clergy in the World than
AN ANSWER TO A LETTER From a Clergyman in the City to his Friend in the Country Containing his REASONS for not Reading the Declaration With Allowance June the 4th 1688. LETTER SIR I Do not wonder at your concern for finding an Order of Council published in the Gazette for Reading the King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in all Churches and Chappels in this Kingdom You desire to know my Thoughts about it and I shall frely tell them for this is not a time to be reserved Our Enemies who have given our Gracious King this Counsel against us have taken the most effectual way not only to ruin us but to make us appear the Instruments of our own Ruin that what course soever we take we shall be undone and one side or other will conclude that we have undone our selves and fall like Fools ANSWER They who had formerly heard the frequent Sermons upon Loyalty preach'd over Tea anâ— Coffee at Sam 's Coffee-House would hardly then have believ'd that ever any Clergyman of London of that stamp would have been seen in publick pickeering against the Orders of his Prince especially issued forth after mature debate in Council I know not kow he can boast such a vast stock of Loyalty as this Gentleman pretends to when he shall be so homely as to tax the King with following Council to the Ruin of his Subjects So that the business of this Pamphlet is to render his Majesty a person that follows ill Counsel to the Ruin of the Church of England's Party Nor is it to be question'd but that this single Clergyman speaks the sense of many more or at least would have many more believe what he does That what course soever they take they shall be undone And yet we find that his Majesty has publickly declar'd it to be his Aim to fix his Government upon such a Foundation as may make his Subjects happy in the injoyment of their Religion with freedom of Exercise and their Property without Invasion However this Loyal Town Clergyman is an Infidel that will give no credit at all to the solemn Attestations of the King in this particular Nay he will have it that both the one and the other side will conclude that they have undon themselves and fall like fools that is to say should they have Read the Declaration in their Churches according to the order of Council By which it is apparant that the Church of England men have a very bad opinion not only of the Declaration but of the very design and meaning of it as if it were fram'd to draw them first into Inconvenience and then to undo them For says he LETTER To lose our Livings and Preferments nay our Liberties and Lives in a plain and direct opposition to Popery as suppose for refusing to read Mass in our Churches or to swear to the Trent-Creed is an honourable way of falling and has the divine comforts of suffering for Christ and his Religion and I hope there is none of us but can chearfully submit to the will of God in it But this is not our present Case to read the Declaration is not to read the Mass nor to profess the Romish Faith and therefore some will judg that there is no hurt in reading it and that to suffer for such a refusal is not to fall like Confessors but to suffer as Criminals for disobeying the lawful Commands of our Prince but yet we judge and we have the concurring Opinions of all the Nobility and Gentry with us who have already suffered in this Cause that to take away the Test and Penal Laws at this time is but one stop from the introducing of Popery and therefore to read such a Declaration in our Churches though it do not immediatly bring Popery in yet it sets open our Church doors for it and then it will take its own time to enter So that should we comply with this Order all good Protestants would despise and hate us and then we may be easily crushed and shall soon fall with great dishonour and without any pity This is the difficulty of our Case we shall be censur'd on both sides but with this difference We shall fall a little sooner by not reading the Declaration if our Gracious Prince resent this as an act of an obstinate and peevish or factious Disobedience as our Enemies will be sure to represent it to him We shall as certainly fall and not long after if we do read it and then we shall fall unpitied and despised and it may be with the Curses of the Nation whom we have ruined by our complyance and this is the way never to rise more And may I suffer all that can be suffered in this World rather than contribute to the final Ruin of the best Church in the World. ANSWER Here is a very plausible Harangue built upon the bare supposition of a single Town Clergyman while he refuses to read the Declaration which is the very Act of his Majesties Grace and Favour that secures him from all those fears and jealousies which he labours to instill into the People Nor is it to be thought that men of Reason and Loyalty will as the City Clergyman seems to be convinc'd so readily believe that the King and his Council sit to impose Dilemma's upon the Subject We shall fall if we do and we shall fall if we do not read it But this is only the Clergyman's supposal On the other side the refusal to read it is an unquestionable Act of Disobedience to the Command of the Soveraign Authority than which there cannot be a greater mark of that Disloyalty which the Clergy of the Establish'd Religion of much disown Besides that it is a Disobedience to the Orders of the Church it self which injoyns her Ministers to read during the time of Divine Service whatever is injoyned by the King. But says he the Reading such a Declaration in our Churches though it do not immediately bring in Popery yet it sets open our Church doors for it and then it will take its own time to enter But says the Declaration In the first place we do declare That we will protect and maintain our Archbishops Bishops and Clergy and all other our Subjects of the Church of England in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law Establish'd and in the full injoyment of all their Possessions without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever Here is the word of a King to bar the Introducing of Popery so much fear'd which if it were sacred as coming from the Lips of a Crowned Head they would have render'd still more solemn by reading it in their Churches And therefore the refusal of it seems to be rather an Act of wilful indiscretion than of that Religious Care and wary Zeal to which the City Clergy-man pretends LETTER Let us then examine this matter impartially as those who have no mind either to ruine themselves or to ruine the Church I suppose no Minister