their Consciences As for the other succeeding Ages of the Church after the Sixth Century the Church of England throws them aside as no Precedents for us to follow And yet it is the Christian Church in all Ages you would call in to avouch for you the Illegality of this Toleration 3. Your next Reason on which you ground your suppose that we cannot Consent you thus express It is to Teach my People that they need never come to Church more but have my free leave as they have the Kings leave to go to a Conventicle or to Mass Why Sir that they would do without the Kings leave or yours either before this Declaration came out However you are loth to have your Scepter wrested out of your Hands though it be with as vain and empty a Title as King of Jerusalem What a Grand Seignior you may be still in your Parish I cannot tell but I assure you in our Country Parish Dominions such a despotick Church-Power is extinguished long since Well Sir I perceive you are not inclin'd to be so merciful a Prince over your Subjects as His Majesty over His they shall never have leave for you But your Brother King would intreat however this favour at your Hands that when you have occasion to shake your Rod over your Subjects you would not send for him to be your Beadle And the rather because as he has no mind to it and that it is against his Conscience so you have no want of him neither the Spiritual Power having a Rod of their own more proper and agreeable to their purpose that is the Rod of Excommunication and other Church Censures which no body goes about to take out of your Hand Wherefore when you Read the Declaration you may let your People understand if you please that it is with a Non Obstante to that and so you have well enough escaped the Danger you fear should ensue to your Regalia viz. That it would be to Teach your People that they need never more come to Church but have your free leave as they have the Kings leave to go to a Conventicle or to Mass And so I pass on to your Fourth Reason 4. It is you say 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 At the Kings Command you dare not do it till you have the Authority of Parliament for it It seems then however you are bound in Conscience not to approve of such a Declaration Though it be against the Constitution of the Church of England nay though condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages though against the Laws of God and the Laws of the Land yet Authority of Parliament can discharge you of all Never was any Pope in England so high as Authority of Parliament is now set up that can dispense with the Laws both of God and Man for all this of the Kings doing is against both you say but not of the Parliaments By the way though you give a fair Hint unto the Parliament of the only Expedient as things now stand for the Common Peace Agreement and Satisfaction of all which is by their concurring with His Majesty in the setling what He has proposed by His Declaration For one part of the Nation approve of it for it self and all the rest want nothing it seems for their intire Satisfaction but only their Authority along with His Majesties At the present the main thing you stick at is The Kings Dispensing Power without Authority of Parliament Which indeed is the only thing you have said which bears any semblance of excuse for not consenting and consequently not reading the Declaration And you would have done better to have maintained your Post here than to have stuffed your Letter with Enemies Evil Counsellors Popery Mass Ruine utter and avoidable Destruction to both Church and Kingdom I have been fain to follow you hitherto in this wild Ramble which is nothing to the purpose but to inflame and exasperate Nobility Gentry Clergy People and all against the King and make the Breach wider than it would be Was not his late Majesty who was a Protestant and by the Advice of Protestant Councellors the adored Earl of Shaftsbury the Duke of Lauderdale and others forced to do the same thing when necessity of Publick Affairs required it Yet no Ruine of the Church of England followed nor of the Protestant Religion no Ruine no Destruction no Introduction of Popery nor intended to follow Some stir was then about the business of the Dispensing Power but nothing to what it is now Let us but quietly attend the expectation of a Parliament and that is a thing which it is likely may close of it self It did so before For indeed the Concurrence of His Two Houses of Parliament of which His Majesty made no doubt as He says when He first issued out His Declaration before we had royld the Nation The Concurrence I say of His Parliament will bury up all in Silence and Peace which is better than blow up so great a Flame as would arise by stirring the Coals of this Contest Prerogative of the Crown and Priviledges of Parliament are Matters too August for private Men as we are to meddle in much more to pass Sentence as your Letter does and plainly say The Dispensing Power is against the Laws and Constitution of this Church and Kingdom That it is Illegal which is so high a Presumption as can have no countenance for what was done in Parliament 72 for they have the Priviledge of free speaking there But out of Parliament perhaps it is a Crime of an higher Nature than we are aware Even the Bishops themselves though Persons moving in so high a Sphere and protected by so great a Power as the Pope was then in England yet they are given to understand as I find some Lawyers note 18 Hen. 3. That for as much as they hold their Baronies of the King that if they intermeddle with the Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown they must look to forfeit their Baronies for their Presumption If I say the Bishops out of Parliament incur so high a Censure should they do any such thing what Animadversion is due to Men of a lower Order Evil Men such as have some Fish to take which will not be catch'd but in troubled Waters are wont to throw in one of these as certain Occasions of it and as Bones of Contention whenever they have a mind to have one It would have becomed us who are Men of Peace of all Men in the Kingdom to have contained our selves and whatever we think to have said nothing in this Matter Now is Out-cry against Prerogative Time was when we made as loud a Cry against pretended Priviledges of Parliament Liberty of the Subject and for Prerogative Among other Complaints and Grievances which the Black
Parliament put into a Remonstrance and Presented to Charles the First was Frequent Dissolution of Parliaments Raising of Ship-money Suspensions Excommunications and Degradations of divers Painful Learned Pious Ministers c. There comes in at last a Complaint of His Chaplains and other Ministers of the Church of England Preaching before the King against the Liberty and Property of the Subject and for the Prerogative of the King above the Law. What will the World say of us while they see us blow hot and cold out at the same Mouth For my part I beleive the scratch is now where it don't itch Prerogative is not the thing does so much aggreive us If it happened to be on our side as we apprehend it now against us we should like Prerogative well enough If we had liv'd in those days what should we have though of such a Prerogative-Indulgence from Queen Mary in the behalf of Her Protestant Subjects from the Penal and Sanguinary Laws then established by Parliament Would we not have dared to own it to publish it in our Churches and Chapels till we had Authority of Parliament for it Would we have deserted and opposed so gracious a Queen and stroke into a Confederacy with the concurring Opinions of the Nobility and Gentry That to take away-the Penal Laws at that time would be but one step from the introducing of Protestancy I do not find the Clergy at all aggrieved at the Dispensing Power when at any time serving for the Interest of the Protestant Religion For instance When King Edward the Sixth by his mere Prerogative disposed of the Crown for that Reason to the Lady Jane most expresly contrary to a late establish'd Law passed in Parliament whereby the Crown was entailed on the Children of Henry the Eighth of which Mary and Elizabeth were both surviving it was so far from a daring not to do it till we had Authority of Parliament for it and from scrupling the Teaching of that which alters what has been formerly Thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom That Doctor Ridley Bishop of London by Order of the Council Preached a Sermon on purpose at Pauls-Cross to set forth the Title of the Lady Jane and to justifie the proceedings of the King and Council in that Affair Doctor Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury was one of the Principal in the Council and most of the rest of the Bishops and Clergy complied with and approved of it and commended it to their People Nor were the Nobility and Gentry averse from it After Queen Elizabeth by the same Established Laws the Succession of the Crown was to pass to Mary Queen of Scots but she being a professed Catholick what intrigues were driven to exclude Her in favour of the Protestant Religion and also Her Son James the First of England yet in his Infancy and probably enough supposed to bring with him His Mothers Religion Did not the Parliament offer to the Queen I cannot tell but it passed to an Act to enable Her to nominate Her Successor to the Crown Was not this to alter what had been formerly thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom Did not Charles the First the Protestant Martyr authorise the Canons of the Convocation 1640 by His Prerogative-Royal the Bishops and Clergy rightly asserting and espousing His Authority and Power in that matter nevertheless for the Parliaments declaring at the same time the Illegality of the thing and That it was against the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom So that it is not so much the Parliament of 72 nor the Constitution of the Church and Kingdom but somthing else in the Wind which makes us so off the Hooks with Prerogative and Dispensing Power at this time something we fear which I am confident upon the Integrity of His Majesties promise we have no cause to Fear But since you have so rudely jogg'd Prerogative for nothing in the World that I can see but happening to stand in your way at this time I will try a little of my skill as well as I can to defend it Treating first of the King 's Dispensing Power in general And Secondly of the exercise of it in this particular Instance which is the matter of the Declaration 1. In General That such a Power of dispensing with the Laws at least in the interim of Parliaments be lodged somewhere is grounded upon the same reason as of making Laws which is for the common good Salus populi est Suprema Lex Laws abstract from the Sanctions whereby they are injoyn'd are nothing else but Provisions made as at the first so on every arising occasion of promoting the common Good and consequently of averting any prospect of evil But for Parliaments in which so great a number of Men are employed and at so great a charge as that must be to the Nation to Sit continually watching and waiting upon such contingent occasions were almost as intolerable as any other evil the Laws would prevent Somtimes Laws Salutary and fitting to the juncture wherein they were made with some unexpected Providence Vicissitude or other un-thought Emergency change their nature and become noxious Besides that many Evils even pernicious and destructive to Common-wealths are somtimes so sudden and impendent as the Remedy would come too late in that way Somtimes of that nature that as nothing but dispatch so nothing but Secresie can avert them Somtimes so fixed in a popular mistake and misunderstanding as nothing but Time and Reasoning can make the discovery and generally enough dispose the Nation to consent to a Remedy And what must the Publick suffer perhaps an intolerable Evil or an irrepairable Ruin for want of applying an extraordinary Remedy in such Emergent cases That it is not expedient only but necessary for the publique Good that a Trust be reposed somwhere to make provision for the security of the whole Poplitique Body in such grand Emergencies and to judge of the matter and of the means proper for averting the Evil I think is by no body denied Whether it be so in our written Laws it makes no matter I am sure he that runs may read it in the original Prototype of all Laws which is right Reason even in the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of this Kingdom and all other Human Societies The Parliament of 41. could see a dispensing Power thus far thô they could not or which is blinder would not see to set the Saddle on the right Horse It is resolved say they by both Houses that in this case of extreme danger and of His Majesties refusal the Ordinance agreed upon by both Houses for the Militia doth oblige the People by the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom It being so then that by the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom written or unwritten such a Dispensing Power with the present establish'd Laws is necessary at some times to be interposed I know not nor do I believe that any one else can tell me where it
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
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
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
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
thing and to make choice of such Members of Parliament by whose Concurrence the Provision for His Majesties Safety might be made It is true the Church of England is hereby disobliged but who can help it or is to be blamed for it it was offered to them first and rejected by them Will they be neither persuaded to afford His Majesty together with theirs the Service and Assistance of His Roman Catholique Subjects of whose Loyalty there can at this time be no doubt for His sufficient defence against His numerous and inveterate Enemies nor yet allow him by His Indulgence of Liberty to their Consciences to win them to a Dutiful and Peaceable Subjection Just such an unsociable rigor as this now in the Church of England towards the Roman Catholioks was that of the Presbyterians towards us whom they then called Malignants and which was the occasion of bringing His Majesty CHARLES I. of Sacred Memory to the Scaffold and all upon piques and dislikes one against another on point of Religion The Presbyterians had a mind to Save the King and deliver him out of the hands of the Army which they then called Sectaries but this was morally impossible to be done by them upon the strength of their own single Interest without uniting to their assistance the Malignant also as they termed all those who stood well-affected to the King and Church but by no means would they be persuaded to any conjunction with the Royalists when His Majesties Life at that time depended upon it and might have been secur'd by it and even to the last point when the Army came up in their march towards the City with the poor Captive KING in their power they obstinately refused to take in any of the King's Party to joyn with them notwithstanding all their frequent offers and importunities and notwithstanding their own ruine along with theirs choosing rather to deliver up the Common Cause than to joyn with the King's Friends in one common Defence Nay to bring the parallel still nearer when it pleased the Divine Providence to make some aspect towards the Restauration of His late Majesty CHARLES II. to the Succession of His Royal Fathers Crown so imperious and ill natur'd were they still towards the poor Cavaliers and so resolved against admitting them to any share in the Honour and Interest of the Enterprize however their former Fidelity to His Majesty might commend them and His Affair need them that after the Secluded Members were re-admitted a Resolution taken of Convening a Free Parliament in order to the King's Restauration before their Rising they passed these two Votes One That all and every Person who have Advised Abetted or Assisted in any War against the Parliament since January the First 1641. his or their Sons should be uncapable to be elected to Serve as Members of the next Parliament And another That no Man should act as a Commission-Officer without First Acknowledging and Declaring That the War undertaken by both Houses of Parliament in their Defence against the Forces raised in the name of the late KING was Just and Lawful What can more nearly resemble those Oaths and Tests which have been of late years laid upon so many of His present Majesties Friends and no doubt with the same Design and in a then probable prospect of His Succession to the Crown That if they should fail of Excluding himself yet at least they might exclude a considerable number of His Friends from joyning their Force and Assistance to the rest when He should most need them and so one time or other he might fall into their Power thus unarmed and deprived of His just and sufficient Defence The subtle Projectors and Contrivers of this Intrigue it is likely are now off the Stage but since many of those who I believe have not the least Malice against His Majesties Person are yet nevertheless so intoxicate with the fears and jealousies they then imbib'd that they are yet hardly sober and must have time to recover their debauched Reasons It is necessary in the mean time that His Majesty look to the preservation of himself and of them also whose Loyalty is yet half asleep and who perhaps when they are better awake will find reason to thank him for interposing His Prerogative against their obstinate Defence of a Law so unreasonable and unsafe and thank God too for that Courage and Wisdom with which he has inspired him to preserve both them and Himself and the whole Nation from their precipitate Folly. These things considered may I think satisfie any reasonable unprejudic'd Man of the justice and necessity of His Majesties exerting His Royal Prerogative at this time and in the manner he has expressed in His Declaration for the preservation of Himself the Head of this great National Body which cannot be touched with danger in that principal part without a fatal evil to the whole But with His Majesties Person I intimated also a Salvo for His Conscience and that by His Prerogative if he cannot have it otherwise Conscience is the common answer on the account of which the Nobility and Gentry do not consent to His Majesties Proposals for taking off the Test and Penal Laws Is there not some regard to be had to the King's Conscience as well as other Mens The King no doubt so sincere and devout as he is in the profession of His Religion accounts it a very high offence against God and danger of Eternal Damnation to His Soul to persecute what He accounts the Truth and to drive away or terrifie any by Penal Laws from embracing it Who does not I believe also the inflicting of such Penalties on any other for mere matter of Conscience is not without a great regret to His own That Conscience ought not to be constrained nor People forced in matters of mere Religion are the express words of His Declaration Now all prosecution of Law against Recusants or what other Dissenters from the establish'd Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England must be made in the King's Name and all Warrants for the execution of Sanguinary Pecuniary or what other kind of Mulcts issue from His immediate Authority So that no Man's Conscience of the whole Nation is so nearly concern'd nor so accountable to God for what relates to these Laws as the King's Conscience I think no Man will say that the King ought in the execution of such Laws to sin against His Conscience or that we have ever the less obligation upon us to Own Him and Obey Him as our King and to comply with Him tenderly for the finding such a temper if there be any better than what He already offers for the satisfaction of both His Conscience and ours Subjects may suffer for Conscience sake and lose some part of the priviledge of Subjects rather than break the publick measures which have been established But Kings may not be constrained by Law to suffer nor to diminish any part of their Royal Sovereignty
Parliament will find some Temper that no restraint or oppression shall for the future be laid upon the Consciences of our Kings by our Laws their Consciences as I said being much more concerned and aggreived in the Execution of such Penal Laws and Tests by their Authority then ours can be who pretend that for the cause wherefore we cannot comply with His Majesties Proposals for the taking them off This I have said to justifie His Majesty in the present use of his Prerogative as the necessary Salvo for His Conscience in this Conjuncture With His Conscience I further intimated a care to be taken for the preserving his Honour and that by his Prerogative dispensing with such Laws as by any new emergency contrary to their Primary intention do interpose and cast a cloud upon it Honour in Noble much more in Royal Personages is by our Laws ratable at the value of Conscience what therefore they declare upon their Honour is Equivalent to what Persons of a less Honourable degree declare upon their Oath But above all the Honour of our Kings is a most inestimable Jewel of their Crowns and Standard of their Government it is upon the account of that that their Subjects are disposed to revere and obey them to love them to confide in them to repose in them the trust of all they are and have and with their Lives and Fortunes to serve them Upon which account it is having so great an interest in the Government and well being of Mankind in their respective Societies and so great an Influence upon Subjects to ingage them to a quiet and tractable compliance with the wise consults of their Subjects hence I say it is that God himself is concerned for their Honour commanding in His Holy Scriptures that as we Fear God so we should Honour the King. Let me note to you further that our Laws are for these great Reasons so tender of the Honour of Kings as they will endure no attainder upon them but so soon as from Subjects they become Kings whatever attainder was before upon them from the Laws it falls of it self because otherwise the Laws lose their main end laying a blot upon his Honour and lessening his esteem with his People from which does naturally arise many intolerable Evils to the Government And for the same reason whatever Person is Convict of an attempt to Alienate from our Kings the Affections of their Liege People are looked on as Traitors and reputed such as do therein subvert the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom and if we follow the reason of the thing for doubtless upon that the Law is Grounded as any Person so any matter or thing which tends to Alienate from the King the Affections of his Liege People is by parity of Reason to be removed In short that which we call the Test however agreeable it might be to the present Circumstances in which it was made yet now as Circumstances are by the Divine Providence changed the continuing of it does reflect such Dishonour upon His Majesty as does evidently tend to alienate from Him the Affections of His Liege People and that two ways 1. As insinuating Him to be a Conspirator against the Life and Crown of His late Majesty in that which was called the Damnable Hellish and Popish Plot. And 2. As implying Him an Idolater against God the Supreme Majesty of Heaven and Earth First That the Test was made against the Roman Catholicks on presumption that they were generally ingaged in or one way or other Abettors of that then reputed Horrid Plot I think is too plain to be fairly denied If you object That His Sacred Majesty then Duke of York was Himself exempted from that Test and so it could not reflect upon him I answer Never the less for that Nothing more served their Purposes of that Conjuncture than that subtle-seeming Tenderness of the Duke For they knew His Majesties Love and Confidence in His Royal Brother was not yet shaken enough and that to have but named Him among the other Roman Catholicks at that time had certainly obviated the Kings Royal Assent to that Act. The Game was then but to extort from the King by force or gain by surprize what they might easily convert to the Dukes Disadvantage afterward For the Test being put upon all bearing Office throughout the Kingdom for the discovery of the Professors of that Religion on suspicion and suggestion to the People that they were all in that Conspiracy and the Duke being known to be of that Religion every one knew how to draw the Conclusion though the Duke were excepted to please the good King but especially when Matters were afterward intrigued to that pass that they dared openly to bring against Him a Bill of Exclusion in the High Court of Parliament and infaming Him at the same time all over the Kingdom with Libels of the most black and horrid import that Craft and Malice together could suggest Whatever was in the Design it is manifest enough in the Event that the first imposing of this Test and diffusing it through the whole Kingdom did universally ferment a disgust and prejudice against Him and cast a Dishonour upon Him and was a Method and Disposition to the Exclusion-Bill which followed while He was yet Duke But now He is by the Grace of God King of England c. the continuing of the same and the frequent occasion of using and renewing it must necessarily continue renew and fasten in His Subjects Minds the same preconceived prejudice which cannot be without Alienation of the Affections of His Liege-People from Him and consequently not only incumber and make His Government unwieldable in His Hand but also shrewdly hazard a Dissolution of it and be a continual Spring of many Evils against all which the keeping up of this Test still and putting that alone into the Ballance I think must appear to any thinking Man lighter than Vanity And yet much more when this malicious Suggestion against the King and others of His Religion is by the same Votaries to this Test for the most part acknowledged to be nothing but Sham and Illusion Cheat and Villany It were to be supposed in generous Equity that all those who had on that account suffered in their Fortunes and their Honour their Innocency being cleared should be also now cleared of the Laws respecting them on that account and that some other expedient might be excogitated so to secure us and our Religion as might not expose innocent Persons to Dishonor and Ruine How should we expect God should bless it to us and make us safe by such an unjust security Unjust I say and especially to so Great and Sacred a Person as our Prince Why do we suffer any thing to remain which may intimate and insinuate to His Liege People such a false Suggestion and dishonourable Imputation and still further impress upon their Minds so odious a Character as in this Test if not by design yet by
When the King in whose Prerogative it is to make Peace and War sets forth a Declaration signifying His purpose of making War suppose with the Dutch or French May His Officers in the several Places where this Declaration is to be published suppress it and refuse to obey His Command unless according to you they can approve the Matter of it and be satisfied in the King's Reasons and Grounds of the War I see not but upon your Doctrine there is more Reason for it here than where you would instigate us of the Clergy to give so dangerous and pernicious a precedent to the whole Nation A Consent of Acquiscence and Submission as I said to the Wisdom and Justice of the King is enough in such Cases and with no more than that Armies of their Subjects do follow our Princes into the Field with the expence of their Blood and Treasure and not stand bogling as you would have us at nothing but Reading or Publishing His Majesties Declaration On this Principle it will be hard for His Majesty on whatever just and necessary occasion to raise an Army among Disciples of your teaching Nay it is a wonder if suffered to proceed that it does not disband that He has There is rarely a Concurrence of all Judgments and Votes to the making of the Laws themselves in Parliament and so not such a Consent as we call internal Nevertheless an external or if you will call it a permissive Consent of all to the Enacting and Publishing it as a Law. Now suppose any of the Members of such a Parliament giving the Charge at an Assize or Sessions in the Office of one of His Majesties Judges or Justices of the Peace must he pass over and omit the recital or reading of such Laws as he does not in his own Judgment approve or to which he had before refused his consent and suffrage in Parliament Many of those Breves or Letters Patents in the behalf of poor distressed Sufferers to which we are required to excite the Peoples Charity I have heard accounted by Clergy-Men little better than Cheats and yet make no scruple of reading them and that with a whatsoever Law Statute or Provision to the contrary notwithstanding Innumerable Instances of this kind might be offered if there were need to shew that he who cannot consent to the Declaration with a Consent of Approbation may yet read it with a Consent of Acquiescence and Submission And further what if you cannot Consent to the matter of the Declaration or the Expediency of it in it self can you not consent to Read it in the nature of a Proposal Not as common Cryers altogether but yet as Men whom our Ordinaries as well as the King do make use of to these purposes His Majesty would have us signifie His Pleasure that he would Treat with His People by their Representatives in Parliament concerning the necessity of His Suspension of the Penal Laws at present and about certain Overtures of Terms and Conditions offered in Exchange for the Repeal of them for the future All this is but by way of Proposal Conditions and Terms offered and all the way with a reserve to the Parliament No absolute Consent is required but only conditional if such propositions be liked or can be made practicable What if it be proposed to take of the Test and Penal Established Laws What is there in this contrary to the Laws of the Land as you frequently but rashly suggest Is the Repeal of a Law against and not rather agreeable to the known Laws of the Land As to the method which the King uses to this purpose what can be objected against our Consenting to that If any Nobleman or Gentleman design the Repeal of a former Established Law his Method for the compassing his end must be by making known his Mind and his Reasons Ordinarily Books are Printed and Published all over the Nation to this purpose before the Convention of Parliaments what does the King more in this matter than other Men And so for Recommending by us to the People such Persons to sit in Parliament as may comply with His Majesty in the business of the Declaration What is it more than Proposal And what is it more than we ordinarily do for the Nobility and Gentry at their Request Do not Letters fly about and Horse and Man all over the Country Night and Day for the Election of such Persons as are by one or other Recommended to us This His Majesty desires us to signifie by His Declaration but yet leaves us free after all And what is the matter now we cannot declare to the People these and others His Majesties Proposals We nor they are ever the more compelled or interpreted to comply with them Again What if we cannot fully consent Are there not many things done by us both for our selves and others but with an half or a doubting Consent Do we not perform many Commands of our Parents of which we are not so fully satisfied sometimes for their Expediency and sometimes perhaps for their Lawfulness And are not indeed almost all the Consents of Men in their Converses and Negotiations one with other of this kind Does the reading this Declaration ingage us in an evil and unlawful Action as necessarily as your Simile of Fire burning Wood Have we no Reason of the least doubt in this Matter Have we robbed the Bishop of Rome of all his Infallibility If there be as I believe with the most there is something of doubt in the other Balance then that is a good Rule which heretofore we used to commend to the Dissenters in the business of Conformity It is good to doubt on the best side Let us fear we fin against God by disobeying our King. That we are to obey the King in omnibus licitis honestis is out of all doubt Whether this Command of His be altogether unlawful is not so certain Away then with your Obedience where you see you may be most certain This was after our own Measures I am sure once if we have taken no false Measures since And further If we cannot serve His Majesty in this with so intire a Consent as we wish we could Can we do nothing of Civility of Honour and Respect Does not this move us sometimes to strain a little out of our Byass If this Declaration had been a Speech of my Lord Russel's or a Letter of Dr. Burnet's we had been so kind to make them as publick as we could Some of us remember the Ordinances of the Black Parliament and the Proclamations of an Usurping Oliver and how though I believe somewhat against our minds a little slavish fear made us buckle to the reading them in our Churches and to give Thanks and fast as demurely as the best of them But it seems neither Love nor Fear can prevail with us in the behalf of His Majesty If it were but to have expiated and retriv'd that Sin and Folly of our Ingratitude when we like Blocks lay unmoved without the least sense of His Majesties more particular favour to us and when an universal ferment of Joy and Thanks transfused it self over the whole Nation but our singular selves A stupidity in which your Letter would tempt us to be hardned more and more This say you must have served in stead of an Address of Thanks which the Clergy generally refused though it was only to Thank the King for His Gracious promise renewed to the Church of England in his Declaration which was much more innocent than to publish the Declaration it self in our Churches I remember one of the famous Oxford Reasons why the Clergy should not Address was that it would be but I thank you for nothing and that His Majesties promise was but a Superogation over those Established Laws which had done more for our Protection and Security already than he could add Now I though it would have becomed wise Men however happy at present to remember how fickle and various Fortune uses to be Who knows what back Friends the Church of England may have infuture Parliaments as likely as heretofore in their most Halcyon Days and how much we may have occasion to be beholding to a Le Roy avisera to obviate their Attempts But this I conceive was not thought of in the Thanking Days when our Manners to our King was much of that Cynical sort as of Diogenes to Alexander Pray Sir stand out of our Sun and don 't hinder us of that you cannot give us Well Sir you for your part in stead of mending one Hole are like to make two You are for no Address of Thanks nor any thing like it Wherefore I pray God deliver the Church of England from falling into the Hands of such Botchers For my part I would advise them yet to Address to His Majesty acknowledging their Errour beg His Pardon trust in His promise and give him assurance they are ready to Read His Declaration whenever He please to Command them I should not give this Counsel if I were not their Friend and Sir Yours FINIS
for that their Consciences cannot comply with the execution of some Laws made by their Predecessors in matters of Religion Constantine the Great Lucius Ethelbert by the established Laws should have persecuted Christianity but then they must have done it against their Consciences Julian found Christian Laws in the Empire but he could not be bound by them against his Will and retain the Authority of Emperor What would you have His Majesty do bring in an Exclusion Bill against Himself lay down His Crown and Scepter at your Feet and turn Subject to serve you Or would you have Him do worse prostitute His Conscience to your pleasure and act against the interest of His Soul to serve yours of the World Indeed what would you have Him do wiser and safer for His own Conscience and gentler and kinder for ours than what is imported in that Declaration which we suppress notwithstanding His Majesties Command to publish it and against which your Letter endeavours to stir up the madness of the People and to alienate their Hearts and Affections from so Gracious and so Wise and so Religious a Prince You would have Him perhaps represent the Business to His Parliament and leave it with them to excogitate some expedient for this emergent difficulty Well and what must He do in the mean time Sin against His Conscience No suspend For Gods sake then what is this stir for You know Sir His Majesty has already attempted something of this Nature with His first Parliament but with no success If you answer It was not probably to be expected then The Nation had not time enough to bethink themselves to take a Right Understanding of the thing and to apprehend the reasonableness of His Majesties Proposals To all this I agree with you Magna molimina tardè moventur Matters of so great moment and springing from such a surprising Vicissitude of State could hardly be so soon digested Yet His Majesty Dissolved not that Parliament till after He had condescended to Treat further of that Affair in His Closet with most of the principal Members and till He assured Himself of an utter averseness in them to any reasonable Complyance If you say then He must leave it to the issue of the next Parliament after so long a time as they have had to think over again You say right and so His Majesty intends and so He would have us signifie for the Peoples Satisfaction by Reading this Declaration Well but in this longer protraction of the time to another Parliament what would you have Him do Put these Laws in execution not only against the Safety of His Person but of His Conscience too Persecute what He accounts the Truth Apply Force where in His Conscience He judges nothing but Persuasion to be used I know no remedy for His Majesties Conscience in the interim but a further suspending and dispensing still with such Laws Nor do I believe that you or any Man else can assign a better Why He may not then make known the Continuance of His former Purposes in his first Declaration and why may it not be published by us the Ministers of Conscience and whose Duty it is of all Men to be most tender and of all others towards His Majesties Conscience And why not in our Churches and Chapels where we have insinuated generally to our People our own Mistakes in common with others even almost the whole Nations first hastily taken up false Conception of His Majesties Purposes Rightly to inform His Majesties Conscience so far as is becoming will not be taken amiss from us But if we find Him at a Point and that He is not to be moved from His Sentiment in these Matters I am confident none of us dare I am sure ought not to advise His Majesty to sin against His Conscience no more than we would do it our selves against ours Upon which Concession we cannot fairly censure and oppose in the manner we do His withdrawing His Authority from those Laws in the practice and prosecution of which His Conscience must needs be violated These are the Straits into which our Gracious King is driven at this Juncture He chuses according to His Judgment to offend Man rather than God Can we blame Him Nay ought we not rather to applaud Him for it We of the Clergy ought of all Men to lay our Hands upon our Mouths and make no Clamors nor give Him any Molestation on this account It is our own Doctrine in His Majesties Application while there are such Diversities of Religion among us and none more infallible than other on our Principles and while Temporal Laws will be medling with them and determining their Controversies unless they could make it a Shoo to fit to every Foot and to stretch to every Conscience such Mutations and Troubles of State as we meet with now are like frequently to return and the Government will ever and anon be off the Hinges new Exclusion-Bills to be brought into Parliaments new Plots and new Subjects for almost every new Prince To prevent such Convulsions of State and probably at one time or other Dissolutions of the Government as new Religions and new Consciences now a days multiply His Majesty wisely propounds that there be henceforth no disability on account of Conscience as of Kings to Reign so of Subjects to serve their Princes In the mean time nevertheless for the satisfaction of our Consciences as well as His own His Majesty further declares That he is resolved to use His uttermost indeavours to establish Liberty of Conscience on such just and equal Foundations as will render it unalterable and secure to all People the Free Exercise of their Religion for ever And to those of the Church of England principally and especially the Protestant Religion as by them profest and as by Law Established he will protect and maintain supereminently above all others as the National Religion That as we shall give the Check to no other so neither shall we be Checked by any in the free Exercise of our Consciences nor in the quiet and full enjoyment of our Possessions You would have His Majesty continue to us and protect and maintain us in our Dominion over all the Consciences of the Nation in the putting to Death Banishing Imprisoning Confiscating and by all other means not to call it persecuting suppressing and keeping under all others of a different Persuasion His Majesty would lend us His Power and Authority to do all this for us too if in Conscience he could but I think we ought to excuse him in that and I hope all Persons of Honour and Conscience will tenderly consider His Majesties Case as their own and be satisfied that the King does no more in this Affair than what any truly Conscientious Man even on our own Principles must have done And as Himself has been on this account hitherto necessitated to suspend the execution of the Penal Laws and Test so they also when convened together in