A MEMORIAL Humbly Presented to the Right Honorable The Lord Chief Justice OF THE KING'S-BENCH In Behalf of the HOSPITALLER AND HIS FRIENDS LONDON Printed in the Year 1690. To the Right Honorable Sir JOHN HOLT Knight Lord Chief Justice OF THE KING'S-BENCH My Lord THis Discourse which was intended to be spoken to your Lordship in our common Defence containing a full and clear Representation of our Case I do most humbly beseech your Lordship of your love to Justice to accept and consider at your leisure on our behalfs I had not been so hardy to take the part of an Advocate upon me but that I knew nothing when I began to write this and till I had well nigh finish'd it of the other Side 's appearing by their Counsel against us and then it was not for me to pretend to enter the Lists with Men so used to Pleading and so particularly Eminent and Learned in their Possession as they are however having written it at first to satisfie my self and others as well as I could in the true Merits of the Cause we were ingaged in I have presumed so far at this juncture wherein our Affairs are hastening to their Crisis as to publish and expose it to the open view of the World because it may be there may be some things in it which even the ablest Practiser of the Long-Robe distracted by so many Avocations and full of other Thoughts and Business might have omitted These Two things I humbly conceive to be very plain in it First That the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London cannot restore the Ejected whether Governors or Officers without as plain and manifest a Dispensing Power as that which even the late King assumed to himself for if the Court of Aldermen may put out those at pleasure whom the King by virtue of a Power given him by an express Act of Parliament hath put into their respective Places and if they may restore those whom he by the same Authority hath legally ejected what is this but at pleasure to dispense with the Act it self and to render such a Provision in the King's behalf as vain and fruitless as if it had never been made What is it else but for the Court of Aldermen to challenge that exorbitant Privilege as it 's due which is deny'd and barr'd by an express Act of Parliament even to Kings themselves and all this for Causes so just and weighty from the foresight of the Mischiefs which such a Power may produce and from the Experience of those which it actually hath that they carry their own Sanction included in themselves though no Act of Parliament to forbid or foreclose the Exercise of a Power so Arbitrary and Boundless in it self and in its Consequences so pernicious and destructive had ever been enacted And whether a Court comparatively Inferior however otherwise deserving a due Reverence and Respect from us ought to be allowed to trample upon the just Authority of Kings and to disappoint the true meaning and intention of the High Court of Parliament it self by any Order of theirs is a thing that may deserve your Lordship's Consideration and I doubt not my Lord but you will certainly consider it to our advantage and for the restraining of a dangerous Power which may dispense with the whole Statute Book or with what part or parcel of it pleaseth as well as with any one Law I know there are many very worthy Gentlemen in the Court of Adermen that abhor the very thoughts of arrogating and assuming thus much to themselves many that are well satisfied with the necessary Regulations made in the Reign of King Charles II. in which they themselves were instrumental being thereunto commissionated under the Broad Seal of England and that it is only those who are in truth no Aldermen that would be more than such if they knew how The other thing which to the best of my understanding is every whit as clear as the former is that if the Mayor or Court of Aldermen's Power though it had been a legal Court of Aldermen which the Act of Parliament hath declared at that time it was not may over-rule the King 's in our Case then I cannot see that the Hospitals are his in any sense his Power and Prerogative in them will be utterly destroyed and he cannot so much as send a sick Seaman or Soldier into any of these Houses without first asking leave of the City which although it may be especially in the present Circumstances they would not deny him yet it is infinitely beneath the Majesty of Princes to acknowledge or submit to a precarious Dependence wherever it can be proved they have a Right even a private Person where he can make out his Title would disdain to aceept of his own upon these terms by holding it only duâ—ante beneplacito by an uncertain capricious and revocable Grant from another and therefore it concerns all that love the Monarchy of England and much more all those that are under more particular Obligations to maintain and assert it to see that its Honor and just Prerogative do not suffer in so important a Branch as this which concerns the Royal Hospitals is through the Mistakes and Encroachments of a few Men that aim at a Power which they can never prove in the present Circumstances to be their due It is not their due in our Circumstances who were put in by the King by whom the very Persons whom they will needs restore were ejected nor in theirs neither if it be true that a certain Gentleman who takes much upon him neither is nor ever was since the avoidance of the Charter a legal Magistrate of this Renowned City and that several Assessors in the Court of Aldermen have as little right to the Bench as he hath to the Chair a Controversie which in my small Opinion the Parliament hath determined already or if they have not yet done it so clearly as might be wished yet in a short time it may be hoped they will In the mean while I cannot forbear saying That I never saw less good Manners less Decency or less Modesty in the Management of a Cause than I have done in this our Adversaries have confess'd by an obstinate and stubborn silence after so many fair Challenges and repeated Provocations notwithstanding all the Mercenary Pens that are always at their Service that they have nothing to say for themselves and that both in Law and Equity it is a very plain Case against them but yet still they have a Confidence not in their Cause which they know to be very bad but in their Power which they persuade themselves is greater than the Power of Truth that is proof against all this they are resolved upon their own Conclusion and leave our naked Premises to shift for themselves Poor Premises so destitute and so friendless that even Hospitals refuse them Entertainment Nay not only so but when the Lords of the Council have
Governors will always abuse their Trust in favor of that Interest and party to which they belong and they will think themselves bound to contravene and disappoint this Provision of King Edward even for Conscience sake to propagate and encourage that which they esteem the only true Profession of the Gospel and to discourage that Formality and Superstition of ours which they so loudly and so passionately and in their own Thoughts so deservedly complain of nay if we add Experience to Reason and conjecture we know by long Experience that they have always acted according to these measures Fourthly They dispense with the qualifying Act of the 25 Car. 2. as I have proved sufficiently in the following Papers it is Sir Edward Hales his Case the Bishop of Oxford's Case the Charter House Case and the whole Magdalen College Case as exactly as any thing can be only with this Aggravation which makes it so much the worse that it is a Power exercised by Subjects not by Kings by Subjects in contempt of the just Power and Prerogative of their Prince by Subjects in derogation to the standing Laws of the Realm and in defiance both of King and Parliament together Fifthly and lastly They dispense with the late Act for reversing the Judgment in a quo Warranto c. for by that Act or I am much mistaken after having very seriously considered it the present Lord Mayor commonly so call'd and several of his Collegues and Assessors upon the Bench are declared not to be and never to have been legal and rightful Lord Mayor and Aldermen of this City so that the Governors and Officers pretending to be restored holding by no other Authority but theirs and there not being a Majority in that Court without them There is nothing more certain than that they hold by nothing which is hardly so good as a drowning Man by a Reed and yet he must drown for all that For my part I must be frank and clear with your Lordship and the World that it seems to me a great Scandal to the Government it casts a Blemish of Dishonor and Reproach of Weakness and Infirmity upon the Supreme Power◠when its Enemies such as are at least virtually and consequentally if not actually so shall be suffered to swagger and domineer with the blustring Title of Governors to which they have no Title though they behave themselves of all Men the most imperiously and proudly under the lofty Imaginations that it puts into their weak Heads in a place where the King hath a legal and rightful Visitation and it is a further dishonor in this Case where they can make out no Title to so proud a Word that his Friends and Servants shall be affronted and curb'd after having had the Improvements of a polite and liberal Education by every little thing that hath neither Parts nor Breeding merely because it presumes to call it self a Governor though it knows not how to govern it self and is hardly qualified to be Governor of Jack Strawe's Castle but yet is 〈◊〉 as full and as big swell'd with the title as if it were indeed the Governor of some mighty Fortress that had a powerful Garison at its Devotion and the Country for twenty or thirty Miles round under Military Contribution and if the King of the Country by whose only Power and Authority he acts should pretend to visit or call him to an account he could immediately set him and his Army under Water and so farewell to Pharaoh and his Host for all are Aegyptians to the Dissenters and Commonwealths-men but themselves they are the only true Israelites when all is done and they make no bones of stealing this Crown Jewel of a Prerogative to visit from an Aegyptian King or indeed any King whatsoever for no King comes amiss they love them all and their Prerogative so well My Lord I do humbly propose it to your Lordship's Consideration that it is not only a dishonor to their Majesties that any of their Charities should be wholly managed by Men of a Republican Principle and Party but that the Peace of this Housecan never be secured unless we be all of a Mind as well the Governors as the Officers and Servants true and hearty Communicants of the Establish'd Church and such as have given such proofs of Conformity and Steadiness to the Government both in Church and State as the Law requires then and not before it is that we may expect to see happy Days if it be possible in a miserable Place and in the midst of Sickness and Diseases not till then it is that the Affairs of this House disturbed by mutual Animosities and intestine Broils will go on with an even and successful Pace to the Credit of the Government and to the utmost Advantage of the Sick and Wounded My Lord I humbly beg your Lordship's Pardon for this very long this unexpectedly long preliminary Address I shall add but two things more and that very briefly and so conclude My Lord What are these Gentlemen that will needs make themselves Parties and will needs be Defendants in this Cause against us The Plaintiffs certainly know best who it is by whom they are aggrieved and they complain of none but of Sir T. P. the pretended Lord Mayor and those of his Brethren that have concurred with him for the displacing of those whom K. Charles II. by an undoubted Prerogative inherent in the Crown sent hither and for the restoring of those whom he by the same Right hath ejected I have nothing to say to Hughes as to the Money that hath been paid him but I must expect my Satisfaction from those by whose Order it was done and they if any are the Defendants in this Cause And here there are two Points to be insisted upon first Whether the Court of Aldermen at the passing of those Orders were a legal Court or Whether it be so or no to this very day till it be purged of those that have nothing to do to sit there and till the Number be filled up by those that are better qualified to take the Stile and Dignity of Aldermen upon them Secondly The King's Power of Visitation being acknowledged as we are ready to prove it undeniably if it be disputed whether even a legal Court of Aldermen can rescind the legal Act of the King in an Affair that lies so plainly and so properly within his Royal Cognizance and Visitation But as for these Gentlemen that call themselves Governors and will by all means be Parties under that Name and Notion who are they Are they not all or the much greatest part of them the very same Men that were ejected by K. Charles II. so that their Title to the Stile and Office of Governors of this House is a thing every whit as much disputed and for the same Reason as that of any of the Officers pretending to be restored How then comes it to pass that they so confidently presume to act as the Delegates or
Abuses and Misgovernments from time to time that shall or may arise or shall be by them deemed or adjudged to arise in the Administration or Superintendency of the same As to the Clause produced and cited out of the Grant of King Edward whereby he reserves a Power of Visitation to himself and Successors for ever in the Hospital of St. Thomas Southwark which is the Scene of the Controversie now depending before your Lordship it hath two several Foundations to rely upon First The Clause that hath been alledged out of the Act of H. 8. by which he was intrusted with a Power of Visitation in all Religious Houses and Places exempt as this is and Parliamentary Trusts ratified and accepted by the Royal Sanction can no more be violated than Coronation Oaths for every Law is a part of the matter of that Oath which obligeth the King equally to observe and maintain all the Laws and in every Trust lodged in the King by Act of Parliament the Performance of it is supposed to be exacted and called for by the same Authority which is always sitting always in being until that fiduciary Constitution be repealed So that King Edward though he had not reserved to himself a Power of Visitation in this and other such Places yet the Act it self would have obliged him and his Successors to visit as often as occasion should require neither could he so entirely devolve such a Trust as this upon the Mayor Commonalty and Citizens of London or upon any other Person or Persons whatsoever as totally to neglect and abandon it himself which implies not only a Power of visiting at all times but a necessity of doing it in some particular Cases to consent that another shall betray that Trust which is committed to me or to put it wholly out of my power to call him to account for his Violation or Male-Adminstration of it being the same thing in the issue and Conclusion though it go somewhat further about as if I had actually and willfully betrayed it in my own Person If the words had been never so express never so absolute without the least shadow of any reserve or exception by which this Hospital was consigned over to the Commonalty and Corporation of London Yet still the King's Power of Visitation had been supposed because he could not give away the Act of Parliament nor any Prerogative inherent in the Crown to the diminution of his own rightful Power or that of his Heirs and Successors in after times and especially in such a Case as this where not only a Power was lodged but a Trust for the good of others was reposed in him by the Representative Body of the Nation which includes and draws after it the diffusive and all this with his own Royal Assent which though he may give or not give before the Sanction yet after it he cannot withdraw it as he pleaseth which would be to give him a Dispensing Power in the utmost Latitude and Comprehension of it against the true Meaning and Intention of all Laws which always design to be observed and obeyed as well by himself as others so far as he hath put himself under the Force and Obligation of them This is the first Ground upon which the Reservation in the Grant of King Edward VI. to the Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London relies it is an Act of Parliament made in his Father's time by which he was not only impowered to visit all exempt Places but it was left with him and his Successors in Trust and is a Charge which he was bound to look after as often as any real or to him so seeming Necessity should require The second Ground that justifies and warrants the Reservation is taken from the nature of the Gift it self every Man that gives or bequeaths any thing to a publick Use must be allowed to do it upon his own Conditions and with his own Reservations supposing them to be reasonable or possible in themselves Without an Act of Parliament any private Donor may appoint if he so pleaseth certain extraordinary Visitors to inspect and examine as occasion shall require the Administration of the ordinary Trustees and much more then may a King do the same when he hath an Act of Parliament to authorize and defend him in it in a publick Charity of his own Foundation In virtue of this double Authority and this double Trust derived to him from the Act of Parliament and from the Grant of King Edward his late Majesty King Charles II. did visit the Royal Hospitals belonging to this City by his Commissioners under the Broad Seal as the Act of Parliament required he should do and in this Visitation he displaced several Officers and several Governors too and placed others in their stead Which things being premised in order to the more clear and faithful Representation of our Case We presume with all humble Submission to your Lordship that as to the Visitation in the general considered there can be no question as to the Legality of it it being done in pursuance of a very reasonable and just Proviso in King Edward's Grant and by Commissioners under the Broad-Seal of England as the Act of Parliament required all the question is whether there were at that time any just Ground any reasonable or sufficient Cause of Visitation or no and this my Lord is a Question capable of a two-fold Answer First The King is not bound to give an Account of the Reasons why he visits And Secondly If he were bound the Reasons were notorious and such as in the Judgment of any indifferent Person might abundantly justifie a Royal Visitation First The King is not bound to give an Account of the Reasons why he visits or for the Regulations which he makes as to Officers and Servants belonging to the House in any such Visitation Indeed if the King should go about to alter the Constitution to imbezzle the Charity or to convert it to a quite different Use this would be so plain an Abuse of his Power and Violation of his Trust as would sufficiently warrant the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of London or any others in whom the ordinary Trust and Management was lodged to stand it out against him and to vindicate their Title by a course of Law by which the true Meaning and Intention of the Donor would appear from the express words of the Grant which it would always be easie to produce and the King who by the said Grant was made and constituted the Supreme Guardian and Visitor of the Charity bestowed therein could not possibly with any color or pretence of Right either imbezzle squander and abuse it to no good Use at all or convert it to any other Use than what the Founder himself had allotted But for the Officers and Servants it is another Case if the King be bound to give a particular Account why he turns out such and puts others in their room then he shall not
visit at all he shall have no Power either to put in or out even though never so great Abuses be committed without the Consent of the ordinary Trustees and till they shall approve of the Reasons of his so doing which is effectually to take the power of Visitation out of his Hands and to make the Act of Parliament and the Reservation in King Edward's Grant both of them very vain and insignificant things Besides It is an Opinion which the most Eminent and Learned Lawyers of this Nation have owned and espoused under there respective Hands and which we are ready to produce that the Officers and Servants of St. Thomas Hospital are not Charter-Officers but Servants ef such a nature that they may be turned out or put in at pleasure by the Court of Aldermen or the Governors acting under them even without a Reason as Masters of Families may do with their hired Servants or Shop-keepers with their Journeymen or Merchants with their Factors with whom they have not contracted for any length of time but may keep them in their Service or dismiss them from it as they please themselves Now if this be the Power of the ordinary Governors and Trustees themselves then the King who hath always a Power and Right of Visitation Paramount and Superior to any that they can pretend to may much more do the same and cannot be accountable to any for so doing any more than nor indeed so much as the ordinary Feoffees because he acts by an Authority Superior to theirs and because the last Appeal beyond which there is no remedy is lodged in him Let us suppose if your Lordship pleaseth what hath already been unquestionably proved that the King in this business acted not only by virtue of that highly rational and prudent Trust that was reposed in him by the Grant of King Edward but also by virtue of that very Power which was given him by an Act of Parliament never yet repealed either in whole or in part In this Case my Lord with your Lordship's good leave it is very plain that when upon a Visitation the King displaceth some Officers and placeth others in their stead if upon the dissolution of the Commission which may be done the next moment after the Regulation is made the ordinary Trustees shall be invested with a power of turning the Tables upon him of putting out those whom he put in and putting in those whom he put out which is our present Case and it is that wherein the chief Pinch of the Controversie lies then this Provision in the Act of Parliament is altogether vain the King's Authority is rendred useless and contemptible and the Lord Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London are effectually furnished with a Dispensing Power For he or they that may dispence with one Statute may do the same by another and in Consequence by all they being only so many several Exercises of one and the same absolute and uncontrolable Right so that this is not only to submit to a Power which we pretend to disclaim but it is to take the Scepter out of the King's Hands and to put it into those of the City to change the Form of Government from a Monarchy to a Commonwealth or rather to make the Lord Mayor of London for the time being to be the King of England in the most absolute and arbitrary Sense For dispensare boc est lege solvere is solus potest qui ferendae abrogandaeque legis potestatem habet they are the words of Grotius he only can dispense with a Law that hath a Power of making or annulling it and the same is the Opinion of Vasquez Suarez Pufendorf and others and of that Right Reverend and Learned Author himself by whom these Opinions are collected and set down in his admirable Discourse concerning the illegality of the late Ecclesiastical Commission p. 33. And my Lord Chief Baron Atkins in his accurate Enquiry into the Power of Dispensing with Penal Statutes p. 23 24 endeavors to prove by several Instances of temporary Dispensations with the Statute of Provisors and other Statutes That the Power of Dispensing with Acts of Parliament is no where else but where the Legislative Power is and that the Kings of England have sometimes accepted it from them in some particular Cases and for some limited time and with divers Restrictions which is a full acknowledgment saith he that it belongs only to the Legislative Power to dispense with Laws And this my Lord is plainly the Reason of the thing for every Law includes an Obligation otherwise it is no Law because it does not bind and no Obligation can be taken off but by a Power either equal or superior to that which made it Now if the Lord Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London may not only eject out of the Royal Hospitals those whom the King hath placed there but also restore those very Men whom he hath discarded notwithstanding the Act of Parliament gives him a Power without Appeal to visit and redress that is it gives him the same power over the Officers of such Houses that Masters of Families have over their Domesticks who may keep their Servants or turn them out of doors without giving a Reason then is that very Dispensing Power admitted and allowed in the Corporation of London which is deny'd to the King and in this particular Instance they do not only barely contend with the Law but they justle the King out of his undoubted Prerogative and unquestionable Right and bring both Him and the Parliament under their Girdle so that Now those eminent Promises do hasten to accomplishment as a late Author expresses it in a Sermon printed to justifie and affirm the execrable Murther of King Charles I. For binding of Kings in chains and Nobles with fetters of Iron for disobeying of Kings and Parliaments together such honor have all his Saints But my Lord you are always of Council for the King so far at least as not to suffer his Prerogative Royal to be unjustly invaded and therefore we rest assured that your Lordship will determine nothing as well for that Reason as out of a wise and honorable Sense of the great Equity and Justice of our Cause that shall in its Consequence affect the Government as it is now happily Establish'd or in any wise tend to the diminution of their Majesties just and clear Prerogative or to the Disinherison of the Imperial Crown of this Realm and that your Lordship will remember that the Declaration of the Lords and Commons Assembled at Westminster which was presented to their present Majesties the then Prince and Princess of Orange and which in every part of it hath been since confirmed by an Act of Parliament Entituled An Act declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and settling the Succession of the Crown Which said Declaration and Act thereupon ensuing have pronounced all suspending of Laws and all dispensing with them without
consent of Parliament to be illegal I say I know your Lordship will consider that the same Authority that deny'd this Power of Dispensing to the King and Queen themselves upon Experience of the Mischiefs and Calamities it produced in the late unhappy Reign would much less have granted the same extravagant inordinate and inconvenient Privilege to Subjects nay they would never have thought of it without Indignation and Scorn and I leave it with your Lordship to determine as you shall see cause whether the Mayor and Commonalty of London's restoring those to their respective Places whom the King hath legally ejected by virtue of a Clause in an express Act of Parliament vesting him with such a Right be not a plain Instance of a Dispensing Power by rendering this Clause altogether insignificant and useless and whether it be not so much the more criminal for being exercised not by the King but by Subjects and those not of the first Rank and Quality neither in contempt both of King and Parliament together And my Lord I beg leave to propound this further Question to your Lordship whether the Restitution of the ejected Officers by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen do destroy and evacuate the King's Right of Visitation or no For upon Supposition that it doth they are not only furnisht with a Power of suspending Laws and of dispensing with them but likewise of abrogating rescinding and repealing them too which is to make them every whit as absolute as the most comprehensive enlarged and unconfined notion of Arbitrary Government it self can be If it doth not then as they immediately upon the Dissolution of the Commission which as I have said may be done the next moment after the Regulation is made as they may immediately restore those whom the King hath ejected so may the King the very next minute by a new Commission eject those whom they have restored and thus there will be a circle of Appeals and Controversies will be endless Confusion unavoidable as long as such a changeable and uncertain State of things shall continue it is therefore humbly left to your Lordship whether you think it more reasonable to determine for the King and Queen and for the Lords and Commons who have given them this power of visiting and redressing as they shall find cause or for a few mistaken Men who whatever right of Government in ordinary cases they have yet have none at all in Derogation to the King's Prerogative and in Opposition to such a particular and special Visitation as is by this Act of Parliament provided for All this hath been said may it please your Lordship upon occasion of the first Head proposed to be insisted upon that the King is not bound to give an Account of the Reasons why he visits and that tho the Ejectment of the Gentlemen concerned had been never so Arbitrary yet it is good in Law the Law gives the King an Arbitrary and Despotical Power in these Cases so he do not substitute in the room of those ejected such other Persons as are not duly qualified by Law or are otherwise grosly and notoriously incapable of their respective Employments and this I hope it hath been sufficiently proved that he may do to call him to a strict Account for the Reasons and Causes of his Visitation besides that the Act of Parliament is general and without any reserve being in effect to take the power of Visitation out of his Hands for he that cannot visit but when others please hath no power or right of Visitation that is properly his own I come now to the second thing to be insisted upon supposing the King were accountable for what he did as in very truth he is not yet that there are sufficient Reasons to be given My Lord The order of Council referring the Consideration of this Matter to your Lordship sets forth as a part of the Matter of our Petition that they that claim against us were ejected by his late Majesty for not being legally qualified and so they undoubtedly were if the Act of Parliament of the 25th of that King for preventing of Dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants were a good Law and were then in full force and virtue for by that Act it is expresly enjoin'd That all that receive any Salary Fee or Wages by reason of any Patent or Grant from his Majesty or shall have Command or Place of Trust from or under his Majesty or from any of his Majesties Predecessors or by his or their Authority or by Authority derived from him or them shall undergo the Tests and make the Subscriptions therein mentioned which it is needless to recite they are so well known to all that are here present Now my Lord our Salaries are paid us by virtue of a Grant from their Majesties Royal Predecessor King Edward VI and by Authority derived from him as all other Affairs and Matters relating to the House are transacted by and under the Influence of the same Royal Grant and by Authority derived from it Nothing therefore can be more plain than that the Officers of this House receiving Wages and Salaries from the King or at least from his Royal Predecessor King Edward VI. and by Authority derived from him were obliged by the plain and express Letter of that Act without any remote Consequences or far-fetch'd Interpretations to undergo the Tests and Tryals of Protestancy and Loyalty therein enjoin'd But if a Dissenter cannot take the Oath of Supremacy which was then enjoin'd nor receive the Sacrament according to the manner and usage of the Church of England then by this Act he is precluded from receiving any Wages or Salary from the King or from any of his Royal Predecessors or by his or their Authority or by Authority derived from him or them and this upon Examination will be found to have been the Case of most if not all of those that were at that time ejected and if any Man did comply to serve a turn with these Tests which I cannot tell that any one Man did continuing still a Dissenter and a Separatist from the Church of England or an half-faced Conformist and a frequenter of both Communions as if it were indifferent to him what Religion he was of as some such there have been yet this did by no means come up to the Intention of that Act which the better to discourage and disappoint all Popish Designs would allow the King to trust or reward none for any Service in his disposal but such as were hearty and entire Conformists to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England Again all Places within the King's Visitation are by a very natural and easie Interpretation within the King's Pay for the King is supposed to employ those whom he may eject out of their Employments when he pleaseth and to pay those whose Salaries he may stop as well without as with a Reason it is clear therefore upon this Account also That
but this though it was not then granted yet if it had it would not have served the turn as appeared by this that to get into Employments and Publick Trusts in the Kingdom their Casuists had started a new sort of Divinity among them and made it lawful to serve the Interests and Designs of their Party which can be nothing else when their Scruples are indulged but the getting of the Government into their own hands by telling them as to Oaths which it was presumed by the Authority that enjoin'd them such Persons would not take that they were to be taken not in the sense of the Imposers but of the takers themselves and so every Oath was either altogether uncertain that is vain and of no force at all or it had as many Meanings as there could be private Interpretations made or it was taken with the Proviso's and Limitations of the Casuists of the Party who would be sure so to order the matter as not to be excluded out of any Office or Employment by any Oath or Test that could be put upon them and as for Oaths so also for the Sacrament they could not digest it upon every ordinary occasion according to the usage and practice of the Church of England but when the Receiving after that manner was made a Qualification for every publick Employment then they distinguish'd very nicely betwixt the Religious Act and the Civil or Political Qualification they look'd upon it only as a civil Thing a political Formality a pre-requisite Agendum enjoin'd by the Laws of their Country in order to qualifie and prepare them for their respective Offices and Employments the better to serve their own Party and to do mischief to the Government in them without any regard to the Religious Mysteries comprehended under that awful and blessed Institution And as some did by occasional Communion so others did by constant and were great Zealots for the Establish'd Church constant frequenters of the Divine Service and Sacraments only to let them into Opportunities as appeared by the Event For the tree is known by its fruits disturb and overturn it by favoring and abetting as much as in them lay all the Designs and Practices of the Separating Parties This being therefore an extraordinary Disease to which no ordinary Remedies could be apply'd with success for what can bind or tie up the hands of such Men whom neither Oaths nor Sacraments are able to oblige It was judged by those that were then at the Helm of Affairs that some extraordinary and unusual Course must be taken to hinder these profligate and wicked Principles so destitute of the fear of God and so destructive of all Faith and Society among Men from having those mischievous Effects upon the Publick for which they were designed and this at length ended in the seizure of so many Charters into the King's hands and in his new modelling all Corporations at Discretion displacing all such at his pleasure as he had any proof of Disaffection or any ground of Jealousie against and placing others in their stead in whom he might better confide I shall not go about to defend the Legality of such a Course as this if the necessity of it will not defend it nothing will for that there was a necessity of something extraordinary at that time to be done is apparent and what was done had really this good Effect that the Government was generally speaking put into better hands the Republican Faction were every where discouraged and the Monarchy and Church were set upon a firmer bottom than they had stood upon for many Years before so that if this turn of State were in it self illegal yet it cannot be deny'd but it had wholsom Effects and what with this and the legal Penalties which were then revived and the many excellent Discourses published by our Clergy to satisfie the Scruples and rectifie the Mistakes and Misapprehensions of the Dissenters things were now arrived to a very great degree of composure and the Schism was now in a very fair probability of moldering into nothing This present Parliament however dissatisfied with such Proceedings as supported barely by the King's Prerogative without any consent of theirs and being look'd upon perhaps as I am persuaded it was as a design among other things to model Parliaments at the pleasure of the Court and for that Reason such a general Disfranchisement of the Corporations must needs in its Example and Consequence at least be a thing very dangerous to the liberty of the Subject as it proved afterwards in the late King's Reign when the Corporations were put into the hands of Dissenters and Papists yet notwithstanding considering what sort of Men they were that were at that time put into publick Trusts and how well the Corporations as obnoxious to and dependent upon the Crown as they were did afterwards acquit themselves in the beginning of the late King's Reign by sending such Representatives to Parliament as approved themselves upon the severest tryals to be so true to the Establish'd Protestant Religion and to the liberties of the People by refusing to revoke the Test and Penal Laws and by a bold and generous disowning of the Dispensing Power for which they were not only dissolved as unfit and unserviceable for the present turn but also put out of all places of trust honor profit and power through the Nation I say for these Reasons and out of a just respect to the Eternal Merit of so much Virtue Integrity and Courage in a critical and dangerous Juncture the Parliament were so well satisfied and pleas'd with them that they would not suffer them to be call'd in question and much less would they be persuaded to render them incapable of any future Service for so many Years together as would have put the whole Power of the Nation effectually into such hands as in all likelihood would have alter'd the Government both in Church and State and secured a perpetual Republick to themselves It is our Saviour's own Rule that a Kingdom or an House divided against it self cannot stand not but that in this Kingdom or this House there may be divers Opinions and yet the Peace of them both may be maintain'd either by Charity on the one hand or by putting the whole Power of this Kingdom or this House into the hands of one sort who want not sufficient means to defend themselves and to keep the rest from doing them or one another any considerable harm on the other but where not only Opinions but also Powers are divided where they that separate in Opinion from the rest are sharers in the Civil Power together with them there being no use of Power but for Defence or Annoyance it is impossible but a divided Power must be proportionably weakened but that Powers mixt that are imploy'd upon different Designs must produce a dangerous Ferment and that Powers divided and bent against each other must break and shatter one another's Strength the Consequence of
been pleased to honor this little Cause of ours little in its self but in its Consequences great and worthy that Sacred and Majestick Board with their sublime and weighty Contemplation when they have referred the further Examination of it by an express Order made in that behalf to your Lordship 's known Wisdom and untainted Justice the result of which Enquiry is to be reported back again to them to put a final period and issue to it which a Man would think in Reason should have put a stop to any further Proceedings on their part while the Affair was depending out of a dutiful Reverence and Regard to that awful Judgment and Decision that was expected yet even now do they go on as they have always done with taking it for granted that they are in the right even now doth Hughes in contempt of every thing that is Great or Good in Defiance to all the most solemn Orders of Suspension that can be made and in Despite of his own recoiling and upbraiding Book written against Pluralities and Non-Residence before it happen'd to be his own Case receive his quarterly Payments for doing nothing while I have nothing but my labor for my pains and while I have not wherewithal to defend their Majesties Prerogative otherwise than with my Pen which was a Reason of necessity why I should plead my own Cause and why I intended to do it in the following Remonstrance while I am intangled in Debt and run into Extremities by a great deal of barbarous and unchristian Vsage My Adversaries have the King 's and the Hospital Revenues at their Service to overthrow his Title and assert their own So deeply rooted even in some that call themselves Church men is the love of a Common-wealth Interest and a Dissenting Party so great is the Merit of a Sermon dedicated to his Excellency the Lord Cromwel in defence of the worst Action that ever he did or could do by a Trooper formerly under his Command by one that first fought against Monarchy with his Sword then writ and preach'd and printed against it too and was not content with Treason against the King without spitting his Venom against the Saint and the Martyr My Lord If Ludlow were so severely and yet justly treated by the Resentment of the House of Commons and if his Majesty in Compliance with their humble Remonstrance and Petition was pleased to issue out his Royal Proclamation for his Apprehension for High Treason wherever he could be found above forty Years after that Regicide was committed Ludlow that had but one Hand one Finger in that fearful Crime Ludlow that had but one Voice in that execrable Doom past by the vilest of Traytors and of Men upon the best of Kings If he were forced to seek his Safety in his Flight if he were necessitated to compound for a Life scarce worth the saving after having lived so much beyond the common periods of human Life by a silent and voluntary Exile to Climes far distant from his native Country to mountainous and barren Places where Nakedness and Thirst and Hunger reign where Want and Beggery have their Habitation then what doth he deserve who by defending all the Regicides in what they had done by studied Blasphemies and elaborate Harangues upon so horrid a Subject hath pull'd down the Guilt of them all upon himself and hath contracted their divided Impieties into one nay hath done his utmost which is worst of all to persuade these Miscreants as much as in him lay not to repent and be sorry for what they had done and to encourage others to the like Attempts The Act of Grace my Lord that hath remitted the Punishment hath not made the Fault less heinous than it was before it is plain that his Case was rather more heinous than any of the Judges and it is very strange that this Man should be thought to have a Right to eat the King's Bread when others in Circumstances scarce altogether so criminal as his are forced in foreign Countries to beg their own and glad that even that least and last of Liberties belonging to Mankind is not denied them by the pursuit of Justice and the Anger of a People barbarously robb'd of an indulgent Father a Wise Religious Chast Temperate Just Merciful Magnanimous and Heroick King which neither time nor distance are able to appease Certainly the King hath either no power to visit though never such Enormities be committed though never such personal Affronts be put upon him as it was in Mr. Hughes his Case who preach'd and pray'd in this Hospital as the King's Chaplain when he was scarce qualified to breath in his Dominions or to enjoy any benefit of a Subject certainly the King's Hospitals are any bodies rather than the King 's or in this instance at least he might exercise his Power this was an allowable Cause of Visitation If the Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London had had in this Case an Authority so wholly independent on the King as that his Majesty could not by Law have intermedled in any Affair relating to the Hospitals of the City yet the disposal of the Officers of the said Houses so as to retain and dismiss them at their pleasure being wholly Arbitrary and unaccountable in themselves without any remedy or appeal to an higher Power or a superior Court It must needs have appeared to have been very hard if they who might have dismist a Servant or an Officer for no reason at all would not have thought it reason sufficient to discard any Man that the King was displeas'd at him that he look'd upon him as disaffected to his Person or Government that he had been guilty of such things as had given just cause of Anger and Offence to his Majesty against him and the Hospital being confessed on all hands to be a Royal Foundation that Gratitude and Piety which was due to the Memory of the Royal Founder would have obliged the Trustees in future Generations to have such regard to his Successors in the Throne that his Request should be Sacred as to all those things which they might lawfully have done without it not only without the actual assignment of a Reason but without the inward Power of being able to give one if it were demanded if must be confessed in this Case that it would have been a great Affront an unpardonable Contempt of Majesty for Subjects to stand it out with their King in a Matter wherein he thought his Honor interested and concerned though he had nothing that could be called a Right but when he himself by an Authority superior to theirs by his own Authority by his Prerogative Royal by a Right given and granted him by the Parliament it self hath displaced or ejected any Person in such Circumstances as these out of any Office or Employment whereof he stood formerly possessed for a subordinate Power to pretend to restore such an one in desiance of his absolute and unaccountable
put into such Hands as the Law had expresly and sollicitously precluded from having any share in the Publick Administration not that the Romanists had any such real Tenderness for the Dissenters or that they on the other side by all the Caresses and Endearments in the World could be brought off from their deserved Aversions to the Church of Rome but in this common Design they both agreed That the Church of England must down and then a new Tryal of Skill would have succeeded which of these two should be triumphant at last and trample upon the other after all this Fawning and Friendship the Romanists who can never tolerate but when it is not in their Power to punish relyed upon the Favor of the King the Advantages of that Power and Interest that would be put into their Hands and their then very formidable Alliances abroad but yet the Dissenters still looked upon them but as an handful of Men and thought at last by their Numbers to prevail and this was plainly and manifestly the Game that was then played on both sides The Regulation of Corporations by the Quo Warranto's must be acknowledged to have had a great deal of Arbitrary in it because as I have already hinted it seemed to strike at the great Fundamental of the English Liberty which consists so much in the Freedom of Elections for Burgesses to serve in Parliament and by this means if Corporations might be dissranchis'd and renewed according to the King's Pleasure Parliaments might be molded according to the same And there was also a particular Account upon which this Proceedure was very offensive and ungrateful to great numbers of Men and that is that it was designed to ensure the Succession without any Interruption or Exclusion to the next Heir whose Religion was a Pretence with some and a Reason of Conscience with others for hindering his Accession to the Crown and this it did effectually do there being few or none permitted to have any Power or to make any Figure in this unprecedented universal Regulation but such as had beforehand openly declared against any such Exclusion and were zealous Asserters of the Monarchy in its old course of Descent but it must always be owned to the Honor of those Gentlemen generally speaking all over the Nation that bating the Authority by which they acted which the Parliament have declared to have been Arbitrary and Illegal and the Reason of the Thing speaks as much yet as to their Actings themselves or as to their Behaviour in their respective Charges they shewed plainly that what they had done was only out of an honest and an upright Zeal for the Preservation of the Monarchy in its true Line in opposition to the Practices and Designs of Republicans and Dissenters who were glad of any colour or shadow of a Reason to interrupt and as they thought to weaken it and render it more precarious by so doing without any thought of Compliance with a false Religion or of submitting themselves and their Posterity to the old Bondage of the See of Rome And as one great Instance and assured Token of their Firmness and Constancy to the Religion establish'd they sent us a Representative like themselves after all the Art and Industry used by Court Emissaries and Agents at the respective Elections in the beginning of the last Reign a Parliament that could distinguish rightly betwixt God and Caesar and was resolved to give to each of them their due a Parliament that opposed vigorously the Dispensing Power and stood up firmly to the Church and the Laws and a Parliament that as the Right Reverend my Lord Bishop of Salisbury in one of the six Papers that go under his Name observes made sufficient Amends for the Faults of their Election by their personal Virtues and by the Courage and Constancy which they shewed in the Defence of their Religion and Country so that when the Point of Succession was now over by the immediate Heir's being actually in the Throne and when they would not break in upon those Walls and Fences that had so long preserved this Paradise of England from the Revages and Incursions of the Boars out of the Wood and the savage Beasts of the Desart and the Field there was now no longer use of such Men they were discarded and dissolved as unfit for any future Service and new Regulations and of another sort were attempted in which none could be found so fit for the present Turn as they that were formerly the most eager and clamorous for the Passing the Bill of Exclusion the Commonwealth and the Dissenting Party who more out of Hatred to the Church of England than Love to that of Rome to which they were still more averse made large Promises of revoking all those Tests and other Penal Laws relating to Religion by which the establish'd Church was fortified and defended and this was done as it were by way of Bargain between the two Parties for the King would not annul the Penal Laws against Protestant Dissenters unless the Tests and other Laws against Popish Recusants might be abolished and abrogated at the same time and the Dissenters great numbers of them for I do not I dare not charge them all were content upon this Condition to let their new Confederates the Papists enjoy the same Freedom and Liberty with themselves intending after this when they had destroyed the Church of England to try what work they could make with their new Friends and Allies which at the long run and at the winding up of the bottom was manifestly the Design of both Parties upon each other for the nature of things will never permit there should be a lasting Peace betwixt Parties of Such different Interests and of such fix'd and rooted Aversions on both sides so that it must needs be plain to any Man that shall consider it that the Dissenting and Commonwealth Party who were generally the most hot for Passing the Bill of Exclusion besides the just Aversions which they had to Popery had an eye at the weakning of the Monarchy it self which they thought by this means might be impaired and that the other who were against it had not the least thought of Prejudice to the establish'd Religion but rather acted as they then conceived for the Defence and Preservation of it the Monarchy and the Establishment of the Church of England being so plainly bound up in each other tho I deny not all this while but many worthy Gentlemen acted in this Affair for the Excluding Side out of no other Principle but a just Tenderness and conscientious Regard to their Religion and Liberties and because they were of Opinion the Monarchy was not like to run so great an hazard by one single Interruption in the Succession to the Crown and on the other side the Non-Excluders tho what they did was out of Reasons of Policy and State and out of Principles of Conscience too yet Time the only true Judge of Controversies of this
to restore his lawful King as the best and only means to put an end to those Confusions and the most conducible to his own Honor and Safety but had no thanks for his pains as the Story is largely represented by himself in his accurate and excellent Memoirs As for the Sermon it self to mention every thing that is obnoxious in it would be to transcribe it all therefore I shall set down only two notable Passages leaving the Reader to make his own Paraphrase upon them The first relates to the Tryal and Condemnation of King Charles I. by the pretended High Court of Justice which he shows us was not so bad a thing as some would make it and by several very pleasant Comparisons endeavors to make the Murther and Deposition of Princes so easie and familiar that the most squeamish of his Readers may digest it Pag. 12 13. 3. Conclus 3. All unusual are not strait unwarrantable Courses although of late less beaten Paths have been walked in it follows not that 't is a Trespass presently What will you say to Phinchas Numb 25. 6. Psal 106. 30. who executed judgment upon Zimri The one a Prince the other but a Priest and so no Magistrate nor commissioned from him that may be clearly found not that such Instances are always or in all things imitable yet 1. Where Circumstances do concur the Plea is somewhat strengthened that 's drawn after so fair a Copy that brought Gods Approbation to the Author and Imprimatur to the Action 2. A minori if a private Man without an Hearing c. much more a Supreme Court by fair Proceedings and yet that Action of the Parliament is not without Precedent neither and therefore not so uncouth as some do render it Indeed I look that peevish Spirits will be angry that I tell them so although the Sober may accept it as a Courtesie for whose sakes are the following Instances Tarquinius Superbius the Seventh and last King of Rome was expell'd and Monarchy thence together with him Nero the Sixth Emperor of Rome was by the Senate declared an Enemy and condemned to be Whipt to Death Wenceslaus King of Bohemia was deposed by the Eloctors Richard tho Second King of England was deposed by Parliament and after Famish'd in Pomfret Castle Athaliah the Queen was slain by the Officers and Captains 2 Kings 11. Amaziah tho King after he forsook the Lord was Executed 2 Chron. 25. Which I only mention to the end Mens Discontents might once be ended O rare Hospitaller The other Passage is concerning tho Ministers that were ejected by those Impudent Fellows tho Tryers for no other fault for the most part but only being scandalous for Learning Loyalty or some other Virtue and many times all Virtues in Conjunction together he presseth tho vigorous Prosecution of so good and useful a Design and that you may see he was through-paced and flinch'd at nothing he recommends Coblers and Tinkers and other Lay Divines well furnish'd with Confidence and well appointed with Lungs to be presented to Livings in the room of those Bookish Human-Learning Prelatical Antichristian Theologues that were ejected his words are these p. 17 18. 3. Encouraging an able Gospel-Ministry for them your selves and for the Nation from first to last ordinarily there neither hath been not is any true Conversion without an outward Ministry to pass by others the sad Prophaness on the the one hand Blasphemous Heresies on the other or gross Ignorance on them both are Arguments enough and over to convince us of the Necessity of such a Ministry But God forbid my Mouth should open for those whose Mouths are shut * Silenc'd Clergy-men Dumb Dogs the Scripture calls them or that I should Pronounce one word in their behalf whose wicked Conversation doth as it were Renounce the Gospel they Profess he that labors not or not to purpose let him not eat I humbly beg that those commissioned †The Tryers to that purpose would be active and impartial as to find out so to turn out such that if they do no good you may prevent them from doing hurt We are sure there is a Nest of such about the Country but where the Fault is whether because the People will not inform or those impowered not reform I cannot say whatever others may suspect nor is my purpose to confine this necessarily to a Coat our Hearts as Moses's would all the Lords people were Prophets so then that those found worthy-and approved for the Work be rewarded in it Christ saith the Laborer is worthy of his hire which is meant of a Gospel Minister whether he be sent or no O brave King's Chaplain O fine Mr. Hughes Euge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ADVERTISEMENT THere is Affidavit made before one of their Majesties Justices of the Peace and one of the Governors of St. Thomas Hospital that Dr. T. the present pretended Physician of that House did in January 88. a little before the then Prince of Orange our present gracious Sovereign arriv'd at London or the Government which was then in great Confusion was settled declare it as his Sense speaking of the four last Kings that they were Rogues and Rascals and that we had better be govern'd by a Commonwealth or a State as in other Countries than by any of them And we have other things of a like seditious Nature that shall be afterwards proved against him if there be occasion or if he wants to have them proved Quaere Whether such a true Trojan to Monarchy as this be not very fit to receive the King's Pay in a Royal Foundation And whether he and his Brother Chaplain are not very finely pair'd FINIS