Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A33745
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An answer to a paper importing a petition of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and six other bishops, to His Majesty, touching their not distributing and publishing the late declaration for liberty of conscience
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Care, Henry, 1646-1688.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing C506; ESTC R5331
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17,718
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34
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deriv'd from the People but the ancient Right of the Crown innate in the King and unalterable by them And that this has been the ancient Judgment of the Judges from time to time I shall meet with the occasion of shewing it in the next Paragraph And is a matter of so great Moment and Consequence to the whole Nation both in Church and State. And so indubitably is it that nothing can be more For the best of Laws being but good Intentions if a Prince should be ty'd up to such unalterable Decrees as in no case whatever he might vary from them it might so happen that what at one time was intended for the Good of Church and State may at another prove the Destruction of both if not as timely prevented The present Case is a pregnant Instance of it One would have thought that the frequent Endeavors of the four last Reigns for the reducing this Kingdom to an exact Conformity in Religion might have answerd the Design but if His Majesty in his Declaration had not told us His thoughts of it our own Experience might have taught us the Effects thereof have in a manner brought the Kingdom to nothing And what should the King have done in this Case sate still and expected a Miracle or interpos'd his Royal Authority for the saving it The Question answers it self And if the Power of Dispensing with Penal Laws were not inseparably and unalterably in Him how could he have done it What elder Parliaments have declar'd in it I have already shewn and that the Judges successively have gone with it is or may be obvious to every man. Such was the Resolution of all the Justices in the Exchequer-Chamber 2 R. 3. 12. And that the King might grant License against a Penal Statute And what is that but a dispensing with it In like manner by all the Justices in the same place 2 H. 7. 6. That the King may grant a Non obstante to a Penal Statute tho' the Statute say such Non obstante shall be meerly void and such was the Case there The 13 H. 7. 8. to the same purpose Allow'd for good Law. Plowd Com. 502. Confirm'd by Sir Edward Coke 7 Coke 36. and 12 Coke 18 19. And lastly by a Judgment in His now Majesty's Reign of which before And if so necessary a part of the Government so solemnly determin'd by Parliaments and Judges is fit to be slighted or not obey'd which amounts to the same I leave it to every man. That Your Petitioners cannot in Prudence Honor and Conscience so far make themselves Parties to it as the distribution of it all over the Nation and reading it even in God's House and in the time of His Divine Service must amount to in common and reasonable Construction And on the other hand I conceive that both in Prudence Honor and Conscience they were highly oblig'd to it For what is Prudence but the active Faculty of the Mind directing Actions morally good to their immediate Ends That this Declaration is morally good appears by the purport of it and that is His Majesty's desire of Establishing His Government on such a Foundation as may make His Subjects happy and unite them to Him by Inclination as well as Duty And what greater Prudence could there have been than by their Lordships distributing that Declaration as enjoyn'd to them and by their Pastoral Authority requiring it to be read in all Churches c. to have directed it to its immediate Ends which were the Establishing the Government and making the Subjects happy Or if Wisdom must come in for a share the Offices of That are Election and Ordination the choice of right means for and ordering them aright to their End. The right means of quieting the Nation was before them and I think it no question whether their Lordship 's not distributing it has order'd it aright to the end The King had enjoyn'd it to be publish'd and Wisdom in this Case like Scripture is not of private Interpretation but lies in Him that has the Power of commanding not in him whom Conscience binds to obey In a word if Obedience in Subjects is the Prince's Strength and their own Security what Prudence or Wisdom could it be by weakning the Power of Commanding to lessen their own Security Then for Honor and Conscience tho' in this place they seem to mean the same thing and may be both resolv'd into Nil conscire sibi yet I 'll take them severally And how stands it with the Honor of the Church of England both in Principles and constant Practises unquestionably Loyal and to her great Honor more than once so acknowledg'd by His Majesty to start aside in this Day of her trial Both the last Armagh's Usher and Bramhal Bishop Sanderson Bishop Morley c. have all along by their Doctrin and Practices beat down that other of Resisting Princes in that the Church of England held no such Custom nor have the most eminent of her Clergy Dr. Sherlock Dr. Scott and others until this last uncomplying Compliance taken any other Measures And ought not their Practise now to have made good their Principles Or that Advice of the present Bishop of Ely to the Church of England to have been consider'd and follow'd Let her be thankful saith he to God for the Blessings she hath and unto the King under whom they will be continu'd to her And take heed of overturning or undermining the Fabrick because she cannot have the Room that she would choose in it And what greater Assay to it can there be than Disobedience inasmuch as he that thinks his Prince ought not to be obey'd will from one thing to another come at last to think him not fit to be King. Nor must the Anniversary of the now Bishop of Chester be past in silence Tho' the King saith he should not please or humor us tho' he rend off the Mantle from our Bodies as Saul did from Samuel nay tho' he should Sentence us to death of which blessed be God and the King there is no danger yet if we are living Members of the Church of England we must neither open our Mouths or lift our Hands against him but honor him before the Elders and People of Israel And having instanc'd in the Examples of The Prophets our Saviour his Disciples and Christian Bishops under Heathen Persecutors and demanded whether ever the Sanhedrim question'd their Kings Nor must we saith he ask our Prince why he Governs us otherwise than we please to be Govern'd our selves We must neither call him to account for his Religion nor question his Policy in Civil Matters for he is made our King by God's Law of which the Law of the Land is only Declarative In a word this and the like has been the Doctrin of the Church of England and when on that ground his Majesty has more than once acknowledg'd her Loyalty who in Honor more oblig'd to make it good than those that
time that he could not do it for it was to be read the Day after And what can be rationally interpreted from it but that they had been all that while numbring the People to see whither the Party were strong enough And I am the rather inclin'd to it for that since the time of the first Declaration the Doctrin of Non-Resistance has not been so much in Vogue as it was formerly it would keep cold for another time and to have pressed it now who knows but the People might have believ'd it In short Nathan Zadoc c. had some pretence for opposing Adoniah Me thy Servant and Zadoc the Priest he hath not called So Core Dathan and Abiram were Ecclesiastical Princes and thought they might have as much right to Govern as Moses But when the Church of England founded on the Law of England acknowledges the King Supreme in all Causes Themselves infra aetatem in custodia Domini Regis when the King by his Declaration has secur'd them in their Religion Possessons and Properties and by vertue of his Royal Prerogative and for the Quiet of the Nation only indulg'd it to others yet making no doubt of the Parliaments concurrence in it is it just that Their Eye be evil because the King 's is good or must the Kingdom of Heaven be confin'd to a Party I never heard that Disobedience was any Qualification for it and therefore if they will not enter themselves why do they shut it against others that would enter But perhaps the Petition if yet there can be any reason for the breach of a Duty may give us the reason of it The Title says In behalf of themselves and others of their absent Brethren and of the Clergy of their respective Dioceses Which makes good what I before hinted that instead of Distributing and Publishing His Majesty's Declaration to be read in their respective Dioceses as in bounden Duty to their Supreme Ordinary the King they ought to have done and the Clergy in respect of their Canonical Obedience to them must have obey'd under the pain of Suspension and in case of Contumacy of Deprivation they had been feeling the Pulse of their Clergy and finding little return from them but speak Lord for thy Servant heareth they concluded the Flock would follow the Shepherd and consequently if the Party were not strong enough the Multitude of the Offenders might make it dispunishable whereas it has been seen that a Ferry-boat's taking in too many Passengers to increase the Fare has been often the occasion of sinking all together And if the Loyalty of the Church of England receive any blemish by it what can she say but that she was wounded in the House of her Friends For by the same Reason that a Metropolitan refuses the Injunctions of his Supreme Ordinary the King by the same Reason may a Diocesan refuse his Metropolitan and every inferior Clergy man his Diocesan and when the Chain is once broken you may dispose the Links as you please But the Petition says It was neither from any want of Duty and Obedience to His Majesty No Then why was it not comply'd with Shew me thy Faith by thy Works saith St. James nor will it be possible to clear that Son of Disobedience that said I go but went not A Bishop as before is not bound to obey any Mandate but the King 's which Exception proves the Rule and that he is inexcusably oblig'd to obey the King's For all Bishops are subject to the Imperial Power who is to be obey'd against the will of the Bishop Mauritius the Emperor says Bishop Taylor commanded St. Gregory to hand an unlawful Edict to the Churches the Bishop advis'd the Prince that what he went about was a sin did what he could to have hinder'd it and yet obey'd It was the Case of Saul and Samuel The King desires Samuel to joyn with him in the Service of the Lord He with the liberty of a Prophet refus'd at first but afterwards joyn'd with him Whereupon the said Bishop in the same place further says That even the Vnlawful Edicts of a Lawful Prince may be published by the Clergy How much more then those that are Lawful And that this Declaration is such I shall shew presently when I come to speak to their word Illegal In short the Archbishop of Canterbury is Ordinary of the Court and a Bishop's private Opinion may be warrant enough for him to speak when he is requir'd but not to reprove a Prince upon pretence of Duty Our Holy Mother the Church of England being both in her Principles and constant Practises unquestionably Loyal Nor have they hitherto appear'd other and if not Religion moral Gratitude must have oblig'd them to it All the Bishoprics of England but Sodor in Man which was instituted by Pope Gregory the Fourth are of the Foundation of the Kings of England and those in Wales of the Prince of Wales Nor is it less than reason that they look up to the hand that fed them Or to whom more justly ought they have paid the Tribute of Obedience than to Him that took them from the Flock and sate them among Princes In a word the late War was Bellum Episcopale and if King Charles the First would have confirm'd the Sale of Church Lands he had sav'd Himself And why then do they reproach the King His Son with their Loyalty when they instance the contrary in so small a trial of that Obedience especially when were the matter doubtful the Presumption were for Obedience and even unjust Commands may be justly obey'd For as we fear the thing is unjust so have we reason to fear the evil of Disobedience for we are sure that is evil and therefore we are to change the Speculative Doubt into a Practical Resolution and of two Doubts take the surest part and that is to obey because in such Cases Reumfacit Superiorem iniquitas Imperandi innocentem Subditum ordo serviendi The Evil if there be any is imputed to him that Commands not him that Obeys who is not his Prince's Judge but Servant and they that are under Authority are to Obey not Dispute nor shall any thing done by vertue thereof be said to be contra pacem David commanded Joab to put Vriah in the Head of the Battle to the end that he might fall by the Enemy Joab obeys Vriah is kill'd and yet not Joab who might have prevented it but David who commanded it is charg'd with the Murther In a word to pretend Loyalty for a common Principle and yet make Disputing and Disobedience the Practice of it what is it but a drawing near with the Mouth when the Heart is farthest from it The Voice perhaps may be the Voice of Jacob but the Hands are the Hands of Esau And having to her great Honor been more than once publickly acknowledg'd to be so by your Majesty And do's his Majesty less than acknowledge it in