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
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
of Sense that nicety of Palate in matters of Religion to which he outwardly pretends he looks upon the Liturgy and Ceremonies by Law Establish'd and upon the Hierarchy or subordinate Government of this wisely constituted Church with all the Aversion which we have for Idolatry it self or for the most gross and palpable Superstition of which the Church of Rome is guilty at this day He that pretends the same Scruples but really hath them not doth all the same things as to any outward appearance that the other doth and his Thoughts not being busied about the other World which he looks upon as a remote and an uncertain thing and perhaps observing the secular Intrigues and Policies of all Parties while Heaven and Conscience is every where pretended he is the more hardened in his Contempt of every thing that is good or sacred this Man's immediate and direct aim without any respect to his Happiness or Misery in a future State is at the Ruin of that Establishment for Reasons of Interest or out of Envy Pride or a new fangl'd Temper that is always uneasie under present things from which he pretends to separate for Conscience sake Lastly he that in his own Person conforms to the Establishment but in his practice under I know not what healing uniting and moderate Pretences is always a fast Friend to the Dissenting Parties making use of all the Power and Interest he hath to advance their Credit and to encrease their weight in the political Balance he is manifestly got into a triple League with the other two and he is much the most dangerous Confederate of the three because he is an Enemy in our own Quarters an Adversary in the disguise and habit of a Friend a Traytor that betrays and crucifies with a Kiss and makes a shew of great Zeal for the good of that Establishment which he designs to ruin and overthrow There is nothing more certain than that all these several sorts of Men do agree at the long run at the Subversion of the Monarchy it self or whatever they may say or suggest in excuse of themselves or to palliate so foul and true an Accusation yet it is certain in the Experience of this and other Nations that the Monarchy cannot subsist where Prelacy is destroy'd and I wish some new Experiment of Disciplinarian Principles and Practices in our own Age may not further convince us of the truth of this for we have Moses and the Prophets already past Experiences do sufficiently assure us what the Event of such Practices and Designs must be where they have scope and liberty enough allowed them and now I pray God those old Confusions may never rise from the dead to convince us that the same Causes the same Passions Designs and Interests let alone to themselves and pursued into their Consequences will everlastingly produce the same effects Nay in Reason my Lord as well as in Experience there is nothing more plain if we argue forward from the Cause to the Effect than that the Demolition of the Hierarchy and its Dependences together with it which all of them have their first Spring and Fountain in the Crown must be the depriving it of so many Friends and by Consequence of so much Power it not only throws a powerful and certain Interest as it were by way of scramble among the People but by disarming and disabling the circumvented Prince whose true Greatness consists in the multitude of those whose Interest it must always be to be his Friends it arms and sets up a Commonwealth Party against him at his own Charge and we know in days of yore when the Bishops were once gone the next thing complain'd of was the House of Lords and then the King himself was an insupportable Grievance and all Orders and Degrees of Men amongst us all that had either Honesty or Money and were dissatisfied with such Proceeding or were suspected or represented so to be or had appear'd in the defence of their Religion and Country were plundered sequester'd banish'd and what not as if the way to reform were to destroy and the only means to make a Nation glorious and happy were by oppressing it and tearing it in pieces But my Lord I shall not lanch out any further into these things only what I have said was in order to shew the Reasons why that Wise Prince and Excellent Person King Charles II. made his Royal Visitation by his Commissioners under the Broad-Seal in this House and why he thought fit to eject so many out of it and to deprive them of all Interest Authority or Concern in it both among the Officers and the Governors themselves because he knew many of them to be profest Dissenters or which is all one Enemies to Monarchy and Friends to no political Interest but a Common-wealth and he suspected others not to be so good as they should be and his Suspicion must be allowed to be a very good Reason in Places at his own disposal when himself is the Judge without controul or appeal of the fitness respectively of every Person for them He had Reigned very happily for many years with universal Peace and satiating Plenty belov'd by his Subjects and dreaded by his Neighbors round about as Glorious and as Great in all respects as a great Fortune added to a great Mind could make him and if we inquire into the Reasons of this wondrous Calm those Halcyon Days and Blessed Years that followed the Storms and Tempests of the late barbarous and bloody Vsurpation it can be imputed so properly to no human means as to his Restoring and Re-establishing the Church in its ancient Beauty Order Purity and Splendor and to his asserting it and defending it against all its Enemies by good and wholsom Laws but when for Reasons which I do not meddle with and which I cannot approve he thought fit to lay the reins upon the Dissenters Necks by a Toleration granted without Act of Parliament and to let them take their full swing of liberty in Religious Matters insomuch that the Parliament then thought it necessary as well to assert their own Authority and to quash this Attempt at a Dispensing Power as for other Considerations which they had before them to get the Declaration of Indulgence cancell'd and withdrawn yet from that time there was every where to be seen a virtual though not an explicit and declared Indulgence and the numbers of Dissenters were every where so considerable that if they were but kept out of all places of Trust and Consequence in the Kingdom Reason of State might even then have required that so numerous a Party should be considered as to the liberty of their Consciences and as to the outward exercise of their Religion with an Indulgence ratified by the Publick Sanction upon which they might safely rely and not have the Oppression of their Consciences or the Fears of it to urge for a Pretence to justifie or palliate Disobedience upon any future occasion