An answer to the Bishop of Rochester's first letter to the Earl of Dorset, &c. concerning the late ecclesiastical commission by an Englishman.

An answer to the Bishop of Rochester's first letter to the Earl of Dorset, &c. concerning the late ecclesiastical commission by an Englishman.

Table of contents

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Title page

AN ANSWER TO THE Bishop of Rochester's First Letter to the Earl of Dorset, &c.

First Paragraph of the Letter.

The second Paragraph of the Letter.

The third Paragraph of the Letter.

The fourth Paragraph of the Letter.

The fifth Paragraph of the Letter.

The sixth Paragraph of the Letter.

The seventh Paragraph of the Letter.

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§

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[Page]

An Answer TO THE Bishop of ROCHESTER.

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§

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[Page]

AN ANSWER TO THE Bishop of Rochester's FIRST LETTER TO THE EARL of DORSET, &c.

Concerning the Late ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION.

By an Englishman.

Lege REX.

LONDON, Printed for W. Haight in Bloomsberry. 1689.

AN ANSWER TO THE Bishop of Rochester's First Letter to the Earl of Dorset, &c.

[Page]

[Page]

Right Reverend,

I Had not given my self the trouble of reading your First, had it not been for your Second; nor the World the trouble of reading this, if the Apologist had not set up for an Adviser; Nor do I presume to answer your Letters to the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, as such, but appearing in publick, they become Appeals [Page] to the People, and in that respect, as one of your fellow Subjects, my Lord, I take the liberty of saying, Your Two Apologies need a Third.

If the acceptance of your first Letter by that Noble Lord, gave you Encouragement to a Second; yet, certainly, you ought to have confined your self Strictly to your own Particular, without, so early, attempting to plead for all the Criminals of the Nation, in the debate of a general Oblivion; Or, at least, have reserved your Florid Maxims to a place where the Bishop hopes to be distinguished from the Commissioner. But to close your Acknowledgment, with a design to over-rule, and lead others into your Opinion, when, notwithstanding your most meritorious Services, the best of your Argument lies in Excuse, through Weakness, and being your self Mis-led, is so far from a state of Mortification, that the Good Nature of the Englishman you would insinuate your Case into, cannot digest your Pretence to Affliction, without first Undressing your Apologies.

To which end I have read them, more than once, considered them Naked, neither sent to, [Page] nor accepted by Greatness; and, desirous to convince your Lordship of the necessity of a Third, lay before you these Remarks upon your First, Previous only, in my way, to the latter part of your Second, and rising Obvivious, Unprejudiced, with the Sincerity of a plain, ordinary, Man, and no Dealer in the Art of Language: For, beside the Aversion I have to all Flights, where the condition of any person may be at Stake, my Temper inclines me wholly to Things, for they will not long endure to be Ill Administred, and not to perishing Words, and the Vanity of Address.

I love Virtue in a good Garb, and delight to see it well treated by the World, but am not ashamed of it in Rags, nor afraid of it in Poverty, being taught to Want as to Abound. Clear, Inflexible, Honesty, and that Eternal Frame of mind, which Tacitus mentions in the Life of Agricola, and you lessen into the innocent Character of Honest Hardiness, meaning perhaps, Fool Hardiness, are of greater Esteem with me, tho' a Foot, and in Dirt, than all the Pageantry of Circumstance the Son of Adam can loose himself in, Or the most exalted Figure in Humanity, upon [Page] the dishonourable terms of a Mean Shift, and the Ignoble Surrender of his Better Understanding to the Extravagant Desires, Or the Vain Imaginations of any Prince whatsoever.

First Paragraph of the Letter.

I think I should be wanting to my self at this time in my own necessary Vindication, should I forbear any longer to give my Friends a true Account of my Behaviour in the late Ecclesiastical Commission. Tho', I profess, what I shall now say, I only intend as a reasonable mitigation of the Offence I have given, not entirely to justifie my sitting in that Court, for which I acknowledge I have deservedly incur'd the Censure of many good Men. And I wish I may ever be able to make a sufficient amends to my Country for it.

Answer. No part of your Case, my Lord, will bear a Vindication; for how Plausible, soever, your Behaviour may have been in that Commission, the very Act of Compliance to serve under it, sunk you below the dignity of such an Expression: Instead of [Page] a Mitigation, it agravates the Offence, to say, you cannot entirely juistifie your sitting in that Court; when, sensible of the Action, and clothed with the Spirit of Humility, you ought fairly to declare, you cannot in the least justifie sitting there; and so deservedly incur the Censure, not only of many Good, if such there be, but of all Honest Men. You have been bred to Learning, your Education, my Lord, is Evidence against you; you are a Bishop, a Shepherd, in a Trust of mighty Supervision, Vigilancy and Courage are the Essentials of your Station. The Example is more dangerous in your Ability, than your Quality, capable of doing much good, or Hurt, as you are well, or ill inclin'd. Your Friend Cowley says, there are great Men, the labour of the Mother, the Works of Nature; and great Men, their own Labour, the effect of Art, and ought to be of Honesty; there are, therefore, Lords pardonable, and there may be Lords unpardonable. If Ignorance of the Law be no direct excuse to any, that very Ignorance doubles the Crime in some; so that if the Lord, by the Chance-Stroke of Nature, [Page] happen to be guilty in conjunction with the Lord by the False-Stroke of Art, the judgement of the One, may be presumed to mislead the good manners of the Other, and the Professor to answer for the Courtier. I concur in your Wish, that you may ever be able to make sufficient Amends to your Country for it, the first step to which is a sufficient acknowledgement to your Country of it; Yet; I trust in the mercy of God who wrought our deliverance, in the Justice of the King, the great Instrument of it, and Wisdom of the most happy Parliament that ever sate in this Kingdom, who have Crowned it, and are so assiduous to secure it, that we shall not be, at the Expence of so many Millions to rescue our selves, in the hands of Obnoxious Men again, but that satisfaction shall be taken of some, (the Dying not too nimble for us, nor the Living too bold for us) others obliged to undergo their Quarantine, and Provision made, that all of them may be disabled from ever doing their Countrey more such Audacicious Mischiefs.

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The second Paragraph of the Letter.

Yet thus much, my Lord, I can justly alledge for my self, that the Commission was made, and my Name put into it, altogether without my knowledge, when I happened to be at Salisbury, holding an Archiepiscopal Visitation with the Bishop of Chichester, where, by God's blessing, we composed several old Differences, and Animosities, and restored Peace, and Unity to that Church.

Answ. I am willing to think some part of your time was spent in your Duty, and am heartily sorry, that any part of your time was spent so far out of it, as that abominable Commission carried you. I believe also, not forgetting that Smart Escape of your Pen, the Otesian Villany, that the Bishop of Rochester was not in the Contrivance of the Commission; nor that your Lordship sollicited your Name into it: But they who had ingaged your Parts so often, and so deeply before, knew themselves beyond the Ceremony, of perswading you into their Service again. It looks like an Assurance of their Man, proof of Resignation, no Extenuation of the matter. At first, no [Page] doubt there was some labour with you behind the Curtain, for Men cannot easily depart from themselves, into Obsequious Bondage, Facing their Country in barbarous Adventures. There will be some struggle of Honour, if not of Conscience; And Divines were treated after the manner of Lawyers; We all know, that when a Judge, between fear and shame, started at a farther degree of their Commands, so that there was occasion for another, the Course taken by the Workers of Iniquity, was to dive into the Opinion of the Counsellor, and having found or made him wicked, as themselves, out they brought him, in Caparison, and up they set him, to give the Arbitrary Blow in the Formality of a Judge; Adored by the Profane Crowd, despised by the Brave, a Scandal to his Profession, a Traytor to his Country, the Murtherer of Men, and a Destroyer of Families.

The third Paragraph of the Letter.

At my return from thence to London, I found I was appointed One in a New Commission: But never could see a Copy of it, nor did[Page]I ever hear the Contents of it, or know the Powers granted in it, till the Time of its being publickly opened at Whitehall; whither I was sent for, on purpose, in haste, that very Morning from my House in the Countrey, being just come home from a Confirmation, and from paying my Duty to her Royal Highness the Princess of Denmark, at Tunbridge.

Answ. A Bishop of this Kingdom, no less Man, coming to London, found himself appointed one in a New Commission! No matter what, but a New Commission, and my Lord was appointed to be One! down he goes into the Countrey, without hearing the Contents of it, or the Powers granted in it; but a new Commission, and my Lord was one! satisfied with himself, a Favourite to the Best of Kings, James the Just! Visits the believing World, makes his Court to Princes, takes a turn or two, upon the Walks of Tunbridge, that Parade of Gravity, and Thinking, and so home to his Countrey House, satisfied with himself, for my Lord was one. By that time the Commission is ripe, my Lord is sent for, Express, on purpose, in haste, that very morning from his [Page] Countrey-House, and for ought appears to the contrary, drove three quarters speed to the very Gates of Whitehall, lest he should come half a minute too late. For what? Truly, the no less Person than a Bishop came, Post-haste, to the no less wickedness, than a Declaration of War, to root the Protestant Religion out of these Kingdoms, and by consequence out of the World. Was there ever such an Apology as this! That a Bishop should find himself appointed One in a New Commission, One, that he could never see a draught of, nor so much as be told the Contents of, or the least Item of the Powers granted in it, till it was publickly opened at Whitehall to be executed, and he sent for, in haste, that very Morning (for the Conspiracy was in Travel, and could not be delivered till my Lord came) from his Country-House, to such a monstrous Birth; methinks, a Bishop of common Understanding should have been concern'd at the name of a New Commission, have pursued an Inquiry into the utmost drift of it, at least, have in some measure examined the Contents before he had gone into the Countrey, that so he might consider how to behave [Page] himself in the Commission, for the Kings Honour, if fit to be assisted, or to avoid it, if unlawful, and not come in that hasty manner to such an extraordinary design, as a New Commission must carry in the Belly of it; at a time, when every Protestant was supposed, from the whole Conduct at Whitehall, to be upon his Guard. The poor Curate of Mark-Lane, the Curate of Timothy had more Honour, he sacrificed all, his utmost twenty pounds a year, stript himself, it may be, to the Skin, rather than betray his Profession, so far, as to read twenty lines of a Declaration at the Command of a Prince, who but a little before had threatned us to raise the Glory of the Kingdom higher than in the time of any of his Ancestors, by the same Measures that his Brother Charles the Merciful, after the Dissolution at Oxford, promised to Govern us by Law.

The fourth Paragraph of the Letter.

Upon the first publishing the Commission, I confess, through my Ignorance in the Law, I had little or no Objection in my Thoughts against [Page]the Legality of it; especially, when I considered that having past the Broad Seal, it must needs, according to my Apprehension, have been examined, and approved in the King's Learned Council in the Law, Men generally esteemed of Eminent Skill in their Profession. Beside, I was farther confirmed (tho too rashly, I grant) in my Error, when I saw two Gentlemen of the Long Robe, Persons of the greatest Place and Authority in Westminster-Hall joyned with us; who I should have thought would never have ventured their Fortunes and Reputations by Exercising a Jurisdiction that was Illegal.

Answ. Here, Right Reverend, if the Robe worn by your Lordship did not confine to Solemnity, there is Room for more Wit than I have to dispose of: For, beyond all contradiction, there was never a greater Satyr upon that King's Council in the Law, than to call them, Men generally esteem'd of Eminent Skill in their Profession; or more Jest upon Persons of the greatest Place, and Authority in Westminster-Hall, at that time, than to term them Men of Fortune and Reputation; you impose upon the World, my Lord, in the Minute you desire excuse, and [Page] think to write your self into Ignorance, by endeavouring to write others out of it. Satyr, and Apology are repugnant. You are not so Ignorant, but to know the Inquiry was not after Skill, but Readiness; the Question was not, what is Law? but, will you serve the King in his own way? There was possibly a skilful Wretch among them, whose Ambition might suppress his Honesty; but in general, the Men were not so Eminent. And for Reputation and Fortune, they (despicable Ingredients,) were as strange to the Persons of the greatest Authority and Place in Westminster-Hall, as the Bishop of Rochester must be unknown to all England, if he can perswade us into the Opinion of his Ignorance, as to the Legality of an Ecclesiastical Commission, by the Rule of Perswading us out of our Senses, into the skill of the One, or the Reputation, and Fortune of the other.

The fifth Paragraph of the Letter.

And I believ'd I had reason to conclude that this very Argument might prevail also with [Page]some others of the Temporal Lords, that sate among us, Particularly the Earl of Rochester, has often assured me, 'twas that which induc'd him to accept of the Commission, and that he did it, as I my self did, with a purpose of doing as much good, as we were able, and of hindring as much Evil, as we possibly could in that unfortunate Juncture of Affairs.

Answ. I will not take upon me to argue for, or against the Earl of Rochester, but sure I am, that he who ventures his Temporal condition to save his Spiritual, is of much more Value, than he who ventures his Spiritual to save his Temporal. If the Earl of Rochester hazarded, and lost the first place of England, the Treasury, for the sake of the Protestant Religion, when the Formality of a Conference might appear some kind of Contest with a King, a Brother-in-Law, and so great an Employment, that one Action shall be imputed to him for Righteousness in this World, and ought to stand in Ballance against any great oversight, because from the many Cases of History, informing that Lord, how dangerous it is [Page] for a Favourite, in a set Competition, to be Wiser than his Prince, much more, how Fatal to condemn his Religion, he could not but see his Fall in the Perseverance, and are therefore Irrefragable Arguments, that neither Ambition, Relation, nor Temporal Interest governed him.

But if the Bishop of Rochester put the Protestant Religion in danger, for an Hour, in servile Obedience to the Arbitrary Will of his Prince, the Presumption is Violent that he followed Humane Interest in the Compliance; especially if the Bishop had never been seen in any one important Self Denial, for the sake of his Religion, that might stamp the Character upon him, of one that would not Act against his Conscience. Wherefore I think, the Spiritual Rochester can by no means assign Ignorance for Plea, with the same Application the Temporal Rochester may, if but for want of the Like Credentials, nor pretend to shelter himself under the same Paragraph of Umbrage, because he never parted with the least Advantage, that ever came into Publick Discourse, [Page] for the sake of his Religion.

The Good you urge to have done, was Evil in you all, because unjust in the Foundation; the Evil you did, was much more Evil in you, my Lord, because of the Good you might properly have wrought out of that very Evil: Not by accepting the Commission with purpose of doing what Good you could, and hindering as much Evil in the Subservient way of your latter Paragraphs, but opposing the Commission it self, a first, a second, a third time, and so left them; been earnest and forward in your protestation, preparing your self to declaim strenuously against it, Asserting your Religion, like a Bishop, in a Just foresight of Evil to come, and taking the freedom of St. Paul to plead for God against the Idolatrous design, maintaining the Liberty you are required to stand fast in. This was your Duty, my Lord, and the Good ought to have been wrought by a Bishop out of the Evil of the Commission, thanking God for the Opportunity he had given you to appear in defence of the Christian Faith; to manifest [Page] your contempt of Ease, Pleasure, Life it self, accounting all things but Dung, and Dross, compared with the Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ your Master. And if your Heart, through Natural Infirmity, or Temporary Delights, had failed you, Retired to your Closet, down upon your Knees, have humbled your self before him, adoring his Divine Bounty in Grace of Inclination, and besought him to remove from before your Eyes the Prospect of any Felicity, that stood between you and your Resolution, in his Service; have turned to the Life and Death of some Primitive Christian Bishop, whose Example might support your Spirits; Or it may be, my Lord, not to despise poor Fox, your Book of Martyrs, if that Manual of Popish Clemency durst be seen in your Study, might have shewn you, about a dozen or two, of your Country-men of the meaner sort, upon a Page, Coblers, Weavers, and such like Weaklings, in a Chain tied to a stake, kissing the Post, rejoicing in the Flame, and blessing the Day that God had vouchsafed to single them out to bear Testimony against the Persecution of Princes. [Page] This, my Lord, was the least of your Duty, and I believe had been performed, if the Temporalties of the Episcopacy, to say nothing severe, had not gained time upon the Spiritualty of the Bishop.

The sixth Paragraph of the Letter.

As for my own part, I was startled when I perceived my Lord of Canterbury scrupled to be present with us; whose Example, 'tis true, I ought rather to have followed, than the greatest Lawyers, in all matters of Conscience. Yet I hope, his Grace will excuse me, if I declare, that I did not at first know, He made a matter of Conscience of it; Nor did I understand his Grace took Exception at the Lawfulness of the Commission it self, till after my Lord of London was Cited, and had Appeared and Answered, and the unjust Sentence had past upon Him.

Answ. The Scruples of that Arch-Bishop have been my great Satisfaction, and are now as much my Trouble. I am not worthy, but as hearty to Remove the Latter, as [Page] I was ever ready to Justifie his Former; with reference to that Commission his Grace behav'd himself like the Metropolitan of all England to refuse Attendance, and you had appear'd a worthy Suffragan, if the Countenance of his Disdain had rais'd you up to a Defiance; You ought, my Lord, to have argued against, what he thought below him to take notice of. Vindicating, at once, a Temper in him, Suitable to the Apostolick See, and in your self, to the Sincerity of a Protestant Bishop; that is, an humble greatness of Mind explained in Him by the modesty of Not Appearing, and Christian Fortitude in You by the Vigour of Opposing.

If after my Lord of London had been cited and appeared, you had consulted his Grace how to carry your self at the next meeting, and followed his Advice, such a Retrieve might have been an Apology for the Surprise in your First sitting there; but to let the Citation, Appearance, Answer, Sentence, and All be over, All past, my Lord, before you could move from Westminster to Lambeth, let a Bishop be affronted in an Unjust Sentence, before [Page] you would vouchsafe cross the Thames to understand why my Lord of Canterbury' your Metropolitan, disowned the Commission, puts your Case beyond Scruple and Startle, into Wilfulness Prepense, and me, almost, beyond reasoning into Astonishment; Demonstration it self, that you took care not to approach his Grace's Exceptions to the Legality of the Commission, lest they should prove too clear for your Unlawful Obedience to the pleasure of the King, or rather, lest he should tell your Lordship, you understood the Illegality of it beyond any Excuse of Ignorance, if you made your Conscience a Slave to his Power. No, my Lord, Ignorance was to be reserved against a wet day, and might serve well enough to Charm a Good natured, Unthinking, Lethargick People, Easie to be pacified, a little whining will melt them down, if ever they are redeemed into a capacity of demanding Justice, but, at present, Unshaken Loyalty, is the word, and I must On. Thus, it seems to me, your Lordship debated with your self, and came to a Resolution of Owning the Court to the degree of a Sentence, ratifying your Devotion [Page] to the King, and giving the Conspirators assurance thereby, that allowing you the favour of a State Vote in particulars, (which they had no occasion for) in general no Project of theirs was too open for your Compliance, and, with the help of your many precedent Instances of Submission, putting Us out of doubt that you saw Heaven at the remote end of the Glass; could not endure the Frowns of your Prince, tho' all the Laws of the Land warranted you against them, because you saw those Laws languishing under the weight of Dispensation, nor hazard your Preferment for the sake of the best Church in the World, because you thought her expiring.

The seventh Paragraph of the Letter.

For it was on the very day the Commission was open'd, immediately, as I remember, after it was read, that my Lord of London was informed against for not suspending Doctor Sharp, which, tho' it exceedingly surpriz'd me at first, yet observing with what heat the Prosecution was like to be carried on against him,[Page]that very Consideration did the more incline me to Sit and Act there, that I might be in some Capacity of doing Right to his Lordship. And whether I did him any Service through the whole Process of his Cause, I leave it to my Lord to judge. That I gave my Positive Vote for his Acquittal, both the Times when his Suspension came in question, I suppose I need not tell the world.

Answer. The Persecution of the Bishop of London could be no Surprise, that Diocesan having been found in a watchfulness too exact for the bearing of a Papist. He knew God was no Respecter of Persons, and had told the Duke of York so, by inviting him to the Sacrament in our Church, thereby confirming Our Discovery of a Religion that kept him, not only, from all Communion with Us, after the first Discovery, but from all Charity toward Us for it; a Religion, which hath wrought all the Evils these three Kingdoms have endured from the Reformation to this hour, and may quickly double upon us, in a return of Blood and Confusion, if Surprises and Scruples shall [Page] pass for National Apologies. That Discovery, my Lord, raised a subject matter for Displeasure in his Breast, who wanted nothing but the Title of King then, and when God permitted him, as a Judgment for our Sins, to take possession of the Crown afterwards, would have been much more than so. And there it lodged till the Plot had occasion to make use of it; then Out it came under another Notion, but might, indeed, surprise any Man, that so mean a Cause, as the not suspending Doctor Sharp, should bring to light that secret of Indignation (Visible in Forgiving the One, and Persecuting the Other) So that, my Lord, if you were exceedingly surprised, that Very Exceeding ought to have Spirited your Lordship to some Honest, Able Adviser; And if you did observe with what Heat the Persecution was like to be carried on against him, that very consideration ought to have engaged you not to sit, nor act there; And that you might be in the better capacity of doing my Lord of London right, you ought to have joined in Averring his Plea, protesting against the Jurisdiction; And you could do him no other [Page] service through the whole Process of his Cause, for there was no process of Cause beyond that Plea.

Your Vote of Acquittal was insignificant, if not prejudicial. They had set Protestant against Protestant before, the care was now to divide the Church against it self. An Ecclesiastical Commission could have no colour without some Ecclesiastical Persons. It was Art enough to bring a Bishop to judge a Bishop, they could not expect to find him Theirs in the immediate Sentence. And yet, if upon an easie Judgment made of things, Precipitation was then apparently their Ruine, all that restrained them were so far wiser for them, than they were for themselves, and so much the more Our Enemies. If the Judges had unanimously driven every Person and Matter into Condemnation, the proceeding had been too Gross, and Unpallatable; but sure of a Plurality upon a stress, by the mixture of the Men, with Bishops and Lawyers, to support the Foundation of the design, Liberty of Assent or Dissent, seemed a kind of Pro and Con, which kept in [Page] sight a Form of Justice, enough to amuse us, tho no Realities at bottom to preserve us.

Thus far, my Lord, I have kept Company with your Letter, Paragraph by Paragraph, and, if I do not mistake, think fully signified my Affliction for your Lordship, that you should expose to the World your No Vindication, in so imaginary a Confession, and have brought your Apology to Judgement, where you hurried the Bishop of London into that unjust Sentence, resolving your Venial Ignorance into Mortal Presumption, I say, you, my Lord, upon this distinction, that when a Court is Legal, every Man shall account for his own Opinion, whether of unqualifying Ignorance, or Wickedness; so that if an Arbitrary desire, or notorious Weakness in the Major Number of the Judges over-rule the Less, yet that less shall stand, when the Majority shall fall; Nor, with allowance against Infallibility, shall a Judge, if in his turn of Place, finding the Plurality, by their Opinions delivered, to be against his, be thought to maintain [Page] the Doctrine of the Bow-string, if wanting some Heights of daring Honesty, he shall rather be silent; And tho', for a Judge to say, I doubt, without Reasons, is no better in strictness than sitting Mute, where the Natural Life of Man, or the Political Life of a Nation, is at stake; yet it will be Cruelty to think, the Doubter does not appear an unsatisfied Judge; And in the Morning of a Persecution, it may be thought some Test of his Aversion to Evil; tho' not of firm Integrity, and Purity from Crime, if he adjourn himself to a short season of Retreat, or be admitted (considering the Vast Catalogue of Men) to tempt his Quietus by a handsome Carriage in a second Cause; For the Foundation of the Court being Just, there is Room for Apology, that he continues among them to do what Good, and prevent what Evil he can. But if a Court be Illegal, not well Constituted, and Erected, every Arbitrary Proceeding shall stand in charge against all the Judges, without regard had to any Affirmative, or Negative in a particular, because the Illegality being in the Frame, the very Act of joining [Page] with it, incorporates a Man to the Guilt of it, and renders a Bishop as Censurable, in being Ecclesiastical, as it can do a Lawyer, because a Commission; and, as I think, with deference to the Wiser of Mankind, it ought not, in any high degree, to do a Lay-man, whose Obedience may, without stram of thought be easily supposed to depend upon the judgment of the Professors.

All that looks like Repetition is too much. Upon the whole matter, therefore, of your First Letter, my Lord, what remains of it, is, with me, but what I call in the beginning of mine, An Ignoble Surrender of your Better Understanding to the Extravagant Desires, and the Vain Imaginations of your Prince. And tho' every Paragraph following, nay, every Line in every Paragraph, is liable to Refutation upon the Head, Mean Shift; yet my Intention being against you, as an Adviser in the Second, not directly against you as a Commissioner in this, I will carry it on no farther, desirous not to improve [Page] a Charge so heavy in it self; But conclude thus, The Commission was a Dragoon Commission, no Moot Case among the principal Lawyers, but a condemned, abrogated, and exploded Case among the Meanest; And that your Lordship not protesting against the Court, when the Bishop of London's Plea brought the Jurisdiction, regularly into Examination, without any Voluntary of your Own, tho' the last was your Duty, and ought to have been your Strict Inquiry; Yet that Notice divested you of all manner of Pretence to Ignorance, and a full stop should have been made; So that, all those reiterated Acts of Subserviency you claim under, are but so many deplorable Instances of a wretched Compliance; And, how contrary soever to the Humour of the COURT your Votes were in particular; Yet, for as much as every Sentence was Irregular, every Decree Extravagant, All Prosecutions Unjust, for they had no cogniuisance of any Cause; And that my Lord of London, by refusing to buy off the Suspension [Page] at so dear a Rate, as the Prostitution of his Conscience to an Inglorious Submission, might fully convince you, how stedfast a Bishop ought to be in a Good Cause. Your breaking lose from the Commission, at a time when the Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom were so disgraced, they could do no less by all the Rules of Honour, and Honesty, than Unite into a general dissatisfaction, that their Gallantry might cover the rest from the impending Storm, and that all the Clergy of the Land had, as it were one Man, denyed Obedience to the Arbitrary Commands of the King, in not reading a Declaration: And the whole Body was ready to take Wing in Defence of the Protestant Religion, and Interest, upon the first Opportunity, in a stand of Men, to favour their Conjunction: Your Retreat then, my Lord, and what you call joyning your self to the Honest Clergy again, was, in truth, but a stealing your self away from the rest of your Bretheren, the Commissioners, in the [Page] Hour of Danger, and so far from an Apology, That, if others are no Wiser than I, you deserve a Reward.

Right Reverend,

London, April the 23d. 1689.

Your Lordships Humble Servant.

FINIS.

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Information about this book

Title statement

An answer to the Bishop of Rochester's first letter to the Earl of Dorset, &c. concerning the late ecclesiastical commission by an Englishman.

Englishman.

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1689

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2003-03 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

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A25575

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Wing A3388

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ESTC R15480

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12651598

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ocm 12651598

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65287

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(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A25575)

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Source

— An answer to the Bishop of Rochester's first letter to the Earl of Dorset, &c. concerning the late ecclesiastical commission by an Englishman., Englishman., Charlton, Mr., Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713. Letter from the Bishop of Rochester to ... the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex..

Extent

[4], 30 p.

Printed for W. Haight ...,. London :: 1689.. (Possibly by Mr. Charlton. Cf. Á Wood, A. Athenæ oxonienses, 1813-1820, v. 4, col. 730.) (Reproduction of original in Huntington Library.)

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Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford.

Editorial practices

EEBO-TCP is a partnership between the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and the publisher ProQuest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by ProQuest via their Early English Books Online (EEBO) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). The general aim of EEBO-TCP is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic English-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in EEBO.

EEBO-TCP aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org).

The EEBO-TCP project was divided into two phases. The 25,363 texts created during Phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 January 2015. Anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source.

Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data.

Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so.

Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor.

The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines.

Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements).

Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site.