I Shall as freely and as friendly communicate my Thoughts to you concern­ing the Matter and Attempt of your Letter, as you have professed to do the same to your Friend in the beginning of it, and for the same Reason you add, namely,

That this is not a time to be reserved.

Though with respect to His Majesty and His Affairs of State, perhaps there never was more Reason and Prudence of our being reserved in this Juncture: [Page 2]Yet with respect to this Attempt, in which you would engage the whole Cler­gy with your unhappy Self, and communicate your Contagion in the City to us of the Country, it is otherwise. Like the dumb Son of Croesus, this would make a Son of the Church of England now speak, who never spake before; to see that fatal Stab, which, by this Letter, and Discourses of this kind, is aim'd at the very Heart of his Mother, and that Doctrine by which she would sig­nalize Her self among other Christian Churches, owning Her King next and immediately under God, in all Matters Ecclesiastical as well as Civil, Her Su­preme Head and Governor.

You have, Sir, in this your Letter, as an unnatural Member, risen up against your Head, charged your Dread Sovereign with the breach of the Laws both of God and Man: You have rendred Him a Person not fit to be trusted; a Person deceitful, and designing the Ruine at the same time of those He has promised to protect and maintain: You have kicked against His Sacred Authority and Power, to which God has commanded every Soul, on pain of Damnation, to be subject; and you have attempted to draw the whole Cler­gy into the same Disobedience and Damnation with your self; and that in an Instance so trifling, as makes us at once the Wonder and Derision of such Fo­reign Ambassadors as are now resident in the English Court, whose report to their Masters of such an unprecedented Insolence in us, will alarm all other Princes to a watchful Jealousie over Men of our Order throughout the Chri­stian World.

As for the most Reverend the Archbishop, and the Right Reverend the Bi­shops concerned with him in this Matter: The fear and doubt, the haste and surprize, the Industry and Vigilancy of a Party discontented, and subtile to step in, and for their Interest to blow the Coals of this Contest; then the Cla­mours and Threats of a Popular Faction, the false Friends, the incessant Solli­citations, giving them rest neither Day nor Night; the crafty laying hold of a new Matter aliene from the first, viz. The Defence of their Peerage, &c. may excuse à tanto, our Reverend Fathers, who unhappily fell under these Temp­tations: And much more the recoil, which I have heard is since upon the Con­sciences of some of them, for what has fallen out on this occasion contrary to their Expectations.

But as for you, and the rest of us to whom you direct your Letter, being under no such Temptations, and having more Time and Repose, and none of those Impediments of advising better with our selves and our Friends; and the after Wisdom also of reflecting upon the Evils which have already ensued, and the many others like to spring out of this Root; I think our more prudent, charitable and Christian Course, should now have been, and I am credibly in­formed it is the advice of the Bishops themselves, in stead of further inflaming, to cast Water upon this Fire, which is so unhappily kindled between us and our Gracious King.

None of them have yet published in Print any thing of their Manage and Conduct of this Business against the King, and I hope never will, how much soever they are sollicited to do it; They had rather, as it seems, not have been necessitated to own, what was produced in Court, as their Address or Petition [Page 3]to His Majesty in this Matter; and I believe do give their Blessings rather to those Sons who cover, than expose, their Fathers Nakedness.

Wherefore I have some cause to think, you are no Advocate of their imploy­ing; you are of too hot a Head, and too much on the Lash, to be theirs or our Charioter at this time: It is easily seen, whither you would drive us.

If you are, as you pretend your self, a Son of that Church, an unspotted Loyalty has hitherto been accounted Her indeleble Character: I am sorry to find so little of it in your Letter; you have by it outdone the subtilty and cruelty of all Her Enemies.

Never was so deadly a stroke given, nor so natural and effectual to Her Ruine, as, that which you commend to us for the only method of saving Her.

I am charitably minded you have done this nevertheless of a good Intent, crowded along with the zealous Hurry of a Popular Mistake: And the rather, because I see your Letter makes a better ending than a beginning; and that notwithstanding your positiveness all the way, you are not so satisfied in your own Reasonings, but you relent at last into that good Nature and Temper, which for your Honour, I will Remark in your own Words, thus:

This, Sir, is our Case in short; the difficulties are great on both Sides; and therefore now, if ever, we ought to Besiege Heaven, with our Prayers, for Wisdom, Counsel and Courage, &c.

To clear then the difficulties, which you acknowledge in this Case, I shall apply my self, touching upon the most material parts of your Letter.

Our Enemies, (you say) who have given our Gracious King this Council against us, have taken the most effectual way, not only to Ruine us, but to make us appear the Instruments of our own Ruine, that what course soever we take we shall be un­done, and one side or other will conclude, we have undone our Selves and fall like Fools.

By our Enemies, I conceive, you can mean no other than the Kings Friends, whom I believe no further our Enemies, than what amounts to a bare Se De­fendendo.

Where they meet us in opposition to what necessarily conduces to the pre­servation of Themselves, their Lives, their Fortunes, you must not blame them but the common instinct of Nature, that they are so far our Enemies.

In all other Cases, they are our Friends, beyond our Expectations, Enemics short, I am sure, of our Fears, and of what was heretofore in publick Print, our own Character and Prospect of a Popish Successor.

As for the Free and Undisturbed Exercise of our Religion, our Churches, our Revenues, our Dignities, we enjoy them all: And we have further the Kings Gracious Offer, of whatsoever other Assurances we can excogitate against our Fears and Jealousies, lest they should not continue.

I know no cause of this great Out-cry against the King and His Friends, on account, that they are our Enemies, nor where we are hurt, unless by the hold­ing our Hands, from flying at one anothers Throats.

We are enabled by these Laws, so soon as we may, to let loose our too prurient Rage, one upon the other, but especially upon the Kings Friends, whom we, I think, therefore call our Enemies.

We can hardly forbear already and aloud, to foretell what must become of them afterwards, what Gibbets and Axes, and Confiscations are provided for them; for His Majesties Commissioners, Judges, Military Officers, Papists in Mascarade and out of Mascarade, and whoever else have not dared to deny their Obedience to His Majesties Moral Commands, or to leave him Solitary and Destitute of Servants to Guard and Attend him,

What else means this our so tenacious sticking to these Undoing and Sangui­nary Laws? And how pitifully are the Claws hid of such, as pretend them to be the only possible expedient of their own Security?

Now to repress the violent and blind Zeal of such Men, for the Established Laws, without abatement or allowance of any thing to the Vicissitude, which the Providence of God has made among us, from a Protestant, to a Prince of the Catholick Communion, is, I assure my self, all His Majesty designs by His Endeavor to get our good Will, toward the remove of the Test and Penal Laws.

And if I thought any Clergy of the Church of England, or other of that Communion, compliant with the King in this his charitable undertaking, should suffer in the least Hair of his Head, or lose by it any the least Liberty becom­ing a Christian to own in such a Juncture, I should not have opened my Mouth to have been an Advocate in this Cause.

And whosoever thinks otherwise, if he consider, he will find he cannot do it, without Reflection of most vile ill Names upon his Majesties Honour, and Blas­pheming the Sacredness of his Royal Promise.

So that, Sir, I think, you might have spared His Majesties Friends and His Council, and have allowed them a milder Character, than our Enemies, and such as seek our Ruine; by that Name exposing them in the very Head of your Letter, to the Rage and Odium of the People; who are so far from being Ene­mies to us, that themselves are the Persons in distress and danger from us.

And having now a time to Speak, do request of us, without any injury to our selves, that we will please to remove no other but those Laws, to which not only their Fortunes, but their Lives lay every Hour Obnoxious, and only for serving God according to their Consciences, and their King at his Command, according to their natural Allegiance.

But these Enemies of ours, since you will have them so, you note further, and to our greater misfortune, to be of that base and ignoble kind, as having us in their Claws, they must divert themselves a little in Play with us, as the Cat does with the Mouse, before they devour us, our Gracious King the while looking on; and so comes in the business of the Declaration.

The Reading of which in our Churches and Chapels, you intimate to be contrived as it were for nothing in the World but to make our Enemies Sport: For the main work of our Undoing you account is over, and the trick of this Declaration no other, Than while themselves are the Authors, to make us appear nevertheless the Instruments of our own Ruine.

In good earnest, Sir, and is this the likeliest reason you could Excogitate? Had you but a little of what St. Paul tells us, thinketh no evil, that would have sugge­sted to you some more charitable account of His Majesties, together with his Councils proceeds in this Affair.

If you had not been so hasty, as to take what lay uppermost in a Mind pos­sest with Passion and Prejudice, you might have thought of that His Majesty Himself publishes in the front of His Declaration, in these words:

‘Our Conduct has been such in all times, as ought to have perswaded the World, that We are firm and constant to Our Resolutions: Yet that easie People may not be abused by the Malice of crafty wicked Men, We think fit to declare, That Our Intentions are not changed since the Fourth of April 1687. when We issued out Our Declaration for Liberty of Conscience.’

How the easie People have been wrought upon since that time, to lessen their Opinion of His Majesties Sincerity in that Declaration, is too notorious.

And what Insinuations of the daily progress and advance towards the in­thralling them under the Yoak of Popery and Arbitrary Power, nevertheless for the Kings Promise and Declaration of Liberty, and all this not only from the Press, but many of the Pulpits too.

To obviate which Malice of these crafty wicked Men, His Majesty, with His Council, have thought expedient, to iterate his Declaration, and to extend the Publication of it to all Churches and Chapels, which was omitted before, because His Majesty never imagined to have met with so much of it among the Men of Churches and Chapels, as since He hath found.

This has made it at length necessary, by the Reading of it in Churches and Chapels, to undeceive the easie People there also.

Now, Sir, why may not this Account satisfie you, which appears so ratio­nal and probable, without raising up the Old Cry of Forty One, against the King and His Evil Council, and exposing His Ministers of State on every slight Occasion? And why should you affright your self and your Readers, with so many false Alarms of Enemies, of Ruine, of falling, of unavoidable undoing what course soever we take; and require us to give more Credit to your melan­choly Dreams, than to the Honour and Integrity of His Majesty, and the open Declaration of His innocent Meaning?

After which, I do agree with you, that should we chuse to take our fall here, and die of mere conceit, we do leave a shrewd Temptation upon some to conclude as you say, That we have undone our selves, and die like Fools.

It seems though in the next Paragraph, you have found a more honourable and comfortable way of falling, as suppose for refusing to read Mass, or to swear to the Trent Creed.

I agree with you in this, but wonder then, that you, who can see so well, and approve the better, and are so confident it is not far off, should undertake to perswade the Church of England to fall before-hand with you, and to die with a Deteriora sequor over her Tomb, for her Epitaph.

But this of falling for refusing to read Mass, you say, is not our present case.

No, nor ever shall be in future, if His Majesty may be believed, and His Measures taken and complied with by our selves.

You shall never have the Honour, Sir, to fall so in His Reign, nor in any to follow, if His Declaration be suffered to take the effect.

But one thing there is by the way, which I cannot pass over without Re­mark; which is,

That though this Declaration have two Strings, and tuned harmoniously one to the other, yet quite through this your Letter you can never be made to strike both together.

One is, His Majesties Desire of our Compliance with Him for taking off the Test and Penal Laws.

The other is, His Declaration in the first place, ‘That he will Protect and Maintain our Archbishops, Bishops, and Clergy, and all other His Subjects of the Church of England, in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law established, and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all their Possessions, with­out any Molestation or Disturbance whatsoever.’

Now upon one of these Strings you are perpetually harping, viz. The ta­king off the Penal Laws and Test; and that makes no Musick alone, without the other, to a Church of England Ear, be it of the Nobility, Gentry or Clergy.

It is certain, it would undo the Church of England to have her Test and Pe­nal Laws taken away by a Parliamentary Law, without any Provision made by a like Parliamentary Law to secure the keeping what she has beside, and what the King has promis'd shall remain inviolate.

This His Majesty offers, and should be always supposed along with the other: But that is the String you cannot be made to touch; and you are not with­out a Reason for it, for then you had answered your Letter your self, and that had stopped the Mouth of all your popular, but falsly and temerariously in­ferred, Consequences.

That to take away the Test and Penal Laws at this time, is but one step from in­troducing of Pepery; and therefore to read such a Declaration in our Churches, though it do not immediately bring Popery in, yet it sets open our Church-Doors for it, and THEN it will take time to enter, and THEN the People will hate us and despise us, and THEN we may be easily crushed, and THEN we fall without pity.

All these THENS hang upon the same String, and are but begg'd Conse­sequences. However, I perceive you are so confident of your Skill in linking a Chain of Consequences, and hanging them on the Thread of a Spiders Web, that you are resolved not to stay for the fulfilling of your Prophesie of De­struction to the Church of England, by the introducing of Mass, Trent and Po­pery; but seeing it comes all to one, even as good fall now, it is but a little the sooner, by not reading the Declaration.

For this persecuting Declaration does threaten us, that if we hold but our Hands from knocking His Majesties Friends on the Head with our Penal Laws, then in the first place, ‘He will Protect and Maintain our Archbishops, Bi­shops, and Clergy, and all other His Majesties Subjects of the Church of England, in the free exercise of our Religion as by Law established, and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all our Possessions, without any Molestation or Disturbance whatsoever.’

So that the Matter is plain, What should we live for any longer? But even die Marryrs with all the speed we can, lest if this Declaration should take ef­fect, we never have opportunity to do it more. Let us suffer all that can be suffered, say you, in this World, rather than contribute to the final Ruine of the best Church in the World, by reading such a Declaration as this.

But I think it is good first, as you say in the next Paragraph, to stay a little, and examine the Matter impartially, as those which have no mind either to ruine themselves, or to ruine the Church.

And that you may lay your Foundation sure, you begin with a conjectural and precarious Supposition.

I suppose (say you) no Minister of the Church of England can give his Consent to the Declaration: And with this Pestulatum away you run to prove, Then he cannot read it.

That this is a Non Supponendum, you see in the experience and event of the thing, some both Bishops and Ministers of the Church of England, do Consent and Read it, and I doubt not but many more will, if His Majesty think fit; Well, and what Fault have they committed? None at all, your self being Judge. For you say,

Pag. 4. Reading the Declaration would be no Fault at all, but our Duty, when the King Commands it, did we approve of the matter of it.

So then, with those who can approve of the matter of it and Read, we have nothing to do here; they are acquitted by your self; and they prove more, it seems, than you supposed, and if there be any Fault, it must remain to be on the part of those, who do not Consent nor Read.

Nevertheless, the Basis or Ground-work, on which you Rear the whole Superstructure of your Letter, is a supposition, That no Minister of the Church of England, can give his Consent to the Declaration.

What! Not to a thing in which, if there be any Fault, it is of his own making? Is our thinking some one way, some the other, enough to turn the Scale so, as what were otherwise no fault at all, becomes presently contrary to the Laws of God, and Laws of the Land, as you say afterward?

Point to that matter of the Declaration, which cannot be approved by a Minister of the Church of England, on account, of its being contrary to, or prohibited by, the Laws of God.

This indeed would make it matter of Conscience; which to render it the more odious, you here and there slily suggest, without offering at the least mann [...] of Proof, for you know well enough there is none. His Majesty by this [...] Declaration, requires us to signifie to His People, a method, which in this juncture he Judges most expedient to be taken, for the securing the Crown and the Persons of our Kings, from those apparent Dangers, to which they have been frequently exposed by our Dissentions in matters of Religion, and for the common Peace and Good of all His Subjects.

Some approve it, and some do not, according as their Humour, their Inte­rest, or their Parts serve, and as ordinarily Mens Censures pass on other Af­fairs of State.

But so to Reprobate it as a Mulum in se, as a Pest to the Publick, as an Abomination and Prophanation of our Churches, and not fit to be heard by Christian Ears, is such a hard straining of the case, as brings along with i [...], the very dregs of Passion and Party.

We cannot approve of the matter of it, you say; it may be so, Men do [...]c [...] always disapprove or deny their Consent to what is proposed, because it is [Page 8]evil, but because they have no mind to it, and so the consequence will be, ap­plying it to the matter in Hand: That the Authority of His Majesty, over a Minister of the Church of England, does not to extend so far, as to injoyn him to Read the Declaration, when he has no mind to it: For, I doubt, there is with a great many, more of Stomach in the refusal, than Conscience; but this not to appear above board.

One thing though I perceive you have a great mind to, which is, that we would grant you your supposition, before you prove it, namely,

That no Minister of the Church of England, can give Consent to the De­claration, and then let you alone to make good your Inference, that he cannot Read it.

Now, Sir, I do not think you have us so much upon the Hanck as you ima­gine, should I grant your Supposition.

But I see you care not, whither we do or no, for you presently fall hot up­on the Work, to prove the Conclusion; Ergo, He cannot Read, for that is interpretative Consent.

Now for my part I confess to you, I turn over the Leaf, knowing how ma­ny soever your Arguments be to prove it, they would not satisfie me, nor I think any reasonable Man, till he see first how well bottom'd your Hypothesis be, from which you borrow your Inference.

I would fain see your Reasons first: Why a Minister of the Church of Eng­land cannot Consent, before I grant what you are so hasty to suppose.

Why, that I shall by and by, but you will prove first, That Reading is Con­senting, Reading is Teaching, which is as odd an Hysteron Proteron, as Hang­ing and Trying afterwards.

Let Reading be Consenting or not Consenting, without troubling your self, till I hear whether I may Consent or Not.

Wherefore I must beg your Favour, to let me depart from your method, and turn over two or three Pages further, to examine your Reasons wherefore we cannot Consent.

1. Your first is, That it is against the Constitution of the Church of England, which is established by Law, and to which I have subscribed; and therefore am bound to teach nothing contrary to it, so long as this Obligation lasts.

The Constitution of the Church of England, as it is now a Protestant Church, distinct from what it was before, consists in various Acts of Parliament, made especially in the beginning of the Reformation: But I know of no Subscripti­ons required of the Clergy to such Acts of Parliament.

There is a Book intituled, Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, Treated up­on by the Bishop of London, &c. Anno Domini 1603. Which Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical are in Number CXLI. These I think you must mean, by your saying, to which you have subscribed.

But you have not pleased to tell us against which of them it is we offend, by Reading the Kings Declaration: So that this Argument does nothing but lead us into a Wood, and there leave us to be lost.

Is there any Constitution or Canon Ecclesiastical which bars the King from extending Clemency even to His Dissenting Subjects, where He sees a reason­able [Page 9]and honourable Occasion for it: Much less where the Necessity of His Affairs drive Him to it, His Honour, His Conscience, the Preservation of Him­self and His Friends, and the common Peace of all; I dare trust King JAMES the First for that, without troubling my self to look over all the Hundred and Forty One Canons. He had more King-craft, than to part with such a Jewel out of the Crown, to adorn the Crosier of the Church of England.

The Constitution you mention here, is to what you have subscribed, you say.

By the 36 Canon, Subscription is required, not to the whole Book, but only to three Articles in that Canon mentioned.

By the first, We acknowledge the Kings Supremacy. By the second, The lawful use of the Common-Prayer. By the third, An Allowance is made of the 39 Articles. Upon any of which I cannot imagine how you ground your Reason, wherefore we cannot consent to the Declaration, unless you had told us. If you were to prove the contrary from these Constitutions, there seems to be something accommodate for your purpose in the first and second Canons.

All Archbishops, Bishops, &c. are obliged by the first, to keep and observe all and singular the Laws made for restoring to the Crown of this Kingdom, the Antient Jurisdiction over the State Ecclesiastical.

Which Antient Jurisdiction in the Second Canon is resembled to the same Au­thority in Causes Ecclesiastical, which the godly Kings had among the Jews and Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church.

Now if the Parallel run so high as to the Antient Jurisdiction of this Crown, how Antient does it mean? Certainly before any pretence of the Invasion of it by the Bishop of Rome. Wherefore that being a Work too big for a Letter, I will give but one or two Instances, and those so far back, as to be out of suspicion of any such Foreign Invasion.

The Government or Jurisdiction of this Crown, if inherent in it, was, and of right ought to be, the same in Matters of Religion, as well while that of our Princes and their Subjects was Pagan, as afterwards when it became Chri­stian. Let us see then the Transition from the one Religion to the other in the Reigns of Lucius the First British, and Ethelbert the First Christian King of the Saxons. We find that in both, our Kings acted without any controul of Laws, as well in the relinquishing the long-established Pagan, as in the recep­tion of the Christian Religion. And as our Kings were free, so they kept their Subjects free from the Coaction of Laws in that Matter.

Particularly Venerable Beda relates of Ethelbert, That having embraced the Christian Religion, he could not but cast some more benign Aspect on such as were Converts with himself. Yet so,Bed. Histor. Ec­cles. ex Versione Abrahami Whee­lock. Ʋt nullum cogeret ad Christianisimum, That there should be no Force upon the Consciences of his Subjects. Didicerat enim à doctoribus, auctoribusque suae salutis, servitium Christi voluntarium non coactitium debere esse. For that he had been taught of those who were the Authors of his Salvation, That the Service of Christ ought to be voluntary, and not of compulsion.

The Antient Jurisdiction of this Crown, you may see by this, was at that time free; and whatever Laws were before established in favour of the Pagan [Page 10]Superstition, and Persecution of Christians, these Princes dispensed with them of their own Supreme Power, next and immediately under God, and so became Instruments of introducing the Blessed Means of Salvation, and transmitting them to us their Posterity: Which otherwise perhaps had not been so easily effected by a National or Parliamentary Concurrence at present. But this Subject has been laboured, by many great and learned in the Laws of this Realm, to whom it especially belongs, and to whom I refer those who desire further satisfaction.

This Antient Jurisdiction of the Crown, the Second Canon measures by that which was claimed and exercised of the godly Kings of Judah, and Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church. How uncontrouled of any they exercised that Power who were Kings of Judah, let their History in the Holy Scriptures teach you.

As for the Ancient Christian Emperors, that they issued out Laws Ecclesi­siastical by their Imperial Edicts, and made Revocation of those Edicts as they pleased, I think no Body will deny. I know there was all the way of the Primitive Christianity, another Spiritual Jurisdiction over Souls, and even over the Emperors themselves, as they were Sons of the Church, for their Edi­fication, but no way intrenching on the Temporal Power even in Causes Eccle­siastical, proper to such a Power: When ever it made any attempt that way, it was always checked by Christian Princes. And is it to be believed that this Canon, which was made, with all the singular Laws and Statutes there men­tioned for the abolishing all Foreign Power repugnant to the same, would not have been as sharp upon any upstart Power at Home, and of His Majesties own Subjects repugnant to the same, if they had been aware of any the least tendency then to such an Insolence? Take an Instance in one of the most famous and first Emperor of the Christian Church, Constantine the Great; and let us see what kind of Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical the Canons of our Church give to our Kings in parallel to what was exercised by the Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church.

Thrice, I think, according to some Historians, twice I am sure according to Valesius, in the Appendix to his Latin Version of Eusebius his Ecclesiastical History, Constantine did dispense with the Imperial Laws, by Indulgence and Toleration of the Donatists in Africa: And for that purpose caused his Decla­ration of Indulgence to be published, directed Ʋniversis Episcopis per Africam, to all the Bishops throughout Africa, as it is found extant among the Writings of Optatus, and almost in the like words, and for the like Reasons on which His Majesty issued out this His present Declaration of Liberty: Some part of it I will therefore repeat: Quod fides debuit, quantum prudentia valuit, prout puritas potuit, tentasse me per omnia optimè scitis, ut juxta Magisteria Legis no­strae Pax stabilita, per omnem concordiam teneret [...] ▪ Sed quia vim illam scel [...]ris infusi — intentionis nostrae ratio non potuit edo [...]nare — expectandum nobis est, dum totum hoc—Omnipotentis Dei misericordia witigetur.— Verum dum Coe­lestis Medicina procedat, hactenus sunt cencilia nostra Moderanda ut patientiam per­colamus, & quidquid insolentia ilierum pro consuetudine intemperantiae, tentat aut facit id omne tranquillitatis virtute toleremus, nihil ex reciproco reponatur injuriae,

This Declaration of Indulgence had likewise the ill fortune of His present Majesties, to be regrated by some of the Churchmen, and the severity of the established Laws against the Donatists, som what unwillingly restrained, and Con­stantine, by some of them, particularly by Caecilianus, Bishop of Carthage, so­licited to revoke his Letters of Indulgence; whereupon, says the Historian, in the year 321. The Bishops on the part of Donatus, put up their Petition al­so to the Emperor, Poscentes ut libere ipsos agere sineret, nec invitos adCommu­nionem Caeciliani cogere vellet. Adding further, that they never should, either by Promises or Threats, be induced to it, and that they would rather dye a thousand deaths, than to hold. Communion with that Knave (as they rudely styled the Bishop) against their Consciences.

And here (as the Historian goes on) did most of all appear the Clemency of the Emperor; that when he ought to have punished this impudence, and insolence of the Donatists, in calling their Archbishop Knave, whose Innocen­cy was well known and approved by Constantine himself; Nihilominus ipsis quaecun (que) poscebant solita benignitate indulsit. Nevertheless, of his wonted Be­nignity he Granted what Indulgence they desired; issuing out to Verinus, his (Vicarius) Vicar-General in Africa, a Rescript, signifying his pleasure, that the Donatists should be recalled from Banishment; Monens (que) ut proprio eos d [...] ­mittat arbitrio, ac furorem eorum Deo vindici reservet, &c. All this Constan­tine did by the Virtue of that Authority, in Causes Ecclesiastical; which the Godly Kings had among the Jews, and the Christian Emperors of the Pri­mitive Church, and, which says the Canon further, is the Regal Supremacy of this Crown, and by the Laws of this Realm therein established.

Now, if the Church of England be the same it was then, you see by what measures we are to Govern ourselves in the present Affair. Dr. Taylor, late Bi­shop of Downe and Connor, I think, was a Man, who understood, how far a Church of England Loyalty ought to extend, as any Man this day of it; He says plainly in his Ductor Dubitantium, Vol. 2. lib. 3. p. 148. That the Supreme Power is above the Laws; that he can dispense with Laws, he can interpret them, and he can abrogate them, he can in time of necessity Govern by the Laws of Reason, without any written Law, and he is Judge of the necessity, and in all this he warrants him, as the Canon does, by the Power which the Kings of Judah had; and, in the later end of that Chapter, says, that this Pre­rogative of Kings is not against Law, but by Law, and that the Laws them­selves imply so much, and have given this leave. The same Loyal Bishop in the said Treatise further notes, the great submission which the Bishops of Rome themselves made to the Imperial Laws, and that, even when they liked them, and when they lik'd them not; and of all, most material (says he) is the Obedience of St. Gregory the Great to Mauritius the Emperor. who made a Law, that no Soldier should turn Monk without his leave. This St. Gregory esteem'd to be an impious Law, he modestly admonished the Emperor of the irreligion of it. But Maurice, nevertheless, commanded him to publish that Law. The good Bishop knew his Duty, obeyed his Prince, sent it up and down the Em­pire, and gave this account of it: Ʋtrobi (que) quae debui exolvi, qui Imperat ri obedientiam praebui, & pro Deo quod sensi minimè tacui. I have done both my [Page 12]Duties, I have declared my Mind for God, and have paid my Duty and Obe­dience to the Emperor. Ductor Dubit. Vol. 3. Lib. 2. p. 176. This that Learn­ed and Loyal Bishop remarks as a president to Guide and Govern Church­men in the like Cases. And by the way we may note upon the Story, that in those days, when St. Gregory publish'd an Edict of the Emperor's, which, to him seemed impious, Reading was not thought to be Teaching. If you re­ply, that the model and measures of our Government are different, and will not admit of so high a Prerogative in our Princes, as was exercised in those un­bounded and absolute Monarchies.

What! not in Causes Ecclesiastical? Was it well done then of the Arch-Bishops, and Bishops of our Church in Convocation, to run the parallel of that Obedience we owe to His Majesty in Causes Ecclesiastical, up to the height of what was used by the Godly Kings among the Jews, and Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church, and to hold him Excommunicate, ipso facto; Whosoever should affirm the contrary, and not restored, but only by the Archbishop, after his Repentance, and publick Revocation of those his wicked Errors?

And had not you better have held your peace, than on this occasion, to have medled with the Constitution of the Church of England, to which you have subscribed. I think this a time to have been more reserved.

2. Your Second Reason, wherefore we cannot Consent, and consequently not Read, follows;

Because it is to Teach an unlimited, and universal Toleration, which the Parlia­ment in 72 Declared illegal, and which has been condemned in the Christian Church in all ages.

How well you have reasoned from the Constitution of the Church of Eng­land in such points of it as relate to this matter, let others Judge. Your next proof is drawn from the Civil Constitution, with Respect to the Parliament of England, that says it is illegal.

How, the Parliament of England? Where are the Three Estates, Where the King? Did all these Declare it illegal?

I wonder you will so much reproach the Clergy of England, with whom you deal in this Discourse, as to think them such as may be shammed again with the old Wheadle of 41. No, no, Sir, we know enough, and have felt enough, and too lately, yet to forget it, of such Parliaments, as would have their Votes and Ordinances Obligatory to the Subject, without the Assent and Authority of the King: And yet this is the Authority, and the best you have to alledge, or say for yourself, in justification of your Disobedience, and Oppo­sition to His Majesty in this Affair.

The Parliament (say you) in 72. Declared it illegal; What then? What is the Parliaments Declaration to us in this, or in any other matter, so as to make it illegal, ever the more without the King? Is this after the Con­stitution of a Monarchical Government? Does not a pretence to such a Power in a Parliament, without the concurrent Authority of the King, sub­vert the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom? But I assure myself, that they in that matter, assumed not to themselves, such a Power as your Letter would give them. Why may not a Vote of the House of Lords and Commons in 41. [Page 13]the King dissenting, be as good an Authority, as one in 72. the King dissent­ing? On the same grounds you may as well determine against the Kings So­veraign, and his Negative Voice, as his dispensing Power. For it was then resolved, and while they were yet a legal Parliament, as that in, I mean that of 41. That the Sovereign Power resides in both Houses, and that the King ought to have no Negative Voice. Resolved also, That whatsoever they Declared to be Law, ought not to be questioned by the King.

But to these Votes the King never gave his Assent, wherefore they sig­nifie nothing to us; but the Opinion of those men, at that time: The Sove­reign Power, and the Negative Voice, and the Authority of Declaring what is Law, and what is not Law, standing where it did before, for all their De­claring otherwise then; or the Parliament in 72. Declaring afterward.

But I humbly conceive (as I said before) that the Parliament in 72. never meant to extend their Vote to the Uses you have made of it in your Letter. The worst which can be made of it, is no more than that the Question being at that time moved about the Dispensing Power in the King, they shewed their Judg­ment, but left the matter remaining undertermin'd. For you must know, it was no more than the Opinion, and not the Sentence of Illegality, which was passed on the King's Dispensing Power at that time. They knew well enough that to be an Unparliamentary proceeding, and that they had no Authority to drive that business so far, without the joynt Concurrence of the King; only it is some Mens presumption, or ignorance to give them more. Where there is a matter of Question, or Doubt between the King and the Parliament; the House, of Lords, or the House of Commons, or both, having by the King's leave, the liberty of free speaking there, may give their Judgment by passing a Vote, so as to incline to their Opinion, and obtain the Kings, if they can, to a Consent, and Concurrence with them; but not, so as to bind the Subject, or to defend them in their Disobedience to the King: In the mean time, till the matter be more Legally, and Authentically, according to the Fundamen­tal Laws and Constitutions of this Kingdom determined; which can be no otherwise than with the joynt consent of the King, and His two Houses of Parliament together. Till then, however problematically illegal, the thing is not Authoritatively illegal, and so, however shaken by the Opinions of some Great Persons, yet still left standing within the Verge of the King's Command, and the Subjects Obedience. For by the Fundamental Laws of this King­dom, and by a natural Allegiance to our Sovereign, and Union to him, as Members to our Politique Head, we are bound to obey the King, not only in all instances Legal, but in all matters not Illegal: Of which nature are all things, neither forbidden by God, nor by such Persons as have the sufficient and plenary Authority to do the same, according to the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of this Monarchy; And of that nature is the Dispensing Power, which the Kings of England have always claimed to have over the Laws of their own, or of their Predecessors Enacting, in all such Emergen­cies, as, with the change of Times and Circumstances, they become destructive and noxious; as first, and principally to the Head, so to the other parts, which make up, together with Himself, the whole Body Politique.

It is ordinary for some discontented Persons, discountenanced at Court, displaced from Office, defeated in their Expectations, &c. to draw a Parry along with them, or to sute themselves to one formed to their hands, and by these, especially in Parliaments, to shew their resentments by their perverse­ness and crossness to the King's Affairs; which nevertheless may be, and are for the most part frustrated, without any considerable detriment to the Pub­lick, through the wise Constitution of this Kingdom, which soon leaves these weak and spiteful Efforts to turn to nothing but froth, and bubble, wanting the Support and Authority of the Royal Assent.

But how disingenious, and disagreeing to Men, especially of our Order, is it? to rake into the ashes of such long since departed Feuds and Factions, and to raise up again, what Time and Oblivion had buried, to serve us in this Cause against the King.

If we measure and form our Obedience by such Precedents, and make such Votes of Parliament serve instead of Laws, when our Interest wants them. What hints will others be apt to take from our examples, and perhaps, when they want a better Reason for their Disobedience, to remember the King of that Vote of Parliament, which Declared The Legality of excluding Him from the Inheritance and Succession to the Crown. Or that which Declared All those to be reputed and taken as Enemies to Parliaments, who should lend the King any Money: And yet suchas this, is the best Authority you produce for us to depend upon, and to justifie our present manage against His Majesty, before God and the World.

Well, what is it then the Parliament (as you call it) in 72. Declared il­legal?

Why, an Ʋniversal and Ʋnlimited Toleration, you say; was that all? The ex­tent and latitude of the Indulgence then Granted, against which they excepted?

I believe it was rather the Authority, on which it was founded; if an Uni­versal, and Unlimited Toleration be all, against which you except. From whom, or what part of the Dissenters, would you have His Majesty with­draw his Indulgence, to make it ever the more Legal on your Principle, to the rest. I doubt your Parliament of 72. would not have thanked you for this: But let that pass among your other Inconsistencies with yourself, into which I perceive you often unwarily fall. Whatever was done then, here, I am sure His Majesty by express words in the Declaration, is so far from excluding His Parliament from their share, either in the Authority of passing it into a Law, or of the Wisdom and Council to be used, within what Latitude or Li­mits to bound it; as he refers all to the Concurrence of His two Houses in Parliament.

As for the Universality, and Unlimitedness of the Toleration, if that so much offend you, and that you and your Parliament of 72. place all your Illegality of the King's Indulgence there. I hope you will have content with a little patience, there shall be no Toleration of Vice, of Blasphemy, and Im­morality, and Profanation of the Lords day, as I hear some complain; there is none, I am sure, intended now. However, the Toleration at present, is to be accounted on that score; but in the nature of an Interim, or Suspension, [Page 15]as the State of things will permit, till such a meeting of the King, with his Parliament for a further Regulation.

But this Reason is not done with yet, for such a Toleration is not only de­clared Illegal by the Parliament of 72, but condemned by the Church in all Ages.

I wonder, Sir, how you come so Heterogenously here, to yoke together the Parliament of 72, and the Christian Church of all Ages.

I should have thought, that would have sorted better with a part of it self, the Church of England.

Sir, do you know of any unkindness between them, that having in your first Reason, so fair an occasion to have brought them in, and have set them down by our own Church, as both agreeing in the same Sentiment.

You have rather chose to place them in the Parliament of 72, as if they were Members of that; but that I could forgive you, if you had not pro­ceeded with Representing them Falsly, to have condemned such a Toleration in all Ages, as the King has Granted by His present Declaration.

If you did but use your self a little more to Think before you Write, it would have been obvious to you, from the account, the Scriptures give of the First Age, that you had stumbled at the Threshold.

Our Saviour himself, the Head of the Church, gave an early check to that manner of Spirit.

As for the descending Ages of the Church, I have given you under the Head of your first Reason, some account, how matters stood in the Age of Constan­tine, with respect to Toleration, and refer you further to other Pens, who have industriously treated on this Subject, and have sufficiently shewed your Error.

If you mean, that the Christian Church in all Ages did never so Tolerate Dissenters, from Her declared Doctrines, as not to note and discover them, and expose them to her Anathema's. I grant you all this: In Gods Name, let not the Church spare Her Censures: The Declaration pretends not to take from them any thing of their own; I mean, their Spiritual Power, but only to Suspend such Temporal Penalties as belong to him only to inflict: Which is a thing so far from being condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages, that the first. three Ages were merely Passive themselves, and as in no disposition, so in no condition, to inflict Temporal Penalties upon others.

In the three following Ages, indeed, when the Emperors themselves became Christians, they had not only the favour and protection of the Laws for them­selves, but the Civil Sword also sometimes turned upon their Adversaries, but this was precarious only, and of special Grace and Favour, for which they were Thankful, and not pretended a standing and unalterable Law, by which Princes were bound to it whether they would or no, and with whatsoever ha­zard of their Persons, disturbance of their Governments, or regret to their Consciences.

As for the other succeeding Ages of the Church, after the Sixth Century, the Church of England throws them aside as no Precedents for us to follow.

And yet it is the Christian Church in all Ages, you would call in to avouch for you the Illegality of this Toleration.

3. Your next Reason, on which you ground your suppose that we cannot Consent, you thus express,

It is to Teach my People, that they need never come to Church more, but have my free leave, as they have the Kings leave, to go to a Conventicle or to Mass.

Why, Sir, that they would do without the Kings leave, or yours either, before this Declaration came out.

However, you are loth to have your Scepter wrested out of your Hands, though it be with as vain and empty a Title, as King of Jerusalem.

What a Grand Seignior you may be still in your Parish, I cannot tell; but I assure you, in our Country Parish Dominions, such a despotick Church-Power is extinguished long since.

Well, Sir, I perceive you are not inclin'd to be so merciful a Prince over your Subjects, as His Majesty over His, they shall never have leave for you.

But your Brother King would intreat however this favour at your Hands, that when you have occasion to shake your Rod over your Subjects, you would not send for him to be your Beadle.

And the rather, because, as he has no mind to it, and that it is against his Conscience, so you have no want of him neither, the Spiritual Power having a Rod of their own, more proper and agreeable to their purpose, that is, the Rod of Excommunication, and other Church Censures, which no body goes about to take out of your Hand.

Wherefore, when you Read the Declaration, you may let your People un­derstand, (if you please,) that it is with a Non Obstante to that, and so you have well enough escaped the Danger, you fear should ensue to your Rega­lia, viz.

That it would be to Teach your People, that they need never more come to Church, but have your free leave, as they have the Kings leave, to go to a Conventicle or to Mass.

And so I pass on to your Fourth Reason.

4. It is, you say, to Teach the dispensing Power, which alters what has been formerly thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom, which we dare not do, till we have the Authority of Parliament for it.

At the Kings Command you dare not do it, till you have the Authority of Parliament for it. It seems then however you are bound in Conscience not to approve of such a Declaration: Though it be against the Constitution of the Church of England, nay, though condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages, though against the Laws of God, and the Laws of the Land; yet Autho­rity of Parliament can discharge you of all.

Never was any Pope in England so high, as Authority of Parliament is now set up, that can dispense with the Laws both of God and Man; for all this of the Kings doing is against both, you say, but not of the Parliaments. By the way, though you give a fair Hint unto the Parliament, of the only Expedient, as things now stand, for the Common Peace, Agreement and Satisfaction of all, which is, by their concurring with His Majesty in the setling what He has proposed by His Declaration. For one part of the Nation approve of it for it self; and all the rest want nothing, it seems, for their intire Satisfaction, but only their Authority along with His Majesties.

At the present the main thing you stick at, is, The Kings Dispensing Power without Authority of Parliament: Which indeed is the only thing you have said which bears any semblance of excuse for not consenting, and consequently not reading, the Declaration. And you would have done better to have main­tained your Post here, than to have stuffed your Letter with Enemies, Evil Counsellors, Popery, Mass, Ruine, utter and avoidable Destruction to both Church and Kingdom.

I have been fain to follow you hitherto in this wild Ramble, which is no­thing to the purpose, but to inflame and exasperate Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, People, and all against the King, and make the Breach wider than it would be. Was not his late Majesty, who was a Protestant, and by the Advice of Protestant Councellors, the adored Earl of Shaftsbury, the Duke of Lauder­dale, and others, forced to do the same thing, when necessity of Publick Af­fairs required it? Yet no Ruine of the Church of England followed, nor of the Protestant Religion, no Ruine, no Destruction, no Introduction of Po­pery, nor intended to follow. Some stir was then about the business of the Dispensing Power; but nothing to what it is now. Let us but quietly at­tend the expectation of a Parliament, and that is a thing which it is likely may close of it self; It did so before.

For indeed the Concurrence of His Two Houses of Parliament, of which His Majesty made no doubt, (as He says,) when He first issued out His De­claration, before we had royld the Nation.

The Concurrence, I say, of His Parliament, will bury up all in Silence and Peace, which is better than blow up so great a Flame, as would arise by stir­ring the Coals of this Contest.

Prerogative of the Crown, and Priviledges of Parliament, are Matters too August, for private Men as we are, to meddle in, much more to pass Sen­tence, as your Letter does, and plainly say, The Dispensing Power is against the Laws and Constitution of this Church and Kingdom: That it is Illegal, which is so high a Presumption, as can have no countenance for what was done in Parliament 72; for they have the Priviledge of free speaking there: But out of Parliament perhaps it is a Crime of an higher Nature than we are aware. Even the Bishops themselves, though Persons moving in so high a Sphere, and protected by so great a Power as the Pope was then in Eng­land; yet they are given to understand, as I find some Lawyers note, 18 Hen. 3. That for as much as they hold their Baronies of the King, that if they intermeddle with the Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown, they must look to forfeit their Baronies for their Presumption. If, I say, the Bishops out of Parliament incur so high a Censure, should they do any such thing, what Ani­madversion is due to Men of a lower Order? Evil Men, such as have some Fish to take, which will not be catch'd but in troubled Waters, are wont to throw in one of these, as certain Occasions of it, and as Bones of Contention whenever they have a mind to have one. It would have becomed us, who are Men of Peace, of all Men in the Kingdom, to have contained our selves, and, whatever we think, to have said nothing in this Matter.

Now is Out-cry against Prerogative; Time was, when we made as loud a Cry against pretended Priviledges of Parliament, Liberty of the Subject, and for Prerogative. Among other Complaints and Grievances, which the Black Par­liament put into a Remonstrance, and Presented to Charles the First, was, Frequent Dissolution of Parliaments, Raising of Ship-money, Suspensions, Excommu­nications and Degradations of divers Painful, Learned, Pious Ministers, &c. There comes in at last, a Complaint of His Chaplains, and other Ministers of the Church of England, Preaching before the King, against the Liberty and Property of the Subject, and for the Prerogative of the King above the Law.

What will the World say of us, while they see us, blow hot and cold out at the same Mouth?

For my part, I beleive, the scratch is now, where it don't itch: Prerogative is not the thing does so much aggreive us. If it happened to be on our side, as we apprehend it now against us, we should like Prerogative well enough. If we had liv'd in those days, what should we have though of such a Prero­gative-Indulgence from Queen Mary, in the behalf of Her Protestant Subjects, from the Penal and Sanguinary Laws, then established by Parliament? Would we not have dared to own it, to publish it in our Churches and Chapels, till we had Authority of Parliament for it?

Would we have deserted and opposed so gracious a Queen, and stroke into a Confederacy, with the concurring Opinions of the Nobility and Gentry, That to take away-the Penal Laws at that time, would be but one step from the in­troducing of Protestancy?

I do not find the Clergy at all aggrieved at the Dispensing Power, when at any time serving for the Interest of the Protestant Religion. For instance: When King Edward the Sixth, by his mere Prerogative, disposed of the Crown, for that Reason, to the Lady Jane, most expresly contrary to a late establish'd Law passed in Parliament, whereby the Crown was entailed on the Children of Henry the Eighth, of which, Mary and Elizabeth were both surviving, it was so far from a daring not to do it, till we had Authority of Parliament for it, and from scrupling the Teaching, of that, which alters, what has been formerly Thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom, That Doctor Ridley Bishop of London, by Order of the Council, Preached a Sermon on purpose, at Pauls-Cross, to set forth the Title of the Lady Jane, and to justifie the proceedings of the King and Council in that Affair. Doctor Cranmer, Archbishop of Can­terbury, was one of the Principal in the Council, and most of the rest of the Bishops and Clergy complied with, and approved of it, and commended it to their People.

Nor were the Nobility and Gentry averse from it.

After Queen Elizabeth, by the same Established Laws, the Succession of the Crown was to pass to Mary Queen of Scots; but she being a professed Catho­lick, what intrigues were driven to exclude Her, in favour of the Protestant Religion, and also Her Son James the First of England, yet in his Infancy, (and probably enough) supposed to bring with him His Mothers Religion?

Did not the Parliament offer to the Queen, (I cannot tell, but it passed to an Act,) to enable Her to nominate Her Successor to the Crown? Was not this [Page 19]to alter what had been formerly thought, the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom?

Did not Charles the First, the Protestant Martyr, authorise the Canons of the Convocation 1640, by His Prerogative-Royal, the Bishops and Clergy rightly asserting and espousing His Authority and Power in that matter; nevertheless, for the Parliaments declaring at the same time the Illegality of the thing, and That it was against the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom. So that it is not so much the Parliament of 72, nor the Constitution of the Church and Kingdom, but somthing else in the Wind, which makes us so off the Hooks with Prerogative and Dispensing Power, at this time; something we fear, which I am confident upon the Integrity of His Majesties promise, we have no cause to Fear.

But since you have so rudely jogg'd Prerogative, for nothing in the World, that I can see, but happening to stand in your way at this time, I will try a little of my skill, as well as I can, to defend it: Treating first of the King's Dispensing Power in general: And Secondly, of the exercise of it in this par­ticular Instance, which is the matter of the Declaration.

1. In General.

That such a Power of dispensing with the Laws, at least, in the interim of Parliaments be lodged somewhere, is grounded upon the same reason, as of making Laws, which is for the common good.

Laws abstract from the Sanctions, whereby they are injoyn'd, are nothing else but Provisions made, as at the first; so on every arising occasion of pro­moting the common Good, and consequently, of averting any prospect of evil.

But for Parliaments, in which so great a number of Men are employed, and at so great a charge as that must be to the Nation, to Sit continually watch­ing and waiting upon such contingent occasions, were almost as intolerable as any other evil the Laws would prevent. Somtimes Laws Salutary, and fitting to the juncture wherein they were made, with some unexpected Providence, Vicissitude, or other un-thought Emergency, change their nature, and be­come noxious. Besides that, many Evils, even pernicious, and destructive to Common-wealths, are somtimes so sudden and impendent, as the Remedy would come too late in that way. Somtimes of that nature, that, as nothing but dispatch, so nothing but Secresie can avert them. Somtimes so fixed in a popular mistake, and misunderstanding, as nothing but Time, and Reasoning can make the discovery, and generally enough, dispose the Nation to con­sent to a Remedy. And what, must the Publick suffer perhaps an intolerable Evil, or an irrepairable Ruin, for want of applying an extraordinary Remedy in such Emergent cases?

That it is not expedient only, but necessary for the publique Good, that a Trust be reposed somwhere, to make provision for the security of the whole Poplitique Body, in such grand Emergencies, and to judge of the matter, and of the means proper for averting the Evil; I think, is by no body denied; Whether it be so in our written Laws, it makes no matter: I am sure, he that runs may read it in the original Prototype of all Laws, which is right [Page 20]Reason, even in the Fundamental Laws, and Constitution of this Kingdom, and all other Human Societies.

The Parliament of 41. could see a dispensing Power thus far, thô they could not, or, which is blinder, would not see to set the Saddle on the right Horse.

It is resolved, (say they, by both Houses) that in this case of extreme danger, and of His Majesties refusal, the Ordinance, agreed upon by both Houses, for the Militia doth oblige the People, by the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom.

It being so then, that by the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom, written, or unwritten, such a Dispensing Power with the present establish'd Laws, is necessary at some times to be interposed. I know not, nor do I believe that any one else can tell me, where it can be wiser and safer lodged, than in the Care and Conduct of the King. The whole Government was by the People at first entrusted to no other Law, but the confidence they had in the Love and Wisdom, and Care and Conduct of their Princes: And if it proved other­wise than they expected, there was no remedy but Patience. Ferenda sunt regum ingenia, says Tacitus; and perhaps much better than Parliamentorum Ingenia, ut Sterilitas, & caetera naturae mala. As unfruitful Seasons, and other Evils of Nature we cannot help.

When the people of Israel asked of Samuel a King to judge them, and to go out before them, and fight their Battels, like as all the other Nations had round about them. Samuel told them, what would be the manner of such a King as they desired, like to the Kings of other Nations.

1 Sam. 8.11. He will take your Sons and appoint them for himself, for his Cha­riots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots. 12. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. 13. And he will take your daughters to be con­fectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. 14. And he will take your fields and your vineyards, and your olive-yards, even the best of them, and given them to his servants. 15. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers, and to his servants. 16. And he will take your men-ser­vants, and your maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his works. 17. He will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants. And ver. 18. Ye shall cry out in that day, because of your king; which ye shall have chosen you, and the Lord will not hear you in that day. This might be the manner of Kings, you see, even of Gods own allowing, v. 22. And against whom, 1 Sam. 23.6. Even David himself dare not stretch forth his Hand; yet such a Government God protected and owned, and was generally the manner of Kings, both with the Israelites, and all other nations.

Such Governments the Gospel found established generally over the world, and to such Christ himself was subject, and owned such as a legal Government, by paying Tribute to Caesar. To such Principalities and Powers St. Paul would have Christians put in mind to be subject, and such Magistrates to obey. And such as was then the Imperial Authority of the Romans, it is more than pro­bable, was the manner of Government, taken up, and continued by such [Page 21]Princes, into whose hands the several parts of the Empire were broken after­ward.

As for our Princes of this Nation, that they were not admitted to their Regal Authority, by Compact with the People, and on performance of Co­venants or Laws to them; (to omit other Arguments at present) has suffi­cient evidence, that our Laws have been all along, and are at this day impe­trated from His Majesty, by the humble Request, and Petition of our Re­presentatives in Parliament; Bargains do not use to be driven, but Favours begged in that precarious style. The Kings of England will hereafter turn a deaf Ear to our Requests, when they understand what we ask of them, is by degrees to part with, and steal away their Prerogative, and by every new Law they Grant us, to make themselves so much the less Kings. It is no wonder, that our Kings have been in these later days surprized, they have not been aware of the Train laid, to cause them to diminish their own Power, and by little and little to Grant away their Crown, and leave nothing but that which will al­most of it self turn into a Common-Wealth: This is a Mine underground, in which there have been a long while, and are now more Hands at Work than over before. English-men have not heretofore wonted to be so disingenious toward, their Princes, and it can be for no good end, that with such obdurate Stiffness, some have hardned others against all compliance with His Majesty to the Re­peal, or but to endure the Suspension of a Law, by which Himself, and per­haps two parts in three of the Nation, is incommoded and aggrieved, and by parting with it, no injury done by the rest; while they know too, in the mean time, that it is all by His Indulgence and Favour, that they have had, or can have for the future, the grant of such Laws as they want for their own Accommodation: And that it is in His Power to hinder the Revocation or Re­peal of the same Laws, when we complain never so much of their Evil or In­expediency.

It may come in the way of our Princes shrewdly to Retaliate this our In­justice towards Them, as well as Ingratitude and Insensibleness of their Favours.

They are such Measures, as we would not have meted to our Selves.

However, it is, and of Right ought to be, in the Power of His Majesty, to help Himself, if we will not: And that will appear from what I have said, that our Laws are all Acts of Grace and Grant from our Kings. Many of them are such, whereby he has Graciously vouchsaf'd to divest Himself off, and release the Subject from part of that Absolute and Arbitrary Power, which the King had over us in those instances, and wherein they complain'd and begg'd to be delivered of the uneasiness. Others, are Grants and Condescensions in comply­ance with us, for the promoting our Good, or averting the prospect of some pub­lick Evil.

In all which Grants, as it is certain, that as the King at present apprehended no evil to Himself by them, (for else he would not have granted them,) so when he admits them to pass into Laws, it must be supposed with a Reservation of His Prerogative and a Power of Dispensing with them, in all such Cases or Emergencies, as they shall appear to be so afterward. Especially in matters of so high concern, wherein His Life either Temporal or Eternal is indangered, I [Page 22]mean His Person or His Conscience. And though with other lesser instances, our Kings do for the most part Graciously bear, for the quiet and content of the People; yet in such as these they cannot, they ought not to forbear the use of their Royal Prerogative.

With this Caution and Reservation, Justinian notes the Laws granted to the People of Rome, by himself and other his Predecessors.

Omnibus a nobis dictis, Imperatoris excipiatur fortuna, cui & ipsas Deus leges Subjecit.

From all those before recited Laws, (says he,) the Fortune of the Emperor is to be excepted, for to that the Divine Providence over Princes, has subjected the Laws themselves.

This therefore take along with you as a thing of most remarkable Note, That for as much as the King is, as it were, the Vitals, the Soul and Centre of the whole Body Politique; whatever does tend to the indangering the Safe­ty of His Person, the retrenching His Power, the violating His Honour or His Conscience, is to be judged of like Malign Influence on all, there can be no Salus Corporis, where there is not Salus Capitis. And therefore the like Se­curity to be provided for it, if need be, by the like extraordinary Remedies: That is to say, by the Prerogative, out of the common Rode of Parliamentary Proceedings. Dispensing in the mean time with the Obligation of all such Laws as stand in the way of this otherwise insuperable Difficulty; and suspending the Penalties of them, till a fitting Season, for a Convention of Parliament to take farther Order.

Now at such a Dispensing Power, and in such Circumstances, some, espe­cially of the Church of England, are highly offended; They will not be sub­ject to it, though it be clear as the Dictates of Right Reason can make it. And not against Law, as they suggest, for it is founded upon the Supremest Law, the most Sacred and Fundamental Law of all Nations, which is, as I said, Sa­lus Populi, I mean of the Body together with the Head; for which in such Junctures, he who would reject this, is to be intreated, that he would first enlighten the World with a Discovery of some safer and wiser Expedient in its stead. And yet with how much Moderation and Princely Clemency and Tenderness, and especially towards the Church of England, does His Majesty exert this His necessary Prerogative at this time? Such as, I think, might have more especially obliged them, above others, to an Address of Thanks, among the rest of His grateful Subjects,

Well, having thus far cleared a Necessity of such a Trust, as we call Pre­rogative, in the King, to be lodged somewhere, as a Provision against such Contingencies, in all wisely-constituted, and not self-confounding, Societies; What remains now, is to vindicate His Majesty in the Use and Exercise of it at this time as necessary.

• 1. For the Preservation of Himself. And,
• 2. For the Common Good of All.

1. For Himself, with respect to the Preservation especially of His Person and His Conscience from outward Violence.

But first of His Person: That His Majesty Himself, in His Person, (with whose Safety the whole Government and the Publick Good is so complicate,) was, and would still be, in apparent danger, if His Prerogative had not inter­posed with a Suspension of some of the formerly established Laws, is a thing of which any Man may be convinced, who is not resolved otherwise.

What is the Support and Safety of a Prince, especially surrounded with a multitude of Enemies, but Power to suppress them by more, or at least equal, Numbers? Now let any Man take the Measures of His Majesties Power and Numbers, at the time of His coming to the Succession of the Crown, with proportion to the Number and Power of those who had given Him just Reason to suspect and fear them as His Enemies, who had always been before His Brothers Enemies, His Fathers Enemies, had taken away the Life of the one, and narrowly missed the Destruction of the other, and that but upon Jealousie of their Inclination; much more bitter Enemies to His Majesty, up­on the Declaration of Himself, and publickly owning the Roman Catholique Religion.

Alas! His whole Strength, (except that of the Almighty God,) what was it, but a few Roman Catholiques, added to the Loyal of the Church of Eng­land? If it had been the whole Church of England, we know how few they were, in respect of the Shoales of the Factious and Discontented. How often had they been over-powered and baffled by them in the Election of Knights, Burgesses, Sheriffs of the City, &c. and no way able to support their Interest against them, with their whole Strength?

But how great a Defalcation of that is to be made from those who adhered to His Majesty, may be computed from the small Number of those in the House of Commons, who stood with Him against the Exclusion-Bill on the one Side; And from the no small Number of those of the Church of England, who were divided from the Loyal, in that Traiterous Practice of supplanting Him, by the Intrusion of the unhappy Duke of Monmouth into the Succession, on the other Side.

And though indeed, many of the Excluding Members recovered their Ho­nour and their Loyalty, in the first Session of His Majesties Parliament, when they declared their adhering to him with their Lives and Fortunes, against the Pretensions and Practices of the Rebels, yet could they not lay again the Spi­rit they had Conjur'd up, the common People, I mean, so generally preju­dic'd by their Exclusion-Vote, that notwithstanding His Majesties almost Mi­raculous Success and Victory over them in the West, they still persisted in the Alienation of their Minds from their Lawful Prince; and no corner of the whole Nation, but was stuffed full of them, who were content to beleive the Duke of Mommouth yet alive, and that they should have another day, to try their For­tunes, against his Majesty in Rebellious Armes.

Against this multitude, nevertheless, he doubted not but to support Himself and His Crown, by uniting His Catholick Subjects, into one State-interest with those of the Church of England, neither of them alone being sufficient to make any considerable Balance.

To this purpose in the next Session of Parliament he moved, that to have the benefit and Service of all His Loyal Subjects, and that none of them might be under any disability for the future, that they would joyn with him in a Repeal of certain Acts of Parliament, made in the 25 and 30 of Carol. 2. where­by certain Oaths, and Tests and Subscriptions, were required to be made and taken of such as were admitted into any publick imployment.

The Consideration of the Seate of things, and Circumstances of His Majesties Affaires, together with their Loyalty, so signally shewed in the former Session of Parliament, made Him believe He should not be denied, what to Him seemed so reasonable and necessary for the preservation of Himself and all.

But instead of that, all He could obtain, was no more, than an Indemnity of what was past; for which they expected to be thanked of those Catho­licks, who had merited so much from His Majesty, and the whole Nation, by their signal Service against the Rebels in the West. Which was an Answer so surprizing to His Majesty, as he told them, he did not expect from such a Parliament.

So that His Majesties Measures being broken here, and finding himself by this defeat of his Expectation, much weaker and the Power and Confederacy of his Enemies stronger.

And the Laws which should in the first place preserve him, as the Centre of the publick good, barring him of his just and sufficient Defence.

He is forced by his Prerogative, to provide for his own safety and His Friends, and to suspend the force of such Laws, as stood in the way of it, till the Na­tion should be better disposed to take a right understanding of the thing, and to make choice of such Members of Parliament, by whose Concurrence the Provision for His Majesties Safety might be made.

It is true, the Church of England is hereby disobliged, but who can help it, or is to be blamed for it? it was offered to them first, and rejected by them. Will they be neither persuaded to afford His Majesty, together with theirs, the Service and Assistance of His Roman Catholique Subjects, (of whose Loyalty there can at this time be no doubt) for His sufficient defence, against His numerous and inveterate Enemies; nor yet allow him by His Indulgence of Liberty to their Consciences, to win them to a Dutiful, and Peaceable Sub­jection. Just such an unsociable rigor as this, now in the Church of England towards the Roman Catholioks, was that of the Presbyterians towards us, whom they then called Malignants, and which was the occasion of bringing His Ma­jesty CHARLES I. of Sacred Memory, to the Scaffold, and all upon piques and dislikes one against another on point of Religion. The Presbyterians had a mind to Save the King, and deliver him out of the hands of the Army, which they then called Sectaries, but this was morally impossible to be done by them, upon the strength of their own single Interest, without uniting to their assistance the Malignant also, as they termed all those who stood well-affected to the King and Church; but by no means would they be persuaded to any conjunction with the Royalists, when His Majesties Life at that time depended upon it, and might have been secur'd by it; and even to the last point when the Army came up in their march towards the City with the poor [Page 25]Captive KING in their power, they obstinately refused to take in any of the King's Party to joyn with them, notwithstanding all their frequent offers and importunities, and notwithstanding their own ruine along with theirs; choosing rather to deliver up the Common Cause, than to joyn with the King's Friends in one common Defence. Nay, to bring the parallel still nearer, when it pleased the Divine Providence to make some aspect towards the Restauration of His late Majesty CHARLES II. to the Succession of His Royal Fathers Crown; so imperious, and ill natur'd were they still towards the poor Cava­liers, and so resolved against admitting them to any share in the Honour and Interest of the Enterprize, (however, their former Fidelity to His Majesty might commend them, and His Affair need them,) that after the Secluded Members were re-admitted, a Resolution taken of Convening a Free Parlia­ment, in order to the King's Restauration; before their Rising they passed these two Votes; One, That all and every Person, who have Advised, Abetted, or Assisted in any War against the Parliament, since January the First, 1641. his, or their Sons, should be uncapable to be elected to Serve as Members of the next Par­liament. And another, That no Man should act as a Commission-Officer, without First Acknowledging and Declaring, That the War undertaken by both Houses of Par­liament, in their Defence, against the Forces raised in the name of the late KING, was Just and Lawful.

What can more nearly resemble those Oaths and Tests, which have been, of late years, laid upon so many of His present Majesties Friends; and no doubt, with the same Design, and in a then probable prospect of His Succes­sion to the Crown, That if they should fail of Excluding himself, yet at least they might exclude a considerable number of His Friends from joyning their Force, and Assistance to the rest, when He should most need them; and so, one time or other, he might fall into their Power thus unarmed and deprived of His just and sufficient Defence.

The subtle Projectors, and Contrivers of this Intrigue, it is likely are now off the Stage, but since many of those, who, I believe, have not the least Ma­lice against His Majesties Person, are yet nevertheless so intoxicate with the fears and jealousies they then imbib'd, that they are yet hardly sober, and must have time to recover their debauched Reasons. It is necessary in the mean time, that His Majesty look to the preservation of himself, and of them also, whose Loyalty is yet half asleep, and who perhaps, when they are bet­ter awake, will find reason to thank him for interposing His Prerogative, a­gainst their obstinate Defence of a Law so unreasonable and unsafe, and thank God too, for that Courage and Wisdom, with which he has inspired him, to preserve both them and Himself, and the whole Nation, from their precipitate Folly.

These things considered, may, I think, satisfie any reasonable unprejudic'd Man, of the justice and necessity of His Majesties exerting His Royal Prero­gative at this time, and in the manner he has expressed in His Declaration, for the preservation of Himself, the Head of this great National Body, which can­not be touched with danger in that principal part, without a fatal evil to the whole; But with His Majesties Person, I intimated also a Salvo for His Con­science [Page 26]and that by His Prerogative, if he cannot have it otherwise.

Conscience is the common answer on the account of which, the Nobility and Gentry do not consent to His Majesties Proposals, for taking off the Test and Penal Laws. Is there not some regard to be had to the King's Conscience, as well as other Mens? The King, no doubt, so sincere and devout as he is, in the profession of His Religion, accounts it a very high offence against God, and danger of Eternal Damnation to His Soul, to persecute what He accounts the Truth, and to drive away, or terrifie any by Penal Laws, from embra­cing it. Who does not?

I believe also the inflicting of such Penalties on any other for mere matter of Conscience, is not without a great regret to His own. That Conscience ought not to be constrained, nor People forced, in matters of mere Religion; are the ex­press words of His Declaration. Now all prosecution of Law against Recu­sants, or what other Dissenters from the establish'd Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, must be made in the King's Name; and all Warrants, for the execution of Sanguinary, Pecuniary, or what other kind of Mulcts, issue from His immediate Authority. So that no Man's Conscience of the whole Nation is so nearly concern'd, nor so accountable to God for what relates to these Laws, as the King's Conscience. I think no Man will say, that the King ought in the execution of such Laws, to sin against His Conscience; or that we have ever the less obligation upon us to Own Him, and Obey Him as our King, and to comply with Him tenderly for the finding such a temper, (if there be any better, than what He already offers) for the satisfaction of both His Conscience and ours. Subjects may suffer for Conscience sake, and lose some part of the priviledge of Subjects, rather than break the publick measures which have been established. But Kings may not be constrained by Law to suffer, nor to diminish any part of their Royal Sovereignty, for that their Con­sciences cannot comply with the execution of some Laws made by their Pre­decessors in matters of Religion. Constantine the Great, Lucius, Ethelbert, by the established Laws, should have persecuted Christianity, but then they must have done it against their Consciences. Julian found Christian Laws in the Empire, but he could not be bound by them against his Will, and retain the Authority of Emperor.

What would you have His Majesty do? bring in an Exclusion Bill against Himself? lay down His Crown and Scepter at your Feet, and turn Subject to serve you? Or would you have Him do worse, prostitute His Conscience to your pleasure, and act against the interest of His Soul, to serve yours of the World?

Indeed, what would you have Him do wiser and safer for His own Con­science, and gentler and kinder for ours, than what is imported in that Decla­ration, which we suppress, notwithstanding His Majesties Command to pub­lish it, and against which, your Letter endeavours to stir up the madness of the People, and to alienate their Hearts and Affections from so Gracious and so Wise, and so Religious a Prince.

You would have Him perhaps represent the Business to His Parliament, and leave it with them to excogitate some expedient for this emergent difficulty.

Well, and what must He do in the mean time? Sin against His Consci­ence? No, suspend: For Gods sake then, what is this stir for? You know, Sir, His Majesty has already attempted something of this Nature with His first Parliament, but with no success.

If you answer, It was not probably to be expected then; The Nation had not time enough to bethink themselves to take a Right Understanding of the thing, and to apprehend the reasonableness of His Majesties Proposals.

To all this I agree with you: Magna molimina tardè moventur: Matters of so great moment, and springing from such a surprising Vicissitude of State, could hardly be so soon digested. Yet His Majesty Dissolved not that Parliament, till after He had condescended to Treat further of that Affair in His Closet, with most of the principal Members, and till He assured Himself of an utter averseness in them to any reasonable Complyance.

If you say then, He must leave it to the issue of the next Parliament, after so long a time as they have had to think over again: You say right, and so His Majesty intends, and so He would have us signifie for the Peoples Satisfa­ction, by Reading this Declaration.

Well, but in this longer protraction of the time to another Parliament, what would you have Him do? Put these Laws in execution, not only against the Safety of His Person, but of His Conscience too? Persecute what He ac­counts the Truth? Apply Force, where in His Conscience He judges nothing but Persuasion to be used?

I know no remedy for His Majesties Conscience in the interim, but a fur­ther suspending and dispensing still with such Laws: Nor do I believe that you, or any Man else, can assign a better.

Why, He may not then make known the Continuance of His former Pur­poses in his first Declaration; and why may it not be published by us, the Mi­nisters of Conscience, and whose Duty it is of all Men to be most tender, and of all others, towards His Majesties Conscience? And why not in our Churches and Chapels, where we have insinuated generally to our People our own Mi­stakes in common with others, even almost the whole Nations first hastily ta­ken up false Conception of His Majesties Purposes?

Rightly to inform His Majesties Conscience, so far as is becoming, will not be taken amiss from us: But if we find Him at a Point, and that He is not to be moved from His Sentiment in these Matters; I am confident none of us dare, I am sure ought not, to advise His Majesty to sin against His Con­science, no more than we would do it our selves against ours.

Upon which Concession, we cannot fairly censure and oppose in the man­ner we do, His withdrawing His Authority from those Laws, in the practice and prosecution of which His Conscience must needs be violated. These are the Straits into which our Gracious King is driven at this Juncture; He chuses (according to His Judgment) to offend Man, rather than God: Can we blame Him? Nay, ought we not rather to applaud Him for it? We of the Cler­gy ought of all Men to lay our Hands upon our Mouths, and make no Cla­mors, nor give Him any Molestation on this account.

It is our own Doctrine, in His Majesties Application, while there are such [Page 28]Diversities of Religion among us, and none more infallible than other on our Principles, and while Temporal Laws will be medling with them, and deter­mining their Controversies; unless they could make it a Shoo to fit to every Foot, and to stretch to every Conscience, such Mutations and Troubles of State as we meet with now, are like frequently to return, and the Govern­ment will ever and anon be off the Hinges, new Exclusion-Bills to be brought into Parliaments, new Plots, and new Subjects for almost every new Prince.

To prevent such Convulsions of State, and probably, at one time or other, Dissolutions of the Government, as new Religions and new Consciences now a days multiply, His Majesty wisely propounds, that there be henceforth no disability on account of Conscience, as of Kings to Reign, so of Subjects to serve their Princes: In the mean time, nevertheless, for the satisfaction of our Consciences, as well as His own.

His Majesty further declares, ‘That he is resolved to use His uttermost indeavours, to establish Liberty of Conscience on such just and equal Foun­dations, as will render it unalterable, and secure to all People the Free Exer­cise of their Religion for ever.’ And to those of the Church of England prin­cipally, and especially the Protestant Religion, as by them profest, and as by Law Established, he will protect and maintain supereminently above all others, as the National Religion: That as we shall give the Check to no other, so nei­ther shall we be Checked by any in the free Exercise of our Consciences; nor in the quiet and full enjoyment of our Possessions.

You would have His Majesty continue to us, and protect and maintain us, in our Dominion, over all the Consciences of the Nation; in the putting to Death, Banishing, Imprisoning, Confiscating, and by all other means, (not to call it persecuting,) suppressing and keeping under all others of a different Persuasion.

His Majesty, would lend us His Power and Authority, to do all this for us too; if in Conscience he could, but I think we ought to excuse him in that; and I hope all Persons of Honour and Conscience will tenderly, consider His Majesties Case as their own, and be satisfied that the King does no more in this Affair, than what any truly Conscientious Man, even on our own Princi­ples, must have done. And as Himself has been on this account hitherto ne­cessitated to suspend the execution of the Penal Laws: and Test, so they also when convened together in Parliament, will find some Temper, that no re­straint or oppression shall for the future be laid upon the Consciences of our Kings by our Laws; their Consciences, as I said, being much more concerned and aggreived in the Execution of such Penal Laws and Tests, by their Au­thority, then ours can be, who pretend that for the cause, wherefore we can­not comply with His Majesties Proposals for the taking them off.

This I have said, to justifie His Majesty in the present use of his Preroga­tive, as the necessary Salvo for His Conscience in this Conjuncture.

With His Conscience, I further intimated a care to be taken for the pre­serving his Honour, and that by his Prerogative, dispensing with such Laws, as by any new emergency contrary to their Primary intention, do interpose and cast a cloud upon it.

Honour in Noble, much more in Royal, Personages, is by our Laws ratable at the value of Conscience, what therefore they declare upon their Honour, is Equivalent to what Persons of a less Honourable degree, declare upon their Oath.

But above all, the Honour of our Kings is a most inestimable Jewel of their Crowns, and Standard of their Government; it is upon the account of that, that their Subjects are disposed to revere and obey them, to love them, to con­fide in them, to repose in them the trust of all they are and have, and with their Lives and Fortunes to serve them.

Upon which account it is, having so great an interest in the Government, and well being of Mankind, in their respective Societies, and so great an In­fluence upon Subjects to ingage them to a quiet and tractable compliance with the wise consults of their Subjects; hence, I say, it is that God himself is concerned for their Honour, commanding in His Holy Scriptures, that as we Fear God, so we should Honour the King.

Let me note to you further, that our Laws are, for these great Reasons, so tender of the Honour of Kings, as they will endure no attainder upon them, but so soon as from Subjects, they become Kings, whatever attainder was be­fore upon them from the Laws, it falls of it self, because otherwise the Laws lose their main end, laying a blot upon his Honour, and lessening his esteem with his People, from which does naturally arise many intolerable Evils to the Government.

And for the same reason, whatever Person is Convict of an attempt to Alie­nate from our Kings, the Affections of their Liege People, are looked on as Traitors, and reputed such as do therein subvert the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom, and if we follow the reason of the thing, for doubtless upon that the Law is Grounded, as any Person so any matter or thing, which tends to Alienate from the King the Affections of his Liege People, is by parity of Reason to be removed.

In short, that which we call the Test, however agreeable it might be to the present Circumstances in which it was made; yet now, as Circumstances are by the Divine Providence changed, the continuing of it does reflect such Dis­honour upon His Majesty, as does evidently tend to alienate from Him the Affections of His Liege People, and that two ways:

• 1. As insinuating Him to be a Conspirator against the Life and Crown of His late Majesty, in that which was called the Damnable Hellish and Popish Plot. And,
• 2. As implying Him an Idolater against God, the Supreme Majesty of Hea­ven and Earth.

First, That the Test was made against the Roman Catholicks, on presum­ption, that they were generally ingaged in, or one way or other Abettors of, that then reputed Horrid Plot: I think is too plain to be fairly denied.

If you object, That His Sacred Majesty, then Duke of York, was Himself exempted from that Test, and so it could not reflect upon him.

I answer, Never the less for that. Nothing more served their Purposes of that Conjuncture, than that subtle-seeming Tenderness of the Duke: For they [Page 30]knew His Majesties Love and Confidence in His Royal Brother, was not yet shaken enough; and that to have but named Him among the other Roman Catholicks at that time, had certainly obviated the Kings Royal Assent to that Act.

The Game was then but to extort from the King by force, or gain by sur­prize, what they might easily convert to the Dukes Disadvantage afterward. For the Test being put upon all bearing Office throughout the Kingdom, for the discovery of the Professors of that Religion, on suspicion and suggestion to the People, that they were all in that Conspiracy; and the Duke being known to be of that Religion, every one knew how to draw the Conclusion, though the Duke were excepted, to please the good King; but especially when Mat­ters were afterward intrigued to that pass, that they dared openly to bring against Him a Bill of Exclusion in the High Court of Parliament, and infaming Him at the same time all over the Kingdom, with Libels of the most black and horrid import, that Craft and Malice together could suggest. Whatever was in the Design, it is manifest enough in the Event, that the first imposing of this Test, and diffusing it through the whole Kingdom, did universally fer­ment a disgust and prejudice against Him, and cast a Dishonour upon Him, and was a Method and Disposition to the Exclusion-Bill, which followed while He was yet Duke.

But now He is, by the Grace of God, King of England, &c. the continu­ing of the same, and the frequent occasion of using and renewing it, must ne­cessarily continue, renew and fasten in His Subjects Minds, the same precon­ceived prejudice, which cannot be without Alienation of the Affections of His Liege-People from Him, and consequently not only incumber and make His Government unwieldable in His Hand, but also shrewdly hazard a Dissoluti­on of it; and be a continual Spring of many Evils, against all which, the keeping up of this Test still, and putting that alone into the Ballance, I think must appear to any thinking Man, lighter than Vanity. And yet much more, when this malicious Suggestion against the King and others of His Religion, is by the same Votaries to this Test, for the most part acknowledged to be no­thing but Sham and Illusion, Cheat and Villany.

It were to be supposed in generous Equity, that all those who had on that account suffered in their Fortunes and their Honour, their Innocency being cleared, should be also now cleared of the Laws respecting them on that ac­count, and that some other expedient might be excogitated, so to secure us and our Religion, as might not expose innocent Persons to Dishonor and Ruine. How should we expect God should bless it to us, and make us safe by such an unjust security: Unjust, (I say,) and especially to so Great and Sacred a Person as our Prince.

Why do we suffer any thing to remain, which may intimate and insinuate to His Liege People such a false Suggestion, and dishonourable Imputation, and still further impress upon their Minds so odious a Character, as in this Test, if not by design, yet by event, is evidently cast upon him.

From what has been said on this Head, First, with respect to that Conspi­racy, you see the necessity of the King's asserting His Honour by His Prero­gative [Page 31]at this time; seeing we do yet so tenaciously hold our Resolution of retaining such Laws: nevertheless, for the reflections from them, on His Ma­jesties Honour, and the evil consequences of that, upon His Government.

Another reflection on His Majesties Honour, for the preserving of which he is constrained to make use of His Dispensing Power, and particularly against that established Law, called the Test, is this; That in the using of it, and so long as it continues, and so often as occasion returns, for the iterating of it, His Majesty is inferred, and publiquely marked for an Idolater. Which odious Inference, so perpetually injected into the Minds of the Mobile, it cannot but beget in them an Aversation from His Majesty, and an Alienation of the Affections of His Liege People; making them turbulent, uneasie, and unmanageble by the Government.

You may say, perhaps, we cannot help that; People will think as they list.

It's true, but in the mean time, I think, according to the maxims of Govern­ment, it is neither politique, nor decent, that the Laws themselves should set a Brand upon the King, and administer Fuel to their Fire.

Though the People will not be Tongue ty'd, yet the Laws may, and ought, if, as I said, they will be consistent with themselves, for that were a contra­diction, so severely to censure whatever does alienate from the King, the Affections of His Liege People at one time, and yet admit, and encourage it at another; can such Laws Honour the King, as the Scriptures have com­manded, which do constrain all Men, before they can be capable of serving His Majesty, aloud, and in open Courts of Justice, every where dispersed over the whole Nation, and with the Sanction of a Sacrament, to declare their abhorrence, and renunciation of certain Doctrines, and Tenets of Reli­gion, by which they do infer His Majesty to be a gross Idolater: which Do­ctrines they nevertheless know at the same time, as by our King, so by most of the Princes of the Christian World, to be conscientiously owned and pro­fessed.

What higher contempt, affront, and dishonour can there be put upon a King by His Subjects? and still higher, That His own Authority shall be forced to justifie, and encourage, and give them only Rewards, and Honors, and Offi­ces for so doing; and to exclude all others, who think it becomes them to be more modest, and in such a matter, to suppress their censure, and keep their Sentiment to themselves. If His Majesty should require of us, with all this Solemnity, to Declare, that we believed the worship of the Host, Invocation of Saints, &c. to be no Idolatry, and that consequently, neither himself, nor any of His Church and Communion, were Idolaters in so doing; what less opposition, and clamour of Popery could we make, than we do now, when His Majesty only desires, that we would take the liberty of Thinking, Dis­coursing also modestly, what we list ourselves in this matter, so we would not force others to make a publick Declaration of it, and solemnly to Swear to it too, who perhaps, are not so satisfied in the thing, or if they are, think it no good manners to His Majesty, to do it at this time.

The King would not exclude us, but admit all His good Subjects indiffe­rently [Page 32]to His Service, and His Favour; nay, the very Roman Catholicks shall not be capable of the like Places and Offices, but as they shall be bound and disabled from doing any injury to others, or infringing the least Liberty, Ad­vantage, or Honor of Protestants.

But by His Laws, whether He will or no, to constrain Him, to admit no other Persons about Him, none to attend in His Houshould, none to Serve Him in the Ministring of publick Affairs, but such as have taken such Oaths, as imply Him to be an Idolater!

Shall he have no other Objects when ever he lift up His Eyes, or which way soever he look, but such as may stir up in Him a regreting remembrance of the constraint, we put upon Him, and our ill usage of Him?

These are things not to be endured by Blesh and Blood; I am confident, no Gentleman in England could be content to make it His own case; nor will they, I hope, when they more nearly look into the thing, and see what evil consequences it is likely to produce, Censure His Majesty for using His Pow­er of Dispensing with such Laws, till a fit time for the Convention of Parlia­ment; and that the rather, for that His Majesty Declares His willingness to concur with them there to the establishing any other Law, equivalent in its stead, which without those oblique wipes upon His Majesties Religion, His Honour, and His Conscience, may be as effectual to secure us in the profession of our Religion, as that we enjoy.

And not only His Honour, but his Life also, may be in danger from this In­sinuation: There being no small number of zealous Protestants, some of which I have met with, holding Idolatry to be a Crime punishable with Death by Christian Magistrates; and some worse than that, that every Mans Hand is to be upon them to put them to Death, that their Eye is not to pity or spare so much as an Inticer to Idolatry, though our own Father or Mother, &c.

This is said in Vindication of the dispensing Power, His Majesty now uses, as necessary for the Preservation of His Person, His Conscience and his Ho­nour.

And though, as I said, what concerns His Majesties, and the common good are so interwoven, as the publick must have sustained a very great Evil, if not a probable Ruine and Dissolution of the Government, by any Rebellious or violent attempt on His Person, so Naked and Defenceless, as we would have left Him, and that His Majesty by these Measures, saves His Person, His Con­science and His Honour.

Yet, since His Majesty has been pleased in His Declaration, to justifie the exerting of His Prerogative at this time, not only on the account of Himself, but of many other advantages which may thence accrew to His People.

I shall desire you to consider them also, as they stand commended to us in the Declaration it self, and with those further enlargements on that subject, lately published from other Excellent Pens, to which I refer you.

And go on to the next Reason, on the account of which, a Minister of the Church of England cannot, according to you, Consent to the Declaration. In which, and the rest that follow, I may be short, for I reckon the business of your Letter is done. If I have cleared, in all wisely constituted Societies, the [Page 33]Reason and Necessity of a Power, dispensing with the established Laws, in some extraordinary Cases, without which, the publick Good, which is the main end of all Laws, and Governments, cannot be secured at all times, That some body must be trusted with this Power. That it is no where wiser and safer lodg'd, than in the King. That therefore we must acquiesce in His judgment, when it is seasonable to use it; That nevertheless, for our satis­faction, the Reasons which His Majesty has given in that Declaration of His, which we refuse to Read, are very clear and cogent, for the putting in pra­ctice His Prerogative at this time. But you say further, We cannot Consent, nor Read. For that is to recommend to out People the choice of such Per­sons, as shall take away the Test and Penal Laws, which most of the Nobility and Gentry have Declared their Judgment against. This is an Argument, not from the force of Reason, but Example, which may be right or wrong, as it happens, and we have no way to assure us, when it is, and when it is not, but by putting it to the touchstone of Reason; which being done already, till I see those Reasons answer'd, I have no more to say, but Magis amica Veritas. Passing this over therefore as nothing new, but only a scrape to the Nobility and Gentry; you say next, rather than nothing, almost the same over again, viz. That it is to condemn all those great and worthy Patriots of their Country, who for­feited the dearest thing in the world to them, next a good Conscience, that is, The Favour of their Prince, and a great many Honourable and Profitable imployments with it, rather than consent to the Proposal of taking away the Test, and Penal Laws, which they apprehend destructive to the Church of England, and the Prote­stant Religion; and he who can in Conscience do all this, I think need scruple nothing. If the same Proposal had been made to us as to the Worthy Patriots, that is, Whether we would give our Votes in Parliament, for taking off the Test and Penal Laws, then you had rightly taken an Argument a simili for our suffer­ing like them, rather than consenting, which is the thing you pretend to do, but very inconsiderately, for our Case is not like theirs. Nor will the Great and Worthy Patriots Thank you for bringing them to parallel and patronize your Disobedience to His Majesties plain Command, when the Consent they were asked to give, was only to a Proposal, and so can imply no Disobedience, if they did not consent. If His Majesty had asked no more of them than he does of us, which is, to publish His Declaration; they would never have for­feited His Majesties Favour for that, nor their Honourable and profitable Im­ployments. For how, I pray, came His Majesties Declaration the first time published; I suppose it must be communicated to others, so, as to pass all over the Nation, through many Hands of Officers, of the Gentry, and of the No­bility too, for any thing you know; and of such, as nevertheless did stop, perhaps, at the Proposal of taking off the Test and Penal Laws; and so are you left free to do, if you please, for all your Reading, and as free are all those that hear you.

You proceed next, to the evil consequences which may follow your Reading; It would make our Ministry contemptible, you say, which must by no means be admitted, right or wrong, for ought I see, A Minister must look to please and humour the Mobile, or all his Counsels, Exhortations, Preachings, Writings, [Page 34]are nothing worth. For St. Paul has said, Tit. 2.15. Let no man despise thee? That is well enough argued against Authority, in a matter, where we see the People as hot, and as forward as ourselves.

But now, if we were to Teach the People, as you call it, by Reading the Act of Ʋniformity, the Book of Homilies, or the Book of Common Prayer, or any thing else, not so relishing; or by which, we are like to get the Ill-will and Contempt of the People: Why, it is but putting on our Nose of Wax again, with a bent on the other side; then by honour and dishonour, by good report and evil report, as deceivers and yet true, 2 Cor. 6.8. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the Truth? If your business were only ad captan­dum populum, this might serve; but whereas you wish us so to behave ourselves, that no Man despise us, It will concern us, who are Clergy-men and Scho­lars, not to appear to all Men of Sense, such silly and despicable Animals, as you seem to take us for, by thinking to impose upon us, with such pitiful So­phistry as this: For, Sir, Is the thing evil, or is it not? If it be, as somtimes you are in the mind, contrary to the Laws both of God and Man, do but prove this as soundly to us, as you have said it temerariously, and we are as much at a point, for not recommending it to our People, as you, though they should despise us for it never so much. But if it be not evil in itself, as, for­getting your Theme, in another place you had almost slipped out, in these words, It may be it were no fault, to consent to the Declaration. If I say there be perhaps no fault, but only a popular misprision in it, to make some Men despise us; by the same reason we should not read the Book of Canons, as we are bound every year, nor an Homily, nor the Book of Common-Prayer itself.

Your next Reason is, that it will effectually tend to the ruine of the Church of England; And why? Because it will provoke, or misguide, all the friends it has; What, the Reading it, and nothing else? A Man had as good be a keeper of Bears, as of such Friends, who will be so easily provoked. As for the King, no body cares how much he be provoked, though he be most able by His Pow­er, and obliged by His Sacred Promise, to Protect us from ruine. And if we once disoblige Him from that, I fear we shall find it beyond the Power of the Nobility and Gentry, to protect and maintain us, so far as he has ingag'd Himself in this, so provoking, Declaration; supposing His Majesty false and treacherous to His Royal Word and Promise; you have said somthing on this Argument; and truly he who should be over solicitous in answering it, would but seem to be so too. Wherefore, you may run for me to the end of your Rope, with the rest of your harangue on this reason. It is all set on a false bottom; which is Answer enough.

Your Objection comes next, of some who should say, These are Consequen­ces but conjectural, and not absolutely necessary.

It may be the Reading of it will not so effectually tend to the Churches ruine.

To which you Answer, They are not indeed such effects in respect of cer­tainty, as arise from natural Causes, but they are as morally certain, as any thing can be. Good Sir, then do us the Favour but to hear them made out, al­most as evident Demonstrations as you have promised us, let us see this Mo­ral Certainty. Moral Effects must have Moral Causes; Is not the Kings a [Page 35]Moral Promise, and may not a Moral Certainty be grounded upon that? It seems you were before aware of this Retort, and you think fit to grant it, in these words which follow, which are by way of Question.

Whether the King cannot keep his Promise to the Church of England, if the Test and Penal Laws be repealed? To which your self make answer, You cannot say but this may be; so that you grant as Moral a Certainty on this side, as on the other. But the Kings Moral Certainty is not to be believ'd, though yours must: But for Reasons wherefore, you are wont to be sparing, where the Matter pinches; but if we will take your Word, there are some very substan­tial ones behind the Curtain.

Wherefore (as you say) the Nation does not think fit to try it, and we commend the great Men who deny it.

If we will take such Reasons, as you think fit to make show of at present, why here they are: The King is an Immoral Man, and therefore no Moral cer­tainty of what otherwise might be possible enough in it self: The King pro­fesses an Immoral Religion, and he converses with a sort of Immoral Men, called Jesuits, who can presently furnish him with a Salvo, for his inclination, to forget his promise to the Church of England: Is not this to make the matter almost as evi­dent a Demonstration, as you promis'd us? Why, Sir, I confess this is a young Phoenix Argument, sprung out of the Ashes of that old one said to be of the Earl of Shaftburies, which was burnt by the hand of the Common Hangman, We must have a King we can trust: And the Nobility and Gentry are called to take notice of it, and to be supposed they go on the same ground; Nay, the whole Nation do not think fit to try it, you say. And all must be thanked, the Nobility and Gentry especially most tenderly treated, and their Ears by no means grated with this Declaration, which may discourage, provoke or misguide them from their opposition to the King on this account, and then we are finally ruin'd indeed.

Now if the Church of England can be beholding to you, for furnishing her Ministers with an Argument against the Kings Declaration, which smells so rank of the Hangman; I am mistaken in her, which I am sure I am not a­mong those who are Israelites indeed: Wherefore I think it needless to spend any more words about it. But having made sure of the Nobility and Gen­try, as you would have us think: Now but a word to the Wife, and you have done, and that is to the Dissenters.

Who (say you) are so wise and considering, as out of our opposition to the King on this Proposal, to smell in us something of a persecuting spirit.

Well, how shall the Matter be handled then, that they be not provoked, for there is no Policy in that at this time of the day; however we have pro­voked them heretofore.

The Dissenters, (you say) whom we ought not to provoke, will expound our not reading to be the effect of a persecuting spirit.

Then it seems, not reading is teaching too as well as reading; what you will for that. But how shall we split the hair between the Nobility and Gentry on the one side, and the Dissenters on the other? If we can draw both to to our side, nothing can resist us.

To disoblige the Nobility and Gentry were more fatal indeed, as you say, than to anger the Dissenters.

But they are numerous and rich, there is no parting with them at this time neither, some cunning and fineness must be used then to bring over the Dissen­ters to the Confederate Army; for God's sake, what is the meaning of all this Plotting and Projecting, and making Leagues, and Alliances, and mustering our Forces? Where's the Enemy? May a Man venture to peep his Head over the Wall to see this same Hanibal ad portas; which comes threatning thus with Fire and Fagot, to discharge our new Alliance, the Dissenters, From all Pains, Penalties, Forfeitures, Imprisonments, by them, or any of them, incurred or forfeit­ed, or which they shall, or may at any time hereafter be liable to, by reason of their Nonconformity, or the exercise of their Religion, and from all Suits, Troubles or Di­sturbances for the same; And as for our selves, there is no more mercy to be looked for at his hands, than for our Brethren the poor Dissenters: For all our Archbishops, Bishops, Clergy, and all other of the Church of England, in the first place: Alas! they must be every Scul of them protected and maintained in the free exercise of their Religion, as by Law establish'd; and in the full and quiet enjoy­ment of all their Possessions, without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever.

It is time, one would think, to project a way of joyning the Church of England and the Dissenters to keep one another.

For these Dissenters are wise and considering Men, and they are sensible of them­selves, that all this is but Anguis in Herbâ, a mere Trap, a Gin, a pitfall. And although they desire Ease and Liberty, they are not willing to have it with such apparent hazard of Church and State. Let them but stay their longing a while; for when there is but the first opportunity of shewing our inclinations without danger, they will find that we are not such Persecutors, as we have been re­presented. Where then, and what has been the danger that no such Inclinati­ons have appeared toward the Dissenters these twenty eight years back? Have not our Protestant Princes, as well as this, been always oppos'd in their Incli­nations to any such Indulgence: King Charles the Second made them a Promise of it at Breda, he made several Intimations of that Promise in future Parliaments, and how his Honor lay at stake; but met with no Inclination in us unless it were, to lay on more lode: And after, when that gracious Prince was fain to breake from us by main force, and upon his own Prerogative issue out his promised Indulgence; he could have no peace with us again, nor any compli­ance with him in his other Affairs of State, till we almost compelled him to a Revocation.

And yet what manner of Men should the Dissenters see we are towards them, if we had but opportunity.

But now you say, there is danger; yes, now we have carried our selves so, as to apprehend danger to our selves, there comes an opportunity for cokesing the Dissenters, to help us to turn the danger upon the King; and they must be made to believe, they are in the saddest danger now that ever they were, who in truth were never so much out of it for above twenty years past, nor in such probability of shaking off the fear of any such danger for the future, if they are not seduced and infatuated to be unthankful to their gracious King, and wanting to themselves. Now the reason, wherefore I call the Dissenters to look back upon our Inclinations towards them is not to censure the Wisdom and [Page 37]Honor of those Parliaments, which made such Laws against Dissenters as Mat­ters then stood.

But to shew, that His present Majesties Religion, which has been as severe to­wards Dissenters as ours, may nevertheless for that be as sincere as we can be, in the Inclinations he hints the Dissenters may hope from us when time serves: I like your Commendations of the Church of England every where well enough, and believe their well meaning, but not as you make use of it, slily to insi­nuate a distrust a snare, and to create a suspicion in the Dissenters of His Majesties Veracity and Honour, and by this base Suggestion tempt them to de­sert Him in this Juncture, and adhere rather to those who oppose Him: I be­lieve as much as you, that they are so wise and considering as to be sensible of a snare, and as likely of your setting for them, as of His Majesties. And that they will think it more wise and safe to confide in His Word, than in yours; and to take the Opportunity which now presents, than to stay and starve while your Grass grows.

But lest your Promises should not prevail, you attempt also by Threatnings to deter them from strengthning His Majesties Party and Design. Should they take it in this way, you tell them, they will find it the dearest Liberty that ever was granted.

I do not deny, but Gold may be bought too dear; let us see, what we have by the Bargain of parting with our Test and Penal Laws. If all the Discourse of your Letter had been against those only, who are for delivering up our Laws into the Hand of another Religion, without any effectual security for our own; I should have agreed with you, that we cannot Consent but must Suffer in this way, and it is plain His Majesty is of that mind too. His whole Declaration being a Proposal of Terms and Compremise of Peace among His Subjects, of whatever different Persuasions, that none may hinder one another of the Free Exercise of their Religion, and full and quiet enjoyment of their Property, and if you are so suspicious of Sinister dealing, from His Majesty, he offers to make our selves, by our Representatives in Parliament, Umpire in the business, So that your Insinuation is very Ungenteel and Rude towards His Majesty, and savors more of a piquing ill-natur'd jealousie, than any just fear that we should find the Liberty now offered, the dearest that ever was Granted: These are the Reasons, on which you ground your Magisterial Sup­position; That no Minister of the Church of England can Consent to the De­claration, and therefore cannot read it; how weak and insufficient they are to establish such an Hypothesis, and that therefore all you have built upon it, must come down with it, let the world judge, so that nevertheless for your Argu­ments, a Minister of the Church of England can Consent to the Declaration, and then I think, that he may Read it, no body will deny.

Nay, and that he ought, in omnibus licitis & honestis, to pay an active Obe­dience.

To answer the Command by a Passive Obedience, To suffer all that can be suffered in this World, (as you somewhere say) to be subject only and not resist, will not serve the turn here.

The giving our Body to be burnt, in this Cause, will not make us Martyrs. There is an Active Obedience due to all the King's Honest and Lawful Commands, by the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom, though the matter of the Command have not yet entred by a Parliamentary Law, for that is but accidental; we owe him [...] much upon the account of our natural Allegiance, founded in that Relation between King and Subject. If it be a Matter in which he is necessitated to use his Prerogative, all that we are bound to satisfie our selves in, is this; Is it a Moral Command? Is it not against the Laws of God, over which he has no Power of Dispensing, though it were to save His own, and the Lives of all His Subjects? If not, we are bound to it by our Natural Allegiance, by our Loyalty or Legality, which is not to be understood so ad Legem, as it is not due for Conscience-sake; save only in such Instances where it is pass'd into a Parliamentary Law. For Allegiance reaches to Law in a further Extent and Latitude than so, even to that Law, which Nature and right Reason teach, is founded in such a Relation as King and Subject, and Political Father and Sons. Not only con­fined to that Law, which defends the Right, the Liberty and Property of the Subject, which is for the most part written because it passes by Grant, and stands on Record, from the King: But to that Prerogative Law also, which is natural and unwritten, and cannot be granted away, because it defends the Rights of the Crown, and defends the Majesty Authority and Dignity of the Prince, and the Capacity, whereby he may per­form all the Offices of a Father to his People.

Do not we swear a Canonical Obedience to our Bishops, In omnibus Licitis & Ho­nestis? By what Law of the Land is this required? By no Parliamentary Law, but, as I said, by the Law of Nature, rooted in that Relation he bears toward us of our Spiri­tual Father. But here is no place for a Discourse so large and copious, as it should be, on this Subject. All I mean by it here is this, That if the Matter of the Declaration be Moral, Honest, and Lawful, so far as Lawful takes in the Law of the King's Preroga­tive, as well as the Peoples Laws: We must pay an Active Obedience to this Com­mand of His Majesty, on the account of our Natural Allegiance: A Suffering for it ra­ther, and not resisting only, will not justifie us to God, by whom Kings Reign, and whose Power is Ordained of God. This I take to have been all along the Doctrine of the Church of England.

But after all this, it is possible, some of the Ministers of the Church of England can­not consent. Some will not take the pains perhaps, and some have not the parts to think deep enough. Some, like Tr [...], stand their Ground where they were first set, rooted by Education, and some as much by Prejudice. Some have their Reason over­poured, by their Fears; and some, by their Interests. What then? May they not read the Declaration? Must the grand and important Affairs of State be all at a stand, till such Persons can be satisfied? Must their Wills be the Law in the mean time, and their Judgment the Standard of the King and Council, and the whole Nation? Must their Declaration in this Matter be published in all their Churches and Chapels, and His Ma­jesty's never suffered to come in at the Church-door? Why may not both Tales be told, and both Sides heard? This is not just nor civil dealing with His Majesty.

Again, What if you cannot give an internal Consent, or a Consent of Approbation? Can you not read it with a Consent of Acquiescence and Submission? That is all which need to be in a Subject, to Matters of this kind. When the King, in whose Preroga­tive it is to make Peace and War, sets forth a Declaration, signifying His purpose of ma­king War, suppose with the Dutch or French; May His Officers, in the several Places where this Declaration is to be published, suppress it, and refuse to obey His Command, unless, according to you, they can approve the Matter of it, and be satisfied in the King's Reasons and Grounds of the War? I see not, but, upon your Doctrine, there is more Reason for it here, than where you would instigate us of the Clergy to give so dange­rous and pernicious a precedent to the whole Nation.

A Consent of Acquiscence and Submission, as I said, to the Wisdom and Justice of the King, is enough in such Cases, and with no more than that, Armies of their Subjects do follow our Princes into the Field, with the expence of their Blood and Treasure, and not stand bogling, as you would have us, at nothing but Reading or Publishing His Majesties Declaration. On this Principle it will be hard for His Majesty, on whatever just and necessary occasion, to raise an Army among Disciples of your teaching; Nay, it is a wonder, if suffered to proceed, that it does not disband that He has. There is rare­ly a Concurrence of all Judgments and Votes to the making of the Laws themselves in Parliament, and so not such a Consent as we call internal. Nevertheless an external, or if you will, call it a permissive, Consent, of all, to the Enacting and Publishing it as a Law. Now suppose any of the Members of such a Parliament, giving the Charge at an Assize or Sessions, in the Office of one of His Majesties. Judges, or Justices of the Peace; must he pass over, and omit the recital or reading of such Laws, as he does not, in his own Judgment, approve, or to which he had before refused his consent and suf­frage in Parliament? Many of those Breves, or Letters Patents, in the behalf of poor distressed Sufferers, to which we are required to excite the Peoples Charity, I have heard accounted by Clergy-Men little better than Cheats, and yet make no scruple of reading them, and that with a whatsoever Law, Statute, or Provision to the contrary notwith­standing. Innumerable Instances of this kind might be offered, if there were need, to shew, that he, who cannot consent to the Declaration with a Consent of Approbation, may yet read it with a Consent of Acquiescence and Submission.

And further, what if you cannot Consent to the matter of the Declaration, or the Expediency of it, in it self; can you not consent to Read it, in the nature of a Propo­sal. Not as common Cryers altogether, but yet as Men, whom our Ordinaries, as well as the King, do make use of to these purposes: His Majesty would have us signifie His Pleasure, that he would Treat with His People, by their Representatives in Parliament, concerning the necessity of His Suspension of the Penal Laws at present; and about cer­tain Overtures of Terms and Conditions offered in Exchange, for the Repeal of them for the future: All this is but by way of Proposal; Conditions and Terms offered, and all the way with a reserve to the Parliament. No absolute Consent is required, but on­ly conditional, if such propositions be liked or can be made practicable.

What if it be proposed, to take of the Test and Penal Established Laws? What is there in this contrary to the Laws of the Land? as you frequently, but rashly, suggest. Is the Repeal of a Law against, and not rather agreeable to, the known Laws of the Land? As to the method, which the King uses to this purpose, what can be objected against our Consenting to that? If any Nobleman or Gentleman design the Repeal of a former Established Law, his Method for the compassing his end, must be by making known his Mind and his Reasons: Ordinarily Books are Printed and Published all over the Na­tion, to this purpose before the Convention of Parliaments, what does the King more in this matter than other Men? And so for Recommending by us to the People, such Per­sons to sit in Parliament, as may comply with His Majesty in the business of the Decla­ration: What is it more than Proposal? And what is it more than we ordinarily do for the Nobility and Gentry at their Request. Do not Letters fly about, and Horse and Man, all over the Country, Night and Day, for the Election of such Persons, as are by one or other Recommended to us. This His Majesty desires us to signifie by His Declaration, but yet leaves us free after all. And what is the matter now, we cannot declare to the People these and others His Majesties Proposals? We nor they are ever the more compelled or interpreted to comply with them.

Again, What if we cannot fully consent? Are there not many things done by us, both for our selves and others, but with an half, or a doubting Consent? Do we not perform many Commands of our Parents, of which we are not so fully satisfied, some­times [Page 40]for their Expediency, and sometimes perhaps for their Lawfulness? And are not indeed almost all the Consents of Men in their Converses and Negotiations one with other of this kind? Does the reading this Declaration ingage us in an evil and unlawful A­ction, as necessarily as your Simile of Fire burning Wood? Have we no Reason of the least doubt in this Matter? Have we robbed the Bishop of Rome of all his Infallibili­ty? If there be, as I believe with the most there is, something of doubt in the other Balance, then that is a good Rule which heretofore we used to commend to the Dissen­ters in the business of Conformity: It is good to doubt on the best side; Let us fear we fin against God, by disobeying our King. That we are to obey the King in omni­bus licitis & honestis, is out of all doubt: Whether this Command of His be altoge­ther unlawful, is not so certain. Away then with your Obedience, where you see you may be most certain: This was after our own Measures I am sure once, if we have ta­ken no false Measures since.

And further, If we cannot serve His Majesty in this, with so intire a Consent as we wish we could; Can we do nothing of Civility, of Honour and Respect? Does not this move us sometimes to strain a little out of our Byass? If this Declaration had been a Speech of my Lord Russel's, or a Letter of Dr. Burnet's, we had been so kind to make them as publick as we could. Some of us remember the Ordinances of the Black Parlia­ment, and the Proclamations of an Usurping Oliver, and how (though I believe some­what against our minds) a little slavish fear made us buckle to the reading them in our Churches, and to give Thanks, and fast as demurely as the best of them.

But it seems neither Love nor Fear can prevail with us, in the behalf of His Majesty. If it were but to have expiated and retriv'd that Sin and Folly of our Ingratitude, when we, like Blocks, lay unmoved without the least sense of His Majesties more particular fa­vour to us, and when an universal ferment of Joy and Thanks transfused it self over the whole Nation, but our singular selves. A stupidity, in which your Letter would tempt us to be hardned more and more. This, say you, must have served in stead of an Ad­dress of Thanks, which the Clergy generally refused, though it was only to Thank the King for His Gracious promise, renewed to the Church of England, in his Declaration, which was much more innocent, than to publish the Declaration it self in our Churches. I remember one of the famous Oxford Reasons, why the Clergy should not Address, was, that it would be but I thank you for nothing; and that His Majesties promise was but a Superogation, over those Established Laws, which had done more for our Pro­tection and Security already, than he could add.

Now I though it would have becomed wise Men, however happy at present, to re­member how fickle and various Fortune uses to be: Who knows, what back Friends the Church of England may have infuture Parliaments, as likely as heretofore in their most Halcyon Days, and how much we may have occasion to be beholding to a Le Roy avi­sera, to obviate their Attempts. But this I conceive was not thought of in the Thank­ing Days, when our Manners to our King was much of that Cynical sort as of Diogenes to Alexander, Pray, Sir, stand out of our Sun, and don't hinder us of that you cannot give us.

Well, Sir, you for your part, in stead of mending one Hole, are like to make two; You are for no Address of Thanks, nor any thing like it: Wherefore I pray God de­liver the Church of England from falling into the Hands of such Botchers.

For my part, I would advise them yet to Address to His Majesty, acknowledging their Errour, beg His Pardon, trust in His promise and give him assurance, they are ready to Read His Declaration whenever He please to Command them.