Selected quad for the lemma: act_n
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A50967
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The minister's reasons for his not reading the kings declaration, friendly debated by a dissenter.
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Dissenter.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing M2195; ESTC R10242
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25,456
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24
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been at least your tacite Plea for not stirring up or troubling your Consciences to make a Disâ—retive Judgment whether the Act of your Superiour which you are commanded to Publish were Lawful or Unlawful by the Law either of God or of the Land and to tell you the truth I do not think you are in the Eye of the Law such Criminals as on this particular occasion you would render your selves to be in case you should Read the Kings Declaration in Obedience to his Command though you did not approve the matter of it in your private Judgment it not being your Province positively to determine concerning it in point of Law You might with better pretence of Conscience if pressed to it in your own mind as an Act necessary to avoid a Sin against God after the Reading of the Declaration have taken your Exceptions to it in your particular Station then to have followed the course you have taken as it were by common consent one in the name of all the Rest thus openly to Declaim against it for that had been an Exercising of such an Act of Judgment and Reason if the cause Required it as a Minister of the Gospel might have done in reference to God whatever had been the consequence of it in respect to Men And the Prospect you had of this as you afterwards manifest does not excuse but rather condemn you for seeing better things and following the worse VII You say Our Law supposes that what we do in Obedience to Superiours we make our own Act by doing it This is the onely Reason I know why we must not obey a Prince against the Laws of the Land or the Laws of God because what we do let the Authority be what it will that Commandt it becomes our own Act and we are Responsible for it If you State this as a general Case of every Subject I suppose you mistake the Law for I cannot conceive how a Clerk in Parliament Privy Council Court of Justice or Convocation who Writes and afterwards Reads openly what his Superiours have Dictated and Commanded him to Read should be supposed in the Eye of the Law to be his own Act If you mean by your Laws you being Ministers are Responsible for what you do in any other Manner then the rest of the Kings Subjects or Ministerial Officers are you should have done well to have shewed it for till that be done I know not how to Distinguish of your Case as Different from other Ministerial Clerks The onely Reason you alledge why you must not obey a Prince against the Law of the Land or the Laws of God is both Complicated and Equivocal For if you willingly walk after any Command which is contrary to the Law of God let the Authority be as you say what it will that Commands it whether of a Prince singly or a Prince in conjunction with a Parliament I grant that it becomes your own Act for which you are responsible to God But it is not so in many Cases where a Prince may Command to Do or forbear what a particular Statute forbids or appoints Because He may therein Exercise His Prerogative according to the Common Law. Besides if you being a Minister should obey the Kings and your Lawful Superiours Order and Read his Declaration by which some Penal Laws are suspended and this Act of Prerogative should afterwards come to be Questioned in Parliament to whom are you Responsible Surely not to the King nor to your Ordnary whom you have Obeyed you cannot mean thaâ— not to any ordinary Court of Justice for no Information or Indiâ—â—ment will lye against you there at the Kings Suit you must be then Arraign'd for it in Parliament or no where And if you come to be Responsible for it there I think your Rubrick established by Law and our Ignorance of any other Law will be a Sufficient Plea to excuse you For it will be a President of the First Impression I know not of any Parish Minister has ever heretofore been Question'd and Condemn'd in Parliament for obeying an Order in this Kind of His Prince or Lawful Superiour VIII Ministers are bound to take care that what they Publish in their Churches be neither contrary to the Laws of the Land nor the good of the Church Ministers of Religion are not look'd upon as common Cryers but what they Read they are supposed to recommend too though they do no more then read it For is not Reading Teaching It may be it were no fault to consent to the Declaration but if I consent to teach my People what I do not consent to my self I am sure that is a great one I take it for granted that you have sufficiently demonstrated to all Men that Reading and not Preaching off Book is Teaching for that has been your ordinary Practice for many Years and it is true by Reading you Teach your People to understand what you Read but when that is done your People are at liberty to judge and you also in this Present Case being ordered to read what the King hath declared are at liberty to Pen a Sermon that may be a Paraphrase upon what you read before and read that in your Pulpit afterwards so as therein you do not transgress the Law of God or of the Land and by that your People may understand whether you consent to or dissent from what you have read and if your are commanded by Law to read what you do not consent to in your own Conscience and for the discharge of a good Conscience towards God let your People know so much I think you therein discharge both the Office of a Minister to Man and Duty of a Teacher to God and in such a Case tho you should afterwards be judged by Mans Law yet you may with a quiet Mind therein commend your Cause to God who judgeth righteously Be it so That Ministers are not look'd upon as common Cryers yet give me leave to say you being Ministers are look'd upon as publick Preachers or Heralds to publish the Orders of your Superiors and are no more accountable to any Man for the matter which you so publish then a Herald who Publishes the Kings Proclamation to his Subjects conâ—â—der the Consequence if the Judgment of what iâ— agreeable or contrary to the Laws of the land the Good or Hurt of the Church be left to the private Determination of every Parish Minister What will become of the Authority of their Superiours Of what usâ— is the Rubrick to which they have Subscribed which directs them to read what the King or their Ordnary enjoyns For in this Case 't is all one as I said before whether you are enjoyned to Read by an â— of State or an Act of Parliament for I think you will grant me this That the â— of an Eternal 〈…〉 t 〈…〉 t of Parliament then 〈…〉 So that in 〈…〉 〈…〉 no 〈…〉 fâ—r in your Sâ—tion to 〈…〉 it himself of Evil a 〈…〉
your selves down and pu 〈…〉 down the Dissenters also to verisie your subsequent Prognostications III. You say We fall a little sooner for not Reading the Declaration If our Gracious Prince resent this as an Act of an Obstinate Peevish or Factious Disobedience as our Enemies will be sure to represent it to Him we shall as certainly fall and not long after if we do read it and then we shall fall Vnpitied and Despised and it may be with the Curses of the Nation whom we have ruined by our Compliance and this is the way never to rise more I do not Reckon my self to be among the Number of your Enemies and therefore though you are somewhat Peevish I would not that you should be represented to the King as Obstinate For my Hopes are that upon better Consideration you will shew your selves Obedient to his Commands But if it should prove otherwise as your Enemies will not so your Friends cannot Excuse you as being altogether Free from Faction But how comes it to pass that you being a Minister of the Gospel should fix your Eye so steadity upon the Dishonour being Unpitied and Despised as inseparable Concomitants of a Certain Fall not long after you have read the Kings Declaration if you Comply to Read it A settled Apprehension that you shall certainly Fall whether you Read or not Read is sufficient to Disturb your Fancy so as to Interrupt the making of a Solid Judgment in reference to your Duty and Discharge of a good Conscience towards God There is as little need as there is Just Occasion for you to Surmize as you do that your Complyance will Ruin the Nation and procure their Curses for I cannot see any such moral certainty attending your reading as Ruining the Nation Those other Incredients might have been pâ—â—termitted if you have no Disposition by discovering your seeming Fears to stir up a real fear in the minds of others I think it more nearly concerns you setting aside all thoughts of Honour and Dishonour good Report or bad Report to see to it that you have the Law of God on your side to excuse your Disobedience to the King for otherwise the ill Consequences of contending with Soveraign Power and inticing others to do the like after your example will lye heavy upon you For tho you Mention onely your own Fall yet you intimate plainly enough that you are not to Fall alone and never to Rise more but that this will be the Fate of all the Protestant Chruches also and therefore you proceed after that Manner IV. May I Suffer all that can be Suffer'd in this World rather than to contribute to the final Ruin of the best Church in the World. So that it seemes if you Fall the best Church in the World must Fall also and that not partially or for a season but Totally and Finally Do you not Attribute too much to your self in this Are you the only Pillar upon which the best Church in the World is Built And are Penal Laws the onely strength by which you Support the Church If those you will have in this point to be accounted your Adversaries should prevail as once you know they did do for Twenty Years together to Divest you of your Coercive Power your Experience may Dictate to you that a Protestant Church here as well as else where has subsisted and may Subsist through Divine Assistance when that coercive Power is taken out of your Hands However I acknowledg no Man can justifie himself for contributing to the Ruin of any true Church but in this you are not singular as you would make your selves to be the Dissenter may claim Equally with your selves a share in such a resolution as this and say as you do may I Suffer still as I have Suffered all that you have Inflicted upon me or what else the Providence of God Allots for my Portion rather then that I should contribute to the Ruin of the best or any Church of Christ in the World. V. You say I suppose no Minister of the Church of England can give his consent to the Declaration and reading the Declaration in our Churches will be with great Reason interpreted a Consent You might have taken caution from your own Postscript to your Reasons concerning Henry Care not to have made your Supposition so Universally Comprehensive of every Minister of the Church of England in regard you say Reading is Teaching and signifies Consent to the matter Read and you Instance in Four or Five which did Read and I think I may more probably suppose that if any precise Disquisition should happen to be made many of your Ministers who did not Read may chuse to excuse themselves rather by their not receiving Directions from their Ordnary to Read then to alledge as you do that â—hey did refuse to do it because they could not consent to the matter of the Declaration VI. You say By our Law all Ministerial Officers are Accountable for their Actions which shews that our Law does not look upon the Ministers of the Church to be meer Machines and Tools to be managed wholly by the will of Superiours without Exercising any Act of Judgment or Reason themselves Apply this to your usual Practice of publishing all such Declarations in your Churches as have been commended to you by your Ordnary or his Official Tell me in what case you have charged your Conscience so much as to make a private Judgment which you ought always to have done whether all the sentences of Excommunication and Ecclesiastical Censures and Orders which you have published Censures of Church-Wardens for refusing the Oath prescribed by your Cannons Censures for not paying your Apparitors and Officers the Fees they Demanded Excommunications purposely contrived and improved to prevent many of their Votes at Elections Interdicting any Divine Service to be performed in a Church for Burying of persons Excommunicated for Non-conformity in Consecrated ground till the Church-Wardens caused the Dead Corpâ— to be Dug up again and removed Publishing whole Sheets full of Orders of S 〈…〉 on s wherein such Dissenters as conformed so far as to come to Church have been reproached as doing iâ— to save their Money and therefore giving a charge to mark all such 〈…〉 not Kneel at their Prayers and stand up at the Gloria Patri Orders that none should be relieved that fell under Poverty if they came not to Church and Conformed to your Ceremonies if they were able of Body so to do and many others of like nature Have all these in your private Judgment been warranted by the Law of God Do you Esteem it a light thing to Cast or Publish any Mans being cast out of all Christian Society and delivered over to Sathan for such matters as are no crimes against any Divine Law I take it for ought that ever I saw manifested to the contrary that a Subjection to the command of your Superiours as being onely in such things Ministerial Offices has