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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A47752 Querela temporum, or, The danger of the Church of England in a letter from the Dean of ----- to ----- Prebend of. Leslie, Charles, 1650-1722. 1694 (1694) Wing L1142; ESTC R7679 24,869 29

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not think their Liberties preserved unless they had the Antient Freedom of Election Re●erved to them to chuse Members to serve in Parliament knowing before hand that it was to be a Parliament For a Convention was new both Name and Thing and few understood either the Nature of it or the Ends and Purposes for which it was summon'd and to metamorphose that into a Parliament and then to continue it as such would be understood as a plain Cheat to Trick the People out of their Votes Yet all these obvious Reasons and the Example of England notwithstanding the Presbyterian Managers in Scotland dare not summon a new Parliament but keep on still the old Convention with the new Name of a Parliament And though they know that many of the Episcopal Perswasion There are so Zealous upon the point of the Government that they would not come in though there were a new Parliament yet the Presbyterians dare not trust those that might come in against all their own Strength and all the Trimmers they could Bribe or Frighten to their side For they could never by their Arts compass such a Parliament as would not spue out Presbytery as a Yoke which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear They know it to be utterly impossible for them ever again to get such a Company of Conventioners as by their secret Intelligence laid without opposition or suspition of the Episcopal Party leap'd together and chose one another upon the Prince of Orange's Circular Letters which were left wholy to their Management If all this be causelesly alledged let them convince us with the Free and Impartial Election of another Parliament Or give any other Reason why they will not than that they dare not Trust the Inclinations of the People which they know to be the most averse to them and most deservedly There is another Thing which extreamly shews the Weakness of the Presbyterian Interest there And that is That they would never have been able to have planted Presbyterian Ministers there if the Right of Patronages had continued for there were but very few Gentlemen in that Kingdom to whom Advousons did belong who would ever have presented any Clerk that was Presbyterianly inclin'd Therefore all Patronages were taken away by Act of this Parliament After which one would have expected that the Free Election of the People should have been set up in its full Extent and Prerogative because this was it for which the Presbyterians chiefly contended they made it to be Jure Divino and call'd it Christ's Legacy to the People and said it was Indefeasible and Unalienable from them But yet they were forced to Dispense with it at the First and put the Calling of Ministers into the hands of the Presbytery For they found the Inclinations of the People Run against them at least of much the major Number as well as of the Nobility and Gentry and therefore this Method was necessary though Antichristian by their own Principles for the first planting of the Gospel as they stile the Preaching of the Covenant in that Prelatical Country Neither durst they for the time to come trust the People with their Divine Right of Electing their Ministers without clogging this Legacy of Christ as they call'd it with such Limitations as they could not pretend and to be found in Scripture That none should Vote in the Election of Ministers till they first swore the Oath of Allegiance to K. William and Q. Mary and sign the Assurance for which an Act of Parliament is passed accordingly Yet with all these Bars and Defences they found very great Difficulties in planting those Churches which they have planted with Presbyterian Ministers Who were so few in that Country That they were forc'd to Ordain young Lads from Shops or the Plow as they could get them Gifted without any University Learning For these Springs as themselves confess were all corrupted that is in their Sense were wholy Episcopal And in the North of Scotland as confessed in the Presbyterian Representation above-told they have got little or no Footing to this Day In which parts they are so strongly Episcopal that as I read in a very accurate and ingenious Account of the Proceedings there about the Convention time It were no hard Task says he to give a just Account how it only happen'd that there was so much as one Northern Member who was not such by Birth of the Presbyterian Perswasion in the Meeting of the Estates But there can be no such Demonstration as their preserving their Episcopal Clergy and keeping out the Presbyterian against Repeated Acts of Parliament and that the Privy Council which has There almost the Power of a Parliament in the Intervals of Parliament have interposed their Authority to Ratify the Decrees of the Presbytery Nay even in their own Dear West Country the Presbyterians found so much Difficulty in some Places particularly near Edenburgh to perfect their Reformation that they were forced to fill a Church there with Soldiers to fright the People from Singing the Doxology from which they could not otherwise be Reduced Was not this something like Dragooning But I go on It may be thought Strange Things being as here told what Ground or Pretence could be found for Representing Episcopacy to be contrary to the Inclinations of these People And herein appears a Subtile but very wicked Politick of the Managers then at Helm They first had Arms put into the hands of the mad Cameronian true Presbyterian Rabble of the West and then set them on to Mob the Episcopal Clergy in those Fanatical Shires which they executed in a most Savage Manner And from thence they Represented the Inclinations of the People to be irreconcilable to Episcopacy And upon Enquiry I cannot find that there is any now who insist longer upon that common Place of the Inclinations of the People of Scotland It like some other Stories has serv'd its Turn except one Sycophant who had Presbyterian Education and from his Infancy was taught to Hate and Despise Episcopacy who has Deserted his Church in East Lothian and was Expell'd neither by Force nor by the Rabble nor any Sentence of any Presbyterian Judicature but fearing that the Gentry of his Parish to whom he was always most Disagreable would lay hold of the present Opportunity to turn him out when their Inclinations was made the Standard he thought it convenient to leave the Place with less Disgrace And he is now encouraged by a certain Minister of State to propagate that Notion here in England that the Temper of the People in Scotland is against Episcopacy and most inclin'd to Presbytery And the Rabbling of the Episcopal Clergy in some parts of the West is all the Argument This is all and every bit of the Ground the Convention or any other had to Represent the Inclinations of the People as averse to Prelacy Nor had they had this Pretence it self if All the People even in those same Fanatical Shires