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A30469
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Some reflections on His Majesty's proclamation of the 12th of February 1686/7 for a toleration in Scotland, together with the said proclamation
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Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.; England and Wales. Sovereign (1685-1688 : James II). By the King a proclamation.
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1687
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Wing B5926; ESTC R7947
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10,885
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8
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utmost Severity of our Laws made against them seeing from these Rendezvouzes of Rebellion so much Disorder hath proceeded and so much Disturbance to the Government and for which after this Our Royal Indulgence for tender Consciences there is no excuse left In like manner we do hereby tolerate Quakers to meet and exercise in their Form in any Place or Places appointed for their Worship And considering the Severe and Cruel Laws made against Roman Catholicks therein called Papists in the Minority of Our Royal Grand Father of Glorious Memory ☜ without His Consent and contrary to the Duty of good Subjects by His Regents and other Enemies to their Lawful Soveraign Our Royal Great Grand Mother Queen Mary of blessed and pious Memory wherein under the pretence of Religion they cloathed the worst of Treasons Factions and Usurpations and made these Laws not as against the Enemies of GOD but their own which Laws have still been continued of course without design of executing them or any of them ad terrorem only on Supposition that the Papists relying on an External Power were incapable of Duty and true Allegeance to their Natural Soveraigns and Rightful Monarchs We of Our certain Knowledge and long Experience knowing that the Catholicks as it is their Principle to be Good Christians so it is to be dutiful Subjects and that they have likewise on all occasions shewn themselves Good and faithfull Subjects to Us and Our Royal Predecessors by hazarding and many of them actually losing their Lives and Fortunes in their Defence though of another Religion the Maintenance of their Authority against the Violences and Treasons of the most violent Abettors of these Laws Do therefore with Advice and Consent of Our Privy Council by Our Soveraign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power aforesaid Suspend Stop and disable all Laws or Acts of Parliament Customs or Constitutions made or executed against any of our Roman-Catholick Subjects in any time past to all Intents and Purposes making void all Prohibitions therein mentioned Pains or Penalties therein ordained to be inflicted so that they shall in all things be as free in all Respects as any of Our Protestant Subjects whatsoever not only to exercise their Religion but to enjoy all Offices Benefices and others which we shall think fit to bestow upon them in all time coming Nevertheless it is Our Will and Pleasure and we do hereby command all Catholicks at their highest Pains only to exercise their Religious Worship in Houses or Chappels and that they presume not to Preach in the open Fields or to invade the Protestant Churches by force under the pains aforesaid to be inflicted upon the Offenders respectively nor shall they presume to make Publick Processions in the High-streets of any of Our Royal Burghs under the Pains above-mentioned And whereas the Obedience and Service of Our Good Subjects is due to Us by their Allegiance and Our Soveraignty and that no Law Custom or Constitution Difference in Religion or other Impediment whatsoever can exempt or discharge the Subjects from their Native Obligations and Duty to the Crown or hinder Us from Protecting and Employing them according to their several Capacities and Our Royal Pleasure nor Restrain Us from Conferring Heretable Rights and Priviledges upon them or vacuate or annul these Rights Heretable when they are made or conferred And likewise considering that some Oaths are capable of being wrested by Men of sinistrous Intentions a practice in that Kingdom fatal to Religion as it was to Loyalty Do therefore with Advice and Consent aforesaid cass annull and Discharge all Oaths whatsoever by which any of Our Subjects are incapacitated or disabled from holding Places or Offices in Our said Kingdom or enjoying their Hereditary Rights and Priviledges discharging the same to be taken or given in any time coming without our special Warrant and Consent under the pains due to the contempt of Our Royal Commands and Authority And to this effect we do by Our Royal Authority aforesaid stop disable and dispense with all Laws enjoyning the said Oaths Tests or any of them particularly the first Act of the first Session of the first Parliament of King Charles the Second the eleventh Act of the foresaid Session of the foresaid Parliament the sixth Act of the third Parliament of the said King Charles the twenty first and twenty fifth Acts of that Parliament ☜ and the thirteenth Act of the first Session of Our late Parliament in so far allanerly as concerns the taking the Oaths or Tests therein prescribed and all others as well not mentioned as mentioned and that in place of them all Our good Subjects or such of them as We or Our Privy Council shall require so to do shall take and swear the following Oath allanerly I A. B. do acknowledge testifie and declare that JAMES the Seventh by the Grace of God King of Scotland England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. is rightful King and Supream Governour of these Realms and over all Persons therein and that it is unlawful for Subjects on any pretence or for any cause whatsoever to rise in Arms against Him or any Commissionated by Him and that I shall never so rise in Arms nor assist any who shall so do and that I shall never resist His Power or Authority nor ever oppose his Authority to his Person as I shall answer to God but shall to the utmost of my power Assist Defend and Maintain Him His Heirs and lawful Successors in the exercise of their ABSOLUTE POWER and Authority against all Deadly So help me God And seeing many of Our good Subjects have before Our Pleasure in these Matters was made publick incurred the Guilt appointed by the Acts of Parliament above-mentioned or others We by Our Authority and Absolute Power and Prerogative Royal above-mentioned of Our certain Knowledge and innate Mercy Give Our ample and full Indemnity to all those of the Roman-Catholick or Popish Religion for all things by them done contrary to Our Laws or Acts of Parliament made in any time past relating to their Religion the Worship and Exercise thereof or for being Papists Jesuits or Traffickers for hearing or saying of Mass concealing of Priests or Jesuits breeding their Children Catholicks at home or abroad or any other thing Rite or Doctrine said performed or maintained by them or any of them And likewise for holding or taking of Places Employments or Offices contrary to any Law or Constitution Advices given to Us or Our Council Actions done or generally any thing performed or said against the known Laws of that Our Ancient Kingdom Excepting always from this Our Royal Indemnity all Murders Assassinations Thefts and such like other Crimes which never used to be comprehended in Our General Acts of Indemnity And we command and require all Our Judges or others concerned to explain this in the most Ample Sense Meaning Acts of Indemnity at any time have contained Declaring this shall be as good to every one concerned as if they had Our Royal Pardon Remission under Our Great Seal of that Kingdom And likewise indemnifying Our Protestant Subjects from all Pains and Penalties due for hearing or Preaching in Houses Providing there be no Treasonable Speeches uttered in the said Conventicles by them in which case the Law is only to take place against the Guilty and none other present Providing also that they Reveal to any of Our Council the Guilt so committed As also excepting all Fines or Effects of Sentences already given And likewise Indemnifying fully and freely all Quakers for their Meetings and Worship in all time past preceding the Publication of these Presents And we doubt not but Our Protestant Subjects will give their Assistance and Concourse hereunto on all occasions in their respective Capacities In consideration whereof and the ease those of Our Religion and others may have hereby and for the Encouragement of Our Protestant Bishops and the Regular Clergy and such as have hitherto lived orderly We think fit to declare that it never was Our Principle nor will We ever suffer Violence to be offered to any Mans Conscience nor will We use force or Invincible Necessity against any Man on the Account of his Perswasion nor the Protestant Religion but will protect Our Bishops and other Ministers in their Functions Rights and Properties and all Our Protestant Subjects in the free Exercise of their Protestant Religion in the Churches And that We will and hereby Promise on Our Royal Word to maintain the Possessors of Church-Lands formerly belonging to Abbays or other Churches of the Catholick Religion in their full and free Possession and Right according to Our Laws and Acts of Parliament in that behalf in all time coming And We will imploy indifferently all our Subjects of all Perswasions so as none shall meet with any Discouragement on the account of his Religion but be advanced and esteemed by Us according to their several Capacities and Qualifications so long as We find Charity and Unity maintained And if any Animosities shall arise as We hope in God there will not We will shew the severest Effects of Our Royal Displeasure against the Beginners or Fomenters thereof seeing thereby Our Subjects may be deprived of this general Ease and Satisfaction We intend to all of them whose Happiness Prosperity Wealth and Safety is so much Our Royal Care that we will leave nothing undone which may procure these Blessings for them And lastly to the End all Our good Subjects may have Notice of this Our Royal Will and Pleasure we do hereby command Our Lyon King at Arms and his Brethern Heraulds Macers Pursevants and Messengers at Arms to make timous Proclamation thereof at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh And besides the Printing and Publishing of this Our Royal Proclamation it is Our express Will and Pleasure that the same be past under the great Seal of that Our Kingdom per saltum ☜ without passing any other Seal or Register In Order whereunto this shall be to the Directors of Our Chancellary and their Deputes for writing the same and to Our Chancellor for causing our Great Seal aforesaid to be appended thereunto a sufficient Warrand Given at Our Court at Whitehal the twelfth day of Febr. 1686 7. and of Our Reign the third year By His Majesties Command MELFORT God save the King FINIS
SOME REFLECTIONS On his Majesty's PROCLAMATION Of the 12th of February 1686 7 for a Toleration in Scotland together with the said Proclamation I. THe Preamble of a Proclamation is oft writ in hast and is the flourish of some wanton Pen but one of such an Extraordinary nature as this is was probably more severely examined there is a new designation of his Majesties Authority here set forth of his Absolute Power which is so often repeated that it deserves to be a little searched into Prerogative Royal and Soveraign Authority are Termes already received and known but for this Absolute Power as it is a new Term so those who have coined it may make it signify what they will The Roman Law speaks of Princeps Legibus solutus and Absolute in its natural signification importing the being without all Ties and Restraints then the true meaning of this seems to be that there is an Inherent Power in the King which can neither be restrained by Lawes Promises nor Oaths for nothing less than the being free from all these renders a Power Absolute II. If the former Term seemed to stretch our Allegeance that which comes after it is yet a step of another nature tho one can hardly imagine what can go beyond Absolute Power and it is in these Words Which all our Subjects are to obey without reserve And this is the carrying obedience many sises beyond what the Grand Seigneur has ever yet claimed For all Princes even the most Violent pretenders to Absolute Power till Lewis the Great 's time have thought it enough to oblige their Subjects to submit to their Power and to bear whatsoever they thought good to impose upon them but till the Days of the late Conversions by the Dragoons it was never so much as pretended that Subjects were bound to obey their Prince without Reserve and to be of his Religion because he would have it so Which was the only Argument that those late Apostles made use of so it is probable this qualification of the duty of Subjects was put in here to prepare us for a terrible le Roy le veut and in that case we are told here that we must obey without reserve and when those severe Orders come the Privy Council and all such as execute this Proclamation will be bound by this Declaration to shew themselves more forward than any others to obey without reserve and those poor pretensions of Conscience Religion Honour and Reason will be then reckoned as reserves upon their obedience which are all now shut out III. These being the grounds upon which this Proclamation is founded we ought not only to consider what consequences are now drawn from them but what may be drawn from them at any time hereafter for if they are of force to justify that which is now inferred from them it will be full as just to draw from the same premises an Abolition of the Protestant Religion of the Rights of the Subjects not only to Church-Lands but to all Property whatsoever In a word it asserts a Power to be in the King to command what he will and an Obligation in the Subjects to obey whatsoever he shall command IV. There is also mention made in the Preamble of the Christian Love and Charity which his Majesty would have established among Neighbours but another dash of a Pen founded on this Absolute Power may declare us all Hereticks and then in wonderful Charity to us we must be told that we are either to obey without Reserve or to be Burnt without Reserve We know the Charity of that Church pretty well It is indeed Fervent and Burning and if we have forgot what has been done in former Ages France Savoy and Hungary have set before our eyes very fresh instances of the Charity of that Religion While those Examples are so green it is a little too imposing on us to talk to us of Christian Love and Charity No doubt his Majesty means sincerely and his Exactness to all his Promises chiefly to those made since he came to the Crown will not suffer us to think an unbecoming thought of his Royal Intentions but yet after all tho it seems by this Proclamation that we are bound to obey without Reserve it is hardship upon hardship to be bound to Believe without Reserve V. There are a sort of People here tolerated that will be very hardly found out and these are the Moderate Presbyterians Now as some say that there are very few of those People in Scotland that deserve this Character so it is hard to tell what it amounts to and the calling any of them Immoderate cuts off all their share in this Grace Moderation is a quality that lyes in the mind and how this will be found out I cannot so readily guess If a Standard had been given of Opinions or Practices then one could have known how this might have been distinguished but as it lyes it will not be easy to make the Discrimination and the declaring them all Immoderate shuts them out quite VI. Another Foundation laid down for repealing all Laws made against the Papists is that they were enacted in K. James the Sixth's Minority with some harsh expressions that are not to be insisted on since they shew more the heat of the penner than the Dignity of the Prince in whose name they are given out but all these Laws were ratifyed over and over again by K. Iames when he came to be of full Age and they have received many Confirmations by K. Charles the First and K Charles the Second as well as by his present Majesty both when he represented his Brother in the year 1681. and since he himself came to the Crown so that whatsoever may be said concerning the first Formation of those Laws they have received now for the course of a whole hundred years that are lapsed since K. Iames was of full Age so many Confirmations that if there is any thing certain in Humane Government we might depend upon them but this new coyned Absolute Power must carry all before it VII It is also well known that the whole Settlement of the Church Lands and Tythes with many other things and more particularly the Establishment of the Protestant Religion was likewise enacted in K. Iames's minority as well as those Penal Laws so that the Reason now made use of to annul the Penal Laws will serve full as well for another Act of this Absolute Power that shall abolish all those and if Maximes that unhinge all the Securities of Humane Society and all that is sacred in Government ought to be lookt on with the justest and deepest prejudices possible one is tempted to lose the respect that is due to every thing that carrys a Royal stamp upon it when he sees such grounds made use of as must shake all Settlements whatsoever for if a prescription of 120. years and Confirmations reiterated over and over again these 100. years past do not purge some