be examined Impartially and take in here also that Question I touched upon before Whether the Matter of the King's Declaration herein be contrary to the Laws of the Land Whole Treatises have been Written upon this Subject with great Evidence to Manifest the Kings Right of Indulgence in Spiritual Matters which you may do well in Order to your Satisfaction at your Leisure to Peruse I shall here Instance only in some few Cases wherein the Kings of England have for several Ages past Exercised such a Dispensing Power and in their Grants Tolerated a Dissent from the Religion and Ceremonies by Law Established which have been either not Question'd at all in Parliament or there admitted to be legally done Queen Elizabeth in her Reign granted many Dispensations of this kind and as is credibly Reported to some Lay-men to Preach publickly Several Grants have been made before and in the Reigns of the three last Kings both to Foreigners here and to their own Subjects abroad for the Exercise of Religion in their own Way with a Non Obstance to the Statute in Force for Uniformity in Religion The Act for Uniformity in the 14th Year of King Charles the Second takes notice of those Grants to Foreigners and Provides that the Penalties of that Act shall not extend to such Churches as have been Allowed or shall be Allowed by the King His Heirs or Successors The Act for Suppression of Seditious Conventicles though it do not in express Words grant a License for any Number of Persons not exceeding four besides the Family to meet under Pretence of Exercising Religious Worship otherwise than according to the Lyturgy and Practice of the Church of England yet it doth not make it Penal for any so to do except they exceed that Number And the common Interpretation given of it by your selves and others and Encouragement taken thence has been That it was Tantamount to such a Licence and this I think fully reaches that which you call the Matter of the Declaration that you cannot approve of For if you admit as you have done in all the Arguments I have seen upon this Point that is was Allowed that four Dissenters besides the Family might meet and Worship in other manner than is by Law Established without Incurring any Temporal Penalties thereby the Paucity or Greatness of the Number cannot alter the Religious Nature of the Matter What 's lawful for Four is lawful for Four Thousand with respect to the Matter of Worship The restraining the Number is only the Policy and Prudence of the Civil State which may be Limited or Enlarged at Pleasure And by this Act It is provided That Nothing therein Contained shall Extend to Invalidate or Avoid His Majesties Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Affairs but that His Majesty His Heirs and Successors may from Time to Time and at all times hereafter Excercise and Enjoy all Powers and Authorities in Ecclesiastical Affairs as Fully and as Amply as Himself and His Predecessors have or might have done the same any thing in this Act Notwithstanding And I think the Exercise of the King's Power is as naturally applicable to his Dispensing with the Limitation of Numbers in this Case as to any other Clause in that Act which without this Especial Provision might have been Construed an Abridgment of the King's Supremacy To make good this That the King 's Dispensing Power in His Declaration alters what has been formerly thought the whole Constitution of this Church It is Incumbent on you to shew wherein it does so more thâ—n has been done in any Case of the like Nature heretofore by any former Royal Dispensations Grants or Authority in Parliament And tell me ingeniously if without any Offence against the Holy Scriptures the King may not if He so please Grant a Dispensation to His Own Subjects as well as to Strangers and their Off spring even after they are become Denizens and understand Our Language to Worship God after their own Way and Manner And whether among all the Jurisdictions Annexed to the Crown which heretofore have been or may lawfully be used for the Reforformation or Order of the Ecclesiastical State there be no manner of Dispensing Power Contained 12. Say you No Men in England will be pleased with Our Reading the Declaration but those who hope to make great Advantage against us and against Our Church and Religion This is a bare Supposition arising meerly from your own Disturbed Imagination which is through Prejudice so Darkned that you cannot discern between your Friends and your Enemies I can tell you of many who neither Hope nor seek to make any Advantage against you your Church or Religion that are displeased at your refusing to Read because you thereby give an Advantage to such as may be your Adversaries which they could never have gained by your Compliance with the King's Order You afterwards suggest That the Dissenters who are Wise and Considering are sensible of the Snare themselves and though they desire Ease and Liberty they are not willing to have it with such Apparent Hazzard of Church and State. But if there be any Dissenters who deserve the Epithites you give them you have by your Severities kept them at such an uncharitable Distance from you that you are unacquainted with their Temper and thence it is that as on the one Hand you Misrepresent them that you may render them Equally Obnoxious to the Government with your selves as giving Countenance to your Disobedience So on the other Hand you suspect them without Cause to be seeking an Advantage against you your Church and Religion You cannot but know that the Generality of Dissenters who have rendred their solemn Thanks to the King for His Indulgence and the Establishment proposed in His Declaration are for the Reading of it That all the King's Subjects may understand and in their places pursue the Contents of it to Effect Therefore upon what Grounds you suggest as if you spoke their Language that they are not willing to have their Liberty in the Way which the King proposes I cannot Imagine You Term it with such Apparent Hazard of Church and State They Apprehend and Express it with Apparent Advantages of Church and State and that which has a direct Tendency to settle Both on such a Righteous Foundation as may preserve them in a safe and prosperous State to Perpetuity But is not this to â—â—â—tter such among the Dissenters as you can Intice to hearken to your Insinuations that they may be thought Wise and Considering For you tell them When there is an Opportunity of shewing your Inclinations without Danger they may find you are not such Persecutions as you are Represented But while you speak of their being sensible of a Snare are not you laying a Snare for them How long may they wait for such a Season wherein you may in your own Apprehension without Danger Manifest any Incliâ—nâ—ions or Kindness towards them Immediately after the House of Commons Declared That the
that His Majesty has Declared I shall repeat that Point upon which many others Depend as a necessary Consequence as that to which I think you take the greatest Exception The KING declares that It hath been His constant Sense and Opinion that Conscience ought not to be constrained nor People Forced in Matters of meer Religion Now its incumbent on you to shew wherein you think this Point is contrary to the Laws of GOD and that you do it is but a reasonable Request for else you perform not your Function to your people but will lye under the suspition of Teaching for Doctrines the Commands of Men which you know our Lord sharply Reproves in those that exercise the Function of Teachers Till you have done this and made it plain you have no Reason to Carp at any Thing that is naturally subsequent as the suspending such Penalties by which many of His Subjects are co-erced to Worship contrary to their Consciences or pardoning Offences against such Laws For this is a natural Exercise of His Prerogative as God's Vicegerent in Acts of Goodness and Clemency It can be no Offence to GOD that the Execution of such Laws be neglected by the King's Ministers or Suspended by Himself till they can be Repealed by Parliament which ought never to have been made and could never be obeyed without Transgressing the Law of GOD The King 's lawful proper and necessary Prerogative is to provide for all Exigents wherein there is no provision made by a particular Law and to suspend such particular Statutes as were from the Beginning or in process of time prove useless or burthensom to a multitude of His Subjects and Wherein no particular Subject is injured as to any Right or Priviledge which he can claim by Law so that till you have performed your Task and shewed that this Doctrine which the Declaration Teacheth is against the Law of God and what Branch of the Divine Law it is against that the Penalties whereby Men are compelled to Worship contrary to their Consciences should be suspended No more need to be said to this taking it singly as it is a Matter of pure Conscience supposed by you to be an Offence against the Law of God. But I consider how you state it with a double Aspect having an Eye both to the Laws of God and to the Laws of the Land and that not conjunctively but disjunctively It is an Aggravated Fault with you to Consent to Teach your People such Doctrines as you think contrary to the Laws of God or the Laws of the Land that so you may have a double string to your Bow If you cannot prove the Doctrine of the Kings Declaration to be contrary to the Laws of God yet you cannot consent to Teach it your People because you think it is contrary to the Laws of the Land nevertheless taking your Reasoning to be consistent with it self having before shewed you did not Approve of the Matter of the Declaration I cannot suppose you made mention of the Laws of God superfluously or vainly and therefore it remains as a Charge upon you to declare plainly Whether you think it contrary to the Laws of God or not And having Repeated this that you may take the more Notice of it I 'le pass to the next Branch and that is for you to shew wherein it is contrary to the Law of the Land the Reasons for this I shall give you in my Remarks upon your next Paragraph Eleventhly Say you It is to Teach an unlimited and universal Toleration which the Parliament in 1672. declared Illegal and which has been Condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages It is to Teach my People that they need never come to Church more but have my Free Leave as they have the Kings to go to a Conventicle or to Mass It is 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 Let us consider what part of the King's Declaration may be supposed by you to do the Things here Alledged and whether what you are required to do be as to the Matter of it of any other Nature than what has heretofore been Approved by Authority of Parliament His Majesty after the suspention of all Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical for not coming to Church or not Receiving the Sacrament or for any other Nonconformity to the Religion Established or for or by reason of the Exercise of Religion in any manner whatsoever is pleased to Declare upon what Terms and in what Manner All His Loving Subjects have Free leave to Meet and Serve God after their own Way and Manner Now I must pray you to Interpret what you mean by an Unlimited and Universal Toleration for you are still in Generals Is it such an Unlimited and Universal Toleration as gives all Men Liberty to Meet in such manner and to do and say as they please There seems to me many Restrictions in the Declaration the Meeting must be For the Exercise of Religion and not Irreligion and though All may Meet and Serve in their Own Way yet It is to Serve God and not an Idol For my part if I had no Fear of God before me yet I should very much fear severe Corporal punishment from the Hands of the Civil Power if I should Meet and openly preach Blasphemy Idolatry or any other Doctrine of immortality against the Light and Law of Nature given to and inscribed on the Heart of every Man For tho' the King is pleased to say I shall not be compelled to perform any Act of Worship contrary to my Conscience I am nevertheless Accomptable for all Things that I openly and voluntarily without any compulsion do or say which fall under the Cognizance of the Civil Magistrate as all things do which are against the Reason of Mankind and common Light and Law of Nature and tho' there should be no Statute Law in the Case The Comman Law of the Land is grounded upon the Law of Nature and no way suspended by the King's Declaration and by this open Scandals against the Light of Nature are Punishable by the Civil Judges But you say an unlimited and universall Toleration the Parliament in 1672 declared Illegall It may be so but I doe not know it I have seen no Copy of any Law or Ordinance of Parliament applicable to the point in hand If you Intend to prove the Kings present Declaration was declared to be Illegall by the Parliament in 1672 you must mend your Common Fault of Dealing in General For it is all one and no more a Proof of any thing being Declared Illegal in a Parliament to Quote onely the year without repeating the Words of the Law and applying the matter of the Declaration to it then if you had said it of your Own Head or mention'd for a proof of your Assertion a Vote of the
House of Commons which was Published by Order of their Speaker Jan 10. 1680 Wherein it was resolved to be the Opinion of that House That the Prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the Penal Laws was at that time Grievous to the Subject a Weakening of the Protestant Interest an Encouragement to Popery and Dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom Your next Assertion is That an unlimited and universal Toleration has been Condemned by the Christian Churches in All Ages If you mean by this that the Christian Churches in All Ages did Assume to themselves a Power of Judging and Jurisdiction over all men that were without the Church or that the Church in all Ages did by Temporal Penalties constrain men to come into the Church or when they were there to Worship contrary to their Consciences or to Abide there when they had no Heart to do so but would Forsake their Faith their Profession or their Christian Doctrine and Conversation and also their Assemblys I think you are very much mistaken in the Christian Doctrine and Practise of the Churches in the primitive Ages Surely I may say in this as in the Rest Shew me an Apostolical Authority for such a Practise And I have so much the more Reason to insist upon this Because Christs Disciples in the primitive Age were All Volunteers Suitable to the Doctrine which Our Lord and his Apostles Taught Repentance from Dead Works and Faith in the Son of God which are Convictions and Operations upon the Mind of Man and necessary Qualifications to the being of a True Christian and the profession of them to the being of a Visible Christian and the Doctrine of Self-Denial to his Continuance in his Profession The Doctrine is plain Whosoever Will let him take of the Water of life Freely You will not Come to me that you may have life and when many of those who for some time professed to be our Lords Disciples went back and Walked no more with him That which was the Ground of the Others perseverance was that with him were the words of Eternal Life and that they Believed and knew that He was the Christ the Son of the Living God and that therefore there was none Else to whom they could Go The Apostle Foretels us That in the Latter Times some would Depart from the Faith Giving heed to seducing Spirits and Doctrines of Devils That there would be Mâ—ckers Walking after their own Ungodly Lusts that such They were who being sensual and having not the Spirit seperated themselves and the Apostle John says Expressly that in his day there were Many Antichrists who went out from us that is from the Apostles and Churches but they were not of us For if they had been of us they would have Remained with us But They went out that it might be made Manifest they were not All of us And this the Apostle makes as the Characteristical Note by which he Knew it was the Last time Now as I cannot find the I east Mention in any One word Doctrine or Precept that any persons were or should be Compelled by Outward Force to come or continue in the Christian Church in the First Age so neither can it be agreeable to the Mind of Our Lord that any persons should be Compelled by Temporal Penalties so to do against their Minds in After Ages Unless you can shew us that the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles are not the same in After Ages that they were when they were first delivered Say you It is to Teach my People that they need never come to Church more but have my Free Leave as they have the King 's to go to a Conventicle or to Mass Does any thing of this kind Flow naturally from the King's Declaration Does that Engage or Incline you or any Man else to teach any Doctrine contrary to his own Sentiment I take it rather to be an Encouragement to do and say sincerely what they apprehend and believe to be the Will of God relating to the Worship of himself and that your Leave is neither Asked nor Granted in my going from your Church further than this That if I be Excommunicate by you for it you cannot thereupon by your Certificate obtain as formerly the Writ De Excommunicato Capiendo to make me a perpetual Prisoner whilst the King is pleased to Suspend the Execution of that Penalty The Declaration does not Teach any of your Hearers that they need not come to Church and Worship God any more there in that Way and Manner if in their Own Consciences they are Convinced they ought so to do It does not Forbid your Teaching or Reading to your People any Doctrines or Homilies Approved of by the Church of England Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions which she Enjoyned to be Read in your Churches Four Times in a Year or any thing Else by which they may be Instructed in the knowledge or discharge of their Duty to God in your Churches You greatly undervalue your Ministry and Doctrine to suppose that there are no Arguments to prevail with your People to come to your Church but only Temporal Scourges For if you have the Truth of God on your side as no Humane Law can Alter the Nature of it so you are at Liberty notwithstanding any thing in the Declaration to Preach it to your People The Declaration is an Incitement to all the King's Subjects to Worship God and no enticement for any of them to forsake his Worship and that they may respectively serve God as the Christian Religion teaches in Holiness and Righteousness without fear His Majesty promises Equal Protection to all who do worship God in such Way and Manner as each of them Understand and Believe it is his Will they should do And in the first place gives the Royal Countenance and Protection to All of the Church of England in their worshiping of God in their Churches as by Law Established So that you make a wrong Gloss upon the Declaration in insinuating that it Teacheth your People that they need never to come to Church more or that they have the King 's Free Leave or Yours contrary to their own Minds and Consciences to forsake the Church or to go to a Conventicle or to Mass For there is nothing in the Declaration that requires gives Leave or Countenance to any man to forsake that Religion and way of Worship to which his Conscience obliges him or to Dissemble and play the Hypocrite in forsaking of any one way and in appearance to adhere to another if he do it not in sincerity but against his Mind and Conscience But we are now come to another Point at which you seem to stick more than at all the rest Say you It is 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 Let this Matter then as you say in your Letter
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 〈…〉