such as have said The Nonconformists know not what they would have setting some Measure to our own desires and the Parliam Condescentions about the same not that these Books are in every Minute particular infallible or free from that Defect which is incident to all Human Composure But that they are in the main Contents to be sincerely approved and used And we do therefore allow this Declaration to be sufficient if it be made to the use of the Book in the Ordinary Constant Lords-Day-Service notwithstanding any Exceptions some may have against some Things in the By-Offices and Occasional Service the Rubrick and otherwise And for the Ceremonies which are made and have been always and on all hands held to be only indifferent Things we think sit that they be left to the Consciences and prudence of Ministers and People every where excepting the Cathedrals to use them or forbear them as they judge it most meet for their own and others Edification provided that if any person will have his Child Baptised with the Sign of the Cross or stands upon any thing else hitherto required by the Service-Book if the Minister himself scruple the performance he shall permit another to do it In the same Act By those Words in the Subscription that It is not lawful to take Arms against the King upon any Pretence whatsoever we intend no new or strange Thing but the Rightful Maintenance only of the King's Authority against Rebellion That we have our Reason for these Interpretations any one may see that please in those Arguments against the Oxford Oath and this Subscription which are offered in a little Book Entituled The Peaceable Design so that we can by no means submit thereto without them There is moreover this Clause And I will conform to the Liturgy of the Church as it is by Law Established we desire may be spared because upon our Declaration before of Assent and Consent which must be the Bounds of our Sense thereof it is needless altogether and can serve but for a Snare only to Mens Consciences according to the common determination of Learned Writers in the Case of Subjection to Princes By the Words I abhor the Position of taking Arms by the Authority of the King against any Commissionated by Him we never thought of Advancing the Arbitrary Commissions of the King above Law but by those Commissionated by Him we understand such as are Legally Commissionated and in the Legal pursuit of such Commission By the Clause which follows that requires a Renunciation of all Endeavour of any Alteration of Government in the Church or State we never meant to deny any Free-born Subject his Right of Choosing Parliament-Men or Acting in his place for the Common Good any way according to Law but that he shall Renounce all such Endeavour as is Seditious or not warranted by the Constitution of the Nation and particularly such an Endeavour as was Assumed in the late Times without and against the Consent of the King And for the rest of the Subscription which is enjoyned but to the Year 1682. Be it Enacted that it cease presently and be no longer enjoyned And forasmuch as there is an Oath prescribed and required of all Non-conformists Preachers that reside in any Corporate-Town by a certain Act of the former Parliament made at Oxford in the 17th Year of His now Majesties Reign Entituled An Act for restraining Nonconformists from inhabiting Corporations This Oath is of the same Contents with the Subscription before and to impose both is nothing else but the multiplying Wrath and laying Lead on the already Laden We do further declare That it shall suffice any Man for the Enjoyment of his Free-born Liberty of Inhabiting where he thinks best and serve him also instead of the fore-mentioned Subscription to take that Oath in this form of Words following I. A. B. do swear That I hold it unlawful upon any pretence to take Arms against the King His Government or Laws And that I disclaim that dangerous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against His Person or any Legally Commissionated by him in the Legal pursuit of such Commissions And that I will not endeavour any Alteration of Government in the Church or State in any way or manner not warranted by the Constitution of the Kingdom or any otherwise than by Act of Parliament And as soon as any Man hath taken the Oath thus he shall be discharged of all penalty for his omission before We do declare moreover That whereas it is required also in the Act of Vniformity that every Minister who injoys any Living or Ecclesiastical preferment shall be Ordained by a Bishop and there are several persons of late who in case of Necessity for want of Bishops took Presbyterian-Orders Our meaning is not in any wise to disgust the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas and make it necessary for such to be Re-ordained to the Office but that they receive this Second imposition of Hands to the Exercise of their Office in the new charge There is Reordinatio ad Officium which we say is generally decryed by Divines Re-ordinatio ad Exercitium particulate which may be irrefragably proved from Acts 13.2 3. with Acts 14.26 amd consequently allow'd to serve this Occasion unto which they are or shall be called and that the Bishop shall frame his Words accordingly And whereas there is a Subscription also in the Canons and the Canonical-Oath of Obedience imposed on most Ministers by the Bishops that have given some of the greatest Occasion to Non-conformity heretofore which yet never passed into Law by any Act of Parliament We do further declare If the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance be taken and the Articles of the Church subscribed and the Declaration before to the Common Prayer made we see no need of boyling over these three Things again for us in the Canons That nothing more of that kind shall be required of Ministers henceforward then was made and held necessary by the Act of the thirteenth of Elizabeth And in regard there hath been great Offence taken by Conscientious Ministers at the Bishops or their Courts commanding them to read the Sentence of Excommunication against some or other of their Parish Neither shall any Minister be punishable for the withholding his own Act in delivery of either Sacrament to any who in his Conscience he judges unworthy or uncapable of it As we think there is no Elder in the New Testament who is not a Pastor and that there is no Lay Pastor so do we account that there is no Pastor or Presbyter but such as have the power both to Rule and Teach committed to them by Christ Yet do we for all that apprehend it not only Lawful but Expedient for the ordinary Ministers of our Parochial Congregations when the Church is National to commit part of their charge to wit that of Ruling in Actu Secundo to some few among them who are more
not only inhibited to preach against Popery but are illegally Reprimanded Silenced and Suspended for discharging that Duty which their Consciences Offices Oaths and the Laws of the Kingdom oblige them unto And such whom neither the Ecclesiastical nor Westminster Courts can arraign and proceed against we had a new Court of Inquisition erected for the adjudging and punishing of them So that it is not the Dissenters who are the only Persons to be struck at and ruined but the Conformists are to be treated after the same manner and to share in the common Lot whereunto all honest and sincere Protestants are destined and designed Even they who were the Darlings of Whitehall and St. Jameses and recompensed with Honours and Titles for betraying the Rights and Priviledges of Corporations persecuting Dissenters and heading Addresses wherein Parliaments were reproached the Course of Justice against Popish Offenders was slandered the illegal and arbitrary procedures of the Court applauded and justified and all that were zealous for our Laws and Liberties stigmatized with the Names of Villains and Traitors are now themselves for but discouraging Popish Assemblies and attempting to put the Laws in execution against Priests who had publickly celebrated Mass not only check'd and rebuked but punished with Seisure and Imprisonment Nor are our Religion and Civil Liberties meerly supplanted and undermined by illegal Tricks glossed over with the Varnish of judicial Forms but they are assaulted and battered in the face of the Sun without so much as a palliation to give their procedures a plausible figure And the King being brought to a despair of managing the Parliament to his barefaced Purposes of Popery and Arbitrariness and of prevailing with them to establish Tyranny and Idolatry by Law notwithstanding their having been as industriously pack'd and chosen to answer such a Design as Art Bribery and Authority could reach and notwithstanding their having been obsequious in their first Session to an excess that has proved unsafe to themselves the Nation he became resolved not to allow them to meet any more but to set up a-la-mode de France and to have his personal Commands seconded with the Assent of his durarte-beneplacito Judges to be acknowledged and obeyed for Laws So that they who were formerly seduced into a good Opinion of him are not only undeceived but provoked to warm Resentments for having had their credulity and easiness of belief so grosly abused And as the converting so a vast a number of well-meaning but wofully deluded People who had suffered themselves to de hood-wink'd and fatally hurried to betray their Religion Country and Posterity to the Ambition and Popish Bigottry of the Court was a design becoming the Compassion Mercy and Wisdom of God so the Method's and Means whereby they are come to be enlightned and proselyted are a signal vindication of the Sapience and Righteousness of God in all those tremendous steps of his Providence by which our Enemies have been emboldned to detect and discover themselves For though their continuing so long to have a good opinion of the present King and their abetting him so far in the undermining our Religion and invading our Liberties may seem to have proceeded not so much from their Ignorance as from their Obstinacy and Malice yet God who penetrates into the Hearts of Men may have discovered some degrees of sincerity in their Pretentious and Carriages though accompanied with a great deal of folly and unmanliness Nor are the Lord's ways like to ours to give Persons over as unteachable and irreclaimable upon their withstanding every measure of Light and the resisting even those Means which were sufficient and proper for their Conviction but he will try them by now and extraordinary Methods and see whether Feeling and doleful Experience may not convert those upon whom Arguments and moral Evidence could make no impressions And there being among those formerly misled and deluded Protestants many who retained a Love for their Country a Care for their Posterity and a Zeal for the Gospel and Reformed Religion even when their Actions imported the contrary and seem'd to betray them the singling and weeding out such from among the Court-Faction and Party is a compensation both for the defeatment of all endeavours for the prevention of the Evils that have overtaken us and for the Distresses and Calamities under which we do at present lie and groan And if there be joy in Heaven upon the conversion of a Sinner with what thankfulness to God and joy in themselves should they who have so many Years wrestled against the encroachments of Popery and Arbitrariness and who have deeply suffered in their Names Persons and Estates upon that account welcome and embrace their once erring and misled but now enlightned reclaimed and converted Brethren And instead of remembring or upbraiding them with the opposition and rancour which they expressed against our Persons Principles and Ways let there be no Language heard from us but what may declare the joy we have in our selves for their conversion and the entire trust and confidence which we put in them The first Duty incumbent therefore upon Dissenters towards those of the Church of England is to believe that notwithstanding there have been many of them so long Advocates and Partisans for the Court through ignorance of what was aimed at and intended they are nevertheless as really concerned as any others and as truly zealous for the preservation of the Protestant Religion and for maintaining the legal Rights and Liberties of the Subject and when occasion shall offer will approve themselves accordingly 'T is a ridiculous as well as a mischievous Fancy for one Party to confine all Religion only to themselves or to circumscribe all the ancient English Ardor for the common Rights of the Nation to such as are of their particular Fellowship and Perswasion there being sincere Christians and true Englishmen among those of all Judgments and Societies of Protestants and among none more than those of the Communion of the Church of England It were the height of Wickedness as well as the most prodigious Folly to imagine that the Conformists have abandoned all Fidelity to God and cast off all Care of themselves and their Country upon a mistaken Judgment of being Loyal and Obedient to the King. The contrary is plain enough they knew as well as any that the giving to Cesar the Things that are Cesar's lay them under no Obligation of surrendring unto him the Things that are God's nor of sacrificing unto the Will of the Sovereign the Priviledges reserved unto the People by the Fundamental Rules of the Constitution and by the Statutes of the Realm And they understand as well as others that the Laws of the Land are the only Measures of the Prince's Authority and of the Subjects Fealty and where they give him no Right to Command they lay them under no tie to Obey And though here and there a Dissenter has written against Popery with good Success yet they
Strength and Glory through an enlargement of the Terms of her Communion and what would have been to the Praise of her Moderation and Charity through her being perswaded to bear with such as differ from her in little things and could not prevail with themselves to partake with her in all Ordinances Upon the whole it is both the prudence and safety of Dissenters as they would escape Extirpation themselves and have Religion conveyed down to Posterity to unite their Strength and Endeavours to those of the Church of England for the upholding her against the assaults of Popish Enemies who pursue her Subversion As matters have been circumstanced and stated in England there hath not been an Affront or Injury offered or done unto her by the Court which did not at the same time reach and wound the Dissenters 'T is not her being for Episcopacy Ceremonies and imposed set-Forms of Worship the Things about which she and the Nonconformists differ that she hath been not long since maligned and struck at by the Men in Power and his Popish Juncto but it is for being Protestant Reformed and Orthodox Crimes under the Guilt whereof Dissenters were equally concerned and involved Being therefore in opposition to the common Cause of Religion that the late Court of Inquisition was erected over her Ecclesiasticks all Protestants jointly resented the Wrongs which she sustain'd and not only to sympathize with those dignified and lower Clergy which were called to suffer but to espouse her Quarrel with the same warmth that we would our own And as we are to look upon those of the Episcopal Communion to be the great Bulwark of the Protestant Religion and Reformed Interest in England so it was farther incumbent on Dissenters towards them and a Duty which they owe to God the Nation and themselves not to be accessary to any thing through which the legal Establishment of the Church of England might have been by any Act of pretended Regal Prerogative weakned and supplanted I never counsel the Dissenters to renounce their Principles nor to participate with the Prelatical Church in all Ordinances on the Terms to which they have straitned and narrowed their Communion For while they remain unsatisfied of the lawfulness of those Terms and Conditions they cannot do it without offending God and contracting Guilt upon their Souls nor will they of the Church of England in Charity Justice and Honesty expect it from them For whatsoever any Man believeth to be Sin it is so to him and will by God be imputed as such till he be otherwise enlightned and convinced nor are the Dissenters to be false and cruel to themselves in order to be kind and friendly to them But that which I would advise them unto is that after the maintaining the highest measure of Love to the conformable Congregations as Churches of Christ and the esteeming their Members as Christian Protestant Brethren notwithstanding the several things wherein they judg them to err and to be mistaken that they would not by any Act and Transaction of theirs betray them into a Despotical Power nor directly nor indirectly acknowledg any Authority paramount unto and superceding the Laws by which the Church of England is established in its present Form Order and Mode of Jurisdiction Discipline and External Worship Whatsoever Ease arrived to the Dissenters through the King 's suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws without their Address and Application they might receive it with Joy and Humility in themselves and with Thankfulness to God nor was there hereby any prejudice offered on their part to the Authority of the Law or Offence or Injury given or done to the conformable Clergy Nor is it without grief and regret that the Church-Men have been forced to behold the harassing spoiling and imprisonment of the Nonconformists while in the mean time the Papists were suffered to assemble to the Celebration of their Idolatrous Worship without Censure and Controul And had it been in their power to remedy it and give Relief to their Protestant Brethren they wouâ—d with delight and readiness have embrac'd the occasion and opportunity of doing it But alas instead of having an advantage put into their hand of contributing to the Relief of the Dissenters which I dare say many of them ardently wish and desire they were compelled contrary to their Inclination as well as their Interest to become instrumental in persecuting and oppressing them Nor does the late King covet a better and a more legal advantage against the Conformists than that they would refuse to pursue Dissenters and decline molesting them with Ecclesiastical Censures and civil Punishments So that their conditition was to be pitied and bewailed in that they were hindred from acting against the Papists though both enjoyned by Law and influenced thereunto by Motives of self-Preservation as well as by ties of Conscience while in the mean time they were forced to prosecute their fellow-Protestants or else to be suspended and deposed and put out of their Offices and Employs And tho I believe that they would at last have more Peace in themselves and be better accepted with God in the great Day of their Account should they have refused to disturb and prosecute their Protestant Brethren and soorn to be any longer Court-Tools for weakning and undermining the Reformed Cause and Interest yet I could not but leave them to act in this as they should be perswaded in themselves and as they judged most agreeable to Principles of Wisdom and Conscience In the interim the Dissenters have all the Reason in the World to believe that the Proceedings of the Clergy and Members of the Church of England against them were not the Results of their Election and Choice but the Effects of moral Compulsion and Necessity Nor will any Dissenter that is prudent and discreet blame them for a matter which they cannot help but bear his Misfortune and Lot with Patience in himself and with Compassion and Charity towards them and have his Indignation raised only against that Court which forced them to be instrumental in their Oppression and Trouble The Protestant Dissenters could not be so far void of sense as to think that the Person lately in the Throne bore them any good-Will but his drift was to scrue himself into a Supremacy and Absoluteness over the Law and to get such an Authority confessed to be vested in him as when he pleased he might subvert the Established Religion and set up Popery For the same Power that he can dispense with the Penal Statutes against the Nonconformists he may also dispense with those against the Roman Catholicks And whosoever owneth that he hath a Right to do the first doth in effect own that he hath a Right to do the last For if he be allowed a Power for the superceding some Laws made in reference to Matters of Religion he may challenge the like Power for the superceding others of the same kind And then by the same Authority that he
can suspend the Laws against Popery he may also suspend those for Protestancy And by the same Power that he can in defiance of Law indulge the Papists the Exercise of their Religion in Houses he may establish them in the publick Celebration of their Idolatry in Churches and Cathedrals Yea whereas the Laws that relate to Religion are enacted by no less Authority than those that are made for the Preservation of our Civil Rights should the King be admitted to have an Arbitrary Power over the one it is very like that by the Logick of White-hall he might have challeng'd the same Absoluteness over the other Nor do I doubt but that the eleven Judges who gratified him with a Despoticalness over the former would when required grant him the same over the latter I know the Dissenters have been under no small Temptations both by reason of being hindred from enjoying the Ordinances of the Gospel and because of many grievous Calamities which they suffer for their Nonconformity of making Applications to the King for some Relief by his suspending the Execution of the Laws but they must give me leave to add that they ought not for the obtaining of a little Ease to have betrayed the Kingdom and sacrifice the legal Constitution of the Government to the Lust and Pleasure of a Popish Prince whom nothing less would serve than being Absolute and Despotical And had he once been in the quiet Possession of an Authority to dispense with the Penal Laws the Dissenters would not long have enjoyed the benefit of it Nor could they have denied him a Power of reviving the Execution of the Law which is part of the Trust deposited with him as Supream Magistrate who have granted him a Power of suspending the Laws which the Rules of the Government precluded him from And as he might whensoever he pleased cause the Laws to which they were obnoxious to be executed upon them so by virtue of having an Authority acknowledged in him of superceding the Laws he might deprive them of the liberty of meeting together to the number of five a Grace which the Parliament thought fit to allow them under all the other Severities to which they were subjected Nor needs there any further Evidence that the Princes challenging such a Power was an Usurpation and that the Subjects making any Application by which it seem'd allowed to him was a betraying of the ancient legal Government of the Kingdom whereas the most obsequious and servile Parliament to the Court that ever England knew not only deny'd this Prerogative to the late King Charles but made him renounce it by revoking his Declaration of Indulgence which he had emitted Anno 1672. And as it will be to the perpetual Honour of some of the Dissenters to have chosen rather to suffer the Severities which the Laws make them liable unto than by any Act and Transaction of theirs to undermine and weaken either the Church or the State so it will be a means both of endearing them we hope not only to the Prince of Orange now by a miraculous Providence brought in amongst us but to future Parliaments and of bringing them and the Conformists into an union of Counsels and Endeavours against Popery and Tyranny for ever which is at this season a thing so indispensably necessary for their common preservation Especially when though a new and more threatning Alliance and Confederacy with France than that in 72 the King had not only engaged to act by and observe the same Measures towards Protestants in England which that Monarch hath vouchsafed the World a Pattern and Copy of in his carriage towards those of the Reformed Religion in France but had promised to disturb the Peace and Repose of his Neighbours and to commence a War in conjunction with that Prince against Foreign Protestants For as the King 's giving Liberty and Protection to the Algerines to frequent his Havens and sell the Prizes which they take from the Dutch is both a most infamous Action for a Prince pretending to be a Christian and a direct violation of his Alliance with the States General so nothing can be more evident than that he thereby sought to render them the weaker for him to assault and that he was resolved if some unforeseen and extraordinary Providence had not interposed and prevented to declare War against them the next Summer in order whereunto great Remises of Mony were already ordered him from the French Court. So that the Indulgence which he pretends to be inclinable to afford the Dissenters was not an effect of Kindness and Good-will but an Artifice whereby to oblige their Assistance in destroying those Abroad of the same Religion with themselves Which if he could once compass it were easy to foresee what Fate both the Dissenters and they of the Communion of the Church of England were to expect Who as they would not then have known whither to retreat for shelter so they would have been destitute of Comfort in themselves and deprived of Pity from others not only for having through their Divisions made themselves a Prey to the Papists at Home but for having been accessary to the Ruin of the Reformed State Abroad and which was the Asilum and Sanctuary of all those that were elsewhere oppressed and persecuted for Religion Gloria Deo Optimo Maximo Honos Principi nostri celcissimo pientissimo A Specimen of a Bill For UNITING PROTESTANTS BEING A rough Draught of such Terms as seem equal For the Conformist to grant and the Non-conformist to yield to for Peace sake Provided a good while and Published on purpose only for the farther better and more easy Consideration of the Parliament WHereas there are many Jealousies risen about Popery which makes it even necessary to the peace of the Nation that the Protestant Interest be united and strengthened by all Good and Lawful Means And to this end there being this one proper Expedient to wit The removing the Occasion of Divisions which several persons do find to themselves in those late Injunctions which yet were intended to the same purpose of Concord in the Nation Be it Enacted That an Explanation of these Impositions and such Allevations be allowed to the tenderly Considerate and peaceably Scrupulous as follow In the Act of Vniformity By the Declaration of Assent and Consent to all things and every Thing contained in and prescribed by the two Books of Common-Prayer and of Ordering Priests and Deacons we understand These Materials were provided during the Sitting of that Parliament which passed the Act of Uniformity and other the like Rigorous Acts and are therefore drawn up in the form of an Explanatory Bill because it was supposed they were not like to Repeal their own Acts though they might be got to Interpret them But now we have a New Parliament and that after another also Dissolved we may expect quicker Work Yet will the Proposing these Things still to view have their use both for suppressing
Eminently fitted for the Work that is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consequently to the Bishop So that if this Fundamental Right of Governing their own Flocks be but acknowledged to Reside in every Presbyter by granting so much to us as this and what hath preceded comes to we shall be unwilling to fall off from Episcopacy upon the points of Ordination and Jurisdiction for such faults as they think not at all worthy of so great a Censure We declare it but a just Thing that every Minister be first satisfyed in the Cause or else be exempted from the Execution of that Charge and that the Bishop or his Court provide some other person that is satisfyed about it to do it And to the intent that a free search after Truth may not be discouraged in the pursuit of Concord and many other Scruples avoided upon that Account We declare that though an Authentick Interpretation be required as to the Substance of all Laws yet in the Articles of the Church which are Theses for Agreement and not Laws and the Homilies a Doctrinal Interpretation shall be held sufficient for an Assent or Subscription to them The Authentick Interpretation of an Article is the meaning of the Major Part of the Convocation A Doctrinal Interpretation is the meaning of any one of the Doctors there present and consequently of any other Learned Expositor who are supposed to have the Liberty to abound in their own Sense so long as they can agree in the Words of the Article Established And this Clause therefore we put in upon Mature Consideration in regard more especially to the Conscientious Latitudinarians which is a Name abused who being some Arminian and some Calvinian cannot otherwise Subscribe the Doctrine of the same Theses as the Reader may see more in such a sort of Book as this called The Healing Paper out of which this Bill for Union is Collected And because the very Superintendency of Bishops and that Subjection to them which is required by the Constitution of the Realm is or may be an hinderance to many sober Ministers and other Protestants of coming into the Church who are ready to consent to the Doctrine but not to the Discipline or Government of it We do declare That so long as any person or party do acknowledge the King's Supremacy as Head of the Church in this Nation and obey their Ordinary or the Bishops in Licitis Honestis upon the Account of his Authority committed to them for the Exercise of that External Regiment Circa Sacra which is granted by all our Divines That is Although there be some that cannot acknowledge our Diocesan Prelates to be Christs Officers distinct from the Elders in scripture yet so long as they can live Peaceable lives in Obedience to them as Ecclesiastical Magistrates under His Majesty for the keeping the several Congregations in their Precincts to that Gospel Order which themselves allow and for super-vising their Constitutions in Things indifferent that nothing be done but in Subordination to the Peace of the Kingdom which is a Notion wherein the Judicious of every Party may acquiesce and expressed by us in these very Words in a Book forenamed it is sufficient unto National Church-Vnion to the Higher Powers in every Nation it is enough for the owning Episcopal Jurisdiction so far as they do own it in the Declaration of Assent and Consent or in any other part of Conformity and shall serve them to all intents and purposes in Law no less than a professed belief and acknowledgment of the immediate Divine Right of it Be it therefore Enacted by this present Parliament That i◠any Person be willing to Conform to the present Establishment of the Church of England and her Service appointed according to these Explanations Alleviations Declarations Lenitives or Cautions he shall be admitted to any Ecclesiastical Preferment and enjoy the use of his Ministry without any molestation All Statutes Canons or Laws to the contrary notwithstanding And for the making this Act of better Signification to the Concerned and the prevention of that Scandal which is raised on the Clergy through the Covetousness of some in heaping up to themselves all the Preferments they can get when others have scarce Subsistance for their Families and the Souls of many people are thereby neglected Be it farther Enacted That no Clergy-man for the Three next years ensuing We propose these Things we confess as if we were in Republica Platonis but we should be glad to see any Fruits of this kind as those who are in Faece Romuli may expect What is Right and Just and ought to be done is one thing and to be sought though what is like to be done or will be done is another be suffered to Enjoy any more than one Living or Cure of Souls and one Dignity or other Ecclesiastical preferment at one Time and that every Man without Exception that hath more than One of Either shall immediately give up the Rest to be distributed among those who shall be brought off from their Non-conformity upon the Terms of this Act into the Established Order Which that they may also be obtained and possessed with a clean Conscience and that grievous Corruption of Simony may be extripate out of the Land Be it Enacted moreover That every Patron that shall henceforward present his Clerk to any Living shall have the Oath called The Simonical Oath imposed on himself no less than on the Incumbent And if he Refuses to take it that then the Bishop shall have immediate Power taking only the same Oath of Presentation in his Room And forasmuch as there are some Ministers of a good Life that cannot according to their Judgments allow of our Parochial Churches nor a Book of Liturgy But do choose to Worship God and Jesus Christ in the way of their gathered or separate Congregations and crave the Protection and Clemency of the King upon their Allegiance as other Subjects Be it finally Enacted for the happiness and quiet of the Realm and the Reduction of these Men by other means than those which have hitherto proved unsuccessful That every Christian Subject throughout the Land that profess the Reformed Religion and be not convict of Popery be pardoned all Faults and Penalties incurred upon the account of any Fore-passed Non-conformity and that they shall not during these Seven Years next ensuing be prosecuted upon any Penal Law for their Consciences in the matter of Religion They carrying themselves innocently and peaceably with submission to the Civil and without disturbance to the Ecclesiastical Government now setled in the Nation All Statutes to the contrary notwithstanding There are two Parts of this Bill One for Concord or Coalition with all such as can joyn in Parochial Communion in the Clauses before The other for Forbearance of those that cannot in this last Clause For what shall we do with such We must not knock them on the Head They must therefore have time If the Parliament will begin with the last first that is a Suspension of the Penal Statutes and then let us treat for a Composition after we consent with all ou◠Hearts and like the Method best Then Abner called unto Joab and said Shall the Swor◠devour for ever Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the end How long shall it be ere thou bid the People return from following of their Brethren * Vntil by a further Act of Parliament or a Convocation those that are fit to be Tolerated and the Intolerable be-distinguished In Short A Repeal of our Laws about Conformity unto the 13th of Elizabeth Or a New Act of Vniformity Or The Kings Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs at His first coming in turned into a Law were Comprehension His latter Declaration to all his Loving Subjects some few things in both yet a little considered made so were Indulgence A Bill for Comprehension with Indulgence both together will do our business An Addition or Clause in it against Pluralities will do it with Supererrogation Deo Gloria