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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A26398 An address to His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Right Reverend the Bishops, upon account of their late petition by a true member of the Church of England. True member of the Church of England. 1688 (1688) Wing A562; ESTC R10958 6,471 12

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of your Diocese and to be the assuming a Power I never read that your Lordships Predecessors challeng'd To have declared it to have been against your Consciences or your Religion had been something modest but to Arraign the Legality of the King's Proceedings in any respect is something with the boldest especially upon such a Ground that One or Two Parliaments had given their Judgments against the like For your Lordships know it is not beyond our Age and so cannot easily be forgot that the Votes of the Lower House passed for a Bill of Seclusion of our Gracious King yet I hope you will not think those sufficient to engraft an Argument upon for the Legality of that Vote However it seems that you that are against the Dispensing Power would insinuate that a Vote of One or Both Houses is sufficient to supersede a Prerogative of the King and will not allow that His Majesty may dispence with some Penal Laws which is one of the Flowers that not only adorn but make up the Crown I now beg leave to enquire of your Lordships by what Principles of the Christian or Protestant Religion you can disobey the King's positive Command in reading or causing to be read his Gracious Declaration no ways inconsistent with the Laws of God Christian Charity or the Practice of several Countries I have indeed heard of one Minister who upon King Charles the First 's commanding the Publishing the Proclamation for Liberty of some Lawful Recreations and Exercises on Sundays after Even-Prayer commonly called the Book of Sports told his Congregation That in Obedience to the King's Commands he had read it to them but withal tells them That God Almighty had given Command to remember to keep holy the Sabboth-day But this Command of the King hath nothing in it against Divine or Moral Precepts And your Lordships well know what Power the Laws give the King in Point of Supremacy which only his steadiness to the Principles of Justice Honor and Generosity hinders him to make use of Now it is well known that as Sheriffs Mayors and Bayliffs are the King 's Secular Officers to publish his Civil Mandates so Parsons Vicars and Curates are under your Lordships the King 's Ecclesiastical Officers to publish according to the Rubrick what is sent to them by the King or their Ordinary and as in the One so in the Other the Law inflicts a Punishment upon the Disobeyers And it hath not fallen under my Reading that any Bishops have refused to obey the King's Command when by any Act of Council the King enjoyned the Clergy to publish any matter in their Churches or Chappels but upon Refusal a severe Punishment followed unless Pardon'd But I foresee your Lordships will offer in excuse for your selves That this Declaration is against the Being of the Church of England as Established by Law a Toleration being inconsistent with a National Church-Government To this I reply First That if it had been only for the Gracious Expressions in the Declaration relating to the Church of England it might have been adviseable to have published it Therefore lest the Import of them should be forgot I shall insert the words In the first place We do declare That We will Protect and Maintain Our Archbishops Bishops and Clergy and all other Our Subjects of the Church of England in the free Exercise of their Religion as by Law Established and in the quiet and full Enjoyment of all their Possessions without any Molestation or Disturbance whatsoever This was a fresh Assurance of the King's Protection and His Majesty's first Care but being joyned with Liberty of Conscience in the Exercise of Religion and the suspending of the Execution of all manner of Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical this is the Mors in Ollâ But some it seems must be flattered with hopes that they shall be Indulged because Protestants but the Scourge must still be reserved for Roman Catholics Therefore since They as well as all other Dissenters are to be Partakers of the King 's Royal Clemency the Declaration must not be published This I humbly conceive is the true Ground of the Refusal whatever is pretended However from this partiality to Protestant Dissenters the Arguments for the Inconsistency of a Toleration with the Being of a National Church wholly vanisheth for your Lordships do well know that this Indulgence neither deprives your Lordships of your Dignities nor robs You or the Inferior Clergy of their Possessions nor doth it hinder the free Exercise of your Religion but only abridgeth some Branches of Visitations and restrains the inflicting Penal Laws upon Absenters from the Churches and impairs the Severity of Compulsion and by experience already it is found that the Congregations of the Church of England are not visibly thinner for it for Preaching public Prayer and the Administration of the Sacraments the Essentials of Religion remain untouch'd now that it is put in Execution I now beg that your Lordships will consider Whether this disobeying the King be a likelier means to preserve your Lordships in your Places and Dignities and the Church of England in its Lustre than your Obedience would have been You are not ignorant how Dissenters have press'd you that the Loyalty of the Church of England was not much to be boasted of because since the Reformation except in Queen Mary's Reign and about the Indulgence in King Charles the Second's time it was never put to the Trial by their Lawful Sovereigns commanding any thing contrary to its Establishment and how the Members of the Church deported themselves in that Queens Reign is too notorious to be deny'd when they first endeavor'd the Excluding her from the Crown and after by Wyat's Rebellion to have torn the Scepter out of her hand and to what Straits they would have reduced King Charles the Second till he quit the Indulgence is very evident Therefore it hath been frequently objected That if any King of England should abridge the Church of any of its Liberties and Privileges it would instantly appear how long-liv'd its Loyalty would remain It is my Lords by this your Act you have confirm'd all their Suggestions and that in a matter wherein your Consciences were not concern'd in the approving or disapproving the matter contain'd in the Declaration for you were only enjoyned to publish it as the King's Declaration not your own And can your Lordships upon sedate thoughts think the publishing this was a Crime of that Nature that it necessitated you to choose as in such Cases is generally alleged to please God rather than your King Surely if the King had commanded any single Person of you to have read it you would not have scrupl'd to have done it but now it seems Nos numeri Sumus came into your Heads and so you were resolv'd to try who should be Supreme Governor over the Church of England Methinks I hear the sad and loud Groans of Thousands of those who are desirous to preserve their