Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A25451
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Animadversions upon Mijn Heer Fagels letter concerning our penal laws and tests with remarks upon that subject, occasioned by the publishing of that letter.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing A3204; ESTC R37289
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44,038
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32
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year of her Majesties Reign in an Act then made it is recited That the Queens Highness in Her Letters Patent to any Archbishop Bishop or others for Confirming Investing and Consecrating of any Person elected to the Office or Dignity of any Archbishop or Bishop had not only used such Words and Sentences as were accustomed to be used by King Henry and King Edward her Majesties Father and Brother in their like Letters Patents made for such Causes But also had used and put in her Maiesties said Letters Patent divers other general VVords and Sentences whereby her Highness by her Supream Power and Authority had dispensed with all causes or doubts of any imperfection or disability that could or might in any wise be objected against the same And the same Statute declares That all Acts and Things done by any Person or Persons by vertue of her Majesties Letters Patents or Commission about any Consecration Confirmation or Investing of any Person or Persons elected to the Office or Dignity of any Archbishop or Bishop within this Realm or any other her Majesties Dominions since the beginning of Her Reign should be judged and deemed by Authority of that Parliament at and from every of the several times of the doing thereof good and perfect to all respects and purposes any matter or thing that could or might be objected to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding and provides that all tenders of the Oath of Supremacy before that Sessions by vertue of any Act made in the first Session of that Parliament which was about three years before and all refusals of the Oath so tendered by any Archbishop or Bishop should be void and of none effect or validity in the Law and that no person or persons should at any time afterwards be impeached or molested in Body Lands Livings or Goods by occasion or mean of any such Certificate touching or concerning the refusal of the said Oath and in the preamble of this Act it is declared That the State of the Clergy being one of the greatest States of this Realm it was thought convenient thereby to touch such Authorities as did allow and approve the making and consecrating of the Archbishops and Bishops to be duly and orderly done according to Law. By which proceedings it may appear That the extent of the Oath of Supremacy as it might have been taken to be by the first Statute was by the Queens Admonitions explained limited and restrained Any deficiences which were or might be construed to be in the second Act or in such words and sentences as were used by her Predecessors for Confirming Investing or Consecrating Archbishops or Bishops being one of the great States of this Realm were by general words and sentences in the Queens Letters Patent and Commissions supplyed All causes and doubts of any imperfection or disability were by the Queens Highness Supream Power and Authority removed out of the way and all that was done pursuant thereunto declared to be good and perfect at and from the time of the doing thereof In the King's Apology before mentioned his Majesty reflects upon the Pope for having in his Breve dealt both indiscreetly with his Majesty and injuriously with his own Catholicks With his Majesty in not refuting particularly what special words he quarrell'd in that Oath which if he had done It might have been that for the fatherly care the King had not to put any of his subjects to a needless extremity he might have been contented in some sort to have reformed or interpreted those words With his own Catholicks for either if the King had so done they had been thereby fully eased in that business or at least if he would not have condescended to have altered any thing in the said Oath yet would thereby some appearance or shadow of excuse have been left unto them for refusing the same not as seeming thereby to swerve from their Obedience and Allegiance unto him but only being staid from taking the same upon the scrupulous tenderness of their Consciences in regard of those particular words Herein if the King does not assert his Prerogative to extend to reforming the words of an Oath Established by Law for the ease of the Consciences of some of his Subjects yet his Majesty plainly intimates some regard is to be had to those who did not swerve from their obedience but were only staid from taking this Oath through scruples of Conscience In the Reign of King Edward the Sixth Queen Elizabeth King James the First King Charles the First King Charles the Second divers Grants were made or confirmed and Toleration given to Strangers for exercise of Religion in the Principal Cities and Towns of England as London Norwich Canterbury and Southampton in Forms different from the Act of Uniformity of worship with a Non obstante to that Act And Charters in like manner in the Reign of all or some of the three last Kings to divers of their own Subjects for exercise of Religion according to their Consciences in Forreign parts within their Majesties Dominions with a dispensation as to Laws in force relating to Religion and requiring Oaths of Obedience in the form prescribed by such Laws and though some of these Dissenters who obtained these Grants have contrary to the common rules of Justice and Equity inflicted temporal penalties upon such of their brethren as have dissented from the forms of Worship established by their own municipal Laws and have therein usurped a power over Conscience which they desired and obtained by Grant from the King might not be exercised in reference to themselves yet those Regal Grants made to secure them from the penalties which otherwise they might have incurred by their Nonconformity to the General Laws in being respecting Religion Sacrament and Oaths which reacht not only throughout the Realm of England but all other their Majesties Dominions have been continued and renewed without ever being taken notice of in Parliament as an extention of the Kings Prerogative beyond the due bounds of Law. By all which instances it seems to me evident that his present Majesty has not by his Gracious Declaration of Indulgence exercised his Prerogative in any Case or upon any other Grounds than has been done before by his Royal Predecessors respecting the nature of the things but only in the degree as it is a more general extensive and comprehensive Act of Grace than any of those special Grants which have been made by his Progenitors grounded upon the most universal and evident Maximes of Religion and Civil Government viz. That his Majesty may have the benefit of the service of all his Loving Subjects which by the law of nature is inseparably annext to and inherent in his Royal Person without imposing upon any of them such Religious Tests or Oaths as they cannot in Conscience to God submit to The present Laws which require taking of the Sacrament Oaths or Tests in order to a residing in the Kings Courts or presence or
by whole sale and if it should ever hereafter happen upon proof That any of our English Roman Catholicks should do Eminent Service in defence of the Public Peace and Liberty I make no doubt but the consequence would extend farther with respect unto such individual Persons then it did with the Papists in the Netherlands For greater Fidelity to the Publick Interest could not be shewn then to hazard their Lives and Persevere in their Constancy with the Reformed Protestants in defence of their Civil Liberties against Armies of their own Religion when any Act of Treachery as the Princes of the Philistians said to the King of Gath concerning King David might have Reconciled them to those of their own Communion 1 Sam. 27.4 5. perhaps with a secular Advantage to themselves and Hazard if not certain Ruine of the Lives and Liberties of the Reformed Protestants Certainly those Individual Persons if the Conditions of their Service were not before hand expresly limited to a Military Station might think they were hardly used to be excluded by Name for the sake of their Religion from all share in the Government and other publick Imployments which they had been instrumental with others to recover and defend There is one passage more in his Lordship's Letter which will lead me to what I have farther to add upon this occasion His Lordship says He would gladly see one single good Reason to move a Protestant that fears God and that is concerned for his Religion to consent to the Repealing of those Laws that have been Enacted by the Authority of the King and Parliament which have no other Tendency but to the Security of the Reformed Religion and to the restraining of the Roman Catholicks from a capacity of overturning it These Laws inflict neither Fines nor Punishments and do only Exclude the Roman Catholicks from a share in the Government who by being in Employments must needs study to Encrease their Party and to gain to it more Credit and Power which by what we see every day we must conclude will be extreamly dangerous to the Reformed Religion and must turn to its great Prejudice I have before declared I have been long reckoned among dissenting Protestants and do acknowledge it is my Duty above all earthly things to Fear GOD and to be concerned for my Religion But I must beg his Lordships patience and permission to enquire into the true meaning of this Passage before I attempt to satisfy his Lordships desire 1. Because I cannot find any such Law as is effectual our present State considered to keep Reman Catholicks and no others out of Imployments or that do not either directly or of necessary consequence tend to the inflicting of Fines and Punishments on them or any other Dissenters if they resuse or without the qualifications required accept the execution of those imployments 2. I premise there may be an Explaining Qualisying or Repealing any Laws in part without a general or absolute Repeal of the whole Law an instance of this kind we have in the Reign of King James the First in the Third year of His Reign a Law was made for some persons taking and subscribing the Oath commonly called the Oath of Allegiance in the form prescribed In the Seventh year of the same King another Law was made wherein notice is taken of a just desence of the said Oath against false and unsound Arguments undertaken and performed by the Kings Majesty to the great contentment of all his loving Subjects notwithstanding the gain-saying of contentious adversaries and in this last Act it is said That the form of the Oath tends only to the Declaration of such duty as every true and well-affected subject not only by bond of Allegiance but also by the command of Almighty GOD ought to bare to his Majesty his Heirs and Successors And Enacts That every person above the age of Eighteen years therein mentioned and intended shall Make Take and Receive a Corporal Oath upon the Evangelists according to the Tenor and Effect of the said Oath set forth in the first mentioned Statute before such persons as are in that Act expressed In the Kings Epistle to all Christian Monarchs Free-Princes and States Prefixt to his Apology his Majesty declares That his Intent in that Oath was only to meddle with that due temporal obedience which his Subjects owed to him and not to intrap nor inthrall their Consciences And in Answer to the Popes Second Breve That such as had taken this Oath had sworn to no more than their Natural Allegience The Kings Intent being thus declared His Apology approved by Parliament and the Oath Explained satisfied many so as to take the said Oath which otherwise would have scrupled it Another instance we have in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in the First year of her Majesties Reign that Statute which prescribes and enjoyns the taking of the Oath called the Oath of Supremacy by all the Clergy and Temporal Officers whereby they obliged themselves to assist and desend the Queens Highness her Heirs and Successors in all Jurisdictions united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm does also among other things unite and annex to the Crown all Jurisdictions Spiritual and Ecclesiastical which had before or might Lawfully be exercised for Reformation of all manner of Errors Heresies and Schisms This Act and Oath occasioned many seruples in the minds of her Majesties Subjects for which cause soon after the dissolution of this Parliament and about four years before the Calling of the next her Majesty besides the dispensations which she gave to particular Persons upon special reasons published a Book commonly called the Queens Injunctions wherein she was graciously pleased by her Power in Ecclesiastical Affairs to declare such a construction and sense of the words of this Oath exprest in other words much different as gave Her Subjects in general relief therein and acquitted such of them as should in the sense she declared take the said Oath from all manner of Penalties which were very great against such as should refuse to take the same In the next succeeding Parliament which was held in the Fifth year of her Majesties Reign this Oath of Supremacy was enjoyned to be taken not only by all such persons as were mentioned in the former Act but also by every Member of the Commons House of Parliament and it was Enacted That such as should enter into the Parliament House without taking the said Oath should be deemed no Member thereof and should suffer such pains and penalties as if he had presumed to sit in the same whithout Election Return or Authority But it was also therein provided That the said Oath should be taken and expounded in such form as was set forth in an Admonition annexed to the Queens Majesties Injunctions published in the First year of her Majesties Reign which was exprest in the Act and refer'd to the said Injunctions by which it more plainly appeared and in the Eighth