A MEMORIAL Humbly Presented to the Right Honorable The Lord Chief Justice OF THE KING'S-BENCH In Behalf of the HOSPITALLER AND HIS FRIENDS LONDON Printed in the Year 1690. To the Right Honorable Sir JOHN HOLT Knight Lord Chief Justice OF THE KING'S-BENCH My Lord THis Discourse which was intended to be spoken to your Lordship in our common Defence containing a full and clear Representation of our Case I do most humbly beseech your Lordship of your love to Justice to accept and consider at your leisure on our behalfs I had not been so hardy to take the part of an Advocate upon me but that I knew nothing when I began to write this and till I had well nigh finish'd it of the other Side 's appearing by their Counsel against us and then it was not for me to pretend to enter the Lists with Men so used to Pleading and so particularly Eminent and Learned in their Possession as they are however having written it at first to satisfie my self and others as well as I could in the true Merits of the Cause we were ingaged in I have presumed so far at this juncture wherein our Affairs are hastening to their Crisis as to publish and expose it to the open view of the World because it may be there may be some things in it which even the ablest Practiser of the Long-Robe distracted by so many Avocations and full of other Thoughts and Business might have omitted These Two things I humbly conceive to be very plain in it First That the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London cannot restore the Ejected whether Governors or Officers without as plain and manifest a Dispensing Power as that which even the late King assumed to himself for if the Court of Aldermen may put out those at pleasure whom the King by virtue of a Power given him by an express Act of Parliament hath put into their respective Places and if they may restore those whom he by the same Authority hath legally ejected what is this but at pleasure to dispense with the Act it self and to render such a Provision in the King's behalf as vain and fruitless as if it had never been made What is it else but for the Court of Aldermen to challenge that exorbitant Privilege as it 's due which is deny'd and barr'd by an express Act of Parliament even to Kings themselves and all this for Causes so just and weighty from the foresight of the Mischiefs which such a Power may produce and from the Experience of those which it actually hath that they carry their own Sanction included in themselves though no Act of Parliament to forbid or foreclose the Exercise of a Power so Arbitrary and Boundless in it self and in its Consequences so pernicious and destructive had ever been enacted And whether a Court comparatively Inferior however otherwise deserving a due Reverence and Respect from us ought to be allowed to trample upon the just Authority of Kings and to disappoint the true meaning and intention of the High Court of Parliament it self by any Order of theirs is a thing that may deserve your Lordship's Consideration and I doubt not my Lord but you will certainly consider it to our advantage and for the restraining of a dangerous Power which may dispense with the whole Statute Book or with what part or parcel of it pleaseth as well as with any one Law I know there are many very worthy Gentlemen in the Court of Adermen that abhor the very thoughts of arrogating and assuming thus much to themselves many that are well satisfied with the necessary Regulations made in the Reign of King Charles II. in which they themselves were instrumental being thereunto commissionated under the Broad Seal of England and that it is only those who are in truth no Aldermen that would be more than such if they knew how The other thing which to the best of my understanding is every whit as clear as the former is that if the Mayor or Court of Aldermen's Power though it had been a legal Court of Aldermen which the Act of Parliament hath declared at that time it was not may over-rule the King 's in our Case then I cannot see that the Hospitals are his in any sense his Power and Prerogative in them will be utterly destroyed and he cannot so much as send a sick Seaman or Soldier into any of these Houses without first asking leave of the City which although it may be especially in the present Circumstances they would not deny him yet it is infinitely beneath the Majesty of Princes to acknowledge or submit to a precarious Dependence wherever it can be proved they have a Right even a private Person where he can make out his Title would disdain to aceept of his own upon these terms by holding it only duâ—ante beneplacito by an uncertain capricious and revocable Grant from another and therefore it concerns all that love the Monarchy of England and much more all those that are under more particular Obligations to maintain and assert it to see that its Honor and just Prerogative do not suffer in so important a Branch as this which concerns the Royal Hospitals is through the Mistakes and Encroachments of a few Men that aim at a Power which they can never prove in the present Circumstances to be their due It is not their due in our Circumstances who were put in by the King by whom the very Persons whom they will needs restore were ejected nor in theirs neither if it be true that a certain Gentleman who takes much upon him neither is nor ever was since the avoidance of the Charter a legal Magistrate of this Renowned City and that several Assessors in the Court of Aldermen have as little right to the Bench as he hath to the Chair a Controversie which in my small Opinion the Parliament hath determined already or if they have not yet done it so clearly as might be wished yet in a short time it may be hoped they will In the mean while I cannot forbear saying That I never saw less good Manners less Decency or less Modesty in the Management of a Cause than I have done in this our Adversaries have confess'd by an obstinate and stubborn silence after so many fair Challenges and repeated Provocations notwithstanding all the Mercenary Pens that are always at their Service that they have nothing to say for themselves and that both in Law and Equity it is a very plain Case against them but yet still they have a Confidence not in their Cause which they know to be very bad but in their Power which they persuade themselves is greater than the Power of Truth that is proof against all this they are resolved upon their own Conclusion and leave our naked Premises to shift for themselves Poor Premises so destitute and so friendless that even Hospitals refuse them Entertainment Nay not only so but when the Lords of the Council have
consent of Parliament to be illegal I say I know your Lordship will consider that the same Authority that deny'd this Power of Dispensing to the King and Queen themselves upon Experience of the Mischiefs and Calamities it produced in the late unhappy Reign would much less have granted the same extravagant inordinate and inconvenient Privilege to Subjects nay they would never have thought of it without Indignation and Scorn and I leave it with your Lordship to determine as you shall see cause whether the Mayor and Commonalty of London's restoring those to their respective Places whom the King hath legally ejected by virtue of a Clause in an express Act of Parliament vesting him with such a Right be not a plain Instance of a Dispensing Power by rendering this Clause altogether insignificant and useless and whether it be not so much the more criminal for being exercised not by the King but by Subjects and those not of the first Rank and Quality neither in contempt both of King and Parliament together And my Lord I beg leave to propound this further Question to your Lordship whether the Restitution of the ejected Officers by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen do destroy and evacuate the King's Right of Visitation or no For upon Supposition that it doth they are not only furnisht with a Power of suspending Laws and of dispensing with them but likewise of abrogating rescinding and repealing them too which is to make them every whit as absolute as the most comprehensive enlarged and unconfined notion of Arbitrary Government it self can be If it doth not then as they immediately upon the Dissolution of the Commission which as I have said may be done the next moment after the Regulation is made as they may immediately restore those whom the King hath ejected so may the King the very next minute by a new Commission eject those whom they have restored and thus there will be a circle of Appeals and Controversies will be endless Confusion unavoidable as long as such a changeable and uncertain State of things shall continue it is therefore humbly left to your Lordship whether you think it more reasonable to determine for the King and Queen and for the Lords and Commons who have given them this power of visiting and redressing as they shall find cause or for a few mistaken Men who whatever right of Government in ordinary cases they have yet have none at all in Derogation to the King's Prerogative and in Opposition to such a particular and special Visitation as is by this Act of Parliament provided for All this hath been said may it please your Lordship upon occasion of the first Head proposed to be insisted upon that the King is not bound to give an Account of the Reasons why he visits and that tho the Ejectment of the Gentlemen concerned had been never so Arbitrary yet it is good in Law the Law gives the King an Arbitrary and Despotical Power in these Cases so he do not substitute in the room of those ejected such other Persons as are not duly qualified by Law or are otherwise grosly and notoriously incapable of their respective Employments and this I hope it hath been sufficiently proved that he may do to call him to a strict Account for the Reasons and Causes of his Visitation besides that the Act of Parliament is general and without any reserve being in effect to take the power of Visitation out of his Hands for he that cannot visit but when others please hath no power or right of Visitation that is properly his own I come now to the second thing to be insisted upon supposing the King were accountable for what he did as in very truth he is not yet that there are sufficient Reasons to be given My Lord The order of Council referring the Consideration of this Matter to your Lordship sets forth as a part of the Matter of our Petition that they that claim against us were ejected by his late Majesty for not being legally qualified and so they undoubtedly were if the Act of Parliament of the 25th of that King for preventing of Dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants were a good Law and were then in full force and virtue for by that Act it is expresly enjoin'd That all that receive any Salary Fee or Wages by reason of any Patent or Grant from his Majesty or shall have Command or Place of Trust from or under his Majesty or from any of his Majesties Predecessors or by his or their Authority or by Authority derived from him or them shall undergo the Tests and make the Subscriptions therein mentioned which it is needless to recite they are so well known to all that are here present Now my Lord our Salaries are paid us by virtue of a Grant from their Majesties Royal Predecessor King Edward VI and by Authority derived from him as all other Affairs and Matters relating to the House are transacted by and under the Influence of the same Royal Grant and by Authority derived from it Nothing therefore can be more plain than that the Officers of this House receiving Wages and Salaries from the King or at least from his Royal Predecessor King Edward VI. and by Authority derived from him were obliged by the plain and express Letter of that Act without any remote Consequences or far-fetch'd Interpretations to undergo the Tests and Tryals of Protestancy and Loyalty therein enjoin'd But if a Dissenter cannot take the Oath of Supremacy which was then enjoin'd nor receive the Sacrament according to the manner and usage of the Church of England then by this Act he is precluded from receiving any Wages or Salary from the King or from any of his Royal Predecessors or by his or their Authority or by Authority derived from him or them and this upon Examination will be found to have been the Case of most if not all of those that were at that time ejected and if any Man did comply to serve a turn with these Tests which I cannot tell that any one Man did continuing still a Dissenter and a Separatist from the Church of England or an half-faced Conformist and a frequenter of both Communions as if it were indifferent to him what Religion he was of as some such there have been yet this did by no means come up to the Intention of that Act which the better to discourage and disappoint all Popish Designs would allow the King to trust or reward none for any Service in his disposal but such as were hearty and entire Conformists to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England Again all Places within the King's Visitation are by a very natural and easie Interpretation within the King's Pay for the King is supposed to employ those whom he may eject out of their Employments when he pleaseth and to pay those whose Salaries he may stop as well without as with a Reason it is clear therefore upon this Account also That
Right and in Contempt of the Reasons which he vouchsases to assign for which he did it this certainly is so insufferable so insupportable so full of the utmost Indignity and Affront in Subjects to their Prime that nothing can be more Disaffection to a Government or Disobedience to it are very good Reasons why a King should visit wherever he hath a legal Power of Visitation because the King is the Head of the Body Politick and these are the greatest political Offences that can possibly be committed and he must be the Judge who are disaffected and who not so far as concerns all Places of trust and profit in his disposal wherein the present Occupants or Incumbents have only an Arbitrary not a legal Tenure otherwise he can never visit at all upon any such account unless those to whom he must be supposed to be accountable in this Case shall concur with him in Judgment that he hath good cause so to do so that it is but the Court of Aldermen's first demanding his Reasons and then pretending to be dissatisfied with them and he hath effectually lost his power of Visitation It cannot be denied that all that were ejected in the late Visitation of King Charles II. were Dissenters or at least so great Favorites of that Interest and Party notwithstanding their Conformity in their own Persons that they were rather more dangerous to the Government than the other A Dissenter as such is one that separates from the Establish'd Worship and Communion for Conscience sake which Conscience of his is either real or pretended if it be only a pretended Conscience this Man in plainer terms is what we call an Hypocrite and a Knave he plays a Game of Interest either to be reveng'd of an whole Party for the sake of some against whom he hath conceiv'd an implacable Displeasure or because he is of Opinion and he may be extremely in the right so far that it is for his advantage in point of Trade and Commerce to herd himself among the tender Consciences and the Men of Scruples though he inwardly despise and laugh at them all this while or else he designs to furnish and enrich himself with the Spoils and Ornaments of Temples and of Altars and with the Revenues of a Church which are the first and last of his Objections and afford his covetous and ambitious Humor the best and the only Argument against it or lastly he is one that being deprest by the present posture of Affairs and having a Mind too great for the meanness of his Fortune will needs be shuffling the political Cards to try what new Game Confusion will produce And it is all one to him whether he raise himself upon the Ruins of the Government as it is by Law Establish'd both in Church and State or upon terms of Honor and Advancement from it by making himself necessary to its Preservation These are four sorts of Hypocritical Dissenters to which we might also add a fifth that of a cross-grain'd and new-fangl'd Tribe whose Humor leads them naturally to Contradiction and Strife and who for that Reason are always against all things that have the publick Sanction on their Side but that though there be nothing of Conscience and Tenderness in such an Humor as this yet there seems to be a sort of Sincerity in a peevish Temper which is inconsistent with Hypocrisie and Dissimulation But there is also the weak Brother the real and conscientious Separatist from the Church of England who is sincerely of opinion that his Salvation lies at stake and that he cannot comply with the Establish'd Worship and Service without a wilful hazarding his everlasting Happiness in the World to come and a perpetual pain and disquiet to his Conscience in this the Peace of which though he may be under a speculative Mistake is that which he ought certainly to prefer before any worldly advantage whatsoever and the pains of it contracted by a wilful Resistance of its inward motions though his Vnderstanding all this while may be misled and corrupted by Prejudice and Mistake are far more exquisite and sensibly tormenting than the utmost Punishments that Law makers can invent or Laws denounce or Wit and Cruelty in confederacy together can inflict upon him This sort of Dissenter therefore as such I believe there are many to be found is a very proper Object of 〈◊〉 Pity and Compassion from us as the other whenever he is openly detected is of our scorn and hatred but still we ought to be very charitable and cautious in our Censures as to particular Persons notwithstanding some failings or wilful misearriages altogether inconsistent with the Professions which they make which they may have afterwards repented of and we are to judge the best without notorious Evidence to the contrary for the Peace of the World which is embroil'd and endanger'd by a censorious and reproachful Spirit and for the quiet of our own Minds which is strangely disturbed by angry and uncharitable Opinions of other Men only this in general we may say of all the Parties among us even those of the Establish'd Communion not excepted that while the belief and hope of another World is every where pretended it is the Enjoyment of this and the Gratification of the Desires and Appetites belonging to it that is every where chiefly sought after But of all Men there are none that may be more justly or more safely censur'd than those that look one way while they row another that pretend to be strict Members of the National Communion and yet make it their study under that disguise to do it all the mischief they can and to encourage and abet the separating Parties in their Designs against it for nothing is more plain than that this Man hath added Malice to Hypocrisie the most exquisite Hatred to the most profound and criminal Dissimulation that he lies in wait to deceive that he may the more securely destroy without giving warning of the Blow before it comes or owning so much as a sincere Enmity or a frank and fair Intention of Revenge Now this is common to all the several Parties of Dissenters from our Church and of those that favor and abet them in disguise that they all aim at an Ecclesiastical and a Civil Commonwealth and their Principles even among those that are most honest and conscientious in them do naturally aim at the Subversion both of Church and State as to the present Establish'd Constitution of them for Church and State tho they be two things yet they both consist and are made up of the same Persons and the nature of Government is the same in both and it is an Agreement between the Modes and Forms of Government in the Ecclesiastical and Civil Administration that makes each of these most firm strong and lasting in it self and also most useful and serviceable to the other It is certain that he that in his Scruples is really Conscientious he that hath all that tenderness
Attorneys of this House and to appear before Your Lordship as a Representative of the whole Body of Governors in its behalf when yet all this while it is a very great Question whether they do really belong to it or no and a Question that cannot be resolved in their Favour as I humbly conceive without the Admission of a Dispensing Power in Men that never pretended to it till now and that decry it in Princes themselves But they appear in the Hospital Behalf and they were to be commended for their Charity to appear in the Behalf of a charitable Foundation to rescue it from Abuses and to assert its Rights if they did all this at their own Charge but it is their Majesties and the Hospital that must pay for all this out of the Hospital Stock though the Design be nothing else but to overthrow the Royal Prerogative and to clip the Wings of the Imperial Eagles but this is the Commonwealth Notion of the Liberty of the Subject the Destruction of the Rights and Prerogatives of Kings But secondly my Lord as the best refuge which our Adversaries have in a very shameless and defenceless Cause they are pleased to say that our Orders from the Commission run only during pleasure and that that pleasure and its effects are extinct the one of which we grant the other we deny for the pleasure of that Court was the pleasure of the King who never dyes though he may recal what he hath done by a new Commission or by a new and further Declaration of his own will but for an inferior Court whose Abuses were intended to be corrected to renew and act over again the same Abuses and to restore the very same Persons and Powers that were discarded upon pretence that the pleasure of the Commission which they never withdrew by any act of theirs is extinct by their Dissolution is to render the King's Power of Visitation a thing so extremely mean little and contemtible and besides to cast a Blemish either of Ignorance or which is a greater dishonor of injustice upon him that it is plea not to be endured and I am sure it scarce deserves an Answer If the Governors had chosen an Officer upon a Competition and and the odds had been thirty and thirty one or any other number making only one difference it is certain it he odds had carried it but suppose within a day or two two of the thirty one had died or resigned their Staves as Governors of the House or in this Case it is certain that the pleasure of the thirty one had been extinct in the same Sense that that of the Commissioners is pretended to be and then the Will of the thirty still supposed to be surviving must have prevailed and the Officer chosen by the thirty one ejected to make room for him that was chosen by the thirty which is flat and clean contrary to the Course and Practice of all Elections and is a sufficient Idication that the Legality of such Acts when they are done derives a Validity upon them even in Arbitrary Dependences sor the time to come unless they be repealed by a superior or at least an equal Authority and the nature of Justice and Morality require that it should be done likewise for equitable Reasons and if the Act of Parliament for the reversing the Judgment hath confirm'd all those Acts during the avoidance of the Charter which would have been legal had the Charter stood how much more might those Acts to be esteem'd valid which have also a legal Foundation as this Commission manifestly had so far as the Hospitals were concern'd whether the Charter had been seized or no My Lord It is rather the King and Queen are the Plaintiffs in this Cause than we it is their Eternal Prerogaiive more than our Temporary Interest that is concerned and it is plainly a Contest and a Struggle betwixt a Commonwealth-Faction and the Monarchy and Crown of England I shall detain your Lordship no longer from the perusal of the following Memorial but humbly beg leave to write and subscribe my self My Lord Your Lordship 's most Humble and most Obedient Servant John Turner Aug. 25. 1690. A MEMORIAL Humbly Presented to the Right Honorable The Lord Chief Justice OF THE KING'S-BENCH c. May it Please Your Lordship THE Case referred to your Lordship by the Council-Board is so plain that it needs only opening and being set in its true Light to determine that Justice which is byass'd by nothing but Reasons drawn from it self to the Plaintiff's side My Lord By a Clause in a Statute of the 28th H. 8. c. 21. it is provided That it shall not be lawful for the Archbishop of Canterbury or any other Person or Persons to visit or vex any Monasteries c. Hospitals Houses or other places Religious which be or were exempt before the making of this Act but that Redress Visitation and Confirmation shall be had by the King's Highness by Commission under the Great Seal to be directed to such Persons as shall be appointed requisite for the same And in the Royal Grant of King Edward VI. to the Mayor Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London whereby the ordinary Government and Administration of the said Hospital and its Lands Revenues and Possessions is entirely committed to and entrusted with the Mayor Commonalty and Citizens aforesaid yet there is still notwithstanding a special Proviso in extraordinary Cases whereby the Power of Visitation and Regulation in the said Hospital is reserved to the King and his Successors for ever the very Words of the Clause are these that follow And We will and declare by these Presents that it shall be lawful for Us Our Heirs and Successors from time to time as often as it shall seem fit and expedient to assign Our Commissioners to visit the said Hospital and House of the Poor and to do and execute all and singular such other things whatsoever as We Our Heirs and Successors shall there command to be done As to the Clause in the Act of Parliament which is still in force that Act having never yet been repealed either in whole or in part it is plain that if this Hospital were such though it were not an Hospital of the same nature before the making of this Act if it were a Religious House in the same sense that all Charitable Foundations are interpreted to be so and if it were a Place exempt from Episcopal Jurisdiction at the time of the making of this Act and before it and hath continued so ever since in virtue of that ancient Exemption which it is matter of Fact that it hath done and it is equally certain that it can plead no other Right of Exemption but this to this very day then is it without controversie a Place subject to the King's Visitation by virtue of this Act and that the Kings and Queens of England for the time being may for ever visit and regulate all
Abuses and Misgovernments from time to time that shall or may arise or shall be by them deemed or adjudged to arise in the Administration or Superintendency of the same As to the Clause produced and cited out of the Grant of King Edward whereby he reserves a Power of Visitation to himself and Successors for ever in the Hospital of St. Thomas Southwark which is the Scene of the Controversie now depending before your Lordship it hath two several Foundations to rely upon First The Clause that hath been alledged out of the Act of H. 8. by which he was intrusted with a Power of Visitation in all Religious Houses and Places exempt as this is and Parliamentary Trusts ratified and accepted by the Royal Sanction can no more be violated than Coronation Oaths for every Law is a part of the matter of that Oath which obligeth the King equally to observe and maintain all the Laws and in every Trust lodged in the King by Act of Parliament the Performance of it is supposed to be exacted and called for by the same Authority which is always sitting always in being until that fiduciary Constitution be repealed So that King Edward though he had not reserved to himself a Power of Visitation in this and other such Places yet the Act it self would have obliged him and his Successors to visit as often as occasion should require neither could he so entirely devolve such a Trust as this upon the Mayor Commonalty and Citizens of London or upon any other Person or Persons whatsoever as totally to neglect and abandon it himself which implies not only a Power of visiting at all times but a necessity of doing it in some particular Cases to consent that another shall betray that Trust which is committed to me or to put it wholly out of my power to call him to account for his Violation or Male-Adminstration of it being the same thing in the issue and Conclusion though it go somewhat further about as if I had actually and willfully betrayed it in my own Person If the words had been never so express never so absolute without the least shadow of any reserve or exception by which this Hospital was consigned over to the Commonalty and Corporation of London Yet still the King's Power of Visitation had been supposed because he could not give away the Act of Parliament nor any Prerogative inherent in the Crown to the diminution of his own rightful Power or that of his Heirs and Successors in after times and especially in such a Case as this where not only a Power was lodged but a Trust for the good of others was reposed in him by the Representative Body of the Nation which includes and draws after it the diffusive and all this with his own Royal Assent which though he may give or not give before the Sanction yet after it he cannot withdraw it as he pleaseth which would be to give him a Dispensing Power in the utmost Latitude and Comprehension of it against the true Meaning and Intention of all Laws which always design to be observed and obeyed as well by himself as others so far as he hath put himself under the Force and Obligation of them This is the first Ground upon which the Reservation in the Grant of King Edward VI. to the Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London relies it is an Act of Parliament made in his Father's time by which he was not only impowered to visit all exempt Places but it was left with him and his Successors in Trust and is a Charge which he was bound to look after as often as any real or to him so seeming Necessity should require The second Ground that justifies and warrants the Reservation is taken from the nature of the Gift it self every Man that gives or bequeaths any thing to a publick Use must be allowed to do it upon his own Conditions and with his own Reservations supposing them to be reasonable or possible in themselves Without an Act of Parliament any private Donor may appoint if he so pleaseth certain extraordinary Visitors to inspect and examine as occasion shall require the Administration of the ordinary Trustees and much more then may a King do the same when he hath an Act of Parliament to authorize and defend him in it in a publick Charity of his own Foundation In virtue of this double Authority and this double Trust derived to him from the Act of Parliament and from the Grant of King Edward his late Majesty King Charles II. did visit the Royal Hospitals belonging to this City by his Commissioners under the Broad Seal as the Act of Parliament required he should do and in this Visitation he displaced several Officers and several Governors too and placed others in their stead Which things being premised in order to the more clear and faithful Representation of our Case We presume with all humble Submission to your Lordship that as to the Visitation in the general considered there can be no question as to the Legality of it it being done in pursuance of a very reasonable and just Proviso in King Edward's Grant and by Commissioners under the Broad-Seal of England as the Act of Parliament required all the question is whether there were at that time any just Ground any reasonable or sufficient Cause of Visitation or no and this my Lord is a Question capable of a two-fold Answer First The King is not bound to give an Account of the Reasons why he visits And Secondly If he were bound the Reasons were notorious and such as in the Judgment of any indifferent Person might abundantly justifie a Royal Visitation First The King is not bound to give an Account of the Reasons why he visits or for the Regulations which he makes as to Officers and Servants belonging to the House in any such Visitation Indeed if the King should go about to alter the Constitution to imbezzle the Charity or to convert it to a quite different Use this would be so plain an Abuse of his Power and Violation of his Trust as would sufficiently warrant the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of London or any others in whom the ordinary Trust and Management was lodged to stand it out against him and to vindicate their Title by a course of Law by which the true Meaning and Intention of the Donor would appear from the express words of the Grant which it would always be easie to produce and the King who by the said Grant was made and constituted the Supreme Guardian and Visitor of the Charity bestowed therein could not possibly with any color or pretence of Right either imbezzle squander and abuse it to no good Use at all or convert it to any other Use than what the Founder himself had allotted But for the Officers and Servants it is another Case if the King be bound to give a particular Account why he turns out such and puts others in their room then he shall not
of Sense that nicety of Palate in matters of Religion to which he outwardly pretends he looks upon the Liturgy and Ceremonies by Law Establish'd and upon the Hierarchy or subordinate Government of this wisely constituted Church with all the Aversion which we have for Idolatry it self or for the most gross and palpable Superstition of which the Church of Rome is guilty at this day He that pretends the same Scruples but really hath them not doth all the same things as to any outward appearance that the other doth and his Thoughts not being busied about the other World which he looks upon as a remote and an uncertain thing and perhaps observing the secular Intrigues and Policies of all Parties while Heaven and Conscience is every where pretended he is the more hardened in his Contempt of every thing that is good or sacred this Man's immediate and direct aim without any respect to his Happiness or Misery in a future State is at the Ruin of that Establishment for Reasons of Interest or out of Envy Pride or a new fangl'd Temper that is always uneasie under present things from which he pretends to separate for Conscience sake Lastly he that in his own Person conforms to the Establishment but in his practice under I know not what healing uniting and moderate Pretences is always a fast Friend to the Dissenting Parties making use of all the Power and Interest he hath to advance their Credit and to encrease their weight in the political Balance he is manifestly got into a triple League with the other two and he is much the most dangerous Confederate of the three because he is an Enemy in our own Quarters an Adversary in the disguise and habit of a Friend a Traytor that betrays and crucifies with a Kiss and makes a shew of great Zeal for the good of that Establishment which he designs to ruin and overthrow There is nothing more certain than that all these several sorts of Men do agree at the long run at the Subversion of the Monarchy it self or whatever they may say or suggest in excuse of themselves or to palliate so foul and true an Accusation yet it is certain in the Experience of this and other Nations that the Monarchy cannot subsist where Prelacy is destroy'd and I wish some new Experiment of Disciplinarian Principles and Practices in our own Age may not further convince us of the truth of this for we have Moses and the Prophets already past Experiences do sufficiently assure us what the Event of such Practices and Designs must be where they have scope and liberty enough allowed them and now I pray God those old Confusions may never rise from the dead to convince us that the same Causes the same Passions Designs and Interests let alone to themselves and pursued into their Consequences will everlastingly produce the same effects Nay in Reason my Lord as well as in Experience there is nothing more plain if we argue forward from the Cause to the Effect than that the Demolition of the Hierarchy and its Dependences together with it which all of them have their first Spring and Fountain in the Crown must be the depriving it of so many Friends and by Consequence of so much Power it not only throws a powerful and certain Interest as it were by way of scramble among the People but by disarming and disabling the circumvented Prince whose true Greatness consists in the multitude of those whose Interest it must always be to be his Friends it arms and sets up a Commonwealth Party against him at his own Charge and we know in days of yore when the Bishops were once gone the next thing complain'd of was the House of Lords and then the King himself was an insupportable Grievance and all Orders and Degrees of Men amongst us all that had either Honesty or Money and were dissatisfied with such Proceeding or were suspected or represented so to be or had appear'd in the defence of their Religion and Country were plundered sequester'd banish'd and what not as if the way to reform were to destroy and the only means to make a Nation glorious and happy were by oppressing it and tearing it in pieces But my Lord I shall not lanch out any further into these things only what I have said was in order to shew the Reasons why that Wise Prince and Excellent Person King Charles II. made his Royal Visitation by his Commissioners under the Broad-Seal in this House and why he thought fit to eject so many out of it and to deprive them of all Interest Authority or Concern in it both among the Officers and the Governors themselves because he knew many of them to be profest Dissenters or which is all one Enemies to Monarchy and Friends to no political Interest but a Common-wealth and he suspected others not to be so good as they should be and his Suspicion must be allowed to be a very good Reason in Places at his own disposal when himself is the Judge without controul or appeal of the fitness respectively of every Person for them He had Reigned very happily for many years with universal Peace and satiating Plenty belov'd by his Subjects and dreaded by his Neighbors round about as Glorious and as Great in all respects as a great Fortune added to a great Mind could make him and if we inquire into the Reasons of this wondrous Calm those Halcyon Days and Blessed Years that followed the Storms and Tempests of the late barbarous and bloody Vsurpation it can be imputed so properly to no human means as to his Restoring and Re-establishing the Church in its ancient Beauty Order Purity and Splendor and to his asserting it and defending it against all its Enemies by good and wholsom Laws but when for Reasons which I do not meddle with and which I cannot approve he thought fit to lay the reins upon the Dissenters Necks by a Toleration granted without Act of Parliament and to let them take their full swing of liberty in Religious Matters insomuch that the Parliament then thought it necessary as well to assert their own Authority and to quash this Attempt at a Dispensing Power as for other Considerations which they had before them to get the Declaration of Indulgence cancell'd and withdrawn yet from that time there was every where to be seen a virtual though not an explicit and declared Indulgence and the numbers of Dissenters were every where so considerable that if they were but kept out of all places of Trust and Consequence in the Kingdom Reason of State might even then have required that so numerous a Party should be considered as to the liberty of their Consciences and as to the outward exercise of their Religion with an Indulgence ratified by the Publick Sanction upon which they might safely rely and not have the Oppression of their Consciences or the Fears of it to urge for a Pretence to justifie or palliate Disobedience upon any future occasion