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
or afterward be a Sworn Servant to the Queens Majesty not exceeding at any one time Nine in Number is not so proper to Her Royal Successor Her present Majesty nor will be to any other succeeding Queen if a Native of England or of any other Kingdom except Portugal to whom this Act equally extends who is not thereby permitted to have any one Man Servant or Officer to attend Her Royal Person except he be a Portuguize by Birth without being liable for such his Service to all the Penalties of this Act if he perform not all the Conditions thereof It may be also observed that the Test relates to the then present use in the Church of Rome and the Test being a solemn Attestation in the presence of God of the Attestants Belief concerning the matters to be testified and declared requires in the nature of it some what more then a general Report or Tradition how the usage then was in the Church of Rome And it is not impossible to conceive that a Hundred Years hence or at some Season or other within less then that time the usage in the Church of Rome may be very different from what they were then as to the matters declared in the Test to be Superstitious and Idolatrous Neither can it be so well comprehended as it should be in a solemn Declaration of an Article of a Christians Belief in the presence of God what may be intended by the usage in the Church of Rome whether universally of every Member who is in Communion with the Church of Rome for it cannot be supposed to be strictly tyed to the Church in the City of Rome or to the generality of that Communion wherein many Persons may be comprehended who will not altogether decline or separate their Communion from the Church of Rome tho' they do not Believe or Practice all these things as they are decreed in the Councils of that Church and may be ready to say That tho' they adore Saints in other manner then the Protestants do yet they believe with the Protestants that Divine Adoration is due only to God. When in Discourse with a Roman Catholick of great Knowledg in the Controversal Points of their Religion I alledged the Superstition and Inefficacy of their Praying to Saints in regard they were neither Omnipresent to hear all Prayers nor Omniscient to discern between the Sincerity and Hypocrisie of any that Pray'd to them He gave me no satisfactory Answer but returned upon me an Objection That those of the Communion of the Church of England prescribed something that lookt like it in their daily Devotions when they exhorted or called upon the Souls and Spirits of just Men made Perfect and Ananias Azarias and Misael in particular to praise the Lord. To which I could not make him any satisfactory Reply without granting more upon the first Point than I thought was consonant to the Scriptures which I take to be the Directory of the Christian Religion I write not this in any Case as pleading in excuse or giving countenance to any Superstitious or Idolatrous Practice but to shew how abstruce some terms in the Test are to be precisely Interpreted and rightly understood and that because by how much the less perfectly any solemn Oath or Attestation is understood by such as take it by so much of less weight it will be upon the Conscience to observe it and if in process of time such a Law being perpetual may become very improper in the general scope of it and in some respects is so now The sooner it comes to be explained altered or wholly laid aside so much the better and if it be well weighed how this Law and the Law for the first Test also intrenches upon several Points of Royal Prerogative which in other Cases both as to Laws of a Religious and of a Civil Nature has been heretofore rendred as a reason and just ground of their repeal and how these Laws have and do subject many Persons to temporal Penalties and Disabilities as to the enjoyment of Civil Rights for their Conscientious Dissent in Religious Opinions from the Church of England It may appear very just and reasonable that these Laws should be again considered in the next succeeding Parliament and either Repealed or otherwise so explained and altered That the Sovereign Prerogative and the Subjects Civil Rights may be better provided for then they are by these Laws as they now remain XI If together with the Repeal desired the substance of the Kings Declaration be entirely and in the same Law of Repeal enacted which in the first place is to maintain the Arch-Bishops Bishops Clergy and all other his 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 All such grand subversions of the present order of things Ecclesiastical and general change of Hands in things of a Civil Nature as have heretofore happened upon the Successive Soveraigns differing from the Religion Established in the Raign of his Predecessors may not only for the Present but in all future Ages also be avoided and the Mutations which in any gradual course are likely to ensue such a Repeal and provision at the same time made either in Civil or Religious Concerns will in all probability be less Perceptible and less Inconvenient during this Generation then ever has been experimented in the like Case or can otherwise be reasonably expected upon such a change in the Government as has now hapned especially if the Severities for the cause of Religion which have been for many Years exercised and the inconsistency of these Test Laws made in the Reign of a Protestant King as to Attendances on the Person of the Soveraign and the Qualifications required as to all Civil and Military Offices upon the Succession of a King of the Roman Catholick Religion to the Throne be well considered XII A Repeal of such Penal Laws and Tests as are before mentioned may if his Majesty please to give his Royal Assent be recompenced by other Provisions properly necessary to prevent future Mutations In Establishing Corporations upon a more sixt Foundation then they stand at present by a previous Test of a civil Nature to be taken by all Persons therein and in all other Places and Counties who are otherwise qualified to Elect before they give their Votes in any Election By Clauses in the Indentures before the Elected be returned and by every Person who shall be Elected to serve in Parliament or put into any Office or Place of Trust or Power in framing Commissions for the exercise of Judicatures and many other things of like Nature which the Wisdom of a Parliament may readily suggest For a Close by reflecting upon the two main Points before mentioned the one claimed by his Majesty as inseperably annext to and inherent in his Royal Person by the Law of Nature TO HAVE THE BENEFIT OF THE SERVICE
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
are Supream for a Kingdom divided against is self cannot stand The Soveraignty of GOD in matters of Religion over All and the Rule and Soveraignty of One or more over others in things of a Natural or Civil Relation being both of God's ordination though distinct in their respective Foundations the one in Grace the other in Nature Yet No Case can be reasonably supposed to set them at any such variance one against the other as that they cannot by the Rules of Justice be reconciled for he that has ordained them both is the God of Order and hath likewise appointed suitable means that both of them may concurr with and assist each other Natural and Civil Government Religion by Countenance Maintenance and Protection Religion Natural and Civil Government by instruction and so each of them may accomplish their respective ends for which they are ordained of GOD. And if this be granted it will necessarily follow That all those Discords which are raised between them are occasioned by such humane Usurpations upon one or the other of them as are not according to God's Ordination And of such Usurpations of Natural Civil and Ecclesiastical Rulers over the Consciences of their respective Inferiours and of Ecclesiastical Rulers over the Consciences and Civil Rights also of their Superiours in a Civil Relation all sorts of men have too often and too long felt the sad experience Blessed of GOD may he be who in this respect proposes himself to be a Peace-maker and to settle each Interest upon its proper Foundation For Natural Civil and Ecclesiastical Rulers by the Ordination of GOD are not a Terrour to any good Work but are and ought to be so to all that is evil else their power would be given them in vain But the Exercise of the Power of Natural and Civil Rulers in respect to actions of a Civil and Moral Nature are of one sort and that of Ecclesiasticks of another And as before each of these do best in their distinct kinds when they keep a due Decorum within their respective hounds No Natural or Civil Superiour can justly pretend to an Authority from GOD to keep the Christian Religion out of his Family City or Kingdom for if that were so the Master or Ruler who is himself Irreligious Idolatrous or Prophane might abridge all that are of his Family or Subjects of the means of their Conversion and Salvation The Parent or Master may and ought to instruct their Children and Servants in the Knowledge Religious Fear and Worship of GOD. And if any Child or Childish Servant who with respect to his Age and exercise of his Conscience and Understanding is not sui Juris refuse to read any Divine Author or to learn or repeat by Memory such Lessons or to attend upon any Religious Exercise which the Father or Master appoints Such refusal requires a due Correction for in such a Child or Servant who understands not how to distinguish between a Religious and Moral Act nor what it is to Worship GOD in Spirit and in Truth it is an Immoral Disobedience and Breach upon the Natural and Civil Rule of the Parent or Master as much as if they had refused any necessary Labour but when such a Child or Servant arrives to such an Understanding as to chuse or refuse any Article or Act of Religion as it agrees with or is against his Conscience and Knowledge of the Will of GOD and manner of his Worship in such a Case he ought not to be coerced by any Temporal or Corporal Penalties either by Parent or Master to act against his Conscience Civil Laws respecting such actions as purely relate to the Christian Religion if they be only Declaratory of what GOD commands or forbids in reference to His Worship may be greatly Instrumental to promote true Piety if no Temporal Penalties be annext nor Civil Rights thereby invaded Temporal Penalties are proper Remedies to Correct the Disturbers of Civil Order Ecclesiastical Censures are a like proper Remedy to purge a Spiritual Communion from Errours and Heresies if no Writ de Excommunicato Capiendo attend upon such Censures But as no Natural or Civil Rulers may compell any Person who is of years of Discretion to judge of his own Religious Actions and therein with Faith and Understanding to commit his Cause to GOD by Temporal Penalties to profess or perform any Mysterious Doctrine or Worship purely relating to the Christian Religion or to be of any Spiritual Communion So neither may any Spiritual Congregation inforce their Censures any farther than to expell a disorderly Person out of their Communion No man may be driven against his Understanding and Conscience to go out of his Worldly State into a Church Nor may any man who is expell'd out of a Church be driven any farther than out of his Spiritual Communion back again into his Worldly Estate An Excommunicate Husband Parent or Master does not by his Spiritual Faults forfeit his Natural or Civil Rule over his Wife Children or Servants though the one be retain'd in their Spiritual Communion and the other cast out yet the Communicants ought to discharge their Natural and Civil Duties of Obedience to the Person Excommunicate for no Natural or Civil Bonds are disunited meerly by a Disunion in Spiritual Communion This being a matter of voluntary choice both as to his entrance into and continuance in such a Communion so long and no longer than he approves the Terms and observes the Rules of a Spiritual Nature which are proper and requisite for his Communion The other is fixt by such natural and civil Obligations as are not submitted to his Choice at any time until the set-terms on which he stands so related are by the like natural or civil discharges fully accomplish'd or determined And if these things consist with Christian Religion as it respects Spiritual Communion and Domestick Relations much more ought they to be regarded in reserence to Subjects Civil Relation to their Soveraign Prince For in the particular Case they only respect the mainteuance of a natural or civil Peace and Concord in a Domestick State for a season Wherein the Publick is no otherwise concerned than to correct not spiritual but unnatural and uncivil Disorders if any such happen But in the general Case the Obligation of the Subject to the Civil Obedience of his Soveraign is of an Universal Influence and perpetual Continuance in Succession whether they be or continue to be of the same or different Opinions of Religion Whence no man in particular can discharge himself till Death puts an Issue to the Obligation Every open Immoral Act Undutiful Behaviour of any Person towards such as are his Superiours in a Natural or Civil Relation Injurious Dealing with his Neighbour and whatever other Crimes are openly committed against the Light of Nature and common Reason of Mankind fall naturally and necessarily under the Civil Governour 's Cognizance and Jurisdiction to be corrected with Temporal Penalties as may be most