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A92562 A letter from an anti-hierarchical divine in the countrey, to a member of the House of Commons. Concerning the bishops being restored to their votes in Parliament. P. S. 1661 (1661) Wing S123; ESTC R13842 3,454 8

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A LETTER From an Anti-Hierarchical DIVINE In the Countrey To a Member of the House of COMMONS Concerning the BISHOPS Being restored to their Votes in PARLIAMENT LONDON Printed in the Year 1661. Will Boothby A Letter from an Anti-Hierarchical Divine in the Countrey to a Member of the House of Commons concerning the Bishops being restored to their Votes in Parliament Sir IT must needs seem strange to you at the first sight to receive any thing from me in the behalf of those Persons whom I have to bloud constantly opposed and whom I yet think for all their unexpected and as they say miraculous Restitution to be neither Jure Divino nor Jure Apostolico Yet considering that his Majesty in order to the support and keeping up his own Interest in the State as some conceive hath introduced Bishops again into the Church to our no small grief who though at present they cannot exercise that arbitrary and unlimited Power by vertue of the High Commission as formerly yet have Authority sufficient by the assistance of the penal Laws yet unrepealed in all places and by their large Royalties and ample Possessions in many places to re-inforce that which all godly men justly enough decried formerly as a soul-grieving Innovation and little better than Popery it self a conformity to the as we yet say empty and unsignificant Ceremonies of their pretended Church The very Thought of which was it not for His Majesties Gracious Declaration and the Connivance of many honest and discreet Justices of the Peace that are yet left in the Countrey were sufficient to make us despond of the comfortable enjoying of our nearest and dearest Relations But then her 's the Misery the King as many say can pardon but for what concerns himself according to that received Maxim The Legislater hath Authority to dispense with his own Laws for any Cause provided that no distinct Interest be prejudiced or injured therefore he can reach no further in relation to the Non-reading the Book of Com. Prayer a thing that we can never with any Credit or Reputation conform to than the first time for upon the second Conviction Vid. Stat. before the Com. Prayer the Patron may present as if the Incumbent were already dead and in that case it may easily be guessed what most of us may expect Neither can we hope for the Connivance of the Benchers long for as a little Leaven leavens the whole Masse so one peevish person upon the Bench is able to do us more hurt than the whole number can do us good of this there are some experiences near us It must therefore Sir from hence of necessity follow that either we must be brought to a carnal Complyance which will be a Spirit troubling of many precious Saints amongst us or else as the lesser evil leave our Native Courtrey and go to those Protestant Churches beyond the Seas where we may have the free exercise of Religion in its Primitive and Virgin-Purity Now Sir the face of things as you know being thus I shall humbly propose to your wiser self a thing that may enable us to a more comfortable support in a transmarine condition if Providence should so order it or else to at home You see then that Bishops are restored to a power which I will not be positive in to determine they will exercise to do hurt it would not be amisse therefore if the power whereby they may do good viz their Pretences to a Third Estate and so consequently to a Vote in Parliament were taken into sesonable and mature Consideration It 's true at the beginning of the War the King was confidently cried up by us to be the Third Estate which some of them undiscreetly granted thereby to make the King a co-ordinate Power by which to put the better Glosse upon our Arming for the asserting of the Authority of the two Houses against His and indeed much might yet be said in justification of the Late War had the King been so But now Sir upon second thoughts that Opinion appears to be very incongruous to the Fundamentals For not only my Lord Cook saith which is enough to confute any single Authority that the Bishops are a third Estate but the express words of many Statutes are that the three Estates of the Realm are the Lords Spiritual well be denied but that the Bishops are a Third Estate and accoringly they have acted since Magna Charta and in the Saxon times too as many say But the Stories of those times being uncertain as filled up with Monkish Tales much resembling the Theomachi of the Giants before the Theban War amongst the Grecians I shall wave as not much material to the purpose Well then the Bishops being an Estate and likewise the Assent of all being as necessary too as the Veult le Roy to the compleating of an Act that shall be binding against what may happen to Futurity it must then follow that it 's requisite for us in order to our sure and certain Peace that they as well as the other Lords should be restored to that which hath so long been their R●ghts otherwise the President may in time to come be of d●ngerous Consequence for by the same Rule that the Lords Temporal and Commons by the Royal Assent excluded the Bishops may the Lords exclude the Commons nay more justly may the King exclued all and after the manner of the Turkish and Russian Emperors reduce our bravely Constituted M●narchical into a Despotical Government Mistake me not all this while for what I say is not out of any respect to them but to our selves For we shall have as much if not more advantage than any by their Restitution For to say the Truth at the beginning of the War we were you know so transported with Zeal of doing our Duty to God as some holy men then thought that we quite forgot our Allegiance to the Prince and therefore we stand as much in need of a firm Act of Oblivion in relation to the secure Enjoyment of the things of this Life as of Gods Mercy in order to the Fruition of a better It will be therefore very unsafe for us to have that Charter under which we claim all that we have or may pretend to so ill fortified as by an Act that may be liable to a just Exception as every Act must be that is not ratified according to the Fundamental Constitutions of this Land And who do you think can be well satisfied with so contingent a security as you see all security is without the Bishops Assent I know in Answer to this it may be Objected that there hath been several Acts of Parliament past the Bishops being absent the Authority of which was never yet disputed as 24 Ed. 1.11 R. 2. and divers others but then the Bishops neither by force nor any pretended Act or Order from the other Estates were kept out But they being then in subjection to the Scarlet Whore were kept out by a Canon or Command from the See of Rome or else were absent upon Choyce and therefore none of those Examples can in reason be alledged to vindicate the forcible exclusion of them Besides it may deserve some Consideration that the Act made 2 H. 4. Contra Haereticos ex assensu Magnatum aliorum Procerum the Commons either Absent or excluded was for that very reason long after 25 H. 8. C. 14. repealed as Bagshaw sayes in his Reading whither I refer you By this you may see Sir that there is some possibility of hazard though many years after in relying upon any Act that 's not made by the consent of the three Estates All this considered I shall propose this following as the most convenient Expedient Before you confirm the Act of Oblivion let the Bishops be called in that so there may be no just occasion of Cavil for the future otherwise those men that will not bow the knee to Baal that cannot conform to vain Habits and impertinent Ceremonies cannot make a convenient Sale of their Lands to enable to a Livelihood amongst the French or Helvetian Churches To which if they do not forsake their first Love and make shipwrack of their Faith they must in reason be forc'd For it 's plain if hereafter the Act for want of due Form be made null all Estates that now are or for many years ago were in our hands will by the Letter of the Law be forfeited to the King and we are not sure always to have good Kings but we are pretty sure that there will alwaies be such Persons about the Court as will be willing enough for their own Concerns to find a Flaw in that Act or any else Besides the Lawyers tell us that no Obligation can be binding that 's entred into per dureose or Minas Well then if at any time hereafter a Prince should happen among us that hath a mind to quarrel with all Acts made since the exclusion of the Bishops and alledge that his Predecessor Charles the First was threatned and forced to assent to that Act and therefore the Act null we have reason to think that there will be Lawyers enough found to justifie any Authority in a more unreasonable thing and so our Posterity may hereafter be forced to buy their Lands at the King Price if they have them But least I exceed the length of a Letter I shall conclude in this that the total Abolition of the Hierarchy is not so necessary in order to a through Reformation in point of Discipline as the restitution of the Bishops to their Votes in the Upper House and their Consent to the Act of Amnesty is to the freeing of us from those Jealousies and Fears that otherwise may justly arise in relation to our Lives and Estates Pardon me Sir I am Yours P S. FINIS