the same in Matters of Religion as well while that of our Princes and their Subjects was Pagan as afterwards when it became Christian Let us see then the Transition from the one Religion to the other in the Reigns of Lucius the First British and Ethelbert the First Christian King of the Saxons We find that in both our Kings acted without any controul of Laws as well in the relinquishing the long-established Pagan as in the reception of the Christian Religion And as our Kings were free so they kept their Subjects free from the Coaction of Laws in that Matter Particularly Venerable Beda relates of Ethelbert That having embraced the Christian Religion he could not but cast some more benign Aspect on such as were Converts with himself Yet so Bed. Histor Eccles ex Versione Abrahami Wheelock Vt nullum cogeret ad Christianisimum That there should be no Force upon the Consciences of his Subjects Didicerat enim à doctoribus auctoribusque suae salutis servitium Christi voluntarium non coactitium debere esse For that he had been taught of those who were the Authors of his Salvation That the Service of Christ ought to be voluntary and not of compulsion The Antient Jurisdiction of this Crown you may see by this was at that time free and whatever Laws were before established in favour of the Pagan Superstition and Persecution of Christians these Princes dispensed with them of their own Supreme Power next and immediately under God and so became Instruments of introducing the Blessed Means of Salvation and transmitting them to us their Posterity Which otherwise perhaps had not been so easily effected by a National or Parliamentary Concurrence at present But this Subject has been laboured by many great and learned in the Laws of this Realm to whom it especially belongs and to whom I refer those who desire further satisfaction This Antient Jurisdiction of the Crown the Second Canon measures by that which was claimed and exercised of the godly Kings of Judah and Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church How uncontrouled of any they exercised that Power who were Kings of Judah let their History in the Holy Scriptures teach you As for the Ancient Christian Emperors that they issued out Laws Ecclesisiastical by their Imperial Edicts and made Revocation of those Edicts as they pleased I think no Body will deny I know there was all the way of the Primitive Christianity another Spiritual Jurisdiction over Souls and even over the Emperors themselves as they were Sons of the Church for their Edification but no way intrenching on the Temporal Power even in Causes Ecclesiastical proper to such a Power When ever it made any attempt that way it was always checked by Christian Princes And is it to be believed that this Canon which was made with all the singular Laws and Statutes there mentioned for the abolishing all Foreign Power repugnant to the same would not have been as sharp upon any upstart Power at Home and of His Majesties own Subjects repugnant to the same if they had been aware of any the least tendency then to such an Insolence Take an Instance in one of the most famous and first Emperor of the Christian Church Constantine the Great and let us see what kind of Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical the Canons of our Church give to our Kings in parallel to what was exercised by the Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church Thrice I think according to some Historians twice I am sure according to Valesius in the Appendix to his Latin Version of Eusebius his Ecclesiastical History Constantine did dispense with the Imperial Laws by Indulgence and Toleration of the Donatists in Africa And for that purpose caused his Declaration of Indulgence to be published directed Vniversis Episcopis per Africam to all the Bishops throughout Africa as it is found extant among the Writings of Optatus and almost in the like words and for the like Reasons on which His Majesty issued out this His present Declaration of Liberty Some part of it I will therefore repeat Quod fides debuit quantum prudentia valuit prout puritas potuit tentasse me per omnia optimè scitis ut juxta Magisteria Legis nostrae Pax stabilita per omnem concordiam teneretâ— Sed quia vim illam scelâ—ris infusi intentionis nostrae ratio non potuit edoâ—nare expectandum nobis est dum totum hoc Omnipotentis Dei misericordia witigetur Verum dum Coelestis Medicina procedat hactenus sunt cencilia nostra Moderanda ut patientiam percolamus quidquid insolentia ilierum pro consuetudine intemperantiae tentat aut facit id omne tranquillitatis virtute toleremus nihil ex reciproco reponatur injuriae This Declaration of Indulgence had likewise the ill fortune of His present Majesties to be regrated by some of the Churchmen and the severity of the established Laws against the Donatists som what unwillingly restrained and Constantine by some of them particularly by Caecilianus Bishop of Carthage solicited to revoke his Letters of Indulgence whereupon says the Historian in the year 321. The Bishops on the part of Donatus put up their Petition also to the Emperor Poscentes ut libere ipsos agere sineret nec invitos adCommunionem Caeciliani cogere vellet Adding further that they never should either by Promises or Threats be induced to it and that they would rather dye a thousand deaths than to hold Communion with that Knave as they rudely styled the Bishop against their Consciences And here as the Historian goes on did most of all appear the Clemency of the Emperor that when he ought to have punished this impudence and insolence of the Donatists in calling their Archbishop Knave whose Innocency was well known and approved by Constantine himself Nihilominus ipsis quaecunque poscebant solita benignitate indulsit Nevertheless of his wonted Benignity he Granted what Indulgence they desired issuing out to Verinus his Vicarius Vicar-General in Africa a Rescript signifying his pleasure that the Donatists should be recalled from Banishment Monensque ut proprio eos dâ—mittat arbitrio ac furorem eorum Deo vindici reservet c. All this Constantine did by the Virtue of that Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical which the Godly Kings had among the Jews and the Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church and which says the Canon further is the Regal Supremacy of this Crown and by the Laws of this Realm therein established Now if the Church of England be the same it was then you see by what measures we are to Govern ourselves in the present Affair Dr. Taylor late Bishop of Downe and Connor I think was a Man who understood how far a Church of England Loyalty ought to extend as any Man this day of it He says plainly in his Ductor Dubitantium Vol. 2. lib. 3. p. 148. That the Supreme Power is above the Laws that he can dispense with Laws he can interpret them and he can
abrogate them he can in time of necessity Govern by the Laws of Reason without any written Law and he is Judge of the necessity and in all this he warrants him as the Canon does by the Power which the Kings of Judah had and in the later end of that Chapter says that this Prerogative of Kings is not against Law but by Law and that the Laws themselves imply so much and have given this leave The same Loyal Bishop in the said Treatise further notes the great submission which the Bishops of Rome themselves made to the Imperial Laws and that even when they liked them and when they lik'd them not and of all most material says he is the Obedience of St. Gregory the Great to Mauritius the Emperor who made a Law that no Soldier should turn Monk without his leave This St. Gregory esteem'd to be an impious Law he modestly admonished the Emperor of the irreligion of it But Maurice nevertheless commanded him to publish that Law. The good Bishop knew his Duty obeyed his Prince sent it up and down the Empire and gave this account of it Vtrobique quae debui exolvi qui Imperat ri obedientiam praebui pro Deo quod sensi minimè tacui I have done both my Duties I have declared my Mind for God and have paid my Duty and Obedience to the Emperor Ductor Dubit Vol. 3. Lib. 2. p. 176. This that Learned and Loyal Bishop remarks as a president to Guide and Govern Church-men in the like Cases And by the way we may note upon the Story that in those days when St. Gregory publish'd an Edict of the Emperor's which to him seemed impious Reading was not thought to be Teaching If you reply that the model and measures of our Government are different and will not admit of so high a Prerogative in our Princes as was exercised in those unbounded and absolute Monarchies What! not in Causes Ecclesiastical Was it well done then of the arch-Arch-Bishops and Bishops of our Church in Convocation to run the parallel of that Obedience we owe to His Majesty in Causes Ecclesiastical up to the height of what was used by the Godly Kings among the Jews and Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church and to hold him Excommunicate ipso facto Whosoever should affirm the contrary and not restored but only by the Archbishop after his Repentance and publick Revocation of those his wicked Errors And had not you better have held your peace than on this occasion to have medled with the Constitution of the Church of England to which you have subscribed I think this a time to have been more reserved 2. Your Second Reason wherefore we cannot Consent and consequently not Read follows Because it is to Teach an unlimited and universal Toleration which the Parliament in 72 Declared illegal and which has been condemned in the Christian Church in all ages How well you have reasoned from the Constitution of the Church of England in such points of it as relate to this matter let others Judge Your next proof is drawn from the Civil Constitution with Respect to the Parliament of England that says it is illegal How the Parliament of England Where are the Three Estates Where the King Did all these Declare it illegal I wonder you will so much reproach the Clergy of England with whom you deal in this Discourse as to think them such as may be shammed again with the old Wheadle of 41. No no Sir we know enough and have felt enough and too lately yet to forget it of such Parliaments as would have their Votes and Ordinances Obligatory to the Subject without the Assent and Authority of the King And yet this is the Authority and the best you have to alledge or say for yourself in justification of your Disobedience and Opposition to His Majesty in this Affair The Parliament say you in 72. Declared it illegal What then What is the Parliaments Declaration to us in this or in any other matter so as to make it illegal ever the more without the King Is this after the Constitution of a Monarchical Government Does not a pretence to such a Power in a Parliament without the concurrent Authority of the King subvert the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom But I assure myself that they in that matter assumed not to themselves such a Power as your Letter would give them Why may not a Vote of the House of Lords and Commons in 41. the King dissenting be as good an Authority as one in 72. the King dissenting On the same grounds you may as well determine against the Kings Soveraign and his Negative Voice as his dispensing Power For it was then resolved and while they were yet a legal Parliament as that in I mean that of 41. That the Sovereign Power resides in both Houses and that the King ought to have no Negative Voice Resolved also That whatsoever they Declared to be Law ought not to be questioned by the King. But to these Votes the King never gave his Assent wherefore they signifie nothing to us but the Opinion of those men at that time The Sovereign Power and the Negative Voice and the Authority of Declaring what is Law and what is not Law standing where it did before for all their Declaring otherwise then or the Parliament in 72. Declaring afterward But I humbly conceive as I said before that the Parliament in 72. never meant to extend their Vote to the Uses you have made of it in your Letter The worst which can be made of it is no more than that the Question being at that time moved about the Dispensing Power in the King they shewed their Judgment but left the matter remaining undertermin'd For you must know it was no more than the Opinion and not the Sentence of Illegality which was passed on the King's Dispensing Power at that time They knew well enough that to be an Unparliamentary proceeding and that they had no Authority to drive that business so far without the joynt Concurrence of the King only it is some Mens presumption or ignorance to give them more Where there is a matter of Question or Doubt between the King and the Parliament the House of Lords or the House of Commons or both having by the King's leave the liberty of free speaking there may give their Judgment by passing a Vote so as to incline to their Opinion and obtain the Kings if they can to a Consent and Concurrence with them but not so as to bind the Subject or to defend them in their Disobedience to the King In the mean time till the matter be more Legally and Authentically according to the Fundamental Laws and Constitutions of this Kingdom determined which can be no otherwise than with the joynt consent of the King and His two Houses of Parliament together Till then however problematically illegal the thing is not Authoritatively illegal and so however shaken by the Opinions of some Great
easily seen whither you would drive us If you are as you pretend your self a Son of that Church an unspotted Loyalty has hitherto been accounted Her indeleble Character I am sorry to find so little of it in your Letter you have by it outdone the subtilty and cruelty of all Her Enemies Never was so deadly a stroke given nor so natural and effectual to Her Ruine as that which you commend to us for the only method of saving Her. I am charitably minded you have done this nevertheless of a good Intent crowded along with the zealous Hurry of a Popular Mistake And the rather because I see your Letter makes a better ending than a beginning and that notwithstanding your positiveness all the way you are not so satisfied in your own Reasonings but you relent at last into that good Nature and Temper which for your Honour I will Remark in your own Words thus This Sir is our Case in short the difficulties are great on both Sides and therefore now if ever we ought to Besiege Heaven with our Prayers for Wisdom Counsel and Courage c. To clear then the difficulties which you acknowledge in this Case I shall apply my self touching upon the most material parts of your Letter Our Enemies you say who have given our Gracious King this Council against us have taken the most effectual way not only to Ruine us but to make us appear the Instruments of our own Ruine that what course soever we take we shall be undone and one side or other will conclude we have undone our Selves and fall like Fools By our Enemies I conceive you can mean no other than the Kings Friends whom I believe no further our Enemies than what amounts to a bare Se Defendendo Where they meet us in opposition to what necessarily conduces to the preservation of Themselves their Lives their Fortunes you must not blame them but the common instinct of Nature that they are so far our Enemies In all other Cases they are our Friends beyond our Expectations Enemics short I am sure of our Fears and of what was heretofore in publick Print our own Character and Prospect of a Popish Successor As for the Free and Undisturbed Exercise of our Religion our Churches our Revenues our Dignities we enjoy them all And we have further the Kings Gracious Offer of whatsoever other Assurances we can excogitate against our Fears and Jealousies lest they should not continue I know no cause of this great Out-cry against the King and His Friends on account that they are our Enemies nor where we are hurt unless by the holding our Hands from flying at one anothers Throats We are enabled by these Laws so soon as we may to let loose our too prurient Rage one upon the other but especially upon the Kings Friends whom we I think therefore call our Enemies We can hardly forbear already and aloud to foretell what must become of them afterwards what Gibbets and Axes and Confiscations are provided for them for His Majesties Commissioners Judges Military Officers Papists in Mascarade and out of Mascarade and whoever else have not dared to deny their Obedience to His Majesties Moral Commands or to leave him Solitary and Destitute of Servants to Guard and Attend him What else means this our so tenacious sticking to these Undoing and Sanguinary Laws And how pitifully are the Claws hid of such as pretend them to be the only possible expedient of their own Security Now to repress the violent and blind Zeal of such Men for the Established Laws without abatement or allowance of any thing to the Vicissitude which the Providence of God has made among us from a Protestant to a Prince of the Catholick Communion is I assure my self all His Majesty designs by His Endeavor to get our good Will toward the remove of the Test and Penal Laws And if I thought any Clergy of the Church of England or other of that Communion compliant with the King in this his charitable undertaking should suffer in the least Hair of his Head or lose by it any the least Liberty becoming a Christian to own in such a Juncture I should not have opened my Mouth to have been an Advocate in this Cause And whosoever thinks otherwise if he consider he will find he cannot do it without Reflection of most vile ill Names upon his Majesties Honour and Blaspheming the Sacredness of his Royal Promise So that Sir I think you might have spared His Majesties Friends and His Council and have allowed them a milder Character than our Enemies and such as seek our Ruine by that Name exposing them in the very Head of your Letter to the Rage and Odium of the People who are so far from being Enemies to us that themselves are the Persons in distress and danger from us And having now a time to Speak do request of us without any injury to our selves that we will please to remove no other but those Laws to which not only their Fortunes but their Lives lay every Hour Obnoxious and only for serving God according to their Consciences and their King at his Command according to their natural Allegiance But these Enemies of ours since you will have them so you note further and to our greater misfortune to be of that base and ignoble kind as having us in their Claws they must divert themselves a little in Play with us as the Cat does with the Mouse before they devour us our Gracious King the while looking on and so comes in the business of the Declaration The Reading of which in our Churches and Chapels you intimate to be contrived as it were for nothing in the World but to make our Enemies Sport For the main work of our Undoing you account is over and the trick of this Declaration no other Than while themselves are the Authors to make us appear nevertheless the Instruments of our own Ruine In good earnest Sir and is this the likeliest reason you could Excogitate Had you but a little of what St. Paul tells us thinketh no evil that would have suggested to you some more charitable account of His Majesties together with his Councils proceeds in this Affair If you had not been so hasty as to take what lay uppermost in a Mind possest with Passion and Prejudice you might have thought of that His Majesty Himself publishes in the front of His Declaration in these words Our Conduct has been such in all times as ought to have perswaded the World that We are firm and constant to Our Resolutions Yet that easie People may not be abused by the Malice of crafty wicked Men We think fit to declare That Our Intentions are not changed since the Fourth of April 1687. when We issued out Our Declaration for Liberty of Conscience How the easie People have been wrought upon since that time to lessen their Opinion of His Majesties Sincerity in that Declaration is too notorious And what Insinuations of the daily progress
Consent nor Read. Nevertheless the Basis or Ground-work on which you Rear the whole Superstructure of your Letter is a supposition That no Minister of the Church of England can give his Consent to the Declaration What! Not to a thing in which if there be any Fault it is of his own making Is our thinking some one way some the other enough to turn the Scale so as what were otherwise no fault at all becomes presently contrary to the Laws of God and Laws of the Land as you say afterward Point to that matter of the Declaration which cannot be approved by a Minister of the Church of England on account of its being contrary to or prohibited by the Laws of God. This indeed would make it matter of Conscience which to render it the more odious you here and there slily suggest without offering at the least mannâ—â— of Proof for you know well enough there is none His Majesty by this 〈◊〉 Declaration requires us to signifie to His People a method which in this juncture he Judges most expedient to be taken for the securing the Crown and the Persons of our Kings from those apparent Dangers to which they have been frequently exposed by our Dissentions in matters of Religion and for the common Peace and Good of all His Subjects Some approve it and some do not according as their Humour their Interest or their Parts serve and as ordinarily Mens Censures pass on other Affairs of State. But so to Reprobate it as a Mulum in se as a Pest to the Publick as an Abomination and Prophanation of our Churches and not fit to be heard by Christian Ears is such a hard straining of the case as brings along with iâ— the very dregs of Passion and Party We cannot approve of the matter of it you say it may be so Men doâ—câ— always disapprove or deny their Consent to what is proposed because it is evil but because they have no mind to it and so the consequence will be applying it to the matter in Hand That the Authority of His Majesty over a Minister of the Church of England does not to extend so far as to injoyn him to Read the Declaration when he has no mind to it For I doubt there is with a great many more of Stomach in the refusal than Conscience but this not to appear above board One thing though I perceive you have a great mind to which is that we would grant you your supposition before you prove it namely That no Minister of the Church of England can give Consent to the Declaration and then let you alone to make good your Inference that he cannot Read it Now Sir I do not think you have us so much upon the Hanck as you imagine should I grant your Supposition But I see you care not whither we do or no for you presently fall hot upon the Work to prove the Conclusion Ergo He cannot Read for that is interpretative Consent Now for my part I confess to you I turn over the Leaf knowing how many soever your Arguments be to prove it they would not satisfie me nor I think any reasonable Man till he see first how well bottom'd your Hypothesis be from which you borrow your Inference I would fain see your Reasons first Why a Minister of the Church of England cannot Consent before I grant what you are so hasty to suppose Why that I shall by and by but you will prove first That Reading is Consenting Reading is Teaching which is as odd an Hysteron Proteron as Hanging and Trying afterwards Let Reading be Consenting or not Consenting without troubling your self till I hear whether I may Consent or Not. Wherefore I must beg your Favour to let me depart from your method and turn over two or three Pages further to examine your Reasons wherefore we cannot Consent 1. Your first is That it is against the Constitution of the Church of England which is established by Law and to which I have subscribed and therefore am bound to teach nothing contrary to it so long as this Obligation lasts The Constitution of the Church of England as it is now a Protestant Church distinct from what it was before consists in various Acts of Parliament made especially in the beginning of the Reformation But I know of no Subscriptions required of the Clergy to such Acts of Parliament There is a Book intituled Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical Treated upon by the Bishop of London c. Anno Domini 1603. Which Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical are in Number CXLI These I think you must mean by your saying to which you have subscribed But you have not pleased to tell us against which of them it is we offend by Reading the Kings Declaration So that this Argument does nothing but lead us into a Wood and there leave us to be lost Is there any Constitution or Canon Ecclesiastical which bars the King from extending Clemency even to His Dissenting Subjects where He sees a reasonable and honourable Occasion for it Much less where the Necessity of His Affairs drive Him to it His Honour His Conscience the Preservation of Himself and His Friends and the common Peace of all I dare trust King JAMES the First for that without troubling my self to look over all the Hundred and Forty One Canons He had more King-craft than to part with such a Jewel out of the Crown to adorn the Crosier of the Church of England The Constitution you mention here is to what you have subscribed you say By the 36 Canon Subscription is required not to the whole Book but only to three Articles in that Canon mentioned By the first We acknowledge the Kings Supremacy By the second The lawful use of the Common-Prayer By the third An Allowance is made of the 39 Articles Upon any of which I cannot imagine how you ground your Reason wherefore we cannot consent to the Declaration unless you had told us If you were to prove the contrary from these Constitutions there seems to be something accommodate for your purpose in the first and second Canons All Archbishops Bishops c. are obliged by the first to keep and observe all and singular the Laws made for restoring to the Crown of this Kingdom the Antient Jurisdiction over the State Ecclesiastical Which Antient Jurisdiction in the Second Canon is resembled to the same Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical which the godly Kings had among the Jews and Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church Now if the Parallel run so high as to the Antient Jurisdiction of this Crown how Antient does it mean Certainly before any pretence of the Invasion of it by the Bishop of Rome Wherefore that being a Work too big for a Letter I will give but one or two Instances and those so far back as to be out of suspicion of any such Foreign Invasion The Government or Jurisdiction of this Crown if inherent in it was and of right ought to be
Persons yet still left standing within the Verge of the King's Command and the Subjects Obedience For by the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom and by a natural Allegiance to our Sovereign and Union to him as Members to our Politique Head we are bound to obey the King not only in all instances Legal but in all matters not Illegal Of which nature are all things neither forbidden by God nor by such Persons as have the sufficient and plenary Authority to do the same according to the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of this Monarchy And of that nature is the Dispensing Power which the Kings of England have always claimed to have over the Laws of their own or of their Predecessors Enacting in all such Emergencies as with the change of Times and Circumstances they become destructive and noxious as first and principally to the Head so to the other parts which make up together with Himself the whole Body Politique It is ordinary for some discontented Persons discountenanced at Court displaced from Office defeated in their Expectations c. to draw a Parry along with them or to sute themselves to one formed to their hands and by these especially in Parliaments to shew their resentments by their perverseness and crossness to the King's Affairs which nevertheless may be and are for the most part frustrated without any considerable detriment to the Publick through the wise Constitution of this Kingdom which soon leaves these weak and spiteful Efforts to turn to nothing but froth and bubble wanting the Support and Authority of the Royal Assent But how disingenious and disagreeing to Men especially of our Order is it to rake into the ashes of such long since departed Feuds and Factions and to raise up again what Time and Oblivion had buried to serve us in this Cause against the King. If we measure and form our Obedience by such Precedents and make such Votes of Parliament serve instead of Laws when our Interest wants them What hints will others be apt to take from our examples and perhaps when they want a better Reason for their Disobedience to remember the King of that Vote of Parliament which Declared The Legality of excluding Him from the Inheritance and Succession to the Crown Or that which Declared All those to be reputed and taken as Enemies to Parliaments who should lend the King any Money And yet suchas this is the best Authority you produce for us to depend upon and to justifie our present manage against His Majesty before God and the World. Well what is it then the Parliament as you call it in 72. Declared illegal Why an Vniversal and Vnlimited Toleration you say was that all The extent and latitude of the Indulgence then Granted against which they excepted I believe it was rather the Authority on which it was founded if an Universal and Unlimited Toleration be all against which you except From whom or what part of the Dissenters would you have His Majesty withdraw his Indulgence to make it ever the more Legal on your Principle to the rest I doubt your Parliament of 72. would not have thanked you for this But let that pass among your other Inconsistencies with yourself into which I perceive you often unwarily fall Whatever was done then here I am sure His Majesty by express words in the Declaration is so far from excluding His Parliament from their share either in the Authority of passing it into a Law or of the Wisdom and Council to be used within what Latitude or Limits to bound it as he refers all to the Concurrence of His two Houses in Parliament As for the Universality and Unlimitedness of the Toleration if that so much offend you and that you and your Parliament of 72. place all your Illegality of the King's Indulgence there I hope you will have content with a little patience there shall be no Toleration of Vice of Blasphemy and Immorality and Profanation of the Lords day as I hear some complain there is none I am sure intended now However the Toleration at present is to be accounted on that score but in the nature of an Interim or Suspension as the State of things will permit till such a meeting of the King with his Parliament for a further Regulation But this Reason is not done with yet for such a Toleration is not only declared Illegal by the Parliament of 72 but condemned by the Church in all Ages I wonder Sir how you come so Heterogenously here to yoke together the Parliament of 72 and the Christian Church of all Ages I should have thought that would have sorted better with a part of it self the Church of England Sir do you know of any unkindness between them that having in your first Reason so fair an occasion to have brought them in and have set them down by our own Church as both agreeing in the same Sentiment You have rather chose to place them in the Parliament of 72 as if they were Members of that but that I could forgive you if you had not proceeded with Representing them Falsly to have condemned such a Toleration in all Ages as the King has Granted by His present Declaration If you did but use your self a little more to Think before you Write it would have been obvious to you from the account the Scriptures give of the First Age that you had stumbled at the Threshold Our Saviour himself the Head of the Church gave an early check to that manner of Spirit As for the descending Ages of the Church I have given you under the Head of your first Reason some account how matters stood in the Age of Constantine with respect to Toleration and refer you further to other Pens who have industriously treated on this Subject and have sufficiently shewed your Error If you mean that the Christian Church in all Ages did never so Tolerate Dissenters from Her declared Doctrines as not to note and discover them and expose them to her Anathema's I grant you all this In Gods Name let not the Church spare Her Censures The Declaration pretends not to take from them any thing of their own I mean their Spiritual Power but only to Suspend such Temporal Penalties as belong to him only to inflict Which is a thing so far from being condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages that the first three Ages were merely Passive themselves and as in no disposition so in no condition to inflict Temporal Penalties upon others In the three following Ages indeed when the Emperors themselves became Christians they had not only the favour and protection of the Laws for themselves but the Civil Sword also sometimes turned upon their Adversaries but this was precarious only and of special Grace and Favour for which they were Thankful and not pretended a standing and unalterable Law by which Princes were bound to it whether they would or no and with whatsoever hazard of their Persons disturbance of their Governments or regret to
as Matters then stood But to shew that His present Majesties Religion which has been as severe towards Dissenters as ours may nevertheless for that be as sincere as we can be in the Inclinations he hints the Dissenters may hope from us when time serves I like your Commendations of the Church of England every where well enough and believe their well meaning but not as you make use of it slily to insinuate a distrust a snare and to create a suspicion in the Dissenters of His Majesties Veracity and Honour and by this base Suggestion tempt them to desert Him in this Juncture and adhere rather to those who oppose Him I believe as much as you that they are so wise and considering as to be sensible of a snare and as likely of your setting for them as of His Majesties And that they will think it more wise and safe to confide in His Word than in yours and to take the Opportunity which now presents than to stay and starve while your Grass grows But lest your Promises should not prevail you attempt also by Threatnings to deter them from strengthning His Majesties Party and Design Should they take it in this way you tell them they will find it the dearest Liberty that ever was granted I do not deny but Gold may be bought too dear let us see what we have by the Bargain of parting with our Test and Penal Laws If all the Discourse of your Letter had been against those only who are for delivering up our Laws into the Hand of another Religion without any effectual security for our own I should have agreed with you that we cannot Consent but must Suffer in this way and it is plain His Majesty is of that mind too His whole Declaration being a Proposal of Terms and Compremise of Peace among His Subjects of whatever different Persuasions that none may hinder one another of the Free Exercise of their Religion and full and quiet enjoyment of their Property and if you are so suspicious of Sinister dealing from His Majesty he offers to make our selves by our Representatives in Parliament Umpire in the business So that your Insinuation is very Ungenteel and Rude towards His Majesty and savors more of a piquing ill-natur'd jealousie than any just fear that we should find the Liberty now offered the dearest that ever was Granted These are the Reasons on which you ground your Magisterial Supposition That no Minister of the Church of England can Consent to the Declaration and therefore cannot read it how weak and insufficient they are to establish such an Hypothesis and that therefore all you have built upon it must come down with it let the world judge so that nevertheless for your Arguments a Minister of the Church of England can Consent to the Declaration and then I think that he may Read it no body will deny Nay and that he ought in omnibus licitis honestis to pay an active Obedience To answer the Command by a Passive Obedience To suffer all that can be suffered in this World as you somewhere say to be subject only and not resist will not serve the turn here The giving our Body to be burnt in this Cause will not make us Martyrs There is an Active Obedience due to all the King 's Honest and Lawful Commands by the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom though the matter of the Command have not yet entred by a Parliamentary Law for that is but accidental we owe him 〈◊〉 much upon the account of our natural Allegiance founded in that Relation between King and Subject If it be a Matter in which he is necessitated to use his Prerogative all that we are bound to satisfie our selves in is this Is it a Moral Command Is it not against the Laws of God over which he has no Power of Dispensing though it were to save His own and the Lives of all His Subjects If not we are bound to it by our Natural Allegiance by our Loyalty or Legality which is not to be understood so ad Legem as it is not due for Conscience-sake save only in such Instances where it is pass'd into a Parliamentary Law. For Allegiance reaches to Law in a further Extent and Latitude than so even to that Law which Nature and right Reason teach is founded in such a Relation as King and Subject and Political Father and Sons Not only confined to that Law which defends the Right the Liberty and Property of the Subject which is for the most part written because it passes by Grant and stands on Record from the King But to that Prerogative Law also which is natural and unwritten and cannot be granted away because it defends the Rights of the Crown and defends the Majesty Authority and Dignity of the Prince and the Capacity whereby he may perform all the Offices of a Father to his People Do not we swear a Canonical Obedience to our Bishops In omnibus Licitis Honestis By what Law of the Land is this required By no Parliamentary Law but as I said by the Law of Nature rooted in that Relation he bears toward us of our Spiritual Father But here is no place for a Discourse so large and copious as it should be on this Subject All I mean by it here is this That if the Matter of the Declaration be Moral Honest and Lawful so far as Lawful takes in the Law of the King's Prerogative as well as the Peoples Laws We must pay an Active Obedience to this Command of His Majesty on the account of our Natural Allegiance A Suffering for it rather and not resisting only will not justifie us to God by whom Kings Reign and whose Power is Ordained of God. This I take to have been all along the Doctrine of the Church of England But after all this it is possible some of the Ministers of the Church of England cannot consent Some will not take the pains perhaps and some have not the parts to think deep enough Some like Trâ—â—â— stand their Ground where they were first set rooted by Education and some as much by Prejudice Some have their Reason over-poured by their Fears and some by their Interests What then May they not read the Declaration Must the grand and important Affairs of State be all at a stand till such Persons can be satisfied Must their Wills be the Law in the mean time and their Judgment the Standard of the King and Council and the whole Nation Must their Declaration in this Matter be published in all their Churches and Chapels and His Majesty's never suffered to come in at the Church-door Why may not both Tales be told and both Sides heard This is not just nor civil dealing with His Majesty Again What if you cannot give an internal Consent or a Consent of Approbation Can you not read it with a Consent of Acquiescence and Submission That is all which need to be in a Subject to Matters of this kind