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A63246
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The speech of Charles Trinder, recorder of Gloucester at his entrance upon that office, January the 8th, 1687/8.
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Trinder, Charles.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing T2283; ESTC R37902
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12,670
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19
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White-Hall January 21st 1687 / 8. This may be Printed SVNDERLAND P. THE SPEECH OF Charles Trinder Esq RECORDER OF GLOUCESTER AT HIS Entrance upon that Office JANVARY the 8th 1687 / 8. LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1687 / 8. THE SPEECH OF Charles Trinder Esq Gentlemen IT has pleased His Sacred Majesty to send His Royal Mandate hither in obedience to which I have had the Honour to be Elected Admitted and Sworn Recorder of this City Gentlemen I am very sensible of those many Defects which may seem to others as well as to my self to render me unqualified for so weighty an Office. But I shall not here loose time either in extenuating or excusing the same None here are ignorant of those many invincible Obstacles as to all sorts of Learning and Knowledge which have been laid in the way to Persons of my Character and Religion To mention no more then the very Oaths which we could not take and for the not taking of which till of late there was no Dispensation to be had These I say alone were a too sufficient cause of discouragement and hindrance from any close pursuit of Study or Conversation in such Knowledge and Practice as are requisit to an accomplish'd Lawyer But our Comfort is that in the present state of Affairs not so much profoundness of Skill as sincerity of Heart not the great Understanding but the good Will are the most indispensable Necessaries for His Majesty's Service not only in this but in most other Stations and Employments And for these I may without vanity challenge them to my self and I hope being no Stranger to most of you here present you will easily believe and acknowledge the same and that if on the one side you regard His Majesty's Affairs and on the other side the circumstances of my Life and Profession it would have been perhaps difficult to have found any One in this County more entirely at His Majesty's Service then my self And let this suffice to justifie His Majesty's Choice and notwithstanding my own avowed Defectiveness and Incapacity in other respects my submission to it Mean while I am not to be put in mind that even these beloved Oualities which I seem to glory in of Zeal and Fidelity in His Majesty's Service and which I plead as an Atonement for my other Unworthinesses that even these alone I say are enough to blast me in the Opinion of some men who will never hope for any good from One so disposed and declared The distractions and differences of Opinions have caused such disaffections of Heart that Mens Fancies are fill'd with Fears and Jealousies against the most innocent and laudable Purposes and Protestations of this nature even before they are reduced into Act. Hence it comes to pass that a Man can no sooner make profession of his Duty and Zeal to His Majesty's Service but some discontented and ill-affected Worldling who knows little and loves less besides what concerns his own self-interest represents him to himself and others as one of the Court-Party no Friend to his Country One ready to sacrifice his own and all other Mens Liberties and Properties to the Arbitrary Will and Pleasure of the Prince Neither does this happen in matters which relate to the Service of the King only or upon Temporal accounts alone but also in all Endeavours and good Desires for the welfare of our fellow-Subjects too and that in things which are Spiritual and concern the Conscience only Hence it comes to pass that a man cannot compassionate the heavy Sufferings of his innocent Neighbours for matters of meer Religion but he is presently maligned by some Bigot or other as an Enemy and Underminer of the Church of England as I my self was in this very place for this only cause in the late heats at the Quarter-Sessions for this County publickly traduced and branded as One that did more mischief then any other Man in the County But let such Worldlings and Bigots give me leave to tell them That they know not what Spirit they are of The first of them seem to trace back the Practices of those Times in which it was neither sufficient nor safe for a man to declare for the King but he must be for the King and Parliament too till at last he must upon his peril disclaim both King and Parliament Whereas in reality Loyalty to the King and Justice to the People are in their very Essence so united together that they are incapable of separation The second sort seem to have forgotten or even deserted the so-much boasted Principle of their own Church which they use to say is not of a Persecuting Genius or Spirit unless peradventure they mean by a Distinction that it is so in its Articles but not in its Members But Gentlemen that we may spare both these sorts of Spirits and calm them too I will say no more of either but only this That I am sent hither to serve a Prince who makes it His business to content both who to all His Subjects however affected is a Mirrour of Justice and Clemency And as I cannot serve so neither can I please Him better then by using my best endeavours as by God's Grace I ever shall in what-ever comes before me that the effects of these two God-like Attributes in Him may be equally distributed to all without regard to Fear or Favour But because I told you in the beginning of this Discourse that the cause of all these Jealousies and Disaffections was that great distraction in Opinion and Judgment wherewith this Age has been divided and perplex'd while each one endeavours to maintain and promote his own sometimes one prevailing and sometimes another and all equally labouring if not for Power at least for Ease and Security Give me leave to entertain you a little with the cause of those Distractions in Opinions which are the cause of these Disaffections I hope the Remarks which I shall make will prove no mis-expence of time either to you or me This great and famous Kingdom of England being many Ages past as again now at present highly blest with Kings enrich'd with a most sublime Wisdom as well as other Princely Vertues The Government of it was many hundred years since founded on such Rocks of Prudence and Justice as might in all humane prospect have secured it unshaken to the Worlds end It is that of Monarchy which has for its pattern the Great Monarch of Heaven and of all created Beings A Monarchy by Descent which secures us from all those dismal Factions and Wars which commonly attends the Election of Kings to the great weakning and oft-times final destruction of the Government and People A Monarchy wherein the King has all the Power the Nobility all the Honour and the People all the Security which the Hearts of men truly Rational can wish or aspire to How often and with what great Solemnity hath the great Charter of the
Subjects Liberty and Property received Confirmation from the glorious Ancestors of our present Reigning Monarch What Spot of Ground is there thrô the whole circumference of the Earth where the Subject lives so free so plentiful and so secure from any sort of Oppression as in this our truly fortunate Island What man so low as not offending the Laws to need fear his most potent Neighbour Again What Nobleman so Great as to dare either by force or treachery to attempt either upon the Royal Authority or Publick Peace Lastly What Throne so fix'd and unmoveable as Ours Since the Royal Prerogatives are so inalienable from the Crown that even the most solemn Acts of our Kings when found inconsistent with their personal safety and Government and the good and safety of their Subjects are of no manner of force to restrain the exercise of their Regal Power This appears by the King's Declaration in the 15th of Edward 3d Printed with the Statutes and by many other instances which might be produced After such Foundations laid after such regular and well-polish'd Architecture in the whole Frame of this our happy Government when moreover our Kings have at their Call the most August Senate in the World whose Duty it is to strengthen the Hands of the Soveraign by their Counsels and the Kingdom 's Treasure as Emergencies arise How comes it to pass that we have seen and felt effects not only far short but even contrary to such glorious Causes to pass by our ceasing now for a long time to advance our Nations Glory by Acquisitions abroad tho' we have not wanted Princes of great Abilities and Inclinations that way How comes it to pass that we have with much difficulty conserved our own from Forreign Encroachments Nay lastly how has it come to pass that we have suffered such fatal Convulsions at home among our selves by which the whole Frame of our Government hath been shaken in pieces nothing to be seen but Horrour and Confusion nothing to be expected but utter Ruine and Destruction To answer these important Queries thô private Malice Pride Lust and Avarice be the immediate incentives of all who are Authors or Fomenters of all Civil Dissension yet manifest it is that this so great decay from the Ancient vigour of our Government and the many Difficulties in which it is of late so deeply involved have arisen principally if not purely from the Cause of Religion 'T was a memorable saying that of my late Lord Chancellour Clarendon to the two Houses of Parliament soon after his late Majesty's happy Restauration It is said he a mournful subject and that which has cost the King many a Sigh many a sad Hour to consider that that very thing which was appointed by God as a Cement of Affection betwixt Strangers and Enemies Religion should now become the fiercest Incentive to Strife between the dearest Friends and nearest Relations This Consideration carries me back to examine from what time and from what cause this unhappy effect of Religion had its first rise For were it indeed to be found in the Root or Essence of Christianity it self I should conceive the Reception of such a Religion into the World and it s so long continuance amidst so many Nations to be a greater Miracle than any that was ever wrought for its Birth or Propagation But I take the fact to be far otherwise For upon the first Planting of Christianity the Apostles inspired with the Holy Ghost all taught one and the same Truths which their Disciples held themselves obliged to believe and for ever keep inviolate and intire as proceeding all from one and the same eternal Verity and when afterwards any difference arose concerning what was so taught or what not The general practice of Christians was to submit to the determination of their Pastors either Single or in a Provincial National or General Council as the exigency of the matter required and the circumstances of the time and place allowed Which left no room for pertinacy in Dissention at least not any possibility of disturbing the publique Peace And by this means Christianity remained in this Kingdom unshaken from its first entry until about the 24th year of K. Henry the 8th when that unhappy Prince not finding from his long and chargeable Addresses to Rome a passage to the Enjoyment of a second Wife the first then living breaks that Power he was not able to bend and levels whatever opposes to his unbridled Appetite and maugre Magna Charta which in the first place grants that the Church of England be free and all her Rights and Liberties inviolable the Treasures and Revenues of the Church nay it s very Foundations and Lands are no longer spared than that King's Profusions needed not fresh Supplies To this end by an Act in the 26 of his Reign the King is declared Head of the Church of England in Spirituals and that under the Penalty of High Treason to deny it But this Sounding Monstrous Novel many of the most eminent for Learning and Piety who could not believe what they had never before heard nor pretend to believe what really they did not lost their Lives and Fortunes and that with all the outward marks of Infamy The Fence being thus broken down whereby Unity had been thus long preserved no wonder if way was soon made for multiplying of Opinions For People being once persuaded they had been taught one untruth and that in a point of so great importance as the Headship of the Church in Spirituals how could they forbear to doubt whether they were not imposed upon and taught Untruths in many others also since both the one and the other depended on the same Authority And to what other Oracle could they then possibly resort for the solution of their Doubts but either to the mere Letter of the Scriptures on all hands admitted to be God's Word or else every man to his own Interpretation for himself Since if the Church it self had been so foully deceived therein and therefore forsaken by them certainly no other could pretend Authority to deliver the true Sence so as to oblige others to the belief of it But the King himself having lookt upon that Power as intolerable which had been ever before Superiour to him in Spirituals could now less brook any control or contradiction from His own Subjects over whose Souls and Consciences He assumed a more absolute Dominion than ever any Pope had done before or any King of England over their Bodies or Estates By this absolute Spiritual Power he thought to put a stop to that great difference of Opinions which multiplied every day and backing the said Spiritual Power with Authority of Parliaments which he had always at his beck and ready for his turn he began first to think of some means of Reducing Dissenters by Acts of Vniformity and then to make Tests much like to our Modern ones as to the meekness of their Stile thô a little point-blank as to