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A26398
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An address to His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Right Reverend the Bishops, upon account of their late petition by a true member of the Church of England.
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True member of the Church of England.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing A562; ESTC R10958
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6,471
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12
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of your Diocese and to be the assuming a Power I never read that your Lordships Predecessors challeng'd To have declared it to have been against your Consciences or your Religion had been something modest but to Arraign the Legality of the King's Proceedings in any respect is something with the boldest especially upon such a Ground that One or Two Parliaments had given their Judgments against the like For your Lordships know it is not beyond our Age and so cannot easily be forgot that the Votes of the Lower House passed for a Bill of Seclusion of our Gracious King yet I hope you will not think those sufficient to engraft an Argument upon for the Legality of that Vote However it seems that you that are against the Dispensing Power would insinuate that a Vote of One or Both Houses is sufficient to supersede a Prerogative of the King and will not allow that His Majesty may dispence with some Penal Laws which is one of the Flowers that not only adorn but make up the Crown I now beg leave to enquire of your Lordships by what Principles of the Christian or Protestant Religion you can disobey the King's positive Command in reading or causing to be read his Gracious Declaration no ways inconsistent with the Laws of God Christian Charity or the Practice of several Countries I have indeed heard of one Minister who upon King Charles the First 's commanding the Publishing the Proclamation for Liberty of some Lawful Recreations and Exercises on Sundays after Even-Prayer commonly called the Book of Sports told his Congregation That in Obedience to the King's Commands he had read it to them but withal tells them That God Almighty had given Command to remember to keep holy the Sabboth-day But this Command of the King hath nothing in it against Divine or Moral Precepts And your Lordships well know what Power the Laws give the King in Point of Supremacy which only his steadiness to the Principles of Justice Honor and Generosity hinders him to make use of Now it is well known that as Sheriffs Mayors and Bayliffs are the King 's Secular Officers to publish his Civil Mandates so Parsons Vicars and Curates are under your Lordships the King 's Ecclesiastical Officers to publish according to the Rubrick what is sent to them by the King or their Ordinary and as in the One so in the Other the Law inflicts a Punishment upon the Disobeyers And it hath not fallen under my Reading that any Bishops have refused to obey the King's Command when by any Act of Council the King enjoyned the Clergy to publish any matter in their Churches or Chappels but upon Refusal a severe Punishment followed unless Pardon'd But I foresee your Lordships will offer in excuse for your selves That this Declaration is against the Being of the Church of England as Established by Law a Toleration being inconsistent with a National Church-Government To this I reply First That if it had been only for the Gracious Expressions in the Declaration relating to the Church of England it might have been adviseable to have published it Therefore lest the Import of them should be forgot I shall insert the words In the first place We do declare That We will Protect and Maintain Our Archbishops Bishops and Clergy and all other Our 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 without any Molestation or Disturbance whatsoever This was a fresh Assurance of the King's Protection and His Majesty's first Care but being joyned with Liberty of Conscience in the Exercise of Religion and the suspending of the Execution of all manner of Penal Laws in matters Ecclesiastical this is the Mors in Ollâ But some it seems must be flattered with hopes that they shall be Indulged because Protestants but the Scourge must still be reserved for Roman Catholics Therefore since They as well as all other Dissenters are to be Partakers of the King 's Royal Clemency the Declaration must not be published This I humbly conceive is the true Ground of the Refusal whatever is pretended However from this partiality to Protestant Dissenters the Arguments for the Inconsistency of a Toleration with the Being of a National Church wholly vanisheth for your Lordships do well know that this Indulgence neither deprives your Lordships of your Dignities nor robs You or the Inferior Clergy of their Possessions nor doth it hinder the free Exercise of your Religion but only abridgeth some Branches of Visitations and restrains the inflicting Penal Laws upon Absenters from the Churches and impairs the Severity of Compulsion and by experience already it is found that the Congregations of the Church of England are not visibly thinner for it for Preaching public Prayer and the Administration of the Sacraments the Essentials of Religion remain untouch'd now that it is put in Execution I now beg that your Lordships will consider Whether this disobeying the King be a likelier means to preserve your Lordships in your Places and Dignities and the Church of England in its Lustre than your Obedience would have been You are not ignorant how Dissenters have press'd you that the Loyalty of the Church of England was not much to be boasted of because since the Reformation except in Queen Mary's Reign and about the Indulgence in King Charles the Second's time it was never put to the Trial by their Lawful Sovereigns commanding any thing contrary to its Establishment and how the Members of the Church deported themselves in that Queens Reign is too notorious to be deny'd when they first endeavor'd the Excluding her from the Crown and after by Wyat's Rebellion to have torn the Scepter out of her hand and to what Straits they would have reduced King Charles the Second till he quit the Indulgence is very evident Therefore it hath been frequently objected That if any King of England should abridge the Church of any of its Liberties and Privileges it would instantly appear how long-liv'd its Loyalty would remain It is my Lords by this your Act you have confirm'd all their Suggestions and that in a matter wherein your Consciences were not concern'd in the approving or disapproving the matter contain'd in the Declaration for you were only enjoyned to publish it as the King's Declaration not your own And can your Lordships upon sedate thoughts think the publishing this was a Crime of that Nature that it necessitated you to choose as in such Cases is generally alleged to please God rather than your King Surely if the King had commanded any single Person of you to have read it you would not have scrupl'd to have done it but now it seems Nos numeri Sumus came into your Heads and so you were resolv'd to try who should be Supreme Governor over the Church of England Methinks I hear the sad and loud Groans of Thousands of those who are desirous to preserve their
Religion and the King's Clemency to the Church and demonstrate their Loyalty to His Majesty bemoaning your Zeal that in a matter of no greater moment you should as much as in you lay dishonor the King before his People bid Defiance to his Authority Libel his Judges forfeit all Pretences to his Gracious Protection of your selves or the Church of England render your selves obnoxious to the Punishments which the Laws have provided for such as disobey the King and not only involv'd your selves in this danger but all the Clergy of your Diocese So that all Considerate Men tremble to think what fatal Consequences this obstinate Act may produce especially when they consider what great Sums the Clergy paid in King Henry the Eighth's time to buy off the Praemunire incurr'd by submitting to Cardinal Woolsey's Legatine Power without the King 's express Allowance under the Great Seal and yet your Lordships have been so hardy as to refuse to submit to the King's Commands in a matter next of any thing to a Passive Obedience By this Act as much as in you lies you have endeavored to represent the Church of England in general as Disobedient and consequently Disloyal and if the King's Clemency and Mercy transcend not your Deserts have absolved him from his Promise of Protecting this Church when at least so great a part of the English Hierarchy have led the Van of Disobedience and loudly proclaimed you are none of his Dutifullest Subjects But the Mischief to the Church of England is not like to fall only upon your Heads You have lifted up your Voice like a loud Speaking Trumpet to raise a Disobedient if not a Rebellious Spirit of Opposition against the King through all his Dominions You have enflamed the Minds of the Multitude to oppose the King's Desires since they find you have been so hardy to dispute the Justice and Legality of this Act of State in his own Closet Your Lordships have divided your selves from a Loyal Judicious and Religious part of the Church you profess your selves Members of and we shall hereafter hear of the Distinction of a Fanatical and Loyal Party of that Church for I hope you will find there is a Sound Peaceable and numerous part of that Church that will Obey the King in this Matter and own it their Duty to obey for Conscience sake and be willing to live Charitably with their Fellow-Subjects of different Persuasions in Matters of Religion You have divided your selves from the whole Body of Dissenters towards whom tho' you express some tenderness when the Matter comes to be Debated in a Parliament yet they cannot but see how unwillingly you are drawn to any Compliance with them whereas you find our Gracious King can forget and forgive his greatest Enemies for no other End but to shew his Innate Compassion of them and demonstrate to all the World that it is his Principle That Conscience is not to be forced As to your fear that Popery will be propagated more effectually by taking off the Test and Penal Laws by this Act I do not see you have made any great Blockade to it For by this Vndertaking you have declared your selves Enemies to the King and his Religion and to all sorts of Dissenters and so have lessened your Interest with the King and great numbers of the People and by the joyning of both Powers against you because they may justly suspect you hug the Darling Persecuting Spirit what can you expect will be the upshot but that both Parties will set themselves more than ever to keep you all under and your Lordships wanting the King for your Head and the Dissenting Protestants for your Assistant Brethren If the taking off the Test and Penal Laws be carried against you it will be very late to flie to the King's Mercy for your enjoyment of the Honors and Profits you now possess and how your Deservings and your Power to defend your selves may be weakned in the Interval of Time betwixt Now and a Protestant Successor I will not undertake to divine But that Popery can advance many Steps more tho' his Majesties Gracious Declaration had been Published or such a Toleration as by it is granted and now put in execution were Established by Act of Parliament than it doth now I think few unbiassed Persons will be induced to believe since it will be contrary to the very Fundamental Grounds of the Declaration that any other Force can be used but that of Argument and Persuasion and by the Progress hath been made these four years in Reconciling Persons to the Church that now we may make a very probable Computation how much may be effected in this Age upon Persons so averse and resolved against the entertaining Doctrins and Ceremonies their Education and other Motives have so prejudiced them against FINIS