and advance towards the inthralling them under the Yoak of Popery and Arbitrary Power nevertheless for the Kings Promise and Declaration of Liberty and all this not only from the Press but many of the Pulpits too To obviate which Malice of these crafty wicked Men His Majesty with His Council have thought expedient to iterate his Declaration and to extend the Publication of it to all Churches and Chapels which was omitted before because His Majesty never imagined to have met with so much of it among the Men of Churches and Chapels as since He hath found This has made it at length necessary by the Reading of it in Churches and Chapels to undeceive the easie People there also Now Sir why may not this Account satisfie you which appears so rational and probable without raising up the Old Cry of Forty One against the King and His Evil Council and exposing His Ministers of State on every slight Occasion And why should you affright your self and your Readers with so many false Alarms of Enemies of Ruine of falling of unavoidable undoing what course soever we take and require us to give more Credit to your melancholy Dreams than to the Honour and Integrity of His Majesty and the open Declaration of His innocent Meaning After which I do agree with you that should we chuse to take our fall here and die of mere conceit we do leave a shrewd Temptation upon some to conclude as you say That we have undone our selves and die like Fools It seems though in the next Paragraph you have found a more honourable and comfortable way of falling as suppose for refusing to read Mass or to swear to the Trent Creed I agree with you in this but wonder then that you who can see so well and approve the better and are so confident it is not far off should undertake to perswade the Church of England to fall before-hand with you and to die with a Deteriora sequor over her Tomb for her Epitaph But this of falling for refusing to read Mass you say is not our present case No nor ever shall be in future if His Majesty may be believed and His Measures taken and complied with by our selves You shall never have the Honour Sir to fall so in His Reign nor in any to follow if His Declaration be suffered to take the effect But one thing there is by the way which I cannot pass over without Remark which is That though this Declaration have two Strings and tuned harmoniously one to the other yet quite through this your Letter you can never be made to strike both together One is His Majesties Desire of our Compliance with Him for taking off the Test and Penal Laws The other is His Declaration in the first place That he will Protect and Maintain our Archbishops Bishops and 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 without any Molestation or Disturbance whatsoever Now upon one of these Strings you are perpetually harping viz. The taking off the Penal Laws and Test and that makes no Musick alone without the other to a Church of England Ear be it of the Nobility Gentry or Clergy It is certain it would undo the Church of England to have her Test and Penal Laws taken away by a Parliamentary Law without any Provision made by a like Parliamentary Law to secure the keeping what she has beside and what the King has promis'd shall remain inviolate This His Majesty offers and should be always supposed along with the other But that is the String you cannot be made to touch and you are not without a Reason for it for then you had answered your Letter your self and that had stopped the Mouth of all your popular but falsly and temerariously inferred Consequences That to take away the Test and Penal Laws at this time is but one step from introducing of Pepery and therefore to read such a Declaration in our Churches though it do not immediately bring Popery in yet it sets open our Church-Doors for it and THEN it will take time to enter and THEN the People will hate us and despise us and THEN we may be easily crushed and THEN we fall without pity All these THENS hang upon the same String and are but begg'd Consesequences However I perceive you are so confident of your Skill in linking a Chain of Consequences and hanging them on the Thread of a Spiders Web that you are resolved not to stay for the fulfilling of your Prophesie of Destruction to the Church of England by the introducing of Mass Trent and Popery but seeing it comes all to one even as good fall now it is but a little the sooner by not reading the Declaration For this persecuting Declaration does threaten us that if we hold but our Hands from knocking His Majesties Friends on the Head with our Penal Laws then in the first place He will Protect and Maintain our Archbishops Bishops and Clergy and all other His Majesties Subjects of the Church of England in the free exercise of our Religion as by Law established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all our Possessions without any Molestation or Disturbance whatsoever So that the Matter is plain What should we live for any longer But even die Marryrs with all the speed we can lest if this Declaration should take effect we never have opportunity to do it more Let us suffer all that can be suffered say you in this World rather than contribute to the final Ruine of the best Church in the World by reading such a Declaration as this But I think it is good first as you say in the next Paragraph to stay a little and examine the Matter impartially as those which have no mind either to ruine themselves or to ruine the Church And that you may lay your Foundation sure you begin with a conjectural and precarious Supposition I suppose say you no Minister of the Church of England can give his Consent to the Declaration And with this Pestulatum away you run to prove Then he cannot read it That this is a Non Supponendum you see in the experience and event of the thing some both Bishops and Ministers of the Church of England do Consent and Read it and I doubt not but many more will if His Majesty think fit Well and what Fault have they committed None at all your self being Judge For you say Pag. 4. Reading the Declaration would be no Fault at all but our Duty when the King Commands it did we approve of the matter of it So then with those who can approve of the matter of it and Read we have nothing to do here they are acquitted by your self and they prove more it seems than you supposed and if there be any Fault it must remain to be on the part of those who do not
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
Moral Certainty be grounded upon that It seems you were before aware of this Retort and you think fit to grant it in these words which follow which are by way of Question Whether the King cannot keep his Promise to the Church of England if the Test and Penal Laws be repealed To which your self make answer You cannot say but this may be so that you grant as Moral a Certainty on this side as on the other But the Kings Moral Certainty is not to be believ'd though yours must But for Reasons wherefore you are wont to be sparing where the Matter pinches but if we will take your Word there are some very substantial ones behind the Curtain Wherefore as you say the Nation does not think fit to try it and we commend the great Men who deny it If we will take such Reasons as you think fit to make show of at present why here they are The King is an Immoral Man and therefore no Moral certainty of what otherwise might be possible enough in it self The King professes an Immoral Religion and he converses with a sort of Immoral Men called Jesuits who can presently furnish him with a Salvo for his inclination to forget his promise to the Church of England Is not this to make the matter almost as evident a Demonstration as you promis'd us Why Sir I confess this is a young Phoenix Argument sprung out of the Ashes of that old one said to be of the Earl of Shaftburies which was burnt by the hand of the Common Hangman We must have a King we can trust And the Nobility and Gentry are called to take notice of it and to be supposed they go on the same ground Nay the whole Nation do not think fit to try it you say And all must be thanked the Nobility and Gentry especially most tenderly treated and their Ears by no means grated with this Declaration which may discourage provoke or misguide them from their opposition to the King on this account and then we are finally ruin'd indeed Now if the Church of England can be beholding to you for furnishing her Ministers with an Argument against the Kings Declaration which smells so rank of the Hangman I am mistaken in her which I am sure I am not among those who are Israelites indeed Wherefore I think it needless to spend any more words about it But having made sure of the Nobility and Gentry as you would have us think Now but a word to the Wife and you have done and that is to the Dissenters Who say you are so wise and considering as out of our opposition to the King on this Proposal to smell in us something of a persecuting spirit Well how shall the Matter be handled then that they be not provoked for there is no Policy in that at this time of the day however we have provoked them heretofore The Dissenters you say whom we ought not to provoke will expound our not reading to be the effect of a persecuting spirit Then it seems not reading is teaching too as well as reading what you will for that But how shall we split the hair between the Nobility and Gentry on the one side and the Dissenters on the other If we can draw both to to our side nothing can resist us To disoblige the Nobility and Gentry were more fatal indeed as you say than to anger the Dissenters But they are numerous and rich there is no parting with them at this time neither some cunning and fineness must be used then to bring over the Dissenters to the Confederate Army for God's sake what is the meaning of all this Plotting and Projecting and making Leagues and Alliances and mustering our Forces Where 's the Enemy May a Man venture to peep his Head over the Wall to see this same Hanibal ad portas which comes threatning thus with Fire and Fagot to discharge our new Alliance the Dissenters From all Pains Penalties Forfeitures Imprisonments by them or any of them incurred or forfeited or which they shall or may at any time hereafter be liable to by reason of their Nonconformity or the exercise of their Religion and from all Suits Troubles or Disturbances for the same And as for our selves there is no more mercy to be looked for at his hands than for our Brethren the poor Dissenters For all our Archbishops Bishops Clergy and all other of the Church of England in the first place Alas they must be every Scul of them protected and maintained in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law establish'd and in the full and quiet enjoyment of all their Possessions without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever It is time one would think to project a way of joyning the Church of England and the Dissenters to keep one another For these Dissenters are wise and considering Men and they are sensible of themselves that all this is but Anguis in Herbâ a mere Trap a Gin a pitfall And although they desire Ease and Liberty they are not willing to have it with such apparent hazard of Church and State. Let them but stay their longing a while for when there is but the first opportunity of shewing our inclinations without danger they will find that we are not such Persecutors as we have been represented Where then and what has been the danger that no such Inclinations have appeared toward the Dissenters these twenty eight years back Have not our Protestant Princes as well as this been always oppos'd in their Inclinations to any such Indulgence King Charles the Second made them a Promise of it at Breda he made several Intimations of that Promise in future Parliaments and how his Honor lay at stake but met with no Inclination in us unless it were to lay on more lode And after when that gracious Prince was fain to breake from us by main force and upon his own Prerogative issue out his promised Indulgence he could have no peace with us again nor any compliance with him in his other Affairs of State till we almost compelled him to a Revocation And yet what manner of Men should the Dissenters see we are towards them if we had but opportunity But now you say there is danger yes now we have carried our selves so as to apprehend danger to our selves there comes an opportunity for cokesing the Dissenters to help us to turn the danger upon the King and they must be made to believe they are in the saddest danger now that ever they were who in truth were never so much out of it for above twenty years past nor in such probability of shaking off the fear of any such danger for the future if they are not seduced and infatuated to be unthankful to their gracious King and wanting to themselves Now the reason wherefore I call the Dissenters to look back upon our Inclinations towards them is not to censure the Wisdom and Honor of those Parliaments which made such Laws against Dissenters
their Consciences As for the other succeeding Ages of the Church after the Sixth Century the Church of England throws them aside as no Precedents for us to follow And yet it is the Christian Church in all Ages you would call in to avouch for you the Illegality of this Toleration 3. Your next Reason on which you ground your suppose that we cannot Consent you thus express It is to Teach my People that they need never come to Church more but have my free leave as they have the Kings leave to go to a Conventicle or to Mass Why Sir that they would do without the Kings leave or yours either before this Declaration came out However you are loth to have your Scepter wrested out of your Hands though it be with as vain and empty a Title as King of Jerusalem What a Grand Seignior you may be still in your Parish I cannot tell but I assure you in our Country Parish Dominions such a despotick Church-Power is extinguished long since Well Sir I perceive you are not inclin'd to be so merciful a Prince over your Subjects as His Majesty over His they shall never have leave for you But your Brother King would intreat however this favour at your Hands that when you have occasion to shake your Rod over your Subjects you would not send for him to be your Beadle And the rather because as he has no mind to it and that it is against his Conscience so you have no want of him neither the Spiritual Power having a Rod of their own more proper and agreeable to their purpose that is the Rod of Excommunication and other Church Censures which no body goes about to take out of your Hand Wherefore when you Read the Declaration you may let your People understand if you please that it is with a Non Obstante to that and so you have well enough escaped the Danger you fear should ensue to your Regalia viz. That it would be to Teach your People that they need never more come to Church but have your free leave as they have the Kings leave to go to a Conventicle or to Mass And so I pass on to your Fourth Reason 4. It is you say to Teach the dispensing Power which alters what has been formerly thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom which we dare not do till we have the Authority of Parliament for it At the Kings Command you dare not do it till you have the Authority of Parliament for it It seems then however you are bound in Conscience not to approve of such a Declaration Though it be against the Constitution of the Church of England nay though condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages though against the Laws of God and the Laws of the Land yet Authority of Parliament can discharge you of all Never was any Pope in England so high as Authority of Parliament is now set up that can dispense with the Laws both of God and Man for all this of the Kings doing is against both you say but not of the Parliaments By the way though you give a fair Hint unto the Parliament of the only Expedient as things now stand for the Common Peace Agreement and Satisfaction of all which is by their concurring with His Majesty in the setling what He has proposed by His Declaration For one part of the Nation approve of it for it self and all the rest want nothing it seems for their intire Satisfaction but only their Authority along with His Majesties At the present the main thing you stick at is The Kings Dispensing Power without Authority of Parliament Which indeed is the only thing you have said which bears any semblance of excuse for not consenting and consequently not reading the Declaration And you would have done better to have maintained your Post here than to have stuffed your Letter with Enemies Evil Counsellors Popery Mass Ruine utter and avoidable Destruction to both Church and Kingdom I have been fain to follow you hitherto in this wild Ramble which is nothing to the purpose but to inflame and exasperate Nobility Gentry Clergy People and all against the King and make the Breach wider than it would be Was not his late Majesty who was a Protestant and by the Advice of Protestant Councellors the adored Earl of Shaftsbury the Duke of Lauderdale and others forced to do the same thing when necessity of Publick Affairs required it Yet no Ruine of the Church of England followed nor of the Protestant Religion no Ruine no Destruction no Introduction of Popery nor intended to follow Some stir was then about the business of the Dispensing Power but nothing to what it is now Let us but quietly attend the expectation of a Parliament and that is a thing which it is likely may close of it self It did so before For indeed the Concurrence of His Two Houses of Parliament of which His Majesty made no doubt as He says when He first issued out His Declaration before we had royld the Nation The Concurrence I say of His Parliament will bury up all in Silence and Peace which is better than blow up so great a Flame as would arise by stirring the Coals of this Contest Prerogative of the Crown and Priviledges of Parliament are Matters too August for private Men as we are to meddle in much more to pass Sentence as your Letter does and plainly say The Dispensing Power is against the Laws and Constitution of this Church and Kingdom That it is Illegal which is so high a Presumption as can have no countenance for what was done in Parliament 72 for they have the Priviledge of free speaking there But out of Parliament perhaps it is a Crime of an higher Nature than we are aware Even the Bishops themselves though Persons moving in so high a Sphere and protected by so great a Power as the Pope was then in England yet they are given to understand as I find some Lawyers note 18 Hen. 3. That for as much as they hold their Baronies of the King that if they intermeddle with the Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown they must look to forfeit their Baronies for their Presumption If I say the Bishops out of Parliament incur so high a Censure should they do any such thing what Animadversion is due to Men of a lower Order Evil Men such as have some Fish to take which will not be catch'd but in troubled Waters are wont to throw in one of these as certain Occasions of it and as Bones of Contention whenever they have a mind to have one It would have becomed us who are Men of Peace of all Men in the Kingdom to have contained our selves and whatever we think to have said nothing in this Matter Now is Out-cry against Prerogative Time was when we made as loud a Cry against pretended Priviledges of Parliament Liberty of the Subject and for Prerogative Among other Complaints and Grievances which the Black
indangering the Safety of His Person the retrenching His Power the violating His Honour or His Conscience is to be judged of like Malign Influence on all there can be no Salus Corporis where there is not Salus Capitis And therefore the like Security to be provided for it if need be by the like extraordinary Remedies That is to say by the Prerogative out of the common Rode of Parliamentary Proceedings Dispensing in the mean time with the Obligation of all such Laws as stand in the way of this otherwise insuperable Difficulty and suspending the Penalties of them till a fitting Season for a Convention of Parliament to take farther Order Now at such a Dispensing Power and in such Circumstances some especially of the Church of England are highly offended They will not be subject to it though it be clear as the Dictates of Right Reason can make it And not against Law as they suggest for it is founded upon the Supremest Law the most Sacred and Fundamental Law of all Nations which is as I said Salus Populi I mean of the Body together with the Head for which in such Junctures he who would reject this is to be intreated that he would first enlighten the World with a Discovery of some safer and wiser Expedient in its stead And yet with how much Moderation and Princely Clemency and Tenderness and especially towards the Church of England does His Majesty exert this His necessary Prerogative at this time Such as I think might have more especially obliged them above others to an Address of Thanks among the rest of His grateful Subjects Bona si sua norint Well having thus far cleared a Necessity of such a Trust as we call Prerogative in the King to be lodged somewhere as a Provision against such Contingencies in all wisely-constituted and not self-confounding Societies What remains now is to vindicate His Majesty in the Use and Exercise of it at this time as necessary 1. For the Preservation of Himself And 2. For the Common Good of All. 1. For Himself with respect to the Preservation especially of His Person and His Conscience from outward Violence But first of His Person That His Majesty Himself in His Person with whose Safety the whole Government and the Publick Good is so complicate was and would still be in apparent danger if His Prerogative had not interposed with a Suspension of some of the formerly established Laws is a thing of which any Man may be convinced who is not resolved otherwise What is the Support and Safety of a Prince especially surrounded with a multitude of Enemies but Power to suppress them by more or at least equal Numbers Now let any Man take the Measures of His Majesties Power and Numbers at the time of His coming to the Succession of the Crown with proportion to the Number and Power of those who had given Him just Reason to suspect and fear them as His Enemies who had always been before His Brothers Enemies His Fathers Enemies had taken away the Life of the one and narrowly missed the Destruction of the other and that but upon Jealousie of their Inclination much more bitter Enemies to His Majesty upon the Declaration of Himself and publickly owning the Roman Catholique Religion Alas His whole Strength except that of the Almighty God what was it but a few Roman Catholiques added to the Loyal of the Church of England If it had been the whole Church of England we know how few they were in respect of the Shoales of the Factious and Discontented How often had they been over-powered and baffled by them in the Election of Knights Burgesses Sheriffs of the City c. and no way able to support their Interest against them with their whole Strength But how great a Defalcation of that is to be made from those who adhered to His Majesty may be computed from the small Number of those in the House of Commons who stood with Him against the Exclusion-Bill on the one Side And from the no small Number of those of the Church of England who were divided from the Loyal in that Traiterous Practice of supplanting Him by the Intrusion of the unhappy Duke of Monmouth into the Succession on the other Side And though indeed many of the Excluding Members recovered their Honour and their Loyalty in the first Session of His Majesties Parliament when they declared their adhering to him with their Lives and Fortunes against the Pretensions and Practices of the Rebels yet could they not lay again the Spirit they had Conjur'd up the common People I mean so generally prejudic'd by their Exclusion-Vote that notwithstanding His Majesties almost Miraculous Success and Victory over them in the West they still persisted in the Alienation of their Minds from their Lawful Prince and no corner of the whole Nation but was stuffed full of them who were content to beleive the Duke of Mommouth yet alive and that they should have another day to try their Fortunes against his Majesty in Rebellious Armes Against this multitude nevertheless he doubted not but to support Himself and His Crown by uniting His Catholick Subjects into one State-interest with those of the Church of England neither of them alone being sufficient to make any considerable Balance To this purpose in the next Session of Parliament he moved that to have the benefit and Service of all His Loyal Subjects and that none of them might be under any disability for the future that they would joyn with him in a Repeal of certain Acts of Parliament made in the 25 and 30 of Carol. 2. whereby certain Oaths and Tests and Subscriptions were required to be made and taken of such as were admitted into any publick imployment The Consideration of the Seate of things and Circumstances of His Majesties Affaires together with their Loyalty so signally shewed in the former Session of Parliament made Him believe He should not be denied what to Him seemed so reasonable and necessary for the preservation of Himself and all But instead of that all He could obtain was no more than an Indemnity of what was past for which they expected to be thanked of those Catholicks who had merited so much from His Majesty and the whole Nation by their signal Service against the Rebels in the West Which was an Answer so surprizing to His Majesty as he told them he did not expect from such a Parliament So that His Majesties Measures being broken here and finding himself by this defeat of his Expectation much weaker and the Power and Confederacy of his Enemies stronger And the Laws which should in the first place preserve him as the Centre of the publick good barring him of his just and sufficient Defence He is forced by his Prerogative to provide for his own safety and His Friends and to suspend the force of such Laws as stood in the way of it till the Nation should be better disposed to take a right understanding of the