mischiefs then certainly a mixture of such in Places of Trust and Profit of Honor or of Power in the State must have its proportionable Inconveniences attending it and for this reason it is that in Holland where the greatest liberty of Religion is allowed yet none are paid none are trusted in any publick Employment by the States but such as are of the Establish'd Religion this is largely represented by Sir William Temple in his excellent Discourse of the United Provinces and the Reasons of it with very great Judgment and Wisdom are assigned by the Heer Fagell late Pantionary of Holland in his famous Letter to Mr. James Stewart giving an Account of the Sentiments of their present Majesties concerning the Repeal of the Test and the Penal Laws so much talk'd of and endeavor'd in the late King's time My Lord I wish with all my Heart for the sake of our very Adversaries themselves that nothing else could be alledged against them or any of them as the Causes of King Charles II. his Visitation and their Ejectment consequent upon it but that they were not legally qualified for this is indeed a thing highly to be commended though a Man may labor under a mistaken Conscience that he will not however Sacrifice that Conscience to any temporal Gain or Advantage but there were also other things that lay heavy upon them we can prove one of them by unquestionable Testimony to have been then and still to be a Person zealously disaffected to the Government both in Church and State a personal and profest Enemy to the four last Kings by Name a great Magnifier of the Commonwealth Form of Government and a Publick Slanderer even at this time of the greatest and most useful Personages of this Kingdom And I desire it may be considered that he that would now so sain supplant and eject me was himself ejected for no other Reason but because in a Printed Sermon he had publickly owned asserted and defended the Horrid Murder of King Charles the Martyr For it is certain after his Ejectment that by the great Application of his Friends in his behalf he had been restored again had it not been for this one thing but this Sermon being shewn not by me who knew nothing of it at that time but by others to Mr. Secretary Jenkins and by him communicated to the King himself this was the true and the only Reason why he was not restored he having conformed to the Church of England for some time before Now my Lord it is true that the Act of Oblivion had forgiven him this Fault but yet this hinders not but it might be a very good Reason why the King would not retain him in his particular Service And I do not see how he can be restored not only without disowning the King's Power of Visitation but also without a very favorable Aspect upon that execrable Fault for which he so far incurred his Majesties displeasure as to be ejected out of his Place Indeed if the Man were in any extreme Necessity there might be some Pity due to his Relief and if he could prove any legal Property in such a Place as this God forbid but every Man should enjoy his Right but he can prove no Title unless he first prove that the King hath no Right or Power of Visitation and he is so far from being by his Ejectment in a worse Condition than he was before that he got very considerably by it for he had a Living which is a Freehold in Law bestowed upon him of twice the yearly value and a Living at such a distance that the Canons of the Church would not suffer him to enjoy both together if the Hospital were a Cure of Souls as in Law I must confess it is not but it is sufficient that it is in Conscience and he for that Reason if he had any Conscience might be ashamed to pretend to both of these Places together If the Hospital had been a Cure of Souls he would have lost his Title to it immediately upon his Institution and Induction into the other and it is strange that so little regard should be had to the Reason of that Law which was the impossibility of a Man's taking sufficient care of two Places at so great a distance as that he should be thought a fit Person to be restored after having been so fairly and so legally ejected by him that had an unquestionable Right to do it and for a Reason in which all the Royal Family is so sensibly concerned that he must have very little Respect for the Memory of our past Kings or for the Persons of our present most Gracious most Happy and Auspicious King and Queen notwithstanding that Crime still bleeding like the Blood of the Martyr which never yet was stanched for which he was ejected that will pretend to restore and reinstate him again in such Circumstances as these And if to all this we add his gross neglect of his Duty while he officiated in our House his not burying the Dead not visiting the Sick not residing upon or near the Place his slubbering over even after his Conformity the Prayers of our Church after an unseemly and ungainly manner and after all his getting little or nothing by his being restored for he must find a Curate in one place but only the Satisfaction and Gratification of a causeless Malice against one that contributed nothing to his Ejectment it will appear as I do humbly hope to your Lordship that I have not only all the Law but all the Equity and Fairness in the World on my side and how much more unconscionable must it then needs be thought when there are so many things to be said in my behalf and when I have supplied both for above this year and half that I should not receive one penny all this while upon the Hospital Account But that this Man should receive the Money I have earned and which neither he nor any of his Friends dare ever yet pretend to be his due My Lord I have but two things more to add and I have done I beg your Lordship's Pardon for detaining you so long and will be very brief in what remains My Lord that excellent Person Mr. Serjeant Pemberton in his Opinion given under his Hand upon this very Case of ours hath these very words which follow I conceive that the Court of Aldermen being the Persons who authorised the Governors of this Hospital by their Order when the Corporation of the City of London was dissolved by the Judgment in the quo Warranto the Authority of those Governors of the Hospital ceased and they cannot act again without a new Order or Appointment of the Court of Aldermen and I conceive the King's that is King Jame's Proclamation in October 1688 doth not give any Authority to the former Governers of the Hospital to act by the former Authority to them given by the former Order of the Court of Aldermen but they
Right and in Contempt of the Reasons which he vouchsases to assign for which he did it this certainly is so insufferable so insupportable so full of the utmost Indignity and Affront in Subjects to their Prime that nothing can be more Disaffection to a Government or Disobedience to it are very good Reasons why a King should visit wherever he hath a legal Power of Visitation because the King is the Head of the Body Politick and these are the greatest political Offences that can possibly be committed and he must be the Judge who are disaffected and who not so far as concerns all Places of trust and profit in his disposal wherein the present Occupants or Incumbents have only an Arbitrary not a legal Tenure otherwise he can never visit at all upon any such account unless those to whom he must be supposed to be accountable in this Case shall concur with him in Judgment that he hath good cause so to do so that it is but the Court of Aldermen's first demanding his Reasons and then pretending to be dissatisfied with them and he hath effectually lost his power of Visitation It cannot be denied that all that were ejected in the late Visitation of King Charles II. were Dissenters or at least so great Favorites of that Interest and Party notwithstanding their Conformity in their own Persons that they were rather more dangerous to the Government than the other A Dissenter as such is one that separates from the Establish'd Worship and Communion for Conscience sake which Conscience of his is either real or pretended if it be only a pretended Conscience this Man in plainer terms is what we call an Hypocrite and a Knave he plays a Game of Interest either to be reveng'd of an whole Party for the sake of some against whom he hath conceiv'd an implacable Displeasure or because he is of Opinion and he may be extremely in the right so far that it is for his advantage in point of Trade and Commerce to herd himself among the tender Consciences and the Men of Scruples though he inwardly despise and laugh at them all this while or else he designs to furnish and enrich himself with the Spoils and Ornaments of Temples and of Altars and with the Revenues of a Church which are the first and last of his Objections and afford his covetous and ambitious Humor the best and the only Argument against it or lastly he is one that being deprest by the present posture of Affairs and having a Mind too great for the meanness of his Fortune will needs be shuffling the political Cards to try what new Game Confusion will produce And it is all one to him whether he raise himself upon the Ruins of the Government as it is by Law Establish'd both in Church and State or upon terms of Honor and Advancement from it by making himself necessary to its Preservation These are four sorts of Hypocritical Dissenters to which we might also add a fifth that of a cross-grain'd and new-fangl'd Tribe whose Humor leads them naturally to Contradiction and Strife and who for that Reason are always against all things that have the publick Sanction on their Side but that though there be nothing of Conscience and Tenderness in such an Humor as this yet there seems to be a sort of Sincerity in a peevish Temper which is inconsistent with Hypocrisie and Dissimulation But there is also the weak Brother the real and conscientious Separatist from the Church of England who is sincerely of opinion that his Salvation lies at stake and that he cannot comply with the Establish'd Worship and Service without a wilful hazarding his everlasting Happiness in the World to come and a perpetual pain and disquiet to his Conscience in this the Peace of which though he may be under a speculative Mistake is that which he ought certainly to prefer before any worldly advantage whatsoever and the pains of it contracted by a wilful Resistance of its inward motions though his Vnderstanding all this while may be misled and corrupted by Prejudice and Mistake are far more exquisite and sensibly tormenting than the utmost Punishments that Law makers can invent or Laws denounce or Wit and Cruelty in confederacy together can inflict upon him This sort of Dissenter therefore as such I believe there are many to be found is a very proper Object of 〈◊〉 Pity and Compassion from us as the other whenever he is openly detected is of our scorn and hatred but still we ought to be very charitable and cautious in our Censures as to particular Persons notwithstanding some failings or wilful misearriages altogether inconsistent with the Professions which they make which they may have afterwards repented of and we are to judge the best without notorious Evidence to the contrary for the Peace of the World which is embroil'd and endanger'd by a censorious and reproachful Spirit and for the quiet of our own Minds which is strangely disturbed by angry and uncharitable Opinions of other Men only this in general we may say of all the Parties among us even those of the Establish'd Communion not excepted that while the belief and hope of another World is every where pretended it is the Enjoyment of this and the Gratification of the Desires and Appetites belonging to it that is every where chiefly sought after But of all Men there are none that may be more justly or more safely censur'd than those that look one way while they row another that pretend to be strict Members of the National Communion and yet make it their study under that disguise to do it all the mischief they can and to encourage and abet the separating Parties in their Designs against it for nothing is more plain than that this Man hath added Malice to Hypocrisie the most exquisite Hatred to the most profound and criminal Dissimulation that he lies in wait to deceive that he may the more securely destroy without giving warning of the Blow before it comes or owning so much as a sincere Enmity or a frank and fair Intention of Revenge Now this is common to all the several Parties of Dissenters from our Church and of those that favor and abet them in disguise that they all aim at an Ecclesiastical and a Civil Commonwealth and their Principles even among those that are most honest and conscientious in them do naturally aim at the Subversion both of Church and State as to the present Establish'd Constitution of them for Church and State tho they be two things yet they both consist and are made up of the same Persons and the nature of Government is the same in both and it is an Agreement between the Modes and Forms of Government in the Ecclesiastical and Civil Administration that makes each of these most firm strong and lasting in it self and also most useful and serviceable to the other It is certain that he that in his Scruples is really Conscientious he that hath all that tenderness
ought to be commissionated by a new Order before they act as Governors If then the Governors which were ejected could not be restored without a new Order of the Court of Aldermen the same must be granted likewise of the Officers too because they both acted by the same Authority they were both ejected by the same and it is the same that must restore them both and accordingly it must be confessed my Lord that they were both of them restored by the Court of Aldermen commonly so called but the question is whether that were a legal Court of Aldermen or no and to this I answer that it was not then in the express Judgment of the Act of Parliament it self neither is it to this very day and I am so well persuaded that this is effectually proved in a Paper lately published and Entituled Considerations upon the Act of Parliament for reversing the Judgment in a quo Warranto against the City of London that when I see that Paper substantially answered which I do particularly challenge the Defendant's Council to do I will be content not only to lose my Place and my Arrears but to suffer any other Punishment or Disgrace and I hope the Parliament when they meet will not only excuse but justifie the Author of it as well for the clearness and convincingness of the thing it self as that it tends to vindicate and assert the Honor and Reputation of that August Assembly and to the Publick Good of the Nation But let that be as it will there are several worthy Gentlemen that have put in their Claims as well to the Chair it self as to their respective Seats in the Court of Aldermen which during the avoidance of the Charter they relinquish'd Now if there were nothing else but this to be considered it is impossible to determine in favor of the Defendants till it be first determin'd in a judicial way as it now lies before your Lordship in the King's-Bench or by the Parliament it self who are the best Expositors of their own Sense and Meaning whether this be a legal Court of Aldermen or no for I suppose it will be confess'd on all sides that without the legality of the Court of Aldermen be first of all admitted there can be no legal Governors or Officers by their appointment though we say they would have been illegal though the Court of Aldermen had been never so legal because they cannot by an inferior and delegated Power reverse the legal Act of the Supreme and the Act of Parliament Confirms none of their Acts but such as would have been legal had the Authority been so and not otherwise and such as could not without iniquity and inconvenience be repealed as will appear to any Man who shall peruse it so that I think upon the whole matter there never was a more weak and shamefully defenceless Cause from the Creation of the World to this very moment in which I am speaking nor will be again from this very moment till the last Trumpet shall Sound a Resurrection at the Consummation of all things The second thing which I intend to speak to and with which I shall conclude shall be their Majesties gracious Declaration of the Twenty Third of May in the Year 1689 and in the First Year of their most glorious and happy Reign for Encouragement of Officers Seamen and Mariners employ'd in the present Service In the last Clause of which it is provided in these Words That the Moyety of our Hospitals in England employed for the Cure of wounded and sick People be reserved during the time of War at Sea for such as shall be wounded in the Service of the Navy as they shall become void from and after the First Day of June next 1689. Where we see not only that their Majesties claim a Propriety in the said Hospitals by calling them our Hospitals but as such by virtue of their Proprietary Power it being of the liberty of Proprietors to do what they will with their own they appoint that one Moyety thereof should be reserved for the Sick Maim'd and Wounded in their particular Service which without a legal Propriety they could no more do than by Law they could quarter Soldiers upon private Houses without the consent of the owners If these Houses be the City's and not the King 's then the King cannot quarter Soldiers upon them and much less Maintain and Cure them out of their Revenues without the consent of the City but this Order asks no leave of the Lord Mayor or Court of Aldermen or of the Citizens and Commonalty of the City but relies wholly upon its own Authority and appoints a Moyety to be reserved as their Majesties due whenever they please to claim it and they might have claimed more if they had so pleased and may do it as often as occasion shall require so that all the question is whether this Order be legal or no for upon Supposition that it is then the Hospital is the King 's and not the City's otherwise than by way of Trust and Delegation but yet so as that the King may at all times command to be done therein so the Intention of the Charity which was for sick and wounded People be not infringed whatsoever he thinks for his Service that the Lords of the Council were of Opinion it was legal is plain because they caused it to be Printed by an Order of the same date which is Printed together with it and I dare say it will be granted to be a much greater Exercise of Regal and Visitatorial Power to exhaust and spend the whole Revenue of the same upon Persons of their Majesties particular appointment than to appoint a few Officers and Tenders to look after them which is all that we pretend to the Gross and Substance of those great Charities being consumed upon the Patients whose Servants and the King 's we are Thus my Lord I have undertook to defend the Rights and Prerogatives of this Imperial Crown so far as this Caâ—e is concerned against those that at the Hospital Charge and out of the King 's proper Revenue are come hither to defeat and overthrow it an Attempt so Loyal that it may deserve to be considered even though in your Lordship's Judgment I should not have proved all that I pretend to do which yet I humbly hope I have done I have made it a part of my Business to evince as well as I could upon what very just and reasonable Grounds the Regulations in the time of the late King Charles II. were made and that it was not only the Monarchy and the Prerogative but the Honor and Interest of the Church of England that was concerned in them My Lord Unity is necessary in all Places for the due Administration and Management of Affairs but no where more than in such an House as this where not only the credit of so Magnificent and Princely a Bequest but even the Lives of the Patients and the