employments whereby the Managery of the Government might solely be in the hands of Protestants yet what necessity was there for the outlawing of them in putting them out of the protection of the King and his Laws or of receiving any benefit by them so that they could not recover their just debts defend themselves from any injury done to their Persons or Estates nor have equity done them which is the priviledge all Subjects claim from their Sovereigns Justice As they must suffer all hardships so the Acts provide that no Protestant or other should be beneficial to them being deprived of all the usual ways whereby advantages accrue to any either by the Living or the Dead in that they might not be Guardians Executors Administrators or receive any Legacy or Deed of Gift Whoever considers these things with a sedate and composed mind undisturbed with Bigotry Suspition or Envy must think this punishment intended to keep the Roman Catholics in perpetual poverty and vassallage which no Roman Catholic Prince can take pleasure to see or endure Of the prohibiting Rom. Cathol to be in the Kings Court or Presence As to the prohibiting all Roman Catholics or any other resusers of the Oaths and Declarations advisedly to come into the Kings Presence or Courts there might be some colour for such a prohibition during the time that a Protestant Prince was thought to be in personal danger from Roman Catholics but surely at any other time it appears a strange ungentileness to retrench a Sovereigns attendance and shews a very unbecoming diffidence in the Wisdom of a Prince and his Privy Council as if they knew not whom and when to prohibit Access to their Royal Persons and Court which by direction to the Lord Chamberlain or by Proclamation might be done upon Emergencies It looks like a suspition that the hinderance of the Access of Roman Catholics was rather that they might not represent their sufferings explain their Religion more favourably make Proselytes or interceed for some accused which though not expressed in the Act fully yet may well enough be interpreted from the words preventing the increase of Popery I know there is a provision upon obtaining of licence but that could extend to very few who either could be at the expence or obtain the favour of an Order of Council for that purpose and so all indigent Catholics who for their sufferings for Kings Charles the Martyr might merit the late merciful Kings regard and benignity were utterly excluded Not fit now to continue But if we suppose these Acts as necessary and equitable as the greatest Sticklers for them could evince while the Plot was believed I think no person endowed with common civility will think it fit they should be imposed upon our present Sovereign nor will they think it equitable and just that any Roman Catholic King should deal in the same manner with his Protestant Subjects And I presume the Golden Rule to do to others as we would be done by our selves should influence publick as well as private affairs Concerning the King and Queens sworn Servants As to the Kings sworn Servants It must be very severe upon several of them whose fortunes were bottomed upon it and it was a very unbecoming restraint that a Sovereign should dismiss his Domesticks though never so experienced and faithful for that which it may be few Members of the Houses would discard a Trusty Menial Servant for As to the Queens Servants it had been contrary to the Law of Nations to have imposed such Oaths and Declarations upon such as were naturaly born Subjects of Portugal yet in that they were limited to so small a number as nine whereas her Majesty entertains near thrice the number of Religious it shewed but little consideration of the number of Servants in the Family of so great a Princess But I need not trouble you with the consideration of these as moving in a lower Sphere for what ever will induce the two Houses to reinstate the great Orbs in their places and capacitate them to exert their due Powers will prevail to restore the Satellites of the great Luminaries Therefore I shall now pass to the ejecting the Roman Catholic Lords out of their House and depriving them of their Birth-rights Concerning the Catholic Lords being excluded the House By the Kings Royal Prerogative the Power of Creating a Baron and Peer of the Realm is only in the King as the Original Donor of all Honours from whom all Dignities flow as from a Fountain to all his Subjects Conciliarii nati This Honour consists not only in obtaining a swelling Title and Degree of precedencie as special Marks to them and their Families of Princely Favours but likewise hath for many hundreds of years had annexed to it a right of being a Member of the House of Peers sitting and voting there and thence they are stiled frequently Hereditary Councellors who constitute the Kings Supreme Court of Judicature In the Saxon times and long after the Conquest we find none but Bishops Abbots Priors and these stiled Magnates or Proceres to constitute the General Councils which we now call Parliaments tho it seems by what we can collect from the Ancientest Authors the King summoned which of these he pleased and did not tye himself to continue it to their Posterities Mat. Paris 227. But in the Great Charter of King John we find he granted that he would by special Letters summon to these Great Councils in Assessing all Aids and Scutage the Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbots Earls and great Barons of the Realm Cap. 2.12.19.37.38 So in the Great Charter of Henry the Third those are first provided for and a severe Excommunication was wont to be pronounced by all the Bishops in presence of all the Lords and Commons against the Infringers thereof And it is obvious to all who know any thing of our Laws how Sacred an Esteem the Great Charter hath had being stiled The Charter of the Subjects Liberties and looked upon as the Standard of the Subjects Priviledges so that some are of opinion that even Acts of Parliament contrary to Magna Charta are void Et ut Barones tractentur teneantur reputentur c. eorum quilibet habeat teneat possideat sedem locuus vocem in Parliamentis publicis Comitiis et consillis nostris haeredum successorum nostrorum infra Regnum nostrum Angliae inter alios Barones Barones Parliamentorum publicorum Comitiorum Conciliorum T it 〈◊〉 Part. 2. cap. 5. This Right of Barons sitting and voting in Parliament is specially provided for in their Patents of Creation which may be seen at large in Mr. Selden And as to what relates to our purpose is contained in these Words after the Recital of the Words of Erecting and Creating them and their Heirs-males to the Name State Degree Stile Dignity Title and Honour of a Baron c. That they shall be treated held and
reputed such c. and every one of them to have hold and possess seat place and voice in our Parliaments Publick Conventions and Councils and of those of our Heirs and Successors within our Kingdom of England amongst other Barons and Barons of our Parliaments publick Conventions and Councils This having been the long used form of the Patents granted by our Protestant Princes it is not only an abatement of what the Sovereign intended for their well-deserving Subjects and a violating of that peculiar Right which was designed to be transmitted to their Posterities and thereby a degrading of Roman Catholic Peers of so importent a priviledge but it wrests out of the Kings hands a Royal Prerogative he hath Jure Coronae to make and create the Members of that most Honourable House which is his Supreme Court of Judicature The ill Consequences that may follow such Retrenchment being well worth serious Reflections and of the Kings Prerogative I having occasion hereafter to treat more largely shall add no more here but only hint to you the Resentments of some Parliaments when they have wanted their Members and close this Head with some short Reflections which with all due deference to better Judgments and those whom it may most immediatly concern I shall only offer to be considered Mat. Paris p. 885. Anno 1255. The Earls and Barons absolutely refused the King any assistance or answer at all to what he demanded because all the Barons were not at that time called according to the Tenure of Magna Charta Stat. 1â— 114 So the Acts of the Parliament of the 21th of Rich. 2. and all the proceedings therein were totally repealed and nulled by the first Parliament of King Henry the Fourth because the Lords who adhered to the King were summoned by him to the Parliament and some of the opposite party imprisoned impeached and unsummoned Pryns plea for Lords Stat. 24. When King Charles the First sitting the Parliament confined but one Member the Earl of Arundel the whole House of Lords Remonstrated and petitioned the King to take off the restraint and to admit him to sit and serve the King and Common-wealth in the great Affairs of that Parliament So the Lord Digby Earl of Bristol being not summoned the Lords ordered his Admission to Sit as his Birth-right 4 Justit p. 2. from which he might not be debarred for want of summons which ought to have been sent him ex debito Justitiae as Sir Edward Coke affirms Pryn ut supra p. 145 146. When the same King Charles demanded the Five Members the Two Houses grew exceedingly disquieted at it and would meddle in no other Business but adjourned themselves to Guild-Hall London till the King should give them satisfaction in discovering the Authors of that Counsel The stress of whose Argument in their Messages to the King Nov. 2. 1642 was That by that means under false pretences of Crimes and Accusations such and so many Members of both or either House of Parliament may be taken at any time by any person to serve a turn and to make a Major part of whereby the freedom of Parliament would be destroyed which they say dependeth in a great part on this priviledge because without it the whole Body of Parliaments may be dissolved by depriving them of their Members by degrees some at one time and others at another Plea for Lords p. 414. The same mischiefs which they urged might happen to the Being and Constitution of Parliaments by the Kings depriving the House of five Members may happen upon the Houses excluding their Members by Vote against which Mr. Prynn makes so great an Out-cry and from this unparallell'd president except in the long Parliament of expelling Members for their opinion in Religion Some Reflections upon the whole All Lovers of the so excellently composed Constitution of the Two Houses may do well to consider what an Inlet it will make to the Imitation of the likely designing Men when they shall have any Intrigue in hand to expel Members of other Qualifications Qualifications and Recognitions during the Usurpation Surely we ought not to forget how much it prolong'd our miserable slavery under the Usurpers when no Members how duly soever chosen by the Freeholders were admitted to sit unless they were so and so qualified and made a Recognition to own the Usurped Government and to Act nothing contrary to the Model of it I think it no great Commendation in us to be in Love with such a Copy of the same tho drawn in Oyl-Colours and made more lasting and obliging by the Legality of it When Queen Elizabeth was in greatest danger from Roman Catholics even while her Rival lived she could not be induced to deprive the Roman Catholic Lords of their places in Parliament The ill consequences of Secluding the Bishops I think we ought to remember what dismal effects followed the Seclusion of the Bishops out of the House of Lords and that upon the Kings Restauration none appeared more forward and zealous to have them brought into the House of Lords again than the Roman Catholic Peers did which Action none I think will interpret to have proceeded from their Love to their Religion but solely to the tender regard they had to Justice and the true Constitution of Parliaments and if the Bishops and Protestant Lords had thought fit to have been as careful of the Birth-rights of those few Catholic Lords that were Members of their House in all probability our Religion had been in as little danger by their stay as it hath been better'd by their expulsion for they neither were then or are like to be so numerous in that House as to carry any Vote to overthrow or weaken the Exercise of the Protestant Religion What sort of Acts of Parliament least dureable It must be owned that Acts of Parliament are to be looked upon as Laws the Subjects ought to yield all Obedience to But it is likewise to be considered that such Temporary Acts which upon Emergencies and to serve a juncture have altered any Ancient or Fundamental Constitution of the Government robbed the King of any useful Prerogative or the Subjects of their Birth-rights as likewise all such as by Revolution of Time have the Causes for which they were made ceasing have been rarely found conducible to Publick Good or of any long continuance It is true our present Sovereign was personally excepted from the severity of these Acts but it is well known that some great Members of the Houses designed to have him presented by the Grand-Jury as a Recusant in order to his Conviction as a Roman Catholic and the Judges for discharging the Jury too soon as the designers alledged whereby an Indictment could not be brought in were severely censured by the House of Commons This was not all for the hottest Zealots were for proceeding upon the Statute against being Converted or Reconciled to the Church of Rome upon
glorious an Enterprise it will be rowsing his slow and unresolved Thoughts with the Consideration what a perpetual renown it ever will be to King Henry the VII that he united the Houses of York and Lancaster and how glorious the memory of King James the I. ever must be who united the Kingdoms And how transcendent a Jubile it would cause over all the Roman World That his Grandson should reunite his Subjects to the Roman Catholick Church which will be so irresistable a Charm they say that it cannot be in his power to escape the Enchantment Nor could he want the Charity to wish it or neglect the essaying all means to effect it being prepossessed with a firm Perswasion that the undertaking of it would be an acceptable Service to God Almighty It is not my design to write any thing that may lessen the esteem and due regard Men have for the Church of England of which I own my self an unworty Member Neither shall I meddle with any Points in controversie but only offer my Reasons why I cannot conceive by the Proceedings of the King hitherto nor the consequences flowing from those steps he makes That the Protestant Religion is either in danger or designed to be rooted out or so eclipsed as we are invited to believe SECT VI. That the Church of England hath been in a disturbed condition under Protestant Princes BEfore I consider the present State of the Church of England which I think in many respects is as flourishing as it hath been since the Reformation I must shew its former condition During the Reign of Q. Elizabeth and the three succeeding Kings it hath been continually disquieted with Dissenters Fanaticks and other Sects who never gave over their Clamours for a more refined Reformation from Rome Every Year almost producing some bitter Invective or other grudging murmuring and calumniating the English Hierarchy to the great disquiet of the Secular Government Hence the necessity of severe Laws against Non-conformists ever and anon being made or reinforced Those that lived in the beginning of the late Wars cannot forget what Tumults were in some places about placing the Communion Table Altar-wise How many were scandalized at the Bishop's dignifyed Clergy and Priests Habit at the kneeling at the Sacrament at the use of the Cross in Baptism about bowing to the Altar and the Name of Jesus And tho' in Cathedrals a Solemn Order was observed yet it was much murmured at and was branded both in the manner of the Celebration of Divine Offices and the use of the Choristers and Organs with the name of down-right Popery and Superstition Who hath a mind to know the particulars of the disquieting of the Church of England by her Protestant Adversaries may peruse Bishop Bancroft's Dangerous Positions and Dr. Heylin's History of Presbyterianism Mr. Fowlis History of the Plots Conspiracies c. and such as relate the Church History of those times and they will find sufficient to convince them what Jars Conflicts Heart-burnings and Disquiets were amongst Protestants How the Clergy and the Liturgy were despised which grew every Year worse and worse till it was judged requisite by a strict execution of the Laws to master the Nonconformists and bend or break them to a complyance or silence But the success answered not the design for on the contrary the peoples minds grew strongly alienated from the Discipline of the Church and as soon as they had chosen a House of Commons to their mind the use of the Common Prayer Book Surplices and Habits of the Clergy and all things in use formerly and established by Law were voted down and the Souldiery and Rabble were encouraged to tear the Service-Book and Surplices to transplace the Communion-Table level the Steps pull up Fonts break down all the painted Glass-Windows especially where any representation of our Saviour or any Saints or Bishops or other in Religious Habits were The Copes Vestments and Chalices were all swept out of the Church by Order of Committies or the Rapine of Parishioners or Soldiers The Monuments and monumental Inscriptions were most of them defaced especially where a Religious Habit was represented an Ora pro Animâ annexed or the worth of the Brass tempted the Sacriledge none of the zealous Observers of the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church were permitted to enjoy any Benefice or teach a School Bishops and Deans and Chapters Lands were sold and they were about resolving which of the Cathedrals should be demolished So that in conclusion there was no publick appearance of the Discipline of the Church of England tho' all the Pulpits were supplyed with Preachers who conformed to their new Directory and new Ordination by Presbyters This might indeed be called a Protestant Church but I am sure it was very different from the Church of England as established by Law which was so far from then being a flourishing Church that it had neither Vola nor Vestigium of one but such as was under as dismal a Persecution as a Church well could be It is true after the late King of immortal memory's Restauration It was restored again to a competency of Power and Order Yet the Dissenters Meeting-places were as much frequented as the Churches Everywhere Non-conformable Ministers had their Conventicles till a new Act of Uniformity was made yet the number of Dissenters then were so many that the King who loved ease and to have his Subjects minds composed that he might more freely have the Service of their Bodies and Purses was willing to grant them Indulgence till that was disliked by the Parliament and the Bishops and zealous Members of the Church of England whereby the King was prevailed with to revoke it Thus was the Church of England harrassed under Protestant Princes SECT VII That it is in a more flourishing condition now LET us now take a view of its present State and make a just paralel and we shall I think find it in no worse but in a better state than before Now our Clergy-men go publickly in their decent Habits are reverenced and respected no affronts put upon them All the Ceremonies appointed by the Canons and Rubricks are more exactly observed and more universally confirmed too than in any Age before we hear little of their Conventicles the greater number of former Dissenters flocking to our Churches conforming in all things answering to the Responses standing up at the Creed bowing at the Name of Jesus kneeling at the Prayers and with great attention and zeal hearing the learned Sermons delivered almost from every Pulpit the Ministers redoubling their pains in emulation to the Catholick Fathers that they may retain their Flocks firm to the Protestant Religion and we may judge by the crowding of the Churches That for one Dissenter that was won to the Church of England in the late Kings Reign there are now ten which is one of the Miracles the King has done to unite these at so great odds formerly So that to me it is a