The humble Address of the Presbyterians, presented to the King by Mr Hurst, Mr Chester, Mr Slater, Mr Cox, Mr Roswell, Mr Turner, Mr Franklin, Mr Deal, and Mr Reynolds; with his Majesty's gracious Answer.

May it please your most sacred Majesty,

To believe the thankfulness of our hearts beyond any expressions of our lips or pens, for your most gracious declaration for liberty for us in the worship of God, which, we trust, we shall ever value above our property, as that without which we could enjoy nothing which we could call our own without the greatest uneasiness imaginable: but your majesty, having in the same declaration also secured that unto us, both by your royal word and act, what could your majesty have done more for us? or what is left for us further to ask of the king? And forasmuch as it hath pleased your most excellent majesty to give this safe port to your poor subjects, so long tossed with tempests, and justly to believe that loyalty is not intailed to a party, as we hope we shall ever justify the credit which your majesty's charity in that point hath given us, so we shall not cease to bow our knees to the God whom we serve, and by whom kings reign, beseeching him to recompense this royal favour to your majesty with length of days, uninterrupted health, felicity in your royal relations, success in your great councils and affairs, and, finally, with the most glorious liberty of the sons of God, heartily crying, as with one voice, Let the king live for ever.

Subscribed on the behalf of ourselves and the rest of our persuasion.

Gentlemen,

The King's Answer.

I have already found two good effects of my declaration; the easing and pleasing my subjects you speak of, and my restoring to God the empire over conscience: It has been my judgment a long time, that none has, or ought to have, any power over the conscience but God. I understand there are some jealousies among my subjects, that I have done this in a design; but you look like gentlemen of too great ingenuity to entertain any such suspicion.

Gentlemen, I protest before God, and I desire you to tell all manner of people of all persuasions, as you have opportunity to converse with them, that I have no other design than that I have spoke of.

And, gentlemen, I hope to live to see the day when you shall as well have Magna Charta for the liberty of conscience, as you have had for your properties.

And now, gentlemen, do you so preach to your hearers as they may be good Christians, and then I do not question but they will be good subjects.

A Copy of an Address to the King by the Bishop of Oxon, to be subscribed by the Clergy of his Diocess; with the Reasons for the Subscription to the Address, and the Reasons against it.

That the declaration might be so much the less unpalatable to the people, and that those of the legal church might not be rendered desperate, his majesty had been advised to open it with a clause that seemed to be in their favour, viz. 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.' Now there wanted not undertakers, even among the bishops themselves, to procure addresses of thanks from the clergy of their respective dioceses to his majesty, for the instances of his gracious re gard towards them. Those of Durham, Chester, Lincoln, Litchfield and Coventry, and St David's, had their endeavours countenanced at least, if not fully answered; for after the form which had been set by the first of those right reverend fathers, the rest, at different times, made their compliments to the throne. But Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford, not satisfied with this simple mode of proceeding, insisted upon his clergy joining him in the address which produced the following controversy.

To the King's most excellent Majesty.

WHEREAS, in your majesty's royal declaration lately published, you have been graciously pleased to declare, that your majesty will protect and maintain the archbishops, bishops, and clergy, and all other subjects of the church of England, in the free exercise of their religion, as by law established, and the full and quiet enjoyment of all their possessions, without molestation or disturbance whatsoever, we cannot but think ourselves obliged in duty and gratitude to return your majesty our most hearty thanks for those gracious expressions of your kindness, and for all your former assurances of your royal favour to the church of England, and to express our loyalty as becomes the true sons of the church of England, and your majesty's obedient subjects and servants.

The reasons for the subscription to the address are but two.

I. That it may continue the king's favour, whereas the omission may irritate the treasury to call upon the fifth bond for first-fruits at full worth.

Viz. "Whereas in your majesty's royal proclamation, lately published, you have been graciously pleased to declare, That your majesty will protect and maintain your archbishops, &c., we cannot but think ourselves obliged, in duty and gratitude, to return your majesty our hearty thanks for those gracious expressions of your kindness, and for all your former assurances of your royal favours to the church of England, and humbly to express our loyalty, as true sons of the church of England, and your majesty's most obedient subjects and servants."-Orig. Note. 12

II. That it will testify our unity with and submission to the bishop requiring their address, and perhaps expecting it upon our canonical obedience, there being nothing in the address præter licitum et honestum.

The reasons against it are many, to instance in four.

I. As our possessions, 'tis but thanks for his majesty's continuing our legal rights, which either equally concerns all states of men in the kingdom, and ought properly to be considered in parliaments; or else it supposes our possessions less legal and more arbitrary than other subjects.

II. As to the free exercise of our religion, it unnecessarily herds us among the various sects under the toleration, who for that favour in suspending the laws, have led the way to such addresses, depending for protection upon no legal establishment, but entirely upon sovereign pleasure and indulgence, which at pleasure is revocable.

III. This address, when subscribed, is either designed in the name of the church of England, and then ought to have had its birth at Lambeth, or a synodal convocation, or else in the name of this diocese only, which will disjoint us both among ourselves, who differ about it, and the body of the national clergy, who, as we are assured, dislike it in the present circumstances; so that the inevitable consequences of this address (set on foot by two or three bishops, independent upon their metropolitan, and without the previous concurrence of the rest of their order) must be a fatal division among the clergy, and either beget a new schism or widen the old ones, which are already deplorable, which, above all things, is likely to hasten our ruin, and promote the intriguing projects of our adversaries.

IV. It forfeits the present reputation we have with the nobility, gentry, and commonality of our communion, and may tempt them not only to disgust us for our rash compliance with suspected artifices, (which may rise up hereafter against us to our own and the church's prejudice,) but also to waver in the stedfastness of their profession, when they see us owning the exercise of our established own religion to be pre

carious.

Wherefore may it not be expedient humbly to remonstrate ourselves in this affair to qur diocesan, and humbly desire and beseech him not to (without consulting us) act in a thing of so public and national a concernment, in which we conceive ourselves obliged to proceed upon mature deliberation and united measures, which, under God and the king, are likely to be our greatest safeguard.

As to the continuance of the king's favour.

If the known loyal principles and practices of the church of England, peculiarly evident to this prince in the Bill of Exclusion and Monmouth, will not secure it, this address (which only copies out fanatical thanksgiving) will not. Yet it might be thought expedient for the church of England to address for the contents of that declaration, which promises to engage the two houses of parliament in concurrence to so excellent a work, as if the favour of continuing the laws (which perhaps cannot be repealed) were as great as the abrogating the laws for the dissenters' sakes, which is the reason of the thanks in the presbyterian and independant addresses.

As to the Bishop.

This address is no instance of canonical obedience that we know of; neither is our unity with him such as to oblige us to disjoint from our metropolitan and national clergy; neither seems our bishop to have had any paternal regard for us, unless it be in treating of us like children of a very weak and passive minority, when he requires our subscription to a formed address, wherein he hath neither consulted us, nor given us leave to word ourselves, or speak our own sense.

And till bishops at their confirmation declare what faith they are of, as they did in the primitive church, (for which there are the same reasons now) our unity with him must either be with communication as to the whole church, or we may follow him we know not whither.

A Reply to the Reasons of the Oxford Clergy against Addressing.

The clergy having decidedly the better in their contest with the bishop, Sir Roger L'Estrange, the Coryphaeus of his party, was invoked to the prelate's support, and produced the following defence of the proposed address.

SIR,

THE COPY you sent us of some reasons for addressing, with an answer to them, and several arguments against it, drawn up by the Oxford clergy, doth most extremely afflict and surprize us; for what man of sense could in the least imagine that our clergy, who once had obtained the highest applauses for their loyalty, should at last do any thing that may seem to justify the insinuations of those who always said, That churchof-England loyalty would continue no longer than the prince was of their religion: For now it looks as if our loyalty must be no longer lived than our church is in a flourishing state; why else do our clergy thus remonstrate against rendering his majesty their humblest thanks for the assurances he has given them of protection in the free exercise of our religion, and in the full enjoyment of their ecclesiastical possessions? Don't they know, that they are owing to his majesty's grace for this much, and that, unless his majesty had embraced that most Christian and heroic principle, that' conscience ought not to be constrained, and had also excelled all his royal predecessors in clemency, he could never forgive the church of England, by whom so many sanguinary laws have been made against men of his religion; or have forborn the exercising that prerogative in matters ecclesiastical, which our church hath often recognised to be inherent in the crown, and by which our church may be, in a great measure, legally sub

verted?

What then can be more manifest, to a person of the least thoughtfulness, than that

* See the Declaration.

our church is infinitely obliged to his majesty for her present standing? Or what more certain, than that she is most disingenuously ungrateful, if she acknowledges not so much?

This paper, therefore, which is sent abroad on purpose to ensnare the members of our church, must not escape our animadversions; and, that we may the more effectually prevent its designed mischief, we will lay down every argument in the words of the paper, and endeavour that our discussing them may be with the greatest evenness

and moderation.

In the first place then, we must make our remarks on the method taken to abuse the reader, by proposing but two considerations, and that very lamely too, for addressing; but as many more, with all the advantages imaginable, against it; thereby tempting the unwary to conclude, that the rendering his majesty their thanks was a thing most ridiculous: However, we'll propose those feeble arguments that are for addressing, with the clergy's answer, and try whether it is so easy a matter to blow them off the stage, as these gentlemen would have us think.

Reasons for this Address may be Two.

First, "That it may continue his majesty's favour; and the omission may irritate the treasury to demand a review of the first-fruits, to the full value, upon the fifth bond."

The Clergy's Answer.

As to the king's favour, if the known loyal principles and practices of the church of England, which evidenced themselves (one would think) so acceptable to this prince in the instance of the exclusion, and Monmouth, will not secure us, so not this address (which only copies out fanatical loyalty and gratitude) can continue it.

Yet our thanks at this time might not seem improper, if the favour of continuing the laws to us (which, perhaps, with all the endeavours to the contrary, cannot be repealed) were as great as the repealing those for the dissenters sake; which the presbyterian and independent addresses say, his majesty will engage his parliament to, and for which they principally give thanks.

Our Reply.

1. These gentlemen think they have done enough already to merit the continuance of his majesty's favour, because some of them were against the bill of exclusion, and endeavoured the suppression of Monmouth; not considering how many of our communion were the active persons, both in the matter of the exclusion and Monmouth. It is true, at that time some were very loyal, and but some. Consult the late king's narrative, and observe the rise and progress of that conspiracy, and you will find 'twas, from first to last, begun and carried on by church-of-England-men: For, though the fanatics had their hand in it, yet they were not the only, nor the chief actors. If you go back so far as the excluding parliament, they were, five to one, church-of-Englandmen. Or, if Or, if you look on the contests about the sheriffs, you will find the church of England to be the chief in that transaction; and in truth, no one that had been a dissenter could act as a sheriff or common-council-man, until he had forsaken his communion with the dissenters, and incorporated himself with our church: So that what