this especially; because that declaration is founded upon such a dispensing power, as hath been often declared illegal in parliament, and particularly in the years MDCLXII., MDCLXXII. and in the beginning of your majesty's reign; and is a matter of so great moment and consequence to 5 the whole nation, both in church and state, that your petitioners cannot in prudence, honour, or conscience so far make themselves parties to it, as the distribution of it

the real ground of objection to the king's exercise of his dispensing power was, not its illegality, but its incompatibility with a free form of 10 government. The paper notices indeed the votes of the house of commons that have been already considered; it also refers to a letter of remonstrance written by archbishop Abbot to king James I. in the year 1623 on occasion of certain indulgences attempted to be granted by means of proclamations (see Tanner MSS. vol. lxxxii. p. 365), and 15 mentions some other facts of a like nature, and of no greater authority; but its main argument consists in the following observations: "It was apparent that if the king had that power, which in those declarations he had exercised, the reformation itself was become arbitrary, and that the church of England, as it was the religion of the state, had no other zo subsistence but by the king's mere favour.... that all the acts of uniformity and all the acts for taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and the tests are suspended and dispensed with; all which laws are so much the fences, the mounds and the bulwarks of the protestant religion and the church of England, that no man can concur to the weak- 25 ening or destroying of them without betraying at once his religion and the laws of the land."

And certainly if the case were treated only as a legal question, the king had great authorities in his favour. Lord Bacon in his Elements of the Common Law (Works, vol. iv. p. 62) says that it is "an insepar- 30 able prerogative of the crown to dispense with politic statutes of a given kind:" sir Edward Coke (12 Rep. p. 18) says, that no act of parliament can bind the king from any prerogative which is sole and inseparable to his person, but that he may dispense with it by a nonobstante" and in the recent case of sir Edward Hales, in which it was 35 sought to recover a penalty imposed by the test act, and the strength of the prerogative was tried in a distinct and apposite issue, eleven out of the twelve judges decided in favour of the king's dispensation. It was evident that a power so vague and revolutionary, exercised too in

all over the nation, and the solemn publication of it once and again even in God's house, and in the time of his divine service must amount to in common and reasonable construction. Your petitioners therefore most humbly 5 and earnestly beseech your majesty, that you will be graciously pleased not to insist upon their distributing and reading your majesty's said declaration.

And your petitioners shall ever pray, etc.

a manner so unsparing, could not long be allowed to continue in its 10 existing condition; and it was accordingly declared in the bill of rights (1 of Will. and Mary, sess. 2. c. 2.), that the pretended power of suspending or dispensing with laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, was illegal. Lords' and Commons' Journals. Blackst. Comm. Hallam, vol. ii. pp. 406. 450. Burnet, 15 O. T. vol. iii. pp. 227. 400. Neal, Purit. vol. iii. p. 301. Collect. Curiosa, vol. i. p. 365. D'Oyly's Sancroft, vol. i. p. 258. Calamy's Life, vol. i. pp. 199. 334. Clarke's James II. vol. ii. pp. 81. 152. Lingard, vol. viii. p. 372.

Archiepisc. Cant.

GUIL. SANCROFT 11.

CLXV.

Anno Christi

1688.

Reg. Angliæ
JACOB. II. 4.

The articles recommended by the archbishop of Cant. to all the bishops within his metropolitan jurisdiction.

YE

SIR,

ESTERDAY the archbishop of Cant. delivered the articles, which I send you enclosed, to those bishops, who are at present in this place, and ordered copies of them to be likewise sent, in his name, to the absent 5

The articles recommended] The trial of the seven bishops took place on the 29th of June, and in the following month the archbishop addressed these articles to the bishops of his province. The matter most deserving of notice in them is the different tone adopted with reference to the protestant dissenters; and the change was occasioned by the 10 sense of common danger that had been created in both parties from the encroachments of popery, and by the respect and gratitude which many of the non-conformists paid to the established clergy for their great services in the common cause of protestantism. In the MSS. minutes for the archbishop's speech we find the following notice: 15 "Here may be said what shall be judged convenient about taking off penal laws against dissenters;" and we know from other sources that he had already arranged a plan for comprehending many of them within the established church, and was employing some of the most eminent divines of the time in preparing it for the convocation. The following 20 account of the matter was given by Dr. Wake, then bishop of Lincoln, in the speech that he delivered in the year 1710, at the trial of Dr. Sacheverel : Towards the end of that unhappy reign, when we were in the height of our labours, defending the church of England against the assaults of popery, and thought of nothing else, that wise prelate 25 [archbishop Sancroft] foreseeing some such revolution as soon after was happily brought about, began to consider how utterly unprepared they had been at the restoration of king Charles II. to settle many things to the advantage of the church; and what a happy opportunity had been lost, for want of such a previous care for its more perfect 30 establishment. It was visible to all the nation, that the more moderate dissenters were generally so well satisfied with that stand which

bishops. By the contents of them you will see that the storm, in which he is, does not frighten him from doing his duty, but rather awakens him to do it with so much the more vigour. And indeed the zeal, which he ex5 presses in these articles both against the corruptions of the church of Rome on the one hand, and the unhappy differences that are among protestants on the other, are such apostolical things, that all good men rejoice to see

our divines had made against popery, and the many unanswerable To treatises they had published in confutation of it, as to express an unusual readiness to come in to us . . . . . . The design was in short this: to improve, and if possible to enforce, our discipline; to review and enlarge our liturgy by correcting some things, by adding others; and, if it should be thought advisable by authority, when this matter should 15 come to be legally considered, first in convocation, then in parliament, by leaving some few ceremonies, confessed to be indifferent in their nature, as indifferent in their usage, so as not to be necessarily observed by those who make a scruple of them, till they should be able to overcome either their weaknesses or prejudices, and be willing to 20 comply with them. How far this good design was not only known to, but approved by, the other fathers of our church, that famous petition, for which seven of them were sent to the Tower, and which contributed so much to our deliverance, may suffice to shew. The willingness they there declared of coming to such a temper as should be 25 thought fit with the dissenters, when that matter should be considered and settled in parliament and convocation, manifestly referred to what was then known to several, if not all, of the subscribers, to have been at that very time under deliberation." The king's wrath against the dissenters is expressed in the Stuart papers in the following manner : 30" They joined hands and voices with the church of England party, so far at least as to rail against the church of Rome, and talk of nothing but fire and fagot, as if Smithfield had been all in a blaze; when the king's tenderness made it his principal care that there should not be the least fine inflicted for religion's sake; but this (they were told) 35 might be catalogued amongst their other thankful returns for the king's snatching them out of the fire, and losing his credit with the church party, for having gathered those vipers from the dunghill where the laws had laid them, and cherishing them in his bosom till they stung him with reproaches, as false as they were villainous and ungrateful.” Among the Tanner MSS. (vol. ccc. p. 270.) is a paper in the hand

40

so good a prelate at the head of our church, who in this critical time has had the courage to do his duty in so signal a manner.

London, July 27,

MDCLXXXVIII.

I am, Sir, yours.

Some heads of things to be more fully insisted upon by the bishops in their addresses to the clergy, and people of their respective dioceses.

I.

THAT

HAT the clergy often read over the forms of their 5 ordination, and seriously consider what solemn vows and professions they made therein to God and his church, together with the several oaths and subscriptions they have taken and made upon divers occasions.

II. That in compliance with those and other obliga- 10 tions, they be active and zealous in all the parts and

writing of the archbishop, entitled "For the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs," and containing provisions on all the points complained of in the government of the church, such as excommunication, commutation of penance, appeals, pluralities, lay-impropriations, peculiars, and the 15 punishment of scandalous clergymen. Among the same MSS. (vol. xxviii. p. 93), and also in the archbishop's handwriting, is the original of these "Heads of things," and the present reprint has been taken from it. It is worthy of remark, that in first writing the paper the archbishop had placed the 11th article (respecting dissenters) before 20 the tenth (respecting Romanists); but was induced to reverse the order afterwards. In the same vol. (p. 94) is also the archbishop's first draft of this paper, from the corrections in which may be seen the great care he took to exclude any suspicion of sympathy with the Romanists, and to cultivate a good understanding with the protestant dissenters.

25

The letter which precedes the "Heads of things" was prefixed in the printed circular issued at the time by the archbishop, and may be seen in the Tanner papers, vol. xxviii. p. 97. Sacheverel's Trial, p. 213. D'Oyly's Sancroft, vol. i. p. 327. Neal, Purit. vol. iii. p. 305. Burnet, Own Times, vol. iv. p. 53. Baxter's Life, p. 383. Clarke's 30 James II. vol. ii, p. 169. .