COBBETT'S Parliamentary History. 4 JAMES II. A. D. 1688. manner. Those evil Counsellors, for the advancing and colouring this with some plausible THE PRINCE OF ORANGE'S FIRST DECLARA- pretexts, did invent and set on foot the king's TION.] October 10, 1688. While James the Dispensing Power; by virtue of which they Second was labouring under great difficulties pretend, that, according to law, he can suspend and distractions, providing for his security, and and dispense with the execution of the laws, endeavouring to remove the fears and jealou- that have been enacted by the authority of the sies of his Protestant subjects, the Prince of king and parliament, for the security and hapOrange was embarking his troops with extra-piness of the subject; and so have rendered ordinary diligence; and, to justify his undertaking to the world, he, this day, set forth the following Declaration : those laws of no effect: though there is nothing more certain, than that, as no laws can be made but by the joint concurrence of king and parliament, so likewise laws so enacted, which secure the public peace and safety of the nation, and the Lives and Liberties of every subjcct in it, cannot be repealed or suspended but "It is both certain and evident to all men, that the public peace and happiness of any state or kingdom cannot be preserved, where the Laws, Liberties, and Customs, established by the lawful authority in it, are openly trans-by the same authority-For though the king gressed and annulled; more especially where may pardon the punishment that a transgressor the alteration of Religion is endeavoured, and has incurred, and to which he is condemned; that a religion, which is contrary to law, is en- as in cases of treason or felony; yet it cannot deavoured to be introduced; upon which those be, with any colour of reason, inferred from who are most immediately concerned in it are thence, that the king can entirely suspend the indispensably bound to endeavour to preserve execution of those Laws relating to Treason or and maintain the established Laws, Liberties Felony, unless it is pretended, that he is and Customs, and, above all, the Religion and cloathed with a despotic and arbitrary power, Worship of God, that is established among and that the Lives, Liberties, Honours, and them; and to take such an effectual care, that Estates of the subjects, depend wholly on his the inhabitants of the said state or kingdom may good-will and pleasure, and are entirely subneither be deprived of their Religion, nor of ject to him; which must infallibly follow on their Civil Rights: which is so much the more the king's having a Power to suspend the exenecessary, because the greatness and security cution of laws, and to dispense with them.both of kings, royal families, and of all such as Those evil Counsellors, in order to the giving are in authority, as well as the happiness of their some credit to this strange and execrable subjects and people, depend in a most especial maxim, have so conducted the matter, that manner upon the exact observation and main- they have obtained a Sentence from the tenance of these their Laws, Liberties and Judges, declaring, that this Dispensing Power Customs. Upon these Grounds it is that we is a Right belonging to the crown; as if it were cannot any longer forbear to declare, that, to in the power of the Twelve Judges to offer up our great regret, we see, that those Counsel- the Laws, Rights, and Liberties of the whole lors, who have now the chief credit with the nation to the king, to be disposed of by him king, have overturned the Religion, Laws and arbitrarily, and at his pleasure, and expressly Liberties of those realms, and subjected them, contrary to laws enacted for the security of the in all things relating to their Consciences, Li- subjects. In order to the obtaining this judg berties and Properties, to arbitrary Government, those evil Counsellors did, beforehand, ment; and that, not only by secret and in- examine secretly the opinion of the Judges, direct ways, but in an open and undisguised and procured such of them, as could not in VOL. V. B conscience concur in so pernicious a Sentence, ligion, and that now hide their unconcernedto be turned out, and others to be substituted ness for it under the specious pretence of moin their rooms, till, by the changes which were deration. The said Commissioners have susmade in the courts of judicature, they at last pended the bishop of London, only because he obtained that judgment. And they have raised refused to obey an order, that was sent him to some to those trusts, who make open profession suspend a worthy divine, without so mach as of the Popish Religion, though those are by citing him before him to make his own defence, law rendered uncapable of all such employ- or observing the common forms of process. ments. It is also manifest and notorious, that, They have turned out a President chosen by as his majesty was, upon his coming to the the Fellows of Magdalen College, and aftercrown, received and acknowledged by all the wards all the fellows of that college, without so subjects of England, Scotland, and Ireland, as much as citing them before any court that their king, without the least opposition, though could take legal cognisance of that affair, or he made then open profession of the Popish obtaining any Sentence against them by a comReligion, so he did then promise and solemnly petent judge: and the only reason that was swear at his coronation, that he would main- given for turning them out, was, their refusing tain his subjects in the free enjoyment of to choose for their President a person that was their laws, rights, and liberties; and in par- recommended to them by the instigation of ticular, that he would maintain the Church those evil Counsellors, though the right of a of England, as it was established by law. It free election belonged undoubtedly to them; is likewise certain, that there have been, at but they were turned out of their Freeholds, divers and sundry times, several laws enacted contrary to law, and to that express provision for the preservation of those Rights and Li- in Magua Charta, That no man shall lose life berties, and of the Protestant Religion; and, or goods but by the law of the land: and now among other Securities, it has been enacted, these evil Counsellors have put the said ColThat all persons whatsoever, that are ad- lege wholly into the hands of the Papists; vanced to any Ecclesiastical dignity, or to though, as is above said, they are incapable of bear office in either University, as likewise all such employments, both by the law of the all others that should be put in any em- land, and the statutes of the college. These ployment civil or military, should declare, commissioners have also cited before them all that they were not Papists, but were of the the chancellors and archdeacons of England, Protestant Religion, and that, by their taking requiring them to certify to them the names of of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and all such clergymen as have read the king's the Test: yet these evil Counsellors have, in Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, and of effect, annulled and abolished all those laws, such as have not read it, without considering both with relation to Ecclesiastical and Civil that the reading of it was not injoined the Employments. In order to Ecclesiastical Dig- Clergy by the Bishops, who are their Ordinaries. nities and Offices, they have, not only without The illegality and incompetency of the said any colour of law, but against most express court of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was laws to the contrary, set up a Commission of a so notoriously known, did so evidently appear, certain number of persons, to whom they have that it tended to the subversion of the Procommitted the cognisance and direction of all testant Religion, that the most reverend father Ecclesiastical matters; in the which commis- in God William archbishop of Canterbury, prision there has been, and still is, one of his ma- mate and metropolitan of England, seeing that jesty's ministers of state, who makes now pub-it was raised for no other end but to oppress lic profession of the Popish Religion; and who, at the time of his first professing it, declared, that for a great while before he had believed that to be the only true Religion. By all this, the deplorable state to which the Protestant Religion is reduced is apparent, since the affairs of the Church of England are now put into the hands of persons, who have accepted of a Commission that is manifestly illegal, aud who have executed it contrary to all law; and that now one of their chief members has abjured the Protestant Religion, and declared himself a Papist; by which he is become incapable of holding any public employment. The said Commissioners have hitherto given such proof of their submission to the directions given them, that there is no reason to doubt, but they will still continue to promote all such designs, as will be most agreeable to them. And those evil Counsellors take care to raise none to any Ecclesiastical Dignities but persons, that have no zeal for the Protestant Re such persons who were of eminent virtue, learning and piety, refused to sit or to concur in it.-And, though there are many express laws against all Churches or Chapels for the exercise of the Popish Religion, and also against all Monasteries and Convents, and more particularly against the Order of the Jesuits; yet those evil Counsellors have procured Orders for the Building of several Churches and Chapels for the exercise of that Religion : they have also procured divers Monasteries to be erected; and, in contempt of the law, they have not only set up several Colleges of Jesuits in divers places, for corrupting of the youth, but have raised up one of the Order to be a privy counsellor, and a minister of state by all which they do evidently shew, that they are restrained by no rules or law whatsoever; but that they have subjected the honours and estates of the subjects, and the Established Religion, to a despotick power, and to arbitrary government: in all which they are served and |