and had a severe sentence passed on him for it. So I have now made it out, beyond, I hope, the possibility of contradiction, that for seventy years together, from 1558, to 1628, the lawfulness of self-defence in the case of illegal and violent cruelty, was the public and constant doctrine of this Church.

from violence. Secondly, that of nations, which permitteth those who are in the protection of others, to whom they owe no more than an honourable acknowledgment, in case they go about to make themselves absolute sovereigns, and to usurp their liberty, to resist and stand for the same. And if a lawful prince, who is not yet lord of his subjects' lives and goods, shall attempt to despoil them of the same, under colour of reducing them to his own religiou, after all humble remonstrances, they may stand upon their own guard, and being assailed, resist force with force, as did the Maccabees under Antiochus. In which case notwithstanding, the person of the prince himself ought al-years: For upon the unhappy misunderstandways to be sacred and inviolable, as was Saul to David." No commentary is wanted here.

My lords, you see how this matter stood during king James's reign. In the first year of king Charles's reign, Grotius's book 'de Jure • Belli et Pacis,' was published at Paris, dedicated to the king of France, while France was under the administration of the wisest and most jealous minister of the last age, cardinal Richlieu. In that book, in which he asserts the rights of princes with great zeal, yet he enumerates many cases, in which it is lawful to resist, particularly that of a total subversion: And that book is now all Europe over in the highest reputation of any book that the modern ages have produced. In the beginning of king Charles's reign, a war broke out in France against the Protestants; upon which he sent over ambassadors, by whose mediation a peace was concluded; but that being ill kept, the war broke out again; and the king thought himself bound by his inediation to protect the Protestants. So in the second session of the parliament, 1621, in the demand of a Supply that the lord keeper Coventry made in the king's name, these words are to be found: "France is swayed by the Popish faction; and though by his majesty's mediation, there were Articles of Agreement between that king and his subjects, that treaty hath been broke, and those of the reformed religion will be ruined without present help." Upon this the Commons petitioned the king for a fast, and desired the concurrence of the Lords, who joined with them in it. The king granted it, and an office was composed suitable to the occasion; in which, among other devotions, the nation was directed to pray for all those," who here or elsewhere were fighting God's battles and defending his altars.' Thus the whole body of the legislature did concur for a fast for that, which, if this doctrine is true, was no better than rebellion; and yet the whole nation, clergy, and laity, were required to pray for success in it.

But to complete this view of the doctrine of our Church, it is to be considered, That when a year before this, while the loan or benevolence were carried on, some officious divines made use of those expressions of kings having their power from God, as importing an authority of a nature superior to the laws of the land. One of these, Dr. Manwaring, was impeached,

These were the best and happiest times of our Church, as is often repeated by the earl of Clarendon: From these we ought to take the standard of our doctrine.

1 go next to shew what was the common doctrine for the next sixty years, from 1628, to 1688. I must yield up the first twelve

ing between the king and that parliament, there was a long discontinuance of parliaments, then the lately condemned doctrine was again in vogue; and nothing was so much heard of, as the law of government that was from God, antecedent to all human laws: Out of this sprung illegal imprisonments, illegal monopolies, severe proceedings in the Star-Chamber, but above all, the Ship-money. These things put the nation in an universal disjointing and feebleness, and when an unavoidable necessity forced that king to call a parliament, the fatal effects of those counsels broke out terribly. I know many fancy, that the war is to be charged on the principles of self defence: They are much mistaken. I had occasion to see a great way into the secret of that time, when I exa mined the papers relating to the two dukes of Hamilton. I know a great deal more since from two persons of unquestionable integrity, who knew the secrets of that time, the lord Hollis, and sir Hardbottle Grimstone; but all received a confirmation, when I found it agreed perfectly with the noble account given by the earl of Clarendon.

Nobody dreamt of a war, nor had they any principles leading to it. But there was an unhappy train of accidents that hindered matters from being brought to a settlement, even while the king was granting all they could desire. Stories were carried by persons about both the king and queen, or words let fall, that made them conclude, there were still ill designs on foot against the laws that were then passed. But that which brought all to a crisis, was the discovery of a negociation to engage the army to declare against the parliament. Whosoever compares the depositions in Rushworth, with the account given of that matter by the earl of Clarendon, will see there is a great deal more in the one, than the other is willing to believe; though he acknowledges they had both Goring's evidence, and Piercy's letter with them. I will not take it upon me to determine, whether they believed too much, or the earl of Clarendon too little. It is certain they believed all that was in the depositions, and a great deal more: For Goring being continued in the government of Portsmouth, and his father being advanced from being a baron to be an earl, and Piercy's being made a lord and master of the horse to the prince of Wales, made them

ing the sense of both Houses, it would be soon spread and known over the nation. In this sense, it is certain, that it is not lawful to take arms against any so commissioned by the king: for that were to take arms against the king's commission in the execution of the law, which is certainly a resisting the ordinance of God, which whosoever do, they shall receive to

conclude they had suppressed a great deal, instead of saying more than was true. This stuck deep in their hearts, and at last fatally broke out in the demand of the militia, that brought on the war, which I do own was plainly a rebellion; because a force was offered to the king, not to defend themselves from an unjust invasion, or illegal grievances, but to extort a new law from him.

Thus the true occasion of the war was a jealousy, that a conduct of fifteen years had given too much ground for: and that was still unhappily kept up by a fatal train of errors, in every step that was made. The great concus sion that the war gave the nation, and the barbarous effusion of so much blood, especially of the royal blood of that blessed king, had at last a happy, though a late conclusion in the Restoration: And it is no wonder, if such a | series of tragical events begot a general horror at the occasion of them. But then it was, that had it not been for the firmness of the earl of Clarendon to his English principles, the liberties of the nation had been delivered up.

It is to his memory that we owe our being a free people; for he, with his two great friends, the duke of Ormond and the earl of Southampton, checked the forwardness of some who were desirous to load the crown with prero. gative and revenue. He stopt all this, which being afterwards odiously represented, brought on him that great and lasting, but honourable disgrace. The earl of Southampton, whose death went a little before his fall, and perhaps hastened it the sooner, said to many about him, that he was a true Protestant, and an honest Englishman; and that the nation would feel the effects of his being removed, whensoever it might happen.

themselves damnation.

It was no wonder, if after such a war the doctrine of Non-Resistance was preached and pressed with more than ordinary warmth, and without any exceptions; yet some still kept these in view: So did both Dr. Falkner and myself;, and I know many others had them always in their thoughts, though they did not think it necessary to mention them.

I found the ill effects that the carrying this matter so far had on the mind of that unfortunate prince king James; for in the year 1673, when he was pleased to admit me to much free conversation with him, among many other things, I told him it was impossible for him to reign in quiet in this nation, being of that religion: he answered me quick, Does not the Church of England maintain the Doctrine of Non-Resistance and Passive Obedience? begged him not to depend on that; for there was a distinction in that matter, that would be found out when men thought they needed it. I now come to tell your lordships how right I judged.

I

It is true, they passed a very pompous decree at Oxford in 1683; but you shall hear how long they stood to it. In summer, 1686, the Prince of Orange was pleased to receive me into his service with a particular confidence.

Soon after the ecclesiastical commission was set up, and upon some proceedings before that board, he was desired from England to break with king James upon that head. I opposed this, and said, I was convinced that commission was against law, and would have ill effects; but it did not strike at the whole. This was more

That lord, in the great settlement after the Restoration, would carry things no farther than to repeal what had been extorted by the tumults; and in the matter of the Militia-act, and the oaths relating to it, all was more cautiously worded than is commonly understood. warmly pressed upon the proceedings against To the word commissioned by the king,' some Magdalen College. I still stood to my ground; indeed moved, that the word lawfully might be and told both prince and princess, that if a added to make all plain. This was pressed in the breach should follow on these matters, I could Commons by Vaughan, afterwards Lord Chief not serve. When, indeed, the Declaration was Justice of the Common Pleas. The Attorney published a second time, with a resolution to General, afterwards Lord Chancellor Nottinghave it carried through; and that many laws ham, answered, that was not necessary, for the word 'commission' imported it; since it was not lawfully issued out to lawful persons, and for a lawful reason, it was no commission; and the whole House assented to this: Yet in the House of Lords, the same word lawfully' was pressed to be added by the earl of Southampton, who was answered by the earl of Anglesey, to the same purpose with what had been said in Some days after we came to Exeter, sir the House of Commons. He indeed insisted Edward Seymour came thither, and be preto have the word added, because it would clear sently sent for me: when I came to him, he all difficulties with many, who not having asked me, why were we a rope of sand, and heard of the sense given in both Houses, might had not an association? I said, because we had fancy, that any sort of commission being grant- not yet a man of his weight to begin the ed, it would not be lawful to resist it. He did not motion: he said, if we had not one by toprevail: For it was said, that this explanation be-morrow, he would leave us before night. I

were dispensed with at pleasure; and persons who were under legal disabilities, were made judges, sheriffs, and magistrates; all whose actings were so many nullities: then I thought there was a total subversion of our constitution; which from being a legal one, was made precarious, subject to mere will and pleasure. So I was ready to serve in the Revolution.

presently saw a noble duke, now in my eye, and acquainted him with this: he went to the prince, who approving of it, an Association was prepared, and laid on the table next morning; and was after that signed by all who came to wait on the Prince. Three days after we left Exeter, a head of the College came to the Prince, to invite him to come to Oxford, assuring him, that the university would declare for him. He went as near it as Abingdon; but then the sudden turn of affairs at London obliged him to haste up, the Association was sent thither, and was signed by the heads of the colleges, and many others there; some doing it in a particular warmth of expression, and saying, that their hearts as well as their bands went with it. Upon what disappointments or other views, I cannot tell, this contradiction to their famed Decree, five years after it was made, seemed to take another turn back to it again; and the notion of a king de facto, which is but a softer word for an usurper, came in vogue.

always in view. The clergy were in many places drawn into subscriptions for this paper. This looked like a design long connived at, to have the queen's title undermined: besides this, we had a swarm of pamphlets every year to the same purpose, and, as was believed, writ by the same hand. One sold at the door of the House, with the title of King William's Exorbitant Grants,' did plainly call him an usurper: and starting an objection against the queen's possessing the throne, gave it this answer, that she did well to keep it till she could deliver it up to the righteous heir. At that time there was a quick prosecution of a paper, published, with the title of the Shortest Way with the Dissenters;' and upon that, I brought that pamphlet to a great minister, and offered to shew him this passage in it, to see if there should be a prosecution of this ordered. He turned from me; so whether he heard me or not, I cannot tell; I am sure if he says he did not, I will believe him. No prosecution followed, and the Rehearsal went on. The clergy in many places met at a coffee-house on Saturdays, to read the Rehearsals of the week, which had very ill effects in most places. I know it may be said, that the queen's learned counsel ought to have looked after these things: but we all know, that they stay till they receive orders from the ministry. The course of that treasonable paper has been now for some time stopt, so we see there is some change in the ministry.

But to complete the insolence of the enemies of the queen and of the Protestant Succession, they had the impudence to give it out, that the queen secretly favoured them. And as this, we all know, has been long whispered about among us, so it was more boldly given out in Scotland; which obliged one of the queen's ministers in that parliament, in a speech that was printed, to contradict this treasonable and dishonourable suggestion, that as some divines would have it, that there was in God a secret as well as revealed will, and that these might be contrary to one another; so they would fasten an imputation on the queen, that while she revealed her will one way, she had a secret will another way; which he solemnly affirmed to be false, and highly injurious to the queen.

The parliament, to prevent the ill effects of that, studied to secure the government, first, by an Association, and then by an Abjuration. I, who was always against every thing that might break in upon conscience, was for making these only voluntary; but they were enacted, and they were generally taken. A noble lord on the earls' bench procured me the sight of a letter, that went about to persuade the taking the Abjuration, that he had from a place where he believed it had its effect; where I found this distinction, that the abjuring any right whatsoever that the Pretender might claim, was only meant of a legal right, and that it had no relation to birth-right, or to divine right. This agreed with a report that weat then current. That a person, in a great post, sent a message to an honourable gentleman who would not take the Abjuration, that if he had an half hour's discourse with him, he doubted not to be able to convince him, that he might take the Abjuration without departing from any of his principles. Towards the end of the last reign, a bold attempt was made on the king's supremacy, by an incendiary, who is supposed to have no small share in this matter now before your lordships: but the attack on the supremacy being liable to a præmunire, it While the pamphlets and these reports were was turned with much malice, and managed thus set about, Mr. Hoadly thought that it be with great prevarication against the bishops, came him to assert the queen's title, by justi who adhered firmly to their duty to the king.fying the Revolution, out of which it rises. How great a disjointing that has brought on this Church, is too visible all the nation over; and it tends to carry on the wicked design of distracting the Church, and undermining the government.

By the time the queen was on the throne, or soon after, the Rehearsal began to be spread over the nation, two of them a week, which continued for several years together, to be published without check or controul. It was all through one argument against the queen's right to the crown: that, though it was diversified with incidents and digressions, was kept

But what an out-cry was raised on this, that one durst disturb the progress of a wicked opinion, that was visibly designed to overturn the government? And yet he asserted nothing but what the counsel for the prisoner did all fully and plainly own, that in the cases of extreme necessity, a an exception to the doctrine was to be admitted, and that that was the case at the Revolution.

But as these notions have been long let run among us, so they have appeared in a most violent and unguarded manner, ever since the attempt of the Pretender; and more of late,

3

since the preliminaries upon the overtures for a peace, seem to extinguish their hopes. What sermons on this head are preached in this city, at assizes, at Bath, and at many cathedrals? Furious men fit themselves with some hot sermons, which they carry about from place to place, to poison the nation. This has not only the visible effect designed by it, of shaking many in their allegiance to the queen, and in their adhering to the Protestant Succession; but it has a cursed effect on many others, on whom this their design does not succeed.

I am very sensible there is a great deal of impiety and infidelity now spread through the nation: this gives every good mind all possible horror; but I must tell your lordships, on what a great part of it is founded: for since my conversation with Wilmot, earl of Rochester, I have had many occasions to discourse with persons tainted with those wicked principles; and I do affirm it, that the greatest prejudice these persons have at religion, at the clergy, and at the public worship of God, is this, that they say they see clergymen take oaths, and use all prayers, both ordinary and extraordinary, for the government, and yet in their actings and discourses, and of late in their sermons, they shew visibly that they look another way: from whence they conclude, they are a mercenary sort of people without conscience.

I hope there are not many that are so corrupted and so scandalous: I am sure I know a great many that are far otherwise, who preach, speak and act as they swear and pray; but those who act in another way, are noisy and impudent, and so bring an imputation on the whole body. And unless an effectual stop is put to this distemper, it is not possible to foresee all the ill consequences that may follow upon it.

any pretence whatsoever. For these reasons, I think the first Article of this Impeachment is both well grounded, and fully made out.

THE BISHOP OF OXFORD'S SPEECH IN
THE HOUSE OF LORDS, ON THE
FIRST ARTICLE OF THE IMPEACH-
MENT OF DR. HENRY SACHEVE-

RELL.

My lords; some of this bench are necessarily called up, by words which fell from the noble lord who spake third in this debate, who was pleased to mention, among other strange things, bishops voting contrary to their doctrines. The opinions of several of the reverend prelates have been read before your lordships in Westminster-hall: they were first quoted by the counsel for the defendant, and by their order read in such a partial and unfair manner, that if I may be allowed to use any other author after the same way, to take a naked proposition out of his book, and not consider the coherence or dependance of the words, how it may be explained or limited in other places, to read just so far as may serve my purpose, and stop when any thing follows that may set the matter in a just light, I dare undertake to make any author speak on whichever side of the question I please.

But the managers for the honourable House of Commons did justice to those reverend prelates, by obliging the clerk to read other passages in their books, which clearly explained their opinions; and so the only purpose that was eventually served by producing those quotations, was that which, I fear, was not intended; the vindicating those reverend prelates from the uncharitable imputation of having asserted a doctrine in their writings, which they had contradicted by their practices, in relation to the Revolution, and the government founded upon it.

I hope to be able to reconcile the vote which I shall give, with the opinion which I have always been of, and which having not been produced below, I stand up to give it your lordships here; being far from censuring, far from entertaining the least disrespectful thought of any that shall differ in opinion from me.

I have, I am afraid, wearied your lordships; but I thought it was necessary, once for all, to enlarge copiously on this argument. And how to come close to the Article, and the Sermon, for I meddle not at all with the person of the man, whatever general expressions might very well have been used, in setting forth Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance before the Revolution; because odious cases ought not to be supposed, and therefore are not to be named, yet since Resistance was used I own the subject now in debate is a matter in the Revolution, and that the late king in of great consequence, and of great nicety and vited all the subjects to join with him, which tenderness; and that be, who should presume was in them certainly Resistance; and since to entertain your lordships upon it, ought to the lawfulness of the Revolution is so much be better qualified, and better prepared than I controverted, the condemning all Resistance in am in other respects; but I will give place to such crude and general terms, is certainly a none in those that follow, viz. in delivering condemning the Revolution. And this is fur-myself with that respect and deference which ther aggravated from those limitations on our obedience, in an Act passed soon after the Revolation, by which, in case our princes turn Papists, or marry Papists, the subjects are in express words discharged from their allegiance to them. Certainly this puts an end to the notion of Non-Resistance in any case, or on

is due to this House, that humble diffidence which becomes a just consciousness of my own weakness, and that plainness and sincerity which becomes that character, which, however unworthy of it, I have the honour

* Dr. William Talbot,