ΤΟ ΤΗΕ

CLERGY

OF THE

Church of ENGLAND.

Gentlemen,

I

Tis with a juft Deference to Your great Power and Influence in this Kingdom, that I lay before you the following Comment upon the Laws which regard the Settlement of the Imperial Crown of Great Britain. My Purpose in addreffing thefe Matters to you, is to conjure you, as Heaven has bleffed you with proper Talents and Opportunities, to recommend them, in your Wri tings and Difcourfes, to your Fellow-Subjects,

In the Character of Paftors and Teachers, you have an almoft irrefiftable Power over as of your Congregations; and by the admirable Inftitution of our Laws, the Tenths of our Lands, now in your Poffeffion, are deftined to become the Property of fuch others, as fhall

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by Learning and Virtue qualifie themselves to fucceed you. Thefe Circumftances of Education and Fortune, place the Minds of the People, from Age to Age, under your Dire&tion; As therefore it would be the highest Indifcretion in Ministers of State of this Kingdom, to negle& the Care of being acceptable to you in their Adminiftration; fo it would be the greatest Impiety in you, to inflame the People committed to your Charge, with Apprehenfions of Danger to you and your Conftitution, from Men innocent of any fuch Defigns.

Give me Leave, who have in all my Words and Actions, from my Youth upwards, main. tained an inviolable Refpe&t to you and your Order, to obferve to you, that all the Diffatisfactions which have been raised in the Minds of the People, owe their Rife to the Cunning of artful Men, who have introduced the Mention of you and your Intereft, (which are facred to all good Men) to cover and fanctify their own Practices upon, the Affections of the People, for Ends very different from the Promotion of Religion and Virtue. Give me Leave alfo to take Notice, That thefe Suggeftions have been favoured by fome few unwary Men in holy Orders, who have made the Conftitution of their own Country a very little Part of their Study, and yet made Obedience and Government the frequent Subjects, of their Difcourfes..

Thefe Men, from the pompous Ideas of Imperial Greatnefs, and Submiffion to abfolute Emperors, which they imbibed in their earlier Years, have from Time to Time inadvertent.

ly

ly uttered Notions of Power and Obedience abhorrent from the Laws of this their native Country.

I will take the further Liberty to fay, That if the Acts of Parliament mentioned in the following Treatife had been from Time to Time put in a fair and clear Light, and been carefully recommended to the Perufal of young Gentlemen in Colleges, with a Preference to all other Civil Inftitutions whatsoever; this Kingdom had not been in its prefent Condition, but the Conftitution would have had, ini every Member the Univerfities have fent into the World ever fince the Revolution, an Advocate for our Rights and Liberties.

There is one thing which deferves your moft ferious Confideration. You have bound your felves by the strongest Engagements that Religion can lay upon Men, to fupport that Succeffion which is the Subject of the following Papers; you have tied down your Souls by an Oath to maintain it as it is fettled in the House of Hanover; nay, you have gone much further than is ufual in Cases of this Nature, as you have perfonally abjured the Pretender to this Crown, and that exprefly, without any Equivocations or mental Refervations whatsoever, that is, without any poffible Efcapes, by which the Subtlety of temporizing Cafuifts might hope to elude the Force of thefe folemn Obligations. You know much better than I do, whether the calling God to witness to the Sincerity of our Intentions in thefe Cafes, whether the fwearing upon the holy Evangelifts in the moft folemn Manner, whether the taking of an Oath before Multitudes

tudes of Fellow-Subjects and Fellow-Chriftians in our publick Courts of Justice, do not lay the greatest Obligations that can be laid on the Confciences of Men. This I am fure of, that if the Body of a Clergy who confiderately and voluntarily entered into thefe En.. gagements, fhould be made ufe of as Inftru ments and Examples to make the Nation break through them, not only the Succeffion to our Crown, but the very Effence of our Religion. is in Danger. What a Triumph would it fur.. pifh to thofe evil Men among us who are E nemies to Your facred Order? What Occafion would it adminifter to Atheists and Unbe. lievers, to fay that Chriftianity is nothing else but an outward Show and Pretence among the moft knowing of its Profeffors? What could we afterwards object to Jefuits? What, would be the Scandal brought upon our Holy Church, which is at prefent the Glory and Bulwark of the Reformation? How would our prefent Clergy appear in the Eyes of their PoAerity and even to the Succeffors of their own Order, under a Government introduced and eftablished by a Conduct fo directly oppofite to all the Rules of Honour and Precepts of Christianity?

As I always fpeak and think of your holy Order with the utmost Deference and Respect, I do not infift upon this Subject to infinuate that there is fuch a Difpofition among your venerable Body, but to fhew how much your own Honour and the Intereft of Religion is concerned, that there fhould be no Caufe given for it.

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