The Declaration, after recognizing the established religion of the country, directed the immediate suspension of all penal laws against Nonconformists, and provided for the allowance of a sufficient number of places of worship, to be used by such as did not conform. None were to meet in any building until it should be certified; and until the teacher of the congregation should be approved by the King. All kinds of Nonconformists, except recusants of the Roman Catholic religion, were to share in the indulgence, but the preaching of sedition, or of anything derogatory to the Church of England was forbidden, under penalties of extreme severity.[570]
How was the Declaration regarded? Politicians looked at the subject from their own point of view; and it is curious and instructive to consult a paper, written some time afterwards, in which answers are given to legal objections against the measure. It is objected that the King has not power to suspend the laws of the land, he being, by his coronation oath, obliged to see the laws duly executed, and not infringed. The reply is that the King has both an ordinary and extraordinary power; and that, by the latter, he may mitigate and suspend the enactments of Parliament, in support of which position reference is made to the practice of the Roman Emperor, who dispensed with the Imperial laws by tolerating Arians, Novatians, and Donatists.
DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE.
It is further objected, that the law against Conventicles had a penalty annexed, which was to be paid, not to the King, but to the informer, and therefore the King could not dispense with it. To this it is answered, that the King's ecclesiastical supremacy being reserved by the Act, such supremacy sufficed to authorize what he did in this matter. But to give a more particular solution the writer says, "that the Parliament, in spiritual matters, doth not act directly, as in the making of temporal decrees, such affairs are not under their proper cognizance by any law of the land. The Church, being a co-ordinate branch with the temporality under the King, ruled by a distinct power, and courts and laws, from the other. The which thing being granted, it is clear that the Parliament, in ecclesiastical matters, doth act only by way of corroboration of what is indeed enacted by the ecclesiastical supremacy. And when the ecclesiastical supremacy doth take away the subject of the temporal laws, the penalty (to whomsoever due) as an adjunct, doth cease. Thus, the King is not properly said to dispense with the penalty, but it ceases of itself, by virtue of the Royal indulgence, the same power being recognized to be in our King, which the Popes usurped here." This argument is followed up by a reference to Papal supremacy, and the exercise of pontifical authority in the toleration of Jews, Greeks, and Armenians in the Papal territories. The objection, that such dispensing power is new in England, is disposed of by the remark that the form is new, but not the thing itself. Ecclesiastical laws had been frequently changed by proclamation in the time of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. It being alleged lastly, that it was unbecoming the wisdom of the King to annul his own acts performed in giving the Royal assent to laws against Conventicles; the rejoinder is, that the King did not annul, but only suspend his own act; and if there be anything of weakness therein, His Majesty showed it in common with Constantine, Valentinian, Theodosius, Gratian, and Charles V. Such diversity of counsels appeared in all reigns.[571]
1672.
Some Episcopalians were perplexed, of which signs appear in questions proposed by Cosin, Bishop of Durham, to the clergy of his diocese. They asked whether or no a subject was bound to comply with the pleasure of his Prince in all cases, where he felt himself not bound in conscience to the contrary: whether he might not comply, in many things inexpedient, and even prejudicial, if the King pressed the command, and there seemed no way to avoid it but by disobedience: and whether he might not consent to the abrogating of penal laws in support of the Church, rather than provoke the King's displeasure, upon whose favour, under God, the clergy were dependent?[572]
Toleration did not meet the wishes of the Presbyterians; some of them had refused it to others, and now they did not care to accept it for themselves. Desiring comprehension—meaning by that "any tolerable state of unity with the public ministry,"—they looked on toleration as opening a way for the advance of Popery; and they believed that wherever indulgence might begin, in Popery it would end. Further, they apprehended that it would contribute to the permanence of Protestant dissensions, whereas comprehension would unite and consolidate Protestant interests: nor had they ceased to value parish order, and to believe that such order would be overthrown, if people were allowed to enjoy separate places of worship wherever they pleased. On this ground the Presbyterians confessed themselves to be in a dilemma—being forced either to become Independents in practice, or to remain as they were, in silence and in suffering.[573] Some also objected to the unconstitutional character of the King's proceeding, and looked upon it as pregnant with political, no less than with ecclesiastical, mischief; others, wearied with long years of persecution, felt glad to avail themselves of liberty from whatever quarter it arose. It is probable that some troubled themselves not at all with the constitutional question; and it is certain that others, who did apprehend the political bearing of the measure, and who also dreaded the progress of Popery, considered nevertheless, that to avail themselves of a right to which they were entitled on grounds of natural justice, was simply reasonable, and involved no approbation of either the actual manner, or the suspected design of the bestowment.
DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE.
The Independents, who had long given up hopes of comprehension, who set no value on parish discipline, and who had only asked for freedom to worship God according to their consciences, were, for the most part, prepared to accept what appeared to them as a boon, without feeling any scruple in relation to its political aspects.[574]