Page:A Letter from a Person of Quality, to His Friend in the Country (1675).pdf/10

 And to secure all this they resolve to take away the Power, and opportunity of Parliaments to alter any thing in Church or State, only leave them as an instrument to raise Money, and to pass such Laws, as the Court, and Church shall have a mind to; The Attempt of any other, how necessary soever, must be no less a Crime then Perjury.

And as the topstone of the whole Fabrique, a pretence shall be taken from the Jealousies they themselves have raised, and a real necessity from the smallness of their Partie to encrease, and keep up a standing Army, and then in due time the Cavalier and Church-man, will be made greater fools, but as errant Slaves as the rest of the Nation.

In order to this, The first step was made in the Act for Regulating Corporations, wisely beginning, that in those lesser Governments which they meant afterwards to introduce upon the Government of the Nation, and making them Swear to a Declaration, and beleif of such propositions as themselves afterwards upon debate, were enforced to alter, and could not justifie in those words; so that many of the Wealthyest, Worthyest, and Soberest Men, are still kept out of the Magistracy of those places.

The next step was in the Act of the Militia, which went for most of the cheifest Nobility and Gentry, being obliged as Lord-Lieutenants, Deputy-Lieutenants, &c. to Swear to the same Declaration, and Belief, with the addition only of these words In persuance of such Military Commissions, which makes the Matter rather worse then better; Yet this went down smoothly as an Oath in fashion, a testimony of Loyalty, and none adventuring freely to debate the matter, the humor of the Age like a strong Tide, carries Wise and good Men down before it: This Act is of a piece, for it establisheth a standing Army by a Law, and swears Us into a Military Government.

Immediately after this, Followeth the Act of Uniformity, by which all the Clergy of England are obliged to subscribe, and declare what the Corporations, Nobility, and Gentry, had before Sworn, but with this additional clause of the Militia Act omitted: This the Clergy readily complyed with; for you know That sort of Men are taught rather to obey, then understand, and to use that Learning they have, to justify, not to examine what their Superiors command: And yet that Bartholomew day was fatal to our Church, and Religion, in throwing out a very great Number of Whorthy, Learned, Pious, and Orthodox Divines, who could not come up to this, and other things in that Act; And it is an Oath upon this occasion worth your knowledg, that so great was the Zeal in carrying on this Church affair, and so blind was the Obedience required, that if you compute the time of the passing this Act, with the time allowed for the Clergy to subscribe the Book of Common Prayer thereby established; you shall plainly find it Rh