Page:A Letter from a Person of Quality, to His Friend in the Country (1675).pdf/32

 not agreeable to the King's Crown and Dignity, to have His Subjects sworn to the Government of the Church equally as to Himself; That for the Kings of England to swear to maintain the Church, was a different thing from enjoyning all His Officers, and both His Houses of Parliament to swear to them. It would be well understood, before the Bill passed, what the Government of the Church (we are to swear to) is, and what the Boundaries of it, whether it derives no Power, nor Authority, nor the exercise of any Power, Authority, or Fun­ction, but from the King as head of the Church, and from God as through him, as all his other Officers do?

For no Church or Religion can justify it self to the Government, but the State Religion, that ownes an entire dependency on, and is but a branch of it; or the independent Congregations; whilest they claim no other power, but the exclusion of their own members from their particular Communion, and endeavor not to set up a Kingdom of Christ to their own use in this World, whilest our Saviour hath told us, that His Kingdom is not of it; for otherwise there would be Imperium in imperio, and two distinct Supream Powers inconsistent with each other, in the same place, and over the same persons. The Bishops alleadged that Priesthood and the Power thereof, and the Authorities belonging thereunto were derived immediately from Christ, but that the license of exercising that Authority and Power in any Country is derived from the civil Magistrate: To which was replied, that it was a dangerous thing to secure by Oath, and Act of Parliament those in the exercise of an Authority, and power in the King's Country, and over His Subjects, which being received from Christ himself, cannot be altered, or limitted by the King's Laws; and that this was directly to set the Mitre above the Crown. And it was far­ther offered, that this Oath was the greatest attempt that had been made against the King's Supremacy since the Reformation; for the King in Parliament may alter, diminish, enlarge, or take away any Bishoprick; He may take any part of a Diocess, or a whole Diocess, and put them under Deans, or other Persons; for if this be not lawful, but that Episcopacy should be jure divino, the maintaining the Government: as it is now, is unlawful; since the Deans of Hereford, and Salisbury, have very large tracts under their jurisdiction, and several Parsons of Parishes have Episcopal jurisdiction; so that at best Rh