Page:A Pastoral Letter to the Parishioners of Frome.djvu/41

33 bound to fear and honour the king. We desire to do both. We will honour you; we must fear ."

And when the king still further urged obedience to himself, saying, "I will be obeyed," the Bishop of Bath and Wells simply said, " will be done."

The consequence was that he was one among the seven illustrious Bishops who were imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was imprisoned, you will observe, because he defended the Catholic Faith of the Church of England, against the unjust usurpation of the Crown in things spiritual, when it sought to advance the Church of Rome. Should it ever happen, which forbid! that any such unjust usurpation of the Crown in things spiritual should again be seen in England, there would be need of men to witness a good confession for the Church in a similar resistance; and in such case I pray Almighty that He would give me grace to be among them.

And 2ndly in regard of the people. Although now I am aware that I am going to say an unpopular thing, yet being true, I must needs say it. Your venerable Bishop, when the people—i.e. the popular will represented in the parliament, virtually expelled the king, (that very same king, whom before the Bishops had resisted,) and chose another for themselves out of a foreign country, namely, William III.—when this revolution took place, and the majority of the people quietly transferred their allegiance from the old king to the new one—your Bishop could not conscientiously be brought to see that the people had any such right either to choose their king, or to transfer their oath—he could not be brought to see but that there was a certain divine right in kings ruling over things temporal, just as he maintained that there was a certain divine right in Bishops ruling over things spiritual; and so rather than take an oath of allegiance to one whom he thought, as merely elected by the people, had no right to such allegiance, he submitted himself to be expelled from his bishopric, and dying at