“_Ans._ It is contrary to reason to believe that any true and zealous Papist can be for liberty of conscience, it being a fundamental of their religion, that all who differ from them in matters of faith are heretics, and ought to be destroyed. And, as it is natural for every persuasion to plead for liberty when they are denied it, and cannot have the freedom to serve God in their own method, so likewise, experience teaches us, that if the wheel turns, these very men which abhorred persecution, are no sooner in power but immediately endeavour by force to bring others to a compliance with what they profess. And if we find this error amongst the mildest and most charitable persuasions, we dare confidently affirm it would not have been otherwise with Roman Catholics, since they look upon the converting of heretics to be no small meritorious work.” ----- Footnote 36: Vol. ii., p. 60. ----- But leaving the ten thousand clergymen who refused to read King James’s declaration, and also abstaining from any further notice of the apochryphal story concerning Samuel Wesley’s bravery, we must now return to the declaration itself. James commanded this royal manifesto to be read in churches, and charged the bishops to take care that his mandate was obeyed. Two days before the time when the declaration was to be first read, six of the bishops met the primate, Sancroft, at his palace at Lambeth; and there, with the assent of the ex-minister Lord Clarendon, and of Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick, Tennison, Grove, and Sherlock, esteemed the best preachers and writers in the Church, it was privately resolved that a petition, prepared by Sancroft, should be forthwith presented to his Majesty. The petition, which was delivered on the evening of the same day, humbly showed that the objection of the clergy to read the declaration did not arise from their want of obedience to the king, nor yet from any want of tenderness to Dissenters; but because the declaration was founded upon a dispensing power in the king, which had often been declared illegal in parliament. James read the petition, and coolly folded it up, and then, with disdain and anger, said, “This is a great surprise to me. This is a standard of rebellion.” The bishops protested against such an interpretation. James kept muttering, “Is this what I have deserved from the Church of England? I will remember you who have signed this paper. I will be obeyed.” On the morrow, as he was on his way to mass, he met the Bishop of St David’s. “My lord,” cried he, “your brethren have presented the most seditious paper that was ever penned. It is a trumpet of rebellion.”