The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part F.: From Charles II. to James II.
David Hume · en
** The words of the petition were: That the great averseness
found in themselves to their distributing and publishing in
all their churches your majesty’s late declaration for
liberty of conscience, proceeds neither from any want of
duty and obedience to your majesty, (our holy mother the
church of England, being both in her principles and her
constant practice unquestionably loyal, and having to her
great honor been more than once publicly acknowledged to be
so by your gracious majesty,) nor yet from any want of
tenderness to dissenters, in relation to whom we are willing
to come to such a temper as shall be thought fit, when the
matter shall be considered and settled in parliament and
convocation; but, among many other considerations, from this
especially, because that declaration is founded upon such a
dispensing power as hath been often declared illegal in
parliament, and particularly in the years 1662 and 1672, and
in the beginning of your majesty’s reign, and is a matter of
so great moment and consequence to the whole nation both in
church and state, that your petitioners cannot, in prudence,
honor, or conscience, so far make themselves parties to it
as a distribution of it all over the nation, and the solemn
publication of it once and again, even in God’s house, and
in the time of divine service, must amount to in common and
reasonable construction.
The king was incapable, not only of yielding to the greatest opposition,
but of allowing the slightest and most respectful contradiction to pass
uncensured. He immediately embraced a resolution (and his resolutions,
when once embraced, were inflexible) of punishing the bishops, for a
petition so popular in its matter, and so prudent and cautious in the
expression. As the petition was delivered him in private, he summoned
them before the council; and questioned them whether they would
acknowledge it. The bishops saw his intention, and seemed long desirous
to decline answering; but being pushed by the chancellor, they at
last avowed the petition. On their refusal to give bail, an order was
immediately drawn for their commitment to the Tower; and the crown
lawyers received directions to prosecute them for the seditious libel
which, it was pretended, they had composed and uttered.