An answer to a letter from a clergyman in the city, to his friend in the country containing his reasons for not reading the declaration.

ANSWER.

The first Question here is, Whether a man that consents to read, consents to teach? Or rather, Whether Teaching and Reading be all one? Certainly no man of reason but will believe the City-Clergy-man was very hard put to it to lay the stress of a Refu∣sal to obey the Command of Soveraign Authority upon a Cavill about the signification of a word or two. Who could have ima∣gin'd it would ever have been requisite for the Council to have con∣sulted a Tribunal of Grammarians to obviate such an Objecti∣on as this, before they issu'd forth the Order for Reading the De∣claration. But whether Teaching and Reading be all one, is no∣thing here to the purpose; For there is not any thing as yet ap∣pears in the Letter which proves the Declaration unlawful to be read: Which he ought first to have done before he had gone about to split the signification of Words to gratifie a Conscience, there∣fore squeamish because over-surfeited with the Kings Favours. For there is no Person in England ought to uphold that Law which the King condemns, if it be not in it self unjust and contrary to the Union of Mankind. For the Introducing of Popery into Eng∣land, or the Abolishing of any Laws that may prevent it, if it be the Will and Pleasure of the Soveraign Government, is no more Ille∣gal in it self, than it was for the United Netherlands to abolish Po∣pery and introduce the Protestant Religion into their Dominions, contrary to the Constitutions of the Empire, and the Laws of Spain. So that this City-Clergyman moves all this while upon an Assertion, That the Declaration is Illegal and contrary to the Law of the Land. For if the King of England may be depriv'd of his undoubted Right of Altering, Repealing, or Suspending such Laws as are inconsistent with those Maxims of Rule which he pro∣poses at his coming to the Crown, and which he finds destructive to the greatest part of his Subjects, he loses one of the greatest Advantages which he enjoys, to pursue those Methods of Govern∣ment

which he deems most proper for the renowning his Reign in future History. So much the more hard, when the only means which he accounts most proper for his purposes shall be condemn'd for Unlawful by a nice Splitter of Verbal signification. And yet the distinction of Reading and Consenting is not so difficult as he pretends. For Consent is an agreement of Thoughts as well as Words. But a man may read the Story of Bell and the Dragon in the Church, and yet not agree it to be Orthodox. Nor can a man by reading be said to teach his People, unless he inculcates what he reads by Instruction; for tho' Instruction comprehends Reading, Reading does not comprehend Instruction. Which is the reason there are so many ignorant Persons in the world, to whom the Bible and the Creed it self are read every Sunday in the Year, and yet at the Years end they are not able to tell ye whose Son Iesus Christ is, or who was Solomon's Father. And whereas he says, the King might as well command him to read a Homily for Transubstan∣tiation, as the Declaration, the Inference is false, The one being an Actual Invasion upon the Articles of the Church of England, from which the Declaration upon the Word of a King, is the very thing that secures him: the other only a Civil Duty requir'd in Obe∣dience to the King's Command: and the Refusal of it only a piece of Fineness to render the King's Authority and his Proceedings suspected to the People.