--"This," thought they, "is the law of the land, 'quam nolumus
mutari'; and it must be the King with and by the advice of his
Parliament, that can authorize any part of his subjects to take the
question of its repeal into consideration. Under other circumstances a
King might bring the Bishops and the Heads of the Romish party together
to plot against the law of the land. No! we would have no other secret
Committees but of Parliamentary appointment. We are but so many
individuals. It is in the Legislature that the congregations, the party
most interested in this cause, meet collectively by their
representatives."--Lastly, let it not be overlooked, that the root of
the bitterness was common to both parties,--namely, the conviction of
the vital importance of uniformity;--and this admitted, surely an
undoubted majority in favor of what is already law must decide whose
uniformity it is to be.
Ib. p. 368.
We must needs believe that when your Majesty took our consent to a
Liturgy to be a foundation that would infer our concord, you meant not
that we should have no concord but by consenting to this Liturgy
without any considerable alteration.
This is forcible reasoning, but which the Bishops could fairly leave for
the King to answer;--the contract tacit or expressed, being between him
and the anti-Prelatic Presbytero-Episcopalian party, to which neither
the Bishops nor the Legislature had acceded or assented. If Baxter and
Calamy were so little imbued with the spirit of the Constitution as to
consider Charles II.
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