the executions in the west after Monmouth's rebellion. He says: "had the King's ministers (to whom he entirely left it) made as much use of mercy as they did of justice, I am sure they would have done the King more service." He further says, in enumerating the causes of his Majesty's troubles, "it was a great piece of injustice to set up a new court for the management of ecclesiastical affairs, contrary to the express laws of the land: whereby the Church and Clergy of England were subjected to the wills of some men that were enemies to both. It was likewise a great piece of injustice to suspend the Right Reverend the Bishop of London from the exercise of his pastoral charge, for that which in itself was no offence." The declaration for liberty of conscience is censured as against law, and as intended to serve the Church, of Rome. With respect to the order for reading it in Churches he asks: "why should the Bishops be denied liberty of conscience, when it was granted to dissenters? Not that the Bishops were against indulgence to dissenters, when it should be proposed in Parliament, but they then saw there was latet anguis in herba, which many were not aware of." Referring to the imprisonment of the Bishops, which he censures, he says: "I have, however, this consolation in myself, that what I acted at that time was out of duty both to God and the King: and that I am no way to be charged with what afterwards followed thereupon."[1] This passage has been supposed to fix the authorship on Ken, since the writer was one of the suffering parties; but it does not warrant us, in the
- ↑ The Royal Sufferer. A Manual of Meditations and Devotions. By T. K. D.D. 8vo. 1699, and 12mo. 1701. See the latter edition, pp. 64. 66. 70.
