A Copy of An ADDRESS To the KING By the Bishop of OXON, To be Subscribed by the Clergy of his Diocese; with the Reasons for the Subscription to the Address: And the Reasons against it  
To the Kings most Excellent Majesty.  
WHEREAS, in Your Majesty's Royal Declaration lately Published, You have been Graciously pleased to Declare, That Your Majesty will Protect and Maintain the Arch-Bishops, Bishops, and Clergy, and all other Subjects of the Church of England in the free Exercise of their Religion, as by Law Established, and the full and quiet Enjoyment of all their Possessions, without Molestation or Disturbance whatsoever; we cannot but think ourselves obliged in Duty and Gratitude, to return Your Majesty Our most Hearty Thanks for those Gracious Expressions of your Kindness, and for all Your former Assurances of Your Royal Favour to the Church of England; And to express our Loyalty as becomes the True Sons of the Church of England, and Your Majesty's obedient Subjects and Servants.  

The Reasons for the Subscription to the Address are but two.  
I. FIrst, That it may continue the King's Favour, whereas the Omission may irritate the Treasury to call upon the Fifth Bond for first Fruits at full worth.  
II. Secondly, That it will testify Our unit with, and Submission to the Bishop requiring their Address, and perhaps expecting it upon Our Canonical Obedience; there being nothing in the Address Praeter licitum & Honestum.   

The Reasons against it are many. To Instance in Four  
I. AS to Our Possessions, 'tis but Thanks for His Majesties, continuing Our Legal Rights, which either Equally concerns all States of Men in the Kingdom, and ought properly to be considered in Parliament; or else it supposes Our Possessions less Legal and more Arbitrary than other Subjects.  
II. As to the free exercise of our Religion, It unnecessarily Herds us among the Various Sects under the Toleration, who for that Favour in Suspending the Laws have led the way to such Addresses, Depending for Protection upon no Legal Establishment, but entirely upon Sovereign Pleasure and indulgence, which at pleasure is Revocable.  
III. This Address when Subscribed, is either designed in the Name of the Church of England, and then ought to have had its Birth at Lambeth, or a Synodal Convocation; or else in the Name of this Diocese only, which will disjoint us both among Ourselves, who differ about it, and the Body of the National Clergy, who as we are Assured, dislike it in the present Circumstances; so that the inevitable Consequences of this Address (set on foot by two or three Bishops, independent upon their Metropolitan, and without the Previous Concurrence of the rest of their Order) must be a fatal Division among the Clergy, and either beget a new Schism, or widen the old ones, which are already Deplorable which above all things is likely to hasten our ruin and promote the Intreaging projects of our Adversaries.  
iv It forfeits the present Reputation we have with the Nobility, Gentry, and Commonality of our Communion, and may tempt them not only to disgust us for our rash Compliance with suspected Artifices (which may the up hereafter against Us to Our own and the Church's Prejudice) But also to waver in the stedfastuess of their Profession, when they see us owning the Exercise of Our Established own Religion to be Precarious.   

Wherefore may it not be expedient humbly to remonstrate Ourselves in this Affair to Our Diocesan, and humbly desire beseech him not to (without Consulting Us) Our Act in a thing of so Public and National a Concernment, in which We conceive Ourselves obliged to proceed upon mature Deliberation and United Measures, which under God and the King are likely to be our greatest Safeguard.   

As to the continuance of the King's Favour.  
IF the known Loyal Principles and practices of the Church of England, pencliarly evident to this Prince in the Bill of Exclusion and Monmouth will not Secure it, this Address, (Which only Copies out Fanatical Thanksgiving) will not. Yet it might be thought Expedient for the Church of England to Address for the Contents of that Declaration, which promises to Engage the Two Houses of Parliament, in Concurrence to so Excellent a Work; as if the favour of Continuing the Laws, (which perhaps cannot be Repealed) were as great as the abrogateing the Laws for the Dissenters Sakes, which is the reason of the Thanks in the Presbyterian, and Independent Addresses.   

As to the Bishop.  
THis Address is no Instance of Canonical Obedience that we know of, neither is Our Unity with him such, as to Oblige Us to disjoint from Our Metropolitan and National Clergy; neither seems Our Bishop to have had any Paternal Regard of Us, unless it be in Treating of Us like Children of a very weak and passive Minority, when he requires Our Subscription to a Form Address, wherein He hath neither Consulted Us, nor given us leave to Word Ourselves, or speak Our own Sense.  
And till Bishops at their Confirmation declare what Faith they are of, as they did in the Primitive Church. (for which there are the same Reasons now) Our Unity with him must either be with Communication as to the whole Church, or we may follow him We know not whether.   
FINIS.   

Printed in the Year 1687.