A CIRCULAR LETTER to the Clergy of Essex, To stir them up to Double-diligence for the Choice of Members of Their Party for the ensuing Parliament. With some QUERIES Offered to the Consideration of the Honest FREEHOLDERS'. The LETTER▪ SIR, THere is a Trial of Skill to be, it seems, between Coll Mildmay's Interest and the Church Party in Essex: How much is behoves you at this time to use your utmost endeavour to send good Men to the Parliament, you cannot but be very sensible; let me therefore entreat you, earnestly to persuade the Clergy of your Deanery, to use their utmost endeavours to bring in as many Voices as they can for Sir Anthony Abdy and Sir Eliab Harvey, and not to fail b●ing themselves at the Election▪ if their health will permit. I pray give my hearty Service to them, and let them know it is▪ I who most earnestly entreat this at their hands, who am Theirs, and, SIR, Your most assured Friend and Brother, H. L. The Attestation to this Letter by a Conformable Minister, who was willing to have it communicated for the Edification of the Laity. SIR, I Do assure you the above-written is a true Copy, which I myself took from the Original. It was superscribed to no particular Person, but put into the hand of a Neighbouring Minister, with a Direction, That the Apparitor for the Archdeaconry of Essex should carry it to the Habitation of every Minister in his Jurisdiction. Besides this from the B. I have seen another from the E. of N. written to an infamous Bailiff of an Hundred▪ ordering him to endeavour to prevail with the Freeholders of that Hundred▪ to appear for Sir Anthony and Sir Eliab. So far the honest Clergy man, who it seems is not to be compelled to a Choice against his Judgement, by the threats or artifice of any Apparitor or Bailiff. Spiritual or Temporal Bum. ● 1. Whether the shiling the weight 〈…〉 it of choosing Members to sit in Parliament [〈◊〉 Manual of Skill]▪ suits not better, with the air of a Soldier, than with the gravity of a B 〈…〉? 2. Whether if soliciting for the Choice of Members to sit in Parliament, be part of the Priestly Function, or within the things lawful and honest, in which they 〈◊〉 Obedience, 〈◊〉 was not great condescension in the B. earnestly to entreat in such humble terms? 3 Whether the Office of a Solicitor, or that of an Informer upon Penal Laws in default of Churchwardens, be the greater Ecclesiastical Dignity or Promotion's? 4. Whether whoever he was that wrote the Letter to the Clergy▪ he does not lay himself Vid. the case of the Ld. Mohun in Mr. P Miscel. Parl. open to a Complaint in Parliament▪ not only for the 〈…〉ness of his Letter to those who are under him, hardly consistent with that freedom of Elections which the Law is tender of▪ but for his following the late Observator▪ in dividing Protestants into Parties, and censuring, as opposite to the Church-Party, all those of the Nobility and Gentry, and the Body of the Freeholders of Essex, who have for several years looked upon the Colonel as the fittest person to represent them in Parliament, for his Experience, Prudence, Courage, and unshaken Fidelity to his Country, and to the Crown too, where it has not carried on a Separate Interest? 5. If by the Church-Party is not meant a Faction engaged in an Interest divided from the Protestant Interest at home and abroad, why is not the present Lord Lieut▪ the E. of Oxford, who is for the Colonel, as well to be thought of the Church-Party, as the D. of Albemarl was, except that He cannot drink so much for it as the Other did? And why should not the Circular Letters now press the Clergy to be for them whom the now Ld. Lieut, and the Gentry with him, think fittest to serve their Country, as formerly, by an implicit Faith, without knowledge of the Persons, they did for such as the than Ld. Lieut. and his Gentry should recommend? 6. Whether the bustle now made by them who call themselves the Church-Party, does not naturally revive the memory of a Great Man's Ministry▪ when Money was received from France for a Peace, advantageous only to the Factors, and them that bought it, though at the same time the Parliament had paid much more largely for actual War: and when the Popish Plot was stifled, and they who enquired too far into it, were made Plotters themselves? 7. Whether the effect of a like Circular Letter, in the beginning of the late King's Reign, when the Colonel was set aside (how fairly is not now to be enquired into) doth not show that the Church-Party which then prevailed, may well be thought of an Interest divided from all other Protestants? Can it otherwise be believed, that when they knew that King to be a Papist, they, for the sake of a few good words to the Church, would have trusted him with the Revenue for life, when they had it in their hands, and need not have parted with it, till full provision had been made for the safety of the Religion, and Laws of their Country? 8. Whether seeing those who were for the Regency, that is, for having James still King, and this King but a Minister of State, or General under him, list themselves with the Church-Party, and the Papists; that Party are not to be thought to be for King James? while the Earl of Oxford, suitable to his Character, and all Coll. Mildmay's Interest, to a man, are for our present King and Queen, that is, for Protestancy against Popery, England against France. 9 Whether the B of L. who is personated in this Letter, can be thought to have written it himself, having appeared in Arms for this King, before the other withdrew, and being past possibility of making his peace with the late King, unless he turn mere Layman, and accept of the Regency, and administration of Affairs under him in a Lay capacity; being already become irregular according to the Doctrine not only of Papists, but of the Church-Party here; who, notwithstanding all his Solicitations for them, will no more dispense with his Irregularity, than they did with good Archbishop Abbot's in the time of King Charles the First 10. Whether the Laymen, who are wheedled into the separate Church-Party, ought not to consider, that if they believe as the Church believes, they are bound to think that not only they who joined in inviting over our Great Deliverer, and appeared with or for him in Arms before the late King withdrew, but all who were under that King's Allegiance, and swear to this, are, or have been, neither good Subjects nor good Christians, at least not good Churches-of-england-man? for the Church has these Passages, among many others of the like nature, in its Homilies, to which, God be thanked, Homilies▪ The six●h 〈…〉 against wilful Rebellion, last Edit. f. 383. none but Clergymen have given any solemn or unfeigned assent and consent. Had Englishmen at that time known their Duty to their Prince, set forth in God's Holy Word, would English Subjects have sent for, and received the Dauphin of France, with a great Army of French men, into the Realm of England? Would they have sworn Fidelity to the Dauphin of France, breaking their Oath of Fidelity to their natural Lord, the King of England? and have stood under the Dauphin's Banner Displayed against the King of England? This King it must be known, was King John▪ one of the worst of Men, who not only had violated the Original Contract between him and his People; but had voluntarily Abdicated, in giving the Kingdom, as much as in him lay, to be held as the Pope's Fee. And yet you see what the Church holds, of inviting and joining with a Foreign Prince, even in such a Case. 11. Whether Clergymen are to be thought ignorant of the Contents of the Homilies? Whether therefore all Laymen concerned for the support of this Government, and of the Protestant Religion ought not to be very jealous of those for whom they are solicited by the Clergy? especially considering that their Representatives, when they were pressed by the Bps. to thank His present Majesty for rescuing them from Popery and Slavery, were not for meddling with any thing, but what concerned the Church of England▪ as if its concerns lay another way: And the generality of them were against all manner of alterations, being, it seems, fond of those passages in the Homilies▪ which condemn all that adhere to this Government. 12. Whether, though the Bp. of L's late Action, wherein he forsook his Church- Party is justly popular, yet he, who was advanced in ill times, and complied so far with K. James, as to desire Dr. Sharp to discontinue Preaching; and so far submitted to the High Commission-Court, as not to insist upon a Legal Plea to its Jurisdiction; deserves to be trusted by the People of Essex, more than Coll. Mildmay, who stood up for them undauntedly in the worst of Times, to his great Expense and Hazard: and yet behaved himself with such Moderation and Prudence, that the Managers then, so eager to make Plots, could frame no pretence against him? The Freeholders of Essex have used to see for themselves, without Ecclesiastical Spectacles: Nor have they more than once since the Pensioner-Parliament, been Hectored or Wheedled by the Church-Party from their own true Interest. They cannot but remember what they suffered under their insolences formerly; nor is it likely that they will again put themselves under that uneasy yoke. They cannot so soon forget the Fines, Imprisonments, and Dance of Attendance from Sessions to Sessions, merely for Voting for such Parliament-men as they could trust. It is not therefore to be thought, that they will contribute towards setting that Party again in the Saddle. LONDON: Printed in the Year. M DCXC.