The next thing material in the Letter, is the questioning the legality of the Declaration; which the Author sayes by the new style of his Majesty in Council, is order’d to be read in all Churches and Chappels throughout England, And which no doubt the blind obedience of our Clergy, will see carefully perform’d; yet if it be true, that there is no Seal, nor Order of Council, but only the Clerks hand to it, they may be call’d in question as publishers of false news, and invectives against a third Estate of the Kingdom.
Since he writes this only upon a supposition, it will be time enough to answer it, when the supposition is made manifest in all its parts: In the meantime, let him give me leave to suppose too, that in case it be true that there be no Seal, yet since it is no Proclamation, but only a bare Declaration of his Majesty, to inform and satisfie his Subjects, of the reasons which induc’d him to dissolve the two last Parliaments, a Seal in this case, is not of absolute necessity: for the King speaks not here as commanding any thing, but the Printing, publishing and reading. And ’tis not denyed the meanest Englishman, to vindicate himself in Print, when he has any aspersion cast upon him. This is manifestly the case, that the Enemies of the Government, had endeavour’d to insinuate into the People such Principles, as this Answerer now publishes: and therefore his Majesty, who is always tender to preserve the affections of his Subjects, desir’d to lay before them the necessary reasons, which induc’d him to so unpleasant a thing, as the parting with two successive Parliaments. And if the Clergy obey him in so just a Design, is this to be nam’d a blind Obedience! But I wonder why our Author is so eager for the calling them to account as Accessaries to an Invective against a third Estate of the Kingdom, while he himself is guilty in almost every sentence of his discourse of aspersing the King, even in his own Person, with all the Virulency and Gall imaginable. It appears plainly that an House of Commons, is that Leviathan which he Adores: that is his Sovereign in effect, and a third Estate is not only greater than the other two, but than him who is presiding over the three.