and mistakes, and seeing that there is an absolute necessity of a supreme power in all public affairs, our question (I say) is, What is the most prudent and expedient way of settling them, not that possibly might be, but that really is.  And this (as I have already sufficiently proved) is to devolve their management on the supreme civil power which, though it may be imperfect and liable to errors and mistakes, yet ’tis the least so, and is a much better way to attain public peace and tranquillity than if they were left to the ignorance and folly of every private man” (212).

I now feel that at least I have done Parker full justice, but as so far I have hardly given an example of his familiar style, I must find room for two or three final quotations.  The thing Parker hated most in the world was a Tender Conscience.  He protests against the weakness which is content with passing penal laws, but does not see them carried out for fear of wounding these trumpery tender consciences.  “Most men’s minds or consciences are weak, silly and ignorant things, acted by fond and absurd principles and imposed upon by their vices and their passions.” (7.) “However, if the obligation of laws must yield to that of a tender conscience, how impregnably is every man that has a mind to disobey armed against all the commands of his superiors.  No authority shall be able to govern him farther than he himself pleases, and if he dislike the law he is sufficiently excused (268).  A weak conscience is the product of a weak understanding, and he is a very subtil man that can find the difference between a tender head and a tender conscience (269).  It is a glorious thing to suffer for a tender conscience, and therefore it is easy and natural for some people to affect some little scruples against the commands of authority, thereby to make themselves obnoxious to some little penalties, and then what godly men are they that are so ready to be punished for a good conscience” (278).  “The voice of the publick law cannot but drown the uncertain whispers of a tender conscience; all its scruples are hushed and silenced by the commands of authority.  It dares not whimper when that forbids, and the nod of a prince awes it into silence and submission.  But if they dare to murmur, and their proud stomachs will swell against the rebukes of their superiors, then there is no remedy but the rod and correction.  They must be chastised out of their peevishness and lashed into obedience (305).  The doctor concludes his treatise with the words always dear to men of fluctuating opinions, ‘What I have written, I have written’” (326).

Whilst Parker was writing this book in his snug quarters in the Archbishop’s palace at Lambeth, Bunyan was in prison in Bedford for refusing to take the communion on his knees in his parish church; and Dr. Manton, who had been offered the Deanery of Rochester, was in the Gate House Prison under the Five Mile Act.