Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A54229
|
A third letter from a gentleman in the country, to his friends in London, upon the subject of the penal laws and tests
|
Penn, William, 1644-1718.
|
1687
(1687)
|
Wing P1381; ESTC R5099
|
11,475
|
20
|
A Third LETTER From a Gentleman in the COUNTRY To his Friends in LONDON Upon the Subject of the Penal Laws and Tests Licensed May the 16th 1687. LONDON Printed for J. H. and T. S. and to be had of most Booksellers in London and Westminster 1687. My Honoured Friends SInce my last Letter was so happy as to please more of the Party than my first Offended and that even those are somewhat softened by it I prevail'd with my self once more to give you my thoughts upon the same Subject And though I think the Objections you have sent me are come too far for an Answer yet I will give you mine with all the plainness brevity and temper I can for they that seek the publick good are not to be nice in their endeavours for it and such who go upon Principles have the advantage of being secured by their Sincerity even where their mistakes cannot be defended But as I think I am not in the wrong so I sincerely profess if I knew I were no temporal consideration should engage me against my Opinion for though I am for the Liberty of persuing ones own Judgment I abhor the Latitude of Dissembling it But to the point before us You tell me that the generality of the Soberest and Wisest of those that would be esteemed Members of the Church of England of your Acquaintance do declare They have no Aversion for Liberty of Conscience and that they always liked an Indulgence to Dissenters but they are angry at the present manner of it and with the Addresses of Thanks the Dissenters have made to the King for It. To say nothing then of who they were that made the Penal Laws or by whom they were Executed or upon what Motives and less what Prejudices thereby have followed to the Persons and Estates of Thousands of the Kings Subjects because that History might look harsh and I resolve to be as healing as I can Let me ask why these Gentlemen should be offended at the way of the Ease the King has graciously given 'T is certain that some of them reproach'd the severe Conduct he has chang'd and thought it ill in the Government to expose so many useful Men in their Persons and Estates to a pack of lewd Informers that yet now quarrel the stop he has given to those severities They will I hope pardon me if I say Christ's Answer to the Pharisees about the breach of the Sabboth came in my mind upon reading their Objection What man among you that should have a Sheep fall into a Pit on the Sabboth day will not lay hold on it and lift it out He excused David and the Priests in a Case of the like nature and thought a good deed was to be done at any time when he healed the poor man. This was he that preferred Mercy before Sacrifice and exalted the good Nature of the Samaritan above the strict Priest and Levite that with all their Reverence to the Law left the Rifled and Wounded unregarded But to turn the stile of the Discourse Why should any of the Church of England be offended when it is a less Power than has been publickly maintained by the most venerable of their own Clergy in all times since the Reformation You will find Arch-Bishop Whitgift in his Letter to Q. Elizabeth asserting her Power in Ecclesiastical Matters to rest wholly and absolutely in the Queen that he advises her by no means to allow the Parliament to have the fingering of those things and that what Cannons were made by the Clergy in Convocation by her Majesties Authority might be OBSERVED or ALTERED at HER PLEASURE And in another Letter to the Lords of the Council he tells them that the Queen her own self had in express Words immediately committed Causes Ecclesiastical to him as to one who was to make Answer to God and her Majesty in that behalf and not to their Lordships wherein as he supposed he had no Judge but her self Arch-Bishop Laud and Bishop Sanderson Dr Heylin Dr Hicks and several other dignified Divines of the Church of England all grave and learned Authors follow the same Sentiments touching Regal Power in a more extended manner as you may shortly see by an Ingenious hand who hath exactly Transcribed their own Writings in this great Point But in general it is resolved by Dr Starky in his Assise Sermon at St Edmonds-Bury concerning the divine obgation of human Ordinances Printed by John Field Printer to the University of Cambridge 1668. That Constitutions as they had their Original and Establishment from the Reason of the supream Magistrate consulting for the conveniency and good of the Society so the condition of things and State altering upon their Burthen and Inconvenience may by the Authority that established them be altered suspended abrogated and taken quite away Thus a Divine of the Church of England but to proceed on that Lesson argumentum ad hominem For what greater Injury saith he canst thou put upon thy careful Governour then when his Contrivances and Determinations are published for publick good that his Directions should be Contemned and by thy Rebellion that thou shouldst suggest to others what our disorderly nature is too ready to suspect that their Rules are the Results of erronious and corrupt men which ought to be lookt upon as the determinations of sacred Authority derived from a most wise and just God. But if this were not so is it the same thing to dispence with a Temporary as a fundamental Law With that which says thou shalt not go to a Conventicle as with that which says thou shalt not Kill or Steal are there not some Laws that are of that moral and enduring nature no time or accident of State can Dispense with and such Laws as are so specially accommodated that the reason of them may not live three Years to an end The Penal Laws about Religion were made for fear that divers Opinions in one Country might endanger the Government time shows us that nothing hazards it more then their execution T is plain it puts us in a state of force and that therefore People fly the Kingdom and Trade dwindles to nothing And since all Countrys are greater by their People and forraign Commerce than by their Soyle and Domestick Labour and Consumption whatever lessens them impoverishes and weakens the Kingdom Who will Trade where his gettings are none of his own or live where he is not sure of his Principle Which is the Case of Dissenters in a Country using coertion for Religion And when all this is said the King is pleased to refer the matter to the concurrence of a Parliament and such Power for the good of the Publick was never denied by any man of sence any where to the wisdom and necessity of Government and It must ever rest with that part of it which is by the Constitution always in the way which we all know our Parliaments are not This Declaration seems to me no