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A58356 Reflexions on Monsieur Fagel's letter 1688 (1688) Wing R700; ESTC R35362 9,616 6

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Infamy and the Hatred of the Nation at present and its Resentments hereafter Is it possible that any Dissenter who either deserves or loves the Reputation of an Honest Man can be prevailed with by any pretences of Insinuations how plausible soever to make so Odious and pernicious a bargain as that of buying a precarious pretended Liberty of Conscience at the price of the Civil Liberties of their Country and at the price of removing that which under God is the most effectual Bar to keep us from the Dominion of a Religion that would as soon as it could force us to abandon our own or reduce us to the Miserable Condition of those of our Neighbours who are glad to forsake all they have in the World that they may have their Souls and Lives for a prey As for the Church of England their Clergy have of late oppos'd themselves to Popery with so much Learning Vigour Danger and Success that I think all honest Dissenters will lay down their Resentments against them and look on that Church as the present Bulwark and Honour of the Protestant Religion I wish those high men among them who have so long appropriated to themselves the name and Authority of the Church of England and have been made Instruments to bring about Designs of which their present Behaviour convinces me they were ignorant as I suppose many of the Dissenters are whose turn it is now to be the Tools I say I wish such men would consider to what a pass they have brought Matters by their Violences or rather the Violences of these whose Property they were and at length be wise They cannot but be sensible of the Advantages they receive by this Letter I suppose they apprehend I am sure they ought to do it that the Ruine of their Church is resolv'd on But if the Dissenters upon this Letter withdraw themselves the R. C's have neither Hearts to keep firm to to such a Resolution nor Hands to Execute it Since therefore They themselves have unhappily brought their Church into such Precepies by provoking the Dissenters it is in a particular manner their Duty as well as their Interest to endeavour to soften them by assisting the Letter and promoting the Design of it But if the old leaven still remain and they continue to argue as formerly if the Surplice be parted with the Church of England is lost if the Penal Laws be repealed the Test will follow and comfort themselves with this most Christian reflection that the R. C. will not accept of what is offered them such men deserve all the misery that is preparing for them and will perish without Pity and give thinking Men occasion to remember the Proverb Beat a Fool or a Zealot in a Morter yet his Foolishness wi●l not depart from him But the Dissenters ought not to be much concerned at this they have their own Bigots and the Church of England theirs there will be Tools whilst there are Workmen This is a time for Wisdom to be justifyed of her Children when honest men ought to leave off minding the lesser Interests of this or that particular Church and joyn in securing the common Interest of the Protestant Religion And to conclude I would particularly beg of the Dissenters to make use of their best Judgment on this so critical an occasion which they will do in my opinion in keeping close to the contents of this Letter by endeavouring to obtain in a fair and legal way such a Liberty to all Perswasions as is the Natural Right of Freemen and as our Protestant Successors declare themselves willing to joyn in and if those who have an equal nay a greater Interest than themselves will not agree to such a Liberty because they will be Masters or nothing the Dissenters will have the comfort of having discharged their own Consciences as prudent Men and good Chistians ought to do and may safely trust God with the Event Sir I thought I had made an end but looking your Letter over again I find I have forgot to answer a reason or two you give why you doubt whether the Letter be truely M. Fagels You are informed you say that such and such Great Men doubted of it but some might as well pretend to doubt of the Truth of that Letter tho they knew it to be true as believe Her Majesty to be with Child almost before she knew it Her self and that she was quick when the Embryo as Anatomists say is not much above an Inch long I don't think that Popish Successors like certain weeds grow faster than others The Persons you name may Trim and presume on their Merit least they might be thought capable of Resentment A dangerous Reflection I say their Merit you have seen a long relation of the great services some when they were in power did their Highnesses it is bound up with a relation of the true causes of their sufferings for their or rather their Highnesses Religion You know even how one of them the last Summer payed them his reverence with all the Respect and Humility of a due distance and with the same caution with which the Invincible Monarch fights out of Cannon shot But Sir though the character of a Trimmer be ordinarily the character of a Prudent Man there are times and seasons when it is not the Character of an Honest Man. I acknowledge that since their Highnesses Marriage nothing has hapned so much for the good of the Protestant Interest as this Letter of M. Fagels and if I had been either the Writer or Adviser of it I should be very proud of it and think the Nation much in my debt But Sir that was not a very good reason to make you doubt of it for a good cause will have its time tho not so often as a bad one which hath ordinarily the Majority on its side I am confident at present we have all the reason in the world to expect it for my own part though I am neither young nor strong I hope to live to see a day of Jubilee in England for all that deserve it when honest men shall have the same pleasure in thinking on these times that a Woman happily delivered hath in reflecting on the pain and danger she was in But Knaves shall remember them as I am told the damned to their Sins Cursing both them and themselves Sir I am Yours January 12. 1688.