from an Ordinance of Forty eight much less an Act of Parliament But for our less Wonder at it we are to consider 't was Hatch'd in the same Republick Nest for no less than the great old Patriot of Three Names sate for the brooding of it I think I need not raise Arguments to prove how little those Gentlemen of Honour the Courtiers I mean of any Religion whatsoever in that innocent Station are or can be concerned in shaking either Church or State. It is enough to say that greater Indignity under the Sanction of a Law was never impos'd upon a Crown'd Head. The meanest Gentleman in England whilst this Test keeps Footing has a Prerogative above the King. For the choice of his Steward Bayliff Attorney or Solicitor c. are in his own free Election But these were Priviledges thought too large for a King and therefore he is Stinted and Bounded to such Elections as the more Imperial Wisdom of His Great Masters in Parliament judge fittest for him Monarchical Rule is said to be like that of Heaven where the Primum Mobile acts altogether by inferior Sphears and second Causes And so Majesty by its Officers and Ministers as so many Vehicles by which the Influences of the Royal Power are Convey'd to set the Great Machine a moving But truly this Ascendancy the late Law-makers judged too great for the King of England and therefore they found an Expedient to render the Monarchy little more than precarious making the whole Ministers of the State the Creatures of the Test and not of the King. Now I desire to know how in Reason we can imagine that a King in himself the Fountain of Honour and Original of Power though in his Nature the Mildest and best Temper'd of Princes though without the least Thought of Unhinging the Frame of the Government or Disturbing the Settled Church of his Kingdom to blast his own Glory and lose his Subjects Hearts for that would be all the Crop 't would yield him I wonder I say how we can imagine that the Best and most Gracious of Princes tho without the foremention'd Designs could nevertheless brook so Vnprincely a Yoke as the Test And truly to justifie his Majesties heartiest Endeavours against both Penal Laws and Test in not labouring to abrogate the first as they stand in Force against the Lives and Liberties and how unjustly has been proved before of the Members of his own Communion he would be the most unnatural of Men and in not labouring to repeal the last as standing so egregiously in force against the Right and Prerogative of His Crown and indeed originally forged in Affront to himself he should be the most Dishonourable of Princes Nor will it serve to object that His late Majesty whatever diminution to the Prerogative it might be by passing it into a Law has alienated that Power from the Crown For to answer that Argument we are assured that whatever Alienations of that kind the Easiness of the present Possessour of the Crown or any other Reasons may induce him to make are no ways truly binding to the Successor Now to come to the last Point the Qualification of Members in Parliament by the Test And first I shall not so much insist upon the notorious Invasion of the Birthright of the Peers by this Exclusion from Parliament as being a Point already so well handled by better Pens and never yet answered nor shall I so much insist upon the Illegality and Vnreasonableness of Tests in general of any kind as was once argued in Parliament by the Lord Delamere in opposition to a Test proposed by the Earl of Lindsey a Test which though not thought legal to be imposed as such contain'd no other than the highest Obligations of Loyalty that every Subject owes to his Prince But if the making of Tests in Parliament which with the Sovereign Consent as Kings are but Men and sometimes the Exigence of Affairs may extort the Royal Fiat lyes in the Majority so to do Suppose the Forgers of this Test for by the by they were none of the best Friends of the Church as now by Law establisht had follow'd their Blow and form'd a second Test to deny Episcopacy to be Jure divino a Dispute much bandyed in those days Here had the Bishops been thrown out of the Parliament if not the whole Hierarchy out of the Kingdom And so by Tests ad Infinitum how might the Basis of the whole Government been overturned and the very Houses of Parliament dwindled at last to the scandalous Dimensions of the old fashion'd Rump For if one Test to exclude a Score why not another to lop off a hundred And indeed how are our present Parliaments the comprehensive Body of the Nation when so many of the Peers not there by Representatives are shut out Nay how much is the Dignity of the Laws they make and the very Constitution of our later Parliaments themselves impair'd and lessen'd by such an Exclusion But to come to the main Business viz. to obviate the greatest and terriblest Clamour of Fear and Jealousie against the Repeal of the Test viz. If the Test were destroy'd who knows but Parliaments may be so managed as to turn out the Church of England and set up Popery even by Law it self This indeed is the Gorgon that frights half Man-kind out of their little Senses But where or how is this Popish Parliament to be gotten for a Protestant one will hardly be so Complaisant But to search out every Cranny that this imaginary Danger is supposed to creep in at Let us examine the House of Lords and try their Inclinations that way If the Test were laid aside and the excluded Lords restored what would their Number signifie At our last Parliament the Protestant Peers amounted to 160 and the excluded Romish Barons nor are they much increased since were not a Tenth of their Number So that here 's an absolute want of a Prodigious Creation of Romish Barons to rise to a Majority Nay and of so many Estates too to support the Grandure as possibly would stagger imagination it self to find a Treasure enough to purchase for so many New Dignifications especially of Gentry or Landed Men to start up Lords among so thin sown a Party would put 'em damnable hard to it But for once grant such an Extravagant Donation of Honour and such Golden Mines to maintain it might form a House of Lords capable of over-ballancing on the Popish side where shall the House of Commons be had for without both they do nothing They would go nigh to find such a Dead Weight in the Lower House as all the Tuggs of Rome would never be able to stirr and this stupendious Parliamentary Subversion of the Church of England a Phoenomenon only in Nubibus A Popish House of Commons too Alas they 'll tell you very easily Has not the King for instance got a new way of Regulating Corporations Nay has he not or will do before next
a Doctor of the Church all this while and his Treatise upon that subject call'd Liberty of Prophecying not yet answer'd or at least the Author under no small Ecclesiastick Fulminations if no other way to answer it for so terrible a Blow against the Churches long main Favourite Bulwark her Penal Laws 'T is true some People will object What are all these Laws to the CHURCH when enacted only by the Civil Power as an Expedient for its own Security and Defence and therefore warrantable and lawful nor in any respect are chargeable upon the Ecclesiasticks Alas this is such a feeble Objection that 't is scarce to be named without Blushing As if the Clergy did not act in Parliament by their Representatives nay the very Bishops sitting there in Person assenting to and undoubtedly little less than Original Founders of those Laws But grant it as they say the meer Establishment of the Civil Power The Clergy by owning the Justice and asserting the Necessity of such Laws for Defence of their Church the Lay-Power in this Case is little more than the Cats Paw to rake out the Chesnut Nor are the Civil Rulers and Temporal Power of a Christian Government any ways more authorised to outgo the Gospel Moderation and Clemency for any Politick Consideration whatever than the more immediate Oracles of Truth the Preachers themselves And this the great Legislators of those Penal Statutes very well knew and therefore as I told you before they cunningly converted Recusancy into High Treason and Non-conformity into Riots and Routs to find something tho but seemingly justifiable for the Fangs of their Laws to lay hold of and so boulster'd up their Penal Statutes to make them able to walk upright I 'le only put this one Question to all the Doctors of our Church With what Conscience can a Church that owns it self Fallible establish Laws to punish Dissenters in Religion when by her own Concession of Fallibility she neither has nor CAN have any Certainty or Assurance how strong soever she thinks or hopes her own Foundation but that she punishes those that possibly may be more in the Right than her self more especially in those Professions that found their Dissenting Doctrins on her own Basis the Scripture I cannot tell what Equity wiser Heads may find out for the Ordination of Penal Laws but truly in my Opinion the Great Prince of Peace that reprimanded the Drawing of that Sword that cut off but the Ear of the High Priests Servant tho in his own immediate Cause very little intended the raising his Church or the propagation of his Gospel by either Axes or Gibbets or Gaols or Dungeons And He that left us the Standard of Christianity in the Innocence of Doves never commission'd us the Rapine of Vultures and though we are conceded the Subtilty of Serpents I know no warrant that he gave us either for the Stings or the Poyson of them And tho my Zeal for Truth makes me thus plain in detecting the only Shame and Frailty of the Reform'd Church I hope she has Goodness enough to forgive the Boldness of a Blushing Son who is no otherwise solicitous than for her covering her own Nakedness And that I may truly term it such the Reformation that otherwise may boast her Purity and Principles only founded on Holy Writ and all the rest of her Doctrins and Practices derived from those sacred Oracles will be only found tripping here and in all her support of Scriptural Records in all other Points I am afraid must have recourse even to the exploded Authority of TRADITION only for her Penal Laws For I shrewdly suspect that Lollards Towers and Inquisition Houses let her mince it as she will will be found the only Precedents for the Estates she has confiscated the Families she has beggar'd the Gaols she has fill'd besides her sometimes loading of Gibbets and ripping up the Bowels even of her own Co-Disciples because Dissenting Professors of Christ and all by her Penal Laws Nor will it suffice for an Excuse to insinuate that the Establishment of Religion and Conformity of Worship on one side and the Preservation of Peace and Tranquillity of the State on the other side exact the necessity of such rigid Laws Though by the by the Peace of States is rather destroy'd then upheld by such Laws for what Civil War in almost all the Christian World that directly or indirectly has not had the Oppression of some Religious Party its greatest if not only Incendiary No to gain the first of these great Ends let the Teachers and Professors of our Establish'd Church live up to the heighth of their Profession and re-call the Wanderers and reduce the Strays into the Fold by their own convincing Examples of Christian Piety a much more commendable way of making Proselytes than the foremention'd rigid Arts of Conversion And for the second great End the Governments Security if her Temporal Fences are not strong enough let her make stronger and if any of her Dissenters are the disturbers of her Peace let her single out the Guilty from the Innocent and wreak her just Vengeance where 't is deserved and not punish the Dissent it self which as being meer matter of Religion is wholly uncapable of such Crime for the sake of any corrupted Members that either are of or Herd under the Covert of such or such a Congregation of Christians For to do that work by the undistinguishing merciless Hand of her Penal Statutes is so little conformable to the Evangelical Precepts that I am afraid the doing such notorious Ills that Good may come of it whatever Religious Security or Gospel Propagation may be intended by them these Penal Laws I say that can swallow the Estates Fortunes Liberties and Lives of their weaker Brethren and fellow Christians instead of being either Christian or Just or any ways related to 'em will at last appear much nearer of kin to that famous Rover that wanders round the World to seek whom he may devour insomuch that their Ordination will be found little less than borrowing Engines from Hell to help to set up Heaven Now to the Case of the Church of England if these are her Penal Laws for I shall not trouble my self with a tedious recital of the several Statutes of that nature as being all but Scions from the same Root I should gladly know what Beauties or rather invisible Charms the Church of England can find in these Statutes to be in the least solicitous for their preservation For alas maugre all her Volumes written upon the Unreasonableness of Separation from her Communion and her Justification of her zealous Indeavours for Conformity unless the Means and Methods used to obtain it as these Laws were intended for such be equally Justifiable her whole Pretensions fall to the Ground Nor will it excuse her to say that they were chiefly enacted in Terrorem as being but seldom put in execution as if a studied ill Deed were therefore more excusable because
to maintain the Church of England as now by Law establisht in her uninterrupted Rights and Priviledges all her Churches and Church-livings whatever thereunto belonging c. in it self alone no little Security But waving that Plea the Ecclesiastical Government and the Church of England neither are nor can be shaken or toucht by the Abrogation of the Test the Test being indeed no part of her Defence For first the very taking of the Test is no part of the Qualification of any of the Clergy of England nor was ever so much as mention'd or thought upon to be imposed to tender'd to the Clergy No as jealous as the Founders of that Test were or pretended to be of the Danger of Popery and as zealous as they could be for the Security of the Protestant Religion they very well knew the Church of England had two impregnable Bulwarks the two great Acts of VNIFORMITY that themselves alone sufficiently establisht guarded and preserved the Church of England in all Points without any Fortification from the Test nor indeed was the Test wanted in the Ecclesiastick Administration those very Statutes being a greater and stronger Test before For by those Statutes is the whole Liturgy the Administration of the Sacraments and indeed all the Canons and Articles of the Church supported For by the Fence of those Laws first no Romanist can possibly be admitted into the Clergy unless under the most damnable Hypocrisie which no Human Test can discover an Hypocrisie too no ways beneficial to the Romish Cause whilst tyed up to the Divine Service as now by Law establisht Secondly No other Divine Service as the Mass or the like can be introduced into our Churches already constituted or assigned for the Divine Service of the Church of England The strength of these two Laws His Majesty very well knows and is so far even from the Thought of hurting or infringing the least Particle of either or those Laws or the Security our Church has do's or can receive from them by abrogating any Penal Laws or Tests whatever that on the contrary there is not undoubtedly that farther Confirmation of those Laws and the Religious Observance of them or any thing conducing thereunto that may or shall be offer'd to His Majesty in Parliament that His Majesty shall not readily assent to and as inviolably maintain If then the Church of England Her Administration and Government as 't is plain stand of themselves alone secure and firm without any borrow'd Prop or Support from the Test whatever the Test therefore is only a Buttrice or at least so intended to the Civil Magistracy as first Excluding all Roman Catholicks from all Offices of Trust in the State. Secondly From all Domestick Services near the Person of the King. And Thirdly From all Right to Session in Parliament These three Incapacities are by the Test thrown upon the Romanists And for confuting all Suspicions and Jealousies let us examine how the loosening of all these three Restrictions can tend to the Subversion of the Protestant Religion as now by Law establisht In the first place as to the Civil Government What Office in the State can a Roman Catholick hold any ways empowering him to prejudice the Church of England Suppose even in the Courts of Judicature for if any Apparition of any such Power 't is there Were Romanists imagine in all those Offices Why may not a Sir Thomas Moor be as honest as a Lord Chief Justice Hales and execute his Office with as great Integrity and Justice Why not Men of equal Abilities be of equal Uprightness in all Religions Besides the Distribution of Meum and Tuum more especially when Liberty of Conscience shall be past into a perpetual Law and all Penal Inflictions for matter of Religion thrown out of their Jurisdictions will then be the whole Business that lyes before them and wherein is a Roman Catholick Judge any more incapacitated for the administring of Justice than another Man Moreover in a Kingdom where their number is so truly inconsiderable as scarce the Two hundredth Man in the Nation if they have hopes of making any Converts or any Indeavours that way it can only be done by holding the Scale of Justice upright and in all Posts of Trust by keeping up the steddiest Standard of Right and Equity as the only means thereby to recommend and endear themselves to the World and wipe off those Blemishes that the mistaken Jealousies and Popular Misapprehensions have so long so unkindly cast upon them And This and This only they are very sensible is their Chart to steer by and their Great Pilot their Royal Master the best read Student in the Arts of Empire that possibly ever graced a Throne equally knows to be His only Course and undoubtedly as sacredly resolves to make it so And if the Judges of the Land suppose of the Romish Religion besides their Oaths that bind 'em and His Majesties Honour that shall influence them to it have these Obligations more and above even of INTEREST to their very Religion it self to move in so regular a Sphear of Justice where lyes our Danger And if this higher Station will be so Inoffensive what can the poorer Justices of the Peace or the inferiour Subministration of the Government signifie in Popish or not Popish Hands But in this Case I have heard some People say Alas What stretch of the Laws will not such Judges make Perhaps for instance pick a hole in the Abby-Lands and start some dormient Title or other to revert them to the Church of Rome a Patrimony that will not a little enrich the Romanists and advance their Cause This idle Objection was scarce worth naming as if the stretching of our Laws in that Point was not as notorious and Arbitrary as a total Violation of the Subjects Right and rending the whole Frame of the Laws in sunder But to check this idle Surmize If a Romish Parliament it self in the Reign of Queen Mary with the very Restoration of the Romish Religion and Papal Supremacy into the Saddle never so much as attempted to revert those Lands Nay on the contrary their whole Title was confirm'd to the present Possessours by a Decretal from Rome it self as was then so solemnly done by Cardinal Pool the then Popes Legate How groundless must the Fear be of any Thought or Attempt of reverting them now Or why must the Romish Judges in any kind subvert or undermine the Laws contrary to all their best Politiques in the present State of England to no true advantage either to themselves or their Church and possibly to be answerable for it with their Heads if they live to the next Protestant Prince To come next to the Officers of his Majesties Houshold c. To have those Posts too barricado'd with Tests and the Imperial Dignity so shackled as to be debarr'd the Choice of its own Menials nay even of its Conversation it self is an Insolence put upon Majesty as had been scarce tolerable
Sessions already Modell'd all their Charters and undoubtedly left few or none either Citizens Burghers or Free-men in whom the Election lies but such as are his Friends and Creatures Very Well Suppose he has or will take Care to the best of his Endeavour or Power to Establish Corporations to his own Hearts liking After all where shall there be One Roman Catholique in all the next Election and what shall these Creatures if you 'll have 'em so do more than Choose every Numerical Member a Protestant For till the Test be Legally dissolved they must all be so And truly what if this next tho' Protestant Parliament out of an Abhorrence of the Vnchristian Barbarity of the Penall Laws shall do themselves their Posterity their Country and His Majestie Justice in dissolving them And what if likewise their true Sense of the most servile Imposition that Imperial Dignity ever bore their Tenderness for His Majesties Honour and Prerogative together with their Gratitude for the Plenty and Peace His Reign has Bless'd them with shall incline them also to break those Fetters of the Crown the Test and all no more than High-Justice and Right Reason shall oblige them to Must it therefore follow that they shall do themselves their Families their yet unborn Heirs and their no less Concern their Country that Wrong as to give up their tenderest and nearest Care their Religion or any thing tending to it Well but say they if this next Parliament will not do the Work when the Test is once gon 't is but calling nâ—w Popish ones that will. I but who shall choose them The Electors are all the same For the Corporations are or will be settled to his own Model and Test or no Test in Being their Inclinations will be all the same and upon any New Choice beyond all Dispute the Majoritie of the Old Members Elected again and if any New Ones amongst them those too as far from â—eaning towards Rome as the Popular Frantick Jealousies are from Common Sense Upon the upshot I defie all Mankind to form one Reasonable Projection or indeed imaginary possibility of such a Popish Parliament For instance we must run into endless Labyrinths and Chimaeras for the meer Shadow of such a Danger For first the King must dissolve all his late Charters again no matter whether forfeited or not and so throw Dirt in the Face of his own yesterdays Royal Acts and Grants For all the Free-men Burggers or Aldermen and whatever the present Electors and consequently all the Trading Part of the Nation must be displaced and cashierd a very Violent Reform and an ingratitude which His Majesties Nature abhors to those very Men that by rescinding the Penall Laws and Test shall have Duty fully given him all he could ask And a new set of Romans planted in their Rooms or otherwise if the present Electors continue in their Posts a Majority of Papists must be crowded in to over Vote them But where to be had let Machiavil himself inform us For alas where are these Popish Vpstarts to be found Not amongst the present Inhabitants of the Corporations For how many Corporations are there in England that have not so much as one Man amongst them of that Religion Nay take some parts of England as the West for Example where Corporations stand Thickest and Papists grow Thinnest and you shall not find in whole Counties the Hundredth Nay if I trebled it I should not mistake Part of Papists of all Degrees whatever to supply such a Corporation Majority of Electors or any thing like it And indeed take the whole Nation round and make every Romanist that Writes the Age of Man an Alderman they shall fall so short still of the Account that they must be forced to send over for Jago Pilgrims a good jolly Troop too or some other as Extravagant Helps to make out the Number or otherwise our Out-cry will be but Noise and our Fears but Fantoms But suppose any such wondrous Electors such Alien or Forreign supplies of Romanists could be found and so irregularly thrust into Corporations as to carry a Popish Majority of Corporation Members Nor will such a bare Majority do the Work. One additional Hundred of Popish Members extraordinary must be had to over-power the Knights of the Shire who in Spight of all pretended Corporation Feats will be firm Protestant Members the Over-byassing of whole Counties being an Apprehension that Lunacy it self can never Forge Nevertheless suppose all these Alien Supplies so obtruded upon us enough to carry the Cause Alas what Palliation Nay what Eloquence of Angels is enough to vindicate such Irregular and such Arbitrary Foundation of a Parliament and instead of a Legal Assembly and truly National Senate or Popery so Establisht the Sacred Sanction of a LAW Even half an Eye would see through the Fraud and the whole World explode and condemn so visible a Deceipt and Illusion Insomuch that His Majesty with as much Justice and twice as much Honour Pardon the Profanation even of such a Supposition might as well set up Sic volo sic Jubeo for Law and save himself the trouble of calling of Parliaments for dissolving Penall Laws or Tests or any other such tedious and indeed of the two more Vnprincely Toil and Labour What Mountain Height are Fears raised to but how shallow a Basis are they Built upon Alas we are not in any kind to take Comparisons from Queen Marys or Queen Elizabeths Reign The turning the Scale of Parliaments in those Days was the least part of any Reasonable Mans Wonder What an easie Matter for the Influence and Ascendancy of Imperial Power to sway Laws and Establish Churches as the Sovereign Inclination leaned when the Church of Rome was not so low in its Wane or the Young Reformation so high in its Increase but either Party were in a manner the Moiety of the Nation and consequently the Favour of the Crown might go far and a Majority on the Royal Side be more easily obtained But in the present even Despicably Diminitive Number of Romanists and so almost a Total Bent of the whole Nation to the other side the Project is so impracticable and the Turn so impossible as only Delirium can shape a Fear of it But now to Sum up all and draw towards a Period between such Penall Laws and such Tests and the wondrous Episcopal Tenderness for their Beloved Preservation Our Church though a good Mother is but a Course Nurse when such Vnlickt Brats as these are her Hug'd and Dandled Bantlings And Our Consciencious Mute Prelates were certainly under the Fascination of no ordinary Hot Zeal or something else as Warm to be warpt into Disobedience in so poor a Cause viz. The Reading so inoffensive a Paper as His Majesties Declaration But perhaps after all there may be more in it than we are aware of For who can Fadom the Depth of such a Disobedience Who knows but this very Mask of Conscience might be one