Judge any more incapacitated for the administration 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 endeavours 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 Sphere of Justice where lies 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 surmise if a Romish Parliament it self in the Reign of Queen Mary with the very Restauration 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 confirmed to the present Possessors by a Decretal from Rome it self as was then so solemnly done by Cardinal Poole the then Pope's 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 Politicks 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 barricaded 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 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 sor 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 's enough to say that greater Indignity under the Sanction of a Law was never imposed 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 Sollititor 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 then great Counsellors in Parliament judged fittest for Him. Monarchical Rule is said to be like that of Heaven where the Primum Mobile acts altogether by inferiour Spheres and Second Causes And so Majesty by its Officers and Ministers as so many Vehicles by which the Influences of the Royal Power are conveyed But truly this Ascendency 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 though without the forementioned Designs could nevertheless brook so Imprincely 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 alâ—enated that Power from the CROWN For to answer that Argument we are assured that whatever alienations of that kind the Easiness of the present Pâ—ssâ—ssor of the Crown or any other Reasons may induce him to make are no waies truly binding to the Successor Now the Reasons inclining His Majesty so zealously to endeavour the Repeal of the Test in these foremention'd stations under him are by himself declared viz. That the Service of all his Subjects is inseparably annex'd to and iâ—herâ—nt in the Crown being indeed so fundamental a Right so unalterable to his Prerogative and in its own nature so far above the Cognizance of Parliaments that a Crown'd Head ought less to be wonder'd at for endeavouring to recover so rightful a part of his Royal â—atrimoney than the â—eanesâ— of his Subjects for seeking a Redress against the highest oppression and injury suffer'd in the nearest and tenderest part of their Property Estate or Liberty that they hold by Common Law or Magna Charta it self And besides the Justice and Equity that prompt His Majesty to seek so
then her self more especially in those Professions that found their Dissenting Points of Doctrine upon her own Baâ—s the Scripture To speak a little further to this Point What was our separation from the Romish Communion and consequently our whole Reformation any more then disclaiming the erroneous Doctrines of the Romish Church and retrenching her uselesâ— or â—uperâ—â—itious Ceremonies and as several of the Dissâ—nters intirely concur with us in disclaiming the same erroneous Opinions only diâ—â—ering from us in reforming more of their Ceremonies than our selves I desire to be informed by what Light unless by an infaâ—â—iâ—le Spirit our Church can say Roform thus far and no further The Reformation in this very bound is Holy and Sacred and one step beyond it or varation from it is Offence and Sin. And that a farther Reform may not look altogether so impardenable King Edward the Sixth was pleased to tell the World in his Common Prayer Book That the Reforms then made in the Publick Lâ—turgy were not compleat He having at present no further Reformed the then time then would bear and that a farther Reform was intended to be made by him But since that short Raigned Prince lived not to the performance of the Promise pray have his Protestant Successors made that further Reform for him truly I am afraid none or next to none the Liturgy and what else remaining almost entire if not more exceptionable as He left it Now here will several odd Debates arise as first either that pious Prince and our Original Reformers had they finished that Reform so tender are our Laws even in the least syllable of our present Liturgy must have out gone the due bounds of Reformation and by so hainicous an Error have pulled down upon themselves the scandal of Sâ—stâ—ries or else our present Sectaries so called in endeavoring to follow so Pious and Royal a Leader possibly may not deserve all the hard Names and harder Fates our Penal Laws have bestowed upon them So that upon the Issue not only that Young King and our Primitive Doctors must be in the wrong for intending any such further Reform or our present Reformers in the wrong for so loudly quarreling the least attempt of such a Reform as so guilty and so black an Apostacy 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 Innocency of Doves never commissioned us the Rapine of Vultures and tho we are conceded the Subtilty of Serpents I know no Warrant that He gave us either for the Stings or the Poysâ—â— of them when the Prophesie of the Gospel was That the Church should learn War no more And tho my Zeal for Truth makes me thus plain in detecting the only shame and fraiâ—ty of the Reformed Church I hope she has Goodness enough to forgive the Boldness of a blushing Son who is no otherwise solicitous then 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 Doctrines and Practices derived from those Sacred Oracles will be only found tripping here and in all her support of Spiritual Records in all other Points I am afraid must have recourse even to the exploded Authority of unwritten 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 Coâ—iscated the Families she has Beggar'd the Goails she has Filled 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 〈◊〉 Preservation of Peace and Tranquility of the State on the other side exact the necessity of such rigid Laws tho by the by the Peace of States is rather destroyed 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 back if not only incentive No to gain the first of these great Ends let the Teachers and Professors of our Established Church live up to the height of their Profession and recal the Wanderers and reduce the Strays into the â—old by their own convincing Examples of 〈◊〉 â—iety a much more commendable way of making Proselâ—â—s than the forementioned rigid Acts of Compliance And for the second great End the Governments Security if her Temporal â—ences are not strong enough let her make stronger and iâ— any of her Dissenters are the dâ—â—urbers of her Peace let her single out the Guilty from the Innocent and wreak her jâ—st Vengeance where 't is deserved and not punish whole Parties or the Dissent it self which aâ— being meer matter of Religion is wholly uncapable of such Crime for the sake of any corrupted Members that 〈◊〉 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 in Punishing the Innocent with the Nocent whatever Religious Security or Gospel Propagation may be intended by them these Penal Laws I say that can swallow the Estates Fortunes Liberties and â—ives 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 â—ound little less then 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 out Scions from the same Root I would 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 Maâ—gre all her Volums written upon the Unreasonableness of Separation from her Communion and her Justification of her Zealous Endeavours for Conformity unless the Means and Methods used to obtain it as these Laws were intended for such be equally justifiable her whole Pretentions fall to the ground Nor
AN ADDRESS TO THE Church of England EVIDENCING Her Obligations both of Interest and Conscience To Concurr with HIS GRACIOUS MAJESTY In the REPEAL of The Penal Laws and Tests Allowed to be Published this 1st of September 1688. IT has pleased the Almighty Power that Rules the Hearts of Princes to Englighten and Adorn His Present Gracious Majesty with such peculiar Beams of Mercy and Clemency those truly Royal Vertues that render him the nearest Portraict of that Deity whose Vicâ—-gerâ—â—â— he is To win therefore the Universal Love of his People a Conquest worthy of and indeed reserved for His Great Self He has set up His Standard of Compassion resolving to recover the Alienated Affections of thâ—se of His Subjects whom the Administration of His Predecessours may have any ways rendred uneasie There are but two things in the World dear to all Mankind Religion and Property The last of these I confess in the most moderate Distribution of common Right has all along had its free Course in the true Channels of Equity only the first has been a little restrained for Conscience has sometimes been shackled The Sighs therefore and Groans that have lately breathed from that Restraint have moved him to that Sacred Commiseration that He is resolved to break the Fetters that Extort them the Penal Laws which to Effect He has already declared His Determination for that choice of Magistrates in Authority under him that in His Princely Wisdom He thinks will be most hearty in Contributing their best and ablest Endeavours for that Great End. To carry on this Pious Work it is not at all in Reason to be doubted but the Suffering Party on all sides who are aggrieved by those Laws by the meer Dictates of Self-preservation will be no ways wanting to throw off a Yoke they have so long so unquietly born And if all their helps as may be expected His Majesty is secure of there remains only the Concurrence of the Church of England which if obtained His Kingdom will reap the Fruit and Himself the Honour of being the Founder of those lasting Blessings so much in themselves the more glorious as that all Hands and all Hearts shall be assistant to their Creation The Design therefore of this Address to my Pious Mother the Church of England is truly and fairly to reason with her why the Preservation of those Laws either is or ought to be any part of her Care and indeed how far those Statutes her sometimes Darlings are in themselves either Just Equitable or consistent with Christianity it self And how far she is equally if not more than the Dissenters obliged to Abolish them Nor shall I endeavour to urge her Consent from any Resignation or Compliance those fainter Motives of meer Generosity to the Pleasure and Will of the King that desires to have it so but Enforce the Argument from the Bonds and Tyes of Conscience and Justice that require her Assistance to their Dissolution and hereby Illustrate the Equity and Reasonableness of His Majesty's Proposal and prove the Work it self no more than the incumbent Duty of every Christian Subject to labour to perfect For Enquiry therefore into the Penal Laws I shall make bold to Trace the Grounds of their Rise and Original And to take them in Order I must first begin with the Romanist as being the first that fell under their Lash After the Death of Queen Mary for 't will suffice to set out here her Protestant Sister Elizabeth succeeding in the Throne under so fair a Prospect of Establishing her Religion as having at that time the Half if not the Majority of the Nation of her own Perswasion all Hands were set at Work for so glorious an Enterprize But the main Engine was That the Reformers having before their Eyes the late Severity of her Sisters Reign the Protestant Church either truely or rather seemingly ashamed as time will shew was conscious that she had no means so proper to Recommend her self to the People's Esteem as the avoiding all those Occasions of Odium which had rendred the Romish Church so much the Object of their Aversion and therefore the change must be wrought and Affections won by the opposite Extreams of Mercy and Moderation These foster Measures for a while were endeavoured to be rendred her very Fundamental Principles and one of her proudest Distinguishing Characters from her severer Predecessours But alas In few years Indulgence appeared a too slow-pac'd Progress of Reformation For still notwithstanding the Encouragement of a Protestant Queen and the Establishment of our Church the Ecclesiastick Advances went on too leisurely and Conversions not fast enough to satisfie either the Churches Itch of Power or Warmth of Zeal under the â—ooser Râ—ins of Toleration For whilst 〈◊〉 Popish Party were any ways Comâ—â—ed at and Permitted any Liberty of their Worship their Church though falling could not want some few unshaken Members at least that would still follow even its Ruines And perhaps the Romish Priests though thrown out of Church Preserment could not or would not forbear to Confirm and Encourage their thin and scatterr'd Party and possibly through an Indispensable as they thought Duty to that Communion in which perswaded they only expected Salvation they might not to give all Perswasions their due in this Point omit either Arguments or Industry as Opinion wants neither to render their Religion never the less lovely for the Cloud it wore which indeed is but natural to all Religions whilst they think their own the only or at least the nearest way to Heaven These Remora's how small Stops soever to her advancing Glory the Church of England beholding with Impatience and Repining even at her smallest Favours to the Romish Party whilst but the least Impediments to her yet unsatisfied Ambition for to be uppermost was not enough unless she could be all too began to think of some more Expeditious way for the Weeding out of Popery and to look out for a sharper Pruning-Hook than meer Teaching and Preaching to do the Work of Reformation Set agog therefore upon Dispatch and Execution she felt the Itch of her Fore-fathers and if Honour and Reputation could be safe she should not scruple at a little of the Old-fashioned Shamble-work to gain her Point But considering that to 〈…〉 in Religion and 〈…〉 with Death would carry too 〈◊〉 the lookâ— of Old Sâ—ithsield and so 〈◊〉 her own â—â—â—boasted 〈◊〉 and Innocence she is therefore put to no 〈…〉 and Invention to over-leap that Difficulty and accomplish her Projection till aâ— last she lights upon this incomparable Stratagem to mask her Dâ—signs and smooth all viz. to punish â—ecusancy with Death under the Blâ—â—k and Dismal Brand of High Treason The Measures and 〈◊〉 used and made towards raising this artful Superstructure take in short as follows In the first Year of Queen Elizabeth she Assâ—rts her Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Supremacy in all things and Causes whatever and Creates an Oath to be tendered her Subjects for
Confirmation of that Power In the fifth of Her Reign grown warmer in that Supremacy She Imposes the Oath upon all Ministers and Officers of the Government even to Lawyers Attorneys c. and particularly to be taken by every Member of Parliament And the second Refusal of taking it after a first Tender of it Three Months before is made High Treason In Her Thirteenth Year to Reconcile or be Reconciled to the Church of Rome is High Treason In Her Twenty Third the former Statute is Explained and Confirmed and the Offender besides the Pains of Death to forfeit all Lands Tenements Goods and Chattels as in Cases of High Treason A very sowr sort of Grape to set their very Childrens Teeth on Edge with and to Punish even Vnborn Heirs In the Twenty Seventh Every Jesuite Seminary or other Priest born within the Queens Dominions and Ordained without or within the Realm by any Authority derived from the See of Rome that shall come into or remain within this Realm shall be Adjudged and suffer as a Traytour Ay God knows a vâ—ry just Sentence if the Charge be but true But I desire to know by what Legerdemain is this Reconciliation made High Treason Is either the Life or Dignity of the King struck at by my being a Member of this or that Communion By my believing this or that the way to Heaven Can Faith in God be Treason against Man for that 's the result of the Question Can a Christians best Endeavour to save his own or his Brothers Soul be a Machination to destroy his Prince or his Countrey Or can my Praying or not Praying to a Saint my Adoring or not Adoring the Eucharist make me a true or not true Leige-man If Errors in Faith can amount to HIGH TREASON and the Government is in Conscience Obliged to treat them as such Lord have Mercy upon us How came the Jews to live with that Impunity in the Common-wealth that instead of Mis-believing in Points of Doctrine believe not so much as in the Gospel or CHRIST himself But laying the charge of High Treason more closely against them pointing even to the blackest part of their Transgression their Belief or Assertion of the Pope's Spiritual Supremacy whâ—t's all that too any more than meer matter of Faith still Nor carries it the least shadow of the Subjects Breach of Duty to the Soveraign For all that Headship they give the Pope is meerly Spiritual in Decision of Points of Faith or Rites of Worship the Pope even in all Reigns being utterly denied all Temporal or Civil Jurisdiction whatever Nay so tender has the Royal Prerogative been here in England that the very Laws of the Land even in the most Rigid Romish Administration had Provided that no Canons from the Papal See nor Decrees of Councils themselves should bind here till received and allowed by common Assent Yes and farther to fence against all Incroachments whatever from the Papal See in the height of the Romish Interest here Statutes have been Enacted Witness that of the Provisors to restrain all Papal Invasions of the Sovereign Right of Kings so that whatever their mistaken Speculative Opinion may Attribute to their Pope their Loyalty or Obedience to their Sovereign neither is nor can be touch'd or concerned by any such though never so Erroneous an Article of their Belief And what unhappily looked a little severe in the Statutes that Asserted Queen Elizabeth's Supremacy under the Penalty of Death than in either of Her Predecessours her Father Hemy or her Brother Edward and that possibly laid that Stumbling-Block that a Romanist could not easily overlâ—ap was from an Article of their Faith so long rooted and grounded in them how rightfully is not the matter received from Age to Age and Generation to Generation in Favour of their Pope to be Compelled by a yesterdays Act of Parliament under no less a Guilt than High Treason and under the Penalty of Death not only to acknowledge but to swear her Majesty to be wholly and solely in all causes and things the Spirituall Head of the Church within her Dominions who otherwise before in her private Capacity was incapable of so much as a Sub-Deaconship in a Countrey Parish and if St. Paul may be believed not qualified for so much as speaking in a Religious Assembly But considering the Popular Tenderness seems a little more favourable to the poor Lay Romanist and something Commisâ—rates his hardship from the Letter of this Law yet they 'll tell you 't is nothing but high Justice against the Romish Priest as taking Orders from Rome in themselves little less than Damnable and Diabolical as received from the Papal See the very Seat of Antichrist and then returning home or staying within the Realm against the Law All which Notorious Overt Acts are but too reasonably declared High Treason and the Offenders therein are justly-Exposed to the severest of Punishments as due to so Capital a Transgression To this Thundering Charge as big as it sounds to show the Weakness even of the greatest Strength of their Penal Laws I shall only make this short Reply If the Church of England has and always does admit a Convert Romish Priest into the Protestant Clergy without any Re-ordination to Capacitate him for that Admission as we need look no farther than to the constant Practice of the Church without so much as one Example to the contrary from the very Beginning of the Reformation how unjustly are taking Orders from Rome charged with Hiâ—h-Treason If the Orders from Rome be in themselves Holy and Sacred how are they Damnable and Antichristiâ—n And how the taking of them High Treason If not Holy nor Sacred as if High Treason in the very receiving of them they cannot be does the Church of England entertain Pastors into her Ministerial Function Unconsecrated for the Divine Service of Goâ— God forbid No the very Practice and Concession of the Church in this Case does so confront the palpable Injustice of this Statute that nothing can be plainer And if such are the Romish Orders and the free choice of oâ—r Beliâ—f in God and the Church we hope to be saved in be in our own Election for our own Souls are answerable for it by the same liberty of choice why may not a zealous Believer be his own chooser whether he will be a Member or Pastor of the Flock he owns as his own Abilities to serve God in either Station shall dictate to him And why are men Banish'd and Excluded from their Native Right in the Kingdom in which they are born for only endeavouring to secure themselves their no less Native Right in that of Heaven One Observation in the Statute of the Fifth of Her Reign I had almost forgotten not a little worthy Remark In this Statute where the Inâ—apacity of the taking the Oath of the Queens Spiritual Supremacy for a Refusal of an Oath in that Case is only a Consciencious Incapacity of taking it is made High