Parliament will find some Temper that no restraint or oppression shall for the future be laid upon the Consciences of our Kings by our Laws their Consciences as I said being much more concerned and aggreived in the Execution of such Penal Laws and Tests by their Authority then ours can be who pretend that for the cause wherefore we cannot comply with His Majesties Proposals for the taking them off This I have said to justifie His Majesty in the present use of his Prerogative as the necessary Salvo for His Conscience in this Conjuncture With His Conscience I further intimated a care to be taken for the preserving his Honour and that by his Prerogative dispensing with such Laws as by any new emergency contrary to their Primary intention do interpose and cast a cloud upon it Honour in Noble much more in Royal Personages is by our Laws ratable at the value of Conscience what therefore they declare upon their Honour is Equivalent to what Persons of a less Honourable degree declare upon their Oath But above all the Honour of our Kings is a most inestimable Jewel of their Crowns and Standard of their Government it is upon the account of that that their Subjects are disposed to revere and obey them to love them to confide in them to repose in them the trust of all they are and have and with their Lives and Fortunes to serve them Upon which account it is having so great an interest in the Government and well being of Mankind in their respective Societies and so great an Influence upon Subjects to ingage them to a quiet and tractable compliance with the wise consults of their Subjects hence I say it is that God himself is concerned for their Honour commanding in His Holy Scriptures that as we Fear God so we should Honour the King. Let me note to you further that our Laws are for these great Reasons so tender of the Honour of Kings as they will endure no attainder upon them but so soon as from Subjects they become Kings whatever attainder was before upon them from the Laws it falls of it self because otherwise the Laws lose their main end laying a blot upon his Honour and lessening his esteem with his People from which does naturally arise many intolerable Evils to the Government And for the same reason whatever Person is Convict of an attempt to Alienate from our Kings the Affections of their Liege People are looked on as Traitors and reputed such as do therein subvert the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom and if we follow the reason of the thing for doubtless upon that the Law is Grounded as any Person so any matter or thing which tends to Alienate from the King the Affections of his Liege People is by parity of Reason to be removed In short that which we call the Test however agreeable it might be to the present Circumstances in which it was made yet now as Circumstances are by the Divine Providence changed the continuing of it does reflect such Dishonour upon His Majesty as does evidently tend to alienate from Him the Affections of His Liege People and that two ways 1. As insinuating Him to be a Conspirator against the Life and Crown of His late Majesty in that which was called the Damnable Hellish and Popish Plot. And 2. As implying Him an Idolater against God the Supreme Majesty of Heaven and Earth First That the Test was made against the Roman Catholicks on presumption that they were generally ingaged in or one way or other Abettors of that then reputed Horrid Plot I think is too plain to be fairly denied If you object That His Sacred Majesty then Duke of York was Himself exempted from that Test and so it could not reflect upon him I answer Never the less for that Nothing more served their Purposes of that Conjuncture than that subtle-seeming Tenderness of the Duke For they knew His Majesties Love and Confidence in His Royal Brother was not yet shaken enough and that to have but named Him among the other Roman Catholicks at that time had certainly obviated the Kings Royal Assent to that Act. The Game was then but to extort from the King by force or gain by surprize what they might easily convert to the Dukes Disadvantage afterward For the Test being put upon all bearing Office throughout the Kingdom for the discovery of the Professors of that Religion on suspicion and suggestion to the People that they were all in that Conspiracy and the Duke being known to be of that Religion every one knew how to draw the Conclusion though the Duke were excepted to please the good King but especially when Matters were afterward intrigued to that pass that they dared openly to bring against Him a Bill of Exclusion in the High Court of Parliament and infaming Him at the same time all over the Kingdom with Libels of the most black and horrid import that Craft and Malice together could suggest Whatever was in the Design it is manifest enough in the Event that the first imposing of this Test and diffusing it through the whole Kingdom did universally ferment a disgust and prejudice against Him and cast a Dishonour upon Him and was a Method and Disposition to the Exclusion-Bill which followed while He was yet Duke But now He is by the Grace of God King of England c. the continuing of the same and the frequent occasion of using and renewing it must necessarily continue renew and fasten in His Subjects Minds the same preconceived prejudice which cannot be without Alienation of the Affections of His Liege-People from Him and consequently not only incumber and make His Government unwieldable in His Hand but also shrewdly hazard a Dissolution of it and be a continual Spring of many Evils against all which the keeping up of this Test still and putting that alone into the Ballance I think must appear to any thinking Man lighter than Vanity And yet much more when this malicious Suggestion against the King and others of His Religion is by the same Votaries to this Test for the most part acknowledged to be nothing but Sham and Illusion Cheat and Villany It were to be supposed in generous Equity that all those who had on that account suffered in their Fortunes and their Honour their Innocency being cleared should be also now cleared of the Laws respecting them on that account and that some other expedient might be excogitated so to secure us and our Religion as might not expose innocent Persons to Dishonor and Ruine How should we expect God should bless it to us and make us safe by such an unjust security Unjust I say and especially to so Great and Sacred a Person as our Prince Why do we suffer any thing to remain which may intimate and insinuate to His Liege People such a false Suggestion and dishonourable Imputation and still further impress upon their Minds so odious a Character as in this Test if not by design yet by
easily seen whither you would drive us If you are as you pretend your self a Son of that Church an unspotted Loyalty has hitherto been accounted Her indeleble Character I am sorry to find so little of it in your Letter you have by it outdone the subtilty and cruelty of all Her Enemies Never was so deadly a stroke given nor so natural and effectual to Her Ruine as that which you commend to us for the only method of saving Her. I am charitably minded you have done this nevertheless of a good Intent crowded along with the zealous Hurry of a Popular Mistake And the rather because I see your Letter makes a better ending than a beginning and that notwithstanding your positiveness all the way you are not so satisfied in your own Reasonings but you relent at last into that good Nature and Temper which for your Honour I will Remark in your own Words thus This Sir is our Case in short the difficulties are great on both Sides and therefore now if ever we ought to Besiege Heaven with our Prayers for Wisdom Counsel and Courage c. To clear then the difficulties which you acknowledge in this Case I shall apply my self touching upon the most material parts of your Letter Our Enemies you say who have given our Gracious King this Council against us have taken the most effectual way not only to Ruine us but to make us appear the Instruments of our own Ruine that what course soever we take we shall be undone and one side or other will conclude we have undone our Selves and fall like Fools By our Enemies I conceive you can mean no other than the Kings Friends whom I believe no further our Enemies than what amounts to a bare Se Defendendo Where they meet us in opposition to what necessarily conduces to the preservation of Themselves their Lives their Fortunes you must not blame them but the common instinct of Nature that they are so far our Enemies In all other Cases they are our Friends beyond our Expectations Enemics short I am sure of our Fears and of what was heretofore in publick Print our own Character and Prospect of a Popish Successor As for the Free and Undisturbed Exercise of our Religion our Churches our Revenues our Dignities we enjoy them all And we have further the Kings Gracious Offer of whatsoever other Assurances we can excogitate against our Fears and Jealousies lest they should not continue I know no cause of this great Out-cry against the King and His Friends on account that they are our Enemies nor where we are hurt unless by the holding our Hands from flying at one anothers Throats We are enabled by these Laws so soon as we may to let loose our too prurient Rage one upon the other but especially upon the Kings Friends whom we I think therefore call our Enemies We can hardly forbear already and aloud to foretell what must become of them afterwards what Gibbets and Axes and Confiscations are provided for them for His Majesties Commissioners Judges Military Officers Papists in Mascarade and out of Mascarade and whoever else have not dared to deny their Obedience to His Majesties Moral Commands or to leave him Solitary and Destitute of Servants to Guard and Attend him What else means this our so tenacious sticking to these Undoing and Sanguinary Laws And how pitifully are the Claws hid of such as pretend them to be the only possible expedient of their own Security Now to repress the violent and blind Zeal of such Men for the Established Laws without abatement or allowance of any thing to the Vicissitude which the Providence of God has made among us from a Protestant to a Prince of the Catholick Communion is I assure my self all His Majesty designs by His Endeavor to get our good Will toward the remove of the Test and Penal Laws And if I thought any Clergy of the Church of England or other of that Communion compliant with the King in this his charitable undertaking should suffer in the least Hair of his Head or lose by it any the least Liberty becoming a Christian to own in such a Juncture I should not have opened my Mouth to have been an Advocate in this Cause And whosoever thinks otherwise if he consider he will find he cannot do it without Reflection of most vile ill Names upon his Majesties Honour and Blaspheming the Sacredness of his Royal Promise So that Sir I think you might have spared His Majesties Friends and His Council and have allowed them a milder Character than our Enemies and such as seek our Ruine by that Name exposing them in the very Head of your Letter to the Rage and Odium of the People who are so far from being Enemies to us that themselves are the Persons in distress and danger from us And having now a time to Speak do request of us without any injury to our selves that we will please to remove no other but those Laws to which not only their Fortunes but their Lives lay every Hour Obnoxious and only for serving God according to their Consciences and their King at his Command according to their natural Allegiance But these Enemies of ours since you will have them so you note further and to our greater misfortune to be of that base and ignoble kind as having us in their Claws they must divert themselves a little in Play with us as the Cat does with the Mouse before they devour us our Gracious King the while looking on and so comes in the business of the Declaration The Reading of which in our Churches and Chapels you intimate to be contrived as it were for nothing in the World but to make our Enemies Sport For the main work of our Undoing you account is over and the trick of this Declaration no other Than while themselves are the Authors to make us appear nevertheless the Instruments of our own Ruine In good earnest Sir and is this the likeliest reason you could Excogitate Had you but a little of what St. Paul tells us thinketh no evil that would have suggested to you some more charitable account of His Majesties together with his Councils proceeds in this Affair If you had not been so hasty as to take what lay uppermost in a Mind possest with Passion and Prejudice you might have thought of that His Majesty Himself publishes in the front of His Declaration in these words Our Conduct has been such in all times as ought to have perswaded the World that We are firm and constant to Our Resolutions Yet that easie People may not be abused by the Malice of crafty wicked Men We think fit to declare That Our Intentions are not changed since the Fourth of April 1687. when We issued out Our Declaration for Liberty of Conscience How the easie People have been wrought upon since that time to lessen their Opinion of His Majesties Sincerity in that Declaration is too notorious And what Insinuations of the daily progress
Parliament put into a Remonstrance and Presented to Charles the First was Frequent Dissolution of Parliaments Raising of Ship-money Suspensions Excommunications and Degradations of divers Painful Learned Pious Ministers c. There comes in at last a Complaint of His Chaplains and other Ministers of the Church of England Preaching before the King against the Liberty and Property of the Subject and for the Prerogative of the King above the Law. What will the World say of us while they see us blow hot and cold out at the same Mouth For my part I beleive the scratch is now where it don't itch Prerogative is not the thing does so much aggreive us If it happened to be on our side as we apprehend it now against us we should like Prerogative well enough If we had liv'd in those days what should we have though of such a Prerogative-Indulgence from Queen Mary in the behalf of Her Protestant Subjects from the Penal and Sanguinary Laws then established by Parliament Would we not have dared to own it to publish it in our Churches and Chapels till we had Authority of Parliament for it Would we have deserted and opposed so gracious a Queen and stroke into a Confederacy with the concurring Opinions of the Nobility and Gentry That to take away-the Penal Laws at that time would be but one step from the introducing of Protestancy I do not find the Clergy at all aggrieved at the Dispensing Power when at any time serving for the Interest of the Protestant Religion For instance When King Edward the Sixth by his mere Prerogative disposed of the Crown for that Reason to the Lady Jane most expresly contrary to a late establish'd Law passed in Parliament whereby the Crown was entailed on the Children of Henry the Eighth of which Mary and Elizabeth were both surviving it was so far from a daring not to do it till we had Authority of Parliament for it and from scrupling the Teaching of that which alters what has been formerly Thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom That Doctor Ridley Bishop of London by Order of the Council Preached a Sermon on purpose at Pauls-Cross to set forth the Title of the Lady Jane and to justifie the proceedings of the King and Council in that Affair Doctor Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury was one of the Principal in the Council and most of the rest of the Bishops and Clergy complied with and approved of it and commended it to their People Nor were the Nobility and Gentry averse from it After Queen Elizabeth by the same Established Laws the Succession of the Crown was to pass to Mary Queen of Scots but she being a professed Catholick what intrigues were driven to exclude Her in favour of the Protestant Religion and also Her Son James the First of England yet in his Infancy and probably enough supposed to bring with him His Mothers Religion Did not the Parliament offer to the Queen I cannot tell but it passed to an Act to enable Her to nominate Her Successor to the Crown Was not this to alter what had been formerly thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom Did not Charles the First the Protestant Martyr authorise the Canons of the Convocation 1640 by His Prerogative-Royal the Bishops and Clergy rightly asserting and espousing His Authority and Power in that matter nevertheless for the Parliaments declaring at the same time the Illegality of the thing and That it was against the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom So that it is not so much the Parliament of 72 nor the Constitution of the Church and Kingdom but somthing else in the Wind which makes us so off the Hooks with Prerogative and Dispensing Power at this time something we fear which I am confident upon the Integrity of His Majesties promise we have no cause to Fear But since you have so rudely jogg'd Prerogative for nothing in the World that I can see but happening to stand in your way at this time I will try a little of my skill as well as I can to defend it Treating first of the King 's Dispensing Power in general And Secondly of the exercise of it in this particular Instance which is the matter of the Declaration 1. In General That such a Power of dispensing with the Laws at least in the interim of Parliaments be lodged somewhere is grounded upon the same reason as of making Laws which is for the common good Salus populi est Suprema Lex Laws abstract from the Sanctions whereby they are injoyn'd are nothing else but Provisions made as at the first so on every arising occasion of promoting the common Good and consequently of averting any prospect of evil But for Parliaments in which so great a number of Men are employed and at so great a charge as that must be to the Nation to Sit continually watching and waiting upon such contingent occasions were almost as intolerable as any other evil the Laws would prevent Somtimes Laws Salutary and fitting to the juncture wherein they were made with some unexpected Providence Vicissitude or other un-thought Emergency change their nature and become noxious Besides that many Evils even pernicious and destructive to Common-wealths are somtimes so sudden and impendent as the Remedy would come too late in that way Somtimes of that nature that as nothing but dispatch so nothing but Secresie can avert them Somtimes so fixed in a popular mistake and misunderstanding as nothing but Time and Reasoning can make the discovery and generally enough dispose the Nation to consent to a Remedy And what must the Publick suffer perhaps an intolerable Evil or an irrepairable Ruin for want of applying an extraordinary Remedy in such Emergent cases That it is not expedient only but necessary for the publique Good that a Trust be reposed somwhere to make provision for the security of the whole Poplitique Body in such grand Emergencies and to judge of the matter and of the means proper for averting the Evil I think is by no body denied Whether it be so in our written Laws it makes no matter I am sure he that runs may read it in the original Prototype of all Laws which is right Reason even in the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of this Kingdom and all other Human Societies The Parliament of 41. could see a dispensing Power thus far thô they could not or which is blinder would not see to set the Saddle on the right Horse It is resolved say they by both Houses that in this case of extreme danger and of His Majesties refusal the Ordinance agreed upon by both Houses for the Militia doth oblige the People by the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom It being so then that by the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom written or unwritten such a Dispensing Power with the present establish'd Laws is necessary at some times to be interposed I know not nor do I believe that any one else can tell me where it
thing and to make choice of such Members of Parliament by whose Concurrence the Provision for His Majesties Safety might be made It is true the Church of England is hereby disobliged but who can help it or is to be blamed for it it was offered to them first and rejected by them Will they be neither persuaded to afford His Majesty together with theirs the Service and Assistance of His Roman Catholique Subjects of whose Loyalty there can at this time be no doubt for His sufficient defence against His numerous and inveterate Enemies nor yet allow him by His Indulgence of Liberty to their Consciences to win them to a Dutiful and Peaceable Subjection Just such an unsociable rigor as this now in the Church of England towards the Roman Catholioks was that of the Presbyterians towards us whom they then called Malignants and which was the occasion of bringing His Majesty CHARLES I. of Sacred Memory to the Scaffold and all upon piques and dislikes one against another on point of Religion The Presbyterians had a mind to Save the King and deliver him out of the hands of the Army which they then called Sectaries but this was morally impossible to be done by them upon the strength of their own single Interest without uniting to their assistance the Malignant also as they termed all those who stood well-affected to the King and Church but by no means would they be persuaded to any conjunction with the Royalists when His Majesties Life at that time depended upon it and might have been secur'd by it and even to the last point when the Army came up in their march towards the City with the poor Captive KING in their power they obstinately refused to take in any of the King's Party to joyn with them notwithstanding all their frequent offers and importunities and notwithstanding their own ruine along with theirs choosing rather to deliver up the Common Cause than to joyn with the King's Friends in one common Defence Nay to bring the parallel still nearer when it pleased the Divine Providence to make some aspect towards the Restauration of His late Majesty CHARLES II. to the Succession of His Royal Fathers Crown so imperious and ill natur'd were they still towards the poor Cavaliers and so resolved against admitting them to any share in the Honour and Interest of the Enterprize however their former Fidelity to His Majesty might commend them and His Affair need them that after the Secluded Members were re-admitted a Resolution taken of Convening a Free Parliament in order to the King's Restauration before their Rising they passed these two Votes One That all and every Person who have Advised Abetted or Assisted in any War against the Parliament since January the First 1641. his or their Sons should be uncapable to be elected to Serve as Members of the next Parliament And another That no Man should act as a Commission-Officer without First Acknowledging and Declaring That the War undertaken by both Houses of Parliament in their Defence against the Forces raised in the name of the late KING was Just and Lawful What can more nearly resemble those Oaths and Tests which have been of late years laid upon so many of His present Majesties Friends and no doubt with the same Design and in a then probable prospect of His Succession to the Crown That if they should fail of Excluding himself yet at least they might exclude a considerable number of His Friends from joyning their Force and Assistance to the rest when He should most need them and so one time or other he might fall into their Power thus unarmed and deprived of His just and sufficient Defence The subtle Projectors and Contrivers of this Intrigue it is likely are now off the Stage but since many of those who I believe have not the least Malice against His Majesties Person are yet nevertheless so intoxicate with the fears and jealousies they then imbib'd that they are yet hardly sober and must have time to recover their debauched Reasons It is necessary in the mean time that His Majesty look to the preservation of himself and of them also whose Loyalty is yet half asleep and who perhaps when they are better awake will find reason to thank him for interposing His Prerogative against their obstinate Defence of a Law so unreasonable and unsafe and thank God too for that Courage and Wisdom with which he has inspired him to preserve both them and Himself and the whole Nation from their precipitate Folly. These things considered may I think satisfie any reasonable unprejudic'd Man of the justice and necessity of His Majesties exerting His Royal Prerogative at this time and in the manner he has expressed in His Declaration for the preservation of Himself the Head of this great National Body which cannot be touched with danger in that principal part without a fatal evil to the whole But with His Majesties Person I intimated also a Salvo for His Conscience and that by His Prerogative if he cannot have it otherwise Conscience is the common answer on the account of which the Nobility and Gentry do not consent to His Majesties Proposals for taking off the Test and Penal Laws Is there not some regard to be had to the King's Conscience as well as other Mens The King no doubt so sincere and devout as he is in the profession of His Religion accounts it a very high offence against God and danger of Eternal Damnation to His Soul to persecute what He accounts the Truth and to drive away or terrifie any by Penal Laws from embracing it Who does not I believe also the inflicting of such Penalties on any other for mere matter of Conscience is not without a great regret to His own That Conscience ought not to be constrained nor People forced in matters of mere Religion are the express words of His Declaration Now all prosecution of Law against Recusants or what other Dissenters from the establish'd Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England must be made in the King's Name and all Warrants for the execution of Sanguinary Pecuniary or what other kind of Mulcts issue from His immediate Authority So that no Man's Conscience of the whole Nation is so nearly concern'd nor so accountable to God for what relates to these Laws as the King's Conscience I think no Man will say that the King ought in the execution of such Laws to sin against His Conscience or that we have ever the less obligation upon us to Own Him and Obey Him as our King and to comply with Him tenderly for the finding such a temper if there be any better than what He already offers for the satisfaction of both His Conscience and ours Subjects may suffer for Conscience sake and lose some part of the priviledge of Subjects rather than break the publick measures which have been established But Kings may not be constrained by Law to suffer nor to diminish any part of their Royal Sovereignty
for that their Consciences cannot comply with the execution of some Laws made by their Predecessors in matters of Religion Constantine the Great Lucius Ethelbert by the established Laws should have persecuted Christianity but then they must have done it against their Consciences Julian found Christian Laws in the Empire but he could not be bound by them against his Will and retain the Authority of Emperor What would you have His Majesty do bring in an Exclusion Bill against Himself lay down His Crown and Scepter at your Feet and turn Subject to serve you Or would you have Him do worse prostitute His Conscience to your pleasure and act against the interest of His Soul to serve yours of the World Indeed what would you have Him do wiser and safer for His own Conscience and gentler and kinder for ours than what is imported in that Declaration which we suppress notwithstanding His Majesties Command to publish it and against which your Letter endeavours to stir up the madness of the People and to alienate their Hearts and Affections from so Gracious and so Wise and so Religious a Prince You would have Him perhaps represent the Business to His Parliament and leave it with them to excogitate some expedient for this emergent difficulty Well and what must He do in the mean time Sin against His Conscience No suspend For Gods sake then what is this stir for You know Sir His Majesty has already attempted something of this Nature with His first Parliament but with no success If you answer It was not probably to be expected then The Nation had not time enough to bethink themselves to take a Right Understanding of the thing and to apprehend the reasonableness of His Majesties Proposals To all this I agree with you Magna molimina tardè moventur Matters of so great moment and springing from such a surprising Vicissitude of State could hardly be so soon digested Yet His Majesty Dissolved not that Parliament till after He had condescended to Treat further of that Affair in His Closet with most of the principal Members and till He assured Himself of an utter averseness in them to any reasonable Complyance If you say then He must leave it to the issue of the next Parliament after so long a time as they have had to think over again You say right and so His Majesty intends and so He would have us signifie for the Peoples Satisfaction by Reading this Declaration Well but in this longer protraction of the time to another Parliament what would you have Him do Put these Laws in execution not only against the Safety of His Person but of His Conscience too Persecute what He accounts the Truth Apply Force where in His Conscience He judges nothing but Persuasion to be used I know no remedy for His Majesties Conscience in the interim but a further suspending and dispensing still with such Laws Nor do I believe that you or any Man else can assign a better Why He may not then make known the Continuance of His former Purposes in his first Declaration and why may it not be published by us the Ministers of Conscience and whose Duty it is of all Men to be most tender and of all others towards His Majesties Conscience And why not in our Churches and Chapels where we have insinuated generally to our People our own Mistakes in common with others even almost the whole Nations first hastily taken up false Conception of His Majesties Purposes Rightly to inform His Majesties Conscience so far as is becoming will not be taken amiss from us But if we find Him at a Point and that He is not to be moved from His Sentiment in these Matters I am confident none of us dare I am sure ought not to advise His Majesty to sin against His Conscience no more than we would do it our selves against ours Upon which Concession we cannot fairly censure and oppose in the manner we do His withdrawing His Authority from those Laws in the practice and prosecution of which His Conscience must needs be violated These are the Straits into which our Gracious King is driven at this Juncture He chuses according to His Judgment to offend Man rather than God Can we blame Him Nay ought we not rather to applaud Him for it We of the Clergy ought of all Men to lay our Hands upon our Mouths and make no Clamors nor give Him any Molestation on this account It is our own Doctrine in His Majesties Application while there are such Diversities of Religion among us and none more infallible than other on our Principles and while Temporal Laws will be medling with them and determining their Controversies unless they could make it a Shoo to fit to every Foot and to stretch to every Conscience such Mutations and Troubles of State as we meet with now are like frequently to return and the Government will ever and anon be off the Hinges new Exclusion-Bills to be brought into Parliaments new Plots and new Subjects for almost every new Prince To prevent such Convulsions of State and probably at one time or other Dissolutions of the Government as new Religions and new Consciences now a days multiply His Majesty wisely propounds that there be henceforth no disability on account of Conscience as of Kings to Reign so of Subjects to serve their Princes In the mean time nevertheless for the satisfaction of our Consciences as well as His own His Majesty further declares That he is resolved to use His uttermost indeavours to establish Liberty of Conscience on such just and equal Foundations as will render it unalterable and secure to all People the Free Exercise of their Religion for ever And to those of the Church of England principally and especially the Protestant Religion as by them profest and as by Law Established he will protect and maintain supereminently above all others as the National Religion That as we shall give the Check to no other so neither shall we be Checked by any in the free Exercise of our Consciences nor in the quiet and full enjoyment of our Possessions You would have His Majesty continue to us and protect and maintain us in our Dominion over all the Consciences of the Nation in the putting to Death Banishing Imprisoning Confiscating and by all other means not to call it persecuting suppressing and keeping under all others of a different Persuasion His Majesty would lend us His Power and Authority to do all this for us too if in Conscience he could but I think we ought to excuse him in that and I hope all Persons of Honour and Conscience will tenderly consider His Majesties Case as their own and be satisfied that the King does no more in this Affair than what any truly Conscientious Man even on our own Principles must have done And as Himself has been on this account hitherto necessitated to suspend the execution of the Penal Laws and Test so they also when convened together in