AN ANSWER FROM THE COUNTRY TO A LATE LETTER TO A DISSENTER Upon Occasion of His MAJESTIES Late GRACIOUS Declaration of Indulgence By a Member of the Church of England LONDON Printed for M. R. in the Year 1687 AN ANSWER FROM THE COUNTRY TO A Late Letter Writ to a Dissenter c. SIR IT is the unhappy state of mankind that the over-weening Opinions and Sentiments which by Education or Custom we have entertain'd incline and warp our minds so to the maintaining of them that we are as difficultly alter'd as the Tree is which bended when a young sappling is rarely by any Art made straight Besides this the tempers of most Mens Souls are such that they easily divide into Parties and being listed as in a state of War they study nothing more than to convince or subdue all those who differ from them Yea we too frequently find that they make those the Object of their aversion or abhorrence who study to compose their eager tempers or direct them to any degree of humanity Hence it is that when National limits are not sufficient causes of quarrels the ranks and degrees of Men the City and Country Fraternities Neighborhood yea Domestical Interests crumble us and cast us into various figures These Jars and Hostilities are fomented by Interest Ambition and all the cross-grain'd passions of our Souls and when Religion mixes with our humane concerns it sublimes all their corrosive spirits and is the universal dissolvent Every one is apt to think the fire of his own Altar the purest and is not content to have liberty to trim his own Houshold hearth and warm himself at his own Faggot but endeavours according to his power to make all gain-sayers Victims and Sacrifices to his Deity and when no Secular Interest moves them the pretended eager Charity to save their Souls and the preventing as they call it the spreading of that Infection makes them mortify them in their Estates or send them to the Pest-house or cut them off as gangren'd Members Hence it is that the Roman Catholick Church the Church of England and Dissenters according as they have had the favour of the Government or could exercise any Authority have each of them punished or supprest the other and have been more or less severe according as the Government judging it to conduce to secure the publick peace was inclin'd to embrace that Religion or the desires of Church-men were more or less pressing to bring all to Uniformity in Faith and Discipline Former Ages have experimented this way of proceeding and it hath been accompanied with the lowd cries of the suffering Parties the decay of Trade the unpeopling of Countries and Intestine Seditions and Rebellions Our unhappy Island hath not wanted Instances of the ill effects of arming by Penal Laws Church Communities one against the other so that the Governing Parties under Religious Denomination have produced almost as much mischief as in Ancient times the Wars betwixt the Houses of York and Lancaster occasioned and however oppressive the State-Church of England is reputed yet I think it will not be disown'd that when those called Dissenters got the Power in their hands they made greater Ravage and Depredations in Twenty years upon the Roman Catholicks and the Members of the Church of England than had been inflicted on themselves in an Age witness the sequestring decimating and seizing their Estates Fining Imprisoning Banishing and putting to Death of so many and selling the Lands of the Bishops Deans and Chapters Our Gracious King revolving therefore in His Princely Mind the Fatalities that have attended this Conduct and the unfortunate and mischievous Results of such proceedings the effects whereof he had felt Himself hath in His profound Wisdom resolved to try the most probable expedient to still and quiet these so long continued Animosities Contrarieties and Ferments of His Subjects Some publick notices of this He gave in the very beginning of His Reign by Prohibiting in His Courts and discountenancing proceedings upon the Penal Laws But that I may discover the true steps the King made towards it and the foot upon which the late Indulgence stands and prevent some Repetitions I should otherwise be necessiated to use in my Reply to your Letter I shall succinctly touch the Kings Progress and the deportment of some Members of the Church of England and Dissenters before and since the Indulgence At the First Council the King held after his coming to the Crown he expressed the sense he had of the Church of Englands Loyalty and gave us Assurances of His Defence and Support of it This pleased the Dissenters only so far as it gave them hopes that the Protestant Religion might be preserved but they were afraid lest the King might remember their former promoting the Bill of Exclusion and that thereby they should not only continue under the lashes of the Church of Englands Discipline but of the Kings disfavour and having yet the Idea's which had been infused into them of a Popish Successor and the D. of Monmouth giving them an opportunity to make head under the specious pretence of preserving the Protestant Religion as many of them as were near the Scene of Action and were fool-hardy joyn'd with him in that Rebellion and the wishes for his success were not wanting in most of that Party But that Rebellion being so speedily and almost miraculously suppressed they fled to the Church of England for Protection flocked to the Churches personated a Conformity and so closely mixed that they now seemed one Body and one Church Some leading Men of the Church of England finding this great accession of strength and being desirous entirely to win the Dissenters over thought it expedient to let them see how much they had been mistaken in thinking them in the matter of Exclusion to be going over to Rome and being willing to wipe off the Calumny the Dissenters had cast upon them as being Papists in Masquerade they began instantly to shew their utmost Zeal against the Kings Religion When therefore the King pursuant to His Royal design before-mentioned required the taking off the Test and Penal Laws many leading Men of the Church of England set themselves to oppose the King in it and from that day the more they found the King press it the more they shewed their reluctance Suddenly several Ministers able or unable to manage the dispute with the Church of Rome began to confirm their Auditors in the Doctrine of the Protestant Religion and to insinuate the danger we were in to lose it as soon as the Test and Penal Laws should be repeal'd they murmur'd and repin'd at every favour shewn to Roman Catholicks and none were so much applauded as those who lost their places upon their denial to concur with the King in his demands They animated and encouraged one another to stand the shock not thinking perhaps they had to deal with a more resolved Prince than some of His Predecessors nor apprehending or not willing
Antidotes against them There are many Thousands of His Majesties Subjects both better able and more at leisure and concerned to Animadvert upon your Letter but upon the first reading I found many incentives to urge me to it when I saw such mis-interpretations of his Majesties Honourable designs his conduct so calumniated such dangerous innuendo's such endeavours to poyson the Members of the Church of England in their Loyalty the Arts to make them forfeit their Reputations with His Majesty and the World by alluring them to do every thing that made former Dissenters so abnoxious and leading them in the same steps with which they had trod the stage so tragical to themselves and the Kingdom What I have writ was the result of my thoughts e're I had read any Answer except the first two that were made you but by distance of place and other intervening accidents which hinder the communicating of it hath been stopped hirherto and if the opinion some have that it may be yet useful to some that may need repeated cautions and admonitions to beware of being seduced by the plausibleness of your Language had not prevailed with me I should have totally suppressed it Now that I may do you all possible right I have inserted the Letter entire according to the different Paragraphs and subjoyned mine and do freely yield your Column is that of the composit order beautiful though not strong and I hope that mine may be more solid like the Dorick rather chusing to render my Answer according to my Capacity flattering my self at least in the good intention sincere and useful than florid or fallacious desiring all along when I mention the Church of Englands severity to be understood no ways as censuring the Church as Author of those Laws nor questioning the prudence of the State in making Laws which according to the temperament of the times the security of the publick peace and it may be the desire of Uniformity upon prudential grounds our Kings thought fit to Enact But in this great revolution when our King thinks fit to try other measures I humbly judge it the interest of all peaceable spirits and dutiful Subjects calmly to weigh His Majesties Reasons and yeild to the Repeal of such Laws as cannot now be put in execution and may in all human probability conduce much to the publick tranquility of the Nation But I shall take an opportunity to speak to this after I have dispatched what I have to say to your Letter wherein I would not be understood to plead for the merits of Dissenters but to shew that they have no reason to quit their right in the Kings favour tendered to them without their seeking by any Arguments you have brought nor that the Members of the Church of England ought to be so much disquieted that it is granted to them since the Dissenters thereby will be without all excuse if this make them not better Subjects Nor think I the Church of England hath reason to be so jealous of being overlaid by them since the constitution of the Government of the Church of England is better adapted to the Monarchy than either the Classical or Congregational way and that the Roman Catholicks can so multiply as to ballance both in my judgement is to be reckoned among the portents of Nature and I will sooner believe a grain of the powder of projection can turn a Hundred pound of Lead to pure Gold than that this can be effected in one Age without a Divine Miracle which when wrought none will be troubled at that own an omnipotent Being to whose guidance they do submit themselves THE LETTER SIR SInce Addresses are in fashion give me leave to make one to You. This is neither the effect of Fear Interest or Resentment therefore you may be sure it is sincere and for that Reason it may expect to be kindly received Whether it will have power enough to Convince depends upon the Reasons of which you are to judge and upon your preparation of Mind to be persuaded by Truth whenever it appeareth to you It ought not to be the less welcom for coming from a friendly Hand one whose kindness to you is not lessened by difference of Opinion and who will not let his thoughts for the publick be so tyed or confined to this or that sub-division of Protestants as to stifle the Charity which besides all other Arguments is at this time become necessary to preserve us b I am neither surprized nor provoked to see that in the condition you were put into by the Laws and the ill circumstances you lay under by having the Exclusion and Rebellion laid to your Charge you were desirous to make your selves less uneasie and obnoxious to Authority Men who are sore run to the nearest Remedy with too much hast to consider all the Consequences Grains of allowance are to be given where Nature gives such strong Influences When to Men under Sufferings it offereth Ease the present Pain will hardly allow time to examine the Remedies and the strongest reason can hardly gain a fair Audience from our Mind whilst so possessed till the Smart is a little allayed c I do not know whether the Warmth that naturally belongeth to New Friendships may not make it a harder Task for me to persuade you It is like telling Lovers in the beginning of their Joys that they will in a little time have an End Such an unwelcom Style doth not easily find credit but I will suppose you are not so far gone in your new Passion but that you will Hear still and therefore I am under the less discouragement when I offer to your Consideration two things d The first is the cause you have to Suspect your New-Friends The Second the Duty incumbent upon you in Christianity and Prudence not to hazard the Publick Safety neither by desire of Ease nor of Revenge e To the first Consider that notwithstanding the smooth Language is now put on to engage you these New Friends did not make you their Choice but their Refuge They have ever made their first Courtships to the Church of England and when they were rejected there they made their Application to you in the second place The instances of this might be given in all times I do not repeat them because whatsoever's unnecessary must be tedious the Truth of this Assertion being so plain as not to admit a Dispute You cannot thereforer reasonably flatter your selves that there is an Inclination to you They never pretended to allow you any Quarter but to usher in Liberty for themselves under that shelter I refer you to Mr. Coleman's Letters and to the Journals of Parliament where you may be convinced if you can be so mistaken as to doubt nay at this very hour they can hardly forbear in the height of their Courtship to let fall hard words of you So little is Nature to be restrained it will start out sometimes disdaining to submit to the Vsurpation of Art and
and do not only Muster the Rebels but they do as much as in them lyes to enfeeble or taint the Allegiance of the remainder You have contributed all you possibly can to effect these things and exposed your Letter as a Banner to invite to jealousies and fears which are the very Avant-couriers of Sedition and Rebellion and this in you that pretend to be a Son of the Church of England is so much the worse in that you know how strictly it enjoyns Obedience to the Lawful Sovereign and how much the Doctrine of Non-Resistance hath been taught and practised by its Members If the Kings Intentions to settle the Roman Catholick Religion by force which you surely cannot in good earnest believe practicable were much more apparent than it is If the inevitable ruine of the Protestant Religion here should be the consequence of the Repeal and if the exercise of His Prerogative and Dispensing Power were the certain ruine of all Mens Properties you and others who own no other Loyalty to their Sovereign than what is consistent with their supposed Interest could not invent more provoking Reflections upon the King or mis-interpret His Actions worse than you do But how unreasonably undutiful is it in Subjects and those who would be reputed the zealousest for our Church to charge the King with Intrigue and Hypocrisy or breach of promise who of all Princes living detests mear tricks and to prevaricate with any To whom Dissimulation is the odiousest of Vices and whose very In-bred Natural and Heroick courage places Him as much above all low Arts as His Dignity doth above His Subjects Besides all the un-answerable Arguments which have been produced why the taking off the Test and Penal Laws cannot work such a change in our Religion you may consider that at the same time the Church of England may be Insured by Laws of greatest caution Furthermore we have most solemn and publick promises That His Majesty will Protect and Maintain the Church of England in the free exercise of its Religion as by Law Established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all Her Possessions without any molestation or disturbance which He will inviolably observe If by a stubborness that shall be unpardonable in the judgement of all Impartial Men we forfeit not a Clemency so rarely to be parallel'd To all which may be added the universal aversion of the Nobility Gentry and Commonality to the Roman Catholick Religion occasioned even by the deepest Impression that Education Custom and an Opinion of the Purity and Primativeness of it hath made If none of these Arguments will prevail with you to change your evil Opinion of the Kings designs by the Repeal consider deliberately I pray you how the King must overthrow the very Foundation upon which the great Enterprize of Universal Liberty and consequently of all the Benefits to His people by enriching them and keeping them in peace and securing the Roman Catholicks in future times in any tollerable state if He ever give way to invest any one Church-Community with a Coercive Power But I know it is Objected that if a Toleration only were intended how comes it to pass that so many Loyal Members of the Church of England even of those who so couragiously adhered to the Crown in its utmost danger are now displaced and the Roman Catholicks or Dissenters even such of the last as have most violently opposed His Majesties Succession are substituted in their Rooms In answer to this It is well known that the number of Protestants of the Church of England Employed by the King in His Court in His Council in His Courts of Judicature in Camp and all Places of publick Employments almost as far exceed the Roman Catholicks as our Clergy do theirs and yet we make so hideous a noise at the Conferring Places and Honours upon some deserving and Loyal Roman Catholicks and two or three Masters and a few Fellows of Colleges being Preferr'd which are but the effects of common distributive Justice and consentaneous to the Paternal care of such a Prince who would show some marks of favour to those few of His own Religion who are not now surely to be wholly Excluded Therefore in my judgement it shows a very ill Nature in those who own His Majesty to be their Lawful King and that He may at His Pleasure use the service of which of His Subjects He pleases to grudge His intermixing so few of His own Religion with others Besides this you cannot be ignorant that it never was the practice of any Prince or Government what Religion soever to imploy Subjects in Places of Trust who set themselves directly to oppose what by prudent forecast for the publick good they determined to Establish Now since the King for the Reasons published in His Gracious Declaration is so intent upon compleating this great work of General Freedom and securing those of His own Religion in common with the rest It cannot be thought reasonable or expedient that He should cherish and countenance those who so bitterly oppose him in it Especially since it is so apparent that even such who have shown great zeal for the support of the Crown upon the Heads of their Protestant Sovereigns now manifest not only an indifference and coldness but an unbecoming way wardness to the Kings Service In so much that some decline sitting in Commission with Roman Catholick Justices of the Peace and others think it honourable to quit their places rather than to make one step towards the Repeal so that even the Badges and Livery of Loyalty are changed from that to the King to that of the Church of England and those who make the greatest complaint of hard usage have themselves turned the Tables As to Dissenters it is their Interest to close with the Crown side for Protection and since they can derive this unlooked for favour from none but the King they should be the most ungrateful of Men if with chearfulness and sincerity they did not pay all possible Acknowledgments to His Majesties Bounty for it So that I do not wonder to hear them with great Asseveration say it was not for a Commonwealth they fought and were continually striving against the stream but it was to get the Weather-gage of Persecution It was to obtain this Liberty of Conscience which they never could expect from former Governments that provoked them to commit such Hainous things they now are ashamed of and which indeed they ought to Attone for in another manner than they have hitherto done They now declare that if they might have had the Tenth of that Liberty the Church of England now enjoys under our Gracious King they would never have lifted up an hand or opened a Mouth against the late Kings of blessed Memories and I think they are the rather to be believed because neither the Doctrine nor the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome are so much declaim'd against by them now as those of the Church of England
and room enough to enlarge the Foundations and build stronger Defences against the common Enemy of Persecution if this conspiring against a work which You own Dissenters need and deserve do not destroy it q In this Paragraph you are numbering the people and examining Your strength by the Muster-roll and the head of those Powers you design to Oppose is manifestly the King which is not very agreeable to the Church of Englands Doctrine of Non-Resistance r Good words butter no Parsnips if the Expressions of Duty were not tainted and hollow and in your Opinion His Majesties Religion did not only shade but totally Eclipse His Vertues Your Allegiance would not look as it doth more like a Submission than a Duty nor would You adventure upon that Bravado that some own their best security to Passive Obedience and the Doctrine of Non-Resistance which look very like bidding Roman Catholicks beware least they rouse a sleeping Lyon For I know not who they are that Laugh at the commendable Doctrine of Non-Resistance but when I see Men fomenting jealousies against their Sovereign ridiculing His Conduct endeavouring to Represent Him as acting against the Laws assuming an Arbitrary Power denying Him the service of all His Subjects and by all possible Arts endeavour to withdraw the Affections of the people from Him solely because of His Religion I cannot judge such to be true practicers of that Doctrine s Here you give a touch of your Astrology and it being customary for the pretenders to that Art to attempt by Horary Questions to know Diseases and after a while to set up for Empericks So you give us a pretty Receipt to clear a lowring Sky the Sense of which is for all Protestants to lye in of the sullen keep their beds and there use some kind of reasonable Devotion and entertain their Visitants with discourses of their Loyalty and their adhering to the Laws and it will be twenty to one but they will be freed from the Hail-storm and escape the danger of the Infectious Air. But lest any should object that Bed-zid Protestants are not like to keep out Popery you have a most Infallible Elixir in your Repository which is that neither the Church of England or Protestant Dissenters ought to be affrighted with any fear that the Roman Catholick Religion can be Established by a Toleration since the ods is two hundred to one without a greater Miracle than any we read of in any Legend especially in the old Age of a Church which hath been so long barren of them For shame therefore give over your false Alarums amuse the Dissenters no more to such circumspect standing upon their guard to keep out Popery since in our days there is no feeding Five hundred with Five Loves and two Fishes t The conclusion is agreeable to your premises an Exhortation to an Association a gainst the King and all of His judgement in the matters of the Test and the motives to it are pretty odd that since both Parties have been too blame in Persecuting one another therefore they should be reconciled and combine in opposing the Indulgence which is most likely to put an end to all rancor and malice One would have thought that the Inference more naturally should have been that since they both had experienced the mischiefs of Persecution and neither of them bettered their condition by it therefore they should both have joyned in the promoting the general Indulgence that there might be no more strife among them since they were Brethren I am sure this had more truly resolved the Question But instead of this you tell the Dissenters without giving any Reason for it that dis-union is not only a Reproach but a danger to both This I own to be true if the Union you desire were for the publick good of both but if the Union be to combine you and them in equal undutifulness and ingratefulness to the King if this Union be desired to hinder the Kings Progress in His laudable purposes if this Union be but to while the business with a Shall I Shall I to tire the Kings Patience and disappoint His expectation it will redound to both the Dissenters and your Danger if not Reproach To persuade to such an Union as this is the whole drift of your discourse and something you must mean more than Passive Obedience when you rivet the Nail you have all this while been driving in telling your Reader that it is as unjustifiable to have no Religion as wilfully to throw away the means of preserving it This looks like a second sound to Horse and you have a pretty slight in your Mouth to persuade Roman Catholicks because you think them so credulous of Miracles to neglect all Cautions or means to preserve themselves but to relie upon a Supernatural Power But those of your Principles must use the Humane Means of preserving it and of how many Battalions these must consist though you have reason to conceal the Intimation from the World yet you give a sufficient Item what may be expected and thereby caution the Government to have more Circumspection over your Sayings and Actions Thus Sir I have now finished my Observations upon your Letter I shall subjoyn something the subject matter induceth me to offer to the consideration of all Christian Dutiful Subjects and then close the whole SIR I have hitherto follow'd the train you have lead me and endeavoured to give a reasonable Answer to the most material parts of your Letter What was bare supposal and groundless suspicion I have not much concerned my self with Those being but like the Feathering of unpiled Arrows which help their flight but enforce them little to do harm where-ever they fall Neither have I attempted to reach the Towring Flights of your Oratory which how Ornimental soever are but like mounting Bubbles which break and vanish when at the utmost stretch Your affrightments when well considered are but like the sparks in a Smiths-shop which upon a brisk heat and stroak fills all with seeming liquid fire yet it is as soon extinguished as the Iron cools or the labouring stroke ceaseth What was Seditious and tending to instigate the Subjects to jealousies and disloyal Opinions of their Sovereign I have endeavoured to Disprove and Repress What was Calumny I have gently wiped off unless when it was couched in such general Terms as placed it beyond all reach of the Spung. Rebells in open Hostility are not so dangerous to a Prince and His Governmet though the severest Punishments are inflicted on them when mastered as those are who by sly Arts Detraction evil Surmises and Constructions render their Prince suspected of Ruling Arbitrarily and altering Religion and Laws and thereby blast His Credit with His people For those are the Men that make the whole Reigns of Princes troublesom and unfortunate to Themselves and their Subjects These List the Men provide Magazines and Arms and prepare all things in readiness against the sound of the Trumpet