Sir we dare not encourage You to be kind to us and we must stay our Addresses of thanks lest we give a Scandal to our Brethren or they hereafter punish us for this forwardness I fancy you have the vanity to hope that your Letter will prevail with some to desist from Addresses upon those motives otherwise what need was there for you to be so urgent with them to suppress their impatience and for the sake of those that are now Abhorrers to stick close to the Act of Vniformity till the King die whom God long preserve to finish this great work in hopes a Protestant Parliament under a Protestant King will grant them better Terms For I hope by the word Parliament you mean not the Two Houses like those of 41 who Entitled them to the Supream Power It seems if Dissenters hearken not to you though at present you are willing to make a gentle Construction of the well meant Zeal of some in drawing others into the Mistake yet you threaten them with Sharpness and Satyr because in strictness the matter will bear it if we believe you r It seems a Dissenter may feed fully but must say no Grace or cry Roast-meat would you have them pet like froward Children because the Benevolence was not offer'd first to them or in the Circumstances they desire it It seems they may privately thank God for putting it into the Kings Heart to grant them ease yea they may enjoy the Advantag e of it but without noise lest some Dog catch the Morsel the Cat purs upon Oh! a publick owning and desire to have Indulgence Establlsh'd by Law is to support an Act irregularly done against the sacred Laws of the Land This is such a Trespass as may no ways be defended but to observe any rules of good manners or dutifulness to the King is a grievous fault Methinks you ought to have brought very undeniable Authorities e're you had presumed to question the judgement of the King His Privy Council and the Court of the Kings-Bench as to the Dispensing Power But since you offer not one Syllable of Argument I shall remit you to Westminster-Hall to defend the point and receive your doom You endeavour gentâ—y to stroke the Dissenters that are under Temptation and Frailties which makes them you say leap over the Objections may be made and overlook the sad consequence of giving thanks not only as an inlet to Popery but the giving a deadly blow to all the Laws by which their Liberty and Religion are to be protected This is an heavy Sentence whereby they are judg'd to sell their Birth-right for a morsel of Bread or a mess of Pottage Let us therefore turn the Optick Glass and you may more surely discover that the King designs no breach of Magna Charta nor to retain any Council for the Prerogative against it but on the contrary to have it confirmed in a much larger extent than ever it was by His Royal Predecessors for it is most certain that all Penal Laws for Religion are so many infringments of it and if you would have Magna Charta inviolably kept you know what Church is thereby Establish'd Here therefore you quarrel with the King for endeavouring to have a Charter of Liberties Establish'd that will be a standard for all future freedom and enfranchisement of Conscience and to infer that the Subjects yielding to this will put them out of the protection of all the Laws that secure their Liberties is no less an ignorant than seditious Suggestion s We are a most happy people in the security we have by Law to enjoy the Liberties the Royal Predecessors of our most Gracious King hath granted But if His Majecty effect His desire in this Repeal He will be the Author of a greater freedom to the Subjects then they ever yet enjoyed so that none in matters of Religion shall be put upon ever Complaining against or the giving up the Question since all pretences of puttng it will be thereby prevented By the operating power of such an Act such a mutual assurance and security would be given as it would be in no parties power to endevour or to desire to mischief or destroy another I fancy indeed some Apparators and Bailifs may suffer a diminution of profit and some men of vindicative spirits may want the assistance of sanguinary and Penal Laws to revenge themselves by But the benefit that will redound to the whole will sufficiently compensate that loss The Kings of England will be the gainers in that they will be no more disquieted with Rebellions upon the account of Religion The Parliaments will be eased of the tiresom disquieting and unpleasing toyl of making Laws upon every emergence to restrain some party or other from their way of Worship and imposing Tests and Oaths according as prevailing Parties have power and when the intestine struggles of every party to manacle and put the shackles and badges of slavery upon each other shall be taken away the Legislative will be at full liberty to attend soly the aggrandizing of our Kings and restoring them to the power and interest at home and abroad of the gloriousest of their Predecessors And to make good Laws for the enriching of the body of the people and by perpetual harmony unite the Subjects in the common band of Duty and Allegiance to their Sovereign and mutual love and endearment to one another The Roman Catholicks would have no occasion to repine since they might freely enjoy their Religion and the Church of England would be possess'd of the Dignities and Benefices they enjoy and the Dissenters would be satisfied that they had the freedom of their Tabernacles and Conventicles and all the content of this would be heightned in the peaceable and durable enjoyment of it when it would be in no Parties power to invade the Liberties of another This is the right Scheme of His Majesties generous design and if Dissenters fall not to their old work of stubbing up Episcopacy root and branch it may most certainly continue For the obedience of Roman Catholicks under a Protestant Government we have the most near and compleat instance in the United Provinces where they live with the free exercise of their Religion under a Bishop of their own who is Treated according to his Character by the States to whom they impart their pleasure and by his directions the Roman Catholicks obey So that when the King of France Invaded that Country none stood firmer than They did These pay such an absolute Obedience that if the States should for a time interdict them the use of their Religion they would yield to it So that all you urge as consequences of the Repeal vanisheth upon the very opening the Kings intentions which I dare venture my head that I have more truly declared than You by all your smooth Oratory have made out by suspicions t Expounding of the sense and meaning of Oaths is generally granted peculiarly to belong to the
which they formerly reputed Idolatrous They now think themselves justified in their Espousing the Parliaments side from whom they expected and had Indulgence and please themselves to find another kind of non Addressors and as zealous persons to hinder the Repeal of Penal Laws against their Sovereigns declared desire as they were formerly for it Yet though the Scene be thus changed I hope there are sufficient numbers of such whom the Church of England will own to be her Children that will let no Dissenters out-goe them in Loyalty and Dutifulness to their Sovereign and who are well assured the King will have as great regard to them and our Church for their sakes and as freely permit them the enjoyment of the Exercise of their Religion and Benefices as to any provided they will concur with Him in the Repeal and be content to let their Fellow-Subjects of different Persuasions enjoy likewise their Liberty That the Members of the Church of England ought to yield this in common prudence and even for the Preservation of their own Religion I think there are many Reasons especially this that as yet the time is not clapsed but that when His Majesty convenes His Parliament sufficient Security may be obtained that the Church of England shall enjoy all the King hath promised and when by the Wisdom of the Houses such an Act is contrived as will answer the Kings desires of the Universal ease of His Subject the Church of England will feel as great effects of the Kings kindness as she can expect or desire and by the freedom all will enjoy there will be no more contests but who shall approve themselves most dutiful and deserving of His Majesties Clemency and Kindness Upon such a closure the Roman Catholicks and Dissenters will freely yield to the mutual security of the Church of England and that Church will regain its Reputation of Loyalty and confirm what you promise in her name of being kind to Dissenters and a Protestant Prince succeeding and finding things thus Amicably Composed will reap the benefit as the whole Kingdom will do of this happy undertaking of the King But on the contrary if the Majority of the Members of the Church of England in Parliament obstinately oppose the Kings desires they will oblige His Majesty to pursue other Methods and it will give occasion to all such as are no great well-wishers to our Church to urge its uncharitableness that rather than it will permit the King to exercise His Prerogative of being served with all His Subjects of what denomination soever He pleases to make use of and that Men of different Professions in Religion may enjoy the favour of the Kings Indulgence they will put themselves out of His Royal Protection and absolve Him from His promise therein and the upshot of all will be that by His Majesties steady pursuit of this great work which He firmly believes will conduce so much to the universal good of His Subjects In a few years by such sedulous countenancing all those who will strenuously co-operate with Him to effect it the Dissenters will obtain the Majority of Voices in Parliament which if once effected those Members of the Church of England who have Obstructed the Repeal will be at the mercy of Dissenters and if the King be not their best Friend may fall short of what they may now so effectually obtain I shall conclude with a short Paraphrase upon the Words His Majesty used to His Privy Council March the 8th 1686. concerning this Indulgence in which the substance of what need be said in justifying the Kings granting it are clearly laid down First His Majesty shows the practice of former Ages and the success of them That although an Vniformity in the Religious Worship had been Endeavoured to be Established within this Kingdom in the successive Reigns of Four of His Majesties Royal Predecessors assisted by their respective Parliaments yet it hath proved altogether ineffectual This is obvious to every one that reads the History of those times and well know to those that lived in the beginning of the Rebellion for Dissenters were then so encreased that they were numerous and powerful enough to overthrow not only the Church of England but the Monarchy that defended it The Kings Words are That the Restraint upon the Consciences of Dissenters in order thereunto viz. to Conformity had been very prejudicial to this Nation as was sadly experienced in the horrid Rebellion in the time of His Majesties Royal Father The King then pitcheth upon the true and principal cause of all those Calamities that befel the blessed Martyr and were freshly commencing again in the later time of His Majesties Royal Brothers Reign which are best expressed in the Kings own Words That the many Penal Laws made against Dissenters in all the foregoing Reigns and especially in the time of the late King had rather increased than lessened them If therefore our Gracious King out of an excess of love and Paternal care did not study the Universal benefit ease profit and enriching of His people He might have pursued former Precedents But as a Wise and Compassionate Prince He searcheth diligently for the true Causes and while too many are busying themselves in Traducing His zeal for His Religion as if it were the only concern of His Royal Cares He Demonstrates to all His Subjects how much more sollicitous He is to find some better Method whereby at once He may Establish His Throne and those of His Successors in a stable peace and security and give Ease Freedom and Riches to all His People of what Persuastion soever Therefore declares That nothing can more conduce to the peace and quiet of His Kingdom and the increase of the Numbers as well as the Trade of the Subjects wherein the greatness of a Prince does more consist than in the extent of His Teritories than an entire Liberty of Conscience That His Majesty may likewise obviate all the great scruple such as you raise as if He did this for any private ends you have His Royal Word to the contrary when He tells all His Subjects That it hath been His Opinion as most suitable to the Principles of Christianity that no Man should be Persecuted for Conscience sake which His Majesty thinks is not to be forced By this His Majesty shows that He grounds not His judgement upon the agreeableness or ungreeableness of it to the interest of any Church but as it is suitable to the uery Principles of Christian Religion and having by this shown His Royal Intentions how to proceed upon that bottom during His own Reign out of a well grounded Confidence that it may be a rule and standard to His Royal Successors He closeth all with this Maxim That it can never be the true Interest of a King of England to endeavour to force Conscience Have not all Men from hence and all His Majesties Actions reason to think there is a Clemency Benignity and tenderness in the King
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
they will leave you first if they do you must either leave them when it will be too late for your Safety or else after the squeasines of startling at a Surplice you must be forced to swallow Transubstantiation n Remember that the other day those of the Church of England were Trimmers for enduring you and now by a sudden Turn you are become the Favourites do not deceive your selves it is not the Nature of lasting Plants thus to shoot up in the Night you may look gay and green for a little time but you want a Root to give you a continuance It is not so long since as to be forgotten that the Maxim was It is impossible for a Dissenter not to be a REBELL Consider at this time in France even the new Converts are so far from being Imployed that they are Disarmed their sudden Change maketh them still to be distrusted notwithstanding that they are Reconciled What are you to expect from your dear Friends to whom when ever they shall think fit to throw you off again you have in other times given such Arguments for their excuse o Besides all this you Act very unskilfully against your visible Interest if you throw away the Advantages of which you can hardly fail in the next probable Revolution Things tend naturally to what you would have if you would let them alone and not by an unseasonable Activity lose the Influences of your good Star which promiseth every thing that is prosperous p The Church of England convinced of its Errour in being Severe to you the Parliament whenever it meeteth is sure to be Gentle to you the next Heir bred in the Country which you have so often Quoted for a Pattern of Indulgence a general Agreement of all thinking Men that we must no more cut our selves off from the Protestants abroad but rather inlarge the Foundations upon which we are to build our Desences against the Common Enemy so that in truth all things seem to conspire to give you ease and satisfaction if by too much hast to anticipate your good Fortune you do not destroy it q The Protestants have but one Article of Humane Strength to oppose the Power which is now against them and that is not to lose the advantage of their numbers by being so unwary as to let themselves be divided r We all agree in our Duty to our Prince our Octjections to his Belief do not hinder us from seeing his Virtues and our not complying with his Religion hath no effect upon our Allegiance we are not to be Laughed out of our Passive Obedience and the Doctrine of Non-Resistance though even those who perhaps owe the best part of their Security to that Principle are apt to make a Jest on 't s So that if we give no Advantage by the fatal Mistake of misapplying our Anger by the natural course of things this Danger will pass away like a shower of Hail fair weather will succeed as lowering as the Sky now looketh and all by this plain and easie Receipt Let us be still quiet and undivided firm at the same time to our Religion our Loyalty and our Laws and so long as we continue this Method it is next to impossible that the odds of two hundred to one should lose the Bet except the Church of Rome which hath been so long barren of Miracles should now in her declining Age be brought to Bed of One that would out-do the best she can brag of in her Legend t To conclude the short Question will be Whether you will joyn with those who must in the end run the same Fate with you If Protestants of all sorts in their behaviour to one another have been to blame they are upon the more equal terms and for that very reason it is fitter for them now to be Reconciled Our Disunion is not only a Reproach but a danger to us those who believe in modern Miracles have more Right or at least more Excuse to neglect all Secular Cautions but for us it is as justifiable to have no Religion as wilfully to throw away the humane Means of preserving it THE REPLY SIR IT is a most undeniable truth that fashionable Addresses are very little to be regarded and the temper of the Nation as little to be known by them as we can know Men to be of one inclination because they were one sort of habit but when they flow from Gratitude Duty and Interest and not from fear or resentment they are good symbols of unconstrainedness and sincerity and to whom soever presented ought to be kindly received I own not my self a Dissenter from the Church of England and upon that score find not my self concerned in all that you write relating to them but assure you I am one of those that have a propensity of mind ready to receive any impression of Reason and who am so sensible that a great part of the comforts of humane Life and Oeconomy of Government is lost to those who confine their Charity good Esteem and Candor to those only of their own Opinion That you and I differ mostly in that you confine your thoughts for the publick to the subdivision of Protestants only whereas I think they ought to be enlarged likewise to all Honourable Virtuous and Loyal persons of other denominations and neither Fear or Resentment ought at this time to make us swerve from that Golden Rule of doing to others as we would have others do to us b It is true that in small wounds in the fleshy parts only the sympathetick way of Cure and closing the wound in its own blood with bandage of clean Linnen will serve but where amputations and lacerations are such as Seclusion and Rebellion sovereign wound salves are requisite You allow your Dissenter to act by natural instinct as other Animals do that can lick themselves whole and you dress their wounds with so gentle a touch as if you were unconcerned whether they were cur'd or not and least they should infandum renovare dolorem reflect upon the fresh bleeding wounds you give them a dose of Opium It is true you blame the Patient for his precipitateness in using the Remedies nearest at hand without examining not only the skill and ability but the good intention of the Chirurgion and the vertues of his Remedies but this is all Artifice that you may get the Patient to commit himself to your care and that you might possess him with an Opinion that none else had the true method of healing which is not fair practice to decoy him from using the certainest and most assured help this Island can afford c Here you change the Scene and transform your Patient into a passionate Wooer who is fallen in love with a new Friend and since you presume it will be an hard task to make him quit his new Amours for his late coy and scornful Lady you are contriving a Fascination and would garnish his Bridal Feast with a Mene Tekel a
Dissenters or would you have them stay to the next Ages If the first you deserve the doom of a Traitor since you must Exclude the King unless Roman Catholicks be included if the latter you must fit the Dissenters with Iron Shooes k You Write as if you were one of the Plenipotentiaries at a Treaty betwixt Roman Catholicks and Dissenters and were well acquainted with the secret Articles All the World hath judged Dissenters to have a great aversion to implicit Faith and blind Obedience but they must all be the most absolute Resigners of their Reason and Religion to the guidance of Roman Catholicks If for this pretended Liberty of Conscience as you call it they must Sacrifice their real Freedom I believe rather that the weight and galling of their late Chains are so much felt that they will be very unwilling to have them put on again by some Members of the Church of England and the confidence to be ever freed from them makes them so ready to embrace this Jayl-Delivery l To what degree soever either Roman Catholicks or Dissenters may judge valid the Dispensing Power yet that no ways should hinder them from desiring the Indulgence may be Established by Law to perpetuate that favour which they at present are only secure of during the Kings Life And as all Gracious and just Princes desire their Honour and good Fame may long out-live them so they wish that the benefits they intend for their people may be extended to future Ages Therefore however His Majesty may be satisfied in the rights of His Sovereignty yet for the tender regard of the future Repose of His Subjects It is a most Gracious Act in Him to endeavour the concurrence of His Two Houses which by an impropriety of Speech you call the Legislative when it is well known that without the Royal concurrence the Two Houses are only the Legispreparative m By those words and not without Reason you discover your self to have been a Seclusionist and yet want the candor of an ingenuous Dissenter who is not angry that those Members of the Church of England complied so far since it hath given them the opportunity of experiencing the Kings surprizing Clemency and condemning the groundless jealousie they had of Him which prompted to that Reluctancy against His Rightful Succession and the Dissenters have no reason to be sorry that these Members of the Church of England made no further Progress after the King came to the Crown Since that stop of theirs made the Wheel move faster towards the Indulgence the benefit whereof least they should be in danger to lose they will with all sedulity endeavour to promote though I presume by no indirect means but such as may be agreeable to the duty of their Allegiance and Thankfulness they owe to the King for it Then the scrupulous niceness concerning significant Ceremonies will cease because none will be obliged to use the Cope Surplice or long Cloak but such as like them only I hope it will be always prohibited to Preach in Buff-coats and mingle Blood with their Oblations n Nothing is more common than to find Names affixed according to peoples fancies and after a while one word serves for Description Definition and Character If Liberty of Conscience once be made practicable and in the vogue Those discriminating Cyphers will be useless and all Subjects will be considered in their morality or immorality obedience or disobedience rather than by the Cognizance of their Religion It is no strange thing in Nature that by some influence of the Heavens and aptness of Soyl some Plants may shoot up more in a Night than others backned by severe Frosts do in a Month and why the rare Plant of Liberty in Religious Worship may not be as perennial as the Thistle of Persecution I see no great Reason if Cultivated with common care If the prospect of continual suffering and the want of Christian Liberty made Dissenters Factious and Rebellious it is to be presumed that the Fundimental Instigation being removed the Witchcraft will no longer prevail It is the concernment of all Governments to see that Men be true to it e're they be trusted and when Princes lay by their co-active Laws it is the interest of the Subjects to lay aside their Animosities and when all Parties quit their Fire-Arms and offensive Weapons I see no reason to despair of Harmony and Accord in the duty of Christians and Subjects and thus being linked in the common bond of freedom I see no occasion to throw one another off again o If things now tend naturally to the ease of Dissenters they have reason to be most thankful to the King as the sole bestower of it and I see no Reason they should let go the Bird in hand in hopes to catch another in the Bush I should think they acted with less circumspection than they have wonted to do if they slip the opportunity of that tender made them in expectation of enjoying any thing like it when the Church of England shall be in a flourishing condition Besides it may be a Question whether a Toleration after the patern of the Low Countries may not be more prejudicial to the Church of England than such one as may be now adjusted p Here you are very Magisterial and have undertaken far more than your Credit will go for To say a Church is convinced of an Errour befits none but the Prolocutor of a Convocation when such a Vote was passed with a Nemine Contradicente and to ensure for a Parliaments Votes is more than any Ten Members of it can do But I presume you speak by Figure here that if Dissenters will not joyn with Roman Catholicks to be thankful for the Indulgence and will stick close to the Members of the Church of England that oppose it then the Parliament under a Protestant Successor and a Convocation will set such a value upon that service that they will be gentile to them and establish some Bill of comprehension which the Governours of the Church of England could never hitherto be brought to yield to All this looks so like decoy that the Dissenter of the lowest form will perceive it But what ever they do all thinking Men must judge the design of this is to animate all Protestants to weather out the point and heighten their opposition to the King which in former times would have been stil'd Sedition As to that excellent Princess I suppose you mean few Princesses in Europe are known to Excell Her in the Accomplishments of Body or Mind and as Her Royal Father is as Indulgent to Her Highness as any Prince can be so She is as Dutiful and whatever the King Establisheth in His time for the publick Good and Tranquility of His Kingdoms if She over-live Him I presume it may be Her desire if not Her Interest to ratifie and to what perfection soever His Majesty may bring this Pantheon there may still remain beautifying and adorning for His Successor
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