in the middle betwixt God and the will of Man as that which is usually and truly spoken of Kings and Emperors may as truly be verified of the Consciences of every man Solo Deo minores esse nec aliquam in Terris superiorem ag noscere They are less than God only and on Earth do acknowledge no Superior That Speech of the Emperor Maximilian the first is very memorable Consciencij Dominari velle est Arcem Coeli invadere To exercise a Domination over Consciences is to invade the Tower of Heaven He is a Plunderer of the Glory of God and a nefarious Invader of the Power that is due unto him whosoever he is that shall claim a right to the Consciences of men or practice an Usurpation over them ibid. Sect. 11. pag. 115. And yet this is the sad consequence of imposing Religion upon Conscience and punishing Non-conformity with worldly Penalties Let us now hear what the late Bishop of Down says in his Lib. of Prophesie to our Point I am very much displeased that so many Opinions and new Doctrines are commenced amongst us but more troubled that every man that hath an Opinion thinks his own and other mens Salvation is concerned in its maintenance but most of all that men should be Persecuted and Afflicted for disagreeing in such Opinions which they cannot with sufficient grounds obtrude upon others necessarily because they cannot propound them Infallibly and because they have no warrant from Scripture so to do for if I shall tye other men to believe my Opinion because I think I have a place of Scripture which seems to warrant it to my understanding why may he not serve up another dish to me in the same Dress and exact the same task of me to believe the contradictory Liberty of Prophesie Epist Dedic pag. 8 9. The Experience which Christendom hath had in this last Age is Argument enough that Toleration of differing Opinions is so far from disturbing the Publick Peace or destroying the Interest of Princes and Common-wealths that it does advantage to the Publick it secures Peace because there is not so much as the pretence of Religion left to such Persons to contend for it being already indulged to them ibid. p. 21. It is a proverbial saying Quod nimia familiaritas servorum est conspiratio adversus Dominum and they who for their security run in Grots and Cellers and Retirements think that they being upon the defensive those Princes and those Laws that drive them to it are their Enemies and therefore they cannot be secure unless the Power of the one and the Obligation of the other be lessened and rescinded and then the being restrained and made miserable indears the discontented Persons mutually and makes more hearty and dangerous Confederations ibid. pag. 23. No man speaks more unreasonably than he that denies to men the use of their Reason in choice of their Religion ibid. pag. 169. No Christian is to be put to Death Dis-membred or otherwise directly Persecuted for his Opinion which does not teach Impiety or Blasphemy ibid. pag. 190. There is a popular Pity that follows all Persons in Misery and that Compassion breeds likeness of Affections and that very often produces likeness of Perswasion and so much the rather because there arises a Jealousie and pregnant Suspition that they who Persecute an Opinion are destitute of sufficient Arguments to confute it and that the Hangman is the best Disputant ibid. pag. 197 198. If a man cannot change his Opinion when he lists nor ever does heartily or resolutely but when he cannot do otherwise then to use Force may make him a Hypocrite but never to be a right Believer and so instead of erecting a Trophee to God and true Religion we build a Monument for the Devil ibid. pag. 200. The Trick of giving Persons differing in Opinion over to the secular Power at the best is no better than Hypocrisie removing Envy from themselves and laying it upon others a refusing to do that in external Act which they do in Council and Approbation ibid. pag. 209. Thus far Bishop Taylâ—r and one of the most Learned Men of the Church of England in his time Let me add another Bishop held learn'd by all and in great Reputation with the men of his Communion and among them the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parlioment assembled who have sufficiently declared against this persecuting Spirit on the account of Religion by their full approbation of and thanks returned to the Bishop of St Asaph for his Sermon preached before them November the 5 th 1680. and their desire that he would Print and Publish that Sermon The Bishop says that They who are most given to hate and destroy others especially those others who differ from them in Religion they are not the Church of God or at least they are so far corrupt in that particular pag. 8. Again he says That of Societies of Men Christians of all others are most averse from ways of Violence and Blood especially from using any such ways upon the account of Religion And among Christian Churches where they differ among themselves if either of them use those ways upon the account of Religion they give a strong Presumption against themselves that they are not truly Christians ibid. pag. 9. There is reason for this because we know that Christ gave Love for the Caracter by which his Disciples were to be known John 13.35 By this shall all Men know that you are my Disciples if you have Love to one another And least men should unchristen others first that they may hate them and Destroy them afterwards Christ enlarged his Precept of Love and extended it even to Enemies and not only to ours but to the Enemies of our Religion Matt. 5.43 44. ibid. pag. 9. As our holy Religion excels all others in this admirable temper so by this we may usually judge who they are that excel among Christian Churches when there happens any difference between them whether touching the Faith or the terms of Communion They that were the more Fierce they generally had the worst Cause ibid. pag. 12 13. The Council of Nice suppressed the Arians by no other Force but putting Arians out of their Bishopricks they could not think Hereticks fit to be trusted with cure of Souls but otherwise as to Temporal things I do not find that they inflicted any kind of Punishment but when the Arians came to have the Power in their Hands when theirs was come to be the Imperial Religion then Depriving was nothing Banishment was the least that they inflicted ibid. pag. 14. Neither our Religion nor our Church is of a persecuting Spirit I know not how it may be in particular Persons but I say again it is not in the Genius of our Church She hath no Doctrine that teacheth Persecution ibid. pag. 20. I would have no man punished for his Religion no not them that destroy men for Religion ibid. pag. 37. Dr Stillingfleet comes short
be of the same Judgment That Conscience ought not to be forced nor Religion imposed upon men at their civil peril I own they are all of that mind at one time or other and therefore that I may purge my self of any Animosity to the Doctrine of the Church of England I will Ingeniously confess the severe conduct I have argued against is not to be imputed to her Principles but then her Evil will be the greater that in fact has so notoriously contradicted them I know some of her defenders will hardly allow that too Tho the more candid give us their Silence or Confession For they tell us 't is not the Church that has done it which unless they mean the Laws were not made a Church must needs be false since those that made and executed them were of her own Communion and are that great body of Members that constitute her a Church but by her shifting them off 't is but reasonable to conclude that she tacitly condemns what she publickly disowns One would think then it should not be so hard to perswade her to quit them in the way she made them or to injoyn her Sons to do it if that language be to harsh for her This Story she must hear of some way and I pray God she may endeavour to do her duty in it She is not alone for every Party in Power has too evidently lapst into this Evil tho under the prevalency and persecution of another Interest they have ever writ against club Law for Religion And to the end that I may do the Reformation Right and the Principles of the Church of England Justice I must say that hardly one person of any note dyed in the time of Queen Mary that did not pass Sentance upon Persecution as Antichristian particularly Latimer Philpot Bradford Rogers very Eminent Reformers The Apologies that were writ in those times are of the same strain as may be seen in Jewel Haddon Reynalds c. and the Papists were with reason thought much in the wrong by those Primative Protestants for the Persecution that they raised against them for matters of pure Religion But what need we go so far back is it not recent in memory that Bishop Vsher was Employ'd to O. Cromwell by some of the Clergy of the Church of England for Liberty of Conscience Dr Parr in the Life of Dr Vsher Primate of Armagh fol. 75. has that passage thus Cromwell forbidding the Clergy under great penalties to teach Schools or to perform any part of their ministerial function some of the most Considerable Episcopal Clergy in and about London desired my Lord Primate that he would use his Interest with Cromwell since they heard he pretended a great respect for him that as he granted Liberty of Conscience to almost all sorts of Religions so the Episcopal Divines might have the same freedom of serving God in their private Congregations since they were not premitted the publick Churches according to the Liturgie of the Church of England and that neither the Ministers nor Those that frequented That Service might be any more hindered or disturbed by his Souldiers So according to their desire he went and used his utmost Endeavours with Cromwell for the taking off this restraint which was at last promised tho with some difficulty that they should not be molested provided they meddled not with any matters relating to his Government Certainly those Gentlemen were of my mind And to give Dr Hammond his due who I understand was one of them he left it to the Witnesses of his end as his dying Counsel to the Church of England That they displaced no man out of the University or present Church but that by Love and an holy Life they should prevail upon those in possession to come into their Church But this lookt so littie like the Policy and Ambition of the Living that they resolved it should be Buried with him This I had from an eminent Hand in Oxford a year or two after his Death An older man out liv'd him and one of the most Learned and Pious of that Communion Bishop Sande son I mean They were the two great men of their sort that was of the Party Let us see what this Reverend man says to our point The Word of God doth expressly forbid us to subject our Consciences to the Judgment of any other or to usurp a Dominion over the Consciences of any One. Several cases of Conscience discussed in ten Lectures in the Divinity School at Oxford 3 Lect. 30 Sect. pag. â—03 Printed 1660. He is not worthy to be Christs Disciple who is not the Disciple of Christ alone The Simplicity and Sincerity of the Christian Faith hath suffered a great prejudice since we have been divided into Parties neither is their any hope that Religion should be restored to her former Original and Purity until the Wounds that were made wider by our daily Quarrels and Dissentions being anointed with the Olye of Brotherly Love as with a Balsom shall begin to close again and to grow entire into the same Unity of Faith and Charity ibid Sect. 29. The obligation of Conscience doth not signifie any Compulsion for to speak properly the Conscience can no more be compelled than the Free-will ibid 4. Lecture Sect. 5. pag. 109. The express Commandment of God doth oblige the Conscience properly by it self and by its own force and this obligation is absolute because it doth directly and always oblige and because it obligeth all persons and the obligation of it is never to be cancelled Noâ—e but God alone hath power to impose a Law upon the Conscience of any Man to which it ought to be subjected as obliging by it sâ—lf This Conclusion is proved by the words of the Apostle There is but one Law-giver who can both save and destroy In which words two Arguments do profer themselves to our Observation In the first place they assert there is but one Legislator not one picked out amongst many not one above many but one exclusively that is to say One and but one only The Apostle otherwise had made use of a very ineffectual argument to prove what he had propounded for he rebuketh those who unadvisedly did pass their Judgment either on the persons or the deeds of other Men as the Invaders of their Rights Who art Thou saith he who dost judge another as if he should have said dost thou know thy self what thou art and what thou dost It doth not belong to Thee to thrust thy sawcy Sickle into the harvest of another Man much less boldly to fling thy self into the Throne of Almighty God. If already Thou art Ignorant of it then know that it belongeth to him alone to judge of the Consciences of men to whom alone it doth belong to impose Laws upon the Consciences of men which none can do but God alone ibid pag. 111 112 113. The Condition and Natural estate of the Conscience it self is so placed as it were
managed it civilly for a while but Ambition in some and Covetousness in others on the one hand and Discretion giving way to Resentment on the other they first ply the Queen and her Ministers and when that ended in favour of the Men of Ceremony the others arraigned them before the first Reformers abroad at Geneva Bazil Zurich c. The leading Prelates by their Letters as Doctor Burnet lately tells us in his Printed Relation of his Travels clear themselves to those first Doctors of any such Imputation and lay all upon the Queen who for Reasons of State would not be brough to so Inceremonious a way of Worship as that of the Calvanists At this time there were Papists Protestants Evangelists Praecisians Vbiquitists Familists or Enthusiasts and Anabaptists in England when the very first Year of her Reign a Law for Vniformity in Worship and Discipline was enacted and more followed of the severest Nature and sometimes executed Thus then we see that there never was such a thing as a Church of England since the Days of Popery that is a Church of Communion containing all the People of the Kingdom and so cannot be said to be so much as a Twin of the Reformation nevertheless she got the Blessing of the Civil Magistrate She made him great to be great by him If She might be the Church He should be the Head. Much good may the Bargain do her Now is the time for her to stand to her Principle I never knew any body exceed their Bounds that were not met with at last If we could escape Men God we cannot his Providence will overtake us and find us out By all this then it appearing that the Church of England was not the Nation the Case is plain that the Penal Laws were a Make-bate for they Sacrificed every sort of People whose Consciences differed from the Church of England which first put the Romanist upon flattering Prerogative and courting its Shelter from the wrath of those Laws The Address could not be unpleasant to Princes and we see it was not for King James that came in with Invectives against Popery entring the List with the Learn'd of that Church and charging her with all the Marks the Revelation gives to that of Antichrist grew at last so tame and easy towards the Romanists that our own Story tells us of the Fears of the encrease of Popery in the latter Parliament of his Reign In King Charles the First 's time no body can doubt of the Complaint because that was in great measure the drift of every Parliament and at last one Reason of the War. On the other hand the Severity of the Bishops against Men of their own Principles and in the main of their own Communion either because they were more zealous in Preaching more followed of the People or could not wear some odd Garment and less lead the Dance on a Lords Day at a Maypole the Relique of Flora the Roman Strumpet or perhaps for rubbing upon the Ambition Covetousness and Laziness of the Dignified and Ignorance and Loosness of the ordinary Clergy of the Church of which I could produce Five hundred gross Instances I say these things breed bad Blood and in part gave beginnings to those Animosities that at last broke forth with some other Pretences into áll those National Troubles that agitated this poor Kingdom for Ten Years together in which the Church of England became the greatest Looser Her Clergy turn'd out her Nobility and Gentry Sequestred Decimated Imprisoned c. And whatever she is pleased to think nothing is truer then that her Penal Laws and Conduct in the Star-Chamber and high Commission Court in matters of Religion was her overthrow 'T is as evident the same Humour since the Restoration of the late King has had almost the same Effect For nothing was grown so little and contemptible as the Church of England in this Kingdom she now intitles her self the Church of Witness the Elections of the last three Parliaments before this I know it may be said the Persons chosen were Church goers I confess it for the Law would have them so But no body were more avers to the Politicks of the Clergy insomuch that the Parson and the Parish almost every where divided upon the question of their Election In truth it has been the Favour and Countenence of the Crown and not her intrinsick Interest or Value that has kept her up to this Day else her Penal Laws the Bulwork of the Church of England by the same figure than she is one against Popery had sunk her long since I hope I may by this time conclude without offence that the Penal Laws have been a Make-bate in the great Family of the Kingdom setting the Father against his Children and Brethren against Brethren not only giving the Empire to one but endeavouring to extinguish the rest and that for this the Church of England has once paid a severe Reckoning I apply it thus Is it not her Interest to be careful she does it not a second time she has a fair Opportunity to prevent it and keep her self where she is that is the Publick Religion of the Country with the real Maintenance of it which is a plain preference to all the rest If she hopes by her Aversion to a general Ease to set up for a Bulwork against Popery one Year will show the trick and mightily deceive her and the Oppertunity will be lost and another Bargain driven I dare assure her mightily to her Disadvantage Violence and Tyranny are no natural Consequences of Popery for then they would follow every where and in all places and times alike But we see in twenty Governments in Germany there is none for Religion nor was not for an Age in France and in Poland the Popish Cantons of Switzerland Venice Lucca Colonia c. where that Religion is Dominant the People enjoy their Ancient and Civil Rights a little more steadily than they have of late time done in some Protestant Countries nearer home almost ever since the Reformation Is this against Protestancy No but very much against Protestants For had they been true to their Principles we had been upon better Terms So that the Reformation was not the Fault but not keeping to it better than some have done For whereas they were Papists that both obtain'd the Great Charter and Charter of Forests and in the successive Reigns of the Kings of their Religion Industriously laboured the Confirmation of them as the great Text of their Liberties and Properties by above thirty other Laws we find almost an equal Number to Destroy them and but one made in their Favour since the Reformation and that shrowdly against the will of the high Church-men too I mean the Petition of Right in the third Year of Charles the first In short They desire a legal Security with us and we are afraid of it least it should insecure us when nothing can do it so certainly as their
of his Word and Doctrine His Followers fully satisfied who he was whence he came what he taught and how eminently confirm'd grew impatient at Contradiction they could not bear the least Dissent for when some of the Samaritans refused to entertain their Lord because they thought he was going for Jerusalem the place of their greatest aversion these Disciples were for having but the Word from his Mouth and they would in imitation of Elijah have called for Fire from Heaven to have destroy'd them But he turned and rebuked them and said ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of for the Son of Man is not come to Destroy Mens Lives but to Save them This Answer is to purpose and for all times to be sure Christian ones and the higher the Pretentions of any Party are to Christianity the more inexcusable if they practice the contrary Would not Christ then hurt them that refused him and can we hurt our Neighbors for not receiving us He condemned that Spirit in his Disciples and shall we uphold the same Spirit and that by Law too which he condemned by his Gospel This is killing for Gods sake expresly charg'd by Christ with Impiety They shall think says he to his Disciples they do God good service to kill you who should think so why the Christian Persecutors Is it their Property to do so yes what shall one think then of those Christians that profess it The Jews were grievously punished of God for that abomination of sacrificing their Children to Moloch but these 〈◊〉 though they change the Object they have not lessen'd the Sin for they offer up Man Woman and Child and tho they say 't is to God no matter for that since it makes their Case worse for 't is to imagine that so good so just so sensible so merciful a Beeing can take pleasure in so much Cruelty Well but if we must not knock Folks on the Head what must we do with them Take an Answer at the Mouth of Truth and Wisdom Let the Tears and Wheat grow together till the Harvest what 's that he tells you 't is the end of the World so that whatever the Church of England is 't is certain Christ is for a Toleration and his Doctrine is always in Fashion what he was he is and will be he went not by Reasons of State or Customs of Countries his Judgment was better built who came to give Law and not to receive it and 't is a Light and Rule to all times And He that loves Father or Mother or Wife or Children or House or Land better than him that is his Doctrine of which this is so great a part is not worthy of him and I fear no other Reason induces the Church of England to decline it To confirm what has been said tho I design Brevity let me not lose another Passage very pregnant to our purpose when his Disciples had accomplisht their first Mission at their return they gave him the History of their Travels Among the rest they tell him of one they met with that in his Name cast out Devils but because he would not follow with them they forbad him here is at least a Dissenting Christian tho a Believer yet it seems not one of that closer Congregation we also see their Zeal and Sentence But what says the Master yet alive and with them the infallible Doctor in whose Mouth was no Guile who had not the Spirit by measure and was the great Wisdom of God to his People was he of the same mind or did he leave them without rule in the Point His Answer is this And Jesus said to them forbid him not for he that is not against us is for us The Prohibition is taken off and their Judgment revers'd and from his to be sure there lies no Appeal For tho a Power of Decision were allow'd to some one or more on Earth in matters obscure and undetermin'd yet in cases already adjudged by the Son of God himself who had the Chair and could not Err there can be no room for another Judge Now to apply it I must first say I find no such Disciples among those that are of the side of keeping up the Penal Laws God knows the disparity is but too unequal But next if they were all Twelve in Westminster Abby and should be of the side of upholding the Penal Laws which is the wrong side they were of before I should beg their Pardon if I were of their Masters mind and objected his Wisdom to their Zeal and his gentle Rule to their harsh and narrow Judgment And I beseech the Church of England to consider that no Pretence can excuse her Dissent and less her cross Practice to the Judgment of her Saviour A Judgment that seems given and setled for the Conduct of the Church on the like Occasions in succeeding times And 't is pitty any worldly thing should have place with her to divert her Obedience Did Christ then come to save Mens Lives and not to destroy them and should she she I say that pretends to be a reformed Church uphold those Laws that do destroy them He Alas went to another Village instead of burning them or theirs for refusing him And she forbids any that belongs to any other to lodge in hers upon pain of loosing Life or Estate This may make her a Samaritan indeed but not the good One whose Example would have taught her instead of these sharp and ruder Remedies to have poured the Oyle of Peace and Gladness into those Chops and Wounds that Time and Heats of all Hands had made in every Religious Party of Men. Nor does she lose anything by repealing those Laws but the Power of Persecuting and a good Church would never have the Temptation Come some body must begin to forgive let her not leave that Honour to another nor draw upon her self the Guilt and Mischief of refusing it She pretends to fear the Strokes of the Romanists but I would fain know of her if following their Example will convert them or secure her Does she hope to keep them out by the Weapons that have fail'd in their Hands or can she honourably censure Persecution in them and yet use it her self But she is extreamly scandal'd and scared at the Severity upon Protestants in France 'T is certainly very ill but do not the Laws she is so fond of point at the same Work Conformity or Ruin. And don't we know that in some Places and upon some Parties her Magistrates have plow'd as deep Furrows especially within these six and twenty Years Husbands separated from their Wives Parents from their Children the Widdows Bed and the Orphans Milk made a Prize for Religion Houses stript Barns and Fields swept clean Prisons crowded without regard to Sex or Age and some of both sorts Dungin'd to Death and all for Religion If she says they were peevish Men Biggots or mov'd by private Interest she still made the Laws and says
no more for her self than the French say for their King which yet she refuses to take for an Answer Perhaps I could parralel some of the severest Passages in that Kingdom out of the Actions of some Members of the Church of England in cool Blood that are even yet for continuing the Penal Laws upon their plunder'd Neighbours so that this Reflection of hers upon France is more popular than just from her But I beseech her to look upon a Country four times bigger than France Germany I mean and she will there see both Religions practis'd with great Ease and Amity yet of this we must not hear one Word I hope it is not for fear of imitating it However 't is disingenious to object the Mischiefs of Popery to a general Ease when we see it is the way to prevent them This is but in the name of Popery to keep all to herself as well from Protestant Dissenters as Roman Catholicks How Christian how equal how safe that narrow Method is becomes her well to consider and methinks she ought not to be long about it I know she flatters herself and others to believe she is a Bulwork against Popery and with that without any further Security to other Protestants wipes her Mouth of all old Scores and makes her present Court for Assistance But when that word Bulwork is examined I fear it appears too mean no more than this That she would keep out Popery for that reason for which she apprehends Popery would turn her out viz. Temporal Interest But may I without Offence ask her when she kept Persecution out Or if she keeps out Popery for any bodies sake but her own Nay if it be not to hold the Power she has in her hands that she would frighten other Parties now she has done her worst with what mischief Popery would do them when it has Power But to speak freely can she be a Bulwork in the Case that has been bringing the worst part of Popery in these six and twenty Years if Persecution be so as she says it is This would be call'd Canting to the World in others But I hear she begins to see her Fault is heartily sorry for it and promises to do so no more And why may not Popery be as wise that has also burnt her Fingers with the same work Their praying for ease by Law looks as if they chose That rather than Power for Security and if so why may not the Papists Live as well as she Reign I am none of their Advocate I am no Papist but I would be just and merciful too However I must tell her that keeping the Laws on foot by which she did the mischief is none of the plainest Evidences of her Repentance They that can believe it have little reason to quarrel the unaccountableness of Transubstantiation Is it unjust in Popery to invade her Priviledges and can it be just in her to provoke it by denying a Christian Liberty or can she expect what she will not give or not do as she would be done by because she fears others will not observe the same Rule to her Is not this doing Evil that Good may come of it and that uncertain too against an express Command as well as common Charity But to speak freely whether we regard the Circumstances of the King the Relation of his Children the inequality of the Number and Strength of those of each of their Communions we must conclude that the Aversion of the Church of England to this intreated Liberty cannot reasonably be thought to come from the Fear she has of the prevalency of Popery but the loss of that Power the Law gives her to domineer over all Dissenters And is not this a Rare Motive for a Christian Church to continue Penal Laws for Religion If her Piety be not able to maintain her upon equal terms methinks her having so much the whip hand and start of all others should satisfy her Ambition and quiet her Fears for 't is possible for her to keep the Churches if the Laws were abolished all the difference is she could not force She might perswade and convince what she could And pray is not that enough for a true Church without Goales Whips Halters and Gibbets O what Corruption is this that has prevail'd over Men of such Pretensions to Light and Conscience that they do not or will not see nor feel their own Principles one remove from themselves but sacrifice the noblest part of the Reformation to Ambition and compel Men to truckle their tender Consciences to the Grandure and Dominion of their Doctors But because the Sons of the Church of England keep at this time such a stir in her favour and fix her excellency in her opposition to Popery it is worth while to consider a little further if really the most feared and disagreeable part of Popery in her own opinion does not belong to her and if it does should we not be in a fine Condition to be in Love with our Fetters and to Court our Misery That part of Popery which the Church of England with most success objects against is her Violence This is that she can only pretend to fear Her Doctrines she partly Professes or thinks she can easily refute She does not think her Doctors Conjurers for their Transubstantiation or dangerous to the State for their Beads or their Purgatory But forcing others to their Faith or ruining them for refusing it is the terrible thing we are taught by her to apprehend Now granting this to be the case in reference to the Roman Religion where it is in the Chair I ask if the Church of England with her better Doctrines has not been Guilty of this Impiety and for that cause more blameable the the Church she opposes so much If we look into her Acts of State we find them many and bitter against all sorts of Dissenters There is nigh twenty Laws made and yet in force to constrain Conformity and they have been executed too as far and as often as she thought it fit for her Interest to let them Some have been Hang'd many Banish't more Imprisoned and some to Death and abundance Impoverish't and all this meerly for Religion Tho by a base and barbarous use of Words it has been call'd Treason Sedition Routs and Riots the worst of aggravations since they are not contented to make People unhappy for their Dissent but rob them of all they had left their Innocency This has been her State Craft to coin Guilt and make men dangerous to have her ends upon them But that way of Palliating Persecution by rendring a thing that it is not and punishing men for Crimes they never committed show but little Conscience in the Projectors The Church of England crys out against Transubstantiation because of the Invisibility of the Change. She don't see Christ there and therefore he is not there and yet her Sons do the same thing For tho all the tokens of
so free and excellent a Principle is come to make execute and uphold Penal Laws for Religion against her Conscientious Neighbours but it is to be hoped that like Nebuchadnezzar's Image whose Feet was a mixture of Iron and Clay and therefore could not stand for ever Persecution will not be able to mix so with the Seed of Men but that Humanity will overcome it and Mankind one day be delivered from that Iron hard and fierce Nature I have done with my Church of Englands Evidences against Persecution And for the Judgment of all sorts of Dissenters in that Point let their Practice have been what it will nothing is clearer than that they disallow of Persecution of which their daily Addresses of Thanks to the King for his General Ease by his Excellent Declaration are an undoubted Proof Thus then we see it is evident that it is not only the Duty of all Parties as they would be thought Christians to Repeal Penal Laws for Religion but upon a fair enquiry we see it is the avowed Principle of every Party at one time or other that Conscience ought not to be compel'd nor Religion impos'd upon worldly Penalties And so I come to the third and last part of this Discourse PART III. It is the Interest of all Parties and especially the Church of England AS I take all Men to be unwillingly separated from their Interests and consequently ought only to be sought and discours'd in them so it must be granted me on all hands that Interests change as well as Times and 't is the Wisdom of a Man to observe the Courses and humor the Motions of his Interest as the best way to preserve it And least any ill-natur'd or mistaken Person should call it temporizing I make this early Provision That I mean no immorral or corrupt complyance A Temporizing deservedly base with Men of Vertue and which in all times my Practice as well as Judgment hath shown the last Aversion to For upon the Principle I now go and which I lay down as common and granted in Reason and Fact with all Parties concern'd in this Discourse that Man does not change that morrally follows his Interest under all its Revolutions because to be true to his Interest is his first civil Principle I premise this to introduce what I have to offer with respect to the Interests to be now treated upon And first I say I take it to be the Interest of the Church of England to abolish the Penal Laws because it never was her Interest to make them My reasons for that Opinion are these First they have been an Argument to invalidate the Sufferings of the Reformers because if it be unlawful to disobey Government about matters of Religion they were in the wrong And if they say O but they were in Error that punish'd their Non-conformity I answer how can she prove that she is Infallibly in the Right And if this cannot be done she compels to an uncertainty upon the same terms Secondly She has overthrown the Principles upon which she separated from Rome For if it be unlawful to plead Scripture and Conscience to vindicate Dissent from her Communion it was unlawful for her upon the same Plea to dissent from the Church of Rome unless she will say again that she was in the Right but the other in the Wrong and she knows this is no Answer but a begging of the Question for they that separate from her think themselves as Serious Devout and as much in the Right as she could do If then Conscience and Scripture interpreted with the best Light she had were the ground of her Reformation she must allow the Liberty she takes or she eats her Words and subverts her Foundation then which nothing can be more destructive to the Interest of any Beeing Civil or Ecclesiastical Thirdly The Penal Laws have been the great Make-bate in the Kingdom from the beginning For if I should grant that she had once been truly the Church of England I mean consisting of all the People of England which she was not for there were divers Parties dissenting from the first of her establishment yet since it afterwards appear'd she was but one Party tho the biggest she ought not to have made her Power more National than her Faith nor her Faith so by the Force of her Temporal Authority 'T is true she got the Magistrate of her side but she engaged him too far For she knew Christ did not leave Caesar Executor to his last Will and Testament and that that should be the reason why she did so was none of the best Ornamentâ— to her Reformation That she was but a Party tho the biggest by the Advantages that temporal Power brought her I shall easily prove but I will introduce it with a short Account of our State-Reformation here in England Henry the Eighth was a kind of Hermophredite in Religion or in the Language of the times a Trimmer being a meddly of Papist and Protestant and that part he acted to the Life or to the Death rather Sacrificing on the same Day Men of both Religions because one was not Protestant enough and t'other Papist enough for him In this time were some Anabaptists for the distinction of Church of England and Calvanist was not then known Edward the Sixth succeeded a Prince that promised Vertues that might more than ballance the Excesses of his Father and yet by Arch-Bishop Cranmer was compelled to sign a Warrant to Burn poor Joan of Kent a famous Woman but counted an Enthusiast But to prove what I said of him 't was not without frequent Denials and Tears and the Bishop taking upon him to answer for it at Gods Judgment of which I hope his Soul was discharged tho his Body by the same Law suffered the same Punishment in the succeeding Reign Thus even the Protestants begun with Blood for meer Religion and taught the Romanists in succeeding times how to deal with them At this time the Controversie grew warm between the Church of England and the Calvanists that were the Abler Preachers and the Better Livers The Bishops being mostly men of State and some of them looking rather backward then forward Witness the Difficulty the King had to get Hooper Consecrated Bishop without Conformity to the reserved Ceremonies Queen Mary came in and ended the Quarrel at the Stake Now Ridly and Hooper hug and are the dearest Brethren and best Friends in the World. Hooper keeps his Ground and Ridly stoops with his Ceremonies to t'others further Reformation But this Light and Union flow'd from their Persecution For those abroad at Frankford and other places were not upon so good Terms Their Fewds grew so great that the one refused Communion with the other many endeavours were used to quench the Fire but they were ineffectual at best it lay under the Ashes of their Affliction for another time for no sooner was Queen Elizabeth upon her Throne then they returned and their Difference with them They
Insecurity for Safety makes no Man Desparate And he that seeks ease by Law therefore does it because he would not attempt it by Force Are we afraid of their Power and yet provoke it If this Jealousie and Aversion prevail it may drive her to a Bargain with the Kingdom for such general Redemption of Property as may desolve our great Corporation of Conscience and then she will think that half a Loaf had been better than no Bread and that it had been more advisable to have parted with Penal Laws that only serv'd to dress her in Satyr then have lost all for keeping them especially when it was but parting with Spurs Claws and Bills that made her look more like a Vulter than a Dove and a Lion than a Lamb. But I proceed to my next Reason why it is her Interest to Repeal those Penal Laws tho a greater cannot be advanced to Men than self Preservation and that is That she else breaks with a King heartily inclin'd to preserve her by any way that is not Persecuting and whose Interest she once persu'd at all Adventures when more than she sees was suggested to her by the Men of the Interest she opposed in favour of his Claim What then has befallen her that she changes the course she took with such resolutions of perseverance for bringing him to the Crown with this Religion could not be more her Duty to his Title or her Interest to support her own than it is still to be fair with him If she ow'd the one to him and to Christianity she is not less indebted to her self the other Does he seek to impose his own Religion upon her By no means There is no body would abhor the Attempt or at all Adventures condemn it more than my self What then is the matter why he desires ease for his Religion she does not think fit to consider him in this no not to the King she brought with this Objection to the Crown Certainly she is much in the wrong and shews her self an ill Courtier tho it was become her calling first to give him Roast-meat then beat him with the Spit Is not this to quit those high Principles of Loyalty and Christianity she valued her self once upon and what she can provoke the Mischiefs she fears certainly this is dividing in Judgment from him that she has ackowledged to be her Ecclesiastical Head. My fifth Reason is that as the making and executing the Penal Laws for Religion affects all the several Parties of Protestant Dissenters as well as the Papists the Judges in Vaughhan's time and he at the Head of them giving it as their Opinion they were equally exposed to those Laws and that are thereby naturally driven into an Interest with them so it is at this time greatly the Prudence of the Church of England to repeal them for by so doing she divides the Interest that self Preservation allows all Men to persue that are united by danger And since she is assured the Papists shall not have the less Ease in this King's time than if the Laws were Repeal'd and that her Fears are not of the succeeding Raigns how is their Repeal a great Insecurity especially when by that she draws into her Interest all the Protestant Dissenters that are abundantly more considerable than the Papists and that are as unwilling that Popery should be National as her self For if this be not granted see what Reputation follows to the Church of England She tells the King she does not desire his Friends should be persecuted yet the forbearance must not be by Declaration to save the Government nor by Law to save her and without one of these Warrants every civil Magistrate and Officer in England is Perjured that suffers them in that Liberty against Law. How can she be sincerely willing that should be done that she is not willing should be done legally But Sixthly the Church of England does not know but they or some other Party may at one time or other prevail It seems to me her Interest to set a good Example and so to bespeak easie Terms for her self I know of none intended and believe no body but her self can place her so low yet if it were her unhappiness I think to have civil Property secur'd out of the Question of Religion and Constraint upon Conscience prevented by a Glorious Magna Charta for the liberty of it were not a thing of ill Consequence to her Interest Let us but consider what other Princes did for their own Religion within the last seven Raigns when they came to the Crown and we cannot think so soft and equal a thing as an impartial Liberty of Conscience after all that has been said of a Popish Successor an ordinary Caracter of a Prince or a mean Assurance to us This ought not to slip her Reflection Besides there is some care due to Posterity Tho the present Members of her Communion may escape the Temptation their Children may not They may change the Religion of their Education and Conscientiously chuse some other Communion Would they submit the Fortunes they leave them to the Rape of hungry Courtiers Biggots and indigent Informers or have their poor Posterity Impoverisht Banisht or Executed for Sober and Religious Dissent God knows into whose hands these Laws at last may fall what Mischief they may do and to whom Believe me a King of the humor of Sr J.K. of the West or Sr W.A. of Reading or Sr R.B. or Sr S.S. of London would with such vouchers quickly make a Golgatha of the Kingdom If she thinks her self considerable in Number or Estate she will have the more to loose Let her not therefore establish that in the Prejudice of others that may in the hands of others turn to her Prejudice Lastly I would not have her miss the advantage that is design'd her by those that perhaps she thinks worst of I dare say no body would willingly see the Presbyterian in her Chair and yet that may happen to be the Consequence of her Tenaciousness in a little time For if the Aversion her Sons promote by whole sale against Popery should prevail the remains of it in her self are not like to escape that Reformation I mean her Episcopal Government and the Ceremonies of her Worship for which she has vext the most Consciencious People of this Kingdom above an Age past And the Presbyterian being a Rich Industrious and Numerous Party as well among the Nobility and Gentry as Trading and Country People I cannot see but the next Motion naturally speaking is like to tend that way for other Parties however well esteemed may seem too great a step of Reformation at once and methinks she has tasted enough of that Regiment to be once wise and keep the Ballance in her own Hands And certain it is that nothing will so effectually do this as the entreated Liberty of Conscience for then there will be four Parties of Dissenters besides her self to Ballance against
if dispersed to be sure they have not strength for such an Attempt But if they are not sufficient there is a Potent Prince not far off can help the Design who is not angry with Protestancy at home only Suppose this is there not as Potent Naval Powers to assist the Constitution of the Kingdom from such Invasions yes and Land ones too And as the Protestant Governments have more Ships then the other so an equal Land Force when by such attempts to make Popery universal they are awaken'd to the use of them But certainly we must be very silly to think the King should suffer so great a shake to his own Interest as admitting an Army of Forraigners to enter his Kingdom on any pretence must necessarily occasion These Bull-Beggers and Raw-Heads and Bloody-Bones are the Malice of some and Weakness of others But time that Informs Children will tell the World the meaning of the Fright The third Proof of my second Reason is the Intestine Division among themselves That Division weakens a great Body and renders a small one harmless all will agree Now that there is such a thing as Division among them is town talk The Seculars Regulars have ever been two Interests all the Roman Church over and they are not only so here but the Regulars differ among themselves There is not a Coffee-House in Town that does not freely tell us that the Jesuites and Benedictines are at variance that Count Da Da the Popes Nuncio and Bishop Lyborn Dissent mightily from the Politicks of the first Nay t'other Day the Story was that they had prevail'd Entirely over them The Lords and Gentlemen of her Communion have as warmly contested about the lengths they ought to go Moderation seems to be the conclusion Together they are little and can do little and divided they are Contemptible instead of Terrible Lastly the Roman Church ought to be discreet and think of nothing further then the entreated general Ease because it would be an extream that must beget another in the succeeding Raign For as I can never think her so weak as well as base that after all her Arguments for the Jus divinum of Succession she should in the Face of the World attempt to violate it in the wrong of One of another Perswasion for that were an eternal loss of her with Mankind So if she does not and yet is Extravagant she only rises higher to fall lower then all others in another Raign This were provoking their own Ruin. And to say true either way would as the second Letter has it discredit her for ever and make true Prophets of those they had taken such pains to prove false Witnesses And supposing her to reckon upon the just Succession nothing can recommend her or continue her happiness in a Raign of another Judgment but this Liberty equally maintained that other Perswasions more numerous for that reason as well as for their own sakes are obliged to insure her Here the Foundation is broad and strong and what is built upon it has the looks of long Life The Indenture will at least be quint-pertite and Parties are not so mortal as Men. And as this joyns so it preserves Interest intire which amounts to a Religious Amity and a Civil Vnity at the worst Upon the whole matter I advise the Members of the Roman Communion in this Kingdom to be moderate 't is their Duty and it belongs to all Men to see it and feel it from them and it behoves them mightily they would for the first part of this Discourse belongs to their Hopes as well as to the Church of Englands Fears viz. the Duty and Spirit of Christianity Next let them do good Offices between the King and his excellent Children for as that will be well taken by so affectionate a Father so it gives the lie to their Enemies Suggestions and recommends them to the Grace and Favour of the Successors And having said this I have said all that belongs to them in particular There is left only my Address to the Protestant Dissenters and a general Conclusion to finish this Discourse Your Case that are called Protestant Dissenters differs mightily from that of the Church of England and Rome For the first have the Laws for her the last the Prince Those Laws are against you and she is not willing they should be Repeal'd The Prince offers to be kind to you if you please Your Interest in this Conjuncture is the Question I think none ought to be made that it is the Liberty of Conscience desired because you have much more need of it having neither Laws nor Prince of your side nor a Successor of any of your Perswasions The Fears of Popery I know reach you but it is to be remembered also that if the Laws are not Repeal'd there wants no new ones to Destroy you of the Papists making so that every fear you are taught to have of their Repeal is against your selves Suppose your Apprehensions well grounded you can but be Destroy'd Which is most comfortable for you to suffer by Law or without it The Church of England by her Penal Laws and the Doctrine of Headship has Armed that Religion as it falls out to Destroy you Nay has made it a Duty in the King to do it from which says she nothing but an Act of Parliament can absolve him that she is not willing to allow And is it not as reasonable that you should seek their Repeal that if you suffer from the Papists It may be without human Law as well as against Christs Law as for the Church of England to keep them in force because if she suffers it shall be against the Laws made to uphold her For not repealing them brings you an inevitable mischief and her at most but an uncertain safety tho 't is certain she at the same time will Sacrifice you to it And yet if I were in her case it would please me better to remove Laws that might reproach me and stop my Mouth when turn'd against me and be content that if I Suffer for my Religion it is against the Law of God Christianity and the Fundamentals of the old and true Civil Government of my Country before such Laws helpt to spoil it In short you must either go to Church or Meet or let fall your Worshipping of God in the way you believe If the first you are Hypocrites and give away the Cause and reproach your dead Brethrens Sincerity and gratifie the old accusation of Schism Ambition c. and finally loose the Hope and Reward of all your Sufferings If the second viz. that you Meet against Law you run into the Mouth of the Government whose Teeth are to meet in you and Destroy you as by Law established If the last you deny your Faith over-throw your own Arguments fall away from the Apostolical Doctrine of assembling together and so must fall into the Hands of God and under the troubles of your own
Consciences and woundings of his Spirit of which 't is said who can bear them So that nothing is plainer then that Protestant Dissenters are not oblig'd to govern themselves after such Church of England Measures supposing her Fears and Jealousies better Bottom'd then they are For they are neither in this Kings time in the same Condition with her if the Penal Laws remain in force nor like to be so if she can help it in the next Raign if they are not Repeal'd in this so that they are to be certainly Persecuted now in hopes of an uncertain Liberty then Uncertain both whether it will be in her Power and whether she will do it if it be The Language of Fear and Assurance are two things Affliction promises what Prosperity rarely performs Of this the Promises made to induce the late Kings Restoration and the cancelling of the former Declaration and what followed upon both are a plain proof And tho the last Westminster Parliament enclin'd to it no body so much oppos'd it as the Clergy and the most Zealous Sons of that Church And if they could or would not then see it to be reasonable I can't see why one should trust to People so selfish and short sighted But if she will stoop to all those Dissenting Interests that are Protestant it must either be by a comprehension and then she must part with her Bishops her Common-Prayer her Ceremonies and this it self is but Presbyterian and she must go lower yet if she will comprehend the rest or if not she must Persecute or give this Liberty of Conscience at last which that she will ever yeild to uncompel'd and at a time too when there is none to do it while she refuses it under her present pressing Circumstances I confefs I cannot apprehend But there is yet one Argument that can never fail to oblige your compliance with the General Ease entreated viz. That the Penal Laws are against our great Law of Property and so void in themselves This has been the Language of every Apology and that which to say true is not to be answer'd How then can you decline to help their Repeal that in Conscience Reason and Law you think void in their own Nature Lastly There is nothing that can put you in a Condition to help your selves or the Church of England against the Domination of Popery but that which she weakly thinks the way to hurt you both viz. The Repeal of the Penal Laws For as you are you are tyed Hand and Foot you are not your own men you can neither serve her nor your selves you are fast in the Stocks of her Laws and the course she would have you take is to turn Martyrs under them to suppoâ—t them If you like the Bargain you are the best natur'd People in the World and something more And since Begging is in Fashion I should desire no other Boon for upon so plain a loss of your Wits your Estates will of course fall a stray to the Government so that without the help of a Penal Law you make an admirable Prize I have no mind to end so pleasantly with you I have a sincere and Christian regard to you and yours Be not Couzn'd nor Captious at this Juncture I know some of you are told if you lose this Liberty you Introduce Idolatry and for Conscience sake you cannot do it But that 's a pure mistake and improv'd I fear by those that know it is so which makes it the worse for it is not Introducing Idolatry taking for granted that Popery is so but saving the People from being Destroy'd that profess that Religion If Christ and his Apostles had taken this course with the World they must have Killed them instead of Converting them 'T is your mistake to think the Jewish rigorous Constitution is adequate to the Christian Dispensation by no means That one Conceit of Judaising Christianity in our Politicks has fill'd the World with Misery of which this poor Kingdom has had its share Idolators are to be Enlighten'd and Perswaded as St. Paul did the Athenians and Romans and not knock on the Head which mends no body And to say a Christian Magistrate is to do that that a Christian can't do is ridiculous unless like the Bishop of Munster who goes like a Bishop one part of the Day and a Souldier the other he is to be a Christian in the Morning and a Magistrate in the Afternoon Besides 't is one thing to enact a Religion National and compel Obedience to it which would make this Case abominable indeed and another thing to take off unchristian Penalties for the sake of such mistakes since that is to give them Power to hurt others and this only to save you from being hurt for meer Religion To conclude my Address to you of all People it would look the most disingenious in you and give you an Aire the least Sensible Charitable and Christian not to endeavour such an Ease that have so much wanted it and so often and so earnestly pressed it even to Clamour But that you should do it for their Sakes who have used you so and that the Instruments of their Cruelty the Penal Laws should from a common Grievance become a Darling to any among you will be such a Reproach to your Understandings and Consciences that no Time or Argument can wipe off and which I beseech God and You to prevent The Conclusion I Shall conclude with one Argument that equally concerns you all and that is this you claim the Caracter of English Men. Now to be an English Man in the sence of the Government is to be a Freeman whether Lord or Commoner to hold his Liberty and Possessions by Laws of his own consenting unto and not to forfeit them upon Facts made Faults by Humour Faction or Partial Interest prevailing in the Governing part against the Constitution of the Kingdom but for Faults only that are such in the nature of civil Government to wit Breaches of those Laws that are made by the whole in persuance of common Right for the good of the whole This regard must at no time be neglected or violated towards any one Interest for the moment we concede to such a Breach upon our General Liberty be it from an aversion we carry to the Principles of those we expose or some little sinister and temporary Benefit of our own we Sacrifice our selves in the prejudices we draw upon others or suffer them to fall under for our Interest in this respect is common If then as English men we are as mutually interested in the inviolable conservation of each others Civil Rights as men embark'd in the same Vessel are to save the Ship they are in for their own sakes we ought to Watch Serve and Secure the Interest of one another because it is our own to do so and not by any means endure that to be done to please some narrow regard of any one Party which may be drawn