committed suppose but once in an Age when a foul Act for that very Cause should rather appear the more deform'd as 't is the Rarity that makes the Monster Besides Queen Mary had that Plea to make for what were 206 Protestants even by Foxes Muster-Roll burnt for Religion in her five years Reign to the some millions of Protestants in those days when half the Kingdom was of that Persuasion an infinite larger number to câ—ll out so many Sufferers from than all the Popish Priests that Rome has sent over these 130 Years past or shall do in as many more to come To return therefore to His Majesties Proposal of Abrogating these Laws 't is a greater Duty upon the Church of England to abolish 'em than in the Dissenters themselves for as 't is a Yoke imposed upon their weaker Brethren in it self wholly unjust the Sufferer under that Yoke in endeavouring to break it only acts by the Motives of Self-defence the common Principle of Nature But the Imposer of that Yoke is tyed by the Obligations of Religion it self to repeal and repent his own Act of Injustice Besides if all Arguments of Conscience cannot prevail and Policy not Equity though Heaven forbid so uncharitable a Thought is our Churches Guide yet even then too What do's she yield up in abolishing those Laws Why truly nothing For whilst the Government continues in the Hands of a Prince of the Romish Religion those Statutes will utterly lye dead for the Royal Indulgence a Prerogative in the Crown will never put them in execution And if abolisht however the next Protestant Prince has the power of Resumption if his Conscience shall think fit to give them a Resurrection What reason therefore has the Church of England for her Nonconcurrence to a Proposal so equitable when she has not so much as the least Pretext even of meer Interest it self for her Refusal But this I am sure as the Church of England can have no solid Reasons to oppose their Repeal the State has very substantial ones to inforce it For as TRADE is the greatest support and strength of a Kingdom I know no Politicks so conducing to the Commerce and Wealth of a Nation as Liberty of Conscience What greater Encouragement to Naturalization And England that is not overloaded with People can have no fairer Inlet to bring in whole Families and Estates and indeed the Wealth of the World besides the opening that Current of Commerce even amongst our present Natives which the late Restraint of Worship had so much shut up than Liberty of Religion Nor can I better instance the Effects of this Policy than in the growth of the Dutch Greatness and the decay of the Spaniard from their different Extreams of National Conduct in that Point I am certain His Majesty resolves to eternize his Glory by being the truest Pater Patriae of all the Crown'd Heads since the Conquest nor has He a fairer Prospect of making His Kingdom a true Paradise of PEACE and PLENTY but by taking this Pattern at least from the first Paradise that is by making the Lyon and Lamb lye down in Peace together our long Disunions being no otherways to be reconciled and our Enmities husht but by this only Vniversal Pacification I shall only add this last Consideration The execution of our Penal Laws and the restraint of Conscience has been the greatest Blow that ever was given to the Hereditary Right of the Subjects of England their natural Properties and Immunities given and sealed to them by Magna Charta it self For who can call his Liberty or Estate his own whilst a Superiour Opinion in POWER shall seize our Persons and confiscate our Estates for no other cause but difference of Worship and Faith and neither Person Estate or Liberty redeemable under a less Composition than renouncing of God for Conformity of Worship absolutely against Conscience is little else And all this Capital Offence so unfixt and so undeterminable a sort of Transgression that a Man has only a meer Lottery to be in the Right or the Wrong For the blackest Criminal in one Reign has been the whitest Saint in the next and so vice versâ over again witness the Reigns of Edward the Sixth Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth where the Protestants were the Devils one while and the Papists another Nay in the Reign of Henry the Eighth both Papist and Protestants were at one time in the wrong For 't was remarkable in his Reign that in the same day have Papists been hanged for Traytors for disowning his Church Supremacy and Protestants burnt for Hereticks for denying of Transubstantiation Thus in their turns have all Religions and Opinions lain under the Scourge of the severest of Laws and all for want of that Obedience to a Law which Humanity it self is utterly unable to pay For though our Breach or not Breach of all other Laws either Humane or Divine lyes in our own free will and choice To conform or not conform to this or that Belief is wholly above the power of Man Faith only being Irresistible And if our worldly Well-being and all we enjoy in this Life depends upon such caprichious Decrees of Law certainly the Great Charter of our Liberties and Estates that confirm'd 'em both under no such Condition or Restriction is not a little invaded by the Penalties of such Laws And I cannot tell what greater or more glorious Design His Gracious Majesty can undertake than by repairing so deep a Breach wrought through the very Fundamentals of his Peoples original Freedom and Birthrights Nor is there or has been a greater Friend or Patron of the Church of England than His present Majesty who himself alone tenders Her the Means and Opportunity to wash off those long Stains and Blots which either the petulance or remissness Her Protestant Defenders of Her Faith through these Penal Statutes have cast or left upon Her and so to restore Her to Whiteness and Innocence Having made this fair Inquest into the Penal Laws I shall take a little Search too into the TEST and lay down those Reasons that equally oblige us to concur with His Majesty in a Repeal of that too In order to which it behoves us first to sum up all the great and popular Arguments if I may so call 'em tho in reality rather the Language of Fears and Jealousies than the Voice of right Reason daily urged for the Preservation of the Test viz. That the whole Defence of the Protestant Religion relyes on that Basis If the Test were once abrogated the Church of England would soon be blown up when all Offices both Ecclesiastical and Civil and all Power and Authority both in Church and State shall be lodged in Roman Catholick Hands and what not To answer which hideous and formidable Outcry we 'll begin first with the pretended Dangers threaten'd the Church of England by Repeal of the Test Not to insist upon His Majesties reiterated WORD and HONOVR His inviolable Engagements
to maintain the Church of England as now by Law establisht in her uninterrupted Rights and Priviledges all her Churches and Church-livings whatever thereunto belonging c. in it self alone no little Security But waving that Plea the Ecclesiastical Government and the Church of England neither are nor can be shaken or toucht by the Abrogation of the Test the Test being indeed no part of her Defence For first the very taking of the Test is no part of the Qualification of any of the Clergy of England nor was ever so much as mention'd or thought upon to be imposed to tender'd to the Clergy No as jealous as the Founders of that Test were or pretended to be of the Danger of Popery and as zealous as they could be for the Security of the Protestant Religion they very well knew the Church of England had two impregnable Bulwarks the two great Acts of VNIFORMITY that themselves alone sufficiently establisht guarded and preserved the Church of England in all Points without any Fortification from the Test nor indeed was the Test wanted in the Ecclesiastick Administration those very Statutes being a greater and stronger Test before For by those Statutes is the whole Liturgy the Administration of the Sacraments and indeed all the Canons and Articles of the Church supported For by the Fence of those Laws first no Romanist can possibly be admitted into the Clergy unless under the most damnable Hypocrisie which no Human Test can discover an Hypocrisie too no ways beneficial to the Romish Cause whilst tyed up to the Divine Service as now by Law establisht Secondly No other Divine Service as the Mass or the like can be introduced into our Churches already constituted or assigned for the Divine Service of the Church of England The strength of these two Laws His Majesty very well knows and is so far even from the Thought of hurting or infringing the least Particle of either or those Laws or the Security our Church has do's or can receive from them by abrogating any Penal Laws or Tests whatever that on the contrary there is not undoubtedly that farther Confirmation of those Laws and the Religious Observance of them or any thing conducing thereunto that may or shall be offer'd to His Majesty in Parliament that His Majesty shall not readily assent to and as inviolably maintain If then the Church of England Her Administration and Government as 't is plain stand of themselves alone secure and firm without any borrow'd Prop or Support from the Test whatever the Test therefore is only a Buttrice or at least so intended to the Civil Magistracy as first Excluding all Roman Catholicks from all Offices of Trust in the State. Secondly From all Domestick Services near the Person of the King. And Thirdly From all Right to Session in Parliament These three Incapacities are by the Test thrown upon the Romanists And for confuting all Suspicions and Jealousies let us examine how the loosening of all these three Restrictions can tend to the Subversion of the Protestant Religion as now by Law establisht In the first place as to the Civil Government What Office in the State can a Roman Catholick hold any ways empowering him to prejudice the Church of England Suppose even in the Courts of Judicature for if any Apparition of any such Power 't is there Were Romanists imagine in all those Offices Why may not a Sir Thomas Moor be as honest as a Lord Chief Justice Hales and execute his Office with as great Integrity and Justice Why not Men of equal Abilities be of equal Uprightness in all Religions Besides the Distribution of Meum and Tuum more especially when Liberty of Conscience shall be past into a perpetual Law and all Penal Inflictions for matter of Religion thrown out of their Jurisdictions will then be the whole Business that lyes before them and wherein is a Roman Catholick Judge any more incapacitated for the administring of Justice than another Man Moreover in a Kingdom where their number is so truly inconsiderable as scarce the Two hundredth Man in the Nation if they have hopes of making any Converts or any Indeavours that way it can only be done by holding the Scale of Justice upright and in all Posts of Trust by keeping up the steddiest Standard of Right and Equity as the only means thereby to recommend and endear themselves to the World and wipe off those Blemishes that the mistaken Jealousies and Popular Misapprehensions have so long so unkindly cast upon them And This and This only they are very sensible is their Chart to steer by and their Great Pilot their Royal Master the best read Student in the Arts of Empire that possibly ever graced a Throne equally knows to be His only Course and undoubtedly as sacredly resolves to make it so And if the Judges of the Land suppose of the Romish Religion besides their Oaths that bind 'em and His Majesties Honour that shall influence them to it have these Obligations more and above even of INTEREST to their very Religion it self to move in so regular a Sphear of Justice where lyes our Danger And if this higher Station will be so Inoffensive what can the poorer Justices of the Peace or the inferiour Subministration of the Government signifie in Popish or not Popish Hands But in this Case I have heard some People say Alas What stretch of the Laws will not such Judges make Perhaps for instance pick a hole in the Abby-Lands and start some dormient Title or other to revert them to the Church of Rome a Patrimony that will not a little enrich the Romanists and advance their Cause This idle Objection was scarce worth naming as if the stretching of our Laws in that Point was not as notorious and Arbitrary as a total Violation of the Subjects Right and rending the whole Frame of the Laws in sunder But to check this idle Surmize If a Romish Parliament it self in the Reign of Queen Mary with the very Restoration of the Romish Religion and Papal Supremacy into the Saddle never so much as attempted to revert those Lands Nay on the contrary their whole Title was confirm'd to the present Possessours by a Decretal from Rome it self as was then so solemnly done by Cardinal Pool the then Popes Legate How groundless must the Fear be of any Thought or Attempt of reverting them now Or why must the Romish Judges in any kind subvert or undermine the Laws contrary to all their best Politiques in the present State of England to no true advantage either to themselves or their Church and possibly to be answerable for it with their Heads if they live to the next Protestant Prince To come next to the Officers of his Majesties Houshold c. To have those Posts too barricado'd with Tests and the Imperial Dignity so shackled as to be debarr'd the Choice of its own Menials nay even of its Conversation it self is an Insolence put upon Majesty as had been scarce tolerable
a Doctor of the Church all this while and his Treatise upon that subject call'd Liberty of Prophecying not yet answer'd or at least the Author under no small Ecclesiastick Fulminations if no other way to answer it for so terrible a Blow against the Churches long main Favourite Bulwark her Penal Laws 'T is true some People will object What are all these Laws to the CHURCH when enacted only by the Civil Power as an Expedient for its own Security and Defence and therefore warrantable and lawful nor in any respect are chargeable upon the Ecclesiasticks Alas this is such a feeble Objection that 't is scarce to be named without Blushing As if the Clergy did not act in Parliament by their Representatives nay the very Bishops sitting there in Person assenting to and undoubtedly little less than Original Founders of those Laws But grant it as they say the meer Establishment of the Civil Power The Clergy by owning the Justice and asserting the Necessity of such Laws for Defence of their Church the Lay-Power in this Case is little more than the Cats Paw to rake out the Chesnut Nor are the Civil Rulers and Temporal Power of a Christian Government any ways more authorised to outgo the Gospel Moderation and Clemency for any Politick Consideration whatever than the more immediate Oracles of Truth the Preachers themselves And this the great Legislators of those Penal Statutes very well knew and therefore as I told you before they cunningly converted Recusancy into High Treason and Non-conformity into Riots and Routs to find something tho but seemingly justifiable for the Fangs of their Laws to lay hold of and so boulster'd up their Penal Statutes to make them able to walk upright I 'le only put this one Question to all the Doctors of our Church With what Conscience can a Church that owns it self Fallible establish Laws to punish Dissenters in Religion when by her own Concession of Fallibility she neither has nor CAN have any Certainty or Assurance how strong soever she thinks or hopes her own Foundation but that she punishes those that possibly may be more in the Right than her self more especially in those Professions that found their Dissenting Doctrins on her own Basis the Scripture I cannot tell what Equity wiser Heads may find out for the Ordination of Penal Laws but truly in my Opinion the Great Prince of Peace that reprimanded the Drawing of that Sword that cut off but the Ear of the High Priests Servant tho in his own immediate Cause very little intended the raising his Church or the propagation of his Gospel by either Axes or Gibbets or Gaols or Dungeons And He that left us the Standard of Christianity in the Innocence of Doves never commission'd us the Rapine of Vultures and though we are conceded the Subtilty of Serpents I know no warrant that he gave us either for the Stings or the Poyson of them And tho my Zeal for Truth makes me thus plain in detecting the only Shame and Frailty of the Reform'd Church I hope she has Goodness enough to forgive the Boldness of a Blushing Son who is no otherwise solicitous than for her covering her own Nakedness And that I may truly term it such the Reformation that otherwise may boast her Purity and Principles only founded on Holy Writ and all the rest of her Doctrins and Practices derived from those sacred Oracles will be only found tripping here and in all her support of Scriptural Records in all other Points I am afraid must have recourse even to the exploded Authority of TRADITION only for her Penal Laws For I shrewdly suspect that Lollards Towers and Inquisition Houses let her mince it as she will will be found the only Precedents for the Estates she has confiscated the Families she has beggar'd the Gaols she has fill'd besides her sometimes loading of Gibbets and ripping up the Bowels even of her own Co-Disciples because Dissenting Professors of Christ and all by her Penal Laws Nor will it suffice for an Excuse to insinuate that the Establishment of Religion and Conformity of Worship on one side and the Preservation of Peace and Tranquillity of the State on the other side exact the necessity of such rigid Laws Though by the by the Peace of States is rather destroy'd then upheld by such Laws for what Civil War in almost all the Christian World that directly or indirectly has not had the Oppression of some Religious Party its greatest if not only Incendiary No to gain the first of these great Ends let the Teachers and Professors of our Establish'd Church live up to the heighth of their Profession and re-call the Wanderers and reduce the Strays into the Fold by their own convincing Examples of Christian Piety a much more commendable way of making Proselytes than the foremention'd rigid Arts of Conversion And for the second great End the Governments Security if her Temporal Fences are not strong enough let her make stronger and if any of her Dissenters are the disturbers of her Peace let her single out the Guilty from the Innocent and wreak her just Vengeance where 't is deserved and not punish the Dissent it self which as being meer matter of Religion is wholly uncapable of such Crime for the sake of any corrupted Members that either are of or Herd under the Covert of such or such a Congregation of Christians For to do that work by the undistinguishing merciless Hand of her Penal Statutes is so little conformable to the Evangelical Precepts that I am afraid the doing such notorious Ills that Good may come of it whatever Religious Security or Gospel Propagation may be intended by them these Penal Laws I say that can swallow the Estates Fortunes Liberties and Lives of their weaker Brethren and fellow Christians instead of being either Christian or Just or any ways related to 'em will at last appear much nearer of kin to that famous Rover that wanders round the World to seek whom he may devour insomuch that their Ordination will be found little less than borrowing Engines from Hell to help to set up Heaven Now to the Case of the Church of England if these are her Penal Laws for I shall not trouble my self with a tedious recital of the several Statutes of that nature as being all but Scions from the same Root I should gladly know what Beauties or rather invisible Charms the Church of England can find in these Statutes to be in the least solicitous for their preservation For alas maugre all her Volumes written upon the Unreasonableness of Separation from her Communion and her Justification of her zealous Indeavours for Conformity unless the Means and Methods used to obtain it as these Laws were intended for such be equally Justifiable her whole Pretensions fall to the Ground Nor will it excuse her to say that they were chiefly enacted in Terrorem as being but seldom put in execution as if a studied ill Deed were therefore more excusable because