yielded their King the ablest Captain of the Age namely Turene It was an Hugenot then at the Head of almost an Hugenot Army that fell in with a cardinal himself see the Union Interest makes to maintain the Imperial Crown of France and that on a Roman-Catholicks head And together with their own Indulgence that Religion as National too against the pretences of a Roman-Catholick Army headed by a Prince brave and learned of the same Religion I mention not this to prefer one party to another for contrary Instances may be given elsewhere as Interests have varied In Sweedland a Prince was rejected by Protestants and in England and Holland and many of the Principalities of Germany Roman-Catholicks have approv'd themselves Loyal to their Kings Princes and States But this suffices to us that we gain the Point for it is evident in Countries where Dissenters are tolerated the Insecurity of the Prince and Government may as well come from the Conforming as Dissenting Party and that it comes not from Dissenters because such But how happy and admirable was this civil Union between the Cardinal and Turene two most opposite Religions both followed by People of their own Perswasion One says his Mass 'tother his Directory both invoke one Deity by several wayes for one success and it followed with Glory and a Peace to this Day O why should it be otherwise now what has been may be Methinks Wisdom and Charity are on that side still It will doubtless be objected that the Dissenting Party of England fell in with the State Dissenter in our late Civil but Vnnatural War And this seems to be against us yet three things must be confessed First That the War rather made the Dissenters than the Dissenters made the War Secondly that those that were then in being were not tolerated as in France but prosecuted And lastly that they did not lead but follow great Numbers of Church-goers of all Qualities in that unhappy Controversie which began upon other Topicks than Liberty for Church-Dissenters And though they were herein blameable Reason is Reason in all Climates and Latitudes This does not affect the Question Such Calamities are no necessary Consequences of Church-dissent because they would then follow in all places where Dissenters are tolerated which we see they do not but these may sometimes indeed be the effects of a violent endeavour of Vniformity and that under all Forms of Goverment as I fear they were partly here under our Monarchy But then this teaches us to conclude that a Toleration of those that a contrary course makes uneasie and desperate may prevent or Cure Intestine Troubles as Anno forty eight it ended the Strife and settled the Peace of Germany For 't is not now the question how far men may be provok'd or ought to resent it but whether Government is safe in a Toleration especially Monarchy And to this Issue we are come in Reason and Fact That 't is safe and that Conformists generally speaking have for their Interests as rarely known their Duty to their Prince as Dissenters for their Consciences So that the danger seems to lie on the side of forcing Vniformity against Faith upon severe Penalties rather than of a discreet Toleration In the next place I shall endeavour to shew the Prudence and Reasonableness of a Toleration by the great Benefits that follow it Toleration which is an Admission of dissenting Worships with Impunity to the Dissenters secures Property which is Civil Right and That eminently the Line and Power of the Monarchy For if no man suffer in his Civil Right for the sake of such Dissent the point of Succession is settled without a Civil War or a Recantation Since it were an absurd thing to imagin that a man born to five Pounds a Year should not be liable to forfeit his Inheritance for Non-conformity and yet a Prince of the Blood and an Heir to the Imperial Crown should be made incapable of his Inheritance for Church-dissent The Security then of Property or Civil Right from being forfeitable for Religious dissent becomes a security to the Royal Family against the Difficulties lately labour'd under in the business of the Succession And though I have no Commission for it besides the great Reason and Equity of the thing it self I dare say there can hardly be a Dissenter at this time of day so void of Sense and Justice as well as Duty and Loyalty as not to be of the same mind Else it were to deny that to the Prince which he needs and prays from him Let us not forget the Story of Sigismund of Sweedland of Henry the fourth of France and especially of our own Queen Mary Had Property been fix't the Line of those Royal Families could not have met with any let or Interruption 'T was this Consideration that prevail'd with Judge Hales though a strong Protestant after King Edward's Death to give his Opinion for Queen Mary's succession against that of all the rest of the Judges to the contrary which noble President was recompenc'd in the Loyalty of Arch-Bishop Heath a Roman-Catholick in favour of the Succession of Queen Elizabeth and the same thing would be done again in the like case by men of the same Integrity I know it may be said That there is little Reason now for the Prince to regard this Argument in favour of Dissenters when it was so little heeded in the case of the Presumtive Heir to the Crown But as this was the Act and Heat of Conforming men within Doors so if it were in Counsel or Desire the Folly and Injustice of any Dissenters without Doors shall many entire Parties pay the Reckoning of the few busie Offendors They would humbly hope that the singular Mildness and Clemency which make up so great a part of his Majesties publick Assurances will not leave him in his Reflection here 'T is the Mercies of Princes that above all their Works give them the nearest Resemblance to Divinity in their Administration Besides it is their Glory to measure their Actions by the Reason and Consequence of things and not by the Passions that possess and annimate private Breasts For it were fatal to the Interest of a Prince that the Folly or Vndutifulness of any of his Subjects should put him out of the way or tempt him to be unsteady to his Principle and Interest And yet with submission I must say it would be the Consequence of Coertion For by expossing Property for Opinion the Prince exposes the Consciences and Property of his own Family to the Church and disarms them of all Defence upon any alteration of Judgment Let us remember that several of the same Parliament-men who at first sacrificed civil Rights for Non-conformity in common Dissenters fell at last to make the Succession of the Crown the Price of Dissent in the next Heir of the Royal Blood So dangerous a thing it is to hazard Property to serve a turn for any Party or suffer such Examples in the
she has it But her Dissenters cannot forget That of his Clemency And as they were both great and admirably distinguish't so by no means are they inconsistent or impracticable And if his Justice will not let him be wanting in the One His wonted greatness of Mind will hardly let him leave the Other behind him in the Storm unpitied and unhelpt Pardon me We have not to do with an insensible Prince but one Toucht with our Infirmities More than any Body fit to judge our Cause by the share he once had in it Who should give Liberty of Conscience like the Prince that has wanted it To suffer for his own was Great but to deliver other mens were Glorious It is a sort of paying the Vows of his Adversity and it cannot therefore be done by any one else with so much Justice and Example Far be it from me to solicite any thing in Deminution of the just Rights of the Church of England Let her rest protected where she is and if in any thing Mistaken let God alone perswade her I hope none will be thought to intend her Injury for refusing to understand the King's Promise to her in a Ruinous sense to all Others For it is morally impossible that a Conscientious Prince can be thought to have ty'd himself to compell others to a Communion that himself cannot tell how to be of or that any thing can oblige him to shake the Firmness of those he has confirmed by his own Royal Example Having then so Illustrous an Instance of Integrity as the hazard of the loss of Three Crowns for Conscience Let it at least excuse our Constancy and provoke the Friends of the Succession to Moderation that we may none of us loose our Birth-Rights for our Perswasion us Dissenters to live Dutifully and so Peacably under our own Vine and under our own Fig-Tree with Glory to God on High to the King Honour and Good Will to all Men. The Publication of the following Discourse is occasioned by an Appeal made by a late Author to all Crowned Heads against Toleration and Liberty of Conscience in his pretended Answer to the Duke of Buckingham I shall not Commend it and I hope it will need no Excuse 'T is writ with Duty to the King and Compassion to many of his peaceable People The usual Objections against the Moderation desired are stated and answered The Whole recommended to the Reader By his Affectionate Friend W. P. A PERSWASIVE TO Moderation c. MODERATION the Subject of this Discourse is in plain English Liberty of Conscience to Dissenters A Cause I have with all Humility undertaken to plead against the Prejudices of the Times That there is such a thing as Conscience and the Liberty of it in reference to Faith and Worship towards God must not be denyed even by those that are most scandal'd at the Ill use some seem to have made of such Pretences But to settle the Terms By Conscience I understand the Apprehension and Perswasion a man has of his Duty to God By Liberty of Conscience I mean A free and open Profession and Exercise of that Duty But I alwayes premise this Conscience to keep within the bounds of Morality and that it be neither Frantick nor Mischievous but a Good Subject a Good Child a Good Servant As exact to yield to Caesar the things that are Caesar's as jealous of with-holding from God the thing that is God's For he that with-holds from Man the thing that God requires him to pay with-holds it from God who has his Tribute out of it They do not reject their Prince Parent or Master but God who enjoyns that Duty to them The difference being only this They deny not God his Due immediately and to his face but they do it too often in the Person of his Deligate Those Pathetick words of Christ will naturally enough reach the case In that ye did it not to them ye did it not to me for Duty to such Relations have a divine Stamp And divine Right runs through more things of the World and Acts of our Lives than we are aware of And Sacriledge may be committed against more than the Church Nor will a Dedication to God of the Robbery from Man expiate the Guilt of Disobedience For though Zeal could turn Gossip to Theft his Altars would renounce the Sacrifice The Conscience then that I state and the Liberty I pray carrying so great a Salvo and Deference to publick and private Relations no ill design can with any Justice be fixt upon the Author or Reflection upon the Subject which by this time I think I may venture to call a Toleration But to this so much craved as well as needed Toleration I meet with two Objections of weight the salving of which will make way for it in this Kingdom And the first is a Disbelief of the Possibility of the thing Toleration of Dissenting Worships from that establish't is not practicable say some without danger to the State with which it is interwoven This is Political The other Objection is That admitting Dissenters to be in the Wrong which is alwayes premised by the National Church such Latitude were the way to keep up the Dis-union and instead of compelling them into a better Way leave them in the possession and persuit of their old Errors This is Religious I think I have given the Objections fairly 't will be my next business to answer them as fully The strength of the first Objection against this Liberty is the Danger suggested to the State the Reason is the National Form being interwoven with the Frame of the Government But this seems to me only said and not only with submission not prov'd but not true For the establisht Religion and Worship are no other ways interwoven with the Government than that the Government makes profession of them and by divers-Laws has made them the Currant Religion and required all the Members of the State to conform to it This is nothing but what may as well be done by the Government for any other Perswasion as that 'T is true 't is not easie to change an establish't Religion nor is that the Question we are upon but State Religions have been chang'd without the change of the States We see this in the Governments of Germany and Denmark upon the Reformation But more clearly and near our selves in the case of Henry the eighth Edward the sixth Queen Mary and Elizabeth for the Monarchy stood the Family remained and succeeded under all the Revolutions of State-Religion which could not have been had the Proposition been generally true The change of Religion then does not necessarily change the Government or alter the State and if so a fortiori Indulgence of Church-Dissenters does not necessarily hazard a change of the State where the present State-Religion or Church remains the same for That I premise Some may say That it were more facile to change from one National Religion to another than to
maintain the Monarchy and Church against the Ambition and Faction of divers dissenting Parties But this is improbable at least For it were to say That it is an easier thing to change a whole Kingdom than with the Soveraign Power followed with Armies Navies Judges Clergy and all the Conformists of the Kingdom to secure the Government from the Ambition and Faction of Dissenters as differing in their Interests within themselves as in their Perswasions and 〈◊〉 they united have neither Power to awe nor Rewards to allure to their Party They can only be formidable when headed by the Soveraign They may stop a Gap or make by his Accession a Ballance Otherwise till 't is harder to fight broken and divided Troops than an entire Body of an Army it will be always easier to maintain the Government under a Toleration of Dissenters than in a total change of Religion and even then it self it has not fail'd to have been preserved But whether it be more or less easie is not our point if they are many the danger is of exasperating not of making them easie for the force of our Question is Whether such Indulgence be safe to the State And here we have the first and last the best and greatest Evidence for us which is Fact and Experience the Journal and Resolves of Time and Treasure of the Sage For First the Iews that had most to say for their Religion and whose Religion was Twin to their State both being joyn'd and sent with Wonders from Heaven Indulg'd Strangers in their Religious Dissents They requir'd but the belief of the Noachical Principles which were common to the World No Idolator and but a Moral Man and he had his Liberty ay and some Priviledges too for he had an apartment in the Temple and this without danger to the Government Thus Maimonides and others of their own Rabbles and Grotius out of them The Wisdom of the Gentiles was very admireable in this that though they had many Sects of Philosophers among them each dissenting from the other in their Principles as well as Discipline and that not only in Physical things but points Metaphysical in which some of the Fathers were not free the School-men deeply engaged and our present Accademies but too much perplext yet they indulged them and the best Livers with singular Kindness The greatest Statesmen and Captains often becoming Patrons of the Sects they best affected honouring their Readings with their Presence and Applause So far were those Ages which we have made as the original of Wisdom and Politeness from thinking Toleration an Error of State or dangerous to the Government Thus Plutrach Strabo Laertius and others To these Instances I may add the Latitude of old Rome that had almost as many Deities as Houses For Varro tells us of no less than thirty Thousand several Sacra or Religious Rites among her People and yet without a Quarrel Unhappy fate of Christianity the best of Religions and yet her Professors maintain less Charity than Idolators while it should be peculiar to them I fear it shews us to have but little of it at Heart But nearer home and in our own time we see the effects of a discret Indulgence even too Emulation Holland that Bogg of the World neither Sea nor dry Land now the Rival of tallest Monarchs not by Conquests Marriages or accession of Royal Blood the usual wayes to Empire but by her own superlative Clemency and Industry for the one was the effect of the other She cherisht her People whatsoever were their Opinions as the reasonable stock of the Country the Heads and Hands of her Trade and Wealth and making them easie in the main point their Conscience she became great by them This made her fill with People and they fill'd her with Riches and Strength And if it should be said She is upon her Declension for all that I Answer All States must know it nothing is here Immortal Where are the Babylonian Persian and Grecian Empires And are not Lacedemon Athens Rome and Carthage gone before her Kingdoms and Common-Wealths have their Births and Growths their Declensions and Deaths as well as private Families and Persons But 't is owing neither to the Armies of France nor Navies of England but her own Domestick Troubles Seventy Two sticks in her Bones yet The growing Power of the Prince of Orange must in some degree be an Ebb to that States Strength for they are not so unanimous and vigrous in their Interest as formerly But were they secure against the danger of their own Ambition and Jealousie any body might ensure their Glory at five per Cent. But some of their greatest men apprehending they are in their Climacterical Juncture give up the Ghost and care not if they must fall by what hand it is Others chuse a Stranger and think one afar off will give the best Terms and least annoy them whilest a considerable Party have chosen a Domestick Prince a Kin to their early Successes by the fore-Father's side the Gallantry of his Ancestors And that his own greatness and security are wrapt up in theirs and therefore modestly hope to find their Account in his Prosperity But this is a kind of Digresgression only before I leave it I dare venture to add that if the Prince of Orange changes not the Policies of that State he will not change her Fortune and he will mightily add to his own But perhaps I shall be told That no body doubts that Toleration is an agreeable thing to a Common-Wealth where every one thinks he has a share in the Government ay that the one is the consequence of the other and therefore most carefully to be avoided by all Monarchical States This indeed were shrowdly to the purpose in England if it were but true But I don't see how there can be one true Reason advanc'd in favour of this Objection Monarchies as well as Common-Wealths subsisting by the Preservation of the People under them But First if this were true it would follow by the Rule of Contraries that a Republick could not subsist with Vnity and Hierarchy which is Monarchy in the Church but it must from such Monarchy in Church come to Monarchy in State too But Venice Genova Lucca seven of the Cantons of Switzerland and Rome her self for she is an Aristocracy all under the the loftiest Hierarchy in Church and where is no Toleration show in fact that the contrary is true But Secondly this Objection makes a Common-Wealth the better Government of the two and so overthrows the thing it would establish This is effectually done if I know any thing since a Common-Wealth is hereby rendred a more copious powerful and beneficial Government to Mankind and is made better to answer Contingencies and Emergencies of State because this subsists either way but Monarchy not if the Objection be true The one prospers by Vnion in Worship and Discipline and by Toleration of dissenting Churches from the National The other only by
the care of the Government for their safety they have no need of their Captains nor These any ground for their Pretences For as They us'd the People to value themselves and raise their Fortunes with the Prince so the People followed their Leaders to get that ease they see their Heads promis'd but could not and the Government can and does give them Multitudes cannot Plot they are too many and have not Conduct for it they move by another Spring Safety is the pretence of their Leaders If once they see they enjoy it they have yet Wit enough not to hazard it for any Body For the endeavours of busie men are then discernable but a state of Severity gives them a pretence by which the Multitude is easily taken This I say upon a Supposition that the Dissenters could agree against the Government which is a begging of the Question For it is improbable if not impossible without Conformists since besides the Distance they are at in their Perswasions and Affections they dare not hope for so good terms from one another as the Government gives And that Fear with their Emulation would draw them into that Duty that they must all fall into a Natural dependance which I call holding of the Prince as the Great Head of the State From abroad we are as safe as from within our selves For if leading Men at home are thus disappointed of their Interest in the People Forreigners will find here no Interpreters of their dividing Language nor matter if they could to work upon for the Point is gain'd the People they would deal in are at their ease and cannot be bribed and those that would can't deserve it It is this that makes Princes live Independent of their Neighbours and to be lov'd at home is to be fear'd abroad One follows necessarily the other Where Princes are driven to seek a forreign Assistance the issue must either be the Ruin of the Prince or the absolute subjection of the People not without the hazard of becoming a Province to the power of that Neighbour that turns the Scale These consequences have on either hand an ill look and should rebate Extreams The Greatness of France carries those Threats to all her Neighbours that politically speaking 't is the Melanchollist prospect England has had to make since Eighty Eight The Spaniard at that time being shorter in all things but his Pride and Hope than the French King is now of the same universal Monarchy This greatness begun by the eleaventh Lewis some will have it has not been so much advanced by the Wisdom of Richlieu and Craft of Mazarene no not the Arms of the present Monarch as by the assistance or connivance of England that has most to lose by him Cromwell begun and gave him the Scale against the Spaniard The Reason of State he went upon was the support of his usurp'd Dominion And he was not out in it for the Exile of the Royal Family was a great part of the price of that Aid In which we see how much Interest prevails above Nature It was not Royal Kindred could shelte a King against the Solicitations of an Vsurper with the Son his Mother's Brother But it will be told us by some People We have nâ—â— degenerated but exactly follow'd the same Steps ever since which has given such an Increase to those Beginnings that the French Monarchy is almost above our reach But suppose it were true what 's the cause of it It has not been old Friendship or nearness of Blood or Neighbourhood Nor could it be from an Inclination in our Ministers to bring things here to a like issue as some have suggested for then we should have clogg'd his Successes instead of helping them in any kind lest in doing so we should have put it into his power to hinder our own But perhaps our cross Accidents of State may sometimes have compell'd us into his Friendship and his Councils have carefully improv'd the one and husbanded the other to great Advantages and that this was more then made for our English Interest and yet 't is but too true that the extreams Heats of some men that most inveighed against it went too far to strengthen that understanding by not taking what would have been granted and creating an Interest at home that might naturally have dissolved that Correspondence abroad I love not to revive things that are uneasily remembred but in Points most tender to the late King he thought himself sometimes too closely prest and hardly held and we are all wise enough now to say a milder Conduct had succeeded better For if reasonable things may be unreasonably prest and with such private Intentions as induced a denial Heats about things doubtful unwise or unjust must needs harden and prejudice Let us then create an Interest for the Prince at Home and Forreign Friendships at best uncertain and dangerous will fall of course for if it be allow'd to private men shall it be forbid to Princes only to know and be true to their own Support It is no more than what every Age makes us to see in all Parties of men The Parliaments of England since the Reformation giving no quarter to Roman Catholicks have forced them to the Crown for shelter And to induce the Monarchy to yield them the Protection they have needed have with mighty Address and Skill recommended themselves as the great Friends of the Prerogative and so successfully too that it were not below the Wisdom of that Constitution to reflect what they have lost by that constiveness of theirs to Cathâ—licks On the other hand the Crown having treated the Protestant Dissenters with the severity of the Laws that affected them suffering the sharpest of them to fall upon their Persons and Estates they have been driven successively to Parliaments for Succour whose Priviledges with equal Skill and Zeal they have abetted And our late unhappy Wars are too plain a proof how much their Accession gave the Scale against the Power and Courage of both Conformists and Catholicks that adhered to the Crown Nor must this contrary Adhesion be imputed to Love or Hatred but necessary Interest Refusal in one place makes way for Address in another If the Scene be changed the parts must follow for as well before as after Cromwell's Usurpation the Roman Catholicks did not only promise the most ready Obedience to that Government in his Printed Apologies for Liberty of Conscience But actually treated by some of their greatest Men with the Ministers of those Times for Indulgence upon the assurances they offer'd to give of their good Behaviour to the Government as then establisht On the other hand we see the Presbyteriens That in Scotland began the War and in England promoted and upheld it to Forty Seven when ready to be supplanted by the Independants wheel to the King In Scotland they Crown him come into England with an Army to restore him where their Brethren joyn them but being defeated They
therefore of an Opinion-Reprobation of one another We see the God of Nature hath taught us softer Doctrine in his great Books of the World His Sun shines and his Rain falls upon all All the Productions of Nature are by Love and shall it be proper to Religion only to propagate by Force The poor Hen instructs us in Humanity who to defend her feeble Young refuses no danger All the Seeds and Plants that grow for the use of Man are produc'd by the kind and warm Influences of the Sun 'T is Kindness that upholds human Race People don't multiply in spight And if it be by gentle and friendly ways that Nature produces and matures the Creatures of the World certainly Religion should teach us to be Mild and Bearing Let your Moderation be known to all men was the saying of a great Doctor of the Christian Faith and his Reason for that command Cogent For the Lord is at hand As if he had said Have a care what you do be not bitter nor violent for the Judge is at the Door Do as you would be done to lest what you deny to others God should refuse to you And after all this shall the Church of England be less tender of mens Consciences than our common Law is of their Lives which had rather a Thousand Criminals should escape than that One Innocent should perish Give me leave to say that there are many Innocents Conscience excepted now exposed Men honest peaceable and useful free of ill designes that pray for Caesar and pay their Tribute to Caesar If any tell us They have or may ill use their Toleration I say this must be look't to and not Liberty therefore refused for the English Church cannot so much forget her own Maxim to Dissenters That Propter abusum non est Tollendus usus It suffices to our Argument 't is no necessary Consequence and that Fact and Time are for us And if any misuse such Freedom and entitle Conscience to Misbehavour we have other Laws enough to catch and punish the Offendors without treating One Party with the Spoils of Six And when Religion becomes no mans Interest it will hardly ever be any mans Hypocrisie Men will chuse by Conscience which at least preserves Integrity though it were mistaken And if not in the wrong Truth recompences Inquiry and Light makes amends for Dissent And since a plain Method offers it self from the Circumstances of our case I take the freedom to present it for the Model of the entreated Toleration Much has been desired said and prest in reference to the late King 's being Head of a Protestant League which takes in but apart of the Christian World the Roman and Grecian Christians being excluded But I most humbly offer that our wise men would please to think of another Title for our King and that is Head of a Christian League and give the Experiment here at Home in his own Dominions The Christian Religion is admitted of All in the Text and by All acknowledged in the Apostles Creed Here every Party of Christians meet and center as in a General The several Species of Christians that this Genus divideth it self into are those divers Perswasions we have within this Kingdom the Church of England Roman-Catholicks Grecians Lutheraus Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Quakers Socinians These I call so many Orders of Christians that unite in the Text and differ only in the Comment All owning one Deity Saviour and Judge good Works Rewards and Punishments which Bodies once regulated and holding of the Prince as Head of the Government maintaining Charity and pressing Piety will be an Honour to Christianity a Strength to the Prince and a Benefit to the Publick For in lieu of an unattainable at best an unsincere Vniformity we shall have in Civils Vnity and Amity in Faith The Iews before and in the time of Herod were divided into divers Sects There were Pharisees Sadduces Herodians and Essenes They maintained their Dissent without Ruine to the Government And the Magistrates fell under no censure from Christ for that Toleration The Gentiles as already has been observ'd had their divers orders of Philosophers as disagreeing as ever Christians were and that without danger to the Peace of the State The Turks themselves show us that both other Religions and divers Sects of their own are very Tolerable with seourity to their Government The Roman Church is a considerable instance to our point for she is made up of divers Orders of both Sexes of very differing Principle fomented sometimes to great Feuds and Controversies as between Franciscans Dominicans Iesuits and Sorbomists yet without danger to the Political state of the Church On the contrary she therefore cast her self into that Method that she might safely give vent to Novelty and Zeal and suffer both without danger of Schism And these Regulars are by the Popes Graunts privileg'd with an Exemption from Episcopal Visitation and Jurisdiction Changing then the Terms from Church to State the whole contrivance looks very Wise and Imitable For as by this Schisme in their Church so Faction in our State may be prevented And these civil Regulars depending on the civil Power as those Religious ones do upon the Popes will Naturally like them become the Perpetual Votarys of its greatness And thus all Parties hanging like Keys by one Ring at the civil Magistrates Girdle tho' each has its several Lock he that keeps them can open and shut every Door as the Persons deserve and the publick Safety requires To make this more easie a 〈◊〉 and Practice I humbly propose First that every Party do present a voluntary Assurance of their Fidelity to the Government in Terms the most full and pain that may be In which as the King will have an Account of their Number so of their Duty to the Government and Abhorrence of all Faction and Rebellion Secondly That they should give in a List of their Meetings as to Place Time and the Persons properly belonging to them Thirdly that once in every Year the names of Proselytes be delivered into the Clark of the Peace for every County and that all of that Party as well as those new Adherents do renew their Obligation of Obedience by Annual Subscriptions Fourthly Because it is not impossible that some or other may mis-behave themselves and abuse this Liberty or be abused in the use of it That in every County three Persons of most Eminency be Yearly Named to the Magistrates by each Dissenting Interest to stand a kind of Representatives both to inform them what they can upon inquiry of Persons or Things among the People of that Party Which may in the least be thought to affect the Government and to have redress of injuries done to Persons in the sober use of their allowed Liberty These are the Methods that have had most weight with me and the best I know to create a Reciprocal Confidence and Interest between the Prince and his Dissenting People To be