Selected quad for the lemma: nation_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nation_n	england_n	law_n	statute_n	1,497	5	9.0809	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54203	The reasonableness of toleration, and the unreasonableness of penal laws and tests wherein is prov'd by Scripture, reason and antiquity, that liberty of conscience is the undoubted right of every man, and tends to the flourishing of kingdoms and commonwealths, and that persecution for meer religion is unwarrantable, unjust, and destructive to humane society, with examples of both kinds.	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1687 (1687)	Wing P1352; ESTC R23116	25,930	41

Morals the beginning is the end of the Operations and so the Ultimate end is the first Principle of such Actions but the Common Good or Felicity of a City or Kingdom is the Ultimate end of it in its Government therefore it ought to be the first beginning of the Law and therefore the Law ought to be for the Common Good. Now it is apparent that the Penal Laws were made only for the particular good and felicity of the Church of England men all others being by them excluded from the benefit of their native Priviledges that could not in Conscience conform to the Ceremonies of their Worship to the Ruin and Vexation of many thousands which was positively against the Common Good and Felicity of the Nation and general Community of the People divided only in some points of Religion but in an equal poise of Obedience and Loyalty to the Supream Magistrate and therefore justly deserving equal share of provision by the Laws for their Security and Protection And therefore unless it can be prov'd that it is for the Common Good and Benefit of the whole Nation that men should be persecuted to uphold the Hierarchy of the Church of England the Penal Laws are unduly made and therefore as of no force to be repeal'd and annul'd Therefore the Intention of the Divine Laws might have taught the Promoters of these Penal Statutes better and more Christian Learning for therefore are Prelates call'd Pastors because they ought to lay down their Lives for the good of the Sheep not the Sheep to lay down their Lives for the good of them they are call'd Dispensers and not Lords Ministers of God not Primary Causes and therefore they ought to be conformable to the Divine Intention in the Exercise of their Power God principally intends the Common Good of men and therefore his Ministers are bound to do the same They are Tyrants not Governours in the Church while they seek their own Support and not the Common Benefit As to the Injustice of the Penal Laws experte Materiae in commanding those things which ought not to be observed this Axiom from thence arises That no unjust Law can be a Law and then there lies no obligation to accept it or to observe it if accepted for that the Subjects are not only not bound to accept it but have it not in their power when the command is clearly and manifestly unjust as when men are commanded not to meet above such a number under such a penalty for the Exercise of their Religion according to their Consciences This is an Evil Command because it debars men from the free Worship of God for unless it could be prov'd that the Religion of the Church of England is the only True Religion in the World and they the only Infallible Ministers upon Earth it is unjust in any Law to constrain others to believe that which may be as Erroneous in them as what the other professes For tho I may believe the Liturgy of the Church of England to be the purest form of Supplication under Heaven yet another may not believe so neither is it a Crime in him to believe otherwise We have said that the Penal Laws are defective in point of Honesty which is another reason why they are invalid and therefore to be annull'd For the Immorality of the Precept is contrary to God himself because it includes a Crime and a Transgression against God and therefore ought not to be observ'd as no way obligatory seeing that it behoves us to obey God rather then Man which is the reason these Laws ought not to be observed as contradicting our Obedience to God and subjecting us to the Compulsions of Men. In the last place no Law can be valid beyond the Intention of the Legislators Now it is not rational to think that those Persons who made the Penal Laws upon a presumption of danger from Factious and Turbulent Spirits ever intended those Laws sor the punishment of those that liv'd peaceably and obediently toward the Government in all the Passive Duties of good Loyal Subjects for that had been to make Laws for the punishment of good men which was never the design of any just and vertuous Legislator in this World. Now then the Presumption of the danger being remov'd by his Majesties most Gracious Indulgence the Foundation of the Penal Laws are remov'd and consequently the Obligation to them for it is not to be imagin'd that the Framers of these Laws ever meditated to Establish the Dominion of a Spiritual Oligarchy upon the Ruin of so many Families of Pious and Religious People and therefore the suspitions which were the grounds of these Laws being vanish'd the Laws themselves are to be laid aside as altogether vain and frivolous and such as have only serv'd to gratify the Revenge and Animosity of their promoters for we never hear'd of Traytors or Factious Persons that were ever try'd upon those Laws there being others of greater force to take hold of such Criminals As for the Test it appears to be an Oath continued to prevent the sitting of any Commoner or Peer in either of the Houses of Parliament from coming into his Majesties Presence or Court and from bearing any Office or Imployment Military or Civil in any of his Majesties Realmes of England or Ireland c. And they that are to take this Oath are thereby to abjure the belief of Transubstantiation Invocation or Adoration of Saints and the Sacrifice of the Mass c. The Learned are of Opinion That to make an Oath binding it is requisite that it refers to things Lawful for that if the thing promised upon Oath be forbidden either by the Law of Nature or by the Divine Laws or Interdicted by the Laws of Men it has no power to oblige the Swearer Now the Q●●●●●●n will be whether this Oath does not positively 〈…〉 Laws of the Land by enforcing a Peer of the Realm or any other free-born English-man of lower Degree to ac●use himself with so strong and dangerous a Temptation to Perjury where the Choice is only this Either to forswear their Religion or lose their Native Priviledges and Preferments and all possibility of advancing their Fortunes A piece of severity that constrains the inward Belief of the Mind which God the searcher of all Hearts has resorv'd to himself That this is an Act contrary to the known Laws of the Land is undoubtedly true as is apparent from the great Charter and several Statutes of the Realm therefore the Test has no power to oblige the Swearer and consequently to be repeal'd as Useless That it is against the Law of God is apparent from hence for that there is nothing more strongly prohibited in Scripture then to ground a Penal Prosecution upon the enforc'd Oath of the Party without Witness or Accuser In the next place it seems a hard case to oblige the Papist to Swear away his Religion before he has another provided for him by those that

Massacre then which there never was a more Inhumane piece of Barbarity known among the Heathens themselves But what was the Advantage of their Butchery What the Issue of it to the King after he had emptyed his Kingdom of ten thousand of his Subjects among which five hundred all Persons of Quality In the first place upon too late a Consideration a deep Repentance for having given his Consent and a Resolution had he liv'd to have Punished his Advisors then every Night his Slumbers interrupted with nocturnal Terrors till having linger'd under most grievous and tedious Pains and long perceiv'd his death approach before he dy'd he ended his days a young Youth in the 24th Year of his Age. To omit the loss of the Low-Countries by reason of the cruelty of the Inquisition we find the People in all places the most devoted and accustomed to Ecclesiastical Rigour mutinying even to Blood-shed against the Torments of that Tribunal In Naples Peter of Toledo the Viceroy in Obedience to the Pope would fain have brought it in but when he began to put it in Execution it caus'd such an Uproar among the People that it came to be almost a petty VVar between the Commonalty and the Garrison wherein many were slain on both sides so that the Viceroy was forc'd to desist in his design neither has any offer been made to obtrude any such kind of Office upon that Kingdom ever since Even in Rome it self the People detested the Cruelties of the Inquisition to that degree that the Breath was no sooner out of the Body of Paul the IV. but that they went with great furie to the new Prison of the Inquisition brake down the Doors and let out all the Prisoners therein detained could hardly be restrained from setting on fire the Church of the Dominicans as being the Persons entrusted with the Execution of that rigid Employment More then that in detestation of the Inquisition all enrag'd they forc'd their way into the Palace and meeting the Popes Statue all of Parian Marble and a noble piece of Workmanship they cut off the Head and the right Hand and for three days together kickt them about the streets and made them the sport of the whole City Nor has England it self felt the least share of the Inconveniencies of Spiritual Persecution where Acts of Parliament have been made use of only as Traps and Snares to dis-People the Nation What false Crimes were laid to the Primitive Christians by the flatterers of the Emperour Sep. Severus to Incense him to the first Persecution the same Accusations were lately thrown upon the Dissenters of being Homicides Turbulent Sacrilegious Traytors against Caesar and in a word meer Canibals And by vertue of which pretended Calumnies and meditated Slanders the Civil Magistrate out of the good Opinion he has of those that make the clamour not presently discerns the Trapan which is put upon them to make Laws for the punishment of those Persons over whom they have indeed no jurisdiction till at length the ill use of those Laws better informs their judgement and that they were imposed upon to frame Persecuting Statutes and authorize Prosecutions not to prevent disturbances in Government but to gratifie the Pride and Ambition of their hot-headed Advisers hence under pretence of disaffection to the Civil Power continual Plots and Treasons are discovered and the discovery so well managed that some are Hanged others Fin'd others condemned to long Imprisonment Which Accusations because they reach not many therefore all the rest as being Birds of the same feather must suffer for their sakes and the same pretences being still kept on foot for a Covert they let fly the Arrows of their Indignation against the whole Body and chastize the pretence where they could not find any fact committed to punish And indeed the grounds of the pretence are the only crimes committed against them all that will not conform to their Ceremonies are supposed to be seditious Persons none that go to Meetings and Conventicles can be Good and Loyal Subjects and therefore all that will not Conform or Refrain from going to Meetings must be scourged with the scorpions of Ecclesiastical Censure and Excommunication must be amerc'd at pleasure Imprison'd till Submission many to their utter Impoverishment or till they pine away in Jayle and they that would live peaceably and quietly under the Government can have no rest in their own Families Upon this thousands take their flight beyond Sea and draw off their Estates by which means the Kingdom is depopulated the Manufacture of the Nation carryed into forraign Countries and the Prince loses the Assistance of the Wealth and Persons of so many of his Subjects to the ruine of the Kingdom and scandal of the Government A sort of Christian Politicks which the Church of England could only learn from the uncharitable bigotrie of that same Prince who cryed out That he would rather choose to be King of a Countrey without People then of a Kingdome Peopled with Heriticks Contrary to the saying of Adrian one of the wisest among the Roman Emperours That he wished his Empire strengthed rather by the encrease of People and Inhabitants then excess of Treasure But this was neither the Policy of the Antient Heathens nor of the more prudent Common wealths and Governments of latter Ages Among all the Heathen Nations that we meet with in History the Egyptions were the first from whom all the world beside the Jews excepted deriv'd that same Dark Knowledge which the other had of the Gods and Divine Worship Their early Superstition had set up no less then twelve Divinities to begin withal who were all worship'd in various Shapes with various Rites and Ceremonies all which with their several Portraitures and Sacred Mysteries for so they call'd the Rites of Adoration belonging to every Idol the Grecians afterwards translated into their own Countrey and for a while exactly observed the Precepts and Methods of their first Instructors Here was a great number of Divinities with every one a particular form of worship attending him and yet we do not find that the Grecians were afraid to transport them all into their several Cities for fear least the variety of Superstitions should set their People together by the Ears while one Priest cry'd up his Divinity another extoll'd his and shatter'd the Vulgar into Factions and Contentions which was the best No the Priests were still contented with what followers they had and every man was left to his freedom to worship what Divinity he pleas'd as his Affection and Devotion govern'd him A strange misfortune to Christian Religion that the Heathens should be so conformable in the midst of so much varietie of feign'd Divinities and we not be able to adjust those few Ceremonies in dispute relating to the worship of the true and one God when we have his own inspir'd Scripture for our Guide In Athens there were as many Sects and Opinions dayly taught as there were almost