Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n
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A25451
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Animadversions upon Mijn Heer Fagels letter concerning our penal laws and tests with remarks upon that subject, occasioned by the publishing of that letter.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing A3204; ESTC R37289
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44,038
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32
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or afterward be a Sworn Servant to the Queens Majesty not exceeding at any one time Nine in Number is not so proper to Her Royal Successor Her present Majesty nor will be to any other succeeding Queen if a Native of England or of any other Kingdom except Portugal to whom this Act equally extends who is not thereby permitted to have any one Man Servant or Officer to attend Her Royal Person except he be a Portuguize by Birth without being liable for such his Service to all the Penalties of this Act if he perform not all the Conditions thereof It may be also observed that the Test relates to the then present use in the Church of Rome and the Test being a solemn Attestation in the presence of God of the Attestants Belief concerning the matters to be testified and declared requires in the nature of it some what more then a general Report or Tradition how the usage then was in the Church of Rome And it is not impossible to conceive that a Hundred Years hence or at some Season or other within less then that time the usage in the Church of Rome may be very different from what they were then as to the matters declared in the Test to be Superstitious and Idolatrous Neither can it be so well comprehended as it should be in a solemn Declaration of an Article of a Christians Belief in the presence of God what may be intended by the usage in the Church of Rome whether universally of every Member who is in Communion with the Church of Rome for it cannot be supposed to be strictly tyed to the Church in the City of Rome or to the generality of that Communion wherein many Persons may be comprehended who will not altogether decline or separate their Communion from the Church of Rome tho' they do not Believe or Practice all these things as they are decreed in the Councils of that Church and may be ready to say That tho' they adore Saints in other manner then the Protestants do yet they believe with the Protestants that Divine Adoration is due only to God. When in Discourse with a Roman Catholick of great Knowledg in the Controversal Points of their Religion I alledged the Superstition and Inefficacy of their Praying to Saints in regard they were neither Omnipresent to hear all Prayers nor Omniscient to discern between the Sincerity and Hypocrisie of any that Pray'd to them He gave me no satisfactory Answer but returned upon me an Objection That those of the Communion of the Church of England prescribed something that lookt like it in their daily Devotions when they exhorted or called upon the Souls and Spirits of just Men made Perfect and Ananias Azarias and Misael in particular to praise the Lord. To which I could not make him any satisfactory Reply without granting more upon the first Point than I thought was consonant to the Scriptures which I take to be the Directory of the Christian Religion I write not this in any Case as pleading in excuse or giving countenance to any Superstitious or Idolatrous Practice but to shew how abstruce some terms in the Test are to be precisely Interpreted and rightly understood and that because by how much the less perfectly any solemn Oath or Attestation is understood by such as take it by so much of less weight it will be upon the Conscience to observe it and if in process of time such a Law being perpetual may become very improper in the general scope of it and in some respects is so now The sooner it comes to be explained altered or wholly laid aside so much the better and if it be well weighed how this Law and the Law for the first Test also intrenches upon several Points of Royal Prerogative which in other Cases both as to Laws of a Religious and of a Civil Nature has been heretofore rendred as a reason and just ground of their repeal and how these Laws have and do subject many Persons to temporal Penalties and Disabilities as to the enjoyment of Civil Rights for their Conscientious Dissent in Religious Opinions from the Church of England It may appear very just and reasonable that these Laws should be again considered in the next succeeding Parliament and either Repealed or otherwise so explained and altered That the Sovereign Prerogative and the Subjects Civil Rights may be better provided for then they are by these Laws as they now remain XI If together with the Repeal desired the substance of the Kings Declaration be entirely and in the same Law of Repeal enacted which in the first place is to maintain the Arch-Bishops Bishops Clergy and all other his Subjects of the Church of England in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law Established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all their Possessions All such grand subversions of the present order of things Ecclesiastical and general change of Hands in things of a Civil Nature as have heretofore happened upon the Successive Soveraigns differing from the Religion Established in the Raign of his Predecessors may not only for the Present but in all future Ages also be avoided and the Mutations which in any gradual course are likely to ensue such a Repeal and provision at the same time made either in Civil or Religious Concerns will in all probability be less Perceptible and less Inconvenient during this Generation then ever has been experimented in the like Case or can otherwise be reasonably expected upon such a change in the Government as has now hapned especially if the Severities for the cause of Religion which have been for many Years exercised and the inconsistency of these Test Laws made in the Reign of a Protestant King as to Attendances on the Person of the Soveraign and the Qualifications required as to all Civil and Military Offices upon the Succession of a King of the Roman Catholick Religion to the Throne be well considered XII A Repeal of such Penal Laws and Tests as are before mentioned may if his Majesty please to give his Royal Assent be recompenced by other Provisions properly necessary to prevent future Mutations In Establishing Corporations upon a more sixt Foundation then they stand at present by a previous Test of a civil Nature to be taken by all Persons therein and in all other Places and Counties who are otherwise qualified to Elect before they give their Votes in any Election By Clauses in the Indentures before the Elected be returned and by every Person who shall be Elected to serve in Parliament or put into any Office or Place of Trust or Power in framing Commissions for the exercise of Judicatures and many other things of like Nature which the Wisdom of a Parliament may readily suggest For a Close by reflecting upon the two main Points before mentioned the one claimed by his Majesty as inseperably annext to and inherent in his Royal Person by the Law of Nature TO HAVE THE BENEFIT OF THE SERVICE
hand and all Calumny and Equivocations under the Name of the Church of England on the other hand so as to beget a right Understanding and perfect Reconciling of the Church of England and Protestant-Dissenters The only visible way is to have such to represent them in Parliament as will join in their humble supplications to the King That the National Church by Law Established with all its Rights may be Confirmed by a New Law removing Temporal Penalties for the Cause of Religion which have been and will be the occasions of Discord out of the way on such Terms as are propos'd in His Majesties Declaration and as may please the King in Parliament to grant it Fourth For the same reason that His Lordship would rot have such Poenal Laws and Tests repealed as tend to secure the Resormed Religion and keep Roman Catholicks out of publick imployments which they have not done nor can do It follows where there are Laws and Tests which tend to keep many Persons out of publick imployments who are every other way qualified for it and if they could be admitted would by their Behaviour as well in their publick Stations as by their general Conversation not only secure but greatly promote the Reformed Religion that there should be a Repeal in part or such other qualifying those Laws and Tests as that such Persons may not for their Consciencious Non-conformity to such Circumstances of Religion as are thereby required be excluded from publick Stations and tho' their Highnesses Concessions be very large on behalf of such Persons yet this may extend to such Laws as his Lordship might not have in his Thoughts when he writ his Letter viz. one made in the Thirteenth and another in the Fourteenth Year of the Reign of His Late Majesty King CHARLES the Second the First for Regnlating of Corporations respecting Civil Offices the Second for Uniformity of publick Prayers Administration of Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies relating to the Clergy Masters and Fellows of Colleges and School-Masters By one of these Laws great Change of Hands was made in Civil Imployments throughout all the Cities and Corporations in England and by the other of them at least 1500 Ministers were deprived of their Benefices many of which were sam'd abroad by their Works and at home for their profound Learning and exemplary Piety And how much these Alterations and Deprivations have tended to the Security of the Reformed Religion and left any sort of men out of a capacity to hurt it such as have liv'd and been of age and sobriety of Mind to discern in what degree the Conversation of Multitudes have in Twenty five Years past varied from what they were Twenty five Years before are best able to give a true Relation Fifth Because of that doleful experience which this Island has had of the ill consequence of all sorts of Religious Laws and Tests with Temporal Penalties annext By which for these 50 years past at divers Seasons each different party of Protestants alternately as they have had power in their hands or countenance of Authority have impos'd upon such as differ'd from them in forms of publick Worship principally upon this point to thrust and keep each other out of places of Trust and publick Imployment which has visibly and sensibly done more hurt to the Reformed Religion than all the attempts of their Adversaries could otherwise have effected This manifestly calls upon them all to surcease from all such riged courses which none of them can now either in Conscience or Prudence defend and by a joynt concurrence to endeavour a removal of all such occasions of offence out of the way that it may not be in the power of any who wait for opportunities under colour of Law to set Protestants at variance amongst themselves that they may bite devour and be devoured by one another and let not any apprehension that such a course at this Season will let in Papist amongst them into Civil or Military imployments cause them to neglect the present opportunity for seeing the continuance of these Religious Laws and Tests with temporal Penalties annext neither does nor can keep them out it is certainly more safe if there were no natural equity or right in the case and much more since there is so to let them in under due cautions by a Stated Law than to tempt them to get all the power they can into their own hands by Arbitrary means because they cannot be secur'd by Law in the enjoyment of Civil Priviledges equally and in common with others Sixth Because of that necessity we are under of making one more experiment whether those of the Communion of the Church of England Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholicks cannot live peaceably together and maintain a good correspondence in places of publick trust and imployments notwithstanding their different Sentiments in Religion For his Majesty has actually mingled and placed together some of each sort in many Commissions for publick trusts and imployments And if it be so as my Lord Fagell asserts That plain Reason as well as Experience of all Ages Pag. 6. That Present as well as the Past shews That it will be impossible for Roman Catholicks and Protestants when they are mixed together in places of trust and publick imployments to live together peaceably or to maintain a good correspondence together they will be certainly alwaies jealous one of another for the principles and maximes of both Religions are so opposite to one another that in his opinion he does not see how it will be in the power of any Prince or King whatsoever to keep down those suspitions and animosities which will be apt to arise upon all occasions This certainly calls for such a necessary and timely provision to be made by a new Law for prevention of such Suspition and Animosities as cannot be expected from our present Religious poenal Laws and Tests In order thereto His Majesty by his gracious and prudent Conduct in the Exercise of His Prerogative has laid the Foundation And that it may be perpetuated doubts not of the concurrence of His Two Houses of Parliament to establish and confirm it by a Law And herein His Majesty proposes a Variation from the Laws and Customs of all such other States as my Lord Fagell mentioned who receive none into a share in the Government or to publick Imployments but those who profess the publick and established Religion It is not material to enquire how the experience of all Ages has manifested that to be impossible which no State would ever admit to be tryed but it is to our purpose to take notice That where any considerable Party of Men have been born hard upon by the Laws and Government in their Civil Rights for their Religions sake their uneasiness therein has inclined them to lay hold of any occasion to free themselves from such Pressures and as they apprehended it did arise from the Religious Principles of such as opprest them