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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A54166 A letter form [sic] a gentleman in the country to his friends in London upon the subject of the penal laws and tests Penn, William, 1644-1718. 1687 (1687) Wing P1318; ESTC R32176 4,657 14

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A LETTER Form a Gentleman in the COUNTRY To his Friends in LONDON Upon the Subject of the Penal Laws and Tests Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri non feceris Printed in the Year 1687. Gentlemen I Wonder mightily at the News you send me that so many of the Town are averse to the Repeal of the Penal Statutes surely you mean the Clergy of the present Church and those that are Zealous for their Dignity and Power For what part of the Kingdom has felt the Smart of them more and at all times and on all occasions represented their mischeif to the Trade Peace Plenty and Wealth of the Kingdom so freely as the Town has always done But you unfold the Riddle to me when you tell me 't is for fear of Popery tho I own to you I cannot comprehend it any more then you do Transubstantiation For that we should be afraid of Popery for the sake of Liberty and then afraid of it because of Persecution seems to me absurd as it is that Liberty should be thought the high way to Persecution But because they are upon their fears pray let me tell you mine and take them among the rest in good part If the Romanists seek ease by Law 't is an Argument to me they desire to turn good Countrymen and take the Law for their Security with the rest of their Neighbours and a greater Complement they cannot put upon our English Constitution nor give a better pledge of their desires to be at peace with us But if we are so Tenacious as we will keep on foot the greatest blemish of our Reformation viz. our Hanging Qua tering Plunder Banishing Laws Is it not turning them out of this quiet course and telling them if they will have ease they must get it as they can for we will never conceed it And pray tell me if this be not thrusting them upon the methods we fear they will take at the same time that we give that for the reason why we do so If Law can secure us which is the plea that is made we may doubtless find an expedient in that which may repeal these if the danger be not of Liberty it self but of our loosing it by them at last for there is no michief the wit of man can invent that the wit of man cannot avoid But that which I confess makes me melancholy is that methinks we never made more haste to be cous●ned no not in the business of the Declaration of Indulgence when in the name of Property that was actually damn'd which at least reprieved it and the price the Church of England gave for it viz. her promise of a legal case actually failed us For instead of saving our selves from Popery we are by these partialities provoking it every day and methinks foolishly for our own safety because there can be no other end in doing so then securing that Party which calls it self the Church of England that is in her Constitution none of the best Friends to Property for mens Liberties and Estates are by her Laws made forfeitable for Non-conformity to Her And I Challenge the Records of all time since Popery got the Chair in England to produce an eight part of the Laws to ruin men for Conscience that have been made since the other has been the national Religion which is I say a scandal to the Reformation She says she is afraid of Popery because of its Violence and yet uses Force to compel it Is not this resisting Popery with Popery which we call loving the Treason but ha●ing the Traytor She would have Power to Fo●ce or Destroy others but they should not have Power to Force or Destroy her no not to save themselves Shift the hand never so often this Weapon is still the same 'T were happy therefore that all Parties were disarm'd of this Sword and that it were put where it ought only to be in the Civil Magistrates hand to terifie Evil Doers and cherish those that do well remember●ng St Peter's saying in Cornelius's case for an Example I perceive now of a truth that God is no respecter of Persons but those that fear him and work Righteousness in all Nations shall be accepted Else what security does the Church of England give to the great body of her Dissenters that she will not do what she fears from Popery when she has a Prince of her own Religion upon the Throne that has made so fair a Progress these last six and twenty Years in ruining families for non-conformity under Princes of an other Perswasion Come Interest will not lye she fears Liberty as much as Popery Since those that want and plead for the one are an hundred times more in number then the Friends of the other and all of her side that Popery should not mount the Chair So that she would get more then she would lose by the Repeal if an equal desire to subject both Popish and Protestant Dissenters to her Power and Government be not the Principle she walks by in her present Aversion And to shew you that this is the case and that her aversion to Popery is a sham to the Liberty desired the Dissenters are of no use to her while the penal Laws are on foot for by them they are put in the power of a Prince of the Religion of the Church she fears but the moment they are repealed so far as concerns the preventing Popery to be national the Dissenters are equally interested with the Church of England against it But then here is the mischief This Liberty takes the Rod out of her hand she can no more whip People into her Churches and she perhaps may modestly suspect her own vertue and ability to preach them thither In short if she were in earnest against Popery more then in love with her own Power and Grandure that is if the World were not in the way she would rejoyce to deliver Men of her own Religion that are so much more numerous then the Papists that they might ballance against her fears of their prevailing But to cry she is for Liberty to Protestant Dissenters and make the demonstration of it her keeping up the Laws that ruin them and then say it is for fear of the Religion the Prince owns and yet force them into his hands by doing so is I must confess something incomprehensible Besides properly and naturally speaking the Church of England is the People of England and when it s apply'd to a Party 't is a Faction to the whole and that Title has no more Truth in it then 't is sence to say the Roman Catholick Church which in English is a particular Universal Church And pray is there no room left to consider this hard case of the Kingdom I hope the civil Magistrate will who is the supream Pastor of this civil Church on Earth Is she then no more then a Party no certainly and how great a one a true Liberty of Conscience would best