Selected quad for the lemma: state_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A25496
|
An answer from the country to a late letter to a dissenter upon occassion of His Majesties late gracious declaration of indulgence by a member of the Church of England.
|
Member of the Church of England.
|
1687
(1687)
|
Wing A3278; ESTC R16389
|
43,557
|
81
|
Vengeance and using fiery Tongues and inflaming Eloquence for that end That they only express their resentment against those who in their Apprehensions have too severely Persecuted them for Conscience-sake Such a Plea may be as like to gain belief as your too groundless Accusation of them for Indulgence Charity and Moderation are very consistent The King desires all may enjoy their Religion in peace and hires none to keep up the strife by recrimination and violence nor designs by the taking away of Penal Laws that one Subject should worry another and therein gives you as well as Dissenters a Gracious President and Example to follow o Here in my Opinion you have exposed your friends something disadvantagiously It is an unfortunate thing for any to have combin'd against the Government since it requires much tryal e're their Repentance can be believ'd It is true those that have had the Rickets are found often to have a good share of cunning and wit but by their bowed Legs or some other infirm parts especially in the region of their breast they are easily distinguished from those of more healthy Constitutions The old Proverb is as often true of hasty Converts as of Pardoned Persons That save a Thief from the Gallows and he will be the first will do you a mischief But God forbid all should be censur'd for some Mens double-fac'd Villanies Such Sycophants shall never find me their Advocate let every Herring hang by his own Tayl. Let those who are detected forfeit their neck or hang by it in the Pillory e're I pity them But what I pray do those deserve who never wore shackles or were bowed down e're they comply'd and promise to their Prince strenuous endeavours for His Service and that they will not fail to hit the mark and yet designedly shoot short or over p It is an unhappy state of Kings that when they endeavour by good Methods the ease and profit of their Subjects yet they must be traduced by the insolent Pens of malevolent Subjects Our Gracious King hath afforded a safe Retreat and Liberal Contributions to the Reffugees whom the great neighbouring Monarch hath Exiled and by His Royal Enterprise to get the Penal Laws Repeal'd designs not only His Dominious to be free from all Persecution for Religion but to be a safe harbor for the Distressed and is thereby taking the most contrary measures to what that neighbouring Prince hath done With what effrontry therefore can you charge the King either with imitating His example or corresponding with him in that design I Appeal to the fled Protestants whether they find not as good usage here as any in their condition do in other Countries which methinks carries conviction broad enough that you are a very evil Caluminator It is true there was a time when the belief of Ten Thousand Pilgrims and Black Bills were endeavoured to be crammed down our throats and some were such Cowards then as to be frighted with them Must we therefore be always Impos'd upon and never return to our senses again The frequent discoveries of those Impostures cannot but recruit the most timerous Spirits and restore them to some degree of valour though it will deserve no great Commendation as a Vertue since the thick mist is so exhaled which made us take a crop of Thistles for a Battalion of Pikes q Amongst a Hundred of your florid Sentences I have not yet found one solid Reason why Dissenters should not act as they do in policy or that they want any Advice or Dictator when they follow the conduct of their own Interest They need not go down to those some call Philistines to whet their Weapons which are only praises and thanks which the poorest Beggar without any touch of good breeding knows how to pay for a small Alms. There was a time when Petitions the Elder Brothers of Addresses being formed by the leading Men of the Lower House were posted into confiding Hands to be sent back Ten or Twenty Thousand strong Those tended to the strengthening the hands of the Murtherers of the King and you would now stint a spirit of Obedience and Thankfulness to our King which springs and flows from content and obligation and may be easily discover'd to be sincere in all the Dissenters Speeches Writings and Actions and are so far from needing to be bid that all your Rhetorick cannot forbid them Surely you think not their Thanks to spring like Mushroms without root and in a Night And if you will not admit Dissenters among the Tribe of thinking Animals yet let them have the Reputation of sensitive Plants that shrink at a rough touch and erect their Leaves by a warmer Gleam I see not therefore why Dissenters having the sense of former sharp usage should not perceive their ease and whence it comes and have no reason to question their sincerity of thanks since they are for a matter of greatest import to them they ever receiv'd from the Crown since they sub-divided from the Church of England Yet I believe there hath been more Industry us'd to Disperse such Letters as yours of Caution and Circumspection then ever there was for those Circular ones of three or four Bishops and you are the first Post that brings the News of any that were threatn'd to joyn with them or any affrightments us'd to cause a compliance since they carry with them all the tokens of Voluntariness Vnconstrainedness and Vnsolicitudeness that could be expected Therefore because in good earnest you think they will signifie a great deal you are at all this pains If that which Dissenters have so earnestly desn'd pray'd yea fought for can be called a Triste you are in the right I never thought Addressors so little acquainted with the Constitution of the Government as to think their Addresses equal to Votes in Parliament or that they with the Kings assent constituted the Legislative though they may hope such Votes out of the House may beget others in it I do not think any one that had a piece of Gold given him would be so besotted to refuse it till he had consulted such a scrupulous Gentleman as you whether it were all just in weight and allay or that the giver came honestly by it I suppose you are angry the Dissenters made not their Addresses in this form Great SIR WE would thank You for Your Gracious Declaration but we know not whether the Law impowers You to grant it we have heard indeed of Your Majesties having the excecutive part of the Laws in Your Royal Person and the Dispencing Power and that You desire the Test and Penal Laws may be abolished by Act of Parliament But before we return You our Thanks for the ease You afford us or that we can resolve to give our Voices for such Repeal we desire to consult our common Lawyers and our Elder Brethren the Church of England and then we will give You our Opinion and we do this the rather least you be mistaken in us
and do not only Muster the Rebels but they do as much as in them lyes to enfeeble or taint the Allegiance of the remainder You have contributed all you possibly can to effect these things and exposed your Letter as a Banner to invite to jealousies and fears which are the very Avant-couriers of Sedition and Rebellion and this in you that pretend to be a Son of the Church of England is so much the worse in that you know how strictly it enjoyns Obedience to the Lawful Sovereign and how much the Doctrine of Non-Resistance hath been taught and practised by its Members If the Kings Intentions to settle the Roman Catholick Religion by force which you surely cannot in good earnest believe practicable were much more apparent than it is If the inevitable ruine of the Protestant Religion here should be the consequence of the Repeal and if the exercise of His Prerogative and Dispensing Power were the certain ruine of all Mens Properties you and others who own no other Loyalty to their Sovereign than what is consistent with their supposed Interest could not invent more provoking Reflections upon the King or mis-interpret His Actions worse than you do But how unreasonably undutiful is it in Subjects and those who would be reputed the zealousest for our Church to charge the King with Intrigue and Hypocrisy or breach of promise who of all Princes living detests mear tricks and to prevaricate with any To whom Dissimulation is the odiousest of Vices and whose very In-bred Natural and Heroick courage places Him as much above all low Arts as His Dignity doth above His Subjects Besides all the un-answerable Arguments which have been produced why the taking off the Test and Penal Laws cannot work such a change in our Religion you may consider that at the same time the Church of England may be Insured by Laws of greatest caution Furthermore we have most solemn and publick promises That His Majesty will Protect and Maintain the Church of England in the free exercise of its Religion as by Law Established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all Her Possessions without any molestation or disturbance which He will inviolably observe If by a stubborness that shall be unpardonable in the judgement of all Impartial Men we forfeit not a Clemency so rarely to be parallel'd To all which may be added the universal aversion of the Nobility Gentry and Commonality to the Roman Catholick Religion occasioned even by the deepest Impression that Education Custom and an Opinion of the Purity and Primativeness of it hath made If none of these Arguments will prevail with you to change your evil Opinion of the Kings designs by the Repeal consider deliberately I pray you how the King must overthrow the very Foundation upon which the great Enterprize of Universal Liberty and consequently of all the Benefits to His people by enriching them and keeping them in peace and securing the Roman Catholicks in future times in any tollerable state if He ever give way to invest any one Church-Community with a Coercive Power But I know it is Objected that if a Toleration only were intended how comes it to pass that so many Loyal Members of the Church of England even of those who so couragiously adhered to the Crown in its utmost danger are now displaced and the Roman Catholicks or Dissenters even such of the last as have most violently opposed His Majesties Succession are substituted in their Rooms In answer to this It is well known that the number of Protestants of the Church of England Employed by the King in His Court in His Council in His Courts of Judicature in Camp and all Places of publick Employments almost as far exceed the Roman Catholicks as our Clergy do theirs and yet we make so hideous a noise at the Conferring Places and Honours upon some deserving and Loyal Roman Catholicks and two or three Masters and a few Fellows of Colleges being Preferr'd which are but the effects of common distributive Justice and consentaneous to the Paternal care of such a Prince who would show some marks of favour to those few of His own Religion who are not now surely to be wholly Excluded Therefore in my judgement it shows a very ill Nature in those who own His Majesty to be their Lawful King and that He may at His Pleasure use the service of which of His Subjects He pleases to grudge His intermixing so few of His own Religion with others Besides this you cannot be ignorant that it never was the practice of any Prince or Government what Religion soever to imploy Subjects in Places of Trust who set themselves directly to oppose what by prudent forecast for the publick good they determined to Establish Now since the King for the Reasons published in His Gracious Declaration is so intent upon compleating this great work of General Freedom and securing those of His own Religion in common with the rest It cannot be thought reasonable or expedient that He should cherish and countenance those who so bitterly oppose him in it Especially since it is so apparent that even such who have shown great zeal for the support of the Crown upon the Heads of their Protestant Sovereigns now manifest not only an indifference and coldness but an unbecoming way wardness to the Kings Service In so much that some decline sitting in Commission with Roman Catholick Justices of the Peace and others think it honourable to quit their places rather than to make one step towards the Repeal so that even the Badges and Livery of Loyalty are changed from that to the King to that of the Church of England and those who make the greatest complaint of hard usage have themselves turned the Tables As to Dissenters it is their Interest to close with the Crown side for Protection and since they can derive this unlooked for favour from none but the King they should be the most ungrateful of Men if with chearfulness and sincerity they did not pay all possible Acknowledgments to His Majesties Bounty for it So that I do not wonder to hear them with great Asseveration say it was not for a Commonwealth they fought and were continually striving against the stream but it was to get the Weather-gage of Persecution It was to obtain this Liberty of Conscience which they never could expect from former Governments that provoked them to commit such Hainous things they now are ashamed of and which indeed they ought to Attone for in another manner than they have hitherto done They now declare that if they might have had the Tenth of that Liberty the Church of England now enjoys under our Gracious King they would never have lifted up an hand or opened a Mouth against the late Kings of blessed Memories and I think they are the rather to be believed because neither the Doctrine nor the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome are so much declaim'd against by them now as those of the Church of England