without the rest should fall There are some who are for nulling the Penal Laws in relation to some Dissenters only But the Partiality is unreasonable for 't is to be easie to some that the Severity might fall with a greater weight on the rest There are others that are for the taking away both Tests and Penal Laws but they would only have it for the present Reign To such I answer Besides the taking notice of the Impertinence of the Concession since the King of himself has Power to do it there is an horrid Uncharitableness in it for to take away the Tests but pro tempore is only so to take 'em away that they may certainly return and to plant 'em as it were under-ground that they may spring up in the expected time with a greater exuberancy And then where is my sincere Charity to my Neighbour when I design to ruin him hereafter tho my Hands must be discreetly tied up for the present Where is my Charity when I forbear to set Fire to the fatal Train now but leave it ready that I may the more securely blow him up in the days to come And where is my Christian Temper when I consent to let the Lion sleep in this King's Reign that he may rouze more strongly and devour the Innocent in the next No let us not rob our Countrymen of their Rights in this World because we think their Opinions in the wrong for the next Let us not imagine that they cannot be good Subjects to the King in Temporals because some of them own another Supreme in Spirituals Nor let us against all Experience and Reason conclude That France and Spain have no good Subjects nor Absolute Monarchs because we know they are perfect and profess'd Catholicks To draw towards a Conclusion therefore If we would be grateful to the King let us divest our selves of all morose Roughness and like polish'd Bodies reflect back those Beams of Clemency which He daily sheds upon us If we would be merciful to our Neighbours let us cut the cruel Knots which our own Hands have kept too long tied If we would be kind to our selves let us not provoke His Majesty to take away that Ease from us which we refuse to allow others Are we afraid of Popery The King assures us 'T is possible to be happy without being pernicious Ought the King to be afraid of Popish Recusants He must then be afraid of himself and his faithful Friends Are the Laws that ought to be repeal'd wholesom and rational What can be more cruel and absurd than to oblige a Prince to prosecute his Friends for Traytors to suppose him a Foe to the Scepter he sways and his Head an Offender against the Crown it wears Is the Test fit to live It is concluded to have ow'd its Life to the Breath of Perjury to have grown by Currents of guiltless Blood to be design'd against our Sovereign and can only be preserv'd from death by those who must err in their Charity and their Understandings Is His Majesty not to be believ'd He has given the greatest Demonstrations of his Veracity imaginable and those who distrust him after all may justly expect the Merits of a stubborn Unbelief Is it impossible to have an agreeable Prospect of Affairs if the Tests be repeal'd Set but aside the Mists of Pride Interest and Malice and all will be fair as the serene Peace which we seek Are Popery and Protestancy inconsistent in a Nation Experience attests the contrary and if as different as Jacob and Esau yet like those Twins they might be nourish'd in a very narrow compass Would we grant as much Liberty as is in the Low-Countries Then let the Tests be repeal'd which deprive Men of the Honour of the Court and the Profit of Employments Can't the Church and State be preserv'd without Tests and Penal Laws How were they maintain'd before their Making and how have they flourish'd since their Dispensation Ought the Laws already made to remain No Laws ought longer to remain than they are for the support of that Peace for which they were design'd But they ought rather to expire when their Establishment threatens the Destruction of our Peace and our Loyalty Do's the Papist enjoy Toleration and Preferment from his Prince and therefore needs no further Security May not the Catholicks ask you then If you are secur'd of your Life to day what need you an Assurance for to morrow Or If you are secur'd of your own Life what need there be a care for your dear Posterity Finally Tho seeming Clouds appear let our Fears and Jealousies be laid aside and fear no Darkness since God and the King say Let there be Light. When the King sends out the pleaceful Dove let out turbulent Waters abate and let the Olive branch be return'd to the Sacred Pilot. Like the Son in the Gospel who retus'd to do his Father's Will at first but afterwards repented and went about it let our Eyes after all be so open'd as to obey his Majesty that those Laws which ow'd their forc'd Generations to preternatural Heats and Mistake may be speedily destroy'd by a cool and sedate Understanding And now I expect for this Publick Discourse to be callâ—… what I have often been styl'd for the Loyalty of my Prâ—vate Converse to wit A Papist But if to love and hâ—nour my God and to preach the Practice and Doctrine 〈◊〉 my Saviour be to be a Papist I am one If to preach Allegiance to my Prince and Peace to my Brethren be to 〈◊〉 a Papist I am one Or if to entreat the Church of England to love herself and to act according to her own Principles be to be of the Church of Rome I confess I am 〈◊〉 For I declare in what I have said I have only 〈◊〉 discharg'd my Conscience which would never suffer 〈◊〉 through the whole Course of my Life to be obstinately Irreligious towards my Maker to be indecently Irreverent to my Saviour to be in the least Disloyal to my King or Uncharitable to my Neighbour For the preservation of which Conscience I here declare I will be content to be a Beggar or ev'n Nothing upon the face of the Earth rather than by its Vastation to become the greatest Subject in the World. And all who know me and I have the happiness of speaking to a great number who do know that I sincerely speak the Truth By which if with the Apostle I am become any Mans Enemy I must be forc'd to tell him That True Religion and its Consequent True Loyalty are far too precious to be expended for the Purchase of a Seditious Friendship FINIS
the straight and even Valley And Charity would believe that the Crown of Heaven might possibly be obtain'd by the round-about Runner as surely as by him that thinks he more advantageously casts his Ground especially if we believe a possibility of the Salvation of the Apostles before they believed the Doctrine of the Resurrection But suppose the Errors of our Brethren were never so inconsistent with Government once more I must observe That a rough Method is not probable to convert 'em For Conversion is usually wrought by the softest means The Mildness of the Converter is most apt to melt the Soul of the Erroneous he must be softned before he can take a new Impression and by the gentle warmth of Love be made to relent before he can be in a capacity of being cast into a new Form And therefore the Frost and Horror of the Test must be very unsuitable for this purpose Sixthly We ought ot comply with the King in the Repeal of the Tests and Penal Laws if we consider the Interest of the Church There are none that are truly of the Church of England but are for the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and if so they must grant that the National establish'd Church can be no longer such than the Supreme Power will have it so And therefore the Church of England ought to please the King if she would her self be longer pleas'd in her Establishment She ought not imperiously to think her Station infallibly unprecarious nor rudely to question the King's Word but reverently to obey his just Desires How extremely ill do's it look to question the Word of a King and of such a King too I 'm sure if she had given her Word for the performance of any thing and its Veracity should be doubted she would think she had good reason to be desparately displeased And therefore she not doing in this Particular as she would be done by she may give occasion to be rewarded by her own Measures and if she persists to question the King's Word the King may justly suspect her Loyalty When the King has given his Royal Word for my Security if I then should doubt my Safety I may be adjudg'd by no means to deserve it Not to rely upon my Prince's Promise is to forfeit the expected Support and whosoever scoffingly calls His Majesties merciful Indulgence only a Scaffolding may perhaps very soon come to deserve a more dishonourable Death than is usually executed upon the Fabrick he mentions And therefore if the Church of England would be secure in her own Liberty 't is not only her Duty but her Interest to promote and confirm that of others I know we pretend to merit much by obstructing the Bill of Exclusion Let us not then destroy our former Desert by our present Errors for 't is possible that our Righteousness may be forgot and in the Sin that we sin we may die None certainly can be against the King's Inclinations now but those who would be now for His Exclusion for he that contradicts his Prince's Inclinations even in things Indifferent tacitly insinuates that he would not have such a Man to ruse over him and he that contradicts what by His Majesty and His wise Council is adjudg'd to be for the Strength and Peace of the Nation is no longer a Friend but a stubborn Enemy to the Government For his Eye must necessarily be evil because the King 's is good Common Gratitude methinks should oblige our Obedience not only in this but in all other Affairs His Majesty has graciously confirm'd to us all that we possess and shall we like Jesurun when we remain fat kick against him that makes us so and in the heighth of our Plenty envy our poor Brethren the small Crums which fall from our Table Many of our Church have writ spake and inveigh'd against what His Majesty would have done yet He daily forgives us And when our Lord and Master hath forgiven us should we in return take our Fellow-subjects by the Throats and when he is merciful to us resolve to be cruel to the rest of his Servants His Majesty has promis'd to be our Defence if we please and shall we foolishly and ungratefully reject His Safeguard Shall we refuse His Protection but desire one Attribute of the Prerogative viz. the Supreme Power of the Sword that we may destroy others whilst we protect our selves And when He has promis'd to be our Shepherd shall we refuse to be harmless Sheep but expect to be made Porcupines and cover'd all o're with Armour Let it not be recorded in our Annals That we were lowly then only when we were oppress'd inclin'd to Pity but in those days only when we could not strike and that the establish'd Church when it could not wound others was Felo de se and turn'd militant against it self For 't is certain that whilst we stand up for an Arbitrary Safety we seek and pursue our own Ruine since a common Understanding may easily foretel that no such Pride can continue long without the attendance of a Fall and that by obstinate Methods taken for our Safety to the pity of our Friends and the triumph of our Enemies we shall find our Security at last in the worst sense and experience our Church to be sure and safe by being dead and gone Let it not be said of us who are for Passive Obedience That we intend passively to obey the King only so long as he would permit us actively to afflict our Fellow-Subjects That we would accept him with his Throne and dreadful Scepter but not with the soft Plumes of his Mercy-seat That we approv'd of Majesty not when 't was cloth'd with its Forgiveness but its Terror and desir'd it to approach the rest of the Nation as Jupiter did Semele with that Thunder which is certain to make its Peace an Abort Let no Sons of the Church of England presume henceforth with a Confessorian Boldness to call His Sacred Majesty who is a zealous Worshipper of the True God an Idolater Let none dare impiously to name the King who adores his Saviour a Wafer-worshipper For this is to treat a Prince with less Civility than is given to his Subjects 't is no less than to spit rudely in the Face of Majesty to endeavour to justle the King out of the Affections of his People and to give our selves the Lie when we do these things and yet declare our selves to be of the Church of England which obliges us to the Obedience of Words and Thoughts as well as of Actions And well it is for such a sort of Men that they liv'd not in Queen Elizabeths time Let no Sons of the Church of England irrationally and uncharitably believe a Popish Prince uncapable of Repentance and be tempted to pray for his Destruction for 't is expresly contrary to the Doctrine of the Blessed Jesus It might provoke a Prince to put a Regulator to such Devotions since when such Men come to
of Constantinople to avoid an approaching division when Clemens Romanus forsook the Wealth and Honour of the Chair of Rome rather than foment arising Differences when Exile was more Eligible with Peace then shining greatness without it when private interest and safety threw 'em selves away like Jonah to prevent a publick ruin and when Christians like that Prophet were more ready to endure the storm themselves than to maintain it tho with their own security to the Detriment of others Thirdly 'T will appear reasonable to comply with the King in the repeal of the Tests and Penall Laws from the consideration of the ill consequence of force and the happy Effects of Clemency in Matters of Religion 1. We have known that the Fights for Religion were in the late time but so many Battels against it Atheism and Schism sprang up with a greater Luxuriancy and Faction grew double like an Hydras's Head by cutting off of the Conscientious The force that has been us'd in former Ages against Persons for Conscience and meer Religion hath been so sinistrously prevalent as to shake Establish'd Kingdoms to Degrade Royal Palaces into Recesses of Murtherers and Converâ— Gods House of Prayer into a Den of Thieves What confusion has not force for Religion introduc'd A Throne has been chang'd into a Scaffold a Royal Court into a Slaughter-house and the ignoble Shrub exalted into the place of the Heavenly Cedar Hath not the Veil of our Temple been Rent from the Top to the Bottom our Churches render'd as poor as the Beggars which usually attend their Gates and the Altar it self made a Sacrilegious Sacrifice Our Mountains have been made to resemble Calvary each Field almost has been turn'd into an Aceldama and our Rivers like those of Egypt convertrd into Blood. Nor have the very Dead been spar'd Graves have been rifled Sepulchres despoil'd and Tombs stripp'd and ruined as if the deceased had been guilty of Ceremonies because they were adorn'd with an Escutcheon and a Monument Have not our Rocks resounded with the dying Groans of the Wounded Have not our Houses Echo'd with Widdows sighs and bereaved Parents Moans And hath not ev'ry Pavement almost flow'd with the Tears of the Weeping Virgin and the distressed Orphan And did not the Church of England expire with the loss and death of her Martyr'd Head Nor hath severity for matters of meer Religion had any good success since the Restauration of his Late Majesty For 't is too well known that the Penal Laws destroy'd that very Unity and Uniformity which they were design'd to preserve They drove whole Multitudes from that Church to which they should have drawn 'em and the Excommunication from the Congregation very often prov'd an Extermination out of the Kingdom Nor can it be otherwise for as I intimated before Divine Love is no more obtainable by force than humane Affection The Conscience like Wax grows still more stubborn by the coldness of its usage and nothing can so well bend the Spirit of Man as the soft Whispers of the Holy Ghost Since His Majesty therefore has been pleas'd to Grant an Indulgence let us like the good Samaritan instead of the Corrosive Method pour Oyl and Wine into the Wounds of our bleeding Neighbours Let me not be the unfriendly Priest or uncharitable Levite to pass regardless by my Brethren who like the Man going from Jerusalem to Jerico are fall'n among Thieves stripp'd and left half dead No let us have compassion on them bind up their gaping Wounds and instead of Levying Money for their ruin contribute a far greater Summ than the Samaritans Two pence for their recovery This way our Blessed Saviour this the Apostles this the Primitive Christians took by meekness and suffering for Religion they won the Hearts of the World to it they us'd no Sword but that of the Spirit but brake the Flinty Hearts of the Heathen by the soft and downy Methods of the Gospel Can we imagine that the way for our Brethren to hear our winning Arguments is to banish 'em our Conversation to give occasion of a Voluntary Exile that they may become good Subjects and to exalt our selves against them that they may see our meekness in Christ No the Bonds which bind the Dissenter serve too but to confirm his dissention stripes indeed may soften his Flesh but never mollifie his Spirit and the Penal Laws which violently open his Purse will serve but more closely to tye him up and oblige him to stick to his opinion The way to convice the Papist that there is no Transubstantiation in the Eucharist is not to force him to experience a fatal change in his Estate the way to demonstrate that there is only a bare possibility for him of going to Heaven is not to compel him to feel that 't is impossible he should live upon Earth nor is the tying him up from serving his King any good Method to evince that he does not rightly worship his Maker The light of the Spirit grew still more hot and zealous by being Dark-lanthorn'd in a Dungeon the Goal that redue'd the Non-conformist almost to rottenness could never yet mellow him into compliance and the reduction of a Conventicler to a Morsel of Bread never made him one jot the less in love with the Barn. 'T is not difference in but the Penalties for opinion that infringes the Christian Love and Charity The Person suffering envies his Neighbour that lives at ease hates the insulting Party and murmurs against the Fountain of his pressure For Love and Stripes are consistent to no Nature but of a Spaniel and tho an irresistable force may procure quiet yet it never can beget a lasting peace Most men like Steel springs tho they violently stand bent yet they have a strong aptitude of coming into their places like Bows they will break the string that crooks 'em and will be humble no longer than the pressure of their Chaines make 'em so But now kindness smooths the Furrows which the Iron Tests and Penal Laws had deeply plowed sweetens the Vinegar and Gall which harsh mulcts fines and confiscations had gencrated and wins so upon all those who have the least Generosity in their Natures that they who would passively have dyed under an oppressor will dye for him when he appears and becomes merciful Clemency makes the Loyal Cement stick which the roughness of severity would probably have fretted off 't is the great Elixir of a State which must probably Transmute every Subject into the golden temper of Loyalty and ferment the whole Nation into the decent Crasis of a willing obedience For all true Sons of the Common-wealth must surely be pleased when they perceive the King is not at all confin'd to one Party that he has Blessings in store for more than one of his Children that he will suffer no rapacious Excrescence in the Body Politick to draw the whole Nutriment from the useful Members but that Gods Vice-gerent is such that like God himself
the Publick Congregations they must seem to pray for the King when they pray against him and I declare upon a Supposition position of their incapacity of Repentance too and that there were no Laws in force to punish such treasonable Overtures it might tempt all honest and loyal Men for the good of the Church and State to wish that such a kind of Church-Votaries would exactly copy all the Actions of the wretched Judas after he had barbarously betray'd his gracious Lord and Master For with such Men to love and honour the King is to be an Apostate to love and be kind to our Neighbour is to be highly irreligious and to endeavour to confirm the Reconciliation of the King to His Subjects and to create a lasting Friendship of the King's Subjects among themselves is to be an Enemy to true Peace With such a morose Stubbornness against is to be Loyal to His Majesty Saucily to affront the King is to be a True Protestant and Disobedience to the Father of our Country is a manifestation of being a true Son of the Mother-Church But let all those who are truly Religious and Loyal encourage themselves in the God of Peace and in our merciful Saviour who is the Prince of Peace and in His Sacred Majesty who is truly a King of Peace and being so encourag'd let 'em go about the great Work of Peace and if they are pointed at for being Loyal let 'em know that 't is a Mark of Favour To be stigmatiz'd for being thus peaceable is to wear the Character of Heaven and tho they fail of the designed End in this World they cannot miss the Reward of the Peacemaker in the next Seventhly We ought to obey the King in the Repeal of the Tests and Penal Laws if we consider the Duties we owe to our Neighbours 'T is at once ungenerons and unjust to monopolize the Common Good to engross the King to our selves and to repine that all the Vital Spirit flows not from the Sacred-Head to one particular Member since Judah ought to have a proportionable Share in her David as well as contending Israel Where is the Kindness to our Neighbour when we desire to give Life to those Laws which are certain Death to our Brethren The King like Heaven designs that His Sun shine shall be darted on all the Just as the Unjust shall we then raise a Storm to obstruct the refreshing Beams Or shall the Church assume the Nature of a Burning-glass and so contract the extended Rays as to transmit 'em to the Conflagration of Dissenters The King like Heaven designs His Drops of Mercy shall fall on all around let none therefore shew themselves so enviously covetous as to wish the fruitful Moisture were all confin'd to his own Channel No let us consider that even those whom we think Prodigals may expect the fatted Calf from the merciful Father of their Country as well as we who too haughtily imagine that we never went astray Let us not curse whom the King designs to bless nor call for Fire from Heaven to consume whom He graciously means to warm And when like His Saviour He comes to save Mens Lives far be it from us to seek to destroy 'em and that by those Laws and Tests which some have very ill compar'd to Samson's Hair but they may very well in time be resembled to Samson's Lion out of which no Sweetness can be expected till they lay down their Terror and are dead If we would do as we would be done by we should not lade Men with Burdens which we are not willing to bear our selves When we are well cloth'd why should we desire to strip our thred bare Brethren Or why should we think it reasonable to desire our Neighbours to lye still that they may be the more conveniently beaten Let it no more be said That whilst Rome like Saul has slain its thousands the Church of England has extinguish'd its ten thousands Let it no more be said â—…at we have separated the Inhabitants from their Native Country separated earning Parents from their weeping Offspring the loving Husband from the lamenting Wife the Orphans Morsel from his hungry Stomach and divided the poor Widow from her little Handful and her remaining Cruise Let it not be said That we endeavour to out-do the Miseries of France For the Unhappiness of the Hugonots was finish'd in short but that of the Dissenters by keeping up the Tests and Penal Laws must be endless Let it not be said That 't is not so much the Union as the Undoing of our Neighbours that we seek after that 't is not Diana but her Shrines that we regard and consequently that we our selves are the Buyers and Sellers who deserve the Whip for the clearing of the Temple Eighthly We ought to concur for the Repealing of the Tests and Penal Laws if we would be kind to our Country 'T is not the diversity of Religious Professions in a Kingdom that make a Nation unhappy as I observ'd before but the Sanguinary Cruelty for such a Variety 'T was not the nature of Joseph's many-colour'd Coat but the Malice of his Brethren that separated him from his lamenting Father And when a Nation is separated from her Common Father such a Division is not caus'd by the various Complexion of her Religion but by the Disobedience and Ingratitude of her Sons For we are assured from History and our own Experience that where the Complexion of Religion is as various as that of the Rainbow like a Sacred Rainbow too it keeps the World there from a Deluge of Blood and an Inundation of Poverty For nothing depopulates a Country like the severe Endeavour for the Uniformity of its Inhabitants When press'd by the Heat of Penal Laws they quickly fly away like Mercury and such a Mercury too which carrys along the radiant Metal and gaudy Wealth in its departure or if they be hindred from flight for want of Vent they commonly burst the Vessel and rend by Discord the Kingdom which contains ' em But say some if the Tests and Penal Laws be taken off they may be renewed against our selves and so our own Cannon will be turned upon us To this I answer If a Security be possible to be made by King and Parliament we have the Royal Word it shall be done The King of Himself might give His People this Blessing of Peace for His Life and very much longer yet when He designs a more lasting Happiness He will not effect it without our helping Hands and like Heaven it self resolves not to save us without our own Concurrence By which general Concurrence the general Security must be strong For when the Papist the Church of England and all Dissenters are jointly and equally concern'd like so many Stones contributing to an Arch the Fabrick must be sure One will ballance the other and so evenly that like a known Example in Mathematicks Where three Pieces are put together 't is impossible that one