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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A70003 The Examination of the bishops upon their refusal of reading His Majesty's most gracious declaration and the nonconcurrence of the Church of England in repeal of the penal laws and test : fully debated and argued. 1688 (1688) Wing E3725; ESTC R26702 23,815 44

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to maintain the Church of England as now by Law establisht in her uninterrupted Rights and Priviledges all her Churches and Church-livings whatever thereunto belonging c. in it self alone no little Security But waving that Plea the Ecclesiastical Government and the Church of England neither are nor can be shaken or toucht by the Abrogation of the Test the Test being indeed no part of her Defence For first the very taking of the Test is no part of the Qualification of any of the Clergy of England nor was ever so much as mention'd or thought upon to be imposed to tender'd to the Clergy No as jealous as the Founders of that Test were or pretended to be of the Danger of Popery and as zealous as they could be for the Security of the Protestant Religion they very well knew the Church of England had two impregnable Bulwarks the two great Acts of VNIFORMITY that themselves alone sufficiently establisht guarded and preserved the Church of England in all Points without any Fortification from the Test nor indeed was the Test wanted in the Ecclesiastick Administration those very Statutes being a greater and stronger Test before For by those Statutes is the whole Liturgy the Administration of the Sacraments and indeed all the Canons and Articles of the Church supported For by the Fence of those Laws first no Romanist can possibly be admitted into the Clergy unless under the most damnable Hypocrisie which no Human Test can discover an Hypocrisie too no ways beneficial to the Romish Cause whilst tyed up to the Divine Service as now by Law establisht Secondly No other Divine Service as the Mass or the like can be introduced into our Churches already constituted or assigned for the Divine Service of the Church of England The strength of these two Laws His Majesty very well knows and is so far even from the Thought of hurting or infringing the least Particle of either or those Laws or the Security our Church has do's or can receive from them by abrogating any Penal Laws or Tests whatever that on the contrary there is not undoubtedly that farther Confirmation of those Laws and the Religious Observance of them or any thing conducing thereunto that may or shall be offer'd to His Majesty in Parliament that His Majesty shall not readily assent to and as inviolably maintain If then the Church of England Her Administration and Government as 't is plain stand of themselves alone secure and firm without any borrow'd Prop or Support from the Test whatever the Test therefore is only a Buttrice or at least so intended to the Civil Magistracy as first Excluding all Roman Catholicks from all Offices of Trust in the State. Secondly From all Domestick Services near the Person of the King. And Thirdly From all Right to Session in Parliament These three Incapacities are by the Test thrown upon the Romanists And for confuting all Suspicions and Jealousies let us examine how the loosening of all these three Restrictions can tend to the Subversion of the Protestant Religion as now by Law establisht In the first place as to the Civil Government What Office in the State can a Roman Catholick hold any ways empowering him to prejudice the Church of England Suppose even in the Courts of Judicature for if any Apparition of any such Power 't is there Were Romanists imagine in all those Offices Why may not a Sir Thomas Moor be as honest as a Lord Chief Justice Hales and execute his Office with as great Integrity and Justice Why not Men of equal Abilities be of equal Uprightness in all Religions Besides the Distribution of Meum and Tuum more especially when Liberty of Conscience shall be past into a perpetual Law and all Penal Inflictions for matter of Religion thrown out of their Jurisdictions will then be the whole Business that lyes before them and wherein is a Roman Catholick Judge any more incapacitated for the administring of Justice than another Man Moreover in a Kingdom where their number is so truly inconsiderable as scarce the Two hundredth Man in the Nation if they have hopes of making any Converts or any Indeavours that way it can only be done by holding the Scale of Justice upright and in all Posts of Trust by keeping up the steddiest Standard of Right and Equity as the only means thereby to recommend and endear themselves to the World and wipe off those Blemishes that the mistaken Jealousies and Popular Misapprehensions have so long so unkindly cast upon them And This and This only they are very sensible is their Chart to steer by and their Great Pilot their Royal Master the best read Student in the Arts of Empire that possibly ever graced a Throne equally knows to be His only Course and undoubtedly as sacredly resolves to make it so And if the Judges of the Land suppose of the Romish Religion besides their Oaths that bind 'em and His Majesties Honour that shall influence them to it have these Obligations more and above even of INTEREST to their very Religion it self to move in so regular a Sphear of Justice where lyes our Danger And if this higher Station will be so Inoffensive what can the poorer Justices of the Peace or the inferiour Subministration of the Government signifie in Popish or not Popish Hands But in this Case I have heard some People say Alas What stretch of the Laws will not such Judges make Perhaps for instance pick a hole in the Abby-Lands and start some dormient Title or other to revert them to the Church of Rome a Patrimony that will not a little enrich the Romanists and advance their Cause This idle Objection was scarce worth naming as if the stretching of our Laws in that Point was not as notorious and Arbitrary as a total Violation of the Subjects Right and rending the whole Frame of the Laws in sunder But to check this idle Surmize If a Romish Parliament it self in the Reign of Queen Mary with the very Restoration of the Romish Religion and Papal Supremacy into the Saddle never so much as attempted to revert those Lands Nay on the contrary their whole Title was confirm'd to the present Possessours by a Decretal from Rome it self as was then so solemnly done by Cardinal Pool the then Popes Legate How groundless must the Fear be of any Thought or Attempt of reverting them now Or why must the Romish Judges in any kind subvert or undermine the Laws contrary to all their best Politiques in the present State of England to no true advantage either to themselves or their Church and possibly to be answerable for it with their Heads if they live to the next Protestant Prince To come next to the Officers of his Majesties Houshold c. To have those Posts too barricado'd with Tests and the Imperial Dignity so shackled as to be debarr'd the Choice of its own Menials nay even of its Conversation it self is an Insolence put upon Majesty as had been scarce tolerable