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A54211
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A second letter from a gentleman in the country to his friends in London upon the subject of the penal laws and tests.
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Penn, William, 1644-1718.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing P1361; ESTC R38198
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7,974
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20
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and Serve one another as becomes the Members of the great civil Family of this Kingdom But some you tell me think it had been better The Laws where Repealed in a Proâ—estant King's Reign then in this But can any shew it is not fit in this for that 's the Question Let us suppose ours were a Protestant and they were repealed accordingly How could we assure our selves our next Heir would not turn Ay the Prince in Possession And unless the Principles of Exclusion prevail'd 't is clear the Delemma would be the same because the security upon that notion is uncertain I confess it had been better for us it had been done before his coming to the Crown but since he forgives us that deficiency and offers to supply it in ways the most assuring why it should not be good to do it now I cannot imagine It is to say it is not fit to be done when it is most fit to make us best with him We will have him trust us but we will not trust him where his interest Secures us Well but you add That it is generally agreed the Penal Laws should he repeal'd but not the Tests I must tell you I do not agree with you in that Fact for I hear there are divers Schisms in the Church about it Some for their repeal and keeping of the Tests Some for repealing neither Some for their repeal to Papists only Some for Dissenters only And a few for a general Repeal of both so that the Church is yet unresolved what to do But I will attend the great Question For the Penal Laws no matter if they go but if the Tests be repealed too the Government is lost to the Romanists for they may pack a Parliament of their own Religion that in all Probability will make it national and so Liberty of Conscience will not serve them nor save us You see I am fair in the Objection I le give you my Answer as freely I cannot imagine the Councils that engage them to take a fair way can lead them to be foul in it for that 's giving a pail of Milk and kicking it down with their foot If they had number to chuse or could be returned without it they must naturally search the most durable means of their safety Now that connot be making their Religion national both because they are not the two hundred and fiftieth man and that the attempt would eternally ruin them with the Kingdom whose kindness in a future Raign their discreeter Conduct in this must secure Nor could any thing be so odious faithless and immoral then for them to attempt it for if ever they should teach the Nation that Arithmatick that thirteen is more then three and twenty they will make True Prophets of those they have taken pains to prove False Witnesses But besides their Discretion and Interest the Kings Faith is given us for his whole Raign in his Great and Gratious Declaration that he will not exceed the bounds of Liberty of Conscience By This every Party is secured with his in their Religion and Property and This tyes him against any concurrance with the People representatively contrary to this made to them universally We may assure our selves he is not like to break it in either of those respects since we don't think that will so easily become the Religion of the Kingdom or that whilest the People are of another they will chuse a Representative of the Roman Communion Lastly the Law that shall repeal these Laws may be so drawn as to make it impracticable to return a Parliament that is not chosen as well as I dare say it is below the Glory of our King to use ways so unlike the rest of his Open and Generous Principles My former Argument was ad homenem for what ever the Church of England men think 't is certain the Answer they gave for a Popish Successor we must trust God and do our Duty is still Cogent For if Providence was strong enough to secure us then against our fears of such a Successor can an Act of Parliament be a better Defence to us now I fear such are fallen from their Faith and change their Devotion for carnal securities Let us be all of a piece not hot and then cold one while for relying on Providence and another time jealous to death and beating our Brains for safety as if there were no such thing as God in the World. The Question is not about the King 's imposing his Religion upon us for so I should have almost ador'd the Gentlemen that left their imployments but whether we will not impose our Religion upon the Friends of his Communion and this shows no bigottry in the King that he gives all Parties Liberty to muster exercise themselves according to their own Principles that he knows to be so very contrary to his An odd way of advancing Popery especially by foul play I wish any thing would satifie us And yet after so gratious a Declaration both to Church and Dissenters and that has so decent a regard to the concurrance of a Parliament too Who can be displeased Have we been Hunting Hawking Gaming and Marrying with Roman Catholicks these six and twenty Years and did they engage on the same side for the King's Father help to support the King abroad and labour the Restoration of the Royal Family to their Inheritance and are we now afraid of them for the Religion they had then or that they should have a few Offices with us in the Reign of a Prince of their own way that were the Companions of our sufferings and Pleasures methinks it looks ill natur'd at all times and indiscreet at this since 't is certain we may roundly and securely tell them You are upon your good behaviour Be moderate at your perril You are but a morfel of men and therefore as little feared as loved 'T is in your own power to be well with the Kingdom Know when you have enough and let us see you aim at no more then securing your civil Property and Interest in that of the Nation from any violence on the score of Religion and that meer matters of Faith and Worship of God shall disable no man of his Birth-right This Bottom is broad enough for all the interests of this Kingdom to meet upon and till God from Heaven send us with miracles an higher Principle of Union let us not neglect this lower but sure means of our Peace and Happiness To Conclude let us have a care of the Snake every where in the Grass in the Square in the Coffee-House in the Church ay and in the Meeting-House too for 't is ill company at all times and in all places Let us remember that not only the four but the seven last Raigns have prov'd Penal Laws an Enemy to the Peace and Wealth of the Kingdom and the strictest Tests no Security to the Government of it against the weight of its own miscarriages Let us forgive one another and look forward I am for having the Church of England keep the Chair but let the rest subsist To fix Government upon any Mode of Religion convulses it as often as that changes at least hazards it That which takes in all Interests is the best foundation for any Government because it is least exposed to State Contingencies Let us then bend our thoughts towards such an expedient as may secure Property to all the first reason of civil Government and that which every Party for its own Interest must close with Three things strictly speaking make an English man Ownership Consent in Parliament and Right of Juries We all know what Laws have been made and by whom to destroy these several Capacities that frame an English man amongst which pray let not that against Conventicles go for the least Let us see then what it is that divests us of these Native Priviledges and like true English men Christians let us remove it that in the Raign of a King so ready to disapoint the Enemies of his Glory by repairing the Breaches of his People and of the old true civil Government of his Kingdom we may not be wanting to our selves and our Posterity in another Great Charter to bury all our Prejudices and Establish a lasting Civil union among the Inhabitants of this Ancient and Famous Kingdom Yours more then my own FINIS
reason the Church of England gives for the keeping up the Penal Laws for her own To remove this Difficulty and to make the methods of their security meet has God knows been my only drift that so false Notions of Preservation might not destroy us when the means of our common safety are so obvious to us The general and deep Prejudices men entertain against Popery will hardly suffer them to diliberate for their own benefit If a Ship be near a Rock I think the danger should not frighten away the Masters wits when he has most need of them for a common Safety I beg the Gentlemen of the Church of England but to think and I am Sure they will find me less Criminal in my other Letter to you For is any thing truer then that the Papists court a legal Ease need they this if they design Force or were it worth their Labouring Again cannot a Law be made to fix Liberty of Conscience that they shall as uneasily violate as these the Church calls her Bulwark If the Laws in Question were defensive only God forbid that I should attempt to lessen her security I declare in the presence of God I would not but when they are offensive and destroying to other People and those of the most peaceable Principles who have neither Interest nor Arts to defend them she must Pardon me if I oppose my self to their Teeth and Sting It is also as true that her Dissenters are of no use to her unless these Shackles are taken off That if she does not fear Liberty more then Popery she must yeild the point desired for their sake because her own That for every Enemy she releases by it she has an hundred Friends to secure her against Him. That she must remember she is but a part of the whole and should not flatter her self with Numbers not of her Communion especially while they sleep with naked Swords hanging by Hairs over their Heads and so are made uncapable to serve her Again pray can she think that force becomes a Gospel Church that it is not using against Popery what she accuses it for and by it condemns her self Is it not taking Sanctuary in human Strength instead of divine Truth that is al-sufficient to its own support That the Laws that remain secure the State and if any be wanting they may be added without keeping up the Ball of Vengeance by partial Provisions directed by one Party of the same People against an other under one and the same Government for this is puzling not serving Government Nor can any be great easie or successful where the Heads and Hands that should make it so are zealously disabled from that Duty and Service It seems a day wherein God is pleased to make use of the Necessities of Men to effect what Vertue and Wisdom should have taught us long ago to have done Agree I mean upon our civil common Interest And now we have a King who has so gracious a regard to Liberty and that chuses to recommend himself by so honest so tender and so equal a Principle and whose own Party tho they may want it most hereafter do least need it now and are the most feeble in number to make the use of it dangerous to the rest let us by no means loose the oppertunity of our own Happiness Nor can the Church of England refuse me my Petition to her but upon this single account the Insincerity of the King that must be her Snake in the Grass that Popery's at the Bottom Mark the end of this Liberty All 's well that ends well But this plainly implies my Arguments to be good and that if the King holds as he begins we shall all be happy Le ts see then why he should not do so tho it looks very ill in the high Sons of the Church to blow upon that Honour they have so often and so highly recommended for our Security First The King has given her his Word to maintain her at his coming to the Crown and has now repeated it to her for the whole time of his Reign in the most solemn manner that was possible out of Parliament Secondly If he be willing to turn this Promise into a Law at the repeal of those he would abolish when they meet and that to be sure he is ready to do there can be no room to doubt his Sincerity Thirdly He is compell'd to be sincere for Popery without him is but a Name in England and Lives by him and must otherwise expect to expire with him So that if it were possible for the People of his Communion to prevail with him to force his Religion upon the Kingdom tho I think it as impracticable as to set Westminster-Abby upon Bow-Steeple he must leave them to make satisfaction for the attempt in the next Reign Or conclude he never intends his Lawful Heirs to succeed him And they must take him for the worst of men to be guilty of an Injustice and Irreligion he has so often and solemnly and earnestly spoken against But if that were no security to us yet the ruin of those that in all probability must follow that attempt for whose sakes we suppose him to endanger us would obliege him to the soft obleiging methods he now takes So that we have his Honour Conscience Nature and the Security of his own Party for Ours Come 't is Disingenious to call Liberty of Conscience the Snake in the Grass that like the Balm of Gillead cures the Gaps and Sores that Time and private Interests have made And since he offers to confirm it by Law HE ONLY CHANGES THE SECVRITY HE DOES NOT DESTROY IT and which is more she is a gainer by it For whereas she is now the National Religion by Compulsion she will then keep her Station by Consent both extreams yeilding a preferrence to her and so she is neither hated nor envied by them I would have her further reflect that the keeping the Penal Laws on foot will not answer the end she does it for since she believes they will be suspended during the time she fears most and of the next Reign she has no apprehension and in the mean time she and the Protestant Dissenters have the Hands So that the only reason for maintaining them is the Awe they ought to give the Papists in this Kings time and yet if what she suggests be true that the Papists aim at all pray how far will those Laws awe them that for that reason should rather aim at all I say what good will that do her that must be the greatest Argument of the Force she fears they will use against her and if they have no such design there is no reason to keep them in awe but much to soften and engage them that we may all meet upon our common civil Bottom and as one People with one Heart Fear God after our own Perswasion Honour the King according to our Allegiance and Love