Selected quad for the lemma: master_n
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A52984
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A modest censure of the immodest letter to a dissenter, upon occasion of His Majesty's late gracious declaration for liberty of conscience by T.N. a true member of the Church of England.
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T. N., True member of the Church of England.; T. N., True member of the Church of England.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing N76; ESTC R10204
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21,456
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25
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his Clemency that with safety to our Temporal Interest we may be Ungrateful I have heard indeed that as many Bishops as were then in London did meet together upon the sense of their Duty to draw up an Address of Thanks to the King which having done they sent down Copies of it to some of their Brethren one of which and he as good a Casuist and as far from the Court as any of his Bench having seriously perus'd and consider'd it gave this Judgment of it That he highly approv'd it as prudently Penn'd and such an Acknowledgment of his Majesties Signal Favors to the Church of England and all her Members as their Gratitude and Duty indispensably oblig'd them to pay And he not only Subscrib'd it chearfully himself but us'd his best Diligence to procure Subscriptions of the Clergy to it in his Diocese and having receiv'd some nameless Letters like this of T. W. to dissuade him from Addreses and among the rest those call'd the Oxon. Reasons he answer'd them all to the satisfaction of all thinking Men who saw them and concluded That he saw nothing in them that look'd like a Reason against it only some groundless Fears and insignificant Jealousies and that if the Clergy at this time and in these Circumstances we now are should generall and obstinately deny in an humble Address to give his Majesty Thanks for so Gracious a Promise of preserving that ALTAR from being overthrown at which yet he did not worship he fear'd it would give him too much cause to say That he had little Reason to protect them who so peremptorily refus'd as the Motion of their own Bishop to Thank him for it And others wish'd that the niceness of particular Men where in truth no need was did not at last hazard the whole and so indeed it must have done had not his Majesty in imitation of HIM whom he Represents among us of his great and undeserv'd Mercy been Kind to the Vnthankful and according to his accustom'd Goodness spar'd the Church for the sake of the smaller visible number that were in it so great Grace may if they are not past cure heal their Infidelity and Revolt from their Duty especially when they are thus invited to believe and adhere to a Prince of whom we have had sufficient Experience that he will no more recede from his Promise than he would fly from his Enemy in the Day of Battel If the nature of Thanks be so unavoidable a Consequence of being pleas'd or oblig'd as our Author confesses and they will presently shew themselves in Looks Speeches Writing and Actions then they from whom Thanks do not naturally flow upon so just and great an Occasion are to be reckon'd among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those unholy and unthankful Men whom the Apostle foretells us will arise in the latter days who not only will give no Thanks but have none to give If our Obligations were less and our Sense of the Religion of Gratitude as little as our Authors yet I wonder he should be offended at such an innocent and usual piece of Good Manners He would make us suspect him for one of the Members of Forty Eight who Voted no more Addresses to be made to the King for he is so mightily netled at these weekly Addresses of Loyal Men from all Parts of the Kingdom that he would make us believe if we consulted the Bills of Mortality we should find some numbers murder'd by them He tells us that the Priests who are not proper Secretaries for the Protestant Religion made the first Draughts of them A Scotchman would take the liberty to tell him that he were very good Company and an Englishman would wonder how he came to be so privy to this Secret unless he were at their Elbows when the Priests Indited them These extravagant Acknowledgments as he calls them extravagantly enough which he pretends all the Post-horses are tir'd with carrying Circular Letters to solicit give us a Copy of his Countenance And that where Persuasions cannot delude Threatnings are employ'd to fright Men into a Compliance but where or by whom he knows not And that the manner of getting them did extremely lessen their value And that the Thanks which fill'd the Gazetts were either Trifles or Snares which either signifi'd nothing or a great deal more than was intended by them who gave them By all which he proves himself a greater Master of his Pen than his Passions that his Wit is more than his Manners and that his Republican Zeal has like a Cormorant devour'd his Charity to his Fellow Subjects and his Loyalty to his Prince Do not his Objections to his Majesties Belief now hinder him from seeing his Vertues whilst he instigates others to discredit and disobey him One would think he himself who pretends to be a Son of the Church of England made but a Jest of the Doctrin of Non-resistance whilst he is so fearful of the Submission of his Fellow Subjects to the King 's so just and reasonable Expectation from them Is not our Peace at Home and our Prince's Reputation abroad of more value than to be hazarded for want of a Complement as he calls it If I did not think it a Task too hard for me to persuade a Man so bewitch'd with a turbulent Spirit as he is to grow more peaceable and thought he were not so far gone in his new Passion but that he would hear still I would not be discourag'd from dissuading him to relie on a Death-bed Repentance If he have not engag'd himself in the Ways of Faction in an Association beyond Retreat and be not hurry'd on by his first Heat I would request him to look back upon what he has written before it be too late and not sacrifice the true public Interest of the Nation to his private Revenge which will speak him a Man of good Morality and Understanding as well as a great Wit But I fear that as he has betray'd too much Weakness in entertaining and propagating these groundless Fears and Jealousies by which he speaks his Spleen and not his Conscience so he will shew too much Obstinacy to forsake and recant them being none of those who thinks himself oblig'd to obey for Conscience sake And now I leave T. W. to review his own Reasons and consider whether they be not too weak to acquit him from Uncharity and Disloyalty in charging his Sovereign with Treachery in the Declaration of his Mercy to Dissenters or which is much the same in persuading Dissenters to suspect him And the worst I wish him is that the sense of his Guilt may make him a true Penitent I proceed to the Second Part of his Design which is To excite the Dissenters to use their Interest against the Establishment of that Liberty by Law which his Majesties Clemency hath Indulged to them If he can persuade the Dissenters to throw the King's Declaration of Indulgence at his Head which is within the Bounds
and lest they should imitate her Faults he cautions them against seeking to be reveng'd by attempting the Repeal of them Whether this Instance of his Desperation will be as successful as the King of Moab's and prevail with his Adversaries to quit their Advantage I know not but if it do they are certainly very good-natur'd Adversaries in both the Acceptations of the Phrase whether it denote the excess of their Kindness or the defect of their Understandings Some Men are so Spiderspirited as to suck Poyson out of the sweetest Flowers For my part I cannot think so ill of those Great Men who suffer'd with so much Christian Patience for their Loyalty as that they came from under the Rod breathing nothing but Revenge against their Persecutors It is a more just Account and suitable to the Character of their Piety and Loyalty that what they then did in Severity against the Dissenters was not from private Revenge but from the Necessities of the Kingly Government to which the Dissenters had been very pernicious and which they thought could not be safe at that time without the suppressing of them But if his Suggestion were true that the Penal Laws against Dissenters were made out of Revenge what Argument is this against their endeavoring the Repeal of them Unless it were Criminal to seek for a Release from the Injuries that Revenge hath laid upon them or a Sin to flee from the Avenger of Blood into the City of Refuge To Retaliate Injuries is a Crime but to seek for Protection and Ease from them is not And I see not but that the Dissenters if they be according to his Character of them pag. 10. Men of good Morality and Understanding may thus argue The Church of England after the late King's Restauration sacrific'd its Interest to Revenge in making the Penal Laws against us and therefore we may lawfully for our own Ease endeavor the Repeal of them and not lose the present Opportunity to rescue our selves out of her avenging Hand But to mend the matter he tells us pag. 10. that the Common Danger had now so laid open the Mistake that all former Haughtiness of the Church of England toward them is for ever extinguish'd and hath turn'd the Spirit of Persecution into a Spirit of Peace Charity and Condescention A fit Argument to infer this Conclusion Therefore the Dissenters ought not to endeavor their own Ease Whereas this seems the more natural Inference That therefore the Church of England will now joyn her Endeavors with them for the Repealing of those Laws the Enacting and Execution of which he imputes to a Spirit of Persecution But to do the Church of England right against these malicious Suggestions I am sure her Principles are against Persecution or any thing of Violence and Cruelty toward any for Religion And whatever may have been the Practices of some rigid and violent Persons of her Communion the most Wise Pious and Learned of them have still declar'd it unlawful to make any Sufferers for their Conscience unless where it interferes with the Peace and Safety of the State They would have no Man's invincible Persuasion in Religion be made High Treason as it was in Sir Tho. More 's and the Bishop of Rochester's Cases The Opinions in Religion that are inauspicious to the Government they think ought to be punish'd not because they are Errors in Religion but because they are Seditious and dangerous to the Government Now when they are and when they are not so as the change of Circumstances in the State may alter their Prospect on it the Government is more proper to judge than the Church and when that thinks its Safety not endanger'd by the toleration of them she is not for punishing them According to which Principle by the same Reason that she was for making the Penal Laws formerly she may now be for their Repeal because the Government thinks it self safe without them And this I think is almost the only thing wherein T. W. doth not Misrepresent her That now she is really for the Ease of Tender Consciences not as he brings in her Enemies suggesting p. 12. because she wants Power to Oppress but because the change of Circumstances in the Government makes the Opinions of Dissenters whether Protestant or Popish not so dangerous to the Peace of the State or the Authority of the Civil Powers as formerly they have been And this she may modestly conclude because the King and his Council have thought fit to Indulge them whose Interest obliges them to be most Impartial and whose Experience in State Affairs makes them most able to judge of such things The State was then in such real or imaginary Dangers as it is not now The Succession of the King to the Crown is not now in Dispute nor is Dominion believ'd to be founded in Grace if such Times should come again the old Severities might be soon reinforced Whilst we are in no danger of them let us put them into a Condition of Ease and Safety frankly that they may have no just Prejudice against us or our Religion and that the King who is intitled to the Service of every Subject of his of what Persuasion soever by the Law of Nature and the Common Law of the Land of which no Act or Parliament can or ought to bar him may make use of their Persons and Services according to his own Discretion Why should not his Catholic Subjects be equally capacitated to render him Service and be united with us in the same Bonds of Duty and Allegiance tho' they cannot accord with us in Matters of Religion Why should we shew so much Violence in those Points of Faith of which perhaps we can shew no certain Evidence The decrepit World in the twilight of its declining Age may be easily mistaken in the Colours of Good and Evil true or false Their Merits have been great of the Crown and their Sufferings more than Ours and why then should we repine to see the long deserv'd deferr'd Rewards of their Loyalty conferr'd upon them at last Let our onely Emulation be who shall serve him best Princes are not to be Catechis'd in bestowing their Honors or Offices nor could we think he had any true Zeal for his Religion if he should not countenance and preserve them at least caeteris paribus with others if not before them Suppose our repining should provoke him to turn the Tables upon us and to employ no Officers or Servants about him but Roman-Catholics whom could we reasonably blame but our selves Let the King unite them and us in one Camp and Court in God's Name and let there always be a Religious Correspondence between them and us in the Service of so great and so good a Master To dispute his Power in this Case were to deny him the choice of his Servants which we should think a Wrong to the meanest of us to be depriv'd of and also to rob him of the Militia of the