year of her Majesties Reign in an Act then made it is recited That the Queens Highness in Her Letters Patent to any Archbishop Bishop or others for Confirming Investing and Consecrating of any Person elected to the Office or Dignity of any Archbishop or Bishop had not only used such Words and Sentences as were accustomed to be used by King Henry and King Edward her Majesties Father and Brother in their like Letters Patents made for such Causes But also had used and put in her Maiesties said Letters Patent divers other general VVords and Sentences whereby her Highness by her Supream Power and Authority had dispensed with all causes or doubts of any imperfection or disability that could or might in any wise be objected against the same And the same Statute declares That all Acts and Things done by any Person or Persons by vertue of her Majesties Letters Patents or Commission about any Consecration Confirmation or Investing of any Person or Persons elected to the Office or Dignity of any Archbishop or Bishop within this Realm or any other her Majesties Dominions since the beginning of Her Reign should be judged and deemed by Authority of that Parliament at and from every of the several times of the doing thereof good and perfect to all respects and purposes any matter or thing that could or might be objected to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding and provides that all tenders of the Oath of Supremacy before that Sessions by vertue of any Act made in the first Session of that Parliament which was about three years before and all refusals of the Oath so tendered by any Archbishop or Bishop should be void and of none effect or validity in the Law and that no person or persons should at any time afterwards be impeached or molested in Body Lands Livings or Goods by occasion or mean of any such Certificate touching or concerning the refusal of the said Oath and in the preamble of this Act it is declared That the State of the Clergy being one of the greatest States of this Realm it was thought convenient thereby to touch such Authorities as did allow and approve the making and consecrating of the Archbishops and Bishops to be duly and orderly done according to Law. By which proceedings it may appear That the extent of the Oath of Supremacy as it might have been taken to be by the first Statute was by the Queens Admonitions explained limited and restrained Any deficiences which were or might be construed to be in the second Act or in such words and sentences as were used by her Predecessors for Confirming Investing or Consecrating Archbishops or Bishops being one of the great States of this Realm were by general words and sentences in the Queens Letters Patent and Commissions supplyed All causes and doubts of any imperfection or disability were by the Queens Highness Supream Power and Authority removed out of the way and all that was done pursuant thereunto declared to be good and perfect at and from the time of the doing thereof In the King's Apology before mentioned his Majesty reflects upon the Pope for having in his Breve dealt both indiscreetly with his Majesty and injuriously with his own Catholicks With his Majesty in not refuting particularly what special words he quarrell'd in that Oath which if he had done It might have been that for the fatherly care the King had not to put any of his subjects to a needless extremity he might have been contented in some sort to have reformed or interpreted those words With his own Catholicks for either if the King had so done they had been thereby fully eased in that business or at least if he would not have condescended to have altered any thing in the said Oath yet would thereby some appearance or shadow of excuse have been left unto them for refusing the same not as seeming thereby to swerve from their Obedience and Allegiance unto him but only being staid from taking the same upon the scrupulous tenderness of their Consciences in regard of those particular words Herein if the King does not assert his Prerogative to extend to reforming the words of an Oath Established by Law for the ease of the Consciences of some of his Subjects yet his Majesty plainly intimates some regard is to be had to those who did not swerve from their obedience but were only staid from taking this Oath through scruples of Conscience In the Reign of King Edward the Sixth Queen Elizabeth King James the First King Charles the First King Charles the Second divers Grants were made or confirmed and Toleration given to Strangers for exercise of Religion in the Principal Cities and Towns of England as London Norwich Canterbury and Southampton in Forms different from the Act of Uniformity of worship with a Non obstante to that Act And Charters in like manner in the Reign of all or some of the three last Kings to divers of their own Subjects for exercise of Religion according to their Consciences in Forreign parts within their Majesties Dominions with a dispensation as to Laws in force relating to Religion and requiring Oaths of Obedience in the form prescribed by such Laws and though some of these Dissenters who obtained these Grants have contrary to the common rules of Justice and Equity inflicted temporal penalties upon such of their brethren as have dissented from the forms of Worship established by their own municipal Laws and have therein usurped a power over Conscience which they desired and obtained by Grant from the King might not be exercised in reference to themselves yet those Regal Grants made to secure them from the penalties which otherwise they might have incurred by their Nonconformity to the General Laws in being respecting Religion Sacrament and Oaths which reacht not only throughout the Realm of England but all other their Majesties Dominions have been continued and renewed without ever being taken notice of in Parliament as an extention of the Kings Prerogative beyond the due bounds of Law. By all which instances it seems to me evident that his present Majesty has not by his Gracious Declaration of Indulgence exercised his Prerogative in any Case or upon any other Grounds than has been done before by his Royal Predecessors respecting the nature of the things but only in the degree as it is a more general extensive and comprehensive Act of Grace than any of those special Grants which have been made by his Progenitors grounded upon the most universal and evident Maximes of Religion and Civil Government viz. That his Majesty may have the benefit of the service of all his Loving Subjects which by the law of nature is inseparably annext to and inherent in his Royal Person without imposing upon any of them such Religious Tests or Oaths as they cannot in Conscience to God submit to The present Laws which require taking of the Sacrament Oaths or Tests in order to a residing in the Kings Courts or presence or
hand and all Calumny and Equivocations under the Name of the Church of England on the other hand so as to beget a right Understanding and perfect Reconciling of the Church of England and Protestant-Dissenters The only visible way is to have such to represent them in Parliament as will join in their humble supplications to the King That the National Church by Law Established with all its Rights may be Confirmed by a New Law removing Temporal Penalties for the Cause of Religion which have been and will be the occasions of Discord out of the way on such Terms as are propos'd in His Majesties Declaration and as may please the King in Parliament to grant it Fourth For the same reason that His Lordship would rot have such Poenal Laws and Tests repealed as tend to secure the Resormed Religion and keep Roman Catholicks out of publick imployments which they have not done nor can do It follows where there are Laws and Tests which tend to keep many Persons out of publick imployments who are every other way qualified for it and if they could be admitted would by their Behaviour as well in their publick Stations as by their general Conversation not only secure but greatly promote the Reformed Religion that there should be a Repeal in part or such other qualifying those Laws and Tests as that such Persons may not for their Consciencious Non-conformity to such Circumstances of Religion as are thereby required be excluded from publick Stations and tho' their Highnesses Concessions be very large on behalf of such Persons yet this may extend to such Laws as his Lordship might not have in his Thoughts when he writ his Letter viz. one made in the Thirteenth and another in the Fourteenth Year of the Reign of His Late Majesty King CHARLES the Second the First for Regnlating of Corporations respecting Civil Offices the Second for Uniformity of publick Prayers Administration of Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies relating to the Clergy Masters and Fellows of Colleges and School-Masters By one of these Laws great Change of Hands was made in Civil Imployments throughout all the Cities and Corporations in England and by the other of them at least 1500 Ministers were deprived of their Benefices many of which were sam'd abroad by their Works and at home for their profound Learning and exemplary Piety And how much these Alterations and Deprivations have tended to the Security of the Reformed Religion and left any sort of men out of a capacity to hurt it such as have liv'd and been of age and sobriety of Mind to discern in what degree the Conversation of Multitudes have in Twenty five Years past varied from what they were Twenty five Years before are best able to give a true Relation Fifth Because of that doleful experience which this Island has had of the ill consequence of all sorts of Religious Laws and Tests with Temporal Penalties annext By which for these 50 years past at divers Seasons each different party of Protestants alternately as they have had power in their hands or countenance of Authority have impos'd upon such as differ'd from them in forms of publick Worship principally upon this point to thrust and keep each other out of places of Trust and publick Imployment which has visibly and sensibly done more hurt to the Reformed Religion than all the attempts of their Adversaries could otherwise have effected This manifestly calls upon them all to surcease from all such riged courses which none of them can now either in Conscience or Prudence defend and by a joynt concurrence to endeavour a removal of all such occasions of offence out of the way that it may not be in the power of any who wait for opportunities under colour of Law to set Protestants at variance amongst themselves that they may bite devour and be devoured by one another and let not any apprehension that such a course at this Season will let in Papist amongst them into Civil or Military imployments cause them to neglect the present opportunity for seeing the continuance of these Religious Laws and Tests with temporal Penalties annext neither does nor can keep them out it is certainly more safe if there were no natural equity or right in the case and much more since there is so to let them in under due cautions by a Stated Law than to tempt them to get all the power they can into their own hands by Arbitrary means because they cannot be secur'd by Law in the enjoyment of Civil Priviledges equally and in common with others Sixth Because of that necessity we are under of making one more experiment whether those of the Communion of the Church of England Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholicks cannot live peaceably together and maintain a good correspondence in places of publick trust and imployments notwithstanding their different Sentiments in Religion For his Majesty has actually mingled and placed together some of each sort in many Commissions for publick trusts and imployments And if it be so as my Lord Fagell asserts That plain Reason as well as Experience of all Ages Pag. 6. That Present as well as the Past shews That it will be impossible for Roman Catholicks and Protestants when they are mixed together in places of trust and publick imployments to live together peaceably or to maintain a good correspondence together they will be certainly alwaies jealous one of another for the principles and maximes of both Religions are so opposite to one another that in his opinion he does not see how it will be in the power of any Prince or King whatsoever to keep down those suspitions and animosities which will be apt to arise upon all occasions This certainly calls for such a necessary and timely provision to be made by a new Law for prevention of such Suspition and Animosities as cannot be expected from our present Religious poenal Laws and Tests In order thereto His Majesty by his gracious and prudent Conduct in the Exercise of His Prerogative has laid the Foundation And that it may be perpetuated doubts not of the concurrence of His Two Houses of Parliament to establish and confirm it by a Law And herein His Majesty proposes a Variation from the Laws and Customs of all such other States as my Lord Fagell mentioned who receive none into a share in the Government or to publick Imployments but those who profess the publick and established Religion It is not material to enquire how the experience of all Ages has manifested that to be impossible which no State would ever admit to be tryed but it is to our purpose to take notice That where any considerable Party of Men have been born hard upon by the Laws and Government in their Civil Rights for their Religions sake their uneasiness therein has inclined them to lay hold of any occasion to free themselves from such Pressures and as they apprehended it did arise from the Religious Principles of such as opprest them
OF ALL HIS LOVING SUBJECTS The other granted by their Highnesses THAT NO CHRISTIAN OUGHT TO BE ILL USED BECAUSE HE DIFFERS FROM THE PULICK AND ESTABLISHED RELIGION There is one thing more occurs which I shall offer to consideration which seems to me taken singly if there were no more to be alledged in this case a good reason why these Penal Laws which require the taking of the Sacrament Oaths and Tests should be either in express terms repealed or which is tantamount by some new Law so explained and limitted as that the Penalties and Disabilites may not be inevitable but some way or other by and consistent with the discharge of a good Conscience towards God and the King be avoided For as the case now stands His Majesty being pleased to Nominate Authorize and Appoint many Persons who are Dissenters from the Established Religion and in that regard cannot with a good Conscience take Sacraments Oaths and Tests in the manner they are enjoyned to execute several publick Offices and some such Persons may also be Called or Elected to serve in Parliament If any of them do refuse to serve in any of these publick Offices or Places of Trust they are by our Laws liable to be very ill used by Fines and Imprisonments and that justly too as is presumed because they refuse to Execute such Offices and Places of Trust as are not only Lawful but Necessary and must be Executed by them or some others No Man can by our present Laws excuse himself when he is not legally priviledged or exempted from any Service to which he is lawfully called by his own Default that is by his not qualifying himself according to the Directions of Law for the Execution of those Places and if he do accept and serve in those Places without such a Qualfication to which he cannot in Conscience submit he is obnoxious to as ill usage for Serving and Acting in those Offices and Places of Trust as if he refused so that until the Law be otherwise declared or some suiteable Provision in this case made by some other Law. Such as are most consciencious and desirous to discharge that respective Duty which they ow to God their King and their Country in our present Circumstances are more liable then any others to be very ill used and if this be well considered that the King who has the sole Nomination and Power to Authorize such Persons as he pleases to serve in places of highest Judicature and Trust And Electors if they may have their free Choice as by Law they ought to have will probably in many places chuse such as are Dissenters to serve in Parliament when his Majesty shall please to send out his Writs for that purpose It ought to be shewn That as the Laws now are the King has no Power to Appoint or Command and the Electors no Power to chuse such Persons to serve in Offices or Places of Trust or otherwise it is requisit that these present Laws be Repealed or so far altered and limitted that such as are Dissenters may be secured in their Consciences Civil Liberties and Properties either for serving without taking the Sacrament Oaths and Tests or for refusing to serve because they cannot take them and whosoever shall well weigh the apparent Inconveniences and ill Consequences that are likely to follow on the one Hand by any Person being permitted to excuse himself from a hazardous or chargeable Office or Place of Trust upon pretence of Conscience and the difficulty of contriving any such Law as shall limit the Kings Prerogative and the Subjects Election so as that the King shall not command any of his Subjects to attend his Person serve in Parliament or execute any publick Office or Imployment Civil or Military but such only as voluntarily have or will take the Sacrament Oaths and Tests and so as the Penalty incurred shall fall upon the Persons who Elect any Man to serve in Parliament or to any such Office in case the Person Elected will not Voluntary take them in manner as by Law prescribed And if it be consider'd on the other Hand how justifiable and equal it is and how we may be by other ways secured against all Hazards if these Penal Laws and Tests be Repealed It may appear more easie and safe to Repeal these Laws and Tests then to contrive any New Law consistent with the continuance of those Laws in force which shall be effectual to remedy the aforementioned and now unavoidable Inconveniences What his Lordship says pag. 4 5. That there is a great difference to be observed in the Conduct of those of the Reformed Religion where they have the Government towards Roman Catholick's and of the Conduct of the Roman Catholick's where they have the Government towards such as are of the Reformed Religion connot be denyed and this may be a caution why no Protestant Governors of a Protestant Nation should voluntarily invite any Roman Catholick's to take a share with them in their Government who cannot claim any right in it but this does not reach our Case at all We are providentially brought under the Government of a Sovereign Prince who is of the Roman Catholick Religion And he hath many Subjects of the same Religion who by the Laws of Nature claim according to their Quality and Numbers an equal share with others in the enjoyment of Civil Rights and Priviledges and under our present Circumstances it is equally as unjust unsafe to press for the execution of such Penal Laws against them for their Religions sake as it would be to press for the observance of Rules made in a common Case when we fall under such Emergenies as require the supersion of them Besides as we have a Prince of the Roman Catholick Religion so we have also a Soveraign who in this respect differs from and excels all others of that Religion in that His desires are to settle all things on such a Foundation as may be a lasting security to all his Subjects so far as Soveraign Power the wisdom of a Parliament subjects consent and common interest of the whole can provide that none of them may suffer any dammage in their civil Rights for the sake of their Religion and that all civil Interests notwithstanding their different opinions in Religion may be united in the common defence and Security of his Majesties Kingdoms a thing most desirable in its self and most conducible to the Safety Welfare and Honour of the Nation Other Neighbouring Kings and States may well be jealous of and underhand indeavour what they can to prevent such a Settlement but in contemplation that their Highnesses are in a possibility of suceeding in the Throne I see no reason why it should not be esteemed their Interest to promote the settlement of his Majesties Three Kingdomes on suth a Foundation of Peace and Union as is designed by his Royal and Gracious Declaration And if none of these things which I have written can prevail with his Lordship to move their Highnesses to give their Consent and Assistance upon such due terms of caution as are offered by his Majesty to the repeal of these Penal Laws and Tests which stand in the way of such a peaceable and lasting Settlement as is proposed and desired yet I hope it may prevail with him so to represent to their Highnesses such of the Dissenters as in their respective Stations indeavour the accomplishment thereof as that their Highnesses may not be offended thereat Because what they have done and shall do herein IS OUT OF GRATITUDE AND DUTY TO HIS MAJESTY OBEDIENCE TO THE GENERAL LAWS BOTH OF NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION AND LOVE TO THE PRINCIPLES AND PROSPERITY OF THE REFORMED RELIGION Which forbids every Man to do that to another which he would not have done to himself and commands every Man to do his present duty to God in the first place and to his present Soveraign in the next place leaving the success and future events of their so doing to the Wise and Gracious disposal of God who judgeth amongst the Gods sitteth upon the Floods as King for ever does Rule and Will over-Rule all things as for his own Glory so also for the good of them that sear him and knows how to deliver the Godly out of Tamptations Into whose Hands it is better to commit the keeping of our Souls in well-doing with such hazards as attend the outward Man then for the preservation of the outward Man to strain any Religious Opinion in reference to civil Concerns in any such manner or measure as is inconsistent with the general Laws of Religion and Nature for whoever makes use of any such method to preserve his civil Concerns or defend or propagate his Religion it may be suspected he is either wrong in his Opinion or takes a wrong course to maintain it FINIS
by whole sale and if it should ever hereafter happen upon proof That any of our English Roman Catholicks should do Eminent Service in defence of the Public Peace and Liberty I make no doubt but the consequence would extend farther with respect unto such individual Persons then it did with the Papists in the Netherlands For greater Fidelity to the Publick Interest could not be shewn then to hazard their Lives and Persevere in their Constancy with the Reformed Protestants in defence of their Civil Liberties against Armies of their own Religion when any Act of Treachery as the Princes of the Philistians said to the King of Gath concerning King David might have Reconciled them to those of their own Communion 1 Sam. 27.4 5. perhaps with a secular Advantage to themselves and Hazard if not certain Ruine of the Lives and Liberties of the Reformed Protestants Certainly those Individual Persons if the Conditions of their Service were not before hand expresly limited to a Military Station might think they were hardly used to be excluded by Name for the sake of their Religion from all share in the Government and other publick Imployments which they had been instrumental with others to recover and defend There is one passage more in his Lordship's Letter which will lead me to what I have farther to add upon this occasion His Lordship says He would gladly see one single good Reason to move a Protestant that fears God and that is concerned for his Religion to consent to the Repealing of those Laws that have been Enacted by the Authority of the King and Parliament which have no other Tendency but to the Security of the Reformed Religion and to the restraining of the Roman Catholicks from a capacity of overturning it These Laws inflict neither Fines nor Punishments and do only Exclude the Roman Catholicks from a share in the Government who by being in Employments must needs study to Encrease their Party and to gain to it more Credit and Power which by what we see every day we must conclude will be extreamly dangerous to the Reformed Religion and must turn to its great Prejudice I have before declared I have been long reckoned among dissenting Protestants and do acknowledge it is my Duty above all earthly things to Fear GOD and to be concerned for my Religion But I must beg his Lordships patience and permission to enquire into the true meaning of this Passage before I attempt to satisfy his Lordships desire 1. Because I cannot find any such Law as is effectual our present State considered to keep Reman Catholicks and no others out of Imployments or that do not either directly or of necessary consequence tend to the inflicting of Fines and Punishments on them or any other Dissenters if they resuse or without the qualifications required accept the execution of those imployments 2. I premise there may be an Explaining Qualisying or Repealing any Laws in part without a general or absolute Repeal of the whole Law an instance of this kind we have in the Reign of King James the First in the Third year of His Reign a Law was made for some persons taking and subscribing the Oath commonly called the Oath of Allegiance in the form prescribed In the Seventh year of the same King another Law was made wherein notice is taken of a just desence of the said Oath against false and unsound Arguments undertaken and performed by the Kings Majesty to the great contentment of all his loving Subjects notwithstanding the gain-saying of contentious adversaries and in this last Act it is said That the form of the Oath tends only to the Declaration of such duty as every true and well-affected subject not only by bond of Allegiance but also by the command of Almighty GOD ought to bare to his Majesty his Heirs and Successors And Enacts That every person above the age of Eighteen years therein mentioned and intended shall Make Take and Receive a Corporal Oath upon the Evangelists according to the Tenor and Effect of the said Oath set forth in the first mentioned Statute before such persons as are in that Act expressed In the Kings Epistle to all Christian Monarchs Free-Princes and States Prefixt to his Apology his Majesty declares That his Intent in that Oath was only to meddle with that due temporal obedience which his Subjects owed to him and not to intrap nor inthrall their Consciences And in Answer to the Popes Second Breve That such as had taken this Oath had sworn to no more than their Natural Allegience The Kings Intent being thus declared His Apology approved by Parliament and the Oath Explained satisfied many so as to take the said Oath which otherwise would have scrupled it Another instance we have in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in the First year of her Majesties Reign that Statute which prescribes and enjoyns the taking of the Oath called the Oath of Supremacy by all the Clergy and Temporal Officers whereby they obliged themselves to assist and desend the Queens Highness her Heirs and Successors in all Jurisdictions united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm does also among other things unite and annex to the Crown all Jurisdictions Spiritual and Ecclesiastical which had before or might Lawfully be exercised for Reformation of all manner of Errors Heresies and Schisms This Act and Oath occasioned many seruples in the minds of her Majesties Subjects for which cause soon after the dissolution of this Parliament and about four years before the Calling of the next her Majesty besides the dispensations which she gave to particular Persons upon special reasons published a Book commonly called the Queens Injunctions wherein she was graciously pleased by her Power in Ecclesiastical Affairs to declare such a construction and sense of the words of this Oath exprest in other words much different as gave Her Subjects in general relief therein and acquitted such of them as should in the sense she declared take the said Oath from all manner of Penalties which were very great against such as should refuse to take the same In the next succeeding Parliament which was held in the Fifth year of her Majesties Reign this Oath of Supremacy was enjoyned to be taken not only by all such persons as were mentioned in the former Act but also by every Member of the Commons House of Parliament and it was Enacted That such as should enter into the Parliament House without taking the said Oath should be deemed no Member thereof and should suffer such pains and penalties as if he had presumed to sit in the same whithout Election Return or Authority But it was also therein provided That the said Oath should be taken and expounded in such form as was set forth in an Admonition annexed to the Queens Majesties Injunctions published in the First year of her Majesties Reign which was exprest in the Act and refer'd to the said Injunctions by which it more plainly appeared and in the Eighth
Lordship be mistaken concerning the Laws and Constitutions of Our Kingdom there is the like Occasion for a Right Information therein to be given to his Lordship and all others who concern themselves therein And as he subjoyns the Reasons why the Roman Catholick's are not shut out of Military Employments but are Excluded by Name from all share in the Government and from all Employments either of the Policy or Justice of their Country so I may humbly offer to His Lordships further Consideration such Reasons as I think to be cogent why no Dissenter Roman Catholick nor Protestant if Commanded and Authorized by the King and in all other Respects not touching his Religion duly qualified according to Law to Execute any Employment Civil or Military should be Excluded from thence purely because his Religion or manner of Worship is different from that which by Statute-Law is Establish'd to be the publick Worship of the Nation I doubt not but that forementioned Maxim which tends to and is necessary for the Maintenance of publick Peace and equal Justice and which is before declared to be the Opinion of their Highnesses is built upon the same Foundation which his Lordship declares to be the ground why he is very much against all those who would Page 3. Persecute any Christian because he differs from the Publick Establish'd Religion Scil. Because that Light with which Religion Illuminates Our Minds is purely an Effect of God's Mercy to us and inclines to Pity and Pray for those who Err That God would bring them into the Way of Truth and to use all Gentle and Friendly Methods for Reducing them to it And his Lordship may very well say That He could never Comprehend for I think it is not to be Comprehended by any man how any that Profess themselves Christians and that may Enjoy their Religion freely and without any Disturbance can judge it lawful for them to go about to disturb the Quiet of any Kingdom or State or to Overturn Constitutions that so they themselves may be Admitted into Employments And let me add to this from the like Reasons of State and Obligation of Religion I can as little apprehend how any that are of the National Religion and may enjoy both that and all the publick Benefits of it freely and without any Disturbance can go about to disturb the Quiet of this Kingdom and to make not only Religious but our Civil Constitutions so to jarr and justle one against another as to threaten the over turning of the whole That so under the Umbrage of Statute Laws in some Respects incoherent if not with the Fundamental Law yet with the present State and Management of Publick Affairs they themselves may be the only Persons capable of Employments Exclusive of those many Myriads in the Nation who upon a Civil Account may justly desire that such Statute Laws may in an orderly Method be either in part or in whole Repealed or so Limited or Explained as that they may not for the future be any more than others of His Majesty's Subjects entangled in or subjected to a loss of their Civil Rights for a good Conscience towards God or Obedience to the Commands of their King in such things as are in their own Nature not only lawful but necessary to be done It may be his Lordship has not taken such strict notice of the Nature of the Government Constitutions and different Qualities of the Respective kinds of the Laws of England as he has done of those of his own Countrey all which are necessary to be known and well pondred before any Solid Judgment can be made in Respect of such Proceedings as have been and are like to be amongst us in the disposal and calling of Persons to Offices Places of Trust and Publick Employments His Lordship is pleased frequently in his Letter to put a great Emphasis upon such Laws as he would not have Repealed in that they are made both by King and Parliament whereas setting aside the subject matter there is nothing more in this then what is requisite to every Statute that passes into a Law some of which have never been observed at all but openly broken every day and no man ever Prosecuted for the breach of it Others Prohibiting some sorts of Trades and Merchandizes which have been Evaded Neglected or Counived at or Dispensed withal upon divers Occasions not needful to be mentioned Nothing is more frequent amongst us then to have Statute Laws made in one Parliament to be Repealed in part or in whole by the next Succeeding and sometimes in the same Parliament if of any Long Continuance But on the other hand the Sages of our Law have in their Law Books delivered certain Fundamental Maxims from which we can never recede as that If a Statute Law should be made contrary to Common Right and the General Law of Nature Reason or Scripture such a Law would be void of it self And when Actions have been grounded upon a particular Statute which in the ordinary construction of words did seem to Intrench upon any Fundamental Maxims Our Judges have given another Interpretation of such Statutes then the words in common construction would bear rather then give Judgment in any special case against such General and Fundamental Maxims The King's Prerogative is part of the Common Law of England and as this is expresly saved in several Statutes so it hath been frequently Interpreted by the Sages of our Law to extend to the Dispensing with Suspending or Pardoning of any Penalty incurred by a Statute-Law whereby no Subject can derive a particular damage to himself and wherein the Kings Power is not expresly limited And where the nature of the Offence is such as may be dispensed with the King is not confined to Number Place or Time for That the Law leaves indefinitely to His Pleasure that the Remedy may be proportionable to the Occasion And tho every Penal Statute is intended in some sense Pro Bono Publico yet it may not be Pro Bono Singulorum Populi And in such cases the Offence is understood to be only to the King's damage in His Publick Capacity of Supream Governour and therefore wronging none but Himself His Prerogative may be Exercised as oft and as largly as he is Gratiously Pleased it shall be in Acts of Mercy Kindness and Goodness to any of His Subjects who are Obnoxious to Penalties by breach of Penal Laws so as no other of His Subjects be injur'd thereby in their particular Rights And in many cases with a Non-obstante in His Grant to a Non-obstante in an Act of Parliament therein Recited His Lordship is pleased to say That it is contrary to the Laws and Customs of all Christian States whether Protestants or Papists who recieve none to a share in the Government or to Publick Employments but those who profess the Publick and Established Religion and that take care to secure it against all Attempts whatsoever But this must be taken with an Exception
as to Military Employments in his Lordships Country as he has exprest it and also with an Exception as to our Kingdom which as Sr. Edward Coke Chief Justice has well Observ'd is divided not only by the Seas but by its own Laws from all the rest of the World for that they have no dependance upon any Forreign Law whatsoever no not upon the Civil Law but are in such a manner Appropriated to it self as that no forreign Precedents are to be objected against it And with this special Exception in the very Act of Parliament for the taking the Parliamentary-Test in Relation to the the King's Majesty that now is being then Duke of York and Heir Presumptive to the Crown which in Right of Succession to His Royal Brother He now Enjoys there is a Proviso made in these words Provided always that nothing in this Act contained shall extend to His Royal Highness the Duke of York Provided had been sufficient and I presume always will be construed only as Redundant But as there is no express Saving so neither is there any express limitation of the King's Prerogative in that Act. I also conceive That His Lordships Assertion ought to be taken with an Explanation or farther Exception of such Governments as by their Laws and Constitutions admit of the Publick Exercise of both Religions Roman Catholick and Reformed and also of all such Imperial Dyets in Germany and Poland as are Constituted of of Princes and Palatinates as well of one as of the other Religion And tho I have no other Exceptions to add in matter of Fact as it is limited to Christian States yet among such as are of the Reformed Religion who acknowledge the Authority and Verity of the Holy Scripture It may be alledged that Ab Origine it was no General Rule Law or Reason of State in Relation to Civil Government That all who were admitted to Publick Employment should be of one and the same Religion I omit to instance those mean Examples which may be given from thence to the Contrary I shall mention only that of the Babylonian and Persian Kings Nebuchadnezzar gave directions to the Master of his Eunuchs to bring the Choicest of the Isralites for Wisdom and Knowledge to stand in the Kings Pallace Daniel and his Brethren were brought and stood before the King tho they neither were of nor would take any care to secure the Kings Religion or the Publick Worship of the Countrey And these and others of their Nation were promoted by him And the Succeeding Persian Monarchs in Places of Trust and Publick Employments and obtained great Priviledges in relation to their own Religion Nation Countrey and Principal City But it is to be observed That tho Liberty-of-Conscience was rarely Interdicted by any of the Great Monarchs before or till the Age after our Saviours manifestation in the Flesh so that to dissent from any Established Religion was no impediment to a Secular Employment yet an Antichristian Spirit ever and anon discovered it self in such as had a form of Godliness in their Disturbing and Opposing the true Servants of God in the Peaceable Enjoyment of their Civil and Religious Liberties upon the account of their dissent from such Forms of Worship as by Custom or Tradition were commonly used Reformation according to the Revealed Will of God has often been maligned whereof we have also divers instances in Scripture one I shall mention because tho it be a digression it seems apt to our present purpose The Laws of the Medes and Persian were as by a stated Maxime esteemed unalterable Cyrus their King as also his Successors having experience of the Wisdom and Fidelity of some of the Jews in their Captivity not only placed them in Publick Employments but granted them as a special Favour the Rebuilding of their City and the Temple of God and Restitution of His Worship at Jerusalem according to the Divine Law. The Kings great Officers and the Nations inhabiting in the Countries Adjacent tho they pretended to seek and do Sacrifice to the same God yet being Adversaries to the Jews Restitution and Reformation of Divine Worship obtained countermands to this Persian Kings decree and even in the Reign of Cyrus hired Councellors to frustrate the Jews purposes and by Royal Orders obtained contrary to the first Decree Interrupted the Progress full Accomplishment thereof for many years after And tho these King had Experience of the Fidelity of the Persons to whom these Favours were granted yet on Pretensions that the Grants would be to the Kings damage and that the Jews in general were as some of them at certain seasons had shew'd themselves to be a Seditious People They were prevented for a long time of the full Enjoyment of the Priviledges Granted In like manner so far as the parallel in a due construction will bear If the States of the United Netherlands had made such a Judgment Universally of all that were of the Communion of the Church of Rome That they were and would be persidious to their Civil Governours of another Religion And had for that Reason in the first formation of their State rejected those Roman Catholicks who joyned with them in defending their Publick Liberty They never could have had that Experience of their Fidelity and Eminent Service for which his Lordship now applauds them It is not my part to speak any thing more concerning the English Roman Catholicks upon this ccasion then only to refer to such of our Laws as in Ages past were made by them to Vindicate and Guard the Kings Prerogative and the Rights of his Subjects against the Usurpations of the Bishop of Rome and Clergy of that Communion But I conceive his Lordship by observing the different conduct of those of the Reformed Religion where they have the Government toward the Roman Catholicks from what the Roman Catholicks is where they have the Power and reckon themselves safe towards those of the Reformed Religion hath administred a fair occasion to His Majesties Subjects of that Communion to manisest how far it consists with their Religion and Resolution whether admitted into or debarr'd from places of Trust and Publick Employments indispensably to persist in their Obdience to the Soveraign Majesty of this Kingdom and Amicable and Peaceable Behaviour towards all their fellow Subjects of the Reformed Religion And whether they will contribute their assistance in their respective Capacities for establishing and preserving Liberty of Conscience on such a Foundation as may secure all sorts of Dissenters now and herereafter from all Penalties and Coercion For if by any such Declaration it should appear we have English Roman Catholickt like unto those of the Netherlands This might perhaps make way for some distinctions to be made in future provisions by Law as heretofore has been done between some Roman Catholicks and others so as to avoid the general condemnation of all who are of their Communion as other parties have been to the injury of many Thousands
their Civil Stations leaving them to the liberty of a voluntary Choice as to their Religion and religious Communion without any coertion of Conscience by Temporal Penalties this would probably be the consequence Either that they will all equally strive to merit the Favour of their Soveraign by their True Service and Duty of Natural Allegiance or He may at least the better discern which of them to put most confidence in and towards which to use the greater Caution as Experience may manifest That one sort or other of them are by the Doctrines Taught amongst them rendered more or less obsequious to His Lawful Commands From all these premises although I have already in effect said That I cannot find any such Law which neither directly inflicts nor consequentially subjects any Persons to Fines or Punishments for Conscience sake which are under our present Circumstances in any respect effectual to serve the Reformed Religion from the Attempts of Papists yet it rests That I give his Lordship all the satisfaction I can why the Dissenters desire a new Law may be made that may either repeal or otherwise limit or qualify the present Laws for Sacrament Oaths and Tests in such manner as neither themselves nor any others may have any just Cause to complain of any injury done to them in their Civil Rights for their Religions sake And I shall herein offer such things to be considered as tend to demonstrate that what is desired on the Dissenters behalf is not only compatible with the true Fear of God but that which every Protestant of the Church of England who truly fears God and admits this to be a true Doctrine that no man may do Evil that Good may come of it is also concerned as well for the sake of his Religion as for his Civil Interest to join with them in so as that they may mutually agree to chuse such Members to serve in the next succeeding Parliament as will upon equal and just Terms of security to the common interest of Religion and Civil Government give their Consents to the Repeal or Alterations and Provisions desired First For that those Laws which require the taking of the Sacrament-Oaths and Tests are rendred ineffectual and useless for the present season and likely to continue so during this Generation as to the keeping of any Dissenter either Papist or Protestant out of Employments either Civil or Military Daily experience manifests this for in every place of Dignity Power or Trust as in the KING's Houshold among the Lords of the Treasury in the principal Courts of Justice and in Military Commands Roman Catholicks are placed And in the greatest Corporations among the Aldermen Sheriffs and other Officers both Roman Catholicks and Protestant Dissenters by the King's Commission with a Non Obstante to these Laws so that Roman Catholicks by their refusal to take the Sacrament Oaths and Tests neither keep themselves out nor are kept out of any publick imployments as my Lord Fagell seems to suppose as things stand at present And his Lordship is too honourable a Person Pag. 5 6. and too wise a Polititian to desire or think That the Reformed Religion should and will be secured in the Age to come by a multitude of Fines forfeited in the present Age by such persons executing publick imployments who are design'd by a Statute-Law to be disabled but in fact are not when the King by His Prerogative under His Great Seal gives and grants them an Ability and Capacity to act with a Non Obstante to these Statutes and His Pardon in like manner to every one of them as oft as they will ask for it Second If the Protestant Dissenters that are put into publick Offices should have the Penalties hereafter levied upon them they lose but what is saved to them by the King's Bounty and Clemency For if the Poenal Laws had not been suspended by the King's Prerogative they would have been ruined by the Penalties and Imprisonments to which these Laws made them liable and which were for a long time with severity put in Execution against the generality of them And though such of them as have read the publick Catechisms and Liturgies published by the Papists if brought by process of Law before any Court of Justice and required to declare Whether they did believe the Doctrine of Transubstantiation as it is therein taught could with a safe Conscience have Answer'd on the Negative yet that would not have excused many of them who must have suffered the same Penalties imposed for not taking the Sacrament and it might well have been reckoned highly disingenious for such as have not been accustomed to take the Sacrament as by Statute-Law is directed voluntarily and without any constraint to have taken both Sacrament and Test when their so doing could have no other Construction but to manifest thereby That they distrusted the KING's Prerogative in preserving them from that Penalty And in the mean while to trust both their Liberties and Estates in their publick Assembling to Worship and Worshiping against Statute-Laws under no other shelter but the Wing of Prerogative But in regard the reviving the Execution of such Laws will cercertainly ruine them whether they be in or out of publick imployments no man can justly blame them if in gratitude to His Majesty and for their own security for the future they endeavour by Repeal or some other Legal Provision to be delivered from them Third The Dissenters have no reason to trust to any Promises that are made under the name of the Church of England That they shall have Liberty of their Publick Worship if these Laws be not Repeal'd For when any Revolution shall happen no man can tell upon whom to affix these Promises any more than those of the like Nature which besides the Royal Declaration were generally made under the same name in order to that which succeeded viz. His Late Majesties Peaceable Restauration and even now not long before His Present Majesties gracious Declaration a Treatise was published and is still mentioned in the Catalogue affixed to the end of such Books as sell in great numbers Intituled The Vanity of all Pretensions to a Toleration written by no mean Person or Persons as is evident by the Style and Method in which it is written so that if the Dissenters do not say it is the Doctrine but feel it is the Practise of the Church of England to keep no such Promise with Schismaticks All the Answer I can think of will be Either it was not the Church of England that made the Promises or if they did They see Cause not to perform it And so for hereafter if Persecution for Conscience be revived it was not the Church of England that repented of that Persecution before or as now at present It was not the Church of England that persecuted but such as the Late King made Judges and Justices Therefore to avoid all future Dangers to the Dissenters on the one
or afterward be a Sworn Servant to the Queens Majesty not exceeding at any one time Nine in Number is not so proper to Her Royal Successor Her present Majesty nor will be to any other succeeding Queen if a Native of England or of any other Kingdom except Portugal to whom this Act equally extends who is not thereby permitted to have any one Man Servant or Officer to attend Her Royal Person except he be a Portuguize by Birth without being liable for such his Service to all the Penalties of this Act if he perform not all the Conditions thereof It may be also observed that the Test relates to the then present use in the Church of Rome and the Test being a solemn Attestation in the presence of God of the Attestants Belief concerning the matters to be testified and declared requires in the nature of it some what more then a general Report or Tradition how the usage then was in the Church of Rome And it is not impossible to conceive that a Hundred Years hence or at some Season or other within less then that time the usage in the Church of Rome may be very different from what they were then as to the matters declared in the Test to be Superstitious and Idolatrous Neither can it be so well comprehended as it should be in a solemn Declaration of an Article of a Christians Belief in the presence of God what may be intended by the usage in the Church of Rome whether universally of every Member who is in Communion with the Church of Rome for it cannot be supposed to be strictly tyed to the Church in the City of Rome or to the generality of that Communion wherein many Persons may be comprehended who will not altogether decline or separate their Communion from the Church of Rome tho' they do not Believe or Practice all these things as they are decreed in the Councils of that Church and may be ready to say That tho' they adore Saints in other manner then the Protestants do yet they believe with the Protestants that Divine Adoration is due only to God. When in Discourse with a Roman Catholick of great Knowledg in the Controversal Points of their Religion I alledged the Superstition and Inefficacy of their Praying to Saints in regard they were neither Omnipresent to hear all Prayers nor Omniscient to discern between the Sincerity and Hypocrisie of any that Pray'd to them He gave me no satisfactory Answer but returned upon me an Objection That those of the Communion of the Church of England prescribed something that lookt like it in their daily Devotions when they exhorted or called upon the Souls and Spirits of just Men made Perfect and Ananias Azarias and Misael in particular to praise the Lord. To which I could not make him any satisfactory Reply without granting more upon the first Point than I thought was consonant to the Scriptures which I take to be the Directory of the Christian Religion I write not this in any Case as pleading in excuse or giving countenance to any Superstitious or Idolatrous Practice but to shew how abstruce some terms in the Test are to be precisely Interpreted and rightly understood and that because by how much the less perfectly any solemn Oath or Attestation is understood by such as take it by so much of less weight it will be upon the Conscience to observe it and if in process of time such a Law being perpetual may become very improper in the general scope of it and in some respects is so now The sooner it comes to be explained altered or wholly laid aside so much the better and if it be well weighed how this Law and the Law for the first Test also intrenches upon several Points of Royal Prerogative which in other Cases both as to Laws of a Religious and of a Civil Nature has been heretofore rendred as a reason and just ground of their repeal and how these Laws have and do subject many Persons to temporal Penalties and Disabilities as to the enjoyment of Civil Rights for their Conscientious Dissent in Religious Opinions from the Church of England It may appear very just and reasonable that these Laws should be again considered in the next succeeding Parliament and either Repealed or otherwise so explained and altered That the Sovereign Prerogative and the Subjects Civil Rights may be better provided for then they are by these Laws as they now remain XI If together with the Repeal desired the substance of the Kings Declaration be entirely and in the same Law of Repeal enacted which in the first place is to maintain the Arch-Bishops Bishops Clergy and all other his Subjects of the Church of England in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law Established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all their Possessions All such grand subversions of the present order of things Ecclesiastical and general change of Hands in things of a Civil Nature as have heretofore happened upon the Successive Soveraigns differing from the Religion Established in the Raign of his Predecessors may not only for the Present but in all future Ages also be avoided and the Mutations which in any gradual course are likely to ensue such a Repeal and provision at the same time made either in Civil or Religious Concerns will in all probability be less Perceptible and less Inconvenient during this Generation then ever has been experimented in the like Case or can otherwise be reasonably expected upon such a change in the Government as has now hapned especially if the Severities for the cause of Religion which have been for many Years exercised and the inconsistency of these Test Laws made in the Reign of a Protestant King as to Attendances on the Person of the Soveraign and the Qualifications required as to all Civil and Military Offices upon the Succession of a King of the Roman Catholick Religion to the Throne be well considered XII A Repeal of such Penal Laws and Tests as are before mentioned may if his Majesty please to give his Royal Assent be recompenced by other Provisions properly necessary to prevent future Mutations In Establishing Corporations upon a more sixt Foundation then they stand at present by a previous Test of a civil Nature to be taken by all Persons therein and in all other Places and Counties who are otherwise qualified to Elect before they give their Votes in any Election By Clauses in the Indentures before the Elected be returned and by every Person who shall be Elected to serve in Parliament or put into any Office or Place of Trust or Power in framing Commissions for the exercise of Judicatures and many other things of like Nature which the Wisdom of a Parliament may readily suggest For a Close by reflecting upon the two main Points before mentioned the one claimed by his Majesty as inseperably annext to and inherent in his Royal Person by the Law of Nature TO HAVE THE BENEFIT OF THE SERVICE