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.  
With Allowance.  
LONDON, Printed for H. W. and are to be Sold by most Booksellers. MDCLXXXVIII.   

THE EXAMINATION OF THE BISHOPS, etc.  
IT has pleased that Almighty Power which rules the Hearts of Princes, to enlighten and adorn His present Gracious Majesty with such peculiar Beams of Mercy and Clemency, those truly Royal Virtues, that render Him the nearest Portrait of that Deity whose Vicegerent He is. To win therefore the Universal Love of his People, a Conquest worthy of, and indeed reserved for His Great self, He has set up the Standard of Compassion; resolving to recover the alienated Affections of those of his Subjects, whom the Administration of his Predecessors may have any ways rendered uneasy.  
There are but Two things in the World dear to all Mankind, Religion and Property. The last of these, I confess, in the most moderate Distribution of Common Right, has all along had its free course in the true Channels of Equity; only the first has been a little restrained; for Conscience has sometimes been shackled.  
The Sighs therefore and Groans that have lately breathed from that Restraint, have moved him to that Sacred Commiseration, that He is resolved to break the Fetters that extort 'em, The Penal Laws. Which to effect, He has already declared His Determination for that choice of Magistrates in Authority under Him, that in His Princely Judgement He thinks will be most Hearty in contributing their best and ablest Endeavours for that Great End.  
To carry on this pious work, 'tis not at all to be doubted but the suffering party on all sides, who are aggrieved by those Laws, by the mere dictates of Self-preservation, will be no ways wanting to throw off a Yoke they have so long so unquietly born. And if all their Helps, His Majesty (as in Reason may be expected) is so well secure of, there remain, only the Concurrence of the Church of England; which, if obtained, His Kingdom would reap the Fruit, and Himself the Honour of being the Founder of those lasting Blessings, so much in themselves the more Glorious, as that all Hands, and all Hearts, are assistant to their Creation.  
But since the late Refusal of Reading His Majesty's most Gracious Declaration seems to intimate the Church of England's Aversion (or at least their Leading Endeavours to create that Aversion) to the Repeal of the Penal Laws and Tests; the Design of this Address to our Episcopal Pastors, is to examine the stress and tendency of those Laws, and truly to reason and argue with our Pious Mother the Church of England, why the Preservation of those Laws, either is, or aught to be, any part of her Care, and indeed, how far those Statutes, her sometimes Darlings, are in themselves either Just, Equitable, or consistent with Christianity itself; and how far she is equally, if not more, than the Dissenters obliged to abolish them. Nor shall I endeavour to urge her Consent from any Resignation or Compliance (those fainter motives of mere Generosity) to the Pleasure and Will of the King, that desires to have it so; but enforce the Argument from the Bonds and Ties of Conscience and Justice that require her Assistance to their Dissolution; and hereby illustrate the Equity and Reasonableness of His Majesty's Proposal, and prove the Work itself no more than the incumbent Duty of every Christian Subject to labour to perfect. For inquiry therefore first into the Penal Laws, I shall make bold to trace the Grounds of their Rise and Original.  
After the Death of Queen Mary, her Protestant Sister Elizabeth, being seated on the Throne, under so fair a Prospect of establishing her Religion, as having the Half, if not the Majority of the Nation of Her Persuasion, all Hands were set at Work for so glorious an Enterprise. But the main Engine was, That the Reformers having before their Eyes the late severity of her Sister's Reign, the Protestant Church either truly, or rather seemingly ashamed (as time will show) of the Romish Cruelty, the Popular outcries against Smithfield Fires, was conscious that she had no means so proper to recommend herself to the People's Esteem as the avoiding all those occasions of Odium, which had rendered the Romish Church so much the Object of their Aversion; and therefore the Change must be wrought and Affections won, by the opposite Extremes of Mercy and Moderation.  
These Measures for a while seemed terrible; but, alas! in few years' Indulgence appeared a too slow-paced Progress of Reformation; for still notwithstanding the Encouragement of a Protestant Queen, and the Establishment of our Church, the Ecclesiastic Advances went on too leisurely, and Conversions not fast enough, to satisfy either the Church's Itch of Power, or Warmth of Zeal, under the loser Reins of Toleration. For whilst the Popish party were connived at, and permitted any Liberty of their Worship, their Church, though falling, could not want some few unshaken Members at least that would still follow even its very Ruins; and perhaps the Romish Priests, though thrown out of Church Preferment, could not, or would not forbear, to confirm and encourage their thin and scattered Party, and possibly through an indispensable (as they thought) Duty to that Communion, in which invincibly persuaded, they only expected Salvation, they might not omit either Arguments or Industry (as Opinion wants neither) to render their Religion nevertheless lovely for the Cloud it wore; which indeed, is but natural to all Religions, whilst they think their own either the only, or at least the nearest way to Heaven.  
These Remora's, how small stops soever to her advancing Glory, the Church of England beholding with Impatience, and repining even at her smallest Favours to the Romish Party, whilst but the least Impediments to her yet unsatisfied Ambition, (for to be Uppermost was not enough, unless she could be All too) began to think of some more expeditious way for the weeding out of Popery, and to look out for a sharper Pruning Hook than mere Teaching and Preaching to do the Work of Reformation; set agog therefore upon Dispatch and Execution, she felt the Itch of her Forefathers, and if Honour and Reputation could be safe, she should not scruple at a little of the old-fashioned Shamble-work to gain her Point. But considering that to punish Dissent in Religion, and barefaced too with Death, would carry too much the looks of Old Smithfield, and so beslain her own long boasted Gentleness and Innocence; she is therefore put to no little Study and Invention to overleap this Difficulty, and accomplish her Projection; till at last she lights upon this incomparable Stratagem to Mask her Designs, and smooth All, viz. to punish Recusancy with DEATH, under the black and dismal Brand of HIGH-TREASON. The Measures and Gradations used and made towards raising this Artful Superstructure, take in short as follows.  
In the first year of Q. Elizabeth, she asserts her Spiritual and Ecclesiastic Supremacy in all Things and Causes whatever; and creates an Oath to be tendered her Subjects for confirmation of that Power.  
In the fifth of her Reign, grown warmer in that Supremacy, she imposes the Oath upon all her Ministers and Officers of the Government, even to Lawyers, Attorneys, etc. and particularly to be taken by ever Member of Parliament: And the second Refusal of taking it, after a first tender of it three Months before, is made High Treason.  
In the 13th of Her Reign. All persons taking upon them by Colour of any Bull, Writing, or Authority whatever to absolve or reconcile any persons, or grant or promise to any person or persons within Her Majesty's Dominions any such Absolution or Reconciliation by any Speech, Preaching, Teaching, Writing, or any other open deed; and if any person or persons shall willingly take or receive such Absolution or Reconciliation shall suffer pains of Death; And also lose and forfeit all their Lands, Tenements, Goods and Chattels, as in Cases of High Treason. [A very sour sort of Grape to set their children's Teeth an Edge with.]  
In the 23d of Elizabeth, This Act is explained and confirmed, and in fine the Person reconciling or reconciled to the Church of Rome, Priest or Layman, are Equally declared Traitors; and so onwards till the very taking of Orders from Rome is High Treason and doomed to suffer as such.  
Ay, God knows a very just sentence if the Indictment be but true. But I desire to know by what Legerdemain is this Reconciliation made High Treason! Is either the Life or Dignity of the King or the Government, struck at by my being a Member of This or That Communion! by my believing This or That the Way to Heaven? Can Faith in God be Treason against Man! For that's the Result of the point. Can a Christians best Endeavour to save his own or his Brother's Soul be a Machination to destroy his Prince or his Country; or can my praying or not praying to a Saint, my adoring or not adoring the Eucharist render me a true or not true Leigeman. If Errors in Faith can amount to High Treason, and the Government is in Conscience obliged to treat 'em as such, Lord have mercy upon us, how came the Jews to live with that Impunity in the Commonwealth, that instead of misbelieving in points of Doctrine, believe not so much as in the Gospel or Christ himself.  
No, no, the Sophistry of the matter lies not there; 'tis not the Doctrine of a Romanist as to Godwards makes him a Traitor, but his belief of the Pope's being Head of the Church in Derogation to the Ecclesiastic Supremacy inherent to, and Lodged in the Crown, and so religiously asserted and maintained by the Protestant Laws of the Kingdom. Hinc Illae Lacrymae? There lies the Apostasy, the hideous yawning Gulf that swallows all, Faith, Duty, Honour, Loyalty, and consequently calls for Axes, Halters, Gibbets, and what not.  
Is this the Treason then; 'tis well we have fixed it there; tho' upon true Inspection, the Impeachment will be found full as feeble here as before. For this is but mere matter of Faith still all this while, nor carries in it the least shadow of a Breach of the Subjects Duty to the Sovereign. For Instance, when this Law was made, suppose a poor Roman Catholic of those Days by an Invincible power of persuasion rooted and grounded in him by an Article of Faith (how rightfully is not the matter) received from Age to Age, and Generation to Generation in favour of the Pope, could not possibly believe her than She Majesty by her Accession to the Crown to be instantly the Spiritual Head of the Church in all matters and Causes whatever, that otherwise before was utterly incapable even of so much as a Subdeaconship in a Country Parish, and if St. Paul may be believed, not so much as qualified for speaking in a Religious Assembly; yet nevertheless this Roman Catholic lived under her Government with all the Allegiance and Fealty, in all Respects of Obedience, and believed himself in conscience so obliged to do, as much as any other of her more believing Protestant Subjects, would it not be a little severe to adjudge him a Traitor.  
And that the Romish Opinion that the Spiritual Supremacy lies not in the Temporal Prince, is mere matter of Faith, is demonstrable from the very Sovereign Power itself, when so many successive Kings never believed they had that Supremacy themselves. For Prerogative is of its nature so jealous that tho' never so considerable a Jewel in a Crown had they had Faith to have challenged it theirs, they would have had wit enough to have worn it too.  
What if our Protestant Kings and their parliaments for them believe that Supremacy wholly lodged in the Crown; must their Roman Catholic Subjects be Traitors, because they cannot be of their Belief? If the Prince's Belief must be the standard of the people's Loyalty, by the same Equity the Catholic Kings might have made it High-Treason in their Reign to assert that Supremacy in the Crown Then; as the Protestant Kings do to deny it there now; and consequently the Protestants then, (if such there had been) might by Equal Justice have been Traitors too. If Crowned Heads must necessarily be believed the Spiritual Heads of the Churches under their Obedience, I wonder what strange stretch of Faith those Thousands of Christians must have that are born and bred Subjects to the Mahometan Grand Signior.  
But that the Members of the Church of Rome may not look altogether so black for this unhappy Part of their Belief; and that their asserting of that Spiritual Supremacy in their Pope does not any ways threaten either the Crown or the public peace; That wise and prudent Monarch King James the First shall be their Compurgator. For as many Laws as that Prince made for the Defence of the Established Church of England, and as great Industry as he used for the extirpation of the Romish Religion, he was nevertheless pleased to allow the Pope, tho' not Universal Head of the Church, yet Patriarch of the West (in which precinct of consequence must England be included.) And if so zealous a Protestant King thought it no Diminution to his own or his Church's Dignity to be of that Opinion, and to grant the Pope that Prerogative; what mortal High Treason against the Crown of England do the Members of the Popes own Church commit in throwing him in the East too (a part of the World not much relating to us) into the Bargain; and so making him Universal Patriarch. Jacob. Contr. Perron.  
But some People will tell you, 'Tis almost an Impossibility to fancy any such things as Principles of Loyalty in a Romish Subject to a Protestant King.  
I shall not endeavour to confute this uncharitable Censure, by the Universal Heroic Examples, of that Parties Loyalty in the Battles of Charles the First; so truly may I call it Universal, that upon Petitions made to Cromwell for his Clemency to the Roman Catholics, he was observed to challenge them to prove so much as one Man of that Religion that had ever fought for him or served him. But to wave that Plea, How are we sure that the Romanists are guilty of Traitorous Principles! Does any man of them own any such Principles! No, sure they have more Wit than to talk Treason, and be Hanged for it. If they are so hardy as to do that, we have other Laws to noose 'em without the help of Penal Statutes.  
Do they then commit any open Act of Treason! Let 'em do that if they dare. If we once catch them 'em at that Game the Government has 'em fast enough by the Heels and the Necks too. Nor is that the Treason, that these Statutes pretend to arraign. Who ever heard of any Overt act of Treason indicted by the 13th or 23d of Elizabeth.  
Then, if neither Speaking nor Acting of Treason be the Capital Gild these Statutes are levelled at; then Thinking of Treason must be the Crime. A Roman Catholic then belike is such an offender, that by the very Affections of his Soul cannot be Loyal to the Crown; and to prove all this mortal Accusation infallibly true, the Protestant Wisdom has by Divine Inspiration formed a Law to arraign and condemn the very Thoughts of the Heart, of which God only can be Judge.  
In fine, if the Government can make matter of Faith, nay even thoughts Themselves High Treason, when their Hand was in they might e'en as Lawfully have made it High Treason to eat too. For if the firm Belief in God, and the zealous Worship of him by the Best Light of a Christian Conscience, be either the Bread of Life, or at least the means to get it, as we are so taught, the same Legality that can condemn the one may exclude the other too.  
To this they'll say, 'Tis true indeed a Lay Romanist is a more excusable, and that part of the Statute that affects him is a little hard; however 'tis very strong, and nothing but High Justice, against the Romish Priest; for here are visible Overtacts of Treason: As taking of Orders from Rome, in themselves little less than Damnable and Diabolical, and undoubtedly Antichristian, as received from the Papal See, the very seat of Antichrist; and then returning home again expressly against the Commands of the Law; All which outrageous Transgressions are but reasonably declared High Treason, and justly exposed to the severest of punishments under the Legality of that Denomination.  
To this Thundering Charge, as big as it sounds, I shall only make this short Reply.  
If the Church of England has and always does admit a Convert Romish Priest into the Protestant Clergy, without any Reordination to capacitate him for that Admission, as we need look no further than to the constant practice of the Church, (without so much as one example to the contrary) from the very beginning of the Reformation, how unjustly are taking Orders from Rome charged with High-Treason! If the Orders from Rome be in themselves Holy and Sacred, how are they Damnable, or Anti-christian? And how the taking of them High-Treason? If not Holy nor Sacred (as if High-Treason in the very receiving of them they cannot be) does the Church of England entertain Pastors into her Ministerial Function unconsecrated for the Divine Service of God? God forbidden! No, the very Practice and Concession of the Church in this Case does so confront the palpable Injustice of this Statute, as nothing can be plainer. And how Black, how Capital, or Traitorous soever the Popular Calumny, or the Protestant Lawmakers had occasion to make these Romish Orders, under all their loads of Gild, they stood upright enough not to want the Crutch of an Act of Parliament, as some others have done (as much more Sacred as they are) for their Support and Confirmation. And if such are the Romish Orders, and the free choice of our Belief in God, and the Church we hope to be saved in, be in our own Election (for our own Souls are answerable for it) by the same Liberty of choice why may not a man be either a Member or Pastor of the Flock he chooses, as his Abilities to serve God in either station shall dictate to him. And if no such Holy Orders be to be had and received at home, why is it Death to seek for them abroad? And why are men banished and excluded from their Native Right in the Kingdom in which they are born, for only endeavouring to secure themselves, their no less Native Right in that of Heaven?  
One observation in the Statute of the Fifth of her Reign I had almost forgotten, not a little worthy Remark. In this Statute where the Incapacity of taking the Oath of the Queen's Spiritual Supremacy (for a Refusal of an Oath in that Case is only a Conscientious Incapacity of taking it) is made High-Treason, in one Clause of it the Queen is pleased to tell us, she is so sufficiently assured of the Faith and Loyalty of her Temporal Lords, that this Act, nor any thing contained in it, shall not extend to her Barons, nor the Oath to be imposed upon them, etc.  
What Contradictions and Cobweb Laws are here! A Commoner, belike, for his Incapacity of taking that Oath, is guilty of High-Treason: But a Baron so incapacitated is a very faithful and Loyal Gentleman; as if they were not both of them equally Subjects to the Crown, and equally Criminal in any Transgression against it. 'Tis true, had the particular Favour and Indulgence of the Government resolved to exempt a Peer from the Penalty of this Law, it had been something; but to discharge him eo nomine from the Gild too, makes the whole Statute such an Arbitrary Declaration of Treason, that both the Compilers of such Laws, and the Defenders of them, aught to blush at. But as whole as the Barons kept their Scutcheons in this Statute, they came in for a snack in the 13th of her Reign, being in that Statute Indictable for Delinquency against it.  
What Rubbish is here put together to build the great Fence of a Church with! But our Church has at least this Apology, that it does not pretend to Infallibility. And who knows but the Jargon of these, and the rest of her Penal Laws might be wilful Oversights on purpose to make out her Assertion to the World, and prove her Fallibility true.  
But to come to the full Result of all: Here's the Church of England so poorly prevaricating, as to follow those very steps, which with all her highest Noise and Exclamations she pretends, are her greatest Detestation and Abhorrence. And whilst the more frank and generous Romanist Enacts and Executes his Capital Laws against Heresy from his Church, under the downright Name of Heresy; our poorer spirited Protestant Lawmakers, are for punishing Heresy from their Church under Masque and Disguise, obtruding their Penal Laws upon the World under the meanest of Hypocrisy and Imposture.  
And to be plain with our later Protestant Lawmakers, the Shame past so current then, that it has been practised ever since. Is there any one Law made against our later Nonconformists whose preamble does not run upon this Topick, the Breach of the Peace, and the undermining the very Foundations of the Government; and all for deserting the Church of England, and meeting in their own Religious Assemblies, to offer up their Prayers and Devotions to God according to their Consciences. Was there ever a late Conventicle disturbed with any other Warrant than as Riotously and Routously assembled, and thereupon punished with Fines, Imprisonments, and Sequestrations; sometimes even to the Ruins of whole Families. Does not the same Masquerade run through all the Penal Laws? And the very mere meeting to Worship God charged with no less than Sedition and Tumult.  
But wherein lies the Sedition and Tumult? Was it in their so meeting? No, sure. For as the Intention makes the Gild, the Intention was only a Religious Worship, and not a State-disturbance.  
Was the Sedition then in the Doctrines they Preached? If so, why was it not proved against them? Their Meetinghouse Doors stood open, and their Enemies were both potent and numerous enough to hear and detect any Seditious Design or Doctrines against the Crown or State. And the Law was furnished both with Rods and Axes, to punish any Crime of that kind according to its Demerit, before the Penal Laws were so much as thought on.  
No, tho' that was the Pretence, it pinched not there The Dissenters grew too numerous, and the Church of England began to see her Grandeur shrink, and her Dominion lessen, and therefore her Old Arts must once more be her Refuge. The Nonconformists must be crushed and suppressed, and to avoid all imputations of Oppression and Cruelty, Sedition and Riots must be the charge against them, and the Law gilded over with that fair Title to make it swallowable. 'Tis true, indeed, the Law here did not reach to Death, however it took care to make their Purses, if not their Veins, bleed for it, and that too sometimes with so total a Drein, that whole Families have been reduced to the condition of starving, which is the very next door to it. And all things considered, Liberty next to Life is so dear, that whole years of noisome Imprisonment have been very little the easier punishment.  
Having given you this true Portrait of our Penal Laws, I shall only add some few Lineaments more, and so finish the piece. And to make a farther Balance betwixt ourselves and Rome in that point, how unchristian or unwarrantable soever all such Penal Inflictions for mere Conscience may be, the Church of Rome has, or at least fancies she has some little Pretext for such Laws. For under her famous Tenent of Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, and her Confinement of Salvation only within her own Boundaries, she may have sometimes consented to the Practice of now and then cutting off a stray Sheep, to terrify the rest of the Flock from leaping the Fold, as imagining to herself in so doing, and in now and then Sacrificing one or two lost Sons of Perdition (for such she accounts them) and thereby lopping off some corrupt Member already past hope of Redemption, she only secures possibly the whole Body, as she thinks, from Apostasy and Damnation. And consequently such exemplary Acts, though of the greatest Rigour, are only intended as absolutely necessary for that Great End, Universal Salvation. But, alas! our more Charitable Church that pretends not to bond the Grace of God, but by a larger latitude and more extended Operation of the Blood of Christ, Equally allows Salvation to true Zeal and Piety in both Churches, and indeed in all Christian Professions: Under all this Concession, I say, our Protestant Church utterly wants this Loophole, and upon true Examination will be found wholly inexcusable, if not impardonable. For in executing of her Sanguinary Laws in punishment of mere matter of Conscience, she cuts off, not like Rome, the supposed Members of Perdition; but even those Professors of Christianity, which by her own Confession may be equally with herself the Sons of Grace, and Coheirs of Salvation.  
Nay, I'll venture to add one bold Word more, because a true one. The Church of England in her once executing of her sanguinary Laws, is undoubtedly guilty of more Barbarity than the ten Primitive Heathen Persecutions. For in all cases of Suffering for Religion, 'tis an undeniable Maxim, That He that makes the Martyr least thiks he makes him. The bloodiest Pagan Tyrants in all their studied Arts of Blood and Christian Massacre, did not believe that they butchered the then only Professors of Truth and Heirs of Heaven: But on the contrary, in Devotion to their own supposed true Deities, they thought they only executed Apostates, Blasphemers and Infidels; for such they accounted the Christians as professed Deserters of their Heathen Gods and Sacrifices: Nor is the forementioned Romish Case much different, as lying under the unhappy Belief of Heretics irreparable State of Damnation. But all this while our Church of England (I am sorry to her Shame it must be spoken) out-do's the very Heathens themselves, in enacting and executing those Penal Laws, by which she cuts off those very Members of Christianity, who (if true Zealots in their Profession) she owns are in the number of the Elect of God: And if any true Zealots amongst them, those certainly that have Courage and Constancy to DIE for their Religion, are not the least of them; and consequently she cannot deny, but in executing those Laws, she both makes the Martyr, and knows she makes him too.  
And if she's so  in her Severity against the Romanists, much more criminal must her Rigour against the Dissenters be, whom she owns to differ from herself in little more than Ceremonies and Punctilios.  
Nay, the Ferment has sometimes boiled so high, that our Protestant Church has put her Zeal upon the stretch to find means to vent her Indignation, when some of those very Laws against Recusancy have been extended against the Protestant Dissenters, and the greatest part of their Sufferings received from the Lash of those Laws. I shall not pretend to dive so far, as to ascertain whether that Comprehension was originally designed by those Laws, or otherwise an artificial Superstructure to serve a State turn; but either way the severity of those Laws is not a little notorious, where so trivial Matters of Dissent in Religion, as has been said before, have been so cruelly treated.  
But if our Protestant Church cannot possibly be reconciled to Liberty of Conscience, and therefore these Laws were her Weapons against it, her more generous way, at least more agreeable to a Christian Profession, had been first fairly to have overthrown it by Dint of Argument, before she had made use of Dint of Steel to do it by: And for that purpose, I wonder how that famous Bishop Taylor has passed for so great a Doctor of the Church all this while, and his Treatise upon that subject called Liberty of Prophesying not yet answered; or at least the Author under no small Ecclesiastic Fulminations (if no other way to answer it) for so terrible a Blow against the Churches long main Favourite Bulwark, her Penal Laws.  
'Tis true, some People will object, What are all these Laws to the CHURCH, when enacted only by the Civil Power as an Expedient for its own Security and Defence, and therefore warrantable and lawful; nor in any respect are chargeable upon the ecclesiastics.  
Alas! this is such a feeble Objection, that 'tis scarce to be named without Blushing: As if the Clergy did not act in Parliament by their Representatives; nay, the very Bishops sitting there in Person, assenting to, and undoubtedly little less than Original Founders of those Laws. But grant it, as they say, the mere Establishment of the Civil Power: The Clergy by owning the Justice, and asserting the Necessity of such Laws for Defence of their Church, the Lay-Power in this Case is little more than the Cat's Paw to rake out the Chestnut. Nor are the Civil Rulers and Temporal Power of a Christian Government any ways more authorised to outgo the Gospel Moderation and Clemency for any Politic Consideration whatever, than the more immediate Oracles of Truth the Preachers themselves.  
And this the great Legislators of those Penal Statutes very well knew, and therefore as I told you before, they cunningly converted Recusancy into High Treason, and Nonconformity into Riots and Routs; to find something, though but seemingly justifiable for the Fangs of their Laws to lay hold of; and so boulster'd up their Penal Statutes to make them able to walk upright.  
I'll only put this one Question to all the Doctors of our Church: With what Conscience can a Church that owns itself Fallible, establish Laws to punish Dissenters in Religion, when by her own Concession of Fallibility, she neither has nor CAN have any Certainty or Assurance (how strong soever she thinks or hopes her own Foundation) but that she punishes those that possibly may be more in the Right than herself; more especially, in those Professions that found their Dissenting Doctrines on her own Basis the Scripture?  
I cannot tell what Equity wiser Heads may find out for the Ordination of Penal Laws; but truly in my Opinion, the Great Prince of Peace that reprimanded the Drawing of that Sword that cut off but the Ear of the High Priests Servant, though in his own immediate Cause, very little intended the raising his Church, or the propagation of his Gospel, by either Axes or Gibbets, or Gaols or Dungeons. And He that left us the Standard of Christianity in the Innocence of Doves, never commissioned us the Rapine of Vultures; and though we are conceded the Subtlety of Serpents, I know no warrant that he gave us either for the Stings or the Poison of them.  
And though my Zeal for Truth makes me thus plain in detecting the only Shame and Frailty of the Reformed Church, I hope she has Goodness enough to forgive the Boldness of a Blushing Son, who is no otherwise solicitous than for her covering her own Nakedness. And that I may truly term it such, the Reformation that otherwise may boast her Purity and Principles only founded on Holy Writ, and all the rest of her Doctrines and Practices derived from those sacred Oracles, will be only found tripping here; and in all her support of Scriptural Records in all other Points, I am afraid must have recourse even to the exploded Authority of TRADITION only for her Penal Laws. For I shrewdly suspect that Lollards Tower's and Inquisition Houses (let her mince it as she will) will be found the only Precedents for the Estates she has confiscated, the Families she has beggared the Gaols she has filled, besides her sometimes loading of Gibbets, and ripping up the Bowels even of her own Co-Disciples, because Dissenting Professors of Christ, and all by her Penal Laws.  
Nor will it suffice for an Excuse to insinuate that the Establishment of Religion and Conformity of Worship on one side, and the Preservation of Peace and Tranquillity of the State on the other side, exact the necessity of such rigid Laws. [Though by the by, the Peace of States is rather destroyed then upheld by such Laws; for what Civil War in almost all the Christian World, that directly or indirectly has not had the Oppression of some Religious Party, its greatest, if not only Incendiary?]  
No; to gain the first of these great Ends, let the Teachers and Professors of our Established Church live up to the height of their Profession, and  the Wanderers, and reduce the Strays into the Fold by their own convincing Examples of Christian Piety; a much more commendable way of making Proselytes than the forementioned rigid Arts of Conversion. And for the second great End, the Governments Security, if her Temporal Fences are not strong enough, let her make stronger; and if any of her Dissenters are the disturbers of her Peace, let her single out the Guilty from the Innocent, and wreak her just Vengeance where 'tis deserved; and not punish the Dissent itself (which as being mere matter of Religion, is wholly uncapable of such Crime) for the sake of any corrupted Members, that either are of, or Herd under the Covert of such or such a Congregation of Christians. For to do that work by the undistinguishing merciless Hand of her Penal Statutes, is so little conformable to the Evangelical Precepts, that I am afraid the doing such notorious Ills that Good may come of it, whatever Religious Security, or Gospel Propagation may be intended by them; these Penal Laws, I say, that can swallow the Estates, Fortunes, Liberties and Lives, of their weaker Brethren and fellow Christians, instead of being either Christian or Just, or any ways related to 'em, will at last appear much nearer of kin to that famous Rover that wanders round the World to seek whom he may devour, insomuch that their Ordination will be found little less than borrowing Engines from Hell to help to set up Heaven!  
Now to the Case of the Church of England, if these are her Penal Laws (for I shall not trouble myself with a tedious recital of the several Statutes of that nature, as being all but Scions from the same Root) I should gladly know what Beauties or rather invisible Charms the Church of England can find in these Statutes to be in the least solicitous for their preservation. For, alas! maugre all her Volumes written upon the Unreasonableness of Separation from her Communion, and her Justification of her zealous Endeavours for Conformity, unless the Means and Methods used to obtain it (as these Laws were intended for such) be equally Justifiable, her whole Pretensions fall to the Ground.  
Nor will it excuse her to say, that they were chief enacted in Terrorem, as being but seldom put in execution; as if a studied ill Deed were therefore more excusable because committed, suppose but once in an Age; when a foul Act for that very Cause, should rather appear the more deformed, as 'tis the Rarity that makes the Monster.— Besides, Queen Mary had that Plea to make; for what were 206 Protestants even by Fox's Musterroll, burnt for Religion in her five years' Reign, to the some millions of Protestants in those days, when half the Kingdom was of that Persuasion? an infinite larger number to c●ll out so many Sufferers from, than all the Popish Priests that Rome has sent over these 130 Years past, or shall do in as many more to come.  
To return therefore to His Majesty's Proposal of Abrogating these Laws, 'tis a greater Duty upon the Church of England to abolish 'em than in the Dissenters themselves; for as 'tis a Yoke imposed upon their weaker Brethren, in itself wholly unjust, the Sufferer under that Yoke in endeavouring to break it, only acts by the Motives of Self-defence, the common Principle of Nature: But the Imposer of that Yoke is tied by the Obligations of Religion itself, to repeal and repent his own Act of Injustice.  
Besides, if all Arguments of Conscience cannot prevail; and Policy, not Equity (though Heaven forbidden so uncharitable a Thought) is our Church's Guide; yet, even then too, What does she yield up in abolishing those Laws? Why, truly nothing. For whilst the Government continues in the Hands of a Prince of the Romish Religion, those Statutes will utterly lie dead; for the Royal Indulgence, a Prerogative in the Crown, will never put them in execution: And if abolished, however the next Protestant Prince has the power of Resumption, if his Conscience shall think fit to give them a Resurrection. What reason therefore has the Church of England for her Nonconcurrence to a Proposal so equitable, when she has not so much as the least Pretext even of mere Interest itself for her Refusal?  
But this I am sure, as the Church of England can have no solid Reasons to oppose their Repeal, the State has very substantial ones to enforce it. For as TRADE is the greatest support and strength of a Kingdom, I know no Politics so conducing to the Commerce and Wealth of a Nation as Liberty of Conscience. What greater Encouragement to Naturalisation? And England that is not overloaded with People, can have no fairer Inlet to bring in whole Families and Estates, and indeed the Wealth of the World (besides the opening that Current of Commerce even amongst our present Natives, which the late Restraint of Worship had so much shut up) than Liberty of Religion. Nor can I better instance the Effects of this Policy than in the growth of the Dutch Greatness, and the decay of the Spaniard from their different Extremes of National Conduct in that Point.  
I am certain His Majesty resolves to eternize his Glory, by being the truest Pater Patriae of all the Crowned Heads since the Conquest; nor has He a fairer Prospect of making His Kingdom a true Paradise of PEACE and PLENTY, but by taking this Pattern at least from the first Paradise, that is, by making the Lion and Lamb lie down in Peace together; our long Disunions being no otherways to be reconciled, and our Enmities hushed but by this only Universal Pacification.  
I shall only add this last Consideration. The execution of our Penal Laws and the restraint of Conscience, has been the greatest Blow that ever was given to the Hereditary Right of the Subjects of England, their natural Properties and Immunities given and sealed to them by Magna Charta itself. For who can call his Liberty or Estate his own, whilst a Superior Opinion in POWER shall seize our Persons and confiscate our Estates, for no other cause but difference of Worship and Faith; and neither Person, Estate or Liberty, redeemable under a less Composition than renouncing of God; for Conformity of Worship absolutely against Conscience is little else. And all this Capital Offence so unfixt and so undeterminable a sort of Transgression, that a Man has only a mere Lottery to be in the Right or the Wrong: For the blackest Criminal in one Reign has been the whitest Saint in the next, and so vice versâ over again, witness the Reigns of Edward the Sixth, Queen Marry and Queen Elizabeth, where the Protestants were the Devils one while and the Papists another: Nay, in the Reign of Henry the Eighth, both Papist and Protestants were at one time in the wrong: For 'twas remarkable in his Reign, that in the same day have Papists been hanged for Traitors, for disowning his Church Supremacy; and Protestants burned for Heretics for denying of Transubstantiation. Thus in their turns have all Religions and Opinions lain under the Scourge of the severest of Laws, and all for want of that Obedience to a Law, which Humanity itself is utterly unable to pay. For though our Breach or not Breach of all other Laws, either Humane or Divine, lies in our own free will and choice: To conform or not conform to this or that Belief, is wholly above the power of Man; Faith only being Irresistible. And if our worldly Wellbeing, and all we enjoy in this Life, depends upon such capricious Decrees of Law, certainly the Great Charter of our Liberties and Estates that confirmed 'em both under no such Condition or Restriction, is not a little invaded by the Penalties of such Laws: And I cannot tell what greater or more glorious Design His Gracious Majesty can undertake, than by repairing so deep a Breach wrought through the very Fundamentals of his People's original Freedom and Birthrights: Nor is there, or has been a greater Friend or Patron of the Church of England than His present Majesty, who himself alone tenders Her the Means and Opportunity to wash off those long Stains and Blots, which either the petulance or remissness Her Protestant Defenders of Her Faith, through these Penal Statutes have cast or left upon Her, and so to restore Her to Whiteness and Innocence.  
Having made this fair Inquest into the Penal Laws, I shall take a little Search too into the TEST, and lay down those Reasons that equally oblige us to concur with His Majesty in a Repeal of that too.  
In order to which, it behoves us first to sum up all the great and popular Arguments (if I may so call 'em, though in reality rather the Language of Fears and Jealousies than the Voice of right Reason) daily urged for the Preservation of the Test, viz. That the whole Defence of the Protestant Religion relies on that Basis. If the Test were once abrogated, the Church of England would soon be blown up, when all Offices both Ecclesiastical and Civil, and all Power and Authority both in Church and State shall be lodged in Roman Catholic Hands; and what not?  
To answer which hideous and formidable Outcry, we'll begin first with the pretended Dangers threatened the Church of England by Repeal of the Test. Not to insist upon His Majesty's reiterated WORD and HONOUR, His inviolable Engagements to maintain the Church of England as now by Law established, in her uninterrupted Rights and Privileges, all her Churches and Church-livings whatever thereunto belonging, etc. in itself alone no little Security. But waving that Plea, the Ecclesiastical Government and the Church of England neither are, nor can be shaken or touched 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 mentioned or thought upon to be imposed to tendered 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 UNIFORMITY that themselves alone sufficiently established, guarded, and preserved the Church of England in all Points without any Fortification from the Test; nor indeed was the Test wanted in the Ecclesiastic 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 Hypocrisy (which no Human Test can discover) an Hypocrisy too no ways beneficial to the Romish Cause whilst tied up to the Divine Service as now by Law established. 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, does, 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 offered 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 'tis plain) stand of themselves alone secure and firm, without any borrowed 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 Catholics from all Offices of Trust in the State. Secondly, From all Domestic 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 established.  
In the first place, as to the Civil Government: What Office in the State can a Roman Catholic 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, 'tis 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 passed into a perpetual Law, and all Penal Inflictions for matter of Religion thrown out of their Jurisdictions) will then be the whole Business that lies before them; and wherein is a Roman Catholic Judge any more incapacitated for the administering 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 Endeavours that way, it can only be done by holding the Scale of Justice upright, and in all Posts of Trust by keeping up the steadiest 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 Majesty's Honour that shall influence them to it) have these Obligations more and above even of INTEREST to their very Religion itself, to move in so regular a Sphere of Justice, where lies our Danger? And if this higher Station will be so Inoffensive, what can the poorer Justices of the Peace, or the inferior Subministration of the Government signify, 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 Surmise; If a Romish Parliament itself 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 confirmed to the present Possessors by a Decretal from Rome itself, as was then so solemnly done by Cardinal Pool, the than Pope's 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 Politics 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 Majesty's Household, etc. To have those Posts too barricadoed with Tests, and the Imperial Dignity so shackled, as to be debarred the Choice of its own Menials; nay, even of its Conversation itself, is an Insolence put upon Majesty, as had been scarce tolerable from an Ordinance of Forty eight, much less an Act of Parliament. But for our less Wonder at it, we are to consider 'twas Hatched in the same Republic Nest: for no less than the great old Patriot of Three Names sat for the brooding of it.  
I think I need not raise Arguments to prove how little those Gentlemen of Honour, the Courtiers I mean, of any Religion whatsoever, in that innocent Station are, or can be concerned in shaking either Church or State. It is enough to say that greater Indignity under the Sanction of a Law, was never imposed upon a Crowned Head. The meanest Gentleman in England, whilst this Test keeps Footing, has a Prerogative above the King. For the choice of his Steward, Bailiff, Attorney, or Solicitor, etc. are in his own free Election: But these were Privileges thought too large for a King; and therefore he is Stinted and Bounded to such Elections, as the more Imperial Wisdom of His Great Masters in Parliament judge fittest for him.  
Monarchical Rule is said to be like that of Heaven, where the Primum Mobile acts altogether by inferior Spheres, and second Causes. And so Majesty by its Officers and Ministers, as so many Vehicles, by which the Influences of the Royal Power are Conveyed, to set the Great Machine a moving: But truly this Ascendancy the late Lawmakers, judged too great for the King of England; and therefore they found an Expedient to render the Monarchy little more than precarious, making the whole Ministers of the State the Creatures of the Test, and not of the King.  
Now I desire to know how in Reason we can imagine, that a King, in himself the Fountain of Honour, and Original of Power; though in his Nature, the Mildest and best Tempered of Princes; though without the least Thought of Unhinging the Frame of the Government, or Disturbing the Settled Church of his Kingdom; to blast his own Glory, and lose his Subjects Hearts; (for that would be all the Crop 'twould yield him;) I wonder I say how we can imagine, that the Best and most Gracious of Princes, though without the foremention'd Designs, could nevertheless brook so Unprincely a Yoke as the Test.— And truly to justify his Majesty's heartiest Endeavours against both Penal Laws and Test, in not labouring to abrogate the first, as they stand in Force against the Lives and Liberties, (and how unjustly has been proved before) of the Members of his own Communion, he would be the most unnatural of Men; and in not labouring to repeal the last, as standing so egregiously in force against the Right and Prerogative of His Crown, and indeed originally forged in Affront to himself, he should be the most Dishonourable of Princes: Nor will it serve to object, that His late Majesty (whatever diminution to the Prerogative it might be) by passing it into a Law, has alienated that Power from the Crown. For to answer that Argument, we are assured, that whatever Alienations of that kind the Easiness of the present Possessor of the Crown, or any other Reasons may induce him to make, are no ways truly binding to the Successor.  
Now to come to the last Point, the Qualification of Members in Parliament by the Test: And first, I shall not so much insist upon the notorious Invasion of the Birthright of the Peers by this Exclusion from Parliament, as being a Point already so well handled by better Pens, and never yet answered; nor shall I so much insist upon the Illegality and unreasonableness of Tests in general of any kind, as was once argued in Parliament by the Lord Delamere in opposition to a Test proposed by the Earl of Lindsey, a Test, which (though not thought legal to be imposed as such) contained no other than the highest Obligations of Loyalty that every Subject owes to his Prince. But if the making of Tests in Parliament, which with the Sovereign Consent (as Kings are but Men, and sometimes the Exigence of Affairs, may extort the Royal Fiat) lies in the Majority so to do: Suppose the Forgers of this Test (for by the by they were none of the best Friends of the Church as now by Law established) had followed their Blow, and formed a second Test to deny Episcopacy to be Jure divino; a Dispute much bandied in those days: Here had the Bishops been thrown out of the Parliament, if not the whole Hierarchy out of the Kingdom. And so by Tests ad Infinitum, how might the Basis of the whole Government been overturned, and the very Houses of Parliament dwindled at last, to the scandalous Dimensions of the old fashioned Rump. For if one Test to exclude a Score, why not another to lop off a hundred? And indeed, how are our present Parliaments the comprehensive Body of the Nation, when so many of the Peers, not there by Representatives, are shut out? Nay, how much is the Dignity of the Laws they make, and the very Constitution of our later Parliaments themselves impaired and lessened by such an Exclusion?  
But to come to the main Business, viz. to obviate the greatest and terriblest Clamour of Fear and Jealousy against the Repeal of the Test, viz. If the Test were destroyed, who knows but Parliaments may be so managed as to turn out the Church of England, and set up Popery even by Law itself?  
This indeed is the Gorgon, that frights half Mankind out of their little Senses. But where, or how is this Popish Parliament to be gotten, (for a Protestant one will hardly be so Complaisant:) But to search out every Cranny that this imaginary Danger is supposed to creep in at, Let us examine the House of Lords, and try their Inclinations that way.  
If the Test were laid aside, and the excluded Lords restored; what would their Number signify! At our last Parliament, the Protestant Peers amounted to 160, and the excluded Romish Barons (nor are they much increased since) were not a Tenth of their Number. So that here's an absolute want of a Prodigious Creation of Romish Barons to rise to a Majority; Nay, and of so many Estates too, to support the Grandeur, as possibly would stagger imagination itself to find a Treasure, enough to purchase: for so many New Dignifications, especially of Gentry, or Landed Men to start up Lords, among so thin sown a Party, would put 'em damnable hard to it. But for once, grant such an Extravagant Donation of Honour, and such Golden Mines to maintain it, might form a House of Lords capable of overbalancing on the Popish side; where shall the House of Commons be had? for without both they do nothing! They would go nigh to find such a Dead Weight in the Lower House, as all the Tuggs of Rome would never be able to stir; and this stupendious Parliamentary Subversion of the Church of England a Phoenomenon only in Nubibus.  
A Popish House of Commons too! Alas, they'll tell you, very easily. Has not the King for instance, got a new way of Regulating Corporations, Nay, has he not (or will do before next Sessions) already Modelled all their Charters, and undoubtedly left few or none, either Citizens, Burghers or Freemen, in whom the Election lies, but such as are his Friends and Creatures.  
Very Well: Suppose he has, or will take Care, to the best of his Endeavour or Power, to Establish Corporations to his own Hearts liking: After all, where shall there be One Roman Catholic in all the next Election; and what shall these Creatures, (if you'll have 'em so) do more than Choose every Numerical Member a Protestant: For till the Test be Legally dissolved, they must all be so. And truly what if this next, tho' Protestant Parliament, out of an Abhorrence of the  Barbarity of the Penal Laws, shall do themselves, their Posterity, their Country, and His Majesty Justice in dissolving them? And what if likewise their true Sense of the most servile Imposition that Imperial Dignity ever bore, their Tenderness for His Majesty's Honour and Prerogative, together with their Gratitude, for the Plenty and Peace His Reign has Blessed them with, shall incline them also, to break those Fetters of the Crown, the Test; and all no more than High-Justice and Right Reason shall oblige them to; Must it therefore follow, that they shall do themselves, their Families, their yet unborn Heirs, and their no less Concern their Country that Wrong, as to give up their tenderest and nearest Care, their Religion, or any thing tending to it!  
Well, but say they, if this next Parliament will not do the Work; when the Test is once gone; 'tis but calling n●w Popish ones that will.  
I, but who shall choose them? The Electors are all the same: For the Corporations are, or will be settled to his own Model; and Test or no Test in Being, their Inclinations will be all the same; and upon any New Choice, beyond all Dispute, the majority of the Old Members Elected again; and if any New Ones amongst them, those too as far from ●eaning towards Rome, as the Popular Frantic Jealousies are from Common Sense.  
Upon the upshot, I defy all Mankind to form one Reasonable Projection, or indeed, imaginary possibility of such a Popish Parliament. For instance we must run into endless Labyrinths and Chimeras, for the mere Shadow of such a Danger. For first the King must dissolve all his late Charters again; no matter whether forfeited or not; and so throw Dirt in the Face of his own yesterday Royal Acts and Grants: For all the Freemen, Burggers, or Aldermen, and whatever the present Electors, and consequently all the Trading Part of the Nation, must be displaced and cashiered, (a very Violent Reform, and an ingratitude, which His Majesty's Nature abhors, to those very Men, that by rescinding the Penal Laws and Test, shall have Duty fully given him all he could ask:) And a new set of Romans planted in their Rooms; or otherwise, if the present Electors continue in their Posts, a Majority of Papists must be crowded in to over Vote them: But where to be had, let Machiavil himself inform us. For alas, where are these Popish Upstarts to be found. Not amongst the present Inhabitants of the Corporations: For how many Corporations are there in England, that have not so much as one Man amongst them of that Religion. Nay, take some parts of England, as the West for Example, where Corporations stand Thickest, and Papists grow Thinnest, and you shall not find in whole Counties the Hundred (Nay, if I trebled it, I should not mistake.) Part of Papists, of all Degrees whatever, to supply such a Corporation Majority of Electors, or any thing like it. And indeed, take the whole Nation round, and make every Romanist that Writes the Age of Man an Alderman, they shall fall so short still of the Account, that they must be forced to send over for Jago Pilgrims, (a good jolly Troop too) or some other, as Extravagant Helps to make out the Number, or otherwise our Outcry will be but Noise, and our Fears but Phantoms.  
But suppose any such wondrous Electors, such Alien or Foreign supplies of Romanists could be found, and so irregularly thrust into Corporations, as to carry a Popish Majority of Corporation Members: Nor will such a bare Majority do the Work. One additional Hundred of Popish Members extraordinary must be had, to overpower the Knights of the Shire, who in Spite of all pretended Corporation Feats, will be firm Protestant Members; the Over-byassing of whole Counties, being an Apprehension that Lunacy itself can never Forge. Nevertheless, suppose all these Alien Supplies so obtruded upon us, enough to carry the Cause. Alas, what Palliation, Nay, what Eloquence of Angels is enough to vindicate such Irregular and such Arbitrary Foundation of a Parliament; and instead of a Legal Assembly, and truly National Senate, or Popery so Established the Sacred Sanction of a LAW, Even half an Eye would see through the Fraud, and the whole World explode and condemn so visible a Deceit and Illusion: Insomuch, that His Majesty with as much Justice, and twice as much Honour; (Pardon the Profanation even of such a Supposition) might as well set up, Sic volo sic Jubeo for Law, and save himself the trouble of calling of Parliaments, for dissolving Penal Laws or Tests, or any other such tedious, and indeed, of the two more Unprincely Toil and Labour.  
What Mountain Height, are Fears raised to; but how shallow a Basis are they Built upon? Alas, we are not in any kind to take Comparisons from Queen mary, or Queen Elizabeth's Reign. The turning the Scale of Parliaments in those Days, was the least part of any Reasonable Man's Wonder. What an easy Matter for the Influence and Ascendancy of Imperial Power to sway Laws, and Establish Churches, as the Sovereign Inclination leaned; when the Church of Rome was not so low in its Wane, or the Young Reformation so high in its Increase, but either Party were in a manner the Moiety of the Nation, and consequently the Favour of the Crown might go far, and a Majority on the Royal Side, be more easily obtained.  
But in the present, even Despicably Diminutive Number of Romanists, and so almost a Total Bend of the whole Nation to the other side, the Project is so impracticable, and the Turn so impossible, as only Delirium can shape a Fear of it.  
But now to Sum up all, and draw towards a Period: between such Penal Laws, and such Tests, and the wondrous Episcopal Tenderness for their Beloved Preservation, Our Church, though a good Mother, is but a Course Nurse, when such Unlicked Brats as these, are her Hug'd and Dandled Bantlings. And Our Conscientious Mute Prelates, were certainly under the Fascination of no ordinary Hot Zeal, or something else as Warm, to be warped into Disobedience in so poor a Cause, viz. The Reading so inoffensive a Paper as His Majesty's Declaration.— But perhaps, after all, there may be more in it than we are ware of. For who can Fathom the Depth of such a Disobedience? Who knows but this very Mask of Conscience might be one of the subtlest Stratagems of Interest. Who, I say, knows but the Loss of so considerable a Church Regalia, so dear an Ensign of Ecclesiastic Sovereignty as their Tormenta and Flagella, their Tests and Penal Laws; and so sensible a Diminution of their GRANDEUR, their Diana GRANDEUR, threatened by the Relaxation of those Laws, might be so near a Concern to them, that seeing the Royal Indulgence to Religious Liberty, daily more and more gaining upon the Hearts of the People, and to stop the Career of so General a Compassion, the Fatal Effects of so growing a Contagion; their Denial of Reading so Pacifick a Declaration might possibly be one of the most exquisite Artifices too stifle the generous Product of it into Abortion; Their very Refusal being really no more than purposely to Court Sufferings, to gain Proselytes, as well fore knowing, upon the least Punishment for it, tho' ever so much their Due, to have their Condoled and Pitied Cause, seen through those Popular False Optics, as should turn even Justice itself in Persecution: And so by Alaruming the Old Ignorance into New Jealousies, they might so harden that present (too Universal) popular Lenity towards Tender Consciences, and more than probably so affect the Frighted Populace, and thereby so far influence the next Election as to defeat the whole Royal purposed Clemency, and gain their own Point.  
I should be sorry to be mistaken in this Suspicion; but truly the shallowness of so Weak-reasoned an Obstinacy against so Innocent, a Command of the King looks so very like some such sort of Ecclesiastical Polity, that I am afraid the Conscientious stumble at so Diminutive a Gnat, will at last be found a mere artful Piece of Priest craft, to keep their Dagon from falling: And what that Dagon is, let the World judge; for excepting the Engines of their Tyranny, and the supporters of their Pride, I know no strength the Penal Laws or Tests, either have or can yield them.  
But above all things that the Illegality of the King's Dispensing Power, should be a Spectre that appeared so dreadful to their Lordships, yet walks invisible to every Mortal Eyesight else, is not a little surprising, The very Straitest-laced Prerogative Men, never denied the King his Dispencing Power in Cases of Offence only against himself, Absq. Damno alterius; and wherein the bare Exercise of Religious Worship is, or can be alterius Damno, their Wisdoms would have been kind to inform us: Or wherein any Minister or Officer, qualified or not qualified by the Test, in any Civil or Military Station, (for His Majesty pretends to no other Dispensation) can be Damno Ecclesiae would be another piece of Discovery, as kind as the other. Wherein, & what has our Church, or our Nondispensing Churchmen suffered by all this Toleration. Have they lost the least Particle of their Government, Discipline, Rights, Privileges, or Possessions whatever. Is there any of our Nontested Magistrates, or our Vnpinioned Dissenters in all this Freedom, has wronged our Church of so much as a Sprig of Mint, or a Corn of Cumminseed that she can challenge Hers. Is she denied either Law or Justice, for so much as the claim of a Tythe-Egg?  
And that this Dispensing Power, may not look altogether so hideous, What is the King's Dispensing Power in Penal Laws, really any more than his pardoning Power. The Transgression of those Laws, incurs such a Penalty or Punishment, and the Royal Clemency, is Graciously pleased to remit the Forfeiture. And indeed, what does his Declaration amount to more than a Noli prosequi, (only a more universal one) the Common and daily Plea of the Crown. His Majesty, by his unquestioned Right can pardon; and what's his Declaration truly more than that he will do it. Our Great Crown-sticklers, have to a very fair purpose, so long Preached up our King's, the Vizegerents of GOD, to come at last to the denying them any part of the brightest Prerogative of the Divinity MERCY. And as to the backing the Credit, of their Assertion, by their Parliamentary Authority of 72, etc.  
I am sorry to hear our Divine Gamalels lay hold of so Weak a Handle, as to set up a Transient Vote against a Fundamental Prerogative. And as to their Insinuation, that upon our conceding a Dispensing Power, in the Case of the Penal Laws and Tests; it must therefore follow, that we should open an Inlet to lay aside All Laws, both Ecclesiastic and Civil; 'tis an Ergo sequitur, so strangely far stretched, that they might e'en as well have said, (and the Consequence have hung as well together too) that because some of our Severe Fathers of our Church, have Reasons of Conscience and Policy, to support Laws for the depopulating of Kingdoms, therefore the Gentler FATHER of our Country, aught to have the same Reasons too.  
I hope, their Lordships, if for nothing but the Reputation of their Wisdom and Learning, did not tender these Petitioning Reasons to His Majesty, as intended for Convincing one's. For truly by the strength, both of their Alleging and inferencing, this part of their Petition, if not all of it, I am afraid looks more like Written for the Reading of the Rabble, than of the King.  
But to conclude. As the  are all our Dangers from their Repeal, wherein are His Majesty's Demands unreasonable, in ask the Repeal of the Penal Laws, in which almost the whole Vox populi, Witness the late Numerous Addresses, joins with him, and the Principles of Nature, Humanity and Conscience plead for him. Or in ask the Repeal of the Test, for the asserting of his own Honour, and the Recovering the Birthright of a King, by endeavouring to shake off the most shameful Vassalage that Monarch ever truckled under. And why must his Endeavours of doing his People so much Right in the first; and Himself so much Right in the last, be so poorly misinterpreted, by the unnatural Surmises of his Ungrateful People. But let us Blush and mend, and by giving up these Laws, do Equity in Return of Clemency and MERCY.  
FINIS.