THE Great and Popular OBJECTION Against the Repeal of the Penal Laws & Tests BRIEFLY Stated and Considered, AND WHICH May serve for Answer to several late PAMPHLETS upon that Subject.  
By a Friend to Liberty for Liberty's sake  
Licenced February the 4th 1687.  
LONDON, Printed, and Sold, by Andrew Sowle, at the Three-Keys, in Nags-Head-Court, in Grace-Church-Street, over-against the Conduit, 1688.   

THE Great and Popular OBJECTION Against the Repeal of the Penal Laws & Tests, etc.  
IF the Consequences that are imagined to follow the Repeal of the Penal Statutes and Tests (and which so many give for the reason of their dislike to the Liberty that is sought by it) were indeed so Terrible as they are industriously represented, I should readily fall in with the common Jealousy, and help to augment the number of those that are for their Continuance; but when I consider how long our Government was Happy without Them, how much of Heat and Partialty prevailed in their Constitution, and how troublesome and impracticable their Execution are, and that, in our present Circumstances, They appear a plain Barriere to our Happiness, instead of a Bulwark to our Religion, I cannot but lament the misfortune of the Public, that those Gentlemen are yet under the fatal mistake of thinking Them necessary to our Safety, that with more Reason and Charity, in my opinion, should Endeavour to save us from the Inconveniences of them.  
For the Question being gained against Coercion in Religion, and the impiety & impolicy of Persecution, agreed on all hands, all that is said by the most averse to the extent of the Repeal desired, issues here, If the Papists should happen to have Power or Ease, they are sure to use it to the prejudice of the rest, and therefore it is the Interest of the rest to oppose all their attempts to get it. The Consequence of which is this, It were better the Power of Persecution rested where it is, then to come into hands that would use it more Rigorously. I say, All Arts and Rhetorical Declamations set aside, This is the Centre and Substance of all that's said, by Any Body, against the Repeal of the Penal Laws, and more especially the Tests: And to this I would modestly offer what follows.  
I can by no means imagine there should be so much Danger where there is so little Trust: indeed none: And where one does not Trust one cannot be Deceived: Now there is no Trust, where there is a Law that puts all Parties out of the Power of one another: For therefore is a Law desired, that the hazard of Trusting may be out of Doors. And as this Law may be framed, I humbly conceive, it will not be impossible to secure every Party from the bigotry of the rest, else, I must acknowledge, nothing will save us from the mischief of Relapses. And whatever may be said against a Legal Security now, is as strong and reasonable against the hopes of any, whoever has the Chair: For Ambition, we see, is but too apt to creep into all Parties, and worldly Dominion has been an old and powerful Bait: If Law cannot secure us against it, we shall ever be to seek for the assurance we desire in this World. It will yet be said, That the best Law Men can make, is nothing without Execution, and That being in the Power of Those whose Principles or Interests may lead them to Evade or Perver it, the Insecurity is the same; yet with their leave that think so, it is one thing to dispense with a Pe●●● Law against a thing, not evil in itself, and another to violate a Law of common Right and Safety, which is evil in itself; for this were both to Repeal and Make Laws without a Parliament, which the Judges of no Reign have ever attempted to deliver for Law.  
If the Law proposed, Repeal Penal Laws for Religion (and surely 'tis proposed for that end) the Prince of himself cannot Enact a Penal Law to burt any body, whatever be his Religion, and we are so far safe from the Mischief of Persecution, though our security went no farther. But that we should be less safe, because the King, we so much Fear, is ready to Consent to a GREAT CHARTER for Liberty of Conscience, by which, it shall be Declared the RIGHT of Mankind to make a free and open choice and profession of Faith and Worship towards GOD, and that any Constraint or Interruption upon that Freedom, is Impiety, and an Evil in itself, and that Law, therefore Indispenfible, Is, I must confess, a Notion very Extraordinary. However, It is not hard to Execute a Law, when it is best Executed by doing nothing, for letting men alone compli●● best with such an One, and the Common Law secures them, as well as this, from those that meddle with them.  
I know it is further Objected, that though this were done, it would not rest here, A Parliament might quickly be Packed to overthrow this Establishment, and then we should be all ruin'd; for we should not only have Laws of the severest Nature, but force to execute them. But as Grave as the Objection looks, permit me to say, there is more of Art then Truth or Force in it: For don't we see that Wagers are every where laying by the present Enemies of Liberty, That the King can't, even with the help of his Dissenters, get a Parliament that will Repeal the Penal Laws and Tests, and yet that they should pretend to fear he may get One to Repeal Liberty of Conscience, and Enact the Bloodiest Laws in lieu of it (to which to be sure the Dissenters will never assist) is a contradiction, like that of Magnifying the Prerogative, and Railing at the Declaration, Crying down Common Wealths Men, and Opposing the Monarchy constantly with their Arguments; Fight against the distinction of the Natural and Political Capacity of the King, and making it every day to serve their own turn, and upon the worst terms too, Persecution, I mean. But waving the Humour, let us examine the Fear: In my opinion 'tis Groundless; for since their Masterpiece, the Letter to a Dissenter tells us, that there can be no danger of the Bet, where the Odds are so great as Two Hundred to One, we must conclude that Objection is of no weight against our Liberty: For Number being the Natural Power of a Kingdom, the Artificial (which is the Executive part of the Government) must needs move heavily and dangerously when it works against it.  
But if a Law be no security, because of the fear of a Packed Parliament, and Force to back it, what security, after all, can the Penal Statutes and Tests be? are they any more than Law? If it be said, they caution and awe the Roman Catholics. I say the Uiolation of a Great Charter for Liberty of Conscience will do it much more, because the Penalty may be Greater, and better fixed and applied. And since we only fear the Repeal of the One by a Packed Parliament, as well as the Other, the Authority which abolishes either, is equally Invalid, and therefore the Caution and Fear of Violating the one, must needs be as Great as of Overthrowing the other.  
This would be less difficult to us to apprehend, If we made the equal Reflections that become our present Condition. We look on France till we frighten ourselves from the best means of our worldly Happiness, but will not look at home upon greater Cruelties, if we consider Theirs were exercised against those of another Religion, but Ours upon the People of our own; though when we observe their Conduct elsewhere, it is easy to see, it must have something very particular in it. But at the same time we will take no notice of the greatest Tranquillity in Germany and Switzerland under a complete Liberty.  
Is this any thing but the Fruit of Law, The Agreement of Princes and States, The Great Charter of those Countries inviolably kept these forty years, The Thing his Majesty, with so much Zeal and Goodness presses to establish in his Dominions? Why then may not that be done here that has been so happily acted elsewhere? Are our Papists and Protestants worse here then there? Or are our Differences greater? Or are our Numbers more dangerously unequal, that we dare not trust a Law that others in our very Circumstances are so happy under? They don't only endure one another's Religion, but take their Turns the same Days in the same Churches or Places for Divine Worship; and will not the same Kingdom serve us? we must then have the worst of Natures, or be the worse for our Religion. And though many good reasons have been given, and may be elsewhere in evidence of this Notion, I will venture to offer a few at this time that never saw Light yet, that I know of, and which may happen to give some, to those that labour under the disbelief of it.  
I say then, a GREAT CHARTER for Liberty of Conscience, to be made and kept, is not only the true Interest of the Roman Catholics, but they think so, because they must think so: For if the Destruction of Protestancy, by a way of Violence, had been their Project, as much as it is our Fear, they had but one way in the World to have brought it to pass, and that was, to have made the utmost use of the Church of England's Penal Laws, which they found ready to their Hands, for the Destruction of the Protestant Dissenters, and to which she could not refuse her assistance, upon her principles of Obedience, if there were no Inclination left in her to that Fierce and Inhuman chase. By this, one Party of Protestants, had been easily made the Means of the others Extirpation, and how far Pleasures, Honours, Offices and Fear would have gone to have made an entire Conquest, easy upon her, is not the hardest thing in the World to apprehend, when the Bodies of her Dissenters had been thus cruelly dissolved by her. And if this have any sense in it, we must conclude, that delivering one Party of Protestants from the Rage and Power of the other, cannot be a way to bring in Popery. I own, it may affect the present Ecclesiastical Policy of the Church of England, but I never took that for Protestancy: On the contrary, it has evidently weakened the better part of the Protestant Interest in General, in these Kingdoms, ever since the Reformation. But besides this, 'tis one thing to Constrain a Law from the Prince, and another to have it offered by the Prince: The one, to be sure, he thinks against his Interest, and the other he takes to be as certainly for it. And if he thinks it is his Interest to preserve such a Law, we are sure of our Safety by it. That which moves him to it, must oblige him to maintain it; and if he does not heartily intend to support this Liberty, his giving it, must needs increase the Power and Interest he would suppress: An Error too gross to be made with so much Preparation and Art Nor is this all, in my opinion it is much more reasonable to believe that a Law for Liberty of Conscience should preserve us against the thing we apprehend so much, viz. Popery, because 'tis easier to fall from one Extreme to another, then from a Mean to an Extreme: And 'tis certain, there are more Parties concerned to support such a Law for Liberty, then to maintain those of Severity; for the Church of England only appears to uphold these, but all Parties besides agree to maintain That. And if it was the Interest of the Roman Catholics to divide the Dissenters from the Church of England, to be sure they cannot think it safe to unite Them: They have divided Them by the Liberty, But any attempts to take it away will infallibly join them. And when I consider how much more the Roman Catholics will in all probability want Liberty in after Reigns, than the Dissenters in this, I am also led to Conclude, that they are not so secure in the Repeal of the Penal Laws and Tests themselves, as in their own Moderation in the use of the Liberty that follows: For a Parliament in after Reigns may easily return them, and worse, if that can be, and will certainly do it, if they use their present opportunity too Eagrely and Partially; but no Parliament will ever think so harsh a Constitution fit to be revived, when the Moderation of the Gentlemen against whom it was made, hath proved it Useless, Unreasonable and Unsafe. This consideration is a reciprocal Caution to Us, not to refuse them the Rights of English Men, and to Them, not to mis-use them. And since hitherto we seem not so angry at the Liberty, as at the Manner of its being granted; if we are sincere in this, we cannot refuse the King in our own way, I mean, by Law. And in my Opinion, 'tis a point gained, not to have this ease Precarious from the Crown, as well as that it shows the King's sincerity beyond a doubt, that he is Solicitous to assure so great a Good to us in our own method.  
Let it not then be thought a Crime, that he does so, or that he takes the next and plainest ways to discriminate Persons for that end; for if the Consequence of his Endeavours were to ruin others for a Party, it might be thought Packing indeed; but when it is to open Enclosures and Levelly Interests, and by Law, to secure Them from the Ambition of one another, it seems to me to be Unpacking for the Good of the Whole, that which hath been so long Packed for the sole Good of a Party. And truly if we will yet scruple the Sincerity of the Prince, I know not an easier and better way to assure ourselves, then by choosing such Persons to serve in Parliament, whose Love and Sincerity for this Liberty we have the greatest Confidence in; For as that will certainly help to facilitate the Work, so where two Parties seem to conspire one end, nothing discovers the Insincerity of one side, like the Truth and Integrity of the other in pursuing it. Let us not then dislike Liberty in the King's way, and refuse it in our own, because he would make it his; for that would justly question our Truth and Charity, without which, our pretence of Religion or Safety is vain.  
We have heard it said, that the Persecution of the last Reign came from the Papists, and therefore we cannot expect they should be sincere for Liberty in this; but if that were true, (though it could not be the Roman Catholics that forced the late King to cancel his Declaration for Liberty, or that cozened the Dissenters of a Law for it) yet there is this use to be made of the Trick, that now the Roman Catholics are for Liberty, the Church of England cannot, with any credit, be against it.  
On the contrary, it shows, if they did Move those Storms of Persecution, it was to constrain the Dissenters to join with them in the Repeal of the Laws that raised Them, that so they might be allowed to share in the Calm: People are most apt to see the Necessity and Benefit of Liberty by the want of it.  
It is a Misfortune to be lamented, the Church of England should always be against Liberty, when the Court is for it, because the Court, in her opinion, is not Sincere; when at the same time, she knows, it is at no time to be had without them: A way for poor Dissenters, never to hope for such a thing as Liberty of Conscience at her hands: For without offering any Violence to the rules of Charity, she seems to excuse her unwillingness by their Insincerity. But with her favour, They must be sincere when their Interest will have them so. And though it is Imagined the Dissenter has no other bottom for his Confidence and Conjunction than the Roman Catholics Faith and Truth, 'tis too mean an Insinuation against his understanding, that I assure that Author is yet Good and Jealous enough, not to depend upon either the Council of Trent, or the Thirty Nine Articles for his safety. By no means; those Spiritual Mortgages, Folks give of their Souls, are too uncertain securities about worldly Matters, unless Men had, at least, a better Practice. Nothing, humanely speaking, fixes any Man like his Interest; And though this Agreement were only Hobson's choice in Roman Catholic and Dissenter, the security is not the less: For whatever be the Morality of any Party, if I am sure of them by the side of Interest and Necessity, I will never seek or value an Insurance by Oaths and Tests. Interest is the choice Men Naturally make, and Necessity compels Submission from the unhappy Subjects of her Power.  
And though some do Insinuate that better terms are to be hoped from the Church of England hereafter, then now from the Roman Catholics, I take leave to say, that it is an unwarrantable use of Providence, for them to neglect the present Certain Overtures (though they were the effects of Necessity) out of hopes the Church of England will use them better, when she has Power, not to do it, and not to care: when all Parties show their abuse of Power in their turns, 'tis reason enough to embrace the Benefit of Necessity from the first that offers: And nothing else, I fear, moves the Church of England to promise; And if so great a number may lie under such a Necessity, a less number cannot but be under a greater, and that I take to be the Roman Catholics Case, and our Assurance.  
If the Church of England could secure the Dissenters without that compliance she fears, 'twere something, if not, they are under an equal necessity to accept what the Roman catholics are under to offer: And for this reason, I cannot but think her joining in the Liberty more reasonable, than their refusing it for her sake. If she affects an Union, why should she uphold the Means of Division? Ought not the Dissenters to suspect her Integrity, in refusing a good Understanding, in the very way that must save those she would gain? And since she is sure They won't turn Papists, how does she lose Them in that way, in which she can only pretend to have Them, viz. as Protestants; for otherwise they will as little conform to her. And if the Price of her Good Will must be to uphold the Brand of her Conduct, and Means of their own Ruin, It is what they can never give, and she in Conscience and Wisdom should never ask.  
And what ever is suggested, it is too unwarily thought of any, that the Dissenters intent only their security against the Power of the Church of England, 'tis against the Spirit of Persecution in all Churches, they must all seek to be safe; that, which so ever of them happens to have the Government, the Rest may be secure under it; Else, 'tis but shutting one Door against an Evil, and opening another to let it in. If she will please but to tell me what way she can secure the Dissenters against her own Ambition, when one of her Communion Ascends the Throne, I will undertake to tell her, how she and the Dissenters may be safe from the Danger of Popery in the Reign of a King of that Religion. For the Spirit of Persecution being the same every where, it must have the same Remedy. She can't think we ought to Trust Her, That won't Trust, and That makes Trusting Dangerous.  
And whatever the Gentlemen of her Communion are pleased to suggest of the present good understanding, between the Roman Catholics and Dissenters, to blow their Interest with the People, Men must be greatly Imposed upon, to Imagine the present Affinity between them, can regard any thing but their common Safety; and common Danger makes that every where, reasonable and necessary. If this were not the case, I should hold myself concerned to act another Part in this affair; And if this be the case, it plainly answers all the Jealousy and Objection of the Times: For 'tis as lawful for them to join in this as in any Society of Trade, and more requisite. I say, It can be no just Reflection from the Church of England, when they must be ill read, that don't know, that she is the Halfway House between the two Dissenters, and that the Protestant Dissenter is a refine upon her, as she is upon the Church of Rome. So that though it be true that they join with the Papists, it is as true that it is not with Popery, but for Liberty, which the same Author tells us, is such a contradiction to Infallibility, which is his dangerous Popery: Tho I must tell him, I think it a greater to Persecute People upon a professed fallible Principle. Let it satisfy that Gentleman and his Followers, whose main drift, is Rallying Dissenters for relying on Romish Faith for security, that though They join with Roman Catholics to get Liberty, They will trust them, and every body else, as little as they can to keep it, and less join with them to take it away. On the contrary, in case of such attempts, 'tis reasonable to believe they will sooner unite with the Church of England to Preserve, what they now so freely oppose Her to obtain. But it may be said, It will then be too late, and therefore now too dangerous, to give that Interest, in the mean while, so much Play and Progress. This were an Hazard indeed, if the Roman Catholics could do any thing then, that they cannot do now, or if the Dissenters were to be less Numerous, less Sensible, or less Free and Able to resent it. I cannot see how the Roman Catholics can be in a better Cordition to Hurt us, if the Dissenters are not in a worse to Help us. Certainly their numbers must have the odds.  
On the other hand, the Dissenters, under Persecution, can do nothing, and while the Liberty is Precarious they dare do nothing; so that the way to render them useful to oppose the Violence feared, is to make their Interest in the Liberty Legal, as well as that a Legal Freedom is the best way to prevent all violent attempts in the Roman Catholics. For when the Law supports their Joint Interest, that will naturally join and lead Them to maintain the Law that defends it. I shall be heartily sorry if the Church of England cannot tell how to venture herself with those under Liberty, who have lived so well with her under her Persecution: Tho, as I have said before, there is no Trust in the case, since, therefore, a Law is desired, that we may not rely on so frail a Security: And where a Law puts all Parties upon one Bottom, I cannot help thinking all Parties are obliged in Example and Interest carefully to preserve it. And if we would but reflect how much more Law in all Ages hath preserved Mankind then Force, we would less argue the Insecurity of Law; but 'tis utterly Inconsistent at a time, when we plead the Almightiness of present Laws for our Safety.  
In short, If she only seeks to be Safe, let her not refuse the Security that Others are ready to take, and if she desires more, 'tis an unhappy Instance of her love to Dominion, and they can never be safe that Grant it. Let her not then be Fond but Wise; and remember, that the Security is not destroyed, but Changed and Enlarged: For from a Single, it becomes more than a Double Bond, and They that reject such a Security, cannot be thought sincere in ask of any. But, be that as it will, If we can but once see A MAGNA CHARTA for Liberty of Conscience, Established in these Kingdoms by the wisdom of a Parliament, They will be very Hardy, indeed, who Dare, at any time, Attempt to Shake It, That has the Jealousy, Union and Resolution of so many Great, Serious and Wealthy Interests to support It.  
I will not say, what this Charter shall be, for it does not become me, nor is it yet time; but I dare say, that it may be, and in such terms too, as all Parties shall find their Account: And unless that be the Reason why any will oppose it, It can neither miss to be, nor to be kept; and if such a Dissenter be to be found to this common Good, his opposition makes him a Common Enemy. I say, nothing can oppose such a Charter, but State Religion, and that which can Govern the rest, will Hazard the rest. A National Religion by Law, where it is not so by Number and Inclination, is a National Nuisance; for it will ever be matter of Strife. If she seeks to be Safe, but not to Rule, that which preserves the rest, secures her; If more is expected, 'tis less reasonable, in my opinion, for the Rest to Sacrifice their Safety to her Authority, then only to subject her Rule to their Security.  
FINIS.