Relating to the SACRAMENTAL TEST. Written in the Year 1732. QUERY, Wlence between parties in a state HETHER hatred and vio be not more inflamed by different views of intereft, than by the greater or leffer differences between them either in religion or government? Whether it be any part of the question at this time, which of the two religions is worse, popery or fanaticifm; or not rather, which of the two (having both the fame good will) is in the hopefulleft condition to ruin the church? Whether the fectaries, whenever they come to prevail, will not ruin the church as infallibly and effectually as the papists? Whether the prevailing fectaries could allow liberty of conscience to diffenters without belying all their former practice, and almost all their former writings? 3 Whether Whether many hundred thousand Scotch prefbyterians are not full as virulent against the epifcopal church, as they are against the papifts; or as they. would have us think the papifts are against them? Whether the Dutch, who are moft diftinguished for allowing liberty of conscience, do admit any perfons who profess a different scheme of worship from their own, into civil employments, although they may be forced, by the nature of their government, to receive mercenary troops of all religions? Whether the diffenters ever pretended, until of late years, to defire more than a bare toleration? Whether, if it be true, what a forry pamphleteer afferts, who lately writ for repealing the test, that the diffenters, in this kingdom, are equally numerous with the churchmen, it would not be a neceffary point of prudence, by all proper and lawful means, to prevent their further increase? The great argument given by thofe, whom they call low churchmen, to juftify the large tolerations allowed to diffenters, hath been; that, by such indulgencies, the rancour of fectaries would gradually wear off, many of them would come over to us, and their parties, in a little time, crumble to nothing. Query, Whether, if what the above pamphleteer afferts, that the fectaries are equal in numbers with conformists, be true, it doth not clearly follow, that those repeated tolerations have operated directly contrary to what those low church politicians pretended to forefee and expect? X 3 Whether Whether any clergyman, however dignified or distinguished, if he think his own profeffion moft agreeable to holy fcripture and the primitive church, can really wifh in his heart, that all fectaries fhould be upon an equal foot with the churchmen in the point of civil power and employments? Whether episcopacy, which is held by the church to be a divine and apoftolical inftitution, be not a fundamental point of religion, particularly in that effential one of conferring holy orders? Whether, by neceffary confequences, the feveral expedients among the fectaries to conftitute their teachers are not absolutely null and void? Whether the fectaries will ever agree to accept ordination only from bishops? Whether the bishops and clergy will be content to give up episcopacy, as a point indifferent, without which the church can well fubfift? Whether that great tenderness towards fectaries, which now fo much prevails, be chiefly owing to the fears of popery, or to that spirit of atheism, deism, fcepticism, and universal immorality, which all good men fo much lament? Granting popery to have any more errors in religion than any one branch of the fectaries, let us examine the actions of both, as they have each effected the peace of these kingdoms, with allowance for the short time, which the fectaries had to act in, who are in a manner but of yesterday. The papifts, in the time of king James the fecond, ufed all endea vours to establish their fuperftition, wherein they failed by the united power of English church-proteftants with the prince of Orange's affiftance. But it cannot be afferted, that these bigotted papists had the least design to oppose or murder their king, much less to abolish kingly government; nor was it their intereft or inclination to attempt either. On the other fide, the puritans, who had, almost from the beginning of queen Elizabeth's reign, been a perpetual thorn in the church's fide, joining with the Scotch enthufiafts in the time of king Charles the first, were the principal caufe of the Irish rebellion and massacre, by distreffing that prince, and making it impoffible for him to fend over timely fuccours. And after that pious prince had satisfied his parliament in every single point to be complained of, the fame fectaries, by poisoning the minds and. affections of the people with the moft falfe and wicked reprefentations of their king, were able, in the compass of a few years, to embroil the three nations in a bloody rebellion at the expence of many thousand lives; to turn the kingly power into anarchy; to murder their prince in the face of the world, and (in their own ftyle) to deftroy the church root and branch. The account therefore ftands thus. The papifts aimed at one pernicious act, which was to destroy the proteftant religion; wherein, by God's mercy, and the affiftance of our glorious king William, they absolutely failed. The fectaries attempted the three most infernal actions, that could poffibly enter into the hearts of men forfaken by God; which X 4 were were the murder of a moft pious king, the deftruction of the monarchy, and the extirpation of the church; and fucceeded in them all. Upon which I put the following queries: Whether any of those fectaries have ever yet, in a folemn publick manner, renounced any one of those principles, upon which their predeceffors then acted? Whether, confidering the cruel perfecutions of the epifcopal church during the course of that horrid rebellion, and the confequences of it until the happy restoration, it is not manifest, that the persecuting spirit lies fo equally divided between the papifts and the fectaries, that a feather would turn the balance on either fide? And therefore, laftly, Whether any perfon of common understanding, who profeffeth himself a member of the church established, although, perhaps, with little inward regard to any religion (which is too often the cafe) if he loves the peace and welfare of his country, can, after cool thinking, rejoice to fee a power placed again in the hands of so restlefs, fo ambitious, and fo merciless a faction, to act over all the fame parts a fecond time? Whether the candor of that expreffion, fo frequent of late in fermons and pamphlets, of the Strength and number of the papists in Ireland, can be: juftified? For as to their number, however great, it is always magnified in proportion to the zeal or politicks of the speaker and writer; but it is a grofs. impofition, |