twenty years, in a MATCH AT FOOT BALL, where the proverb exprefly tells us, that all are FELLOWS; while the three kingdoms were toffed to and fro, the churches and cities and royal palaces fhattered to pieces by their balls, their buffets, and their kicks; the victors would allow no more FELLOWS AT FOOT BALL; but murdered, fequeftered, plundered, deprived, banished to the plantations, or enflaved, all their oppofers who had loft the game. It is faid the world is governed by opinion; and politicians affure us, that all power is founded thereupon. Wherefore, as all human creatures are fond to distraction of their own opinions, and fo much the more, as those opinions are abfurd, ridiculous, or of little moment; it muft follow, that they are equally fond of power. But no opinions are maintained with fo much obftinacy as those in religion, especially by fuch zealots, who never bore the leaft regard to religion, confcience, honour, juftice, truth, mercy, or common morality farther than in outward appearance, under the mafk of hypocrify to promote their diabolical defigns. And therefore bishop Burnet, one of their oracles, tells us honeftly, that the faints of those fanatic times pronounced themselves above morality; which they reckoned among beggarly elements; but the meaning of these two laft words thus applied, we confess to be above our understanding. Among those kingdoms and ftates which first embraced the Reformation, England appears to Y 2 have have received it in the most regular way; where it was introduced in a peaceable manner, by the fupreme power of a king [u] and the three eftates in parliament; to which, as the highest legislative authority, all fubjects are bound paffively to fubmit. Neither was there much blood fhed on fo great a change of religion. But a confiderable number of lords, and other perfons of quality through the kingdom, ftill continued in their old faith, and were, notwithstanding their difference in religion, employed in offices civil as well as military, more or lefs in every reign, until the teft act in the time of king Charles the second. However, from the time of the Reformation, the number of catholicks gradually and confiderably leffened. So that, in the reign of king Charles the first, England became, in a great degree, a proteftant kingdom, without taking the fectaries into the number; the legality whereof, with refpect to human laws, the catholicks never difputed; but the puritans, and other fchifmaticks, without the leaft pretence to any fuch authority, by an open rebellion destroyed that legal Reformation, as we observed before, murdered their king, and changed the monarchy into a republick. It is therefore not to be wondered at, if the catholicks, in fuch a babel of religions, chofe to adhere to their own faith left them by their ancestors, rather than seek for a better [u] Henry VIII, among among a rabble of hypocritical, rebellious, deluding knaves, or deluded enthufiafts. We repeat once more, that if a national religion be changed by the fupreme legislative power, we cannot dispute the human legality of fuch a change. But we humbly conceive, that if any confiderable party of men, which differs from an eftablishment, either old or new, can deferve liberty of confcience, it ought to confift of thofe, who, for want of conviction, or of right understanding the merits of each caufe, conceive themfelves bound in conscience to adhere to the religion of their ancestors; because they are of all others least likely to be authors of innovations either in church or ftate. On the other fide; if the reformation of religion be founded upon rebellion against the king, without whofe confent, by the nature of our conftitution, no law can pafs; if this reformation be introduced by only one of the three eftates, I mean the commons, and not by one half even of those commons, and this by the affiftance of a rebellious army; again, if this Reformation were carried on by the exclufion of nobles both lay and fpiritual (who conftitute the other part of the three eftates), by the murder of their king, and by abolishing the whole fyftem of government; the catholicks cannot fee why the fucceffors of thofe fchifmaticks, who are univerfally accufed by all parties, except themfelves, and a few infamous abetters, for ftill retaining the fame principles in religion and governY 3 ment, ment, under which their predecessors acted; should pretend to a better fhare of civil or military truft, profit and power, than the catholicks, who, during all that period of twenty years, were continually perfecuted with the utmost severity, merely on account of their loyalty and conftant adherence to kingly power. We now come to thofe arguments for repealing the facramental teft, which equally affect the catholicks, and their brethren the diffenters. First, we agree with our fellow-diffenters, that [x] perfecution, merely for confcience fake, is against the genius of the gospel. And fo likewife is any law for depriving men of their natural and civil rights, which they claim as men. We are also ready enough to allow, that the fmallest negative discouragements, for uniformity's fake, are so many perfecutions. Because, it cannot be denied, that the scratch of a pin is, in fome degree, a real wound, as much as a stab through the heart. In like manner, an incapacity by law for any man to be made a judge, a colonel, or justice of the peace, merely on a point of confcience, is a negative difcouragement, and, confequently, a real perfecution: for in this cafe, the author of the pamphlet, quoted in the margin [y], puts a very pertinent and powerful queftion: If God be the fole Lord of the conscience, [x] Vid. Reasons for the repeal of the facramental teft. why why should the rights of confcience be fubject to human jurifdiction? Now, to apply this to the catholicks ; the belief of tranfubftantiation is a matter purely of religion and confcience, which doth not affect the political intereft of fociety, as fuch: therefore why should the rights of conscience, whereof God is the fole Lord, be fubject to human jurisdiction? And why should God be deprived of this right over a catholick's conscience, any more than over that of any other diffenter? And whereas another author, among our brethren the diffenters, hath very juftly complained, that, by this perfecuting teft act, great numbers of true proteftants have been forced to leave the kingdom, and fly to the plantations, rather than stay here branded with an incapacity for civil and military employments; we do affirm, that the catholicks can bring many more inftances of the fame kind; fome thousands of their religion having been forced, by the facramental test, to retire into other countries, rather than live here under the incapacity of wearing fwords, fitting in parliament, and getting that share of power and profit which belong to them as fellow Chriftians, whereof they are deprived merely upon account of conscience, which would not allow them to take the facrament after the manner prescribed in the liturgy. Hence it clearly follows, in the words of the fame [z] author, That if we [*] See Reasons against the teft, catho |