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Penn_001-50.indd 22 1/17/12 10:55 AM England's Present INTEREST Considered, WITH Honour to the PRINCE, and Safety to the PEOPLE (1675) In Answer to this one Question, What is most Fit, Easy and Safe at this Juncture ofAffairs to be done, for quieting ofDifferences, allaying the Heat ofcontrary Interests, and making them subservient to the Interest of the Government, and consistent with the Prosperity of the Kingdom? Submitted to the Consideration of our SuPER I o Rs . Lex est Ratio sine Appetitu.1 The IN T R o D u c T IoN. THERE is no Law under Heaven, which hath its Rise from Nature or Grace, that forbids Men to deal Honestly and Plainly, with the Greatest, in Matters of Importance to their present and future Good: On the contrary, the Dictates of both enjoyn every Man that Office to his Neighbour; and from Charity among Private Persons, it becomes a Duty indispensible to the Publick . Nor do Worthy Minds think ever the less kindly of Honest and Humble Monitors; and God knows, that oft-times Princes are deceived, and Kingdoms languish for Want of them. How far the Posture of our Affairs will justify this Address, I shall submit to the Judgment, and Observation of every Intelligent Reader. Certain it is, that there are few Kingdoms in the World more divided within themselves, and whose Religious Interests lye more seemingly cross to all Accommodation , than that we Live in; which renders the Magistrate's Task hard, and giveth him a Difficulty next to invincible. Your Endeavours for an Uniformity have been many; Your Acts not a few to enforce it; but the Consequence, whether you intended it or no, through 1. Law is reason without passion. Penn_001-50.indd 23 1/17/12 10:55 AM ENG LAND's PRESENT !NT EREST CONS! DERED { 23} the Barbarous Practices ofthose that have had their Execution, hath been the spoiling of several Thousands of the Free Born People of this Kingdom, of their Unforfeited Rights. Persons have been flung into Goals,2 Gates and Trunks broke open, Goods distrained, till a Stool hath not been left to sit down on: Flocks of Cattle driven, whole Barns full of Corn seized, Thresh'd, and carried away: Parents left without their Children, Children without their Parents, both without Subsistence. But that which aggravates the Cruelty, is, The Widow's Mite hath not escaped their Hands; they have made her Cow the Forfeiture ofher Conscience; not leaving her a Bed to lye on, nor a Blanket to cover her.3 And which is yet more Barbarous, and helps to make up this Tragedy, the Poor Helpless Orphan's Milk, Boiling over the Fire, has been flung to the Dogs, and the Skillet made Part of their Prize: That, had not Nature in Neighbours been stronger than Cruelty in such Informers and Officers, to open her Bowels for their Relief and Subsistence, they must have utterly perish'd. Nor can these inhuman Instruments plead Conscience or Duty to those Laws, who have abundantly transcended the severest Clause in them; for to see the imprison'd, has been Suspicion enough for a Goal; and to Visit the Sick, to make a Conventicle: Fining and Straining for Preaching, and being at a Meeting, where there hath been neither; and Forty Pound for Twenty, at Pick and Choose too, is a moderate Advance with some of them. Others thinking this a Way too dull and troublesome, alter the Question, and turn, Have you met? Which the Act intends; to, Will you Swear? Which it intendeth not: So that in some Places it hath been sufficient to a Premunire, that Men have had Estates to lose; I mean such Men, who, through Tenderness , refuse the Oath; but by Principle like the Allegiance, not less than their Adversaries! Finding then by sad Experience, and a long Tract of Time, that the very Remedies applied to cure Dissension, increase it; and that the more Vigorously an Uniformity is Coercively Prosecuted, the wider Breaches grow, the more inflamed Persons are, and fix'd in their Resolutions to stand by their Principles, it should, methinks, put an End to the Attempt: For besides all 2. Here and hereafter, read "jails" for "goals." 3· See Mark 12:42; and Luke 21:2. 4· On the Quaker attitude toward oaths, see Penn's A Treatise of Oaths (London, 1675). [18.219.236.62] Project MUSE (2024-04-16 10...

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