aw; it is a greater stride than I presume all those care to make who
are persuaded to address. It shall be supposed that all the thankers
will be repealers of the Test, whenever a Parliament shall meet; such
an expectation is better prevented before than disappointed
afterwards; and the surest way to avoid the lying under such a scandal
is not to do anything that may give a colour to the mistake. These
bespoken thanks are little less improper than love-letters that were
solicited by the lady to whom they are to be directed: so that,
besides the little ground there is to give them, the manner of getting
them doth extremely lessen their value. It might be wished that you
would have suppressed your impatience, and have been content, for the
sake of religion, to enjoy it within yourselves, without the liberty
of a public exercise, till a Parliament had allowed it; but since that
could not be, and that the articles of some amongst you have made use
of the well-meant zeal of the generality to draw them into this
mistake, I am so far from blaming you with that sharpness, which
perhaps the matter in strictness would bear, that I am ready to err on
the side of the more gentle construction.

There is a great difference between enjoying quietly the advantages of
an act irregularly done by others, and the going about to support it
against the laws in being. The law is so sacred that no trespass
against it is to be defended; yet frailties may in some measure be
excused when they cannot be justified. The desire of enjoying liberty,
from which men have been so long restrained, may be a temptation that
their reason is not at all times able to resist. If in such a case
some objections are leapt over, indifferent men will be more inclined
to lament the occasion than to fall too hard upon the fault, whilst it
is covered with the apology of a good intention. But where, to rescue
yourselves from the severity of one law, you give a blow to all the
laws, by which your religion and liberty are to be protected; and
instead of silently receiving the benefit of this indulgence, you set
up for advocates to support it, you become voluntary aggressors, and
look like counsel retained by the prerogative against your old friend
Magna Charta, who hath done nothing to deserve her falling thus under
your displeasure.

If the case then should be, that the price expected from you for this
liberty is giving up your right in the laws, sure you will think twi