disgusts to see a Body of men ruined and impoverished in whose hands three parts of four through the whole Kingdom have less or more of their Interests involved And whereas none save the Informers are either desirous or likely to gain by these violent courses the King being too generous as well as good to sell his Treasury with the spoil of the oppressed would it not become our Publick Ministers to consider whether it be a congruous and wise thing to glut and satisfie the Avarice of an idle and unprofitable sort of people not only at the cost and expence of many honest and industrious Families that will be ruined but at the vast diminution of the Trade of the Nation and proportionably the lessening the King's Profit and Revenue Nor are such as do fully conform to the Worship Discipline and Ceremonies of the Church offended as well as surprized at the seeing Distresses levied upon their harmless Neighbours only for their Consciences towards God but they are wonderfully alarm'd at the manner in which they are daily disseized of their estates being without the Enquiry and Verdict of a Jury Such was the care of our Ancestors for the security of our Estates as well as our Lives that by that which is consign'd to us as the Common Law of the Land we have this fence and bulwark to guard our Property That we ought not to be dispossest either of the whole or any part but upon a hearing and trial by a Jury I know that by the Acts for preventing and suppressing Seditious Conventicles such and such Officers as are therein named have a power given them to levy the respective Fines that are imposed upon Offenders without the Enquiry or Verdict of a Jury but I also know that an Act of Parliament hath not heretofore been sufficient to justifie and protect those who have invaded the Properties of men and disseized them of their Estates without a previous and Legal Trial. Tho' Empson and Dudley thought themselves secured by the Authority of a Statute made in the 11 Hen. 7. in what they did of this kind yet that Act was not only repealed in the 1 Hen. 8. for being contrary to the just Rights of the Subject and the Common Law of England but they who ventured to act upon it to the oppression of the people were Condemned and Hanged for so doing And as the counsel and advice for the execution of the Penal Laws upon Dissenters at a season when both our Lives and Religion are in eminent danger and hazard by reason of the Plots and Conspiracies of the Papists can proceed from no other persons but such as favour Popery and would promote the bloody Designs of the Church of Rome so who knows but that the Phanaticks being a surly people may by way of reprisal Indict many of his Majesties Conformable Subjects upon other Penal Statutes to which either upon one score or another most of them will be found liable And as it would savour of too great Partiality in the Government to grant a Noli prosequi for the Relief and Protection of such should they come to be prosecuted when at the same time it is found countenancing and encouraging the prosecution of Dissenters upon Laws which are not in themselves better more just or usefuller to the preservation of the publick Peace and the maintenance of good Manners so it would be little for the reputation and credit of such as superintend and guide affairs to see the whole Kingdom turned into a Cock-pit and one Subject scratch pluck and harass another Nay were the Phanaticks inclined to retaliate upon others what is daily measured out unto themselves they want not considerable advantages from Statutes of lessening if not wholly destroying some considerable branches of His Majesties Revenue For besides the damage and prejudice it would give the King in the matter of the Excise should Alehouse keepers be Indicted upon the Statute of the 21 of James cap. 7. where it is Ordained That whosoever sells a Pot or Quart of Ale for above a Penny shall for every such offence forfeit twenty Shillings and which the Act of the 22 and 23 of this King can no ways relieve them from seing the Clause by which they were indempnified from that Penalty is wholly expired I say besides this the Act concerning the Excise is not so discretely and carefully penned but that occasion may be taken by a discontented people to dispute and debate the validity of it in some particulars which if carried would altogether overthrow it Nor is it improbable but that the Severity which the Dissenters suffer and undergo upon the Statutes against Conventicles may so awaken and provoke them to enquire into the Nature Form and Quality of those Laws that upon a Legal and fair hearing they may be found to have no concernment in them or the Penalties of them For as they seem not to come within the reason of those Acts because they were made as the Title and Preface to them do declare only to prevent and suppress Seditious Conventicles which the Dissenters by assembling for the Worship of God according to the revelation of his Word are no ways chargeable withal so it doth not plainly appear that the body of these Acts which subject those only to Penalties Who worship God in other manner than according to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England doth any ways extend unto them The Disciples of Christ and all Christians may be as truly and rationally accused of disobedience to their Teacher and Saviour whensoever they are found praying in any other words than those contained in the Lord's Prayer seing Jesus Christ hath bid us Pray after that manner as the Dissenters can be justly Informed against or Indicted For worshipping God in other manner than according to the Liturgy merely because they read not the Prayers of the Church And to all that hath been said I hope this may be modestly added That should the Phanaticks by the execution of the Penal Laws be driven to extremities and left destitute of all other means of relieving themselves they may possibly become so far exasperated and incensed as to question and bring into debate the validity of the principal Laws upon which they suffer For tho' I do not take upon me nor presume to say any thing against the Force and Legality of them yet no man can undertake what a rich and courageous people may do that is hamper'd by and insested upon them And should the Parliament that met the 8th of May in the 13th of this King be found to have exceeded the time which the the Act of the Sixteenth Car. cap. 1. For preventing of Inconveniences happening by the long Intermission of Parliaments had appointed and limited for their continuing to sit before they once thought of Abrogating and Repealing that Statute which they did not till the Session that begun the 16th of March in the 16th of Car. 2. then the
persecution which they undergo is commenced against them for no other cause but barely that of their Religion so to give the French King his due he is so just as to acknowledg it and scorns to palliate the true cause of their Oppressions Banishment and Slaughter by pretending that they have conspired against his Person and Government and that their Assemblies for the Worship of God are intended for and employ'd in the stirring up Sedition He is so generous as not to mention the several Wars which those of the Reformed Religion undertook and managed for their own defence against Charles the Ninth Henry the Third and Lewis the Thirteenth but he tells them that they have been always very loyal to him and that he apprehends no trouble or danger from them on the account of their Principles only he is resolved not to suffer any in his Dominions who will not embrace the Popish Religion and that they must either renounce the Faith which they profess or submit to be destroyed It would require a Volume rather than a Paragraph to recount the many late Edicts which have been published against them and the several steps and methods which have been taken to ruine them without their being guilty of any other crime or provocation save their having withdrawn themselves from the Communion of the Church of Rome Thus the King hath not only demolished an infinite number of Churches and suppressed the exercise of Religion where it had for a long time been legally enjoyed but the Protestant Ministers are every where exposed to be proceeded against and punished whensoever any suborned wretch shall but depose that they delivered something in their Sermons that was scandalous upon the Church of Rome And they have not only ordered under great and severe Penalties That no Papist shall turn Protestant and that none who have forsaken the Protestant Religion tho' out of infirmity lightness or fear shall return to it again but they have also ordained That the Children of Protestants shall be admitted to abjure their Religion at seven years of Age and in case they have no mind afterwards to live with their Parents that their Fathers and Mothers shall be obliged to maintain them wherever they please to continue or be It were endless to recount the hardships which the Protestants in that Kingdom are under for besides their being turned out of all offices wherein they got a Subsistence for themselves and Families their Wives are not to be brought to bed but by Midwives or Chyrurgeons that are Papists nor their Children taught unless it be meerly to read and write save by Popish Schoolmasters Nay as if it were not enough to forbid them to be Stewards Bailiffs Solicitors Registers Clerks Notaries and to remove them from all Employments in the Affairs of the Finances or Customs and turn them out of all Military Commands by Sea and Land they have commanded all Chyrurgeons Apothecaries Watchmakers and divers other Artificers to shut up their shops which is in effect to require them either to turn Papists or to subject them to starve And to all the other miseries which that poor people are made liable unto for their Religion this is not the least that they will not suffer them to die in quiet but have enjoyned that when they are sick they shall suffer themselves to be visited by a Popish Magistrate in the presence of two Popish Witnesses without allowing any Protestants tho' their nearest Relations to be by And as we may easily apprehend that their errand is either to disturb them that they may not expire in quiet or by the utmost Cunning and Art to prevert them from departing in the same Faith which they had all their days professed so they think it not only a lawful but a meritorious Act to say that they died in the Faith of the Church of Rome tho' they know the contrary to be true And thereupon they take away all their Children to breed them in the Popish Religion and seize the Estate to preserve it as they pretend for the Children of such Catholick Parents In a word the sufferings and calamities of the Protestants in France are grown to such a height that many thousands have forsaken their native Country Relations Friends and Estates and the rest are ready to do the like were they not debarred all ways of departure and escape And as the severities exercised against those of the Reformed Religion in that Kingdom are but a Copy of what we in these Nations are to look for in case we should come under a Popish Prince so the time hath been that the Rulers of these Kingdoms and such as Minister at the helm of of publick Affairs would not have silently lookt on and suffered those of the same Faith with themselves to be thus oppressed and destroyed for no other Reason but meerly because they are Protestants Nor will it be hereafter to the Honour and Reputation of some people in the World That the first Edicts of any fatal Consequence to the Hugonets in France bore date in 1660. as if the French King had presumed upon the Connivence of his Neighbours and therefore adventured to begin the Persecution which hath been by several steps advanced all along since and is at last arrived at inexpressible as well unsupportable severities and rigours And I may say that it is not without grief and sorrow that they who love his Majesty are necessitated to observe how through the influence of ill men about him he hath suffered himself to be persuaded to neglect interposing so effectually in behalf of that people as was expected from a Prince professing the Protestant Religion and whose interest it is to show himself upon all occasions the Patron and Defender of all the Reformed Churches And whosoever they were that advised His Majesty to abandon the concerning himself in the favour of Protestants beyond the Seas they neither consulted the Glory and Honour of their Prince nor yet the Maxims which His Royal Father as well as others who have swayed the English Scepter were guided by And tho' no good subject can think of the Usurper Oliver Cromwell but with an abhorrency of the Crimes which he was guilty of towards the Royal Family and these Kingdoms yet all the World took notice and continues to acknowledg both with what Sympathy Courage and Zeal he appeared in behalf of the Protestants in Piedmont when their Prince the Duke of Savoy had employ'd Forces and given Orders to extirpate them and how by a Letter to the late French Cardinal he check'd and stem'd a Persecution which some Protestants in the South of France were likely to have fallen under The poor Hugonots did not only long ago foresee all that hath hitherto overtaken them but they likewise made some near His Majesty acquainted with it and were ready to have proposed such measures as would have been able to have prevented their own sufferings and the disturbance which the French Monarch
prejudice Nay they have been not only connived at in the reintroduction of the vvhole Popish Hierarchy into that Kingdom and allovved the holding a Publick Assembly of the Papal Clergy by a Commission from the Duke of Ormond in the year 1666. for their Sitting but they have equally vvith His Majesties Protestant Subjects been advanced to several places of Civil Power and Trust so that when the Plot was to have been executed in England Anno 1678. there were no fewer than fifteen Sheriffs in Ireland who were either professed and avowed Papists or such as bred and educated their Children in that Religion And yet while this Forbearance and Tenderness have been expressed to the Papists such of His Majesties Protestant Subjects as in that Kingdom dissent from the Established Rites and Ceremonies of the Church have fallen under the misfortune of having an express Law made against them and divers Loyal Subjects who profess the Protestant Religion in all its Doctrinal Articles have been prosecuted to Fine and Imprisonment upon it And as to the Papists in England they were so far for many years after His Majesties Restoration from having any new Laws made against them that they never felt the weight of the old ones For saving the open exercise of their Religion whereof they have been restrained they enjoyed the same safety as to their persons and estates which the Kings Protestant Liege people did Nay many of them besides their having the personal favour of the Prince equally with others they were admitted into Places and Employments of Profit and Trust And tho by their late Hellish Plot they are made liable to some Tests or to be disabled from sitting in Parliament and rendred uncapable of publick Trusts yet notwithstanding the provocation which the Nation might have justly conceived against them upon the account of that Damnable Conspiracy there hath not to this day been any new Laws made against them for their Religion nor can they with any truth and justice complain of the rigorous execution of those which had been enacted before Whereas notwithstanding the agreement that is between all His Majesties Protestant Subjects in the Fundamental points of Religion those that are called Protestant Dissenters have not only been prosecuted since His Majesties Restoration upon ancient Statutes which were purposely made intended against none but Popish Recusants as well as upon that of the 35 of Queen Elizabeth which being also made upon the dangers that the Kingdom was in from the Papists as appears by the Speeches and Debates of the greatest Statesmen who were in that Parliament seems to have been originally designed against none but them vide Townsend Historical Collect. but there have besides been no fewer in one kind and othet than five several new Laws and these none of the gentlest enacted against them And while the Papists have hardly felt the severity of the Laws which are in force against Popish Recusancy the Protestants have unconceivably suffered by virtue of the Laws made against Dissenters from the Government Discipline Rites and Liturgy of the Church and upon a Law for Regulating Corporations whereof the most material terms were judged inconvenient burdensome and grievous when intended to have been imposed upon others in the form and manner of a Test Now having suggested these things both in the fewest words I can and with all imaginable regard and attendance to Truth we shall in the next place with the like sincerity and briefness intimate and recount what Plots Conspiracies and Designs the Papists have of late years been engaged in and pursued to the subversion of our Religion and the destruction of our Lives and Liberties notwithstanding the tenderness of the Government towards them and the excellent Laws which we are provided with and enjoy both for the security of all these unto us and for our protection from the Machinations of all Popish Enemies And tho' the methods wherein they have acted and the steps they have taken have been so secret as well as various that it is impossible fully to trace and display them yet so much is obvious to all who do not wilfully shut their eyes that by relating only what we demonstratively know we may be able to form a judgment concerning their Councels and Actings which lye more concealed and hid It is to the influence which the Papists have had upon our Publick Ministers that we owe the Enacting of those Laws which as they were directly calculated to ruin many of His Majesties Protestant Subjects so they have weakned the whole Reformed Interest in these Kingdoms by encreasing our Differences and inflaming Jealousies Heats and Animosities amongst us And if it was not from some of our Councellors being under their Guidance and Conduct that we embarkt in a bloody and expensive War with our Protestant Neighbours Anno 1665 both to the weakning them and our selves and the giving opportunity to a Popish Prince to aspire to a formidable growth It was certainly from the Power and Interest which they had in some trusted with the manage of our Affairs that the Triple League came to be dissolved an Alliance contracted with the French and a Second War wherein we were abandoned and betrai'd by our new Confederate begun Anno 1672. against the Dutch I will not deny but the Grounds and Causes of our quarrelling then with them might be weighty and just yet seeing it appears since by the Declarations which the French King caused to be made by his Ambassadors to the Emperour and the Pope that his invading them at that time by agreement and concert with us Was to extirpate those Hereticks and destroy Heresie I suppose our Ministers may not only find reason to believe that Popish Councels did more influence our Resolves and Affairs of State than they were aware of but to wish they had not encouraged His Majesty to that War and rather to have sought to adjust differences betwixt them and us in an Amicable way And since our being through that ascendency which the Papists have over some great Persons near His Majesty engaged in a close and strong Conjunction with the French King It is not to be imagined what advancement the Papists have made to the ruining of the Protestant Interest through all Europe as well as in these three Nations For as the Popish Clergy do universally apply themselves to the promoting the Grandeur Empire and Soveraignty of France in hopes that he will enslave all those to their Religion whom he subdues to an Obedience to his Scepter so they have all along by the impressions which they make upon our Ministers been endeavouring to prevail over us not only to remain Neutral while he is pursuing his Conquests but to contribute to his Victories by aids of Men and Ammunition Nor is it an inconsiderable step and advance which by keeping us linkt to France the Papists have made to the ruin of these Nations in that they have hereby caused a wonderful misunderstanding
in and joyn with him and he would have the Earl of Shaftsbury ' s head cut off and sham the whole Popish Plot. By this Deposition we are plainly led into this whole deviliâ—h Intrigue of charging Protestants with a Conspiracy against the Person of the King and the established Monarchy For Fitz Gerald being corrupted by the Papists and sâ—ch as manage their designs to sham off the Popish Plot and swear one upon Protestants he accordinly applies himself to every person whom he conceived with any probality entertain thoughts of prevailing upon And by dealing with men of no Principles and of most profligate Lives to whom were proposed great Offices and ample Rewards they have by degrees been able to muster up Nine or Ten Rascals most of which were before notoriously infamous and having clothed them with the stile of the King's Evidence they grow angry that their Testimony is not admitted to the reproach of our Religion and the destruction of many innocent persons Yea this wretch Hayn's consessed to one Mrs. Hall That he had been dealt with to form a Presbyterian See Colledge's Trial p. 42. Plot and that he was desired to corrupt and suborn one Everard and others to come over and promote the same Design And upon the Overtures which had been made him he not only told one Mr. Titon That he could frame a Presbyterian Plot and that there was Money to be gotten by doing it but he acknowledged to one Mr. Richards That he was employed and Ibid. p. 43. had an hand in putting the Plot upon Dissenting Protestants and that he was offered a Pardon and 500 l if he would swear such and such base things That is if he would accuse the Earl of Shaftsbary and other Loyal Patriots of Religion and English Liberties of being guilty of a Conspiracy against his Majesty and the established Government And the Fellow being in great want and having long before shipwrack't his Conscience he was easily brought to comply with this wicked and abominable Proposal For as he told Mowbray His necessitous Condition made him take desperate Resolutions and that to make his Fortune he would swear a Plot against the Presbyterians in reference to whom any plausable thing would be believed And that the World may know of how long standing this forged Conspiracy has been I shall here add something of Sampson's Deposition upon Oath before an Alderman of London which may serve further to enlighten this Affair He swears That John Macknamarra told him that Edward Ivey and Bryan Hayns agreed together in April last to swear Treason against the Earl of Shaftsbury and that the Treason which they resolved to swear was That the said Earl should say That this King deserved more to be dethroned than Richard the second and that he the said Earl vvould dethrone the King and make England a Common-Wealth and that if the Bill against the Earl of Shaftsbury were once found that then they with Smith Turbervil and others would swear Treason against many more And as we may be sure that the Villan's being a Papist disposed him the more readily to venture upon a Design which was judged so subservient to the Romish Interest so it were worth the while to inform the World with what Court-Ministers and little Officers he secretly corresponded all the time he pretended to abscond But as those persons must be left to suffer by Justice of a Parliament so all the Discoveries relating to a close Converse between those Gentlemen and Hayns must be deferred till this whole matter fall under the Inspection of the Two Houses But so zealous of a sudden did the Rascal become in ruining Protestants upon this forged Plot That he not only called the Parliament at Oxford a company of Rogues because they would give the King no Money but that by doing Shaftsbury and other Protestants business they Colledge's Trial p. 44. would help him to Money out of the Phanatiks estates for they would rather damn their Souls to the Devil than that the Catholick Cause should sink If men did not chuse the being imposed upon and were not obstinate against conviction they might have been satisfied long ago that there was no Truth nor Reality in all the talk and noise which we have had concerning a Protestant Plot but that it is only the invention of ill men instructed and acted by the Papists for the retrieving the sinking Cause and Interest of the Catholick Church in these Nations And they have pitched upon Tools who are either wholly fearless of Damnation or such who upon a promise of Happiness in this world are resolved to venture it So that upon what hath been here with all Truth as well as Brevity represented concerning this Fellow Haynes I hope that at least all the sober part of Mankind will see cause for justifying the late Jury in their not believing his Testimony Nor have I insisted upon half the Crimes and gross Immoralities of his Life such as his forging a Letter to one Mr. Harbottle of Lincoln in order to cozen a Gentleman of Goods to the value of 200 l. And his marrying one Mrs. Mansfield and then turning her away after he had lived divers years with her and spent 500 l. which she brought him pretending she was but his Whore because they were not married according to the Form of the Church of England but after the Romish Fashion tho' he that is guilty of such things ought not to be believed unless the matter he swears carry a probability in it or be rendred morally certain by Circumstances which are either notorious or otherwise confirmed No instead of recounting such Wickednesses and Immoralities I have rather chosen to make him appear an infamous Rascal and one to whose Affidavit concerning a Protestant Plot no credit is to be given by declaring his own acknowledgments of the whole Forgery and upon what Motives and through whose Instigation he listed himself for a Witness and what was the end which the Managers of this Design proposed ultimately unto themselves with respect to which they reckon'd the murdering of innocent men would be esteem'd a holy and meritorious service And I shall only add to what hath been said That the wretch plainly contradicted himself in the face of the Court. For being asked by the Jury Whether he had not given an Information to a Justice of Peace concerning some design against the Earl of Shaftsbury he twice denied his having given such an Information to any save Secretary Jenkins yet upon my Lord Chief Justice's telling him that he did not observe the question and proposing it again to him he See Proceedings at the Old Baily p. 44 45. at last accknowledged that he had given an Information to Sir George Treby how Mr. Fitz-Gerald had both told the King and given it under his hand That the Earl of Shaftsbury was resolved to set the Crown upon his own head or otherwise to turn the Kingdom
was pleased graciously to add that he should find him very just and kind in rewarding what he had done and suffered for him But what this Earl acted and underwent for the King when his Lordship's Father and almost all the Scotch Nation had either fallen in with or submitted to the Usurpers will better appear by a Paper under Middleton's hand which I shall here annex John Middleton Lieutenant-General next and immediate under His Majesty and Commandev in Chief of all the Forces raised and to be raised within the Kingdom of Scotland Seeing the Lord Lorn hath given so singular proofs of his clear and perfect Loyalty to the King's Majesty and of pure and constant Affection to the good of His Majesty's Affairs as never hitherto to have any ways complied with the Enemy and to have been principally Instrumental in the enlivening of this late War and one of the chief and first Movers in it and hath readily chearfully and gallantly engaged and resolutely and constantly continued active in it notwithstanding the many powerful Disswasions Discouragements and Oppositions he hath met with from divers hands and hath in the carrying on of the Service shewn such signal Fidelity Integrity Generosity Prudence Courage and Conduct and such high Vertue Industry and Ability as are suitable to the Dignity of his Noble Family and the Trust His Majesty reposed in him and hath not only stood out against all Inducements Temptations and Enticements but hath most nobly crossed and repressed Designs and Attempts of deserting the Service and persisted Loyally and firmly in it to the very last through excessive Trials and many great Difficulties and misregarding all personal Inconveniencies and chusing the loss of Friends fortune and private concernments and to endure the utmost Extremities rather than to swerve in the least from his Duty or taint his Reputation with the meanest shadow of Disloyalty or Dishonour I do therefore hereby testifie and declare that I am perfectly satisfied with his whole deportments in relation to the Enemy and their late War and do highly approve them as being not only above all I can express of their worth but almost beyond all parallel c. John Middleton What his after-Sufferings for His Majesty were and how he continued six years a Prisoner under the Usurpers for his Loyalty to the King I shall content my self to have only barely suggested them And as no man in all Scotland was more capable of serving his Prince both by reason of the greatness of his Parts the height of his Quality and the largeness of his Interest than this Noble Lord so no person of one degree or another hath at all times and in various Employments and Trusts more approved his Zeal and Loyalty to the King's Person and Government than he hath constantly done since His Majesties Restoration And if he have offended in any thing it is by an excess of compliance with his Majesties Will having as himself declared in his Speech at his Arraignment served him all along after his own way and manner Nor can any wise man believe that what he was accused of High-Treason for was either a Crime in it self or would have been charged upon this Earl as an Offence if His Majesties present Commissioner in Scotland had not upon some hidden and more important motive and inducement conceived an implacable hatred against him For the declining to swallow the Test abruptly and without such limitations as might give it both a determinate and a legal sense cannot be imagined to be more criminal than altogether to refuse it which not only many of the Conformable Clergy but divers Peers and Gentlemen without being accused of High Treason have done And surely it was more becoming a man of Honour and a Christian to declare plainly and openly in what sense he could and was ready to take it than to take it with a pious and devout ignorance as another Lord of His Majesties Privy-Council did And as the Council's publishing an Explanation of it is an unanswerable Argument that it required some Explication towards the reconciling it to its self and the Laws of the Land so wise men are apt to think that it is as lawful for a person to explain it for himself as for them to take upon them to explain it for others But it seems very strange that it should be Treason in the Earl of Argile to declare in what Sense he would take it when at the same time others have been allowed to put Senses and Constructions of their own upon it which were more remote from the meaning of the words than his were But that the World may be both able to judg of that Affair and of the hard and unpresidented usage which this Noble person hath met with I shall first subjoin the Explanation of the Test for which he was Accused and Condemned of High Treason Secondly I shall annex an Explication which he had prepared of that Explanation and which he threw into such a Texture with the words of the latter that being read interwoven together his purpose meaning and design will not only more clearly appear but justifie themselves to the minds of all rational men And I shall add in the last place the Opinion of several of the best Lawyers in Scotland concerning the Case of this Great and Loyal Peer The Earl of Argile's Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and I am very desirous to give obedience as far as I can I 'm confident the Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths Therefore I think no body can explain the Test but for himself I take it as far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion And I do declare That I mean not to bind up my self in my Station and in a lawful way to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion and to my Loyalty And this I understand as a part of my Oath The Earl of Argile's Explication of his Explanation of the Test I Have consider'd the Test and have seen several objections moved by others against it and I am very desirous notwithstanding of all that I have seen or heard to give obedience in this and every thing as far as I can I am confident whatever scruples any man doth raise The Parliament never intended to impose Contradictory Oaths And because their sense and genuine meaning is the true sense and seeing the Test that is enjoined is of no private Interpretation nor are the Kings Statutes to be interpreted otherwise than as they bear to the intent they are made Therefore I think no body that is to say no private person can explain the Test for-another But every man for himself as he understands it to agree with and suit the Parliaments sense which is the true sense I take it notwithstanding all these scruples made by any As far as it is consistent with it self and which is indeed wholly in the Parliaments sense and true meaning which was the securing the Protestant Religion founded on the word of God and contained in the Confession of Faith recorded Parl. 1. Ja. 6. And I declare that by that part of the Test viz. that there lyes no obligation on me c. That I mean not to bind up my self in my station and in a lawful way still disclaiming all unlawful endeavours To wish and endeavour any Alteration I think according to my Conscience and Allegiance To the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion nor my Loyalty which I understand no otherwise but the duty and allegiance of loyal and faithful subjects And this Explanation I understand as a part not of the Test nor Act of Parliament but of my Oath that I am to swear and with it I am willing to take the Test if your R. H. and Lo. allow me it or otherways in submison to the Act of Parliament and your R. H. and the Councils pleasure am content to be held a Refuser at present The Opinion of the Lawyers about the Earl of Argyle's Case WE have considered the Criminal Letters raised at the instance of His Majesties Advocate against the Earl of Argyle with the Acts of Parliament contained and warranted in the same Criminal Letters and have compared the same with a Paper or Explication which is Libelled to have been given in by the Earl of Argyle to the Lords of His Majesties Privy Council and owned by him as the sense and explication in which he did take the Oath imposed by the late Act of Parliament and which Paper is of this Tenor I have considered the Test and am very desirous c. And likewise having consider'd that the Earl after he had taken the Oath with the explication and sense then put upon it it was acquiesced to by the Lords of the Privy Council and the Earl allowed to take his place and sit and vote And that before the Earl's taking of the Oath there were several Papers spread abroad containing Objections and alledged Inconsistencies and Contradictions in the Oath And that some thereof by Synods and Presbyteries of the Orthodox Clergy to some of the Bishops of the Church It is our humble Opinion that seeing the Earl's design and meanin in offering the said Explication was allenarly for clearing of his own Conscience and is of no contravention of the Laws and Acts of Parliament and doth not at all import the Crimes Libelled against him viz. Treason Leising-making Depraving of His Majesties Laws or the Crime of Perjury But that the Glosses and Inferences put by the Libel on the said Paper are altogether strained and unwarrantable and inconsistent with the Earl's true Design and the Sincerity of his meaning and intention in making of the said Explication FINIS