good a Title to be ravished from them either by Monks or Janizaries though authorised thereunto by the Princes Commission Even they who had formerly suffered themselves to be seduced to prove in a manner Betrayers of the Rights and Religion of their Country will now being undeceived not only in conjunction with others withstand the Court in its prosecution of Popish and Arbitrary Designs but through a generous exasperation for having been deluded and abused will judge themselves obliged in vindication of their Actings before to appear for the Protestant Religion and the Laws of England with a Zeal equal to that wherewith they contributed to the undermining and supplanting of them For they are not only become more sensible than they were of the Mischiefs of Absolute Government so as for the future to prize and assert the Priviledges reserved unto the people by the Rules of the Constitution and chalk'd out for them in the Laws of the Land but they have such a fresh view of Popery both in its Heresies Blasphemies Superstitions and Idolatries and in the Treachery Sanguinariness Violence and Cruelty which the Papal Principles mould influence and oblige Men unto that they not only entertain the greatest abhorrency and detestation imaginable for it but seem resolved not to cherish in their Bosom a Thing so abominable to God execrable to good Men and destructive to Humane as well as to Christian Societies Nor are the Dissenters meerly to believe that the Conformists are equally zealous as themselves for the Reformed Religion and English Rights but they are to consider them as the only great and united Body of Protestants in the Kingdom with whom all other parties compared bear no considerable proportion For though the Nonconformists considered abstractly make a vast number of honest and useful people yet being laid in the Scale with those of the Episcopal Communion they are but few and lye in a little room And whosoever will take the pains to ballance the one against the other even where Dissenters make the greatest Figure and may justly boast of their Multitude they will soon be convinced that the number of the other doth far transcend and exceed them And if it be so in Cities and Corporations where the greatest Bulk of Dissenters are it is much more so in Country Parishes where the latter bear not the proportion of one to a hundred Nor doth the Church of England more exceed the other parties in her number than she doth in the quality of her Members For whereas they who make up and constitute the separate Societies are chiefly persons of the middle Rank and Condition the Church of England doth in a manner vouch and claim all the Persons of Honour of the Learned professions and such as have valuable Estates for her Communicants And though the other sort are as necessary in the Common-wealth and contribute as much to its Strength Prosperity and Happiness yet they make not that Figure in the Government nor stand in that Capacity of having influence upon Publick Affairs For not only the Gentlemen of both the Gowns who by reason of their Calling and Learning are best able to defend our Religion and vindicate our Laws and Priviledges with their Tongues and Pens but they whose Estates Reputation and Interest recommendeth them to be elected Members of the great Senate of the Nation as well as they who by reason of their Honours and Baronages are Hereditary Legislators are generally if not all of the Communion of the Church of England So that they who conform to the established Worship and Discipline are to be look'd upon and acknowledged as the great Bulwark of the Protestant Religion in England and the Hedge and Fence of our Civil Liberties and Rights And though it be true that this great Breach made upon our Religion and Laws is fallen out under their hand while the poor Dissenters had neither accession to nor were in a condition to prevent it yet seeing their own Consciences do sufficiently load and charge them for it with Shame and Ignominy it were neither candid nor at this Juncture seasonable to upbraid it to them or improve it to their Dishonour and Reproach For as they have tamely look'd on and connived till our Religion and Liberties are so far undermined and supplanted so it is they alone who have been in a condition of stemming the Inundation of Idolatry and Tyranny with which we were threatned and of repairing our Breaches and reducing the Prerogative to its old Channel and making Popery sneak and retreat into its holes and corners again And should the Church of England have been overthrown and devoured what an easie Prey would the rest have been to the Romish Cormorants And could the King under the Conduct of the Jesuits and with the assistance of his Myrmidons have dissolved the established Worship and Discipline they of the Separation would have been in no capacity to support the Reformed Religion nor able to escape the common Ruine and Persecution 'T is therefore the Interest as well as the Duty of the Dissenters to help maintain and defend those Walls within the skreen and shelter whereof their own Huts and Cottages are built and stand And the rather seeing the Conformists are at last though to their own Religion's and the Nations Expence become so far enlightned as to see a necessity of growing more amicable towards them and to enlarge the Terms of their Communion grant an Indulgence to all Protestants that differ from them And as we ought to admire the Wisdom of God in those Providences by which Protestants are taught to lay aside their Animosities and let fall their Persecutions of one another so it would be a Contradiction both to the principles and repeated Protestations of Dissenters to aim at more than such a Liberty as is consistent with a National Ecclesiastick Establishment Yea it were to proclaim themselves both Villains and Hypocrites not to allow their Fellow-Protestants the Exercise of their Judgments with what further Profits and Emoluments the Law will grant them provided themselves may be discharged from all obnoxiousness to Penalties and Censures upon the account of their Consciences and be admitted a free and publick Practice of their own respective Modes of Discipline and be suffered to worship God in those ways which they think he hath required and enjoyned them And were England immediately to be rendred so happy as to have a Protestant Prince or Princess as we are not now quite out of hopes ascend the Throne and to enjoy a Parliament duly chosen and acting with freedom no one party of the Reformed Religion among us must ever expect to be established and supported to the denial of Liberty to others much less to be by Law empowered to ruine and destroy them Should it please Almighty God to bring the Princess of Orange to the Crown though the Church of England may in that case justly expect the being preserved and upheld as the National
had received from Christ they were the Judges even of the Scripture it self many years after the Apostles which Books were Canonical and which were not And if they had this power then I desire to know how they came to lose it and by what Authority men separate themselves from that Church The only pretence I ever heard of was because the Church has fail'd in wresting and interpreting the Scripture contrary to the true sence and meaning of it and that they have imposed Articles of Faith upon us which are not to be warranted by God's word I do desire to know who is to be Judge of that whether the whole Church the Succession whereof has continued to this day without interruption or particular men who have raised Schims for their own advantage This is a true Copy of a Paper I found in the late King my Brothers Strong Box written in his own Hand JAMES R. The Second Paper IT is a sad thing to consider what a world of Heresies are crept into this Nation Every man thinks himself as competent a Judge of the Scriptures as the very Apostles themselves and 't is no wonder that it should be so since that part of the Nation which looks most like a Church dares not bring the true Arguments against the other Sects for fear they should be turned against themselves and confuted by their own Arguments The Church of England as 't is call'd would fain have it thought that they are the Judges in matters Spiritual and yet dare not say positively that there is no Appeal from them for either they must say that they are Infallible which they cannot pretend to or confess that what they decide in matters of Conscience is no further to be followed then it agrees with every mans private Judgment If Christ did leave a Church here upon Earth and we were all once of that Church how and by what Authority did we separate from that Church If the power of Interpreting of Scripture be in every mans brain what need have we of a Church or Church-men To what purpose then did our Saviour after he had given his Apostles power to Bind and Loose in Heaven and Earth add to it that he would be with them even to the end of the World These words were not spoken Parabolically or by way of Figure Christ was then ascending into his Glory and left his Power with his Church even to the End of the World We have had these hundred years past the sad effects of denying to the Church that Power in matters Spiritual without an Appeal What Country can subsist in peace or quiet where there is not a Supream Judge from whence there can be no Appeal Can there be any Justice done where the Offenders are their own Judges and equal Interpreters of the Law with those that are appointed to administer Justice This is our Case here in England in matters Spiritual for the Protestants are not of the Church of England as 't is the true Church from whence there can be no Appeal but because the Discipline of that Church is conformable at that present to their fancies which as soon as it shall contradict or vary from they are ready to embrace or joyn with the next Congregation of People whose Discipline and Worship agrees with their Opinion at that time so that according to this Doctrine there is no other Church nor Interpreter of Scripture but that which lies in every mans giddy brain I desire to know therefore of every serious Considerer of these things whether the great work of our Salvation ought to depend upon such a Sandy Foundation as this Did Christ ever say to the Civil Magistrate much less to the People that he would be with them to the end of the World Or did he give them the Power to forgive Sins St. Paul tells the Corinthians Ye are Gods Husbandry ye are Gods Building we are Labourers with God This shews who are the Labourers and who are the Husbandry and Building And in this whole Chapter and in the preceeding one St. Paul takes great pains to set forth that they the Clergy have the Spirit of God without which no man searcheth the deep things of God and he concludeth the Chapter with this Verse For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him But we have the mind of Christ Now if we do but consider in humane probability and reason the powers Christ leaves to his Church in the Gospel and St. Paul explains so distinctly afterwards we cannot think that our Saviour said all these things to no purpose And pray consider on the other side that those who resist the truth and will not submit to his Church draw their Arguments from Implications and far fetch'd Interpretations at the same time that they deny plain and positive words which is so great a Disingenuity that 't is not almost to be thought that they can believe themselves Is there any other foundation of the Protestant Church but that if the Civil Magistrate please he may call such of the Clergy as he thinks fit for his turn at that time and turn the Church either to Presbytery Independency or indeed what he pleases This was the way of our pretended Reformation here in England and by the same Rule and Authority it may be altered into as many more Shapes and Forms as there are Fancies in mens Heads This is a true Copy of a Paper written by the late King my Brother in his own Hand which I found in his Closet JAMES R. A LETTER Containing some Remarks on the Two Papers writ by His late Majesty King CHARLES the Second Concerning Religion SIR I Thank you for the two Royal Papers that you have sent me I had heard of them before but now we have them so well attested that there is no hazard of being deceived by a false Copy you expect that in return I should let you know what impression they have made upon me I pay all the reverence that is due to a Crowned Head even in Ashes to which I will never be wanting far less am I capable of suspecting the Royal Attestation that accompanies them of the truth of which I take it for granted no man doubts but I must crave leave to tell you that I am confident the late King only copied them and that they are not of his Composing for as they have nothing of that free Air with which he expressed himself so there is a Contexture in them that does not look like a Prince and the beginning of the first shews it was the effect of a Conversation and was to be communicated to another so that I am apt to think they were Composed by another and were so well relished by the late King that he thought fit to keep them in order to his examining them more particularly and that he was prevailed with to Copy them lest a Paper of that nature might have been made a
and it seems they intend to make us know that part of their Doctrine even before we come to feel it since tho' some of that Communion would take away the horror which the Fourth Council of the Lateran gives us in which these things were decreed by denying it to be a General Council and rejecting the Authority of those Canons yet the most learned of all the Apostates that has fallen to them from our Church has so lately given up this Plea and has so formally acknowledged the Authority of that Council and of its Canons that it seems they think they are bound to this piece of fair dealing of warning us before hand of our Danger It is true Bellarmin says The Church does not always execute the Power of Deposing Heretical Princes tho' she always retains it one Reason that he assigns is Because she is not at all times able to put it in Execution so the same reason may perhaps make it appear unadviseable to Extirpate Hereticks because that at present it cannot be done but the Right remains intire and is put in execution in such an unrelenting manner in all places where that Religion prevails that it has a very ill Grace to see any Member of that Church speak in this strain and when neither the Policy of France nor the Greatness of their Monarch nor yet the Interests of the Emperour joyned to the Gentleness of his own temper could withstand these Bloody Councils that are indeed parts of that Religion we can see no reason to induce us to believe that a Toleration of Religion is proposed with any other design but either to divide us or to lay us asleep till it is time to give the Alarm for destroying us IV. If all the Endeavours that have been used in the last four Reigns for bringing the Subjects of this Kingdom to an Unity in Religion have been ineffectual as His Majesty says we know to whom we owe both the first beginnings and the progress of the Divisions among our selves the gentleness of Queen Elizabeth's Government and the numbers of those that adhered to the Church of Rome made it scarce possible to put an end to that Party during her Reign which has been ever since restless and has had Credit enough at Court during the three last Reigns not only to support it self but to distract us and to divert us from apprehending the danger of being swallowed up by them by fomenting our own Differences and by setting on either a Toleration or a Persecution as it has happened to serve their Interests It is not so very long since that nothing was to be heard at Court but the supporting the Church of England and the Extirpating all the Nonconformists and it were easie to name the persons if it were decent that had this in their mouths but now all is turned round again the Church of England is in Disgrace and now the Encouragement of Trade the Quiet of the Nation and the Freedom of Conscience are again in Vogue that were such odious things but a few Years ago that the very mentioning them was enough to load any Man with Suspicions as backward in the King's Service while such Methods are used and the Government as if in an Ague divided between hot and cold fits no wonder if Laws so unsteadily executed have failed of their effect V. There is a good reserve here left for Severity when the proper Opportunity to set it on presents it self for his Majesty declares himself only against the forcing of men in matters of meer Religion so that whensoever Religion and Policy come to be so interwoven that meer Religion is not the Case and that publick Safety may be pretended then this Declaration is to be no more claimed so that the fastning any thing upon the Protestant Religion that is inconsistent with the publick Peace will be pretended to shew that they are not persecuted for meer Religion In France when it was resolved to extirpate the Protestants all the Discourses that were written on that Subject were full of the Wars occasioned by those of the Religion in the last Age tho' as these was the happy occasions of bringing the House of Bourbon to the Crown they had been ended above 80 Years ago and there had not been so much as the least Tumult raised by them these 50 Years past so that the French who have smarted under this Severity could not be charged with the least Infraction of the Law yet Stories of a hundred years old were raised up to inspire into the King those Apprehensions of them which have produced the terrible effects that are visible to all the World There is another Expression in this Declaration which lets us likewise see with what Caution the Offers of favour are now worded that so there may be an Occasion given when the time and Conjuncture shall be favourable to break through them all it is in these words So that they take especial Care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the hearts of our People from Us or Our Government This in it self is very reasonable and could admit of no Exception if we had not to do with a set of men who to our great Misfortune have so much Credit with His Majesty and who will be no sooner lodged in the Power to which they pretend then they will make every thing that is preached against Popery pass for that which may in some manner alienate the Subjects from the King VI. His Majesty makes no doubt of the Concurrence of his Two Houses of Parliament when he shall think it convenient for them to meet The hearts of Kings are unsearchable so that it is a little too presumptuous to look into his Majesties secret thoughts but according to the Judgments that we would make of other mens thoughts by their Actions one would be tempted to think that his Majesty made some doubt of it since his Affairs both at home and abroad could not go the worse if it appeared that there was a perfect understanding between him and His Parliament and that his people were supporting him with fresh Supplies and this House of Commons is so much at his Devotion that all the World saw how ready they were to grant every thing that he could desire of them till he began to lay off the Mask with relation to the Test and since that time the frequent Prorogations the Closetting and the pains that has been taken to gain Members by Promises made to some and the Disgraces of others would make one a little inclined to think that some doubt was made of their Concurrence But we must confess that the depth of his Majesties Judgment is such that we cannot fathom it and therefore we cannot guess what his Doubts or his Assurances are It is true the words that come after unriddle the Mistery a little which are when his Majesty shall think it convenient for them to
have applied himself to any other Employment rather than have betaken himself to writing being a thing which Nature never intended him for and especially upon a Subject so far above the reach of his understanding and against a discourse of that solid and well-digested strength that even the Reverend Fathers whose Letter-carrier he used to be if we be not strangely mistaken in the Gentleman had so much wit as not to attack it As knowing that notwithstanding all their Art in Sophistry they must have come off baffled and that their false colours would have been easily detected by the beams of that light which dart themselves forth in all the parts of that excellent Paper And I dare farther say that as Mr. Stewart will never much value himself upon the being esteemed by one either of this Gentleman 's Religious Principles or of his intellectual Accomplishments so I can never think that he can be so much degenerated from what he formerly was as to obtain the approbation of his mind to return any considerable degree of honour to a person who upon all accounts does so little merit it unless it be that he may possibly challenge it by vertue of an undeserved Title and of a Character that he is exceeding ill qualified for However seeing Fools will be medling tho' they are sure to come by the worst I shall reduce all I have to say in Castigation of this vain and presumptuous man to the seven following heads 1. His Falsifications in reference to several parts of Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter 2. His Injustice to Their Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Orange and the hidden spleen he every where ventureth to express against them 3. His slanderous Calumnies against the States of these Provinces and how he studies to excite their Roman Catholick Subjects to disturb the Peace and Tranquillity of this Country 4 His Shameless Impudence in endeavouring to impose upon the World as if the Protestant Dissenters in England were concluded by Their Highnesses to stand hereafter involved in the same rank and condition with the Papists 4. His Publishing the Villany of the Romish Church and proclaiming the Injustice and Dishonour of the most Eminent Papal Monarchs while he pretends to commend and justifie the proceeding of his Majesty of Great Brittain 6. His egregious Ignorance in relation to Government Laws Customs and matters of Fact Lastly The signal Ingratitude of the Papists towards Their Royal Highnesses for all that Grace Favour and Ease which they were willing to have allowed unto them As to the first 'T is known to be a received Principle among the Casuists of the Society that it is at most but a venial sin to detract from misrepresent and calumniate those whom they either take to be their Enemies or do conceive to have done them any ways a prejudice And tho' the Opinion authorising such a practice be condemned by a Bull of the present Pope bearing date Anno 1679 yet our Author is more a Vassal to the Ignatian Order than upon the Authority of one whom the Jesuites do so little value to forbear putting a Doctrine into exercise which he hath been so well instructed in by these Reverend Fathers and especially when he finds it so conduceable to his design and interest What can be remoter from Truth as well as Ingenuity than to charge Monsieur Fagel with confining the name of Protestants in England only to those of the Conformable Communion and with excluding the Dissenters from the glorious priviledge of that appellation For tho' it be true that thro' the hatred and violence of the late King and his present Majesty to the Fanaticks and by vertue of their Commands to a Company of Mercenary timorous and servile Justiciaries and Officers it hath some time come to pass that the Laws which were originally enacted and only intended against Papists have been executed upon Dissenters yet all men know that to have been a perversion of Justice seeing in all the Statutes to the Penalties whereof they were made obnoxious they are still considered and acknowledged for Protestants and made liable to sufferings by no other Title than that of persons differing from the Church of England in matter of Discipline and about Forms and Rites of External Worship Nor is there one word in Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter whereby they are precluded from that stile or any ways represented as unworthy of it While they stand obnoxious to several Laws in which the Members of the Church of England have no concernment nor are in any danger from it was impossible to avoid the giving them a name by which they might be distinguished from those of the Legal and National Communion And so tender hath the Pensionary been of charactering them by any offensive or harsh denomination that he hath not so much as once in his whole Letter called them Fanaticks tho' it be an appellation that hath been vulgarly affixed to them but he hath chosen always to denominate them by the name of Dissenters which is not only the softest Term they can be described by but that which themselves have elected as the stile by which they are willing to be discriminated from their fellow Protestants with whom they differ in some few and little particulars And many of them being people whose Principles are coincident and agreeable with theirs of the Legal Establishment in Holland in whose Fellowship Monsieur Fagel is known to be it could not have entred into the thoughts of any save one of our Authors Intellectuals and Integrity either to charge upon him or so much as to imagine that he should be so injurious to himself and to the Dutch Churches as to preclude those from the list of Protestants But whether this calumnious charge and falsification be the fruit of an Irish Understanding or of Papal Sincerity or the effect of both I shall leave others to judge who may possibly know this Author better than I pretend to do Only this I shall add that he proceeds with the same wit and honesty as he hath begun For from Their Highnesses declaring that they cannot agree to the Repeal of the Tests and Monsieur Fagel's thereupon saying that these Laws inflict not any mulct or penalty upon the Roman Catholicks but that they are only means of securing the Reformed Religion thro' containing provisions by which men are to be accounted qualified for Members of Parliament and to bear publick Offices our Author does by a strange kind of falsification and calumny fasten upon him his having affirmed That the Non-conformists are to be accounted dangerous Enemies of the State and not to be admitted into any Publick Employments He must either be of a very unusual and perverse frame of mind or extreamly ignorant of the nature of those Laws and the Terms wherein they are enacted otherways it is impossible he should imagine how the Dissenters are capable of receiving prejudice by them Seeing all required by those Laws toward the qualifying
there being sincere Christians and true Englishmen among those of all Judgments and Societies of Protestants and among none more than those of the Communion of the Church of England It were the height of Wickedness as well as the most prodigious Folly to imagine that the Conformists have abandoned all Fidelity to God and cast off all care of themselves and their Country upon a mistaken Judgment of being Loyal and Obedient to the King The contrary is plain enough they knew as well as any that the giving to Caesar the Things that are Caesar's lay them under no Obligation of surrendring unto him the Things that are God's nor of sacrificing unto the Will of the Sovereign the Priviledges reserved unto the People by the Fundamental Rules of the Constitution and by the Statutes of the Realm And they understand as well as others that the Laws of the Land are the only measures of the Prince's Authority and of the Subjects Fealty and where they give him no Right to Command they lay them under no tye to Obey And though here and there a Dissenter has written against Popery with good Success yet they have been mostly Conformable Divines who have triumphed over it in elaborate Discourses and who have beaten the Romish Scriblers off the Stage Nor can it be thought that they who have so accurately related and vindicated the History and asserted and defended the Doctrine of the Reformation should either tamely relinquish or be wanting in all due and legal Ways to uphold and maintain it And though some few of the Nonconformists have with sufficient strength and applause used their Pens against Arbitrariness in detecting the Designs of the Royal Brothers yet they who have generally and with greatest Honour appeared for our Laws and Legal Government against the Invasions and Usurpations of the Court have been Theologues and Gentlemen of the Church of England Nor in case of further Attempts for altering the Constitution and enslaving the Nation will they shew themselves unworthy the having descended from Ancestors whose Motto in the high Places of the Field was nolumus Leges Angliae mutari They who have so often justified the Arms of the Vnited Netherlands against their Rightful Princes the Kings of Spain and so unanswerably vindicated their casting off Obedience to those Monarchs when they had invaded their Priviledges and attempted to establish the Inquisition over them cannot be ignorant what their own Right and Duty is in behalf of the Protestant Religion and English Liberties for the Security whereof we have not only so many Laws but the Coronation Oaths and Stipulations of our Kings And those Gentlemen of the Church of England who appeared so vigorously in three Parliaments for excluding the Duke of York from the Succession to the Crown by reason of a Jealousy of what through being a Papist he would attempt against our Religion and Priviledges in case he were suffered to ascend the Throne cannot be now to seek what becomes them towards him having seen and felt what before they only apprehended and feared For if the Law that entaileth the Succession upon the next of Kin and obligeth the Subjects to admit and receive him not only may but ought to be dispensed with in case the Heir thro' having imbib'd Principles which threaten the Safety and are inconsistent with the Happiness of the People hath made himself incapable to inherit we know by a short Ratiocination how far we stand bound to a Prince on the Throne who by Transgressing against the Laws of the Constitution hath abdicated himself from the Government and stands virtually Deposed For whosoever shall offer to Rule Arbitrarily does immediately cease to be King de jure seeing by the Fundamental Common and Statute Laws of the Realm we know none for Supream Magistrate and Governor but a limited Prince and one who stands circumscribed and bounded in his Power and Prerogative And should the Dissenters entertain a belief that the Conformists are less concerned and zealous than themselves for the Protestant Religion and Laws of the Kingdom they would not only Sin and offend against the Rules of Charity but against the Measures of Justice and daily Evidences from Matters of Fact For neither they nor we owe our Conversion to God and our practical Holiness to the Opinions about Discipline Forms of Worship and Ceremonies wherein we differ but the Doctrines of Faith and Christian Obedience wherein we agree 'T is not their being for a Liturgy a Surpliss or a Bishop that hath heretofore influenced them to subserve the Court in Designs tending to Absoluteness but they were seduced unto it upon Motives whereof they are now ashamed and the ridiculousness and folly of which they have at last discever'd Nor is the multitude of profligate and scandalous persons with which the Church of England is crowded any just impeachment of the Purity of her Doctrine in the Vitals and Essentials of Religion or of the Vertue and Piety of many of her Members For as it is her being the only Society established by Law that attracts those Vermin to her Bosom so it is her being restrained by Law from debarring them that keeps them there to her reproach and to the grief of many of her Ecclesiasticks Neither is it the fault of the Church of England that the Agents and Factors for Popery and Arbitrary Power have chosen to pass under the name of her Sons but it proceeds partly from their Malice as hoping by that means to disgrace her with all true English-men as well as with Dissenters and partly from their Craft in order thereby the better to conceal their Design and to shrowd themselves from the Censure and Punishment which had it not been for that Mask they would have been exposed unto and have undergone And I dare affirm that besides the Obligations from Religion which the Conformists are equally under with Dissenters for hindring the introduction of Popery there are several Inducements from interest which sway them to prevent its establishment wherein the Dissenters are but little concerned For though Popery would be alike afflictive to the Consciences of Protestants of all Persuasions yet they are Gentlemen and Ministers of the Church of England whole Livings Revenues and Estates have been threatned in case it had come to be established Nor would the most Loyal and obsequious Levites provided they resolve to continue Protestants be willing that their Personages and Incumbencies to which they have have no less Right by Law than the King hath to the Excise and Customs should be taken from them and bestowed upon Romish Priests by an Act of Despotical Power and of unlimited Prerogative And for the Gentlemen as I think few of them would hold themselves obliged to part with their purses to High-way-Padders though such should have a pattent from the King to rob whomsoever they met upon the Road so there will not be many inclined to suffer their Mannours and Abbey-Lands to which they have so
were represented by some of the Dissenters not only as favorers of Popery but as endeavouring to hale it in upon us by all the methods and ways that lay within their circle and yet now the whole defence of the Reformed Religion must be entirely devolved into their hands and when all the sluces are pulled up that had been made to hinder Popery from overflowing the Nation they must be left alone to stem the Inundation and prevent the Deluge They among the Fanaticks that boasted to be the most avowed and irreconcileable Enemies of the Church of Rome are not only become altogether silent when they see the Kingdom pester'd with a swarm of busie and seducing Emissaries but are both turned Advocates for that Arbitrary Paper whereby we are surrendred as a Prey unto them and do make it their business to detract from the reputation and discourage the Labours of the National Ministers who with a zeal becoming their Office and a Learning which deserves to be admired have set themselves in opposition to that croaking fry and have done enough by their excellent and unimitable Writings to save People from being deluded or perverted if either unanswerable confutations of Popery or demonstrative defences of the Articles and Doctrines of the Reformed Religion can have any efficacy upon the minds of Men. Among other fulsom Flatteries adorning a Speech made to his Majesty by an Addressing Dissenter I find this hypocritical and shameful Adulation namely that if there sholud remain any seeds of Disloyalty in any of his Subjects the transcendent goodness exerted in his Declaration would mortifie and kill them To which he might have added with more truth that the same transcendent goodness had almost destroyed all the seeds of their honesty and mortified their care and concernment for the Interest of Jesus Christ and for the Reformed Religion Their old strain of zealous Preaching against the Idolatry of Rome and concerning the coming out of Babylon my People are grown out of fashion with them in England and are only reserved and laid by to recommend them to the kindness and acceptation of Foreign Protestants when their occasions and conveniencies draw them over to Amsterdam Whoever comes into their Assemblies would think for any thing that he there hears delivered from their Pulpits that She which was the Whore of Babylon a few years ago were now become a Chast Spouse and that what were heretofore the damnable Doctrines of Popery were of late turned Innocent and Harmless Opinions The King's Declaration would seem to have brought some of them to a melius inquirendum and as they are already arrived to believe a Roman Catholick the best King that they may in a little time come to esteem Papists for the best Christians The keeping back nothing that is profitable to save such as hear them and the declaring the whole Counsel of God that are the terms upon which they received their Commission from Jesus Christ and wherein they have Paul's practice and example for a pattern would seem to be things under the Power of the Royal Prerogative and that the King may supercede them by the same Authority by which he dispenses with the Penal Statutes Which as it is very agreeable unto and imported in his Majesty's Claim of being obeyed without reserve so the owning this Absolute power with that annex of challenged obedience does acquit them from all obligations to the Laws of Christ when they are found to interfer with what is required by the King But whether God's Power or the King 's be superior and which of the two can cassate the others Laws and whose wrath is most terrible the Judgment day will be able and sure to instruct them if all means in this World prove insufficient for it The Addressers know upon what conditions they hold their Liberty and they have not only observed how several of the National Clergy have been treated for preaching against Popery but they have heard how divers of the Reformed Ministers in France before the general Suppression were dealt with for speaking against their Monarch's Religion and therefore they must be pardoned if they carry so as not to provoke his Majesty tho in the mean time through their Silence they both betray the Cause of their Lord and Master and are unfaithful to the Souls of those of whom they have taken upon them the Spiritual guidance As for the Papers themselves that are stiled by the name of Addresses I shall not meddle with them being as to the greatest part of them fitter to be exposed and ridicul'd either for their dullness and pedantry or for the Adulation and Sycophancy with which they are fulsomly stuft than to deserve any serious consideration or to merit Reflections that may prove instrumentive to Mankind Only as that Address wherein his Majesty is thanked for his restoring God to his Empire over Conscience deserveth a rebuke for its Blasphemy so that other which commends him for promising to force the Parliament to ratifie his Declaration tho by the way all he says is that he does not doubt of their concurrence which yet his ill success upon the Closetting of so many Members and his since Dissolving that Parliament shews that there was some cause for the doubting of it I say that other Address merits a severe Censure for its insolency against the legislative Authority And the Authors of it ought to be punished for their crime committed against the Liberty and Freedom of the two Houses and for encouraging the King to invade and subvert their most essential and fundamental Privileges and without which they can neither be a Council Judicature nor Lawgivers After all I hope the Nation will be so ingenuous as not to impute the miscarriages of some of the Nonconformists to the whole Party much less to ascribe them to the Principles of Dissenters For as the points wherein they differ from the Church of England are purely of another nature and which have no relation to Politicks so the influence that they are adapted to have upon men as members of Civil Societies is to make them in a special manner regardful of the Rights and Franchises of the Community But if some neither understand the tendency of their own Principles nor are true and faithful unto them these things are the personal faults of those men and are to be attributed to their ignorance or to their dishonesty nor are their Carriages to be counted the effects of their religious Tenets much less are others of the Party to be involved under the reproach and guilt of their imprudent and ill conduct Which there is the more cause to acknowledge because tho the Church of England has all the reason of the world to decline Addressing in that all her legal Foundation as well as Security is shaken by the Declaration yet there are some of her Dignitaries and Clergy as well as divers of the Members of her Communion who upon motives of Ambition Covetousness
Fear or Courtship have enrolled themselves into the List of Addressers and under pretence of giving thanks to the King for his promise of protecting the Archbishops Bishops and Clergy and all other of the Church of England in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law established have cut the throat of their Mother at whose breasts they have suck'd till they are grown fat both by acknowledging the usurped Prerogative upon which the King assumes the Right and Authority of emitting the Declaration and by exchanging the legal standing and security of their Church into that precarious one of the Royal Word which they fly unto as the bottom of her Subsistence and trust to as the wall of her defence And as most of the Members of the Separate Societies are free from all accession to Addressing and the few that concurred were merely drawn in by the wheedle and importunity of their Preachers so they who are of the chiefest Character and greatest reputation for Wisdom and Learning among the Ministers have preserved themselves from all folly and treachery of that kind The Apostle tells us that not many wise not many noble are called which as it is verified in many of the Dissenting Addressers so it may serve for some kind of Apology for their low and sneaking as well as for their indiscreet and imprudent behaviour in this matter And it is the more venial in some of them as being not only a means of ingratiating themselves as they fansie with the King who heretofore had no very good opinion of them but as being both an easie and compendious method of Attoning for Offences against the Crown of which they were strongly suspected and a cheap and expenceless way of purchasing the pardon of their Relations that had stood actually accused of High Treason Nor is it to be doubted but that as the King will retain very little favour and mercy for Fanaticks when once he has served his Ends upon them so they will preserve as little kindness for the Papists if they can but obtain relief in a legal way And as there is not a People in the Kingdom that will be more loyal to Princes while they continue so to govern as that Fealty by the Laws of God or Man remains due to them so there are none of what Principles or Communion soever upon whom the Kingdom in its whole interest come to lye at stake may more assuredly and with greater confidence depend than upon the generality of Dissenting Protestants and especially upon those that are not of the Pastoral Order The severities that the Dissenters lay under before and their deliverance from Oppression and Disturbance now seconded with the Kings expectation and demands of thanksgiving Addresses were strong Temptations upon men void of generosity and greatness of spirit and who are withal of no great political Wisdom nor of prospect into the Consequences of Councils and Tricks of State to act as illegally in their thanks as his Majesty had done in his bounty So that whatsoever Animadversion they may deserve should they be proceeded against according to their demerit yet it is to be hoped that both they and the Addressers of the former stamp may all find room in an Act of Indemnity and that the Mercy of the Nation towards them will triumph over and get the better of its Justice As it would argue a strange and judicial infatuation should they proceed to farther excesses and think to escape the Punishment due to one Crime by committing and taking sanctuary in another thro improving their Complements into actions of Treachery so all their hope of Pardon as well as of Lenity and Moderation from a true Protestant and rightly constituted Authority depends upon their conduct and behaviour henceforward and their not suffering themselves to be hurried and deluded into a cooperation with the Court for the obtaining of a Popish Parliament All their endeavours of that kind would but more clearly detect and manifest their treachery to Religion and the Kingdom it not being in their power to out-vote the honest English part of the People so as to help the King to such a House of Commons as he desires and were it possible that thro their assistance in conjunction with violence and tricks used in Elections and Returns by the Court such a House of Commons might be obtained as would be serviceable to Arbitrary and Papal Ends yet neither the King nor they would be the nearer the compassing what is aim'd at it being demonstrable that the majority of the House of Lords are never to be wrought over to justifie this illegal Declaration or to grant the King a Power of Suspending Laws at his pleasure nor to give their Assent to a Bill for Repealing the Test Acts and the Statutes that enjoyn and require the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy And if they should be so far left of God and betray'd by those among themselves whom the Court hath gained as to become guilty of so enormous an act of folly and villany and should the Election of the next Parliament be the happy juncture they wait for and the improving their interest as well as the giving their own Votes for the Choice of Papists into the House of Commons be what they mean by an essential proof of their Loyalty and of the sincerity of their humble Addresses See Mr. Alsop's Speech to the King and that whereby they intend to demonstrate that the greatest thing they have promised is the least thing they will perform for his Majesties service and satisfaction as in that case they will deserve to forfeit all hopes of being forgiven so it would be an infidelity to God and Men and a cruelty to our selves and our Posterity not to abandon them as betrayers of Religion expunge them out of the Roll of Protestants strip them of all that wherein free Subjects have a Legal Right and not to condemn them to the utmost punishments which the Laws of the Kingdom adjudge the worst of Traitors and Malefactors unto There are some who thro hating of them do wish their miscarrying and offending to so unpardonable a degree that they may hereafter be furnished with an advantage both of ruining them and the whole Dissenting Party for their sakes But as the love that I bear unto them and the perswasion and belief I have of the truth of their Religious Principles do make me exceeding sollicitous to have them kept and prevented from being hurried and transported into so fatal and criminal a behaviour so I desire to make no other excuse for my plain dealing towards them but that of Solomon who tells us that faithful are the wounds of a friend while the kisses of an Enemy are deceitful and that he who rebukes a man shall find more favour afterwards than he who flattereth with the tongue POSTSCRIPT SInce the foregoing Sheets went to the Press and while they were Printing off there is come to my hands a new
Treason or Felony yet it cannot be with any colour of Reason inferred from thence that the King can entirely Suspend the Execution of those Laws relating to Treason or Felony Unless it is pretended that he is cloathed with a Despotick and Arbitrary Power and that the Lives Liberties Honors and Estates of the Subjects depend wholly on his good Will and Pleasure and are entirely subject to him which must infallibly follow on the King 's having a Power to Suspend the Execution of Laws and to Dispense with them Those Evil Counsellors in order to the giving some Credit to this strange and execrable Maxim have so conducted the Matter that they have obtained a Sentence from the Judges declaring that this Dispensing Power is a Right belonging to the Crown as if it were in the Power of the Twelve Judges to offer up the Laws Rights and Liberties of the whole Nation to the King to be disposed of by him Arbitrarily and at his Pleasure and expresly contrary to Laws enacted for the Security of the Subjects In order to the obtaining this Judgment those Evil Counsellors did before-hand examine secretly the Opinion of the Judges and procured such of them as could not in Conscience concur in so pernicious a Sentence to be turned out and others to be substituted in their rooms till by the Changes which were made in the Courts of Judicature they at last obtained that Judgment And they have raised some to those Trusts who make open Profession of the Popish Religion tho those are by Law rendred Incapable of all such Employments It is also Manifest and Notorious that as his Majesty was upon his coming to the Crown received and acknowledged by all the Subjects of England Scotland and Ireland as their King without the least Opposition tho he made then open Profession of the Popish Religion so he did then Promise and Solemnly Swear at his Coronation that he would maintain his Subjects in the Free Enjoyment of their Laws Rights and Liberties and in particular that he would maintain the Church of England as it was established by Law It is likewise certain that there have been at diverse and sundry times several Laws enacted for the Preservation of those Rights and Liberties and of the Protestant Religion And among other Securities it has been enacted That all Persons whatsoever that are advanced to any Ecclesiastical Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all others that should be put in any Imployment Civil or Military should declare that they were not Papists but were of the Protestant Religion and that by their taking of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test yet these Evil Counsellors have in effect annulled and abolished all those Laws both with relation to Ecclesiastical and Civil Employments In order to Ecclesiastical Dignities and Offices they have not only without any colour of Law but against most express Laws to the contrary set up a Commission of a certain number of Persons to whom they have committed the Cognisance and Direction of all Ecclesiastical Matters in the which Commission there has been and still is one of His Majesties Ministers of State who makes now publick Profession of the Popish Religion and who at the time of his first professing it declared that for a great while before he had believed that to be the only true Religion By all this the deplorable State to which the Protestant Religion is reduced is apparent since the Affairs of the Church of England are now put into the Hands of Persons who have accepted of a Commission that is manifestly Illegal and who have executed it contrary to all Law and that now one of their chief Members has abjured the Protestant Religion and declared himself a Papist by which he is become incapable of holding any Publick Employment The said Commissioners have hitherto given such proof of their Submission to the Directions given them that there is no reason to doubt but they will still continue to promote all such Designs as will be most agreeable to them And those Evil Counsellors take care to raise none to any Ecclesiastical Dignities but Persons that have no Zeal for the Protestant Religion and that now hide their Unconcernedness for it under the specious Pretence of Moderation The said Commissioners have Suspended the Bishop of London only because he refused to obey an Order that was sent him to Suspend a Worthy Divine without so much as citing him before him to make his own Defence or observing the common Forms of Process They have turned out a President chosen by the Fellows of Magdalen College and afterwards all the Fellows of that College without so much as citing them before any Court that could take legal Cognisance of that Affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a Competent Judge And the only reason that was given for turning them out was their refusing to chuse for their President a Person that was recommended to them by the Instigation of those Evil Counsellors tho the Right of a Free Election belonged undoubtedly to them But they were turned out of their Freeholds contrary to Law and to that express provision in the Magna Charta That no Man shall loose Life or Goods but by the Law of the Land And now these Evil Counsellors have put the said College wholly into the Hands of Papists tho as is abovesaid they are incapable of all such Employments both by the Law of the Land and the Statutes of the College These Commissioners have also cired before them all the Chancellors and Arch-deacons of England requiring them to certifie to them the Names of all such Clergy-men as have read the King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and of such as have not read it without considering that the reading of it was not enjoyned the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries The Illegality and Incompetency of the said Court of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was so notoriously known and it did so evidently appear that it tended to the Subversion of the Protestant Religion that the Most Reverend Father in God William Archbishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England seeing that it was raised for no other end but to oppress such Persons as were of eminent Vertue Learning and Piety refused to sit or to concur in it And tho there are many express Laws against all Churches or Chappels for the Exercise of the Popish Religion and also against all Monasteries and Convents and more particularly against the Order of the Jesuits yet those Evil Counsellors have procured orders for the building of several Churches and Chappels for the Exercise of that Religion They have also procured diverse Monasteries to be erected and in contempt of the Law they have not only set up several Colleges of Jesuits in diverse places for the corrupting of the Youth but have raised up one of the Order to be a Privy Counsellor and a Minister of State By all
Orange designs the King's safety and preservation and hope all things may be composed without more Blood-shed by the calling a Parliament God grant a happy End to these Troubles that the King's Reign may be prosperous and that I may shortly meet You in perfect peace and safety till when let me beg You to continue the same favourable Opinion that You have hitherto had of Your most Obedient Daughter and Servant ANNE A Memorial of the Protestants of the Church of England Presented to their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Orange YOur Royal Highnesses cannot be ignorant that the Protestants of England who continue true to their Religion and the Government Established by Law have been many ways troubled and vexed by restless contrivances and designs of the Papists under pretence of the Royal Authority and things required of them unaccountable before God and Man Ecclesiastical Benefices and Preferments taken from them without any other Reason but the King's Pleasure that they have been summoned and sentenced by Ecclesiastical Commissioners contrary to Law deprived of their Birth-Right in the free Choice of their Magistrates and Representatives divers Corporations dissolved the Legal Security of our Religion and Liberty established and ratified by King and Parliament annull'd and overthrown by a pretended Dispensing Power new and unheard of Maxims have been preached as if Subjects had no Right but what depends on the King's Will and Pleasure The Militia put into the Hands of persons not qualified by Law and a Popish Mercenary Army maintained in the Kingdom in time of Peace absolutely contrary to Law The Execution of the Law against several high Crimes and Misdemeanours superseded and prohibited the Statutes against Correspondence with the Court of Rome Papal Jurisdiction and Popish Priests suspended that in Courts of Justice those Judges are displaced who dare acquit them whom the King would have Condemned as happened to Judg Powel and Holloway for acquitting the Seven Bishops Liberty of chusing Members of Parliament notwithstanding all the Care taken and Provision made by Law on that behalf wholly taken away by Quo Warranto's served against Corporations and the three known Questions All things carried on in open view for the Propagation and Growth of Popery for which the Courts of England and France have so long joyntly laboured with so much Application and Earnestness Endeavours used to perswade your Royal Highnesses to consent to Liberty of Conscience and abrogating the Penal Laws and Tests wherein they fell short of their aim That they most humbly implore the Protection of your Royal Highnesses as to the 〈◊〉 ending and incroachments made upon the Law for maintenance of the Protestant Religion our Civil and Fundamental Rights and Priviledg and that Your Royal Highness would be pleased to insist that the Free Parliament of England according to Law may be restored the Laws against Papists Priests Papal Jurisdiction c. put in Execution and the Suspending and Dispensing Power declared null and void the Rights and Priviledges of the City of London the free Choice of their Magistrates and the Liâ—â—â—ties as well of that as other Corporations restored and all things returned to their 〈◊〉 Channel c. Admiral Herbert 's Letter to all Commanders of Ships and Seamen in His Majesties Fleet. Gentlemen I Have little to add to what his Highness has express'd in general Terms besides laying before you the dangerous way you are at present in where Ruin or Infamy must inevitably attend you if you don't joyn with the Prince in the Common Cause for the Defence of your Religion and Liberties for should it please God for the sins of the English Nation to suffer your Arms to prevail to what can your Victory serve you but to enslave you deeper and overthrow the true Religion in which you have liv'd and your Fathers dy'd Of which I beg you as a Friend to consider the Consequences and to reflect on the Blot and Infamy it will bring on you not only now but in all After-Ages That by Your means the Protestant Religion was destroy'd and your Country depriv'd of its Ancient Liberties And if it pleases God to bless the Prince's Endeavours with success as I don't doubt but he will consider then what their Condition will be that oppose him in this so good a Design where the greatest Favour they can hope for is their being suffer'd to end their Days in Misery and Want detested and despised by all good Men. It is therefore and for many more Reasons too long to insert here that I as a true English-man and your Friend exhort you to joyn your Arms to the Prince for the Defence of the Common Cause the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of your Country It is what I am well assured the major and best part of the Army as well as the Nation will do so soon as convenience is offered Prevent them in so good an Action whilst it is in your power and may it appear That as the Kingdom hath always depended on the Navy for its Defence so you will yet go further by making it as much as in you lies the Protection of her Religion and Liberties and then you may assure your selves of all Marks of Favour and Honour suitable to the Merits of so great and glorious an Action After this I ought not to add so inconsiderable a thing as that it will for ever engage me to be in a most particular manner Your faithful Friend and humble Servant AR. HERBERT Aboard the Leyden in the Gooree Lord Delamear 's Speech THE occasion of this is to give you my Thoughts upon the present Conjuncture which concerns not only you but every Protestant and Free-born Man of England I am confident that wishes well to the Protestant Religion and his Country and I am perswaded that every Man of you thinks both in danger and now to lie at stake I am also perswaded that every Man of you will rejoyce to see Religion and Property settled if so then I am not mistaken in my Conjectures concerning you Can you ever hope for a better Occasion to root out POPERY and SLAVERY than by joining with the P. of O. whose Proposals contain and speak the Desires of every Man that loves his Religion and Liberty And in saying this I will invite you to nothing but what I will do my self and I will not desire any of you to go any further than I will move my self neither will I put you upon any Danger where I will not take share in it I propose this to you not as you are my Tenants but as my Friends and as you are Englishmen No Man can love Fighting for its own sake nor find any pleasure in danger And you may imagine I would be very glad to spend the rest of my days in peace I having had so great a share in Troubles but I see all lies at stake I am to chuse whether I will be a Slave and a Papist or a
Cesar 's and both St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans and St. Peter in his General Epistle have very positively condemned that pernicious Maxim but without any formal Declarations made of the Rules or Measures of Government And since both the People and Senate of Rome had acknowledged the Power that Augustus had indeed violently usurped it became Legal when it was thus submitted to and confirmed both by the Senate and People and it was established in his Family by a long Prescription when those Epistles were writ so that upon the whole matter all that is in the New Testament upon this Subject imports no more but that all Christians are bound to acquiesce in the Government and submit to it according to the Constitution that is settled by Law XI We are then at last brought to the Constitution of our English Government so that no general Considerations from Speculations about Sovereign Power nor from any Passages either of the Old and New Testament ought to determin us in this matter which must be fixed from the Laws and Regulations that have been made among us It is then certain that with relation to the executive Part of the Government the Law has lodged that singly in the King so that the whole Administration of it is in him but the Legislative Power is lodged between the King and the Two Houses of Parliament so that the Power of making and repealing Laws is not singly in the King but only so far as the Two Houses concur with him It is also clear that the King has such a determined extent of Prerogative beyond which he has no Authority as for instance if he levies Money of his People without a Law impowring him to it he goes beyond the Limits of his Power and asks that to which he has no right so that there lies no obligation on the Subject to grant it and if any in his Name use Violence for the obtaining it they are to be looked on as so many Robbers that invade our Property and they being violent Aggressours the Principle of Self-preservation seems here to take place and to warrant as violent a Resistance XII There is nothing more evident than that England is a free Nation that has its Liberties and Properties reserved to it by many positive and express Laws if then we have a right to our Property we must likewise be supposed to have a right to preserve it for those Rights are by the Law secured against the Invasions of the Prerogative and by consequence we must have a right to preserve them against those Invasions It is also evidently declared by our Law that all Orders and Warrants that are issued out in opposition to them are null of themselves and by consequence any that pretend to have Commissions from the King for those ends are to be considerd as if they had none at all since those Commissions being void of themselves are indeed no Commissions in the Construction of the Law and therefore those who act in vertue of them are still to be considered as private Persons who come to invade and disturb us It is also to be observed that there are some Points that are justly disputable and doubtful and others that are so manifest that it is plain that any Objections that can be made to them are rather forced Pretences than so much as plausible Colours It is true if the Case is doubtful the Interest of the publick Peace and Order ought to carry it but the Case is quite different when the Invasions that are made upon Liberty and Property are plain and visible to all that consider them XIII The main and great Difficulty here is that though our Government does indeed assert the Liberty of the Subject yet there are many express Laws made that lodg the Militia singly in the King that make it plainly unlawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King or any commissioned by him And these Laws have been put in the form of an Oath which all that have born any Employment either in Church or State have sworn and therefore those Laws for the assuring our Liberties do indeed bind the King's Conscience and may affect his Ministers yet since it is a Maxim of our Law that the King can do no wrong these cannot be carried so far as to justify our taking Arms against him be the Transgressions of Law ever so many and so manifest And since this has been the constant Doctrine of the Church of England it will be a very heavy Imputation on us if it appears that though we held those Opinions as long as the Court and the Crown have favoured us yet as soon as the Court turns against us we change our Principles XIV Here is a true Difficulty of this whole Matter and therefore it ought to be exactly considered 1. All general Words how large soever are still supposed to have a tacit exception and reserve in them if the Matter seems to require it Children are commanded to obey their Parents in all things Wives are declared by the Scripture to be subject to their Husbands in all things as the Church is unto Christ And yet how comprehensive soever these Words may seem to be there is still a reserve to be understood in them and though by our Form of Marriage the Parties swear to one another till Death them do part yet few doubt but that this Bond is dissolved by Adultery though it is not named for odious things ought not to be suspected and therefore not named upon such Occasions But when they fall out they carry still their own force with them 2. When there seem to be a Contradiction between two Articles in the Constitution we ought to examin which of the two is the most evident and the most important and so we ought to fix upon it and then we must give such an accommodating sense to that which seems to contradict it that so we may reconcile those together Here then are two seeming Contradictions in our Constitution The one is the Publick Liberty of the Nation the other is the renouncing of all Resistance in case that were invaded It is plain that our Liberty is only a thing that we enjoy at the King's Discretion and during his Pleasure if the other against all Resistance is to be understood according to the utmost extent of the Words Therefore since the chief Design of our whole Law and of all the several Rules of our Constitution is to secure and maintain our Liberty we ought to lay that down for a Conclusion that it is both the most plain and the most important of the two And therefore the other Article against Resistance ought to be so softned as that it do not destroy this 3. Since it is by a Law that Resistance is condemned we ought to understand it in such a sense as that it does not destroy all other Laws And therefore the intent of this Law must only
Confessor was in private with him and said this Harvy used frequently to come to the Prison after Condemnation and that where one Prisoner died a Protestant many died Papists Mr. Wootten said that after some stay he saw Mr. Harvy come out from Mr. Hubert and then he was admitted to have Speech with him Mr. Cawdry Keeper of Newgate did Inform That Mr. Harvy the Jesuit did frequent the Prison at Newgate about the times of the Execution upon the pretence of the Queens Charity and did spend much time with the Prisoners in private and particularly did so before the last Execution night after night Mr. Cawdry said likewise of the nine that suffered eight died Papists whereof some he knew were Protestants when they came into the Prison It appeared upon several Informations that Mr. Harvy and other Priests did not only resort to Newgate at times of Execution but likewise to the White-Lion in Southwark and other places in the Country and used their endeavours to pervert dying Prisoners Thomas Barnet late a Papist Informed That when he was a Papist and resorted to Gentlemens Houses in Barkshire that were Papists there was almost in every Gentlemans House a Priest and instanced in divers private Gentlemen in that County Others inform the like in Sarrey Mr. Cottman did inform That one Mr. Carpenter late a Preacher at Colledge-hill did in Discourse tell Cottman That the Judgments of God upon this Kingdom by the Plague last year and lately by the Fire in London were come upon this Land and People for their forsaking the true Roman Catholick Religion and shaking off Obedience to the Pope and that if they would return to the Church of Rome the Pope would rebuild the City at his own Charge Carpenter said likewise to Cottman That if he would come and hear him Preach the next Sunday at his House in Queen-street he would give twenty Reasons to prove that the Roman Catholick was the true Religion and his the false and that our Bible had a thousand falsities in it and that there was no true Scripture but at Rome and their Church Carpenter at the Committee confessed that he had formerly taken Orders from the Church of Rome to be a Priest but said he had renounced that Church and taken Orders in England The next thing is the Information of their Insolency and I shall begin with their Scorning and Despising the Bible One Thomas Williams an Officer in Sir William Bowyer 's Regiment Informed That one Ashley a Papist seeing a Woman read in a Bible asked her why she read in that Damnable Presbiterian Bible and said A Play-book was as good Thomas Barnet of Bingfield in Barkshire Informed That being at one Mr. Young's House in Bingfield at Bartholomew-tide last Mr. Young said to the Brother of this Thomas in his hearing That within two Years there should not be a Protestant in England Thomas Barnet Informed further That being at Mr. Doncaster's House in Bingfield one Mr. Thural Son-in-Law to Mr. Doncaster and both Papists said to this Informer who was then likewise a Papist The People take me for a poor fellow but I shall find a thousand or two thousand pounds to raise a party of Horse to make Mr. Hathorns and Mr. Bullocks fat guts lie on the ground for it is no more to kill an Heretick than to kill a Grashopper and that it was happy for him that he was a Catholick for by that means he shall be one that shall be mounted Mr. Linwood Scrivenner in White-Chappel Informed That about the Twentieth of October last meeting with one Mr. Binks a Papist and discoursing with him Binks told him That there was amongst the Papists as a great Design aâ— ever was in England and he thought it would be executed suddenly Being asked how many Papists there were about London He answered About seven thousand and in England an hundred thousand were Armed Mr. Oaks a Physician dwelling in Shadwel Informed That a little after the burning of London one Mr. Carpenter a Minister came to his House in Tower-wharf and spake to him to this purpose I will not say that I am a Papist but this I will say that I had rather die the death of the Papists and that my Soul should be raised with their Resurrection than either to be Presbiterian Independant or Anabaptist and I tell you the Papists have hitherto been his Majesty's best Fortification for when Presbiterians Independants and Anabaptists forsook and opposed him then they stood by him and helped him and he is now resolved to commit himself into their hands And take it upon my word in a short time the Papists will lay you as low as that house pointing to an house that was demolished for they are able to raise Forty thousand men and I believe the next work will be cutting of Throats This was Sworn by Mr. Oaks before Sir John Frederick a Member of the House Mirian Pilkington being present when the Words were spoken doth affirm them all save only those That the King is resolved to commit himself into the Papists hands Those she doth not remember Henry Young a Distiller of Hot-waters informed That about April 1661. being in the Jesuites Colledge in Antwerp one Powel an English Jesuite perswaded him to turn a Roman Catholick and said That if he intended to save his Life and Estate he had best turn so for within seven Years he should see all England of that Religion Young replied That the City of London would never endure it Powel answered That within five or six Years they would break the Power and Strength of London in pieces and that they had been contriving it these twenty Years and that if Young did live he should see it done The said Young did likewise Inform That shortly after his coming into England one Thomson and Copervel both Papists did several times say to him That within five or six Years at the farthest the Roman Catholick Religion should be all over in this Kingdom Jasper Goodwin of Darking in the County of Surrey Informed That about a Month since one Edward Complin a Papist said to him You must all be Papists shortly and that now he was not ashamed to own himself a Roman Catholick and to own his Priest naming two that were in Darkin in the houses of two Papists and likewise said That in twenty four hours warning the Roman Catholicks could raise thirty thousand Men as well armed as any Men in Christendom William Warner of Darking Informed That the said Edward Complin did tell him That the Roman Catholicks in England could in twenty four hours raise thirty thousand Horse and Arms And upon saying so pulled out his Crucifix and Beads and said He was not ashamed of his Religion John Grawnger of Darking Informed that about a Year since being in his House reading the Bible one Thomas Collins a Papist said to him Are you still a Church-goer Had you not better turn Roman Catholick If you stay till you
words pointing at the Dead said That he was no Schismatical Petitioning Rebel and that by his instigations the Grand-Jury of Bristol made a Presentment of their detestation against Petitioning for the sitting of the Parliament that he said Mr. Thompson had told him that he was Governour to Mr. Narbor when he was beyond Sea and said That he had been very often and above one hundred times at Mass in the great Church at Paris and usually gave half a Crown to get a Place to hear a certain Doctor of that Church and that he was like to be brought over to that Religion and that when he went beyond Sea did not know but that he might be of that Religion before his return That he is very Censorious and Frequently casts evil Aspersions against several Divines at Bristol of great Note viz. Mr. Chetwind Mr. Standfast Mr. Crosman Mr. Palmer and others saying That such as went to their Lectures were the Brats of the Devil The 9th That Mr. Thompson in his preaching inveighed bitterly against Subscribing Petitions for Sitting of this Parliament saying That it was the Seed of Rebellion and like to Forty one and that the Devil set them on work and the Devil would pay them their Wages saying That before he would set his hand to such Petitions he would cut it off yea and cut them off The 10th saith That about two years since being in the Chancel of St. Thomas's Church in Bristol where Queen Elizabeth's Effigies is Mr. Thompson pointing his Finger to it said That she was the worst of Women and a most lewd and infamous Woman Upon which this Informant replied He never heard any speak ill of her thereupon Mr. Thompson said She was no better than a Church-Robber and that Henry the 8th begun it and that she finish'd it The 11th Rowe saith That in the year 1678 he waited on the Mayor to Church and that Mr. Thomson who was there railed at Henry the Eighth saying He did more hurt in Robbing the Abby Lands than he did good by the Reformation That after Dinner Mr. Thompson comes to this Informant and claps his Hands on his Shoulders saying Hah Boy had Queen Elizabeth been living you needed not to have been Sword-bearer of Bristol The said Rowe asked him why He replied She loved such a lusty Rogue so well as he was and he would have been very fit for her Drudgery at White-hall The 12th saith That he heard a great noise of a Sermon to be preached by Mr. Thompson on the 30th of January 1679 to the second part of the same Tune And that he was present at the same Sermon in which Mr. Thompson said There was a great noise of a Popish Plot but says he Here is nothing in it but a Presbyterian Plot for here they are going about to Petition for the sitting of the Parliament but the end of it will be to bring the Kings Head to the block as they have done his Father The 13th saith That in January last or thereabouts there was a Petition going about for the sitting of this Parliament When Mr. Thompson in Redâ—liff Church in his Sermon said It was a Seditious and Rebellious Petition and rather than he would sign it his Hand should be cut off The 14th saith The Eighth day of April he going to pay Mr. Thompson his Dues speaking concerning the Meeters in private Mr. Thompson said He would hall them out and fill the Gaols with them and hoped to see their Houses afire about their Ears in a short time and this he the said Thompson doubled again and again The 15th saith That about December 1679 Mr. Thompson came to visit his Mother being sick and discoursing of Religion The said Thompson said If he were as well satisfied of other things as he was of Justification Auricular Confession Penance Extream Unction and Crisme in Baptism he would not have been so long separated from the Catholick Church And further affirmed That the Church of Rome was the True Catholick Church He further endeavoured to prove Extream Unction and Auricular Confession as well as he could out of the Epistles Further he hath heard him say The King was a Person of mean and soft Temper and could be led easily to any thing but yet a Solomon in vices but that the Duke of York was a Prince of a brave Spirit would be faithful to his Friends and that it was our own Faults that he was a Roman Catholick in that we forc'd him to fly into France where he imbraced that Religion About the same time he the said Thompson said the Church would be Militant but greatly commended the Decency of Solemnizing the Mass in France and that it was performed with much more Reverence and Devotion than any other Religion doth use He further heard him say in a Sermon about the time of Petitioning he would rather cut off his hand than Sign it and had many bad Expressions of it that it was the Seed of Rebellion and like 40 and 41 And further the said Mr. Thompson at one Sandford's Shop door in Bristol speaking of Bedlow said That he was not to be believ'd because Bedlow had said he meaning Mr. Thompson was at St. Omers where Mr. Thompson said he was not and that Bedlow was of a bad Life and in many Plots and not to be credited in any thing he said And that in another Discourse he commended the Romish Clergy for their single Life and is himself so and did at the same time Vilify and Rail at the English Clergy for Marrying saying It was better for a Clergy-Man to be Guelt than to Marry and that the Calvinists in France were Letcherous Fellows and could scarce be two years a Priest without a Wife About the time and after the Election of Sir John Knight to this Parliament Mr. Thompson said he was not fit to be believ'd and as bad as any Fanatick He further said in the Pulpit at St. Thomas's that after Excommunication by the Bishop without Absolution from the Spiritual Court such a one was surely Damned and he would pawn his Soul for the Truth of it Mr. Thompson after the Evidence given by every particular Person Face to Face was asked to every one If he had any Questions to ask before they called another Who answer'd He should not say any thing at present When the Witnesses before mentioned were all Examined Mr. Thompson being desir'd to make his Defence and declare whether he were Guilty of the Matters laid to his charge did for the greatest part confess words spoken to that effect and in other things endeavoured to turn the words with more favour towards himself but the Witnesses being of great Credit and many more being ready to have made good the same things the Committee look'd upon the business to be of a high Nature and therefore ordered the matter to be reported specially leaving it to the Wisdom of the House The Resolution of the House of Commons upon the
would not take a new one in his room because they have entertained him several years but you must change your Members as oft as you have new Parliaments though they serve you well and you ought to hate them because they would have it so for they give no better reasons for it but whether they seek your good or their private regard I leave to you to determine A Reverend Gentleman at Northwich was pleased to tell you that you must not chuse the same Members again for if you did the King and parliament would not agree I wonder how long he hath been one of the King's Cabinet Council that he can tell so well before if we may believe the greatest Ministers they say otherwise and that the King out of his gracious disposition to his people will deny himself in that which is most dear rather than break with his people so that either he or they are out and I am not convinced that he is infallible and am apt to believe that he is in the wrong since I have observed that they are for the most part mistaken who take upon them to judge of matters when they are at so great a distance from White-Hall though it may be remembred that this Gentleman hath an affair at London that requires his presence much oftner than he is pleased to afford it and but that great wits are unhappy in short memories that Gentleman could not have forgot that if the Parliament had continued one of his Cloth had been severely reproved for medling with matters not belonging to his Function I mean Mr. Thompson of Bristol and I hear there is so great a number of the last House chosen and like to be chosen that his fault will be remembred which by the way Gentlemen is the Judgment of you in your choice of me you doing that which the rest of the Nation hath done and where any change is it is only to reject those that were Pensioners or else vehemently suspected to be Mercenaries But I could wish it were not the opinion of too many that the way to recommend themselves as true Sons of the Church is to Preach seldom and meddle with State affairs more I hear some have taken offence because at Northwich I did commend the last House of Commons truly Gentlemen I only gave it as my Opinion and till the contrary doth appear I must believe that for Riches Integrity Learning Experience and all things that are expedient for members of that House England never had a better and why the parliament was Dissolved I know not for they who advised it have neither dared to own it nor the reasons for it There is one thing I could not but take notice of in the opposition that hath been made against me If you will observe they are the persons that were most inveterate one against another in the dispute between Sir Philip Egerton and my Cousin Cholmondley but to oppose me they are united as one man If their new-made Friendship be sincere and they have this way to do it I am very glad I have been the occasion of their reconciliation but if in this matter alone they are cemented then it doth discover upon what Principles they act and they are to be blamed and not the Gentlemen who were set up to oppose me for I believe them both to be very worthy men one of them is my Neighbour and I will do him what Service I can and for the other he shall find me a Gentleman if he hath occasion to use me Gentlemen I have as well as I can repeated the particular charges against meâ— I had but a short time to recollect my self there remains yet a general Charge which I desire to speak to and truly it is an heavy charge a charge not to be born if I were guilty of it They say I am an evil man as to the King and Church I wish my accusers had either so much power or will to serve the King or Church as I have and because I do not know my self to be guilty as to either of them I hold my self obliged to say something in my Vindication I know not where I ever gave my Vote to impair the King's Prerogative for this is my Principle and ever hath been my Opinion that the King's Prerogative when rightly used is for the good and Benefit of the People and the Liberties and Properties of the People are for the support of the Crown and King's Prerogative when they are not abused but this blessed Harmony may sometimes be disordered either by the influence of some ill Counsel about the King who to obtain their own ends do not care to ruin their King and Master or else from the restless Spirits of some ambitious men of broken fortunes who hope to repair them out of other mens Estates But It seems that I and the House of Commons are much to blame because by one of our Votes we forbid the People to lend Money upon the Revenue by way of anticipation I never knew it was a Crime to pass a Vote the Law had justified for the Law will maintain every part of that Vote and therefore I need say no more of it and besides this is not a place to argue it in As for my part I 'll do my best to preserve the King's Prerogative and the way to do it is neither to add nor to diminish for to make a King absolute is not to support but pull down his prerogative for the King holds his Prerogative by the Law and if that be destroy'd the Title is to be disputed by the Sword and he that hath the sharpest will prove to have the best right As to the Church I am for it as it is now Established under Episcopacy but I would have them to be such as St. Paul to Tim. in his first Book and 3 chap. describes and when they live accordingly I have as great a reverence for them as any man but when they live otherwise they prove to be and a ruin of the Church and ought to be abhorr'd of all true Christians And for Ceremonies I take them not to be necessary to Salvation but for decency and order sake and I conceive this Ceremony is so much the more necessary as it tends to the more effectual uniting of protestants and to preserve Peace and concord in the Church I am of opinion the Church is in danger and I 'll do my best to support it and as the case stands we must either bring in Protestants or Papists I am for bringing in Protestants and that is my Crime but you are pleased to judge me to be in the right Now I will no longer doubt of my opinion I am sure he that is against bringing in Protestants is for bringing in Papists and whether it be more profitable to support the Church by uniting of those who differ in Ceremonies or those who differ in Fundamentals I think is very plain
that I disown and renounce all such Principles Doctrins or Practices whether Popish or Fanatical which are contrary unto and inconsistent with the said Protestant Religion and Confession of Faith And for testification of my obedience to my most gracious Soveraign Charles the II. I do affirm and swear by this my solemn Oath that the Kings Majesty is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm over all Persons and in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil And that no Foreign Prince Person Pope Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminency or Authority Ecclesiastical or Civil within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Foreign Jurisdictions Powers Superiorities and Authorities And do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the Kings Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Rights Jurisdictions Prerogatives Priviledges Preferments and Authorities belonging to the Kings Majesty his Heirs and lawful Successors And I further affirm and swear by this my solemn Oath That I judge it unlawful for Subjects upon pretence of Reformation or any other pretence whatsoever to enter into Covenants or Leagues or to Gonvocate Conveen or Assemble in any Councils Conventions or Assemblies to Treat Consult or Determine in any matter of State Civil or Ecclesiastick without His Majesties special Command or Express License had thereto or to take up Arms against the King or these Commissionate by him And that I shall never so rise in Arms or enter into such Covenants or Assemblies And that there lies no obligation on me from the National Covenant or the Solemn Leagâ—e and Covenant commonly so called or any other manner of way whatsoever to endeavour any Change or Alteration in the Government either in Church or State as it is now established by the Laws of this Kingdome And I Promise and Swear That I shall with my utmost power Defend Assist and Maintain His Majesties Jurisdiction foresaid against all deadly And I shall never decline His Majesties Power and Jurisdiction as I shall answer to God And finally I affirm and swear That this my solemn Oath is given in the plain genuine sense and meaning of the words without any equivocation mental reservation or any manner of evasion whatsoever and that I shall not accept or use any dispensation from any creature whatsoever So help ne God The Bishop of Aberdeen and the Synods Explanation of the Test WE do not hereby swear to all the particular Assertions and Expressions of the Confession of Faith mentioned in the Test but only to the uniform Doctrine of the Reformed Churches contained therein II. We do not hereby prejudge the Churches Right to and Power of making any alteration in the said Confession as to the ambiguity and obscure expressions thereof or of making a more unexceptionable frame III. When we swear That the King is Supreme Governour over all Persons and in all Causes as well Ecclesiastick as Civil and when we swear to assert and defend all His Majesties Rights and Prerogatives this is reserving always the intrinsick unalterable power of the Church immediately derived from Jesus Christ to wit the power of the Keys consisting in the preaching of the Word administration of the Sacraments ordaining of Pastors exercise of Discipline and the holding of such Assemblies as are necessary for preservation of Peace and Vnity Truth and Purity in the Church and withal we do hereby think that the King has a power to alter the Government of the Church at his pleasure IV. When we swear That it is unlawful for Subjects to meet or convene to treat or consult c. about matters of State Civil and Ecclesiastick this is excepting meetings for Ordination publick Worship and Discipline and such meetings as are necessary for the conservation of the Church and true Protestant Religion V. When we swear There lies no obligation on us c. to endeavour any change or alteration in Government either in Church or State we mean by Arms or any seditious way VI. When we swear That we take the Test in the plain and genuine sense of the words c. we understand it only in so far as it does not contradict these Exceptions The Explanation of the Test by the Synod and Clergy of Perth BEcause our Consciences require the publishing and declaring of that express meaning we have in taking the Test that we be not mis-interpreted to swear it in these glosses which men uncharitable to it and enemies to us are apt to put upon it and because some men ill affected to the Government who are daily broachers of odious and calumnious Slanders against our Persons and Ministry are apt to deduce inferences and conclusions from the alledged ambiguity of some Propositions of the Test that we charitably and firmly do believe were never intended by the Imposers nor received by the Takers Therefore to satisfie our Consciences and to save our Credit from these unjust imputations we expressly declare That we swear the Test in this following meaning I. By taking the Test we do not swear to every Proposition and Clause contained in the Confession of Faith but only to the true Protestant Religion founded upon the Word of God contained in that Confession as it is opposed to Popery and Fanaticism II. By swearing the Ecclesiastick Supremacy we swear it as we have done formerly without any reference to the assertory Act. We also reserve intire unto the Church it s own intrinsick and unalterable power of the Keys as it was exercised by the Apostles and the pure primitive Church for the first three Centuries III. By swearing That it is unlawful to Convocate convene or assemble in any Council Conventions or Assemblies to treat consult c. in any matter of State Civil or Ecclesiastick as we do not evacuate our natural Liberty whereby we are in freedom innocently without reflection upon or derogating to Authority or persons intrusted with it to discourse in any occasional meeting of these things so we exclude not those other meetings which are necessary for the well-being and Discipline of the Church IV. By our swearing it unlawful to endeavour any change or alteration in the Government either of Church or State we mean that it is unlawful for us to endeavour the alteration of the specifick Government of Monarchy in the true and lineal Descent and Episcopacy V. When we swear in the genuine and literal sense c. we understand it so far as it is not opposite or contradictory to the foresaid exceptions They were allowed to insert after the Oath before their Subscriptions these words or to this purpose We under-written do take this Oath according to the Explanation made by the Council approved by His Majesties Letter and we declare we are no further bound by this Oath EDINBVRGH The sederunt of the Council Sederunt vigesimo secundo Die Septembris 1681. His Royal
Crime if it had been found about him written by another hand and I could name one or two Persons who as they were able enough to Compose such Papers so had power enough over his Spirit to engage him to Copy them and to put themselves out of danger by restoring the Original You ought to address your self to the Learned Divines of our Church for answer to such things in them as puzzle you and not to one that has not the honour to be of that Body and that has now carried a Sword for some time and imploys the leasure that at any time he enjoys rather in Philosophical and Mathematical Enquiries than in matters of Controversie There is indeed one Consideration that determined me more easily to comply with your desires which is my having had the honour to discourse copiously of those matters with the late King himself and he having proposed to me some of the particulars that I find in those Papers and I having said several things to him in answer to those Heads which he offered to me only as Objections with which he seemed fully satisfied I am the more willing to communicate to you that which I took the liberty to lay before His late Majesty on several occasions the particulars on which he insisted in discourse with me were the uselessness of a Law without a Judge and the necessity of an infallible Tribunal to determine Controversies to which he added the many Sects that were in England which seemed to be a necessary consequence of the Liberty that every one took to interpret the Scriptures and he often repeated that of the Church of Englands arguing from the obligation to obey the Church against the Sectaries which he thought was of no force unless they allowed more Authority to the Church then they seemed willing to admit in their Disputes with this Church of Rome But upon the whole Matter I will offer you some Reflections that will I hope be of as great weight with you as they are with my self I. All Arguments that prove upon such general Considerations that there ought to be an Infallible Judge named by Christ and cloathed with his Authority signify nothing unless it can be shewed us in what Texts of Scripture that nomination is to be found and till that is shewed they are only Arguments brought to prove that Christ ought to have done somewhat that he has not done So these are in effect so many Arguments against Christ unless it appears that he has Authorised such a Judge therefore the right way to end this Dispute is to shew where such a Constitution is Authorised So that the most that can be made of this is that it amounts to a favourable presumption II. It is a very unreasonable thing for us to form Presumptions of what is or ought to be from Inconveniences that do arise in case that such things are not for we may carry this so far that it will not be easie to stop it It seems more suitable to the infinite Goodness of God to communicate the knowledge of himself to all Mankind and to furnish every Man with such assistances as will certainly prevail over him It seems also reasonable to think that so perfect a Saviour as Jesus Christ was should have shewed us a certain way and yet consistent with the free Use of our Faculties of avoiding all sin nor is it very easie to imagine that it should be a reproach on his Gospel if there is not an Infallible Preservative against Errour when it is acknowledged that there is no infallible Preservative against sin for it is certain that the one Damns us more Infallibly than the other III. Since presumptions are so much insisted on to prove what things must be appointed by Christ it is to be considered that it is also a reasonable Presumption that if such a Court was appointed by him it must be done in such plain terms that there can be no room to question the meaning of them and since this is the hinge upon which all other matters turn it ought to be expressed so particularly in whom it is vested that there should be no occasion given to dispute whether it is in one Man or in a Body and if in a Body whether in the Majority or in the two thirds or in the whole Body unanimously agreeing in short the Chief thing in all Governments being the Nature and Power of the Judges those are always distinctly specified and therefore if these things are not specified in the Scriptures it is at least a strong Presumption that Christ did not intend to authorise such Judges IV. There were several Controversies raised among the Churches to which the Apostles writ as appears by the Epistles to the Romans Corinthians Galatians and Colossians yet the Apostles never make use of those passages that are pretended for this Authority to put an end to those Controversies which is a shrew'd Presumption that they did not understand them in that sense in which the Church of Rome does now take them Nor does St. Paul in the Directions that he gives to the Church-men in his Epistles to Timothy and Titus reckon this of submitting to the directions of the Church for one which he could not have omitted if this be the true meaning of those disputed passages and yet he has not one word sounding that way which is very different from the directions which one possessed with the present view that the Church of Rome has of this matter must needs have given V. There are some things very expresly taught in the New Testament such as the Rules of a good Life the Vse of the Sacraments the addressing our selves to God for Mercy and Grace thro' the Sacrifice that Christ offered for us on the Cross and the worshipping him as God the Death Resurrection and Ascention of Jesus Christ the Resurrection of our Bodies and Life Everlasting by which it is apparent that we are set beyond doubt in those matters if then there are other passages more obscure concerning other matters we must conclude that these are not of that Consequence otherwise they would have been as plainly reveal'd as others are but above all if the Authority of the Church is delivered to us in disputable terms that is a just prejudice against it since it is a thing of such Consequence that it ought to have been revealed in a way so very clear and past all dispute VI. If it is a Presumption for particular Persons to judge concerning Religion which must be still referred to the Priests and other Guides in Sacred Matters this is a good Argument to oblige all Nations to continue in the Established Religion whatever it may happen to be and above all others it was a convincing Argument in the Mouths of the Jews against our Saviour He pretended to be the Messias and proved it both by the Prophesies that were accomplished in him and by the Miracles that he wrought as for the
time be safely conducted thither Nor can I avoid pleasing my self with those joyful and hopeful thoughts when I reflect upon the various steps of Divine Providence by which they are brought into that nearness of legally inheriting these Crowns Certainly there is a voice that speaketh loud to this purpose not only in Gods denying a Legitimate Issue to the Late King and in his taking away from time to time all the Lawful Male Off-spring of his present Majesty but in the uniting their Highnesses in Marriage even to the crossing a certain Persons Inclinations whom I forbear to Name as well as to the disgusting of a Neighbouring Monarch and to the defeating the busie endeavours of the Popish Party But I must return to our Author whose Injustice to their Highnesses and his malice against their Honour Interest and Reputation knows neither end nor bounds For upon Monsieur Fagel's having ask'd Who would go about to advise him or any man else to endeavour to perswade their Highnesses whom God has so far honoured as to make them Defenders of his Church to approve and promote things so dangerous and hurtful both to the Reformed Religion and to the publick safety as the Repealing of the Test Laws would be our Author does hereupon with his wonted Friendship Equity and Candor to those Excellent Princes tells us that he hath not met with so bold a Declaration as this of calling them the Protectors of Gods Church and that the ascribing it to them is a detracting from the Honour of Kings and Monarchs who will not Abdicate from themselves to any other so glorious a Title And in pursuance of his rancour towards their Highnesses he runs out in his way of Wit and Learning into a most silly and impertinent Discourse about the Nature of a Church and accuseth the Prince and Princess as if by having this Character conferred upon them they had a design to usurp from his Majesty of Great Brittain the stile of Defenders of the Faith and to challenge to themselves the being the Protectors of the Church of England Surely this Gentleman does by vertue of his Popish Zeal and Irish Understanding believe that no Titles are due to Princes in reference to the Church of God but what are derived from the Papal Chair Whereas I dare say that Monsieur Fagel in bestowing this Title upon Their Highnesses did not dream of the Roman Pontif but had been taught it by God Almighty whom I take to be the Supream and true Fountain of Honour who is pleased to character such Princes as do cherish and favour his Church by the Name of Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers which is the term that the Pensionary useth in reference to their Highnesses And as it is their own merit which according to the Tenor of the Divine Creation hath entitled them to this glorious stile so they are neither to be ridicul'd nor hectored out of that duty of countenancing and supporting the Reformed Religion nor to be deterred by bold and empty words from those compassionate generous and Princely Offices to sincere Orthodox Believers by which they have deserved it And while others glory in the enjoyment of the Titles of most Christian and most Catholick Kings which their Vassalage to the See of Rome their contributing to the Exaltation of the Triple Crown and their being the Popes Executioners in the shedding the Blood of Saints hath procured unto them 't is enough for their Highnesses to be by the Suffrage of all true Protestants and that agreeably to the Doctrine and Authority of the Sacred Scriptures had in esteem and reverenced for Nutritii and Protectors of Gods Church Nor do they appropriate this stile to themselves tho' they account it the brightest among all their Titles but they acknowledge it to belong equally to many others and are afflicted at nothing more than that all Potentates may not justly claim a share in it And as the Pensionary's ascribing it unto their Highnesses was out of no design to usurp upon the King of Englands Title of Defender of the Faith nor to affix any Authority unto them over that Church so it will be no presumption to add that all of the Reformed Religion in that Kingdom how much soever differing in little and circumstantial things among themselves are yet so far sensible of the obligations they are under to Their Highnesses and of the benefits they have all the Assurance to expect from them hereafter that without meaning ill either to the King or to any one else they will unanimously join in stiling them Defenders of the Christian Reformed Faith and Protectors of Gods Church professing the Protestant Religion And they will easily know with whom they are to be angry and against whom to direct their Resentments Mijn Heer Fagel had said that if the Dissenters cannot during his Majesties Reign be eased from the Penal Laws unless the Tests be also abrogated that this will be an unhappiness unto them but for which the Roman Catholicks are only to be blamed who chuse rather to be contented that they and their Posterity should remain still obnoxious to the Penal Laws and exposed to the hatred of the whole Nation than be restrained from a capacity of attempting any thing against the peace and security of the Reformed Religion Our Author whose envy and injustice against Their Highnesses is not yet fully spent doth in his imprudent and indiscreet way obtrude from hence upon the World that the Nonconformists as well as the Roman Catholicks may hereby see where their true Interest stands and that they are extreamly obliged to those in whose Name this advice is given for the Consolation afforded them in the condition under which they are stated by Law Which is as much as if he should harangue the Nonconformists into discontentment against the Prince and Princess by assuring them that they are to hope for no relief against the Penal Laws by any favour of theirs Whereas the Dissenters are not only told that their Highnesses are willing to consent but that they do fully approve that they should have an entire Liberty for the full exercise of their Religion without being obnoxious to receive any prejudice trouble or molestation upon that account So that the heat which our Author would enflame the Dissenters unto against their Highnesses ought to turn and spend it self against the Papists who rather than part with the Tests which the Nonconformists are as much concerned to have maintained as they of the National Communion can be are resolved to keep all the Penal Laws in force and to leave the Dissenters under the dread and apprehension of them But this they may be fully perswaded of that if they can escape the edge of them during this Kings Reign they will be in no danger from them in case the Nation come once to be so happy as to see their Highnesses seated on the Throne For as much as they have not only their word which was hitherto
impoverished and ruined by him at his pleasure especially when those whom they give up to be thus treated and entertained are at agreement with them in all the Essentials of Religion equally zealous as themselves for the Liberties of their Country and who for Sobriety in their Lives Industry in their Callings and Usefulness in the Common-Wealth are inferior to none of their Fellow-Subjects So it is obvious to any who give themselves leave to think that the King would long ere this have been stated in the Absoluteness that is aspired after and both Church and State reduced to lie at the discretion of the Monarch provided the Nonconformists for procuring his Favour in non-execution of the Laws had suffered themselves to be prevailed upon and drawn over to stand by and assist him in his Popish and Despotical Designs But that honest people though hated and maligned by their Brethren rather than be found aiding the King in his Usurpations over the Kingdom have chosen to undergoe the utmost Calamities they could be made subject unto either through the Execution of those Laws which had been made against them or through our Princes and their Ministers wrecking their Malice upon them in Arbitrary and Illegal Methods But what the Royal Brothers could not work the afflicted and persecuted Side unto they found the Art to engage the other Side in though not onely excepted from all Obnoxiousness to those Laws but strengthened and supported by them For as soon as the Court begun to despair of prevailing upon Dissenters to become their Tools and Instruments of enslaving the Nation and of exalting the Monarchy to a Despotical Absoluteness they applied to the Bigots of the Church of England whom by gratifying with a vigorous Execution of the Laws upon Dissenters they brought to abett applaud and justifie them in all those Counsels and Ways which have reduced us into that miserable condition wherein we not long since were The Clergy being advanced to Grandure and Opulency things which many of them are fonder of and lother to foregoe than Religion and the Rights of the Nation the Court made it their business to possess them with a Belief that unless the Fanaticks were suppressed and ruined they could not enjoy with Security their Dignities and Wealth Whereupon not onely the lesser Levites but the Superior Clergy having their Lesson and Cue given them from White-hall and St. James's fell upon pursuing the Nonconformists with Ecclesiastical Punishments and upon exciting and animating the Civil Officers against them And under pretence of preserving and defending the Church they gave themselves over to an implicit serving of the Court and became not onely Advocates but Instruments for the robbing of Corporations of their Charters for imposing Sheriffs upon the City of London who had not been legally elected and of fining and punishing Men arbitrarily for no Crime save the having asserted their own and the Nations Rights in modest and lawful ways Posterity will hardly believe that so many of the Prelatical Clergy and so great a number of Members of the Church of England should from an Enmity unto and pretended Jealousie of the Dissenters have become Tools under the late King for justifying the Dissolution of so many Parliaments the Invasion made upon their Priviledges the ridiculing and stifling of the Popish Plot the shamming of forged Conspiracies upon Protestants the condemning several to Death for High-Treason who could be rendred guilty by the Transgression of no known Law and finally for advancing a Gentleman to the Throne who had been engaged in a Conjuration against Religion and the Legal Government and whom three several Parliaments would have therefore Excluded from the Right of Succession And being seduced into an espousal of the Interests of the Court against Religion Parliaments and the Nation it is doleful to consider what Doctrines both from Pulpit and Press were thereupon brought forth and divulged Such as Monarchy's being a Government by Divine Right That it is in the Prince's Power to Rule as he pleaseth That it is a Grace and Condescention in the King to give an Account of what he does That for Parliaments to direct or regulate the Succession borders upon Treason and is an Offence against the Law of Nature And that the onely thing left to Subjects in case the King will Tyrannize over their Consciences Persons and Estates is tamely to suffer and as some of them did absurdly express it to exercise Passive Obedience So that by corrupting the Minds and Consciences of men with those pestilent and slavish Notions they betrayed the Nation both to the Mischiefs which have alrerdy overtaken us and to what further we were threatned with Nor did these Doctrines tend meerly to the fettering and enfeebling the Spirits of Men but they were a Temptation to the Royal Brothers to put in Execution what they had been so long contriving and travelling with and were a kind of reprimanding them for being ignorant of their own Right and Power and for not exerting it with that Vigour and Expedition which they might I do acknowledge that there were many both of the Sacred Order and of the Laick Communion of the Church of England who were far from being infected with those brutish Sentiments and Opinions and who were as zealous as any for having the Monarchy kept within its ancient limits Parliaments maintained in their wonted Reverence and Authority the Subjects preserved in the enjoyment of their immemorial Priviledges and who were far from sacrificing our Religion and Laws to Popery and Arbitrariness and from lulling us into a Tameness and Lethargy in case the Court should attempt the abolishing the established Doctrine and Worship and the subverting and changing the Civil Government But alass besides their being immediately branded with the Name of Trimmer and conformable Fanaticks and registred in the Kalender with those that stood precluded the King's Favour and merited his Animadversion their Modesty was soon drowned and silenced in the loud Noise of their clamorous Brethren and their retiredness from Conversation while the others frequented all places of Society and publick Concourse deprived the Nation of the benefit of their Example and the happiness of their Instructions Nor have I mentioned the Extravagancies of any of the Ecclesiasticks and Members of the Church of England with a design either of reproaching and upbraiding them or of provoking and exasperating the Dissenters to Resentments but onely to shew how fatal our Divisions have been unto us what excesses they have occasioned our being hurried and transported into and what mischievous Improvement our Enemies have made of them to the supplanting and almost subverting of all that is valuable unto us as we are English-men Christians and Protestants And as our Animosities through our Divisions gave the Courrt an advantage of suborning that Party which they pretended to befriend and uphold into a Ministration to all their Counsels and Projections against our Religion and Laws so by reason of the
Establishment yet all other Protestants may very rationally promise themselves an Indulgence and that not only from the Mildness and compassionate Sweetness of her Temper but from the Influence which the Prince her Husband will have upon her who as he is descended from Ancestors whose Glory it was to be the Redeemers of their Country from Papal Persecution and Spanish Tyranny so his Education Generosity Wisdom and many Heroick Vertues dispose him to embrace all Protestants with an equal Tenderness and to erect his Interest upon the being Head and Patron of all that profess the Reformed Religion Had the late Duke of Monmouth been victorious against the Forces of the present King and inabled to have wrested the Scepter out of his Hand though all Protestants might thereupon have expected and would certainly have enjoyed an equal freedom without the liableness of any party to Penal Laws for matters of Religion yet he would have been careful and I have reason to believe that it was his purpose to have had the Church of Eng. preserved and maintained and that she should have suffered no alteration but what would have been to her Strength and Glory through an enlargement of the Terms of her Communion and what would have been to the Praise of her Moderation and Charity through her being perswaded to bear with such as differ from her in little things and could not prevail with themselves to partake with her in all Ordinances Upon the whole it is both the prudence and safety of Dissenters as they would escape Extirpation themselves and have Religion conveyed down to Posterity to unite their Strength and Endeavours to those of the Church of England for the upholding her against the assaults of Popish Enemies who pursue her Subversion As matters have been circumstanced and stated in England there hath not been an Affront or Injury offered or done unto her by the Court which did not at the same time reach and wound the Dissenters 'T is not her being for Episcopacy Ceremonies and imposed Set-Forms of Worship the things about which she and the Nonconformists differ that she hath been not long since maligned and struck at by the Man in Power and his Popish functo but it is for being Protestant Reformed and Orthodox Crimes under the Guilt whereof Dissenters were equally concerned and involved Being therefore in opposition to the common Cause of Religion that the late Court of Inquisition was erected over her Ecclesiasticks all Protestants jointly resented the Wrongs which she sustain'd and not only to sympathize with those dignified and lower Clergy which were called to suffer but to espouse her Quarrel with the same warmth that we would our own And as we are to look upon those of the Episcopal Communion to be the great Bulwark of the Protestant Religion and Reformed Interest in England so it was farther incumbent on Dissenters towards them and a Duty which they owe to God the Nation and themselves not to be accessary to any thing through which the legal Establishment of the Church of England might have been by an Act of pretended Regal Prerogative weakned and supplanted I never counsel the Dissenters to renounce their Principles nor to participate with the Prelatical Church in all Ordinances on the Terms to which they have straitned and narrowed their Communion For while they remain unsatisfied of the lawfulness of those Terms and Conditions they cannot do it without offending God and contracting Guilt upon their Souls nor will they of the Church of England in Charity Justice and Honesty expect it from them For whatsoever any Man believeth to be Sin it is so to him and will by God be imputed as such till he be otherwise enlightned and convinced nor are the Dissenters to be false and cruel to themselves in order to be kind and friendly to them But that which I would advise them unto is that after the maintaining the highest measure of Love to the conformable Congregations as Churches of Christ and the esteeming their Members as Christian Protestant Brethren notwithstanding the several things wherein they judge them to err and to be mistaken that they would not by any Act and Transactions of theirs betray them into a Despotical Power not directly nor indirectly acknowledge any Authority paramount unto and superseding the Laws by which the Church of England is established in its present Form Order and Mode of Jurisdiction Discipline and External Worship Whatsoever Ease arrived to the Dissenters through the Kings suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws without their Address and Application they might receive it with Joy and Humility in themselves and with thankfulness to God nor was there hereby any prejudice offered on their part to the Authority of the Law or Offence or Injury given or done to the conformable Clergy Nor is it without grief and regret that the Church-men have been forced to behold the harassing spoiling and imprisonment of the Nonconformists while in the mean time the Papists were suffered to assemble to the Celebration of their Idolatrous Worship without Censure and Controul And had it been in their power to remedy it and give Relief to their Protestant Brethren they would with delight and readiness have embrac'd the occasion and opportunity of doing it But alas instead of having an advantage put into their hand of contributing to the Relief of the Dissenters which I dare say many of them ardently wish and desire they were compelled contrary to their Inclination as well as their Interest to become instrumental in persecuting and oppressing them Nor does the late King covet a better and a more legal advantage against the Conformists than that they would refuse to pursue Dissenters and decline molesting them with Ecclesiastical Censures and civil Punishments So that their condition was to be pityed and bewailed in that they were hindered from acting against the Papists though both enjoyed by Law and influenced thereunto by Motives of self-Preservation as well as by tyes of Conscience while in the mean time they were forced to prosecute their fellow-Protestants or else to be suspended and deposed and put out of their Offices and Employments And tho I believe that they would at last have more Peace in themselves and be better accepted with God in the great Duty of their Account should they have refused to disturb and prosecute their Protestant Brethren and scorn to be any longer Court-Tools for weakning and undermining the Reformed Cause and Interest yet I could not but leave them to act in this as they should be perswaded in themselves and as they judged most agreeable to Principles of Wisdom and Conscience In the interim the Dissenters have all the Reason in the World to believe that the Proceedings of the Clergy and Members of the Church of England against them were not the Results of their Election and Choice but the Effects of moral Compulsion and Necessity Nor will any Dissenter that is prudent and discreet blame them for a matter
given to his Declaration and to what he hath since the Emission of it repeated both in his Speech to Mr. Penn and in his Letter to Mr. Alsop And to omit many other Instances of his kindness and Benignity to the Fanaticks whom he now so much hugs and caresseth it may not be amiss to remember them and all other Protestants of that barbarous and illegal Commission issued forth by the Council of Scotland while he as the late King 's High Commissioner had the Management of the Affairs of that Kingdom by which every Military Officer that had command over twelve Men was impower'd to impannel Juries Try Condemn and cause to be put to Death not only those who should be found to disclaim the King's Authority but such as should refuse to acknowledge the King 's new modelled Supremacy over that Church in the pursuance and Execution of which Commission some were Shot to Death others were Hang'd or Drowned and this not only during the Continuance of the Reign of his late Majesty but for above a Year and a half after the present King came to the Crown But what need is there of insisting upon such little Particulars wherein he was at all times ready to express his Malice to Protestants seeing we have not only Dr. Oates's Testimony and that of divers others but most Authentick Proofs from Mr. Coleman's Letters of his having been in a Conspiracy several Years for the Subversion of our Religion upon the meritorious and sanctified Motive of extirpating the Northern Heresie Of which beside all the Evidence that four Successive Parliaments arrived at I know several who since the Duke of York ascended the Throne have had it confirmed unto them by divers Foreign Papists that were less reserved or more ingenuous than many of that Communion use to be To question the Existence of that Plot and his present Majesties having been Accessary unto and in the Head of it argues a strange Effrontery and Impudence through casting an Aspersion of Weakness Folly and Injustice not only upon those Three Parliaments that seem'd to have retained some Zeal for English Liberties but by fastening the same Imputations upon the Long Parliament which had shewed it self at all times more Obsequious to the Will of the Court than was either for their own Honor or the Safety and Interest of the Kingdom and who had expressed a Veneration for the Royal Family that approached too much upon a degree of Idolatry Whosoever considers that Train of Counsels wherein the King was many Years engaged and whereof we felt the woful Effects in the Burning of London the frequent Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments the widening and exasperating Differences among Protestants the stirring up and provoking Civil Magistrates and Ecclesiastical Courts to persecute Dissenters and the maintaining Correspondencies with the Pope and Catholick Princes abroad to the dishonor of the Nation and danger of our Laws and Religion cannot avoid being apprehensive what we are now to look for at his Hands nor can be escape thinking that he esteems his Advancement to the Crown both a Reward from Heaven for what he hath done and plotted against these three Kingdoms and an Opportunity and Advantage administred to him for the Perfecting and Accomplishment of all those Designs with which he hath been so long Bigg and in Travel for the Destruction of our Religion the Subversion of our Laws and the Re-establishment of Popery in these Dominions The Conduct and Guidance under which His Majesty hath put himself and the fiery Temper of that Order to whose Government he hath resigned his Conscience may greatly add to our Fears and give us all the Jealousie and Dread that we are capable of being impressed with in reference to Matters to come that there is nothing which can be Fatal to our Religion or Persons that we may not expect the being called to conflict with and suffer For tho most of the Popish Ecclesiasticks especially the Regulars bear an inveterate Malice to Protestants and hold themselves under indispensible Obligations of eradicating whatsoever their Church stiles Heresie and have accordingly been always forward to stir up and provoke Rulers to the use and Application of Force for the Destruction of Protestants as a Company of perverse and obstinate Hereticks adjudged and condemned to the Stake and Gibbet by the infallible Chair yet of all Men in the Communion of the Romish Church and of their Religious Orders the Jesuits are they who do most hate us and whose Counsels have been most Sanguinary and always tending to influence those Monarchs whose Consciences they have had the guiding and conducting of to the utmost Cruelties and Barbarities towards us What our Brethren have had measured out to them in France through Father de la Chaise's Influence upon that King and through the bewitching Power and Domination he hath over him in the quality of his Confessor and as having the Direction of his Conscience may very well alarm and inform us what we ought to expect from His Majesty of Great Britain who hath surrendered his Conscience to the Guidance of Father Peters a Person of the same Order and of the like mischievous and bloody Disposition that the former is 'T is well observed by the Author of the Reasons against Repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test that Cardinal Howard's being of such a meek and gentle Temper that is able to withstand the Malignity of his Religion and to preserve him from concurring in those mischievous Counsels which his Purple might seem to oblige him unto is the reason of his being shut out from Acquaintance with and Interest in the English Affairs transacted at Rome and that whatsoever his Majesty hath to do in that Court is managed by his Ambassador under the sole Direction of the Jesuits So that it is not without cause that the Jesuit of Liege in his intercepted and lately printed Letter tells a Brother of the Order what a wonderful Veneration the King hath for the Society and with what profound Submission he receives those Reverend Fathers and hearkens to whatsoever they represent Nor is His Majesty's being under the Influence of the Jesuits through having one of them for his Confessor and several of them for his Chief Counsellors and principal Confidents the only thing in this Matter that awakens our Fear in what we are to expect from his armed Power excited and stir'd up by that fiery Tribe but there is another Ground why we ought more especially to dread him and that is his being entred and enrolled into the Order and become a Member of the Society whereby he is brought into a greater Subjection and Dependence upon them and stands bound by Ties and Engagements of being obedient to the Commands of the General of the Jesuits and that not only in Spirituals but in whatsoever they shall pretend to be subservient to the Exaltation of the Church and for upholding the Glory of the Tripple Crown This
our just and due Acknowledgments for the happy Relief You have brought to us and that we may not be wanting in this present Conjuncture we have put our selves into such a Posture that by the Blessing of God we may be capable to prevent all ill Designs and to preserve this City in Peace and Safety till your Highness's Happy Arrival We therefore humbly desire that your Highness will please to repair to this City with what convenient speed you can for the perfecting the great Work which Your Highness has so happily begun to the general Joy and Satisfaction of us all December the 17th 1688. THE said Committee this day made Report to the Lieutenancy that they had presented the said Address to the Prince of Orange and that His Highness received them very kindly December the 17th 1688. By the Lieutenancy Ordered That the said Order and Address be forwith Printed Geo. Evans To his Highness the Prince of Orange The Humble Address of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common Council assembled May it please Your Highness WE taking into Consideration your Highness's fervent Zeal for the Protestant Religion manifested to the World in your many and hazardous Enterprizes which it hath pleased Almighty God to bless You with miraculous Success We render our deepest Thanks to the Divine Majesty for the same And beg leave to present our most humble Thanks to your Highness particularly for your appearing in Arms in this Kingdom to carry on and perfect your glorious Design to rescue England Scotland and Ireland from Slavery and Popery and in a Free Parliament to establish the Religion the Laws and the Liberties of these Kingdoms upon a sure and lasting Foundation We have hitherto look'd for some Remedy for these Oppressions and Imminent Dangers We together with our Protestant Fellow-Subjects laboured under from His Majesty's Concessions and Concurrences with Your Highness's Just and Pious purposes expressed in Your gracious Declaration But herein finding Our Selves finally disappointed by his Majesty's withdrawing Himself We presume to make Your Highness Our Refuge And do in the Name of this Capital CITY implore Your Highness's Protection and most humbly beseech Your Highness to vouchsafe to repair to this CITY where Your Highness will be received with Universal Joy and Satisfaction The Speech of Sir George Treby Kt. Recorder of the Honourable City of London to his Highness the Prince of Orange Dec. 20. 1688. May it please your Highness THE Lord Mayor being disabled by Sickness your Highness is attended by the Aldermen and Commons of the Capital City of this Kingdom deputed to Congratulate your Highness upon this great and glorious Occasion In which labouring for Words we cannot but come short in Expression Reviewing our late Danger we remember our Church and State over-run by Popery and Arbitrary Power and brought to the Point of Destruction by the Conduct of Men that were our true Invaders that brake the Sacred Fences of our Laws and which was worst the very Constitution of our Legislature So that there was no Remedy left but the Last The only Person under Heaven that could apply this Remedy was Your Highness You are of a Nation whose Alliances in all Times has been agreeable and prosperous to us You are of a Family most Illustrious Benefactors to Mankind To have the Title of Soveraign Prince Stadtholder and to have worn the Imperial Crown are among their lesser Dignities They have long enjoyed a Dignity singular and transcendent viz. To be Champions of Almighty God sent forth in several Ages to vindicate his Cause against the greatest Oppressions To this Divine Commission our Nobles our Gentry and among them our brave English Soldiers rendred themselves and their Arms upon your appearing GREAT SIR When we look back to the last Month and contemplate the Swiftness and Fulness of our present Deliverance astonish'd we think it miraculous Your Highness led by the Hand of Heaven and called by the Voice of the People has preserved our dearest Interests The Protestant Religion which is Primitive Christianity restor'd Our Laws which are our ancient Title to our Lives Liberties and Estates and without which this World were a Wilderness But what Retribution can We make to your Highness Our Thoughts are full-charged with Gratitude Your Highness has a lasting Monument in the Hearts in the Prayers in the Praises of all good Men among us And late Posterity will celebrate your ever-glorious Name till Time shall be no more Chapman Mayor Cur ' special ' tent ' die Jovis xx die Decemb ' 1688. Annoque RR. Jacobi Secundi Angl ' c. quarto THIS Court doth desire Mr. Recorder to print his Speech this day made to the Prince of Orange at the time of this Court 's attending his Highness with the Deputies of the several Wards and other Members of the Common Council Wagstaffe His Highness the Prince of Orange's Speech to the Scots Lords and Gentlemen With their Advice and his Highness's Answer With a true Account of what past at their Meeting in the Council-Chamber at Whitehall January 7th 168â— His Highness the Prince of Orange having caused Advertise such of the Scots Lords and Gentlemen as were in Town met them in a Room at St. James's upon Monday the Seventh of January at Three of the Clock in the Afternoon and had this Speech to them My Lords and Gentlemen THE only Reason that induced me to undergo so great an Vndertaking was That I saw the Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms overturned and the Protestant Religion in Imminent Danger And seeing you are here so many Noblemen and Gentlemen I have called you together that I may have your Advice what is to be done for Securing the Protestant Religion and Restoring your Laws and Liberties according to my Declaration As soon as his Highness had retired the Lords and Gentlemen went to the Council-Chamber at Whitehall and having chosen the Duke of Hamilton their President they fell a consulting what Advice was fit to be given to his Highness in this Conjuncture And after some hours Reasoning they agreed upon the Materials of it and appointed the Clerks with such as were to assist them to draw up in Writing what the Meeting thought expedient to advise his Highness and to bring it in to the Meeting the next in the Afternoon Tuesday the Eighth Instant the Writing was presented in the Meeting And some time being spent in Reasoning about the fittest way of Coveening a General Meeting of the Estates of Scotland At last the Meeting came to agree in their Opinion and appointed the Advice to be writ clean over according to the Amendments But as they were about to part for that Dyet the Earl of Arran proposed to them as his Lordship's Advice that they should move the Prince of Orange to desire the King to return and call a Free Parliament which would be the best way to secure the Protestant Religion and Property and to