at once and yet no place Flesh and no Flesh several Members without distinction a substance without quantity and other Accidents or Substance and Accidents that cannot be seen felt or perceived so that they make a Monster of their Saviour or nothing Popery That utterly overthrows the Perfection of Christ's satisfaction for if all be not paid how hath he satisfied If Temporal Punishments in Purgatory be yet due how is all paid And if these must be paid by us how are they satisfied by him Popery That hath made more Scriptures than ever the Holy Spirit dictated or the Ancient Church received and those which it doth make Imperiously obtrudes upon the World and while it thunders out Curses against all that will not add these Books to God's seems to defie the Curse pronounc'd by God himself to those that add unto his Word Rev. 22. 18. Popery That erects a Throne in the Conscience to a meer Man and many times rather a Monster than a Man and gives him absolute Power to make a sin of that which is none and to dispense with that which is to create new Articles of Faith and to impose them upon Necessity of Salvation to make wicked Men Saints and Saints Gods for even by the Confession of Papists lewd and undeserving Men have leap'd into their Calendar yet being once install'd there they have the Honour of Altars Temples and Invocations some of them in a stile sit only for their Maker Popery That robs the Heart of all sound Comfort whilst it teacheth us That we neither can nor ought to be assured of the Remission of our sins and of present Grace and future Salvation that we can never know whether we have receiv'd the true Sacraments of God becausewe cannot know the Intention of the Minister without which they are no Sacraments Popery That racks the Conscience with the needless torture of a necessary shrift wherein the vertue of an Absolution depends on the fulness of Confession and that upon Examination and the sufficiency of Examination is so fuâ—l of scruples besides infinite Cases of unresolved doubts in this feigned pennance that the pour soul never knows when it is clear Popery That under pretence of Religion plays the Bawd to sin whilst both in practice it tolerates open stews and prefers Fornication in some cases before honourable Matrimony and gently blanches over wilful Violations of God's Law with the favourable title of Venial Crimes Popery That makes Nature vainly proud in joining her as Copartner with God in our Justification Salvation and idly putting her up with a conceit of her Perfection and Ability to keep more Laws than God hath â—ade whence their Doctrines of Merit and Supererogation c. Popery That requires no other Faith â—o Justificâ—tion in Christians than may be found in Devils themselves who besides â— confused Apprehension can assent to the Truth of God's revealed Will and Popery requires no more Popery That instead of the pure Milk of the Gospel hath long fed her starved Souls with such idle Legends as the Reporter can hardly deliver without laughter nor their Abettors be told of without shame and disclamation so that the wiser sort of the World read these Stories on Winter Evenings for sport which the poor credulous Multitude hear in their Churches with devout astonishment Popery That requires nothing but meer Formality in our Devotion the work wrought suffices alone in Sacraments and in Prayers if the number be repeated by Rote no matter for the Affection as if God regarded not the Heart but the Tongue and Hands and while he understands us cared little whether we understand our selves Popery That hath been often dyed in the Blood of Princes that in some cases teaches and allows Rebellion against God's Anointed and both suborneth Treasons and excuses pities honours and rewards the Actors Popery That overloads Men's Consciences with heavy burdens of infinite unnecessary Traditâ—ons far more than ever Moses Commented upon by all the Iewish Rabbins imposing them with no less Authority and exacting them with more Rigour than any of the Royal Laws of their Maker Popery That cozens the vulgar with nothing but shadows of Holiness in Pilgrimages Processions Offerings Holy Water Latin Services Images Tapers rich Vestures garish Altars Crosses Censings and a thousand such like fit for Children and Fools robbing them in the mean time of the sound and plain Helps of true Piety and Salvation Popery That cares not by what wilful Falshoods Equivocations Perjuries and Abominations it propagates it self and maintains its credit And therefore being conscious of her own Villainies goes about to falsifie and deprave Authors that might give Evidence against her to outface all ancient Truths to foist in Gibionitish Witnesses of their own forging and leaves nothing unattempted against Heaven and Earth that might advance her Faction and disable her innocent and just Accusers This this is the true figure of Popery through whatever false Opticks your Highness may have view'd it This is that for which you are resolv'd to hazard a Crown of Glory and three temporal Diadems to boot and to which you sacrifice both your own Fortunes and the Tranquillity of many Millions of Souls What then can the World that knoâ—s the clear light of your Highnesses Elevated Understanding imagâ—â—â— can be the Cause of your Revolt Will they not be apt to conceive that you have not espoused this Mock Religion purely for its own sake but for some promised Dowry of an Absolute Monarchy or Arbitrary Power which she might pretend to bring one day with her to your Embraces But as this is far below the Justice and Generosity of your Highness so 't is unworthy the thoughts of any considerate Politician For suppose any Prince to whom the British Sceptre may hereafter devolve intoxicated with the Tinsel Glories of the French Monarch's blustering Grandeur should be so vain as to hope to subjugate the English Liberties and destroy the Constitution of the best Establish'd Government on Earth by assuming to himself the whole Legislative Power raising Money and draining his Subjects at Pleasure without their common Consent in Parliament c. and should be so extravagantly enamour'd on this fatal Project fatal I say because for above Five hundred years it has shipwrack'd all that coasted that way as to be content to shift his Religion and exchange his Faith and turn Papist on a presumption that the same might facilitate and accomplish his Enterprize As King Iohn 't is said resolv'd once to embrace Mahumetism rather than not to be reveng'd of his Barons claiming their just Liberties Suppose I say all this should be and that the present Papists to get their Religion publickly establish'd should comply with his Designs yet still is it not most reasonable to believe That having once gain'd their Point therein they or their Posterity will soon recal to mind their Birth rights and Privileges due to them as English-men and will they not then be perpetually
proposing to or rather imposing upon the Nation What is it they would be at And what are the Ends they are driving on Are they just and good Are they generous and honorable Or are they not rather such as would undermine the Government both in Church and State and reduce us to a state of Nature wherein the People are at Liberty to agree upon any Government or none at all Plainly they would reduce us to the Dutch or some other foreign Measures which how well soever they may agree with that Country where they are setled and confirmed partly by Custom and partly by the peculiar Necessity of their Affairs can never be well received in England till an Act be passed to abolish Monarchy Episcopacy and all the Fundamental Laws establish'd by Magna Charta and all succeeding Parliaments ever since The Enquixy into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority is a Treatise calculated for the times but surely it is not written according to the Principles and Practice of the Church of England in the time of the renowned Queen Elizabeth I am apt to think that some regard was then had to the Passages which we find in the Scriptures especially the Old Testament relating to the Measures of Submission But these Examples weigh nothing with our Author because they are not for his purpose pag. 5 6. I am also apt to suspect that Queen Elizabeth would not have thanked any Politician for vending this as a certain and fundamental Principle That in all Disputes between Power and Liberty Power must always be proved but Liberty proves it self the one being founded only upon a positive Law and the other upon the Law of Nature pag. 4. She I perswade my self on the contrary would have challenged any such States-man to have prov'd his Liberty as for her Power she would have answered it was ready to prove it self against all who should presume to question it But what 's the meaning of Power being founded only on a positive Law and Liberty upon the Law of Nature Is not a Father's Power founded as he grants upon the Law of Nature and is not all Power even of the greatest Princes as far as it is just and honest and for the Benefit of the Subject derived from this Paternal Authority of the Father over his Son Besides doth not the Law of Nature prescribe the Necessity of putting Power into the Hands of one or more for the Benefit of the whole which otherwise would be in danger of destroying it self by intestine Divisions In short If Liberty be founded upon the Law of Nature so is all just and lawful Power since the end of it is only to regulate our Liberty and in truth to make us more free Liberty in general is a right to use our Faculties according to right Reason and the Law in particular tells us which are those Rules of right Reason by which we must govern our selves And what is Law but the Commands of the Supreme Power where-ever it is lodg'd in the hands of the Prince the Senate or the People or of all of them together ordering what we are to do or avoid under the Sanction of particular Penalties I beg the Learned Author's Pardon for questioning his Measures in my Judgment they are not taken from the English Standard and therefore I hope I may without Offence use my Liberty in refusing them a Right which proves it self till he can prove his Power to impose them The Enquiry into the present State of Affairs is a Discourse which seems by its bold strokes to resemble the former I will say no more of it but this If what he there lays down for a certain Truth be really so then all that follows must be granted as reasonable Deductions from this fundamental Principle but if this be false all that he hath said falls to the Ground for want of a firm and solid Foundation to support it Now the Position which like a first Principle in Mathematicks he takes for granted is this It is certain says he pag. 1. that the reciprocal Duties in Civil Societies are Protection and Allegiance and wheresoever the one fails wholly the other falls with it This is his Doctrine which I have mentioned before but shall now consider a little more particularly 'T is indeed most fit and reasonable that Protection and Allegiance should always go together and accompany one another but that they do not do so is but too plain in the present case of England but doth it follow that because the King is not in a Capacity to protect his Subjects therefore he is no longer to be look'd upon as a King And if he be a King doth not this suppose that he hath some Subjects And if so I would gladly know what kind of Subjects they are who owe no Allegiance But let this Question be rul'd by his own Instance The Duty betwixt Father and Son. Suppose my Father to be so destitute that he cannot and so perverse that he will not protect and sustain me suppose him as churlish as Cain and as poor as Iob yet still he is my Father and I am his Son that is he still retains all that Power which by the Law of Nature a Father ought to have over his Child still the Relation holds betwixt us and whilst it doth so the Father's Faults or Necessities cannot evacuate the Duty of a Son which is founded not in the Fathers good Will or Abilities to defend him though it must be confess'd they are chiefly consider'd but in that fix'd and immutable Relation which God and Nature have establish'd betwixt them not to be dissolv'd but by Death So that if this learned Author will yield as he seems to do that Kingly Power is nothing else but the Paternal consign'd by the common consent of the Fathers of Families to one Person upon such and such Conditions specified in the Contract I cannot see how this Relation betwixt King and Subject can any more be utterly dissolved than that betwixt a Father and his Son. I shall say no more to this Discourse and if what I have already said do offend either against the Principles of Reason or the Law of England I am willing to be corrected and acknowledg my Error There is another little Paper which yet gives such a great stroke to the Government that it ought not to be pass'd over without some Animadversion The Sheet which I mean is that which is call'd Advice before it be too late or A Breviate for the Convention This Paper bespeaks its Author to be of the same Complexion and Principles with him who writ the Word to the Wise and the four Questions debated They do all of them suppose that the Government is fallen to its Centre or Root from whence it sprang that is to the People as the Word to the Wise expresses our present case I know not what can be a more effectual Answer to these Pamphlets and take
A Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. 1. The Humble Petition of Seven Bishops to his Majesty 2. Articles recommended by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to all the Bishops and Clergy within his Jurisdiction 3. Proposals of the Arch-Bishop with some other Bishops to his Majesty 4. Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for Calling a Free Parliament With his Majesty's Gracious Answer 5. Vindication of the aforesaid Petition 6. Extract of the States General their Resolution 7. Prince of Orange his Letter to the English Army 8. Account of a Design to Poison the Prince of Orange before he came out of Holland 9. A Relation of a Strange Meteor representing a Crown of Light seen in the Air near the City of Orange 10. Lord Del r's Speech to his Tenants 11. Prince of Denmark's Letter to the King. 12. The Lord Churchil's Letter to the King. 13. Princes Ann's Letter to the Queen 14. A Memorial of the Protestants of England to the Prince and Princess of Orange 15. Prince of Orange his Declaration of Novemb. 28. 1688. from Sherborn-Castle Printed in the Year 1688. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of William Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and divers of the Suffragan Bishops of that Province now present with him in behalf of themselves and others of their absent Brethren and of the Clergy of their respective Diocesses Humbly sheweth THAT the great averseness they find in themselves to the distributing and publishing in all their Churches your Majesty's late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience proceeds neither from any want of Duty and Obedience to your Majesty our Holy Mother the Church of England being both in her Principles and in her constant Practice unquestionably Loyal and having to her great Honour been more than once publickly acknowledg'd to be so by your Gracious Majesty Nor yet from any want of due tenderness to Dissenters in relation to whom they are willing to come to such a Temper as shall be thought fit when that Matter shall be considered and settled in Parliament and Convocation But among many other Considerations from this especially because that Declaration is founded upon such a Dispensing Power as has been often declared Illegal in Parliament and particularly in the Years 1662 and 1672 and in the beginning of your Majesty's Reign and is a Matter of so great Moment and Consequence to the whole Nation both in Church and State that your Petitioners cannot in Prudence Honour or Conscience so far make themselves Parties to it as the distribution of it all over the Nation and the solemn publication of it once and again even in God's House and in the Time of his Divine Service must amount to in common and reasonable Construction Your Petitioners therefore most humbly and earnestly beseech your Majesty that you will be graciously pleased not to insist upon their distributing and reading your Majesty's said Declaration And Your Petitioners as in Duty bound shall ever pray Will. Cant. Will. Asaph Fr. Ely. Jo. Cicestr Tho. Bathon Wellen. Tho. Peterburgen Jonath Bristol His Majesties Answer was to this effect I Have heard of this before but did not believe it I did not expect this from the Church of England especially from some of you If I change my Mind you shall hear from me if not I expect my Command shall be obeyed THE ARTICLES Recommended by the ARCH-BISHOP of CANTERBURY To all the Bishops within his Metropolitan Iurisdiction the 16 th of Iuly 1688. SIR YEsterday the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered the Articles which I send you inclosed to those Bishops who are at present in this place and ordered Copies of them to be likewise sent in his Name to the absent Bishops By the Contents of them you will see that the Storm in which he is does not frighten him from doing his Duty but rather awakens him to do it with so much the more vigor and indeed the Zeal that he expresses in these Articles both against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome on the one hand and the unhappy Differences that are among Protestants on the other are such Apostolical Things that all good Men rejoyce to see so great a Prelate at the Head of our Church who in this Critical Time has had the Courage to do his Duty in so signal a manner I am Sir Yours London Iuly 27 1688. Some Heads of Things to be more fully insisted upon by the Bishops in their Addresses to the Clergy and People of their respective Diocesses I. THat the Clergy often reade over the Forms of their Ordination and seriously consider what Solemn Vows and Professions they made therein to God and his Church together with the several Oaths and Subscriptions they have taken and made upon divers Occasions II. That in Compliance with those and other Obligations they be Active and Zealous in all the Parts and Instances of their Duty and especially strict and exact in all Holy Conversation that so they may become Examples to the Flock III. To this end that they be constantly Resident upon their Cures in their Incumbent Houses and keep sober Hospitality there according to their Ability IV. That they diligently Catechise the Children and Youth of their Parishes as the Rubrick of the Common-Prayer-Book and the 59th Canon injoyn and so prepare them to be brought in due time to Confirmation when there shall be Opportunity and that they also at the same time expound the Grounds of Religion and the Common Christianity in the Method of the Catechism for the Instruction and Benefit of the whole Parish teaching them what they are to believe and what to do and what to pray for and particularly often and earnestly inculcating upon the Importance and Obligation of their Baptismal Vows V. That they perform the Daily Office publickly with all Decency Affection and Gravity in all Market and other Great Towns and even in Villages and less populous Places bring People to Publick Prayers as frequently as may be especially on such Days and at such Times as the Rubrick and Canons appointed on Holy Days and their Eves on Ember and Râ—gation Days on Wednesdays and Fridays in each Week and especially in Advent and Lent. VI. That they use their utmost Endeavour both in their Sermons and by private Applications to prevail with such of their Flock as are of competent Age to receive frequently the Holy Communion and to this end that they administer it in the greater Towns once in every Month and even in the lesser too if Communicants may be procured or how-ever as often as they may and that they take all due Care both by Preaching and otherwise to prepare all for the worthy receiving of it VII That in their Sermons they teach and inform their People four times a Year at the least as what the Canon require that all Vsurp'd and Foreign Jurisdiction is for most Just Causes taken away and abolish'd in this Realm and no
by my Lord of Canterbury intimate their Thoughts about that Affair and their readiness to the King who was pleased not only to permit them to give him the best and most particular Advices but to encourage them to do it with all the freedom that was necessary for the present Occasion Upon this Royal Invitation their Lordships assembled together the next day at my Lord of Canterbury's Palace and prepared upon the most mature deliberation such Matters as they judged necessary for hiâ— Majesty's Knowledg and Consideration And on the Wednesday after waited on the King in a Body when his Grace in his own and in the name of the rest of the Bishops then present did in a most excellent Speech represent to his Majesty such things as were thought by them absolutely necessary to the Settlement of the Nation amidst the present Distractions and to the publick Interest of Church and State. I am assured that his Grace delivered himself upon this Critical Occasion as with all dutifulness to his Majesty so with all the readiness and the courage that did become such an Apostolical Arch-Bishop as God hath blest our Church of England with at this Time. You must not expect here his excellent Words but an Abridgment of them according to my Talent in a meaner Stile I. First the Bishops thought fit to represent in general to his Majesty That it was necessary for Him to restore all things to the state in which He found them when He came to the Crown by committing all Offices and Places of Trust in the Government to such of the Nobility and Gentry as were qualified for them according to the Laws of this Kingdom and by Redressing and Removing such Grievances as were generally complain'd of II. Particularly That his Majesty would Dissolve the Ecclesiastical Commission and promise to His People never to Erect any such Court for the future III. That He would not only put an effectual stop to the issuing forth of any Dispensations but would Call in and Cancel all those which had since his coming to the Crown been obtained from Him. IV. That he would Restore the Vniversities to their Legal State and to their Statutes and Customs and would particularly Restore the Master of Magdalen Colledge in Cambridge to the Profits of his Mastership which he had been so long Deprived of by an Illegal Suspension and the Ejected President and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge in Oxford to their Properties in that Colledge And that He would not permit any Persons to enjoy any of the Preferments in either Vniversity but such as are qualified by the Statutes of the Vniversities the particular Statutes of their several Foundations and the Laws of the Land. V. That He would suppress the Iesuits Schools opened in this City or elsewhere and grant no more Licenses for such Schools as are apparently against the Laws of this Nation and His Majesty's True Interest VI. That He would send Inhibitions after those Four Romish Bishops who under the Title of Apostolick Vicars did presume to Exercise within this Kingdom such Iurisdictions as are by the Laws of the Land Invested in the Bishops of the Church of England and ought not to be Violated or Attempted by them VII That He would suffer no more Quo Warranto's to be issued out against any Corporations but would restore to those Corporations which had been already disturbed their ancient Charters Priviledges Grants and Immunities and Condemn all those late Illegal Regulations of Corporations by putting them into their late Flourishing Condition and Legal Establishment VIII That He would fill up all the Vacant Bishopricks in England and Ireland with Persons duly qualified according to the Laws and would especially take into His Consideration the See of York whose want of an Archbishop is very prejudicial to that whole Province IX That He would Act no more upon a Dispensing Power nor insist upon it but permit that Affair at the first Session of a Parliament to be fairly Stated and Debated and Settled by Act of Parliament X. That upon the Restoration of Corporations to their Ancient Charters and Burroughs to their Prescriptive Rights He would Order Writs to be issued out for a fair and free Parliament and suffer it to Sit to Redress all Grievances to Settle Matters in Church and State upon just and solid Foundations and to Establish a due Liberty of Conscience XI Lastly and above all That His Majesty would permit some of His Bishops to lay such Motives and Arguments before him as might by the Blessing of GOD bring back His Majesty unto the Communion of Our Holy Church of England into whose Catholick Faith He had been Baptized in which He had been Educated and to which it was their earnest and daily Prayer to Almighty GOD that His Majesty might be Reunited All these Counsels were concluded with a Prayer to GOD in whose Hands the Hearts of Kings are for a good Effect upon them especially the last about bringing the King back to the Protestant Religion And now Sir I cannot but ask you What grounds there are for any Mens Jealousies of the Bishops Proceedings Pray shew this Letter to all your Friends that some may lay down their Fears and others may have this Antidote against taking any up I do assure you and I am certain I have the best grounds in the World for my assurance That the Bishops will never stir one Jot from their PETITION but that they will whenever that happy Opportunity shall offer itself let the Protestant Dissenters find that they will be better than their Word given in their Famous PETITION In the mean time let You and I Commend the Prudence of these Excellent Bishops Admire their Courage and Celebrate their just Praises and never forget to offer up most fervent Thanks to GOD for his Adorning the Church of England at this Juncture with such Eminent Apostolical Bishops I am with all Respect Yours N. N. The PETITION of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for the Calling of a Free Parliament Together with his Majesty's Gracious Answer to their Lordships To the KING 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Whose Names are Subscribed May it please your Majesty WE your Majesty's most Loyal Subjects in a deep Sense of the Miseries of a War now breaking forth in the Bowels of this your Kingdom and of the Danger to which your Majesty's Sacred Person is thereby like to be Exposed and also of the Distractions of your People by reason of their present Grievances do think our selves bound in Conscience of the Duty we owe to God and our Holy Religion to your Majesty and our Country most humbly to offer to your Majesty That in our Opinion the only visible Way to preserve your Majesty and this your Kingdom would be the Calling of a Parliament Regular and Free in all its Circumstances And Your Petitioners shall ever pray c. W. Cant. Grafton Ormond Dorset Clare Clarendon
Burlington Anglesey Rochester Newport Nom. Ebor. W. Asaph Fran. Ely. Tho. Roffen Tho. Petriburg Tho. Oxon. Paget Chandois Osulston We therefore do most earnestly beseech your Majesty That you would be graciously pleased with all speed to Call such a Parliament wherein we shall be most ready to promote such Counsels and Resolutions of Peace and Settlement in Church and State as may conduce to your Majesty's Honour and Safety and to the quieting the Minds of your People We do likelise humbly beseech your Majesty in the mean time to use such means for the preventing the Effusion of Christian Blood as to your Majesty shall seem most meet His Majesty's most Gracious Answer My LORDS WHAT You ask of Me I most passionately desire And I promise You upon the Faith of a King That I will have a Parliament and such an One as You ask for as soon as ever the Prince of Orange has quitted this Realm For How is it possible a Parliament should be Free in all its Circumstances as You Petition for whil'st an Enemy is in the Kingdom and can make a Return of near an Hundred Voices The Lords Petition with the King's Answer may be printed Novemb. 20. 1688. A Modest Vindication of the Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for the Calling of a Free Parliament THIS Dâ—fence is grounded upon three Fundamental Principles I. The Right of Petitioning II. The Necessity III. The Duty I. It is the undoubted Right of the Subjects to Petition being founded upon an Act of Parliament and the highest Reason in the World for that is a very monstrous Government where the People must not approach their King and acquaint him with their Grievances The People have the greatest Property in the Land and therefore the most concern'd when a Foreign Enemy is upon it their Welfare is the Supream Law and yet they must not desire to meet in order to consult their own Preservation The Jesuits the sworn Enemies to the English Nation will take care of us and our Posterity therefore why should we trouble our selves at this Juncture They can levy Mony with a Proclamation they can dispense with all Laws and what should we do with a Parliament when the whole Statute-Book serves for no other End but to wipe the Tails of these Reverend Satyrs who fly into their Dens and Thickets at the very sound of a House of Commons II. The Necessity and that an indispensible one The Government turn'd Topsy-Turvy no Law no Rule all in a state of War all Treaties broken all Obligations ceas'd and yet the People must not come together to know why or wherefore they Fight or how they may avoid destroying one another they must hack and cut one another to pieces blindfold and to no other End but to save the Iesuits and the Knaves and to ruin themselves But the most Reverend Bishops are told that they shall have a Free Parliament as soon as ever the Prince of Orange has quitted this Realm that is such a Free Parliament as they were like to have had before the Prince came hither shuffl'd cut and pack'd by Mr. Brent and his Missionaries or perhaps ten times worse or rather none at all for the Church of Rome is grown such an infamous Bankrupt that no Body will trust her further than they can command her She may be compar'd to the Tyger which fawns sneaks and lurks as long as the Hunter is arm'd with his Spear and his Gun but when once the Weapons are laid down the Beast flies upon the unwary Forester tears and devours him III. The Duty For what better Office could those pious Prelats and Patriots of their Country do for the Publick-Good than to make all People Friends to save the Lives of many Thousands and to heal all our Wounds and Sores which they of the Roman Faith have inflicted upon a People too kind and good natur'd for such ravenous Monsters who go about seeking whom they may devour France Ireland Hungary and the Valleys of Piedmont are still reeking with the Blood of their poor innocent Preys and ecchoing with the Lamentations of a People ruin'd by trusting these Crocodiles too much and if God in his infinite Mercy had not watch'd over these Kingdoms and sent a Gabriel to guard them they had certainly fallen a Victim to the intollerable Pride the lawless Fury and untractable Barbariety of a sort of Animals call'd Catholicks subtile and treacherous by Custom and Discipline not to be chain'd by any Law either of God or Man and therefore every Body knows how far we may rely upon them when the Arch-Angel leaves us Exeter Nov. 21. 1688. Extract of the States General their Resolution Thursday 28th October 1688. UPon mature Deliberation it is found sit and resolved that notice be given to all their Ministers abroad of all the Reasons which induce their H. and M. to assist the Prince of Orange going over to England in Person with Ships and Forces with Orders to the said Ministers to make use thereof in the several Courts where they reside as they shall think most convenient and that it be also writ to the said Ministers that it is known to all the World that the English Nation hath a good while very much murmured and complained that the King no doubt with the Evil Counsel and Inducement of his Ministers had gained upon their Fundamental Laws and laboured through the violation thereof and by the bringing in the Roman Catholick Religion to oppress their Liberty and to ruine the Protestant Religion and to bring all under an Arbitrary Government That as this inverted and unjust Conduct was carried on more and more and the Apprehensions thereupon were still greater and that thereby such Diffidence and Aversion was stirred up against the King that nothing was to be expected in that Kingdom but general Disorder and Confusion His Highness the Prince of Orange upon the manifold Representations and the reiterated and earnest Desire which was made to His Highness by several Lords and other Persons of great Consideration in that Kingdom as also upon the account that Her Royal Highness and His Highness Himself are so highly concerned in the Welfare of that Kingdom could not well endure that through Strife and Disunion they should run the danger however it went of being excluded from the Crown held himself obliged to watch over the Welfare of that Kingdom and to take care thereof and also had the thoughts of assisting the Nation and giving them a helping-hand upon so many just and good Grounds against the Government that oppressed them in all manner of ways that lay in his Highness's Power for that His Highness was perswaded that the Welfare of this State the Care whereof is also entrusted to him was in the highest manner concerned that the said Kingdom might continue in Tranquillity and that all misunderstanding between the King and the Nation might be taken away That His Highness well knowing that to succeed in
Administration of Justice so that it is really a Dissolution of the Government since all Trials Sentences and the Executions of them are become so many unlawful Acts that are null and void of themselves The next Thing in our Constitution which secures to us our Laws and Liberties is a Free and Lawful Parliament Now not to mention the breach of the Law of Triennial Parliaments it being above three Years since we had a Session that enacted any Law Methods have been taken and are daily a taking that render this impossible Parliaments ought to be chosen with an entire Liberty and without either Force or Preingagements whereas if all Men are required before-hand to enter into Engagements how they will vote if they are chosen themselves or how they will give their Voices in the Electing of others This is plainly such a preparation to a Parliament as would indeed make it no Parliament but a Cabal if one were chosen after all that Corruption of Persons who had preingaged themselves and after the Threating and Turning out of all Persons out of Imploiments who had refused to do it And if there are such daily Regulations made in the Towns that it is plain those who manage them intend at last to put such a number of Men in the Corporations as will certainly chuse the Persons who are recommended to them But above all if there are such a number of Sheriffs and Mayors made over England by whom the Elections must be conducted and returned who are now under an Incapacity by Law and so are no legal Officers and by consâ—quence those Elections that pass under their Authority are null and void If I say it is clear that things are brought to this then the Government is dissolved because it is impossible to have a Free and Legal Parliament in this state of things If then both the Authority of the Law and the Constitution of the Parliament are struck at and dissolved here is a plain Subversion of the whole Government But if we enter next into the particular Branches of the Government we will find the like Disorder among them all The Protestant Religion and the Church of England make a great Article of our Government the latter being secured not only of old by Magna Charta but by many special Laws made of late and there are particuâ—ar Laws made in K. Charles the First and the late King's Time securing them from all Commissions that the King can raise for â—udging or Censuring them If then in opposition to this a Court so condemned is ercted which proceeds to Judg and Censure the Clergy and even to disseise them of their Free-holds without so much as the form of a Trial though this is the most indispensable Law of all those that secures the Property of England and if the King pretends that he can require the Clergy to publish all his Arbitrary Declarations and in particular one that strikes at their whole Settlement and has ordered Process to be begun against all that disobey'd this illegal Warrant and has treated so great a number of the Bishops as Criminals only for representing to him the Reasons of their not obeying him If likewise the King is not satisfied to profess his own Religion openly though even that is contrary to Law but has sent Ambassadors to Rome and received Nuncio's from thence which is plainly Treason by Law If likewise many Popish Churches and Chappels have been publickly opened if several Colledges of Iesuits have been set up in divers parts of the Nation and one of the Order has been made a Privy Counsellor and a principal Minister of State And if Papists and even those who turn to that Religion though declared Traitors by Law are brought into all the chief Imploiments both Military and Civil then it is plain That all the Rights of the Church of England and the whole Establishment of the Protestant Religion are struck at and design'd to be overturned since all these Things as they are notoriously illegal so they evidently demonstrate That the great Design of them all is the rooting out of this Pestilent Heresy in their stile I mean the Protestant Religion In the next place If in the whole course of Justice it is visible that there is a constant practising upon the Judges that they are tâ—rned out upon their varying from the Intentions of the Court and if Men of no Reputation nor Abilities are â—ut in their places If an Army is kept up in time of Peace â—â—d Men who withdraw from that illegal Service are hanged up as Criminals without any colour of Law which by consequence are so many Murders and if the Souldiery are connived at and encouraged in the most enormous Crimes that so they may be thereby prepared to commit greater ones and from single Rapes and Murders proceed to a Rape upon all our Liberties and a Destruction of the Nation If I say all these things are true in Fact then it is plain that there is such a Dissolution of the Government made that there is not any one part of it left sound and entire And if all these things are done now it is easie to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares no Man and Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established Then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Benevolences and all sorts of Illegal Taxes as from the other we may expect Burnings Massacres and Inquisitions In what is doing in Scotland we may gather what is to be expected in England where if the King has over and over again declared that he is vested with an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and has upon that annulled almost all the Acts of Paâ—liament that passed in K. Iames I. Minority though they were ratified by himself when he came to be of Age and were confirmed by all the subsequent Kings not excepting the present We must then conclude from thence what is resolved on here in England and what will be put in Execution as soon as it is thought that the Times can bear it When likewise the whole Settlement of Ireland is shaken and the Army that was raised and is maintained by Taxes that were given for an Army of English Protestants to secure them from a new Massacre by the Irish Papists is now all filled with Irish Papists as well as almost all the other Imployments it is plain that not only all the British Protestants inhabiting that Island are in daily danger of being butchered a second time but that the Crown of England is in danger of losing that Island it being now put wholly into the Hands and Power of the Native Irish who as they formerly offered themselves up sometimes to the Crown of Spain sometimes to the Pope and once to the Duke of Lorrain so are they perhaps at this present treating with another Court for the Sale and Surrender of the Island and for the
present at the Sermon At London likewise things succeed no worse Every Holy Day at preaching People so frequent that many of the Chappels cannot contain them Two of ours Darmes and Berfall do constantly say Mass before the King and Queen Father Edmund Newil before the Queen Dowager Father Alexander Regnes in the Chappel of the Ambassador aforesaid others in other places Many Houses are bought for the Colledg in the Savoy as they call it nigh Somerset-house London the Palace of the Queen Dowager to the value of about eighteen thousand Florins in making of which after the Form of a Colledg they labour very hard that the Schools may be opened before Easter In Ireland shortly there will be a Catholick Parliament seeing no other can satisfy the King's Will to Establish the Catholick Cause there In the Month of February for certain the King hath designed to call a Parliament at London 1. That by a Universal Decree the Catholick Peers may be admitted into the Upper House 2. That the Oath or Test may be annulled 3. Which is the best or top of all That all Penal Laws made against Catholicks may be Abrogated which that he may more surely obtain he desires every one to take notice that he hath certainly determined to dismiss any from all profitable Imployments under him who do not strenuously endeavour the obtaining those things also that he will Dissolve the Parliament with which Decree some Hereticks being affrighted came to a certain Peer to consult him what was best to be done to whom he said the Kings pleasure is sufficiently made known to us what he hath once said he will most certainly do if you love your selves you must submit your selves to the Kings Will. There are great preparations for War at London and a Squadron of many Ships of War are to be fitted out against a time appointed what they are designed for is not certain The Hollanders greatly fear they are against them and therefore begin to prepare themselves Time will discover more Liege 2. Feb. 1688. II. A Letter from the Reverend Father Petre Iesuit Almoner to the Kiâ—g of England written to the Reverend Father la Cheese Confessor to the most Christian King touching the present Affairs of ENGLAND Translated from the French. Most Reverend Father IF I have fail'd for the last few days to observe your Order it was not from want of Affection but Health that occasion'd the neglect and for which I shall endeavour to make amends by the length of this I shall begin where my former left off and shall tell you That since the appearing of a Letter in this Town written by the Prince's Minister of Holland which declares the Intentions of the Prince and Princess of Orange relating to the Repealing the Test or to speak more properly their Aversion to it This Letter has produc'd very ill Effects among the Hereticks whom at the return of some of our Fathers from those Parts we had perswaded that the Prince would comply with every thing relating to the Test that the King should propose to the next Parliâ—ment in case he should call one to which I do not find his Majesty much inclin'd But the coming of this Letter of which I have inclos'd a Copy has serv'd for nothing but to incourage the Obstinate in their aversion to that Matter The Queen as well as my self were of Opinion against the sending of any such Letter to the Hague upon that Subject but rather that some Person able to discourse and perswade should have been sent thither for all such Letters when they are not grateful produce bad Effects That which is spoken Face to Face is not so easiâ—y divulg'd nor any thing discover'd to the People but what we have a raind the Vulgar should know And I believe your Reverence will concur with me in this Opinion This Letter has extreamly provok'd the King who is of a temper not to bear a refusal and who has not been us'd to have his Will contradicted And I verily believe this very affront has hastned his Resolution of re-calling the English Regiments in Holland I shew'd his Majesty that part of your Letter that relates to the Opinion of his Most Christian Majesty upon this Subject which his Majesty well approves of We are interested to know the Success of this Affair and what Answer the States will give The King changes as many Heretick Officers as he can to put Catholicks in their places but the Misfortune is that here we want Catholick Officers to supply them And therefore if you know any such of our Nation in France you would do the King a pleasure to perswade them to come over and they shall be certain of Employments either in the old Troops or the New that are speedily to be rais'd for which by this my Letter I pass my Word Our Fathers are continually employ'd to convert the Officers but their Obstinacy is so great that for one that turns there are five that had rather quit their Commands And there are so many Male-contents whose Party is already but too great the King has need of all his Prudence and Temper to manage this great Affair and bring it to that Perfection we hope to see it in ere long All that I can assure you is That here shall be no neglect in the Queen who labours night and day with unexpressible Diligence for the propation of the Faith and with the Zeal of a holy Princess The Queen Dowager is not so earnest and Fear makes her resolve to retire into Portugal to pass the remainder of her days in Devotion she has already ask'd the King leave who has not only granted it but also promised that she should have her Pension punctually paid and that during her Life her Servants that she leaves behind her shall have the same Wages as if they were in waiting She stays but for a proper Season to imbark for Lisbon and to live there free from all Stories As to the Queen's being with Child that great Concern goes as well as we could wish notwithstanding all the Satyrical Discourses of the Heriticks who content themselves to vent their Poyson in Libels which by night they disperse in the Street or fix upon the Walls There was one lately found upon a Pillar of a Church that imported That such a day Thanks should be given GOD for the Queen 's being great with a Cushion If one of these Pasquil-makers could be discover'd he would but have an ill time on 't and should be made to take his last Farewel at Tyburn You will agree with me most Reverend Father that we have done a great thing by introducing Mrs. Celier to the Queen this Woman is totally devoted to our Society and zealous for the Catholick Religion I will send you an account of the progress of this Affair and will use the Cypher you sent me which I think very admirable I can send you nothing certain of the Prince and Princess
of Denmark he is is a Prince with whom I cannot discourse about Religion Luther was never more earnest than this Prince It is for this reason that the King who does not love to be denied never yet press'd him in that matter his Majesty thinking it necessary that the Fathers should first prepare things before he undertake to speak to him But this Prince as all of his Nation has naturally an Aversion to our Society and this Antipathy does much obstruct the progress of our Affairs and it would be unreasonable to complain hereof to the King at present to trouble him tho he has an intire Confidence in us and looks upon our Fathers as the Apostles of this Land. As for Ireland that Country is already all Catholick yea all the Militia are so The Vice-Roy merits great Praise we may give him this Honour That he is a Son worthy our Society and I hope will participate of the Merits of it He informs me he has just writ to your Reverence of these matters how things go there Some Catholick Regiments from those parts will speedily be sent for over for the King's Guards his Majesty being resolv'd to trust them rather than others and may do it better in case of any popular Commotion against which we ought to secure our selves the best we can His Majesty does us the Honour to visit our Colledg often and is most pleas'd when we present him some new Convert-Scholars whom he incourages with his gracious Promises I have not Expression sufficient to let you know with what Devotion his Majesty communicated the last Holy-days and a Heretick cannot better make his Court to him than by turning to the Catholick Faith. He desires that all the Religious of what Order soever they be make open Profession as he does not only of the Catholick Religion but also of their Order not at all approving that Priests or Religious should conceal themselves out of Fear and he has told them That he would have them wear the Habit of a Religious and that he will take care to defend them from Affronts And the People are already accustomed to it and we begin to celebrate Funerals with the same Ceremony as in France but it is almost a Miracle to see that no body speaks one word against it no not so much as the Ministers in their Pulpits in so good order has the King managed these Matters Many English Hereticks resort often to our Sermons and I have often recommended to our Fathers to preach now in the beginning as little as they can of the Controversy because that provokes but to represent to them the Beauty and Antiquity of the Catholick Religion that they may be convinc'd that all that has been said and preach'd to them and their own Reflections concerning it have been all Scandal For I find as the Apostle says they must be nourished with Milk not being able to bear strong Meat Many have desir'd me to give them some of our Prayers and even the holy Mass in English which I mean to do to satisfy the meanest sort of which the greatest part do not understand Latin but not to take away from the new Converts their Testaments which is a matter of moment and that we may not disgust them at the beginning we must permit thâ—m to have them for a time till they part with them of themselves I had need of C. H's Counsel upon this Point and not in this only but also in a great many other matters that daily press me for you may easily believe that I have often more business than I can well dispatch and we must work with so much Circumspection and Precaution that I have often need of your Paternity's wise Counsel But the Lord and the good Virgin do strengthen me as there is occasion The Bishop of Oxon has not yet declar'd himself openly the great Obstacle is his Wife whom he cannot rid himself of His design being to continue Bishop and only change Communion as it is not doubted but the King will permit and our holy Father confirm tho I do not see how he can be farther useful to us in the Religion in which he is because he is suspected and of no esteem among the Hereticks of the English Church nor do I see that the-Example of his Conversion is like to draw many others after him because he declar'd himself so suddenly If he had believ'd my Counsel which was to temporize for some longer time he would have done better but it is his Temper or rather Zeal that hurried him on There are two other Prelates that will do no less than he but they hold off alike to see how they may be serviceable to the Propagation and produce more Fruits while they continue undiscover'd That which does us most harm with the Lords and great Men is the apprehension of a Heretick Successor For as a Lord told me lately assure me of a Catholick Successor and I will assure you I and my Family will be so too To this happy purpose the Queen 's happy Delivery will be of very great moment Our zealous Catholicks do already lay two to one that it will be a Prince God does nothing by halves and ever day Masses are said upon this very occasion I have gain'd a very great point in perswading the King to place our Fathers in Madalen-Colledg in Oxon who will be able to tutor the young Scholars in the Roman Catholick Religion I rely much on Father Thomas Fairfax to whom I have given necessary Instructions how to govern himself with the Heretick People and to take care in the beginning that he speak not to them any thing that may terrify And as I tell you a Religious has need here of great Prudence at this time that the King may hear of no Complaints that may displease him and therefore we dare not at present do all we shall be able and bound to do hereafter for fear of too much haring the Mobile I like well that Father Hales goes to stay some time at the Hague incognito on pretence of solliciting for a Place which is not soon to be got there and I have given him a Letter to some of that Court Father Smith that is there now by reason of his great Age not being able to do all he ought and wishes to do and is also too well known there And I shall often impart to you what I shall learn from those Quarters from whence I shall weekly receive something of moment so long as the two Courts are in so bad Intelligence together as at present they are For my part to speak freely on this Topick to your Reverend Fatherhood I am of opinion we should rather endeavour to moderate than aggravate the Difference between them tho I know I do not in this matter altogether concur with the Sense of the French Ambassadour who considers only his Master's Interest But we are necessitated to take other Measures and such as
Theologian and will seem to be a good Bishop and to have a great care of his Diocess and would heretofore seem a great Preacher I have hinted in my last the Reasons why I cannot altogether like him which are needless to repeat The Arch-bishop of Paris is always the same I mean a gallant Man whose present Conversation is charming and loves his Pleasures but cannot bear any thing that grieves or gives trouble though he is always a great Enemy of the Iansenists which he lately intimated to Cardinal Camus He is always with me in the Council of Conscience and agrees very well with our Society laying mostly to Heart the Conversion of the Protestants of the three Kingdoms He also makes very good Observations and Designs to give some Advice to your Reverence which I shall convey to you I do sometimes impart to him what you write to me My Lord Kingston has embrac'd our good Party I was present when he Abjur'd in the Church of St. Denis I will give you the Circumstances some other time You promised to send me the Names of all Heretick Officers who are in his Majesty's Troops that much imports me and you shall not want good Catholick Officers to fill up their places I have drawn a List of them who are to pass into England and his most Christian Majesty approves thereof Pray observe what I hinted to you in my last on the Subject of the Visits which our Fathers must give to the Chief Lords Members of the next Parliament those Reverend Fathers who are to perform that Duty must be middle-aged with a lively Countâ—nance and fit to perswade I also advised you in some of my other Letters how the Bishop of Oxford ought to behave himself by writing incessantly and to insinuate into the People the putting down the Test and at the same time calm the Storm which the Letter of Pentionary Fagel has raised And his Majesty must continue to make vigorous Prohibitions to all Booksellers in London not to print any Answers as well to put a stop to the Insolency of Heretick Authors as also to hinder the People from reading them In short you intimate to me That his Majesty will follow our Advice It 's the quickest way and I cannot find a better or fitter to dispossess his Subjects from such Impressions as they have received His Majesty must also by the same Declaration profess in Conscience that if complied with he will not only keep his Word to maintain and protect the Church of England but will also confirm his Promises by such Laws as the Protestants shall be contented with This is the true Politick way for by his granting all they cannot but consent to something His most Christian Majesty has with great success experienced this Maxim And though he had not to struggle with Penal Laws and Tests yet he found it convenient to make large Promises by many Declarations for since we must dissemble you must endeavour all you can to perswade the King it is the only Method to effect his Design I did also in my last give you a hint of its Importance as well as the ways you must take to insinuate your selves dexterously with the King to gain his good Will. I know not whether you have observed what passed in England some Years since I will recite it because Examples instruct much One of our Assisting Fathers of that Kingdom which was Father Parsons having written a Book against the Succession of the King of Scots to the Realm of England Father Creighton who was also of our Society and upheld by many of our Party defended the Cause of that King in a Book Intituled The Reasons of the King of Scots against the Book of Father Parsons And though they seem'd divided yet they understood one another very well this being practised by order of our General to the end that if the House of Scotland were Excluded they might shew him who had the Government the Book of Father Parsons and on the other Hand if the King happened to be restored to the Throne they might obtain his good Will by shewing him the Works of Father Chreighton So that which way soever the Medal turn'd it still prov'd to the advantage of our Society Not to digress from our Subject I must desire you to read the English Book of Father Parsons Intituled The Reform of England where after his blaming of Cardinal Pool and made some observations of Faults in the Council of Trent he finally concludes That suppose England should return as we hope to the Catholick Faith in this Reign he would reduce it to the State of the Primitive Church And to that end all the Ecclesiastical Revenue ought to be used in common and the Management thereof committed to the care of Seven Wise Men drawn out of our Society to be disposed of by them as they should think fit Moreover he would have all the Religious Orders forbidden on Religious Penalties not to return into the Three Kingdoms without leave of those Seven Wise Men to the end it might be granted only to such as live on Alms. These Reflections seem to me very judicious and very suitable to the present State of England The same Father Parsons adds That when England is reduced to the True Faith the Pope must not expect at least for Five Years to reap any benefit of the Ecclesiastical Revenue but must leave the whole in the hands of those Seven Wise Men who will manage the same to the Benefit and Advancement of the Church The Court goes this day for Marli to take the Divertisements which are there prepared I hope to accompany the King and will entertain him about all Business and accordingly as he likes what you hint to me in your Letter I shall give you notice I have acquainted him with his Britannick Majesty's Design of building a Citadel near Whitehal Monsieur Vauban our Engineer was present After some Discourse on the Importance of the Subject his Majesty told Monsieur Vauban that he thought it convenient he should make a Model of the Design and that he should on purpose go over into England to see the Ground I have done all I could to suspend the Designs of our Great Monarch who is always angry against the Holy Father both Parties are stubborn the King 's natural Inclination is to have all yield to him and the Pope's Resolution is unalterable All our Fathers most humbly salute your Reverence Father Roine Ville acts wonderfully about Nismes amongst the New Converts who still meet notwithstanding the Danger they expose themselves to I daily expect News from the Frontiers of the Empire which I shall impart to your Reverence and am with the greatest Respect Yours c. Paris March 7. 1688. Popish Treaties not to be rely'd on In a Letter from a Gentleman at York to his Friend in the Prince of ORANGE's Camp. Addressed to all Members of the next Parliament THE Credulity and Superstition of
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 enjoiment of their Laws 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 divers and sundry times several Laws enacted for the preservation of those Rights and Liberties and of the Protestant Religion And among other Securites 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 other that should be put in any Imploiment 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 Emploiments 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 Cognizance and Direction of all Ecclesiastical Matters In the which Commission there has been and still is one of his Majesty's 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 â—he Proâ—estant Religion and declared himself a Papist by which he is become incapable of holding any Publick Emploiment 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 Magdalâ—ne Colledg and afterwards all the Fellows of that Colledg without so much as citing them before any Court that could take legal cognizance of that Affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a competent Judg. 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 iâ—â—â—igation of those Evil Counsellors Though 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 Magna Charta That no Man shall lose Life or Goods but by the Law of the Land. And now these Evil Counsellors have put the said Colledg wholly into the Hands of Papists though as is above said they are incapable of all such Imploiments both by the Law of the Land and the Statutes of the Colledg These Commissioners have also cited before them all the Chancellors and Arch-deacons of England requiring them to certify 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 enjoined 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 Relâ—â—ion that the most Reverend Father in God William Arch-bishop 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 Virtue Learning and Piety refused to sit or concur in it And though 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 divers Monasteries to be erected and in contempt of the Law they have not only set up several Colledges of Iesuits in divers 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 which they do evidently shew that they are restrained by no Rules or Law whatsoever but that they have subjected the Honours and Estates of the Subjects and the Establish'd Religion to a Despotick Power and to Arbitrary Government In all which they are served and seconded by those Ecclesiastical Commissioners They have also followed the same Methods with Relation to Civil Affairs For they have procured Orders to examine all Lords-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants Sheriffs Justices of Peace and all others that were in any Publick Employment if they would concur with the King in the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and all such whose Consciences did not suffer them to comply with their Designs were turned out and others were put in their places who they believe would be more compliant to them in their Designs of defeating the Intent and Execution of those Laws which had been made with so much Care and Caution for the Security of the Protestant Religion And in many of these places they have put professed Papists though the Law has disabled them and warranted the Subjects not to have any regard to their Orders They have also invaded the Priviledges and seized on the Charters of most of those Towns that have a right to be represented by â—heir Burgesses in Parliament and have procured Surrenders to be made of them by which the Magistrates in them have delivered up all their Rights and Priviledges to be disposed of at the pleasure of those Evil Counsellors who have thereupon placed new Magistrates in those Towns such as they can most entirely confide in and in many of them they have put Popish Magistrates notwithstanding the Incapacities under which the Law has put them And whereas no Nation whatsoever can subsist without the Administration of good and impartial Justice upon which Mens Lives
how unfit I am to arguâ— matters of Religion with your Highness and those subtil Sophisters the Pest of Europe and shame of Christianity which are always croaking about Persons of Quality whom they have perverted to their Idolatries being my self but a Lay-Gentleman of little Learning and in the course of my Life more conversant with the Sword than the Pen And I must wonder with Regret if none of the Right Reverend Fathers my Lords the Bishops or some of our other Learned Divines have not vigorously made Applications to your Highness even in a publick Manner to regain you to the Protestant Communion If they have not charg'd you as they are God's Ambassadors to shew some Reasons why you havâ— broke the League your Baptismal vows with his Church and join'd your self to the Tents of his Enemies If they have not adjur'd you in the Name of our Lord to shew on what offence taken amongst us and for what Beauties observ'd in the Church of Rome you quitted the true Spouse of Christ to follow the Enchantments of a Strumpet whose shameless Adulteries have long since caused an utter Divorce between Her and the Blessed Jesus If they have not solemnly called Heaven and Earth to Record that they are ready to satisfie all your scruples to answer all your objections and to shew That it is not through any default in them for want of Endeavours nor in our Church for want of Truth but that your defection must be wilful as well as unreasonable whereby to render you either convicted or inexcusable Nor do I doubt but several of those Glorious Lights of our Church may accordingly have discharged without fear of flattery their Functions herein in private discourses But certainly a matter of that inestimable importance as wherein not only the Soul of one of the Bravest Princes of the Earth but also the whole Protestant Interest in the World especially within these Three Nations is so deeply and dangerously concern'd might require since I am sure it deserves a Publick and General Application Nor ought any though the meanest of Men to be blam'd for contributing modestlyÌ„ his help to prevent a disaster of such universal influence And therefore who knows but that Almighty Providence who overthrew Iericho's proud Walls of old not with Battering Engines of War but with the blast of contemptible Rams-Horns and is often pleased to make use of the weakest Instruments to effect mighty Works may give a Blessing to these poor uâ—polish'd inartificial Lines which have nothing but the Power of Truth and the Honesty of a sincere Intention to recommend them to your Princely Consideration That you were educated in Protestant Principles is notorious I beseech your Highness therefore to satisfie the World what could induce you to a change I shall not mention your Royal Grandfather whose Learned Pen baffled all the Conclave nor shall I insist on that Curse which he solemnly pronounced on any of his Posterity that should turn Papist I shall only say Had you not the Example and the Commands too of a most Indulgent Pious Prince your Royal Father for perseverance therein who though barbarously murder'd by vile Men yet continued stedfast and even with his last breath discharg'd and â—lear'd the Doctrine of the Reformed Religion from having any share in their Crimes What Impiety is it if you should dare to profess your Fathers Blessed Soul to be eternally damn'd and yet if you are a Papist you can do no less for you cannot be such without believing That there is no Salvation out of the Pale of the Church and that there is no Church but that of Rome and I am confident none can have the Impudence to suggest that He died in the Communion of that Church What follows then or how will you answer this Horrid Scandal on his Sacred Memory when you shall meet his glorified Spirit at the last dreadful Judgment-day Nor can the keenest Jesuit blunt the edge of this Argument by a Retortion from the Consideration of your Highnesses Illustrious Mother For though Papists are so audacious as to place the Keys of Heaven at the Pope's Girdle and uncharitably doom us All to unquenchable flames not affording us so much as a Room in Purgatory yet Protestants are not so unchristian but according to Scripture leave secret things to God and allow grains for Education Prepossessions Ignorance c. which is yet no more a Reason for any Man to turn Papist than 't is for him that stands safe on the shore to leap off into a Vessel so rotten and leaky as just ready to sink upon a presumption that still some of those that are in her may escape the danger Or to chuse an impudent Quack who boasts he only can cure him and refuse a Learned Physician who modestly grants he may peradventure be healed by the other though very improbably but withal that 't is a Million to one but the Patient under such hands miscarries and that in this case eternally But quitting this Argument which is only Personal I beseech your Highness to tell us how you or any Man of sense can so far forget not only his Education and Interest but his very Reason as to imbrace POPERY frightful detestable ridiculous Popery that Chaos of Superstition Idolatry Error and Imposture that has no foundation but a Cheat No Ends but to gratifie Pride and Avarice no solid Argument to promote and maintain it but Impudence and Cruelty Popery That depends wholly upon nice and poor uncertainties and unprovable supposals As 1 st That Peter was Bishop of Rome 2 dly That He left there one to be Heir of his Graces and Spirit in a perpetual unfailable Succeâ—sion 3 dly That He so bequeathed his Infallibility to his Chair as that whosoever sits in it cannot but speak Truth so that all who sit where he sat must by some secret Instinct say as he taught that what Christ said to him absolutely without any respect to Rome must be referr'd yea ty'd to that place alone and fulfill'd in it 4 thly That Linus Clements and Cletus the Scholars and supposed Successors of Peter must he preferr'd in the Headship of the Church to Iohn the beloved Apostle then still living 5 thly That He whose Life is oft times monstrously debauch'd his Judgment childishly ignorant cannot yet when in his Pontifical Chair possibly erre 6 thly That the Golden Line of this Apostolical Succeâ—sion in the confusion of so many long desperate Schisms shamefully corrupt Usurpations and Instrusions and confess'd Heresies yet neither was nor can be broken Popery That teaches Men to worship Stocks and Stones and painted Clouts with the fame Honour as is due to our Creator and lest that practice should appear to her simple Clients too palpably oppoâ—ite to God's Law most sacrilegiously stifles one of the Ten Commandments in their vulgar Catechisms and Prayer-Books Popery That utterly confounds the true Humanity of Christ while they give unto it Ten thousand places
tugging and strugling to regain them whence continual disturbance will ensue and a standing Army must be kept on foot to support this ill acquired Grandâ—ur For those Subjects that contended with King Iohn and King Henry the Third c. tho' they were Papists and of the same Religion with those Princes could not brook it to be Slaves to their Arbitrary Pleasures in their Civil Rights Besides what a waking dream is it for any King that is free from the Roman Yoke to think to make himself more Absolute by involving himself and his Kingdoms in Thraldom to the Church of Rome wherein not only the Pope pretends a Right to domineer over him but every Ecclesiastick esteems himself wholly exempt from his Jurisdiction and all his People will be but half his Subjects viz. in Temporals for in Spirituals and in ordine ad spiritualia a monstrous draw net that may include almost all the Actions of Humane Life they are wholly to be Conducted by his Holiness and his Subordinate Ministers How therefore can your Highness if a Roman Catholick complain of the late successive Houses of Commons for pressing a Bill to exclude you Is it any Disloyalty to endeavour to preserve the Imperial Crown of England from a truckling and shameful Servitude to a Foreign Usurper's Power Or is it any such unheard of thing to debarr a Prince from a Throne that hath obstinately disabled himself Certainly above all Men the Roman Catholicks ought not to murmur at this for did not the Pope issue forth a Bull to exclude your Grandfather King Iames unless he would turn Papist And did not the Romanists though they acknowledged the Title of your other Grandfather Henry the Great to the French Diadem yet refuse to pay him any Obedience because a Protestant and on that only score fought against him as long as he continued so and thought it no Rebellion Your Highness perhaps will say What though they did so true Protestants and the Church of England do not own such Principles Well then if the Protestant Principles be better than those of the Church of Rome what Madness is it in your Highness to abandon the first and chuse the latter I am a dutiful and hearty Lover of Monarchy and when establish'd on such an Equi-pois'd Basis of Wisdom as ours is shall ever assert it to be the best Form of Government in the World and most agreeable to the Genius of English-men But that lineal descent is so sacred a thing that the Heir presumptive can for no default or crime whatsoever be debarr'd from the Crown by an Act of Parliament or publick Decree of State I do not understand For I am sure the practice in all Ages both at home and abroad in almost every Nation in the Earth hath run contrary And as to Right those that pretend such Succession in all Cases to be Iure Divino would do well to shew in what Texts of Scripture the same is prescribed till then they do but talk not argue and if a Candidate to the Crown for any Reasons whatsoever may without offence to the Law of God or Nature be Excluded by an Act of King Lords and Commons Then the Iune-divino-ship vanishes and nothing is left to be considered But whether such next Heir have done such Acts or is so qualified that in Prudence it be necessary for the Tranquillity of the Publick to Exclude him Now I believe there are but few of the Church of England but if the Bill had passed the Lords and his Majesty had given his Royal Assent to it would have acquiesc'd therein and consequently they do not believe the Exclusion to be simply unlawful by the Law of God or Nature for against either of them no Humane Ordinances ought to prevail But all true Loyalists do not despair but your Highness may yet prevent all Occasions of such Disputes by opening your eyes or rather that God in whose hands are the Hearts of Princes may irradiate your Royal Understanding and let you see the horrid Blackness of those Men who have endeavour'd to seduce you and of those Principles to which they would have inveigled you on purpose to have made your Highness a Property to their Ambition and Avarice and that under the shadow of your Illustrious Name they might one day Tyrannize at Pleasure over these Three Kingdoms If Heaven shall be pleased to work such an happy Inclination in your Highness you shall presently see the whole British Empire echoing with Praises and Acclamations and instead of murmurs of Seclusion every good Subject shall erect you a Throne in his heart But the grand difficulty will be to satisfie the prejudiced World of your sincerity herein for if your Highness which God forbid should declare your self a Protestant only to serve a present turn and use the Sacred Name of our Religion but as an Engine to advance the design of our bloody Enemies you would act at once the most dishonourably and in the end most prejudicially to your own Interest in the world and must certainly expect the blasts of Heaven and curses of Earth on all your future proceedings for Hypocrisie is odious to God and Man nor is there any Monster so abominable to serious Men of both sides as a Church-Papist Your Royal Highness I hope will excuse our fears for we are not ignorant of the Arts and Craft of Rome that she esteems no means unlawful to obtain her ends How shall any Oaths be sufficient Tests when a private dispensation may at once allow the taking and warrant the breaking of them Or what signifies the participation of our Sacraments to one that is taught We have no true Ministers of Christ if so no consecration consequently nothing but an ordinary Breakfast of common Brâ—ad and Wine and who shall lose the hopes of three Crowns rather than not taste such harmless viands Not that I dare imagine your Highnesses Understanding would suffer you to believe the lawfulness or your Princely Generosity permit you to practise these lewd dissimulations yet since such Doctrines are daily taught in the Roman Church how shall Protestants be assured they have no Influence on your Conduct I must therefore with all humble freedom assure your Highness that after so general an Opinion of your Highnesses having been a Roman Catholick though you should go never so duly to Church receive the Sacrament a thousand times and take Oaths all the way from Holy-rood House to St. Iames's yet the People would scarce believe the reality of your Conversion unless withal they see it accompanied with some other Demonstrations For as Faith without works is dead so Profession of a Religion without agreeable endeavours to advance it will be vain If his Royal Highness will the People say be a good Protestant he will undoubtedly discourage all Papists the sworn inveterate Enemies of our Religion he will not suffer a Popish Priest to approach his Person or Palace If he have had any intimation of
any ill designs if any have been tampering to reconcile him to Popery which is no less than Treason he will presently detect those mischievous Instruments that they may be brought to condign Punishment and applaud the Iustice that has been done on Coleman the five Jesuits Godfrey's Murderers c. thereby stopping the Mouths of that brazen Tribe who would make the World believe they died innocently He will declare 〈◊〉 all Arbitrary Designs detest those who by sneaking flatteries would unâ—â—ngâ— the ancient and most wise Constitution of our Government He will heartily recommend Parliaments to his Sacred Brother as the wisest and safest Councils and even thank the late Houses of Commons for their zeal against him whilst they apprehended him as an Enemy to his King and the Religion and safety of the Kingdom He will vigorously by his Counsels and Interests oppose the growing greatness of the French which at this day threatens all Europe with Chains and immediately tends not only to the decay of Great Britains Trade and Glory but also to the diminution oppression and if it lay in humane Power utter subversion of the Reformed Religion throughout the World. These and the like Noble Fruits will the People not unreasonably expect from your R. H. when ever you shall please to declare your self a Protestant which that you may speedily do not Politickly or Superficially but with that sincerity as so serious a matter of infinite more value than the Three Crowns you are Presumptive Heir to is the Prayer of all good Men and particularly of Your Royal Highness 's Most Humble and Faithful Servant Philanax Verax LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway 1688. Ten Seasonable QUERIES Proposed by an English Gentleman in Amsterdam to his Friends in England a little before the Prince of Orange came over I. WHether any Real and Zealous Papist was ever for Liberty of Conscience it being a fundamental Principle of their Religion That all Christians that do not believe as They do are Hereticks and ought to be destroyed II. Whether the King be a Real and Zealous Papist If he be Whether he can be truly for Liberty of Conscience III. Whether this King in his Brother's Reign did not cause the Persecution against Dissenters to be more violent than otherwise it would have been IV. Whether he doth not now make use of the Dissenters to pull down the Church of England as he did of the Church of England to ruin the Dissenters that the Papists may be the better enabled in a short time to destroy them both V. Whether any ought to believe he will be for Liberty any longer than it serves his Turn and whether his great eagerness to have the Penal Laws and Test repealed be only in order to the easie establishing of Popery VI. Whether if these Penal Laws and Test were repealed there would not many turn Papists that now dare not VII Whether the forcing of all that are in Offices of Profit or Trust in the Nation to lose their Places or declare they will be for Repealing the Penal Laws and Test be not Violating his own Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and a new Test upon the People VIII Whether the suspending the Bishop of London the Dispossessing of the Fellows of Magdalen Colledge of their Freeholds the Imprisoning and Prosecuting the Seven Bishops for Reasoning according to Law are not sufficient instances how well the King intend to keep his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience wherein he promiseth to protect and maintain all his Bishops and Clergy and all other his Subjects of the Church of England in quiet and full enjoyment of all their Possessions with any molestation or disturbance whatsoever IX Whether the Usage of the Protestants in France and Savoy for these three years past be not a sufficient Warning not to trust to the Declaration Promises or Oaths in matters of Religion of any Papist whatsoever X. Whether any Equivalent whatsoever under a Popish King that hath a standing Army and pretends to a Dispensing Power can be as equal Security as the Penal Laws and Test as affairs now stand in England FINIS A SIXTH Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. Five Letters from Scotland giving Account of expelling Popery from thence II. The Prince of Orange's Speech to the Scots Lords and Gentlemen met at St. Iames's With their Advice to the Prince to take upon him the Administration of the Affairs of Scotland With his Highness's Answer III. A Letter to a Friend advising in this Extraordiry Juncture how to Free the Nation from Slavery IV. The Application of the Bishop and Clergy of London to the Prince of Orange Sept. 21. 1688. V. An Address of the Nonconformist Ministers of London to the Prince of Orange VI. The Address of the City of Bristol to the Prince of Orange VII A Word to the Wise for Setling the Government VIII A Modest Proposal to the present Convention IX An Historical Account touching the Succession of the Crown X. A Narrative of the Miseries of New-England by reason of an Arbitrary Government erected there Licensed and Entred according to Order London printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-head-Court in Pater-noster-Row 1689. Advertisement VVHereas there is a sixth and seventh Collection of old Papers with new Title-Pages remote from the present Juncture of Affairs published by R. Baldwin The Reader is desired to take notice that the Person that collected the first five Parts will continue them from time to time as often as matter occurs in which he will take care not to impose any thing but what is new and genuine and worth the Reader 's Money To be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-Head Court in Pater-Noster-Row who sells the former five and so all that shall follow Five LETTERS From a Gentleman in Scotland to his Friend in LONDON Being a True Account of what Remarkable Passages have happened since the Prince's Landing The manner of the taking of the Chancellor and his Lady in Man's Apparel The burning of the Pope Demolishing of the Popish Chappels c. with the total overthrow of the Roman Catholicks Edinburgh Decemb. 3. 1688. THE Students of the University here designed some time ago to burn the Pope's Effigies but that was not more zealously desired to be prevented by some than to be done by others Notwithstanding all the imaginable Care taken to prevent it yet it was done about Ten Days ago after day-light gone at the Cross and blown up with Art that seems to have been beyond their Invention above four Stories high Two Days thereafter they went to the Parliament-House at mid-day passing by the Guards crying No Pope No Papist And being got into the Parliament-House after they had required the Guards to be present at the Sentence and having got upon the Bench they Arraigned his Holiness before his Judges and gave the Jury their Commission who brought him in
to be in such a Condition that they need fear nothing but the Almighty Power of God miraculously exerting it self as in the case of Sennacherib which they neither feared nor suspected The Non-resisting Doctrine had so ty'd the hands of the Church of England Men that they thought they might safâ—ly inâ—â—l over us and ridicule the Bond that bound us to our good Behaviâ—ur The Dissenters were as they thought so obliged by the Liberty of Conscience and the fulsom Applications they had made to them in many ill writ pieces and by the Favours â—eâ—â—owed on Pen and Lob the two Patriarchs as they would have been thought of that Party That they not only suspected no oppositions from them but really conceived they would have been more than Scaffolds in the ruining Design they had then on foot The Gentry were reduced to the utmost degree of Contempt and the Nobility who only were capable of putting a stop to such notorious and impolitick Encroachments on our Birth-rights and Liberties were not only closeted examin'd re-examin'd turn'd out of their Stations brow-beaten ridicul'd at Court and in short driven into the Country but they were also by all the Arts that were possible rendred odious to the Crown contemptible to one another and of no use to their Inferiours The Army which was the next great Engine to bring about their Design was managed with more Art than is commonly considered for first there was a Party of Roman Catholicks mixed with the Common Souldiers to be as it were Spies and Tempters to creep into all the places of their resort to observe their Words Looks and Actions and to take the opportunity of all their Needs Crimes Vices and Follies to pervert them and draw them over to the Church of Rome and in the mean time to secure them from contriving any thing that might interrupt their Projects upon us Secondly They punished all who deserted the Service with the utmost Rigour and Severity to keep up â—hâ—ir numbers And thirdly They sent them to quarter in those places that had in any degree refused to comply with their Wills and not only suffered but encouraged them to outrage and sometimes to murder their Hosts but to be sure in all places they very much impoverish'd those that entertain'd them and in the Interim they kept all in awe and quiet whilst the State-Mountebanks practised upon their Lives Consciences Liberties and Properties A People thus harassed and beset one would have thought had been consigned to Ruin and Destruction for where could our Deliverance begin The Parliament which is our last resort was at the same time practised on with all the Art and Address that the Wiâ— of Men or Dâ—vils could invent and he must be of a deep Reach or a Sanguine Complexion who in the beginning of September last could hope to see a â—ree and a quiet Parliament meet and sit one Month to represent with any degree of Liberty our deplorable State and Condition much less to redress any of our Grievances We had one Hope which if they had left us still we had certainly been as quiet and patiâ—nt as Iob himself and that was that the Princess Mary of Orange would when God thought fit succeed his Majesty and then we promis'd our selves a Day of Redemption from all our Calamities and Oppressions so that our Posterity would at worst see better days To deprive us of this remote Comfort that Scene was laid and the Lady of Loretto sollicited to procure a Prince of Wales to reduce us to an utter Desperation of any Redress for ever And now they thought they were so secure of the Day that they might attack the Heretical Bishops and the whole body of our Clergy at once and make them eat their own Dung in the Faces of their respective Congregations if they had comply'd the whole Nation would have abhorred them as a parcel of Cowards if they did not the Ecclesiastical Commission was to have mowed them down by whole sale and when the People had been once deprived of their faithful and learned Shepherds the Wolves in Sheeps-clothing hoped to have had much better Success than hitherto but the Bishops interposing so united the inferior Clergy that this Design proved abortive and the declaring the Bishops Petition a Seditious Libel and so much the more dangerous because penn'd with great Modesty and Humility so far opened the Eyes of all Men that the most Ignorant saw nothing less than the Extirpation of the Protestant Religion was aim'd at The Army however which was the great Wheel in this most dreadful Machine was for the most part Protestant and had express'd so much Joy at the acquittal of the Bishops in the Camp at Hownslow-Heath that they clearly saw till it was new-modell'd it could nâ—t bâ— relied on and therefore the French and Irish were to be invited over and the Companies changed by degrees and when six of the Oâ—ficers at Portsmouth had with the greatest Humility imaginable only desired leave to fill up their Companies with such Men of this Nâ—tion as they judged most serviceable to the King or otherwise that thâ—y might be permitted with all imaginable Duty and Respect to lay â—own their Commissions for this Offence they were brought up Prisoners to London and it was given out they should be hanged as perhaps they had been if Monsieur de Avaux's Memorial given in at the Hague had not come in that very Post to enlighten our little Statesmen and shew them their approaching Danger and yet after all the 10 th of September last they were cashier'd at Windsor And when the Storm from Holland seemed unavoidable with what Insolence did they treat the Eleven Proposals made by the Bishops and the Petition presented the 17 th of November last by the Bishops and Peers about the Town So that till the Army began to go over to the Prince of Orange and the greatest part of the Nation had declared for him No Parliament was to be thought of and the Dispensing Power was the most Sacred of all the Prerogatives of the Crown That we may not imagine all this was undertaken and entred upon without good Consideration of the Difficulties the Roman Catholicks were to met with I would desire the Reader to peruse a small Piece by them published in the Year 1685 during the first Session of Parliament of Iames the Second stil'd Salus Britannica or the Safety of the Protestant Religion against all the present Apprehensions of Popery in Folio The Design of which as the Author himself tells us is to examine what National Operation or Influence a Real Popish Crown'd Head can have over the Lives Liberties or Estates of English-men as now enjoyed and the Religion of the Kingdom as at present Establish'd and by confuting even the most substantial of their imagined Dangers to dissipate those false fears of Popery c. page 1. And in truth I believe no Man can deny but he has very effectually
place her Father in his Throne again This is not impossible for Vertue is greater than a Throne For my part I think you will put a very hard thing upon so excellent a Lady and I pray God give her Grace to resist the Temptation A Regency is more tolerable because a Nation must be governed and none so proper to govern it as the next Heir but I should think none who expect to wear a Crown should countenance Subjects in deposing their King nor accept of a Crown upon such Terms as to take it off of a Father's Head It is a dangerous thing for a Prince who has a Title to the Crown to own that the Crown may be forfeited or demised by such a withdrawing if this be not so the Princess has no Right to the possession of the Crown yet and if it be so her Crown is worth a great deal less than formerly it was especially if she own this Secret by accepting the Crown which her Ancestors always concealed and which the best Subjects of England would not believe before what they may do after this I know not Thirdly The next Design I verily believe without the knowledg or thought of the Prince who has too great a Mind to think of any thing which in the opinion of any wise Man could stain and fully his Glory is to give the Crown to the Prince of Orange for it must be a Gift if any thing for he has no immediate Title to it that I know of This is upon a pretence that the Government is dissolved and therefore we must begin de novo which is very ridiculous when the King is still alive and the Laws in as full force as ever only the Regular Administration of Government at present interrupted by the King's absence but this is not the worst of it for it is a dangerous pretence too especially to Men of Quality and Esâ—â—tes as you are for if the Government be dissolved our Laws are dissolved and Honour and Property dissolved with them and then I doubt the Mobile will come in for their share in the new Division of the Lands and set up for Men of as good Quality as any for if our Laws are gone we return to a state of Nature in which all Men are equal and all things common this I believe you will not be for for the Reason above-mentioned If then the Laws continue the Government is not dissolved and the Crown is not a Gift but an Inheritance still as much as your Estate is and then the Prince of Orange cannot have it in his own Right because his own Princess and the Princess Anne are before him consider then what the consequence of this Project would be 1. This alters the essential Constitution of the English Government by changing an Hereditary into an Elective Monarchy a thing which I know some Men are very fond of for then the next occasion they can find to quarrel with their Prince they may with as much ease turn it into a Common-Wealth for when the Crown is at the Peoples disposal they may if they please keep it to themselves 2. This will entangle all Men of Conscience in new Difficulties for the Oath of Allegiance does not only bind us to the King but to his Heirs and Successors which must be understood of the next lineal Heir where there is no Authority to alter it and whatever a Parliament may be thought to have with the Authority and Consent of the King no Man pretends that a Convention of the Estates has any Legal Authority to do it I should be as heartily glad as any Man to see the Prince of Orange legally seated on the English Throne but these are Difficulties I cannot break through Thus I have given you my hasty Thoughts and pray God to direct you I am Yours POSTSCRIPT THere is one thing more I would beg of you that the Story of French League to cut Protestants Throats in England maâ— be wâ—ll examined for this did more to drive the King out of the Nation than the Prince's Army and if this should prove a Sham as some who pretend to know say it is it seems at least to be half an Argument to invite the King back again In short remember you are a Convention not a Parliament and therefore nothing can give Authority to what you do but the good liking of the People and as Necessity only can justify your meeting without the King's Writs so I hope you will take care to do nothing but what will justify it self to God the King and your Country An ANSWER to the Author of the LETTER to a Member of the CONVENTION Reverend Sir YOur Name your Quality your Religion and your Design in Publishing this Letter are wholly unknown to me but the confident Assertion pag. 3.6.16 That you are sure it can never be Answered sounds so like a Son or rather a Father of the Infallible Church that it has provoked me if not to answer yet at least to reflect upon some Passages in this Magisterial Composure § 2. Whatever becomes of other Arguments Interest is most likely to prevail You Sir suppose your Parliament-Man in these words to be one who will regard no Arguments from Justice Reason Religion or the Laws of God or Man Interest is the only thing which is likely to prevail an excellent Complement to a Parliament-Man but it goes higher yet and takes in the Majority of the States for no one Man shall ever determine these great things § 3. You tell him That All the threatning Dangers of Popery were not a more formidable Prospect to considering Men than the present Distractions and Divisionâ— Now surely this is a very bold and daring stroke but that I am certain these pensive thoughtful Men are not either very numerous or very considerable otherwise the few of the Church of England that are over-thoughtful in this Point deserve much Compassion because they disquiet themselves and others out of pure tenderness of Conscience and an over-great Loyalty but then there is no danger to be apprehended from them and they will in time satisfy their own Scruples and in the interim I doubt not infinitely more Men dread the Dangers of Popery even to this Day than all the Common-wealth-Men Dissenters ambitious and revengeful Wretches which you have so artfully mustered up to fright the Country Esquire with can over-ballance Strange it is in the mean time that the Dangers of Popery which last October appeared so formidable should in so short a time vanish or rather dwindle into nothing But God by the Ministry of the Prince of Orange and his Friends has brought this about In the rest of that Section I agree with you and approve of it The two next Sections being only a representation of the different Parties of Men now upon the Stage I leave as I find them § 6. Though the Opinion of those who are for sending to the King and treating with him
Conscience sake If his Majesty now of Great Britain out of some deep Sense that he being a Roman Catholick cannot rule and be true to his Religion which he may suppose does oblige him to an Establishment thereof by all the ways and means of his Church though never so destructive to ours but it will be to the Hurt not Good of us who are Protestants hath been pleased to withdraw himself from his Government to make us more quiet and happy We are in all Gratitude to acknowledg his Piety Goodness and Condescention to be so much as very few of his Subjects could ever have suspected But if it be out of another Mind he hath done it We have still more Reason to bless Almighty God who does often serve his Providence by Mens Improvidence and cutting off Mens Ends from their Means he uses their Means to his own Ends when he is pleased to work Deliverance for a People as he hath at this Season so graciously and wonderfully done for Us that there is nothing more needful even to the most scrupulous Conscience than an humble and awful Acquiescence in the Divine Counsel to give Satisfaction in this Matter King IAMES the First his Opinion of a KING of a TYRANT and of the English Laws Rights and Priviledges In two Speeches The First to the Parliament 1603 the Second 1609. In his Speech to the Parliament 1603 he expresseth himself thus I Do acknowledg that the special and greatest Point of difference that is betwixt a Rightful King and an Usurping Tyrant is in this That whereas the proud and ambitious Tyrant doth think his Kingdom and People are only ordained for satisfaction of his Desires and unreasonable Appetites The Righteous and Iust King doth by the contrary acknowledg himself to be Ordained for the procuring of the Wealth and Prosperity of his People and that his great and principal worldly Felicity must consist in their Prosperity If you be Rich I cannot be Poor if you be Happy I cannot but be Fortunate And I protest your Welfare shall ever be my greatest Care and Contentment And that I am a Servant it is most true that as I am Head and Governour of all the People in my Dominion who are my natural Subjects considering them in distinct Ranks So if we will take in the People as one Body then as the Head is ordained for the Body aâ—d not the Body for the Head so must a Righteous King know himself to be ordained for his People and not his People for Him. Wherefore I will never be ashamed to confess it my principal Honour to be the great Servant of the Common-Wealth and ever think the Prosperity thereof to be my greatest Felilicity c. In his Speech to the Parliament March 21. 1609 he expresseth himself thus IN these our Times we are to distinguish betwixt the State of Kings in the first Original and between the State of settled Kings and Monarchs that do at this Time Govern in Civil Kingdoms For even as God during the Time of the Old Testament spake by Oracles and wrought by Miracles yet how soon it pleased him to settle a Church which was Bought and Redeemed by the Blood of his only Son Christ then was there a Cessation of both He ever after governing his Church and People within the Limits of his revealed Will. So in the first Original of Kings whereof some had their beginning by Conquest and some by Election of the People their Wills at that Time served for a Law yet how soon Kingdoms began to be settled in Civility and Policy then did Kings set down their Minds by Laws which are properly made by the King only but at the Rogation of the People the King 's Grant being obtained thereunto and so the King came to be Lex loquens a speaking Law after a sort binding himself by a double Oath to the Observation of the Fundamental Laws of his Kingdom Tacitly as by being a King and so bound to protect as well the People as the Laws of his Kingdom and expresly by his Oath at his Coronation So as every just King in a settled Kingdom is bound to observe that Paction made to his People by his Laws in framing his Government agreeable thereunto according to that Paction which God made with Noah after the Deluge Hereafter Seed-time and Harvest Summer and Winter Cold and Heat Day and Night shall not cease so long as the Earth remains And â—herefore a King Governing in a settled Kingdom leaves to be a King and degenerâ—tes into a Tyrant as soon as he leaves off to rule according to his Laws In which Case the King's Conscience may speak unto him as the poor Widow said to Philip of Macedon Either Govern according to your Law aut ne Rex â—is or cease to be King and tho no Christian Man ought to allow any Rebellion of People against their Prince yet doth God never leave Kings unpunished when they transgress these Limits For in that same Psalm where God saith to Kings Vos Dii estis Ye are Gods He immediately thereafter conclude But ye shall die like Men The higher we are placed the greater shall our Fall be Vt casus sic dolor as the Fall so the Griâ—f the taller the Trees be the more in danger of the Wind and the Tempest beats sorest upon the highest Mountains Therefore all Kings that are no Tyrants or Perjured will be glad to bound themselves within the Limits of their Laws and they that perswade them the contrary are Vipers and Pests both against them and the Common-Wealth For it is a great difference betwixt a King's Government in a settled Estate and what Kings in their Original Power might do in Individio vago As for my part I thank God I have ever given good proof that I never had Intention to the contrary And I am sure to go to my Grave with that Reputation and Comfort That never King was in all his Time more careful to have his Laws duly observed and himself to govern thereafter than I. That Just Kings will ever be willing to declare what they will do if they will not incur the Curse of God. I will not be content that my Power be disputed upon but I shall ever be willing to make the Reason appear of all my Doings and rule my Actions according to the Laws And afterwards speaking of the Common Law of England which some conceived he contemned saith to this purpose That as a King he had least cause of any Man to dislike the Common Law for no Law can be more favourable or advantageous for a King and extendeth further his Prerogative than it doth and for a King of England to despise the Common Law is to neglect his own Crown It is true that no Kingdom in the World but every one of them hath their own Municipal Laws agreeable to their Customs as this Kingdom hath the Common Law. Nay I am so far from disallowing the Common
it will make an Annal suspected and seem a Fable to Posterity For who will believe that a King who had he acted agreeably to the true Interest of Himself and People might have been almost the Balance of Christendom who was prepared with a standing Army and always Remarkable for his Conduct in War should be invaded by a near Neighbour Son and Nephew and now in a Months time so generally deserted by his Nobility Gentry and Military Forces as to choose before the Sword was drawn to fly for Refuge to a Prince whose Title he and his Ancestors had long disputed This I say as the Learned Dr. Burnet Argues at large was the Lords doing and ought to be marvellous in our Eyes Diss. It was indeed an unparall'd Act of Providence but now our Deliverance is so far Compleated what are you Churchmen willing to do towards an Accommodation and to the Healing of those Differences which in a great measure have contributed to the Growth of Popery Ch. Though it be far above my Character to dictate what is fittest to be done at so great and difficult a Conjuncture yet my humble Wishes are that the Guardians and Supporters of our Church may resolve upon such Condescentions as may satisfy reasonable Men and prevent any longer Dissensions amongst us Yet this I would advise you and your Party i. e. to stay till you are Invited and not to thrust your selves into our Church We are now in the hopeful Crisis of our Fever and therefore you ought to take care left by tampering too much you disturb Nature in those methods she has took to digest her Humours and so ruine all I am not ignorant that at the beginning of the Reformation when a Church was to be made out of a Church several Ceremonies were retained in Compliance to that Age which a violent Alteration would have too much surprized but now the Humours of Men being changed may justly be laid aside On the other hand I am perswaded with the Author of Foxes and Firebrands that Rome has all along been industrious to foment our Divisions by sending us Emissaries who could artificially dissemble a tender Conscience and make credulous People believe that all the Decencies of our Worship were nothing but â—oppery Superstition and the Remainders of Popery Therefore I say my Wishes are that a Free and Unbyass'd Parliament will tread the middle path bearing an equal Respect to the Decenies of our Church and the tender Consciences of reasonable Men. Diss. Well Neighbour I am heartily glad to see these happy effects of our Calamities and as I think there can be no Government so perfectly appointed as to satisfy all yet I approve so well of your Temper and Wishes that I hope we may all Unite upon such or the like terms Ch. Therefore to end our Dispute I shall only now detain you with my hearty Prayers that the Result of this ensuing Convention on Ian. 22. may be happily to settle the Crown and that in the succeeding Parliament the management of these Difficulties may fall into the Hands of such Wise and Unbyass'd Persons that Peace and Truth may be established upon everlasting Foundations and no sinister Interest interrupt so great a Design Diss. Sir you have infinitely encouraged me to wait upon you oftner we being I think now either both Churchmen or both Dissenters Ch. Sir The Design of this Conference was to tell you freely my Sentiments and I intend ere long to make it more publick being willing to provoke some more learned and judicious Pen to perfect what I have here weakly attempted Farewel His Majesties Letter to the Lords and Others of his Privy Councel JAMES R. MY Lords When we saw that it was no longer safe for Us to remain within Our Kingdom of England and that thereupon We had taken Our Resolutions to withdraw for some time We left to be communicated to you and to all Our Subjects the Reasons of Our withdrawing And were likewise resolved at the same time to leave such Orders behind Us to you of our Privy Councel as might best suit with the present state of Affairs But that being altogether unsafe for Us at that time We now think fit to let you know that though it has been Our constant care since Our first Accession to the Crown to govern Our People with that Justice and Moderation as to give if possible no occasion of Complaint yet more particularly upon the late Invasion seeing how the Design was laid and fearing that Our People who could not be destroy'd but by themselves might by little imaginary Grievances be cheated into a certain Ruine To prevent so great Mischief and to take away not only all just Causes but even Pretences of Discontent We freely and of our own accord redressed all those things that were set forth as the Causes of that Invasion And that we might be informed by the Councel and Advice of our Subjects themselves which way we might give them a further and a full Satisfaction We resolved to meet them in a Free Parliament And in order to it We first laid the Foundation of such a Free Parliament in restoring the City of London and the rest of the Corporations to their ancient Charters and Priviledges and afterwards actually appointed the Writs to be issued out for the Parliaments meeting on the 15 th of Ianuary But the Prince of Orange seeing all the Ends of his Declaration answered the People beginning to be undeceived and returning apace to their ancient Duty and Allegiance and well fore-seeing that if the Parliament should meet at the time appointed such a Settlement in all Probability would be made both in Church and State as would totally defeat his ambitious and unjust Designs resolved by all means possible to prevent the meeting of the Parliament And to do this the most effectual way he thought fit to lay a restraint on Our Royal Person for as it were absurd to call that a Free Parliament where there is any force on either of the Houses so much less can that Parliament be said to act freely where the Soveraign by whose Authority they Meet and Sit and from whose Royal Assent all their Acts receive their Life and Sanction is under actual Confinement The hurrying of Us under a Guard from Our City of London whose returning Loyalty We could no longer trust and the other Indignities We suffered in the Person of the Earl of Feversham when sent to him by Us and in that barbarous Confinement of Our own Person We shall not here repeat because they are We doubt not by this time very well known and may we hope if enough considered and reflected upon together with his other Violations and Breaches of the Laws and Liberties of England which by this Invasion he pretended to restore be sufficient to open the Eyes of all our Subjects and let them plainly see what every one of them may expect and what Treatment they shall find-from him if
at any time it may serve his Purpose from whose Hands a Soveraign Prince an Uncle and a Father could meet with no better Entertainment However the sense of these Indignities and the just Apprehension of further Attempts against Our Person by them who already endeavoured to murther Our Reputation by infamous Calumnies as if We had been capable of supposing a Prince of Wales which was incomparably more injurious than the destroying of Our Person it Self together with a serious Reflection on a Saying of Our Royal Father of blessed Memory when He was in the like Circumstances That there is little distance between the Prisons and the Graves of Princes which afterwards proved too true in His Case could not but persuade Us to make use of that which the Law of Nature gives to the meanest of Our Subjects of freeing Our selves by all means possible from that unjust Confinement and Restraint And this We did not more for the Security of our own Person then that thereby We might be in a better Capacity of transacting and providing for every thing that may contribute to the Peace and Settlement of Our Kingdoms For as on the one hand no change of Fortune shall ever make Us forget Our Selves so far as to condescend to any thing unbecoming that High and Royal Station in which God Almighty by Right of Succession has placed Us So on the other hand neither the Provocation or Ingratitude of Our own Subjâ—cts nor any other Consideration whatsoever shall ever prevail with Us to make the least step contrary to the true Interest of the English Nation which We ever did and ever must look upon as Our own Our Will and Pleasure thereof is That you of Our Privy Councel take the most effectual care to make these Our Gratious Intentions known to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in and about Our Cities of London and Westminster to the Lord Mayor and Commons of our City of London and to all Our Subjects in general and to assure them that We desire nothing more than to return and hold a Free Parliament wherein We may have the best Opportunity of undeceiving Our People and shewing the Sincerity of those Protestations We have often made of the preserving the Liberties and Properties of Our Subjects and the Protestant Religion more especially the Church of England as by Law establish'd with such Indulgence for those that dissent from Her as We have always thought Our selves in Justice and Care of the general Welfare of Our People bound to procure for them And in the mean time You of Our Privy Councel who can judg better by being upon the place are to send Us your Advice what is fit to be done by Us towards Our returning and the accomplishing those good Ends. And We do require you in Our Name and by Our Authority to endeavour so to suppress all Tumults and Disorders that the Nation in general and every one of Our Subjects in particular may not receive the least Prejudice from the present Distractions that is possible So not doubting of your Dutiful Obedience to these Our Royal Commands We bid you heartily Farewel Given at St. Germans on Laye the 4 4 Ianuary 1688 9. And of Our Reign the fourth Year By his Majesties Command MELFORT Directed thus To the Lords and Others of our Privy Councel of Our Kingdom of England Some Remarks on the late Kings pretended Letter to the LORDS and Others of his Privy Council IT begins thus My Lords When we saw that it was no longer safe for us to remain within our Kingdom of England c. His Majesty would have given great Satisfaction to the World in discovering where the Danger lay in tarrying here from whom and for what cause He is pleased to say farther We now think fit to let you know that though it has been our constant care since our first Accession to the Crown to govern our People with that Iustice and Moderation as to give if possible no occasion of Complaint c. I do not understand why his Majesty would not let us know these his Gracious Intentions before when they might have done Himself and Us Good. But quid verba audiam cum facta videam to what purpose are Words when we see Facts And as to his Moderation I appeal to the Pope himself or the French King who chiefly blame him for his Rashness and want of Temper and as for his Justice among a thousand publick Instances to the contrary he should remember his discountenancing and turning out of their Employments all such as would not enter into his Idolatrous Worship and comply with his illegal and arbitrary Designs Besides what Justice can Hereticks expect from a Prince who is not only a Papist but wholly devoted to the Order of the Jesuits and values himself for being a Member of those Reverend Cut-throats Yet more particularly upon the late Invasion seeing how the Design was laid and fearing that our People who could not be destroyed but by themselves The Design was to preserve the Nation from falling under the cruel Dominion of the French and to keep our selves from being dragg'd by the Hair of the Head to Mass and from undergoing all those Miseries which those of the same Religion and for the same Cause have endured now lately in France and Savoy To prevent so great a Mischief that is to say destroying our selves and to take away not only all just Causes but even Pretences of Discontent We freely and of our own accord redrest all those things that were set forth as the Causes of that Invasion I appeal to the common Faith of Mankind touching the Insinserity of these Words whether if this Invasion had not been these and worse Grievances had not followed And that we might be informed by the Counsel and Advice of our Subjects themselves which way we might give them a further and full Satisfaction We resolved to meet them in a Free Parliament c. The late Kings of England have been as desirous of a Parliament as Popes of a Free and General Council there being nothing they have more studiously avoided and greatlier feared But the Prince of Orange seeing all the Ends of his Declaration answered the People beginning to be undeceived and returning apace to their ancient Duty and Allegiance resolved by all possible means to prevent the meeting of the Parliament c. How far the Prince of Orange has been from preventing the meeting of a Parliament we need only consult our senses The hurrying us under a Guard from our City of London whose returning Loyalty we could no longer trust and the other Indignities we suffered in the Person of the Earl of Feversham when sent to him by us and in that barbarous Confinement of our own Person we shall not here repeat Do's any Man think the Prince of Orange would have had the same gentle Treatment from the King had he been in like manner under his Power And as to the
those the Opportunity to retrieve the Credit they have lost by other Mens Faults We were also very apprehensive of the ill Consequences of the dispensing Power especially in the case of Sr. Edward Hales but it seems the Common Council of London are forbid to take the usual Oaths and yet required to act which is an unqualified Capacity We were in hopes we had lost a rude Army but we have found a ruder twenty places cry out of them and Kingstone certainly with great Justice that in two Nights time was two hundred Pounds the worse for them And for Closseting we have got Questioning that they that won't enter into Associations to protect the Prince of Orange without one of our King is to have no Imployment so that if the Prince should take the Crown I am bound to defend him against my own King and my sworn Allegiance though he come in the right of his Crown Believe me my Lords it is the boldest bid that ever Men made I see Forty one was a Fool to Eighty eight and that we Church of England Protestants shall cancel all the Merits of our Fathers overthrow the Ground and Consequence of their most exemplary Loyalty to King Charles the first and second render their Death the Death of Fools trample their Memories and Blood under our Feet subject our selves to the just Reproach of the Phanaticks whose Principles and Practices we have outdone even to that King that we forced upon them and by our Example had brought them to live well withal God help us this my Lords makes me say that either we must turn from being Church-of England-Men or steer another course for it is but too plain that Presbytery is leading us out of our ancient way and whether we believe it or no our Church sinks and will more for that is the Interest that suits best with a Dutch Humour and Conjunction and be sure if we are so base to leave our King God will be so just as to leave us and here my Lords I shall leave you with this humble motion that we make an humble Address to his Majesty to return home to us that we may act securely and not go out of the good old way which may intail Misery upon us and our Posterity I should think we have had enough of sending our Princes abroad in that much of the Inconveniency we have lain under since their Restoration has been chiefly owing to it We have driven him where we would not have him go and do what we can to provoke that League we have been afraid of and made a great part of the reason of this strange Alteration in the Kingdom Some tell us it is too late but I cannot comprehend the good sence of such an Objection Is it at any time too late for a King and his People to agree after bloody Battels it has not been thought so in all times and Nations and why it may not be without them I never heard a good reason yet If his going was unreasonable it has hurt him more than us since we may thence hope for the better terms if it was not a Fault to go it will be a great one in us if we can have him home upon good terms and will not for if I may with leave speak it his return is as much our Conveniency as his Advantage The offensive part of Him is gone that is to say the Power of Popery and what remains is our great Interest to keep and improve to our own Benefit and Safety I mean my Lords His undoubted Title and Kingship And whatever some hot Men say that are more governed by private Avarice and Revenge then the publick Good of these Kingdoms I cannot but renew my motion to your Lordships that we may send a Duke an Earl a Viscount and a Baron and two Spiritual Lords to invite his Majesty home upon the Constitution of the Government And my Lords forgive me if I say that if we can but get our Iuries Sheriffs Iudges High Courts of Chancery and Parliaments setled as they ought to be the Army at least reduced the Militia better regulated and a due Liberty of Conscience established to all Protestant Dissenters and so far to Papists only as the Law against Conventicles does admit we may yet be happy and upon these terms my Lords and no other will his Highness the Prince of Orange become truly meritorious with the English Nation Reflections on a Paper called a LORD'S Speech without Doors THIS Noble Lord would have done ingenuously in letting the World know his Name and whether he be a Lord or not for one cannot gather it from his Liberality of casting in a mite at this time when mean People such as Trades-men have more generosity and effectually contributed to the publick Peace and Honour of the Nation And as to his dissenting to some leading Lords on the account of Conscience we are in the dark as to what sort of Conscience his is whether Papist or Phanatick Conscience or indeed whether it be any Conscience at all which makes him differ from some leading Lords for the making of Speeches within or without Doors is no infallible Mark of either But he says He cannot forbear thinking that a greater Reproach can hardly come upon a People than is like to fall on us Protestants Ah good Soul what 's the matter Are the Protestants at length found to be the Firers of â—heir own City or Sr. Edm-B Godfrey and the Earl of Essex's Murtherers c. Why no O it s this unpresidented Vsage of our poor King. A good tender-hearted Jesuit I 'le warrant thee that has entred with Campian into an Holy League and Covenant to destroy all Protestant Kings and Princes unless they become as bigotted to the Society as the poor King was But let me take the Boldness to ask your Honour one Question Is there no time when compassion is due to the Country Religion is the Pretence but some fear a new Master is the thing And is it any wonder if a new Master be desired when the old one will not let me serve him but will destroy me and perhaps himself too this being a clear case and evident to all Orders and Degrees of Men among us We see how feeble a thing Popery is in England and it is I do not doubt your Lordships great Grief that your old Master may not be let in again to strengthen and revive her drooping and almost decayed Spirits But why did not the Prince stop when he heard a Free-Parliament was calling by the Kings Writs where all matters especially of the Prince of Wales might have been considered c. As to a Free-Parliament is it not evident to all the World that the King could not bear it Besides who told his Lordship that his old Master would abide by the Decisions of a Free-Parliament touching the Legitimacy or Spuriousness of his Prince of Wales The Kings Guards were changed and at
into utter Despair of the Continuance amongst them of the true Religion of Almighty God and of her Majesties Life and of the Safety of all her Subjects and of the Good Estate of this flourishing Commonweale For that she the said Queen of Scots had continually breathed the Overthrow and Suppression of the Protestant Religion being poysoned with Popery from her tender Youth and at her Age joyning in that false termed Holy League and had been ever since and was then a powerful Enemy of the Truth For that she rested wholly upon Popish hopes to be delivered and advanced and was so devoted and doted in that Profession that she would as well for the satisfaction of others as for the feeding her own Humour supplant the Gospel where and whensoever she might which Evil was so much the greater and the more to be avoided for that it slayeth the Soul and would spread it self not only over England and Scotland but also into all Parts beyond the Sea where the Gospel of God is maintained the which cannot but be exceedingly weakned if Defection should be in these two most violent Kingdoms For that if she prevailed she would rather take the Subjects of England for Slaves than for Children For that she had already provided them a Foster-father and a Nurse the Pope and King of Spain into whose hands if it should happen them to fall what would they else look for but Ruin Destruction and utter Extirpation of Goods Lands Lives Honours and all For that as she had already by her poyson'd Baits brought to Destruction more Noble-men and their Houses and a greater multitude of Subjects during her being here than she would have done if she had been in Possession of her own Country and arm'd in the Field against them so would she be still continually the cause of the like spoil to the greater loss and peril of this Estate and therefore this Realm neither could nor might endure her For that her Sectaries both Wrote and Printed that the Protestants would be at their Wits end Worlds end if she should out-live Queen Elizabeth meaning thereby that the end of the Protestant World was the beginning of their own and therefore if she the said Queen of Scots were taken away their World would be at an end before its beginning For that since the sparing of her in the Fourteenth Year of Q. Elizabeths Reign Popish Traitors and Recusants had multiplied exceedingly And if she were now spared again they would grow both innumerable and invincible also And therefore Mercy in that case would prove Cruelty against them all Namâ—st quaedam crudelis mâ—sericordia and therefore to spare her Blood would be to spill all theirs And for God's Vengeance against Saul for sparing the life of Agag and against Ahab for sparing the life of Benhadad was moâ—t apparent for they were both by the just Judgment of God deprived of their Kingdoms for sparing those wicked Princes whom God had delivered into their Hands And those Magistrates were much conmmended who put to Death those mischeivous and wicked Queens Iezabel and Athaliah And now I would desire our Grumbletonians especially they of the Clergy to consider how extreamly they have degenerated from the good and laudable Principles of their Fore-fathers They may see how urgent the Bishops and others in Queen Elizabeth's days were to have the Queen of Scots removed as above said and how they encouraged the Queen to assist the Dutch against their Soveraign Lord when he attempted them in their Religion and Laws but now they that first opposed One that has broken the Original Contract between King and People and done horrid things contrary to the Laws of God Nature and the Land yet when God out of his merciful Providence and singular favour to us all has inclined him being sensible of his own Guilt to leave the Throne these Very Men that first withstood him as I said begin to pitty him plead for him and extol him and continually both in Pulpit for one of them lately said there That a parcel of Attoms could as soon make a World as a Convention make a King and also in Coffee-houses mutter and grumble against the Proceedings of the great and Honorable Convention of the Kingdom and are busy in sending out and privately scattering their puling Pamphlets under the Titles of Mementoes Speeches and Letters empty of ought else but the spleen of a foolish and frustrated Faction Good God! what inconstancy folly and madness possesses the Breasts of these Men to what a miserable slavery would they lead us and how fond and eager do they seem to have him rule over Us who like the Stork in the Fable has and would make it his greatest delight to devour the best of free-born Subjects But I hope that in a little time they will know the Things that belong to the Kingdom 's Peace and dutifully pray for tho at present there is no uniformity in their Pulpits save in the Dissenters and submit chearfully and thankfully to him whom God has made the Glorious Instrument of our Deliverance from Popery and Slavery God save King William and Queen Mary ADVERTISEMENT ☞ THere is lately published the Trial of Mr. PAPILLON by which it is manifest that the then Lord Chief Justice Iefferies had neither Learning Law nor good manners but more Impudence than ten Carted Whores as was said of him by King CHARLES II. in abusing all those worthy Citizens who voted for Mr. PAPILLON and Mr. DUBOIS calling them a parcel of Factious Pragmatical Sneaking Whining Canting Sniveling Prickear'd Cropear'd Atheistical Fellows Rascals and Scoundrels c. as in p. 29. and other places of the said Trial may be seen Sold by Richard Ianeway and most Booksellers FINIS A TENTH Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. Reflections upon our late and present Proceedings II. Some short Notes on a Pamphlet entituled Reflections upon our late and present Proceedings III. The Scots Grievances or A short Account of the Proceedings of the Scotish Privy-Council Justiciary Court and those commissioned by them c. IV. The late Honourable Convention proved a Legal Parliament V. The Amicable Reconciliation of the Dissenters to the Church of England being a Model or Draught for the Universal Accommodation in the Case of Religion and bringing in all Parties to her Communion London printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-head-Court in Pater-â—oster-Row 1689. Reflections upon our Late and Present Proceedings in England THO no Man wishes better to the Protestant Religion in general and the Church of England in particular than I do yet I cannot prevail with my self to approve all those Methods or follow all those Measures which some Men propose as the only Security both of the one and the other Never perhaps was there a more proper time wherein to secure our Religion together with our Civil Liberties than now offers it self if we have but the
Prince of Orange was a Foreign Prince Will you be pleased in answer to this to fix your Thoughts upon that of the great Apostle St. Paul he is excepted that put all things under him So here without Question the King may divest himself of all Authority and Power and when this is done the Obligation ceaseth as if he were really Dead The Preface to the New Oath is not an authoritative Abdication but rather a Declaration of Matter of Fact that the late King Iames hath abdicated So that in fine the main of the Controversy lies here Whether the late King did abdicate For if he did without all Question the Obligation of all Oaths taken unto him is ceased In confirmation of the Affirmative I shall endeavour to make it clear that any King may And secondly That the late King did abdicate That Kings may denude themselves of their Princely Power and Sovereignty appears from what was done by Charles the Fifth Emperor of Germany and King of Spain at the same time who did abdicate both and his Subjects took new Oaths of Fealty to other Princes Some of those Times might question his Courage but none did ever except against the Validity of it May it not seem something unjust to deny this Liberty to Princes when they find themselves overcharged with the Weight of Government to retire into a Privacy for the better enjoyment of their inward Peace and Quiet But I presume no Man will deny this Hypothesis It remains to prove the Thesis That the late King did abdicate 1. I will not dwell upon what was done by the Metropolitan and other Lords of the Council upon his first withdrawing they came into the City and with the Lord Mayor sent for the Lieutenant of the Tower seize upon the Keys dispossess the Souldiers place a new Garrison there and desire the Prince of Orange to assume the Regency Why all this if he had not Abdicated Upon what other ground durst they raise Arms seize upon his Royal Fort Or how can they excuse themselves from formal Rebellion and breach of Oaths if this be not granted and is not unpresidented That Princes shall take up their Scepters again when they have laid them down But to pass by this 2. I would willingly be resolv'd by any Thinking Man whose Judgment and Testimony is most authentick in this Particular Whether I am to resolve my self into the Judgment of the whole Nation in a full and clear Representation in Parliament or into the private Francies or Opinion of a few Men I remember what you once repli'd to this That every Mans Conscience is to judg for himself in point of Practice But do you not know when and by whom this Principle was exploded whilst some were prosecuted for meer Matters of Worship And shall this be pleaded by those Men who so vigorously have acted against it when in its own Nature it is so destructive of the Civil Peace A Line and a Line is an Abomination Did ever any Government upon the Pretence of Conscience dispence with Disobedience in Things necessary to its Establishment And can any Man expect to be excus'd from taking the Oaths which is the only Moral Security the Government can expect or require and upon this very Pretence which if allowed all Kingdoms must dissolve into Anarchy and Confusion Religion and Conscience being the Common Pretentions of all Male-Contents This may suffice to satisfy any sober Rational Man that is not resolv'd to maintain the Conclusion be the Premises never so weak Some there are that presume their Subscription to the Doctrine of the Church of England in her Book of Articles will not permit them to yield their Obedience to these Alterations But if this shall prove a Mistake and our Obedience shall be conformable to our Principles will it not rather be esteemed Peevishness than Conscience To discover the Mistake let us consider when and by whom the Articles were composed and refer the Practices of those Times to the Articles as an authentick and clear Interpretation of them and this also will vanish like Smoak 1. The Articles were made or at least confirmed in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth who was a constant asserter and maintainer of this Maxim That it is lawful for a neighbouring Prince to relieve and defend the Subjects of another when invaded in their Laws Liberties and Religion Who was it that protected and assisted the Hugonets in France against the Tyranny and Violence of their Princes Was it not this Gracious and Heroick Queen And who was it that protected the Netherlands against the Violence and Usurpations of the Spanish Monarch And was all this contrary to the avowed Doctrines of our Church of which she was the Defender Was not this defended or at least allowed of by the Church-Men of those Times must it be now inconsistent with the Principles of our Times Do they bind our Hands so that if we are invaded we may not crave the like Protection Let any sober scrupulous dissatisfied Person give a sober Answer and Resolution to these Queries The Dutch Netherlands erected a new Model of Government under her Protection after they had shaken off the Spanish Yoak 2. Let it be granted what ought not to be denied That the late King did abdicate and that the Government did devolve upon the People and these in a full Representative of the whole Nation whether in Parliament or in a Convention it matters not which whilst that was a free and fair Choice have constituted these to be our Governours Are we not to pay and swear Obedience unto them as well as their Predecessors And if this were rightly weigh'd would answer an Objection from that Declaration in the Act of Uniformity I abhor that Traiterous Position c. If after all this Men will fix all upon a Ius divinum and fly to Scriptures let them give plain positive Texts for a general Form with Rules universally relating unto and obliging all Places and Men. If they cannot let them confess that God hath left all Nations and People to be ruled by that Government and those Laws which are most suitable to the Constitution and Temperament of the People and this I lay down for a Foundation not to be overthrown But to Answer those places which are so much insisted upon that of our Saviour's St Paul's and St Peter's we need to make use of that absurd Assertion of some of the Romanists That this was only enjoyn'd and to be performed until they had opportunity to make a Resistance This would stain the Glory of the Primitive Martyrs Not a forced but a voluntary Martyrdom deserves the Crown however this gives a taste of the Loyalty of these Men and their Religion to the maintaining of which the Popish Princes sacrifice all their Power and Policy But for a more Substantial Answer by way of Satisfaction to these Scruples let it be duly considered that the Primitive Christians and we were under