and Crown as all the Dissenters in England notoriously are and it is as certain that the Dissenters never bestow their Regards but upon such as favour them nor ever indeavour to set up any person to be a Member of the Commons House but in expectancy and upon assurance from them that they will be serviceable to their Cause and Interest Secondly No such Persons nor their Descendants as have been actually ingaged in the late Rebellion who were themselves or whose Ancestors were possessed of any part of the Crown or Church Lands For Principles and aversion do descend to Posterity and for those who were actors in the War and sharers of the Booty they are not to be trusted unless they have given eminent testimonies of their Repentance otherwise assuredly they retain the same Antimonarchical Principles which overthrew the Government before they cannot forget the sweetness of that Arbitrary Power which they then exercised when a Colonel or a Captain domineer'd over a whole Country they look upon themselves as injured in the loss of those fair Estates of which in the times of Vsurpation they were the foolish purchasers and unjust possessors and upon all these accounts will not only do no good but all the hurt they can in hopes if the Government were but again overturned they might come into their Estates and Power again Thirdly No such as have been busie sticklers against granting Money no Exclusioners Associators spreaders of jealousies of the Designs of the Government to introduce Popery slavery and such abominable Calumnies against the King and his Ministers for all such if they have not been actually ingaged though it may be so secretly as to escape discovery in the late Conspiracy yet gave countenance and encouragement to the Conspirators and though the secret was not plainly communicated to them yet were such as the Conspirators assured themselves would certainly joyn them upon success Fourthly No such as have been Zealous promoters of branding or Tophamizing the best and most Loyal of his Maj sties Subjects as betrayers of the Nation Enemies to the King and Kingdom favourers of Popery no such as have been promoters of real Arbitrary imprisoning and punishing such of his Majesties good Subjects as in their several stations only did their Duty and discharged their Consciences in discountenancing tumultuary Petitioning and in opposing the violent courses and proceedings of the Faction For such Men are very unlikely to secure our Liberty and Property who have been such notorious invaders of them and can never be true Friends to the Crown and Government who have branded the most Loyal Subjects with the infamous character of Enemies to the King and Kingdom Fifthly None of those who have been for their being disaffected put out of the Commission of the Peace or Offices in the Militia or discarded from places of Profit Trust and Honour in the Government for they will think revenge better than Muscadine and Eggs and will study that more than to serve the Publick And for an even half dozen none of that wretched Generation of Trimmers those Janus-faced Protestants those State Otters neither Fish nor Flesh nor good red Herring Statesmen for it is a clear Case He that is not with us is against us and these pretended moderate Men are immoderately false and rotten at Core outside Friends inward and secret foes and by far more dangerous than open Enemies like Joab they kiss and stabb these if they can do no more will keep the head of the Faction above Water and in short they are too like the Devil to be trusted for like a true Trimmer where he can do no hurt as a Devil he will do it as an Angel but they are easily known the one as they say by his cloven foot and the other by his cloven tongue Put in the last place affirmatively Such Gentlemen are fit for the Publick Honour to serve their King and Country as its Representative in Parliament who have either heretofore in the late Rebellion or in these later times of disorder manifested their steady Loyalty to the King and hearty affection to the Government established in Church and State whose Reputations are not blemished by any suspicion of confederacy intimacy kindness or Correspondency either with such of the late Conspirators as are convicted or fled from the Justice of the Laws but who have given proofs of their fidelity to the Crown by opposing the Faction For these are the Men of Honour and integrity who equally detest Popery and Phanaticism Pickering's screwed Gun and Rumbolds unscrewed Blunderbusses who will really indeavour to secure the Protestant Religion and the Monarchy against their Enemies on both hands These and only such are the Men that are the true Patriots and Englishmen that will trust the King and therefore are fit to be trusted by the Country who will not only according to the Mode of the Faction make a loud clamour and Bawling of the danger of the Protestant Religion and the Kings person but apply such effectual remedies as may contribute to the real safety of both who will not only scorn to be Pensioners to France but will inable the King upon occasion to oppose the too near greatness of that Ambitious Monarchy and not like the Men of the Conspiracy cry out against French Pensioners and French Councils and yet themselves do the business of the French by tying the King of England's hands and tying up the Purse of England whose weight is only able to ballance France not amuse and incense the People with dismal stories of the danger of France and at the same time by keeping up the divisions of England augment those dangers and find the Government work enough to consult and take care of its own security at home so as neither to have Money nor leisure enough to look after or be able to prevent any dangers abroad in a word the Nation must have a new house of Commons if a new Parliament and a new Parliament if they expect any good and Peace of settlement either in Church and State at home or security and Honour abroad and therefore by clear consequence either not the Old Members with the Old Principles or the Old Principles with New Men. It is very probable however that the Dissenting Faction will not abandon all their hopes but being still in many places animated by the Principal Men of their Party and led by their ill Destiny to pull down vengeance upon their own heads it is possible they will struggle hard in some Elections to over vote the Loyalists and obtrude the same or Men of the same leaven upon the Nation Now though I know nothing that obliges me to give them good advice but pure Compassion yet I would desire them to look before they leap and if they have not forfeited all their share of Common discretion to see where their Interest lies Every man that hath but a grain of sence will consult his own advantage and before
by Law and secured by most Sacred Oaths they necessarily and unavoidably forced the People into a manifest and damnable Perjury on the one hand or the other For if they took the Covenant as they compelled all Men so far as they were able to do all those who indeavoured the Extirpation of Episcopacy and the Common Prayer were guilty of the Breach of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and if they did not indeavour it they were by their Covenant perjured and forsworn So that here was Arbitrary Tyranny with a Vengeance not only over the Lives Liberties and Estates but over the Souls and Consciences of the People of these three Nations in general such an Arbitrary Power as the Devil himself could not have exceeded unless in that downright Traiterous and Damnable Engagement which they afterwards imposed point blank contrary to the Oath of Allegiance their Protestation and the Covenant too for maintaining the Priviledges of Parliament by which they obliged the Takers To be true to the Government as it was then Established without a King and House of Lords And now for their great pretence of securing the Nation against Popery what Advantage could that be to the People after they had done their uttermost Indeavours to Damn them Eternally by an Universal Perjury For my part I can see very little difference in the Case whether a Man goes to the Devil for Perjury or Popery and I believe such of them as have tried will find it comes all to a Reckoning But after all the Noise I do not find upon the matter that the Nation was ever a whit the more secured from Popery but on the contrary that Popish Principles every where gained ground upon the Nation and that Priests and Jesuits in the Dress of the several Sects were as busie as ever and that by the very force of the Argument of our Divisions and by the kind usage of those who were driven into Exile by these Protestants they made more Proselytes in twenty Years then they had done in a Hundred before It was a very notable Observation of Dr. Laud the suffering Archbishop of Canterbury in his Speech upon the Scaffold in the Year 1644. I pray God said that admirable Prelate who as he there tells us lost his Head upon the Popular Clamour of Venient Romani this Clamor of Venient Romani of which I have given no Cause hasten not to bring them in for the Pope never had such a Harvest in England since the Reformation as he hath now upon the Sects and Divisions that are among us And after all what did it signifie to keep out one Great Pope and let in a thousand little ones just as much as if Belzebub had been cast out and the whole Legion of lesser Devils left behind in him that was possessed For the plain Truth is they kept out the Pope but kept in Popery the rankest and most mischievous Doctrines and Practices of the worst of Men of that Religion What Mariana Allen Suarez and other traiterous Jesuits had writ concerning the Deposing and Murdering of Princes they Aced and from these Authors they borrowed Arguments to justifie their Rebellion and the blackest of Crimes And whereas the Papacy was by so many Laws driven out of England for Errors in Doctrine for Sedition Rebellion and Treason against the Monarchy and Government in Principles and Practices there was not one Error or Heresie in all the Romish Religion which was Treasonable by the Laws but what was put in practice by these Pope-Haters And for the other Errors of a lower Form what was wanting of Transubstantiation Purgatory Masses Prayers to the Saints c. was abundantly supplied by ten thousand other Errors and Heresies which were held maintained and propagated by the several Sects which were tolerated by them under the notion of Liberty for Tender Consciences and such Errors as were destructive not only of the Reformed but of all manner of Christian Religion Such as denying the Articles of the Creed the Divinity of Christ the Validity and Infallibility of the Scriptures the Obligation of the Moral Law the Immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the Body the Lawfulness of an Oath the Necessity of a Priesthood or Sacraments the Doctrine of the Trinity and innumerable others which were held and maintained by the several Schismaticks of the Nation and preached to the deluded People for saving Truths whereas they were indeed most damnable Heresies Thus did they secure the Nation from Popery and kept out the Whore of Babylon by letting in the Devil of Babel and letting open a hundred Gates to Hell under pretence of stopping up one Let the best Manager of the Faction now shew us where the Government hath since the first of Queen Eliz. made one single step towards a return to Rome or to any other of those damnable Errors and Heresies which are every whit as dangerous to the Peace and Quiet of the Nation and to the well-being and happiness of both the Souls Bodies and Societies of Mankind So that now to come to my Story again since it doth plainly appear in Fact that the King and the Government have never deceived us in their Promises to secure us against Popery and Arbitrary Power and that on the other side the Faction notwithstanding all their fair Pretences and repeated Covenants Engagements Vows Protestations and Promises have broken with us in every one of these particulars a thousand and a thousand times over we must be not only most stupidly besotted but infatuated and bewitched if either we believe such notorious Deceivers any longer or if for the future we do not repose an absolute and intire Confidence in the Goodness and Wisdom Justice and Honour of the King and Government when they give us such repeated Assurances and such undeniable Demonstration that they will protect us in the Enjoyment of our Laws Liberties Properties and Religion And if we could once get clear of ibis Rub which the Faction have always thrown as a stumbling Block in the Peoples Way we should with less difficulty get over the second For if the Nation as the wise Alderman said were but assured and secure and that they may be as much as of any thing in this World that under the Protection of the Government they should enjoy their Laws Liberty and Religion they would then certainly for their own Sakes be not only willing but forward to supply the Crown with Mony not only in a bare proportion to the necessity of the Charges which constantly attend the Government but also to provide such certain Supports as might secure the Crown against any incident and unforeseen Accidents and maintain the Honor and Dignity of it so as to make it sit easie upon the Royal Head All this is certainly the Duty as well as Interest of the People his Majesties loving Subjects of all degrees of this Nation for it is the highest Reason and Justice in the World that a common
and seeing they cannot make a better use of it 't is the best way of employing their Talent for them to the publick good and safety of the Nation and thereby prevent their running to the Gallows and the Devil too and losing all I know Mr. Trimmer will presently be upon my bones with the danger of exasperating a Party so considerable as the Dissenting Brotherhood would have us upon occasion believe they are though I fancy if every Conventicler in England were to be taxed three shillings to my one they would all like the Scotch man cry I 'se eat Peark and the Porridg too of Common Prayer and dwindle into a very pitiful Muster-Roll but by Mr. Trimmer's favour and for all his fear of running them upon Extremities they are mightily out of love with Hemp and wry Faces and I believe they are now already as mad as Malice and Despair can make them but as curst as they are they know their Horns are as short And if they be so dangerous when they are angry it is the more necessary to abate their strength for my life for yours Mr. Trimmer if they want money they will not want wit in their anger and most certainly they who are so apt to be angry and whose anger is capable of transporting them to such Extremities as to flie in the face of the Government ought like Mastiffs and Bull Doggs to be well muzzled that they may not bite though they bark never so fiercely And if this be their Temper that they have not duty enough for God and the King to secure them against Rebellion it is most sure that they will be no longer quiet or honest than they are kept so by wanting opportunity and strength to shew their anger and flie to Extremities Fear only restrains them Love and tenderness never did never will And so long as they have Power they will be dangerous let us take that from them and then let Mr. Trimmer and his Exasperado's do their worst But let the wayes of raising be never so just and necessary easie and advantageous for the support safety and Dignity of the Government how we shall come by this Mony will be the next inquiry Truly I know no other way but by a Loyal and brave House of Commons And for my own particular I cannot see the least Cloud to darken the Prospect but that whenever the King shall please to call a Parliament the next Elections will generally fall upon such Worthy and Loyal Gentlemen as will effectually do the business of the King and the Nation And the Faction have by their late actions and the discovery of their Execrable Conspiracy laid themselves and their wicked Intentions so open and exposed to the detestation of the whole World that I cannot conceive in any future Parliament there should be found in any Gentleman so much wanting to his own Reputation as to appear a Patron or Advocate for such a sort of People as stand convicted of ill Designs against the Government as the Mony-opposers and Dissenters do And though possibly some few of the same Persons with their Old Principles may get again into the Commons House yet I am apt to think they will be very cautious of their Words since it may be the turn of the Loyal Party too to call to the Barr and purge the House of Associators Exclusioners the Men of Shaftsbury the Grey Coats and Monmouth Caps It may happen that the Votes and Voters of Eighty may be as low in Reputation in the Opinion of the House and all honest and Loyal Men out of it as those of 40 and 41 and that some persons who used to be liberal Speakers heretofore may sit there as if they were in the School of Pythagoras with their Fingers either in or upon their Mouths a better way to deserve the Title of the Wisdom of the Nation which they have so much affected than by making such Speeches as will not be heard with Patience nor go off with Impunity And since before the Elections of the late Parliaments the Faction used lustily to bestir themselves to give aim it is but one good turn for another if we pay them in their own Coin For their List of Vnanimous Votes which they impudently Printed purposely to expose so many Worthy and Loyal Gentlemen to the contempt and hatred of the People and to hinder them from being Elected into future Parliaments it were easie to repay them with a List of Nemine Contradicente's That the King should neither have Mony nor Credit to take up any upon the Reputation of his Revenue It were easie to give a Catalogue of such as were Zealous by the Bill of Exclusion to turn the Monarchy from an Hereditary and Lineal Descent into an El ctive Parliamentary Title and for backing this with an Association to enable the Dissenters to take up Arms under the pretence of securing his Majesties Person to destroy both Him and the Government according to the Printed Vote of Dec. 15. 1680. When it was Resolved c. That a Bill be brought in for an Association of all his Majesties * By which was alwayes in the Cant of the Faction understood Dissenters Protestant Subjects for the safety of his Majesties Person the Defence of the Protestant Religion the Preservation of his Majesties Protestant Subjects against all †That word is well expounded in the Trial of the Conspirators Invasions and Oppositions * Not excepting the King whatsoever and for preventing the Duke of York or any Papist from succeeding to the Crown It were easie to mark every individual person who was then busie in promoting the Common-Wealth Design some of which as Trenchard Booth Hambden and the late L. Russel are now sufficiently detected and some of them rewarded according to their Traiterous Practices But their Names as well as Actions are publick enough in the Printed Votes and the Nation knows them to a man and therefore I need not waste Paper to repeat them But in regard I think it is the Duty of every good Subject who loves the King and wishes well to England to contribute all that lies in his Power that such Gentlemen may be chosen and sent to represent them in the next Parliament as may comport themselves within the bounds of Duty and affectionate Loyalty to the King such as will pursue the true interest of the Kingdom by securing the Government and Peace of both Church and State I cannot think it amiss to offer some Qualifications requisite to recommend such Persons to the Considerations of the Freeholders and Freemen of England as may speak them fit for that great Trust and Honour And therefore first negatively No such Persons as have been either open or secret favourers of the Dissenters and courted by them Such of all men are most unfit for it is most certain that no good can be expected from them who are imbarqued in an interest diametrically opposite to the Church
THE Present Interest OF ENGLAND OR A CONFUTATION OF THE Whiggish Conspiratours Anti-Monyan Principle SHEWING From REASON and EXPERIENCE The ways to make the GOVERNMENT Safe The KING Great The PEOPLE Happy MONEY Plentifull and TRADE Flourish Omne tulit punctum LONDON Printed for Thomas Dring at the Harrow at the Corner of Chancery-Lane in Fleetstreet 1682. TO THE READER SIR IF you are an honest Loyal Gentleman and to such I write here are some things in the following Papers which I doubt not but you will judge to be conformable to the Title and the Present Interest of England if so you will doe your self right if you indeavour to promote the knowledge of it to your Friends and Neighbours the Price will not affright you if you dispatch one or two of them to your Country Acquaintance It is not vanity of foolish Opinion in the performance puts me upon this humour but that once in our lives we may come even with the Factious Whiggish Conspiratours who have left no Corner of the Nation unpoisoned with their Appeals their Vox Populi's their Growths of Popery and whatever might help to subvert the Government And if there can be any reason given why we should be less industrious considering what we must expect from them should they ever prevail to support the Government and secure our selves I will be contented to be thought very impertinent both in my Design and the request which is made by SIR Your most humble Servant N. N. THE Present Interest OF ENGLAND IT is now almost a Century of years since this Nation the Glory of all Islands the Mistress of the Ocean fitted by Nature and the very complexion of its Martial Sea-faring and numerous Inhabitants if not for the Empire yet to give Laws to the Peace and Traffick of the Universe England hath languished under the wasting Hectick of its own intestine Disorders the miserable Scars of our Civil Wounds and unnatural as well as unreasonable Dissentions are but still too visible marks of our past folly and present weakness To what degrees of Glory and Reputation in the World the English Name and Nation might have been advanced had those Conquering Arms that Valiant Blood and those Prodigious Treasures which were so prodigally expended in the late Rebellion been employed for the Honour and Advantage of the Kingdom it is almost impossible to make any near conjecture but most assuredly Alexander and Caesar rendered themselves Masters of the Greatest Empires of the Earth at a far less Expence of Blood and Treasure A Consideration capable of transporting Generous Spirits into an excess of Indignation and the most just abhorrence of those men and Principles whose Turbulent and Ambitious Actions have robbed the English Nation at once of so much Glory abroad Peace Men and Money at home as might have made the British Diadem shine among the most Illustrious of the Vniverse But what Patience is able to support the assaults of those afflicting Considerations that whereas we might have rendered our selves the most potent formidable happy and flourishing People of the World we have by our own madness and Civil Rage not only lessened our own Strength and Glory but have at the same time and by the same ways advanced the Power and dangerous Reputation of our Neighbours who seem to owe whatever they possess that is Great or Formidable more to our brutish and wretched Folly to give it no worse Character then to their own Prudence Conduct or Extraordinary Policy France and Holland who can now upon occasion cover the Narrow Seas with Hostile Sails must have been still contented as formerly to beg Permission for a few Fishing Boats to spread their toiling Canvass upon the English Main had the tenth part of the Money which was consumed in Rebellion been employed to maintain the Royal Prerogative of our Princes and the just Dominion which they have in Right of their Imperial Crown over the four Seas It was a sharp Observation which Mounsieur the Duc Rohan made concerning England in his Book entituled Interest des Estates Angleterre est un Grand Animal qui ne mourira jamais s'il nese tue luy mesme England is a great Animal which can never dye unless she Kill her self By-standers it seems will ever see more then Gamesters otherwise one would think it impossible that this French Duke should see at so remote a distance what some of our Dukes Lords and Commons too will not see at the nearest view that if ever England perish it must be by her own hands but the truth is they do see it too plainly have therefore entertained those hopes to satisfie their own ambition by the common ruin and how deeply this Nation therefore stands indebted to those People who have taken such Immortal pains to Ruin it by intestine Wars and to weaken it by continual Disorders and Commotions within it self I think to our shame as well as irreparable dammage is obvious to all the neighbouring World We seem now to be upon the very turn of our Affairs and there appears a promising Crisis and favourable Prospect of Recovery and tho' it is at all times yet more especially in such a conjuncture certainly it is a Duty which every Englishman ows to God his Prince and Country to endeavour to promote the Peace and Happiness the Tranquility and Glory of his Native Soil and he is unworthy to reap the advantages and priviledges which the Subjects of this Kingdom Enjoy beyond any other in the World under the most admirable Constitution of the English Laws and Monarchy who shall refuse or neglect at such a time to lend his utmost assistance to support maintain and defend it and to contribute what he can towards the Recovery of this Nation from its disorders and distractions to its pristine State of Strength and Glory Now the certain method for the Recovery of that true condition of health in the Body Politique seems to depend upon our right understanding of what it is that hath hurt us and what will help us The last of these necessarily depends upon the knowledge of the first For if we once knew from what Causes all our former mischiefs have taken their Original the removing those Causes will certainly cease the dangerous Effects and afford us an Easie as well as an undoubted Cure Now there are two things upon which the rebellious Antimonarchical Faction of the Nation to whom we are owing for all our Miseries have ever laid the whole stress weight of their wicked Designs and from the good or ill success of those two great Engines they have always stated the measures of their hopes The first hath been to distress the Crown the second to distract and disaffect the People By the one they divest the King of those necessary supports which should enable him to keep up the Strength Honor and Dignity of the Government And by the other they disrobe him of the hearts and affections of the
People and these being the two Pillars of the Throne the shaking and undermining of these must needs make it totter and be in danger of sinking both in its Interest abroad and its Power and Reputation at home I do not now write a bare supposition but plain matter of Fact both these particulars and such matter of Fact as hath in a thousand dismal Instances produced in this Nation from these Causes the most deplorable Effects Even the total Ruin of the whole Frame of the Government the subversion of the Monarchy the overthrow of the Established Religion the intire loss of our Magna Charta English Laws and Liberties the solemn Murther of a most Righteous just wise and Excellent King the slaughter of many thousands of Loyal Subjects of all degrees the banishment or imprisonment of others the Sacrilegious Robbing and irreligious defacing of Churches those Monuments of Piety Antiquity the Confiscations plundering Arbitrary Taxing and Spoiling of the Free-born People of their Legal Property in their Goods and Estates to such degrees as surpasseth the skill of the ablest Accomptants to make a true Estimate of and were it possible to state the accompt and take a perfect audit of all the Expences in the late wicked Rebellion the incredible Summs then profusely wasted would not only Exceed belief but every thing except the Crimes of thoses men who were the black contrivers of the occasion of those Expences and that irreparable Damage of the Nation and if as 't is usually observed the English Nation be such lovers of their Money and their Liberty one would think they might here find sufficient reason to detest and abhor these Factious men and Principles who have once robbed them of both these and have offered so fair to do it a second time be so wise for the future as never to suffer themselves to be imposed upon by such notorious Impostors and Pretences and that they may be enabled to do so it is to be observed That in order to the accomplishment of the first of these Designs the Distressing of the Crown the continual Address and Labour of the Faction hath been employed in these two things first to shorten the Prerogative and clip the wings of it in all its several Branches Secondly Either to deny those legal Aids of Money by Subsidies and other wayes absolutely necessary to support the Charges of the Government or to give them so sparingly as not to answer the unavoidable Expences of the Crown and this too out of pretended good Husbandry and Frugality for the Nation and with perpetual quarrelling at the publique Ministers and Eternal Complaints of the mis-mannagement of the Treasure when as in truth the real design of this popular Parsimony was to keep the Prince's Exchequer at low water mark and to have opportunity to barter with him for some part of his Prerogative and for every penny granted still to have some Jewel or other out of the Crown My narrow limits will not allow me to descend to particulars but whoever doubts the truth of this let them consult our Histories and they will presently receive satisfaction that since the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in whose latter years the Faction began to appear numerous troublesome the Prerogative has constantly diminished in proportion as the power and confidence of the turbulent Faction hath been augmented insomuch that that Queen in the 35th year of her Reign Anno 1592. sent Mr. Peter Wentworth an Sir Henry Bromely to the Tower where Wentworth dyed only for delivering a Petition to the Lord Keeper desiring the Lords to become Suppliants with them of the Lower House unto Her Majesty for Entailing the Succession of the Crown for which purpose there was a Bill ready drawn and Priviledge of Parliament did not then so much as once openly murmur against Prerogative whereas when King Charles the First upon an Impeachment of High Treason came in person and demanded Five Members of the Commons House the whole Nation was put into as great a flame and combustion with the Intrenching of Prerogative upon Priviledge as if the King had come with Fauxes dark Lanthorn to give Fire to a Mine which should have blown up that and all future Parliaments But though the Enemies of the Monarchy endeavoured to lessen the Power of the Crown in this particular of Prerogative yet this was nothing so dangerous as the withdrawing necessary Supplies of money For Treasure is the very Vital Spirit of the Government and according to the proportion which it enjoyes of that active metal the Pulse of the Government will certainly beat either full and strong or weak and languishing Sine vectigalibus nullum Imperium diu subsistere potest saith the Politick Historian And this the Blessed Son of God himself hath confirmed both by his Doctrine and Practice for tho' his Kingdom was not of this World yet he so well understood that the Government of the Kingdoms of this World were to be supported by Tributes and was so sensible of the necessity of Government for the common benefit of Mankind and that this Common benefit ought to be supported at a Common charge that for our Example he would not Exempt himself from paying Tribute but wrought a Miracle to furnish his Quota of the Tax imposed upon his Nation that so he might contribute his proportion to the maintaining of the Government and this tho' our Antimonarchical Demogogues know so well yet notwithstanding his positive Precept to render to Caesar the things that are Caesars he must work a greater Miracle to persuade them to comply with their Duty and his Command and if there were no better Christians or Subjects then the men of the Faction notwithstanding this indispensible Law and Precept the more obedient Fishes must bring their Miraclous Tribute and Subsidies to the Exchequer or else the Crown must starve and Fall or which is worse fall into their usurping hands My Lord Shaftsbury's infamous Speech to this purpose is still fresh in all mens memories and indeed I think it was so good a peice of Service in discovering the great Secret and the Design of the Faction that it ought never to be forgotten If you part with your Money c. the Nation is betrayed From whence it is Evident what stress his Lordship who was then the Oraculous Mouth of the Faction laid upon this matter of Supplies and granting money to the King For he and the next of his fellow Inspirators as is since discovered and was then by all knowing and honest men justly suspected were then busily complotting with Security to themselves how to overthrow this most admirable and ancient Monarchy and this they took to be the most certain Expedient to effect it It is probable that at that time he and his Associates were not advanced to those infatuated degrees and methods of desperation and madness to which the blasting of their Hopes and Designs by the Breath of Heaven and its Miraculous Providences
for 300000 l. per annum which was the utmost that ever the Ship-mony was computed to amount to they levied by Taxes Excise Publick Faith Contributions Sequestrations Free quarter and plunder a large sum above so many Millions in the year and yet then the stupid People could not be persuaded to believe but that their Arbitrary Tyrants and Illegal Oppressors were their great Friends and their lawful King and his Ministers their greatest Enemies and though the Faction exercised actually that Arbitrary Power which they only accused the King with designing yet the besotted People would still believe them innocent and suspect the King to be guilty There are two things of which all mankind are naturally most infinitely tender the Liberty of their Persons and the Property of their Estates and a third which all men pretend to be wonderfully Zealous for and that is their Religion though of late we have seen that they who have the least share of it and by their Actions the least value for it have made the most noise and clamour about the danger of losing it and in probability they did so too in former times but these are three things which the Faction have constantly endeavoured to possess the People with a belief that they were in the utmost danger of losing and that this danger proceeded from the ill Designs which the Government had against them and further that if the worthy Patriots of the Faction had not opposed the Court Popery and Arbitrary Power had long since robbed the Nation of whatever is most valuable in this world And it is incredible not only what Art and Industry hath been used to infuse this intoxicating Poison into the heads of the People thereby to inspire them with Fears Jealousies and hatred of the Government and to countenance the denial of Supplies which the People were made believe by the men of Shaftsbury if granted was but to contribute towards betraying their own Interest and Liberty and to enable the King and Government to impose upon them and their Posterity the Shackles and Manacles of future slavery but is also most wonderful what success the strong impressions of these Forgeries Falshoods and Calumnies have had amongst the People All the Tongues and the most virulent Pens of the Faction have for this forty years and upwards been continually employed in creating and infusing these Fears and Jealousies into the heads of the People and in improving them to raise in the People a distrust dislike and hatred against the King and Government This was the very method by which the late wicked Rebels debauched the minds of the People and withdrew them from their Affection Loyalty Duty and Allegiance to the King and having once prevailed with them to cancel those obligations they bewitched them still with new or repeated Fears and Jealousies into a most execrable Rebellion which was carried on by all the steps of Cruelty Injustice and Tyranny and consummated in the utter overthrow of the Established Government the destruction of the Church the subversion of the Crown and the most infamous and barbarous cutting off the Sacred Head that wore it And how far the modern Conspirators proceeded and advanced by the very same steps towards the accomplishment of the late damnable Conspiracy there are as many Witnesses as Subjects in the Nation who have taken any notice of the actions of the Faction which will therefore supersede the trouble of recounting Let it suffice to say in short that there hath nothing been left unsaid unwritten unprinted or undone from the Right Honourable and Right Worshipful to the meanest Whifflers of the Faction From the Lord Shaftsbury with his Speech of a Noble Peer to pitiful Care Curtis Smith and Harris with their Pacquets Appeals Intelligences and Vox Populis from the very Parliament House down to the Coffee-house from the City to the Country from the spawning and licentious Press the Conventicle Pulpit down even to the scolding blew Apron Rethorick which might be any ways thought conducive towards incensing the People of all Ranks and Degrees in the Nation against the King and the Government and to push them headlong into a second Rebellion And when all these ways failed the Ring-leaders of the Faction driven on by the Fury of their ill Destiny betook themselves to the desperate Refuge of raising Insurrections and that most Execrable design of Assassination of the King the Duke and all those who had in any measure rendred themselves conspicuous for their Loyalty in opposing the Attempts of the Faction and adhering to the Crown and Government in their distress By this time it is easie to see what it is that hath hurt us and it will then be no difficult matter to tell what it is that will help us For if these unreasonable Fears and Jealousies for our Liberty Property and Religion and the denying of necessary supplies of Mony to the Crown have been the Occasions of all those Disturbances and Dangers which have for these late years distracted this Nation then by undeniable consequence the taking off those Weights will immediately surcease those violent motions which have so disordered our affairs and restore Tranquility Peace and Happiness to the Nation All the difficulty rests in persuading the People to make use of these Expedients for though they may be convinced of the necessity and usefulness of the Medicine yet it is not without difficulty that they are to be induced to take Physick Especially this opening of the Mony Vein makes them shrink as much as if they were to part with as many drops of blood as they are to drop pence I cannot tell what effect the Experiment will have but I will endeavour to try if I can make it appear to be the true Interest of the Nation first to damm the sluice of these Fears and Jealousies and secondly to set open the Mony Gate and let in a Fresh Spring into the Exchequer For the first of these the exploding and for ever banishing those destructive Jealousies and disturbing Fears of the danger of Innovation in Religion and setting up of Arbitrary Government in the State I will not spin out a long and tedious discourse upon any of the Common Topiques made use of upon this subject but I will tell the Reader a story which if well applied will give a Supersedeas to any other Arguments When at the beginning of the late Rebellion there were some overtures of an accommodation to the King at Oxon the City of London sent a Petition by some of their Aldermen who being admitted into the Presence Alderman Garret undertook to be then Speaker and told the King that his Majesty had many times promised to secure their Religion Laws and Liberties and Sir said he could we but be secure and assured that you would do so we would soon make an end of the business At this pretty confidence of the Aldermans the whole Court had much to do to forbear laughing outright but
he adventures upon any thing the consequences whereof may be very great consider seriously of the matter and make a computation of what gain or loss it may be to him and truely if they do not now in this conjuncture they will no longer be the sober Party but act like rash inconsiderable Bedlams and men drunk with Rage and desperation I would therefore as a true Friend that would have them see the worst of their Case advise them first to look up and see what time of the day it is with them for upon the matter they will find that the Sun of their Hopes is just upon setting in a black Cloud of Eternal Night They will find that they have nothing in the World left to expect unless some Miracles to which they may trust their Expiring Cause They will find that the House of David is grown and will grow overy day stronger and their House of Saul forsaken of God every moment weaker They will find that the Nation is thoroughly awakened with the danger of Blood and Confusion in which the Leaders of their Faction had designed to involve it And what can they now possibly hope for by opposing the Government and the Loyal Party of the Nation by endeavouring to send disaffected Representatives to the Parliament there is scarcely a bare possibility considering how many will every where for very shame fall off from them as well as others out of fear or honesty that they should gain a Majority in the Commons House and if they fail in that the disturbance which they have made and the endeavours to oppose the Loyal Party will oblige them to inforce the Execution of the Penal Laws against them and to provide greater severities for the future For if they shall now dare to struggle with the Government and make disturbances when they are under all the disadvantages imaginable it will shew that they are a People of such desperate as well as dangerous Principles that there cannot be too great Caution used nor too great care taken by the utmost severity of Laws and the due Execution of them to take away their strength suppress them and hinder the growth and progress of such Principles and numbers of Men as in time may be fatal to the Government And were it possible which truly they must be of very sanguine tempers that can hope it that the Faction should get such another House of Commons according to their wishes yet what would they be the better for it since there is no hopes of a Perpetual Session And because they shall have an easie way how to compute what they may get for the future I would desire them to take Pen Ink and Paper and set down what they have got already by the former disturbances of this nature which they have given the Nation I am of opinion when they have stated the matter they may put all the gains in their Eyes and whereas we commonly say see ne'er the worse I fancy it will make them see much the better see their folly and madness and if they have any remainders of prudence or discretion teach them to leave trading upon that New-found-land-bank of a Common-wealth where they will catch nothing but had I Fish and Poor John There was a time when they had some hopes they can have none now for most certainly the Nation will never be at rest till it hath by repeated trials and changes purged off this old Commonwealth Scurvy and got a sound new Representative Body and till it comes to that period the Dissenters who are the onely hinderers and opposers of it must expect to be treated by the Laws and Government as the enemies of the peace and happiness the quiet and settlement of the Kingdom The Government may be very tender and unwilling to proceed to extremities of severity but when it shall appear that compassion to the Dissenters and the Enemies of the Government is cruelty to it self and to all the Loyalists its true Friends the Dissenters have little reason to promise themselves impunity or that the Government will run the hazzard of disobliging Friends and turning them into Enemies in hopes of making their Old Enemies New Friends And the Dissenters cannot take any course more effectual to convince the whole Nation of the necessity of such severe procedures against them than by making such opposition to the peace and settlement of it by sending or indeavouring to send ill men to the Representative Body And they may assure themselves that particular notice will be taken in every place of all such Dissenters to a man as make it their business to set up or vote for ill Men and they will be sure to be remembred upon occasion Whereas would they be contented with the liberty and indulgence which the Laws allow them which truly are very great would they leave stickling creating disturbances and exasperating the Nation against them they may reasonably hope to enjoy the favours already allowed them which otherwise they will also in the conclusion be sure to lose But if they would hear reason I would advise them to an intire submission to the Laws and Government in Church and State this will be the best way of uniting Protestant Dissenters for them to unite with the Church of England where they will infallibly learn two short Lessons which will save their Purses their Persons and their Souls Truly to fear God and honour the King This is their indispensible duty This is their true interest This would make them easie the Government safe and the Nation happy And if they shall obstinately persist to oppose all these they will declare themselves open Enemies to God and the King the Church and the Kingdom and must expect as a reward of their Actions not onely the hatred of the Nation but the severity of such punishments in this World as are justly allotted to the common Enemies of Mankind and humane Society but also that dreadfull Damnation hereafter which the great Apostle as an Oracle of God hath intailed upon all such as resist the Higher Powers whose command to the contrary is absolute is peremptory is universal Let every Soul be subject to the Higher Powers and that for Conscience sake for the Powers that be are ordained of God so that they who resist the Higher Powers resist God himself and what the issue of such a Combat will prove I need not tell them but heartily wish they may by repentance escape the dreadfull end of those men who for speaking evil of Dignities and despising Dominions must certainly perish in the gainsaying of Corah that Primitive Dissenter I have but a few words more to add and those are to the Loyal Party that they would not be less assiduous to support the Government than the Conspiratours and Faction have been to subvert it and since the happy turn of their Affairs doth in so great a measure depend upon the good constitution of their Representatives that therefore