have been so long established without any respect to Religion by the Salique or Original Laws of France Hereupon the League in Imitation and after the Pattern of which the Solemn League and Covenant was formed or Rebellion grew so high as to beat the King out of Paris where the Guisards had a design to sieze upon his sacred Person shut him up like King Chilperick in a Monastery and set up the silly old Cardinal Bourbon the King of Navar 's Uncle to Reign in his stead But the King escaping from Paris sheltered himself in Chartres where to compose Differences he issued out Writs to call together the three Estates which much resemble our Parliaments at Blois Thither the Deputies or Members repair some for the King but far more for the Cursed League and therefore the Guisards finding themselves more potent than the Royalists insisted almost on nothing else but securing the Roman Catholick Religion by declaring the King of Navarre because an Heretick uncapable of Succeeding to the most Christian Crown You see Cousin what a Parallel there is between those times and ours excepting First that there are no Priests and Jesuits to second such a Design in England as there were in France But to supply that Defect there may be found men as fit in all points as they in Black to stir up the People to Discontent and Rebellion I mean the same sort of Persons that Preached up the late Bloody War who really are the Bastard-brood of the Monastick and Jesuitical Emissaries though they bear not the Names of their Fathers but like Bastards are disowned by those that begot them The Seditious Principles Preached and Printed by them in the late Times are Evident Proofs of what Race they are come And as a man may Travel so far West till at last he come to the same Eastern Point from which he did set out so you Cousin and your Brethren have gone so far from the Church of Rome that you are some I believe unawares come thither again as is unanswerably proved by Lysimachus Nicanor lately reprinted at Oxford in his Letter of Congratulation to the Kirk But Secondly the Parallel fails in this too That his Royal Highness is not a declared Papist as the King of Navarre was a declared Protestant nor has yet openly renounced the Communion of the Church of England for which his blessed Father died a Martyr And therefore of the two our English Guisards are much more to blame in representing his Royal Highness as a Papist which is so difficult to imagine him Strictly to be But furthermore upon supposition he were a declared Papist the Proposal of my Lord Chose was very ridiculous since it did suppose a possibility of prevailing with his Majesty to Disinherit his Royal Brother who must needs be so much dearer to him than the King of Navarre was to Henry III. as he is nearer in Blood And for my own part I cannot but imagine at this distance that his Majesty who is a Prince incomparably wiser and juster then was Henry III. of France must needs disdain and abhor such a Proposal which were it Enacted it would enervate the Laws of Succession by which He and His Ancestors have hitherto Reigned and give a greater Blow to the English Monarchy than that which cut off His Royal Fathers Head I have here forborn to give you an Account of the Tragical End of the Duke of Guise which is a Lesson well worth your Learning and may teach all Persons so disposed as he was how unsafe it is to provoke Soveraign Authority since the goodness of the best of Kings like the infinite Goodness of God himself whose Ministers they are may at length be so injured and affronted as to be forced to sharpen it self into Sovereign Vengeance and Justice And therefore Cousin let me advise you if not for Conscience yet for Wraths sake to have nothing to do in Blowing up the Flames of Sedition Nor let your Soul enter into the secret of my Lord though his Interest among the Senators as you write be so very considerable and strong You likewise forget your self in miscalling the Execution of the late Laws by the odious name of Persecution which if you can prove to be such according to the Scriptural notion of Persecution viz. Infliction of Evil for Righteousness sake then will I become your Proselyte and forsake the Church of England as much as I have this Idolatrous Church of Rome For no man is persecuted but either for immediate matters of Divine Worship which concern the First Table or with respect to matters of Morality or a Good Life which concern the Second With respect to the First a man is persecuted either on a negative account for not worshiping a False God as the three Children in Daniel or for not worshipping the True in a False way as St. Paul and the other Apostles were persecuted by the Pharisees for not worshipping the True God according to the Jewish manner after it was abrogated Or as our Fore fathers in England For not worshiping God and our Saviour after the Romish Rites Or Secondly on a positive account For worshipping the true God in a way that is true or to express it yet more clearly and absolutely in your own terms For serving of God as Daniel was cast into the Lyons Den for praying to God against the King's Decree With respect to the Second A man is also persecuted on a negative account For not doing something which is in its own nature or by Gods positive command morally evil as the good Midwives were afraid to be persecuted by Pharaoh for not murthering the Hebrew Infants Or else on a positive account for doing some good moral action which ought in such and such circumstances to be done and thus was our blessed Saviour persecuted for opening the eyes of the blind man and for healing on the Sabbath-day Now these distinctions being premised tell me in which of these cases you are Persecuted or which is all one for what you are Confessors and Martyrs For no man is persecuted but as he is persecuted he is a Confessor or Martyr and by his sufferings bears witness to the Truth With respect to the Second head you cannot say that you are persecuted and therefore let me see whether you are so with respect to the first And First 't is plain that you do suffer for not worshiping a false God and 't is likewise as plain that you do not suffer for not worshipping the true God in a false way For first the Laws whose Execution you mis-call Persecution do not punish you for not worshiping God after our way or if they did to prove their Execution to be Persecution you must First prove that the Church of England whose Doctrine is down right against Idolatry and Superstition does worship God in an Idolatrous and Superstitious manner which good Cousin you know can never be proved There remains nothing then but to assert
That you are punished for serving God or for Worshipping God in a way which you are sure is true That you worship God in a true way I verily believe and could heartily joyn with you in other circumstances But then you are not punished for worshipping God in that manner for the same Laws you complain of allow you to worship God in what fashion you please and not only you but your Family be it as great as it will and lastly not only your Family but Five Persons more Which allowance were you the only Christians in the World and the Magistrates Heathens or which your Friends are more likely to suggest were they Papists or Atheists is so far from being Persecution that were you of the temper of the Primitive Christians you would esteem it as a great priviledg and instead of reviling thank the kind Magistrate for the same But then if on the contrary hand you be considered and many good English men and good Christians cannot but consider you as a sort of men that have formerly raised a most Unnatural Rebellion and now make Schism in the Church and Broyles in the State the punishments you suffer and complain so loudly off will be so far from seeming Persecution of you as Christians that they will rather seem your just Desert as Factious and Turbulent Subjects And I assure you that your Brethren in France whom you falsly so call and for whom you pretend so great respect are so far from Judging you persecuted that they will not excuse you but wonder at your non-submission to the Church and pity your mistakes that make you stand out against the Laws They that have seen and examined our English Liturgy which is Printed at Geneva in French cannot understand your Notion of Persecution And Ministre Claude the most famous of them all for Piety and Learning told me in the presence of many others after a Discourse wherein he said all for you that could be said that he wondred how the Presbyterians in England could rend the Peace of the Church for such little indifferent matters and that if he were in England he would be of the Episcopal Party and heartily submit himself to the Discipline and Government of the Church of England And if you would do so too how happy a thing would this be both for your selves and the Nation Or seeing as you pretend you cannot yet at least live Peaceably and forbear to trouble the World with compassing Sea and Land that is by doing all that you can like your Fathers the old Pharisees to make Proselytes when yet you cannot shew any sinful condition of Communion with the Church of England nor prove your way of Worship as Apostolical as that of hers from which out of Pride Interest or Ignorance or partly altogether you Dissent I am sure this would rather become the Dissenting Brethren then to Foment Divisions Raise Parties betake themselves to the wickedest of Men as of late to and cry up the Kings Prerogative which they formerly cried down which with many other self-contradictions confirms me in an opinion you know I was of before That in those matters wherein you differ from us you are men of no Principles and know not where to fix I have Enlarged upon this Theam more than I thought to do at first because the Papists here in France complain as loudly as you of the cruelty of our Ecclesiastical Laws and cry out wherever they come how their Brethren have been and still are Persecuted among us though with this difference that in disputing ad hominem their case is far more reasonable and pleadable then yours As for you I protest tho' the Laws you complain off look like hard Laws when I consider you as Free born Subjects of England yet when I consider you as Head-strong Turbulent and Factious Subjects I cannot but think them just and good and I will maintain that the Execution of them would not be Persecution altho' you were the only true Christians in the World For as I hinted before you have the Liberty in your Houses to profess what Religion you please and to worship God in what manner you will And for fear your Family should not be a just Congregation you may have five more But for fear you should do as you have formerly done you are not to have five Hundred or five Thousand which Liberty not only the Primitive Christians but our own Ancestors an hundred years ago would have called a Blessing and a Priviledg and have heartily thanked God and the King for the same And God grant we may never see that time in England when truly tender Consciences will esteem so much Liberty as the greatest blessing in the World The good Protestants here in France though their Religion is made an Obstacle to all State-preferments though it Disable them to sit in the Courts of Parliaments except just so many as serve in the Chamber of Edicts to decide Controversies between Protestants and Papists or to have any other Charges of Iudicacature or any high Offices in the Army though their Numbers are much diminished and their Interest weakened by a Prohibition to Marry with Roman Catholicks and by a Capital Law which makes it Death to return Protestants after they have once turned Papists and though a great number of their Temples have been demolished some under a pretence that they were built since the Edict of Nantes others that they were built without License and others that they were built upon Holy Ground so that hereby they are forced in very many places to the grievous Inconvenience of going two three four or five Leagues to Church if not more And though all the Places of Strength where they do abound are Demolished and Cittadels are Erected to awe them in other Towns where they are Numerous though their own particular Hospitals and all other their perpetual Provisions for their Poor are taken away and they disabled either living or dying to give any setled Maintenance either to their own Ministers or People as to Endowe Churches Build Schools Colledges or Hospitals c. nay tho' they are deprived of the benefit of other Hospitals provided for the rest of the Subjects and although their Ministers are forbid to speak against the Pope or to Preach against the Romish Religion with half that freedom and plainness that you dare speak against the Church of England or to Preach in any places but those few appointed by the King though they are forbidden to call the Papists in their Sermons by any other Name but that of Catholicks or to make mention of their Religion and Ceremonies without Reverence and Respect though they are forbid to call themselves Priests or Pastors and have no other Title allowed them but only Ministres de la Religion pretenduë Reformés and though it be Enacted that their Religion shall be called by no other Name in any Publick Acts Registers c. Though they are forbidden to
THE JUDGMENT OF AN Anonymous Writer CONCERNING These following Particulars I. A Law for Disabling a Papist to Inherit the Crown II. The Execution of Penal Laws against Protestant Dissenters III. A Bill of Comprehension All Briefly Discussed In a Letter sent from beyond the Seas to a Dissenter ten Years ago The Second Edition LONDON Printed by T. B. for Robert Clavel and are to be sold by Randolph Taylor near Stationers Hall MDCLXXXIV THE Bookseller TO THE READER THIS Little Book was first Printed in the Year 1674. Who the Author of it was I cannot tell nor dare I presume to conjecture When it came out first it was received as the last thing that was written by a Late Learned and Right Honourable Author who was in France at that time and since hath been cited as if it had been his and I was so carried away with the common Opinion that I was almost perswaded to print it under his Name especially having heard that the Late Firebrand of the Nation The Earl of Shaftsbury always took it for his But as I was ready to put it to the Press a Gentleman to whom I communicated my Design did assure me he was not the Author of it but another Person but because I cannot speak upon Assurance for fear of mistake I will not so much as hint to the Reader whom I think him to be I was perswaded by a Learned Gentleman as ignorant of the Author as myself to give it a New Impression and by this small Pamphlet which came out so long since the Republican Party might have seen that there were good Men in the NATION who would not sit idle and see them run down the Government For if a Loyal Subject at such a distance did Ten years since defend the Succession when it was but lightly attack'd it was easie to foresee that there would be great Numbers to defend it both with their Pens and Swords when it came to be so powerfully opposed God Almighty be praised for giving the KING the Victory over the Enemies of the Monarchy and give his Loyal Subjects Grace to walk worthy of the same Amen Robert Clavel A LETTER sent from beyond the Seas to a Noted Dissenter Dear Cousin I Was very glad to receive your Letters but very sorry to find by them that you are still so extreamly desirous of Innovations in a Government so well Established as that is under which you live I perceive you are more zealous then it becomes a good Subject or a good Christian to be for carrying on a Project of the Earl of Shaftsbury as Unreasonable as New viz. That of Disabling a Papist to Inherit the Crown For doubtless that proposal was first made and afterwards promoted by him the last Sessions of Parliament not out of true Love to the Reformed Religion but out of Spite and Revenge to the D. of Y Who were he not only Papist but Heathen or Mahumetan which I think is not much worse would certainly have as good a Title to his Crown and all his Temporal Rights as if he were the most Orthodox and Holy Christian in the World And I am perswaded that my zealous Lord Chose would not be willing that the King and Parliament should make a particular Act to disable his own Posterity to Inherit the great Estate he hath got if they should turn Papists or Atheists as others have done before them We all know what mischief in the World that Damnable Doctrine has made That Temporal Rights and Inheritances depend upon Saintship and Grace And if it be clear from Scripture as nothing is more clear that a King ought not to lose his Crown for not being a Christian or for renouncing the Christian Religion as Iulian did then it is plain that neither the Duke nor any other Prince ought to be debarred from the Crown which is the greatest and most sacred of Temporal Rights for not being Protestants or which is more for renouncing the Christian Religion And I am heartily glad that God gave the Fathers of the English Church the Grace and Courage to defend her Doctrine in opposing that Unreasonable and truly Romish Proposal of my Lord Chose which if they had approved and defended after it was proposed they had truly acted in that like Prelats Popishly affected and really shewed themselves to be what their Adversaries would fain perswade the World they are For 't is the Romish Church and her Doctors which maintain That Kings Excommunicated or Heretick Kings or which is all one that Kings that renounce the Apostolick Faith ought to be Deprived and Deposed But 't is the Church of England that maintains the contradiction of that Unscriptural Unevangelical Principle and thinks her self as much obliged to submit her self to a Heathen Atheistical Heretical or Popish Prince where she can as to an Orthodox King and where she cannot she thinks her self obliged to suffer as her Saviour like a Lamb brought to the slaughter and dares pretend to take up no Arms but those of the Primitive Christians Whose true Copy she is Tears Arguments and Prayers I say it is the Church of England that is of this Judgment and neither the Church of Rome nor the Kirk of Scotland both of which have actually Excommunicated and Deposed Lawful and Rightful Princes under the Notion of being Hereticks and Enemies to Christs Kingdom forgetting both alike the Precepts and Examples of our Saviour and his Apostles on which the Church of England hath grounded the contrary Doctrine as well as on right reason Our Saviour though God rendred unto the Heathen Caesar the things that were Caesar's he owned his right to the Empire both by word and deed although he were but the adopted Successor of the greatest Usurper that ever was in the World Nay furthermore he owned and submitted to the procuratory Power of Pilate who acted but by Commission from the Emperour Tiberius who if there be any truth in the Character of Tacitus was one of the greatest Tyrants and most wicked men that ever the World saw And as for St. Paul there is no Article of our Religion not even that that Iesus Christ is the Son of God more clear in his Epistles than that Every Soul should be subject to the Higher Powers that we should Obey not only for Wrath but Conscience sake that whosoever resisteth receiveth to himself Damnation and lastly that all the Powers and when he wrote there were none but Heathen Powers were ordained of God I might here insist upon the Practice of the Apostles as it is represented in their Acts and the constant Submission and Sufferings of the Primitive Christians as they are reported by the Ecclesiastical Fathers and Historians but the Scripture it self is sufficient to demonstrate the truth of this Argument which the Church of England has not only established in her Doctrine but her Fathers and Sons of late maintained in their Practices and which the Kirk of of Scotland agreeing in this
bury their dead in Catholick Churches or Church-yards even where the deceased Person was Patron of the Church or where his Ancestors had purchased Burying-places for their Families Though they are forbid to make any Publick Exhortations or Prayer or to sing Psalms at their Burial Though they are forbid to Instruct or Condole those of their own Religion in Prisons or Hospitals or to pray with them in a voice so loud as to be heard by the standers by tho' they are forbid to make any Collections of Money among themselves but such as are permitted and regulated by the Edicts of the King Though they are forbid to Work or open their Shops on Romish Holy-days or to sell Flesh on their Fasting-days c. I say the good Protestants here in France notwithstanding all this hard dealing are yet so far from complaining of Persecution that they shew themselves thankful both to God and the King for the Liberty and Indulgence they enjoy Indeed they will complain for the aforesaid Reasons that their Religion is very much discouraged and they themselves hardly used But Persecution is a Notion that they rarely think or speak of when they discourse of their own condition being very far though not so far as you from a State of Martyrdom which consists in a forcible Obligation to Suffer or Renounce the Truth And therefore Cousin I beseech you and conjure you not to misuse the Name of Persecution again It is a very sinful way thus to abuse and amuse the Vulgar by calling things by their wrong Names and as to this particular honest and knowing men will be apt to suspect that through the Name of Persecution you have a design to make your Governours pass for Tyrants and your selves for Martyrs To conclude If this which you call Persecution be not such indeed then I doubt not but they who Miscal it so that is all presumptuous or affectedly ignorant Schismaticks without bitter pangs of Repentance will be persecuted by the God of Peace himself to a sad and endless eternity As for the Bill of Comprehension it begun to be talked of before I left my Country and I have often discours'd it with many of the Projectors but could never understand from them how it was practicable to unite so many Incompossible Sects which agree in nothing but their opposition to the Church However if the altering or taking away of a Ceremony or two would effectually unite the Protestant Partys as you are pleased to assert I think it would be worth the while to do it and that the doing of it for so sure an end would reflect no dishonour upon the Church of England which acknowledgeth the few innocent and decent Ceremonies which she hath ordained to be indifferent and alterable according to the Exigency of times Neither if this were done could the Romish Church have the least apparent reason to reproach us for such a slight alteration seeing her own Missals and Breviaries have been so diverse and different in several times and places and have undergone so many Emendations or rather Corruptions before they were established in the present Form by the Authority of Pius V. and the Decree of the Council of Trent But unless this Alteration would surely and infallibly produce this effect it had far better be let alone and in the mean time I would have all good Christians wait in Peace and Complyance with the Established Religion till Authority shall think to make this Alteration in it that so a poor English Traveller would not be tauntingly asked by every impertinent Priest here Whether he were a true Son of the Church or Presbyterian or Independant or Anabaptist or Quaker And I assure you when they meet with a man that owns himself a true Son of the Church of England they will seem with great Formality to pity him more than any other but yet they will never attempt to convert him But when they meet with one that will own himself of any other sort they will be pleased smile in their Sleeves and set upon him as a Person not far from their Kingdom of God And I am perswaded had you seen or heard as much of their Idolatries Blasphemies and Superstitions as I have done in one Christmas one Lent and one Easter you would be so far from doing the Church of England any ill Office that you would rather like St. Paul after his Conversion preach against your own Partizans and thank God that you lived in a Church reformed from Romish Idolatry and Superstition And I cannot but freely confess that I am since my Travels become ten Times a greater Lover of our own Church and as many times a greater Hater and Detester of the Romish Church than I was before And therefore I cannot here dissemble the hearty Grief I have conceived for the great hopes you have that the Licenses as you express it will be once more authorized by his Majesty or the Declaration revived For as it is that which at first was hammered out by a Popish Lord who was the Patron and Idol of the Presbyterians so 't is that which the Roman Catholicks here especially the Priests do hope and wish for as well as you They desire nothing more than such a Toleration as that was knowing that it must needs tend to the Ruine of the Church of England which is the principal Butt of all their Envy and Malice as being the main support and credit of the Reformed Religion every where and the only hedg against Popery it self in our unfortunate British Isles We meet with not a few Priests of several Orders that have the confidence in our most familiar conferences to tell us that by the just Judgment of God upon our Church the time of Her Ruin is at Hand the Nation it self being over-spread with Schism and Atheism and the Hearts of the Faithful being disposed by the Spirit and Providence of God to re-embrace the Holy Catholick Truth And therefore they freely Confess that this time of Distraction is their Harvest and withal express their Intentions and Zeal to Transport themselves into England at the Critical time of Toleration that they may be Fellow-laborers with your selves in that Harvest They seem to lament as much and complain as fast of the prodigious increase of Schism and Atheism among us as you are wont to do of the daily growth of Atheism and Popery And whilst you both complain alike and in the formality of your complaints both alike reflect upon the Church of England It is she only that is the sufferer and she only that truly laments the growth and at the same time sets up Banks to hinder the perfect Inundation of all the three among us As for Schism among Protestants you were the first Fathers and continue the chief Fautors thereof all the inferior Sects having sprung from you and dividing both from you and one another under pretence of the same Reasons for which you profess to divide
from the Church And 't is from you that even the Quakering Sect it self the dregs of Schism have learned to talk of Illumination and the Spirit and the rest of the Sectaries in what number soever they be differ no more from you than the second third or fourth c. from the first Book of Euclid Not that by this comparison I intend that you have any such Principles or Data among your selves as there are among Mathematicians for I am very well assured that take but any four of the Presbyterian Demagogues and they can scarce agree amongst themselves in any four Particulars wherein they differ from the Church of England And therefore if you be not Schismaticks then the Church of England from which you separate and out of which you have gathered Congregations and preach and administer the Sacraments unto them I say if you be not Schismaticks then our Church must be the Schismatick in the Controversie between us and be justly chargable with the same Indictment which she hath drawn up against the Church of Rome An Assertion Cousin which I never knew any other Person except one or two besides your self have the confidence to aver and an Assertion which no Protestant here in France could hear us yet relate without Horror Impatience and Disdain And therefore if the Reformed Church of England from which you wilfully divide and to which by your Divisions you cause so much Scandal abroad and Evil at home be not a Schismatical Church that is a Church which requires some sinful conditions of Communion in what a woful condition will your unpeaceable seditious Spirits appear before the God of Peace And how will you answer that at the Tribunal of his Wisdom and Justice which neither your Fathers nor you could ever yet answer to those Instruments of his Glory Judicious Hooker and the Venerable Sanderson But whether you are Schismaticks or whether you are not the Separations which you and your Brood have made from the Church are the Apparent Causes of the Growth of Popery and both your Separations and your Superstitious Enthusiastical Way of Worshipping that God whose People you Emphatically pretend to be are the true Causes of that abundant Atheism which at present makes England an Astonishment and a Scandal to Foreign Nations And if you or any other of the Brother-hood think it strange that I charge yours which is the Capital Sect with Enthusiasm or make Superstition which seemeth diametrically opposite to Atheism the Mother thereof I offer upon the Challenge to make good the Charge in both particulars But in the mean time to show you how unsafe it will be to provoke me to that Trouble I advise you to read one or two short Chapters in the beginning of Mr. Smith's Discourses concerning these Distempers of the Soul and you shall find what I have said proved with more Demonstration than you can gainsay and with more Plainness and Perspicuity than I am confident you would wish to see But besides the Schism and Enthusiasm the Bloody Wars which you formerly made in the State under pretence of the Glory of God and the Reformation of of the Reformed Religion have given many inconsiderate men occasion to suspect that all Religion like that of most of your Leaders is but a Politick Engine which Men use to make themselves Popular and Powerful that they may afterwards act with good colour whatsoever their Interest shall suggest And furthermore to consider That the great Pretenders of the Spirit and the Power of the Christian Religion which with respect to Magistrates teacheth nothing but to obey or suâ—er should notwithstanding Preach up Rebellion against their Rightful Prince Fight Him from Field to Field Romove Him from Prison to Prison and at last most barbarously put Him to Death is such an Absurdity against the Principles of Right Reason so repugnant to the Laws of our own Nation and so inconsistent with the Peaceable Doctrine of the Gospel that besides the Atheists it hath made it hath and ever will constrain Men of honest Principles and just Resentments to Persecute you with Satyrs and Exclamations to the end of the World I had not here presented that Tragical Scene of the King's Murther but that I have had so many unpleasant Occasions to hear Our Nation Reproach'd with the Scandal and Dishonour of that Inhumane Fact Particularly it was my bad Fortune to be at a Station in Paris where there were met about two hundred Persons to read the Gazetts at that very same time when that of England came full charged with the News of Burning the Pope in Effigie at London This Feat did at first surprize that Roman Catholick Concourse of People but after a little recollection they ceased to wonder saying in every Company as we passed along It is not so strange that the English Devils should do this who formerly Murthered their King And another time it was my ill luck also to be at the same place when the London Gazette brought us the News That the House of Lords had taken into consideration the Growth of Atheism in our Nation Whereupon some French Gentlemen of my acquaintance seriously enquired of me the Causes of so much Atheism amongst such a Thinking and Solid People I assigned the same Reasons which I have written above besides some others which I will not stand to mention as the most probable Causes thereof And as I hope I did not misinform them so I am confident I did not unjustly charge you in any particular especially with the Murther of the King For there were no Accessaries in the Murther of that Sacred Person neither was it the last stroke only that fell'd the Royal Oak but you and the Independants like the two Sacrilegious Priests of Iupiter are equally guilty of the Crime the one for Binding the direful Victim and the other for putting the Knife to his Throat But to be short where I am so unacceptable I 'le conclude my Argument with a Fable A Principal Ship which for many Years had been Sovereign of the Seas was at last Attacted by a Tempestuous Wind which the Devil raised and notwithstanding all the Help that could be made to save her was driven by the force of that Malignant Wind and split upon a Rock The very same Instant she dashed upon the Rock the Wind ceased and being afterwards cursed by the Sea-men for the Wrack of the Royal Charles for so the Capital Vessel was called answered You Charge me most unjustly my Friends it was not I but the Rock as you saw that split your Ship The Moral of this Parable is very Obvious and if the Application thereof or any thing else that I have written may conduce to awaken your Conscience and reclaim you from Schism I shall think my pains well bestowed But if you and your seditious Brethren will still persevere to assault the Church on one Hand as fast as the Romish Priests do undermine her on the other
and many other Points with that of Rome did ever oppose both in Word and Deed. And since that Kirk and Nation have been of this Opinion we need not wonder that the English Disciples of their Buchanan and Knox have practised those rebellious Principles which have so debauched and corrupted the Subjects of the Kings of England as to make them be proverbially called The Kings of Devils And which the Anababtists in Germany improved into this Maxim That Saintship was the Foundation of Soveraignty and that the Righteous ought to Inherit the Earth And furthermore if Crowns ought to descend upon Protestants only then it is but just that the Estates of all Subjects whatsoever should be so Entailed and if for example the D of Y must be cut off from his Rights for being a Roman Catholick then let the rest of the Papists lose theirs they are all alike Idolaters and let them all alike suffer And to bring the Case to your own House can you imagine that you your self ought to lose your Right to the Estate you have or may have hereafter upon that supposition that you should turn Papist which men as firmly resolved against it as you have certainly done These Practises and Proposals are such that they have left a blot on the memories of some men that seem more zealous than their Brethren And I am glad at present that the Religious Lord Chose is the Chief Patron and Promoter of such an Unreasonable and Romish Design It is unreasonable to exclude a Popish Heir from a Crown to which he derives his right from Popish Ancestors and I have more than ordinary reason to call it Romish because I have heard it maintained here among all the Priests I converse with It is a Doctrine dearly beloved by the Romanists And put but the Name of Heretick to a Prince here and it is just the same case as when you call a Prince a Papist in England where if there be no more than my good Lord Chose that are Fautors of this Romish Doctrine my Country is in a far better case than I thought it to be And truly this noble Project of the late Lord Chose was condemned by all Protestants as soon as it took air in France not only for that it was an Ungospel way of Proceeding and savours strongly of the Doctrine of Rome which they abhor but because it puts their King in mind of a Project he is very much inclined to viz. To make a like Law here that none but a Roman Catholick shall ever be King or bear any Office or Trust in the Kingdom And certainly if it should ever please God for our sins to suffer our Princes to backslide into Romish Idolatry and Superstition we have nothing to do but to pray and like our Glorious Ancestors in Queen Mary's days suffer quietly when we cannot flie And therefore I wonder that you would so obliquely reflect upon the Bishops and censure them for doing that which in Honour and Duty they were bound to do and represent this to their Disgrace which all good and well advised Protestan's must needs Command them for if they will be Impartial But put the case such an Act were made who can see the bad consequences thereof The Union of Great Brittain will be broke upon it and War entailed upon both Kingdoms and by the same reason that none but a Protestant shall succeed now Faction still increasing none perhaps within a while will be thought fit to Inherit the Crown but a Presbyterian c. For you that are used to talk of Numbers and Strength can best tell how Numerous and Powerful they are that are possessed with as firm a prejudice against the Church of England as the Church of Rome it self denying Communion equally with both and who educate their Children in perfect hatred of the one as the genuine Daughter of the other I have wrote all this to present to your view what perhaps in the hurry of Zeal you have not had time to consider And though I think it very impious and unreasonable to debar any such Prince from the Crown upon this account yet could we imagine the Government were to be formed again I would be as Zeal us for this condition as the greatest Zealot of them all And I am as sorry as any other good Protestant that it was not always one of the Fundamental Laws of England though now it be too late to make it such You tell me also that my Lord intends to come and live in London I suppose it may be under pretence to secure his Person from the Papists but I wish it may not be with a design to act over the same things under a pretence of securing the Protestant which the Duke of Guise acted in Paris under a seeming Zeal to secure the Popish Religion The Reason that makes me fear it is the conformity of our times in England with those in France as you may see by the following account The Duke who was a man of an High Spirit and not able to bear the least disgrace being removed by Henry III. from the most Rich and Honourable of his Court-Preferments became thereupon Male-content and retiring from the Court which he now did hate went to live at his House in Paris where by many Arts as in particular by the subtle Practises of the Priests and Jesuits he became in a short time the Minion of the People whose Affections he drew off from the King by representing him though a hearty Roman Catholick as a favorer of the Hereticks who under the protection of the Princes of the Bloud increased mightily in his Reign He also represented him in particular to be a great favourer of the King of Navarre against whom he himself had a particular ill will and whom the People through the Instigation of the Priests and Iesuits did perfectly hate because he was a Protestant although he was Primier Prince of the Blood for whom the French commonly have a great Reverence and by Consequence Heir Apparent or as a Friend of yours would have said Heir Presumptive for the King had no Child to Inherit to the Crown of France After he had thus made the credulous People by the help of the Priests and Iesuits zealous for the Defence of their Declining Religion he drew them to League into Rebellion against their lawful Soveraign under a pretence of securing the same by removing Evil Councellors from his Person and obliging him to employ his Royal Power in suppressing the Protestants and in particular by declaring the Heretick King of Navarre afterwards H. IV. uncapable of succeeding to the Crown For the sake of Peace the King was willing so far to deny himself as to grant the two first but could never be made so false to the Interest of the Royal Family as to consent to the last by changing the order of Succession to the Crown by which his Ancestors had Reigned so many hundred years and which
her days are like to be but few and evil and except God encline the Hearts of our Magistrates to put the Laws in Execution against them and find some effectual means to reduce you you may live to see her Ruin accomplished which you both alike desire and expect How numerous you are the World can guess and if the Accounts which we receive from the Fathers of Intelligence of several Orders be credible there are about three Thousand of them which find Entertainment and Success within the King of Great Britain's Dominions But in the mean time till her hour is come she struggleth against both like her Saviour against the Pharisees whose true Disciples in part you both are they representing those sworn Enemies of the Gospel by the Cabala of their ridiculous and impious Traditions and you representing them in their Hypocrisie Pride Envy Evil speaking moross and censorious Dispositions c. which are Sins scarce consistent with Humanity much less with Grace as likewise in observing many Fasts and making long Prayers with design not to serve God but to delude the People And therefore I wonder not that you are such malignant Enemies to the Church of England since that Pharisaical spirit which reigneth so much amongst you is a wicked Pusilanimous spirit that affects to be seen in the Head of Parties and Dictate amongst the Ignorant and loves as much to Rule as it hates to Obey But would you once be so sincere as to subdue your Pride lay aside your Prejudice inform your Ignorance and forsake your dearly beloved Interest for the Truth it would not be long ere we should see you joyn with the Church of England without troubling our Senators to bring you in with an Act of incomprehensible Comprehension Your Pride appeareth in Heading of Parties and in the Pleasure you are seen to take in the Multitudes that run after you and in your boasting that without you the Souls of People would starve for want of Knowledg Your Prejudice is an effect of your Pride and discovers it self together with your Ignorance in not submitting to those Invincible Reasons which you cannot Answer And as for your Interest the greatest Paradox of all that is evident enough to me who have so often heard many of you glorifie your selves in the Number and Riches of your Followers boast of their Affection to your sacred Persons and brag of the great Sums you have Collected in your Congregations which makes the King's Chapples as you arrogantly call your Conventicles better places than most of the Churches of which He is Patron And therefore never complain that you live either worse or at greater uncertainties than you did before For by your Pretentions to Poverty and Sufferings and by other unworthy Arts you have so wrought your selves into the esteem of your Disciples that few of them are either so Covetuous or so Poor but they will Pinch at home to supply you There are several orders of Fransciscans here who have renounced not only Parsonages but all Temporal Estates and Possessions whatsoever and by their vain Glorious Sanctity and Austerities they have got like you such fast hold on the Souls of the People which is the fastest hold of all that they can easily make most of them dispose of their Children cashire their Servants and settle their Estates as they please and by these Tricks do more effectually promote the Interest of Rome than all the Parish Priests within the Pale of that Church And really when I consider what Influence these Sanctimonious and self-denying Zealots have o're all Families in all places where they live how they Steal away the Hearts of the People from their Parish-Priests and drain their Congregations and how the deluded People had rather give them the worth of a shilling than the dues of two pence to their own Curees it makes me often run the Parallel between you and them and think what a Politick and Gainful Pretence you have got to renounce your Livings for to secure your Consciences and to preach the Word gratis like the Primitive Apostles when God knows 't is not out of love to the People but to your selves And I protest to you were I a man to be maintained by the Pulpit and consulted my Profit more than the Goodness of my Cause I should take the same courses that you do I should rather be Mr. M. than Dr. A. of Plymouth and should chuse the plentiful Income of that dull Zealot Dr. Manton before that of his most Learned and Religious Successor of Govent-Garden But though you live very well and better indeed than most of the Ministers of the Church yet the Mischief of it is you are uncapable of Dignities which makes you such Aerians and upon all occasions openeth your Throats as wide as Sepulchres against the Bishops and the Church You know what an History of Bishops Mr. Pryn hath wrote and what a fair Collection the Learned Smec hath taken out of him as if when a Bishop is defective either in Piety Learning or the Skill of Government it were not the deplorable unhappiness but the fault of the Church of England Should an Heathen or Mahumetan make such an Historical Collection of Scandalous Christians either in this or former Ages you would not be perswaded for all that to prefer the Alcoran before the Gospel or the most exalted Paganism whatsoever before the Christian Religion Therefore wise and sober men will make no Inference but this from such a malicious enumeration of Particulars that corruptions will creep into Government notwithstanding all the care that can be used to the contrary and that by the favour of Princes who hear with other mens ears and often receive undeserved Characters of Men sometimes Ambitious sometimes Ignorant and sometimes Slothful Imprudent or Debauched Persons will be Preferred to the most Honourable Dignities in the Church But this as often as it happens is the misery of the Church of England which all true Church men lament though the men of the short Cloke take all such occasions to expose her to the scorn of the common people who judge by Sense and not by Reason and who are taught by you to make no distinction between the Bishops and the Church But were all her Bishops the best Christians the best Scholars and the best Governours in the World and should the Royal Hand place her Mytres on the Heads of none but Iewels Whitgift's Andrews's Hall's Usher's Morton's Taylor 's and Sanderson's yet that Unchristian Spirit of Envy and Discontent which informs the Non conformists would still fly upon her with open Mouth like Beasts upon the Saints of old condemned to the amphitheater and make her as she hath already been for almost forty years a Spectacle to God to Angels and to Men. The wicked Lives of Scandalous Bishops and Priests if there be any such are her sad Misfortune but cannot justifie the Schism you are guilty of who are bound to hear even them as much as the Iews were bound to hear the Scribes and Pharisees those Hypocrites that sate in Moses's Chair And in that deplorable state of the Iewish Church when the Priests and Prophets were both alike corrupted and called by the Holy Spirit Dumb and greedy Dogs yet it had been unlawful to make a separation and set up other Altars against that which God who was their King had set up I cannot but mind you of the Sehism of Ieroboam who by dividing the Church as God was pleased to divide the Kingdom into two parts made Israel to sin But to insist on the Samaritan Secession and write all that is necessary to discover and aggravate the damnable Nature of Schism would require as much more Paper as I have bestowed and so make me as tedious again as I fear I have already been Besides it would oblige me to answer Mr. Hales's Treatise of Schism with whose Leaves you vainly endeavour to cover your shame And I had indeed a year ago undertaken that easie Task but that a Western Gentleman to whom I discovered my Intentions told me That Mr. Long Prebendary of Exeter a Friend of his had already begun that good Work so that I hope it is printed by this time And if either that or this or any thing else a thousand times better than I am able to write may prove effectual to reclaim you from Schism I shall be as glad as to see some other of our Friends reformed from Drunkenness Swearing and Uncleanness which are very grievous and dreadful Sins but yet not more damnable in their Nature nor more distructive to the Christian Religion nor more deeply rooted in the Soul of man than that of Schism From which I pray God by the Power of his Grace to Preserve me and Reform you through Iesus Christ our Lord to whose Protection I commit you and rest Your most Affectionate Cousin And humble Servant Saumur May 7. 1674. FINIS ADVERTISEMENT THere is lately Published a Book Entituled The Royal Apology or an Answer to the Rebels Plea Wherein the most Noted Anti-Monarchical Tenents First Published by Doleman the Iesuite to promote a Bill of Exclusion against King IAMES Secondly Practised by Bradshaw and the Regicides in the actual Murder of King CHARLES the 1st Thirdly Republished by Sidney and the Associators to Depose and Murder his Present MAIESTY are distinctly considered With a Parallel between Doleman Bradshaw Sidney and other of the True Protestant Party London Printed by T. B. for Robert Clavel and are to be sold by Randolph Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1684. Price 1 s.