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england_n emperor_n king_n spain_n 4,405 5 8.5591 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A67669 The happy union of England and Holland, or, The advantageous consequences of the alliance of the Crown of Great Britain with the States General of the United Provinces R. W. 1689 (1689) Wing W94; ESTC R24583 52,058 72

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fitting in respect of Religion provided they do not broach Impieties or trouble the State with Factions and Cabals 2. The Spirit of Infallibility is so natural to Men that are Proud and full of self Love and is so linkt with the desire of advancing their own sentiments that we have no cause to wonder that the Reformed have retain'd some small remainder of this Leven as being sprung from a Church which holds Infallibility for one of its Fundamental Doctrins and conveighs it from the Head to all its Members But during the last Persecution the Protestants have written so many Treatises to destroy that wicked Principle they have testify'd such an Abhorrency of all manner of Persecution both in their private and public discourses they have demonstrated in such a convincing manner that truth perswades but never forces that God alone is the sole Lord of the Heart and that to attempt to force it would be an Attack upon the Prerogative of the supream Majesty that though Conscience and the Spirit of Religion should not encline them to support all others their fellow Christians the Honour of observing one equal conduct and the shame of contradicting themselves would perswade them to Toleration 3. Before we believe that Intelligent Persons are capable of committing those faults which they detest and which are contrary to their Principles we ought to examin whether there be any conceal'd motive of Interest which inclines them to such absurditys Thus though Pope Pelagius the fourth Lateran Council and several other Pontiffs and Assemblies of the Roman Church had not canoniz'd the Persecution of the Heretics though the Council of Constance had never declar'd it to be lawful to break faith with the Hugonots though the same Church of Rome had never put these Principles in Practice by Imprisonment Exile Proscription and torments of such Christians as were not within the pale of their Communion yet we had reason to suspect her guilty of this design because it is perfectly agreeable to their Interests The Roman Clergy is a Monarchical Body of which all the several Members are in a capacity of Aspiring not only to the highest employments both in Church and State but even to Soveraignty it self Now the more numerous these dignities and employments are the more reason have Private Persons to hope and as certain it is that extent of Empire encreases the Number of Preferments Therefore it is that in all Monarchies that incline to Tyranny the surest means to extend their dominion is to carry as high as may be the Soveraign Prerogative though at the expence of the Peoples liberty Then again besides the secular Ecclesiastics there are infinite swarms of Monks whose principal business it is to extend the bounds of the Pontifical Empire in regard the vaster it is the richer the more powerful and more respected their several Societies will be and the more the employments of Particular Persons Now the Reformed are the declar'd Enemies of this Church they not only refuse Obedience to the Head of it to acknowledge it's Ministers and Officers or to admit of it's Maxims but they also ruin the Foundations of its subsistance in Preaching down the Mass Indulgencies Purgatory they drain and dry up the very Fountains of its Wealth by contemning Images Relics Invocation of Saints Bulls and Dispensations from Rome they destroy the respect and reverence which the People have for it in rejecting it's Infallibility Transubstantiation Adoration of Saints and the refusal of the Cup to the Laity Who can doubt after all this but that the Pope the Monks and Clergy of Rome are mainly interested to extinguish the Reformation and extirpate the Reformed It is not so with the Protestants in regard that neither their Principles nor their Interest prompt them to Persecute the Catholics I must acknowledge that t is for the glory and reputation of the English Bishops that all the Subjects of the Kingdom should be Members of the Church of England But neither their Jurisdiction nor their Revenues would be much enlarged by the conjunction of the Roman Catholics As for the Presbyterian Ministers in other States all the profit which they get by the conversion of their Adversaries is to have a more numerous Auditory in some places and to be at more trouble in visiting their Parishioners 4. But what necessity of Physical Reffections where the thing speaks it self You shall never find our Bishops nor our Ministers rambling over Sea and Land and Vagabonding about the World to gain Proselites nor Besieging the Houses of the public Magistrates to obtain decrees against the Roman Catholics Our Princes and our Governors suffer them to live unmolested at the same time that they Persecute our Brethren In a word the Protestants are all a sort of Republicans whose Government is Aristocratical in England Democratical in Holland and composed of both among the Lutherans but no where Monarchical So that all they mind is to preserve themselves in Peace without giving any trouble to others Thus the Roman Catholics have no cause to mistrust us and it is long of them that we do not live together like Brethren at least like Christians and good Friends Therefore let them surcease to hate and Persecute us for we wish them no ill and we likewise offer to bury in Oblivion all the mischeifs they have caus'd us to suffer in favour of those who shall joyn themselves with us to extirpate Tyranny and reestablish the PEACE OF EVROPE This is that Summum Bonum that Soveraign Good the Perfection and Fountain of all the Rest which will naturally spring from the debasing and humbling the Power of France and this is that which they who understand the designs and Pretensions of that Crown will easily apprehend by giving never so little Attention to what we are going to say The Grand complaint against that Monarchy is for pretending to the Vniversal Monarchy Nor are they mistaken in their Accusation And I dare affirm that had it not been for the great Revolution in England that France was upon the Point of obtaining what she had been so thirsting after People will say perhaps that she had several Countries yet to conquer But I could answer that all the rest of Europe was not in a condition to make much resistance The Emperor and the Venetians engag'd in a War against the Turk Denmark ally'd to Lewis the XIV Spain exhausted and under the conduct of a Woman dead some weeks ago that had a kindness for her own Country Portugal and the Princes of Italy almost in the same condition the King of England embroyl'd and in confusion at home and Germany divided What could Sweden and the Vnited Provinces have done They would only have been glad to have been the last attacqu'd But it may be reply'd that we live not in those conquering times nor in those Ages when they were wont to bring all into the Feild that were able to bear Arms or when two or three Battels
that are of these Opinions or put them in Practice since otherwise there is no Assurance for Princes or Private Persons to conside in any Treatys or Contracts which they shall make with those of the Romish Communion Or if they refuse to Condemn this Heresie under the Name of Popery let them do it under the Name of Jesuitism which will very well agree with it To the People there could be no Tydings more grateful then that of the ABATEMENT OF THEIR IMPOSITIONS they are mounted to such a Prodigious excess over all Europe unless it be in England that there is hardly any other Country where a Man may live with convenience The very Sciences are contemn'd because they are become mercenary Arts perish by reason that the Indigency which oppresses the Artificers hinders them from bringing any thing to perfection and though they feel the Goads of Poverty they are near a whit the more spurr'd on with the thoughts of Honour The better sort of Families are ruin'd because of the great expences of House-keeping The Country is dispeopl'd of honest People and fill'd with Vagabonds and Debaushees while the fear of Poverty deters an infinit Number of People from Marrying and plunges others into wickedness and disorder There is nothing but cheating in Trade and Men begin to be a weary of it by degrees because it becomes every day more dangerous more difficult and less gainful The Subjects cheat their Soveraign and to retaliate his Extortions as they believe them to be so generally accustom themselves to deprive him of his rights that they make no Conscience of it All places all Courts are full of Complaints murmurings confiscations broken Merchants and Law-suits For the greatest part of which Europe is beholding to the Court of France To this Court are we beholding to those tholes of Projectors and Inventers of Prodigious Numbers of new Imposts But the worst is her continuance and dreadful raising of Armies her Threats and unexpected Breaches of Leagues and Truces oblige the Neighbouring Princes to keep on foot considerable Forces and constrain them at the same time to drain the Purses of the Subjects H●idelburgh Manheim all the Palatinate so many Countries so many Cities which the French have laid wast sackt burnt or destroy'd against all the Assurances of pleighted Faith so many poor Creatures as the French Court has reduc'd to misery by her Dragoons Contributions or rather justify'd Robberies are as so many Voices that cry for vengeance to Heaven and which threaten all the Christian Protentates in the same manner if they do not closely Unite to stop the Course of her fury THE INCREASE OF TRADE is one of the usual Fruits of Peace and of the Abatement of Imposts But in regard the late Treaties of Peace were neither durable nor sincere but that both sides continu'd still in Arms there has been no sensible Abatement of the Taxes nor increase of Trade Since the Peace of Nimeghen France has laid a thousand cruel Imposts upon the Hollanders to destroy their Trade which their High and Mightinesses made out in their Declaration of War against that Crown But their Union with England presents with an assured means and opportunity to regain double to what they have lost Thirty English Vessels are sufficient to cruise upon the Coasts of Britain and Guyen and to shut the French quite out of the entrance into Spain by Sea and stop up their Passage into the Streights of Gibraltar Thirty Holland Men of War will wrest the Trade of the Baltic Sea and the Northern Ocean out of their hands and keep the Coasts of Picardy and Normandy in a perpetual Alarum And then nothing will remain to the French but the Commerce of the Levant through the Mediterranean which will be more prejudicial then profitable because it will drain the Coyn of the Kingdom and overstock it with wares which they will not be able to vend The reason of it is because the Cities of Italy all Trade the same way and with more conveniences Add to this that the English and Hollanders bring the same Merchandizes in great abundance out of the Levant and the Indies which only consist in Drugs Silks Cotons Wax Hides Spanish Leather and Pot-ashes So that the French being debarr'd the Trade of Germany the North of Spain and England they will be stor'd with Goods but distitute of Money Besides the Trade of the Levant cannot extend but from Marseilles to Lion and be beneficial to some Cities only upon the Rhine So that all the rest of France and all the Coasts of the Ocean will nevertheless be depriv'd of their Trade there being no vent for the Goods and Manufactures of the Country We are assur'd that about a Month since the stuff weavers were ready to have made an Insurrection in Roven upon Information that a Merchant of that City was about to set up a Royal Manufacture They flew to his House to the Number of four hundred and constrain'd him to make a Declaration before the Intendant wherein he protested that he never had any such design and solemnly promised never to enterprize the like again If Poverty makes them so bold what will they not dare when thev come to feel the Nips of Pinching Hunger 'T is a great Enterprize to bring down the Power of those that make use of it meerly to do us mischeif but it is of far greater Consequence to provide for our own security England and Holland joyn'd together will be Masters of the Ocean and consequently cannot stand in want of any thing But though these two Nations may be strongly Interested to preserve their Union the Hollanders are still more oblig'd to it then the English Great Britain is an Inaccessible Island that stands in little fear of a Foreign Enemy Whereas the Vnited Provinces may be attacqu'd by Land from the North South and East They are environ'd with Potent Neighbours the Empire France Spain and England And I dare be bold to say that how powerful soever they may be in Wealth and Forces in Proportion to their Territories they are of too small an Extent to make head for a long time against any one of these their Neighbours without the Assistance of the other This the States General rightly apprehended from the beginning of their Confederacy while they had recourse sometimes to England sometimes to France to support themselves against the House of Austria France at this present time is advanc'd to the same degree of Power in Europe which render'd Spain so formidable when first the Seven Provinces Vnited together And they have had experience in the last War that France was no less eager after the Conquest of their Country then Philip the Second was to subdue them under his own and the Tyranny of the Inquisition Of all their Neighbours there are not any with whom they have greater tyes of Friendship then with Great Britain in regard that at this time the Interest of Trade is United to that