Authorities out of this Realm as also for restoring and uniting to the Imperial Crown of this Realm the antient Jurisdictions Authorities Superiorities and Preheminences to the same of Right belonging and appertaining by reason whereof the Subjects of this Realm were kept in good order and disburthened of divers great and intolerable Charges and Exactions until such time as all the said good Laws and Statutes by one Act of Parliament made in the first and second Years of the Reigns of King Philip and Queen Mary were clearly repealed and made void by reason of which Act of Repeal the Subjects of England were eftsoons brought under an usurped Foreign Power and Authority and yet remained in that Bondage to their intolerable Charges and then Enacts that for the repressing of the said usurped Foreign Power and the restoring of the Rights Jurisdictions and Preheminences appertaining to the Imperial Crown of this Realm The said Act made in the first and second Years of the said late King Philip and Queen Mary except as therein is excepted be repealed void and of none effect The said Act of Primo Elizabethae proceeds First to revive by express words many Statutes that had been made in King Henry the Eighth's time and repealed in Queen Mary's and Secondly to abolish all Foreign Authority in these words viz. And to the intent that all Vsurped and Foreign Power and Authority Spiritual and Temporal may for ever be clearly extinguished and never to be used or obeyed within this Realm c. May it please your Highness that it may be Enacted That no Foreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate Spiritual or Temporal shall at any time after the last day of this Session of Parliament use enjoy or exercise any manner of Power Jurisdiction Superiority Authority Preheminence or Priviledg Spiritual or Ecclesiastical within this Realm c. but the same shall be clearly abolished out of this Realm c. Any Statute Custom c. to the contrary notwithstanding Thirdly The said Act restores in the next Paragraph to the Imperial Crown of this Realm such Jurisdictions Priviledges Superiorities c. Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power or Authority had heretofore been or might lawfully be exercised or used c. Fourthly the Act impowers the Queen to assign Commissioners to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And Fifthly For the better observation and maintenance of this Act imposes upon Ecclesiastical and Temporal Officers and Ministers c. the Oath commonly call'd the Oath of Supremacy which runs thus viz. The Oath of SUPREMACY I A. B. do utterly testify and declare in my Conscience that the Queen's Highness is the only Supream Governour of this Realm and of all other her Highness's Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things and Causes as Temporal and that no Foreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Foreign Jurisdictions Powers Superiorities and Authorities and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the Queen's Highness her Heirs and lawful Successors and to my Power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminencies and Authorities granted or belonging to the Queen's Highness her Heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm So help me God and by the Contents of this Book It cannot but be obvious to every impartial Peruser of the Statute especially if he have the least knowledg of what Condition the Government of this Nation was reduced to by Papal Encroachments and Usurpations That the Makers of this Law and the Sense of this Oath was no other in general than that the People of this Realm should bear Faith and true Allegiance even in Matters relating to Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Queen's Highness her Heirs and lawful Successors and not to the Pope or any foreign pretended Jurisdiction What the several Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Queen her Heirs and Successors are in particular and what the Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authorities United and Annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm are in particular is not material here to be discoursed of though the several Statutes made in King Henry the Eighth's time and King Edward the Sixth's and revived in Queen Elizabeth's will unfold many of them and clear the distinction which the OATH makes betwixt Authorities granted or belonging to the King and Authorities united and annexed to the Imperial Crown and Mr. Prynn's History of the Pope's intolerable Usurpations upon the Liberties of the Kings and Subjects of England and Ireland together with Sir Roger Twisden's Historical Vindication of the Church of England in point of Schism will in a great measure acquaint the Curious how matters stood with us here with respect to Church-Government before the Pope had wrested the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction almost wholly out of the hands of our Kings our Parliaments and Courts of Justice In short those Jurisdictions c. are such as the Antient Laws Customs and Usages of the Realm or latter Acts of Parliament have Created Given Limited and Directed The Makers of this Law did not design to impose upon the People of England any new Terms of Allegiance but to secure the old ones exclusive of any Pretences of the Pope or See of Rome Nor are there any words in this Oath more strong more binding to Duty and Allegiance than are words which the old Oath of Fealty is conceived in which all Men were antiently obliged and may yet be required to take to the King in the Court-Leet at twelve years of Age which runs thus viz. You shall swear that from this day forward you shall be true and faithful to our Soveraign Lord King James and his Heirs And Faith and Truth shall bear of Life and Limb and terrene Honour And you shall not know nor hear of any ill or damage intended to him that you shall not defend So help you Almighty God This is as full and comprehensive as the Oath of Supremacy I do promise that I shall bear faith and true Allegiance to the Queen's Highness her Heirs and lawful Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions c. So that the true sense and meaning of the Oath of Supremacy is this viz. I will be true and faithful to our Soveraign Lord the King his Heirs and lawful Successors and will to my Power assist and defend all his Rights notwithstanding any pretence made by the Pope or any other Foreign Power to exercise Jurisdiction within the Realm all which Foreign Power I utterly renounce in Matters Ecclesiastical as well as Temporal The Oath of Allegiance is appointed by the Act of 3 Jac. 1. Chap. 4. Intituled An Act for discovering and repressing of Popish Recusants It
by certain Noblemen and others of our Kingdom of Ireland suggesting Disorders and Abuses as well in the Proceedings of the late begun Parliament as in the Martial and Civil Government of the Kingdom We did receive with extraordinary Grace and Favour And by another Proclamation in the 12th year of his Reign Procl 12 Jac. he declares That it was the Right of his Subjects to make their immediate Addresses to him by Petition and in the 19th year of his Reign he invites his Subjects to it And in the 20th year of his Reign Procl Dat. 10 July 19. Jac. Procl Dat. 14. Feb. 20. Jac. he tells his People that his own and the Ears of his Privy Council did still continue open to the just Complaints of his People and that they were not confined to Times and Meetings in Parliament nor restrained to particular Grievances not doubting but that his loving Subjects would apply themselves to his Majesty for Relief to the utter abolishing of all those private whisperings and causless Rumors which without giving his Majesty any Opportunity of Reformation by particular knowledge of any Fault serve to no other purpose but to occasion and blow abroad Discontentment It appears Lords Journ Anno 1640. that the House of Lords both Spiritual and Temporal Nemine contradicente Voted Thanks to those Lords who Petitioned the King at York to call a Parliament And the King by his Declaration Printed in the same year Declar. 1644. declares his Royal Will and Pleasure That all his Loving Subjects who have any just cause to present or complain of any Grievances or Oppressions may freely Address themselves by their humble Petitions to his Sacred Majesty who will graciously hear their Complaints Since his Majesty's happy Restauration Temp. Car. 2. the Inhabitants of the County of Bucks made a Petition That their County might not be over-run by the Kings Deer and the same was done by the County of Surry on the same Occasion 'T is time for me to conclude your trouble I suppose you do no longer doubt but that you may joyn in Petition for a Parliament since you see it has been often done heretofore nor need you fear how many of your honest Countreymen joyn with you since you hear of Petitions by the whole Body of the Realm and since you see both by the Opinions of our Lawyers by the Doctrine of our Church and by the Declarations of our Kings That it is our undoubted Right to Petition Nothing can be more absurd than to say That the number of the Supplicants makes an innocent Petition an Offence on the contrary if in a thing of this Publick concernment a few only should address themselves to the King it would be a thing in it self ridiculous the great end of such Addresses being to acquaint him with the general desires of his People which can never be done unless multitudes joyn How can the Complaints of the diffusive Body of the Realm reach his Majesty's Ears in the absence of a Parliament but in the actual concurrence of every individual Person in Petition for the personal application of multitudes is indeed unlawful and dangerous Give me leave since the Gazette runs so much in your mind Stat. 13. Car. 2. c. 5. to tell you as I may modestly enough do since the Statute directs me what answer the Judges would now give if such another Case were put to them as was put to the Judges 2 Jacobi Suppose the Nonconformists at this day as the Puritans then did should sollicite the getting of the hands of Multitudes to a Petition to the King for suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws against themselves the present Judges would not tell you that this was an Offence next to Treason or Felony nor that the Offenders were to be brought to the Council-board to be punished but they would tell you plainly and distinctly That if the hands of more Persons than twenty were solicited or procured to such a Petition and the Offenders were convicted upon the Evidence of two or more credible Witnesses upon a Prosecution in the Kings-bench or at the Assizes or Quarter Sessions within six Months they would incur a Penalty not exceeding a 100 l. and three Months Imprisonment because their Petition was to change a matter establisht by Law But I am sure you are a better Logician than not to see the difference which the Statute makes between such a Petition which is to alter a thing establisht by Law and an innocent and humble Petition That a Parliament may meet according to Law in a time when the greatest Dangers hang over the King the Church and the State The Right Honourable the Earl of Shaftsbury 's Speech in the House of Lords March 25. 1679. My Lords YOU are appointing of the Consideration of the State of England to be taken up in a Committee of the whole House some day next Week I do not know how well what I have to say may be received for I never study either to make my Court well or to be Popular I always speak what I am commanded by the Dictates of the Spirit within me There are some other Considerations that concern England so nearly that without them you will come far short of Safety and Quiet at Home We have a little Sister and she hath no Breasts what shall we do for our Sister in the day when she shall be spoken for If she be a Wall we will build on her a Palace of Silver if she be a Door we will inclose her with Boards of Cedar We have several little Sisters without Breasts the French Protestant Churches the two Kingdoms of Ireland and Scotland The Foreign Protestants are a Wall the only Wall and Defence to England upon it you may build Palaces of Silver glorious Palaces The Protection of the Protestants abroad is the greatest Power and Security the Crown of England can attain to and which can only help us to give Check to the growing Greatness of France Scotland and Ireland are two Doors either to let in Good or Mischief upon us they are much weakened by the Artifice of our cunning Enemies and we ought to inclose them with Boards of Cedar Popery and Slavery like two Sisters go hand in hand sometimes one goes first sometimes the other in a doors but the other is always following close at hand In England Popery was to have brought in Slavery in Scotland Slavery went before and Popery was to follow I do not think your Lordships or the Parliament have Jurisdiction there It is a Noble and Ancient Kingdom they have an illustrious Nobility a Gallant Gentry a Learned Clergy and an Understanding Worthy People but yet we cannot think of England as we ought without reflecting on the Condition therein They are under the same Prince and the Influence of the same Favourites and Councils when they are hardly dealt with can we that are the Richer expect better usage for 't is
not unknown to your Majesty how restless the Endeavours and how bold the Attempts of the Popish Party for many years last past have been not only within this but other your Majesties Kingdoms to introduce the Romish and utterly to extirpate the true Protestant Religion The several Approaches they have made towards the compassing this their Design assisted by the Treachery of perfidious Protestants have been so strangely successful that 't is matter of Admiration to Us and which we can only ascribe to an Over-ruling Providence that your Majesties Reign is still continued over Us and that We are yet assembled to consult the means of our preservation This bloody and restless Party not content with the great Liberty they had a long time enjoyed to excercise their own Religion privately amongst themselves to pertake of an equal Freedom of their persons and Estates with your Majesties Protestant Subjects and of an Advantage above them in being excused from chargeable Offices and Employments hath so far prevailed as to find countenance for an open and avowed practice of their Superstition and Idolatry without controul in several parts of this Kingdom Great swarms of Priests and Jesuits have resorted hither and have here exercised their Jurisdiction and been daily tampering to pervert the Consciences of your Majesties Subjects Their Opposers they have found means to disgrace and if they were Judges Justices of the Peace or other Magistrates to have them turned out of Commission and in contempt of the known Laws of the Land they have practised upon people of all Ranks and qualities and gained over divers to their Religion some openly to profess it others secretly to espouse it as most conduced to the service thereof After some time they became able to influence matters of State and Government and thereby to destroy those they cannot corrupt The continuance or Prorogation of Parliaments has been accommodated to serve the purposes of that Party Money raised upon the People to supply your Majesties extraordinary Occasions was by the prevalence of Popish Councils imployed to make War upon a Protestant State and to advance and augment the dreadful Power of the French King though to the apparent hazard of this and all other Protestant Countries Great numbers of your Majesties Subjects were sent into and continued in the service of that King notwithstanding the apparent Interest of your Majesties Kingdoms the Addresses of the Parliament and your Majesties gracious Proclamations to the contrary Nor can We forbear to mention how that at the beginning of the same War even the Ministers of England were made Instruments to press upon that State the acceptance of one demand among others from the French King for procuring their peace with him that they should admit the publick exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion in the United Provinces the Churches there to be divided and the Romish Priests maintained out of the publick Revenue At home if Your Majesty did at any time by the Advice of Your Privy-Council or of Your two Houses of Parliament Command the Laws to be put in Execution against Papists even from thence they gained advantage to their Party while the edge of those Laws was turned against Protestant Dissenters and the Papists escaped in a manner untoucht The Act of Parliament enjoining a Test to be taken by all Persons admitted into any Publick Office and intended for a security against Papists coming into Employment had so little effect that either by Dispensations obtained from Rome they submitted to those Tests and held their Offices themselves or those put in their places were so favourable to the same Interests that Popery it self has rather gained than lost ground since that Act. But that their business in hand might yet more speedily and strongly proceed at length a Popish Secretary since Executed for his Treasons takes upon him to set afoot and maintain correspondencies at Rome particularly with a Native Subject of Your Majesties promoted to be a Cardinal and in the Courts of other Forreign Princes to use their own form of Speech for the subduing that Pestilent Heresie which has so long domineered over this Northern World that is to root the Protestant religion out of England and thereby to make way the more easily to do the same in other Protestant Countries Towards the doing this great Work as Mr. Coleman was pleased to call it Jesuits the most dangerous of all Popish Orders to the Lives and Estates of Princes were distributed to their several Precincts within this Kingdom and held joint Councils with those of the same Order in all Neighbour Popish Countries Out of these Councils and Correspondencies was hatcht that damnable and hellish Plot by the good Providence of Almighty God brought to light above two Years since but still threatning us wherein the Traitors impatient of longer delay reckoning the prolonging of Your Sacred Majesties Life which God long Preserve as the Great Obstacle in the way to the Consummation of their hopes and having in their prospect a Proselyted Prince immediately to succeed in the Throne of these Kingdoms resolved to begin their Work with the Assassination of Your Majesty to carry it on with Armed Force to destroy Your Protestant Subjects in England to Execute a second Massacre in Ireland and so with ease to arrive at the suppression of our Religion and the subversion of the Government When this Accursed Conspiracy began to be discovered they began the smothering it with the Barbarous Murther of a Justice of the Peace within one of Your Majesties own Palaces who had taken some Examinations concerning it Amidst these distractions and fears Popish Officers for the Command of Forces were allowed upon the Musters by special Orders surreptitionsly obtained from Your Majesty but Counter-Signed by a Secretary of State without ever passing under the Tests prescribed by the aforementioned Act of Parliament In like manner above fifty new Commissions were granted about the same time to known Papists besides a great number of desperate Popish Officers though out of Command yet entertain'd at half pay When in the next Parliament the House of Commons were prepared to bring to a legal Tryal the principal Conspirators in this Plot that Parliament was first Prorogued and then Dissolved The Interval between the Calling and Sitting of this Parliament was so long that now they conceive Hopes of covering all their past Crimes and gaining a seasonable time and advantages of practising them more effectually Witnesses are attempted to be corrupted and not only promises of Reward but of the Favour of your Majesty's Brother made the Motives to their Compliance Divers of the most considerable of your Majesty's Protestant Subjects have Crimes of the highest nature forged against them the Charge to be supported by Subornation and Perjury that they may be destroyed by Forms of Law and Justice A Presentment being prepared for a Grand Jury of Middlesex against your Majesty's said Brother the Duke of York under whose Countenance all the
said Report Resolved Nemine contradicente THat Richard Thompson Clerk hath publickly defamed his Sacred Majesty preached Sedition vilified the Reformation promoted Popery by asserting Popish Principles decrying the Popish Plot and turning the same upon the Protestants and endeavoured to subvert the Liberty and Property of the Subject and the Rights and Privileges of Parliament and that he is a Scandal and Reproach to his Function And that the said Richard Thompson be impeached upon the said Report and Resolution of the House And a Committee is appointed to prepare the said Impeachment and to receive further Instructions against him and to send for Persons Papers and Records Articles of Impeachment of Sir William Scroggs Chief Justice of the Court of King ' s-Bench by the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled in their own Name and in the Name of all the Commons of England of High-Treason and other great Crimes and Misdemeanors I. THat he the said Sir William Scroggs then being Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench hath traiterously and wickedly endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and the Establisht Religion and Government of this Kingdom of England and instead thereof to introduce Popery and an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government against Law which he has declared by divers Traiterous and Wicked Words Opinions Judgments Practices and Actions II. That he the said Sir William Scroggs in Trinity Term last being then Chief Justice of the said Court and having taken an Oath duly to Administer Justice according to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm in pursuance of his said Traiterous Purposes did together with the rest of the said Justices of the same Court several days before the end of the said Term in an Arbitrary manner discharge the Grand Jury which then served for the Hundred of Oswaldston in the County of Middlesex before they had made their Presentments or had found several Bills of Indictment which were then before them whereof the said Sir William Scroggs was then fully informed and that the same would be tendered to the Court upon the last day of the said Term which day then was and by the known Course of the said Court hath always heretofore been given unto the said Jury for the delivering in of their Bills and Presentments by which sudden and illegal Discharge of the said Jury the Course of Justice was stopt maliciously and designedly the Presentments of many Papists and other Offenders were obstructed and in particular a Bill of Indictment against James Duke of York for absenting himself from Church which was then before them was prevented from being proceeded upon III. That whereas one Henry Carr had for some time before Publish'd every week a certain Book Intituled The weekly Packet of advice from Rome Or the History of Popery wherein the Superstitions and Cheats of the Church of Rome were from time to time exposed he the said Sir William Scroggs then Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench together with the other Judges of the said Court before any Legal Conviction of the said Carr of any Crime did in the same Trinity Term in a most Illegal and Arbitrary manner make and cause to be entred a certain Rule of that Court against the Printing of the said Book in Haec Verba Dies Mercurii proxime post tres Septimanas Sanctae Trinitatis Anno 32 Car. II. Regis ORdinatum est quod Liber intitulat ' The weekly Packet of Advice from Rome Or The History of Popery Non ulterius imprimatur vel publicetur per aliquam personam quamcunque Per Cur ' And did cause the said Carr and divers Printers and other Persons to be served with the same which said Rule and other Proceedings were most apparently contrary to all Justice in Condemning not only what had been written without hearing the Parties but also all that might for the future be written on that Subject A manifest countenancing of Popery and discouragement of Protestants an open Invasion upon the Right of the Subject and an encroaching and assuming to themselves a Legislative Power and Authority IV. That he the said Sir William Scroggs since he was made Chief Justice of the King 's Bench hath together with the other Judges of the said Court most notoriously departed from all Rules of Justice and Equality in the Imposition of Fines upon Persons convicted of Misdemeanours in the said Court and particularly in the Term of Easter last past did openly declare in the said Court in the Case of one Jessop who was convicted of Publishing False News and was then to be sined That he would have regard to Persons and their Principles in imposing of Fines and would set a Fine of 500 l. on one Person for the same Offence for the which he would not Fine another 100 l. And according to his said Unjust and Arbitrary Declaration he the said Sir Will. Scroggs together with the said other Justices did then impose a Fine of 100 l. upon the said Jessop although the said Jessop had before that time proved one Hewit to be convicted as Author of the said false News and afterwards in the same Term did fine the said Hewit upon his said Conviction only five Marks Nor hath the said Sir Will. Scroggs together with the other Judges of the said Court had any regard to the Nature of the Offences or the Ability of the Persons in the imposing of Fines but have been manifestly partial and favourable to Papists and Persons affected to and promoting the Popish Interest in this time of imminent Danger from them And at the same time have most severely and grievously oppressed his Majesty's Protestant Subjects as will appear upon view of the several Records of Fines set in the said Court By which arbitrary unjust and partial Proceedings many of his Majesty's Liege People have been ruined and Popery countenanced under colour of Justice and all the Mischiefs and Excesses of the Court of Star-Chamber by Act of Parliament suppressed have been again in direct opposition to the said Law introduced V. That he the said Sir Will. Scroggs for the further accomplishing of his said traiterous and wicked Purposes and designing to subject the Persons as well as the Estates of his Majesty's Liege People to his lawless Will and Pleasure hath frequently refused to accept of Bail though the same were sufficient and legally tendered unto him by many Persons accused before him only of such Crimes for which by Law Bail ought to have been taken and divers of the said Persons being only accused of Offences against himself declaring at the same time That he refused Bail and committed them to Gaol only to put them to Charges and using such furious Threats as were to the terrour of his Majesty's Subjects and such scandalous Expressions as were a dishonour to the Government and to the Dignity of his Office And particularly That he the said Sir Will. Scroggs did in the Year 1679 commit and detain in Prison in such
Power in Ecclesiastical Matters truly stated HIS present Majesty having erected an High-Commission Court to enquire of and make redress in Ecclesiastical Matters c. Q. Whether such a Commission as the Law now stands be good or not And I hold that the Commission is not good And to maintain my Opinion herein I shall in the first place briefly consider what Power the Crown of England had in Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Matters for I take them to be synonymous Terms before 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. And Secondly I shall particularly consider the Act of 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. And Thirdly I shall consider 13 Car. 2. ca. 12. And by that time I have fully considered these three Acts of Parliament it will plainly appear that the Crown of England hath now no Power to erect such a Court. I must confess and do agree That by the Common Law all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was lodged in the Crown and the Bishops and all Spiritual Persons derived their Jurisdiction from thence And I cannot find that there were any Attempts by the Clergy to divest the Crown of it till William the First 's Time and his Successors down to King John the Pope obtained four Points of Jurisdiction First Sending of Legates into England Secondly Drawing of Appeals to the Court of Rome Thirdly Donation of Bishopricks and other Ecclesiastical Benefices And Fourthly Exemption of Clerks from the Secular Power Which four Points were gained within the space of an hundred and odd Years but with all the Opposition imaginable of the Kings and their People and the Kingdom never came to be absolutely inslaved to the Church of Rome till King John's Time and then both King and People were and so continued to be in a great measure in Henry the Third's Time and so would in all likelihood have continued had not wise Edward the First opposed the Pope's Usurpation and made the Statute of Mortmain But that which chiefly brake the Neck of this was That after the Pope and Clergy had endeavoured in Edward the Second's Time and in the beginning of Edward the Third to usurp again Edward the Third did resist the Usurpation and made the Statutes of Provisors 25 Ed. 3. and 27 Ed. 3. And Richard the Second backed those Acts with 16 Rich. 2. ca. 5. and kept the Power in the Crown by them Laws which being interrupted by Queen Mary a bloody Bigot of the Church of Rome during her Reign there was an Act made in 1 Eliz-ca 1. which is Intituled Keeble's Stat. An Act to restore to the Crown the ancient Jurisdiction over the Estate Ecclesiastical and Spiritual and abolishing all foreign Powers repugnant to the same From which Title I collect three things First That the Crown had anciently a Jurisdiction over the Estate Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Secondly That that Jurisdiction had for some time been at least suspended and the Crown had not exercised it Thirdly That this Law did not introduce a new Jurisdiction but restored the old but with restoring the old Jurisdiction to the Crown gave a Power of delegating the Exercise of it And as a Consequence from the whole that all Jurisdiction that is lodged in the Crown is subject nevertheless to the Legislative Power in the Kingdom I shall now consider what Power this Act of 1 Eliz. 1. declares to have been anciently in the Crown and that appears from Sect. 16 17 18. of the same Act. Section 16. Abolisheth all Foreign Authority in Cases Spiritual and Temporal in these VVords And to the intent that all the Vsurped and Foreign Power and Authority Spiritual and Temporal may for ever be clearly extinguished and never to be used or obeyed within this Realm or any other Your Majesties Dominions or Countries 2 May it please Your Highness that it may be further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid that no Foreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate Spiritual or Temporal shall at any time after the last Day of this Session of Fâ—â—liament use enjoy or exercise any manner of Power Jurisdiction Superiority Authority Preheminence or Priviledge Spiritual or Ecclesiastical within this Realm or within any other Your Majesties Dominions or Countries that now be or hereafter shall be but from thenceforth the same shall be clearly Abolished out of this Realm and all other Your Highness's Dominions for ever any Statute Ordinance Custom Constitutions or any other Matter or Cause whatsoever to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And after the said Act hath abolished all Foreign Authority in the very next Section Sect. 17. It annexeth all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Crown in these VVords And that also it may likewise please your Heghness That it may be Established and Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That such Jurisdictions Priviledges Superiorities and Preheminencies Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power or Authority hath heretofore been or may lawfully be exercised or used for the Visitation of the Ecclesiastical State and Persons and for Reformation Order and Correction of the same and of all manner of Errors Heresies Schisms Abuses Offences Contempts and Enormities shall for ever by Authority of this present Parliament be Vnited and Annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm From these VVords That such Jurisdiction c. as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power or Authority had then-to-fore been exercised or used were annexed to the Crown I observe That the Four things aforesaid wherein the Pope had incroached were all restored to the Crown and likewise all other Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction that had been exercised or used in this Kingdom and did thereby become absolutely vested in the Crown Then Section 18. Gives a Power to the Crown to assign Commissioners to excrcise this Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in these VVords And that Your Highness Your Heirs and Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm shall have full Power and Authority by Virtue of this Act by Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England to Assign Name and Authorize when and as often as Your Highness Your Heirs or Successors shall think meet and convenient and for such and so long time as shall pleass Your Highness your Heirs or Successors such Person or Persons being natural born Subjects to Your Highness Your Heirs or Successors as Your Majesty Your Heirs or Successors shall think meet to Exercise Vse Occupy and Execute under Your Highness Your Heirs and Succâ—ssors all manner of Jurisdictions Priviledges and Preheminencies in any wise touching or concerning any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction within these Your Realms of England and Ireland or any other Your Highness's Dominions and Countries 2. and to visit Reform Redress Order Correct and Amend all such Errors Heresies Schisms Abuses Offences Contempts and Enormities whatsoever which by any manner of Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power Authority or Jurisdiction can or may lawfully be Reformed Ordered Redressed Corrected Restrained and Amended to the pleasure of Almighty God the Increase of Vertue and the Conservation
C. Subjects all the Priviledges of their other Subjects only they are kept by a Test from having any share in the Government which is truly a Kindness done them considering that ill-natured humour of destroying all those that differ from them which is apt to break out when that Religion is in Power Now the 〈◊〉 of England may justly expect all sort of Protection and Countenance from the Succeâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 it's their Turn to give it they have a legal Right to it and impartial Dissenters 〈…〉 â—â—â—ledge that of late they have deserved it But as 〈…〉 Protestant Dissenters I think no honest Man amongst them will apprehend that their 〈…〉 who keep their Word to their Popish Enemies will break it to Protestant Subject◠〈…〉 from the publick Establishment The next thing I am to make good is That his Highnesses Education must have infused such Principles as side with his Interest There must be a fatal Infection in the English Crown if Matters miscarry in his Highnesses Hands his Veins are full of the best Protestant Blood in the VVorld The Reformation in France grew up under the Conduct and Influence of Coligni Prince William founded the Governmtnt of the United Netherlands on the Basis of Property and Liberty of Conscience his Highness was bred and lives in that State which subsists and flourishes by adhering steadily to the Maxims of its Founder He himself both in his publick and private Concerns as well in the Government of his Family and of such Principalities as belong to him as in that of the Army and in the Dispensing of that great Power which the States have given him has as great regard to Justice Vertue and true Religion as may compleat the Character of a Prince qualified to make those he governs happy It does not indeed appear that their Highnesses have any share of that devouring Zeal which hath so long set the VVorld on Fire and tempted thinking Men to have a Notion of Religion it self like that we have of the ancient Paradice as if it had never been more than an interced Blessing but all who have the Honour to know their Highnesses and their Inclinations in Matters of Religion are fully satisfied they have a truly Christian Zeal and as much as is consistent with Knowledge and Charity As to his Highnesses Circumstances they will be such when his Stars make way for him as may convince our Scepticks that certain persons times and things are prepared for one another I know not why we may not hope that as his Predecessors broke the York of the House of Austria from off the Neck of Europe The Honour of breaking that of the House of Bourbon is reserved for him I am confident the Nation will heartily joyn with him in his just Resentments Resentments which they have with so much Impatience long'd to find and have missâ—d with the greatest Indignation in the Hearts of their Monarchs His Highness has at present a greater Influence on the Councils of the most part of the Princes of Christendom than possibly any King of England ever had And this acquired 〈…〉 weight of his own personal Merit which will no doubt grow up to a glorious Authority when it is cloathed with Sovereign Power May I here mention to lay the Jealousies of the most unreasonable of your Friends that his Highness will have only a borrowed Title which we may suppose will make him more cautious in having Designs at Home and his wanting Children to our great Misfortune will make him less solicitous to have such Designs But after all it must be acknowledged that in Matters of this Nature the Premises may seem very strong and yet the Conclusion not follow Humane Infirmities are great Temptations to Arbitrariness are strong and often both the Spirit and Flesh weak Such fatal Mistakes have been made of late that the Successors themselves may justly pardon Mens jealousies A VVidow that has had a bad Husband will cry on her VVedding-day though she would be married with all her Heart But I am confident you will grant to me that in the Case of the present Successors the Possibilities are as remote and the Jealousies as ill grounded and that there is as much to ballance them as ever there was to be found in the prospect of any Successors to the Crown of England Now may I add To conclude the Reasons that I have given you why we may depend on their Highnesses that I know considerable Men who after great Enquiry and Observation do hope that their Highnesses being every way so well qualified for such an end are predestinated if I may speak so to make us happy in putting an end to our Differences and in fixing the Prerogative and in recovering the Glory of the Nation which is so much sunk and which now when we were big with Expectations we find sacrificed to unhappy partialities in matters of Religion The last thing you desire to know is What Effect this Letter has had But it is not yet old enough for me to judge of that I can better tell you what Effects it ought to have I find the moderate wise Men of all Perswasions are much pleased with it I know Roman Catholiks that wish to God Matters were setled on the Model given in it they see the great Difficulty of getting the Test Repealed And withal they doubt whether it is their Interest that it should be repealed or not They fear needy violent Men might get into Employments who would put his Majesty on doing things that might ruine them and their posterity They are certainly in the right of it It is good to provide for the worst A Revolution will come with a VVitness and its like it may come before the Prince of Wales be of Age to manage an unruly Spirit that I fear will accompany it Humane Nature can hardly digest what it is already necessitated to swallow such provocations even alters mens Judgments I find that Men who otherways hate severity begin to be of Opinion that Queen Elizabeths Lenity to the R. C's proves now Cruelty to the Protestants The whole Body of Protestants in the Nation was lately afraid of a Popish Successor and when they reflected on Queen Maries Reign thought we had already sufficient Experience of the Spirit of that Religion and took Self preservation to be a good Argument for preventing a second Tryal But now a handful of Roman Catholicks perhaps reflecting on Queen Elizabeths Reign are not it seems afraid of Protestant Successors But if some Protestants at that time from an Aversion to the Remedy hop'd that the Disease was not so dangerous as it proves I am confident at present all Protestants are agreed that henceforward the Nation must be saved not by Faith And therefore I would advise the R. C's to consider that Protestants are still Men that late Experiences at home and the Cruelties of Popish Princes abroad has given us a very terrible Idea of their Religion That
shift Instruments and to betake themselves to the Nonconformists whose assistance the better to engage they have not only suspended all the Penal Laws to which the Dissenters were liable but have endeavoured to fill ' them with jealousy and apprehension of danger from the Test Acts tho at the same time they know that Nonconformists never either did or could receive prejudice by them Only they are sensible that if they could work up that easie people into such a belief they should thereby not only obtain their concurrence and abettment for the rescinding of those Laws that are at present the only great remaining Fence about our Religion and upon the abrogation whereof nothing could hinder the Papists from getting into a condition to extirpate it but make them a formed and united Body with themselves against the Prince and Princess of Orange who have with so much Wisdom Courage and Integrity declared that they are against the having them repealed And as the Dissenters cannot have so far renounced all regard both to honesty and to a good name as to be fond of being herded with the Papists or thank our Author for it so they must be become void of all sense and understanding if they suffer themselves to be either wheedled or frighted into an opinion of their being subject to receive any dammage by the Tests it being so expresly contrary both to the Terms of those Laws and to their own experience Nor can they be so far abandoned of God nor prove so treacherous to the Nation Posterity and the whole Protestant Interest thro' Europe as to cooperate to the Repeal of them by destroying that great Fence about the Reformed Religion in England and to put the Papists into capacity both of subverting it there and every where else And setting aside a few mercenary fellows among them there is no ground to fear after we have had so many proofs of their zeal for the Protestant Religion and English Liberties in the worst of times and under the greatest Temptations that they should at this season when all others behave themselves with so much Integrity and Courage be accessory to so villanous a thing The ill success which the Court hath met with in the several Towns and City's since the late Regulation of the Corporations sufficiently shews that the Dissenters who were put into Magistracy in hopes by them to have compassed the packing of a Parliament are no less careful of preserving the Test Laws than they of the Church of England Communion were who were displaced to make way for them And to discover the grossness of the abuse which our Author without regard to Truth or Ingenuity endeavours to put upon them as if they were judged by their Highnesses to be incapable of Trusts and Employments or any ways concluded to stand under those restraints by the Test which the Roman Catholicks do there is not one word in Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter whereby they are said to be subject unto them or by which there is any ground administred of fancying they are put into the same rank with the Papists and whereby to fear that they may hereafter come to be treated accordingly But in stead of this they are expresly told that Their Highnesses do both allow and desire the abrogation of all the Penal Laws against Dissenters and the having them freed from the severity of them and that they do not only consent but heartily approve of their having an entire liberty granted them for the full exercise of their Religion without any trouble or hindrance or being left exposed to the least molestation or inconvenience upon that account And to testifie how far the Nonconformists are from being in the least menaced by those Laws it is again Declared that the only reason why their Highnesses refuse to consent to the having them repealed is because that they have no other tendency save to Secure the Reformed Religion from the Designs of the Papists by containing provisions in the vertue of which those only may be kept out of Office who can not testifie that they are of the Reformed and not of the Roman Catholick Religion Which as it is the highest evidence imaginable of their own stedfastness and integrity in the Reformed Religion and of the compassion and love which they equally bear to all who profess it and how careful they will at all times be to have it maintained and supported so it is the putting such a merit upon all Protestants that it should engage their prayers for their happy extation to the Throne and make them ambitious as well as willing and ready to hazard their lives and Fortunes for the securing the Succession unto them if any should be so wicked as to go about to preclude them But I must pay a further attendance upon our Author and accompany him to the fifth particular which I promised to consider namely that according to his own foolish and incoherent way of writing while he pretends to commend and justify the proceeding of His Majesty of Great Brittain he publisheth the villany of the Papal Church and proclaims the dishonour and injustice of diverse Eminent Monarchs and Princes of the Romish Communion His Panegyricks upon the King of England are so many just Satyr's upon the Church of Rome the Monarch of France and the Duke of Savoy c. For if it be becoming a Christian to be of a contrary judgment to those who are for persecuting such as differ from the publick and established Religion and if it be a sentiment worthy of a Royal mind that none ought to be oppressed for their Consciences in Divine Matters what characters of irreligion ignominy wickedness are due unto them who judge it to be meritorious to destroy sincere Christians for no other pretended Crime save that they cannot believe as the Pope and the Church of Rome do Surely our Author must either be extreamly ignorant of the Doctrine of his own Church and of the bloody and barbarous practices pursuant thereunto both at this day and for many ages past or else he must be the most unsincere miscreant that ever writ or at best be guilty of the inconsistency and folly as to continue in the Communion of a Church whose Articles of Faith he condemns as Antichristian and whose practices according to the Terms made necessary for Salvation he abhorreth both as unworthy of Royal Minds and contrary to Christian Piety But tho nothing can render a false man honest or a foolish Man wise yet seeing something may be done towards the curing a person's ignorance if he be teachable or at least to shew his obstinacy and that the fault is in his will not in his Understanding if he will not learn and be convinced I shall therefore both acquaint him a little with the Doctrine of that Church and briefly put him in remembrance how these of the Romish Fellowship have therefore persecuted Christians and still continue so to do only for differing
and Historical as may serve to place it in the brightest Light and fullest Evidence that a matter future and yet to come which is only the object of our prospect and dread and not of our feeling and experience is capable of It ought to be of weight upon the minds of all English Protestants that the King of Great Britain is not only an open and avow'd Papist but as most Apostates use to be a fiery Bigot in the Romish Religion and who as the Leige Letter from a Jesuit to a Brother of the Order tells us is resolved either to Convert England to Popery or to dye a Martyr Nor were the Jewish Zealots of whose rageful Transports Josephus gives us so ample an Account nor the Dervises among the Turks and Indians of whose mad Attempts so many Histories make mention more brutal in their Fanatical Heats than a Popish Bigot useth to be when favored with Advantages of exerting his Animosity against those who differ from him if he be not carefully watched against and restrained Beside the innumerable Instances of the Tragical Effects of Romish Bigottry that are to be met with in Books of all kinds we need go no farther for an Evidence of it than to consult the Life of Dominick the great Instigator and Promoter of the Massacre of the Waldenses and the Founder of that Order which hath the Management of the Bloody Inquisition together with the Life of Henry the Third of France who contrary to the Advice of Maximilian the Emperor and the repeated Intreaties of the wisest of his own Counsellors the Chancellor de l' Hospital and the President de Thou not only revived the War and Persecution against his Reformed Subjects after he had seen what Judgments the like Proceedings had derived upon his Predecessors and how prejudicial they had proved to the Strength Glory and Interest of his Crown and Kingdom but he entred into a League with those that fought to depress abdicate and depose him and became the Head of a Faction for the destroying that part of his Subjects upon whom alone he could rely for the defence of his Person and support of his Dignity Nor were the Furies of the Duke de Alva heretofore or the present Barbarities of Louis the Fourteenth so much the Effects of their haughty and furious Tempers as of their Bigottry in their inhuman and sanguinary Religion That the King of England is second to none in a blind and rageful Popish Zeal his Behaviour both while a Subject and since he arrived at the Crown doth not only place it beyond the limits of a bare Suspition but affords us such Evidences of it as that none in consistency with Principles of Wisdom and Discretion can either question or contradict it To what else can we ascribe it but to an excessive Bigottry That when the Frigot wherein he was Sailing to Scotland anno 1682. struck upon the Sands and was ready to sink he should prefer the Lives of one or two pitiful Priests to those of Men of the greatest Quality and receive those Mushroons into the Boat in which himself escaped while at the same time he refused to admit not only his own Brother-in-Law but divers Noblemen of the Supremest Rank and Character to the benefit of the same means of Deliverance and suffered them to perish though they had undertaken that Voyage out of pure respect to his Person and to put an Honor upon him at a Season when he wanted not Enemies Nor can it proceed from any thing but a violent and furious Bigottry that he should not only disoblige and disgust the two Universities of whose Zeal to his Service he hath receiv'd so many seasonable and effectual Testimonies but to the Violation both of the Laws of God and the Kingdom offer force to their Consciences as well as to their Rights and Franchises and all this in favor of Father Francis whom he would illegally thrust into a Fellowship in Cambridge and of Mr. Farmer whom he would arbitrarily obtrude into the Headship of a College in Oxford who as they are too despicable to be owned and stood for in Competition against two famous Universities whose greatest Crime hath been an Excess of Zeal for his Person and Interest when he was Duke of York and a measure of Loyalty and Obedience unto him since he came to the Crown beyond what either the Rules of Christianity or the Laws of the Kingdom exact from them so he hath ways enough of expressing Kindness and Bounty to those two little contemptible Creatures and that in Methods as beneficial to them as the Places into which he would thrust them can be supposed to amount unto and I am sure with less Scandal to himself and less Offence to all Protestants as well as without offering Injury to the Rights of the University or of compelling those learned grave and venerable Men to perjure themselves and act against their Duties and Consciences The late Proceedings towards Dr. Burnet are not only contrary to all the Measures of Justice Law and Honor but argue a strange and furious Bigottry in His Majesty for Popery there being nothing else into which a Man can resolve the whole Tenor of his present Actings against Him seeing setting aside the Doctor 's being a Protestant and a Minister of the Church of England and his having vindicated the Reformation in England from the Calumnies and Slanders wherewith it was aspersed by Sanders and others of the Roman Communion and the approving himself in some other Writings worthy of the Character of a Reformed Divine and of that esteem which the World entertains of him for Knowledge in History and all other parts of good Learning there hath nothing occurred in the whole Tenor and Trace of his Life but what instead of Rebuke and Censure hath merited Acknowledgments and the Retributions of Favor and Preferment from the Court. Whosoever considers his constant Preaching up Passive Obedience to such a Degree and Height as he hath done may very well be surprised at the whole Method of their present Actings towards him and at the same time that they find cause to justifie the Righteousness of God in making them the Instruments of his Persecution whom in so many ways he had sought to oblige they may justly conclude that none save a Bigotted Papist could be the Author of so insuitable as well as illegal and unrighteous Returns For as to all whereof he is accused in the Criminal Letters against him bearing date the 19th of April 1687. I my self am both able to assert his Innocence and dare assure the World that none of the Persons whom he is charged to have conspired with against the King would have been so far void of Discretion knowing his Principles as to have transacted with him in Matters of that kind but whether his Letters since that to the Earl of Middletoune with the Paper inclosed in one of them have administred any Legal Ground for their Second Citation
him and that 't is no wonder he should exact an Obedience without reserve from his Subjects in Scotland seeing he himself yields an Obedience without reserve to the Jesuits 'T is known how that by the Rules of their Institution no Jesuit is capable of the Mitre and that if the Ambition of any of them should tempt him to seek or accept the Dignity of a Prelate he must for being capacitated thereunto renounce his Membership in the Order Yet so great is His Majesties Passion for the Honor and Grandeur of the Society and such is their Domination and absolute Power over him that no less will serve him neither would they allow him to insist upon less than that the Pope should dispense with Father Peters being made a Bishop without his ceasing to be a Jesuit or the being transplanted into another Order And this the old Gentleman at Rome hath been forced at last to comply with and to grant a Dispensation whereby Father Peters shall be capable of the Prelature notwithstanding his remaining in the Ignatian Order the Jesuits through their Authority over the King not suffering him to recede from his Demand and His Majesty's Zeal for the Society not permitting him to comply either with the Prayers or the Conscience and Honor of the Supreme Pontiff Not only the King's Unthankfulness unto but his illegal Proceedings against and his Arbitrary invading the Rights of those who stood by him in all his Dangers and Difficulties and who were the Instruments of preventing his Exclusion from the Crown and the chief means both of his Advancement to the Throne and his being kept in it are so many new Evidences of the ill will he bears to all Protestants and what they are to dread from him as Occasions are Administred of Injuring and Oppressing them and may serve to convince all impartial and thinking People that his Popish Malice to our Religion is too strong for all Principles of Honor and Gratitude and able to cancel the Obligations which Friendship for his Person and Service to his Interest may be supposed to have laid him under to any heretofore Had it not been for many of the Church of England who stood up with a Zeal and Vigor for preserving the Succession in the right Line beyond what Religion Conscience Reason or Interest could conduct them unto he had never been able to have out-wrestled the Endeavors of Three Parliaments for ex-excluding him from the Imperial Crown of England And had it not been for their Abetting and standing by him with their Swords in their Hands upon the Duke of Monmouth's Descent into the Kingdom Anno 1685 he could not have avoided the being driven from the Throne and the having the Scepter wrested out of his Hand Whosoever had the Advantage of knowing the Temper and Genius of the late King and how afraid he was of embarking into any thing that might import a visible Hazard to the Peace of his Government and draw after it a general Disgust of his Person will be soon satisfied that if all his Protestant Subjects had united in their Desires and concurred in their Endeavors to have had the Duke of York debarred from the Crown that his late Majesty would not have once scrupled the complying with it and that his Love to his Dear Brother would have given way to the Apprehension and Fear of forfeiting a Love for himself in the Hearts of his People especially when what was required of him was not an Invasion upon the Fundamentals of the Constitution of the English Monarchy nor dissonant from the Practice of the Nation in many repeated Instances Nor can there be a greater Evidence of the present King 's ill Nature Romish Bigottry and prodigious Ingratitude as well as of the Design he is carrying on against our Religion and Laws than his Carriage and Behavior towards the Church of England tho I cannot but acknowledge it a righteous Judgment upon them from God and a just Punishment for their being not only so unconcerned for the Preservation of our Religion and Liberties in avoiding to close with the only Methods that were adapted thereunto but for being so Passionate and Industrious to hasten the Loss of them through putting the Government into ones hands who as they might have foreseen would be sure to make a Sacrifice of them to his beloved Popery and to his inordinate Lust after despotical and Arbitrary Power And as the only Example bearing any Affinity to it is that of Louis XIV who in recompence to his Protestant Subjects for maintaining him on the Throne when the late Prince of Conde assisted by Papists would have wrested the Crown from him hath treated them with a Barbarity whereof that of Antiochus towards the Jews and that of Diocletian and Maximian towards the Primitive Christians were but scanty and imperfect Draughts so there wants nothing for compleating the Parallel between England and France but a little more time and a fortunate Opportunity and then the deluded Church-men will find that Father Peters is no less skillful at Whitehall for transforming their Acts of Loyalty and Merit towards the King into Crimes and Motives of their Ruin than Pere de la Chaise hath shewn himself at Versailles where by an Art peculiar to the Jesuits he hath improved the Loyalty and Zeal of the Reformed in France for the House of Bourbon into a reason of alienating that Monarch from them and into a ground of his destroying that dutiful and obedient People It will not be amiss to call over some of his Majesty's Proceedings towards the Church of England that from what hath been already seen and felt both they and all English Protestants may the better know what they are to expect and look for hereafter Tho it be a Method very unbecoming a Prince yet it shews a great deal of Spleen to turn the former Persecution of Dissenters so maliciously upon the Prelatical and Conforming Clergy as his Majesty doth in his Letter to Mr. Alsop in stiling them a Party of Protestants who think the only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller Matters Whereas the Severity that the Fanaticks met with had much of its Original at Court where it was formed and designed upon Motives of Popery and Arbitrariness and the Resentment and revengeful Humor of some of the old Prelates and other Church-men that had suffered in the late times was only laid hold of the better to justifie and improve it And tho it be too true that many of the dignified Rank as well as of the little Levites were both extremely fond of it and contentiously pleaded for it yet it is as true that most of them did it not upon Principles of Judgment and Conscience but upon Inducements of Retaliation for conceived Injuries and upon a belief of its being the most compendious Method to the next Preferment and Benefice and the fairest way of standing
the known Laws of the Kingdom and hath been done by no legal Court but by a Sett of Mercenary Villains armed with an Arbitrary Commission and who do as Arbitrarily exercise it And as the End unto which that Inquisition-Court was instituted was to rob us of our Rights and Privileges at the mere Pleasure of the King so the very Institution of it is an Invasion both upon all our Laws and upon the whole Property of the Nation and is one of the highest Exercises of Despotical Power that it is possible for the most Absolute and unlimited Monarch to exert Among all the Rights reserved unto the Subjects by the Rules of the Constitution and whereof they are secured by many repeated Laws and Statutes there are none that have been hitherto less disputed and in reference to which our Kings have been farther from claiming any Power and Authority than those of levying Money without the Grant as well as the Consent of Parliament and of Absolving and Discharging Debtors from paying their Creditors and of Acquitting them from being Sued and Imprisoned in case of Non-payment and yet in Defiance of all Law and to the Subverting the Rights of the People and the most essential Privilege and Jurisdiction of Parliaments and to a plain changing the ancient legal Constitution into an Absolute and Despotical Governing Power the King they say is assuming to himself an Authority both of imposing a Tax of 5 l. per Annum upon every Hackney Coach and of Releasing and Discharging all Debtors of whom their Creditors cannot claim and demand above 10 l. Sterling which as they will be signal Invasions upon Property and leading Cases for the raising Money in what other Instances he pleaseth by a Hampton-Court or a Whitehall Edict without standing in need of a Parliament or being obliged to a Dependance upon their Grant for all Taxes to be levied upon the Subjects as his Predecessoâ—s have heretofore been so they may serve fully to instruct us what little Security either the Dissenters have as to being long in the Possession of their present Liberty or Protestants in general of having a Freedom continued unto them of professing the Reformed Religion if we have nothing more to rely upon for preventing our being abridged and denied the Liberty of our Religion than we have had for preserving our Property from being Invaded and broken in upon We may subjoyn to the Clause already mentioned that other Expression which occurs in the foresaid Declaration viz. That as he freely gives them leave to meet and serve God after their own way and manner so they are to take special care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the Hearts of the People from his Majesty or his Government Which words as they import the Price at which the Dissenters are to purchase their Freedom whereof we shall discourse anon so they admirably serve to furnish the King with a Pretence of retrenching their Liberty whensoever he pleaseth nor are they inferted there for any other End but that upon a Plea of their having abused his Gracious Indulgence to the alienating the Hearts of his People from him they may be adjudged to have thereby deservedly forfeited both all the Benefits of it and of his Royal Favor Nor is it possible for a Protestant Minister to preach one Sermon which a Popish Critick or a Romish Bigot may not easily misconstrue and pervert to be an Alienation of the Peoples Hearts from the King's Person and Government And of which as we have heard many late Examples in France so it will be easie to draw them into President and to imitate them in England I might add the Observation of the ingenious Author of the Reflections on his Majesty's Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland Namely that whereas the King gives all Assurance to his Scots Subjects that he will not use invincible Necessity against any Man on the account of his Perswasion he does thereby leave himself at a liberty of Dragooning Torturing Burning and doing the utmost Violences all these being vincible to a Person of an ardent love to God and of a lively Faith in Jesus Christ and which accordingly many Thousands have been triumphantly Victorious over Nor is it likely that this new and uncouth Phrase of not using an invinsible Necessity would have found room in a Paper of that nature if it had not been first to conceal some malicious and mischievous Design and then to justifie the Consistency of its Execution with what is promised in the Proclamation Moreover were there that Security intended by these two Royal Papers that Protestant Dissenters might safely rely upon or did the King act with that Sincerity which he would delude his People into a Belief of there would then be a greater Agreeableness than there is betwixt the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland The Principle his Majesty pretends to act from That Conscience ought not to be constrained and that none ought to be persecuted for mere matters of Religion would oblige him to act uniformly and with an equal extention of Favor to all his Subjects whose Principles are the same and against whom he hath no Exception but in matters merely Religious Whereas the Disparity of Grace Kindness and Freedom that is exercised in the Declaration from that which is exerted in the Proclamation plainly shews that the whole is but a Trick of State and done in Subserviency to an end which it is not yet seasonable to discover and avow For his circumscribing the Toleration in Scotland to such Presbyterians as he stiles Moderate is not only a taking it off from its true Bottom matters of mere Religion and a founding it upon an internal Quality of the mind that is not dissernable but it implies the reserving a Liberty to himself of withdrawing the Benefits of it from all Scots Dissenters through fastening upon them a contrary Character whensoever it shall be seasonable to revive Persecution And even as it is now exerted to these Moderate ones it is attended with Restrictions that his Indulgence in England is no ways clog'd with All that the Declaration requires from those that are indulged is That their Assemblies be peaceably openly and publickly held that all Persons be freely admitted to them that they signifie and make known to some Justice of the Peace what places they set apart for these uses and that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alionate the Hearts of the People from the King or his Government Whereas the Proclamation not only restrains the Meetings of the Scots Presbyterians to private Houses without allowing them either to build Meeting-Houses or to use Out-houses or Barns but it prohibits the hearing any Ministers save such as shall be willing to swear That they shall to the utmost of their power assist defend and maintain the King in the
such Assemblies which times are as ancient as any Memory of the Nation it self hence I infer that no Summons from the King can be thought to have been necessary in those days because it was altogether needless Secondly The Succession to the Crown did not in those days nor till of late years run in a course of Lineal Succession by right of Inheritance But upon the death of a Prince those Persons of the Realm that Composed the then Parliament Assembled in order to the choosing of another That the Kingdom was then Elective though one or other of the Royal Blood was always chosen but the next in Lineal Succession very seldom is evident from the Genealogies of the Saxon Kings from an old Law made at Calchuyth appointing how and by whom Kings shall be chosen and from many express and particular Accounts given by our old Historians of such Assemblies held for Electing of Kings Now such Assemblies could not be Summon'd by any King and yet in conjunction with the King that themselves set up they made Laws binding the King and all the Realm Thirdly After the Death of King William Rufus Robert his Elder Brother being then in the Holy Land Henry the younger Son of King William the First procured an Assembly of the Clergy and People of England to whom he made large Promises of his good Government in case they would accept of him for their King and they agreeing that if he would restore to them the Laws of King Edward the Confessor then they would consent to make him their King He swore that he would do so and also free them from some oppressions which the Nation had groan'd under in his Brothers and his Fathers time Hereupon they chose him King and the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of York set the Crown upon his Head Which being done a Confirmation of the English Liberties passed the Royal Assent in that Assembly the same in substance though not so large as King John's and King Henry the Third's Magna Charta's afterwards were Fourthly After that King's Death in such another Parliament King Stephen was Elected and Mawd the Empress put by though not without some stain of perfidiousness upon all those and Stephen himself especially who had sworn in her Fathers Life-time to acknowledge her for their Soveraing after his decease Fifthly In King Richard the First 's time the King being absent in the Holy Land and the Bishop of Ely then his Chancellor being Regent of the Kingdom in his Absence whose Government was intolerable to the People for his Insolence and manifold Oppressions a Parliament was convened at London at the Instance of Earl John the Kings Brother to treat of the great and weighty affairs of the King and Kingdom in which Parliament this same Regent was depos'd from his Government and another set up viz. the Arch-Bishop of Roan in his stead This Assembly was not conven'd by the King who was then in Palaestine nor by any Authority deriv'd from him for then the Regent and Chancellor must have call'd them together but they met as the Historian says expresly at the Instance of Earl John And yet in the Kings Absence they took upon them to settle the publick Affairs of the Nation without Him Sixthly When King Henry the 3d. died his Eldest Son Prince Edward was then in the Holy Land and came not home till within the third year of his Reign yet immediately upon the Fathers Death all the Prelates and Nobles and 4 Knights for every Shire and 4 Burgesses for every Borough Assembled together in a great Council and setled the Government till the King should return Made a new Seal and a Chancellor c. I infer from what has been said that Writs of Summons are not so Essential to the being of Parliaments but that the People of England especially at a time when they cannot be had may by Law and according to our old Constitution Assemble together in a Parliamentary way without them to treat of and settle the publick Affairs of the Nation And that if such Assemblies so conven'd find the Throne Vacant they may proceed not only to set up a Prince but with the Assent and Concurrence of such Prince to transact all Publick business whatsoever without a new Election they having as great Authority as the People of England can deligate to their Representatives II. The Acts of Parliaments not Formal nor Legal in all their Circumstances are yet binding to the Nation so long as they continue in Force and not liable to be questioned as to the Validity of them but in subsequent Parliaments First The two Spencers Temp. Edvardi Secundi were banished by Act of Parliament and that Act of Parliament repealed by Dures Force yet was the Act of Repeal a good Law till it was Annulled 1 Ed. 3. Secondly Some Statutes of 11 Rich. 2. and attainders thereupon were repealed in a Parliament held Ann. 21. of that King which Parliament was procured by forced Elections and yet the Repeal stood good till such time as in 1 Henry 4. the Statutes of 11 Rich. 2. were revived and appointed to be firmly held and kept Thirdly The Parliament of 1 Hen. 4. consisted of the same Knights Citizens and Burgesses that had served in the then last dissolved Patliament and those Persons were by the Kings Writts to the Sheriffs commanded to be returned and yet they passed Acts and their Acts tho never confirmed continue to be Laws at this day Fourthly Queen Mary's Parliament that restored the Popes Supremacy was notoriously known to be pack'd inso much that it was debated in Queen Elizabeth's time whether or no to declare all their Acts void by Act of Parliament That course was then upon some prudential considerations declined and therefore the Acts of that Parliament not since repealed continue binding Laws to this day The reason of all this is Because no inferiour Courts have Authority to judge of the Validity or Invalidity of the Acts of such Assemblies as have but so much as a colour of Parliamentary Authority The Acts of such Assemblies being Entred upon the Parliament-Roll and certified before the Judges of Westminster-Hall as Acts of Parliament are conclusive and binding to them because Parliaments are the only Judges of the Imperfections Invalidities Illegalities c. of one another The Parliament that call'd in King Charles the Second was not assembled by the Kings Writ and yet they made Acts and the Royal assent was had to them many of which indeed were afterwards confirmed but not all and those that had no Confirmation are undoubted Acts of Parliament without it and have ever since obtained as such Hence I inferr that the present Convention may if they please assume to themselves a Parliamentary Power and in conjunction with such King or Queen as they shall declare may give Laws to the Kingdom as a legal Parliament The Thoughts of a Private Person about the Justice of the Gentlemens Vndertaking
be miserably diminish'd sooner than we are aware But there remains yet another part of our Message which we have to impart to you on the behalf of your People They find in an antient Statute and it has been done in fact not long ago That if the King through any Evil Counsel or foolish Contumacy or out of Scorn or some singular petulant Will of his own or by any other irregular Means shall alienate himself from his People and shall refuse to be govern'd and guided by the Laws of the Realm and the Statutes and laudable Ordinances thereof together with the wholsom Advice of the Lords and great Men of his Realm but persisting head-strong in his own hare-brain'd Counsels shall petulantly prosecute his own singular humour That then it shall be lawful for them with the common assent and consent of the People of the Realm to depose that same King from his Regal Throne and to set up some other of the Royal Blood in his room H. Knight Coll. 2681. No Man can imagine that the Lords and Commons in Parliament would have sent the King such a Message and have quoted to him an old Statute for deposing Kings that would not govern according to Law if the People of England had then apprehended that an Obedience without reserve was due to the King or if there had not been such a Statute in being And though the Record of that Excellent Law be lost as the Records of almost all our Antient Laws are yet is the Testimony of so credible an Historian who lived when these things were transacted sufficient to inform us that such a Law was then known and in being and consequently that the Terms of English Allegiance according to the Constitution of our Government are different from what some Modern Authors would persuade us they are This Difference betwixt the said King and his Parliament ended amicably betwixt them in the punishment of many Evil Counsellors by whom the King had been influenced to commit many Irregularities in Government But the Discontents of the People grew higher by his After-management of Affairs and ended in the Deposition of that King and setting up of another who was not the next Heir in Lineal Succession The Articles against King Richard the Second may be read at large in H. Knighton Collect. 2746 2747 c. and are yet extant upon Record An Abridgment of them is in Cotton's Records pag. 386 387 388. out of whom I observe these few there being in all Thirty three The First was His wasting and bestowing the Lands of the Crown upon unworthy Persons and overcharging the Commons with Exactions And that whereas certain Lords Spiritual and Temporal were assign'd in Parliament to intend the Government of the Kingdom the King by a Conventicle of his own Accomplices endeavoured to impeach them of High-Treason Another was For that the King by undue means procured divers Justices to speak against the Law to the destruction of the Duke of Glocester and the Earls of Arundel and Warwick at Shrewsbury Another For that the King against his own Promise and Pardon at a solemn Procession apprehended the Duke of Glocester and sent him to Calice there to be choaked and murthered beheading the Earl of Arundel and banishing the Earl of Warwick and the Lord Cobham Another For that the King's Retinue and a Rout gathered by him out of Cheshire committed divers Murders Rapes and other Felonies and refused to pay for their Victuals Another For that the Crown of England being freed from the Pope and all other Foreign Power the King notwithstanding procured the Pope's Excommunication on such as should break the Ordinances of the last Parliament in derogation of the Crown Statutes and Laws of the Realm Another That he made Men Sheriffs who were not named to him by the Great Officers the Justices and others of his Council and who were unfit contrary to the Laws of the Realm and in manifest breach of his Oath Another For that he did not repay to his Subjects the Debts that he had borrowed of them Another For that the King refused to execute the Laws saying That the Laws were in his Mouth and Breast and that himself alone could make and alter the Laws Another For causing Sheriffs to continue in Office above a Year contrary to the tenor of a Statute-Law thereby incurring notorious Perjury Another For that the said King procured Knights of the Shires to be returned to serve his own Will Another For that many Justices for their good Counsel given to the King were with evil Countenance and Threats rewarded Another For that the King passing into Ireland had carried with him without the Consent of the Estates of the Realm the Treasure Reliques and other Jewels of the Realm which were used safely to be kept in the King 's own Coffers from all hazard And for that the said King cancelled and razed sundry Records Another For that the said King appear'd by his Letters to the Pope to Foreign Princes and to his Subjects so variable so dissembling and so unfaithful and inconstant that no Man could trust him that knew him insomuch that he was a Scandal both to himself and the Kingdom Another That the King would commonly say amongst the Nobles that all Subjects Lives Lands and Goods were in his hands without any forfeiture which is altogether contrary to the Laws and Vsages of the Realm Another For that he suffered his Subjects to be condemned by Martial-Law contrary to his Oath and the Laws of the Realm Another For that whereas the Subjects of England are sufficiently bound to the King by their Allegiance yet the said King compell'd them to take new Oaths These Articles with some others not altogether of so general a concern being considered and the King himself confessing his Defects the same seemed sufficient to the whole Estates for the King's Deposition and he was depos'd accordingly The Substance and Drift of all is That our Kings were antiently liable to and might lawfully be deposed for Oppression and Tyranny for Insufficiency to govern c. in and by the great Council of the Nation without any breach of the old Oath of Fealty because to say nothing of the nature of our Constitution express and positive Laws warranted such Proceedings And therefore the Frame of our Government being the same still and the Terms of our Allegiance being the same now that they were then without any new Obligations superinduced by the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy a King of England may legally at this day for sufficient cause be deposed by the Lords and Commons assembled in a Great Council of the Kingdom without any breach of the present Oaths of Supremacy or Allegiance Quod erat demonstrandum MANTISSA WHen Stephen was King of England whom the People had chosen rather than submit to Mawd tho the Great Men of the Realm had sworn Fealty to her in her Father's life-time Henry Duke of Anjou Son of the said Mawd afterwards King Henry the Second invaded the Kingdom An. Dom. 1153 which was towards the latter-end of King Stephen's Reign and Theobald Archbishop of Canterbury endeavoured to mediate a Peace betwixt them speaking frequently with the King in private and sending many Messages to the Duke and Henry Bishop of Winchester took pains likewise to make them Friends Factum est autem ut mense Novembris in fine mensis EX PRAECEPTO REGIS ET DUCIS Collect. pag. 1374 1375. convenirent apud Wintoniam Praesules Principes Regni ut ipsi jam initae paci praeberent assensum unanimiter juramenti Sacramento confirmarent i.e. It came to pass that in the Month of November towards the latter end of the Month at the summons of the King and of the Duke the Prelats and Great Men of the Kingdom were assembled at Winchester that they also might assent to the Peace that was concluded and unanimously swear to observe it In that Parliament the Duke was declared King Stephen's adopted Son and Heir of the Kingdom and the King to retain the Government during his Life I observe only upon this Authority That there being a Controversy betwixt the King and the Duke which could no otherwise be determined and settled but in a Parliament the Summons of this Parliament were issued in the Names of both Parties concerned Quisquis habet aures ad audiendum audiat FINIS
Yet perceiving betwixt Discerning and Doubting that all I assayed of this kind was to no purpose after having deplored the bitterness of an imaginary Loss I groped on more and more in the dark until I chanced to come to an Alcone where feeling with my hands I took fast hold upon the Alcone and grasped the Pillar of a Bed which had I not light upon I must have fallen the second time For thrusting hard against one of the Posts the Counter-stroak of the Wood threw me all along into the middle of a Couch where I remained stretched forth like a Coarse without any motion in the same posture of a precipitate Swoon And then it was that the Vapours of my Body which were disturbed by the first Mistake confusedly did stir through all the parts in the agitated fluctuancy of a Storm though by degrees growing to be undeceived Sleep which appeaseth all the Mutinies in humane Creatures did naturally and more agreeably seise upon my Faculties and compose the Tempest with perfect tranquility of Mind and animal Operations as if I had never been so discomposed 'T is impossible to tell you how long I continued in the State of this Interregnum betwixt Life and Death nor what Care the Company took to learn what was become of me but in vain blaming me for having left them or rather the War begun using all sorts of means to find where I was and bring me back to the Combate I shall only tell you by the way that about Sun-set a great Noise was raised by two of the servants of the House who entred suddenly into the Chamber where I lay which assured me as I awakened that I was yet living and the blazing of the Wax-tapers which they set upon the Tables and Cup-boards made me extremely joyful at the Restauration of my sight which in my Opinion till then was absolutely gone from me But then a third Apprehension seised on my Powers first to be catch in such a Posture and exposed to the innocent jests which might be made by the Guests on the subject of my strange Disorder and precipated Flight from them But as I sought my Eyes once more to steal away out of this Society for all Night and not be seen by any Body another noise obliged me to keep close where I was upon the Bed and draw the Curtains home not to be discovered I was not long in this Concealment when I saw come into the same Place three Persons whose Deserts in this Relation must be better known than their Names and the Importance of their Interest in the State by what I am going now to say of those particulars because I am strictly obliged not to reveal them These strangers the Master of the House did very civilly introduce into the Chamber who without many Complements sate down on the seats which were prepared for them near the Table My Sleep had digested those Fumes and dissipated all the Clouds of my Understanding therefore judging that the cause that assembled such great Personages together there in this secret Entertainment could not be but of the highest importance both the Curiosity and the Shame of having them witnesses to my Disorder obliged me to keep firm to my Post within the cover of the â—ed and to lend an attentive ear to all their Discourse For the Master of the house began the Overture of the Conference in the Terms following In that part which we do hold of the Government of the State it is not enough that a sincere Amity doth link us in one band of Interest and Esteem particularly to each other if we be not also united in the same Judgment as to all which concerns the Publick Good In our former Conferences we used to take just Measures how to rectifie things within the Realm but now it rests with us to agree upon some Maxims which are to be maintained in regard of Foreign Matters to the end that in these Rencounters wherein we are to give Counsel we may act in all things with a perfect Concert which no doubt will give a great weight to the Resolutions which shall be formed thereupon and the present Case since never have any Counsellours treated of nicer Points nor more serious ones than those which are to be debated among us to day The fire is already kindled in our Neighbourhood the Monarchy of Spain is just upon the brink of falling to the ground if it be not succoured and France in a conditition to avow the vast Design which that Crown hath long meditated as well against the Peace of Europe as the Commerce of our Navigations if a powerful Fence be not quickly made to keep the French within their Bounds Wherefore all the rest of the Forces of Europe stand at gaze expecting the Result of what England doth determine herein considering us the Counter-ballance which time out of mind hath held the Scales even betwixt those two great Monarchies for the Safety of all the rest They wait but our giving of the Sign to joyn with us in the common Defence and the better share of them seek it from England and the others have their Eyes open towards our Conduct to take their measures also by no other model but what we shall trace out unto them There is no need of a Providence extraordinary enlightned to judge which is our true Interest in this Conjuncture but the present State of our Affairs doth not leave us the same Facilities to follow it in which we do abound as to the Knowledge thereof Mean while the Mischief presses forwards and doth not afford Place nor Time sufficient to expect a Benefit of other Vicissitudes which run sufficiently against us nor to regulate our Resolutions by those Events which take too impetuous a part in the Cause on that side which we ought most to fear Therefore it is more than season to form our Fundamental Maxim on which all our Conduct is to move in this present Conjuncture and at this very instant decide whether we will chuse to be simple Spectators or take some part to act in this Tragedy since the Resolution which we shall fix thereupon will be the Center from whence we must draw all our Lines afterwards Which is the proper Point that we are to discourse of now among our selves here before we do give our Opinions on the whole matter to the Publick and in which particular I desire the rather to be enlightned by your wise Reasonings by how much the more I am assured That the sole good of the State is the only Rule and Object of all your Counsels As soon as ever he had uttered these words one of the Three after casting down of his Eyes and pondering what he was to say to the rest with having thought before he advised began his Discourse thus If late Experience had not taught us enough to our cost that it is much easier to begin a War than successfully to get out of it when
full Sails seconded with the favourable Gales of Fortune But in case all these material Objections cannot divert us from engaging in the ill Fortune of the Spaniards let us see on what Terms at least we can assist them usefully If we shall send Troops into the Low Countreys to their Aid 't is in effect to overwhelm them by the very weight and charge of those Succours and sacrifice so many of our own Subjects to Famine and Misery as we do thus send Souldiers unto them because they have neither Countrey enough left to Lodge them in when they come thither nor the means to Entertain them after once they are there If we succour them meerly by Sea that kind of help will not hinder France from taking of their Towns in the mean time one by one and so though we should a little incommodate France we shall not ease Flanders at all and such an Assistance will in Conclusion prove none because 't is an Application of the Plaister too remotely and on the wrong side of the Wound If then the Loss of the Low Countreys be inevitable let us do what we can were it not much better that we should have our share in the Parcels of so great a Shipwrack then to suffer France to ingross them all to themselves since supposing that we do divide Booties with the French on this Occasion the Places which by this means must necessarily fall into our hands will be so many new Bulwarks to England which may shelter us for the future against their vast Designs of which the Partisans of Spain make a Chimerical Monster to intimidate the English from taking part with their best and properest Interest in the Case But when once we are entered into a Communion of Conquests with the French the subduing of Flanders will serve us as Ladders to arrrive at other Projects by wherein we may probably hope to find our Profit and Satisfaction mutually together as well as the Pleasure of a just Revenge I set aside the Conquest of the Indies which we could not fail to encompass whil'st France doth hold all the Forces of Spain in play both at Sea and Land and so occupied that they 'll never be able to retain what they hold in the New World no more than that remainder of Territories which yet they stand possessed of nearer hand Wherefore as to what regards the Interest of this Kingdom what I have last urged methinks might suffice to make you of my Opinion And if we do impartially consider that of the Royal Family What can be more important and convenient for it than to have at their Devotion a Neighbouring Power hard by which is so formidable and that is able to protect them in a few hours from all manner of Revolutions that they may and perhaps not without cause neither apprehend at home by thus commanding both the Treasures and the Armies of France whenever they shall have any need of them to put a Bridle in the mouths of all such as do seek to check their Authority I avow that our properest Interest were to hold the Ballance equal between Spain and France if we could but we should then have thought sooner of that whil'st these matters were in a condition to be disputed For at present the Weight of the Case inclining totally to one side so that we can no longer oppose France with Spain as a Barricado against their Designs we must now think how to become our selves the Counterpoise of France and the Defence of Europe by establishing of our Power beyond Seas on solid Foundations that all other Princes may consider us hereafter as the only People who are capable of resisting the Design of the Universal Monarchy and so as France it self may not be able impunitively to thwart England in this Resolution because then our Safety will be much more firmly setled by our own Strength than with the Force of others and all those who apprehend the Progress of France will conjoyn with us and become tyed to the Fortune of England as they would be at this instant to Spain if they saw that Monarchy in a Condition to be able to maintain them So that all those Reasons do oblige me to conclude that we must no longer hesitate on this point of taking part with France and accept of those Advantagious Offers which the French make unto us both in respect of the publick Good of Christendom as well as our own particular Security since by being united to them in a Knot of such inseparable Conditions and on such a Conjuncture of Affairs because of which they dare refuse us nothing that we ask what need we fear from the opposite Conjunction of any other Parties All the Assistents at this Conference began to express Indignation against this part of his Discourse and shewed by their Unquietness all the while that he spake thus that they had much ado to keep from interrupting of him or to refrain from answering tumultuously before that he had made an end But as they offered to reply in heat all at once to deliver their thoughts on this Subject the Master of the House who had not yet delivered his sense to the Company broke silence and with a little smile which had something in it grave and scornful dexterously intermingled together addressing himself to him who had spoken with so much length just before held on the Debate as follows I know your Prudence my Lord too well says he and your Lordship 's disinteressed Zeal for the good of the State to believe that you can mean seriously what you have urged on the behalf of France but rather am perswaded and that easily too that with an ingenious Artifice you have thus disguised your own true Sentiments of this Case the better to penetrate into the bottom of our ours and so give Opportunity to see clearlier through all the Reasons and the Doubts which may be formed there upon touching this Matter of which we do now treat since the truth of any Argument doth never so well appear and endure the light as when it is sifted to the very root and that the Reflexion thereof is exalted by the Opposition of the contrary sense So that in combating with your Opinion I shall still think that we do not disagree but rather to dissent in the Exposition of a vain Phantasm which you erected for sport sake to divert us and give the Company Recreation Allow me then to tell you that this Project upon which you have thus exercised the accuteness of your Wit with so great a grace is both unprofitable and chimerical no less then shameful and unjust and ruinous towards England to all intents and purposes whatsoever whereas the Design of succouring Spain is facil honourable profitable necessary and suitable to the Fundamental Maxims of our State And if you please to afford me never so little attention it will not be difficult for me to prove unto you very clearly according
is a vast Liberality indeed but still of other folks Goods It would become them far better to restore back Dunkirk to England which they cheated us of by Surprize or the Town of Callis which they have dismembred from our ancient Dominion They take from us what is our own already and present us with nothing but what is not in their power to give because they cannot bestow either the Title or the Possession of what they do offer in this Kind upon us which if we will have we must gain it by the Point of the Sword And this Train which they do shew us is of the same nature with that sort of Temptations with which the Devil tempted our Saviour from the top of the Pinnacle But do not you discover that this is a subtil Artifice to imbroil us again in a now War with the States of the United Provinces who have the Interest to defend these two Places as much as if either Amsterdam or Flushing were so designed upon And without an absolute Naval Victory we can never hope to conquer them and such a Conquest at Sea too as shall put the Hollanders out of all manner of possibility to afford any Succours in this Case This is a very hard bone which France doth cast in for us to gnaw whil'st they eat all the Marrow of it In fine when the Arms of France joyned to our Forces shall have put us possession of these two Places yet they 'll be totally unuseful to England when France is possessed of all the rest Because thus the French will shut us quite out of the whole Traffick of the Low Countreys and will be always in a Condition to drive the English away from thence unless we do resolve continually to keep a Fleet at Sea for the conserving of them If this Design be hollow and visionary it is not less shameful then airy and full of Injustice We have no manner of Pretention on the Monarchy of Spain nor is it our Genius to whet our Spirits to form Castles in the Clouds of Chimerical Rights What Glory can it be to our Arms to help to oppress a King in Minority of six years old by surprize only because we find him now to be rudely attacqued and unprovided on a frivolous Pretext immediately after the French had given the Queen his Mother and his principal Ministers of State at Madrid such solemn assurances to the contrary as well as at Paris touching the inviolable continuation of a good Peace and a sincere Friendship The manner which Spain hath held and acted with us newly in relation to England when we were assaulted by three powerful Enemies at one time ought to oblige us at least to be deaf to the artificial Allurements of France For although the French have tried by all the ways imaginable and with Offers incomparably more advantagious than those which they do make to us at present to the end that so they might have gained the Forces of Spain to unite with them to our inevitable Oppression yet was it never in their Power to shake the unalterable Amity which the Spanish Nation have for us by a kind of natural Sympathy which one knows not how better to express than by the Immutability of it whether we do oblige or disoblige them Would it not then be an Ingratitude totally inconsistent with the Honour and the Hospitality of the English Temper so soon to forget this Kindness since at the same instant that Spain was the deepliest engaged against Portugal they did notwithstanding openly oppose the Designs of France which seemed to the prejudice of England by refusing them in contemplation of us firmly and with great Resolution Passage for those Troops of theirs which they sent to ruine the Bishop of Munster our Ally and Confederate then We cannot complain of any Injury or Attempt wherein the Spaniards have tampered against England No League nor ancient Treaty doth oblige us to second the Designs of France and we cannot conclude new Aliances with the French to this purpose without directly contravening that Treaty which we have lately ratified with Spain Let us see then what the Herald is to say to the Spaniards that shall be sent to denounce War unto them on this Occasion from England or with what Reasons we shall be able to fill a Manifesto which we would offer to the Publick whereby to justifie the Causes of this Rupture Wherefore I leave the Care my Lord to you being that you seem to be the Author of this Counsel to found it well in the point of Justice But pray see that you perform it better and with more grace than the Writer of the Queen of France's Prepensions hath done I say farther yet That this Design is both prejudicial and destructive and that it carries along with it most pernicious Consequences as well in the present time as the time to come For from the very moment that we do break with Spain our Commerce will cease with the Effects of all those great Advantages which the Spaniards have * By the Treaty last ratified at Madrid by the Earl of Sandwich His Majesty's Embassadour there newly granted unto us and the Merchants of this Realm who trade there will justly be confiscated since all the Profit that we draw from thence must on these terms infallibly redound in favour of the Hollanders whilest our Arms do busie the Spaniards in the Low Countries and the French as they do their utmost against Spain at the same instant will seize their principal Ports into their Power and thus become absolute Masters of the Commerce by putting themselves into a Posture to ereâ—â—â— Doâ—â—â—nion over th◠〈◊〉 which we can never afterwards be able to resist Not above three Years agâ— France was hardly able to set forth twenty Ships that is to say Men of War 〈◊〉 â—ow they have sixty large Vessels ready furnished and well armed and do apply all their Industry and Pains in every part to augment the number Could the Ghost of Queen Elizabeth return back into the World again she would justly reproach us who are the Ministers of State here in England for having abandoned her good Maxims by tamely suffering before our Eyes a Maâ—itim Power to increase which she so diligently kept down throughout the whole Course of her Reign Whereas you are so far from opposing the Growth of this Power that you rather seem to desire England should facilitate the ways to make it grow the faster and render it yet more formidable than it is by the Acquisition of the Sea Ports which in conclusion must infallibly bring France to be Mistress of the Commerce of the Indies All the World knows the vast quantity of Money and Arms which the French have accumulated to that end alone out of the richest Purses of that Kingdom I agree to what hath been said before very prudently in this Conference that our Power and Greatness doth principally consist in the matter of
Confessor was in private with him and said this Harvy used frequently to come to the Prison after Condemnation and that where one Prisoner died a Protestant many died Papists Mr. Wootten said that after some stay he saw Mr. Harvy come out from Mr. Hubert and then he was admitted to have Speech with him Mr. Cawdry Keeper of Newgate did Inform That Mr. Harvy the Jesuit did frequent the Prison at Newgate about the times of the Execution upon the pretence of the Queens Charity and did spend much time with the Prisoners in private and particularly did so before the last Execution night after night Mr. Cawdry said likewise of the nine that suffered eight died Papists whereof some he knew were Protestants when they came into the Prison It appeared upon several Informations that Mr. Harvy and other Priests did not only resort to Newgate at times of Execution but likewise to the White-Lion in Southwark and other places in the Country and used their endeavours to pervert dying Prisoners Thomas Barnet late a Papist Informed That when he was a Papist and resorted to Gentlemens Houses in Barkshire that were Papists there was almost in every Gentlemans House a Priest and instanced in divers private Gentlemen in that County Others inform the like in Sarrey Mr. Cottman did inform That one Mr. Carpenter late a Preacher at Colledge-hill did in Discourse tell Cottman That the Judgments of God upon this Kingdom by the Plague last year and lately by the Fire in London were come upon this Land and People for their forsaking the true Roman Catholick Religion and shaking off Obedience to the Pope and that if they would return to the Church of Rome the Pope would rebuild the City at his own Charge Carpenter said likewise to Cottman That if he would come and hear him Preach the next Sunday at his House in Queen-street he would give twenty Reasons to prove that the Roman Catholick was the true Religion and his the false and that our Bible had a thousand falsities in it and that there was no true Scripture but at Rome and their Church Carpenter at the Committee confessed that he had formerly taken Orders from the Church of Rome to be a Priest but said he had renounced that Church and taken Orders in England The next thing is the Information of their Insolency and I shall begin with their Scorning and Despising the Bible One Thomas Williams an Officer in Sir William Bowyer 's Regiment Informed That one Ashley a Papist seeing a Woman read in a Bible asked her why she read in that Damnable Presbiterian Bible and said A Play-book was as good Thomas Barnet of Bingfield in Barkshire Informed That being at one Mr. Young's House in Bingfield at Bartholomew-tide last Mr. Young said to the Brother of this Thomas in his hearing That within two Years there should not be a Protestant in England Thomas Barnet Informed further That being at Mr. Doncaster's House in Bingfield one Mr. Thural Son-in-Law to Mr. Doncaster and both Papists said to this Informer who was then likewise a Papist The People take me for a poor fellow but I shall find a thousand or two thousand pounds to raise a party of Horse to make Mr. Hathorns and Mr. Bullocks fat guts lie on the ground for it is no more to kill an Heretick than to kill a Grashopper and that it was happy for him that he was a Catholick for by that means he shall be one that shall be mounted Mr. Linwood Scrivenner in White-Chappel Informed That about the Twentieth of October last meeting with one Mr. Binks a Papist and discoursing with him Binks told him That there was amongst the Papists as a great Design aâ— ever was in England and he thought it would be executed suddenly Being asked how many Papists there were about London He answered About seven thousand and in England an hundred thousand were Armed Mr. Oaks a Physician dwelling in Shadwel Informed That a little after the burning of London one Mr. Carpenter a Minister came to his House in Tower-wharf and spake to him to this purpose I will not say that I am a Papist but this I will say that I had rather die the death of the Papists and that my Soul should be raised with their Resurrection than either to be Presbiterian Independant or Anabaptist and I tell you the Papists have hitherto been his Majesty's best Fortification for when Presbiterians Independants and Anabaptists forsook and opposed him then they stood by him and helped him and he is now resolved to commit himself into their hands And take it upon my word in a short time the Papists will lay you as low as that house pointing to an house that was demolished for they are able to raise Forty thousand men and I believe the next work will be cutting of Throats This was Sworn by Mr. Oaks before Sir John Frederick a Member of the House Mirian Pilkington being present when the Words were spoken doth affirm them all save only those That the King is resolved to commit himself into the Papists hands Those she doth not remember Henry Young a Distiller of Hot-waters informed That about April 1661. being in the Jesuites Colledge in Antwerp one Powel an English Jesuite perswaded him to turn a Roman Catholick and said That if he intended to save his Life and Estate he had best turn so for within seven Years he should see all England of that Religion Young replied That the City of London would never endure it Powel answered That within five or six Years they would break the Power and Strength of London in pieces and that they had been contriving it these twenty Years and that if Young did live he should see it done The said Young did likewise Inform That shortly after his coming into England one Thomson and Copervel both Papists did several times say to him That within five or six Years at the farthest the Roman Catholick Religion should be all over in this Kingdom Jasper Goodwin of Darking in the County of Surrey Informed That about a Month since one Edward Complin a Papist said to him You must all be Papists shortly and that now he was not ashamed to own himself a Roman Catholick and to own his Priest naming two that were in Darkin in the houses of two Papists and likewise said That in twenty four hours warning the Roman Catholicks could raise thirty thousand Men as well armed as any Men in Christendom William Warner of Darking Informed That the said Edward Complin did tell him That the Roman Catholicks in England could in twenty four hours raise thirty thousand Horse and Arms And upon saying so pulled out his Crucifix and Beads and said He was not ashamed of his Religion John Grawnger of Darking Informed that about a Year since being in his House reading the Bible one Thomas Collins a Papist said to him Are you still a Church-goer Had you not better turn Roman Catholick If you stay till you
prevent or Check the French will have an Army of at least 50000 Men about Lorain Luxenburg and Burgundy to face the Imperialists and at the same Time with as many more perhaps they will seize upon the Dutchy of Juliers and of Cleves and from thence pass the Rhine to countenance those that are of the French Cabal on the side of Westphalia and so in due time several other Princes of the Empire It is remarkable that in Three Years War against the Confederates his most Christian Majesty has not only stood his ground without losing so much as one Inch of his Ancient Patrimony but actually and almost without Opposition taken several Towns and some entire Provinces from the Principals of the Confederacy And made himself almost as considerable at Sea as he is at Land Not only in the Mediterranean and upon the Coasts of Spain and Italy but in America too where he has laid a Foundation of great Mischief both to England and Holland in the point of Commerce if not timely prevented And he does little less by his Money than by his Arms for he pays all and with French Money under pretext of Neutrality maintains considerable Armies in the very heart of the Empire which 't is feared will be ready enough upon any distaster to joyn with the Common Enemy It is the French Court that manages the Counsels of Poland and they govern the Swisse no less who by the Conquest of the Franche County are made little better then slaves And yet by a fatal Blindness that Republick still furnishes the French with the best of their Soldiers and helps forward the Destruction of Europe never dreaming that they themselves are to be undone too at last But it is no great matter you 'l say to impose upon the Swisse which are a heavy and Phlegmatick People but the French Charms have bewitch'd even Italy it self though a Nation the most Clear-sighted and suspicious of all others For their Republicks lie as quiet as if they were asleep though the Fire is already kindled in Sicily and the Danger brought home to their own Doors It is a wonder that they lay things no more to heart considering First the Passages the French have to favour their Entry Secondly That they are many and small States weak and easily to be corrupted if not so already Thirdly that though they have been formerly very brave and many particulars remain so still yet in the generality they are soft and effeminate And Fourthly that the French is there the Master of the Seas These Reflections methinks might convince any Man of the Condition they are in And certainly they that were not able to defend themselves against Charles the Eighth will be much less able to encounter Lewis the 14th Or if he gets in to drive him out again as they did the Other For they must do it wholly upon their own Strength having only the Turk in Condition to help them For Germany and Spain are sunk already And the Swisse will neither dare to venture upon 't nor are they able to do it if they had a mind tot As for Spain it is neither Populous nor fortifi'd and perhaps want of Provisions may keep it from an Invasion And yet for all that with a Body of Thirty or Forty Thousand Men by the way of Fontaraby and as many by Catalonia the French may if they please in two Campania's make themselves Masters of Navarre Arragon Catalonia and Valentia and then it is but fortifying the Frontiers and making his Catholick Majesty a Tributary in Castile Who must content himself to take what they please to give him over and above in consideration of his Dominions in Italy and the Spanish Indies A Possibility that England and Holland shall do well to think of For when he has the Mines in his Power and Europe under his Feet there will be no contending After this they have only the Swisse or the English to fall upon next For the Former they are neither fortified nor united in Affections or Religion As for England They are a People not naturally addicted to the French sensible of their Honour and of their Interest and the whole World is convinced of their Courage They are United under the Government of a Gracious Prince and their Concerns are at this Instant lodged in the hands of the most Loyal and Publick-spirited Representatives that ever acted in that Station beside the Strength of the Island by Situation So that the French would find it a hard matter either to make a Conquest here or if they should surprize it to keep it But yet they have finer Ways to Victory than by Force of Arms and their Gold has done them better Service than their Iron What have we now to do then but in a Common Cause to arm against a Common Oppression This is the time or never for Italy to enter into a League for their Common Safety and not only to keep but if possible to force the French from their Borders while the Imperial Army holds the Capital Power of France in Play And this is the time too for the Swisse to recal all their Troops out of the French Service and to strike a general League also for the Recovery of Burgundy the only Outwork of their Liberties and to expel the French Garrisons and deliver the places into the hands of the Right Owners And will it not concern Poland as much as any of the rest that stands and falls with the Empire as the Defence of Christendom against the Turks and whose own turn is next This Alarm methinks should call off the Princes from the Acquisitions they have made upon part of the Swedes Possessions in the Empire to the Assistance of the Spanish Netherlands and make all the French Mercenaries in the Empire to bethink themselves of returning from the Delusions which either the French Artifice or Money has imposed upon them He that has no regard for the Head will have less for the Dependences when he has them at his Mercy Nay the very French themselves should do well to contemplate the Slavery that is now prepar'd for them Their Laws and Liberties are trampled upon and till the French Government be reduc'd to the Bounds of its Ancient Constitution neither the People nor their Neighbours can ever be secure In this dangerous Crisis of Affairs it has pleas'd Divine Providence to leave England the Arbitress of the Fate of Europe and to annex such advantages to the Office that the Honour the Duty and Security of this Nation seem to be wrapt up together In the Point of Honour what can be more Generous than to succour the Miserable and the Oppress'd and to put a stop to that Torrent that threatens Christendom with an Universal Deluge Beside the Vindication of our selves for those Affronts and Indignities both Publick and Private that we have suffer'd upon our own Account And then in matter of Duty It is not only Christendom
most willingly bind our selves every one of us to the other joyntly and severally in the Band of one Firm and Loyal Society And do hereby Vow and Promise by the MAJESTY OF ALMIGHTY GOD That with our whole Powers Bodies Lives and Goods and with our Children and Servants We and every of us will faithfully serve and humbly obey our said Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth against all States Dignities and Earthly Powers whatsoever and will as well with our joynt and particular Forces during our Lives withstand offend and pursue as well by Force of Arms as by all other means of Revenge all manner of Persons of what State soever they shall be and their Abettors that shall attempt any Act Council or Consent to any thing that shall tend to the Harm of her Majesties Royal Person and will never desist from all manner of Forcible Pursuit against such Persons to the utter Extermination of them their Counsellors Aiders and Abettors And if any such wicked Attempt against her most Royal Person shall be taken in hand or procured whereby any that have may or shall pretend Title to come to this Crown by the untimely Death of her Majesty so wickedly procured which God for his Mercy sake forbid may be avenged We do not only bind our selves both joyntly and severally never to Allow Accept or Favour any such pretended Successor by whom or for whom any such detestable Act shall be Attempted or Committed as unworthy of all Government in any Christian Realm or Civil State But do also further Vow and Protest as we are most bound and that in the Presence of the Eternal and Everlasting God to Prosecute such Person and Persons to Death with our joynt or particular Forces and to ask the utmost Revenge upon them that by any means we or any of us can devise and do or cause to be devised and done for their utter Overthrow and Extirpation And to the better Corroboration of this our Loyal Band and Association We do also testifie by this Writing that we do confirm the Contents hereof by our Oaths corporally taken upon the Holy Evangelist with this express Condition That no one of us shall for any respect of Persons or Causes or for Fear or Reward separate our selves from this Association or fail in the Prosecution thereof during our Lives upon pain of being by the rest of us prosecuted and supprest as perjur'd Persons and as Publick Enemies to God our Queen and to our Native Country To which Punishment and Pains we do voluntarily submit ourselves and every of us without Benefit of any Colour or Pretence In Witness of all which Premises to be inviolably kept we do to this Writing put our Hands and Seals and shall be most ready to accept and admit any other hereafter to this Society and Association The ACT of Parliament of the 27th of Queen Elizabeth in Confirmation of the same FOrasmuch as the good Felicity and Comfort of the whole Estate of this Realm consisteth only next under God in the Surety and Preservation of the Queens most excellent Majesty And for that it hath manifestly appeared that sundry wicked Plots and Means have of late been devised and laid as well in Foreign Parts beyond the Seas as also within this Realm to the great indangering of his Highness most Royal Person and to the utter Ruine of the whole Commonweal if by Gods merciful Providence the same had not been revealed Therefore for preventing of such great Perils as might hereafter otherwise grow by the like detestable and divilish Practices at the humble Suit and earnest Petition and Desire of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same Parliament Be it Enacted and Ordained if at any Time after the end of this present Session of Parliament any open Invasion or Rebellion shall be had or made into or within any of Her Majesties Realms or Dominions or any Act attempted tending to the hurt of her Majesties most Royal Person by or for any Person that shall or may pretend any Title to the Crown of this Realm after her Majesties Decease or if any thing shall be compassed or imagined tending to the hurt of her Majesties Royal Person by any person or with the Privity of any person that shall or may pretend Title to the Crown of this Realm that then by Her Majesties Commission under Her Great Seal the Lords and other of Her Highness Privy Council and such other Lords of Parliament to be Named by her Majesty as with the said Privy Council shall make up the Number of Four and twenty at the least ving with them for their Assistance in that behalf such of the Judges of the Courts of Record at Westminster as Her Highness shall for that purpose assign and appoint or the more part of the same Council Lords and Judges shall by virtue of the Act have Authority to examine all and every the Offences aforesaid and all Circumstances thereof and thereupon to give Sentence or Judgment as upon good proof the matter shall appear unto them And that after such Sentence or Judgment given and Declaration thereof made and published by Her Majesties Proclamation under the Great Seal of England all persons against whom such Sentence or Judgment shall be so given and published shall be excluded and disabled for ever to have or claim or to pretend to have or claim the Crown of this Realm or of any Her Majesties Dominions any former Law or Statute whatsoever to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And that thereupon All Her Highness Subjects shall and may lawfully by virtue of this Act and Her Majesties Direction in that behalf by forcible and possible means pursue to Death every such wicked person by whom or by whose means assent or privity any such Invasion or Rebellion shall be in Form aforesaid denounced to have been made or such wicked Act attempted or other thing compassed or imagined against Her Majesties Person and all their Aiders Comforters and Abettors And if any such detestible Act shall be Executed against her Highness most Royal Person whereby Her Majesties Life shall be taken away which God of his great mercy forbid that then every such person by or for whom any such Act shall be executed and their Issues being any wise assenting or privy to the same shall by virtue of this Act be excluded and disabled for ever to have or claim or pretend to have or claim the said Crown of this Realm or of any other Her Highness Dominions any former Law or Statute whatsoever to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And that all the Subjects of this Realm and all other Her Majesties Dominions shall and may lawfully by virtue of this Act by all forcible and possible means pursue to Death every such wicked Person by whom or by whose means any such detestible Fact shall be in Form hereafter expressed denounced to have been
and does hereby Dissolve it and from this time excuses your farther attendance here but with his repeated Thanks for your Service hitherto and with the assurance of his Satisfaction in you so far that he should not have parted with you but to make way for this new Constitution which he takes to be as to the Number and Choice the most proper and necessary for the uses he intends them And as most of you have Offices in his Service and all of you particular Shares in his Favour and good Opinion so he desires you will continue to exercise and deserve them with the same Diligence and good Affections that you have hitherto done and with confidence of his Majesty's Kindness to you and of those Testimonies you shall receive of it upon other occasions Therefore upon the present Dissolution of this Council his Majesty appoints and commands all those Officers he hath named to attend him here to morrow at Nine in the Morning as his Privy-Council together with those other Persons he designs to make up the number and to each of whom he has already signed particular Letters to that purpose and commands the Lord Chancellor to see them issued out accordingly which is the Form he intends to use and that hereafter they shall be signed in Council so that nothing may be done unadvisedly in the Choice of any Person to a Charge of so great Dignity and Importance to the Kingdom Names of the Lords of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council HIS Highness Prince Rupert William Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Heneage Lord Finch Lord Chancellor of England Anthony Earl of Shaftsbury Lord President of the Council Arthur Earl of Anglesey Lord Privy-Seal Christopher Duke of Albemarle James Duke of Monmouth Master of the Horse Henry Duke of Newcastle John Duke of Lauderdale Secretary of State for Scotland James Duke of Ormond Lord Steward of the Houshold Charles Lord Marquess of Winchester Henry Lord Marquess of Worcester Henry Earl of Arlington Lord Chamberlain of the Houshold James Earl of Salisbury John Earl of Bridgewater Robert Earl of Sunderland one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State Arthur Earl of Essex first Lord Commissioner of the Treasury John Earl of Bath Groom of the Stole Thomas Lord Viscount Falconberg George Lord Viscount Hallifax Henry Lord Bishop of London John Lord Roberts Denzil Lord Holles William Lord Russel William Lord Cavendish Henry Coventry Esq one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State Sir Francis North Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Sir Henry Capell Knight of the Bath first Commissioner of the Admiralty Sir John Ernle Knight Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Thomas Chicheley Knight Master of the Ordnance Sir William Temple Baronet Edward Seymour Esquire Henry Powle Esquire Whitehall April 11. 1679. HIS Majesty being this day in Council did cause such of the aforementioned Lords and others who were then present to be Sworn Privy-Counsellors which being done they took their places accordingly His Majesty was also pleased to declare that he intended to make Sir Henry Capell Knight of the Bath Daniel Finch Esquire Baronets Sir Thomas Lee Sir Humphrey Winch Sir Thomas Meers Edward Vaughan and Edward Hales Esquires Commmissioners for the Execution of the Office of Lord High Admiral of England And his Majesty being afterwards come into the House of Peers in his Royal Robes and the House of Commons attending his Majesty was pleased to make this Speech My Lords and Gentlemen I Thought it requisite to acquaint you with what I have done now this day which is That I have Established a new Privy-Council the Constant number of which shall never exceed Thirty I have made choice of such Persons as are Worthy and able to Advise Me and am Resolved in all My Weighty and Important Affairs next to the Advice of my Great Council in Parliament which I shall very often Consult with to be Advised by this Privy-Council I could not make so great a Change without acquainting both Houses of Parliament And I desire you all to apply your selves heartily as I shall do to those things which are necessary for the good and safety of the Kingdom and that no time may be lost in it The Message from the King by Mr. Secretary Jenkins to the Commons on the 9th of November 1680. CHARLES R. HIs Majesty desires this House as well for the satisfaction of His People as of Himself to expedite such Matters as are depending before them relating to Popery and the Plot and would have them rest assured That all Remedies they can tender to his Majesty conducing to those Ends shall be very acceptable to him Provided they be such as may consist with preserving the Succession of the Crown in its due and legal course of Descent The Address to his Majesty from the Commons Saturday November 13. 1680. May it please your most Excellent Majesty WE Your Majesty's most Loyal and Obedient Subjects the Commons in this Present Parliament assembled having taken into our most serious Consideration Your Majesty's Gracious Message brought unto us the ninth day of this instant November by Mr. Secretary Jenkins do with all thankfulness acknowledge Your Majesty's Care and Goodness in inviting us to expedite such Matters as are depending before us relating to Popery and the Plot. And we do in all Humility represent to Your Majesty that we are fully convinced that it is highly incumbent upon us in discharge both of our Duty to Your Majesty and of that great Trust reposed in us by those whom we represent to endeavour by the most speedy and effectual ways the Suppression of Popery within this Your Kingdom and the bringing to publick Justice all such as shall be found Guilty of the Horrid and Damnable Popish Plot. And though the Time of our Sitting abating what must necessarily be spent in the choosing and presenting a Speaker appointing Grand Committees and in taking the Oaths and Tests enjoyned by Act of Parliament hath not much exceeded a Fortnight yet we have in this Time not only made a considerable Progress in some things which to us seem and when presented to Your Majesty in a Parliamentary way will we trust appear to Your Majesty to be absolutely necessary for the Safety of Your Majesties Person the effectual Suppression of Popery and the Security of the Religion Lives and Estates of Your Majesties Protestant Subjects But even in relation to the Tryals of the Five Lords impeached in Parliament for the Execrable Popish Plot we have so far proceeded as we doubt not but in a short time we shall be ready for the same But we cannot without being unfaithful to Your Majesty and to our Country by whom we are entrusted omit upon this occasion humbly to inform Your Majesty that our Difficulties even as to these Tryals are much encreased by the evil and destructive Councels of those Persons who advised Your Majesty first to the Prorogation and then to the Dissolution of the last
unlawful manner among others Henry Carr George Broome Edw. Berry Benj. Harris Francis Smith Sen. Francis Smith Jun. and Jane Curtis Citizens of London Which Proceedings of the said Sir Will. Scroggs are a high Breach of the Liberty of the Subject destructive to the Fundamental Laws of this Realm contrary to the Petition of Right and other Statutes and do manifestly tend to the introducing of Arbitrary Power VI. That he the said Sir Will. Scroggs in further Oppression of his Majesty's Liege People hath since his being made Chief Justice of the said Court of Kings Bench in an Arbitrary manner granted divers general Warrants for Attaching the Persons and Seizing the Goods of his Majesty's Subjects not named or described particularly in the said Warrants By means whereof many of his Majesty's Subjects have been vexed their Houses entered into and they themselves grievously oppressed contrary to Law VII Whereas there hath been a Horrid and Damnable Plot contrived and carried on by the Papists for the Murthering the King the Subversion of the Laws and Government of this Kingdom and for the Destruction of the Protestant Religion in the same All which the said Sir William Scroggs well knew having himself not only Tried but given Judgment against several of the Offenders nevertheless the said Sir Will. Scroggs did at divers times and places as well sitting in Court as otherwise openly Defame and Scandalize several of the Witnesses who had proved the said Treasons against divers of the Conspirators and had given Evidence against divers other Persons who were then untried and did endeavour to disparage their Evidence and take off their Credit whereby as much as in him lay he did traiterously and wickedly suppress and stifle the Discovery of the said Popish Plot and Encourage the Conspirators to proceed in the same to the great and apparent Danger of his Majesty's Sacred Life and of the well-established Government and Religion of this Realm of England VIII Whereas the said Sir William Scroggs being advanced to be Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench ought by a sober grave and vertuous Conversation to have given a good Example to the King's Liege People and to demean himself answerable to the Dignity of so Eminent a Station yet he the said Sir William Scroggs on the contrary by his frequent and notorious Excesses and Debaucheries and his Prophane and Atheistical Discourses doth daily affront Almighty God dishonour his Majesty give countenance and incouragement to all manner of Vice and Wickedness and bring the highest scandal on the publick Justice of the Kingdom All which Words Opinions and Actions of the said Sir William Scroggs were by him spoken and done traiterously wickedly falsly and maliciously to alienate the Hearts of the King's Subjects from his Majesty and to set a Division between him and them and to subvert the Fundamental Laws and the Establisht Religion and Government of this Kingdom and to Introduce Popery and an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government and contrary to his own knowledge and the known Laws of the Realm of England and thereby he the said Sir William Scroggs hath not only broken his own Oath but also as far as in him lay hath broken the King Oath to his People whereof he the said Sir William Scroggs representing his Majesty in so high an Office of Justice had the Custody for which the said Commons do Impeach him the said Sir William Scroggs of the High-Treason against our Sovereign Lord the King and his Crown and Dignity and other the High Crimes and Misdemeanours aforesaid And the said Commons by Protestation saving to themselves the Liberty of Exhibiting at any time hereafter any other Accusation or Impeachment against the said Sir William Scroggs and also of Replying to the Answer that he shall make thereunto and of Offering proofs of the Premises or of any other Impeachments or Accusations that shall be by them exhibited against him as the Case shall according to the Course of Parliament require Do pray that the said Sir Will. Scroggs Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench may be put to Answer to all and every the Premises and may be committed to safe Custody and that such Proceedings Examinations Tryals and Judgments may be upon him had and used as is agreeable to Law and Justice and the Course of Parliaments Resolved That the said Sir William Scroggs be Impeached upon the said Articles The Humble Petition of the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common-Council Assembled on the Thirteenth of January 1680. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty for the Sitting of this present Parliament Prorogu'd to the Twentieth Instant Together with the Resolutions Orders and Debates of the said Court Commune Concil ' tent ' in Camera Guildhall Civitatis London Die Jovis decimo tertio die Januarii Anno Domini 1680. Annoque Regni Domini nostri Carol ' Secundi nunc Regis Angl ' c. Tricesimo secundo coram Patient ' Ward Mil ' Major ' Civitatis London Thoma Aleyn Mil ' Bar ' Johanne Frederick Mil ' Johanne Lawrence Mil ' Georgio Waterman Mil ' Josepho Sheldon Mil ' Jacobo Edwards Mil ' Roberto Clayton Mil ' Aldermannis Georgio Treby Ar ' Recordatore dictae Civit ' Johanne Moore Mil ' Willielmo Pritchard Mil ' Henrico Tulse Mil ' Jacobo Smith Mil ' Roberto Jeffery Mil Johanne Shorter Mil ' Thoma Gould Mil ' Willielmo Rawsterne Mil ' Thoma Beckford Mil ' Johanne Chapman Mil ' Simone Lewis Mil ' Thoma Pilkington Ar ' Ald'ris Henrico Cornish Ar ' Ald'ro ac unum vicecom ' dictae Civitatis necnon Major ' parte Comminarior ' dictae Civitatis in Communi Concil ' tunc ibidem Assemblat ' THis Day the Members that serve for this City in Parliament having communicated unto this Court a Vote or Resolution of the Honourable House of Commons whereby that House was pleased to give Thanks unto this City for their manifest Loyalty to the King their Care Charge and Vigilance for the Preservation of his Majesty's Person and of the Protestant Religion This Court is greatly sensible of the Honour thereby given to this City and do declare That it is the fixt and uniform Resolution of this City to persevere in what they have done and to contribute their utmost Assistance for the Defence of the Protestant Religion His Majesty's Person and the Government Established It was now unanimously Agreed and Ordered by this Court That the Thanks of this Court be given to the Members that serve for this City in Parliament for their good Service done this City and their Faithfulness in discharging their Duties in that Honourable and great Assembly Upon a Petition now Presented by divers Citizens and Inhabitants of this City representing their Fears from the Designs of the Papists and their Adherents and praying this Court to acquaint his Majesty therewith and to desire That the Parliament may sit from the Day
Returns And that some effectual Provision may be made for the meeting of frequent Parliaments and for their sitting to redress Grievances and to make such wholsome Laws as shall be necessary for the welfare of this Nation 7. That some effectual course be taken to give a check to Prophaneness and Debauchery which threaten Ruine or at least exceeding great Prejudice to the Kingdom In prosecuting of all which worthy Acts we shall endeavour your Defence with our Lives and Fortunes The Humble Address of the Young Men of the Borough of Taunton To Edmund Prideaux and John Trenchard Esquires who were Unanimously chosen by the Inhabitants to be Representatives of the said Borough to serve in this Parliament which is to Sit at Oxford March 21 1680 1. SIRS THough we are not immediately Concern'd in the Electing Members to Serve in Parliament yet being deeply sensible that we shall bear an equal share with others in the same Common Danger and Universal Slavery which Hell and Rome have been and still are with joint and unwearied Endeavours attempting to involve these Protestant Nations in we cannot without charging our selves with unparallell'd Ingratitude omit the returning you our hearty Thanks for that good and eminent Service you did both us and the Nation in the late Dissolved Parliament That you did with such inflamed Zeal with such undaunted Courage and Resolution endeavour the Security of our Religion Liberty and Property against that cursed Popish Faction who were the Invaders of them particularly we deem our selves infinitely obliged for the great Care you manifested in the preservation of His Majesty's Sacred Person in your strenuous prosecution of the Horrid and Damnable Popish Plot and in that your Attempts were so Brisk and Vigorous from the preventing of an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Power which we cannot but Unanimously abhor Liberty and Property being an Inheritance which as Englishmen we are born unto And above all we commend your Courage and Prudence in prosecuting that happy Expedient of Excluding a Popish Successor from Inheriting the Imperial Crown of this Realm without which we judge it utterly impossible that the Protestant Religion can be secured to us or that our necks can be long free from that Romish Yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear And now sith it hath pleased our Gracious King to Issue forth His Royal Proclamation signifying His pleasure to meet His People again in Parliament We cannot but Address our selves to you the Representatives of this Borough Humbly Requesting That you would according to the Trust Reposed in you Vigorously prosecute those Counsels that have a Tendency to an happy Settlement of Affairs both in Church and State particularly our Unanimous Request to you is 1. That forasmuch as the late Horrid and Hellish Plot hath according to the Votes of the preceeding Parliaments received Life and Countenance from James Duke of York you would expedite a Bill for the utter Incapacitating him ever to sway the Scepter of these Kingdoms and that the Bill of Association may be annexed whereby all His Majesty's Subjects may be enabled to oppose him or any of his Accomplices in case he should attempt to possess himself of the same 2. To take such Measures as your Wisdom shall agree upon for the Uniting of the Protestant Interest in these Nations 3. That the Artillery and Militia of the Nation be setled in the Hands of Men of known Integrity Courage and Conduct and that all Papists and Popishly affected Persons now in places of Publick Trust be Discharged which if effected may be ameans to prevent those great Fears and Jealousies which are apt otherwise to be nourished amongst us 4. That you proceed to the Tryal of the Popish Lords together with all other Criminal Offenders and go on sifting to the bottom that Execrable Plot which hath been and we must fear still is carried on to take away His Majesty's Life whom God long preserve to root out the Fundamental Laws of this Realm as also to introduce Popery into the Church and Tyranny into the State 5. That you take Cognizance of the Illegal and Arbitrary Proceedings of Courts as well Ecclesiastical as Civil as you have begun that so the Laws may not be wrested against the Protestant Dissenters nor stretched in favour of Popish Recusants As also to consider the unpresidented Finings and Imprisonings whereby many of His Majesty's truly Loyal Subjects have been grievously oppressed 6. That you would speedily think of some good Expedient for the Regulating of Elections as also for Removing of those Oaths and Tests which have proved no small hinderance to divers Worthy Protestants from being Useful Instruments in Serving their King and Country in Church and State These things worthy Sirs we humbly offer to your Considerations not as Directors but Remembrancers out of a Principle of Loyal Zeal for his Majesty's Security and our Countries Tranquility And assure your selves in the Prosecution of these truly Noble Designs we will defend you with our Lives and Fortunes accounting our dearest Blood a Tribute due to the Safety of our King and Country when called for in their Defence The Address of the Ancient Town of Winchelsea a Branch of the Cinque-Ports To their Barons Sir Steven Lenord and Creswel Draper Esquire elected in their absence March 4. and ordered by the Mayor and Jurates to be presented to them the said Mr. Draper serving for them in the last Parliament Mr. Draper YOu may assure your self That we are very highly satisfied with your unwearied Pains as also of your honest Discharge of the great Trust we reposed in you in the last Parliament by our hearty Thanks we now return you and by our Unanimous Electing you again to serve for us in the next Parliament to be holden at Oxford And Gentlemen as for you both WE know you are so sensible of our Condition that we need not tender you our Thoughts in many particulars only the Preservation of his Sacred Majesty's Person our Religion and Properties which are of the greatest Concern and most dear unto us And especially in order thereunto we commend unto you and desire you to use your utmost Endeavours 1. That there may be a full and perfect Discovery of that most Hellish and Damnable Popish Plot in England and Ireland and all other Sham-Plots which have been wickedly Contriving and Acting for many years past 2. That effectual Means be used for Uniting all his Majesty's Protestant Subjects against the common Enemy both at home and abroad 3. That all effectual Means and Ways may be provided to secure us against a Popish Successor and particularly against James Duke of York 4. That you will endeavour as far as in you lies That a Law may be made for putting our Free-Lands and Houses under a Voluntary Register that thereby this Kingdom may be a just and honourable Fund whereby Moneys may be taken up upon all urgent Occasions and so prevent the great Ruines we now
shall Act not only contrary to but to the Destruction of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom And how Harmonious such Justice will be the Text tells us Deut. 27.17 Cursed be he that removeth his Neighbours Land mark and all the People shall say Amen That this present Session may have a happy Issue to answer the great ends of Parliaments and therein our present Exigencies and Necessities is the incessant Cry and longing Expectation of all the Protestants in the Land The Security of English-mens Lives or the Trust Power and Duty of the Grand Juries of England Explained according to the Fundamentals of the English Government and the Declarations of the same made in Parliament by many Statutes THE Principal Ends of all Civil Government and of Humane Society were the Security of Mens Lives Liberties and Properties mutual assistance and help each unto other and provision for their common benefit and advantage and where the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of any Government have been wisely adapted unto those Ends such Countries and Kingdoms have increased in Vertue Prowess Wealth and Happiness whilst others through the want of such excellent Constitutions or negect of preserving them have been a Prey to the Pride Lust and Cruelty of the most Potent and the People have had no assurance of Estates Liberties or Lives but from their Grace and Pleasure They have been many times forced to welter in each other's Blood in their Master's quarrel for Dominion and at best they have served like Beasts of burthen and by continual base subserviency to their Master's Vices have lost all sense of true Religion Virtue and Manhood Our Ancestors have been famous in their Generations for Wisdom Piety and Courage in forming and preserving a Body of Laws to secure themselves and their Posterities from Slavery and Oppression and to maintain their Native Freedoms to be subject only to the Laws made by their own Consent in their general Assemblies and to be put in execution chiefly by themselves their Officers and Assistants to be guarded and defended from all Violence and Force by their own Arms kept in their own hands and used at their own charge under their Prince's Conduct entrusting nevertheless an ample Power to their Kings and other Magistrates that they may do all the good and enjoy all the happiness that the largest Soul of man can honestly wish and carefully providing such means of correcting and punishing their Ministers and Councellors if they transgressed the Laws that they might not dare to abuse or oppress the People or design against their freedom or welfare This Body of Laws our Ancestors always esteemed the best Inheritance they could leave to their Posterities well knowing that these were the sacred Fence of their Lives Liberties and Estates and an unquestionable Title whereby they might call what they had their own or say they were their own Men The inestimable value of this Inheritance moved our Progenitors with great resolution bravely from Age to Age to defend it and it now falls to our lot to preserve it against the Dark Contrivances of a Popish Faction who would by Frauds Sham-Plots and Infamous Perjuries deprive us of our Birth-rights and turn the points of our Swords our Laws into our own Bowels they have impudently scandalized our Parliaments with Designs to overturn the Monarchy because they would have excluded a Popish Successor and provided â—or the Security of the Religion and Lives of all Protestants They have caused Lords and Commoners to be for a long time kept in Prisons and suborned Witnesses to swear matters of Treason against them endeavouring thereby not only to cut off some who had eminently appeared in Parliament for our ancient Laws but through them to blast the Repute of Parliaments themselves and to lessen the Peoples Confidence in those great Bulwarks of their Religion and Government The present purpose is to shew how well our Worthy Fore-fathers have provided in our Law for the safety of our Lives not only against all attemps of open Violence by the severe punishment of Robbers Murtherers and the like but the secret poisonous Arrows that fly in the dark to destroy the Innocent by false Accusation and Perjuries Our Law-makers foresaw both their dangers from the Malice and Passion that might cause some of private condition to accuse others falsly in the Courts of Justice and the great hazards of Worthy and Eminent Mens Lives from the Malice Emulation and Ill Designs of Corrupt Ministers of State or otherwise potent who might commit the most odious of Murthers in the form and course of Justice either by corrupting of Judges as dependant upon them for their Honour and great Revenue or by bribing and hiring men of depraved Principles and desperate Fortunes to swear falsly against them doubtless they had heard the Scriptures and observed that the great men of the Jews sought out many to swear Treason and Blasphemy against Jesus Christ They had heard of Ahab's Courtiers and Judges who in the Course and Form of Justice by false Witnesses murthered Naboth because he would not submit his Property to an A bitrary Power Neither were they ignorant of the Ancient Roman Histories and the pestilent false Accusers that abounded in the Reign of some of those Emperors under whom the greatest of Crimes was to be virtuous Therefore as became good Legislators they made as prudent Provinon as perhaps any Country in the World enjoys for equal and impartial Administration of Justice in all the concerns of the Peoples Lives that every man whether Lord or Commoner might be in safety whilst they lived in due obedience to the Laws For this purpose it is made a Fundamental in our Government that unless it be by Parliament See Lâ— Cook 's Instit 3d part p. 40. See Mag. Chart. Cooke's â—d part of Insâ—â—t p. 50 51. no man's Life should be touched for any Crime whatsoever save by the Judgment of at least 24 Men that is 12 or more to find the Bill of Indictment whether he be Peer of the Realm or Commoner and 12 Peers or above if a Lord if not 12 Commoners to give the Judgment upon the general Issue of not guilty joined of these 24 the first 12 are called the Grand Inquest or the Grand Jury for the extent of their power and in regard that their number must be no more than 12 sometimes 23 or 25 never were less than 13. Twelve whereof at least must agree to every Indictment or else 't is no legal Verdict If 11 of 21 or of 13 should agree to find a Bill of Indictment it were no Verdict The other Twelve in Commoners Cases are called the Petit-Jury and their number is ever Twelve but the Jury for a Peer of the Realm may be more in number though of like Authority The Office and Power of these Juries is Judicial they only are the Judges from whose Sentence the Indicted are to expect Life or Death upon their Integrity and Understanding
was used c. returned by the Sheriffs c. without any denomination to the Sheriffs See Coke's Instit 3d part fol. 33. c. according to the Law of England and if any Indictment be made hereafter in any point to the contrary the same be also void and holden for none for ever See also the Statute of Westm 2d cap. 38. and Articul super Cortas cap. 9. So careful have our Parliaments been that the power of Grand Inquests might be placed in the hands of good and worthy men that if one man of a Grand Inquest though they be Twenty three or more should not be Liber Legalis Homo or such as the Law requires and duly returned without denomination to the Sheriff all the Indictments found by such a Grand Jury and the proceedings upon them are void and null So it was adjudged in Searlet's Case I know too well that the Wisdom and Care of our Ancestors in this Institution of Grand Juries hath not been of late considered as it ought nor the Laws concerning them duly observed nor have the Gentlemen and other men of Estates in the several Counties discerned how insensibly their Legal Power and Jurisdiction in their Grand and Petit Juries is decayed and much of the means to preserve their own Lives and Interests taken out of their hands 'T is a wonder that they were not more awakened with the Attempt of the late L. Ch. K. who would have usurped a Lordly Dictatorian power over the Grand Jury of Somersetshire and commanded them to find a Bill of Indictment for Murther for which they saw no Evidence and upon their refusal he not only threatned the Jury but assumed to himself an Arbitrary Power to fine them Here was a bold Battery made upon the ancient Fence of our Reputations and Lives If that Justice's Will had passed for Law all the Gentlemen of the Grand Juries must have been theâ— basest Vassals to the Judges and have been penally obliged Jurare in Verba Magistri to have sworn to the Directions or Dictates of the Judges But thanks be to God the late long Parliament though filled with Pensioners could not bear such a bold Invasion of the English Liberty but upon the Complaint of one Sir Hugh Windham Foreman of the said Jury and a Member of that Parliament the Commons brought the then Chief Justice to their Bar to acknowledge his fault whereupon the Prosecution ceased The Trust and Power of Grand Juries is and ought to be accounted amongst the greatest and of most concern next to the Legislative The Justice of the whole Kingdom in Criminal Cases almost wholly depending upon their Ability and Integrity in the due execution of their Office Besides the Concernments of all Commoners the Honour Reputation Estates and Lives of all the Nobility of England are so far submitted to their Censure that they may bring them into question for Treason or Felony at their Discretion Their Verdict must be entred upon Record against the greatest Lords and process must legally go out against them thereupon to imprison them if they can be taken or to outlaw them as the Statutes direct and if any Peer of the Realm though innocent should justly fear a Conspiracy against his Life and think fit to withdraw the direction of the Statutes in proceeding to the Outlawry being rightly pursued he could never reverse the Outlawry as the Law now stands save by Pardon or Act of Parliament Hence it appears that in case a Grand Jury should be drawn to indict a Noble Peer unjustly either by means of their own weakness or partiality or a blind submission to the Direction or Opinion of Judges One such failure of a Jury may occasion the Ruine of any of the best or greatest Families in England I mention this extent of the Grand Juries Power over all the Nobility only to shew their joint Interest and Concern with the Commons of England in this ancient Institution The Grand Juries are trusted to be the princpal means of preserving the Peace of the whole Kingdom by the terror of executing the Penal Laws against Offenders by their Wisdom Diligence and Faithfulness in making due Inquiries after all Breaches of the Peace and bringing every one to answer for his Crime at the peril of his Life Limb and Estate that every man who lives within the Law may sleep securely in his own House 'T is committed to their Charge and Trust to take care of bringing Capital Offenders to pay their Lives to Justice and lesser Criminals to other punishments according to their several demerits The Courts or Judges or Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer and of Goal-Delivery are to receive only from the Grand Inquest all Capital Matters whatsoever to be put in issue tried and judged before them by the Petit Juries The whole stream of Justice in such Cases either runs freely or is stopped and disturbed as the Grand Inquests do their Duties either faithfully and prudently or neglect or ornit them And as one part of their Duty is to indict Offenders so another part is to protect the Innocent in their Reputations Lives and Interests from false Accusers and malicious Conspirators They are to search out the Truth of such Informations as come before them and to reject the Indictment if it be not sufficiently proved and farther if they have reasonable suspicion of Malice or wicked Designs against any Man's Life or Estate by such as offer a Bill of Indictment the Laws of God and of the Kingdom bind them to use all possible means to discover the Villany and if it appear to them whereof they are the Legal Judges to be a Conspiracy or malicious Combination against the Accused they are bound by the highest Obligations upon Men and Christians not only to reject such a Bill of Indictment but to indict forthwith all the Conspirators with their Abettors and Associates Doubtless there hath been Pride and Covetousness Malice and desire of Revenge in all Ages from whence have sprung false Accusations and Conspiracies but no Age before us ever hatched such Villanies as our Popish Faction have contrived against our Religion Lives and Liberties No History affords an Example of such Forgeries Perjuries Subornations and Combinations of infamous Wretches as have been lately discovered amongst them to defame Loyal Innocent Protestants and to shed their guiltless Blood in the Form and Course of Justice and to make the King 's most faithful Subjects appear to be the vilest Traitors unto him In this our miserable State Grand Juries are our only security inasmuch as our Lives cannot be drawn into jeopardy by all the malicious Crafts of the Devil unless such a number of our honest Countrymen shall be satisfied in the truth of the Accusations For prevention of such Plotters of wickedness as now abound was that Statute made in the 42 of E. 3.3 See the Stat. 42 E. 3.3 in these words To eschew the mischiefs and damage done to divers
desolationibus tam sanctae Eccles quam Reg. factis per hoc iniquum Concilium Domini Regis contra magnas Chartas tot toties multoties emptas redemptas concessas confirmatas per tot talia Juramenta Domini Regis nunc Dominorum Henrici Johannis ac per terribiles fulminationes Excommunicationis sententiae in transgressores communium libertatum Angliae quae in chartis praedictis continentur corroboratas cum spes praeconcepta de libertatibus illis observandis fideliter ab omnibus putaretur stabilis indubitata Rex conciliis malorum Ministrorum praeventus seductus easdem infringendo contravenire non formidavit credens deceptive pro numere absolvi à transgressione quod esset manifestum regni exterminium Aliud etiam nos omnes angit intrinsecus quod Justiciarii subtiliter ex malitia sua ac per diversa argumenta avaritiae intolerabilis superbiae Regem contra fideles suos multipliciter provocaverunt incitaverunt sanoque salubri consilio Ligeorum Angliae contrarium reddiderunt consilia sua vana impudenter praeponere affirmare non erubuerunt seu formidaverunt ac si plus habiles essent ad consulendam conservandam Rempublicam quam tota Universitas Regni in unum collecta Ita de illis possit vere dici viri qui turbaverunt terram concusserunt Regnum sub fuco gravitatis totum populum graviter oppresserunt praetextuque solummodo exponendi veteres Leges novas non dicam Leges sed malas consuetudines introduxerunt vomuerunt ita quod per ignorantiam nonnullorum ac per partialitatem aliorum qui vel per munera vel timorem aliquorum potentum innodati fuerunt nulla fuit stabilitas Legum nec alicui de populo Justitiam dignabantur exhibere opera eorum sunt opera nequitiae opus iniquitatis in manibus pedes eorum ad malum currunt festinant ac viam recti nescierunt Quid dicam non est judicium in gressibus suis Quam plurimi liberi homines terrae nostrae fideles Domini Regis quasi viles ultimae servi conditionis diversis Carceribus sine culpa commiserunt ibidem carcerandi quorum nonnulli in carcere fame maerore vinculorum pondere defecerunt extorquerunt pro Arbritrio insuper infinitam pecuniam ab eâ—â—dem pro redemptione sua crumenas aliorum ut suas impregnarent tam à divitibus quam pauperibus exhauserunt ratione quorum incurriverunt odium inexorabile formidabile imprecationes omnium quasi tale incommunicabile privilegium per Chartam detest abilem de non obstante obtinuerunt perquiviserunt ut à lege divina humanaque quasi ad libitum immunes essent Gravamen insuper solitum adhuc sive aliquo modo saevit omnia sunt venalia si non quasi furtiva proh dolor Quid non mortalia pectora cogit Auri sacra fames Ex ore meo contra vos O Impii tremebunda coeli decreta jam auditis Agnitio vultuum vestrorum accusat vos peccatum vestrum quasi Sodoma praedicavistis nec abscondistis vae animae vestrae vae qui condunt leges scribentes injustitiam scripserunt ut opprimerent in judicio pauperes vim facerent causae humilium populi ut essent viduae praeda eorum pupillos diriperent vae qui aedificant domum suam injusticia coenacula sua non in Judicio vae qui concupiverunt agros violenter tulerunt rapuerunt domos oppresserunt virum domum ejus imo virum Haereditatem suam vae Judices qui sicut Lupi vespere non relinquebant ossa in mane Justus Judex adducit Consiliarios in stultum finem Judices in stuporem mox alta voce justum Judicium terrae recipietis His auditis omnium aures tinniebant totaque Communitas ingemuerunt Vide Mat. West Anno 1289. p. 376 li. 13. dicentes heu nobis heu ubi est Angliae toties empta toties concessa toties scripta toties jurata Libertas Alii de Criminalibus sese à visibus populi subtrahentes in locis secretis cum amicis tacite latitaverunt Anno vero 1290. 18. Ed. 1. deprehensis omnibus Angliae Justiciariis de repetundis praeter Jo. Metingham Eliam de Bleckingham quos honoris ergo nominatos volui judicio Parliamenti vindicatum est in alios atque alios carcere exilio fortunarumque omnium dispendio in singulos mulcta gravissima amissione officii Spelmans Glossary p. 1. co 1. 416. alios protulerunt in medium unde merito fere omnes ab officiis depositi amoti unus à terra exulatus alii perpetuis prisonis incarcerati alii que gravibus pecuniarum solutionibus juste adjudicati fuerunt AFter that the King for the space of three Years and more had remained beyond Sea and returned out of Gascoign and France into England he was much vexed and disturbed by the continual clamour both of the Clergy and Laity desiring to be relieved against the Justices and other His Majesties Ministers of several oppressions and injuries done unto them contrary to the good Laws and Customs of the Realm whereupon King Edward by his Royal Letters to the several Sheriffs of England commanded that in all Counties Cities and Market Towns a Proclamation should be made that all who found themselves agrieved should repair to Westminster at the next Parliament and there shew their Grievances where as well the great as the less should receive fit Remedies and speedy Justice according as the King was obliged by the Bond of his Coronation Oath And now that great day was come that day of judging even the Justices and the other Ministers of the King's Council which by no Collusion or Reward no Argument or Art of Pleading they could elude or avoid The Clergy therefore and the People being gathered together and seated in the great Palace of Westminster the Archbishop of Canterbury a man of eminent Piety and as it were a Pillar of the holy Church and the Kingdom rising from his Seat and fetching a profound sigh spoke in this manner Let this Assembly know that we are called together concerning the great and weighty Affairs of the Kingdom too much alas of late disturbed and still out of Order unanimously faithfully and effectually with our Lord the King to treat and ordain Vide Fleta Cap. 17. p. 18 19. Authoritas Officium ordinarii Concilii Regis Ye have all heard the grievous complaints of the most intollerable injuries and oppressions of the daily desolations committed both on Church and State by this corrupt Council of our Lord the King contrary to our great Charters so many and so often purchased and redeemed granted and confirmed to us by the several Oaths of our Lord the King that now is and of our Lords King Henry and John and corroborated by the dreadful thundrings of the sentence of Excommunication against the
Invaders of our common Liberties of England in our said Charters contained and when we had conceived firm and undoubted hopes that these our Liberties would have been faithfully preserved by all men the King circumvented and seduced by the Counsels of evil Ministers hath not been afraid to violate it by infringing them falsly believing that he could for Rewards be absolved from that offence which would be the manifest destruction of the Kingdom There is another thing also that grieves our Spirits that the Justices subtilly and maliciously by diverse Arguments of covetousness and intollerable pride have the King against his faithful Subjects sundry ways incited and provoked counselling him contrary to the good and wholsome Advice of all the Liegemen of England and have not blushed nor been afraid impudently to assert and prefer their own foolish Councils as if they were more fit to consult and preserve the Commonweal than all the Estates of the Kingdom together assembled so that it may be truly said of them they are the men that troubled the Land and disturb'd the Nation under a false colour of gravity have the whole People grievously opprest and under pretence of expounding the antient Laws have introduced new I will not say Laws but evil Customs so that through the Ignorance of some and partiality of others who for reward or fear of great Men have been engaged there was no certainty of Law and they scorned to administer Justice to the people their deeds are deeds of wickedness and the work of Iniquity is in their hand their feet make haste to evil and the way of truth have they not known what shall I say there is no Judgment in their paths How many Free-men of this Land faithful Subjects of our Lord the King have like the meanest Slaves of lowest condition without any fault been cast into Prison where some of them by hunger grief or the burthen of their chains have expired they have also extorted at their pleasure infinite sums of money for their ransoms the Coffers of some that they might fill their own as well from the rich as the poor they have exhausted by reason whereof they have contracted the irreconcilable hatred and dreadful imprecations of all men as if they had purchas'd and obtain'd such an incommunicable priviledge by their detestable Charter of non Obstante that they might at their own lust be free from all Laws both humane and divine Moreover there is another more the ordinary grievance which hitherto hath and in some measure doth still rage among us All things are expos'd to sale if not as it were to plunder and theft Alas how great power hath the love of money in the breasts of Men Hear therefore O ye wicked from my mouth the dreadful decree of Heaven the dejection af your countenances accuseth you and like the men of Sodom ye have not hidden but proclaimed the sin woe be to your souls woe be to them that make Laws and Writing write injustice that they may oppress the poor in Judgment and injure the cause of the humble that Widows may become their Prey and that they might destroy the Orphan Woe be to those that build their Houses in injustice and their Tabernacles in Vnrighteousness Woe be to them that covet large possessions that break open Houses and destroy the Man and his Inheritance woe be to such Judges who are like Wolves in the Evening and leave not a bone till the morning The Righteous Judge will bring such Counsellors to a foolish end and such Judges to confusion ye shall all presently with a loud cry receive the just sentence of the Land At the hearing of these things all Ears tingled and the whole Community lifted up their Voice and mourned saying Alas alas for us what is become of that English Liberty which we have so often purchased which by so many Concessions so many Statutes so many Oaths have been confirmed to us Hereupon several of the Criminals withdrew into secret places being concealed by their friends some of them were brought forth into the midst of the People and deservedly turned out of their Offices one was banished the Land and others were grievously Fined or Condemned to perpetual Imprisonment This is confirmed by Spelman An. 1290. All the Justices of England saith he were An. 18. Ed. 1. apprehended for Corruption except John Mettingham and Elias Bleckingham whom I name for their honour and by Judgment of Parliament condemned some to Imprisonment others Banishment or Confiscation of their Estates and none escaped without grievous Fines and the loss of their Offices The Speech and Carriage of STEPHEN COLLEDGE Before the Castle at Oxford Wednesday Aug. 31. 1681. Taken exactly from his Mouth at the place of Execution Mr. High-Sheriff MR. Colledge It is desired for satisfaction of the World because you have profest your self a Protestant that you would tell what Judgment you are of Colledge Dear People dear Protestants and dear Country-men I Have been Accused and Convicted for Treason the Laws Adjudge me to this Death and I come hither willingly to submit to it I pray God forgive all those persons that had any hand in it I do declare to you whatever has been said of me that I was never a Papist or ever that way inclined they have done me wrong I was ever a Protestant I was born a Protestant I have lived so and so by the Grace of God I will die of the Church of England according to the best Reformation of the Church from all Idolatry from all Superstition or any thing that is contrary to the Gospel of our blessed Lord and Saviour I do declare I was never in any Popish Service Prayers or Devotions in my life save one time about seventeen or eighteen years ago as near as I remember I was out of a curiosity one afternoon at St. James's Chappel the Queens Chappel at St. James's except that one time I never did hear any Popish Service any thing of the Church of Rome Mass or Prayers or any thing else private or publick I know you expect that I should say something as to what I die for It has been charged upon me when I was apprehended and brought before the Council some of the Council the Secretary and my Lord Killingworth and Mr. Seymour they told me there was Treason sworn against me truly they surprized me when they said so for of all things in the World I thought my self as free from that as any man I asked them if any man living had the confidence to swear Treason against me They said several three or four as I remember Then they told me it was sworn against me that I had a design to pull the King out of White-hall and to serve him as his Father was served or to that purpose the Loggerhead his Father or that kind of Language I did deny it then and do now deny it upon my Death I never was in any manner of Plot in my
Years after that he called no Parliament notwithstanding the Law for Triennial Parliaments and the manner of his Death and the Papers printed after his Death in his Name having sufficiently shewed that he was equally sincere in both those Assurances that he gave as well in that relating to Religion as in that other relating to frequent Parliaments yet upon his Death a new set of Addresses appeared in which all that Flattery couldinvent was brought forth in the Commendations of a Prince to whose Memory the greatest kindness can be done is to forget him and because his present Majesty upon his coming to the Throne gave some very general Promise of maintaining the Church of England this was magnified in so extravagant a strain as if it had been a Security greater than any that the Law could give tho' by the regard that the King has both to it and to the Laws it appears that he is resolved to maintain both equally since then the Nation has already made it self sufficiently ridiculous both to the present and to all succeeding Ages it is time that at last men should grow weary and become ashamed of their Folly XII The Nonconformists are now invited to set an Example to the rest and they who have valued themselves hitherto upon their Opposition to Popery and that have quarrelled with the Church of England for some small Approaches to it in a few Ceremonies are now solicited to rejoyce because the Laws that secure us against it are all plucked up since they enjoy at present and during pleasure leave to meet together It is natural for all men to love to be set at ease especially in the matter of their Consciences but it is visible that those who allow them this favour do it with no other design but that under a pretence of a General Toleration they may Introduce a Religion which must persecute all equally It is likewise apparent how much they are hated and how much they have been persecuted by the Instigation of those who now Court them and who have now no game that is more promising than the engaging them and the Church of England into new Quarrels and as for the Promises now made to them it cannot be supposed that they will be more lasting than those that were made some time ago to the Church of England who had both a better Title in Law and greater Merit upon the Crown to assure them that they should be well used than these can pretend to The Nation has scarce forgiven some of the Church of England the Persecution into which they have suffered themselves to be cosened tho' now that they see Popery barefaced the Stand that they have made and the vigorous Opposition that they have given to it is that which makes all men willing to forget what is past and raises again the Glory of a Church that was not a little stained by the Indiscretion and Weakness of those that were too apt to believe and hope and so suffered themselves to be made a Property to those who would make them a Sacrifice The Sufferings of the Nonconformists and the Fury that the Popish party expressed against them had recommended them so much to the Compassions of the Nation and had given them so just a pretension to favour in a better time that it will look like a Curse of God upon them if a few men whom the Court has gained to betray them can have such an ill Influence upon them as to make them throw away all that Merit and those Compassions which their Sufferings have procured them and to go and court those who are only seemingly kind to them that they may destroy both them and us They must remember that as the Church of England is the only Establishment that our Religion has by Law so it is the main body of the Nation and all the Sects are but small and stragling parties and if the Legal Settlement of the Church is dissolved and that body is once broken these lesser bodies will be all at Mercy and it is an easie thing to define what the Mercies of those of the Church of Rome are XIII But tho' it must be confessed that the Nonconformists are still under some Temptations to receive every thing that gives them present ease with a little too much kindness since they lie exposed to many severe Laws for which they have of late felt the weight very heavily and as they are men and some of them as ill Natured men as other people so it is no wonder if upon the first surprises of the Declaration they are a little delighted to see the Church of England after all its Services and Submissions to the Court so much mortified by it so that taking all together it will not be strange if they commit some Follies upon this occasion Yet on the other hand it passes all imagination to see some of the Church of England especially those whose Natures we know are so particularly sharpned in the point of Persecution chiefly when it is levelled against the Dissenters rejoice at this Declaration and make Addresses upon it It it hard to think that they have attained to so high a pitch of Christian Charity as to thank those who do now Despitefully use them and that as an earnest that within a little while they will Persecute them This will be an Original and a Master-piece in Flattery which must needs draw the last degrees of Contempt on such as are capable of so abject and sordid a Compliance and that not only from all the true Members of the Church of England but likewise from those of the Church Rome it self for every man is apt to esteem an Enemy that is brave even in his Misfortunes as much as he despises those whose minds sink with their Condition for what is it that these men would Address the King Is it because he breaks those Laws that are made in their Favour and for their Protection and is now striking at the Root of all Legal Settlement that they have for their Religion Or is it because that at the same time that the King professes a Religion that condemns his Supremacy yet he is not contented with the Exercise of it as it is warranted by Law but carries it so far as to erect a Court contrary to the express words of a Law so lately made That Court takes care to maintain a due proportion between their Constitution and all their Procedings that so all may be of a piece and all equally contrary to Law They have suspended one Bishop only because he would not do that which was not in his power to do for since there is no Extrajudiciary Authority in England a Bishop can no more proceed to the Sentence of Suspension against a Clergy-man without a Tryal and the hearing of Parties than a Judge can give a Sentence in his Chamber without an Indictment a Tryal or a Jury and because one of the greatest bodies of
has been formerly thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom which we dare not do till we have the Authority of Parliament for it It is to recommend to our People the Choice of such Persons to sit in Parliament as shall take away the Test and Penal Laws which most of the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation have declared their Judgment against It is to condemn all those great and worthy Patriots of their Country who forfeited the dearest thing in the World to them next a good Conscience viz. The Favour of their Prince and a great many honorable and profitable Employments with it rather than consent to that Proposal of taking away the Test and Penal Paws which they apprehend destructive to the Church of England and the Protestant Religion and he who can in Conscience do all this I think need scruple nothing For let us consider further what the Effects and Consequences of our Reading the Declaration are likely to be and I think they are Matter of Conscience too when they are evident and apparent This will certainly render our Persons and Ministry infinitely contemptible which is against that Apostolical Canon Let no Man despise thee Titus 2.15 That is so to behave himself in his Ministereal Office as not to fall under Contempt and therefore this obliges the Conscience not to make our selves ridiculous nor to render our Ministry our Counsels Exhortations Preaching Writing of no Effect which is a thousand times worse than being silenced Our Sufferings will preach more effectually to the People when we cannot speak to them but he who for Fear or Cowardise or the Love of this World betrays his Church and Religion by undue Compliances and will certainly be thought to do so may continue to Preach but to no purpose and when we have rendred our selves ridiculous and contemptible we shall then quickly fall and fall unpitied There is nothing will so effectually tend to the final Ruine of the Church of England because our Reading the Declaration will discourage or provoke or misguide all the Friends the Church of England has can we blame any Man for not preserving the Laws and the Religion of our Church and Nation when we our selves will venture nothing for it Can we blame any Man for consenting to Repeal the Test and Penal Laws when we recommend it to them by Reading the Declaration Have we not reason to expect that the Nobility and Gentry who have already suffered in this Cause when they hear themselves condemned for it in all the Churches of England will think it time to mend such a Fault and reconcile themselves to their Prince and if our Church fall this way is there any reason to expect that it should ever rise again These Consequences are almost as evident as Demonstrations and let it be what it will in it self which I foresee will destroy the Church of England and the Protestant Religion and Interest I think I ought to make as much Conscience of doing it as of doing the most immortal Action in Nature To say that these mischievous Consequences are not absolutely necessary and therefore do not affect the Conscience because we are not certain they will follow is a very mean Objection Moral Actions indeed have not such necessary Consequences as natural Causes have necessary Effects because no moral Causes act necessarily Reading the Declaration will not as necessarily destroy the Church of England as Fire burns Wood but if the Consequence be plain and evident the most likely thing that can happen if it be unreasonable to expect any other if it be what is plainly intended and designed either I must never have any regard to Moral Consequences of my Actions or if ever they are to be considered they are in this case Why are the Nobility and Gentry so extreamly averse to the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws Why do they forfeit the King's Favour and their Honourable Stations rather than comply with it If you say that this tends to destroy the Church of England and the Protestant Religion I ask whether this be the necessary consequence of it whether the King cannot keep his promise to the Church of England if the Test and Penal Laws be Repealed We cannot say but this may be And yet the Nation does not think fit to try it and we commend those great men who deny it and if the same questions were put to us we think we ought in Conscience to deny them our selves And are there not as high probabilities that our Reading the Declaration will promote the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws as that such a Repeal will ruine our Constitution and bring in Popery upon us Is it not as probable that such a complyance in us will disoblige all the Nobility and Gentry who have hitherto been firm to us as that when the power of the Nation is put into Popish Hands by the Repeal of such Tests and Laws the Priests and Jesuirs may find some salvo for the King's Conscience and perswade him to forget his Promise to the Church of England and if the probable ill consequences of Repealing the Test and Penal Laws be a good reason not to comply with it I cannot see but that the as probable ill consequences of Reading the Declaration is as good a reason not to read it The most material Objection is that the Dissenters whom we ought not to provoke will expound our not Reading it to be the effect of a persecuting Spirit Now I wonder Men should lay any weight on this who will not allow the most probable consequences of our Actions to have any influence upon Conscience For if we must compare consequences to disoblige all the Nobility and Gentry by reading it is likely to be much more fatal than to anger the Diffenters and it is more likely and there is much more reason for it that one should be offended than the other For the Dissenters who are wise and considering are sensible of the snare themselves and though they desire Ease and Liberty they are not willing to have it with such apparent hazard of Church and State I am sure that tho' we were never so desirous that they might have their Liberty and when there is opportunity of shewing our inclinations without danger they may find that we are nations without danger they may find that we are not such Persecutors as we are represented yet we cannot consent that they should have it this way which they will find the dearest Liberty that ever was granted This Sir is our Case in short the Difficulties are great on both sides and therefore now if ever we ought to besiege Heaven with our Prayers for Wisdom and Counsel and Courage that God would protect his Church and Reformed Christianity against all the devices of their Enemies Which is the daily and hearty Prayer of SIR Your Friend and Brother May 22. 1â—88 POSTSCRIPT I Have just now seen H. Care 's Paper
pinches he is really concerned that Ireland is not altogether an independent Kingdom and in the Hands of its own Natives he longs till the Day when the English Yoak of Boudage shall be thrown off Of this he gives us broad Hints when he tells us That England is the only Nation in the World that impedes their Trade That a Man of English Interest will never Club with them as he phrases it or project any thing which may tend to their Advantage that will be the least Bar or Prejudice to the Trade of England Now why a Man of English Interest unless he will allow none of that Nation to be an able and just Minister to his Prince should be partial to ruine one Kingdom to avoid the least Inconveniency of the other contrary to the positive Commands of his King I cannot imagine For since it is the Governour 's Duty to Rule by Law and such Orders as he shall receive from His Majesty I know no Grounds for our Authors Arraigning the whole English Nation in saying That no one Man among them of what Perswasion soever will be true either to the Laws or his Majesty's positive Orders which shall seem repugnant to the smallest Conveniencies of England This is a glory reserved only as it seems for his Hero my Lord Tyrconnel The Imbargo upon the West India Trade and the Prohibition of Irish Cattel are the two Instances given It were to be wished indeed for the Good of that Kingdom that both were taken off and I question not but to see a Day wherein it shall seem proper to the King and an English Parliament to Repeal those Laws a Day wherein they will consider us as their own Flesh and Blood a Colony of their Kindred and Relations and take care of our Advantages with as little Grudging and Repining I am sure they have the same and no stronger Reason as Cornwal does at Yorkshire There are Instances in sevral Islands in the East-Indies as far distant as Ireland is from England that make up but one Kingdom and govern'd by the same Laws but the Wisdom of England will not judge it time fitting to do this till we of Ireland be one Mans Children either in Reality or Affection we wish the latter and have made many Steps and Advances towards it if the Natives will not meet us half way we cannot help it let the Event lie at their own Doors But after all I see not how those Instances have any manner of relation to the English Chief Governors in Ireland they were neither the Causes Contrivers nor Promoters of those Acts. The King and an English Parliament did it without consulting them if they had 't is forty to one my Lord of Ormond and the Council whose Stake is so great in Ireland would have hindred it as much as possible Our Author's Argument proves indeed That 't is detrimental to Ireland to be a subordinate Kingdom to England and 't is plain 't is that he drives at let him disguise it as much as he will but the conclusion he would prove cannot at all be deduced from it Shortly I expect he will speak plainer and in down right Terms propose That the two Kingdoms may be governed by different Kings Matters seem to grow ripe for such a dilloyal Proposition If these Acts and not the Subjection to an English King were the Grievances they would be so to the British there as well as to the Natives but though we wish them Repealed we do not repine in the mean time if the British who are the most considerable Trading part of that Nation and consequently feel the ill Effects of those Acts more sensibly can be contented why the Natives should not acquiesce in it unless it be for the forementioned Reasons I cannot see Our Author allows that there are different ways of obeying the King 't is a Point gained for us and proves there may be such a Partiality exercised in executing his Majesties Commands as may destroy the very Intent of them and yet taking the Matter strictly the King is obeyed but a good Minister will consider his Masters Intentions and not make use of a Word that may have a double Sence to the Ruine of a Kingdom nor of a Latitude of Power wherewith he is intrusted to the Destruction of the most considerable Party in it Far be it from us to think it was his Majesties Intentions to depopulate a flourishing Country to undo Multitudes of laborious thriving Families in it to diminish and destroy his own Revenue to put the Sword into Mad-mens Hands who are sworn Enemies to the British No! His Majesty who is willing that Liberty of Trade as well as Conscience should equally flourish in all parts of his Dominions that recommends himself to his Subjects by his Impartiality in distributing Offices of Trust and from that Practice raises his greatest Argument to move his People to Repeal the Penal Laws never intended that some general Commands of his should be perverted to the Destruction of that People his Intention is to protect His Majesty Great as he is cannot have two Consciences one calculated for the Latitude of England another for Ireland We ought therefore to conclude in respect to the King that his Commands have been ill understood and worse executed and this may be done as our Author confesses and the King undoubtedly obeyed but such an Obedience is no better than a Sacrifice of the best Subjects the King has in this Kingdom Our Author has given very good Reasons why the Natives may be well content with their present Governor but I cannot forbear laughing at those he has found out to satisfie the poor British with My Lord Tyrconnel's most Excellent Charitable English Lady His high sounding Name TALBOT in great Letters a Name that no less frightens the Poor English in Ireland then it once did the French a Name which because he is in possession of I will not dispute his Title to but I have been credibly informed that he has no relation to that most Noble Family of Shrewsbury though my Lord Tyrconnel presumes to bear the same Coat of Arms a Name in short which I hope in time Vox praetereae nihil A Second Reason is drawn from his Education We have heard and it has never yet been contradicted that my Lord Tyrconnel from his Youth upwards has constantly born Arms against the Brittish If our Author will assure us of the contrary I am apt to believe â—i Excellency will give him no thanks who lays the foundation of his Merit upon the Basis of his constant adherence to the Iâ—ish Party What use of Consolation can be drawn from this head by the Brittish is beyond my skill to conâ—preâ—â—nd A third Reason is drawn from his Stake in England the Author would do well to shew us in what Country this lies that we may know where to find Reprisals hereafter for since he offers this for our Security 't is fit
it hath been to cut the Tacklings and to steer contrary to the Pilot's Directions he thinks such safer by far shut up under Hatches then set at Liberty or employ'd to do mischief As for his supposition of 30000 men to be sent out of Ireland into Handers I cannot tell what to make on 't Let them crack the Shell that hope to find the Kernel in it For my part I despair though the readiness of the English Souldiers of Ireland who at twenty four hours warning came into England to serve His Majesty in the time of Monmouth's Rebellion ought to have been remembered to their advantage and might serve to any unprejudic'd person as a Pattern of the Loyalty and good Inclinations of all the Protestants in that Kingdom if his Majesty had had occasion for them VVhether the Parliament will Repeal the Test for those several weighty Reasons our Author says are fitter for contemplation than Discourse tho methinks it would be pleasant to see a House of Common sit like the Brethren at a silent Meeting is not my Province to determine As likewise VVhether they will so much consider that Grand Reason the King will have it so for his Conscience and theirs may differ or what the diffenters will do I cannot tell One thing I am sure of there will be no such Stumbling-block in the way of the King's desires when they meet as the present condition of Ireland they will be apt when His Majesty tells them they shall have their equal shares in Employments when they have Repealed the Laws to say Look at Ireland see what is done there where the Spirit of Religion appears bare fac'd and accordingly compute what may become of us when we have removed our own legal Fences since they now leap over those Hedges what may we expect when they are quite taken away Poyning's Law is a great grievance to our Author and here in one word he discovers that 't is the dependance this Kingdom has on England he quarrels at 'T is fit the Reader should understand that Law enacted when Poynings was Lord Deputy makes all the English Acts of Parliament of force in Ireland we are therefore so fond of that Law and cover so much to preserve our dependance on England that all the Arguments our Author can bring shall not induce us to part with it I will not reflect in the least on the Courage of the Irish I know there are several brave men among them but they have had the misfortune to fall under the Consideration of as our Author softens it but the plain sence is been beaten by a warlike Nation And I question not unless they behave themselves modestly in their Prosperity they will again fall under the Consideration of the same Nation 't is better we should live in peace and quietness but the Choice is in their hands and if they had rather come under our consideration again than avoid it let them look to the Consequence Another advantage which may accrue to Ireland by a Native as a Governour our Author reckons to be His personal knowledge of the Tories and their Harbourers and his being thereby better capacitated to suppress them Malicious People would be apt to infer from this Suggestion that his Excellency had occasion formerly to be familiarly acquainted with such sort of Cattle I have heard indeed that one of our bravest English Princes Henry the during the Extravagancies of his youth kept Company with publick Robbers and often shar'd both in the Danger and Booty But as soon as the Death of his Father made way for his Succession to the Crown he made use of his former acquaintance of their Persons and Haunts to the extirpating and dissolving the greatest knot of Highway-men that ever troubled England My Lord therefore in imitation of this great Prince no doubt will make use of his Experience that way to the same end And I readily assent to the Author that no English Governour can be so fit to clear that Kingdom of Tories and that for the same reason he gives us There are two other Advantages remaining one is his Excellency's having already made different Parties in that Kingdom the Objects of his Love and Hatred let the Offences of the one or the Merits of the other be never so conspicuous Whether the Brittish can draw any comfort from his Excellency's knowledge of them this way is fit to be debated The other is the probality of his getting the Statute for benefit of Clergy in favour of Cow-Stealers and House Robbers Repealed and where by the way there is a severe Rebuke given to our English Priests for their ill-placed Mercy to Irish Offenders A fault I hope they will be no more guilty of Whether these Advantages be so considerable as to move his Majesty to continue a Man for other more weighty Reasons absolutely destructive to this Kingdom or whether some of them might not be performed by an English Governour His Majesty is the only Judge Only this I am sure of The King if he were under any Obligations to His Minister has fully discharged them all and has shewed himself to be the best of Masters in giving so great and honourable an Employment to his Creature and continuing him in it so long notwithstanding the decrease of his own Revenue and the other visible bad effects of his Management the Impoverishment of that Kingdom amounting to at least two Millions of Mony And His Majesty may be now at liberty without the least imputation of Breach of promise to his Servant to restore us to our former flourishing condition by sending some English Nobleman among us whose contrary Methods will no doubt produce different effects To conclude methinks the comparison between His Majesty and Philip of Macedon when he was drunk is a little too familiar not to say unmannerly and that between Antipater and my Lord Tyrconnel is as great a Complement to the latter But provided my Lord be commended which was our Author's chief design he cares not tho' the comparison does not hold good in all points 't is enough that we know we are Govern'd by such a Prince that neither practises such Debauches himself nor allows of them in his Servants But we are not beholding to the Author for the knowledge of this should a Foreigner read his Pamphler or get it interpreted to him he would be apt and with reason to conclude that His Majesty as much resembled Philip in a Debauch as my Lord Tyrconnel doth sober Antipater I have now done with all that seems of any weight in our Author's Pamphlet and can see nething in his Postscript that deserves an Answer All that I will say is That his Recipes bear no proportion to our desperate Disease and he will prove not to be a Physitian but a pretending Quack who by ill applied Medicines will leave us in a worse Condition than he found us I shall conclude with telling you That your Letter which enclosed
the Face to turn them again upon you after they have made all this Noise for Liberty And the Church of England you may be assured will not any more trouble you but when a Protestand Prince shall come will joyn in the Healing of all our Breaches by removing all things out of the way which have long hindred that blessed Work They cannot meet together in a Body to give you this Assurance how should they without the Kings Authority so to do but every particular Person that I have discoursed withal which are not a few and you your selves would do well to ask them when you meet them profess that they see an absolute Necessity of making an end of these Differences that have almost undone us and will no longer contend to bring all Men to one Vniformity but promote an Vniform Liberty Do not imagine I intend to give meer Words I meâ—n honestly such a regular Liberty as will be the Beauty and Honour not the Blot and Discredit of our Religion To such a Temper the Archbishop of Canterbury with several other Bishops of his Province and their Clergy have openly declared they are willing to come And the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England have never been know to act deceitfully Our Religion will not at any time allow them to equivecate nor to give good VVords without a Meaning much less at such a time as this when our Religion is in great danger and we have nothing to trust unto but Gods Protection of sincere Persons Let Integrity and Vprightness preserve us is their constant Prayer They can hope for no Help from Heaven if they should prevaricate with Men. God they know would desert them if they should go about to delude their Brethren And they are not so void of common Sense as to adventure to incur his most high Displeasure when they have nothing to rely upon but his Favour In short Trust to those who own you for their Brethren as you do them for though they have been angry Brethren yet there is hope of Reconciliation between such near Relations But put no Confidence in those who not only utterly disown any such Relation to you but have ever treated you with an implacable Hatred as their most mortal Enemies unto whom it is impossible they should be reconciled Prov. 12.19 20. The Lips of Truth shall be established for ever but a lying tongue is but for a mâ—ment Lying Lips are an Abomination to the Lord but they that deal truly are his Delight Abby and other Church-Lands not yet assured to such Possessors as are Roman Catholicks Dedicated to the Nobility and Gentry of that Religion SInce it is universally agreed on that so great a Matter as the total Alienation of all the Abby-Lands c. in England can never be made legal and valid and such as will satisfie the reasonable Doubts and Scruples of a religious and conscientions Person except it be confirm'd by the Supreme Authority in this Church t is evident that the Protestants who assert the Church of England to be Autokephalos and such as allows of no Foreign Jurisdiction or Appeals having had these Lands confirmed to them by the King as Head of the Chuech the Convocation as the Church Representative and by the King and Parliament as the Supreme Legislative Power in this Realm have these Alienations made as valid to them as any Power on Earth can make them but the Members of the Church of Rome who maintain a Foreign and Supreme Jurisdiction either in a General Council or in the Bishop of Rome or both together cannot have these Alienations confirm'd to them without the Consent of one or both of these Superior Jurisdictions If therefore I shall make it appear that these Alienations in England were never confirm'd by either I do not see how any Roman Catholick in England can without Sacriledge retain them and his Religion together As to the first of these since there hath been no Council from the first Alienation of Abby-Lands in England to this Day that pretends to be general but that of Trent we need only look into that for the Satisfaction of such Roman Catholicke as esteem a General Council above the Bishop of Rome And I am sure that that Council is so far from confirming these Abby-Lands to the present Possessors that it expresly denounceth them accursed that detain them Sess 22. Decret de Ref. Cap. 11. Si quem c. If Covetousness the Root of all Evil shall so far possess any Person whatsoever whether of the Clergy or Laity though he be an Emperor or a King as that by Force Fear or Fraud or any Art or Colour whatsoever he presume to convert to his own Use and usurp the Jurisdiction Goods Estates Fruits Profits or Emoluments whatever of any Church or any Benefice Secular or Regular Hospital or Religious House or shall hinder that the Profits of the said Houses be not received by those to whom they do of right belong let him lie under an Anathema till the said Jurisdiction Goods Estates Rents and Prosits which he hath possessed and invaded or which have come to him any manner of way be restored to the Church and after that have Absolution from the Bishop of Rome So great a Terror did this strike into the English Papists that were Possessors of Church-Lands against whom this Anathema seems particularly directed that many of the zealous Papists began to think of Restitution and Sir William Peters notwithstanding his private Bull of Absolution from Pope Juâ—â—us the Fourth was so much startled at it as that the very next Year he endowed eight new Fellowships in Exeter-Colledge in Oxford Again the same Council Sess 25. Decret de Râ—f c. 2 â— Cupiens Sancta Synodus c. Decreeth and commandeth that all the Holy Ca 〈◊〉 and General Councils and Apostolick Sanctions in Favour of Ecclesiastical Persons and the Liberties of the Church and against those that violate them be exactly observed by eveâ—y 〈◊〉 and doth farther admonish the Emperor Kings Princes and all Persons of what Estate soever that they would observe the Rights of the Church as the Commands of God and defend them by their particular Patronage nor suffer them to be invaded by any Lords or Gâ—ntlemen whaâ—soever but severely punish all those who hinder the Liâ—â—wâ—â—ies Immâ—â—ities and Jurildictions of the Church and that they would imitate those excellent Princes who by their Authority and Bounty encreased the Revenues of the Church so far were they from suffering them to be invadâ—â— and in this let every one sedulously perform his part c. And now after so full and express Declaration of the Council of Trent I do not â—â—e how any of those Râ—man Catholicks who esteem a general Council to be the Supreme Authority in the Church and receive the Trent Council as such can any way excuse themselves in point of Conscience from these heavy Curses that are there denounc'd against all those
that detain Church-Lands especially since the Papists themselves â—ehâ—mently accuse King Henry the eighth for sacrilegiously robbing of Religious Houses and seising of their Lands a great pâ—â—t of which Lands are to this very day possess'd by Papists Now though there may be some Plea for the Popes Authority in the interim of a general Council and in such things wherein they have made no determination yet in this matter there is no colour for any pretences since the Council of Trent was actually assembled within sew years after these Alienations and expresly condemned the possessors of Abby Lands and after all this was all consirm'd and ratified by the Pope himself in his Bulla Super conf gen Concil Trid. A. D. 1564. And tho' we have here the Judgment of the infallible See as to this matter in the Consirmation of the Trent Council yet because there be some that magnifie the Popes extravagant and unlimited power over the Church and pretend that he confirm'd the Abby-Lands in England to the Lay-possessors of them I shall shew Secondly That the Pope neither hath nor pretends to any such Power nor did ever make use of it in this matter under debate only I shall premise that whereas some part of the Canon Law seems to allow of such particular alienations as are made by the Clerks and Members of the Church with the consent of the Bishop yet such free consent was never obtained in England and as to what was done by force fraud and violence is of so little moment as to giving a legal Title that even the alienations that were made by Charles Martell who is among the Papists themselves as infamous for Sacriledge as King Henry the Eighth yet even his Acts are said to be done by a Council of Bishops as is acknowledg'd by Dr. Johnston in his assurance of Abby Lands p. 27. I shall proceed to shew First That the Pope hath no such power as to confirm these Alienations and this is expresly determined by the infallible Pope Damasus in the Canon-Law Caus 12.9.2 c. 20. The Pope cannot alienate Lands belonging to the Church in any manner or for any necessity whatsoever both the buyer and the seller lie under an Anathema till they be restored so that any Church-man may oppese any such Alienations and again require the Lands and Profits so Alienated So that here we have a full and express Determination of the infallible See And tho in Answer to this it is urg'd by Dr. Johnston that this Canon is with small difference published by Binius in the Councils and so as to confine it to the suburbicacy Diocess of Rome yet that this Answer is wholly trivial will appear First Because if the Bishop of Rome hath no Authority to confirm such alienations in his own peculiar Diocess where he hath most power much less can he do it in the Provinces where his power is less Secondly That in all Ecclesiastical Courts of the Church of Rome it is not Binius's Edition of the Councils but Gratian's Collection of Canons that is of Authority in which Book these words are as here quoted Thirdly Since this Book of the Popes Decree hath been frequently reprinted by the Authority and Command of several Popes and constantly used in their Courts this is not to be look'd upon as a Decree of Pope Damasus only but of all the succeeding Popes and in the opinion of F. Ellis Sermon before the King Decem. 5. 1686. p. 21. what is inserted in the Canon Law is become the whole Judgment of the whole-Church Fourthly It 's absolutely forbid by Pope Gregory the Thirteenth in his Bull presixed before the Canon-Law A. D. 1580. for any one to add or invert any thing in that Book So that according to this express Determination in the Popes own Law the Bishops of Rome have no power to confirm any such Alienations as have been made in England and agreeable to all this Pope Julius the Fourth the very person that is pretended to have confirm'd these Alienations declar'd to our English Ambassadors that were sent upon that Errand That if he had Power to grant it he would do it most readily but his Authority was not so large F. Paul's H. of Council of Trent Lond. A. D. 1629. And therefore all Confirmations from the Bishop of Rome are already prejudg'd to be invallid and of no force at all Secondly No Bishop of Rome did ever confirm them The Breve of Pope Julius the Third which gave Cardinal Pool the largest powers towards the effecting this had this express limitation Salvo tamen in his quibus propttr renem magnitudinem gravitatem haec Sancta sedes merito tibi videtur consulenda nostro prefatae sedis beneplacito confirmatione i. e. Saving to us in these matters in which by reason of their weight and greatness this Holy See may justly seem to you that of right it ought to be consulted the good pleasure and confirmation of us and of the holy See which is the true English to that Latin and that this whole Kingdom did then so understand these words is evident from the Ambassadors that were sent to Rome the next Spring Viz. Viscount Moitecute Bishop of Ely and Sir Edward Carn These being one to represent every state of the Kingdom to obtain of him a Confirmation of all those Graces which Cardinal Pool had granted Burnet's H. Ref p. 2. f. 300. So that in the esteem of the whole Nation what the Cardinal had done was not valid without the Confirmation of the Pope himself Now this Pope Julius and the next Marcellus both died before there is any pretence of any Confirmation from Rome but this was at length done by Pope Paul the Fourth is pretended and for proof of it three things are alledged First The Journals of the House of Commons where are these words After which was read a Bill from the Popes Holiness confirming the doing of my Lord Cardinal touching the assurance of Abby Lands c. Secondly a Bull of the same Pope to Sir Will Peters Thirdly The Decrees of Cardinal Peol and his Life by Dudithius To all which I answer First That it s confess'd on all hands that there is no such Bull or Confirmation by Pope Paul the Fourth to be any where found in the whole World not any Copy or Transcript of it not in all the Bullaria nor our own Rolls and Records tho' it be a matter of so great moment to the Roman Catholicks of England and what cannot be produced may easily be denied Nor can it be imagined that a Journal of Lay-persons that were parties concerned or a private Bull to Sir Will Peters or some hints in the Decrees and Life of the Cardinal will be of any moment in a Court at Rome whensoever a matter of that vast consequence as all the Abby Lands in England shall come to be disputed especially if it be observed that this very Journal of the House of Commonâ— is
The Pope published a Bull in print against the restoring of Abby-Lands which Dr. Burnet affirms also Ap. Fol. 403. It is notoriously false they both asserting the contrary Dr. Burnet's Words in that very place are these The Pope in plain terms refused to ratifie what the Cardinal had done and soon after set out a severe Bull cursing and condemning all that held any Church Lands Seventhly and lastly The succeeding Popes have been clearly of this opinion Pope Pius the Fourth who immediately succeeded this Paul confirm'd the Counoil of Trent and therein damned all the detainers of Church-Lands and tho he was much importuned to confirm some Alienations made by the King of France to pay the debts of the Crown yet he absolutely refused it F. Pauls H. C. Trent 713. Pope Innocent the Tenth first protested against the Alienations of Church Lands in Germany that were made at the great Treaty of Munster and Osnaburg A. D. 1648. and when that would not do by his Bull Nov. 26. in the very same Year damns all those that should dare to retain the Church-Lands and declares the Treaty void Infirmnentum pacis c. Innocentii 10 me declaratio nullitatis Artic. c. and all their late Popes in the Bulla caenae do very solemnly Damn and Excommunicate all who usurp any Jurisdiction Fruits Revenues and Emoluments belonging to any Ecclesiastical person upon account of any Churches Monasteries or other Ecclesiastical Benefices or who upon any occasion or cause Sequester the said Revenues without the Express leave of the Bishop of Rome or others having lawful power to do it c. And tho upon Geod-Friday there is published a general Absolution yet out of that are expresly excluded all those who possess any Church Lands or Goods who are still left under the sentence of Excommunication Toleti Instr Sacerd. and his Explicatio casuum in Bulla caenae Dni reserva From which consideration it 's evident that it never was the design of the Pope to confirm the English Church Lands to the Lay-possessors but that he always urg'd the necessity of restoring of them to religious uses in order to which the papists prevailed to have the statute of Mortmain repealed for 20 Years In Queen Elizabeth's Reign the factious party that was manag'd wholy by Romish â—missaries demanded to have Abbtes and such Religious Houses restored for their Vse and A. D. 1585. in their petition to the Faâ—hament they set it down as a 〈◊〉 Doctrine that things once dedicated to Sacred Vses ought so to remain by the Word of God for ever and ought not to be converted to any private Vse Bishop Bancrofts Sermon at p. c. A. D. 1588. p. 25. And that the Church of Rome is still gaping after these Lands is evident from many of their late Books as the Religion of M. Luther lately printed at Oxford p. 15. The Monks wrote Anathema upon the Registers and Donations belonging to Monasteries the weight and essect of which curses are both felt and dreaded to this day To this End the Monastiâ—â—â— Anglicanum is so diligently preserved in the Vatican and other Libraries in the popish Countries and especially this appears from the obstinate refusal of this present Pope to confirm these Alienations tho it be a matter so much controverted and which would be of that vast Use towards promoting their Religion in this Kingdom If therefore the Bishops of Rome did never confirm these Alienations of Church-Lands but earnestly and strictly required their Restitution if they have declared in their Authentick Canons that they have no power to do it and both they and the last general Council pronounce an heavy Curse and Anathema against all such as detain them Then let every one that possesseth these Lands and yet own either of these Foreign Jurisdictions consider that here is nothing left to excuse him from Sacriledge and therefore with his Estate he must derive a curse to his posterity There is scarcely any Papist but that is forward to accuse King Henry the 8th of Sacriledge and yet never reflects upon himself who quietly possesseth the Fruits of it without Restitution either let them not accuse him or else restore themselves Now whatever opinions the papists may have of these things in the time of health yet I must desire to remember what the Jesuits proposed to Cardinal Pool in Doctor Pary's Days Viz. That if he would encourage them in England they did not doubt but that by dealing with the Consciences of those who were dying they should soon recover the greatest part of the Goods of the Church Dr. Burnet's Hist Vol. 2. p. 328. Not to mention that whensoever the Regulars shall grow numerous in England and by consequence burthensome to the few Nobility and Gentry of that perswasion they will find it necessary for them to consent to a Restitution of their Lands that they may share the burthen among others For so vast are the Burthens and Payments that that Religion brings with it that it will be found at length an advantagious Bargain to part with all the Church Lands to indemnifie the rest And I am confident that the Gentry of England that are Papists have found greater Burthens and Payments since their Religion hath been allow'd than ever they did for the many years it was forbid and this charge must daily encrease so long as their Clergy daily grows more numerous and their few Converts are most of them of the meanest Rank and such as want to be provided for And that 's no easie matter to force Converts may appear from that Excellent Observation of the great Emperour Charles the Fifth who told Queen Mary That by endeavouring to compel others to his own Relegion he had tired and spent himself in vain and purchas'd nothing by it but his own dishonour Card. Pool in Heylin's Hist Ref. p. 217. And to conclude this Discourse had the Act of Pope Julius the Third by his Legate Cardinal Pool in confirming of the Alienation of Church Lands in England been as valid as is by some pretended yet what shall secure us from an Act of Resumption That very Pope after that pretended Grant to Cardinal Pool published a Bull in which he Excommunicated all that kept Abby-Lands or Church Lands Burnet's Hist Vol. 2. p. 3â—9 by which all former Grants had there been any were cancell'd His Successor Pope Paul the Fourth retrieved all the Goods and Ecclesiastical Revenues that had been alienated from the Church since the time of Julius the Second and the chief Reasons that are given why the Popes may not still proceed to an Act of Resumption of these Lands in England amount only to this That they may stay for a fair opportunity when it may be done without disturbing the peace of the Kingdom From all which it 's evident that the detaining of Abby-Lands and other Church-Lands from the Monks and Friars is altogether inconsistent with the Doctrine and Principles of the Romish Religion The King's
of so great an indiscretion or rather Imposture as to write such a Letter of his own Head The Letter it self Demonstrates that whoever writ it is no Fool and the Circumstances I have marked show that he is no Knave And indeed the Substance of it is not new it only repeats to his Majesty the same Answer which the Prince and Princess had formerly given to his Majesties Envoy there In short you may leave the whole Matter to this plain Issue If this Letter be a false one it will be disowned if a true one it will be owned Their Highnesses love not to do things that will not bear the Light It is evident they did not intend the Matter of it should be a Secret having told it to Monsieur D' Albeville as often as he in his discreet VVay necessitated them to do it But how it came to be printed I cannot inform you justly however you shall have my Conjecture I remember as soon as it was noised about Town that Mr. Stewart had received a Letter of such a Nature from Monsieur Fagle care was taken that the VVriter of the common News Letters which are dispersed over the Kingdom should insert in them that their Highnesses had declared themselves for the Repeal of the Test This Pia Fraus might I suppose give occasion to the printing of the Letter as the VVisdom and Policy of our States-men in putting Mr. Stewart on writting such Letters had procured 〈◊〉 I say Letters for Monsieur Fagel had five or six on that Subject before he answered so unwilling were they in Holland to return an Answer since they could not give one that was pleasing or do any thing that looked like medling The third thing you desired to be satisfied in is Whether the Dissenters may reâ—y on their Highnesses Word I am as apt to mistrust Princes Promises as you are But shall now give you my Reasons why I think the Dissenters may safely do it And at the same time because of the Affinity of the Matter I will tell you why I think we may all rely on their Highness for our Civil Liberties as well as the Dissenters may do for Liberty of Conscience Much of what I have to say is equally applicable to them both yet because I know you have had an Account of Her Royal Highness better than I can give you I shall for the most part speak only of the Prince My first Reason is the certainest of all Reasons That it will be His Highnesses Interest to settle Matters at Home which only can be done by a Legal Tolleration or Comprehension in Matters of Religion and by restoring the Civil Liberties of the Nation so much invaded of late That this will be his Interest is evident if his Designs lye abroad as it 's certain they do Designs at home and abroad at the same time are so inconsistent that we see his Majesty tho raised above his Fears at home by his late Victory and invited abroad by all that can excite his Appetite for Glory cannot reconcile them The Truth is one that would undertake it is in the same Condition with Officers that beat their Men to make them fight they have Enemies before and behind But you may happily object that Princes do not always follow their true Interests of which it is not difficult in this Age to give several fatal Instances I answer That it is to be presumed that Princes as well as other Men will follow their Interests till the contrary appear and if they be of an Age to have taken their Fold and have till such an Age kept firm to their Interests the Presumption grows strong but if their Inclinations the Maxims of their Families the Impressions of their Education and all their other Circumstances to side with their Interest and lead them the same way it is hardly credible they should ever quit it Now this being the present Case we have all the certainty that can be had in such Matters The Prince of Orange has above these 15 years given so great proof of his Firmness and Resolution as well as of his Capacity and Conduct in opposing the Grand Ravisher I may add the Betrayers too of Liberty and Religion that he is deservedly by all impartial Men owned to be the Head of the Protestant Interest A Headship which no Princes but the Kings of England should have and none but they would be without it Now one may rationally conclude That when the Prince shall joyn to his present Possession of this Headship a more natural Title by being in a greater Capacity to act he will not degrade himself nor lay aside Designs and Interests which ought to be the Glory of England as they are indeed the Glory of his Family acquired and derived to him by the Blood of his Ancestors and carried on and maintained by himself with so much Honour and Reputation I might add here That the Prince is a Man of a sedate even Temper full of Thoughts and Reflections one that precipitates neither in Thinking Speaking nor Acting is cautious in resolving and promising but firm to his Resolutions and exact in observing his Word Inform your self and you 'll find this a part of his Character and conclude from hence what may be presumed from his Inclinations Now as to the Maxims of his Family let us compare them a little where it may be decently done The French King broke his Faith to his Protestant Subjects upon this single Point of Vain glory that he might shew the World he was greater than most of his Predecessors who tho they had the same Inclinations were not potent enough to pursue them effectually as he has done to the everlasting Infamy of his Name and Reign The Maxims of the French Kings have been how to outvie each other in Robbing their Neighbours and Oppressing their Subjects by Perfidiousness and Cruelty But those of the Family of Orange on the contrary have been to Rescue Europe from its Oppressors and maintain the Protestant Interest by Vertue Truth Honour and Resolution knowing that such Methods are as necessary to make Protestant Princes and States flourish as Vice and Oppression are to maintain Popish Government No Popish Prince in Europe can pretend to have kept his Word to his Protestant Subjects as the Princes of Orange have always done to their Popish Subjects at Orange and elsewhere and the Papists have often broke their Word to that Family and have been and are its declared Enemies and tho the Princes two Great Grand-Fathers Admiral Coligny and Prince William were assassinated by the Authority and with the Approbation of that whole Party yet it cannot be made appear that ever the Princes of that Family failed in keeping their Word even to such Enemies or used their own Popish Subjects the worse for it in making distinction between them and their other Subjects or influenced the States to use theirs so I say the States who a low their R.
bear the Character which is vulgarly ascribed to him and if the greatest indication of the wisdom and integrity of Princes be the prudence and sincerity of their Ministers but that we may thence come under a necessity of entertaining meaner thoughts than we otherwise would both of the Moral and Intellectual Capacity of him to whom this Gentleman is indebred both for his Titles and the Function he is exalted unto Whereas on the other hand besides many signal Evidences which have filled all Europe with admiration of the admirable Wisdom inflexible Integrity eminent Vertues Religious tho' calm and discreet Zeal and steddy and impartial Justice of his Highness the Prince of Orange our Ideas of him as a person under whose Government Conduct and Shadow all good men may promise themselves happiness are not a little heightned by the consideration of the excellent Qualities of Monsieur Fagel whose advancement as Pensionary of Holland to the first Ministry in that State is owing to the Princes Grace and Recommendation Which Eminent Trust as he hath all along discharged with Honour to his Highness Reputation to himself and to the Satisfaction of those who are interested in the Affairs of that Republick so by nothing hath he more merited an universal esteem and praise from all Protestants and acquitted himself more worthily towards God and their Serene Highnesses than by that Letter wherein he was honoured to declare their thoughts and in which he hath with so much wisdom moderation and convincing light expressed both their Highnesses Sentiments and his own as well concerning the English Laws the Papists may and the Dissenters ought to be favoured with the Repeal of as concerning those which no wise Non-conformist desires to have rescinded and which to humour the Papists with the Abrogation of were no less than to expose the Nation to ruine and to lay the Reformed Religion open to be totally subverted Now this Excellent Letter and which hath produced all the good Effects that honest men long'd for but knew not before how to compass our Anonymous Answerer is pleased with an Indignation and angry Resentment and in hopes to exasperate his Majesty of Great Britain against their Serene Highnesses to stile a kind of Manifest in reference to most important Affairs which even Mr. Stewart who in obedience to the injunctions of his Soveraign had with so much importunity sollicited their Highnesses Opinion about the Repeal of the Penal and Test Laws he says could not have expected And of whom to testifie his exact and intimate knowledge and to recompence him for the unfortunate service he had been employed in and to encourage his readiness to future drudgery he is pleased by a creation of his own as being the Substitute of the Fountain of Honour to confer the Title of Dr. upon But certainly had this Anonymous Writer the sense and prudence of an ordinary man he would not under the present conjuncture of Affairs talk of Manifests nor put people in mind of them at a season when most persons of all ranks and qualities are so much disgusted and when they at Whitehall are so lavish in their provocations towards some who if they were not strangely fortified against all tincture of Resentment are known to be capable of doing them irreparable prejudice and who by such a Manifest as there is cause enough to emit might not only disturb their proceedings but with the greatest facility blow up at once both all their hopes and projections I would fain know of this modest and discreet Gentleman whether if their Highnesses had ordered a Letter to be written declarative of their Opinion for the Abrogation of the Tests by what name he would have judged it worthy to be called and whether if he had bestowed upon it the Title of a Manifest he would have thereby intended to fasten upon it an imputation of presumption and reproach All good men have reason mightily to bewail their Highnesses condition seeing according to this rate of proceeding towards them it is in the power of the Papal Ecclesiasticks in England when they please to prevail upon the King to reduce them to the uneasie circumstances either of offending against their Consciences or of displeasing him For there is no more requisite towards the bringing them into this unhappy Dilemma but that Father Peters or any other of the Tribe who have an Ascendency over his Majesty do persuade him to desire their Highnesses Thoughts in reference to such particulars wherein it is neither consistent with their Religious Principles nor agreeable with their Honour to comply with his Majesties Judgment and Inclinations For if in prudence they decline the returning of an Answer they are sure not only to be censured as guilty of neglect incivility and rudeness but they do thereby administer an advantage to their Enemies of diffusing reports to their prejudice thro' the Nation as if they approved all those Court-methods which for no other reason save upon the meer motives of respect and wisdom they avoided openly to disallow And if on the other hand they suffer themselves to be overcome by importunities and thereupon give an Answer agreeable to the Dictates of their own minds but which is found to interfere with the prepossessions wherewith his Majesty is imbued then their Lot is to have it called by the unkind and ignominious Title of a Manifest One would think that Letter ought to have been mentioned by a softer name if we do but consider its being written not only with the utmost modesty that becomes the Relation Their Highnesses stand in to the King and which is any ways agreeable to their own quality but that it is enforced with all the Reasons that may serve to demonstrate that their Opinion is the result of conviction and judgment and not the effect of humour nor a sentiment they are meerly determined unto by their interest But we see no Term is too hard to be bestowed upon a Paper that hath so much prejudiced the Priests in their designs and laid so great an obstruction in the way of those methods which they had proposed to themselves for the robbing England of the Protestant Religion And whereas our Author tells us that tho' Mr. Stewart did not account himself obliged to answer Monsieur Fagel's Letter yet one who extreamly esteems and honoureth Mr. Stewart thinks the Publick too much concerned not to have the weakness of the reasonings in it detected and to have it made appear that the inferences deduced from them are no ways convincing I can easily believe that Mr. Stewart did not judge himself obliged to answer the Pensionary's Letter and all men do account it a piece of wisdom in him to forbear endeavouring it For tho' he be much better qualified for such an undertaking than our Author yet he could not but be sensible that it was not to be attempted with any hope of success And if our Author had been endow'd with any measure of discretion he would
persons to sit in Parliament and to exercise Offices in Church and State is only to declare that they do believe there is not any Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or in the Elements of Bread and Wine at or after the Consecration by any persons whatsoever and that the Invocation of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are Superstitious and Idolatrous And this Declaration the Non-conformists are of all people the most inclinable and forward to make and therefore very far by vertue of those Statutes from standing incapable of any Trust Office and Employment that other Subjects are admitted unto Nor hath there been a Protestant Dissenter since the first hour that these Laws were enacted that ever scrupled to take the Tests or that was precluded from Office and Employment for refusing them But on the contrary several of the most famous Dissenters such as Sir John Hartop Alderman Love and Mr. Eyles persons who at all times have kept at the greatest distance from Communion with the Church of England by reason of her Forms and Ceremonies are known to have chearfully made the Declaration contained in the Test Laws and thereupon to have sit as Members in divers Parliaments And as a further demonstration of the impudence and dishonesty of our Author in this particular it is not unworthy of remark that tho' the King hath taken upon him to dispense with the Tests and to prohibit the requiring them yet the Dissenters who have since that time been preferred to publick Trusts continue still to take them and go to the respective Courts where by Law the Declaration is enjoined to be exacted and there demand the being admitted to make it Tho' in the mean season they cannot be unsensible that it is the thing in the World whereby they most highly offend his Majesty it being both a proclaiming the Illegality of that Authority which he challengeth of dispensing with Laws and a defeating so far as lieth in them his great design as well as artifice for the introducing of Popery which his Soul is so much in travel with And were not this Author both a person of a most depraved Conscience and destitute of all common sense he would never have slandered Monsieur Fagel and so egregiously perverted his plain meaning as to tell us that tho' he be a Hollander and a Non-conformist yet he thanks God for the Test Laws by which his Non-conforming Brethren in England of what degree and quality soever they be stand excluded from Publick Employments For every one that will be so kind to himself and so just to the Pensionary as to read his Letter will immediately discern that there is not one word in it upon which to superstruct this calumny and accusation seeing he therein affirms in repeated and emphatical Terms that all contained in and designed by the Test Laws is the securing the Reformed Religion thro' the having provided that none be allowed to sit in Parliament nor admitted to Publick Offices except they declare that they are of the Reformed and not of the Roman Catholick Religion So that how Monsieur Fagel's Non-conformity Brethren in England should come to be affected by these Laws so as to receive any prejudice by them is that which none but a person of our Author's wit integrity and candor could have had the faculty either to conceive or alledge But that we may come to the second particular there is the less reason to wonder at this Gentleman's calumniating Mijn Heer Fagel and affixing dull tho' malicious Forgeries of his own unto him if we do but consider-with what petulancy and injustice he treats Their Serene Highnesses and at the gate of their own Court assumeth the confidence to misrepresent lessen and asperse them The nearness which those Princes stand in to the ascending the English Throne and the joyful prospect which all Protestants have of it exciteth a discontent and rage in our Author which he knows not how either to suppress or govern For not to mention what we learn of the kindness of Roman Catholicks to an Heir professing the Reformed Religion from the proceedings of Sixtus Quintus and the Papists in France towards Henry 4. we are sufficiently instructed what good will they bear to a Protestant Successor by the Bull which Clement 8. published about the End of Queen Elizabeth's Reign For the Supream and Infallible Head does therein ordain That when it should happen to that miserable Woman to die they should admit none to the Crown quantumque propinquitate sanguinis niterentur nisi ejusmodi essent qui fidem Catholicam non modo tolerarent sed omni ope ac studio promoverent more majorum jurejurando se id praestituros susciperent whatsoever Right and Title they should have thereunto by vertue of their next affinity in blood unless they should first swear not only to tolerate but to advance and establish the Romish Religion Nor can I avoid being filled with fear and reverence to the safety of some certain persons when I remember how Cardinal Baronius commends Irene for murdering the Emperor her Son because he was against the Worship of Images and not only calls it Justitiae zelum a righteous zeal but adds Christum docuisse summum pietatis genus esse in hoc adversus filium esse fidelem That Christ hath taught the perfiction of Religion in such a case to consist in fidelity to the Church tho' by destroying one that was both her Son and her Soveraign 'T is a high piece of injustice in our Author towards Their Highnesses and calculated for no other end but to alienate his Majesties affections from them when he tells us that the thing aimed at in the writing of the Pensionary's Letter as well as that pursued in the manner of publishing it was to obstruct the King's righteous pious designs and to render them unpracticable For the Letter being written in obedience to the Command of Their Highnesses to declare their Opinion in reference to the several matters about which it treateth it plainly follows that tho' Mijn Heer Fagel be accountable for the manner of cloathing and delivering their thoughts and for the Order and Method in which things are digested and possibly for the ratiocinations by which they are supported and enforced yet that the Prince and Princess are the persons who are alone responsible for the End unto which it was intended And it appears to have been so far from their intentions thereby to obstruct and defeat any pious and just designs of his Majesty that nothing can be more visible than that as it is admirably adapted to the giving ease and security to all his Protestant Subjects so it offereth means for relieving the Papists from the severe Laws to which they are liable and for the granting them a Warranty in a legal way for the exercise of their Religion Nor doth it
time be safely conducted thither Nor can I avoid pleasing my self with those joyful and hopeful thoughts when I reflect upon the various steps of Divine Providence by which they are brought into that nearness of legally inheriting these Crowns Certainly there is a voice that speaketh loud to this purpose not only in Gods denying a Legitimate Issue to the Late King and in his taking away from time to time all the Lawful Male Off-spring of his present Majesty but in the uniting their Highnesses in Marriage even to the crossing a certain Persons Inclinations whom I forbear to Name as well as to the disgusting of a Neighbouring Monarch and to the defeating the busie endeavours of the Popish Party But I must return to our Author whose Injustice to their Highnesses and his malice against their Honour Interest and Reputation knows neither end nor bounds For upon Monsieur Fagel's having ask'd Who would go about to advise him or any man else to endeavour to perswade their Highnesses whom God has so far honoured as to make them Defenders of his Church to approve and promote things so dangerous and hurtful both to the Reformed Religion and to the publick safety as the Repealing of the Test Laws would be our Author does hereupon with his wonted Friendship Equity and Candor to those Excellent Princes tells us that he hath not met with so bold a Declaration as this of calling them the Protectors of Gods Church and that the ascribing it to them is a detracting from the Honour of Kings and Monarchs who will not Abdicate from themselves to any other so glorious a Title And in pursuance of his rancour towards their Highnesses he runs out in his way of Wit and Learning into a most silly and impertinent Discourse about the Nature of a Church and accuseth the Prince and Princess as if by having this Character conferred upon them they had a design to usurp from his Majesty of Great Brittain the stile of Defenders of the Faith and to challenge to themselves the being the Protectors of the Church of England Surely this Gentleman does by vertue of his Popish Zeal and Irish Understanding believe that no Titles are due to Princes in reference to the Church of God but what are derived from the Papal Chair Whereas I dare say that Monsieur Fagel in bestowing this Title upon Their Highnesses did not dream of the Roman Pontif but had been taught it by God Almighty whom I take to be the Supream and true Fountain of Honour who is pleased to character such Princes as do cherish and favour his Church by the Name of Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers which is the term that the Pensionary useth in reference to their Highnesses And as it is their own merit which according to the Tenor of the Divine Creation hath entitled them to this glorious stile so they are neither to be ridicul'd nor hectored out of that duty of countenancing and supporting the Reformed Religion nor to be deterred by bold and empty words from those compassionate generous and Princely Offices to sincere Orthodox Believers by which they have deserved it And while others glory in the enjoyment of the Titles of most Christian and most Catholick Kings which their Vassalage to the See of Rome their contributing to the Exaltation of the Triple Crown and their being the Popes Executioners in the shedding the Blood of Saints hath procured unto them 't is enough for their Highnesses to be by the Suffrage of all true Protestants and that agreeably to the Doctrine and Authority of the Sacred Scriptures had in esteem and reverenced for Nutritii and Protectors of Gods Church Nor do they appropriate this stile to themselves tho' they account it the brightest among all their Titles but they acknowledge it to belong equally to many others and are afflicted at nothing more than that all Potentates may not justly claim a share in it And as the Pensionary's ascribing it unto their Highnesses was out of no design to usurp upon the King of Englands Title of Defender of the Faith nor to affix any Authority unto them over that Church so it will be no presumption to add that all of the Reformed Religion in that Kingdom how much soever differing in little and circumstantial things among themselves are yet so far sensible of the obligations they are under to Their Highnesses and of the benefits they have all the Assurance to expect from them hereafter that without meaning ill either to the King or to any one else they will unanimously join in stiling them Defenders of the Christian Reformed Faith and Protectors of Gods Church professing the Protestant Religion And they will easily know with whom they are to be angry and against whom to direct their Resentments Mijn Heer Fagel had said that if the Dissenters cannot during his Majesties Reign be eased from the Penal Laws unless the Tests be also abrogated that this will be an unhappiness unto them but for which the Roman Catholicks are only to be blamed who chuse rather to be contented that they and their Posterity should remain still obnoxious to the Penal Laws and exposed to the hatred of the whole Nation than be restrained from a capacity of attempting any thing against the peace and security of the Reformed Religion Our Author whose envy and injustice against Their Highnesses is not yet fully spent doth in his imprudent and indiscreet way obtrude from hence upon the World that the Nonconformists as well as the Roman Catholicks may hereby see where their true Interest stands and that they are extreamly obliged to those in whose Name this advice is given for the Consolation afforded them in the condition under which they are stated by Law Which is as much as if he should harangue the Nonconformists into discontentment against the Prince and Princess by assuring them that they are to hope for no relief against the Penal Laws by any favour of theirs Whereas the Dissenters are not only told that their Highnesses are willing to consent but that they do fully approve that they should have an entire Liberty for the full exercise of their Religion without being obnoxious to receive any prejudice trouble or molestation upon that account So that the heat which our Author would enflame the Dissenters unto against their Highnesses ought to turn and spend it self against the Papists who rather than part with the Tests which the Nonconformists are as much concerned to have maintained as they of the National Communion can be are resolved to keep all the Penal Laws in force and to leave the Dissenters under the dread and apprehension of them But this they may be fully perswaded of that if they can escape the edge of them during this Kings Reign they will be in no danger from them in case the Nation come once to be so happy as to see their Highnesses seated on the Throne For as much as they have not only their word which was hitherto
impoverished and ruined by him at his pleasure especially when those whom they give up to be thus treated and entertained are at agreement with them in all the Essentials of Religion equally zealous as themselves for the Liberties of their Country and who for Sobriety in their Lives Industry in their Callings and Usefulness in the Common-Wealth are inferior to none of their Fellow-Subjects So it is obvious to any who give themselves leave to think that the King would long ere this have been stated in the Absoluteness that is aspired after and both Church and State reduced to lie at the discretion of the Monarch provided the Nonconformists for procuring his Favour in non-execution of the Laws had suffered themselves to be prevailed upon and drawn over to stand by and assist him in his Popish and Despotical Designs But that honest people though hated and maligned by their Brethren rather than be found aiding the King in his Usurpations over the Kingdom have chosen to undergoe the utmost Calamities they could be made subject unto either through the Execution of those Laws which had been made against them or through our Princes and their Ministers wrecking their Malice upon them in Arbitrary and Illegal Methods But what the Royal Brothers could not work the afflicted and persecuted Side unto they found the Art to engage the other Side in though not onely excepted from all Obnoxiousness to those Laws but strengthened and supported by them For as soon as the Court begun to despair of prevailing upon Dissenters to become their Tools and Instruments of enslaving the Nation and of exalting the Monarchy to a Despotical Absoluteness they applied to the Bigots of the Church of England whom by gratifying with a vigorous Execution of the Laws upon Dissenters they brought to abett applaud and justifie them in all those Counsels and Ways which have reduced us into that miserable condition wherein we not long since were The Clergy being advanced to Grandure and Opulency things which many of them are fonder of and lother to foregoe than Religion and the Rights of the Nation the Court made it their business to possess them with a Belief that unless the Fanaticks were suppressed and ruined they could not enjoy with Security their Dignities and Wealth Whereupon not onely the lesser Levites but the Superior Clergy having their Lesson and Cue given them from White-hall and St. James's fell upon pursuing the Nonconformists with Ecclesiastical Punishments and upon exciting and animating the Civil Officers against them And under pretence of preserving and defending the Church they gave themselves over to an implicit serving of the Court and became not onely Advocates but Instruments for the robbing of Corporations of their Charters for imposing Sheriffs upon the City of London who had not been legally elected and of fining and punishing Men arbitrarily for no Crime save the having asserted their own and the Nations Rights in modest and lawful ways Posterity will hardly believe that so many of the Prelatical Clergy and so great a number of Members of the Church of England should from an Enmity unto and pretended Jealousie of the Dissenters have become Tools under the late King for justifying the Dissolution of so many Parliaments the Invasion made upon their Priviledges the ridiculing and stifling of the Popish Plot the shamming of forged Conspiracies upon Protestants the condemning several to Death for High-Treason who could be rendred guilty by the Transgression of no known Law and finally for advancing a Gentleman to the Throne who had been engaged in a Conjuration against Religion and the Legal Government and whom three several Parliaments would have therefore Excluded from the Right of Succession And being seduced into an espousal of the Interests of the Court against Religion Parliaments and the Nation it is doleful to consider what Doctrines both from Pulpit and Press were thereupon brought forth and divulged Such as Monarchy's being a Government by Divine Right That it is in the Prince's Power to Rule as he pleaseth That it is a Grace and Condescention in the King to give an Account of what he does That for Parliaments to direct or regulate the Succession borders upon Treason and is an Offence against the Law of Nature And that the onely thing left to Subjects in case the King will Tyrannize over their Consciences Persons and Estates is tamely to suffer and as some of them did absurdly express it to exercise Passive Obedience So that by corrupting the Minds and Consciences of men with those pestilent and slavish Notions they betrayed the Nation both to the Mischiefs which have alrerdy overtaken us and to what further we were threatned with Nor did these Doctrines tend meerly to the fettering and enfeebling the Spirits of Men but they were a Temptation to the Royal Brothers to put in Execution what they had been so long contriving and travelling with and were a kind of reprimanding them for being ignorant of their own Right and Power and for not exerting it with that Vigour and Expedition which they might I do acknowledge that there were many both of the Sacred Order and of the Laick Communion of the Church of England who were far from being infected with those brutish Sentiments and Opinions and who were as zealous as any for having the Monarchy kept within its ancient limits Parliaments maintained in their wonted Reverence and Authority the Subjects preserved in the enjoyment of their immemorial Priviledges and who were far from sacrificing our Religion and Laws to Popery and Arbitrariness and from lulling us into a Tameness and Lethargy in case the Court should attempt the abolishing the established Doctrine and Worship and the subverting and changing the Civil Government But alass besides their being immediately branded with the Name of Trimmer and conformable Fanaticks and registred in the Kalender with those that stood precluded the King's Favour and merited his Animadversion their Modesty was soon drowned and silenced in the loud Noise of their clamorous Brethren and their retiredness from Conversation while the others frequented all places of Society and publick Concourse deprived the Nation of the benefit of their Example and the happiness of their Instructions Nor have I mentioned the Extravagancies of any of the Ecclesiasticks and Members of the Church of England with a design either of reproaching and upbraiding them or of provoking and exasperating the Dissenters to Resentments but onely to shew how fatal our Divisions have been unto us what excesses they have occasioned our being hurried and transported into and what mischievous Improvement our Enemies have made of them to the supplanting and almost subverting of all that is valuable unto us as we are English-men Christians and Protestants And as our Animosities through our Divisions gave the Courrt an advantage of suborning that Party which they pretended to befriend and uphold into a Ministration to all their Counsels and Projections against our Religion and Laws so by reason of the
there being sincere Christians and true Englishmen among those of all Judgments and Societies of Protestants and among none more than those of the Communion of the Church of England It were the height of Wickedness as well as the most prodigious Folly to imagine that the Conformists have abandoned all Fidelity to God and cast off all care of themselves and their Country upon a mistaken Judgment of being Loyal and Obedient to the King The contrary is plain enough they knew as well as any that the giving to Caesar the Things that are Caesar's lay them under no Obligation of surrendring unto him the Things that are God's nor of sacrificing unto the Will of the Sovereign the Priviledges reserved unto the People by the Fundamental Rules of the Constitution and by the Statutes of the Realm And they understand as well as others that the Laws of the Land are the only measures of the Prince's Authority and of the Subjects Fealty and where they give him no Right to Command they lay them under no tye to Obey And though here and there a Dissenter has written against Popery with good Success yet they have been mostly Conformable Divines who have triumphed over it in elaborate Discourses and who have beaten the Romish Scriblers off the Stage Nor can it be thought that they who have so accurately related and vindicated the History and asserted and defended the Doctrine of the Reformation should either tamely relinquish or be wanting in all due and legal Ways to uphold and maintain it And though some few of the Nonconformists have with sufficient strength and applause used their Pens against Arbitrariness in detecting the Designs of the Royal Brothers yet they who have generally and with greatest Honour appeared for our Laws and Legal Government against the Invasions and Usurpations of the Court have been Theologues and Gentlemen of the Church of England Nor in case of further Attempts for altering the Constitution and enslaving the Nation will they shew themselves unworthy the having descended from Ancestors whose Motto in the high Places of the Field was nolumus Leges Angliae mutari They who have so often justified the Arms of the Vnited Netherlands against their Rightful Princes the Kings of Spain and so unanswerably vindicated their casting off Obedience to those Monarchs when they had invaded their Priviledges and attempted to establish the Inquisition over them cannot be ignorant what their own Right and Duty is in behalf of the Protestant Religion and English Liberties for the Security whereof we have not only so many Laws but the Coronation Oaths and Stipulations of our Kings And those Gentlemen of the Church of England who appeared so vigorously in three Parliaments for excluding the Duke of York from the Succession to the Crown by reason of a Jealousy of what through being a Papist he would attempt against our Religion and Priviledges in case he were suffered to ascend the Throne cannot be now to seek what becomes them towards him having seen and felt what before they only apprehended and feared For if the Law that entaileth the Succession upon the next of Kin and obligeth the Subjects to admit and receive him not only may but ought to be dispensed with in case the Heir thro' having imbib'd Principles which threaten the Safety and are inconsistent with the Happiness of the People hath made himself incapable to inherit we know by a short Ratiocination how far we stand bound to a Prince on the Throne who by Transgressing against the Laws of the Constitution hath abdicated himself from the Government and stands virtually Deposed For whosoever shall offer to Rule Arbitrarily does immediately cease to be King de jure seeing by the Fundamental Common and Statute Laws of the Realm we know none for Supream Magistrate and Governor but a limited Prince and one who stands circumscribed and bounded in his Power and Prerogative And should the Dissenters entertain a belief that the Conformists are less concerned and zealous than themselves for the Protestant Religion and Laws of the Kingdom they would not only Sin and offend against the Rules of Charity but against the Measures of Justice and daily Evidences from Matters of Fact For neither they nor we owe our Conversion to God and our practical Holiness to the Opinions about Discipline Forms of Worship and Ceremonies wherein we differ but the Doctrines of Faith and Christian Obedience wherein we agree 'T is not their being for a Liturgy a Surpliss or a Bishop that hath heretofore influenced them to subserve the Court in Designs tending to Absoluteness but they were seduced unto it upon Motives whereof they are now ashamed and the ridiculousness and folly of which they have at last discever'd Nor is the multitude of profligate and scandalous persons with which the Church of England is crowded any just impeachment of the Purity of her Doctrine in the Vitals and Essentials of Religion or of the Vertue and Piety of many of her Members For as it is her being the only Society established by Law that attracts those Vermin to her Bosom so it is her being restrained by Law from debarring them that keeps them there to her reproach and to the grief of many of her Ecclesiasticks Neither is it the fault of the Church of England that the Agents and Factors for Popery and Arbitrary Power have chosen to pass under the name of her Sons but it proceeds partly from their Malice as hoping by that means to disgrace her with all true English-men as well as with Dissenters and partly from their Craft in order thereby the better to conceal their Design and to shrowd themselves from the Censure and Punishment which had it not been for that Mask they would have been exposed unto and have undergone And I dare affirm that besides the Obligations from Religion which the Conformists are equally under with Dissenters for hindring the introduction of Popery there are several Inducements from interest which sway them to prevent its establishment wherein the Dissenters are but little concerned For though Popery would be alike afflictive to the Consciences of Protestants of all Persuasions yet they are Gentlemen and Ministers of the Church of England whole Livings Revenues and Estates have been threatned in case it had come to be established Nor would the most Loyal and obsequious Levites provided they resolve to continue Protestants be willing that their Personages and Incumbencies to which they have have no less Right by Law than the King hath to the Excise and Customs should be taken from them and bestowed upon Romish Priests by an Act of Despotical Power and of unlimited Prerogative And for the Gentlemen as I think few of them would hold themselves obliged to part with their purses to High-way-Padders though such should have a pattent from the King to rob whomsoever they met upon the Road so there will not be many inclined to suffer their Mannours and Abbey-Lands to which they have so
good a Title to be ravished from them either by Monks or Janizaries though authorised thereunto by the Princes Commission Even they who had formerly suffered themselves to be seduced to prove in a manner Betrayers of the Rights and Religion of their Country will now being undeceived not only in conjunction with others withstand the Court in its prosecution of Popish and Arbitrary Designs but through a generous exasperation for having been deluded and abused will judge themselves obliged in vindication of their Actings before to appear for the Protestant Religion and the Laws of England with a Zeal equal to that wherewith they contributed to the undermining and supplanting of them For they are not only become more sensible than they were of the Mischiefs of Absolute Government so as for the future to prize and assert the Priviledges reserved unto the people by the Rules of the Constitution and chalk'd out for them in the Laws of the Land but they have such a fresh view of Popery both in its Heresies Blasphemies Superstitions and Idolatries and in the Treachery Sanguinariness Violence and Cruelty which the Papal Principles mould influence and oblige Men unto that they not only entertain the greatest abhorrency and detestation imaginable for it but seem resolved not to cherish in their Bosom a Thing so abominable to God execrable to good Men and destructive to Humane as well as to Christian Societies Nor are the Dissenters meerly to believe that the Conformists are equally zealous as themselves for the Reformed Religion and English Rights but they are to consider them as the only great and united Body of Protestants in the Kingdom with whom all other parties compared bear no considerable proportion For though the Nonconformists considered abstractly make a vast number of honest and useful people yet being laid in the Scale with those of the Episcopal Communion they are but few and lye in a little room And whosoever will take the pains to ballance the one against the other even where Dissenters make the greatest Figure and may justly boast of their Multitude they will soon be convinced that the number of the other doth far transcend and exceed them And if it be so in Cities and Corporations where the greatest Bulk of Dissenters are it is much more so in Country Parishes where the latter bear not the proportion of one to a hundred Nor doth the Church of England more exceed the other parties in her number than she doth in the quality of her Members For whereas they who make up and constitute the separate Societies are chiefly persons of the middle Rank and Condition the Church of England doth in a manner vouch and claim all the Persons of Honour of the Learned professions and such as have valuable Estates for her Communicants And though the other sort are as necessary in the Common-wealth and contribute as much to its Strength Prosperity and Happiness yet they make not that Figure in the Government nor stand in that Capacity of having influence upon Publick Affairs For not only the Gentlemen of both the Gowns who by reason of their Calling and Learning are best able to defend our Religion and vindicate our Laws and Priviledges with their Tongues and Pens but they whose Estates Reputation and Interest recommendeth them to be elected Members of the great Senate of the Nation as well as they who by reason of their Honours and Baronages are Hereditary Legislators are generally if not all of the Communion of the Church of England So that they who conform to the established Worship and Discipline are to be look'd upon and acknowledged as the great Bulwark of the Protestant Religion in England and the Hedge and Fence of our Civil Liberties and Rights And though it be true that this great Breach made upon our Religion and Laws is fallen out under their hand while the poor Dissenters had neither accession to nor were in a condition to prevent it yet seeing their own Consciences do sufficiently load and charge them for it with Shame and Ignominy it were neither candid nor at this Juncture seasonable to upbraid it to them or improve it to their Dishonour and Reproach For as they have tamely look'd on and connived till our Religion and Liberties are so far undermined and supplanted so it is they alone who have been in a condition of stemming the Inundation of Idolatry and Tyranny with which we were threatned and of repairing our Breaches and reducing the Prerogative to its old Channel and making Popery sneak and retreat into its holes and corners again And should the Church of England have been overthrown and devoured what an easie Prey would the rest have been to the Romish Cormorants And could the King under the Conduct of the Jesuits and with the assistance of his Myrmidons have dissolved the established Worship and Discipline they of the Separation would have been in no capacity to support the Reformed Religion nor able to escape the common Ruine and Persecution 'T is therefore the Interest as well as the Duty of the Dissenters to help maintain and defend those Walls within the skreen and shelter whereof their own Huts and Cottages are built and stand And the rather seeing the Conformists are at last though to their own Religion's and the Nations Expence become so far enlightned as to see a necessity of growing more amicable towards them and to enlarge the Terms of their Communion grant an Indulgence to all Protestants that differ from them And as we ought to admire the Wisdom of God in those Providences by which Protestants are taught to lay aside their Animosities and let fall their Persecutions of one another so it would be a Contradiction both to the principles and repeated Protestations of Dissenters to aim at more than such a Liberty as is consistent with a National Ecclesiastick Establishment Yea it were to proclaim themselves both Villains and Hypocrites not to allow their Fellow-Protestants the Exercise of their Judgments with what further Profits and Emoluments the Law will grant them provided themselves may be discharged from all obnoxiousness to Penalties and Censures upon the account of their Consciences and be admitted a free and publick Practice of their own respective Modes of Discipline and be suffered to worship God in those ways which they think he hath required and enjoyned them And were England immediately to be rendred so happy as to have a Protestant Prince or Princess as we are not now quite out of hopes ascend the Throne and to enjoy a Parliament duly chosen and acting with freedom no one party of the Reformed Religion among us must ever expect to be established and supported to the denial of Liberty to others much less to be by Law empowered to ruine and destroy them Should it please Almighty God to bring the Princess of Orange to the Crown though the Church of England may in that case justly expect the being preserved and upheld as the National
Establishment yet all other Protestants may very rationally promise themselves an Indulgence and that not only from the Mildness and compassionate Sweetness of her Temper but from the Influence which the Prince her Husband will have upon her who as he is descended from Ancestors whose Glory it was to be the Redeemers of their Country from Papal Persecution and Spanish Tyranny so his Education Generosity Wisdom and many Heroick Vertues dispose him to embrace all Protestants with an equal Tenderness and to erect his Interest upon the being Head and Patron of all that profess the Reformed Religion Had the late Duke of Monmouth been victorious against the Forces of the present King and inabled to have wrested the Scepter out of his Hand though all Protestants might thereupon have expected and would certainly have enjoyed an equal freedom without the liableness of any party to Penal Laws for matters of Religion yet he would have been careful and I have reason to believe that it was his purpose to have had the Church of Eng. preserved and maintained and that she should have suffered no alteration but what would have been to her Strength and Glory through an enlargement of the Terms of her Communion and what would have been to the Praise of her Moderation and Charity through her being perswaded to bear with such as differ from her in little things and could not prevail with themselves to partake with her in all Ordinances Upon the whole it is both the prudence and safety of Dissenters as they would escape Extirpation themselves and have Religion conveyed down to Posterity to unite their Strength and Endeavours to those of the Church of England for the upholding her against the assaults of Popish Enemies who pursue her Subversion As matters have been circumstanced and stated in England there hath not been an Affront or Injury offered or done unto her by the Court which did not at the same time reach and wound the Dissenters 'T is not her being for Episcopacy Ceremonies and imposed Set-Forms of Worship the things about which she and the Nonconformists differ that she hath been not long since maligned and struck at by the Man in Power and his Popish functo but it is for being Protestant Reformed and Orthodox Crimes under the Guilt whereof Dissenters were equally concerned and involved Being therefore in opposition to the common Cause of Religion that the late Court of Inquisition was erected over her Ecclesiasticks all Protestants jointly resented the Wrongs which she sustain'd and not only to sympathize with those dignified and lower Clergy which were called to suffer but to espouse her Quarrel with the same warmth that we would our own And as we are to look upon those of the Episcopal Communion to be the great Bulwark of the Protestant Religion and Reformed Interest in England so it was farther incumbent on Dissenters towards them and a Duty which they owe to God the Nation and themselves not to be accessary to any thing through which the legal Establishment of the Church of England might have been by an Act of pretended Regal Prerogative weakned and supplanted I never counsel the Dissenters to renounce their Principles nor to participate with the Prelatical Church in all Ordinances on the Terms to which they have straitned and narrowed their Communion For while they remain unsatisfied of the lawfulness of those Terms and Conditions they cannot do it without offending God and contracting Guilt upon their Souls nor will they of the Church of England in Charity Justice and Honesty expect it from them For whatsoever any Man believeth to be Sin it is so to him and will by God be imputed as such till he be otherwise enlightned and convinced nor are the Dissenters to be false and cruel to themselves in order to be kind and friendly to them But that which I would advise them unto is that after the maintaining the highest measure of Love to the conformable Congregations as Churches of Christ and the esteeming their Members as Christian Protestant Brethren notwithstanding the several things wherein they judge them to err and to be mistaken that they would not by any Act and Transactions of theirs betray them into a Despotical Power not directly nor indirectly acknowledge any Authority paramount unto and superseding the Laws by which the Church of England is established in its present Form Order and Mode of Jurisdiction Discipline and External Worship Whatsoever Ease arrived to the Dissenters through the Kings suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws without their Address and Application they might receive it with Joy and Humility in themselves and with thankfulness to God nor was there hereby any prejudice offered on their part to the Authority of the Law or Offence or Injury given or done to the conformable Clergy Nor is it without grief and regret that the Church-men have been forced to behold the harassing spoiling and imprisonment of the Nonconformists while in the mean time the Papists were suffered to assemble to the Celebration of their Idolatrous Worship without Censure and Controul And had it been in their power to remedy it and give Relief to their Protestant Brethren they would with delight and readiness have embrac'd the occasion and opportunity of doing it But alas instead of having an advantage put into their hand of contributing to the Relief of the Dissenters which I dare say many of them ardently wish and desire they were compelled contrary to their Inclination as well as their Interest to become instrumental in persecuting and oppressing them Nor does the late King covet a better and a more legal advantage against the Conformists than that they would refuse to pursue Dissenters and decline molesting them with Ecclesiastical Censures and civil Punishments So that their condition was to be pityed and bewailed in that they were hindered from acting against the Papists though both enjoyed by Law and influenced thereunto by Motives of self-Preservation as well as by tyes of Conscience while in the mean time they were forced to prosecute their fellow-Protestants or else to be suspended and deposed and put out of their Offices and Employments And tho I believe that they would at last have more Peace in themselves and be better accepted with God in the great Duty of their Account should they have refused to disturb and prosecute their Protestant Brethren and scorn to be any longer Court-Tools for weakning and undermining the Reformed Cause and Interest yet I could not but leave them to act in this as they should be perswaded in themselves and as they judged most agreeable to Principles of Wisdom and Conscience In the interim the Dissenters have all the Reason in the World to believe that the Proceedings of the Clergy and Members of the Church of England against them were not the Results of their Election and Choice but the Effects of moral Compulsion and Necessity Nor will any Dissenter that is prudent and discreet blame them for a matter
which they cannot help but bear his Misfortune and Lot with Patience in himself and with Compassion and Charity towards them and have his Indignation raised only against that Court which forced them to be instrumental in their Oppression and Trouble The Protestant Dissenters could not be so far void of sense as to think that the Person lately in the Throne bore them any good-Will but his drift was to screw himself into a Supremacy and Absoluteness over the Law and to get such an Authority confessed to be vested in him as when he pleased he might subvert the Established Religion and set up Popery Forby the same Power that he can dispense with the Penal Statutes against the Nonconformists he may also dispense with those against the Roman Catholicks And whosoever owneth that he hath a Right to do the first doth in effect own that he hath a Right to do the last For if he be allowed a Power for the superseding some Laws made in reference to Matters of Religion he may challenge the like Power for the superseding others of the same kind And then by the same Authority that he can suspend the Laws against Popery he may also suspend those for Protestancy And by the same Power that he can in defiance of Law indulge the Papists the Exercise of their Religion in Houses he may establish them in the publick Celebration of their Idolatry in Churches and Cathedrals yea whereas the Laws that relate to Religion are enacted by no less Authority than those that are made for the Preservation of our Civil Rights should the K. be admitted to have an Arbitrary Power over the one it is very like that by the Logick of Whitehall he might have challeng'd the same Absoluteness over the other Nor do I doubt but that the eleven Judges who gratified him with a Despoticalness over the former would when required grant him the same over the latter I know the Dissenters have been under no small Temptations both by reason of being hindred from enjoying the Ordinances of the Gospel and because of many grievous Calamities which they suffer for their Nonconformity of making Applications to the K. for some Relief by his suspending the Execution of the Laws but they must give me leave to add that they ought not for the obtaining of a little Ease to have betrayed the Kingdom and Sacrifice the Legal Constitution of the Government to the Lust and Pleasure of a Popish Prince whom nothing less would serve than being Absolute and Despotical And had he once been in the quiet Possession of an Authority to dispense with the Penal Laws the Dissenters would not long have enjoyed the Benefit of it Nor could they have denied him a Power of reviving the Execution of the Law which is part of the Trust deposited with him as Supreme Magistrate who have granted him a Power of Suspending the Laws which the Rules of the Government precluded him from And as he might whensoever he pleased cause the Laws to which they were Obnoxious to be executed upon them so by virtue of having an Authority acknowledged in him of superceding the Laws he might deprive them of the Liberty of meeting together to the number of Five a Grace which the Parliament thought fit to allow them under all the other Severities to which they were subjected Nor needs there any further Evidence that the Prince's challenging such a Power was an Usurpation and that the Subjects making any Application by which it seem'd allowed to him was a betraying of the Ancient Legal Government of the Kingdom whereas the most Obsequious and Servile Parliament to the Court that ever England knew not only denied this Prerogative to the late King Charles but made him renounce it by revoking his Declaration of Indulgence which he had emitted Anno 1672. And as it will be to the perpetual Honour of some of the Dissenters to have chosen rather to suffer the Severities which the Laws make them liable unto than by any Act and Transaction of theirs to undermine and weaken either the Church or the State so it will be a means both of endearing them we hope not only to the Prince of Orange now by a miraculous Providence brought in amongst us but to future Parliaments and of bringing them and the Conformists into an Union of Counsels and Endeavours against Popery and Tyranny for ever which is at this season a thing so indispensibly necessary for their common Preservation Especially when through a new and more threatning Alliance and Confederacy with France than that in 72 the King had not only engaged to act by and observe the same Measures towards Protestants in England which that Monarch hath vouchsafed the World a Pattern and Copy of in his carriage towards those of the Reformed Religion in France but had promised to disturb the Peace and Repose of his Neighbours and to commence a War in conjunction with that Prince against Foreign Protestants For as the King 's giving Liberty and Protection to the Algerines to frequent his Havens and sell the Prizes which they take from the Dutch is both a most infamous Action for a Prince pretending to be a Christian and a direct Violation of his Alliance with the States General so nothing can be more evident than that he thereby sought to render them the weaker for him to assault and that he was resolved if some unforeseen and extraordinary Providence had not interposed and prevented to declare War against them the next Summer in order whereunto great Remises of Money were already ordered him from the French Court So that the Indulgence which he pretends to be inclinable to afford the Dissenters was not an effect of Kindness and Good-will but an Artifice whereby to oblige their Assistance in destroying those Abroad of the same Religion with themselves Which if he could once compass it were easie to foresee what Fate both the Dissenters and they of the Communion of the Church of England were to expect Who as they would not then have known whither to retreat for shelter so they would have been destitute of Comfort in themselves and deprived of Pity from others not only for having through their Divisions made themselves a Prey to the Papists at Home but for having been accessary to the Ruin of the Reformed State Abroad and which was the Asilum and Sanctuary of all those that were elsewhere oppressed and persecuted for Religion Gloria Deo Optimo Maximo Honos Principi nostri celcissimo pientissimo A Representation of the Threatning Dangers Impending over Protestants in Great Britain With an Account of the Arbitrary and Popish Ends unto which the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland are designed THey are great Strangers to the Transactions of the World who know not how many and various the Attempts of the Papists have been both to hinder all Endeavours towards a Reformation and to overthrow and subvert it
were prepared for in case it had succeeded and the foreign aid they had been solliciting and were promised and all for the extirpation of English Hereticks are things so modern and which we have had so many times related to us by our Fathers that it is enough barely to intimate them The Irish Massacre in which above 200000 were murder'd in cold blood and to which there was no provocation but that of hatred to our Religion and furious zeal to extirpate Hereticks ought at this time to be more particularly reflected upon as that which gives us a true scheme of the manner of the Church of Rome's converting Protestant Kingdoms and being the Copy they have a mind to write after and that in such Characters and lines of blood as may be sure to answer the Original At the season when they both entred upon and executed that hellish conjuration they were in a quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the private exercise of their Religion yea had many publick meeting-places thro the means of the Queen and many great friends which they had at Court and were neither disturbed for not coming to Church nor suffered any severities upon the account of their Profession but that would not satisfie nor will any thing else unless they may be allowed to cut the throats or make bonefires of all that will not join with them in a blind obedience to the Sea of Rome and of worshipping S. Patrick The little harsh usages which the Papists at any time met with there or in England they derived them upon themselves by their Crimes against the State and for their Conspiracies against our Princes and their Protestant Subjects For till the Pope had taken upon him to depose Queen Elizabeth and absolve her Subjects from their Allegiance and till the Papists had so far approved that Act of his Holiness as to raise Rebellions at home and enter into treasonable confederacies abroad there were no Laws that could be stiled severe enacted in England against Papists and the making of them was the result of necessity in order to preserve our selves and not from an inclination to hurt any for matters of mere Religion Such hath always been the moderation of our Rulers and so powerful are the incitements to lenity which the generality of Protestants through the influence and impression of their Religion especially they of a more generous education have been under towards those of the Roman Communion that nothing but their unwearied restlesness to disturb the Government and destroy Protestants hath been the cause either of enacting those Laws against them that are stiled rigorous or of their having been at any time put into execution And notwithstanding that some such Laws were enacted as might appear to savour of severity yet could they have but submitted to have dwelt peaceably in the Land they would have found that their mere belief and the private practice of their Worship would not have much prejudiced or endangered them and that tho the Laws had been continued unrepealed yet it was only as a Hedge about us for our protection and as Bonds of obligation upon them to their good behaviour To which may be added that more Protestants have suffered in one year by the Laws made against Dissenters and to the utmost height of the penalties which the violation of them imported and that by the instigation of Papists and their influence over the late King and his present Majesty than there have Papists from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign to this very day tho there was a difference in the punishments they underwent However we may from their many and repeated attempts against us while we had Princes that both would and could chasten their insolencies and inflict upon them what the Law made them obnoxious unto for their outrages gather and conclude what we are now to expect upon their having obtained a King imbu'd with all the persecuting and bloody principles of Popery and perfectly baptised into all the Doctrines of the Councils of Lateran and Constance And it may strengthen our faith as well as increase our fear of what is purposed against and impends over us in that they cannot but think that the suffering our Religion to remain in a condition to be at any time hereafter the Religion of the State and of the universality of the People may not only prove a means of retrieving Protestancy in France and of assisting to revenge the barbarities perpetrated there upon a great and innocent people but may leave the Roman Catholicks in England exposed to the resentment of the Kingdom for what they have so foolishly and impudently acted both against our Civil Rights and Established Religion since James II. came to the Crown and may also upon the Government 's falling into good hands and Magistrates coming to understand their true Interest which is for an English Prince to make himself the Head of the Protestant cause and to espouse their quarrel in all places give such a Revolution in Europe as will not only check the present Career of Rome but cause them repent the methods in which they have been engaged These things we may be sure the Papists are aware of and that having proceeded so far they have nothing left for their security from punishments because of crimes committed but to put us out of all capacity of doing our selves Right and them Justice and he must be dull who does not know into what that must necessarily hurry them It being then as evident as a matter of this nature is capable of what we are to expect and dread from the King both as to our Religion and Laws we may do more than presume that the late Declaration for liberty of Conscience and the Proclamation for a Toleration are not intended and designed for the benefit and advantage of the Reformed Religion and that whatsoever motives have influenced to the granting and emitting of them they do not in the least flow or proceed from any kindness and good will to Protestant Dissenters And though many of those weak and easie People may flatter themselves with a belief of an interest in the Kings favour and suffer others to delude them into a persuasion of his bearing a gracious respect towards them yet it is certain that they are People in the world whom he most hates and who when things are ripe for it and that he hath abused their credulity into a serving his Ends as far as they can be prevailed upon and as long as the present Juggle can be of any advantage for promoting the Papal Cause will be sure not only to have an equal share in his displeasure with their Brethren of the Church of England but will be made to drink deepest in the cup of fury and wrath that is mingling and preparing for all Protestants No provocation from their present behaviour tho it is such as might warm a person of very cool temper much less offences of another complexion
that upon pretended Occasions arising from the Abuse of this Indulgence or for some alledged Crimes wherein they and all other Protestants are to be involved tho their supineness and excess of Loyalty continue to be their greatest Offences this Liberty will not only be withdrawn and the old Church of England Severities revived but some of the new à là mode à France Treatments come upon the Stage and be pursued against them and all other perverse and obstinate British Hereticks The Declaration for Liberty of Conscience being injurious to the Church of England and not proceeding from any inward and real good Will to the Dissenters it will be worth our pains to inquire into and make a more ample Deduction of the Reasons upon which it was granted that the Grounds of emitting it being laid under every Man's view they who have Addressed may come to be asham'd of their Simplicity and Folly they who have not may be farther confirm'd both of the Unlawfulness and Inconveniency of doing it and that all who preserve any regard to the Protestant Religion and the Laws of England may be quickened to the use of all legal and due means for preventing the mischievous Effects which it is shapen for and which the Papists do promise themselves from it The Motives upon which His Majesty published the Declaration may be reduced to three of which as I have already made some mention so I shall now place every one of them in its several and proper light and give such Proofs and Evidence of their being the great and sole Inducements for the Emitting of it that no rational Man shall be able henceforth to make a doubt of it The first is the King's winding himself into a Supremacy and Absoluteness over the Law and the getting it acknowledged and calmly submitted unto and acquiesced in by the Subjects The Monarchies being Legal and not Despotical bounded and regulated by Laws and not to be exercised according to mere Will and Pleasure was that which he could not digest the thoughts of when a Subject and had been heard to say That he had rather Reign a day in that Absoluteness that the French King doth than an Age tied up and restrained by Rules as his Brother did And therefore to perswade the Prince of Orange to approve what he had done in dispensing with the Laws and to obtain him and the Princess to joyn with His Majesty and to employ their Interest in the Kingdom for the Repealing the Test Acts and the many other Statutes made against Roman Catholicks he used this Argument in a Message he sent to their Royal Highnesses upon that Errand that the getting it done would be greatly to the Advantage and for the increase of the Prerogative but this these two noble Princes of whose Ascent to the Throne all Protestants have so near and comfortable a Prospect were too Generous as well as Wise to be wheedled with as knowing that the Authority of the Kings and Queens of England is great enough by the Rules of the Constitution without grasping at a new Prerogative Power which as the Laws have not vested in them so it would be of no use but to inable them to do hurt And indeed it is more necessary both for the Honor and Safety of the Monarch and for the Freedom and Security of the People that the Prerogative should be confined within its ancient and legal Channels than be left to that illimited and unbounded Latitude which the late King and his present Majesty have endeavored to advance and screw it up unto That both the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland are calculated for raising the Sovereign Authority to a transcendent Power over the Laws of the two Kingdoms may be demonstrated from the Papers themselves which lay the Dispensing Power before us in terms that import no less than his Majesty's standing Free and absolved from all Ties and Restraints and his being cloathed with a Right of doing whatsoever he will For if the Stile of Royal Pleasure to suspend the Execution of such and such Laws and to forbid such and such Oaths to be required to be taken and this in the virtue of no Authority declared by the Laws to be resident in his Majesty but in the virtue of a certain vagrant and indeterminate thing called Royal Prerogative as the Power exercised in the English Declaration is worded and expressed be not enough to enlighten us sufficiently in the matter before us the Stile of Absolute Power which all the Subjects are to obey without reserve whereby the King is pleased to chalk before us the Authority exerted in the Scots Proclamation for the stopping disabling and dispensing with such and such Laws as are there referred unto and for the granting the Toleration with the other Liberties Immunities and Rights there mentioned is more than sufficient to set the Point we are discoursing beyond all possibility of rational controll As 't is one and the same Kind of Authority that is claimed over the Laws and Subjects of both Kingdoms tho for some certain reasons it be more modestly designed and expressed in the Declaration for a Liberty in England that it is in the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland so the utmost that the Czar of Mosco the great Mogul or the Turkish Sultan ever challenged over their respective Dominions amounts only to an Absolute Power which the King both owns the Exertion of and makes it the Fountain of all the Royal Acts exercised in the forementioned Papers And as the improving this challenged Absolute Power into an Obligation upon the Subjects to obey his Majesty without reserve is a Paraphrase upon Despotical Dominion and an advancing it to a Pitch above what any of the Ancient or Modern Tyrants ever dream'd of and beyond what the most servile part of Mankind was ever acquainted with till the present French King gave an Instance of it in making his mere Will and pleasure to be the Ground and Argument upon which his Reformed Subjects were to renounce their Religion and to turn Roman Catholicks so it is worth considering whether His Majesty who glories to imitate that Foreign Monarch may not in a little time make the like Application of this Absolute Power which his Subjects are bound to obey without reserve and whether in that case they who have Addressed to thank him for his Declaration and thereby justified the Claim of this Absolute Power being that upon which the Declaration is superstructed and from which it emergeth can avoid paying the Obedience that is demanded as a Duty in the Subject inseparably annexed thereunto That which more confirms us that the English Declaration and the Scots Proclamation are not only designed for the obtaining from the Subjects an Acknowledgment of an Absolute Power vested in the King but that no less than the Usurpation and Exercise of such a Power can warrant and support them are
the many Laws and Rights which a Jurisdiction is challenged over and exerted in reference unto in the Papers stiled by the forementioned Names All confess a Royal Prerogative settled on the Crown and appertaining to the Royal Office nor can the Supreme Magistrate be executed and discharged to the Advantage and Safety of the Community without a Power affixed unto it of superceding the Execution of some Laws at certain Junctures nor without having an Authority over the Rights of particular Men in some incident cases but then the received Customs of the respective Nations and the universal Good Preservation and Safety of the People in general are the Measures by which this Prerogative in the Crown is to be regulated and beyond which to apply or exert it is an Usurpation and Tyranny in the Ruler All the Power belonging to the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland ariseth from an Agreement and Concession of the People wherein it is stipulated what Rights Liberties and Privileges they reserved unto themselves and what Authority and Jurisdiction they delegated and made over unto the Sovereign in order to his being in a Condition to protect and defend them and that they may the better live in Peace Freedom and Safety which are the Ends for which they have chosen Kings to be over them and for the compassing whereof they originally submitted unto and pitched upon such a Form of Civil Administration Nor are the Opinions of particular Men of what Rank or Order soever they be to be admitted as an Exposition of the Extent of this Prerogative seeing they through their Dependencies upon the King and their Obnoxiousness to be influenced by selfish and personal Ends may enlarge it beyond what is for the Benefit of the Community but the immemorial course of Administration with the Sense of the whole Society signified by their Representatives in Parliament upon emerging Occasions are to be taken for the Sense Paraphrase and Declaration of the Limits of this Royal and Prerogative Power and for any to determine the Bounds of it from the Testimonies of Mercenary Lawyers or Sycophant Clergy-men in Cases wherein the Parliament have by their Votes and Resolutions settled its Boundaries is a Crime that deserves the severest Animadversion and which it is to be hoped a true English Parliament will not let pass unpunished Now a Power arising from Royal Prerogative to suspend and disable a great number of Laws at once and they of such a Nature and Tendency as the great Security of the People consists in their being maintained and which the whole Community represented in Parliaments have often disallowed and made void Princes meddling with so as to interrupt their Execution and Course is so far from being a Right inherent in the Crown that the very pretending unto it is a changing of the Government and an overthrowing of the Constitution De Laudib Leg. Angl. c. 9. Fortescue says That Rex Angliae populum Gubernat non merâ potestate Regiâ sed politicâ quia populus iis legibus gubernatur quas ipse fert the King of England doth not so properly Govern by a Power that is Regal as by a Power that is Political in that he is bound to Rule by the Laws which the People themselves chuse and enact And both Bracton and Fleta tell us Bract. l. 2. c. 16. Flet. l. 2. c. 17. That Rex Angliae habet superiores viz. legem per quam factus est Rex ac Comites Barones qui debent ei fraenum ponere the King of England hath for Superiors both the Law by which he is constituted King and which is the measure of his Governing Power and the Parliament which is to restrain him if he do amiss And thereupon we have not only that other Saying of Bracton Lib. 3. cap. 9. That Nihil aliud potest Rex nisi id solum quod jure potest The King can do nothing but what he can do by Law But we have that Famous Passage in our Parliament Rolls Rot. Parl. 7. Hen. 4. Num. 59 Non est ulla Regis prerogativa quae ex justitia aequitate quicquam derogat That there is no Prerogative belongs to the King by which he can decline from acting according to Law and Justice So careful were our Ancestors both in England and Scotland to preserve their Laws from being invaded and superceded by their Kings that they have not only by divers Parliamentary Votes and Resolutions and by several Statutes declared all Dispensations by the King from Laws and enjoyned Oaths to be null and void and not admittable by the Judges or other Executors of Law and Justice but they have often Impeached Arraigned and Condemned those to one Penalty or another that have been found to have counselled and advised Kings to an Usurpation of Power over the Laws and to a Violation of established and enacted Rules It would draw this Discourse to a length beyond what is intended should I mention the several Laws against Papists as well as against Dissenters that are suspended stop'd disabled and dispensed with in the two fore-mentioned Royal Papers and it would be an extending it much more should I make the several Reflections that the matter is capable of and which a Person of a very ordinary Understanding cannot be greatly to seek for I shall therefore only take notice of two or three Efforts which occur there of this Royal Prerogative and Absolute Power which as they are very bold and ample Exertions of them for the first time so should the next Exercises of them be proportionable there will be nothing left us of the Protestant Religion or of English Liberties and we must be contented to be Papists and Slaves or else to stand adjudged to Tyburn and Smithfield One is the Suspending the Laws which enjoyn the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the prohibiting that these Oaths be at any time hereafter required to be taken by which single Exercise of Royal Prerogative and Absolute Power the two Kingdoms are not only again subjected to a Foreign furisdiction the Miseries whereof they groaned under for several Ages but as the King is hereby deprived of the greatest Security he had from his Subjects both to himself and the Government so the Crown is rob'd of one of its chiefest Jewels namely an Authority over all the Subjects which was thought so essential to Sovereignty and Royal Dignity that it was annexed to the Imperial Crown of England and adjudged inherent in the Monarch before the Reformed Religion came to be received and established And it concerns their Royal Highnesses of Orange to whom the Right of succeeding to the Crown of Great Britain unquestionably belongs to consider whether his Majesty may not by the same Authority whereby he alienates and gives away so considerable and inherent a Branch of the Royal Jurisdiction transfer the Succession it self and dispose the Inheritance of the Crown to whom he pleaseth Nor will they
which the Prince filleth in that Government so that he dare neither venture to Disinherit Them nor impose upon them such Terms and Conditions as their Consciences will not suffer them to comply with while either these States remain Free or while such English and Scots as retain a Zeal for Religion and the Ancient Laws and Rights of their respective Countries can retreat thither under hopes of Admission and Protection And so closely are the Interests of all Protestants in England and Scotland woven and inlaid with the Interest of the United Netherlands and such is the singular regard that both the one and the other bear to the Reformed Religion the Liberty of Mankind and their several Civil Rights that it is impossible for his Majesty to embark in a Design against the One without resolving at the same time upon the Ruin of the Other Neither will the One be able to subsist when once the Other is Subdued and Enslaved As Philip the Second of Spain saw no way so compendious for the restoring himself to the Sovereignty and Tyrannous Rule over the Dutch as the Subjugating of England that help'd to support and assist them which was the ground of Rigging out his Formidable Armado and of his design against England in 1588 so his British Majesty thinks no Method so Expeditious for the Enslaving his own People as the endeavoring first to subdue the Dutch And as upon the one hand it would be of a threatning Consequence to Holland could the King subjugate his own People extirpate the Protestant Religion out of his Dominions and advance himself to a Despotical Power so upon the other hand could he conquer the Dutch we might with the greatest certainty Date the woful Fate of Great Britain and the loss of all that is valuable to them as Men and Christians from the same Moment and Period of time They are like the Twins we read of whose Destiny was to live and die together and which soever of the two is destroyed first all the Hope and Comfort that the other can pretend unto is to be last devoured Now after the Advances which his Majesty had made towards the Enslaving his Subjects and the Subverting the Reformed Religion in his Kingdoms he finds it necessary before he venture to give the last and fatal Stroke at home and to enter upon the plenary Exercise of his Absolute Power in laying Parliaments wholly aside in cancelling all Laws to make way for Royal Edicts or Declarations of the Complexion of the former and in commanding us to turn Roman Catholicks or to be Dragoon'd I say he thinks it needful before he proceeds to these to try whether he can Subdue and Conquer the Dutch and thereby remove all hopes of Shelter Relief Comfort and Assistance from his own People when he shall afterwards fall upon them And how much soever the Court endeavors to conceal its Design and strives to complement the States General into a Confidence that all Alliances between them and the Crown of England shall be maintained and preserved yet they not only speak their Intentions by several open and visible Actions but some of them cannot forbear to tell it when their Blood is heated and their Heads warm'd with a liberal Glass and a lusty Proportion of Wine Thence it was that a Governing Papist lately told a Gentleman after they two had drank hard together That they had some Work in England that would employ them a little time but when that was over they would make the Dutch fly to the end of the World to find a resting place Delenda est Carthago is engraven upon their Hearts as being that without which Rome cannot arrive at the Universal Monarchy that it aspires after It was upon a formed Design of a War against the United Provinces that the King hath for these two Years stirred up and incited as well as countenanced and protected the Algerines in their Piracies that through their weakning and spoiling the Dutch before-hand it may be the more easie a matter for him to Subdue them when he shall think fit to begin his Hostilities 'T is in order to thiâ— that he hath entred into new and secret Alliances with other Princes the purpott of which is boldly talk'd of in London but whether believ'd at the Hague I cannot tell For as Monsieur Barrillion and Monsieur Bonrepos present Transactions at Whitehall relate to something else than merely to the affair of Hudson's Bay so Prince George's errand to Denmark is of more importance than a bare Visit or a naked Compelment to his Brother 'T is upon this design that all that great Marine Preparation hath been so long making in the several Ports of England but to the hindering the execution whereof some unexpected and not foreseen accidents have interposed And it is in subserviency not to be disquieted at Home while he is carrying on this holy War Abroad that the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland are granted and published 'T is well enough known how that after the French King had among many other severities exercised against Protestants made them uncapable of Employments and Commands yet to avoid the consequences that might have ensued thereupon while he was engaged in a War against the Emperor the King of Spain and the States of Holland and to have the aid of his Reformed Subjects he not only intermitted and abated in many other rigours towards them but in Anno 1674 restored them to a capacity of being employed and preferred And that this did not flow from any compassion tenderness or good will towards them his carriage since the issue of that War and the miserable condition he hath reduced them to does sufficiently testifie and declare Nor can we forget how that the late King after a rigorous execution of the penal laws for several years against Dissenters yet being to enter into an unjust War against the United Provinces Anno 1672. not only forbore all proceedings of that kind but published a Declaration for suspending the Execution of all those Laws and for the allowing them liberty of Assembling to worship God in their separate Meetings without being hindred or disturbed What Principle that proceeded from and to what End it was calculated appeared in his behaviour to them afterwards when neither the danger the Nation was in from the Papists nor the application of several Parliaments could prevail for lonity towards them much less for a legal Repeal of those implitick and unreasonable Statutes Nor does the present Indulgence flow from any kindness to Fanaticks but it is only an artifice to stifle their Discontents and to procure their assistance for the destroying of a Foreign Protestant State And it may not be unworthy of observation that as the Declaration of Indulgence Anno 1672 bore date much about the same time with the Declaration of War against the Dutch so at the very Season that his present Majesty
Exercise of his Absolute Power against all deadly Nor is it difficult to assign the reason of the Deformity that appears in his Majesty's present Actings towards his Dissenting Protestant Subjects in those two Kingdoms For should there be no Restriction upon the Toleration in Scotland to hinder the greatest part of the Presbyterians from taking the Advantage of it the Bishops and Conforming Clergy would be immediately forsaken by the generality if not all the People and so an issue would not only be put to the Division among Protestants in that Kingdom but they would become an united and thereupon a formidable Body against Popery which it is not for the Interest of the Roman Catholicks to suffer or give way unto Whereas the more unbounded the Liberty is that is granted to Dissenters in England the more are our Divisions not only kept up but increased and promoted especially through this Freedom's arriving with them in an illegal way without both the Authority of the Legislative Power and the Approbation of a great part of the People it being infallibly certain that there is a vast number of all Ranks and Conditions who do prefer the abiding in the Communion of the Church of England before the joyning in Fellowship with those of the Separate and Dissenting Societies Upon the whole this different Method of proceeding towards Dissenting Protestants in Matters mere Religious shews that all this Indulgence and Toleration is a Trick to serve a present juncture of Affairs and to advance a Popish and Arbitrary Design and that the Dissenters have no Security for the continuance of their Liberty but that when the Court and Jesuitick end is compassed and obtained there is another course to be steered towards them and instead of their hearing any longer of Liberty and Toleration they are to be told that it is the Interest of the Government and the Safety and Honor of his Majesty to have but one Religion in his Dominions and that all must be Members of the Catholick Church and this because the King will have it so which is the Argument that hath been made use of in the making so many Converts in France They who now suffer themselves to be deluded into a Confidence in the Royal Word will not only come to understand what Mr. Coleman meant in his telling Pere de la Chaise that the Catholicks in England had a great work upon their hand being about the Extirpation of that Heresie which hath borne sway so long in this Northern part of the World but they will also see and feel how much of the Designs of Rome was represented in that passage of the Pope's Nuncio's Letter dated at Brussels Aug. 9. 1674. wherein upon the Confidence which they placed in the Duke of York which is not lessened since he came to the Crown he takes the confidence to write That they hoped speedily to see the total and final Ruin of the Protestant Party And as Protestant Dissenters have no Security by the Declaration and Proclamation for the continuance of their Liberty so they that have by way of Thanksgiving Addressed to the King for those Royal Papers have not only acted very ill in reference both to the Laws and Rights of the Kingdoms and of Religion in general but they have carried very unwisely in relation to their own Interest and the avoiding the Effects of that Resentment which most Men are justly possessed with upon the illegal Emission of these Arbitrary and Prerogative Papers I shall not enter upon any long Discourse concerning this new Practice of Addressing in general it having been done elsewhere some years ago but I shall only briefly intimate that it was never in fashion unless either under a weak and precarious Government or under one that took illegal Courses and pursued a different Interest from that of the People and Community As he who Ruleth according to the standing Laws of a Country over which he is set needs not seek for an Approbation of his Actions from a part of his Subjects the Legality of his Proceedings being the best Justification of him that Governs and giving the truest Satisfaction to them that are Ruled so he who enjoys the love of all his People needs not look for Promises of being assisted stood by and defended by any one Party or Faction among them there being none from whom he can have the least Apprehension of Opposition and Danger It was the want of a legal Title in Oliver Cromwel and his Son Richard to the Government that first begot this Device of Addressing and brought it upon the Stage in these British Nations and it was the Arbitrary Procedures of the late King as it is of his present Majesty and their acting upon a distinct Bottom from that of the Three Kingdoms that hath revived and does continue it Nor is there any thing that hath rendered those two Princes more contemptible abroad and proclaimed them Weaker at home than their recurring unto and solliciting the Flatteries and Aid of the Mercenary Timorous Servile and for low and personal Ends byass'd part of their Subjects and thereby telling the World that neither the Generality nor the most Honorable of their People have been united in their Interest nor Approvers of the Counsels that have been taken and pursued And if any thing did ever cast a Dishonor upon the English Nation it hath been that loathsome Flattery and slavish Sycophancy wherewith the Addressers both now and for some years past have stuffed their Applications to the two Royal Brothers The Throne that is sustained and upheld by the Pillars of Law and Justice needs not to hew out unto its self other Supporters nor lean upon the crooked and weak Stilts of the insignificant and for the most part deceitful as well as brib'd Vows of a sort of Men who will be as ready upon the least disgust to cry Crucifie to morrow as they were for being gratified may be in their Lusts Humors and Revenges and at the best in some separate Concern to cry Hosanna to day I shall decline prosecuting what concerns the Honor or Dishonor of him to whom the Addresses are made or how Politick or Impolitick the Countenancing and Encouraging them is and shall apply my self to this new Sett of Addressers and endeavor to shew how Foolish as well as Criminally they have acted Nor is it an Argument either of their Prudence or Honesty or of their acting with any Consistency to themselves that having so severely inveighed against the Addresses that were in fashion a few years ago and having fastened all the Imputations and Reproaches upon those that were Accessary to them which that Rank of Addressers could be supposed to have deserved they now espouse the Practice which they had condemned and in reference to as Arbitrary and unjustifiable an Act of His present Majesty as the most illegal one the late King was guilty of or the worst Exercise or Prerogative for which any heretofore either
Treason or Felony yet it cannot be with any colour of Reason inferred from thence that the King can entirely Suspend the Execution of those Laws relating to Treason or Felony Unless it is pretended that he is cloathed with a Despotick and Arbitrary Power and that the Lives Liberties Honors and Estates of the Subjects depend wholly on his good Will and Pleasure and are entirely subject to him which must infallibly follow on the King 's having a Power to Suspend the Execution of Laws and to Dispense with them Those Evil Counsellors in order to the giving some Credit to this strange and execrable Maxim have so conducted the Matter that they have obtained a Sentence from the Judges declaring that this Dispensing Power is a Right belonging to the Crown as if it were in the Power of the Twelve Judges to offer up the Laws Rights and Liberties of the whole Nation to the King to be disposed of by him Arbitrarily and at his Pleasure and expresly contrary to Laws enacted for the Security of the Subjects In order to the obtaining this Judgment those Evil Counsellors did before-hand examine secretly the Opinion of the Judges and procured such of them as could not in Conscience concur in so pernicious a Sentence to be turned out and others to be substituted in their rooms till by the Changes which were made in the Courts of Judicature they at last obtained that Judgment And they have raised some to those Trusts who make open Profession of the Popish Religion tho those are by Law rendred Incapable of all such Employments It is also Manifest and Notorious that as his Majesty was upon his coming to the Crown received and acknowledged by all the Subjects of England Scotland and Ireland as their King without the least Opposition tho he made then open Profession of the Popish Religion so he did then Promise and Solemnly Swear at his Coronation that he would maintain his Subjects in the Free Enjoyment of their Laws Rights and Liberties and in particular that he would maintain the Church of England as it was established by Law It is likewise certain that there have been at diverse and sundry times several Laws enacted for the Preservation of those Rights and Liberties and of the Protestant Religion And among other Securities it has been enacted That all Persons whatsoever that are advanced to any Ecclesiastical Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all others that should be put in any Imployment Civil or Military should declare that they were not Papists but were of the Protestant Religion and that by their taking of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test yet these Evil Counsellors have in effect annulled and abolished all those Laws both with relation to Ecclesiastical and Civil Employments In order to Ecclesiastical Dignities and Offices they have not only without any colour of Law but against most express Laws to the contrary set up a Commission of a certain number of Persons to whom they have committed the Cognisance and Direction of all Ecclesiastical Matters in the which Commission there has been and still is one of His Majesties Ministers of State who makes now publick Profession of the Popish Religion and who at the time of his first professing it declared that for a great while before he had believed that to be the only true Religion By all this the deplorable State to which the Protestant Religion is reduced is apparent since the Affairs of the Church of England are now put into the Hands of Persons who have accepted of a Commission that is manifestly Illegal and who have executed it contrary to all Law and that now one of their chief Members has abjured the Protestant Religion and declared himself a Papist by which he is become incapable of holding any Publick Employment The said Commissioners have hitherto given such proof of their Submission to the Directions given them that there is no reason to doubt but they will still continue to promote all such Designs as will be most agreeable to them And those Evil Counsellors take care to raise none to any Ecclesiastical Dignities but Persons that have no Zeal for the Protestant Religion and that now hide their Unconcernedness for it under the specious Pretence of Moderation The said Commissioners have Suspended the Bishop of London only because he refused to obey an Order that was sent him to Suspend a Worthy Divine without so much as citing him before him to make his own Defence or observing the common Forms of Process They have turned out a President chosen by the Fellows of Magdalen College and afterwards all the Fellows of that College without so much as citing them before any Court that could take legal Cognisance of that Affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a Competent Judge And the only reason that was given for turning them out was their refusing to chuse for their President a Person that was recommended to them by the Instigation of those Evil Counsellors tho the Right of a Free Election belonged undoubtedly to them But they were turned out of their Freeholds contrary to Law and to that express provision in the Magna Charta That no Man shall loose Life or Goods but by the Law of the Land And now these Evil Counsellors have put the said College wholly into the Hands of Papists tho as is abovesaid they are incapable of all such Employments both by the Law of the Land and the Statutes of the College These Commissioners have also cired before them all the Chancellors and Arch-deacons of England requiring them to certifie to them the Names of all such Clergy-men as have read the King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and of such as have not read it without considering that the reading of it was not enjoyned the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries The Illegality and Incompetency of the said Court of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was so notoriously known and it did so evidently appear that it tended to the Subversion of the Protestant Religion that the Most Reverend Father in God William Archbishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England seeing that it was raised for no other end but to oppress such Persons as were of eminent Vertue Learning and Piety refused to sit or to concur in it And tho there are many express Laws against all Churches or Chappels for the Exercise of the Popish Religion and also against all Monasteries and Convents and more particularly against the Order of the Jesuits yet those Evil Counsellors have procured orders for the building of several Churches and Chappels for the Exercise of that Religion They have also procured diverse Monasteries to be erected and in contempt of the Law they have not only set up several Colleges of Jesuits in diverse places for the corrupting of the Youth but have raised up one of the Order to be a Privy Counsellor and a Minister of State By all
appeared both during the Queens Pretended Biggness and in the manner in which the Birth was managed so many just and visible Grounds of Suspition that not only we our selves but all the good Subjects of those Kingdoms do vehemently suspect that the Pretended Prince of Wales was not born by the Queen And it is notoriously known to all the World that many both doubted of the Queens Biggness and of the Birth of the Child and yet there was not any one thing done to satisfie them or to put an end to their Doubts And since our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princess and likewise we our selves have so great an Interest in this Matter and such a Right as all the World knows to the Succession to the Crown since also the English did in the Year 1672. when the States General of the United Provinces were Invaded in a most unjust War use their utmost Endeavors to put an end to that War and that in Opposition to those who were then in the Government and by their so doing they run the Hazard of losing both the Favor of the Court and their Imployments And since the English Nation has ever testified a most particular Affection and Esteem both to our Dearest Consort the Princess and to our selves We cannot excuse our selves from espousing their Interests in a matter of such high Consequence and from Contributing all that lies in us for the Maintaining both of the Protestant Religion and of the Laws and Liberties of those Kingdoms and for the Securing to them the continual Enjoyment of all their just Rights To the doing of which we are most earnestly solicited by a great many Lords both Spiritual and Temporal and by many Gentlemen and other Subjects of all Ranks Therefore it is that we have thought fit to go over to England and to carry over with us a Force sufficient by the Blessing of God to defend us from the Violence of those Evil Counsellors And we being desirous that our Intentions in this may be rightly understood have for this end prepared this Declaration in which as we have hitherto given a true Account of the Reasons inducing us to it So we now think fit to Declare that this our Expedition is intended for no other Design but to have a free and lawful Parliament assembled as soon as is possible and that in order to this all the late Charters by which the Elections of Burgesses are limited contrary to the Ancient Custom shall be considered as null and of no force And likewise all Magistrates who have been Injustly turned out shall forthwith resume their former Imployments as well as all the Boroughs of England shall return again to their Ancient Prescriptions and Charters And more particularly that the Ancient Charter of the Great and Famous City of London shall again be in Force And that the Writs for the Members of Parliament shall be addressed to the proper Officers according to Law and Custom That also none be suffered to choose or to be chosen Members of Parliament but such as are qualified by Law And that the Members of Parliament being thus lawfully chosen they shall meet and sit in full Freedom that so the Two Houses may concur in the preparing of such Laws as they upon full and free Debate shall judge necessary and convenient both for the confirming and executing the Law concerning the Test and such other Laws as are necessary for the Security and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion as likewise for making such Laws as may establish a good Agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters as also for the covering and securing of all such who will live Peaceable under the Government as becomes good Subjects from all Persecution upon the account of their Religion even Papists themselves not excepted and for the doing of all other things which the Two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the Peace Honor and Safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nations falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government To this Parliament we will also refer the Enquiry into the Birth of the Pretended Prince of Wales and of all things relating to it and to the Right of Succession And we for our part will concur in every thing that may procure the Peace and Happiness of the Nation which a Free and Lawful Parliament shall determine Since we have nothing before our Eyes in this our Undertaking but the Preservation of the Protestant Religion the covering of all Men from Persecution for their Consciences and the Securing to the whole Nation the free Enjoyment of all their Laws Rights and Liberties under a Just and Legal Government This is the design that we have proposed to our selves in appearing upon this occasion in Arms In the Conduct of which we will keep the Forces under our Command under all the Strictness of Martial Discipline and take a special Care that the People of the Countries through which we must march shall not suffer by their means And as soon as the State of the Nation will admit of it we promise that we will send back all those Foreign Forces that we have brought along with us We do therefore hope that all People will judge rightly of us and approve of these our Proceedings But we chiefly rely on the Blessing of God for the Success of this our Undertaking in which we place our whole and only Confidence We do in the last place invite and require all Persons whatsoever all the Peers of the Realm both Spiritual and Temporal all Lords-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and all Gentlemen Citizens and other Commons of all Ranks to come and assist us in order to the Executing of this our Design against all such as shall endeavor to oppose us that so we may prevent all those Miseries which must needs follow upon the Nations being kept under Arbitrary Government and Slavery And that all the Violences and Disorders which have overturned the whole Constitution of the English Government may be fully redressed in a Free and Legal Parliament And we do likewise resolve that as soon as the Nations are brought to a State of Quiet we will take care that a Parliament shall be called in Scotland for the restoring the Ancient Constitution of that Kingdom and for bringing the Matters of Religion to such a Settlement that the People may live Easie and Happy and for putting an end to all the Injust Violences that have been in a course of so many Years committed there We will also study to bring the Kingdom of Ireland to such a State that the Settlement there may be Religiously observed and that the Protestant and British Interest there may be secured And we will endeavor by all possible means to procure such an Establishment in all the Three Kingdoms that they may all live in a Happy Union and Correspondence together and that the Protestant Religion and the Peace
Honor and Happiness of those Nations may be established upon Lasting Foundations Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court at the Hague the Tenth day of October in the Year 1688. William Henry Prince of Orange By His Highness's Special Command C. HUYGENS. His Highness's Additional Declaration AFter we had prepared and printed this our Declaration we have understood that the Subverters of the Religion and Laws of those Kingdoms hearing of our Preparations to assist the People against them have begun to retract some of the Arbitrary and Despotick Powers that they had assumed and to vacate some of their Injust Judgments and Decrees The Sense of their Guilt and the distrust of their Force have induced them to offer to the City of London some seeming Relief from their Great Oppressions hoping thereby to quiet the People and to divert them from demanding a Secure Re-establishment of their Religion and Laws under the shelter of our Arms. They do also give out that we intend to Conquer and Enslave the Nation And therefore it is that we have thought fit to add a few words to our Declaration We are Confident that no Persons can have such hard thought of us as to imagine that we have any other Design in this Undertaking than to procure a Settlement of the Religion and of the Liberties and Properties of the Subjects upon so sure a Foundation that there may be no danger of the Nations relapsing into the like Miseries at any time hereafter And as the Forces that we have brought along with us are utterly disproportioned to that wicked Design of Conquering the Nation if we were capable of intending it so the Great Numbers of the Principal Nobility and Gentry that are Men of Eminent Quality and Estates and Persons of known Integrity and Zeal both for the Religion and Government of England many of them being also distinguished by their constant Fidelity to the Crown who do both accompany us in this Expedition and have earnestly solicited us to it will cover us from all such Malicious Insinuations For it is not to be imagined that either those who have invited us or those that are already come to assist us can joyn in a wicked Attempt of Conquest to make void their own lawful Titles to their Honors Estates and Interests We are also confident that all Men see how little weight there is to be laid on all Promises and Engagements that can be now made since there has been so little regard had in time past to the most solemn Promises And as that imperfect Redress that is now offered is a plain Confession of those Violations of the Government that we have set forth so the Defectiveness of it is no less Apparent for they lay down nothing which they may not take up at Pleasure and they reserve entire and not so much as mentioned their Claims and Pretences to an Arbitrary and Despotick Power which has been the Root of all their Oppression and of the total Subversion of the Government And it is plain that there can be no Redress nor Remedy offered but in Parliament by a Declaration of the Rights of the Subjects that have been invaded and not by any Pretended Acts of Grace to which the Extremity of their Affairs has driven them Therefore it is that we have thought fit to declare That we will refer all to a Free Assembly of the Nation in a Lawful Parliament Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court in the Hague the 24th day of October in the Year of our Lord 1688. William Henry Prince of Orange By His Highness's Special Command G. HUYGENS. By his Highness William Henry Prince of Orange A Declaration Printed in the Year 1688. WE have in the course of our whole Life and more particularly by the apparent Hazards both by Sea and Land to which we have so lately exposed our Person given to the whole World so high and undoubted Proofs of our fervent Zeal for the Protestant Religion that we are fully confident no true English-man and good Protestant can entertain the least Suspicion of our firm Resolution rather to spend our dearest Blood and perish in the Attempt than not carry on the Blessed and Glorious Design which by the Favour of Heaven we have so successfully begun to Rescue England Scotland and Ireland from Slavery and Popery and in a Free Parliament to Establish the Religion the Laws and the Liberties of those Kingdoms upon such a sure and lasting Foundation that it shall not be in the Power of any Prince for the future to introduce Popery and Tyranny Towards the more easy Compassing this great Design we have not been hitherto deceived in the just Expectation we had of the Concurrence of the Nobility Gentry and People of England with Us for the Security of their Religion the Restitution of the Laws and the Re-establishment of their Liberties and Properties Great Numbers of all Ranks and Qualities having joyned themselves to us and others at great Distances from Us have taken up Arms and Declared for Us. And which we cannot but particularly mention in that Army which was Raised to be the Instrument of Slavery and Popery may by the special Providence of God both Officers and common Souldiers have been touched with such a feeling sense of Religion and Honour and of true Affection for their Native Country that they have already deserted the Illegal Service they were ingaged in and have come over to Us and have given us full Assurance from the rest of the Army That they will certainly follow this Example as soon as with our Army we shall approach near enough to receive them without the Hazard of being prevented and betray'd To which end and that we may the sooner execute this just and necessary Design we are ingaged in for the publick Safety and Deliverance of these Nations We are resolved with all possible Diligence to advance forward that a Free Parliament may be forthwith called and such Preliminaries adjusted with the King and all things first settled upon such a foot according to Law as may give Us and the whole Nation just Reason to believe the King is disposed to make such necessary Condescensions on his part as will give intire Satisfaction and Security to all and make both King and People once more happy And that we may effect all this in the way most agreeable to our Desires if it be possible without the Effusion of any Blood except of those execrable Criminals who have justly forfeited their Lives for betraying the Religion and Subverting the Laws of their Native Country We do think fit to declare That as we will offer no Violence to any but in our own necessary Defence so we will not suffer any Injury to be done to the Person even of a Papist provided he be found in such Place and in such Condition and Circumstances as the Laws require So we are resolved and do declare that all Papists who shall be found
in open Arms or with Arms in their Houses or about their Persons or in any Office or Imployment Civil or Military upon any Pretence whatsoever contrary to the known Laws of the Land shall be treated by Us and our Forces not as Soldiers and Gentlemen but as Robbers Free-Booters and Banditti they shall be incapable of Quarter and intirely delivered up to the Discretion of our Soldiers And We do further declare that all Persons who shall be found any ways aiding and assisting to them or shall march under their Command or shall joyn with or submit to them in the Discharge or Execution of their Illegal Commissions or Authority shall be looked upon as Partakers of their Crimes Enemies to the Laws and to their Country And whereas we are certainly informed that great Numbers of armed Papists have of late resorted to London and Westminster and parts adjacent where they remain as we have reason to suspect not so much for their own Security as out of a wicked and barbarous Design to make some desperate Attempt upon the said Cities and their Inhabitants by Fire or a sudden Massacre or both or else to be the more ready to joyn themselves to a Body of French Troops designed if it be possible to land in England procured of the French King by the Interest and Power of the Jesuits in Pursuance of the Engagements which at the Instigation of that pestilent Society his most Christian Majesty with one of his Neighbouring Princes of the same Communion has entred into for the utter Extirpation of the Protestant Religion out of Europe Tho we hope we have taken such effectual care to prevent the one and secure the other that by God's Assistance we cannot doubt but we shall defeat all their wicked Enterprises and Designs We cannot however forbear out of the great and tender Concern We have to preserve the People of England and particularly those great and populous Cities from the cruel Rage and bloody Revenge of the Papists to Require and expect from all the Lord-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace Lord-Mayors Mayors Sheriffs and all other Magistrates and Officers Civil and Military of all Counties Cities and Towns of England especially of the County of Middlesex and Cities of London and Westminster and parts adjacent that they do immediately disarm and secure as by Law they may and ought within their respective Counties Cities and Jurisdictions all Papists whatsoever as Persons at all times but now especially most dangerous to the Peace and Safety of the Government that so not only all Power of doing mischief may be taken from them but that the Laws which are the greatest and best Security may resume their Force and be strictly Executed And We do hereby likewise Declare that We will Protect and Defend all those who shall not be afraid to do their Duty in Obedience to these Laws And that for those Magistrates and others of what condition soever they be who shall refuse to assist Us and in Obedience to the Laws to Execute vigorously what we have required of them and suffer themselves at this Juncture to be cajoled or terrified out of ther Duty We will esteem them the most Criminal and Infamous of all Men Betrayers of their Religion the Laws and their Native Country and shall not fail to treat them accordingly resolving to expect and require at their hands the Life of every single Protestant that shall perish and every House that shall be burnt or destroyed by their Treachery and Cowardise William Henry Prince of Orange Given under our Hand and Seal at our Head-quarters at Sherburn Castle the 28th day of November 1688. By his Highness special Command C. HUYGENS. The following Paper was Published by Mr. Samuel Johnson in the Year 1686. for which he was Sentenc'd by the Court of King's Bench Sir Edward Herbert being Lord Chief Justice to stand three times on the Pillory and to be whipp'd from Newgate to Tyburn Which barbarous Sentence was Executed An Humble and Hearty Address to all the English Protestants in this present Army Gentlemen NExt to the Duty which we owe to God which ought to be the principal Care of Men of your Profession especially because you carry your Lives in your Hands and often look Death in the Face The second Thing that deserves your Consideration is The service of your Native Country wherein you drew your first Breath and breathed a free English Air. Now I would desire you to consider how well you comply with these two main Points by engaging in this present Service Is it in the Name of God and for his Service that you have joyned your selves with Papists who will indeed fight for the Mass-book but burn the Bible and who seek to Extirpate the Protestant Religion with Your Swords because they cannot do it with their Own And will you be Aiding and Assisting to set up Mass-houses to Erect that Popish Kingdom of Darkness and Desolation amongst us and to train up all our Children in Popery How can you do these Things and yet call your selves Protestants And then what Service can be done your Country by being under the Command of French and Irish Papists and by bringing the Nation under a Foreign Yoke Will you help them to make forcible Entry into the Houses of your Country-men under the Name of Quartering directly contrary to Magna Charta and the Petition of Right Will you be Aiding and Assisting to all the Murders and Outrages which they shall commit by their void Commissions Which were declared Illegal and sufficiently blasted by both Houses of Parliament if there had been any need of it for it was very well known before That a Papist cannot have a Commission but by the Law is utterly Disabled and Disarmed Will you exchange your Birth-right of English Laws and Liberties for Martial or Club-law and help to destroy all others only to be eaten last your selves If I know you well as you are English Men you hate and scorn these Things And therefore be not unequally yoaked with Idolatrous and Bloody Papists Be Valiant for the Truth and shew your selves Men. The same Considerations are likewise humbly offered to all the English Seamen who have been the Bulwark of this Nation against Popery and Slavery ever since Eighty Eight Several Reasons for the Establishment of a standing Army and Dissolving the Militia By Mr. S. Johnson 1. BEcause the Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants and the whole Militia that is to say the Lords Gentlemen and Free-holders of England are not fit to be trusted with their own Laws Lives Liberties and Estates and therefore ought to have Guardians and Keepers assigned to them 2. Because Mercenary Soldiers who fight for twelve Pence a Day will fight better as having more to lose than either the Nobility or Gentry 3. Because there are no Irish Papists in the Militia who are certainly the best Soldiers in the World for they have slain Men Women and Children
by Hundreds of Thousands at once 4. Because the Dragooners have made more Converts than all the Bishops and Clergy of France 5. The Parliament ought to establish one standing Army at the least because indeed there will be need of Two that one of them may defend the People from the other 6. Because it is a thousand pities that a brave Popish Army should be a Riot 7. Unless it be Established by Act of Parliament The Justices of Peace will be forced to suppress it in their own Defence for they will be loth to forfeit an hundred Pounds every day they rise out of Complement to a Popish Rout. 13 H. 4. c. 7. 2 H. 5. c. 8. 8. Because a Popish Army is a Nullity For all Papists are utterly disabled and punishable besides from bearing any Office in Camp Troop Band or Company of Soldiers and are so far disarmed by Law that they cannot wear a Sword so much as in their Defence without the allowance of four Justices of the Peace of the County And then upon a March they will be perfectly Inchanted for they are not able to stir above five Miles from their own Dwelling-house 3. Jac. 5. Sect. 8.27 28 29.35 Eliz. 2.3 Jac. 5. Sect. 7. 9. Because Persons utterly disabled by Law are utterly Unauthorized and therefore the void Commissions of Killing and Slaying in the Hands of Papists can only enable them to Massacre and Murder To the King 's Most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of William Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and divers of the Suffragan Bishops of that Province now present with him in behalf of themselves and others of their absent Brethren and of the Clergy of their respective Diocesses Humbly sheweth THAT the great averseness they find in themselves to the distributing and publishing in all their Churches your Majesty's late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience proceeds neither from any want of Duty and Obedience to your Majesty our Holy Mother the Church of England being both in her Principles and in her constant Practice unquestionably Loyal and having to her great Honour been more than once publickly acknowledg'd to be so by your Gracious Majesty Nor yet from any want of due tenderness to Dissenters in relation to whom they are willing to come to such a Temper as shall be thought fit when that Matter shall be considered and settled in Parliament and Convocation But among many other Considerations from this especially because that Declaration is founded upon such a Dispensing Power as has been often declared Illegal in Parliament and particularly in the years 1662 and 1672. and in the beginning of your Majesty's Reign and is a matter of so great Moment and Consequence to the whole Nation both in Church and State that your Petitioners cannot in Prudence Honour or Conscience so far make themselves Parties to it as the distribution of it all over the Nation and the solemn Publication of it once and again even in God's House and in the Time of his Divine Service must amount to in common and reasonable Construction Your Petitioners therefore most Humbly and Earnestly beseech your Majesty that you will be ciously pleased not to insist upon their Distributing and Reading your Majesty's said Declaration And Your Petitioners as in Duty bound shall ever Pray Will. Cant. Will. Asaph Fr Ely Jo. Cicestr Tho. Bathon Wellen. Tho. Peterburgen Jonath Bristol His Majesties Answer was to this effect I Have heard of this before but did not believe it I did not expect this from the Church of England especially from some of you If I change my Mind you shall hear from me if not I expect my Command shall be obeyed The PETITION of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for the Calling of a Free Parliament Together with his Majesty's Gracious Answer to their Lordships To the KING 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal whose Names are subscribed May it please your Majesty WE your Majesty's most loyal Subjects in a deep sense of the Miseries of a War now breaking forth in the Bowels of this your Kingdom and of the Danger to which your Majesty's Sacred Person is thereby like to be exposed and also of the Distractions of your People by reason of their present Grievances do think our selves bound in Conscience of the duty we owe to God and our holy Religion to your Majesty and our Country most humbly offer to your Majesty That in our Opinion the only visible Way to preserve your Majesty and this your Kingdom would be the Calling of a Parliament Regular and Free in all its Circumstances We therefore do most earnestly beseech your Majesty That you would be graciously pleased with all speed to call such a Parliament wherein we shall be most ready to promote such Counsels and Resolutions of Peace and Settlement in Church and State as may conduce to your Majesty's Honour and Safety and to the quieting the Minds of your People We do likewise humbly beseech your Majesty in the mean time to use such means for the preventing the Effusion of Christian Blood as to your Majesty shall seem most meet And your Petitioners shall ever pray c. W. Cant. Grafton Ormond Dorset Clare Clarendon Burlington Anglesey Rochester Newport Nom. Ebor. W. Asaph Fran. Ely Tho. Roffen Tho. Petriburg Tho. Oxon. Paget Chandois Osulston Presented by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Arch-Bishop of York Elect the Bishop of Ely and the Bishop of Rochester the 17th of November 1688. His Majesty's most Gracious Answer My LORDS What You ask of Me I most passionately desire And I promise You upon the Faith of a King That I will have a Parliament and such an One as You ask for as soon as ever the Prince of Orange has quitted this Realm For How is it possible a Parliament should be Free in all its Circumstances as You Petition for whil'st an Enemy is in the Kingdom and can make a Return of near an Hundred Voices The Lords Petition with the King's Answer may be printed Novemb. 29. 1688. The P. O.'s Letter to the English Army Gentlemen and Friends WE have given you so full and so true an Account of Our Intentions in this Expedition in Our Declaration that as We can add nothing to it so We are sure you can desire nothing more of us We are come to preserve your Religion and to restore and establish your Liberties and Properties and therefore We cannot suffer Our selves to doubt but that all true English men will come and concur with Us in Our desire to secure these Nations from POPERY and SLAVERY You must all plainly see that you are only made use of as Instruments to enslave the Nation and ruin the Protestant Religion and when that is done you may judge what ye your selves ought to expect both from the cashiering of all the Protestant and English Officers and Soldiers in Ireland and by the Irish Soldiers being brought over to be put in your places
for we assure our selves that no rational and unbyassed Person will judge it Rebellion to defend our Laws and Religion which all our Princes have sworn at their Coronations Which Oath how well it hath been observed of late we desire a Free Parliament may have the Consideration of We own it Rebellion to resist a King that governs by Law but he was always accounted a Tyrant that made his Will his Law and to resist such an one we justly esteem no Rebellion but a necessary Defence And in this Consideration we doubt not of all Honest Mens Assistance and humbly hope for and implore the great Gods Protection that turneth the Hearts of People as pleaseth him best it having been observed That People can never be of one Mind without his Inspiration which hath in all Ages confirmed that Observation Vox Populi est Vox Dei The present restoring of Charters and reversing the oppressing and unjust Judgment given on Magdalen Colledg Fellows is plain are but to still the People like Plums to Children by deceiving them for a while but if they shall by this Stratagem be fooled till this present Storm that threatens the Papists be past as soon as they shall be resetled the former Oppression will be put on with greater vigour But we hope in vain is the Net spread in the sight of the Birds For 1. the Papists old Rule is That Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks as they term Protestants tho the Popish Religion is the greatest Heresie And 2. Queen Mary's so ill observing her Promises to the Suffolk-men that help'd her to the Throne And above all 3. the Popes dispensing with the breach of Oaths Treaties or Promises at his pleasure when it makes for the service of Holy Church as they term it These we say are such convincing Reasons to hinder us from giving Credit to the aforesaid Mock-Shews of Redress that we think our selves bound in Conscience to rest on no Security that shall not be approved by a Freely Elected Parliament to whom under God we refer our Cause His Grace the Duke of Norfolk 's Speech to the Mayor of Norwich on the First of December in the Market-place of Norwich Mr. Mayor NOT doubting but you and the rest of your Body as well as the whole City and Country may be Alarmed by the great Concourse of Gentry with the numerous Appearance of their Friends and Servants as well as of your own Militia here this Morning I have thought this the most proper place as being the most publick one to give you an Account of our Intentions Out of the deep sense we had that in the present unhappy Juncture of Affairs nothing we could think of was possible to secure the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion but a Free Parliament WE ARE HERE MET TO DECLARE That we will do our utmost to defend the same by declaring for such a Free Parliament And since His Majesty hath been pleased by the News we hear this day to order Writs for a Parliament to sit the Fifteenth of January next I can only add in the name of my Self and all these Gentlemen and others here met That we will ever be ready to support and defend the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion And so GOD SAVE THE KING To this the Mayor Aldermen and the rest of the Corporation and a numerous Assembly did concur with his Grace and the rest of the Gentry His Grace at his lighting from his Horse perceiving great numbers of Common People gathering together called them to him and told them He desired they would not take any occasion to commit any Disorder or Outrage but go quietly to their Homes and acquainted them that the King had ordered a Free Parliament to be called The Speech of the Prince of Orange to some Principal Gentlemen of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire on their coming to joyn his Highness at Exeter the 15th of Nov. 1688. THO we know not all your Persons yet we have a Catalogue of your Names and remember the Character of your Worth and Interest in your Country You see we are come according to your Invitation and our Promise Our Duty to God obliges us to protect the Protestant Religion and our Love to Mankind your Liberties and Properties We expected you that dwelt so near the place of our Landing would have joyn'd us sooner not that it is now too late nor that we want your Military Assistance so much as your Countenance and Presence to justifie our declar'd Pretensions rather than accomplish our good and gracious Designs Tho we have brought both a good Fleet and a good Army to render these Kingdoms happy by rescuing all Protestants from Popery Slavery and Arbitrary Power by restoring them to their Rights and Properties established by Law and by promoting of Peace and Trade which is the Soul of Government and the very Life-Blood of a Nation yet we rely more on the goodness of God and the Justice of our Cause than on any Humane Force and Power whatever Yet since God is pleased we shall make use of Human Means and not expect Miracles for our Preservation and Happiness let us not neglect making use of this gracious Opportunity but with Prudence and Courage put in Execution our so honourable Purposes Therefore Gentlemen Friends and Fellow-Protestants we bid you and all your Followers most heartily Welcom to our Court and Camp Let the whole World now judg if our Pretensions are not Just Generous Sincere and above Price since we might have even a Bridge of Gold to return back But it is our Principle and Resolution rather to die in a good Cause than live in a bad One well knowing that Vertue and True Honour is its own Reward and the Happiness of Mankind Our Great and Only Design The true Copy of a Paper delivered by the Lord Devonshire to the Mayor of Darby where he quarter'd the one and twentieth of November 1688. WE the Nobility and Gentry of the Northern parts of England being deeply sensible of the Calamities that threaten these Kingdoms do think it our Duty as Christians and good Subjects to endeavour what in us lies the Healing of our present Distractions and preventing greater And as with grief we apprehend the said Consequences that may arise from the Landing of an Army in this Kingdom from Foreign parts So we cannot but deplore the Occasion given for it by so many Invasions made of late Years on our Religion and Laws And whereas we cannot think of any other Expedient to compose our Differences and prevent Effusion of Blood than that which procured a Settlement in these Kingdoms after the late Civil Wars the Meeting and Sitting of a Parliament freely and duly Chosen we think our selves obliged as far as in us lies to promote it And the rather because the Prince of Orange as appears by his Declaration is willing to submit his own Pretensions and all other Matters to their Determination We heartily Wish and
time acquaint his Highness with what we have further done at that Meeting Dated at Guild-hall the 11th of December 1688. A Paper delivered to his Highness the Prince of Orange by the Commissioners sent by his Majesty to treat with him And his Highness's Answer WHereas on the 8th of December 1688. at Hungerford a Paper signed by the Marquess of Hallifax the Earl of Nottingham and the Lord Godolphin Commissioners sent unto us from His Majesty was delivered to Us in these Word following viz. Sir THE King commanded us to acquaint You That he observeth all the Differences and Causes of Complaint alledged by Your Highness seem to be referred to a Free Parliament His Majesty as He hath already declared was resolved before this to call one but thought that in the present State of Affairs it was advisable to defer it till things were more compos'd Yet seeing that His People still continue to desire it He hath put forth His Proclamation in order to it and hath issued forth His Writs for the calling of it And to prevent any Cause of Interruption in it He will consent to every thing that can be reasonably required for the Security of all those that shall come to it His Majesty hath therefore sent Us to attend Your Highness for the adjusting of all Matters that shall be agreed to be necessary to the Freedom of Elections and the Security of Sitting and is ready immediately to enter into a Treaty in Order to it His Majesty proposeth that in the mean time the respective Armies may be restrained within such Limits and at such a Distance from London as may prevent the Apprehensions that the Parliament may in any kind be disturbed being desirous that the Meeting of it may be no longer delay'd than it must be by the usual and necessary Forms Hungerford Dec. 8. 88. Signed Hallifax Nottingham Godolphin We with the Advice of the Lords and Gentlemen assembled with Vs have in Answer to the same made these following Proposals I. THAT all Papists and such Persons as are not qualified by Law be Disarmed Disbanded and Removed from all Employments Civil and Military II. That all Proclamations which Reflect upon Us or any that have come to Us or declared for Us be recalled and that if any Persons for having so assisted have been committed that they be forthwith set at Liberty III. That for the Security and Safety of the City of London the Custody and Government of the Tower be immediately put into the Hands of the said City IV. That if His Majesty shall think fit to be at London during the Sitting of the Parliament that We may be there also with equal Number of our Guards Or if his Majesty shall please to be in any place from London at what-ever distance he thinks fit that We may be at a place of the same distance And that the respective Armies do remove from London Thirty Miles and that no more Foreign Forces be brought into the Kingdom V. That for the Security of the City of London and their Trade Tilbury Fort be put into the Hands of the said City VI. That to prevent the Landing of French or other Foreign Troops Portsmouth may be put into such Hands as by Your Majesty and Us shall be agreed upon VII That some sufficient part of the Publick Revenue be Assigned Us for the Maintaining of our Forces until the Meeting of a Free Parliament Given at Littlecott the Ninth of December 1688. W. H. Prince of Orange The Speech of the Recorder of Bristol to his Highness the Prince of Orange Monday January the 7th 1688. The Mayor Recorder Aldermen and Commons of the Principal Citizens of the City of Bristol waited upon the Prince of Orange being introduced by his Grace the Duke of Ormond their High-Steward and the Earl of Shrewsbury Where the Recorder spake to this Effect May it please your Highness THE Restitution of our Religion Laws and Liberties and the Freeing us from that Thraldom which hath rendred us for many Years useless and at last dangerous to the Common Interest of the Protestant World by your Highness's singular Wisdom Courage and Conduct are not only a Stupendious Evidence of the Divine Favour and Providence for our Preservation but will be and ought to be an Everlasting Monument of your Highness's Magnanimity and other the Heroick Vertues which Adorn your great Soul by whom such a Revolution is wrought in this Nation as is become the Joy and Comfort of the Present and will be the Wonder of all Succeeding Ages In the Contrivance and Preparation of which great Work your Highness like the Heavens did shed your propitious Influences upon us whilst we slept and had scarce any prospect from whence we might expect our Redemption But as since your happy Arrival in England we did among the first Associate our selves to assist and promote your Highness's most glorious Design with our Lives and Fortunes so we now think our selves bound in the highest Obligation of Gratitude most humbly to present to your Highness our humble and hearty Thanks for this our Deliverance from Popery and Arbitrary Power and likewise for declaring your gracious Intentions That by the Advice of the Estates of this Kingdom you will rectifie the late Disorders in the Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil according to the known Laws The due and inviolable Observation of which will in our poor Opinion be the only proper Means to render the Soveraign Secure and both Soveraign and Subject happy To which his Highness returned a most Gracious Answer By the Commissioners of Lieutenancy for the said City Guild-hall London December the 11th 1688. Ordered THat Sir Robert Clayton Kt. Sir William Russel Kt. Sir Basil Firebrass Kt. and Charles Duncomb Esq be a Committee from the said Lieutenancy to Attend his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange and present to his Highness the Address agreed by the Lieutenancy for that purpose And that they begin their Journey to Morrow Morning By the Commissioners Command Geo. Evans Cl. Lieu. London To His Highness the Prince of Orange The Humble Address of the Lieutenancy of the City of London May it please Your Highness WE can never sufficiently express the deep Sense we have conceived and shall ever retain in our Hearts That Your Highness has exposed Your Person to so many Dangers both by Sea and Land for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom without which unparallel'd Undertaking we must probably have suffered all the Miseries that Popery and Slavery could have brought upon us We have been greatly concerned that before this time we have not had any seasonable Opportunity to give Your Highness and the World a real Testimony that it has been our firm Resolution to venture all that is Dear to Us to attain those glorious Ends which Your Highness has proposed for restoring and settling these Distracted Nations We therefore now unanimously present to Your Highness
and then dissolved and that several Acts passed this is the plain Judgment of another Parliament 1. Because it says they were continued which shews they had a real being capable of being continued for a Confirmation of a void Grant has no effect and Confirmation shews a Grant only voidable so the continuance there shewed it at most but voidable and when the King came and confirm'd it all was good 2. The dissolving it then shews they had a being for as ex nihilo nihil fit so super nihil nil operatur as out of nothing nothing can be made so upon nothing nothing can operate Again the King Lords and Commons make the great Corporation or Body of the Kingdom and the Commons are legally taken for the Free-holders Inst 4. p. 2. Now the Lords and Commons having Proclaimed the King the defect of this great Corporation is cured and all the Essential parts of this great Body Politique united and made compleat as plainly as when the Mayor of a Corporation dies and another is chosen the Corporation is again perfect and to say that which perfects the great Body Politique should in the same instant destroy it I mean the Parliament is to make contradictions true simul semel the perfection and destruction of this great Body at one instant and by the same Act. Then if necessity of Affairs was a forcible Argument in 1660 a time of great peace not only in England but throughout Europe and almost in all the World certainly 't is of a greater force now when England is scarce delivered from Popery and Slavery when Ireland has a mighty Army of Papists and that Kingdom in hazard of final destruction if not speedily prevented and when France has destroyed most of the Protestants there and threatens the ruine of the Low-Countries from whence God has sent the wonderful Assistance of our Gracious and therefore most Glorious King and England cannot promise safety from that Foreign Power when forty days delay which is the least can be for a new Parliament and considering we can never hope to have one more freely chosen because first it was so free from Court-influence or likelihood of all design that the Letters of Summons issued by him whom the great God in infinite Mercy raised to save us to the hazard of his Life and this done to protect the Protestant Religion and at a time when the people were all concerned for one Common interest of Religion and Liberty it would be vain when we have the best King and Queen the World affords a full house of Lords the most solemnly chosen Commons that ever were in the remembrance of any Man Living to spend Money and lose time I had almost said to despise Providence and take great pains to destroy our selves If any object Acts of Parliament mentioning Writs and Summons c. I answer the Prededent in 1660 is after all those Acts. In private cases as much as has been done in point of necessity a Bishop Provincial dies and sede vacant a Clerk is presented to a Benefice the Presentation to the Dean and Chapter is good in this case of Necessity and if in a Vacancy by the Death of a Bishop a Presentation shall be good to the Dean and Chapter rather than a prejudice should happen by the Church lying void Surely a fortiori Vacancy of the Throne may be supplied without the formality of a Writ and the great Convention turn'd to a Real Parliament A Summons in all points is of the same real force as a Writ for a Summons and a Writ differ no more than in name the thing is the same in all Substantial parts the Writ is Recorded in Chancery so are His Highnesses Letters the proper Officer Endorses the Return so he does here for the Coroner in defect of the Sheriff is the proper Officer the People Choose by Virtue of the Letters c. quae re concordant parum differunt they agree in Reality and then what difference is there between the one and the other Object A Writ must be in Actions at Common Law else all Pleading after will not make it good but Judgment given may be Reversed by a Writ of Error Answ The case differs first because Actions between party and party are Adversary Actions but Summons to Parliament are not so but are Mediums only to have â—n Election 2. In Actions at Law the Defendant may plead to the Writ but there is no plea to a Writ for electing Members to serve in Parliament and for this I have Littleton's Argument there never was such a Plea therefore none lies Object That they have not taken the Test Answ They may take the Test yet and then all which they do will be good for the Test being the distinguishing Mark of a Protestant from a Papist when that is taken the end of the Law is performed Object That the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy ought to be taken and that the new ones are not legal Answ The Convention being the Supream Power have abolish'd the old Oaths and have made new ones and as to the making new Oaths the like was done in Alfreds time when they chose him King vide Mirror of Justice Chap. 1. for the Heptarchy being turn'd to a Monarchy the precedent Oaths of the seven Kings could not be the same King Alfred swore Many Precedents may be cited where Laws have been made in Parliament without the King 's Writ to summon them which for brevity's sake I forbear to mention For a farewel the Objections quarrel at our Happiness fight against our Safety and aim at that which may indanger Destruction The Present Convention a Parliament I. THat the formality of the Kings Writ of Summons is not so essential to an English Parliament but that the Peers of the Realm and the Commons by their Representatives duly Elected may legally act as the great Council and representative Body of the Nation though not summoned by the King especially when the circumstances of the time are such that such Summons cannot be had will I hope appear by these following Observations First The Saxon Government was transplanted hither out of Germany where the meeting of the Saxons in such Assemblies was at certain fixed times viz. at the New and Full Moon But after their Transmigration hither Religion changing other things changed with it and the times for their publick Assemblies in conformity to the great Solemnities celebrated by Christians came to be changed to the Feasts of Easter Pentecost and the Nativity The lower we come down in Story the seldomer we find these General Assemblies to have been held and sometimes even very anciently when upon extraordinary occasions they met out of course a Precept an Edict or Sanction is mentioned to have Issued from the King But the Times and the very place of their ordinary Meeting having been certain and determined in the very first and eldest times that we meet with any mention of
England would not break their Oaths and obey a Mandate that plainly contradicted them we see to what a pitch this is like to be caried I will not anticipate upon this illegal Court to tell what Judgments are coming but without carrying our Jealousies too far one may safely conclude that they will never depart so far from their first Institution as to have any regard either to our Religion or our Laws or Liberties in any thing they do If all this were acted by avowed Papists as we are sure it is projected by such there were nothing extraordinary in it but that which carries our Indignation a little too far to be easily governed is to see some pretended Protestants and a few Bishops among those that are the fatal Instruments of pulling down the Church of England and that those Mercenaries Sacrifice their Religion and their Church to their Ambition and Interests this has such peculiar Characters of Misfortune upon it that it seems it is not enough if we perish without pity since we fall by that hand that we have so much supported and fortified but we must become the Scorn of all the World since we have produced such an unnatural Brood that even while they are pretending to be the Sons of the Church of England are cutting their Mothers Throat and not content with Judas's Crime of saying Hail Master and kissing him while they are betraying him into the hands of others these carry their Wickedness farther and say Hail Mother and then they themselves murther her If after all this we are called to bear this as Christians and to suffer it as Subjects if we were required in Patience to possess our own Souls and to be in Charity with our Enemies and which is more to forgive our False Brethren who add Treachery to their Hatred the Exhortation were seasonable and indeed a little necessary for Humane Nature cannot easily take down things of such a hard digestion but to tell us that we must make Addresses and offer Thanks for all this is to insult a little too much upon us in our Sufferings and he that can believe that a dry and cautiously worded Promise of maintaining the Church of England will be religiously observed after all that we have seen and is upon that carried so far out of his Wits as to Address and give Thanks and will believe still such a man has nothing to excuse him from believing Transubstantiation it self for it is plain that he can bring himself to believe even when the thing is contrary to the clearest Evidence that his Senses can give him Si populus hic vult decipi decipiatur POSTSCRIPT THese Reflections were writ soon after the Declaration came to my hands but the Matter of them was so tender and the Conveyance of them to the Press was so uneasie that they appear now too late to have one effect that was Designed by them which was the diverting men from making Addresses upon it yet if what is here proposed makes men become so far wise as to be ashamed of what they have done and carrying is a means to keep them from their Courtship further than good words this Paper will not come too late A LETTER TO A DISSENTER Upon occasion of His MAJESTIES Late Gracious DECLARATION of INDVLGENCE SIR SInce Addresses are in fashion give me leave to make one to you This is neither the Effect of Fear Interest or Resentment therefore you may be sure it is sincere and for that reason it may expect to be kindly received Whether it will have power enough to Convince dependeth upon the Reasons of which you are to judge and upon your preparation of Mind to be perswaded by Truth whenever it appeareth to you It ought not to be the less welcome for coming from a friendly hand one whose kindness to you is not lessened by difference of Opinion and who will not let his thoughts for the Publick be so tyed or confined to this or that Subdivision of Protestants as to stifle the Charity which besides all other Arguments is at this time become necessary to preserve us I am neither surprized nor provoked to see that in the Condition you were put into by the Laws and the ill Circumstances you lay under by having the Exclusion and Rebellion laid to your Charge you were desirous to make your serves less uneasie and obnoxious to Authority Men who are fore run to the nearest Remedy with too much haste to consider all the Consequences Grains of allowance are to be given where Nature giveth such strong Influences When to Men under Sufferings it offereth Ease the present Pain will hardly allow time to examine the Remedies and the strongest Reasons can hardly gain a fair Audience from our Mind whilst so possessed till the smart is a little allayed I do not know whether the Warmth that naturally belongeth to new Friendships may not make it a harder Task for me to perswade you It is like telling Lovers in the beginning of their Joys that they will in a little time have an end Such an unwelcome Style doth not easily find Credit but I will suppose you are not so far gone in your new Passion but that you will hear still and therefore I am under the less Discouragement when I offer to your Consideration two things The first is the Cause you have to suspect your new Friends The second the Duty incumbent upon you in Christianity and Prudence not to hazard the Publick Safety neither by desire of Ease nor of Revenge To the First Consider that notwithstanding the smooth Language which is now put on to engage you these new Friends did not make you their Choice but their Refuge They have ever made their first Courtships to the Church of England and when they were rejected there they made their Application to you in the second Place The Instances of this might be given in all times I do not repeat them because whatsoever is unnecessary must be tedious the Truth of this Assertion being so plain as not to admit a Dispute You cannot therefore reasonably flatter your selves that there is any Inclination to you They never pretended to allow you any Quarter but to usher in Liberty for themselves under that Shelter I refer you to Mr. Coleman's Letters and to the Journals of Parliament where you may be convinced if you can be so mistaken as to doubt nay at this very Hour they can hardly forbear in the height of their Courtship to let fall hard Words of you So little is Nature to be restrained it will start out sometimes disdaining to submit to the Usurpation of Art and Interest This Alliance between Liberty and Infallibility is bringing together the Two most contrary Things that are in the World The Church of Rome doth not only dislike the allowing Liberty but by its Principles it cannot do it Wine is not more expresly forbidden to the Mahometans than giving Hereticks Liberty is to Papists They are
remember if they please that as once there was a time when the Court turned out or chid those Justices who were forward in the Execution of the Laws against Nonâ—nformists because they were then in so low a Condition that the Court was afraid the Church of England might indeed be established in its Uniformity So when the Nonconformists were by some Liberty grown stronger and set themselves against the Court Interest in the Election of Sheriffs and such like things then all those Justices were turned out who hung back and would not execute the Laws against them and Justices pickt out for the purpose who would do it severely Nay the Clergy were called upon and had Orders sent them to return the Names of all Nâ—nconformisis in their several Parishes that they might be proceeded against in the Courts Ecclesiastical And here I cannot forget the Order made by the Middlesex Justices at the Sessions at Hicks's Hall Jan. 13. 1681. Where they urge the Execution of the Act of 22 C. 2. against Conventicles because in all probability they will destroy both Church and State This was the reason which moved them to call upon Consiables and all other Officers to do their Doty in this Matter Nay to call upon the B. of London himself that he would use his utmost endeavers within his Jurisdiction that all such Persons may be Excommumcate This was a bold stroke proceeding from an unusual degree of Zeal which plainly enough signifies that the Bishops were not so forward as the Jaestices in the prosecuting of Dissenters Who may do well to remember that the House of Commons a little before this had been so kind to them that those Justices would not have dared to have been so severe as they were at Hicks's Hall if they had not been set on by Directions from White-Hall For in their Order they press the Execution of the Statute 1 Eliz. and 3 Jac. 1. for levying Twelve Pence a Sunday upon all those that do not come to Church Whereas the House of Commons Nov. 6. 1680. had Resolved Nemine Contradicente That it is the Opinion of this House That the Acts of Parliament made in the Reign of Queen Eâ—zâ—beth and King James against Popish Recusants ought not to be extended against Protestant Dâ—ssenters VI. Who should not forget how backward the Clergy of London especially were to comply with this Design of reviving the Execution of the Laws against them What Courses they took to save them from this Danger and what Hatred they incurred for being so kind to them Which in truth wâ—â— Kindness to themselves for now they saw plainly that Nothing was intended but the Destruction of us both by setting us in our turns one against the other Many indeed were possessed with the old Opinion that the Dissenters aimed at the Overthrow of the Government bâ—th in Church and State which made them the more readily joyn with those who were employed to suppress them by turning the Loge of the Laws upon them But both these were most industriously promoted by the Court who laboured might and main to have this believed that they who were called Wings intended the Ruine of the Church and of the Monarchy too and therefore none had the Court favour but they alone who were for the ruining of them all others were frown'd upon and branded with the Name of Trimmers who they adventured at last to say were worse than Whigs Meerly because they seeing through the Design desired those ugly Names of Whig and Tory might be laid aside and perswaded all to Moderation Love Vnity and Peace If any Man had these dangerous Words in his Mouth he had a Mark set upon him and was lookt upon as an Enemy as soon as he discovered any Desires of Reconciliation No Peace with Dissenters was then as much in some Mens Mouths as no Peace with Rome had been in others They were all voted to Destruction and it was an unpardonable Crime so much as to mention an Accommodation Such things as these ought not to be forgotten VII But if they list not to call them to mind though they be of fresh Memory yet let them at least consider what they have had at their Tongues end ever since they knew any thing That the Church or Rome is a persecuting Church and the Mother of Persecution Will they then be deluded by the present Sham of Liberty of Conscience which they of that Church pretend to give It is not in their Power no more than in their Spirit They neither will nor can give Liberty of Conscience but with a Design to take all Liberty from us That Church must be obeyed and there it no middle Choice among them between Turn or Burn Conform or be undone What Liberty do they give in any Country where their Power is established What Liberty can they give who have determined that Hereticks ought to be rooted out Look into France with which we have had the strictest Alliance and Friendship along time and behold how at this Moment they compel those to go to Mass who they know abhor it as an abominable Idolatry Such a violent Spirit now acts them that they stick not to prophane their own most holy Mysteries that they may have the Face of an Vniversal Conformity without the least Liberty For the New Converts as they are called poor Wretches are known to be mere outward Compliers in their Hearts abominating that which they are forced eternally to worship They declare as much by escaping form this Tyranny over their Consciences and bewailing their sinful Compliance whensoever they have an Opportunity And they that cannot escape frequently protest they have been constrained to adore that which they believe ought not to be adored And when they come to die refuse to receive the Romish Sacrament and thereupon are dragg'd when dead along the Streets and thrown like dead Dogs upon the Dunghils Unto what a height of Rage are the Spirits of the Romish Clergy inflamed that it perfectly blinds their Eyes and will not let them see how they expose the most sacred thing in all their Religion the Holy Sacrament which they believe to be Jesus Christ himself to be received by those who they know have no Reverence at all for it but utterly abhor it For they force them by all manner of Violence to adore the Host against their Will and then to eat what they have adored though they have the greatest reason to believe that those poor Creatures do not adore it That is the Church of Rome will have her Mysteries adored by all though it be by Hypocrites None shall be excused but whether they believe or not believe they shall be compelled to do as that Church doth Nothing shall hinder it for the Hatred and Fury wherewith they are now transported is so exceeding great that it makes them as I have said offer Violence even to their own Religion rather than suffer any Body not to conform to it VIII
And assure your selves they are very desirous to extend this Violence beyond the bounds of France They would fain see England also in the same Condition the Bishop of Valence and Die hath told as much in the Speech which he made to the French King in the Name of the Clergy of France to congratulate his glorious Atchievements in rooting out the Heresie of Calvin In which he hath a most memorable Passage for which we are beholden to him because it informs us that they are not satisfied with what their King hath done there but would have him think there is a further Glory reserved for him of lending his Help to make us such good Catholicks as he hath made in France This is the blessed Work they would be at and if any among us be still so blind as not to see it we must look upon it as the just Judgment of God upon them for some other Sins which they have committed They are delivered up to a reprobate Mind which cannot discern the most evident things They declare to all the World that they have been above fifty Years crying out against they know not what For they know not what Popery is of which they have seemed to be horribly afraid if they believe that they of that Religion either can or will give any Liberty when they have Power to establish their Tyranny It is no better St. John himself hath described that Church under the Name of Babylon that cruel City and of a BEAST which like a Bear tramples all under its Feet and of another Beast which causes as many as will not worship the Image of the Beast to be killed and that no man may buy or sell save such as have had his Mark i.e. are of hsi Religion Rev. 13.1 15 16. This Character they will make good to the very end of their Reign as they have fâ—â—â—thed it from the beginning They cannot alter their Nature no more than the Ethiopian change his Skin or the Leopard his Spots It ever was since the rising of the Beast and it ever will be till its Fall a bloody Church which can bear no Contradiction to her Doctrine and Orders but will endeavour to root out all those that oppose her from the Face of the Earth Witness the Barbarous Crusado's against the poor Albigenses in France in one of which alone Bellarmine himself saith and not without Triumph there were killed no less than an hundred thousand Witness the horrible Butcheries committed in France in England and in the Low Countries in the Age before us and in Poland the Vallies of Pâ—edmont and in Ireland in this Age upon those who had no other Fault but this that the made the Holy Scriptures and the Roman Church the Rule of their Faith IX But if you be ignorant of what hath been done and doing abroad yet I hope you observe what they do here at home What do you think of the Declaration which was very lately imposed to be read in all our Churches Which when several Bishops and their Clergy most humbly represented they could not in Conscience publish to the People in time of Divine Service this would not excuse them their Petition was received with Indignation and looked upon as a Libel the Bishops were prosecuted for it and Inquiry is now ordered to be made after those who did not read it as well as those that did that the may be punished by the High Commissioners Call you this Liberty of Conscience Or do you imagine you shall never have any thing imposed upon you to be read in your Congregations which you câ—nnot comply withal Consider I beseech you what will become of you when that time shall come What 's the meaning of this that ever they are look'd upon as Offenders for following their Conscience whose Services have been acknowledged to be so great that they should never be forgotten It ought to teach Dissenters what they are to expect hereafter when they have served them so far by taking off the Tests and Penal Laws as to enable them with safety to remember all their former pretended Transgressions Let them assure themselves the Services of the Church of England are not now more certainly forgotten than the Sins of Dissenters will hereafter when they have got Power to punish them be most certainly remembred Be not drawn in then by deccitful Words to help forward your own Destruction If you will not be assistant to it they cannot do it alone and it will be very strange if you be perswaded to lend them your Help when the Deceit is so apparent For what are all the present Pleas for Liberty but so many infamous Libels upon the Roman Church which denies all Men this Liberty While they declaim so loudly against Persecution they most notoriously reproach Popery which subsists by nothing but Deceit and Cruelty And who can think that they would suffer their Church to be so exposed and reviled as it is by such Discourses but with a Design to cheat heedless People into its Obedience For this end they can hear it proved nay prove it themselves to be an Antichristian Church when they prove it is against Christianity nay against the Law of Nature and Common Reason to trouble any Body for his Opinion in Religion X. Once more then I beseech you be not deceived by good Words if you love your Liberty and your Life Call to mind how our poor Brethren in France were lately deluded by the repeated Protestations which their King made he would observe the Edict of Nantes which was the Foundation of their Liberty even then when he was about to overthrow it and by many Assurances which were given them by those who came to torment them that the King intended to eform the Church of France as soon as he had united his Subjects What he had done already against the Court of Rome told them they was an Instance of it and they should shortly see other Matters Such ensnaring Words they heard there daily from the Mouths of their armed Prosecutors who were ready to fall upon them or had begun to oppress them And therefore they would be arrant Fools here if they did not give good words when they have no Power to hurt us But we shall be far greater Fools if we believe they will keep their Word when they have got that Power the greatest of all Fools if we give them that Power They have no other way but this to wheedle us out of our Laws and Liberties Do but surrender the one I mean our Laws and they will soon take away the other our beloved Liberties Be not tempted to make such a dangerous Experiment but let the Laws stand as they are because they are against them as appears by their earnest Endeavours to repeal them and be not used as Tools to take them away because they have been grievous to you They never can be so again For can they who now Court you have