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 〈…〉 ll who do's 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 goodwill to Protestant Dissenters And tho 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 perswasion 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 administred by any of them shall ever tempt me to say they deserve it or cause me to ravel into their former and past carriages so as to fasten a blott or imputation upon the party or body of them whatsoever I may be forced to do as to particular persons among them For as to the generality I do believe them to be as honest industrious useful and vertuous a people tho many of them be none of the wisest nor of the greatest pr 〈…〉 spect as any party of men in the Kingdo 〈…〉 and that wherein soever their carriage eve 〈…〉 abstracting from their differences with thei 〈…〉 fellow Protestants in matters of Religion hath varied from that of other Subjects they have been in the Right and have acte 〈…〉 most agreeably to the interest safety of th 〈…〉 Kingdom But it can be no reflection upo 〈…〉 them to recall into their memories tha 〈…〉 the whole tenor of the Kings actings towards them both when Duke of York and since he came to the Crown hath been such 〈◊〉 might render it beyond dispute that the 〈…〉 are so far from having any singular room i 〈…〉 his favour that he bears them neither pit 〈…〉 nor compassion but that they are the objects of his unchangeable indignation Fo 〈…〉 not to mention how the persecutions tha 〈…〉 were observed alway's to relent both upon his being at any distance from the late Kingâ— and upon the abatement of his influence 〈◊〉 any time into Counsels were constantl 〈…〉 revived upon his return to Court and wer 〈…〉 carried on in degrees of severity proportionable to the figure he made at Whitehall an 〈…〉 his Brothers disposedness and inclination t 〈…〉 hearken to him surely their memories can not be so weak and untenacious but the 〈…〉 must remember how their sufferings wer 〈…〉 never greater nor the Laws executed wit 〈…〉 more severity upon them than since hi 〈…〉 Majesty came to ascend the Throne As it is no 〈…〉 many years since he said publickly in Scotland that it were well if all that part of th 〈…〉 Kingdom which is above half of the Nation where the Dissenters were known t 〈…〉 be most numerous were turned into a hunti 〈…〉 field so none were favoured and promote 〈…〉 either there or in England but such as wer 〈…〉 taken to be the most fierce and violent of a 〈…〉 others against Fanaticks Nor were me preferred either in Church or State for the learning vertu ' or merit but for the passionate heats and brutal rigours to Dissenters And whereas the Papists from the ve 〈…〉 first day of his arrival at the Governmen 〈…〉 had beside many other marks of his Grac 〈…〉 〈…〉 s special Testimony of it of not having 〈…〉 e penal Statutes to which they stood liable 〈…〉 t in execution against them all the Laws 〈◊〉 which the Dissenters were obnoxious â—ere by his Majesties Orders to the Judges 〈…〉 stices of the peace and all other Officers 〈…〉 vil and Ecclesiastical most unmercifully exe 〈…〉 ted Nor was there the least talk of lenity Dissenters till the King found that he 〈…〉 uld not compass his Ends by the Church of 〈…〉 gland and prevail upon the Parliament 〈…〉 r Repealing the Tests and cancelling the 〈…〉 her Laws in force against Papists which if 〈…〉 ey could have been wrought over unto 〈…〉 e Fanaticks would not only have been left 〈…〉 ttiless and continued in the hands of the 〈…〉 rious Church-men to exercise their spleen 〈…〉 pon but would have been surrendred as a 〈…〉 crifice to new flames of wrath if they of 〈…〉 e prelatical Communion had retained 〈…〉 eir wonted animosity and thought it for 〈…〉 eir interest to exert it either in the old or 〈◊〉 fresh method's But that project not sucâ—eeding his Majesty is forced to shift hands 〈…〉 d to use the pretence of extending comâ—assion to Dissenting Protestants that he may â—he more plausibly and with the less hazard â—â—spend and disable the Laws against Papists â—nd make way for their admission into all â—ffices Civil and Military which is the first 〈…〉 ep and all that he is yet in a condition to 〈…〉 ke for the subversion of our Religion And â—ll the celebrated kindness to Fanaticks is â—nly to use them as the Catt's paw for â—ulling the Chesnut out of the fire to the Monkey and to make them stales under whose â—hroud and covert the Church of Rome may undermine and subvert all the legal foundations of our Religion which to suffer themselves to be instrumental in will not in the issue turn to the commendation of the Dissenters wisdom or their honesty Nor is there more truth in the Kings declaring it to have been his constant opinion that conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters of meer Religion than there is of justice in that malicious insinuation in his Letter to Mr. Alsop against the Church of England that should he see cause to change his Religion he should never be of that 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 forasmuch as he
Scots â—roclamation for the stopping disabling and 〈…〉 spensing with such and such Laws as are 〈…〉 ere referred unto and for the granting 〈…〉 e toleration with the other liberties immuâ—â—ties and Rights there mentioned is more 〈…〉 an sufficient to set the point we are disâ—oursing beyond all possibility of rational â—ontrol As 't is one and the same Kind â—f Authority that is claimed over the Laws â—nd Subjects of both Kingdoms tho for some â—ertain reasons it be more modestly desigâ—ed and expressed in the Declaration for a â—iberty in England than it is in the Proclamaâ—ion for a Toleration in Scotland so the utmost that the Czar of Mosco the great Moâ—ull 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 〈◊〉 pitch above what any of the ancient or modern Tyrants ever dream't 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 â—eer 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 Maj. who glories to imitate that forraign 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 Scotts 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 setled on the Crown and appertaining to the Royal Office nor can the Supream Magistrature 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 Customes 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 Priviledges they Reserved unto themselves and what Authority and Jurisdiction they delegated and made over unto the Soveraign 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 thro 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 Mercinary Lawyers or Sycophant Clergy-men in cases wherein the Parliament have by their Votes and Resolutions setled its boundaries is a crime that deserves the severest animadversion and which it is to be hop'd 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 medling 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 Fortescue say's 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 at by a power that is pâ—litical in that he is bound to Rule by the Lawsâ— which the people themselves chuse and Enact Anâ— both Bracton and Fleta tell us that Rex Angliae habet superiores viz. legem per quam factus est Rex ac Comites Barones qui debent â—i fraenum ponere the King of England hath for Superiors both the Law by whi 〈…〉 he is constituted King and which is the measur 〈…〉 of his Governing Power and the Parliament whicâ— is to restrain him if he do amiss And thereupon we have not only that other saying of Bracton that nihil aliud potest Rex nisi id solum quod jure potest the King can do nothing but whaâ— he can do by law but we have that famous passage in our Parlament Rolls non est ulla Regis prerogativa quae ex justitiâ 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 St 〈…〉 tutes declared all dispensations by the King from Laws and enjoined Oaths to be null and void and not admittable by the Iudges 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
these being â—incible to a person of an ardent love to God â—nd of a lively faith in Jesus Christ and which accordingly many thousands have been â—riumphantly victorious over Nor is it likely that this new and uncouth phrase of â—ot using an invincible nec 〈…〉 would have found room in a Paper of that nature if it had not been first to counceal some malicious and mischievous design and then to justify 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 meer matters of Religion would obliege him to act uniformly and with an equal extention of favour to all his Subjects whose principles are the same and against whom he hath no exception but in matters meerly 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 sâ—bserviency 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 meer Religion and a founding it upon an internal quality of the mind that is not discernable but it implyes the reserving a liberty to himself of withdrawing the benefits of it from all Scots Dissenters thro fastning 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 signify 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 alienate the bearâ—s 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 exercise of his Absolute power against all deadly Nor is it difficult to assign the reason of the difformity that appears in His Majesties present Actings towards his dissenting Protestanâ— 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 â—ssue 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 thro 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 joining in fellowship with those of the Separate and dissenting Societies Upon the whole this different method of proceeding towards Dissenting Protestants in matters meerly 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 〈◊〉 that Heresie which hath born sway so long 〈◊〉 this Northern part of the world but they wiâ—â— also see and feel how much of the desig 〈…〉 of Rome was represented in that passage 〈◊〉 the Popes Nuncio's Letter dated at Bruxel 〈…〉 Aug. 9. 1674. wherein upon the confidencâ— which they placed in the Duke of York whicâ— is not lessened since he came to the Crown he takes the confidence to write that theâ— hop'd speedily to see the total and final ruin 〈◊〉 the Protestant Party And as Protestant Dissenters have no secu rity by the Declaration and Proclamation foâ— the continuance of their Liberty so theâ— that have by way of thanksgiving Addresseâ— to the King for those Royal Papers have noâ— 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 puâ—sued a different interest from that of the People and Community As he who Ruleth according to the standing Laws of a Countrey 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
REPRESENTATION Of The Threatning Dangers Impending Over PROTESTANTS In GREAT BRITTAIN 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 Neque enim satis amarint bonos Principes qui malos satis non oderint Plin. in Panegyr c. 53. Sedem obtinet Principis ue sit Domino locus id ibid. c. 55. Tantum tibi licet quantum per leges licebit Pacat. ad Theodos. August 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 to overthrow and subvert it where it hath obtained and prevailed For beside the innumerable Executions and Murders committed by means of the Inquisition to crush and stiffle the Reformed Religion in its rise and birth and to prevent its succeeding and settlement in Spain Italy and many other Territories there is no Kingdom or State where it hath so far prevailed as to come to be universally received and legally established but it hath been through strange and wonderful conflicts with the rage and malice of the Church of Rome The Persecutions which the Primitive Christians underwent by vertu ' of the Edicts of the Pagan Emperoâ—s were not more sanguinary and cruel than what through the Laws and Ordinances of Popish Princes have been inflicted upon those who have testified against the Heresies Superstitions and Idolatries and have withdrawn from the Communion of the Papal Church Nor were the Martyrs that suffered for the Testimony of Jesus against Heathenism either more numerous or worthier of esteem for vertu ' Iustice and Piety than they who have been slaughtered upon no other pretence but for Endeavouring to restore the Christian Religion to the simplicity and purity of its Divine and first Institution and to recover it from the corruptions wherewith it was become universally tainted in Doctrine Worship and Discipline How have all the Nations in Europe been soak't with the Blood of Saints through the Barbarous Rage of Popish Rulers whom the Roman Bishops and Clergy stirred up and instigated in order to support themselves in their secular grandure and in their Tyranny over the Consciences of men and to keep the World in Slavery under Ignorance Errors Superstition and Idolatry which the reducing Christianity again to the Rule of the Gospel would have redeemed mankind from and been an effectual means to have dissipated and subverted They of the Roman Communion having strangely corrupted the Christian Religion in its Faith Worship and Discipline and having prodigiously altered it from what it was in the Doctrines and Institutions of our Saviour and his Apostles they found no other way whereby to sustain their Errors and Corruptions and to preserve themselves in the possession of that Empire which they had usurped over Conscience and in the enjoyment of the Wealth and secular Greatness which by working upon the Ignorance Superstition Lusts and Prophanness of People they had skrewed and wound themselves into but by adjudging all who durst detect or oppose them to fire and Sword or to miseries to which Death in its worst shape were preferrable Nor have they for the better obstructing the growth and compassing the Extirpation of the Reformed Religion omitted either the Arts and Subtlities of Julian or the Fury and Violence of Galâ—rius and Diâ—cletian Whosoever hath not observed the Craft and Rage that have been employed and exerted against Protestants for these 170. Years must have been very little Conversant in Histories and strangely overlook't the conduct of affaires in the World and the Transactions in Churches and States during their own time And tho the Papists do not think it fit to put their Maxim's for preserving the Catholick Religion and converting Hereticks in Execution at all times and in every place yet some of their Writers are so ingenuous as to tell us the reason of it and that they do not forbear it upon Principles of Christianity or good Nature but upon motives of Policy and Fear lest the cutting one of our Throats might endanger two of their own However they have been careful not to suffer a period of twenty years to elapse since the beginning of the Reformation without affording us in some place or another renewed evidences of Papal Charity and of the Roman method of hindring the growth of Heresie either by a Massacre War or Persecution begun and executed upon no other account or provocation but meerly that of our Religion and because we cannot believe and practice in the matters of God as they do And having obtained of late great Advantages for the pursuing their malice against us more boldly and avowedly than at an other Season and that not only through a strange concurrence and conjunction of Princes in the Papal Communion who are more intoxicated with their Superstitions and Idolatries or less wise merciful and humane than some of their Predecessors of that Fellowship were but through having obtained a Prince intirely devoted unto them under the implicit guidance of their Priests to be advanced unto a Throne where such sometime used to sit as were the Terror of Rome the Safeguard of the Reformed Religion and the Sanctuary of oppresed Protestants they have thereupon both assumed a Courage of stirring up new and unpresidented Persecutions in divers places against the most useful best and loyallest of Subjects upon no other charge or Allegation but for dissenting from the Tridentine Faith and denying Subjection to the Tripple Crown and are raised into a Confidence of wholly Extirpating Protestancy and of reestablishing the Papal Tyrannies and Superstition in the several Countries whence they had been expelled or stood so depressed and discountenanced as that the Votaries and Partizans of their Church had not the Sway and Domination Nor need we any other conviction both of their Design and of their Confidence of Succeeding in it than what they have already done continue to pursue in France Hungary and Piedmont wheretheir prospering to such a degree in their Cruel and Barbarous Attempts not only gives them boldness of entertaining thoughts of taking the like Methods and Acting by the same measures in all places where they find Rulers at their beck and under their Influence but to unite and provoke all Popish Monarchs to enter into a holy War against Protestants every where that by Conquering and Subduing those States and Kingdoms where the Reformed Religion is received and established they may extirpate it out of the World under the Notion of the Northern Heresie If principles of humanity Maxim's of Interest Rules of Policy Obligations of Gratitude Ties of Royal and Princely Faith or the repeated Promises Oaths Edicts and Declarations of Soveraigns could have been a Security to Protestants for the Profession of their Faith and Exercise of their Worship in the forementioned Territories and Dominions they had all
carrying on the fire is but earnest in respect of what is designed farther to be payd them for the having been the great supporters of that war both by continued Recruites of men and repeated Supplies of treasure Tho it was Queen Mary's misfortune and proved the misery of Protestants that she was under the influence of popish Bishops and of Religious of several Orders by whom she was whetted on and provoked to those barbarities where-with her Reign is stained and reproached yet she had no Iesuites about her to whom all the other Orders are but punies in the arts of wheedling and frighting Princes forward to cruelty The Society being then but in its infancy and the distance between its Institution which wasin the year 1540. and the time of her coming to the Crown which was anno 1553. not affording season enough for their spreading so far abroad as they have since done nor for the perfecting themselves to that degree in the methods of butchery and in the Topicks whereby to delude Monarchs to serve and promote their sanguinary passions as they have in process of time attained unto Nor have the Protestants now any security for their Religion whereby it or themselves may be preserved from the attempts of his Majesty for the extirpation of both but what our Predecessors in the same faith had in the like kind tho not to the same measure and degree when Queen Mary arrived at the Throne For tho our Religion was of late Fenced about with more Laws and we had Royal promises oftner repeated for the having 〈◊〉 preserved and our selves protected in the Profession of it yet it is certain that it had not only received a legal establishment under King Edward the VI but had the Royal Faith of Queen Mary laid to pledg in a promise made to the men of Suffolk that nothing should be done towards its subversion or whereby they might be hindred in the free exercise of it But as neither Law nor promise could prove restraints upon Mary to hinder her from subverting Religion and burning Protestants so the obligation of gratitude that she was under to the men of Suffolk for their coming in so seasonably to her assistance against the Duke of Northumberland who was in the field with an Army in the name of the lady Jean Gray whom the Council had proclaimed Queen could not excuse them from sharing in the severity that others met with it being observed that more of that County were burnt for Religion than of any other Shire in England And 't is greatly to be feared that this piece of her example will not escape being conformed unto by the King in his carriage towards those that eminently served him as well as all the rest of it in his behaviour towards Protestants in general Nor is it possible to conceive that the Papists living at that ease and quietness which they did under his late Majesty of whose being of their Religion they were not ignorant as appears by the proofs they have wouchsav'd the world of it since his death would have been in so many plots for destroying him and at last have hastned him to his Fathers as can be demonstrated whensoever it is seasonable had they not been assured of more to be attempted by his Successor for the extirpation of Protestants than Charles could be wrought up unto or prevailed upon to expose his person and Crown to the danger and hazard of For as 't is not meerly a Princes being a Papist and mild gentle and favorable to Catholicks that will content the fiery zealots of the Roman Clergy and the Regular Orders but he must both gratify their ambition in exalting them to a condition above all others and serve their inhuman lusts and brutal passions in not suffering any to live in his Dominions that will not renounce the Northern Heresie so it is not more i 〈…〉 edible that they should dispatch a Prince by an infusion in a cup of Tea or Chocolate whom tho they knew to be a Papist yet they found too cold slow in promoting their designs than that they should have murder'd another by a consecrated dagger in the hand of Ravailac the one being both more easie to be detected and likelier to derive an universal hatred and revenge upon them than the other And as the Kings being conscious of that parriciâ—â— committed upon his Brother plainly tells us that there is nothing so abominable and Barbarous which he hath not a conscience that will swallow and digest so the promotion of the Catholick cause being the motive to that horrid crime we may be sure that what is hitherto done in favour of Papists falls much short of what is intended there being something more meritorious than all this amounts unto needful to attone for so barbarous a villany which can be nothing else but the extripating the protestant Religion out of the three Kingdoms Nor is it probable that the present King who is represented for a person ambitious of Glory would lose the opportunities wherewith the present posture of affaires in the world presents him of being the Umpire and Arbiter of Christendom and of giving check to the grandure and usurpations of a neighbouring Monarch to whom all Europe is in danger of becoming enslaved if he were not swallowed up in the thoughts of a conquest over the Consciences Laws and liberties of his own people and of subjugating his Dominions to the Sea of Rome and had he not hopes and assurances of aid and assistance therein from that Monarch as he is emboldned and encouraged thereunto by his pattern and example What the Papists have all along been endeavouring for the subversion of our Religion during and under the Reigns of Protestans Princes may yet farther inform and confirm us what they will infallibly attempt upon their having gotten one into the Throne who is not only in all things of theâ—â—â—n faith but of an humour agreeable unto their desires and of a temper every way suited and adapted to their designes Tho the protestant Religion had obtained some entrance into several States and Kingdoms and had made some considerable spread in Europe before it came to be generally received and established upon foundations of Law in England yet they of other Countries were little able to defend themselves from the power and malice of the Church of Rome and of Popish Princes and many of them were very unsucceful in endeavours of that nature till England in Queen Elizabeths time by espousing their cause and undertaking their Quarrel not only wrought out their safety but made them flourish This the Court of Rome and the Priests grew immediately sensible of and have therefore moulded all their Counsels ever since against England as being both the Bulwark of the protestant Religion and the Ballance of Europe All the late attempts for the extirpation of the protestant Religion in France and elsewhere are much to be ascribed to the confidence the Papists had
is in â—â—e mean time a member of the most persecuting and bloody Society that ever was cloathed with the name of a Church and whose cruelty towards Protestants he is careful not to arraign by fastning his offence at severity upon differences in smaller matters which he knows that those between Rome and us are not nor so accounted of by any of the papal Fellowship It were to be wished that the Dissenters would reflect and consider how when the late King had emitted a Declaration of Indulgence anno 1672. upon pretended motives of tenderness and compassion to his Protestant Subjects but in truth to keep all quiet at home when in conjunction with France he was engaging in an unjust war against a Reformed State abroad and in order to steal a liberty for the Papists to practice their Idolatries without incurring a suspition himself of being of the Romish Religion and in hope to wind up the prerogative to a paramount power over the law and how when the Parliament condemned the illegality of it and would have the Declaration recalled all his Kindness to Dissenters not only immediately vanished but turned into that Rage and fury that tho both that Parliament addressed for some favour to be shew'd them and another voted it a betraying of the Pretestant Religion to continue the execution of the penal laws upon them yet instead of their having any mercy or moderation exercised towards them they were thrown into a Furnace made seven times hotter than that wherein they had been scorched before And without pretending to be a Prophet I dare prognosticate and foretel that whensoever the present King hath compassed the Ends unto which this Declaration is designed to be subservient namely the placing the Papists both in the open exercise of their Religion and in all publick Offices and Trusts and the getting a power to be acknowledged vested in him over the Laws that then instead of the still voice calmly whispered from Whitehall they will both hear and feel the blasts of a mighty rushing wind and 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 supiness 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 confirmed 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 quickned 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 Kings 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 regulat 〈…〉 by Laws and not to be exercised accoâ—ding to meer will and pleasure was th 〈…〉 which he could not digest the though 〈…〉 of when a Subject and had been hea 〈…〉 to say that he had rather Reign a day in th 〈…〉 absoluteness that the French King doth th 〈…〉 an Age tied up and restrained by Rules as 〈…〉 Brother did And therefore to persuade t 〈…〉 Prince of Orange to approve what He h 〈…〉 done in dispensing with the Laws and 〈…〉 obtain Him and the Princess to join wi 〈…〉 his Majesty and to employ their inter 〈…〉 in the Kingdom for the Repealing the T 〈…〉 Acts and the many other Statutes ma 〈…〉 against Roman Catholicks he used this Argâ—ment in a Message he sent to their Roy 〈…〉 Highnesses upon that errand that the ge 〈…〉 ting it done would be greatly to the aâ—vantage and for the increase of the prorog 〈…〉 tive but this these two noble Prince 〈…〉 of whose ascent to the Throne all Prâ—testants have so near and comfortable prospect were too generous as well 〈…〉 wise to be wheedled with as knowin 〈…〉 that the Authority of the Kings and Quee 〈…〉 of England is great enough by the Rul 〈…〉 of the Constitution without grasping at new prerogative power which as the La 〈…〉 have not vested in them so it would b 〈…〉 of no use but to inable them to do hur 〈…〉 And indeed it is more necessary both fo 〈…〉 the honor and safety of the Monarch an 〈…〉 for the freedom and security of the peopl 〈…〉 that the prerogative should be confined withi 〈…〉 its ancient and legal Channels than be left t 〈…〉 that illimited and unbounded latitude whic 〈…〉 the late King and his present Majesty have eâ—deavoured to advance and screw it up unto 〈…〉 That both the Declaration for liberty of Coâ—science in England and the Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland are calculated for raâ—sing the Soveraign Authority to a transceâ—dent Power over the Laws of the two Kingdoms may be demonstrated from the Papers themselves which lay the Dispensin 〈…〉 Power before us in terms that import n 〈…〉 less than his Majesties standing free an 〈…〉 solved from all ties and restraints and 〈◊〉 being cloathed with a Right of doing â—hatsoever he will. For if the Stile of 〈…〉 yal Pleasure to suspend the execution of 〈…〉 ch and such Laws and to forbid such 〈…〉 d such Oaths to be required to be taken 〈…〉 d this in the virtu ' of no Authority decla 〈…〉 d by the Laws to be resident in his Ma 〈…〉 sty but in the virtu ' of a certain vagrant 〈…〉 d indeterminate thing called Royal prero 〈…〉 tive as the power exercised in the English â—eclaration is worded and expressed be not 〈…〉 ough to enlighten us sufficiently in the 〈…〉 atter before us the Stile of Absolute Power â—hich all the Subjects are to obey without reâ—â—rve whereby the King is pleased to chalk â—efore us the Authority exerted in the
in constant danger of being subvertedâ— and the Priviledges Liberties and Religion of the Subjects laid open to be overthrown And should such a power in Legislators be upon weak suspitions and il 〈…〉 grounded jealousies carried at any timâ— too far and some prove to be debarreâ— from Trusts whose being imployed woulâ— import no hazard yet the worst of that would be only a disrepect shewn to individual persons who might deserve more favour and esteem but could be of no prejudice to the Society there being alway's 〈◊〉 sufficient number of others fit for the discharge of all Offices in whom an entire confidence may be reposed And 't is remarkable that the States General of the Uniteâ— Provinces who afford the greatest Liberty to all Religions that any known State iâ— Europe giveth yet they suffer no Papists to come into places of Authority and Iudicature nor to bear any Office in the Republick thaâ— may either put them into a condition oâ— lay them under a temptation of attempting any thing to the prejudice of Religion oâ— for the betraying the Liberty of the Provinces And as 't is lawful for any Government to preclude all such persons from publick Trusts of whose enmity and ill will to the Establishment in Church or State they have either a moral certainty or just grounds of suspition so 't is no less lawful to provide Tests for their discovery and detection thaâ— they may not be able to mask and vizoâ— themselves in order to getting into Offices and thereupon of promoting and accomplishing their mischievous and malicious intentions Nor is it possible in such a case but that the Tests they are to be tried by must relate to some of those principles by which they are most eminently distinguished from them of the National Settlement and in reference whereunto they think it most piacular to dissemble their Opinion Nor have the Papists cause to be offended that the Renouncing the Belief of Transubstantiaâ—â—on should be required as the distinguishing â—ark whereby upon their refusal they may â—e discerned when all the penalty upon their â—eing known is only to be excluded from a â—â—are in the Legislation and not to be admitted â—o Employments of Trust and profit seeing it â—ath been and still is their custome to require â—he belief of the Corporal presence in the Sacraâ—ent as that upon the not acknowledgment whereof we are to be accounted Hereticks â—nd to stand condemned to be burnt which is â—omewhat worse than the not being allowed â—o sit in the two Houses of Parliament or â—o be shut out from a Civil or Military â—ffice Neither are they required to Declare â—uch less to Swear that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false or that there is no 〈…〉 ch thing as Transubstantiation as is affirmed 〈…〉 n a scurrilous Paper written against the Loyalty of the Church of England but all â—hat is enjoined in the Test Acts is that 〈◊〉 A. B. do declare that I do believe that there 〈◊〉 not any Transubstantiation in the Sacrament 〈◊〉 the Lords Supper or in the Elements of Bread â—nd Wine at or after the Consecration thereof by â—ny Person whatsoever Tho the Parliament â—as willing to use all the care they could for â—he discovering Papists that the provision for â—ur security unto which those Acts were deâ—igned might be the more effectual yet â—hey were not so void of understanding as â—o prescribe a Method for it which would â—ave exposed them to the world for their â—olly 'T is much different to say swear or â—eclare that I do believe there is not any Transubâ—â—antiation and the saying or declaring that â—here is not a Transubstantiation the former â—eing only expressive of what my sentiment or opinion is and not at all affecting the Doctrine it self to make or unmake it other â—han what it is independently upon my judgment of it whereas the latter does primaâ—ily Affect the Object and the determination of its existence to such a mode as I conceive â—t and there are a thousand things which I can say that I do not believe but I dare not say that they are not Now as 't is the dispensing with these Laws that argues the Kings assuming an Absolute Power so the Addressing by way of thanks for the Declaration wherein this Power is exerted is no less than an owning and acknowledging of it and that it rightfully belongs to him There is a third thing which shame or fear would not suffer them to put into the Declaration for liberty of Conscience in England but which they have had the impudence to insert into the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland which as it carries Absolute Power written in forehead of it so it is such an unpresidented exercise of Despoticalness as hardly any of the Oriental Tyrants or even the French Leviathan would have ventured upon For having stop't disabled and suspended all Laws enjoining any Oaths whereby our Religion was secured and the preservation of it to us and our posterity was provided for he imposeth a new Oath upon his Scots Subjects whereby they are to be bound to defend and mantain Him his Heirs and Lawful Successors in the Exercise of their Absolute Power and Authority against all deadly The imposing an Oath upon Subjects hath been always look't upon as the highest Act of legislative Authority in that it affects their Consciences and requires the approbation or disapprobation of their Minds and Judgments in reference to whatsoever it is enjoined for whereas a Law that affects only mens Estates may be submitted unto tho in the mean time they think that which is exacted of them to be unreasonable and unjust And as it concerns both the wisdom and justice of Law-givers to be very tender in Ordaining Oaths that are to be taken by Subjects and that not only from a care that they may not prostitute the name of God to prophanation when the matter about which they are imposed is either light and trival or dubious and uncertain but because it is an exercise of Jurisdiction over the Souls of men which is more than if it were only exercised over their Goods Bodies and Priviledges so never any of our Kings pretended to a Right of enjoining and requiring an Oath that was not first Enacted and specified in some Law and it would have been heretofore accounted a good plea for refusing such or such an Oath to say there was no Statute that had required it It was one of the Articles of high Treason and the most material charged upon the Earl of Strafford that being Lord Deputy of Ireland he required an Oath of the Scotts who inhabited there which no Law had ordained or prescribed which may make those Councellors who have advised the King to impose this new Oath as well as all others that shal require it to be taken upon his Majesties bare Authority to be a little apprehensive whether it may not at some time rise in judgment against them and prove a
hath hitherto passed for an undoubted Maxim that eorum est tollere quorum est condere they can only abrogate Laws who have Power and Authority to make them and we have heretofore been made believe that the Legislative power was not in the King alone but that the two Houses of Parliament had at least a share in it whereas here by the disabling and suspending Laws for ever the whole legislative Power is challenged to be vested in the King and at one dash the Government of England is subverted and changed Tho it hath been much disputed whether the King had a liberty of Refusing to Assent to Bills relating to the benefit of the publick that had passed the two Houses and if there be any sense in those words of the Coronation Oath of his being bound to Govern according to the Laws quas vulgus Elegerit he had not yet none till now that his Majesty doth it had the impudence to affirm that he might abrogate Laws without the concurrence and assent of the Lords and Commons For to say that Oaths enjoined by Laws to be required to be taken shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken is a plain Cancelling and repealing of these Laws or nothing of this World ever was or is nor can the wisdom of the Nation in Parliament assembled find words more emphatical to declare their Abrogation without saying so which at this time it was necessary to forbear for fear of allarming the Kingdom too far before his Majesty be sufficiently provided against it For admitting them to continue still in being and force tho the King may promise for the nonexecution of them during his own time which is even a pretty bold undertaking yet he cannot assure us that the Oaths shall not be required to be taken at any time hereafter unless he have provided for an eternal Line of popish Successors which God will not be so unmerciful as to plague us with or have gotten a lease of a longer life than Methusalah's which is much more than the full Century of years wished him in a late Dedication by one that stiles himself an Irishman a thing he might have foreborn telling us because the Size of his understanding fully declares it However here is such a stroke and exercise of Absolute Power as dissolves the Government and brings us all into a State of Nature by discharging us from the ties which by vertue of fundamental Stipulations and Statute Laws we formerly lay under forasmuch as we know no King but a King by Law nor no Power he has but a legal Power Which thro disclaiming by a challenge that the whole legislative Authority does reside in himself he hath thrown the Gantles to three Kingdoms and provokes them to a trial whether he be ablest to maintain his Absoluteness or they to justify their being a free People And by virtu ' of the same Royal will and pleasure that he annulls which he calls Suspending the Laws enjoining the Tests and the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and commands that none of these Oaths and Declarations shall at any time hereafter be required to be taken he may in some following Royal Papers give us whitehall or Hampton Court Edicts conformable to those at Versailles which at all times hereafter we shall be bound to submitt unto and stand obliged to be Ruled by instead of the Common Law and Statutâ— Book Nor is the taking upon him to stamp us new Laws exclusively of Parliamentary concurrence in the virtu ' of his Royal prerogative any thing more uncouth ' in it self or more dissagreeable to the Rules of the Constitution and what we have been constantly accustomed unto than the cassing disabling and abrogating so many old ones which that absolute out of date as well as ill favoured thing upon Monarchs called a Parliament had a share in the Enacting of I will not say that our Addressers were conscious that the getting an Absolute Power in his Majesty to be owned and acknowledged was one of the Ends for which the late Declaration was calculated and emitted but I think I have sufficiently demonstrated both that such a power it issueth and flows from and that such a power is plainly exercised in it Which whether there coming now to be told and made acquainted with it may make them repent what they have done or at least prevent their being accessory to the support of this Power in other mischievous effects that are to be dreaded from it I must leave to time to make the discovery it being impossible to foretel what a People fallen into a phrenzie may do in their paroxism's of distraction and madness Nor was the Seruing himself into the possession of an Absolute power and the getting it to be owned by at least a part of the people the only Motive to the publishing the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland but a second inducement thaâ— sway'd unto it was the undermining an subverting the Protestant Religion and the opening a door for the introduction and establâ—â—hment of Popery Nor was it from any compassion to Dissenters that these two Royaâ— Papers were emitted but from his Majestieâ— tender love to Papists to whom as there arise many advantages for the present so the whole Benefit will be found to redound to them in the issue We are told a◠〈…〉 ave already mentioned that the King is â—esolved to convert England or to die a Martyr â—nd we may be sure that if he did not think â—he suspending the penal Laws and the disâ—ensing with requiring of the Tests and the â—ranting Liberty and Toleration to be means admirably adapted thereunto he would not have acted so inconsistently with himself nor in that opposition to his own designes as to have disabled these Laws and vouch sav'd the Freedom that results thereupon Especially when we are told by the Leige Iesuite that the King being sensible of his growing old finds himself thereby obliged â—o make the greater hast and to take the larger steps lest thro not living long enough to effect what he intends he should not only lose the glory of converting three Kingdoms but should leave the Papists in a worse condition than he found them His Highness the Prince of Orange very justly concludes this â—o be the thing aim'd at by the present Indulgence and therefore being desired to approve the Suspension of the Test Acts and to cooperate with his Majesty for the obtaining their being Repealed was pleased to Answer â—hat while he was as well as prosesseth himself a Protestant he would not Act so unworthily as â—o betray the Protestant Religion which he necessarily must if he should do as he was desired Her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange has likewise the same apprehension of the tendency of the Toleration and Indulgence and therefore was pleased to say to some Scotts Ministers that did themselves the honor
â—xercising his Absolute Power in whatsoever Acts he pleaseth over his own Subjects wheâ—her after the French fashion in commanding them to turn Catholicks because he will â—ave it so or after the manner of the Grand â—eignior to require them to submit their Necks to the Bow string because he is jeaâ—ous of them or wants their Estates to pay â—is Janizaries The united Provinces are they whom he bore a particular spleen and indignation unto when he was a subject and upon whom he is now in the Throne he resolves not only to wreak all his old malice but by conquering and subduing them if he can to strengthen his Absoluteness over his own People and to pave his way for overthrowing the protestant Religion in great Brittain without lying open to the hazards that may otherwise attend and ensue upon the attempting of it And instead of expecting nothing from him but what may become a brave and generous Enemy they ought to remember the encouragement that he gave heretofore to two varlets to burn that part of their Fleet which belong'd to Amsterdam an action as ignominious as fraudulent and that might have been fatal to all the Provinces if thro a happy and seasonable detection and the apprehension of one of the miscreants it had not been prevented He knows that the States General are not only zealous assertors of the protestant Religion but alway's ready to afford a Sanctuary and a place of Refuge to those who being oppressed for the profession of it elsewhere are forced to forsake their own Countries and to seek for shelter and relief in other parts And as he is not unsensible how easie the withdrawment and flight is into these Provinces for such as are persecuted in his Dominions so he is aware that if multitudes and especially men of condition and Estates should for the avoiding his cruelty betake themselves thither that they would not be unthoughtful of all ways and means whereby they might Redeem their Country from Tyranny and restore themselves to the quiet enjoyment of their Estates and liberties at home But that which most enrages him is the Figure which the two Princes do make in that State of whose Succession to the Crown the Protestants in Brittain have so near a prospect and the Post which the Prince filleth in that Government so that he dare neither venture to difinherit 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 Scotts 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 embarque 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 subdu'd and enslaved As Philip the II. of Spain saw no way so compendious for the restoring himself to the Soveraignty and Tyrannous Rule over the Dutch as the subjugating of England that hel'p 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 Brittish Majesty thinks no method so expeditious for the enslaving his own People as the endeavouring 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 Brittain 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 hath 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 proceed 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 endeavoures to conceal its design and strives to compliment 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 drunk 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 stirr 〈…〉 up and incited as well as countenanced a 〈…〉 protected the Algerines in their Piracies th 〈…〉 thro their weakning and spoiling the Du 〈…〉 before hand it may be the more easie a maâ—ter for him to subdue them when he sh 〈…〉 think fit to begin his hostilities 'T is in oâ—der to this that he hath entred into neâ— and secret Alliances with other Princes thâ— purport of which is boldly talk't of in Loâ—don but whether believed at the Hague I caâ—not tell For as Monsr Barrillion and Monsâ— Bonrepos present Transactions at Whitehal relate to something else than meerly to the aâ—fair of Hudsons Bay so Prince Georges erranâ— to Denmark is of more importance than bare visite or a naked compliment to hiâ— Brother 'T is upon this design that all thaâ— great Marine preparation hath been so lonâ— making in the
several ports of England buâ— to the hindring the execution whereof somâ— unexpected and not foreseen accidents havâ— interposed And it is in subserviency not to be disquieted at home while he is carrying on this holy war abroad that the Declaratioâ— 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 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 tendernes or good will towards them his carriage since the issue of that war and the miserable condition he hath reduced them unto do's sufficiently testify 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 â—ar against the united Provinces Anno 1672. â—ot only forbore all proceedings of that kind â—ut published a Declaration for suspending the â—xecution of all those Laws and for the alâ—owing them liberty of Assembling to worâ—hip God in their separate meetings withâ—ut being hindred or disturbed What â—rinciple that proceeded from and to what â—nd it was calculated appeared in his behaâ—iour to them afterwards when neither the â—anger the Nation was in from the Papists â—or the application of several Parliaments â—ould prevail for lenity towards them much less for a legal Repeal of those impoâ—itick and unreasonable Statutes Nor does â—he present Indulgence flow from any kindness to Fanaticks but it is only an artifice to stiffe their discontents and to procure their assistance for the destroying of a Forraign Protestant State. And it may not be unworthy of observation that as the Declaration of Indulgenct 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 emitted his Declaration for liberty of Conscience there were Commissions of Reprisal prepared and ready to be grantrd to the English East India Company against the Hollanders but which were suppressed upon the Courts finding that they whom the suspending the Execution of so many Laws and the granting such liberties Rights and immunities to the Papists had disgusted and provoked were far more numerous and their resentments more to be apprehended than they were whose murmurings and discontents they had silenced and allay'd by the liberty that was granted Now as it will be at this juncture when the Protestant Interest is so low in the World and the Reformed Religion in so great danger of being destroyed a most wicked as well as an imprudent Act to contribute help and aid to the subjugating a people that are the chief Protectors of the protestant Religion that are left and almost the only Asserters of the Rights and liberties of Mankind so it may fill the Addressers with confusion and shame that they should have not only justified an Act of his Majestys that is plainly designed to such a mischievous End but that they should by the promises and vows that they have made him have emboldned his Majesty to continue his purposes and Resolutions of a war against the Dutch. Which as it must be funestous and fatal to the Protestant Cause in case he should prosper and succeed so howsoever it should issue yet the Addressers who have done what in them lyes to give encouragement unto it will be held betrayers of the Protestant Religion both abroad and at home and judged guilty of all the blood of those of the same Faith with them that shall be shed in this Quarrel That Liberty ought to be allowed to men in matters of Religion is no Plea whereby the Kings giving it in an illegal and Arbitrary manner can be maintained and justified Since ever I was capable of Exercising any distinct and coherent Acts of Reason I have been alway's of that Mind that none ought to be persecuted for their Consciences towards God in matters of Faith and Worship Nor is it one of those things that lye under the power of the Soveraign and Legislative Authority to grant or not to grant but it is a Right setled upon mankind antecedent to all Civil Constitutions and Humane Laws having its foundation in the Law of Nature which no Prince or State can legitimately violate and infringe The Magistrate as a Civil Officer can pretend or claim no power over a people but what he either derives from the Divine Charter wherein God the Supream Instituter of Magistracy has chalk't out the duty of Rulers in general or what the people upon the first and original Stipulation are supposed to have given him in order to the protection peace and prosperity of the Society But as it does no where appear that God hath given any such power to Governors seeing all the Revelations in the Scripture as well as all the Dictates of Nature speak a contrary language so neither can the People upon their chusing such a one to be their Ruler be imagined to transferr and vest such a power in him for as much as they cannot divest themselves of a power no more than of a Right of believing things as they arrive with a credibility to their several and respective Understandings As it is in no mans power to believe as he will but only as he sees cause so it is the most irrational imagination in the world to think they should transferr a Right to him whom they have chosen to Govern them of punishing them for what it is not in their power to help Nor can any thing be plainer than that God has reserved the Empire over Conscience to himself and that he hath circumscribed the power of all humane Governore to things of a civil and inferior nature And had God convey'd a Right unto Magistrates of commanding men to be of this or that Religion and that because they are so and will have others to be of their mind it would follow that the People may conform to whatsoever they require tho by all the lights of sense Reason and Revelation they are convinced of the falsehood of it seeing whatsoever the Soveraign rightfully Commands the Subjects may lawfully obey But tho the persecuting people for matters of meer Religion be repugnant to the light of Nature inconsistent with the fundamental Maximes of Reason directly contrary to the temper and genious as well as to the Rules of the Gospel and not only against the safety and interest of Civil Societies but of a tendency to fill them with confusion and to arm Subjects
temper or upon his Religion they might now know hand gratuitam in tanta superbia comitatem that a person of his pride would not stoop to such flattery as his Letter to Mr. Alsop expresseth but in order to some design But what need other proof of the fallaciousness of the two Royal Papers and that no Protestants can reasonably depend upon the Royal Word there laid to pledg for the continuation of their Liberty but to look into these two Papers themselves where we shall meet expressions that may both detract from our belief of His Majesties sincerity and awaken us to a just jealousie that the Liberty and Toleration granted by them are intended to be of no long standing and duration For while He is pleased to tell us that the granting His Subjects the free use of their Religion for the time to come is an addition to the perfect enjoyment of their property which has never been invaded by His Majesty since his coming to the Crown he doth in effect say that His Fidelity Truth and Integrity in what he grants in reference to Religion is to be measured and judged by the verity that is in what He tells us as to the never having invaded our property And that I may borrow an expression from Mr. Alsop and to no less a person than to the King himself namely that tho we pretend to no refined intellectualls nor presume to philosophise upon Mysteries of Government yet we make some pretence to the sense of feeling and whatever our dulness be can discern between what is exacted of us according to Law and what we are rob'd of by an exercise of Arbitrary Power For not to sist upon the violent seisure of mens Goods by Officers as well as Souldiers in all parts of England which looks like an invasion upon the properties of the Subject nor to dwell upon his keeping an Army on foot in time of peace against the Authority as well as without the countenance of Law which our Ancestors would have stiled an Invasion upon the whole property of the Kingdom I would sain know by what name we are to call his levying the customs and the Additional Excise before they were granted unto him by the Parliament all the legal establishment of them upon the nation having been only during the late Kings life till the settlement of them upon the Crown was again renewed by Statute It were also worth his Majesties telling us what Titles are due to the suspending the vice Chancellor of Cambridg a beneficio and the turning the President of Maudlins in Oxford out of his Headship and the suspending Dr. Fairsax from his Fellowship if they be not an Invasion upon our property seeing every part of this is against all the known Laws of the Kingdom and hath been done by no legal Court but by a Set of mercinary 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 robb us of ours Rights and Priviledges at the meer 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 hithero 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 Debtor from paying their Creditors and of acquitting 〈◊〉 from being sued and imprisoned in case of no 〈…〉 payment and yet in defiance of all Law and to the subverting the Rights of the peo 〈…〉 ple and the most essential Priviledg and I 〈…〉 risdiction of Parliaments and to a plain chan 〈…〉 ging the ancient legal Constition into an Absolute and Despotical Governing Power the King they say is assuming to himself a 〈…〉 Authority both of imposing a Tax of five pound per annum upon every Hackney Coach and of Releasing and discharging all Debtors of whom their Creditors cannot claim and demand above ten pound Sterling which as they will be signal Invasions upon property and leaâ—ing Cases for the raising money in what other instances he pleaseth by a Hampâ—on Courâ— 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 Predecessors 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 denyed the liberty of our Religion than we have had for preserving our Property from being Invaded and broken in upon We may subjoin 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 may and manner so they are to take special care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways â—end 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 inserted there for any other End but thâ—◠〈…〉 on a plea of their having abused his Gra 〈…〉 us Indulgence to the alienating the hearts of 〈◊〉 his people from him they may be adjud 〈…〉 d to have thereby deservedly forfeited 〈…〉 th all the benefits of it and of his Royal 〈…〉 our Nor is it possible for a Protestant 〈…〉 nister to preach one Sermon which a 〈…〉 ish Critick or a Romish Bigot may not 〈…〉 ily misconstrue and pervert to be an 〈…〉 enation of the peoples hearts from the Kings 〈…〉 son and Government And of which as we 〈…〉 ve heard many late Examples in France so 〈◊〉 will be easie to draw them into president 〈…〉 d to imitate them in England I might add 〈…〉 e observation of the ingenious Author of 〈…〉 e Reflections on his Majesties Proclamation for 〈◊〉 Toleration in Scotland namely that where 〈…〉 s the King gives all assurance to his Scotts â—ubjects that he will not use invincible necessity â—gainst any man on the account of his perâ—uasion he does thereby leave himself at a liâ—erty of Dragooning torturing burning and â—oing the utmost violences all
sincerity from 〈…〉 at noble principle that conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters of meer Religion as he would delude weak and easie people to believe and had not all his Arbitrary and illegal proceedings in granting Liberty to Dissenting Protestants been to subserve and promote other designes which it is not yet seasonable and convenient to discover and avow he would have then acted with that conformity to the Principle he professeth to be under the influence and Government of and with that consonancy and harmonious agreeableness in all the degrees of Indulgence vouchsased to those of the Reformed Religion in England and Scotland that differ from them of the established way that there would have needed no second Proclamation apporting new measures of Liberty and favour to Scotts Dissenters seeing they would have had it granted them at first in the same latitude and illimitedness that it was bestowed upon the English nonconformists But when Princes carry on and pursue mischievous designes under the palliations of Religion publick good and the Right of Mankind it comes often to pass thro adapting their methods to what they mean and intend and not to what they pretend and give out that their crafty projections by being not sufficiently accommodated to their purposes prove ineffectual to the compassing what was aim'd at and this forceth them to a new game of falsehood and subtilety but still under the old varnish and gloss and obligeth them to have recourse to means that may be more proportioned than the former were for their reaching the End that they ubtimately drive at Thence it is that those Rulers who are engaged in the prosecution of wicked and unjustifiable designes are necessitated not only to apply themselves to opposite Methods towards different parties and those such as must be suited and apportioned to their discrepant interests without the accommodating of which they can neither hope to mould them to that tame and servile compliance nor work them up to that active and vigorous abetting of their malicious and crasty projections as is necessary for the rendring them succesful but they are forced to vary their proceedings towards one and the same Party and that as well when the ways they have acted in towards them are found inadequate to the End unto which they were calculated as when the mischief hid under them comes to be too soon discovered This weak and short-sighted people fancy to arise from an uncertainty in Princes councels and from their being at no consistency with themselves but they who can penetrate into affairs and that do consider things more narrowly can easily discern that all this variation diversity and shifting of methods in Rulers actings proceed from other causes and that it is their stability and perseverance in an illegal and wicked design that compels them to those crooked and contrary Courses either for the gaining the unwary and ill applyed concurrence of their Subjects to the hastning distress and desolation upon themselves or for the throwing them into that lethargy and under that supiness as may hinder them from all endeavours of obstructing and diverting the evils that their Governours are seeking to bring upon them Nor is there a more certain indication of a Princes being engaged in a design contrary to the good and happiness of the Society over which he is set than his betaking himself to illegal ways upon pretence of promoting the ease and benefit of his people or according as he finds his Subjects to differ in their particular interests his applying himself to them in methods whereof the contrariety of the one to the other renders them the more proper and adapted to ensnare the divided factions thro accosting each of them with something that they are severally fond of Legal means are always sufficient to the pursuing and compassing legal Ends and whatsoever is for the general good of the Community may either be obtained by courses wherein the generallity find their united interest and common felicity or else by application to a Parliament freely and duly chosen which as it represents the whole politick Society so there may be expected most compassion and tenderness as well as wisdom and prudence for redressing the grievances easing the troubles and providing for the benefit and safety of all that are wrapt up in and represented by them And as every Prince who sincerely seeks and pursues the advantage of his People will so adjust and attemper all his actions towards them that his whole carriage shall be uniform and all the exercises of his Governing power meet in the benefit of the Community as so many lines from a circumserence uniting in their Centre so there needs no other proof that these two or three late Actions of His Majesty which a foolish sort of men are apt to interpret for favours and to account them effects of compassion and kindness are but to conceal his malice and to subserve as well as cover some fatal and pernicious design that he is carrying on against his Protestant Subjects than that while he is gratifying a few of them in one thing he is at the same time robbing all of them of many and that while he is indulging the Dissenters with a Freedom from the penal Laws for matters of Religion he is invading the properties and subverting the Civil Rights of the three Nations and changing the whole Constitution of the Government He that strips us of what belongs unto us as we are English and Scotts men cannot mean honestly in the savours he pretends to vouchsafe us as we are Christians nor can he that is endeavouring to enslave our persons and to subject our Estates to his Arbitrary lust and pleasure intend any thing else by this kindness granted to Fanaticks in matters of Religion than the dividing them from the rest of the People in what concerns the Civil Interest and external happiness of the Community and to render them an engaged Faction to assist and abet him in enthralling the Kingdoms Whosoever considers the whole Tenor of his Majesties other Actings in proroguing and dissolving Parliaments when he finds them uncompliant with his 〈…〉 pish and despotical Ends his keeping on 〈…〉 ot a formidable Arâ—â— against all the 〈…〉 aws of the Land and upon no other in 〈…〉 ention but to maintain him in his Usurpa 〈…〉 on s over our Rights and to awe us into 〈…〉 tame and servile submission to his Preroga 〈…〉 ve will His filling all places of Judicature â—ith weak as well as Treacherous persons who instead of administring Justice may be â—he Instruments of Tyranny his robbing men of their Estates by judicial forms and under â—retence that nullum tempus occurris Râ—gi after they have been quietly enjoyed by the Subjects for several hundred years his advanâ—ing none to Civil or Military Employs but whom he hath some confidence in as to the finding them ready to execute his despotical â—njunctions and his esteeming no persons