to permit them to cover their memories with shame and infamy it is to assist them in a conduct that renders them odious to mankind and consequently to oppose their disorders is to wish them well and to do them good Was it ill taken that the Dauphin Charles who was afterwards King of France under the Name of Charles VII made a Campaign with a considerable Army against his Father Charles VI. and that he opposed a Government that exposed the state to ruin and threatned the Kingdom with utter destruction and because Charles did not bear to his Father a base compliance by leaving him and his Ministers to commit what mischiefs they pleased had Charles reason to disinherit his own Son to set up a Forreign Prince in the Kingdom to make him be Crowned in Paris during his own Life Would Charles have done well to suffer such outragious Mischiess because he received them from a Father Let us suppose a King who is not only profuse but a Tyrant who brings desolation upon the Community who kills massacres who ravages all the State who reduces it to the brink of ruin without remission or concealment Can it be believed that a presumptive Heir though he were even a Son would be obliged to behold such grievances without redressing them he that would perswade himself of such a thing would justly deserve the Character of a compleat Fool. On the contrary a Prince who is Heir of the Crown is obliged to joyn himself with the States of the Kingdom to disarm the Tyrant and to deliver the Kingdom out of his hands that it may not become a frightful desart Let us descend yet one degree lower and suppose a King not so ill as the former but who Acts under the covert of some formality of Justice who likewise might possibly have some good intention but who nevertheless being possessed with evil Counsellours and blinded with a certain extraordinary Zeal does lay the whole Kingdom desclate and ruins the honestest Gentlemen of the Realm depopulates the State by illegal and rigorous proceedings that strike the whole World with horrour who lays an indispensable Obligation on his Subjects to desert him by suffering unjust judgments and practises violent courses oppressions and Massacres by charging the Kingdom with such excessive impositions that it was very near involved in an universal ruin by sowing the Seeds of Rebellion over all by exciting the hatred and horrour of all Foreign Princes by unjust Wars by breaking his Promises by violating his Treaties by infringing his most Solemn Capitulations by perpetual and violent Invasions of the Rights and Properties of his Neighbours by drawing upon the Kingdom the dreadful Calamities of some Foreign War which threatned the State with imminent ruin if such a King I say has been found of this stamp and conduct the presumptive Heir whether Son or Son in-Law would be indispensably obliged to take some course in such an exigency and to oppose such mischiefs by force of Arms First because every one ought to preserve and maintain his own Inheritance from violence and desolation In Crowns that go by succession a Prince and Heir during the time that he is yet presumptive Heir has no right to govern it is true but has an undoubted right to demand a Part in the Government after he is past the Years of Minority and is arrived at those of perfect Maturity A King who ruins his Kingdom who slights and sends away his Son of sufficient Age to govern and treats him as one of the Pages of his Court may thank himself if the Son does himself Justice and demands a little better information about the measures that are taken in the Government of the Kingdom which he beholds running against the fatal Bank by the male-administration of the Royal Pilot and whereof himself is one day to be both Father and King He meddles not in Affairs that do not belong to him for nothing can be more his interest Thus therefore a Prince Heir of the Crown has an interest that he may not inherit a vast desart instead of a Kingdom and that his Father by a violent Conduct may not leave him both his Subjects and Neighbours for Enemies out of whose hands he cannot escape There is yet a reason and an interest that is more considerable and likewise more justifiable viz. that of the Public The Laws of Charity do oblige all to rescue those that are in misery and to deliver them from their Afflictions A Prince Heir of a Crown ought to look upon all the Subjects and Members of the Kingdom as his Brethren he is obliged in Conscience to lend them his Hand and save them although even his and their common Father be the Man who involves them in a common ruin If an Elder Brother sees his Father take his Children one after another and plunge them in a River to drown them this Eldest Brother is not bound to see his Younger Brothers drown'd without plucking them out of the hands of his Father for fear of violating the respect that is due to a Father Humble remonstrances towards a Father who is so unnatural are not enough what he owes to God and to the Public is far above all the Duties of Blood of Alliance and Parentage Here are two interests one of a Prince and the other of the public both together which ought to oblige the Presumptive Heir to repress the violences of his own Father because this King whom we have last supposed has filled the Kingdom with Male-contents exhausted its Treasures by excessive Impositions ruined it by proscriptions and depopulations made all the Neighbouring Princes his Enemies and does thereby make way for a mighty revolution which may preclude the lawful Heir from his Right and reduce his Kingdom either to an Anarchy or a Civil War or make it pass into the Possession of strangers This is clear for an oppressed State such as we have supposed attack'd by Enemies which their King's Injustice has procured will be sure to give a joyful reception to a Foreign Power that shall make an entrance by force of Arms and look upon them rather as their Saviours then Enemies They will say and will have reason to say that they can be no worse treated then they are that they can lose nothing by changing their Master and the Truth is a stranger entring into a Kingdom has nothing else to do but to Proclaim Liberty every one would hasten to come under his Banner and from this would ensue the desolation of the Realm by a Civil War or the ruin of the Government which would pass into their hands A Prince Heir of the Crown is not obliged to be a Spectator of so pressing and so great dangers without applying a Remedy thereunto if he be always Patient the Enemy will come the Male-contents will joyn in a Body with them and he will be deprived of those means whereby he might justify his rightful Pretences to the Crown or
well informed of the Affair for requiring that the business should be examined in Parliament He does not at all affirm that the Prince of Wales was supposititious he only demands an assurance of his Birth There is nothing more just and natural At that time his Majesty had not as yet seen the depositions which James II. caused to be taken thereupon but if he had seen them they were not capable of affording him any assurance for first there were none almost found amongst the Witnesses but such as were suspected Persons Officers Pensioners and the Kings Domestic Servants Secondly all that the Queen Dowager the most part of the Lords and Ladies said may be true and yet the Child that was Born not be Born of the Queen for the Assistants who are at the Beds Feet and in a Corner of the Chamber know not what is laid in the Bed nor whence it came which is taken out of it In the last place the depositions that were taken in the Kings presence are for that very reason altogether invalid and insufficient This is a ground good enough for what the Prince says in his Declaration which is the most plain and the most modest imaginable That there are great Presumptions that oblige us to believe that these Evil Counsellors for promoting their own pernicious designs and for gaining of time to execute them spread a report that the Queen was delivered of a Son that during this pretended bigness of the Queen as well as in the circumstance of the Birth and the methods that were used for the management of it there appeared so many just and visible suspitions that the pretended Prince of Wales was not brought into the World by the Queen There could no less be said upon so important a subject King James ought to justify himself from this in the face of the World are not Princes to take care of their Reputation Is it not this that secures them How could King James think to be free from being insulted over by a Nation which looked upon him as a Master of Intrigue and Audacity and as an unnatural Father and Prince And there is no Prince in the World against whom we can more reasonably conceive this suspition he who runs a risque of losing three Crowns and at last did really lose them for his Religion does in effect shew that he had it and that he was not like his Predecessor who had none but likewise the same thing gives us to understand that he could venture all other things for the sake of his Religion for Men of the World who dare run a risque of losing their Crowns to compass their ends may very well venture their Reputation the Blood of their Subjects and all things else to satisfy their own humour Indeed the rest of his Conduct made it appear that he was capable of sacrificing all even to his conscience for the sake of his Religion His Majesties moderation having sufficiently appeared in his Conduct in the forementioned Passages there follows some instances of His Majesties Justice in his late expedition who as has been said Acted first as the Presumptive Heir of the Crown at least under the Title of his Royal Consort and that in this quality he justly proviâ—ed for the security of the Kingdom which was to descend to him one day He hindered the subversion of the Laws and Religion and justly though it had been in opposition to his own Father if James II. had been such I have proved that a Son and Heir of a Kingdom is obliged by his own interest by that of the People and by what he owes to God to oppose a Father who brings the Realm to imminent ruin and reduces the Religion to a State of Desolation Secondly his present Majesty did bear the Character of an Enemy not to King James not to the Nation but to the Tools his Father-in-Law made use of for the overthrow of Religion and the Laws He passed not into the Kingdom forcibly as the General of the Dutch Army He entered in his own Name to Declare War against the Enemies of the Kingdom and of the Protestant Religion who had raised an Army for the subversion of the Laws and of the Church Thus by the Laws of a just War if ever there was one such he could summon his Enemies to lay down their Arms to yield themselves for avoiding the Effusion of Blood he could demand assistance and Military Aid from all those who loved their Liberty and Religion When a King is become the Enemy of the State of the Laws and of God there is nothing then owing to him and James II. was such a one We come to another thing viz. That which King William III. did at his first Arrival in England His design being lawful and just viz. for setting up a Standard for Liberty and Declaring War against the Enemies of Religion and of the Laws he was obliged to do whatever tended to that end It was no Usurpation of the Royal Authority It is a circumstance the nature of which does depend on the ground on which the Expedition was founded and therefore upon the plainest reason we may see who is in the right and who is in the wrong in this matter As to the Refusal of the Mayor and the Clergy of Exeter to execute the Prince's Orders for acknowledging him and opening their Churches this is of no advantage to the contrary Party nor does contribute any wise either to the Honour or Disgrace of the Magistrates and Clergy of that City but this reflects on James II. for that Reservedness was an effect of the dreadful consternation that they were in and which was occasioned by the Calamities that King James had brought upon that and other Countries in the West after the Duke of Monmouth's defeat The Trees and the Ways were as yet generally covered with the dead Bodies of those poor Creatures who were made Sacrifices to the most cruel Rage that ever was exercised It was judged sufficient that the Magistrates and the Canons of Exeter were held under that Fear for so soon as they saw themselves secure by the Arrival of the Princes Forces they expressed their joy by such transcendent marks that evidenced the transport they were in yet they did not cease too pray to God for King James till the Convention gave order concerning it The Prince of Orange did not Act as a King at his first Arrival We have not heard that he seized any part of the Royal Revenue and it is not but that he had just cause enough so to do For those who managed the King and tyranized over the Kingdom did convert the same to pernicious Uses for the oppression of Liberty and Religion he might very well without Injustice take it out of their hands There follows now a Narrative of what the Lords Hallifax Nottingham and Godolphin said to the Prince in Pursuance of the Commission that they had from James II. and of the
Nation but durst not disanul Parliaments but he dissolved them and caused them to be dissolved by his Brother as soon as ever the Parliaments did any thing that displeased him He deprived the Corporations of their Charters and Priviledges He obstructed free Elections he took upon him a Power of dispensing with the Laws and of acting in a direct opposition to what was thereby ordained He was not legally impowred to proceed so far and therefore he transgressed the due Bounds and thereby put the Nation in a rightful Capacity no longer to acknowledge him for it is certain that in all Relations of Father and Son of Wife and Husband of Master and Servant of Subject and King where there is an express Contract and certain Conditions laid down when one of the Parties happens to violate the Contract and to be wanting in the performance of the Conditions that the other Party is no longer obliged The Lawyers Maxim Princeps Legibus solutus est has no place here By the Prince is understood one that is Sovereign and a Magistrate that is absolute without limitation Unhappy are the People who have got such Masters who have suffered their Priviledges to be disanulled but the People and the Nations which are so happy as to preserve the Bulwarks which in the Establishment of their Monarchy have been raised against the Ambition of their Princes are very Wise in maintaining them The King of England does not boast that he is above the Laws for he is obliged to Reign according to the Laws If there be any Sovereign in England who is above the Laws it is the Parliament and the King together This Sovereign makes Laws and repeals them and so is not bound thereby but the Parliament alone can neither make nor repeal Laws neither can the King alone do it So that these Words of Cambden concerning the Authority of the Kings of England does not take away the Rights of Parliaments and the Priviledges of the People that are publicly known Seeing the Kings of England are bound to Reign according to the Laws there lyes no obligation upon the People any longer to acknowledge them when they raise themselves above the Laws and have no regard thereunto Indeed a modern Writer has said that Protestants may be trusted because they swear Allegiance to the Prince without reservation But we swear Allegiance without reservation only where the Law does not annext it and where the Princes have their bounds limited by the Laws our Religion does not at all oblige us to make Oath of Fidelity without reservation and without condition since the Kings of England themselves in Conjunction with their Parliaments have annexed certain reservations to the Oaths of Allegiance which they require from their Subjects We do no ways believe that the English violate their Oaths of Allegiance when they think that they are free so to do by the Invasion that their Kings make upon the Fundamental Laws of the Realm From all this it follows that the English Nation did justly look upon King James II. as incapable of the Crown because of his Religion and as fallen from his Rights by his violation of all the Fundamental Laws and consequently William III. his Son-in-Law and Mary his Daughter now King and Queen of England possess the Crown most lawfully which returns to them by Right of Succession and which was confirmed to them by the unanimous Consent of the three Estates of the Kingdom They did not trample upon the respect which they owed to him who was their Father or held the place of a Father for nothing is owing to a Father in prejudice of the Rights that are due to God and our Country They committed no Violence as a means of coming by the Crown for they first received it from a free Convention they did nothing against the Commands of St. Peter and St. Paul of being Subject to the Powers for neither St. Peter nor St. Paul had any design of Establishing the Arbitrary Power of Kings whose Authority is limited by the Laws nor of favouring Tyrants Now as there have not been Men wanting to misconstrue His Majesties late Expedition so there have been some of his Majesties Enemies mentioned at the beginning who charged the Misfortunes of the Two De Wits Anno. 1672. on the then P. of Orange But it is known to all the World how the Matter went it happened by a popular Commotion which was like Gun-powder kindled and spread in a moment It is true that the two De Wits were accounted Enemies to the Prince It is true that there were two Parties formed in the State one against the Prince and the other for him but if things had gone well and the order which the De Wits had given for the preservation of the Country had succeeded no Person had ever muttered against them but Unhappily the State was without any Defence without Arms without Forts without Forces without Alliances which afforded the French an Opportunity of Marching into the very Heart of the Country leaving nothing but Desolation behind them Those who were at the Helm were narrowly look'd to whether they were to blame or no. The People thereupon were enraged against those who had the management of Affairs They made a general insurrection in the Town against the Magistrates It was much less for the Prince's Interest then for their own that there was such an uproar amongst the People The Mobile had been little enough concerned who governed provided the Government had been in safety Hitherto the Government of the De Wits as it had been happy so it had been attended with Tranquillity But in the Year 1672. the Government of those Gentlemen was extreamly Unfortunate the People who peremptorily reckoned the Unhappy Success of the measures they took to be an Effect of their Mismanagement of Affairs fell upon them and spent all the Magazine of their Rage against them And it was the King of France to whom the De Wits were indebted for that Tragical Execution it is he who by his unjust Enterprifes and his happy Success did provoke the People's Patience to the last extremity and obliged them to avenge themselves by force on those who had so very ill provided for the safety of the State The Prince was no ways concerned therein but accidentally if he had had the Administration of Affairs for some Years before that if he had been mistaken in his Measures as they had been if the King of France had met with the same Success after the Administration of the Prince of Orange that he had after that of the De Wits it is certain that the Prince of Orange had been in danger of having been the object of the People's Fury as those Gentlemen were but it is well known that this is the usual manner of popular Commotious that when they make an insurrection against one they make a Bulwark of another Expressing their Fury because the Government being altogether a Republic had not
altogether in as good and possibly in a much better Condition in the hands of those to whom the profuse Life of the last Proprietor brought them than in his hands who made such a disposition and the Public Laws have not established so exact Rules for hindring the Alienation of Lands Possessions and Moveables as they have settled for preventing of the Ruin of the State and the dissolution of Societies If Houses Trees Horses and Oxen had reasonable Souls God without doubt had ordained Laws of Right to limit the possession of the Proprietors Thus because private Persons have a full right to do with their possessions as they please and to govern them according as it seems good to them yet Public Persons cannot govern States and Societies according to their own Caprice without any right left to their Subjects and Members to oppose and hinder the devastation thereof and in some respects even the Children of a House and the presumptive Heirs of a Private Person have a right to hinder the wasting of the Possessions that belong to the Family It is very well known that the Laws have allowed Means to Heirs for the prevention of their own impendent Ruin that they may not be barr'd of their right to that Estate which ought to revert to them With far better reason may Princes Heirs of Crowns and of Kingdoms have a Right to hinder the Ruin and Devastation of those Countries which they are to possess one day Besides there is a difference betwixt Public Possessions and those of Private Persons The Law and one's Birth give the latter without any reservation but it is God and the People who bestow Public Possessions and Sovereignities and with this reservation that the Welfare and the Safety of the State and of the People is the Soveraign end of Governments and the Supreme Law God I say and the People confer Sovereign Power and bestow it on whom they please without being obliged always to have regard to the Laws of Succession David invests himself with the two Crowns of the People of Israel during the Life of the Children of Saul who was their true and lawful King and which is more the Children of Jonathan his incomparable Friend The Laws of Friendship and of such a Friendship as that was betwixt Jonathan and David are at least as inviolable amongst honest Men as the Relations of Son-in-Law and Father-in-Law Yet David without any scruple went up to Hebron and made himself be Crown'd King of Judah and not content with this seven Years after he treats with Abner General of the Army of the People of Israel to draw them from their Allegiance to Ishbosheth the Son of Saul their lawful King by Birth by Succession and by Possession to oblige him to put the Ten Tribes upon Revolting from their Obedience to their lawful Sovereign If a People in prejudice of an eldest Son would establish Cadets upon the Throne in the opinion of some By assed Persons Hell it self could not afford Colours black enough to Paint the Rebellion Enterprise and Attempt of that People yet we may see how the People of Judah and Israel set Solomon on the Throne in prejudice of I do not know how many Elder Brothers of Solomon all of them Men capable of government It may be objected that God who is the disposer of Crowns does bestow them on whom he pleases it was he who gave the Crown to David and to Solomon in prejudice of the true Heirs he could do it I find the answer very good for the Objector it is also for me and it amounts to what I have said viz. that God and the People are the Lords of Crowns to give them to whom they please God as the Sovereign Lord the People as the Lords of their Possessions under God God as the Lord of all Crowns in general every People as the Lords of their own Crown in particular thus we find innumerable instances in History of People who in their Families make one to Inherit in prejudice of another who prefer a Cadet to the Eldest Son and oftentimes the Son to the Father because the safety of the People and the welfare of the Society does so require The People go further they transfer the Sovereign Power from one House to another The Jews leave the Royal Family of David and take that of the Maccabees The French renounce that of the Morivingians to take that of Charles Martell and at last forsook that of Charles Martell who had Male Issue to set on the Throne a third Race which Reigns at this day There is no State of which History is not full of such Examples it will only wast time to set them down And such an Action is the only Foundation of the right by which the Crown of France is held Examples of this nature have the force of Laws for the constant and perpetual Custom as well of the People of God as of other Nations does make it manifest to us that it is the Peoples right and without enumerating Examples good sense and right reason make a Law and clearly declare that since Societies do make Kings for their own preservation they have a right to transfer the Power of the Government to him who is Judged the most capable to preserve the Society and Common-Wealth If these two Truths be joyned together First that Kings are not Lords of reasonable Souls as private Men are Lords of their Lands and of their Cattle Secondly that God and the People may of right bestow Crowns on whom they please a third Position will result from both viz. that the People as well as the Church is always a Minor that Kingdoms are Pupils that Kings are properly their Guardians and that consequently in the same manner as it is permitted to presumptive Heirs of the Possessions of a Pupil to hinder the disorders and prevent the wasting of the Estate which belongs to him or may belong to him for the time to come so the presumptive Heirs of a Crown not only can but ought by the Laws of Religion of Piety and of conscience to hinder disorders to preserve the Society which is going to ruin and repress the violences of him who having in his hand the Sovereign Power uses it to the destruction of the public though the lawful Heir of a Crown should have no other interest but his own he ought to be allowed to maintain and preserve it much more and with better reason when he has in his view the interest of Religion and of the Kingdom and there is no relation either of Son in-Law or of Father or of Son but ought to yeild to so inviolable an Obligation for we must love God and the Common-wealth more then Father and Mother besides this is not so much to love superiors as to abandon to them a Kingdom or a Church for the common ruin and destruction thereof It is to suffer them to take a full career to Hell and Death it is
at least the Kingdom will be left to him distracted and divided into a thousand Fractions one Party favouring the Stranger and another taking the part of the lawful Heir just as it happened under Charles VI. and Charles VII the English Possessed themselves of the Kingdom some took his part and others were against him and the Kingdom began to sink under the weight of that dreadful War It is then clear that in such a Case a Son after having made respectful Remonstrances to his Father and having made him sensible of the formidable disorders occasion'd by his ill Conduct may with a good conscience make use of force to deliever the Kingdom out of the hands of one who Devotes it to ruin who lays it desolate and does Transubstantiate it into a desart and who by the ill Measures he takes does evidently expose it to a Foreign Invasion Now it is certain that King James was destroying the Kingdoms Bodies Politic and Natural by his Mismanagement of the Government his violation of the Laws and making himself the Arbitrary Judge of their Sanction and Observation dispensing with them at Pleasure by depriving them of their Authority by putting honest Men out of their employs and bestowing those Offices on Men who were by Law incapable of exercising the same by taking off innocent Persons This directly tended first to the ruin of the Religion that was by Law established for he deprived Protestants of their Offices on purpose to bestow them on Roman Catholics who were Enemies to the Protestants and their Religion he violated all manner of Laws as he pleased he filled the Kingdom with Priests and Monks he made the Exercise of the Popish Religion public in all Cities and Counties he gave to the Jesuits the Colleges that were of Antient Foundation and allowed them to found new He ordered Churches to be Built for them The Jesuits open'd Schools in London A Jesuite sat in Council and was the first Minister of State The King sent Ambassadors to Rome and had Ambassadors sent to him from thence and all this against the express Laws of the Kingdom and that he might do all these things securely he maintained a powerful Army in time of Peace which is also contrary to the Priviledge of the English People This Conduct tended to the overthrow of the Monarchy as well as of the Church A Civil War was unavoidable in a little time England's patience was come to an end The Kingdom was fallen into the same condition it was in in the time of King Charles I. It is possible that King James II. would have incurred the same fate with his Father and without doubt the Fanatics would have made themselves Masters of the Government to the Exclusion of the lawful Heir Thus His present Majesty for the preservation of his Religion and the Crown to which he had a good Title and which ought in that juncture to be reduced into possession was obliged to put a stop to the current of those Mischiefs in the Fountain he endeavoured to do this by moderate means He Passed into England to curb the immoderate Power of his Father-in-Law This Father-in-Law could not endure to receive Law from any one He fled he Abdicated the Throne The Nation filled it with him who was come to deliver them His Majesty King William Accepted the Crown it had been a cruel piece of Piety to behold the Bowels of the State torn the Religion of the Kingdom perishing the spilling of so much Blood the oppression of so many innocent Persons so many Families reduced to Beggary and the right of the lawful Heir exposed to evident ruin for I know not what respect to Relation and Kindred Brutus and Manlius were praised for not having spared their own Blood and for having punished by death the Rebellion and Disobedience of their Children God is our first Father our Country is our principal Mother there are no Relations or Alliances which ought not to be Sacrificed to these great Names Besides these general Considerations there are also particular ones which are no less proper for the justification of their Majesties of Great Britain and Ireland The first is that King James II. was not lawful King although he was acknowledged by the Three Kingdoms he had drawn the Subjects of those three Kingdoms thereto by surprise being a Papist he could not be the King of England the People and Kings annex to the Succession of the Crown what Conditions they think fit Since Henry VIII all the Kings and Queens of England Mary excepted were Protestants that is to say Enemies to the Papal Tyranny this was a Quality annexed to the Crown of England All the Laws forbid the acknowledgment of the Pope for Head of the Church and Vicar of Jesus Christ They make the King of England Head of the English Church and it's High-Treason to say otherwise It is true that James the II. made a shift to thrust himself into the Throne in spite of all these Obstacles for the removing of which all imaginable diligence was used false Promises and false Oaths were not wanting It is known what were the Sentiments and the Interests of those who were Assisting in such a Violation of the Laws It is not necessary to make mention of them in this place although the Violation was nothing else but a suspension for the Laws were not Abrogated and tho' they had been so the English would always have had a Right to retrieve and re-establish them which were made for the security of Religion They Enacted Recognised and Declared that to be King of England and a Papist are Qualities that are absolutely incompatible and they were no ways to be blamed for the thing is plain and his present Majesty had reason not to Abandon to another the Succession that belonged to himself and his Royal Consort who have the same Qualities and are of the same Religion as is required by the Law and who moreover are the lawful and next Heirs It is not the first time that the Children have taken the room of the Father whom the Laws and his own personal Qualities excluded from the Enjoyment of the Rights and Possessions which his Birth had allowed him After all we must know that the English Government is not in the hands of one Person There is one King the King is Sovereign but he is not in the Possession of all the Sovereign Power He who cannot make Laws nor break them is not in the Possession of Arbitrary Power The Parliament partakes of the Legislative Authority with the King The People have their Priviledges which the King and Parliament cannot take from them If for Example a Parliament should meet with the King for making an absolute change of the Form of Government for abolishing the use of Parliaments and for depriving the People of all their Priviledges Charters and Immunities the People might justly provide against these Violations James II. endeavoured to Cancel all the Priviledges of the
Practices It is false that the Prince had given a Suspition of any Intention to make himself the Supreme Governour of the Vnited Provinces On the contrary he generally rejected all the occasions that were offered him to accept of that Dignity The King of France made him an Offer of Holland with full Sovereign Power and he refused it Anno. 1672. During the Consternation that these Countries were in by reason of the French Army the City of Amsterdam more then ordinary jealous of her Liberty consented to bestow on the Prince both the Rights and Title of Earl of Holland The Prince would by no means accept of it The States of Geldre having signified their Intentions to make him Duke of that Province he refused the offer and referred himself to the Opinion of the other Provinces The Low Countries have great reason sure to complain of the Prince's Government since the Year 1671. He found a Common-wealth oppressed under the Yoak of a Foreign Power having it's Bowels torn to pieces destitute of Arms destitute of Forts without Friends and without Allies and he accomplished his design by the most wise Conduct imaginable taking Possession of their Hearts beating back the Common Enemy by his Courage engaging all Europe in a Joynt Alliance which crushed all the French Designs Engaging the English Interest and causing the Treaty of Peace to be concluded at Breda He defended his Nation against all the pernicious Intrigues of the French Counsels he by his wise Conduct restored Trade to it's former Splendor and made it again to flourish It is now in the highest Esteem that ever any Common-wealth was in He was Umpire of the most Important Peace that has been concluded these hundred Years past which was made betwixt the two Crowns These are the great disorders that the Prince of Orange committed in the Republic and the truth is they are very great disorders in respect of France whose purpose is to reduce all her Neighbours into Confusion and Servitude for her own ends Now it is worth the knowing who this Famous Author is He is one whom France hath kept in Holland as a Spy and as an Incendiary He has not been idle during his Abode there he has not so much as omitted the most impertinent Occurrences that never passed the Frontiers of the State before and which were only the talk of the Mobile Such is the application of the Words of the Prophet Esay to the Birth of the Prince of Wales Before she was in pain she brought forth before she Travelled she was delivered of a Man Child See what he imputes to the Prince as a Crime and calls it a profanation of Holy Scripture to uphold his Pretences against the Prince of Wales He also justifies King James from the Accusation that is brought against him in the Prince's Declaration for having had a Design to suppress the Religion and overthrow the Laws of the Land He thinks in a moment to possess the Minds of Men with a Prejudice against the Prince as if his Expediâ—â—â—n could not have been undertaken for the Preservation of Religion as not being of the English perswasion but a Presbyterian He is obliged saith he according to the Calvinstical Doctrine to believe that all Ministers have equal Authority that Episcopacy is an unlucky Pillar of Papal and Antichristian Tyranny The Presbyterians destroyed the English Church banished the Prelates and abolished the Liturgy during the Common-wealth and behold a Presbyterian and an Army of Calvinists who pass into England to deliver the English Church which they have always look'd upon as Professing a false Religion Upon this Subject the Author shews what an able Man and great Divine he is he multiplies Words and idle Reflections We answer him in a Word that the English Church never Condemned the Presbyterians on this side of the Sea and never beheld their Religion as false She has only remonstrated the Extravagancies of the English Presbyterians and possibly iâ— that she is not much in the wrong The Presbyterians on this side the Sea in like manner never Condemn Episcopacy as an Appurtenance of Antichristianism The difference in Point of Government never hindred the English Protestants and those in these Parts from being ready to afford one another mutual Assistance as being of the same Religion Queen Elizabeth helped the Dutch and French Protestants King James did the same and which is more he sent his Divines and Bishops to the Synod of Dort which was otherwise all composed of Presbyterians that action alone is an undoubted proof of the Communion that the Bishops and Presbyterians maintained amongst themselves If the English Bishops have Assisted the Presbyterians on this side the Sea as their Brethren when they were like to be oppressed why may not the Presbyterians here with very good reason go and assist the English Church which they have always look'd upon to be a true Protestant Church Again this Author endeavours to prove first that the Late King of England in his suspending the Penal Laws had no other end but the Establishment of a perfect Tranquillity in his Kingdom taking from his Subjects all occasion of Persecuting one another upon the account of Religion This is the Old Song but all those who speak so are not in hopes to perswade others nor are they themselves perswaded of the Truth of this allegation They know very well and all the World is sensible of it that King James did extreamly hate the Presbyterians Independants and Anabaptists looking upon them as the Authors of his Father's death and as his own Enemies It is very well known that during all the time that he was Duke of York he did cruelly Persecute them to do the English Church a Pleasure thinking to be so much a gainer thereby as to do afterwards whatever he pleased It was not then in Favour of the Non Conformists his Sworn Enemies that he intended to repeal the Penal Laws it is notoriously known that it was never in his thoughts to take them away but for the sake of the Roman Catholics and that he included other Dissenters for no other end but to palliate his designs It is beyond all dispute King James II. of England was a great Enemy of Persecution He made his inclinations manifest whilst he was as yet Duke of York possibly it cannot be denied but that that King had a very great Zeal for his own Religion for this Author does him that great Honour as to avouch it He had consequently a passionate desire to Establish it in England Can this be denied if he acknowledge it for he must be destitute both of common sence and honour to deny it he must also own that all his Actions tended to that end if all his Actions tended to that end with better reason so important a one did such as was the suspension of the Penal Laws Can he deny it or can any Person do it for him It is therefore plain that he had a