which if he had accomplish'd he might easily have done And to do his Memory Justice he told me this Story with very great Inâ—â—ignation the Substance of which as I shall answer for it to God at the day of Judgment I have faithfully related to the best of my memory upon the Faith of a Christian man Now to 〈◊〉 his Point will not the very Name of a Republican Râ—formation which is at Present become the Theme of every Pamphlet warm Our Mud into Monsters again and raise Coblers and Tinkers to Colonels Draymen and Thimble-makers to be Kings Judges Wherefore Now or Never is his Majesty oblig'd if his Word Honour or Coronation-Oath be more then a Name if I may be pardon'd for speaking my Authours words after him to uphold the Protestant Interest which now lyes a bleeding in this Cause of the Church One Branch of the Coronation Oath being as follows I will preserve and maintain to You the Bishops and the Churches committed to your charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Justice and I will be your Protector and Defender to my Power by the Assistance of God as every good King in his Kingdom â—n right ought to protect and defend the Bishops and Churches under theâ—r Government Then the King ariseth and is led to the Communion Table where he makes a Solemn Oath in sight of all the People to observe the Premises and laying his hand upon the Book saith The Oath The things which I have before promised I shall perform and keep So help me God and the Contents of this Book Char. But let us suppose we may have such a Roman Catholique King as shall discountenance Pope and Popery Cherish Protestantism and effectually deterr and punish all those that shall endeavour to undermine and supplant it And then let us examine what This King thus qualify'd must do Fol. 2. Here is a Supposition fairly propounded in appearance but yet without Expounding himself upon the Worâ—d Protestantism there 's no coming to an Issue upon 't If he means by Protestantism the Opions of the Outlyers that have leapt the pale and which are rather Phansies then Perswasions the Law it self animadverts upon those people as the Underminers of our Ecclesiastical Establishment And his Discountenancing of Separatists will amount to no more then a Legal Discharge of his Office But if by Protestantism he intends a practical Conformity to the Orders of the Church the Law provides as well for the upholding of the One as the suppressing of the Other And it would be a strange Oversight for any Prince that should mount the English Throne under the disadvantages of that Perswasion to put his Perogative upon the stretch of Enacting or Abrogating Laws without the Consent of his Parliament Char. First then In continuing the Ecclesiastique Jurisdiction Honours and Preferments in the hands of the Protestant Clergy he must confer his Favours and Smiles on those very men whom by the Fundamentals of his own Vncharitable Perswasion which dooms all that dy out of the Bosom of the Romish Church to a certain State of Damnation he cordially believes do preach and teach and lead his Subjects in the direct way to Hell And next at the same time he must not only punish and persecute but perhaps emprison and hang those very only Righteous men whom from the bottom of his Soul he believes can only open them the Gates of Paradice whilest in so doing he cannot but accuse himself of coppying the Old Jewish Cruelty Nay in One respect he outgoes their Crime for he acts that Knowingly which they committed Ignorantly For by the Dictates of Religion he must be Convinc'd that in effect he does little lesse then save a Barabbas and Crucify a Jesus Fol. 3. Here is First presented a dismal Prospect of a Popish Successour in the Life of a Protestant Prince and the present Government of that Protestant Prince troubled and distracted with Clamours and Jealousies for fear of a Popish one to come If Religion were really the business they would rather blesse God for the Peace and Happiness they enjoy and wait his further Pleasure with Thankfullness and Resignation then with Murmuring and Distrust to anticipate Future Evills and Prejudge Providences to come Or if Religion were All what 's the meaning of their hammering so much of late upon the Subject of Arbitrary Power and so many Models and Projects of a Common Wealth which were the very Method of our late Usurpers as to matter of Arbitrary Power the King has pass'd away so many Concessions already for the gratifying of his Subjects that if he had it in his Will his Majesty has not left it in his Power to be guilty of that which is so ungratefully Charg'd upon him Which makes it look liker a mockery then an Accusation And then for the New-fangled Device of a Free Common Wealth our Republican Agitators should do well to mind the People of England of the blessed condition they were in under the pretended Keepers of an Liberties The Sound of Freedom and Liberty brings the Multitude like Larks to the Glasse but not a word of the Net They say nothing of the Standing Army that must be kept afoot to support it nor of the bloudy Taxes that must be rais'd to maintain those Troops and Martial Law to make good all those Violences Why do they not tell them of their Charters Franchises Priviledges and Tenures which are all swallow'd up in that Gulph of Popular Tyranny And so are all other advantageous Dependences upon the Crown The Body of the Law must be new garbled and a Civil War with all the Miseries and Contingences of it must be the Prologue to the Opening of this Tragical Scene And if the Sedition fails of successe they bring themselves into the state again of a Conquer'd Nation And upon these Terms it is at best that they are to exchange a Condition of Peace Freedom and plenty for â—eggery Bondage and Confusion It was very well sayd of Grotius upon the NetherLanders delivering themselves from the 〈◊〉 of Spain We Fought says he to save the Tenth part of our Estates and now that we have got the day we have Compounded 〈◊〉 th' other Nine Here is a Criminal and a Dangerous but I hope an Impracticable Proposal set afoot But brought in God knows by Head and shoulders under the Countenance of Religion and Succession It is possible there may be no more in it then a Well-meaning mistake But there must be an Infinite Tenderness of Conscience and a most untainted Loyalty to justify the Authour But to return to my Character As to the Influence which a Popish Successour may have upon Ecclesiastical matters as in the Character there needs no more to be sayd in 't then this that the King hath been gratiously pleased to offer the Passing of any Bill for securing the Protestant Religion without barring or diverting the Succession And such Expedients have been also fram'd to that
again Char. Thus says he whilst the bonds of Faith Vows Oaths and Sacraments cannot hold a Popish Successor what is that in an Imperial Head but what in a private Man we punish with a Jail and Pillory whilst the Perjur'd Wretch stands the Vniversal Marque of Infamy and then is driven from all Conversation and like a Monster hooted from Light and Day Pray'e correct the Errata ' s of this passage thus For Popish Successor read Jesuitical Covenanter and for an Imperial Head read a Committee of Safety And then ye have the Mystery uncipher'd But the Pope he says and a Royal Hand may do any thing there 's a Crown in the case to guild the deeds his Royal Engines act This Pope and Royal Hand should have been their General Assembly and their Pretended Christ upon his Throne and then Gods Cause and according to the Covenant hallows the Sedition Et quod Turpe est Cerdoni Volesos Brutosque decebit One Verse more would have expounded the whole business Ille Crucem sceleris Pretium tulit Hic Diadema Char. They are still says he that adorable Sovereign Greatness we must kneel to and obey What if a little Perjur'd Villain has sworn a poor Neighbour out of a Cow or a Cottage Hang him inconsiderable Rogue His Ears deserve a Pillory But to VOW and COVENANT and FORSWEAR THREE KINGDOMS OVT OF THEIR LIBERTIES AND LIVES that 's Illustrious and Heroique There 's Glory in great Atchievments and Virtue in Success Alas a vast Imperial Nimroâ— hunts for Nobler Spoils flyes at a whole Nations Property and Inheritance A Game wâ—rthy a Son of Rome and Heir of Paradise And to lay the mighty scene of ruine secure he makes his Coronation-Oath and all his Royal Protestations those splendid Baits of premeditated Perjury the Cover and Skreen to the hidden fatal Toyl laid to ensnare a Nation fol. 7. Never were those Illustrious and Heâ—oick Vowers and Covenanters that for swore three Kingdoms out of their Liberties and Lives drawn so to the Life and five hundred Nimrods too upon the chase of our Property and Inheritance And it was a Game worthy of the Sons of Buchanan and if they may be their own Godfathers the Children of the Lord too under the Cover of their ambiguous Protestations and their Holy League-Bands of Confederacy they câ—nceal'd the Snare of that premeditated Perjnry which was follow'd with so many dreadful judgments upon the Nation He prosecutes his Subject with a Reply to the Objection that ' its impossible for a Popish Successor to introduce Popery into England That the Jesuits had such a design that the whole Party believ'd it practicable he evinces from the Plot and the prospect of a presumptive Popish Heir render'd them more confident of succeeding in it fol. 7. and 8. And yet four or five Lines further he represents the difficulties of restoring Popery into England to be almost insuperable and so with just reflections upon the Paris and Irish Massacres Villanies of Gun-powder Treasons Conflagratiens and Plots against Kings and Kingdoms He finishes that Paragraph I shall easily agree here to all the Ill that he says of the Seditious and pragmatical Papists without disputing one syllable of it And yet I think it very well worth our care to distinguish betwixt zeal and clamour and not over-hastily to give credit to That Sort of People whose method it is first to make Papists odious and then to make the Church of England Popish And this is not said neither to divert any man from a reasonable apprehension of the other danger There never was a greater noise of Popery than in the Prologue to the misfortunes of the late King And what was the Ground or what the Issue of it There was a Conspiracy to undermine the Government and no way but that to put the People out of their Wits and out of their Duties together and the Project succeeded to the actual subversion of the Government And when the Zelots had possessed themselves of the Quarry they shar'd both publick and private Revenues among themselves and fell afterward to the cutting of one another's Throats for the Booty without one word more of Popery In Brief to joyn in an Out-cry against Papists with those that Reckon Episcopacy to be Popery is to assist our Enemies toward the putting on of our own Shackles And it is gone so far too that the Libellers and their Dictators range them hand in hand already and you shall seldom see a Blow made at the Pope without a Lick at the Bishops But the Project begins now to open Char. Let us now rightly consider how far the first Foundations of Popery vix Arbitrary Power may be laid in England First then if a Papist Reign the Judges Sheriffs Justices of the Peace and all the Judiciary Officers are of the King's Creation and as such how far may the influence of Preferment on baser Constitutions cull'd out for his purpose prevail even to deprave the very Throne of Justice her self and make our Judges use even our Protestant Laws themselves to open the first Gate to Slavery We are just now upon a Preliminary to the Nineteen Old Propositions over again For fear of an Arbitrary Power the King was not to be trusted with the Choice of his own Officers But no though taken for the securing of the Government from Popular Tumults and Insurrections in case of lodging that trust in any other hand Beside the putting of the King into an incapacity of providing for the justice and security of the Government But he is so far however in the right that the perverting of that power may endanger the State And for that consideration it is a Trust not to be parted with lest it should once more be re-apply'd to the destruction of the King and People as it was before It is a certain Truth that a Prince by the abuse of his Power may prove a Tyrant But it is as certain again that there is not any form or temperament of Sovereignty imaginable that is not lyable to the same possibility For Tyranny it self is only the straining of the Essential and necessary powers of Government beyond their pitch We have experimented the worst effects of Usurpation and Corruption and of turning the Equity of the Law against the Letter of it nay of setting up the Laws themselves against the very authority that made them And all this would never have done the work neither if the faction had not supply'd the want of Laws for their purpose in some cases and superseded others that were against them by an Arbitrary Device of Votes and Ordinances So that the hazard is nothing so great as he represents it in the hand of a Prince for want of that power of Enacting and Repealing which the Faction possessed themselves of by an Usurpation But alas says he Pag. 8. The Laws in corrupted Iudges hands have been too often used as barbarously as the Guests of Procrustes who
has taken the Stair-Case which is only a prudent Election under a Calamitous Necessity of the less evil of the Two Now the same Action which would have been a madness Without that necessity becomes an Act of Prudence With it the great danger of the Leap being warranted by the greater danger of the Fire And there must likewise precede a Deliberation upon the difficulties Both ways to justifie the Resolution For otherwise at the best a man does well but by chance Now it would have been fair play in the Character-writer if he had candidly Ballanc'd the matter and told us This is the danger One way and That Another Secondly It happens many times that we have no other Choice before us but either to suffer the Highest Degree of Misery that can befall us in this world or else to Prostitute our Souls for the saving of our Skins and Fortunes Now under such an Exigent as This let the Prospect of things be never so Terrible we are to oppose the Duties of Christians of Subjects and of Honest men to all hazzards whatsoever and patiently to endure whatever we cannot with Conscience and Honour either Resist or Decline according to the Practise of the Primitive Martyrs who witnessed their Profession with their Bloud as Christians and Submitted as Loyal Subjects without Resistance So that we are not to govern our selves by a Naked Speculation of the Perils that we are to encounter and the Means of avoiding them without enquiring into the Consistency of those means with the Measures of Conscience and Duty But there is one Main point yet behind which is in effect the very Hinge of the Controversie And this is it If there shall be any thing sound in this Character of a Popish Successour that shall either operate upon the Legal Constitution of the English Monarchy or Reflect Personally upon the Honour or Justice of his Majesty now in Being the Pretext of the Succession will be look't upon only as a Stalking-Horse to Countenance an approach to some further Design In which Case the Question will not be any longer the Religion of a Successour but the very Right it self of kingly-Kingly-Power And here I must expound my self once again that I Speak only to the Anonymus Character of a Popish Successour without the least Reference to any Publique and Authoritative Debates or Counsels And so I shall proceed in the First place to the Character of a Papist in Masquerade The Church of England and the Members of it are beset with two Sorts of Papists the One bare-Fac'd the Other dress'd up in several shapes of Disguise And we pass for Heretiques on the One hand and Papists in Masquerade on the Other By this Opposite Conjunction of two Interests which however Divided in Name and Pretense are yet United against us in a Common Principle of Contradiction and Aversion The Church of England is both Weaken'd and Defam'd the Glory of the Reformation blasted and the great Support of the truly Apostolical Cause Vndermined Betwixt These Two Enemies our Persecuted Church is crush'd almost to Pieces and well-nigh brought to the Agony of her Last Convulsions And this Calamity is not wrought so much by the Bare-fac'd Papists that march Publiquely under the Popes Banner owning their Cause and making their Attacks in View not so much by Thâ—se I say as by the Papists in Masquerade that work under-ground like Moles and fall in upon our Quarters under the Semblance of Friends with our own Word and Colours It has been a great part of the businesse of the Presse to set forth the Bare-fac'd Papist to the Life and to affect us with a Just Indignation for the Principles of the Jesuites So that I shall not cloy the Reader with Redunâ—ances especially since the Composer of the Character has been pleas'd to Harangue so copiously upon that Subject But rather apply my self to the Counter-Part of these Jesuits and to obviate the Practises of our False Friends as well as of our Profess'd Enemies The Kings Witnesses have abundantly manifested to the World the Restless Endeavours of Rome and its Emissaryes for the Subversion of our Religion and Government and how far they contributed to the Rebellion of Forty One and to the carrying of it forward thorough all the Succeeding changes and Revolutions even to the bringing of his Sacred Majesty to the Scaffold They have further also Deposed to the Contrivances of the same Party for the prosecuting of the same Design upon the Person of his Sacred Majesty that now is and upon our Government and Religion as by Law establish'd And laid open to the world both the Method of their Proceedings by masquing themselves under the Appearance of Presbyterians Independents Quakers Millenaryes and the like as also the very Names of several of their Missionaryes that have been expresly employ'd upon the disposing of the People to Tumult and Sedition This is so certain a Truth that it will not bear a Dispute beside that it stands with Reason too for they do all cover themselves under an Alias and a Presbyterian an Independent c. alias a Papist Sounds every jot as well as Captain Williams alias Captain Bedloe I am not willing to charge my Paper in a Case so Clear and Confess'd with unnecessary Instances Wherefore I shall content my self with only Two out of many the Former out of Ravillac Redivivus Pag. 41. If Father Brown the Jesuit says the Author that Preach'd so many years among the Field-Convenâ—iclers in Scotland had Penn'd Mitchel's Justification of himself upon his Execution for an Attempt upon the Person of the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews it could not have savour'd stronger of the Society of Jesus or become such an Authour better then it doth This same Brown â—oasted upon his Death-bed at Ingeston briggs that he had Preached as Downright Popery in the Field Conventicles as ever he had Preach'd in Rome it self The Other Instance is of one Faithfull Commin a Dominican Frier in the 9th of Qâ—een Elizabeth who was a Person generally reputed a Zealous Protestant and much admir'd and follow'd by the People for his seeming Piety but more particularly for inveighing in his Pulpit against Pius Quintus Then Pope He was accused upon Oath before the Queen and Councill for an Impostor and a Sower of Sedition and Arch Bishop Parker took his Examination Foxes and Fire-brands Pa. 7. Commin insisting much upon his Bitterness exprest against the Pope for his Justification He got out of England afterwards by a Trick and with one Farewell Sermon 130 l. for a Viaticum Not long after he was clapt up at Rome for Reviling the Pope and the Catholique Church But he Pleaded for himself that he had done his Holiness and the Church considerable Service for by Preaching against Set-Forms of Prayer and calling the English Prayers English Masse he put them upon the Humour of Extemporary Prayer which took so much with the People that they were come to hate the
Protestant notwithstanding of all the whole Scarlet-Robe he had been her only Champion was so barbarously persecuted by her that being first degraded then imprison'd and tortur'd for his Religion the Cruelty of his Torments was so savage that with his own hand he made himself a way to escape ' em And well might the violence of his Despair testifie his Sufferings were Intolerable when he fled to so sad a Refuge as Self-Murther for Deliverance Fol. 5. 6. See how he Confounds himself here in his way of Reasoning Because Q. Mary was not so good as her Word therefore No Popish Prince values himself upon his Honour 'T is true she brake her Promise with Norfolk and Suffolk as he Reports it that gave her the First Lift toward the Crown But it is more then he can justifie to make it a premeditate Perfidy as he renders it For it is the Opinion of our best Writers that she was rather wrought upon ex post facto to that Violation But a Violation it was however and there 's no Excuse for 't And it was a mean Ingratitude to the Generous Loyalty of those People whom under favour she did not treat worse then Others but she did ill in not using them better As to what concerns the matter of Title the Lady Mary claiming to the Crown upon a Statute of 35. Hen. 8. and Edward the Sixth being prevail'd upon afterward in his Death-sicknesse contrary to the Intent and direction of that Statute to transfer the Succession by Will to the Lady Jane Grey in favour of a Faction that labour'd the Disinheriting of the Ladyes Mary and Elizabeth all the Judges subscribed to the Disinherison of the Sisters save only Sr. James Hales Justice of the Common Pleas who refused upon a Conscience of the Right without any regard to the Person of the Lady Mary This same Sr. James Hales for giving a Charge afterward Derogatory to the Supremacy of the Pope was commited to Prison but received Good Words and fair usage some time after He Fell however into a deep melancholly and in the Conclusion Drown'd himself But I see no warrantable Authority for the Report of his being put to the Torture only the Authour of the Character finds it convenient to have it so for the better grace of his Story But we need not trouble our selves to look so far back for Instances of Breach of Faith this Last Age having made us Famous for Perjurious Practises beyond all that ever went before it Witness the whole Tract of our Late Troubles But now comes Another Objection of his own with His Reply upon it Char. Suppose says he that the Conservation of a Nations Peace the Dictates of a Princes Glory and all the Bonds of Morality cannot have any Influence upon a Popish Successour yet why may there not be that Prince who in veneration of his Coronation-Oath shall defend the Protestant Religion notwithstanding all his Private regret and inclinations to the Contrary When rather then incur the infamous Brand of Perjury he shall ty himself to the Performance of That which not the force of Religion it self shall violate And Then how can there be That Infidel of a Subject after so Solemn an Oath that shall not believe him Why truly I am afraid there are a great many of those Infidells says he and some that will give smart Reasons for their Infidelity For if he keeps his Oath we must allow that the only Motive that Prompts him to keep it is some Obligation that he believes is in an Oath But considering he is of a Religion that can absolve Subjects from their Allegeance to an Heretical Excommunicated Prince nay Depose him and take his very Crown away Why may it not much more release a King from his Faith to an Excommunicated Heretical People by so much as the Tyes of Vassals to Monarchs are greater then those of Monarchs to Vassals By the Obligation of an Oath I presume he means the Religious Obligation of it because he speaks of That Obligation from which the Pope pretends a power to absolve him Now if this be his Mind That Obligation is not as he says the only Motive to the keeping of his Oath but there is a Super-Additional Reason of State and Political Contemplations over and above Take that for granted once that there 's no Trusting to the Oath of a Roman Catholique Prince and ye cut the very Ligaments of Society and Commerce There 's an End of All Treatyes and Alliances amicable and mutual Offices betwixt Christian Princes and States Nay in One word erect but This Maxim you turn Europe into a Shambles and put Christendom without any more ado into a State of War For where there 's no Trust there can be no Security And then we know upon Experience that the Outrages of Jelousy for the Preventing of Imaginary Evills are actually the most dreadfull of Real ones themselves This Opinion makes us a Scorn and a Prey to Infidels and Strips us of all that is Divine and Reasonable in us together I am nor ignorant yet either of the Doctrine or of the Practice of several Profligate Wretches of the Roman Communion in This Impious Particular But they are such then as are wholly lost in Brutality and Blindnesse and I neither do nor can believe all Papists to be equally susceptible of That Unchristian Impression It is a Position that may be made use of at a Dead Lift to serve a Political Turn And the Trick will not passe neither but upon some Enthusiastique Sick-headed Zealot that takes all his Dreams for Visions and the Vapours of his Distemper for Revelations We have had of these Romish Dispensations and Absolutions in abundance among our Own Fanatical Jesuites and not only the Doctrie asserted but the Duty also of abjuring our Oaths of Allegiance and Canonical Obedience inculcated and press'd upon the pain of Imprisonment Plunder and Damnation Yet God forbid that the Acts of the Conclave of a Close Committee and the Determinations of an Ignatian Assembly of Divines the True Counter-Part of the Holy Society the Lord forbid I say that This Cabal of audacious Extravagants that took upon them to Discharge us from the Obligations of the Ten Commandements as well as of the Laws of the Land should reflect a Scandal upon the whole Body of our Communion as if Their Warrant were a Legitimation of Perjury and Rebellion and the Doctrine of King-killing and Violence were the Dictate of our Profession He touches a little lower upon the French Kings breaking in upon Flanders contrary to his Oath All the Motives says he that could provoke him to the Breach of his Oath were only his Ambition a Lust of being Great c. Fol. 6. So that he has now found out a Popish Prince it seems that sacrifices his Conscience to his Glory though but a little before he made it the Character of a Popish Successour to sacrifice his Glory to his Religion Now by
Jealousy of Religion into the publick Rupture of a National Quarrel to the almost inevitable and irreparable Loss of his Reputation his Friends and his Dominions together Now the other way in case of his being injuriously excluded it would be forty times more easy for Him to recover his Pretensions from abroad by a Foreign Assistance in concurrence with such an English Interest as a generons Compassion to his Wrong a Respect for his Person and the Justice of his Title would certainly create him than to erect an absolute Power against the Wills and Hearts of his People and contrary to all the measures of Equity and Prudence And to do all this too while he might live and reign easily and comfortably to himself and his Subjects within the limits of a Legal Administration And if he can never expect to gain this point by calling in Auxillaries from beyond the Seas much less will he be able to do it upon the bottom of his own Interest and within himself For there must go a great many more hands than his own to such a work And to say that he may do it by his Officers or Ministers by the force of Gratifications Pensions or the Promises and Hopes of Preferment and Advantage That Objection may be easily obviated For it is a thing of clear and easy prospect the Forming of such a Scheme of Laws for securing the Bounds of the Government as no man that has either a Neck or a Fortune to lose will dare to violate But the bare Power if he had it would signify nothing neither unless the VVill as he says goes along with it Now if he may WILL he may NILL too So that he is left at Liberty to make his Election either of the One or of the Other which has in a great measure discharg'd him of the pretended Impulse of Religion and translated the Exception from the Papist to the Person Founding the apprehension upon a pretended Foresight of Tyranny and double Dealing in That Princes Character which being a thing that is only to be seen with His Spectacles and a Prognostick Peculiar to His way of Calculation wee 'l go to the next I will not deny says he ibid. but a Popish King may be totally restrein'd from all Power of Introducing Popery by the Force of such Laws as may be made to tye up his hands but then they must be such as must ruine his Prerogative and put the Executive Power of the Laws into the hands of the People This shift does not at all either weaken or avoid my Assertion for the Kings hands are sufficiently ty'd in holding the hands of his Ministers And This may be done so far as is necessary for This purpose without any Diminution to his Royal Dignity If the transferring of the Executive Power to the People that is to say Deposing of him would do the Job the Character will shew us by and by how That may be done without need of New Laws and in spite of Old Ones But what Monarch says he will be so unnatural to his bloud So ill a Defender and so weak a Champion for the Royal Dignity he wears as to sign and ratify such Laws as shall entail That Effeminancy and that Servility on a Crown as shall render the Imperial Majesty of England but a Pageant a meer Puppet upon a wire He does well to presume that a Prince will not Unking himself but he would do better yet to keep himself clear from such Propositions and Principles as lead to that Dâ—posing End For whatsoever strikes at the Crown in a Papist falls upon the Rebound on the Royal Authority in a Protestant But says he ib. If no King will assent to make Laws to do it this way and no Laws can do it t'other all Laws against Popery in case of a Popish Successor are as I told you before but building the Hedge c This Author seems to scrupulize more then needs upon the fear 〈◊〉 Cramping the Prerogative For he himself will shew us by and by how to do that without a Law which he despairs of ever seeing done by one If he had thought of what the King has lately parted with out of his Prerogative for the begeting of a Plenary Trust and Confidence in his People he would not have despair'd of any Condescension from his Majesty for the securing of his Subjects in their Properties and Religion after so much more done for them already than that which is here propounded amounts to He tells us fol. 14. of the danger of the Popâ—s Supremacy and I must tell him that within the Kings Dominions the Supremacy of the Kirk is every jote as dangerous Wherefore let us look to our selves both ways as well against those Papists that did murther the Last King as those other Papists that are in the Plot to destroy This. No doubt Says he but the Fire that burns the Heretique Law-makers shall give their Laws the same Martyrdom If they have power 't is probable enough that they will But their 's a great difference in the case betwixt a Prince and his own Subjects and the Pope and Stranger Hetiques The one destroyes his Enemies the other his Friends The Pope is in One Barque the Heaetiques in â—onother and the one may Sink and the other Swim now the King being in the same bottom with his People if he runs the Vessel upon a Rock they are all cast away together Châ—r With this certain prospect both of the ruine of their Estates Lives and Liberties where lies the Sin in the Commons of England to stand upon their Guard against a Popish Successor Aye a Gods name let them stand upon their Gaurds and use all expedients to keep out Popery and Tyranny provided still that we preserve the sacred Succession in its right line for that we are told both King and People aâ—e obliged in conscience to defeâ—d and uphold This clause has both more and less in it than a body would imagine and a man hardly knows either how to meddle with it or how to let it alone He begins with the assumption of a thing certainly prov'd though without any colour that I can find of makeing it out to be so much as probable and barely possible is the mosâ— that I can make on 't Nay and it is not that neither without imputing more of Rancâ—ur and Implacable Virulency of Nature to his Popish Successor than ever any Man yet discovered either before â—r beside the Author of this Character But however upon that substratum he takes up the Quarrel as he would have it understood of the Commons of England Where lies the sin says he in the Commons of England to stand upon their Guard against a Popish Successor This is only a Gin set for a Woodcock under the Equivoque of the Commons of England so that if a Man speaks only to the Multitude and he applys it to the Representative there may be matter pickt out