accountable to the Pope for the least neglect or misdemeanor in his office of that kind so that the reestablishment of the Popes Supremacy here is setting up a new Kingly Power But by what Title None For granting his Supremacy of old was his right whilst he possest it yet considering that right has been lost above a Hundred years together by the Laws of Conquest 't is now wholly expired and he can lay no more claim or pretence to 't after so long an alienation then the Christians to Constantinople or the Danes or Saxons to England Now 't is a known Maxim in England that a King of himself cannot give sell or alienate all or part of his hereditary Soveraign Power neither can he any more restore the Pope out of a freak of conscience to his Supremacy or his Abby Lubbers to their old fat pastures then he can say to the Duke of Saxony Sir lay claim to half England and 't is yours and therefore land a colony in the West of England and Crown your self King there whilst I content my self with the Soveraignty of York-shire and two or three more Northern Counties about it Nay suppose a King should say so and this Saxon Prince upon that presumption should come and make a Seisure there 's never a Subject in England notwithstanding their Lawful Soveraigns special Gommand to them to yeeld Obedience to this usurping invading Saxon that may not justly and with a safe Conscience oppose this Invader and shoot him though the heart at the very first step he makes into England For whatever passive Obedience is due to our Native Prince we have none due to a Forreign Invader So likewise 't is a plain case that the Popes Supremacy entring into England is an Invading and Usurping Royalty For though we are bound to pay fealty to what ever Deputies Viceroys or Subministers the King shall Ordain or Institute under him yet the Popes Supremacy cannot come under that name for it ceases to be Supream if there be a Power above it So that whenever the King shall say to the Pope assume your Prerogative there 's never a Subject of England that may not by violence rescue an Heretick from a Stake that 's condemn'd by that Prerogative or any delegated Authority from the Usurped Supremacy of the Pope nay if they burn the very Tribunal about those Jesuitish Judges eares that pronounced that Hereticks Condemnation they may Iustify the Fact both to their King and their God The Papist in Masquerade draws now near to a Conclusion and gives the Characteriser a dead doing blow at last stroke by the Argument raised against the Characters position that Kings were made for the People and not the People for the Kings Though by the way the Characterisers assertion is not only one Drs. opinion for if he will allow King Iames to have as much sense as himself we shall find him if we may take his Royal word for 't a little leaning towards the Characters side witness this clause in one of his Speeches in Parliament Anno 1603. As I am a Head and Governor of all the People in my Dominions who are my natural Vassals and Subjects considering them in number and distinct Ranks so if we take the People as one Body and Mass then as the Head is ordeind for the Body and not the Body for the Head so must a righteous King know himself to be ordain'd for his People and not his People for him for though a King and his People be Relata yet can he be no King if he want People and Subjects but there be many People in the World that lack a Head c But no matter for all this Kings are but Men and this human Error of King Iames must not dare to oppose the more sacred Authority of Mr. Lestrange For to bafflle this gross Mistake of them both he continues But after all these Words to shew that Government originally was not popular I shall add a few more to prove the Institution of it to be purely Divine which Opinion in truth needs not any other support then the Authority of the holy Scriptures By me Kings reighn c. I have made the Earth the Man and the Beasts that are upon the Ground by my great Power and my Out-stretch'd Arm and have given it to whom it seem'd meet unto me Ier. 27th 5. Now I cannot find by this Text By me Kings raighn c. But that by me Subjects possess their lawful Inheritances might claim the same right For an Empire to a Monarch and a Lordship to a Subject a Naboths Vineyard or an Ahabs Kingdom are equally the Gift of God and by our Authors reasons may equally pretend to a Divine Iustitution Neither is there so much Support as he calls it in this holy Authority but I can match it with another as holy and as much to his purpose which tells us not a Sparrow falls to the Ground without the will of my Father c. Now if no King reighns without him and no Sparrow falls without him a Manmight ask him why the holy Authority of this last Text might not make the falling of a Sparrow have as much of divine Institution in it as the Enthroning of a Monarch Nor can I perceive that there lies so much stress in Gods giving the Government of the Earth Man and Beasts to whom it seem'd Meet to him as to Nebuchadnezar in the Text but that a MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARZIN written by the Almighties own hand against his impious Heir the sacrilegious Idolatrous Balshazar was as much the Word of God and had as much divine Institution in it as by me Kings raign But to proceed in our Authors argument Mr. L. That which we now call Kingly Government was at First called Paternal and after Patriarchal c. And we sind by the powers they excercised c. And so he advances in a Florid Descant upon this Subject till he lodges the first Paternal Kingly Government in Adam Here you may perceive he 's harping at the old Iure Divino but I shall wave that point of dispute and even with granting his supposition true out of his own opinion invalidate the chief argument of all his discourse and the Fundamental Design of his whole pamphlet viz Unalterable Right of Succession If then as he says the Patriarchall power was Kingly how comes it to pass that Esau forfeited his Royal Inheritance and Iacob his younger Brother got it from him nay the alienation of his Birthright as Regal and as Divine as our Masquerader would have it was transferd to the younger Brother even by God himself and that too as we read in Gods promis to the Mother before they were born Nay though the Father Isaac had no prejudice against Esau but resolved to make him his Heir and accordingly sent him for venison to cherish his heart that he might receive his Blessing and with it the Assurance of his Inheritance yet when
THE CHARACTER OF A Popish Successour COMPLEAT IN DEFENCE of the FIRST PART AGAINST Two ANSWERS One Written by M r L'ESTRANGE CALLED The Papist in Masquerade c. And another By an Unknown Hand LONDON Printed for I. Graves and are to be sold by most Booksellers 1681. THE PREFACE UPon perusal of a Pamphlet written by so ingenious an Author as Mr. L'Estrange called The Papist in Masquerade in answer to the Character of a Popish Successour my expectation was strangely frustrated when I found the Book look more like a Poor Robin's Almanack than an Answer the major part of the Pamphlet being a kind of Red-letter Kalendar in two Columes with the Popish Worthies on one side and the Republican ones on the other as Raviliac on that hand and Oliver over against him and so Mariana and Knox Pius Quintus and Buchanan Guido Faux and Hugh Peters c. I confess had he design'd to publish the Villanies both of a Popish and a Republican Conspiracy and after a plain demonstration of the Government 's being really undermined by both those threatning Enemies had given his Country some light to steer in the golden Medium between both those fatal Extreams his Intention had been honest and he had writ like a Patriot But alas that 's none of his Province his Talent is otherwise employ'd for the sole drift of his Book was not in the least to expose Popery any farther than to make the Fanatical and Jesuitical Principles agree for take his Opinion abstracted from that Designe and his whole Book has no other aim but to make all our dangers of Popery and a Popish Successour and all the whole Plot against the King Religion and Government to use his own Phrase p. 69. but a painted Lion upon a Wall and the Prosecutors of that Plot and the Opposers of those Dangers a real Bed of Vipers In fine the main purpose he drives at is to make an exact Parallel between this Age and that of 40 41 c. And that he may so do you must allow him this great Fundamental That all the Sticklers against Popery and a Popish Successour are Fanaticks and that all Fanaticks hate both the King and Kingly Government and are tooth nail down-right Republicans Vpon this Basis his whole Fabrick stands But to rectifie his Mistake in this great point Have not four Parliaments successively been satisfied in the truth of a Popish Plot for the murder of the King and subversion of the Government and jealous of the dangers of Popery like honest Patriots muster'd all their strength to prevent it If the Plot were onely a Bugbear how comes it that the Wisdom of the Nation in four Parliaments together has not discover'd the Cheat or if they do know the Cheat and act themselves the Legerdemain and so make the prosecution of the Plot but a Presbyterian Artifice to inflame a Kingdom in order to playing the game of 41 ore again as his impious detractions would insinuate I would ask him first How comes it to pass that all the Plot-Evidence have all along so constantly adhered to their Attestations and that too in so beggarly and starving a Cause after such vast and tempting Proffers for retracting of their Evidence and vaster Rewards no doubt they might have upon the discovery of such a Presbyterian Cheat if it were one not onely as a Ransom for so many Great mens lives but likewise from the greatest hands of the Nation that would desire nothing more than such a Discovery Secondly I would ask him how it came about that the first of these four Parliaments grew so vehement against the Plot they I hope he 'll confess were a Protestant and a Church of England Parliament they were elected Members just after the King's Restoration in all the height of the Extasie of England when Majesty and Monarchy were the Peoples Darlings even to Idolatry at a time when the Horrours of the Civil Wars were fresh in their memories when the very thought of Presbyterian or Independent Commonwealths with Rumpers and Rumps were as detestable as Hell That Parliament I hope thus chosen and thus qualified he 'll allow had no Presbyterian Gall in their Veins and no Canker of 41 being the very men that on the contrary made the Laws against all Dissenters and in all their Acts throughout maintain'd the Dignity and Glory of the present Church of England and yet this Parliament as little Presbyterian as it was gave the first stroke against the Plot as I remember 't was they that discovered those swarms of Papists that had infested the King's Guards and his Court it self and crept into almost all Offices of Trust and by whom planted I need not tell him And as I remember those were the very men that created the Test and made the Reception of the Protestant Sacrament and the Renunciation of the Idolatries of Rome an Introduction to all Employments on purpose to sweep out those Locusts Nay those were the very men that removed our Popish Heir presumptive from his Admiralty and all other his Preferments and no doubt had they continued still would have very little varied from the true and honourable English Genius of the last So that without shamming this inveteracy onely upon Dissenters there has been a Protestant People a Protestant House of Commons and Protestant Lords Protestant Lord Bishops onely excepted that have struggled both against Popery and a Popish Succession So that upon Mr. L'Estrange's Argument that the present Dangers of England lie onely in a Republican Conspiracy and that the present state of 80 and 81 is but a kind of transmigration of the Spirit of 41 and 42 in order to the revival of the old Game of 48 it is not onely the Dissenters but the Protestants are in the Confederacy and so the whole Nation is in a Spirit of Rebellion the innocent Papists onely excepted that is There 's a Plot lies at every door but the right However the Pamphleteers of this Age will not be so satisfied for 't is the great Maxime they all lay down Every man that is for excluding a Popish Successour is a Fanatick and every Fanatick as I told you a Republican But to convince 'em if they are not incorrigible that 't is not onely a Fanatical Exclusion What if I pickt out even of the very protesting Lords themselves several of them of famous and exemplary Loyalty so far from the possibility either of Fanaticks or Republicans that they have been Caviliers and Loyalists through all our late Troubles one or two of them that have been Generals in the King's service a third whose Father lost his head for him a fourth that for asserting the King 's Right in the Field had no other Reprieve from a Gallows but his Majesties Return a fifth that beside the constant sums sent over to the King in his Exile after a total sequestration of his Estate pawn'd even his last Stake his Plate to serve him
God but for breach of Faith with Foreign Princes either Christian or Infidels he is accountable to Man and may draw down a just War upon his head for such a Violation nay perhaps wholly dispossess himself of the hopes of Foreign Assistance for the future in his greatest dangers and exigences occasion'd by the stain such Infidelity may lay upon him when his more venial breach of Vows at home shall be no blot in his Scutcheon And whereas here he 's onely answerable to God what if his Priests as in Queen Mary's Case impose so far upon his blinded Zeal till they make him believe that the performance of Protestations in cases derogatory to the glory of Heaven and against the propagation of Christianity shall be more answerable to God than the breaking of them But Mr. L'Estrange resolves to play the State-Sophister and gives us this tryal of his strength in his very first page to let us know how great a Casuist and how potent an Antagonist we must expect to find him But here the other Answerer is a little more prolix upon this subject and tells the Characterizer That in a Roman Catholick he makes Virtues themselves turn Vices and equals if not outgoes Transubstantiation it self And to justifie the four Cardinal Virtues from the Characterizer's making them an Instrument of our Destruction he assignes 'em a quite contrary operation in a Popish Successour than that in the Character viz. If he has Fortitude which is a Vertue equally distant from Temerity and Rashness as from Fear and Cowardize it will with-hold him from attempting things impossible as setting up Arbitrary Power or introducing Popery If he be a man of Iustice that should give us the greater assurance that his Courage shall be no otherwise exercised than for our Safety and Honour to whom all his endeavours by all the Laws both Humane and Divine are due and to which he shall be by Oath obliged But here by the way I could have wish'd our Author had left out the word Divine for those hearty endeavours the Divine Laws of a Popish Successour will instruct him to exercise for the Safety and Honour of a Heretick Nation and Heretick Religion we are better inform'd of But to proceed If he 's a Master of Temperance what is that but a Bridle upon all his Excesses a perpetual Bosom-Monitor that will with-hold his Arm and allay his Heat and curb all the motions of Cruelty and Revenge And lastly if he has Prudence that will teach him not to exasperate a People of so stiff a Neck nor lose the hearts of his Subjects for their difference of opinion and thereby peradventure endanger the loss of his Crown c. Now this Author I confess has push'd a little fairer than t'other for he has given us an Argument that looks like Sence though it be none for what 's all this to the conduct of an inflexible Papist The Characterizer tells us that in a Bigotted Prince his Morals shall be Slaves to his Zeal and accordingly instances how far they shall be instrumental to the Protestant subversion and destruction But here the Answerer artfully leaves out the main point and tells us what a meer moral man would do in case of succeeding to the Crown of England He mounts the poor Postilion into the Saddle and tells us how his meer Morality would drive but takes no notice of that Lordly Charioteer Religion that holds the Reins above him whose nod he obeys and at whose absolute command he turns either to the right or the left So that as this Answerer has stated the case I am thus far of his mind That had we an Heir apparent of no more Religion than a Iulian or a Nero and yet at the same time were compleatly Master of the moral Virtues possibly he might steer as he proposes but let him recollect himself and put Popery and Morals together and then he 'll find his mistake For my part I am asham'd that any men that pretend to write Sence should endeavour to perswade us that a Popish Bigot and a man of courage and wisdom in a Successour should not go farther towards the establishing of Popery than a Coward and a Fool so that not onely his Morals but every other natural Gift or Perfection shall be particularly assistant to the Ruine both of Protestant Religion and Liberty But because Example is more powerful than Precept I 'll give you a taste of the Popish Morals in a very remarkable Story Soon after the selling of Dunkirk from which time the poor Protestants in France date the AEra of their Calamities it being about that time that the French King began to disturb their Peace infringe their Liberties and demolish their Churches contrary to all the sacred Bonds of the solemn Engagement at Nants the distress'd Hugonots groaning beneath a greater load of Misery than any of the rest of the French Subjects their fellow-slaves under the persecution of his new Ashtaroth Arbitrary power thought fit privately to implore the intercession of a powerful Neighbour a Protestant Monarch to mediate in their behalf in mitigation of the French King 's unchristian-like severity and accordingly chose a very honest and wise man by name Rohux an Inhabitant of Nisme in Languedock for this secret Embassie as being a person formerly very fortunate in England before on the like occasion having obtain'd a lucky Favour from Cromwel in reconciliation of a difference betwixt the French Protestants and Cardinal Mazarine This Rohux thus commission'd the approach to Majesty being difficult to make his Access more easie applies himself first to a visibly Protestant Heir apparent hoping to strengthen the power of his own Supplications by the introduction and countenance of so great and so princely an Advocate This Royal Heir or Masquerader or by what other Title disguis'd or distinguish'd with a seeming-cordial Friendship embraces the poor Hugonots Cause and day after day receives his Address with many solemn but airy promises of speedy Assistance but in the mean time disgusted and gall'd to the Soul at so audacious and impious a Petition as the Protestant preservation and abhorring so detestable an Employment nay the very name of the Hereticks Defender instead of his promis'd Aid he on the contrary most cunningly laid the Platform of a Revenge as exquisite as so heinous a Petition deserv'd Immediately he goes to the French Embassadour and tells him how one of the French Subjects had very arrogantly and scandalously calumniated his great Master with obprobrious names of Tyranny Oppression and breach of Faith into which very Language he himself before had exasperated him on purpose to make his Ruine secure which the bare accusation of a Suit in behalf of his Religion would not alone have effected The Embassadour as bound in duty for the vindication of his King's Honour desires a farther testimony of the Offence and Offender Which the Royal Informer effectually gives him by appointing another Conference with Rohux
lines For indeed as he says a Prince that 's guilty of all this must be both unman'd unchristian'd and an Excommunicate to humane Nature c. if the Gospel and Christianity be truth for the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles will pronounce him such a one But all this while the Reader is to observe that this great Truth is urged by Mr. L'Estrange in favour of his great Mecaenas designing it not so much to set this Brand upon a Popish Successour's perfidy in such a case as to let us understand 't is a picture of a Popish Successour so strangely deform'd and so extravagantly monstrous that 't is not to be matcht or copy'd in Flesh and Bloud and indeed has no being in Nature But not to let him carry it off so what does he think of Sigismond King of Sweden crown'd in the year 1580. who in the very exact parallel to our present state of England being privately bred by his Mother a Roman Catholick unknown to his Father and afterwards being elected King of Poland openly profest the Romish Religion but upon his Fathers death return'd to his Hereditary Swedish Kingdom where with much difficulty he was received but under all the solemn conditions and engagements that could possibly be made between Prince and Subject of his maintaining and upholding their Lutheran Religion But on the contrary no sooner were the Reins in his hand but with all the fiercest Career of Infidelity as if Hell drove him he presently erects Popish Churches places Popish Governours in all his Forts and Castles encourages and countenances no other Perswasion but striving by all Arts imaginary to bring in the Romish Religion Upon this notorious Perjury his Subjects gave him the Reward which Mr. L'Estrange has elegantly allow'd such Perjury deserv'd they excluded him from all the Offices and Benefits of mankind for accusing him of breach of Faith and mischievous practices against the Government they deposed him And this was done by Lutheran Protestants neither Presbyterian nor Independent Fanaticks yet with offer of crowning his Infant-son Vdislaus provided they might have the breeding of him in their own Belief which he refusing after seven years Treaties and other Endeavours for accommodation all in vain in the year 1607. they crown'd his Uncle Charles the third Son of his Grandfather Gustavus Errichson Now how many Bejesuited Fanatical Rebellious Covenanting Trayterous Holy-leaguing Dissenting Psudoprotestants would Mr. L'Estrange have call'd these Lutherans were his Pen retain'd against them and what Volumes would he publish in vindication of Iure Divino and unalterable Succession c. with all the Curses of Bell Book and Candle against them as he has done against the Popish Character for making so slight of that indispensable Duty Passive Obedience though as ill luck would have it certainly the busie Spirit of Mr. L'Estrange was not then in the world for there are no such vilruent Records against them either in any of the Historians of that Age or indeed ever since Now one Remark I would make upon this Sigismond to continue the parallel to our Case He was a Prince in his nature as Heroick as we have or can have a Popish Heir worthy of all those praises that either of these two Answerers have given the last and in short to use one of their own words A Prince for every thing else bating his Perswasion brave to admiration Which one thing must more particularly witness for him his being elected King of Poland a Nation which we all know make their choice for a King out of the gallant famous and illustrious Worthies of all the Princes and Nobility through the whole Christian world And yet we fee neither Magnanimity Justice all the Cardinal Vertues that adorn'd him nor all the promising Perfections and Accomplishments of Nature strengthen'd with all the Bonds of Protestations Oaths or Sacraments could hold the head-strong Violence of his Religion But to return to Mr. L'Estrange in answer to the Character 's proving how improbable nay impossible 't is to suppose we may have a Roman Catholick King That shall discountenance Popery cherish Protestantism and effectually deter all those that shall endeavour to undermine or supplant it he says As to the Influence which a Popish Suceessor may have upon Ecclesiastick Matters As in the Character There needs no more to be said in 't then this that the King has 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 framed to that effect as have been by great Authority judged competent for the obviating of that difficulty The first part of this Assertion all the world knows to be truth but if such Competent Expedients have been framed either the Framers of them have been the Unkindest Men in Christendom or the three last Parliaments the Unluckyest The first in either never producing or publishing those expedients for the Nations service in this time of exigence or the last in never having the good fortune to meet with them for if the Parliament at Oxford were not damnably mistaken or very lewdly forgetful they have declared Nemine Contradicente that neither they nor their Predecessors have ever heard or seen one syllable of such a Frame of Expedients offered them so that with Mr. Lestranges Pardon his above named Great Authority has been greatly unkind in this Matter or else their expedients were like one of the Virtuosoe's Engines never design'd for use But he goes on As to the rest I will not deny but that it is a hard thing for a Prince to teize and persecute a people of his own Religion purely Eonomine for their being so And it is very probable too that he will connive as Men of that perswasion in many cases where the Law directs a Punishment And what is there more in this than what has been done already more or less from the Date of the Statutes themselves to this very Day And what is done by the Government it self towards the Nonconformists at this Instant Where is the great Crime now upon this Admittance in not punishing the Papists so long as the Protestants are not persecuted Here the Reader by the by may take notice that these two Answerers did not confer Notes for one says a Popish Successor will be a second part of the Immortal Brutus and the other that he will be a quite contrary manner of Man But here I would beg Mr. Lestrange to explain himself if he means by a Popish Successors conniving at Men of his own perswasion to be no larger an extent of Royal favor than what that party have received in the two last Kings Reigns the priviledge perhaps of no more than a Queens or an Embassadors private Chapple for the visible worship of the whole party throughout all England then he contradicts the confessions of all the late Popish Martyrs for amongst all their plot silence they unanimously confess
they had a fair list for a Toleration And in case of such a Toleration in the next Kings Reign under a Popish Successor wha'rs that less than Sigismunds erecting of Popish Churches and with them no doubt placing Popish Governors in all Forts and Castles Popish Ministers in all offices of trust with Popish Generals and Popish Admirals upon occasion encouraging and countenancing no other perswasion and striving by all Acts imaginary of setting up the Romish Religion and all this dayly pusht forwards farther and farther higher and higher by Degrees Alas the Character never design'd to sham such a ridiculous impossible supposition on the world that the Persecuting fury of a Popish King shall falt down upon us like Fire from Heaven all of a suddain and no less miraculously or that Popery or Arbitrary Power should grow up like Ionas Goad in a Night Alas Smith field Stakes Lollards Towers and Inquisition Houses are the work of time and therefore where as yet open Hostility cannot march nor greater Conflagrations be attempted they must have redress to less Games in the mean while the use of smaller Fire-Brands and Foxes Tailes to tye 'em to In the next page he continues very smart upon the Character part of which to be better understood I must be forced to repeat Char. Speaking of a Popish successor executing the Laws A very pretty chimera which is as much as to make this Popish King the greatest Barbarian of the Creation a Barbarian that shall cherish and maintain the Dissenters from Truth and punish and condemn the pillars of Christianity and proselytes of Heaven which is no other than to speak him the Basest of men and little less then a Monster Besides at the same time that we suppose that King that dares not uphold nor encourage his own Religion we render him the most deplorable of Cowards a Coward so abject that he dares not be a champion even for his God And how consistent this is with the Glory of a Crown'd Head and what hope England has of such a Successor I leave all men of sense to Iudge Mr. Lestrange Behold here 's the upshot of his high flown paragraph A Popish Prince that puts the Laws in execution for the punishing of Papists and for the countenancing and protecting of Protestants is little less then the basest of monsters How comes it then that the Crown of France has not treated the Protestants there as this Pictur-drawer pronounces that a Popish Successor would treat his subjects here The Protestants have now and then been severely handled I know in France as the Papists upon some junctures have been in England and now of late wors then usuall All which hath been influenced as well by reasons of state as by impulse of Religion But shall we pronounce the most Christian King the greater monster for his better usage of us c. Now I dare defie the world to find me out that author that ever wrackt his Brains to labour out such mormoes as this a discourse soe intirely mal a Propos and altogether soe little to his purpose what can he intend or what would he argue from this is there any resemblance between the State of England and France is the French King as the character says bound to condemn the pillars of christianity and proselytes of Heaven or has he any Laws to put in execution against the Papists doe his Laws uphold no other Religion but the Protestant and in defence of that declare Popery Treason and oblige him to hang every Popish Priest in his Kingdom Is there therefore the least compulsion upon him to render him that Barbarian or Coward mentioned in the Character Nay on the quite contrary is not Popery there the Establisht Lord of the soyl and the Protestant Religion only an inmate by toleration Is there any more Hugonot Churches to that Great City Paris then one stragling one like our Pancras for all the Protestants in that Populous Town And now what if Mr. L'estrange would bring no less then 20. precedents of good natured French Kings that have not molested the Hugonots under them Has not their own Religion the ascendant of the Nation does it not flourish and triumph in Pomp State and Glory whilst the poor Hugonot perswasion only humbly truckles beneath it and what then if their Royal mercy does not persecute the Protestants is there any thing in that mercy so monstrous or so unnatural or is their any Laws Restrictions or Clogs upon the French King that can give such a shock to the soul of a Papist as the Protestant Laws of England I confess Mr. Lestrange in one clause before was much in the Right where he affirm'd the continuing a Protestant to the Eye of the World had been a means of gaining the point and 't is no less a truth that showing the Cards before the playing has often endanger'd the Game And indeed I have heard some smart sort of People a little Satyrical upon this Subject I remember a passage of this kind I read to'ther day being an invective against Machiavel for an unlucky Miscarriage in one of his great Designs which translated into our own English runs thus Oh! that our shallow thoughtless Machiavel should have so much zeal and so little Brains to manage it Such a Bigot such Principles such Resolution such Infatuation Impenetrable to all foolish effeminate thoughts of humanity a temper as rough and as brutal as a second Ajax untainted with remorse or pitty that hates all thoughts of gratitude friendship and fidelity as much as Rome loves greatness as deaf to a Kings interest and a Kingdoms Groans as Romes own wish could form him That excellent matchless engine for our work had not this only wretched ill conduct blasted all and crack't the whole foundation Had he but play'd the sly and wise Ulysses till under his disguise he had stoln their fatal Palladium and left their ruind Troynovant guardianless and defenseless our Glory had been compleat How might our great our adorable Machine have succeeded had not this unlucky Marr-al ruind it How might the reaking Gore of Butcher'd Infidels have fatten'd the Land and with the Steam perfumed the Skies and smelt sweet in the Nostrils of the Saints We had a time we had a day a favourable smiling Courting Hour the morning Dawn to our great Iubile But oh that dear that blest Minute 's gon A Curse of all unthinking greatness How might this mighty Hunter have pursued the glorious Game like the immortal Roman Tullia that drove her Chariot over her murder'd Fathers heart and Rod tryumphant o're the crackling Bones of Majesty had he not so rashly pull'd off the Vizard too soon thus senselesly turn'd up his Cask and show'd the fatal Face within it And by that only accurst unfortunate Act waken'd a whole alarum'd Nation to snatch the Reins from this bold Rider and cry stop Iehu Well but Mr. Lestrange through almost all his whole Pamphlet is still
upon the impossibility of Popery and Arbitrary Powers advance into England Page 82. he says take the matter as they suppose it a King upon a Throne that 's principled for Arbitrary Government and Popery but so clogg'd and shackled with Popular and Protestant Laws that if he had never so great a mind to 't there 's not one Subject in his Dominions that would dare to serve him in his Design Now the King of France we see has made himself absolute and that as I take it by the help of his Subjects and why English Men should not dare to do any thing that the French have done before them I cannot understand Neither do I find but a Popish King might not only have good Irish Hands out of his Dominions but good English ones too upon that occasion for besides his Popish Friends we have but too many of all Religions but more of no Religion at all whose desperate Fortunes would make their hearts leap at so pleasing a motion and push for a change at any rate to fish in troubled Waters and that too notwithstanding the hazard of their Necks upon a Scheame of Law which he proposes Pag. 40 to be form'd for that purpose Nay that Scheame of capital Laws should serve for an incentive to their Resolution and make 'em wade the deeper the more unsafe and dangerous it should be to retire In the foregoing Page he says Mr. Lest. that possibly there may be a Popish King that may not have the will to change the Government in respest of the immorality of inclinin to such a violation of his trust and word but most certainly not in regard of so manifest an inability to bring it to pass Now 't is evident the Plotters and Jesuites have not believed it such an impossible exploit and why may not a Prince of their own Opinion and their own Industry for Rome upon the presumption of whose principles and for whose sake their whole Machine moved with a Crown on his head and a Sword in his hand believe as they do So that were there a real inability in the case yet if the blindness of zeal and the over-sight of Ambition shall not distinguish that inability to be manifest till the event fatal success has proved it so what shall that hinder his endeavors in attempting and prosecuting it and then where 's the certainty of his will against it And these endeavors once prosecuted amidst all the violent Inrodes or subtle Attaques that shall be made for Popery and Slavery no God ha' mercy to his Kindness for 't it is none of his fault that he lays his Bones by the seige and does not live it out to put us to Storm And I need not insist how far the Peace Prosperity and Freedom of this once flourishing Kingdom will suffer under such a seige and how far they will be dayly harass'd and gall'd with so potent and so pressing an Enemy At best they must expect to have their Laws snapt asunder as often and as fast as Sampsons cords and their City gates in the scuffle twing'd off and if at last they play the Philistians and live to pick out both his Eyes for 't the end of all must terminat in Sampsons fate they 'll have an old heavy roof pull'd down both upon his head and theirs together The next thing Mr. L'estrange falls foule upon are the Acts of Parliament recited in the character and here he either tells the Reader they are nothing to the characters purpose or if they are he finds such flaws in the Law-makers that made them that they are unreasonable and consequently void in themselves as you shall hear anon And so he fairly trips up the heels of Kings Lords and Commons at once and makes their whole authority insignificant because their Laws are against Mr. L'estranges inclination First he 's very angry with the character for advancing the Popish Succesour first from the Possibility of a good man then from bad to wars and at last to a downright Traitor and that from a statute of Queen Elizabeth that declares every subject of England that shall take absolution from Rome or own the Popes supremacy or pay any Fealty to the See of Rome guilty of High Treason And then he answers this by saying there are two provisoes in the Act that makes the case somwhat different from what the Characteriser has Stated it viz. 1 Provided alway that for as much as the Queens Maiesty is otherwise sufficiently assured of the faith and loyalty of the temporal Lords of her high Court of Parliament Therefore this Act nor any thing therein contained shall not extend to compell any Temporal Person of or above the degrée of a Baron of this Realm to take or pronounce the Dath abovesaid viz. of Supremacy nor to incur any penalty limited by this Act for not taking or refusing the same c. 2. Provided also that if any Péer of this Realm shall hereafter offend contrary to this Act or any Branch or Article thereof that in that and all such case and cases they shall be Tryed by their Péers in such manner and form as in other cases of Treasons they haue used to be tryed and by no other means Now I would defie any impartial Reader to Judge if ever any thing was so weakly and so impertinently urged as these two Provisoes The first tells you that the Queen was so assured of the Loyalty of her Nobility that she would not put them to the trouble of Swearing to confirm it as the Law required from her Inferior Subjects but on the other side the second Proviso tells us that notwithstanding that if any of them offended against the Law or any Branch or Article of it they should find no more Mercy than the meanest Commoner in her Kingdom but be equally Tryed for High Treason Now what he drives at by this objection or what favor these Provisoes make for a Popish Heir I declare I cannot Imagine neither do I believe he knows himself Upon this he comes to a touch of Conscience and says It would be well if every man that presses with this unprecedented rigor upon the Person here in Question would lay his hand upon his Heart and say if the King has Pardoned me Ten Thousand times more than this comes to with what reason or Conscience can I Importune His Majesty thus bitterly against his Brother Ten Thousand times more than this comes to is a very great disproportion But thus much I am certain for the Heir of a Protestant Kingdom and the Son of a Protestant Martyr to be perverted to the Religion and Interest of Rome so notoriously destructive to the English Government and thereby to be the cause of all those Distractions in the Nation that tye up the Hearts and Hands of the Subject from their Duty to the best of Princes and weaken both his greatness at home and his Alliance abroad and not only this but to be
seduced to a perswasion in such a juncture of Affairs on whose only score have all the late Conspiracies against His Majesties Sacred Life been contrived and animated This I say is bad enough but to find out a man Guilty of Ten Thousand times more than this comes to and Pardoned for it too is to use his own word to give us an Original of an unprecedented Criminal and as unprecedented Mercy But if he intends this as a lash against the Author of the Character I 'le venture to clear him for to my knowledge he is a Person so far from laying his hand on his Heart and owing any Benefit to Royal Pardons or Acts of Oblivion that I must say this truth for him Ianuary 48 was past before he was Born In the next Page he confesses that the Strongest Argument he finds in the whole Character is this Char. if ever a Papist mounts this Throne then all their murmurs their petitions protesting and Association Votes will be remembred to the purpose upon which he makes this remark Mr. L. Now what can be a greater Indignity to the Iustice and Resolution of that Illustrious Body viz. the Parliament then to imagine so narrow a thought could any way influence the Candor and Solemnity of their Debates Yes indeed what greater indignity then to imagine it For if as the Character says and Mr. Lestrange grants they will be remember'd to the purpose and the Heretick Dogs upon his mounting into the Throne may live to be hang'd for their Barking what greater indignity to the Courage and Resolution of those Illustrious Patriots then to imagine they 'le slacken their Votes and Debates against a Popish Succession for fear of his Revenge So cowardly a thought indeed as he says would be too narrow for the Souls of English Men. From this he comes to the main point the Characters proving the Succession of the English Crown to be wholly subjected to the disposal Determinations and Limitations of Parliament The Parliament says the Character 25 of Henry the 9th setled the Crown upon the Heirs of that Kings Body by Queen Anne and in the 28 repealed that Act and intayl'd the Succession upon the Heirs of his Body by Queen Jane Mary and Elizabeth being declared illegitimate And in case they died without issue then the Parliament Empowr'd him by the same Act to dispose of the Succession by his own Letters Patents or his last will In the 35th Year of his Reign the Parliament granted the Succession to Edward and for want of the Heirs of his Body to the Lady Mary and the Heirs of her Body and for want of such Heirs to the Lady Elizabeth under certain Limitations and Conditions contain'd in that Act. But to prove all this nothing to his purpose he makes these six Objections Mr. Lest. First he says the Charasteriser infers that a Parliament may Order or Dispose the Succession But whither they may or no here 's little or nothing proved from these Citations First under the ambiguity of the word Parliament he would have this thought to be the single Act of the Lords and Commons when the Enacting authority of it was solely in the King This first Objection has more quibble than reason in it and deserves no serious Answer For the Character is so far from starting up an Ordinance instead of an Act of Parliament that no man of sense can extort any such meaning from him Secondly he says These Statutes do not so properly transfer a Right as declare and notify the Persons for the prevention of disputes and competitions as appears by the preamble to that of the 28th Statute Wherefore we your most humble and obedient Subiects in this present Parliament Assembled calling to our Remembrance the great Divisions which in times past have been in this Realm by reason of several titles pretended to the Imperial Crown of this Realm which sometimes and for the most part ensued by occasion of ambiguity and doubts then not so perfectly declared but that Men might upon froward intents expound them to every Mans sinister Appetite and Affection and Posterity of the lawful Kings and Emperors of this Realm whereof hath ensued great Effusion and Destruction of Mans Blood as well of the great Number of Nobles as of other the Subiects and especially Inheritors in the same And the greatest Occasion thereof hath been because no perfect and substantial Provision by Law hath béen made within this Realm it self When doubts and questions have been moved and proponed of the certainty and Legality of the Succession and Posterity of the Crown c. Mr. L Now so far is the intent of this Act from diverting the Succession that the express end of it was the setting of it right by the avoidance of a former settlement upon the nullity of the Marriage And afterward 26th of the same King cap. 2. The Act here before mentioned is called The Act for the establishment of the Succession of the Heirs of the Kings Highness in the Imperial Crown of this Realm Mr. L. Now there 's a great deal of difference betwixt translating the Succession from the wrong to the right and the diverting it from the right to the wrong Now certainly never had any objection less sense in it then this for if this Act impowr'd the King upon the failure of Edward Mary and Elizabeth to give the Crown to whome he pleased as really it did and that must be expounded to give it only to the next right Heir Now their could be but one right Heir in the case and consequently if that right ought to possess the empowring the King to dispose of the Crown where he pleased was downright nonsense and a palpable contradiction in the very words So that for instance had Henry the 8th Upon presumption of this Act out of some particular inclination bequeath'd the Reversion of his Crown to a Tenth Cozen removed instead of a First and this Law had been to have been read by Mr. L'estranges Spectacles the very end they made it for viz. to keep peace and quiet had been utterly destroy'd for instead of Reconciling all differences between future pretenders and fixing the succession it had only given new occasions for fresh Feuds and so the Parliament had only wisely made an Act to ruine the very intent of it's Creation Mr. L. Thirdly this change and disposition of settlement though it pased all the formalityes of Bill and Debate yet the First spring of it was from their certain knowledge of the Kings Pleasure to have it so without which they durst never have ventred on such a proposition Mr. L. Fourthly matter of Fact is no proof of Right and especially a Fact accompanied with so many circumstances of cross Capers and contradictions as the pronouncing of the same persons to be both Illegitimate and legitimate c. And a Man cannot imagine without a scandal to that Grave and Wise Assembly that the levity of those Councels and that
humor of Swearing and Counter-swearing could be any other than the caprice of their new Head and Governor Now pray observe the slyness of this slur he puts upon Majesty He cunningly insinuates that Matter of Fact may not be Matter of Right and that when the Humor Caprice or Pleasure of a King influences the Votes of his Parliament to make it so Now upon concession of Mr. Lestranges opinion here 's a broad gate opened for a Rebellion for by his Argument 't is but disallowing the rightfulness of Hearth money and indeed almost all the rest of the Kings Revenues because the King generally askt the Parliament money first and so since the first spring of those grants were from the knowledge of the Kings pleasure to have it so 't is but Mr. L'estranges denying the matter of right in this case and so he makes the King a Tyrant to demand his own and thereupon encourages the Subject to the most impudent undutifulness and disloyalty in nature Now those cross Capers and contradictions as he calls them in declaring the same Persons one while Illegitimate and afterwards legitimate is one of the greatest Arguments that the conservation of a Nations Peace was held a greater piece of Conscience in that Age then the maintaining the right of Blood when Illegitimacy it self upon occasion could be restored to the power of Succession Neither was there any such Swearing or Counter-swearing or any such levity as he calls it in that grave Assembly for the Oath they enjoyn'd the People in fidelity to the Kings Heirs could have no other meaning than whilst they were Lawfully so and in all Justice the Obligation of it expired in course when the Law declared them no longer such Nor was it indeed any more than the Tenure of our present Oath of Allegiance in which we swear to be faithful to the King 's lawful Heirs and Successors which the Ignorance of some People has used as an Argument against the changing of Succession as thinking they have sworn fealty to the next of Blood whereas in reality there 's nothing in that Oath that binds them to the Person but the Thing to no particular Man any further than as he is Heir and Successor Lawfully so and no Man truly is either Heir or Successor til he Inherits and Succeeds and as 't is most ridiculous to think the intent of an Oath of Allegiance is to make a Man Swear Loyalty to a fellow Subject as as the greatest Heir apparent is no more whilst the King Lives so the duty of that part of the Oath cannot necessarily be understood to commence or take effect till the present Kings death and then if in the mean while the absolute Power of the Land the King Lords and Commons have constituted a new Heir and Successor the obligation of that Oath of Allegiance can have no other Aspect then to the Heir and Successor so constituted Mr. Lest fithly with Reverence to the utility and constitution of good and wholesome Laws it is not presently to Cite a statute and say there 's a precedent for those Laws that are repugnant to the Light of nature and Common Right are Nullities in themselves Now here 's one of the boldest Master strokes of the pen that ever came in print This point once gain'd all the Protestant Laws since the reformation and the whole fabrick of the present Government are totally subverted 'T is but a Popish Successors believing aud maintaining that all the Protestant Laws ever since Henry the 8ths perversion are against the light of nature and consequently Nullites in themselves So down goes the Protestant Church up start the old Statutes de Haeretico comburendo the old Smith field Fire-works whilst Popery comes in in the open face of day most triumphantly introduced even by the awful Divinity of Law and Justice for its Supporters So that after all Mr. Lestranges Vindication of the Honor Honesty Veneration of Oathes Performance of Laws and Preservation of the Protestant Religion in a Popish Successor he has very subtly sound him out an Evasion to be a greater Tyrant and Devil than the Author of the Character could paint him and that too with all the Innocence in the World and even without the least Blemish of Infidelity But to come a little nearer to him in the first Place these Acts for the settlement of the Crown were so far from being repugnant to the Light of nature that on the contrary 't is evidently manifest that the Law-Makers that made e'm mov'd by no other Guide or Light but that For since self Preservation is the first and greatest thing that the light of nature teaches all Mankind the very preamble to the Acts confirm us that the preservation of themselves and their Heirs in Peace and Tranquillity and to avoid the future Effusion of English Blood was the sole End and Design of those Acts. Secondly these Acts have nothing repugnant or destructive of common right For if by common right he implies a right to any possession or pretension derived from human Power and the Laws of Man then 't is plain by the Constitution of our Government where our Laws are not like these of the Medes and Persians that the Law-makers that gave can take and in that respect there 's no right so firm which the absolute Power of the Law lying in the three States in Parliament cannot shake But if by common right he means a right derived from the Laws or Commands of God and therefore those Acts of Parliament are nullities in themselves because repugnant to the Rules and Duty of Christianity Then he would do well to tell us when that Law of God was made or that Command given But that there is no such Law nor any such Rules of Christianity is plainly to be demonstrated from the most eminent precedents of holy writ where we find proximity of blood has been so far from challenging that unalterable Right of Empire that on the other side there have been several Changes of Kings made in that case even amongst Gods own People and that always by his Consent and sometimes by his special Order Besides if any such Law of God had been made and left us in holy Scripture 't is certain that Law ought to have no more obligation over one Christian Kingdom than another and then consequently Venice and Holland that have no Kings at all and Poland that always elect their Kings by Mr. Lestranges Inference live Age after Age in continual Violation of Common Right the Duty of Christians and the Laws of God I do confess I have heard of a Command of Christ that says Let every Soule be subject unto the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation and therefore if the higher Powers of England the King Lords and Commons are an Ordinance of God too it is
an Article of my Creed That he that denies their Authority and Power and not content with that only endeavors to perswade and seduce the rest of his fellow subjects to the same denial is not only a Traitor to his Country but from Christs own Sentence shall receive if possibly a double Portion of Damnation But now for his Sixth Observation on this Statute Mr. L. Lastly he brings instance here to prove that a Parliament may divert the succession but he shows withal that there can be no security even in that Exclusion showing that what one Parliament does another may undo so that now we are upon equall Tearms of security or hazard either in the exclusion of the successor or in restraining him for if he be tyed up by one Parliament another may set him at Liberty and if he be excluded by one Parliament another may take him in again Now certainly this is the most comical humor I ever met with to advise a Parliament to have a care of excluding a Papist for fear another Parliament restore him Perswade e'm to fear that once and make e'm Jealous of fancyes and Chimeras indeed But to dissipate all shadows of any such dangers there are some heads as wise as Mr. L'estranges no disparagment that are of opinion if one English Parliament once exclude a Popish successor we may safely defy Five Hundred Parliaments afterwards to restore him The disinheriting of a Popish successor being a kind of Limbus that if we have once got him into it 't is damnable odds that all the intrest of Rome with Ten Millions of Masses never get him out of it I must confess if we could have a Parliament of Mr. L'estranges particular choosing the Consistory of Cardinals for the House of Lords and St Omers Colledge for the House of Commons much might be but till then we are pretty safe in that point But amongst all Mr. L'estranges despicable thoughts of the Decrees and power of Parliaments in Henry the Eight's days he clearly forgets to answer that Act of Parliament of Queen Elizabeths mentioned in the Character in which 't was made Treason for any man to affirm that the disposal of the Imperial Crown of England lay not in the Queen and Parliament and indeed that Act comes so near the present face of the affairs in England that it was made upon the selfe same occasion that the Bill of Exclusion was endeavour'd by the late Parliaments viz. with an intention of putting by Mary Queen of Scots the then next Popish Heir from the Succession had not her Conspiracy against the Life of the Queen put an end to all farther care by the forefeiture of her head But these Six Objections with the help of Common Right and the Light of Nature may serve to answer both and truly Mr. L'estrange has given us the top of his Politicks and the utmost strength of his Reason for the defence of a Popish Successor in opposition even to the Supreme Authority of the Nation and against all the precedents of Laws and History But alas what signifies Supreme Authority Presidents Laws c. There 's nothing so sacred which stands in their way that the Champions of Rome must not endeavor to overthrow and when the Popish Interest cries Halloo they must Bark at least though they cannot Bite Now 't is plainly to be discovered at what Foundation he strikes by lessening and enfeebling the Legislative Power of the Nation and though he wisely lays the Scene at such distance as the remoter Age of Henry the 8th yet we understand where he aims the lash he gives and what Gall his Ink's made of But truly in his Remarks and Reflections upon the Capriches as he calls them of Henry the 8th with the weakness of his great Council the shallowness of their Debates and the invalidity of their decrees he chooses the safer Subject The Majesty he reviles and the Authority he ridicules being so long since inoffensive Dust and Ashes that he has this Reason for his Boldness and this shield for his Defence Nulli gravis est percussus Achilles But to answer those strait-laced Consciences that so vehemently maintain and assert Succession to be Iure Divino and cannot be alter'd by any human Laws I will put this instance Suppose a King has two Sons the eldest of which ambitious of a Crown and mislead by the ill Counsel of his Priests favourites or the like conspires to depose his Father and in Order thereunto confederates with some neighbouring Monarch who upon assurance given him by this Aspirer of resigning of some part of his Dominions to him or becoming tributary to him furnishes him with Money and Men by which assistance he flies out into an open Rebellion against his Father upon w ch the Father commissions his younger Son to fight this Rebel Prince who beats him and makes him fly out of his fathers Dominions to that confederate neighbours Protection upon which the King with the unanimous consent of his loyal Subjects passes an Act for a total Exclusion of the Elder son from the Crown and to place the Succession in the younger Now will any Man say that this is not warrantable and just both by the Laws of God and Man For if it be unwarantable and that this Rebel Prince must still suceeed then consider what follows Frst here 's a manifest obstructing of the distribution of the greatest Justice both human and divine For whilst this Prince continues safe by his Flight and his forreign Protection from any personal Sufferance for his Crimes and at the same time 't is granted he cannot suffer in his Birthright then this indispensable continuation of succession confers the greatest Earthly felicity and reward viz. a Diadem on the greatest of Criminals one Doubly a Traitor not only against the Lords anointed but even to the Fountain of his own Royal Blood and the Author of his being a Father Secondly it makes crown'd Heads the most miserable State of all man kind nay they are below the meanest Peasant in their Kingdoms For the vengeance of a Subject having the Power to disinherit shall persue a Rebel son even to the East Indies whilst a King who they say has or should have long hands shall notwith all his thunder reach the worst of rebels cross the next Sea or perhaps the next County So that where 's their boasting themselves to be Gods Vicegerents when they alone of all Men are most debarred that greatest Prerogative of a Diety REVENGE 3d By this means Majesty that should be most sacred and the person of it most religiously guarded and defended lies more exposed than all Mankind besides for if it be true that Filius ante diem patrios inquirit in annos And the lust of Inheritance makes the Blood of the Impatient Heir boil high for possession then 't is most true where the Inheritance is Greatest and the Temptation Strongest as in the case of a Crown that there the Blood
boiles highest And if so and Birth-right be still unforfitable then to the strongest Temptation here 's the least danger and the greatest Encouragement for gratifying that lust and accomplishing all such tempting desires So that upon this position who so arm'd for a Traitor as he that 's Born to a Crown and who so unsafe as he that wears it But surely 't is inconsistant with that particular care that God takes for the Preservation of Kings to entail that Ius Divinum upon them that places them infra statum Humanum However to give a little clearer light into this great point of Succession I shall trouble my Reader with one instance more It cannot be disputed but that either Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth did succeed to the Imperial Crown of England not by Divine Right of Succession since Queen Elizabeth was Born whilst Queen Katharine the Mother of Queen Mary was living but one of them must undoubtedly enjoy the Crown Iure Parliamentario if the latter as cannot be denyed and that Succession is Iure Divino then she was an Usurpess upon the Right of the House of Scotland and what then is the consequence of all this First it shakes and strikes at the Foundation of the Church of England which derives all its Power and Authority from the Crown which began in King Henry the 8ths and were more fully confirmd by Queen Elizabeth and therefore the Church of England was setled by a Princess de facto and not de jure insomuch that it undermines the very basis of the Hierarchy and Ecclesiastick power and the order of the whole Clergy who derive their Distinctions and Ordinations from that Queen 2ly It may call in Question all the Grants of that Queen which have not been confirmed by the Scottish Line and destroy the many and great Priviledges conferr'd on both the Universities 3ly According to the Rule of Ius Divinum it may raise a Question hereafter of what validity those Honors are which that Queen was pleased to confer upon several great and eminent Families Lastly it would well become many worthy and learned Men seriously to consider whether they do not labor to do the Work and Drudgery of the Church of Rome who assert so fatal a Principle whereby they make Queen Elizabeth an Usurpress and build the superstructure of the Protestant Religion the right of the Church and the Legality of the whole Clergy of England upon such a sandy and ruinous Foundation as the High and Mighty Ius Divinum But if we will allow that Princess our lawful Queen which I hope no Man will have the Impudence to deny then the disposal of the Crown by Parliament is just But if Ius Divinum that lay buried 44 Years together must make a Resurrection in our present Distractions of England and both Honor and Conscience render an exclusion Bill unlawful how came the proposition of making a Popish Successor but a Nominal Prince and setling the Administration in Protestant hands If that may be then here 's Ius Divinum quite laid aside for Divine Right of Birth entitles a Prince to the power as well as the name of a King and if that right be sacred and inviolable no one part of it more than another ought or can lawfully be alienated But if the greatest part of it be by the greatest Authority allow'd justly Alienable by Act of Parliament there 's an end of all Divine Right and a concession of the Iurisdiction of Parliaments insomuch that if they may legally take away the Kernel and leave only the Husk of Succession by the same Authority they may as well take away both and a total Exclusion is no more repugnant to Honor or Conscience then an Exclusion in part But if any Man has a curiosity to examine the Effects of Exclusions in part viz. Limitations and Restrictions that have been put upon the English Crown I will only advise him cursorly to run over the contests between King Iohn and the Barons Henry the 3d Edward the 2d and Richard the 2d and their Barons and the troubles of Henry the 6th and the several Agreements made between him and the D. of York and he 'le easily satisfie himself that notwithstanding the several Agreements Restraints and Limitations put upon the Crown and those confirm'd not only by Acts of Parliament but solemnly ratifyed in the Face of Heaven by many Oaths and dreadful Excommunications by the Church yet none ever held but so soon as those Parliaments were dissolved or the first opportunity or advantage happen'd those Kings by the ill advice of their Favourites and Minions broke all whereupon both parties flying to Arms the King accusing them of Treason and they Him of Perjury the rise of all those long and bloody Civil Wars had no other ground but this But to back his last six Arguments in defence of the Succession we find him for the next three or four Pages together corroborating his Opinion with the practice of the primitive Christians First he tells you 'tis a Gospel precept not to do ill that good may come of it such as the unwarrantable devesting of a Prince of his Birthright though for any safety or preservation whatever So that in the case of England supposing it would come at last to a down-right persecution under a Popish Successor yet to stand upon our Guards to prevent it would be more than ever the primitive Christians did under the ten Persecutions and we have not only their Example but their express Doctrine against it And therefore as he says in another place 't is our Duty to bless God for the Peace and Happiness we now enjoy and rather wait his farther pleasure with thankfulness and resignation then with murmuring and aâ—â—trust to Anticipate future Evils and Prejudge Providences to come Now never was any thing more plausibly managed to so little purpose for the Correspondence between ours and the primitive Christians case is here so incoherently Ballanced that never were Arguments more Sophistical The primitive Christians preacht Obedience to Nero yes and they had forfeited their Christianity if they had done otherwise but what was that Nero an absolute Monarch and what those primitive Bishops not such as ours they were not a part of the Legislative Power of the Nation as our Prelates are If Nero invented Wracks Tortures and Gibbets for persecuting or murdering the poor Christians he did it by his own uncontroulable Authority nor were those primitive Bishops call'd to make Laws and therefore had not the lawful power of the least Vote in Moderation of Neroes Cruelty or in Redress of the Christians Torments I am sure if they had had any such voting or law-making Power and yet out of a base principle of cowardly Fear on one side and like fordid Sycophants out of a servile Flattery of Neroes barbarous Inclinations on the other side had neglected the means as much as in them lay of preventing those Persecutions they had been rather Wolves then
Iacob by Artifice and his Brothers borrowed Name had deceived the Father and extorted the Blessing we find the grant of his Inheritance though fraudulently obtain'd was so far from being retracted that the Fathers promise and word even to the Counterfeit Esau was more sacred then all the formidable ties of Blood and the inviolable Right of Succession Now I hope our wise Author will not quarrel with Isaacs Injustice and appeal to the Light of Nature and Common Right for the Redress of Esaus wrongs Perhaps it may be objected rhat Esau sold his Birth-right foolishly for a Mess of Pottage though that we find had no influence on Isaacs Determination yet if a Royal Birth-right could be sold or forfeited either by the Folly or Fault of the Heir where 's SUCCESSION and if in our present State of England we have an Heir of those corrupted Principles and that depraved Infatuation till he has prodigally forfeited his Fathers and his Grand-Fathers Blessings the one having sealed the Protestant Faith with his Blood and the other having particularly entayl'd a curse upon all his Progeny that should ever Apostatise from the Protestant Truth to the Popish Superstition if we have an Heir so bewitcht by the Charms of Rome which like the Syrens songs can convert Reason into Madness or rather like Circes Bowles transform Men into Swine why not the Prodigals fare the husks a more proper Reward from him than a Coronation Festival This I am certain if he had Esaus Fate the Blessing and Inheritance should go together I shall only instance one particular more out of holy Writt I hope his c. in the last Paragraph will allow the Iudges of Israel were a Kingly Power as well as the Patriarchal and that they may indeed appear so we find their Government the most agreeing with the present Monarchy of England for they had the Power of Life and Death Peace and War in their Prerogative but then as a Restriction against Absolute and Arbitrary power like our Common and Ecclesiastick Laws their Constitution of Government was limited and confined withing the establisht and recorded Mosaick Law which was the ultimate Verge of their Jurisdiction both Civil and Spiritual Now here in the case of Samuel Judge of Isreal we find him parting with his Royalty and conferring it upon his two Sons even in his own Life time after that we find the Israelites disgusted against their ill Government and asking for a King that is such a King as those of the Nations round about e'm viz. an Absolute Monarch And upon this Saul stept up into the Throne Now here we may observe there was so little Regard had to the Right of Succession that their lawful Judges even after possession were divested of their Royal Dignity and that too mark it not only upon the Peoples Request but even by a Command from the immediate Voice of God without the lest Reflection of the Duty of passive Obedience to Samuels Sons those corrupted Judges of Isreal And though it may be objected that God was angry with the Children of Israel for their desires of Change in that they had follow'd other Gods and that this asking for a King as we read look'd like rejecting of him that had brought e'm out of Egypt and deliver'd them from the Hands of their Enemies yet since God complyed with that desire no Man must say this Change was unlawful or the removal of their Royal Judges unjust But in Answer to all this our Masquerader will not want a Justification for the unalterable Right of Succession nay rather than stand out at a dead Lift hee 'll start you up a common Right and a Light of Nature that upon occasion shall supersede even the Records of Scripture and the very immediate Acts of God Nay we find after the Constitution of that more absolute Iewish Monarchy which began in Saul that his very next Successor was a Stranger to his Blood a Man of a quite different Family in so much that David the Man after Gods own heart a man so eminently beloved of the Almighty that from his Loyns the promis'd Messias should procceed was a Prince so far from owing his Crown to the Right of Birth and Blood that he was anointed King even in his Predecessors life in spight of the Greater sons of Saul those nearer and juster pretenders to the Crown had Birth-right given e'm title to it But so Early a sea-mark did God set up against that fatal Rock unalterable Succession and so timely a care did the great Founder of Empires the Divine Omnipotence take to show that the Dispensations of Majesty for his Peoples good and his own Glory were to be preferr'd before the Soveraignty of Birth that blinder gift of Chance But to come a little down to our own age even in all our latest Modern constitutions of Monarchy and that not only in England but all the Christian Kingdoms in Europe we find there is not altogether that infallibility in Birth right but that Fools and Mad-men notwithstanding their proximity of descent are excluded from Empire so that by Mr. Lestranges permission a Shallow Perecranium or an Addled one upon occasion shall put very good Royal veins out of play So that to make Monarchy go a little hand in hand with our new natural Philosophy some Criticks will tell you that the Life of it lyes more in the Head than the Heart that is in the Brain than the Blood And that I need not stray far for an Instance have we not had a late King of Portugal deposed as Delirious and Frantick and consequently render'd by Law uncapable of reighning and all this done by his own Subjects and those of his own Religion without the least Reflection of Treason or Rebellion or the Aspersion of lifting a hand against the Lords anointed Nay if truth might make bold in England there be those that dare honestly venture to say there must go so strong a Dose of Folly and Madness or indeed both together to make up the composition of a Popish Heir to the Protestant Crown of England especially an Heir that can be fond of the Gugaws Bawbles and Trumpery of the Romish Superstition as to hazard three Crowns for them and that too by an Apostacy from a native Hereditary Protestant Faith not only derived down to him but more signally sealed by a Royal Fathers Martyrdom a light which certainly would shine through all the mists and fogs the Iesuitish Magick has or can cast about him though thicker if possible then the Egyptian Darkness it self a Darkness to be felt were there not a Skull in the case more than strangely impenetrable and a Cerebellum if possibly more than supernaturally impedimented so that if in Truth he but fairly stood the Test of an old Statute we have already the Begging of his Reversion would be so feasible that it would be cross we won and pile he lost But to come yet a little nearer to the mark as it is most undoubtedly true that Soules are never Generate and consequently not always derived from the Father that Begets it sometimes so falls out by the Caprice of some ill natured planet or to come to a more Christian notion by the indisputable Will of Omnipotence that moulds the Clay as he pleases to make such infinite disproportions in the unequal distributing of those sparks of his own Celestial fires call'd soules that so much over rule the inferior Mass of Flesh and Blood and sometimes so far Estrange and alienated a Son from the Nature Temper and indeed almost every thing of the Father till it does worse then Bastardize even Legitimacy it self FINIS