to be too much trusted or relied upon by His Majesty should he be tempted contrary to his Duty and Inclination to offer at any thing Illegal considering how unjustly clamorous they have been against the House of Commons For their Illegal Votes and Orders and usurping upon their Persons and Estates For Tyrannizing over their Fellow-Subjects For their Arbitrary Proceedings in the two last Parliaments and their Vnlimited and Illegal Im-Imprisonments and their Messengers exorbitant exacting pretended fees contrary to Magna Charta For if they be so heated and transported against their own and the Kingdoms Representatives when very many wise learned and indifferent persons and who are as jealous of the least invasion upon the liberty and property of the Subject as any in the Nation think that the House of Commons did nothing in all the Cases that are with so much warmth and resentment reflected upon but what they both might and ought to do by the Laws of the Land and Parliamentary Presidents Is it to be imagined that they would very tamely loose their Lives or suffer themselves to be silently dispossessed of their Estates at the sole and indisputable pleasure of the Prince SECT XIV And whereas by all the Addresses they testifie with what approbation they have received His Majesties late Declaration it is too plain that thereby they intimate their Satisfaction in the Dissolution of so many Parliaments Nay some of them expresly publish their unanimous consent and delight therein And others return His Majesty solemn thanks for giving his two last Parliaments such timely Dissolutions Had these people the discretion and modesty which might become them they would have esteem'd themselves very improper and unsufficient Judges of the prudentialness of that exercise of Royal Power And this is the first president that ever England saw of any Commoners giving His Majesty thanks for dismissing Parliaments For tho' some of our former Kings have upon Misunderstandings arisen between them and their Parliaments abruptly Dissolved them and Published very weighty Declarations in Justification of what they did yet whatever Submission the people yielded to what these Princes had done or how seasonable and justifiable soever they in their own minds believed it they never Addressed these Monarchs in a way of Thanks for doing of it And tho possibly the last Long Parliament was through its long Sitting esteemed a great grievance to the Nation and too many of its Members judged easily manageable for betraying the liberty of the Subject had they been powerfully tempted thereunto and tho' His Majesties Dissolving them was entertained with an Universal joy yet none had the folly to thank him for it as knowing of what fatal consequence such an action might afterwards prove And whether the many acknowledgments which some have returned the King for Dissolving Two such Parliaments that for what appears by their Printed Votes and Debates were filled with Men of as great integrity and ability as well as Gentlemen of as great Estates as have in any age met together in the great Councel and Senate of the Kingdom do become those that are well-wishers to the Protestant Religion either at home or abroad or such as have duly considered the present state of the Nation and the many dangers with which it is encompassed may be worthy of their most serious thoughts when they are at leasure to look back upon and examine what they have done Surely those men who at the same time thank the King for promising to Govern by Law never considered that it is both a fundamental Law of the Kingdom and much of the soul and life of all our Laws not only to have frequent Parliaments but have them permitted to sit to dispatch the affairs of the Nation Nor can they be supposed to have seriously weighed how when the Kingdom seems in so much danger from an aspiring and formidable Neighbour our Religion and Lives so greatly in hazard by the hellish conspiracies of the Papists our Allies in so much need of countenance and assistance that the King tho' never so well inclined as we will always believe His Majesty to be cannot without the concurrence aid and advice of a Parliament do any thing that may effectually answer those weighty importunate and loud calls For what can His Majesty be conceived able to do in such circumstances when he hath neither power over the Purses of his people nor can so much as command the Militia of the Nation to march out of their respective Counties But that which these Addresses imply which is yet of more dangerous importance is that the very Being of Parliaments doth wholly depend upon the will pleasure of the King Whereas such a supposal is inconsistent with the constitution of the Kingdom does no-way comport with the ends of our Government and might prove very dangerous to the safety and happiness of the Nation in case we should hereafter have a King void of compassion to and regardless of the interest of his people For tho' it be left to the Wisdom of the Soveraign where he will have Parliaments to Assemble and belongs to His Prerogative to call them when his own Princely occasions or the necessities of his people do require yet the Law which His Majesty is sworn to observe it being a part of His Coronation Oath Tenere Leges consuetudines Regni doth both provide that we shall have Annual Parliaments and by directing the ends for and the affairs about which they are to meet doth at least imply something of their continuing to sit till those affairs be accomplished and the said ends compassed and obtained Nor will His Majesty be ever induced to believe that he can be thought to Govern according to Law without calling Parliaments whensoever the distresses and grievances of His people bespeak and require them Neither is it to be imagined that he should long harbour any such thought in His Royal breast That he can answer the directions and ends of the Law without permitting Parliaments to sit such a convenient season as that they may in conjunction with His Majesty relieve the people from their manifold fears redress the numerous and sore grievances of the Nation and provide for the safety strength and honour of the Kingdom SECT XV. In the next place All the Addresses seem to be fram'd towards the expressing a willingness in the People that the Duke of York should succeed his Majesty And this they insinuate a readiness in the Addressers to further without the least desire to have any provision made before-hand for the Security of the Protestant Religion or Save guarding the Lives of such as prosess it under the Reign of one that is a known and violent Papist For whilst the Addressers are pleased to say That it is the Kingdoms Interest to continue the Succession in its Due and Right Line And take upon them to thank his Majesty For his unalterable Resolutions to preserve the Crown
AN Impartial Account OF THE NATURE and TENDENCY Of the Late ADDRESSES IN A LETTER TO A Gentleman in the COUNTRY LONDON Printed for R. Baldwyn 1681. An Impartial Account of the Nature and Tendency of the late ADDRESSES in a Letter to a Gentleman in the Country SECT I. SIR YOU are not mistaken in taking it for granted that I have read the several late Addresses to His Majesty for being the Subject of the chief diversion of the Town I should have been unfit for conversation had I not so far consulted them as to be able as well as others to make them the matter of discourse and entertainment among my Friends But whereas you are further pleased to require my inward and serious thoughts concerning them I must crave liberty to tell you That notwithstanding all your Interest in and Authority over me you should never have been able to have extorted from me what you desire did not the Service which I owe His Majesty and the Government command more at my hands than the friendship and deference which I pay you could have obliged me unto So that you are to ascribe my compliance with your request to its falling in with the Fealty and Allegiance which I render my Prince And the more Freedom and less Reserve you find me to use upon this Subject you are intirely to resolve it into the Love and Compassion which I bear for the King who I fear is not only industriously deluded but wofully betrayed by the judgment which some about him pretend to make of the sense and inclination of the People from these Addresses SECT II. For no Applications of this nature to the Regnant person are to be esteem'd of any great weight or significancy if you do but consider the Result of the many Addresses Three and twenty year ago to Richard Cromwell and how they only served to render him secure till he was undermined and supplanted For of all the Sixteen hundred thousand that vow'd to Live and Dye by him not so much as one man drew a Sword in his favour when he came to be laid aside I acknowledg that there is a great difference betwixt an Vsurper and a Rightful Sovereign yet that detracts very little in the present case from the importance of the consideration which I have suggested seeing the least that we are to gather from it is this That no Addresses contrary to the interest and general humour of the Nation are to be accounted of any value for a Prince to sustain himself upon And if there be nothing else to secure our late Addressers to His Majesties service but there Promises and Protestations in those Papers he may be as much disappointed should he have occasion to trust to them as the former Gentleman after the like security was SECT III. It is astonishing as well as surprising that when Petitions had been not only discountenanced but forbidden by Proclamation Addresses should so soon after be encouraged and promoted And our amasement is greatly heightned when we consider that the Petitions were in reference to matters which every body understood and in relation to such things wherein the Law justified the Petitioners whereas the Addresses respect matters which very few understand and which the Law noways authoriseth private men to meddle with and which none save a Parliament have Power or Ability to decide and determine For tho' men are to be esteem'd capable of knowing their own wants fears and dangers and ought to be justified in begging those means of Relief and Redress which the Law hath provided for them yet every one is not to be accounted sufficiently qualified to determine concerning the Reasonableness and Legality of Parliamentary Proceedings and Resolves nor is any number of men whatsoever empowered to Umpire differences between His Majesty and His great Council And whereas those very Petitions which seem'd most peremptory did nevertheless with all due resignation reserve to His Majesty his full Prerogative many of the Addresses import no less than the Robbing the Parliament not only of their Right and Authority to Impeach Criminals censure Offenders withhold as well as give supplies but of their most essential Priviledge viz. freedom of Debates SECT IV. Nor doth it appear to considering Persons that any advantage can arrive to the King or Government by them whereas the mischiefs and inconveniencies which do attend them are obvious to every one For what else do they tend unto or can they be supposed calculated for but to divide the Nation into factions and parties and to foment those heats and animosities among His Majesties Liege people Which are already too great to need to be farther heightned and enflamed 'T is His Majesties desire as well as his interest and duty to be equally esteemed the Father and Defender of all his people but these Addressers would possess the Nation that they only are to be accounted His Loyal Subjects and that all His favours are only due and ought to be confined to them And by threatning the generality of people that they have forfeited His Majesties affection and care by refusing to act as they do they insensibly lessen the love which His Majesty ought to have in the hearts of all His Subjects and wonderfully abate the zeal which they would otherwise have for his Service Nor can any say that Petitions have the same Effects seeing amongst Persons in the same circumstances some may represent their wants and grievances without prejudicing or giving offence to those who chuse silently to undergo them And who knows but that whil'st some think they are to seek their Relief by humble Applications unto and fervent Importunities of their Prince there may be others who hope that their Soveraign may from the sense which he hath of their Calamities afford them at last all the succour he can without the solicitation of their cries But the nature of these Addresses being to commend and applaud the present posture of affairs and to justify most of the steps and councels by which we have been reduced into this doleful condition they do in effect declare every one to be peevish and clamorous that cannot acquiesce and rejoice in this state of things under which we groan and labour And as they hereby render all those enemies unto them whose safety and happiness they are conceived not only to abandon but destroy so the very Government through the characters of Grace and Favour which it placeth upon their Applications runs a hazard of losing much of its respect and veneration SECT V. And besides this and many other mischiefs which they do naturally involve the Government and the Kingdom under they will be found prejudicial and inconvenient to the King in the tendency which they have to deceive and abuse him For whereas they are designed to perswade His Majesty that what they represent and suggest is the common and universal sense of his people and that he may accordingly take his measures it is both evident
presume to suggest this unto His Majesty known any Republicans or Fanaticks who by possessing the people with groundless fears and jealousies would bring us into Anarchy and confusion or that would subvert the known Laws of the Land wherein our Religion Liberty and Property are wound up they ought by their Allegiance to have deposed against them and given in their names that they might be prosecuted and come to suffer according to the greatness and quality of their Crimes But alas this was a Province they durst not undertake and the attempting it would have too palpably laid open their Folly and exposed their malice And because many have been drawn to set their hands to Addresses who do not well understand whence this clamour of a Presbyterian Plot proceeds I shall briefly unfold the mystery that lies at the bottom of all this loud and groundless noise The Papists being charged with a Hellish conspiracy against the person of the King our Religion Government and the lives of all His Majesties Protestant Subjects and this being proved against them to the satisfaction of all the rational part of mankind as well by their own Papers as by the Testimonies of many unquestionable Witnesses and finding that neither their impudent denying it nor their falsely scandalizing some and endeavouring to debauch and corrupt others of the Kings Evidence could either bring them off from the Scandal of this Plot or free them from the Punishment which were a Parliament permitted to Sit more of them must undergo they retreat to this as their last refuge namely the amusing the Nation with the Buz of a Presbyterian and Phanatick Plot carried on to overthrow the Government and destroy the Monarchy under pretence of prosecuting a Popish Conspiracy And towards the obtaining credit to this they not only form'd the Intrigue of the Meal-Tnb but invented the Shams of Sir Edmond-bury Godfrey's murdering himself and my Lord Howard's penning Fitz-Harris's Libel which tho' they have shamefully redounded upon themselves yet having no other game to play they are still labouring partly by suborning Witnesses and hiring impudent Rascals to swear Treason against Protestants and partly by a groundless and impudent clamour to infect unwary and heedless persons with the perswasion of such a design And it is from the Papists that weak and credulous people have taken the scent of a Presbyterian Plot and ascribe it to His Majesties Wisdom and Soveraign authority that we are not relapsing into the miseries and confusions of Tyranny and Vsurpation by the subtile artifice and cunning contrivances of the old enemies of the Monarchy and the Church who by the insinuations of Religion Liberty and Property prevail upon weak and unwary men to make them subservient to their factious and ambitious designs Surely these men never considered what a notorious scandal they have hereby endeavoured to fasten not only upon many of His Majesties peaceable best and most loyal Subjects but what a vile aspersion they have cast upon the whole Kingdom which greatly suffers in its honour by standing represented in the face of all the World as broken and divided within it self and sinking back again into all confusion Nor have they duly weighed what a Reflection they lodge upon the Kings Government and Conduct that He who was so lately Restored by the unanimous Consent and with the universal Joy of all his People should in so few years have lost the Love and Reverence of so great a number of His Subjects as are intended here to be be accused Can there be any thing vented to the diminishing His Majesties Reputation more abroad and for discouraging Forreign Princes and States from entring into those Alliances which are necessary for the good as well of His Majesties Kingdoms as of Christendom and for the lessening the expectation and confidence which those with whom we are in League ought to remain possest with of our being able to answer the ends of them than this account which these men present His Majesty with of the posture of the Nation and temper of his People and which our Gazettes have diffused into all Countries And doth not this also directly tend to the filling His Majesties Protestant Subjects with Jealousies one of another thereby to take them off from their watchfulness over and to weaken their endeavours against the Papists who labour no less to destroy the Dissenters than those that Conform to the National Form of Worship and to the Established Discipline and Ceremonies and for the withstanding of whose Bloody Designs and saving our Religion and the Nation from the effects of their malicious and desperate Conspiracies the united Hearts and Hands of all true Protestants will be found little enough And will not this Character which the Addresses are pleased to give of the state of England wonderfully embolden that aspiring Monarch the French King to proceed in his encroachments upon the Dominions of his Neighbours as judging himself secure from any check which the King of Great Britain can give him For as His Majesty can be in no capacity to discourage him from further Attempts against the Peace of Europe or to hinder his Conquest but by being great in the Hearts of all his own People and in a happy Correspondence and Conjunction with his Parliament so we have reason to fear that they who endeavour to beget Misunderstandings betwixt His Majesty and his Subjects and to create in them mutual Distrusts each of other are either Pensioners to France or under the Conduct and Influence of them that are SECT XX. But as if it were not enough for those persons who have subscribed the Addresses to fasten so vile a charge as you have heard upon many of the people whom the better to reconcile credit to what they say they are pleased to call Republicans and Fanaticks they have also taken the boldness to involve the Two last Parliaments under the guilt of the same crimes and accusations Accordingly they tell His Majesty with what an infinite patience and condescention he did submit to hear unreasonable jealousies promoted in them illegal courses and proceedings vindicated and all the great and most benign Indulgences of their Soveraigns goodness misrepresented And they thank the King for His steady resolutions of maintaining the Rights of the Crown c. against the Arbitrary Proceedings of the House of Commons in the two last Parliaments And for not Signing such Bills as were prepared for His Majesties Subjects to associate to destroy the Succession and extirpate Monarchy Yea they profess Their Admiration of His Majesties Princely Wisdom and Councel in the conduct of his Affairs in obviating viz. by Dissolving Parliaments the Designs of the pernicious Enemies of the Church and State And declare That they cannot but admire His Majesties Transcendent and Sacred Wisdom which in that dangerous and confused Juncture did so seasâ—nably interpose and so calmly suppress the threatning Flames which were breaking forth And thereupon
they present their Acknowledgments to His Majesty For timely preventing by Dissolving those Parliaments the Designs of Ill men who in the same Age were a second Time attempting by the same Methods as formerly the destruction of His Loyal Subjects the diminution of his Lawful Power and the debasing the Grandeur of the English Throne I know not by what Name these false and slanderous Accusations charged upon two Parliaments ought to be called but it is to be hop d that the next Parliament will at once tell the Nation by what name the Law stiles them and what Punishment it hath allotted for those that have made themselves Guilty of so 〈◊〉 and scandalous an Aspersion as that two Parliaments had gone about to destroy the Protestant Religion as Legally established and to extirpate Monarchy Whereas these excellent persons of which the two last Houses of Commons consisted had many of them ventured their Lives and lost their Estates for the Monarchy and all of them were such as upon Principles of Reason and from Inclination are true Lovers of it They not only had too late and sad Experience of a Commonwealth to be fond of returning to it again but they know that no other Government can agree with the Genius of the People and suit the ballance of the Nation but a well-Regulated Monarchy such as ours is by the Laws of our Constitution Nor can His Majesty be supposed to believe that ever they will prove true to the Monarchy who are not true to the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament For they who can revile and despise one Essential part of the Constitution have nothing to oblige them to adhere to the other but the prospect of Preferment or worldly Gain And to see men countenanced that revile any one part of the Legislative Authority may be too ill a president and which His Majesty is obliged to see redressed from the Love that he beareth to the Crown For whosoever strikes at Parliaments does by undermining the Government as by Law Established shake the very Pillars of the Throne SECT XXI Nor do they only intimate a Design carried on against the Government but they insinuate a Change to be made by Force and upon that supposal while we are in and to the apprehensions of all sober persons likely to continue in perfect Peace they offer their Lives and Fortunes to the disposal of one part of our Legislative Constitution and Power in opposition to another We yield say they our Lives and Fortunes at Your Majesties Command and will to the last drop of our Blood and Penny of our Fortunes stand by your Majesty in the Defence of Your Royal Person Crown and Government and Lawful Successors So that by reading the Addresses one would be inclined to think that these men construe the King's Declaration as the Erection of the Royal Standard and that they intend these Papers for the Muster-Rolls of those that are to fight under His Majesties Ensigns But as we hope that His Majesty will never have occasion for War unless it be in relieving his Allies abroad against the Ambition of France who to all his other Invasions upon the Dominions of his Neighbours is at this time about employing his Forces against the Subjects of His Majesties Kinsman the Prince Palatine so we hope that both in that Case and in any other wherein His Wisdom and Justice will suffer Him to engage He shall not only have the Treasure of all his People through the Gift of a Parliament at His Command but all their Persons and Lives ready to be Sacrificed in His Service It is no marvel that such thirst after War who have little to live upon in Time of Peace and who may expect to be Gainers by Troubles But His Majesty who besides the care He is to to have of the Lives and Estates of all his Subjects hath more to lose Himself alone than all his People will not I judge be prevailed upon to hearken to rash and heady Councels And how unequal ought they to apprehend themselves to the Body of the Nation who whâ—n they have had the Folly and Confidence to present an Address in the Name of a whole County have at the same time acknowledged That they were not able to carry it for any that His Majesty might be inclined to recommend to serve in the next Parliament for the Shire SECT XXII The last thing I would observe concerning the Addresses is their making small numbers of men without previous advice had with each other and without being authorised or entrusted to judge of the State of the Kingdom For tho' it be lawful for any one man and much more for any number of men to represent to His Majesty their own wants and dangers and accordingly beg redress and relief yet to declare the State of the Nation belongs to no number of private persons whatsoever but appertains only to the Parliament as being the Representative of the whole Kingdom And therefore the Addressers by assuming to themselves a Right and Authority to determine about the State of the Nation and to judge concerning those things which the Trustees of all the people met in the great Councel are only proper and by Law allowed to meddle with have in my apprehension made too near an approach to the altering the whole Government And as they must expect that the judgment which they have passed upon persons and things will at one time or another come under a review so matters which have either been misrepresented by them or in reference to which Parliaments have been arraigned may before then come to be so well understood by His Majesty and all things so well adjusted between him and his people that the Addressers may neither find themselves able to decline nor be in a condition to controll the jurisdiction of the next Parliament to which we shall at present leave them SECT XXIII But whereas you may be ready to enquire that if the Addresses be so pernicious both in the subject matter and tendency of them and so contrary to the general sense of the Nation as I have declared why the people do not by Petitions from all parts of the Kingdom let the King know so much This I shall return you a just and true answer unto and then discharge you from any further trouble 1st It is the nature and temper of some men most to disserve the cause and prejudice the interest which they have espoused when they are quietly let alone to run their course and to take their full swing For according to the old Proverb Give some People Rope enough and they will Hang themselves The only way to know what they would be at was for others to look silently on a while And through giving them scope their own madness and folly hath made them more ridiculous than any opposition whatsoever from others could have rendred them 2dly The Petition first from my Lord Mayor the Court of Aldermen and the Common-Councel of London and then from the Common-Hall is a Copy of what all the Nation would say In London as in a Glass we see the face of the whole Kingdom For being the Epitome as well as Metropolis of the Nation whatsoever it says is a compendious expressing of the sense of England 3dly Men have been willing to forbear Petitioning lest by the disparity in the numbers to Petitions and to Addresses some thinking all safe through the consideration of the multitude that aim d at what themselves did might grow more secure than their dangers will well allow and lest others upon the same inducement might have taken occasion to grow more insolent than their duty and interest obligeth them unto 4thly His Majesty having received the Addresses with that favour which he did wise men thought it best not to administer occasion of his refusing Petitions that they foresaw would come accompanied with more hands It is good manners in Subjects not to grate too hard upon their Prince but if he have done any thing wherein they can t acquiesce with that contentment which they desire to give him time and liberty to recollect himself 5thly If Petitions shall be judged either necessary or convenient it is not so late but that they may be yet set on foot And if it should prove uneasie for any to find it so they must blame themselves who by their unwearied carrying on of Addresses make it needful for His Majesties good Subjects at last to undeceive him which they can no other way do at least till a Parliament come but by Petitions I am June 28. 81. SIR Your most ready and Humble Servant FINIS ERRATA PAge 8. l. 19. for was r. is p. 9. l. 3. del that p. 14. for an r. and. p. 21. l. 12. after bringing add in p. 32. l. 24. for oppose r. expose Address from Chatham Address from Darby Addr. from Barnstable Addr. from Haslemere Addr. from the Western Division of Sussex Addr. from Exon. Addr. from Norwich Addr. from Bristol Addr. from Norwich 4 Ed. 3. cap. 14. 36. Ed. 3. cap. 10. Addr. from the County of Somerset Addr. from Cambridge Ripon Western Division of Surrey Addr. from Hertford Addr. from Monmouth Addr. from Derby and from the Military Officers of Surrey Addr. from Bristol and from Derset Addr. from Lynn Regis Clifton Dartmouth Harness Grand Inquest of the County of Oxon Bristol c. Address from Ripon Addr. from Salisbury Address from Clifton Dartmouth Harness c. Addr. from Norwich Addr from the Western Division of Surrey Address from Norwich Address from Ripon Addr. from Southwark Addr. from Bristol Addr. from Reading Addr. from Derby Addr. from Monmouth Addr. from Ludlow Addr. from some in the Middle-Temple Addr. from the Deputy-Lieuten c. of Somorset Addr. from Eye in Suffolk Addr. from Okehampton Addr. from Norwich Addr. from Winchester Addr. from Bristol Addr. from Cardiffe Addr. from Monmouth Addr. from Bedford-shire
in its due and Legal course of Descent and undertake to sacrifice their Lives to preserve the Kings Heirs and lawful Successors And offer their Lives and Fortunes to his Majesties Disposal for this purpose All people do sufficiently understand what they aim at and that the meaning of all this is That they would have the Duke of York come to the Throne But I wish they had shown so much Ingenuity and Candour as to have taken notice and acknowledged that all His Majesties Subjects are as tender of the Preservation of the Monarchy and as zealous to have it continued in the Royal Line as any of themselves dare pretend to be For it is more than probable that nothing so much influenced the bringing and pressing the Bill of Exclusion as a regard to the Preservation of the Monarchy which some of the best wisest and most Loyal of His Majesty's Subjects think the coming to have a Popish King may shake and endanger especially considering what this Nation felt from the last Papist that possest the Throne and how it hath been of late and still is threatned by the Bloody Conspiracies of the Romish Party Besides it had not been amiss if our late Addressers had owned that the King Lords and Commons have a Power to dispose of the Succession as they shall judge most conducible to the Safety Interest and Happiness of the Kingdom and that he is His Majesties Heir and Successor upon whom the whole Legislative Power shall think meet to settle the Inheritance of the Crown Nor would it have misbecome men professing the Protestant Religion and tender of English Liberties to have recommended to His Majesties second Thoughts and maturer Advice what three several Parliaments have with so much strength of Reason insisted upon and with so much earnestness pursued and desired And I wish they were able to tell us what they mean when at the same time that they engage to defend the Protestant Religion they vow to the last drop of their Blood to stand by the next Successor And the rather because there is some reason to believe that many of them will not be over-forward to dye Martyrs It would be also some satisfaction to be instructed how they think to defend the Crown in the Preservation whereof they pretend to be ready To sacrifice themselves and all they have seeing by being willing to admit a Papist to be King they consent to the robbing it of the Supremacy which is one of the brightest Jewels in it However it is some comfort that one end of setting on foot and carrying on these Addresses being to make a Survey and obtain a List of all that were for the Duke of York they do not upon the Muster-Rolls appear so many as to endanger the Nation in a Civil War in case the King should hereafter so far comply with the humble Requests of his People as to be willing to pass the Bill of Exclusion if tendred to him by a future Parliament SECT XVI But besides what is already said concerning the Quality and Design of the said Addresses there is this farther tendency in them all namely to insinuate to the Nation that we have and enjoy a sufficient Security for our Religion Lives and Liberties For as if it were not enough to acknowledge as all His Majesties Liege-people do His Majesties Easie Just and most Gracious Government since His Restoration and to testifie their sense of the Felicity and Happiness which all His Majesties Subjects have most comfortably enjoyed under a most Regular Gracious and Peaceful Government They are pleased further to add that His Majesties Promise in his late Declaration Of adhering to the Laws of the Land and making them the Rule of his Government is not only sufficient to allay all mens Fears and Jealousies remove the Misunderstandings of all well-meaning and reasonable People and give us all possible assurance of enjoying the greatest Liberty and best Religion that any people in the world have but that no greater Security can be had or hoped for in order to the enjoying our Religion Liberties and Properties than His Majesties Royal Word to Govern by the Laws Whereas not only four Parliaments have represented and declared the manifold Dangers by which our Religion Lives and Properties are threatned and encompassed and how difficult if not impossible it is to preserve and secure them from the Designs that are laid against them but the King also hath been pleased to signifie the same and that as well in several Proclamations published for the informing of His People as in divers Speeches to His two Houses of Parliament whose Advice He both thereupon required and also that effectual Laws might be made for the obviating and preventing those many Mischiefs and Dangers that are impending over us And if the King 's hitherto governing by Law hath not been sufficient to discourage our Popish Enemies from Conspiring our Destruction Can it be apprehended That His Majesties adherence to the Laws for the future will remove the Jealousies and allay the Fears which we have of the Papists Besides tho' His Majesty is always to be supposed resolved and inclined to Govern by Law yet there want not too many Instances wherein His Ministers that are trusted with the Administration of Justice have to the great prejudice of the Subject and the Alarming the whole Nation failed in their Duty Our dreadful Apprehensions do not proceed from any ill Opinion which we have of the King but from the implacable Hatred which the Romish Faction bear as well against Him as His Protestant Subjects and from the Corruption of those Officers of Justice who do either abuse or pervert the Law to base Ends or hinder its due and Legal Execution Nor is it our having good Laws but their being truely executed that will advantage and relieve us and therefore we are to be pardoned tho' we profess our selves doubtful of our security by them whilst some that have been entrusted with the administration of them are suffered to escape the punishments which they have deserved for obstructing their course and for perverting of them And what if we should with all thankfulness acknowledg that we are in some security during His Majesties Life will the Laws which we have without some farther and more effectual provision before His Majesties Death contribute much to our safety when we shall hereafter have a Popish King to Reign over us But can these men be supposed in earnest when they tell us that the Nation is in no danger while the Papists continue so active to extirpate the Northern Heresie and are in a more hopeful way to effect it than ever Alas the Popish Plot instead of being defeated is not so much as yet throughly detected And instead of the Papists being dismay'd by that discovery which hath been made or by the justice which hath been inflicted upon some of the Criminals they are only enflam'd to prosecute their divelish conspiracy