Condition to evade Has he proved true to any one Friend that trusted and served him save as they have been Slaves to his Will and Tools of his Arbitrariness Hath he from the time he came in to this day been known to discern or reward Merit All his Policy is Trick and his pretended Kindness Fraud and Deceit Instead of encreasing our Wealth he hath utterly Impoverished us and that not so much through Necessity as Choice resulting from Hatred In the Place of making us more Opulent than we were he hath brought us into contemptible Poverty Whereas we hoped he would have protected us from the Enemies he created us he hath upon Design as well as from Laziness given us up to them as a Sacrifice And whereas it would have become him had he either been a good Man or a just King to have discouraged and prevented Bribes especially when Persons only sought and sued for their Right The Privy Purse hath been the Receptacle of most of the scandalous Bribes that have been given for it is thither that what we call our House of Commons has traced them But that which is Base and Criminal beyond what any Language can express unless it be Dutch is his purchasing so many Members of both Houses to sell their Country This being a direct Subversion of the Constitution if any Thing could make a Lawful King forfeit his Right this would stand fairest to do it For the Sovereign having no other Ground of claim to any Power or Prerogative save what he hath from the Constitution which hath settled and vested them in him That Prince who goes about to overthrow this does all he can to cancel his own Right and to cut the Bough on which he stands And yet we who have had the Folly and Madness to abdicate a Legal King for some few little Mistakes in the Administration have not the Wisdom and Courage to call an Usurper to account for trampling upon all the Fundamentals of the English Government The King's Closetting some Peers and Gentlemen which was only to address their Reason and Understanding to consent to a Matter which the Crown had in all Ages been in possession of until about Twenty Years ago and which was never thought hurtful unto and much less inconsistent with the Safety of our Religion till of late filled the whole Nation with Complaints and Clamours of his Majesty's Designing to alter the Government and run the People into that brutal Fury which produced the woful Effects that soon after followed Whereas we sit still and with a stupid Tameness endure the Prince of Orange to steal away all our Rights from us by his Bribing those to betray and give them up who were chosen by their Country to be the Guardians of them And he who dares not in a way of Fortitude and Bravery fight us out of them is endeavouring to strip us of them by an Assassination Surely if he that poysons an individual Person be out of the purlâ—ews of Mercy and from under the Protection of the Laws there can be no Severity great enough to be exercised against him that hath not only endeavoured but in a manner effected the poysoning of the whole Kingdom And if the Murtherer of the meanest Subject be obnoxious to capital Punishment what should he be made liable unto that murthereth a Parliament Who that he may the better Rob and Plunder the Nation gives others a Share in the Spoil For the Jackcalls that hunt and run down the Prey are allowed to eat the Remains of the Flesh and to gnaw the Bones when the Creature which they have cloathed with a Lion's Skin hath suckt our Blood and fed himself upon us He had soon learned and as soon practiced the pouring a little Water into a dry Pump to make it suck below and give forth above whatsoever Quantity he needed or was pleased to call for Witness his parting with the Chimney Tax from the Crown for which he hath made Reprizal on the Kingdom in divers methods of raising Money that have been more dishonourable as well as more grievous to the Nation than that was He hath more debauched the Kingdom from all Principles of Vertue Honour and Justice in a few Years than all the Kings either could do or attempted from the first William till his coming by Usurpation to be stiled the third of the same Name Sardanapalus never more neglected the Grandees of Persia out of Effeminacy and that he might Spin and Card with his Ladies than the Prince of Orange despiseth the greatest Peers of England out of Haughtiness and sullen Pride And it is but lately that he hath treated those of the Nobility and Gentry that came up from Scotland to attend him about the Affairs of their Nation with so unparalelled Contempt and Scorn as no Monarch in Europe would have used the like to his Pages and Grooms For while he was conversant not only Hours but whole Days together with his Bentings and â—â—pâ—ls they could hardly in two Months obtain access to him nor were they then allowed the Favour of a few Minutes for representing unto him what they came about but were dismissed with all scorn imaginable and are commanded home under all the conceivable Marks of reproach and disgrace For he published with an Openness that they all became acquainted with it That he was more troubled with the Beggarly Scots than he was with all Mankind besides Nor is to be questioned but that after he has impoverished the English which through squeezing Five or Six millions yearly out of them as he is in a fair way of doing he will have the same Compliment in reserve for them with the addition of Sots and Fools to the bargain Only I cannot avoid saying That if the Scots have not Honour and Courage to resent it and to make him feel the Effects of his haughty Folly and of their just Indignation all the World will think that they deserve a worse Character than that of Beggarly Scots and will account them a Rascally and Dastardly People I am sure their Ancestors would not have borne the like from the greatest Monarchs that ever sat upon the Throne nor were any of their Kings so ill bred as to treat Persons of Quality and some of them of as ancient Families as the House of Nassau it self with so much Rudeness and Disdain But a Dutch Education authorizeth many Things only let the Scots remember that much Patience emboldens Oppressors Et nihil profici patientia nisi ut graviora tanquam ex facili tolerantibus imperentur as Tacitus says If they have the Spirit and Bravery of their Predecessors they will chuse War or Death rather than submit to this Slavery and will say Esse sibi ferrum Juventutâ—m promptum Libertati aut ad mortem animum that I may use another Expression of the same Tacitus Now unless these Things and more of that kind which it were easy to mention are to
to be the Motive and End of it But this may be catalogued among other of the thankful Returns which some of them have rendered the Compassionate and Good King for his snatching them as Firebrands out of the burning where he both found them and might have suffered them to have continued till they had been consumed And for gathering such Vipers as those I am speaking about off from the Dunghill where the Laws had laid them and placing them in his Bosom till they had recovered Life Warmth and Vigour to sting him by those Censures and Reproaches which are as false as they are black and villanous And I would ask those Persons If the King cast out and drove away the Devil Persecution by Belzebub or in virtue of so hellish a Conspiracy against our Religion by whom have the Gentleman at Kensington and his Tools and Co-operators at Westminster done the same Is Liberty to Dissenters not only an innocent and harmless Thing but eminently useful to the Strength Glory and Success of our Religion under one that finds it his present Interest to call himself a Protestant while in the mean time it is questionable what Religion he is of if he be of any at all and must the same Liberty and to the same People be a Plot upon and an Engine for the undermining and blowing it up and for burying all those that profess it under the Ruins of it when granted by a Catholick Monarch Surely it would not unbecome some nor be unworthy of their second Thoughts to consider That if the Prince whom they have Abdicated for this and other good Offices had not expressed the Bowels and exerted the Courage to break the Chains and to remove the heavy and insupportable Loads which many peaceable and innocent People had long worn and groaned under meerly for their Opinions and Practices in matters of pure Revelation how probable it is if not morally certain that they would have been still in their old Circumstances and Conditions of Calamity and Suffering Nor would either the Prince of Orange had the Inclination and Fortitude to relieve them nor those Assemblies since the Revolution which we call Parliaments have had the Compassion and good Nature to have consented and concurred to the easing of them For as the Generality of those stiled the Representatives of the Nation retain still their antient peevishness and rancour to Dissenters so he whom they have placed on the Royal Throne governs himself by no other Principle or Measures but those of Ambition and Interest nor would he for saving and obliging the Dissenters have ventured upon any Thing that might be disagreable to the Humour of the Two Houses or which might have cooled or abated the Inclinations of the Commons to be lavish in their Grants of Money Neither would those Sons of Sceva have taken upon them to dispossess the Kingdom of the devouring Spirit of Persecution if they had not been sensible of the Glory which redounded to the King by the Example he had set them Nor was it upon Motives of Honour and Justice that Liberty to Protestant Dissenters came to be established by a Law otherwise that Freedom would upon those very Inducements have been extended to others by the same Act But it was from Fear that the retrenching that which through the Mercy of the King they had gotten into possession of might have lost them the Affections Service and Assistance of the whole Fanatick Party and have made those People turn Jacobites upon the Foot of Interest that have not Conscience nor Principles of Vertue and Loyalty to be so But besides this proof arising from Fact by the King 's suspending penal Laws in Matters of Religion and his granting Liberty to Protestant Dissenters which puts it in a Meridian Light that he could not cherish any Thoughts or Intentions of overthrowing our Religion he was pleased to exert his Goodness in a second Matter of Fact and in a surprising Act of Grace which carried convincing demonstrative Evidence along with it that he harboured no such Design in prejudice of the Reformed Doctrine and Worship as have been calumniously fastened upon him The Generous Princely and Merciful Act which I mean was his Receiving Entertaining and Relieving the French Refugees which as he was under no legal Obligations of doing so there were Discouragements enough lay before him to have hindered and prevented it I know Sir that you cannot have forgotten with what Readiness he admitted them into his Kingdom what welcome and compassionate Entertainment he gave them and how he not only invited and required his Subjects to harbour and relieve them but to what Measure and Degree he exercised and extended his own Royal Benevolence and Charity towards them Nor was he satisfied with the bare taking them under the wing of his Protection and making them Sharers in his own and his Peoples Bounty but he entertained divers of them into his Service and admitted some of them into his Friendship and Confidence So that whosoever will allow himself leave and time calmly to consider either the King 's own Religion in which he was both Sincere and Zealous or the Terms of Amity he stood in with the King of France which he had neither Reason nor Inclination to depart from will not be able to avoid acknowledging unless he can reconcile Contradictions that his Majesty could have no other Inducement for the doing of it but that he judged it an evil Thing as well as an unwise for any Prince to persecute and drive away his Subjects meerly for their differing in Religious Matters from what was legally Established and Embraced and Professed by the Bulk and Generality of the People and that he esteemed it a Duty which he owed to God and to Mankind to entertain and succour such as suffered for their Consciences in Things purely Divine For as the King could not be insensible that it was not very Grateful to a great Number of his Protestant Subjects to see so many indigent and necessitous Foreigners received into the Nation who would not only by their Skill and Industry gain away much of the Manufacture Traffick and Employ from them but who by their frugal and paâ—â—â—monious Living would be able and therefore sure both to underwork and undersell them So it could not escape his Majesty's Knowledge and Belief that it would not be very pleasing and acceptable to the French King to see those who carried their Reâ—entments against him along with them whithe soever they went and who will be always meditating and cherishing Revenge to be so tenderly Pitied compassionately Received and safely Covered and Protected by a Prince that was not only his Allie but a Roman Catholick Yet under that view and with a cognizance of all this did the merciful King admit entertain and treat them with the same Royal Goodness and Generosity as if they had been People of the Romish Communion drove out of some Protestant Country for their
more especially out of all Capacity to revenge it Ill Thoughts and Intentions in a Prince to his People though they abide so artificially and industriously concâ—â—led that none have detected them do yet not only continually haunt the Projector as Informers that his Designs are discovered and understood but are ever councelling him to close with all Methods which may obviate and prevent a Retaliation But the King thought his Protestant Subjects had been as free from Rebellious Designs against his Person Crown and Dignity which indeed most of them were as he was from any usurping and tyranous ones against their Legal Rights Liberties and Religion and that withheld and restrained him from accepting an Assistance in his Defence when there was a plotted formed and maturated Conjunction between the Prince of Orange and States of Holland abroad and too many of several Perswasions Communions and Factions at home to drive him out of his Kingdoms if not to murther him Which he stood not far out of the danger of when the Sunday Night before the Prince of Orange came to London it was proposed and debated at Windsor to make him a Prisoner But that being opposed by some Persons whom it was not then thought convenient and safe to contradict and disoblige It was thereupon resolved the Night following at Sion-house to require him immediately and at a very unseasonable Hour to abandon and withdraw from his Royal Palace Which was so ordered upon prospect and hope that he would not have complied and that thereby a Pretence would have been administred of sending him to the Tower from whence his next Stage would have been to the Neighbouring Hill there being but a few Steps between a King's Prison and his Grave Nor would he in any likelihood have escaped the Snare that was thus artificially laid for him nor have avoided the Danger that was lurking behind it but that some of those entrusted with the Conveyance of the Message delivered it with such Accent Tone and accompanying Circumstances as both awakened him to apprehensions of his Peril and guided him to submit to what was so inhumanly and barbarously prescribed unto him But to return to the Enforcement of the Argument I am upon for proving that the King could have no secret Intentions nor have been carrying on any concealed Designs in order to overthrow our Religion in that he refused French Forces at a Season when they were both Generously offered and he extreamly needed them and when by all the Laws of God and the Kingdom he might have received and employed them for the withstanding a Foreign Army commanded by an ambitious and unnatural Prince which came to divest him of his Sovereign and Legal Rights For if the States of Holland might send and the Prince of Orange bring Troops into England let the Pretence be what it will and the Brittish Subjects that Invited and gave Encouragement unto it be never so many and of what Quality any think fit to have them the King might with much more Justice and Right have desired and received Turks and Tartars as well as French to oppose and beat them out Seeing both the Power of War and the lawful Authority of defending the Kingdom being lodged Sovereignly and Solely in his Majesty and the ways of managing the one and the other being entirely entrusted with his Wisdom save as he pleased to call for Advice he might without any Violation of the Rules of the Constitution have furnished himself with necessary Forces from whence he thought fit for the defence of his Person and the Government whereas none of his Subjects could raise Forces at home or invite them from abroad without rendering themselves guilty of the highest Disloyalty and Treason Nor could the States of the Seven Provinces being in League and declared Terms of Amity with his Majesty send or authorise their Troops to come hither without becoming obnoxious to the Crime and Charge of contemning and violating Publick Treaties of breaking through all that is Sacred and of trampling upon every Thing on which the Peace of Nations doth depend And as for the Prince of Orange himself he being no Sovereign Prince but the Servant of a late though wealthy Republick he possibly might have the Right as Statholder into which he wound himself by Perjury and Murther to exercise some Authority in his own Country or he might have the Privilege to set up for a Knight Errant to combat Wind-mills and kill Dragons but he had no Authority by the Laws of God or Nations to invade and attack a Rightful King in the quiet and peaceable Possessions of his own Dominions And by assuming the Insolence and taking upon him the Injustice to do it he stands proclaimed by all the Revelations relative to Societies in the Bible and by the whole Civil Law which is the Law of Nations to be a Robber and an Usurper and to have all the Blood that hath been shed in Europe by reason of and as an effect and consequence of his Invasion to be charged upon him and laid at his Door and for which he will be made accountable at the great Tribunal Nor can his Majesty's Authority and Right to have received and called French Troops be questioned by our Revolutioners and Abdicators themselves seeing we allow and suffer the like and much worse in that Pageant King we have dressed up and erected For notwithstanding of that vast Army of Brittish and Irish Troops with which to the impoverishment of the Nation we continue to furnish him and notwithstanding he is fulsomly represented in Pulpits and with a flattering as well as a mean Cringingness addressed unto by Corporations as the Saviour of our Liberties and Religion yet he challengeth a Right and we like a tame slavish People both connive at and approve it not only of keeping among us contrary to his solemn Promise given in his Declaration dated at the Hague several Dutch Forces Horse as well as Foot whom he claps and fasteneth upon the Nation as a Badg that he esteems us no better than conquered Vassals but if we may believe the Prints which come from abroad he hath sent for Ten thousand more outlandish Souldiers to insult and triumph over us as his subdued Slaves While in the mean time he sends our native Forces into Flanders to perish by Famine and Sword as Sacrifices to his Ambition and to have the Infamy which he calls Glory of dying in a Dutch Quarrel Nor do I wonder that he will not trust the defence of the Kingdom to our own Troops seeing he cannot but be sensible with what Arbitrariness he hath Ruled over us and how he hath Cheated Impoverished and Ruined us and that if we had but as much Sense Reason and Courage left us as we have Provocation and Cause of Anger and Indignation given unto us we would Revenge our selves upon him for the Wrongs he hath done the Kingdom as well as for those he hath done the King Whereas that
done and to extenuate and sweeten all that we have Lost and Suffered This is the principal Plea which he bears himself upon for his own Vindication and by which all those seek to warrant themselves who either Invited or Attended him hither or who at first Received and Joyned him at his Landing and on his March to London or that came in afterwards to Cooperate unto Concur with and Approve of what hath been done This is that by which your Judges do decoy on the People tamely to pay their Taxes and trapan and wheedle them to persevere in their Rebellion in their Harangues at Assizes instead of entertaining them with those obsolete Things relative to Law Righteousness and Equity with which their Predecessors used at those times to furnish and adorn the Charges which they gave Witness Treby's Oration at Kingston the last Circuit which wholy consisted of Romantick Praises of the Prince of Orange for having so Christianly and Heroically Stept in to save our Religion when at the brink of being lost and of Satyr and Invective against King James for having designed to overthrow it whereof among other Things he had the Impudence and Insolency to accuse him without regard either to Truth or Decency This is likewise that by which your mercenary and sycophant Divines who have translated their Pulpets into Stages and transformed themselves into Merry Andrews and Buffoons would Legitimate the Rebellion and instead of a Sin bind it as a Duty upon our Consciences and cantingly blow us into â—â—iumphs of Thankfulness and Joy when we ly Groveling and Starving under Slavery and Poverty Witness instead of edifying Sermons to confirm our Faith in the great Articles of Religion and to promote our Christian Obedience the many luscious and fulsom Panegyricks which have been Preached and Printed within these Six last Years and which are at that distance from Decorum as well as from Truth that they would be the Scorn of the Theatre and hissed at by the Pit This they reckon so bright a Colour in their Limning and Drawing the Usurpers that the dull Man selected to divert the Company at the Interment of the late Princess of Orange and who could dispence with his Conscience in saying several Things of her above the Standard and Proportion of Truth but had not Wit nor elevation of Thought to say any Thing that was Raptorous Decorous and Fine could not omit the making it one of the main Strokes in her Picture and that which was to give the lovely and lively Air and the ornamental Beauty to the whole namely That she was a wise and a good Queen and an incomparable Wise and one that had all the Duty in the World for other Relations which after long and laborious Consideration she judged consistent with her Obligations to God and her Country Which is as much as if Dr. Tenison had said That if it had not been for the preserving the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England which were in danger to have been subverted she would have been an obedient Daughter to the King and would not have usurped his Throne and drove him and the vertuous Queen with the Royal and Innocent Infant her Brother out of their Dominions to be as Vagabonds in the World had it not been for the Generosity of a Neighbouring Monarch who has Received Entertained and Succoured them in their Calamity with a Deference Respect and Nobleness becoming his own Greatness and which hath carried in it a Recognition of their Grandeur and Sovereign Quality So that I do grant unto you That the preserving our Religion hath been the great Pretence for all the Injuries have been done his Majesty and the alledged Motives to all the disloyal illegal and immoral Things which have been perpetrated to compass and effect the late Revolution And I add That it is still made the Topick and Plea whereby to justify all the Villanies Crimes and Barbarities which have been practised since and not only that whereby to palliate all our Losses and Misfortunes but to be accounted for more than an equivalent of all the Distresses Miseries and Mischiefs which have ensued as the Effects and Consequences of it But should it be admitted that this was not only a pretended but a real Motive to the Revolution and to all that hath resulted from and attended it yet it hath not been hitherto made appear that according to the Rules of Christianity the Fundamentals of our Government and the Statutes of the Realm it is likewise a Lawful and Justifiable one and all that have written either of Ethicks or Politicks do tell us and the Principles of Reason as well as the Discoveries vouchsafed us by Revelation do set it in the brightest Light That neither the Goodness of the Inducement nor the Piety of the End will serve to legitimate an Action unless there be both a proper Authority to License it and a Goodness either Positive or Natural in what is to be done when cloathed with all its Circumstances Otherwise Men might Lawfully rob Temples and plunder Banks and Exchequers upon the Motive and Design of discharging their Debts and of paying their Creditors what they owe them Nay they may vertuously murther their Parents deflower Maids and ravish their Sisters upon the Inducement and in order to the End of getting into possession of Estates which they may lavish away upon the Saviour of our Religion and Liberties and towards the maintaining the Sacred War in which he is embarqued and for raising up a new Generation of Soldiers to defend the Dutch Barier against France Nor are there any Villanies named or practised on the Earth which these late and now common Tâ—picks of Argumentation will not serve to sanctify and to render them Actions highly meritorious But neither our Statesmen Lawyers nor Divines have thought sit to meddle with this and much less to take upon them to demonstrate that by the Laws of God and by those of the Kingdom we are allowed to dethrone Princes drive Kings from their Palaces into Exile and to involve Nations into blood if our established Religion be in danger of being supplanted and overthrown Though without a clear and uncontrolable Proof of this all they have said or can say about his Majesty's Designs in prejudice of our Religion were there as much Truth in it as there is Rancour and Falshood makes not what we have done to be Lawful but only proclaims them to to be Sophisters in Logick Hypocrites in Religion Debauchers of the Consciences of Men Panders to Villany and the Flatterers of Criminals in their Rebellious Wickedness who have had the Irreligion and Impudence to plead it For though I can readily grant that most of the Scripture Expressions and Precepts concerning the Duty and Obedience of Subjects to their Rulers do no further concern us than as they were either delivered and prescribed unto thâ—sâ— that were under Civil Constitutions of the like Species and Form with our own or
then as they superadd the Divine Sanction to human Legislative Authority thereby to oblige and enforce us in Conscience to yield all that Reverence Loyalty and Obedience to our Sovereigns which the lawful and just Laws of the Kindom do impose upon and exact from us And therefore and thence it is That the same Texts of Scripture do bind and oblige some Nations to yield a more universal unlimitted and unreserved Obedience to their Rulers 〈◊〉 they can be construed and applied to require those of other Countries to perform For those Places of the Holy Bible are designed to influence and operate upon Conscience in proportion to the different degrees of Prerogative and Sovereignty vested in Princes and according to the respective measures of Liberty preserved unto Subjects by the Rules and Laws of their several and various Constitutions The Scripture was not given and designed to teach us Politicks or to prescribe the Forms of Government and the several Limitations of them farther than that all Governments were to be for God and the good of Mankind and of Societies But all Relative to Civil Government in Scripture is to require and oblige Subjects under the Penalty of eternal Wrath to yield Obedience in proportion to the respective Terms upon which the Government is founded under which they live and according to the several Laws by which it is to be upheld and exerted And the same Divine and Revealed Commands which oblige us in England to submit to Monarchy and be obedient to the King according to the Municipal and Statute Laws of the Kingdom bind them at Venice to acquiesce in Aristocracy and be in subjection to that Authority and Power and to pay obedience to all the Laws of the Republick if they be not inconsistent with and contradictory to the Laws of God No Man will say That the same Things were Lawful for the Persians or Babylonians to do against their Kings which the Lacedemonians under the Protection and Authority of the Ephori might have done against theirs or which those of Arragon were heretofore empowered to do at the Command and under the Jurisdiction of a certain Person chosen and appointed to be the Custos and Guardian of their Rights and Privileges and who had Power by the Law and Constitution to controul and resist their Kings in case of their invading and going about to overthrow them Whereupon it is no Sin in the King of France to take upon him and assume the whole Legislation without the assent and concurrence of the Three Estates whereas it would be otherwise in a King of England whilst he stands limitted as he doth by the Laws of the Constitution and Government and restrained by his Coronation Oath The French Monarch is guilty of no Offence in exacting Taxes of his Subjects without a previous Gift and Grant of them by their Representatives But I cannot say that according to the present Form of our Government the King of Great Britain would be Innocent in the Sight and Esteem of the Supreme Sovereign should he Levy Mony of his People without their own antecedent Consent in Parliament So that I will affirm with the utmost Confidence as knowing I do it upon the greatest Certainty That every Declaration and Intimation in the Bible relative to the Subjection and Fealty we should pay to Sovereign Rulers are intended to bind and oblige us in Conscience and out of Fear of Divine Wrath to be obedient to them actively as far as is enacted and required by the Laws of our Country if those Laws do command nothing inconsistent with and repugnant to the Laws of God and to be passive in all Cases save in those in which the Rules of the Constitution and the Statutes of the Realms where we live give us Liberty Right and Authority to withstand and oppose them And I will presume to add with the fullest Assurance that Law and Reason can give me That in no Circumstances of Danger into which our Religion and Civil Liberties could be brought nor under any Hazards we could fall into of losing and having them supprest were we either permitted or empowered by the Fundamentals of our Government the Rules of our Constitution or by the Common or Statute Law of the Kingdom to rebel against the King or to dethrone or drive him away Nor did the having the Protestant Religion established and secured unto us by Law nor its being incorporated among our Franchises and made a part of our Birth-right to possess it peaceably and practise it openly authorize us to take Arms against the King divest him of his Sovereignty and banish him from his Dominions though we had been furnished with the most clear and indisputable Evidence that he was fully resolved to extirpate it For though the Laws give us a Title to it as our Heritage and a Right to claim the Exercise of it as our chiefest Blessing and most valuable Privilege yet no Law or Contract existent in the King's time had provided that we might fly to Arms to prevent its being supprest or for the securing the Continuance of it to us and our Posterity Yea instead of that there were divers express Statutes then in being by which it was made and declared to be Treason to take up Arms against him upon any Pretence whatsoever So that had the preserving the Protestant Religion been the real Motive and End of our raising War and of dethroning the King yet it was not a Lawful nor a Justifiable Inducement and Design for doing it Nor can it be thought so by any who seriously consider and look upon the Laws of the Land as the Standard and Measure of the Peoples Subjection and Obedience and that whatsoever the Municipal and Statute Laws of our Country restrain us from or confine us unto provided it interfere not with that which either the Laws of Nature or those of Revelation do indispensably require and exact that thereunto we stand bound limitted and obliged by the Laws of God and the Doctrines both of the Old and New Testaments and this upon no less penalty than Damnation Which let no Man upon the Testimony of a Flattering or Mercenary Priest or the Authority and Verdict of a Prophane and Atheistical Statesman think he will or can escape without unfeigned Repentance evidenced in sincere and hearty Endeavours to restore the King Nor are you to be surprised to hear this kind of Theology and Politicks from me seing that according to Dr. Sherlock's Phrase as no Man is forbid to grow wiser than he was so I blush not but glory to confess and have deeply bewailed it That I have been heretofore misled by false Notions and have entertained Hypotheses about Government neither reconcilable to our Laws nor to the Peace of Communities but errando discimus non errare And as the preserving the Protestant Religion could be no Lawful and Justifiable Motive to the late Revolution so there were no just and sufficient Grounds administered by the
that have set about it found it easy to be effected even where they have had all the Advantage imaginable to execute it And we may be speedily convinced how unfeasable such a Design would have been in England and consequently how far from being either undertaken or thought of by a wise Prince If we consider the Difficulties which have attended it in Roman Catholick Kingdoms where all the Craft and Power of wise and mighty Princes and all the Strength and Rage of the Body of the People inflamed by Bigottry have been united to compass it Is it possible for the King 's most malignant Enemies who use to speak of him with the most unparalelled Undecency and brutal Rudeness to conceive or believe that he could be so prodigiously Indiscreet and Weak as to think of banishing or overthrowing the Protestant Religion or of bringing in or setting up the Roman Catholick by a Protestant and Antipapal Army And other he had not nor ever can be in a Condition to have in this Kingdom if we speak of the Bulk of one or of one that can be Numerous and Strong And for a few Roman Catholicks mingled here and there in Protestant Troops or for two or three Regiments whereof the Generality were of the Romish Communion in an Army of those of the Reformed Profession instead of their giving us just terrour of a Design for subverting our Religion they only served to animate and provoke those vastly larger Number of Protestant Officers and Soldiers to assert their Religion with the more Courage and Avowedness and to exemplify and adorn it better by their Lives And it is but for those who were in England in 1687. and 1688. to recollect themselves and consult their Memories and they must needs confess and declare if they have not renounced all Friendship with Truth when they disclaimed Loyalty to his Majesty That they never observed that Zeal in a Brittish Army for the Protestant Religion nor that open Boldness in pleading for it as when that Roman Catholick Prince was upon the Throne and some of that Communion enrolled among them and employed with them under the same Royal Standard But what clearer and fuller Evidence could the King give in Matter of Fact that he had no Intentions to undermine and much less to subvert our Religion than the Dispensation from Penal Laws which he granted unto Protestant Dissenters and the Liberty which he stated them in the Exercise of And through his giving it upon the only true Principle on which it could be done Justifiably namely That it is the natural Right of every Man to chuse in what Religion and in which way of Faith and Worship he will venture his eternal State he could not in Justice abstracting from his Friendship avoid granting Liberty likewise to the Roman Catholicks I do know there are some People whose Malice to the King makes them not only take every Thing by the wrong handle but which hath so perverted their Reasons as to cause them to draw Conclusions directly contradictory to the Premisses from which they infer them who endeavour to obtrude upon the Belief of such as are Weak and Credulous That the King 's giving Liberty was an Effect of his Enmity to our Religion and done in pursuance of a Design to destroy it But the two Poles are not at greater distance from one another than they are from Truth and good Sense who think the King would have given Liberty of Conscience and have set his heart upon the upholding and maintaining of it if at the same time he had given place unto and entertained the least thought of overthrowing and extirpating the Protestant Religion For that Wise Generous and Royal Concession of his was so far from lying in the remotest Subserviency to such a Design that nothing under Heaven can be imagined more effectually contributory to the preventing resisting and defeating an Attempt of that kind There are few but know what Connivance had been exercised to Roman Catholicks and how Gently they had been treated notwithstanding the many Laws they were obnoxious to during the last Years of King Charles's Reign while in the mean time vast Numbers of Protestants were harrassed spoiled and imprisoned and this not only by hounding out but by enforcing those of the Church of England to fall upon the Dissenters and to execute the Laws against them with great Severity Now by the King 's Noble Christian and Heroick Act of granting Liberty the Peevishness and Enmity of Protestants against one another was allayed and extinguished and they were at ease as well as leasure to employ their common Care and unite their mutual Strength against those of the Roman Communion whom they esteemed Enemies to them both And by being taken off from scratching biting and devouring one another they began to mingle Councels and to joyn their several Interests for obviating and obstructing the Growth of a third Party that stands in terms of distance both in Opinion and Ecclesiastical Charity to the one as well as the other For though the Liberty granted by the King to Protestant Dissenters did not incorporate them into the Communion of the Church of England but supposed the contrary and provided against the afflictive Inconveniencies of it and though it did not entitle them unto and make them capable of the Dignities and Emoluments of the Church which his Majesty neither pretended nor challenged a Power to do yet through his suspending the Execution of the penal Laws which he was told he might do in virtue of that executive Power of Laws and of Administration of Government which was lodged in him by the Constitution and inseparable from his Title Right and Sovereignty there was not only a Cessation of Arms between those of the National Church and them but a Coalescence in Friendship and Zeal for their common Religion though they couâ—d not embody together for Communion in all the parts of Christian Worship and for the exercise of Church Discipline And besides the taking off the Reproach and the wiping away the Infamy which lay upon our Religion through our persecuting one another and which made us the Subjects of our Enemies Râ—â—â—ery and the Objects of their Scorn there were so many real Advantages accâ—â—ing to it by the Liberty which the King granted That theâ—e cannot be a blacker Malice out of Hell than to perveâ—t this Royal and Christian Act of his Majesty from being an Argument of his innocent and honourable Intentions towards our Religion into a Topick whereby to insinuate into the Belief of those of a narrow Compass of thought that it was only in order first to supplant our Religion and then to destroy it And it argueth an Ingratitude which our Language is indigent of Words to express the hainousness of that any Protestant Dissenters should not only concur in such a Sentiment but value themselves upon the Vivacity Strength and Penetration of their Judgment that they could foresee and discover this
Consciences and Exiles here for the Religion which he himself professed Now can any that live not in an avowed enmity to Truth and good Sense either be perswaded themselves or hope to impose upon the Faith of others That a Prince who had designed to root the Protestant Religion out of his Kingdoms would do a Thing so inconsistent with and obstructive of it as this was And yet there are some whose Malice against the King hath so distorted their Understandings as that they will not only undertake to reconcile his forementioned Behaviour to the French Refugees with the Conspiracy he was embarked in for extirpating our Religion but will make use of his Kindness unto them as a Topick of argumentation whence and whereby to prove and confirm it But we must beg those Men's Pardon if we cannot hinder their insolent Flippency yet to claim the Liberty of exposing and controuling their foolish and ridiculous as well as false and slanderous Dictates For can any thing lie in a directer Opposition to a Purpose of subverting our Religion than for a Prince who harbours such a Project to do all that lies within the Circle of his Wisdom and his Power to encrease and multiply the Numbers whose Principles will oblige them to the use of all Lawful ways and means at least if they use not worse to oppose it and whose Interest and Safety consists in hindering it Surely the great Body of native Protestants were enough if not by far too many either to have been wormed out of our Religion by Fraud or to have it wrested from us by Force that there was no necessity for encreasing the Honour of the Conquest or raising the Glory of the Triumph to have added to our Number and Strength by the Reception and Entertainment that was given to Foreign Protestants Nor is it credible that if his Majesty had been embarked in such a Design as he hath been slandered with that he would have given Encouragement to those Reformed which fled hither from France to have planted and settled in all parts of his Dominions where they pleased when he could not but know and believe that their very Presence among us and our daily Sight of them would awaken our Jealousies of what some Roman Catholick might think Lawful to be done in prejudice of our Religion and who would daily tell us what had been practised for the Extirpating it elsewhere But the good King being conscious to himself that he had no sinister Intentions to the Legally established Doctrine and Worship he envied us no means that might quicken and provoke our Care for the Preservation of them And though he regretted and was infinitely sorry that there was cause any where administred of publishing how poor People professing the Reformed Religion had not only been decoyed into the Catholick Communion by the little and mean Arts of Missioners and and bribed and bought to be Converts to the Romish Faith by those that managed a publick Treasure to that end but had been dragooned into the Church by armed Troops yet he was willing we should have such resident in our several Neighbourhoods who might relate and confirm those Things unto us and he hoped that by his receiving and countenancing such Persons in his Dominions as would daily entertain us with Accounts of this Nature which we could not hear without Scandal and Indignation we should have been satisfied and assured that it lay in an Antipathy to his Nature to imitate any such Examples But no means how proper and convictive soever in themselves which the King could use for laying and extinguishing our Jealousies and Fears of his harbouring Intentions against our Religion could be of efficacy to operate upon us with any Success after our having through Plenty Pride and Wantonness grown weary of Tranquility and Ease and thereupon had imbibed Prepossessions and Prejudices against his Majesty's Person and Government and suffered our selves to be wrought up and exasperated by a few Demagogues and Boutefeuxs who were bribed by the Prince of Orange and instigated by his promising them the Spoils of the Crown Kingdom and Church to the highest ferment of blind brutal and godless Rage Nor has the compassionate and merciful King been requited as he ought and deserved by the French Refugees to whom he made his Kingdoms both an Asilum and a Sanctuary and his own Treasure and the Wealth of his People a Fund of Succour and Subsistance when they knew not where with safety to hide their Heads nor how to get Bread to preserve them from Starving But notwithstanding all the Hosannahs they gave him at first they were many of them in a little time the forwardest to cry Crucify him And contrary to all the Measures of Discretion and Prudence as well as of Thankfulness and Gratitude they have been some of them the warmest Inflamers of the Rebellion and have taken Arms in great Numbers for supporting the Usurper But Sir allow me to subjoin a third Matter of Fact by which the King gave all the Evidence and Assurance to his People that the most Incredulous and perversly Obstinate among them could have desired or needed to convince them in what opposition unto and remoteness it lay from his Thoughts to injure us in the Possession of our Religion and much less to rob us of it and that was by his refusing those Ships of War as well as Land Troops which were offered him by the French King for withstanding the Invasion of the Prince of Orange and for enabling him to suppress those that might sly to Arms and rise in his own Dominions to disturb his Reign or to joyn with the unnatural Invader in case he Landed For setting aside a few Things which the Judges told him he might do according to Law and some inconsiderable Triffles wherein his treacherous Counsellors misled him by telling him it was to renounce the Prerogative which the Constitution had vested in him to decline asserting them so conscious was he to himself of having neither done nor designed any Thing whereby his Protestant Subjects might be tempted to withdraw with any Shadow of Reason and Justice their Allegiance from him that no allarms of Conspiracies against or suspected Treacheries unto him at home nor the fullest and most uncontroulable Certainty of Ships being prepared and Forces ready to embark upon them abroad to make a Descent into his Dominions and hostily to assault him could prevail with him to accept those Succours which a Neighbouring Monarch offered him as well in Friendship to himself as in Kindness to his Majesty It ever hath and always will be found true That whosoever hath been Designing though never so secretly an Injury or Mischief to another he will be constantly Suspicious of the Person against whom he intended it and will use all the Precautions he can and lay hold upon every Mean that offereth to put him whom he had contrived to wrong out of a Condition to avoid the Blow and
injured Monarch being fully assured in himself that he never designed to prejudice us in our Liberties Properties or Religion but that all he aimed at was to make us a free rich and glorious People he cast himself entirely upon the Loyalty of his own Subjects for the Safeguard of his Person and Crown at the time when he saw he was to have his Dominions invaded and an Attempt to be made for turning him out of his Throne All which Designs he might have easily defeated had he but accepted the French Ships and Troops that were offered him But to his Glory and our indelible Infamy he chose rather to be forsaken and betrayed by his own People than to distrust them as knowing he had always lived in an Abhorrence of giving them just and real Cause to be false to him And indeed the Misfortune and Distress which befel him upon whatsoever Motives they were occasioned yet they must be resolved into his own Uprightness and Integrity as the contributing means and that being an honest Man himself he drew other Mens Pictures by his own Original Whereas he had continued safe and happy if he had drawn those of a great many People by the Reverse of his own I know that the Earl of S doth in a Letter from Holland to his Friend in London printed March 1689. endeavour to rob the King of the Honour due unto him for having refused the French Assistance and challengeth it to himself by telling us That he opposed to death the accepting of them and that he was the principal means of hindering the receiving both the Ships and Men. But all this was then published to put a Mâ—rit upon his own Treachery to the King and to reconcile himself to the Mercy and Favour of the Nation to whose Anger and Wrath he stood at that time highly obnoxious For no Mâ—n can imagine that either the Earl or those other Lords with whom as he tells us he consulted every day and they with him and by whâ—m he was helpt to prevent the accepting both French Ships and Troâ—pâ— which they thought would be a great Prejudice if not ruinous to the Nâ—tion would have been able to have prevailed with his Majâ—sty to have refused so seasonable and necessary Assistance if he had been any ways conscious to himself that he had been harbouring and carrying on Designs which might make him distrust the Loyalty of his People or which might give him cause to apprehend that his Subjects had just and reasonable Pretences of departing from their Fealty or for denying their Aids to defend him Noâ— would any Thing but a clearness of Mind as to his own Innocency from any sinister Intentions against our Religion and Laws have influenced as well as suffered him to reject the offers made unto him at that time by the King of France But though this was the only Motive upon which his Majesty could do it in any consistency with common Discretion yet we sufficiently know upon what Inducements and to what Ends that Earl advised him to it Nor hath he been either Shy in concealing of it or gone without very liberal Rewards for it For he told Ginckle once at his own Table That though it was his Honour to have subdued the King's Forces in Ireland and to have wrested that Kingdom from his Majesty yet the Glory belonged unto himself of having contrived the Provocations to the Revolution and having laid the Foundations for deposing his Majesty from his Royal Dignity and Throne And the inward Confidence he is admitted into with the Prince of Orange and the vast Sums he has obtained and continues still to receive from him are plain Evidences as well as they are thankful Recompences of the Councels which in favour of the Prince's Designs he gave unto his Master But would any one that hath not lost all common Prudence and true Sense as well as renounced his Loyalty to his Rightful Prince have published in the same Letter a Thing so visibly false and so easy to be contradicted and exposed namely That when the first News came of the Prince's Designs they were not looked upon as they proved no Body foreseeing the Miracles he has done by his wonderful Prudence Conduct and Courage in that the greatest Thing which has been undertaken these Thousand Years or perhaps ever could not be effected without Vertues hardly to be imagined till seen nearer hand Whereas it was obvious to vast Numbers then as it is now to the whole Kingdom That there was neither Prudence Conduct nor Courage and much less Vertues hardly to be imagined guiding and influencing the Prince of Orange's Success but that his whole Prosperity in his Undertaking is to be resolved in and ascribed unto the Disloyalty and Treachery of some of his Relations bosom Friends Councellors Officers and Souldiers and into the Rebellious Principles of too many of his Subjects For to omit speaking of the great Effects which the Prince of Orange hath so often and wonderfully given in Flanders of his Prudence Conduct Courage and other Vertues hardly to be imagined it is but for us to recollect his Behaviour at and before Limerick in Ireland where he became the subject of the Derision and Contempt of all that were there and by which he hath furnished us here with matter of Diversion ever since when we have a Mind to be pleasant and we may from thence take the Measure and Extent with all the Dimensions of his political and military Excellencies But the Passage I have quoted out of the Letter serves to confirm me That it is an usual and righteous Judgment of God upon those that turn Knaves to give them over to become Fools also And for the Thousand Years or the perhaps ever that he mentions wherein the like hath not been untertaken and executed It is neither for the Reputation of the Prince of Orange nor for the Credit of this Kingdom but for the perpetual Dishonour and Infamy both of him and us that we should have been guilty of so much Treachery and Villany and he of such an unbounded Ambition and unnatural Crimes as there are no Examples of nor Presidents for And as the King harboured no Thoughts nor drove on any secret Designs for the Extirpation of our Religion so I will affirm that the preserving the Protestant Religion was so far from being the true and real Motive to the late Revolution though so much pretended and so often alledged in Vindication of those who engaged in it that most of those that were the first Instigators unto and who principally concurred and cooperated to the bringing it about are not Persons disposed by their Judgments nor prepared by Vertue and Grace to be concerned for any Religion farther than as the seeming to own One ministers to their secular Ends. Now this if clearly demonstrated being as likely a means as any for undeceiving the credulous and well-meaning Body of the People and for taking them off from
Conspiracy of Rulers and Priests in order to govern the Mob and the better to squeeze Money from the credulous Yea there are some of them who deride a Deity and value themselves upon the believing no other Being or Mâ—des of one but Matter Figure and Motion And though I do not know whether many oâ— any of them went into the Revolution themselves and afterwards drew in others with a purpose to expose and lampoon our Religion yet this I am sure of That what we have done against the King and in the involving the Kingdoms into a bloody and expensive War upon so little Cause and Provocation as was administred is more adapted to render Persons Anâ—i-scripturists and Atheists than all the Arguments in Hobbs's Leviathan or in his Book de â—ive are Was not the late Lord Lovelace who could not speak without an Oath Blasphemy or Execration Or the surviving Fleetwood Sheppard whose whole Wit is employed to burlesque the Bible and mock at an invisible Being and who had the blasphemous Audacity to say to Two Bishops who desired leave of him to pass thro his Lodgings to see the Raree Show exhibited the other day at Whitehall That he would not grant it though the Virgin Mary were there with her Child at her Back to beg it of him and which they had not the Zeal and Courage for God and their Religion as to rebuke him for lest they should have offended the Man at Kensington who is fond of him for his Piety and Vertue quem pro Jove habent I say were not those I have mentioned very likely Persons to have engaged to assist in the Revolution upon Motives of Religion or in order to preserve and defend the Reformed Doctrine and Worship Can any Man think that Secretary Trenchard can be under the Influence of Religion in any Busi or Undertaking or can make it the Motive or End of what he does who concerted with the Prince of Orange how to betray and ruin the King and became engaged to him to use all means he could to do it and this at the very time when he was suing for a Pardon and who after the Grant and Receipt of one came over and made his Majesty all the Promises Words could express of his serving him with Loyalty and Fidelity so long as he lived But as there is no necessity now of telling which of these Promises he has performed whether those made at the Hague or those given at Whitehall that being sufficiently declared by a long and ample Series of Actions so I think it will be easily granted that this Man could act under no Impression of Religion nor upon the Motive or to the End of saving or serving it who could come under two such opposite and contradictory Obligations at the same time as the yielding an unchangeable Fealty and Obedience to the King and the undertaking to betray and divest him of his Royal Power were Or is it possible we should believe that my Lord L and the honourable Speech-maker and Haranguer of the Mob at Norwich and Lyn could embark in promoting the late Change out of any Concernment for the Protestant Religion or in order to protect it who though they profess to be Protestants when they are Well and in Health yet who at every time when they are Sick or when they have apprehensions of Dying do constantly send for Romish Priests to administer unto them all the helps and give them the assistances appointed by that Church for Men in their last Hours I am loath to multiply many Instances in confirmation of what I have affirmed and the chief Leaders and Actors in the Conspiracy for dethroning the King are so well known that I need not do it Even they whose Character should oblige us to believe that the preserving the Protestant Religion was the chief if not the only Motive upon which they acted in the late great Turn that was made in this Kingdom were as far from having it in their Eye or Aim as any other were Nor will any that know the Men allow that either Jack Boots or Cambrick Sleeves embarked in dethroning and driving away the King out of any Regard unto or Concernedness for the Reformed Doctrine and Worship but that they did it out of Pique and Revenge and upon the Motives of Ambition and Covetousness in the one to get a Bishoprick and in the other to preserve one For not to speak of the Rings and Seals which the Doctor through an Hypocrisy peculiar to himself that weareth Cambrick Holland Scots Cloath Sleeves instead of Lawn boasteth of as Pledges of the Kindnesses of Ladies for the Services he has done them can that Man live in the practical Belief or be under the awe of a Deity and much less act upon any sincere Motives of serving Religion but meerly to serve himself upon it who when he was dipt in all the Councels and Conspiracies for commencing and compassing the Revolution could yet at the same time in his Letters to the Earl of Middleton not only make solemn Protestations of his Loyalty to the King but have recourse for Proof and Evidence of it to the Sermons full of Duty and Fealty to the King which he had preached at the Hague as well as at London And as those Letters are in print to remain Records and Registers of his Irreligion and Hypocrisy so I am mistaken in the Rules of Phisiognomy if the Punishment that waits for him and which he hath so much deserved and whereof he hath had advertisment in Dreams be not legibly written in his Forehead Nor could any true Church of England Man whether Ecclesiastick or Laick have accession to the Invasion and to the deposing of his Majesty or he gained over to approve them without renouncing all the Doctrines and Principles of that Communion which relate to Civil Government and the Duties of Subjects to their Rulers And that may serve sufficiently to shew that they acted not in these Matâ—â—rs upon Motives of Religion because the very Things they did plainly interfered with the whole Religion which they professed and owned And there was such an outragious Rape committed by it upon their Principles and such an open deflouring of the Chastity which their Church had hitherto preserved in point of Allegiance to Lawful and Rightful Monarchs that were it not that great Multitudes of that Communion both preserved their own Innocency and have loudly condemned the Crime of their quondam Brethren and Fellow-members their whole Church would for ever lye under the same Blot and Infamy which those very Men namely your Tillotsons Burnets and Sherlocks c. have used heretofore to cast and fasten upon others And as for those called Whigs which were the warmest Promoters of the Revolution and are supposed more than others to have acted in it upon the Motive of Securing our Religion I will make bold to say of many of them and that both with Truth and Justice That they have
that traded thither to disclaim being Christians and only to own themselves Hollanders who knew no Religion but Profit nor had other Ends or Aims save to gain and heap up Wealth And besides many other Instances which might be assigned of their abandoning all Care and Concernment for the Protestant Religion in other Nations when the doing so is reconcilable to their Safety and worldly Advantage it may not be amiss to put you in remembrance of their furnishing Lewis the XIII with Ships to subdue Rochel when it was the chief Cautionary Town as well as the strongest and most opulent which the Reformed in France had to entitle them to a quiet and peaceable Enjoyment of their Religion Nor is it unseasonable to ask That if they embarked to assist in the dethroning of the King of Great Brittain out of zeal for preserving the Protestant Religion to these Nations how comes it then that they have so little interposed with their Confederate the Emperour for some Lenity and Favour to his Protestant Subjects in Hungary And that they have not dealt with their other Allie the King of Spain for abolishing the Inquisition And that he would not continue to make Bonfires of his Subjects whensoever any of them turn Protestants Nay their entering into the Conspiracy for subduing and deposing his Majesty was so far from being done from Motives relative to the Honour and Safety of the Protestant Religion that it was laid and forwarded by the greatest Falshood and Treachery that ever either a Crowned Head or a Republick was guilty of For what can be more inconsistent with good Morals namely with Truth and Justice or less reconcilable to the Principles of Christianity than not only to attack a King upon his Throne with whom they were in League without giving him Warning or seeking for Reparation of Injuries if he had done them any and without desiring an Adjustment of Differences and Misunderstandings where there were such but to invade his Kingdoms with a Naval and Land Strength after the solemnest Protestations made to the King himself by Cittars their Ambassador here and the greatest Assurances given immediately by the States General to the Marquess d'Albeville his Majesty's Envoy there That they had no Design against him and that their Preparations were not in order to disquiet him on his Throne or disturb the Peace of his Kingdoms but that they were for a purpose meerly relative to themselves and in which his Majesty was no ways interested So that after so fraudulent and perjurious an Act the Commencement of the War being in Violation and Contempt of actual and subsisting Treaties I do challenge any Man to believe without doing violence to his Mind that the Dutch are in the practical Belief of any Religion and much less that they co-operated to the Revolution out of care to preserve the Reformed Doctrine and Worship to these Three Nations Alas It was upon other Inducements that they concurred to involve these Nations in War and Blood which we might easily have discovered but would not For they no sooner observed the King's putting an end to Persecution in his Dominions and thereby doing that which might have reconciled his People to one another and should have united them all to him nor sooner found that he had too much Honour and Courage and withall bore more Love and Tenderness to his People to suffer them either to be wormed or insulted out of their Trade And had likewise perceived that as he was an admirable Oeconomist of the publick Treasure so he was a great Encourager of all over whom God had set him to Industry and Vertue but that they grew immediately thereupon apprehensive that we would become more Strong and Opulent than would be for their Interest or prove consistent with the Tricks and Rapines they had been accustomed to practise in ways of Commerce And as these were the Provocations upon which they desired to see his Majesty dethroned so the Ambition of the Prince of Orange of whom it may be said in the Words of Tacitus That cupido dominandi cunctiâ— affectibus flagrantior that all his Lusts as well as his Obligations give place to his Aspirings after Sovereignty together with the Discontents in England which the Means and Methods to our Happiness had filled us with administred them an Opportunity of stepping in to ruin the King and to make us miserable which they easily foresaw would be the effect of it And as they speedily had the Satisfaction to see the first performed so they have now also the Pleasure to behold us impoverished and weakened to that degree which was the second Thing they longed for That an Age under the mildest wisest and justest Government will not restore us to that Condition at least in their Opinion as to beget either their Jealousy or their Envy or which may hinder them from wresting from us what parts of our Trade they please For they are a People that will call it Friendship to us to rob us ubi solitudinem â—â—ciunt pacem appellant to borrow another of Tacitus's Phrases Noâ— will any meanâ— in human View prevent our becoming in a very litâ—le time the Contempt of all Nations about us for Weakness and Poverty and much less raise us again to that State of Strength Opulency and Glory in which we were but the calling home the King with all the Expedition we can and combining together with united Hearts and Hands to shake off the Usurper with his Benâ—ings and Ginckles Qui se partem nostrae Republicae faciunt that I may use an Expression of Tacitus but are in an apparent Conspiracy with the High and Mighty at the Hague to reduce these Kingdoms to a Feebleness and Indigency out of which they have a Design we shall never emerge Nor did the great Man who keeps his Palace at Kensington bring an Army into England and serue himself to the Throne upon any Motives of saving the Protestant Religion or out of any Intentions of kindness and good will to it but meerly upon the Impulse of Pride Haughtiness and Ambition and to gratify his Aspirings after a Crown I am not ignorant how he hath been represented and painted forth by your Temporizing Mercenary and Sycophant Divines as the Saviour of our Religion and Liberties and that the godly Saint and the heavenly divine Man would not have violated all the Tyes and Bonds of Nature and trampled upon the Precepts of the Decalogue and the Sanctions of the Bible but upon the Inducements of Zeal for God and his holy Religion which by Examples taken from Phineas and Ehud transform Murther into Sacrifices and by Presidents derived from the Israelites borrowing the Ear-rings of the Egyptians consecrate and hallow Rapines and Robberies The Panegyricks upon him on this Account of your Tillotsons Tenisons Patricks and Burnets c. are more Frontless and Fulsom than what your Shadwels Settles or any of your Grubstreet Poets who claim a Dispensation of Lying