of a Religion that makes humane merit the Path of Salvation and so he passes into a very florid descant upon the Abuses in the Church of Rome of this wonder-working merit And our dissenting Papists in the late times came not one jote behind them in making it the dayly Theme of the Pulpit to Preach Salvation to all that di'd in the Cause Char. And then again Popery is a Religion that does not go altogether in the Old Fashion Apostolical way of Preaching and Praying and teaching all Nations c. But scourging and racking and broiling 'em into the fear of God A Religion that for its own propagation will at any time authorize its Champions to divest themselves of their Humanity and act worse than Devils to be Saints These are dreadful Cruelties but if this fierceness arise from any principle of rigour in the System of their Faith methinks they should treat all alike for if it be upon an Impulse of Conscience it becomes a Duty The Jesuits here in our Covenant Persâ—cution were pretty good at this way of Discipline too There was no scouâ—ging racking and broiling 't is true but there was plundering sequestering starving imprisoning poisoning in Gaols and refusing the Holy Communion to Anti-Covenanters upon their Death bed There was a general Massacre propounded of all the Cavaliers that had been in arms which I am well assur'd was carried but by one voice in the negative There were upward of a hundred sequester'd Ministers crowded into a prison where they knew there was a raging Plague and as I am credibly inform'd there was not a thirtieth part of them came off alive And for these Diabolical Actions the Persecutors were enroll'd into the number of the Saints Char. Nay says he the very outrage of Thefts Murthers Adulteries and Rebellions are nothing to the pious Barbarities of a Popish King The Murtherer and Adulterer may in time be reclaim'd by the Precepts of Morality and the Terrors of Conscience The Thief by the dread of a Gallows may become honest Nay the greatest Traitor either by the fear of Death or the Apprehensions of Hell may at last Repent But a Papist on a Throne has an unconsutable Vindication for all his Proceedings Challenges his Commission even from Heaven for all his Cruelty he dares Act and when all the Inchantments of Rome have touch'd his Tongue with a Coal from Her Altars what do his Enthusiasms make him believe but that the most savage and most hellish Dooms his blinded Zeal can pronounce are the Immediate Oracles of God fol. 13. If it had not been for Popish King Papist and Rome I should have taken this last Paragraph for the Picture of a Kirk-Conclave For first though there was Theft Murther and Rebellion abundantly in their proceedings yet so Transcendent was the wickedness of their blasphemous Bands and Associations so horrid the Forms of their Calling the Searcher of all hearts with hands lifted up to the most high God c. to witness the joyning of themselves in a holy Covenant unto the Lord which holy Covenant was yet in the very first conception and intent of it a premeditate Complottery to destroy That in Effect which in Terms they swore to defend All other sins I say were as nothing in the Ballance against this Catilinary and bloudy Sacrament And so remarkable was the Reprobated Impenitence that follow'd upon it as if the Devil himself had come in to the Signing and Sealing of that Religious Mockery both upon God and Man and turn'd the Hypocritical Covenant into a Magical Contract As for those that took it with good meaning or perhaps out of weakness and surprise though I my self was none of the number I make no doubt but that God hath given to many of them a true sence of their mistake but for those that designingly and frankly leagu'd themselves in that Combination I am at a loss even according to the largest allowances of Christian Charity where to find three Converts the Living persisting still in the obligation of that Oath and those that were taken off by the hand of justice asserting it to the Death I bear my Testimony says Kid that was Executed in Scotland as a Rebel Spirit of Popery fol. 7. to the Solemn League and Covenant as it was profess'd and sworn in Scotland England and Ireland in 1643. c. And again Ibid Prelacy as it is now Establish'd by a pretended Law is destructive downrightly to the sworn Covenants yea not only Prelacy Popery Malignancy and Heresie but Supremacy and every thing Originally upon and derivate from it And further fol. 17. The Three Kingdoms are Marry'd Lands so I die in the faith of it that there will be a Resurrection of Christs Name Cause and Covenant And so likewse King that was Executed in Scotland too Id. fol. 42. I bear my witness Testimony to our Covenants National and Solemn League betwixt the Three Kingdoms which Sacred and Solemn Oath I believe cannot be dispensed with nor loosed by any Person or party upon Earth And fol. 43. I bear witness against the Ancient Christian Prelacy c. and against all Oaths and Bonds contrary to our Covenaâ—t and Engagement especially that Oath of Supremâ—cy c. And so Mitchel Weir c. See Ravillac Redivivus They do all of them sing the same Note Now take all together the deliberate wickedness of their first Resolve upon the Covenant their prophane and daring Hypocrisie in the very Frame and wording of it the counterfeiting of Gods Authority for Sacrilege and Rebellion in pursuance of it and lastly the maintaining and defending of all their impieties to the last Gasp. A man may defie all the Story of the world sacred and prophane to shew any other Party of Men that weâ—e ever lost under so dreadful a derâ—liction But yet there is something of a perverse Bravery in renouncing it at last and after all their â—ndignities put upon the Gâ—d of Truth in making some conscience yet of keeping Touch with the Spirit of Delusion And now to finish the Parallel betwixt our Dissenting Papists and his Jesuitcal We have our Enthusiasts too that vent their Dreams and Vapours for Oracles But to shorten the matter Bayli'es Disswasive will abundantly satisfie the Reader upon this Subject He passes from hence to a reply upon a supposition that such Laws may be made before-hand as will make it impossible for a Popish King to set up Popery in England But that says he would be like hedging in the Cuckow c. for who shall call this King to question for breaking these Laws if he has the power and will to do it This Question fol. 13. might serve for a piece of an Answer to a Contradiction he puts upon himself fol. 20. which we shall handle in course If the Law has put it out of his power there is no longer any place for the supposal of a power unless by Foreign Force which would presently improve a private
against Popery Yes As the Fellow united his Ratts he put them all into a Tub together and then they eat up one another View them well and you shall not find above three of four of them that have any consistence one with another And which are they nay that 's a Secret But if Popery be so dreadful because it is a Persecuting Religion why is not the Writer of this Character as sensible of 150 Persecuting Religions on the one side as of One Persecuting Religion on the other God preserve the Church of England I say from both Or if that bitter Cup be our Lot the Lord in his Mercy grant that we may not add Sedition to Persecution It were no Ill Embleme of the Original of our Late Troubles to phancy a Man in a Fright and leaping from a painted Lion upon a Wall into a Bed of Vipers And no better are the pragmatical part of the Revolters from our Communion while in the mean time Thousands and Thousands of the Credulous and Well meaning Multitude are by them inveigled to their destruction About the middle of the 17th Page the Character-Man is either laid down to take a Nap while some other less skilful hand supplys his place or else he writes on in his Sleep And it would have been well if all the rest too had been no more than a Dream There is a Finical Marchpane Spark here about the Town that takes a huge deal of pains to get himself suspected for the Author of this Book he makes me think of a little Gentleman in a Yellow Coat that would still be talking how rarely he plaid o' th' Organ and this poor Wretch phancied that he made all the Musique when it was his part only to draw the Bellows He has done some very pretty things they say upon Touzer But for this Character I dare venture to be his Compurgator at least to the middle of the 17th Page But further I dare not undertake for the next two rages and a half a Man may trace them upon the Hoof to the very Ink-pot His Story of Paris's Mother some body should have told him that it was Hecuba that dream'd she was deliver'd of a Fire-brand His Debate upon the Parallel betwixt the dis-inheriting a Private Popish Heir and a Popish Successor His Proposal of the Successors following Curtius into the Gulf the Third-bare Story of Damocles's Sword And then his Argumentum à fortiori These fragments might possibly be the Fruit of his own Minerva But now toward the bottom of the 19th Page we have the First Hand again Char. But to Sum up all says he if no reason must or shall prevail and that right or wrong a Papist must succeed when all the inseparable Cruelties of Pope and Popery shall surround us suppose the worst that may be that the dreadful approach of certain Slavery so opposite to the Free-Born Genius of England has exasperated them into a Spirit of Rebellion What is it but the Pestilential Ayer of Reigning Popery that bloats and swells them into that Contagion And if this Popish King Summons all his Thunder to punish them for 't what can the greatest Favourer of Rome make more on 't than that he warps them crooked and then breaks them to pieces because they are not streight Just as he serves his Popish Successor he draws ye the Picture of a Tyrant and then Deposes him And what 's the whole Sum of a Revolting Nation under a Popish Tyrant but using a violent Cure to expel an Universal Poyson Fol. 19. This Clause is only Buchanan Janius Brutus c. Translated into English and for brevity sake a fair hint toward a Rebellion and an Apology for it both in one As who should say If it must come to a Popish Successor the English Genius would never brook it and there 's no remedy but one that is to say a Revolt which they may e'en thank themselves for And then up goes Forty One again â— the Factions dismount the Government set up for themselves and so go on plucking down him still that is uppermost till they come from Reforming to Levelling and there is an end on 't I would he had not been so positive upon the Free born Genius of England for we have been inveigled actually into a slavery under Cobblers and Tinkers We that with so much Indignation at present oppose ourselves to the bare Possibility of a Royal Successor And that have Sacrificed three Kingdoms already to those degenerate fears Char. But here says he will some pretended Pious Objector say How shall we dare to Revolt Remember we are Christians and we must Obey or at least yield a Passive Obedience to our King be his Religion Principles or Government never so Tyrannique He is still the Lords Anointed and our Native Sovereign I would ask says he what this Lords Anointed is And who t is is our Native Sovereign When instead of being free-Subjects Pope and Tyranny shall rule Over us and we are made slaves and Papists That Person is the Lords Anointed who by Gods Providence and a Legal Succession of right to the Crown is the Supreme Magistrate whom if we may cast off for Popery and Tyranny we may depose at any time by saying That 's the Case For 't is but saying so to make it so Nay and he goes further yet For here 's a Prince Depos'd for fear he should be so without any allowance for intervening Contingences Or any Limits to the Extent of the Prospect So that 't is but the carrying on of our Jealousies to future times and without any more to do dissolve the Monarchy upon the self-same Contemplation It would be as pertinent a question now what are those Free Subjects as what is This Lords anointed If by this Freedom he would intimate an Exemption from the Law His Free-Subject is a palpable contradiction For in This Case he makes the Lords Anointed the Subject and his Free Subject the Lords Anointed Char. We are bound indeed says he by our Oaths of Allegiance to a constant Loyalty to the King and his lawful Successors Very Right By that Oath we are bound to be his lawful Successors Loyal Subjects but why his Loyal Slaves Or how is an Arbitrary Absolute Popish Tyrant any longer a Lawful Successor to a Protestant Established and bounded Government When lawfuly Succeeding to this limited Monarchy he afterwards violently unlawfully and Tyrannically overruns the due bâ—unds of Power dissolves the whole Royal Constitution of the Three Free-States of England and the Subjects Petition of Right whilst wholly abandoning those Reins of Government which were his Lawful Birth-Right and making New ones of his own Illegal Creation he makes us neither those Free-born Subjects we were when we took that Oath nor himself That King we swore to be Loyal to What have we here but a Jesuitical Dispensation for the breaking of an Oath and slipping our Necks out of the Collar of our Allegiance by
which if he had accomplish'd he might easily have done And to do his Memory Justice he told me this Story with very great Inâ—â—ignation the Substance of which as I shall answer for it to God at the day of Judgment I have faithfully related to the best of my memory upon the Faith of a Christian man Now to 〈◊〉 his Point will not the very Name of a Republican Râ—formation which is at Present become the Theme of every Pamphlet warm Our Mud into Monsters again and raise Coblers and Tinkers to Colonels Draymen and Thimble-makers to be Kings Judges Wherefore Now or Never is his Majesty oblig'd if his Word Honour or Coronation-Oath be more then a Name if I may be pardon'd for speaking my Authours words after him to uphold the Protestant Interest which now lyes a bleeding in this Cause of the Church One Branch of the Coronation Oath being as follows I will preserve and maintain to You the Bishops and the Churches committed to your charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Justice and I will be your Protector and Defender to my Power by the Assistance of God as every good King in his Kingdom â—n right ought to protect and defend the Bishops and Churches under theâ—r Government Then the King ariseth and is led to the Communion Table where he makes a Solemn Oath in sight of all the People to observe the Premises and laying his hand upon the Book saith The Oath The things which I have before promised I shall perform and keep So help me God and the Contents of this Book Char. But let us suppose we may have such a Roman Catholique King as shall discountenance Pope and Popery Cherish Protestantism and effectually deterr and punish all those that shall endeavour to undermine and supplant it And then let us examine what This King thus qualify'd must do Fol. 2. Here is a Supposition fairly propounded in appearance but yet without Expounding himself upon the Worâ—d Protestantism there 's no coming to an Issue upon 't If he means by Protestantism the Opions of the Outlyers that have leapt the pale and which are rather Phansies then Perswasions the Law it self animadverts upon those people as the Underminers of our Ecclesiastical Establishment And his Discountenancing of Separatists will amount to no more then a Legal Discharge of his Office But if by Protestantism he intends a practical Conformity to the Orders of the Church the Law provides as well for the upholding of the One as the suppressing of the Other And it would be a strange Oversight for any Prince that should mount the English Throne under the disadvantages of that Perswasion to put his Perogative upon the stretch of Enacting or Abrogating Laws without the Consent of his Parliament Char. First then In continuing the Ecclesiastique Jurisdiction Honours and Preferments in the hands of the Protestant Clergy he must confer his Favours and Smiles on those very men whom by the Fundamentals of his own Vncharitable Perswasion which dooms all that dy out of the Bosom of the Romish Church to a certain State of Damnation he cordially believes do preach and teach and lead his Subjects in the direct way to Hell And next at the same time he must not only punish and persecute but perhaps emprison and hang those very only Righteous men whom from the bottom of his Soul he believes can only open them the Gates of Paradice whilest in so doing he cannot but accuse himself of coppying the Old Jewish Cruelty Nay in One respect he outgoes their Crime for he acts that Knowingly which they committed Ignorantly For by the Dictates of Religion he must be Convinc'd that in effect he does little lesse then save a Barabbas and Crucify a Jesus Fol. 3. Here is First presented a dismal Prospect of a Popish Successour in the Life of a Protestant Prince and the present Government of that Protestant Prince troubled and distracted with Clamours and Jealousies for fear of a Popish one to come If Religion were really the business they would rather blesse God for the Peace and Happiness they enjoy and wait his further Pleasure with Thankfullness and Resignation then with Murmuring and Distrust to anticipate Future Evills and Prejudge Providences to come Or if Religion were All what 's the meaning of their hammering so much of late upon the Subject of Arbitrary Power and so many Models and Projects of a Common Wealth which were the very Method of our late Usurpers as to matter of Arbitrary Power the King has pass'd away so many Concessions already for the gratifying of his Subjects that if he had it in his Will his Majesty has not left it in his Power to be guilty of that which is so ungratefully Charg'd upon him Which makes it look liker a mockery then an Accusation And then for the New-fangled Device of a Free Common Wealth our Republican Agitators should do well to mind the People of England of the blessed condition they were in under the pretended Keepers of an Liberties The Sound of Freedom and Liberty brings the Multitude like Larks to the Glasse but not a word of the Net They say nothing of the Standing Army that must be kept afoot to support it nor of the bloudy Taxes that must be rais'd to maintain those Troops and Martial Law to make good all those Violences Why do they not tell them of their Charters Franchises Priviledges and Tenures which are all swallow'd up in that Gulph of Popular Tyranny And so are all other advantageous Dependences upon the Crown The Body of the Law must be new garbled and a Civil War with all the Miseries and Contingences of it must be the Prologue to the Opening of this Tragical Scene And if the Sedition fails of successe they bring themselves into the state again of a Conquer'd Nation And upon these Terms it is at best that they are to exchange a Condition of Peace Freedom and plenty for â—eggery Bondage and Confusion It was very well sayd of Grotius upon the NetherLanders delivering themselves from the 〈◊〉 of Spain We Fought says he to save the Tenth part of our Estates and now that we have got the day we have Compounded 〈◊〉 th' other Nine Here is a Criminal and a Dangerous but I hope an Impracticable Proposal set afoot But brought in God knows by Head and shoulders under the Countenance of Religion and Succession It is possible there may be no more in it then a Well-meaning mistake But there must be an Infinite Tenderness of Conscience and a most untainted Loyalty to justify the Authour But to return to my Character As to the Influence which a Popish Successour may have upon Ecclesiastical matters as in the Character there needs no more to be sayd in 't then this that the King hath been gratiously pleased to offer the Passing of any Bill for securing the Protestant Religion without barring or diverting the Succession And such Expedients have been also fram'd to that
again Char. Thus says he whilst the bonds of Faith Vows Oaths and Sacraments cannot hold a Popish Successor what is that in an Imperial Head but what in a private Man we punish with a Jail and Pillory whilst the Perjur'd Wretch stands the Vniversal Marque of Infamy and then is driven from all Conversation and like a Monster hooted from Light and Day Pray'e correct the Errata ' s of this passage thus For Popish Successor read Jesuitical Covenanter and for an Imperial Head read a Committee of Safety And then ye have the Mystery uncipher'd But the Pope he says and a Royal Hand may do any thing there 's a Crown in the case to guild the deeds his Royal Engines act This Pope and Royal Hand should have been their General Assembly and their Pretended Christ upon his Throne and then Gods Cause and according to the Covenant hallows the Sedition Et quod Turpe est Cerdoni Volesos Brutosque decebit One Verse more would have expounded the whole business Ille Crucem sceleris Pretium tulit Hic Diadema Char. They are still says he that adorable Sovereign Greatness we must kneel to and obey What if a little Perjur'd Villain has sworn a poor Neighbour out of a Cow or a Cottage Hang him inconsiderable Rogue His Ears deserve a Pillory But to VOW and COVENANT and FORSWEAR THREE KINGDOMS OVT OF THEIR LIBERTIES AND LIVES that 's Illustrious and Heroique There 's Glory in great Atchievments and Virtue in Success Alas a vast Imperial Nimroâ— hunts for Nobler Spoils flyes at a whole Nations Property and Inheritance A Game wâ—rthy a Son of Rome and Heir of Paradise And to lay the mighty scene of ruine secure he makes his Coronation-Oath and all his Royal Protestations those splendid Baits of premeditated Perjury the Cover and Skreen to the hidden fatal Toyl laid to ensnare a Nation fol. 7. Never were those Illustrious and Heâ—oick Vowers and Covenanters that for swore three Kingdoms out of their Liberties and Lives drawn so to the Life and five hundred Nimrods too upon the chase of our Property and Inheritance And it was a Game worthy of the Sons of Buchanan and if they may be their own Godfathers the Children of the Lord too under the Cover of their ambiguous Protestations and their Holy League-Bands of Confederacy they câ—nceal'd the Snare of that premeditated Perjnry which was follow'd with so many dreadful judgments upon the Nation He prosecutes his Subject with a Reply to the Objection that ' its impossible for a Popish Successor to introduce Popery into England That the Jesuits had such a design that the whole Party believ'd it practicable he evinces from the Plot and the prospect of a presumptive Popish Heir render'd them more confident of succeeding in it fol. 7. and 8. And yet four or five Lines further he represents the difficulties of restoring Popery into England to be almost insuperable and so with just reflections upon the Paris and Irish Massacres Villanies of Gun-powder Treasons Conflagratiens and Plots against Kings and Kingdoms He finishes that Paragraph I shall easily agree here to all the Ill that he says of the Seditious and pragmatical Papists without disputing one syllable of it And yet I think it very well worth our care to distinguish betwixt zeal and clamour and not over-hastily to give credit to That Sort of People whose method it is first to make Papists odious and then to make the Church of England Popish And this is not said neither to divert any man from a reasonable apprehension of the other danger There never was a greater noise of Popery than in the Prologue to the misfortunes of the late King And what was the Ground or what the Issue of it There was a Conspiracy to undermine the Government and no way but that to put the People out of their Wits and out of their Duties together and the Project succeeded to the actual subversion of the Government And when the Zelots had possessed themselves of the Quarry they shar'd both publick and private Revenues among themselves and fell afterward to the cutting of one another's Throats for the Booty without one word more of Popery In Brief to joyn in an Out-cry against Papists with those that Reckon Episcopacy to be Popery is to assist our Enemies toward the putting on of our own Shackles And it is gone so far too that the Libellers and their Dictators range them hand in hand already and you shall seldom see a Blow made at the Pope without a Lick at the Bishops But the Project begins now to open Char. Let us now rightly consider how far the first Foundations of Popery vix Arbitrary Power may be laid in England First then if a Papist Reign the Judges Sheriffs Justices of the Peace and all the Judiciary Officers are of the King's Creation and as such how far may the influence of Preferment on baser Constitutions cull'd out for his purpose prevail even to deprave the very Throne of Justice her self and make our Judges use even our Protestant Laws themselves to open the first Gate to Slavery We are just now upon a Preliminary to the Nineteen Old Propositions over again For fear of an Arbitrary Power the King was not to be trusted with the Choice of his own Officers But no though taken for the securing of the Government from Popular Tumults and Insurrections in case of lodging that trust in any other hand Beside the putting of the King into an incapacity of providing for the justice and security of the Government But he is so far however in the right that the perverting of that power may endanger the State And for that consideration it is a Trust not to be parted with lest it should once more be re-apply'd to the destruction of the King and People as it was before It is a certain Truth that a Prince by the abuse of his Power may prove a Tyrant But it is as certain again that there is not any form or temperament of Sovereignty imaginable that is not lyable to the same possibility For Tyranny it self is only the straining of the Essential and necessary powers of Government beyond their pitch We have experimented the worst effects of Usurpation and Corruption and of turning the Equity of the Law against the Letter of it nay of setting up the Laws themselves against the very authority that made them And all this would never have done the work neither if the faction had not supply'd the want of Laws for their purpose in some cases and superseded others that were against them by an Arbitrary Device of Votes and Ordinances So that the hazard is nothing so great as he represents it in the hand of a Prince for want of that power of Enacting and Repealing which the Faction possessed themselves of by an Usurpation But alas says he Pag. 8. The Laws in corrupted Iudges hands have been too often used as barbarously as the Guests of Procrustes who
had a Bed for all Travellers but then he either cut them shorter or stretch'd them longer to fit them to it And is not this very charitably done now to imagine the worst things that either ever were or can be done Of a Prince admitting my Author's supposition whose Empire Safety Donions and the wel-fare of whose People are all dependent upon his good behaviour and justice So that he ventures his All on the one side to get nothing on the other Here is the fansie of remote and uncertain difficulties oppo'sd to our present security and well-being and after a Capital Sentence pronounced with a formality of Law upon an Imperial Prince as a Traytor to the Sovereignty of the People We are now opening the way to bring another Prince to the Scaffold For that 's the Scope of several Virulent Libels both printed and written that have at present their free course without controll These are the Incendiaries I speak of and no other Well says he again but if the publick Ministers of Justice betray the Liberty of the Subject The Subject may Petition for a Parliament to punish 'em for 't But what if he will neither hear one nor call the other who shall compel him This is a very artificial way of getting a shoot at the King through the Duke and to intimate the Exercise of an Arbitrary Power by this manner of supposing it It was by these very steps of accusing evil Councellours crying out for justice against them and for a Parliament to punish them that the Faction mounted the Government and strip'd his Majesty first of his Friends then of his Revenue next of his Liberty and lastly of his Life and all this was actually done for fear of no body knew what Ther 's no doubt says the Character but hee 'l find sufficient assistance from the Pope English Papists and Foreign Princes beside the Revenues of the Crown And then having but a prudent eye and a tenacious hand to manage his Exchequer we shall find hee 'l never call that People he shall never have need of fol. 8. He supposes here an assistance for a Prince in possession of his Crown But an assistance for what unless in case of a Rebellion Or is it an assistance to enable him to live without Parliaments As if Foreign Princes would be at that charge to be never the better sor't Or if he means a Military Assistance toward the settling of him in the Possession of an Absolute Power his Interest undoubtedly will be much greater in the supporting of him as an Heir than in advancing him as a Tyrant beside that for one English Man to serve him in such an unwarrantable design he will have an hundred in case of any unjust delusion to stand by him in the defence or recovery of an nndoubted Right This is only the quitting of one Pamphlet with another and to make use of that liberty my self which is allow'd to others But all this while says he the Pope is not Absolute There wants a Standing Army to Crown the Work And he shall have it for who shall hinder him Nay all his Commanders shall be present qualifi'd even by our Protestant Test for the employment We have not forgot the Time when one standing Army was Raised for fear of another and between Thirty and Forty Thousand Men kept in Pay for a matter of thirteen or fourteen years together when the War was over and not one Enemy left in the Field one King imprison'd and another in Banishment Taxes multiply'd The People peel'd to the very Bones and the Persons and Estates of Free-born English Men subjected to the most Scandalous Tyranny that ever was inflicted upon reasonable Creatures And what was the Ground and Foundation of this Calamity The Multitude were Buzz'd in the Head that the King was Popishly inclin'd and govern'd by Jesuitical Councels nothing but Papists about him and two or three Antichristian Bishops a Pack of Tories and Tantvies and a mighty noise there was of German Horse and the bringing of an Army up to Town to awe the City and the Parliament and the very fear alone of these shadows Transported them into the uttermost extremities of rage and confusion 'T is true there was no Plot afoot then as there is now but they made sufficient shift without it to do their own and the Kingdoms business You shall now see the Composition of his Popish Successor's Standing-Army He shall have enough Men of the Blade out of one half of the Gaming Houses in Town to Officer twice as many Forces as he shall want 'T is true they shall be men of no Estates nor Princples c. He should e'en have gone on when his hands were in and quarter'd his new Leveys in Lambeth House or Pauls as in the days of his Forefathers But is not this better yet than Spiriting away of Apprentices from their Masters decoying the poor Wenches out of their Bodkins and Thimbles and squeezing a Rebellion out of the Gospel We have seen an Army of pretended Saints to the value of Twenty or Thirty Thousand in a Body and as many Religions as Men every Article of the Creed call'd in question and the Lord's Prayer exploded as a stinting of the Spirit This and a great deal more and worse is true to the very Letter But forward And that this Army may be more quietly rais'd how many honourable pretences may be found fol. 9. Very right As the fetching of the King home to his Parliament the delivering of him out of the hands of Papists The defence of his person and just rights in the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion and all this in the Stile of his Majesties most humble and obedient Subjects Perhaps says he the greatest and most importunate preservation of the Kingdom shall call for 't and then upon second thoughts instead of defeating some Foreign Enemy they are opportunuely ready to cut our Throats at home if we do not submit and give all that this King shall ask bid This ingenuous Author has directly Translated the true History of the Rise and Advance of the late Rebellion into a Prophetical Computation of the Methods and Proceedings which the World is to expect from a Popish King Did not they seize those very Arms that the King had provided for the Relief of Ireland and employ them against his Majesties very Person at Edg-hil And were not those very Troops that were Raised as they swore for the defence of the City of London Quarter'd upon the Citizens to Ruine and Enslave them Char. Thus far says he we have given the Pourtraicture of a Popish King And now let us take a draught of his Features in his Minority that is while he is only a Popish Heir Apparent I.d. After the Preamble of an Imaginary Prince elevated to the height of a Generous and a glorious Character with a Supposal of a People too not unworthy of the blessing of such a Sovereign and
a smooth Reproach in the end of it to intimate how much he is beholden to them he advances as follows Char. Now says he let suppose after a long Tranquility of this matchless Monarchs Râ—ign that the immediate Heir to his Crown and a part of his Bloud by the Sorceries of Rome is canker'd into a Papist His meaning is easily suppos'd by stabbing of the very Paper whenever he comes near him And to pursue this Landâ—hape suppose we see this once happy Flourishing Kingdom so far as in all Duty and Reason bound concern'd for themselves their Heirs and their whole Countries Safety till with an honest cautious prudent Fear they begin to inspect a Kingdoms Vniversal Health till weighing all the Symptoms of its State they plainly descry those Pestilential Vapours fermenting that may one day infect their Ayre and sicken their World and see that rising Eastern Storm engendring that will once bring in those more then Egyptian Locusts that will not only fill their Houses and their Temples but devour their Labours their Harvests and their Vintages Here 's a Period for an Apothecary The Inspectors I suppose of our Body politick may be Three or Four of our Anabaptistical Protestant Intelligencing VVater Casters of the State And these are the men that so plainly descry the pestilential vapours he speaks of which in effect are no other then the Breath of their own Lungs But is it an Eastern Storm that they see engendring why then the wind is turn'd I perceive for the Locusts of 40 and 43 came out of the North and did us all the mischiefs too of his Egyptian Locusts And now he has given us the State of our Disorder he is so kind as to prâ—scribe toward our Relief which is in a few words That the Nation like true Patriots do anticipate their woes with a present sense of the future miseries they foresee fol. 9. which is as much as to say Vp. and be dring Now again Char. VVhat is This Popish Heir in the Eye of England but perhaps the greatest and only Grievance of the Nation the Vniversal Object of their Hate and Fear and the Subject of their Clamours and Curses methinks he might afford the Kings Brother a little better Language at whose door lyâ—their Discontents and Murmurs but 't is murmurs so violent that they thrust in amongst their very Prayers So did Curse ye Meroz and become almost a part of their Devotions The Prophet Davids Curse is faln upon them Their Prayer is turn'd into Sin Murmurs so bold that they dare approach the very Palace nay Throne and Ear of Majesty fol. 10. Here 's a large step advanc'd upon the King himself but you shall see him come closer by and by Whenever says he the People of England reflect on this Heir as their King in reversion they have reason to look upon him as no better than Jupiter ' s Stork amongst the Froggs Yes notwithstanding all his former Glories and Conquests his whole Stock of Fame is so lost and bury'd in his Apostacy from the Religion and conseqnently the Interest of these Protestant Kingdoms that all his Services are Cancell'd and his whole Masse of Glory corrupted ibid. I find some People of Opinion that this King in reversion is of the same Perswasion at this day that he was when he acquir'd all those Glories But let that pass and see now what 's the sum of all this Flourish but a labour'd Piece of spiteful Art to render the Brother of his Sacred Majesty as odious as the soulest Character and Calumny can make him You shall fee presently that This Venom against the Duke will terminate in the King and that instead of a Christian and pious Zeal for Religion the end of it is to inflame a desperate Distemper in the State It is in short a Character of the worst of men adapted to a suitable Religion And expos'd to the World in an uncharitable account of things which he cannot possibly foreknow His next supposal is a Rhetorical Speculation and not without Reflexions bold enough upon the unchangeable affection of his Majesty to his Royal Brother What saith he can the consequence of this unhappy Friendship be but that the very Souls and Loyalties of almost a whole Kingdom are stagger'd at this fatal Conjunction till I am afraid there are too many who in detestation of that one Gangreen'd Branch of Royalty can scarce forbear how undutifully soever to murmur and revile even at that Imperial Root that cherishes it Ibid. What a strange Usurpation is this not only upon Majesty but Human Nature not to allow a Prince the freedom of those affections which he can no more put off than his Reasonable Being But this is the Loyalty of the Old Stamp that still gives the Sign with a Hail Master and a Kiss But how comes this Pamphlet to undertake for the sense of the whole Kingdom It is not that he finds them so much dis-affected but he endeavours to make them so by teaching and animating the Sedition that he would be thought to fear Nay so far is he from being afraid of the undutiful murmurs he seems to apprehend that it is scarce possible to do more toward the creating of them And look now how he grows upon His Majesty Those very Knees says he that but now would have bow'd into their very Graves to serve him grow daily and hourly so far from bending as they ought to a Crown'd Head till they are almost as stubborn as their Petitions and Prayers have been ineffectual What is this to say but in his way of intimation to insinuate what the Reader will easily understand though more than I am willing to express Char. Thus says he whilst a Popish Heirs extravagant Zeal for Rome makes him shake the very Throne that upholds him by working and encroaching on the affections of His Majesty for that Protection and Indulgence that gives birth and life to the Heart-burnings of a Nation what does he otherwise than in a manner stabb his King his Patron and his Friend in his tenderest part his Loyal Subjects hearts which certainly is little less than to play the more lingring sort of Parricide a part so strangely unnatural that even Salvages would blush at yet this Religion ncorrigible remorseless Religion never shrinks at Folio 10. It is worth observing that throughout this whole Character of a Popish Successor the Author of it lays more load upon the Heir than upon the Religion for he treats the Latter still in the terms of a fair and generous enemy but when he comes to the Other he shoots Poyson'd Arrows Parricide Gangreen'd and the like without any respect either to Modesty or Honour And what is the whole Tract indeed but an artificial Declamation without so much as one ill thing in 't bating the Perswasion that is either liable to a proof or possible for him to know And yet he does as boldly pronounce upon things to come as if he had
the Book of Fate in his Pocket He charges the Successor here with encroaching upon the Kings Affections It was a little while agoe only the invincible tenderness of His Majesty but it is now turn'd into the working and insinuation of his Brother who stabbs the King says the Character-Writer in the Hearts of his Loyal Subjects But what if it should happen that the King should be here stabbed thorough the Duke It was at this rate that Laud and Strafford stabb'd the late King too And what was the end on 't but that when the Kings Friends were remov'd under the Character of his Enemies his Sacred Majesty left naked and defenceless those Hypocrites that had nothing in their Mouths but Loyalty and Religion those were the very Men that stabb'd him themselves This is the plain Historical Fact without either amplifications or colours But if you 'll see a figure upon the Stretch observe his next fancy where he makes the Duke a Parricide for killing the King in the hearts of his People by his applications and respects to His Maiesty And a Parricide as he phrases it so strangely unnatural too that even Pagans would blush at it Is this Jest or Earnest now is it a pang of Duty and Conscience Or is it not rather the Luxuriancy of a high-flown thought How comes it to be so flagitious a crime for one brother to love another that Humane Nature must be startled at it Or that a Prince may not presume to venture upon the Duties of Christianity Natural Affection Friendship Honour and Humanity for fear of being call'd to account for 't in a Pamphlet Well! but he tells us of the Heart-burnings of the Nation at this conjunction and for that reason he expects it seems that His Majesty shall relinquish his Brother But what if a Man should ask him First How he knows this to be the sence of the Nation Secondly What Commission he has to tell the World so And Thirdly How he comes so positively to assert that it is so when it is clear on the contrary that it is not so For the Peoples quarrel is to the Religion only whereas the Authors is principally to the Duke But let us give him these Heart-burnings for granted and see how far a concession upon that point will carry us at last First The Duke Marches off and then the Kings Ministers back after him and then goes the Militia and so in course the Bishops the Revenue c. To the end of the Chapter of Forty Eight and all this to gratify one longing after another till in the conclusion another Government turns up Trump Plato Redivivus has the whole Scheme of the Project ready cut and dry'd This was the very Method of our Ruine and the name of Religion led the way to 't A Covenanted and in his own Words an incorrigible reâ—orseless Religion But why these Heart-burnings now the Duke is out of the Kingdom unless they would him out of the World too And that would not serve neither for so long as there is a Service-Book a Surplice or a Canonical Habit in the Kingdom and this Humour kept a foot there shall never want Popery to work upon The next clause speaks the plainest English we have had yet Char. The Nation in studying to prevent Tyranny grew jealous of Monarchy and for fear of their Moneys going the wrong way they will give none at all but rather triumph in His Majesty's greatest wants even when his glory nay possibly when his nearest safety calls for their assistance Fol. 11. This way of saying that they will not give Money which is more yet than he knows carries the force of an Advice that they should not which is the thing that this passage manifestly intends and designs So that is the rest of the Nation were of his mind the French King might have this Kingdom for the asking for both King and People upon these terms are manifestly abandon'd as a sacrifice to this jealousie Toward the bottom of the same page he brings in a Deliberation to this effect This Popish Prince cannot either help his Persuaasion or relinquish it nor is it a thing to be exacted from him that he should The Grievances of the Kingdom may be his unhappiness and not his fault for he is onely passive and lives to himself without meddling to encourage or favour Popery in the least But how does it follow says he Fol. 12. that if we do not plainly see him act that he does not act But how does it follow on the other side say I that he does act if no body can prove it It is the rule of Christian Charity in doubtful cases ever to judge the best but the Author of this Character does not think fit to walk by this rule for first he casts with himself what is the worst that can happen and then he improves the far-fetch'd possibility of that worst of Events into a Prediction that certainly that thing shall come to pass And then he considers how mean and wicked it is possible for Flesh and Bloud to be and those Vices and Imperfections jumbled together are the Ingredients that make up his Character Char. But to the Objection says he the Grievance of a Nation may be his unhappiness and not his Fault c. That is in short He cannot help it Very right And so when This Popish Heir comes to the Crown and promotes the Romish Interest with all the severity Injustice and Tyranny that Religious Cruelty can invent His Answer will be He cannot help it or at least cannot withstand those irresistable Motives that prompt him to their Execution which is the same thing Will he have it then that our Actions and our Thoughts are bound up alike under a determinate and insuparable necessity of our doing this or that as well as of thinking so or so Or will he call those motives irresistible that do only prompt and invite us to the doing of any thing He has screwed up Tyranny and injustice here to the highest degree of cruelty and terrour And now if this barbarous rigour be so inseparable from the Genius of the Religion how comes it that a French Popish King should be better natur'd to his Subjects of the Reform'd Religion then he will allow an English Popish King capable of being toward his Protestant Subjects The same impulse of Conscience he sayes that makes a man a Roman Catholique will make him Act like one when opportunity serves Ibid. That 's very Right but I cannot yet think that any Party of men will pretend explicitely to authorize the putting of Christians to death purely upon a Consideration of Religion and Conscience in order to the propagation of the Gospel And yet I know the Jesuits of both Churches have gone a great way towards it Cursed be he says Case in the late Rebellion that witholdeth his Sword from Bloâ—d that spareth when God saith strike c. The Papist he says is
their Livingâ— the King himself and his Loyal Subjects out of their Lives Liberties and Estates the Crowns Churches and the Peoples Monies into their own â—ockets the House of Peers into a Cypher or Nullity the House of Commons into a Secret Committee the Monarchy into a Republick the Laws into Votes and Ordinances their Committe into a Rump-Assembly That Rump into a Protector and that Protector again into a Committee of Safety And all this was done by the Power of Imagination and a strong phansy of Tyranny and Popery And why may not all this he phansy'd over again But pray let me Phansy a little on the other side Let us Phansy his Majesty to Survive his Brother Let us Phansy an Heir Apparent either by her Majesty in being or by the providence of a Second Marriage or the Successor to be a person of Honour Conscience or Prudence whatever his Religion be And that in Honour and Conscience he will govern himself by the Tyes of his Word and his Duty and that in Prudence he will not venture upon a Project so impracticable as an attempt of Subverting the Religion and Government when every mans Neck shall lye at stake that shall but dare to assist him in 't which might be sufficiently provided for by some previous Act that saving the Kings Prerogative in the Case might secure their not being pardon'd in That particular We shall now Counterpoise Dangers to Dangers Here is a present opposed to a future a Certainty to a Possibility a Greater to a Less and a Protestant King to a Papist The Present danger is the probable Effect of these Intoxicating Methods to the People If Phansy was Poyson to the Multitude under the late King the same Phansy in a larger Dose and with less Corrective to it will be at least as strong a Poyson to the People under This. If the Fact on the one side be true the Reason on the other side is not to be deny'd The dismal Calamities that ensu'd upon it I have â—et forth already Now what is there in the future to weight against the Life of the King the Safety of the Church the Law and the Government the Peace of the Kingdom There may possibly be a Popish King and there may probably not And that King may Possibly have a Will to change the Government but probably not in respect of the very Immorality of Inclining to such a Violation of his Trust and Word But all most certainly not in regard of so manifest an Inability to bring it to pass When I say a Certainty I mean only a Natural Train of Events in the Application of Actives to Passives which in a high degree has taken place already For the People are almost Raving mad at the apprehensions of these Stories the Feaver encreases upon them and they grow every day Hotter and Lighter-headed than other So that we are in Forty times a greater danger of a Sedition at hand than of a Popish Successor at a Distance As to the Ballance of a greater danger and a Less we 'l e'en take the matter as they suppose it A King upon the Throne that 's Principled for Arbitrary Government and Popery But so clogg'd and shackl'd with Popular and Protestant Laws that if he had never so great a mind to 't there is not a Subject in his Dominions that would dare to serve him in his Design But on the other hand there 's no King at all no Church no Law no Government no Magna Charta no Petition of Right no Property no Liberty c. PROBATVM Beside that the Phansy comes to no more in Effect than if the sky fall we shall catch Larks But once again yet Here 's a Protestant Prince expos'd for fear of a Popish one Is the Chimera of a future danger of more value to us then the Conscience of an incumbant and indispensable Duty shall we take pet at God Almighties providence and not go to Heaven at all unless we may go our own way Shall we Level a shot at the Duke at a distance if there be no coming at him but through the Heart of our Sovereign shall we actually break in upon the Protestant profession which stands or falls with the Church of England because the Author of the Character phansies the hazard of a Popish Religion in the Moon and by the unavoidable Consequence of a Misgovernment under this apprehension draws the very plague upon us that we pretend to fear While we thus go on exposing both our Temporal and Eternal peace for shadows The Writer of the Character had most Rhetorically amplifi'd in his Calculations upon his Popish Successor but so Oversiz'd the figure that when ever the people come to their wits again they will look upon the story of Garagantua as not much the less Credible of the Two For his dangers are all out of Ken his Thunderâ—s in the Clouds and the Multitude are all turn'd Star-Gazers and gaping after ill-boding Conjunctions and malevolent influences while with him in the Fable They are tumbling into a Precipice as deep as Hell and take no notice of it Here is a danger suggested and such a means intimated for the prevention of it as makes the Remedy worse than the Disease for the very Expedient undermines the Government But first a word of the dangers on the other side There are several ways started for the disappointing of this inconvenience One by Attainder upon 23. 13. of Eliz. Another by a Bill in Parliament for diverting the Succession And some of the Libellers fall down right upon a Third Proposal of the peoples preventing the Succession though without or against Law And Fourthly either to expel the Successour or to keep him out in case of Survivorship To the first of these ways I shall speak when the point comes on As to the second which is matter of Parliamentary Cognizance I reckon it my duty to acquiesce in the Legal Issue of their Debates as an Authority to which I have ever paid a Duty and a Veneration This only I shall take the freedom to say that there is a vast difference betwixt their Deliberations that purely regard the prospect and interest of both Church and State in what concerns the Popish and Protestant Religion and the passionate excursions of private men on the wrong side of the Parliament Doorâ— that thrust themselves into the Controversie rather out of envy to the Person and fame of the Successour than to promote the more important cause of Religion like men that crow'd into a Church for company to pick a pocket and this to without any respect to the King himself in the person of his Brother or to the measures of duty to the Government Now as to the two last ways of proposal which are eiher for prevention or exclusion I have this to say If there be danger from a popish Successour during his expectancy within the Kingdom the danger is infinitely greater if he be driven
be purely Divine which opinion in truth needs not any other Support than the Authority of the Holy Scriptures By me Kings Reign c. I have made the Earth the Man and the Beasts that are upon the Ground by my great Power and my Outstretched arm and have given it to whom it seemed meet unto me Jer. 27. 5. That which we now call Kingly Government was at first called Paternel and after that Patriarchal c. And we find by the Powers they exercised as Life and Death War and Peace c. that their Paternal Power did Then extend to all the Acts of our Regal Power The Objection is could there be a King without a People Which is all one with the Supposal of a Father without a Son But This does not at all conclude that Adam had not both a Regal and a Paternal Power before he had either People or Children actually to govern and exercise it upon It being a thing so consonant also to the Methods of the Divine Wisdom to supply him previously with all needful Abilities and Authorities for the Discharge of his Fatherly and Governing Office The whole Race of his Posterity lying open even before they had any Existency in Nature to the Omniscience of God with whom there is no PAST or FUTVRE but all things always PRESENT Again if Adam did not bring his Authority into the World with him when did he receive his Commission Or if he had none at all how could he justifie the Arbitrary Rule he exercis'd over those People that were only his Fellow Subjects under the same God and without any Subordinate Ruler over them Or if Adam was vested with a Right of exerting the Power he exercis'd how came our Authors Imaginary Multitude to chuse a Governor of their own in opposition to the appointment of Providence Or who absolved them from the Bonds of their filial and primary Duty and Obedience What he says afterward of Conquest which he calls his Other Acquisition of Monarchy serves only for an occasion to tell us that our Last Norman Conquest was little more than a Composition which is an error and nothing at all to the point here in hand which refers only to the constitution and Settlement of the Government as now it stands without any respect to the manner of acquiring it But he is now drawing to a conclusion Char. If now at last says he Popery must and shall come in as by law it cannot and consequently must be restored by Arbitrary Power If a new Monarchy then a new Conquest and if a Conquest Heaven forbid we should be subdu'd like less than English-men or be debar'd the Common Right of all Nations which is to Resist and Repel an Invader if we can fol. 21. This is spoken upon the supposition of a Popish Successors coming to the Crown whom he calls an Invader though qualifyed with a Legal Title and he incourages Violence against him tho' in this case the Law pronounces him a King and this Resistance to be made like English-men too that is to say English-men of the late stamp So that there goes no more I perceive to the destruction of a Lawful Prince but to say that he either is or will be this or thaâ— And the King himself stands in as much danger upon the admittance of this Principle as his Royal Brother But before Subjects proceed to these terms which without a legal Authority are criminal in any case whatsoever Malice it selâ— will not deny but that there ought to be an infallible certainty of the Inconvenience whereas as I have said before this is a case lyable to many disappointments the prospect of it remote the expedient unwarrantable and the danger it self at last not so mortal as it is represented He supports his presumption upon this ground for granted that a Popish King must do whatsoever the Pope will have him do and subject his people to the Tyranny as well as the Religion of the Church of Rome What does he say to the French Kings Pyramid then and the vindication of himself and his people in divers other cases from the Insults of Rome and to several other instances already given in this particular Char. But to summ up all this says he I must say the most vehement Disputants against the Peoples right of defending themselves must at length acâ—nowledge thus much that whenever a Papist King shall by Tyranny establish the Popes Jurisdiction in England undoubtedly in the eye of God he is guilty of a greater sin than that People can be that with open Arms oppose that Tyranny Fol. 22. This is a clause of double consolation First to the Author that this Popish King shall be damn'd the deeper of the two And Secondly to the People that they shall go to the Devil in good company Char. The very Essence he says of a Popish Successor is the greatest Plot upon England since the Creation a Plot of God himself to scourge a Nation and make three Kingdoms miserable This must be a very great Plot if it be the greatest Plot that we have seen even in our days a Plot upon our Laws and it subverted them upon the Church and it destroyed it root and branch upon our Estates and it took them away by violence upon our Liberties and it enslav'd us upon our Lives and it was made death to do our Duties It was a Plot that left us no other choice in many cases but Death or Damnation If I had ask'd my revenues says the late King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sect 24. my power of the Militia or any one of my Kingdoms it had been no wonder to have been denied in those things where the evil policy of men forbids all Restitution lest they should confess an injurious Usurpation But to deny me the Ghostly comfort of Chaplains seems a greater rigour and barbarity then is ever used by Christians to the meanest Prisoners and greatest Malefactors whom tho' the Justice of the Law deprives of worldly Comforts yet the Mercy of Religion allows them the benefit of their Clergy as not aiming at once to destroy their Bodyâ— and to Damn their Souls But My Agony must not be Reliev'd with the Presence of any one Good Angel for such â—account a Learned Godly and Discreet Divineâ— such I would have all Mine to be They that envy my being a King are loth I should be a Christian while they Seck to deprive Me of all things else they are aâ—â—aâ—d I should save my soul. Has the Author of the Character heard of this Un-Christian Barbarity toward a Prince of the most Exemplary Goodness and Piety one of them that ever liv'd And how he was yet after all this Murther'd on a Scaffold in the Name and under the pretended Sovereignty of the People of England How has he then the hardness of Heart to set up that Regicidal Principle afresh and to pronounce the Government of a Popish Successor to be a