retain we have found our selves not so Candidly dealt with as we have deserved and that there are unquiet and restless spirits who without abating any of their own distemper in recompence of the Moderation they find in us continue their bitterness against the Church and endeavour to raise Jealousies of us and to lessen our reputation by their reproaches as if we were not true to the Professions we have made and in order thereunto they have very unseasonably caused to be printed published and dispersed throughout the Kingdom a Declaration heretofore printed in our Name during the time of our being in Scotland of which we shall say no more than that the Circumstances by which we were enforced to sign that Declaration are enough known to the World that the worthiest greatest part of that Nation did even then detest and abhor the ill usage of us in that particular when the same Tyranny was exercised there by the power of a few ill men which at that time had spread it self over this Kingdom and therefore we had no reason to expect that we should at this Season when we are doing all we can to wipe out the memory of all that hath been done amiss by other men and we thank God have wiped it out of our own remembrance have been our self assaulted with these Reproaches which we will likewise forget Since the Printing that Declaration several seditious Pamphlets and Queries have been published and scattered abroad to infuse dislike and Jealousies into the hearts of the People and of the ARMY and some who ought rather to have repented the former mischief they have wrought than to have endeavoured to improve it have had the hardiness to publish that the Doctrine of the Church against which no man with whom we have conferred hath excepted ought to be reformed as well as the Discipline This over-passionate and turbulent way of proceeding and the impatience we find in many for some speedy determination in these matters whereby the minds of men may be composed and the peace of the Church established hath prevailed with us to invert the Method we had proposed to our Self and even in order to the better calling and composing of a Synod which the present Jealousies will hardly agree upon by the Assistance of Gods blessed Spirit which we daily invoke and supplicate to give some determination Our self to the matters in difference untill such a Synod may be called as may without prejudice or passion give us such further assistance towards a perfect union of Affections as well as submission to Authority as is necessary And we are the rather induced to take this upon us by finding upon the full Conferences we have had with Learned men of several Persuasions that the mischiefs under which both Church and State do at present suffer do not result from any formed Doctrine or Conclusion which either Party maintains or avows but from the Passion and Appetite and Interest of particular persons who contract greater prejudices to each other from those Affections than would naturally rise from their Opinions and those distempers must be in some degree allayed before the meeting in a Synod can be attended with better success than their meeting in other places and their discourses in Pulpits have hitherto been and till all thoughts of victory are laid aside the humble and necessary thoughts for the vindication of Truth cannot be enough entertained We must for the honour of all those of either persuasion with whom we have conferred declare that the profession and desires of all for the advancement of Piety and true Godliness are the same their professions of zeal for the peace of the Church the same of affection and duty for us the same They all approve Episcopacy they all approve a set Form of Liturgy they all disapprove and dislike the sin of Sacriledge and the Alienation of the Revenue of the Church and if upon these excellent foundations in submission to which there is such a harmony of affections any superstructures should be raised to the shaking those foundations and to the contracting and lessening the blessed gift of Charity which is a vital part of Religion we shall think Our Self very unfortunate and even suspect that we are defective in that Administration of Government with which God hath entrusted us Page 18. of this Declaration His Majesty did again renew what he had formerly said in his Declaration from Breda for the liberty of tender Consciences c. and declared if any have been disturbed in that kind since Our Arrival here it hath not proceeded from any Direon of ours His Majecty saith in the fifth page of this Declaration The Presbyterians did only desire modestly such alterations in Episcopacy and the Liturgy as without shaking foundations might best allay the present distempers which the indisposition of the time and the tenderness of some mens Consciences had contracted for the better doing whereof we did intend upon our first Arrival in this Kingdom to call a Synod of Divines as the most proper Expedient to provide a proper Remedy for all those differences and dissatisfactions which had or should arise c. In the next Spring a Commission was Issued out under the Great Seal to several Episcopal and dissenting Divines to review and correct if they should see cause the Book of Prayer and to make such alterations in it as should be thought fit instead of which the Dissenting Divines rejected the whole Book and published a new one So that this meeting which was designed chiefly in favour of the Dissenters discovered the falshood of all their Oyly pretences and shewed they were neither for Liturgies or Episcopacy They had also made a strong Party in the Army of which an account hath been given already So that the Parliament seeing there was no peace to be had as long as these men might do what they listed and pervert the People and incence them against the Government passed the Act of Uniformity to Commence from St. Bartholomew 1662. During all this time his Majesty notwithstanding their ill usage of him mentioned in the last Declaration I cited continued so courteous to these firy men as to excuse it to the Parliament March 1. 1661. in these words Gentlemen I hear you are very zealous for the Church and very solicitous and even jealous that there is not Expedition enough used in that Affair and I thank you for it since I presume it proceeds from a good root of Piety and Devotion but I must tell you I have the worst luck in the world if after all the reproaches of being a Papist whilst I was abroad I am suspected of being a Presbyterian now I am come home I know you will not take it unkindly if I tell you I am as zealous for the Church of England as any of you can be and am enough acquainted with the Enemies of it on all sides that I am as much
acknowledge it thankfully to him My Author goes on thus But it is not only of the Dissolution it self that we complain the manner of doing it is unwarranted by the precedents of former times and full of dangerous Consequents We are taught by the Writ of Summons that Parliaments are never called without the advice of the Council and the usage of all Ages has been never to send them away without the same advice To forsake this safe method is to expose the King personally to the reflections and Censures of the whole Nation for so ungrateful an Action We may grant it the most usual and the best and safest way to consult the Council in both these Cases But yet that will not presently make the Act Arbitrary or Illegal if it be omitted and in this Case if it were otherwise it may possibly in the end appear to have been matter of necessity rather than choice We may very well remember that a great number of the Gentlemen of the Lower House went to Oxford with armed men to guard them from the Papists and some of them told the people at parting They did never expect to see them again The meaning of which is possible to be understood And besides these there were some other zealous men went so that if his Majesty did not think it fit or safe to consult his Council and spend time in deliberating in the midst of such dangers they must bear the blame who gave the occasion and made it necessary So that these are the men next such as my Author who are to be charged tho not with advising yet with necessitating the last dissolution to be made in the manner it was for the security of his Majesties Life and Liberty which yet I would never have said but to justifie his Majesty But yet we must know all this Concern for the Council is not out of kindness or respect to them he saith They are punishable for such Orders as are irregular nor can the Ministers justifie any unlawful Action under colour of the Kings Commands since all his Commands that are contrary to law are void which is the true reason of that well known Maxim that the King can do no wrong a Maxim just in it self and alike safe for the Prince and for the Subject there being nothing more absurd than that a Favourite should excuse his enormous Actings by a pretended Command which we may reasonably suppose he first procured to be laid upon himself But we know not whom to charge with advising this last Dissolution it was a work of darkness and if we are not misinformed the Privy Council was as much surprized at it as the Nation The sorrow was that in the next Parliament this great Patriot would be at a loss in his hunting for some body to blame for an Action so ungrateful as he represents it to the whole Nation which in my judgment is a pretty way of spending his Reflections and Censures on the King And this is not all his vexation neither for in the next Paragraph he tells us Nor will a future Parliament be able to charge any body as the Author or Adviser of the late Printed Paper which bears the Title of his Majesties Declaration tho every good Subject ought to be careful how he calls it so for his Majesty never speaks to his People as a King but either personally in his Parliament or at other times under his Seal for which the Chancellour or other Officers are responsible if what passes them be not warranted by Law Nor can the direction of the Privy Council enforce any thing upon the People unless that Royal and legal Stamp give it an Authority but this Declaration comes abroad without any such Sanction and there is no other ground to ascribe it to his Majesty than the uncertain credit of the Printer whom we will easily suspect of an imposture rather than think the King would deviate from the approved course of his Illustrious Ancestors to pursue a new and unsuccessful method So here is all the Credit of the Declaration gone and the poor Printer left in the lurch to answer it to the next Parliament for putting this imposture on the Nation But what comfort is there in such small game A Lord Chancellour or other great Officer is a Royal Game and worth the pursuit of a House of Commons to pull him down but a pitiful Printer who can find in his heart to imploy his Oratory against such mean Mechanicks and as for the Privy Council they can enforce nothing upon the People without the Seal so that for time to come all Proclamations and other publick Papers may be securely slighted except they come Sealed with the great Seal or some body be sent with them to assure us he saw it to the Original Thus far the Historian went but then the Prophet comes forth and assures us as this Method is new so it will be unsuccessful How truly the World is not now to be told From the Effect of the first Declaration of this kind which he saith was published in 1628. and filled the whole Kingdom with Jealousies and was one of the first Causes of the ensuing unhappy War he proceeds to tell us That Declarations to justifie what Princes do must always be either needless or ineffectual their Actions ought to be such as may recommend themselves to the World and carry their own Evidence along with them of their usefulness to the publick and then no Arts to justifie them will be necessary Were all Mankind wise and honest this Argument would be unanswerable but as long as some men out of Dulness and others out of Obstinacy and Interest shut their Eyes to the plainest and most evident demonstrations of Reason it must of necessity be sometimes necessary and fit for Princes to Inform their Subjects of the reasonableness of their Actions and accordingly the same course hath ever been taken and though it might fail of that end in 1628. yet it hath often heretofore and doubtless will often again succeed and the Jealousies which then arose were not the effect of the Declaration but of those ill Arts by which such a sort of men as we have now to deal with wheedled the Populace into an ill opinion of the best of Princes for Ends that are now too well known to be again imbraced When a Prince descends so low as to give his Subjects Reasons for what he has done he not only makes them Judges whether there be any weight in those reasons but by so unusual a submission gives cause to suspect that he is conscious to himself that his Actions want an Apology I never thought before that the French Kings Logick was the only Argument that became a Prince Car tel est nostre plaisir For so our will and pleasure is And those Subjects must be very ill natured that grow jealous upon the Condescentions of a Prince and judge the
Reasons of a King to have the less weight because he graciously offers them to the Judgment of his People Sure I am sometimes God Almighty is pleased to do it who only hath a right to command our absolute submission upon the account of his infinite both Wisdom and Soveraignty So that to suspect the want of of an Apology on no other grounds than a mans willingness to satisfie the World of the justice of a mans Cause and the reasonableness of his Actions is a perverseness to which common Knaves do seldom arrive the Heroes of Villany do not often rise to that pitch of Brutality without the help of Malmsbury Philosophy And I am persuaded that our Author would have spared this Cavil against his Majesties Declaration if he had before-hand considered that in natural consequence he charges not only the King but also the Three Estates with so many deliberate Acts of folly and injustice as there are Acts of Parliament containing the reasons of Enacting so or so If a Princes Actions are indeed unjustifiable if they are opposite to the Inclinations and apparently destructive of the Interests of his Subjects it will be very difficult for the most eloquent or insinuating Declaration to make them in love with such things And if they be none of all these if a Crafty man may but comment upon them and by Ifs and An ds insinuate into the heads of the Common People that he takes them for such it is possible all the Eloquence in the World may not be powerful enough to bring them into their right wits again but yet this may fail too sometimes And therefore they did certainly undertake no easie task in pretending to persuade men who see themselves exposed to the restless malice of their Enemies who observe the languishing condition of the Nation and that nothing but a Parliament can provide remedies for the great Evils which they feel and fear that two several Parliaments upon whom they had placed all their hopes were so suddenly broken out of kindness to them or with any regard to their advantage No I suppose no body was so silly as to undertake such an impossible task but there was another sort of men who had looked better into things and care was to be taken of them to confirm them and a third sort that were not yet well resolved what to think of things and they were to be directed and assisted and it was not impossible the Declaration might have a good effect upon them as indeed it had as for those that had placed all their hopes upon the two last Parliaments and were pleased with all they did there was neither hopes nor design of working that Miracle upon them but they were to be left to time to be cured And in the interim I would advise them to study Colemans Declaration of which my Author saith fine things which I care not to transcribe But should this Declaration be suffered to go abroad any longer under the Royal Name yet it will never be thought to have proceeded from his Majesties Inclination or Judgment but to be gained from him by the Artifices of the same ill men who not being content to have prevailed with him to dissolve two Paliaments only to protect them from Publick Justice do now hope to excuse themselves from being thought the Authors of that Counsel by making him openly to avow it But they have discovered themselves to the Kingdom and have told their Names when they number amongst the great Crimes of the House of Commons their having declared divers Eminent Persons to be Ememies to the King and Kingdom So his Majesties Inclination and Judgment being kindly absolved from the guilt of this Declaration of purpose to abate the Esteem it ought to have And seeing it is not possible to keep it within doors and that some may think the worse of it because there was a sham Declaration found among Colemans Papers as you know there was a sham Plot in the Meal-Tub and yet there may be others that are real The next Inquiry or rather Hue and Cry is after the Authors and those he thinks he hath found by the passage he cites out of the Declaration those Eminent Persons or some of them must needs out of Revenge and Fear be the Authors of this Pestilent Declaration His Reason is this None could be offended at the Proceedings of the Parliaments but they who were obnoxious none could be concerned to vindicate the Dissolution but they who advised it But is my Author sure of that that never a man in the Nation was offended at their proceedings but such as were obnoxious to them I am of another mind and so is all the world now Is it impossible for any man to be concerned to vindicate the Actions of a Prince but they that advise him What pitiful Sophistry this is But were no men obnoxious to the proceedings of these Parliaments but these eminent men May not it be some of those Subjects who were by Arbitrary Orders taken into Custody for matters that had no relation to Priviledges of Parliament They are mentioned before the Eminent Persons tho of a Meaner degree If I be not mistaken some Members too were very disgracefully Expelled the House Might not some of them have a hand in it We are assured a little lower that the Writer was of another Nation from this Gallicism It was a matter extremely sensible to us So that this Gentleman is suspitious it is but a Translation of a French Copy and the rather because Monsieur Barillon the French Embassadour read it to a Gentleman three days before it was communicated to the Privy Council if his intelligence did not deceive him So here is fair Scope left to find or suspect at least other Authors besides the Eminent Persons other Advisers besides those that were obnoxious For I suppose Monsieur Barillon doth not fear a House of Commons And as for this and other Gallicisms that may occur they are not to be wondred at in an Age that generally understands the French Tongue in a Court where almost all the Great men speak it in a Prince who hath lived in France and is descended of a French Mother And the wonder is not so prodigious neither that the French Embassadour should get a transcript of a Paper intended to be published to the whole Nation two or three days before it was read in Council These things make a great noise to ignorant people whilst I am persuaded this Gentleman smiled to think how finely he was deluding them But be these things as they will the Eminent Persons must expect to answer it And our Author thinks they cannot blame him or his Party for hoping one day to see justice done upon such Counsellours And that the Commons had reason for their Vote when they declared those Eminent Persons who manage things at this rate Enemies to the King and Kingdom and Promoters
of the French Interest It is not strange at all that the Parliament at Oxford should anger the Court more than that at Westminster for the Court did never yet dissolve a Parliament abruptly and in heat but they found the next Parliament more averse and to insist upon the same things with greater eagerness than the former English Spirits resent no affronts so highly as those that are done to their Representatives and the Court will be sure to find the effects of that resentment in the next Election The truth of this as matter of History is very apparent for so it came to pass in the Reign of his Majesties Father upon every Dissolution the Commons made choice of the same or worse Members till in 1640. they had fitted themselves with a Parliament to their hearts desire who resented not the Affronts done to themselves as the Peoples Representatives but the several Stops and Rubs that had been laid in their way so highly that the Court i e. the King soon felt the effects of it But did the Nation escape No but Bloud and Violence Anarchy and Consusion took possession of them to that height that the pious Martyr called it A Hell of Misery and Chaos of Confusion The Author in the next line acquaints us That a Parliament does ever participate of the present temper of the People Never were Parliaments of more different Complexions than that of 1640. and that of 1661. yet they both exactly answered the humours which were predominant in the Nation when they were respectively chosen It doth not become me to say whether that of 1680. were liker that of 1640. or 1661. but I must needs say I wonder my Author could reflect so sensibly on the difference and yet at the same time heighten the Popular Heats with inculcating the fears of France and Popery and not rather endeavour to allay them by telling his Country-men that twenty years Misery followed the 1640 Parliament and twenty years Peace the latter which I cannot but esteem a more Loyal and a more Prudent reflection than that he hath made and much more necessary both for the Representatives and Electors Let them however now consider seriously of it and the next time send up men zealous to bring the real Incendiaries of the Nation to Justice and then it is not to be doubted but some that are Country Favourites will be found to promote the French and Popish Interest as well as the Republick And I dare then become their Sponsor if it might not look too presumptuously in so mean a person as I am that by Gods mercy we should enjoy another Score of Halsion years to the confusion of Popery and the extreme damage of France Both which do as certainly promote our present distempers as they did those in Charles the First his times as have been made so apparent that the Dissenters who were the Principals then as they are now would fain persuade the world that the Accessaries the French Emisaries and Jesuits did all that mischief that was then done But as this is ridiculous and impossible so if duly considered it might prevent a relapse into the same misery and confusion which is more to be desired by all good Christians than the most delightful revenge upon the Favorites But it is but reasonable to expect all that I can say will signifie but little to this sort of men if the modest Gentleman I am examining may be presumed better acquainted with their tempers than I am For surely saith he this DECLARATION what great things soever may be expected from it will make but very few Converts not only because it represents things as high Crimes which the whole Kingdom the contrary of which is now too apparent to be proved on one hand or denied on the other has been celebrating as meritorious Actions but because the People have been so often deceived by former Declarations that whatsoever carries that Name will have no credit with them for the Future This I confess is one good way to prevent the making too many Converts to Loyalty for if a People can once be effectually persuaded their Governours are faithless perfidious men that seek nothing but an opportunity to delude and abuse them by false pretences there will be no great danger they will pay them too much respect and obedience But surely the man that talks thus is some French Emisary or Jesuit such thoughts as these never arose from a Church of England Gentlemans heart for the worst enemy of England could not have breathed a worse insinuation into the hearts of his Majesties Subjects They have not yet forgot the Declaration from Breda tho others forgot it too soon and do not spare to say that if the same diligence the same earnest solicitations had been made use of in that affair which have been since exercised directly contrary to the design of it there is no doubt but every 〈◊〉 of it would have had its desired effect and all his Majestâ—â—â— Subjects would have enjoyed the fruits of it and 〈…〉 extolling a Prince so careful to keep his Sacred Promise◠〈…〉 People Before this unworthy Insinuation can be 〈…〉 â—â—swered I must transcribe so much of that Declaratio◠〈…〉 here supposed to have sailed of its 〈…〉 followeth And because the Passion and uncharitableness of the times have produced several opinions in Religion by which men are engaged in Parties and Animosities against each other which when they shall hereafter unite in a freedom of Conversation will be better understood we do declare a liberty to tender Consciences and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of Opinion in matter of Religion which do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom and that we shall be ready to consent to such an Act of Parliament as upon mature deliberation shall be offered to us for the full granting that Indulgence Here is his Majestie Royal Promise wherein ought to be observed that his Majesty promised nothing to any Party that should disturb the peace of the Kingdom Nor to them that did not further than that he would consent to such an Act of Parliament when it should be offered to him So that he was not obliged to procure such an Act nor yet to do it without an Act. And now let us see how they behaved themselves towards him Whilst says his Majesty we continued in this temper of mind and resolution and have so far complied with the persuasion of particular persons and the distemper of the times as to be contented with the exercise of our Religion in our own Chappel according to the constant practice and Laws established without enjoying that practice and the observation of those Laws in the Churches of the Kingdom in which we have undergone the Censure of many as if we were without that zeal for the Church which we ought to have and which by Gods Grace we shall always
of them We should question his Majesties Wisdom did we not believe him to have understood that never Parliament had greater Opportunites of doing good to Himself and his People He could not but be sensible of the dangers and of the necessities of his Kingdom and therefore could not without exceeding great trouble be prevailed upon for the sake of a few desperate men whom he thought himself concerned to love now only because he had loved them too well and trusted them too much before not only to disappoint the Hopes and Expectations of his own People but of almost all Europe His Majesty did indeed do his part so far in giving opportunities of proving for our good as the calling of Parliaments do amount to and it is to be imputed to the Ministers only that the success of them did not answer his and our Expectations Thus far my Author is recited verbatim that it may appear I do him no wrong By which discourse of his taking for the present no notice of his reflection on his Majesty for a person whose Promises were not real it is agreed that the two last Parliaments had great opportunities of doing good to his Majesty and his People and my Author goes further and adds the Hopes and Expectation of almost all Europe to them That his Majesty called these Parliaments he owns That one of them sat a competent time for that purpose cannot be denied viz. from Thursday October 21. 1680. till Monday the tenth day of January following which deducting the time spent in the Trial of Viscount Stafford was in some mens opinions sufficient to have dispatched much more business than was then done And yet it doth not appear that his Majesty was enclined to have prorogued them then if he had not been highly provoked by them What my Author means by those few desperate men that prevailed upon his Majesty so much against his Will to part with that Parliament I cannot guess except they be the Eminent Persons which were declared Enemies to the King and Kingdom which if they were they are neither so few nor such desperate men as to be laid aside barely upon a Vote of the House of Commons without any Order or Process of Law any hearing of their Defence or any proof so much as offered against them And I believe the meanest of them is equal to this Gentleman as scornfully as he speaks of them But then in the last place whether or no the dissolution be to be imputed to the Ministers or to the Parliament i. e. the House of Commons will appear best in the examination of his discourse and of the Declaration It is certain saith my Author it cannot be imputed to any of the proceedings of either of those Parliaments which were composed of men of as good sence and quality as any in the Nation and proceeded with as great moderation and managed their debates with as much temper as ever was known in any Parliament If all this is as certainly true as it is confidently asserted then is it but a folly to dispute any further about it But because his Majesty in his Declaration hath said some things that seem to look another way my Reader may if he please suspend his belief of this particular too till his Majesties Allegations and this Gentlemans defence are examined and then he will be better able to pass his Judgment If they seemed to go too far in any thing his Majesties Speeches or Declarations had misled them by some of which they had been invited to enter into every one of those debates to which so much exception hath been since taken Did he not frequently recommend the prosecution of the Plot to them with a strict and impartial inquiry Did he not tell them That he neither thought himself nor them safe till that matter was gone through with Yes doubtless his Majesty did all this but then where is any exception taken against any thing of this Nature they have done Did he not in his Speech April 30 1679. assure them that it was his constant care to secure our Religion for the future in all events and that in all things which concerned the Publick Security He would not follow their Zeal but lead it But Sir did not his Majesty then also let you know that he excepted one thing in which he would neither lead nor follow their Zeal which was the altering the descent of the Crown in the right Line or defeating the Succession which his Majesty commanded to be further explained by the Lord Chancellour in such manner that it appeared to the whole Nation that his Majesty was resolved to do any thing for the freeing his People from their fears of Popery but what might tend to the disinheriting the Duke of York or any other Lawful Successor Now you Sir may remember that nothing but this would satisfie the Commons in either of the two last Parliaments in which they were not misled by any of his Majesties Speeches or declarations much less by this which was made of purpose to prevent the Bill before it was moved in the House of Commons Has he not often wished that he might be enabled to exercise a power of Dispensation in reference to those Protestants who through tenderness of misguided Conscience did not conform to the Ceremonies Discipline and Government of the Church and promised that he would make it his special care to encline the wisdom of the Parliament to concur with him in making an Act to that purpose And did not that very Parliament draw up a long Address to his Majesty containing the reasons why they could not concur with him in that point And is not this one good proof that his Majesty was not unmindful of his Declaration at Breda but was kept from doing what he was otherwise enclined enough to not by a few desperate men but by the Parliament And least the malice of ill men i. e. the Dissenters might object that these gracious inclinations of his continued no longer than while there was a possibility of giving the Papists equal benefit of a Toleration Has not his Majesty since the discovery of the Plot since there was no hopes of getting so much as a connivance for them in his Speech of March 6. 1678-9 express'd his zeal not only for the Protestant Religion in general but for an Vnion amongst all sorts of Protestants His Majesties words here are not truly recited but are these I meet you here with the most earnest desire that man can have to unite the minds of all my Subjects both to me and to one another and I resolve it shall be your faults if the success be not suitable to my desires c. And a little after Besides that end of Vnion which I aim at and which I wish could be extended to Protestants abroad as well as at home I propose by this last great step I have made the
is undeniable but then those reasons ought to be alledged and proved for the turning a man out of Service is certainly in many cases a great punishment tho not equal to hanging The People themselves are highly concerned in the great Ministers of State who are Servants to the Kingdom as well as to the King and the Commons whose business it is to present all Grievances as they are most likely to observe soonest the folly and treachery of those publick Servants the greatest of all Grievances so this representation ought to have no little weight with the Prince Here is the true reason as long as the Ministers look upon themselves as the Kings Servants they will adhere to the Crown but if they be taught once that they are Servants to the People too then because it is difficult to serve two Masters they will be more distracted and act more timorously especially if according to the modern distinction the Country-Party get the Ascendent of the Court-Party in a Parliament Queen Elizabeth told the Commons by the Lord Keeper that she misliked that such irreverence towards Privy-Counsellors who were not to be accounted as Common Knights and Burgesses of the House that are Counsellors but during the Parliament whereas the other are standing Counsellors and for their Wisdom and great Service are called to the Council of State They were not then thought to be such publick Servants as might be treated at any rate sent to the Tower or to carry up a Bill to the Lords against which they had given their Vote as if it were to triumph over them But Henry IV. a wise and a brave Prince in the Fifth year of his Reign turned out four of his Servants only because the Commons desired they might be removed But then this Prince had no Title and therefore was not in a capacity to dispute any thing with them and in this very Parliament too they gave him so extraordinary a Tax and so troublesom to the Subject that they would not suffer any Record of it to be left in the Treasury and he was obliged to grant them this extraordinary favour in recompence of it He had but newly in Battel conquered one Rebellion wherein Mortimers Title was at the bottom and was ingaged then in a War with France And he had reason to fear a general Defection of the Nation King Richard being reported to be alive And he was then in great want of Money so that for such a Prince so beset to grant any thing was far from a wonder but ought no more to be drawn into Example than that Tax they then gave him and least of all now when things are in a very different posture But then all these Ministers are censured for doing that which was approved by two of the three Estates The Resolve was this That all persons who advised his Majesty in his last Message to this House to insist upon an opinion against the Bill for Excluding the Duke of York have given pernicious Counsel to his Majesty and are promoters of Popery and Enemies to the King and Kingdom Now this Bill was before this thrown out by the House of Lords and therefore there was no reason to Vote the Ministers Enemies to the King and Kingdom for doing that which was approved by two of the three Estates in Parliament But they ought not to have appealed to the People against their own Representatives Why not The unfortunate Reigns of Henry III. Edward II. Richard II. and Henry VI. ought to serve as Land-marks to warn succeeding Kings from preserring secret Councils to the wisdom of their Parliaments And so ought the Example of his Majesties Father to warn both his Majesty and the whole Nation how they suffer the Ministers of State to be trodden under foot by Factious men and the Prerogatives of the Crown to be swallowed up by pretended Priviledges of Parliament for all these things have once already made way for the Ruine of the Monarchy as that did for the enslaving of the People The next thing my Author falls upon is the business of the Revenue but here I cannot imagine what he would have he makes a long Harangue against Alienation of the Revenues of the Crown and about the reasonableness of Resumptions of those that had been alienated And tells us No Country did ever believe the Prince how absolute soever in other things had power to sell or give away the Revenue of the Kingdom and leave his Successor a Beggar That the haughty French Monarch as much power as he pretends to is not ashamed to own that he wanted power to make such Alienations and that Kings had that happy inability that they could do nothing contrary to the Laws of their Country This and much more my Author hath upon this occasion learnedly but very impertinently written about these two Votes believing his Reader could not distinguish betwixt an Alienation and an Anticipation But the best way to have this clearly understood is to insert the Votes of the Commons which are as followeth Resolved That whosoever shall hereafter lend or cause to be lent by way of Advance any money upon the Branches of the Kings Revenue arising by Customs Excise or Hearth-money shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and shall be responsible for the same in Parliament Resolved That whosoever shall accept or buy any Tally of Anticipation upon any part of the Kings Revenue or whoseever shall pay such Tally hereafter to be struck shall be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and shall be responsible therefore in Parliament Now what Advancing money upon the Revenues and accepting Tallys of Anticipation have to do with Alienation of it I cannot devise For certainly it is one thing to advance a Fine and take a Farm so much the cheaper for three four or seven years and another thing to purchase the same to a man and his Heirs for ever And it is one thing to receive an Order to take such a Sum of Money of the Tenant out of the next half years Rent and a quite other thing to purchase the Feesimple of an Estate which is an Alienation The Revenues of the Crown of England are in their own nature appropriated to Publick Service and therefore cannot without injustice be diverted or Anticipated May not an Anticipation be as well imployed upon the Publick Service as a growing Revenue when it is become due Does Anticipation signifie mispending or diverting from a Publick to a private use Is it impossible the Publick should at any time need a greater Sum of money than the Revenue will afford and may not a Prince in such a case Anticipate and afterward get it up again by his good Husbandry No for Either the Publick Revenue is sufficient to answer the necessary occasions of the Government and then there is no colour for Anticipations or else by some extraordinary Accident the King
is reduced to want an extraordinary supply and then he ought to resort to his Parliament Well but suppose as it may happen the necessity is so urgent that it cannot be put off till a Parliament can be called and meet and raise money Or if you please suppose a Parliament dare not trust the King with money or which is all one will pretend so Or will not supply him unless he will pass an Act that they shall sit as long as they please or unless he will let them turn out what Ministers of State Justices of the Peace c. they think sit and put in others as they please May not a Prince relieve himself in these cases by an Advance or Anticipation but must submit absolutely to the Commons I hope he will not say these are impossible accidents Our Ancestors did wisely provide that the King and his People should have frequent need of one another and by having frequent opportunities of mutually relieving one anothers wants be sure ever to preserve a dutiful affection in the Subject and a Fatherly tenderness in the Prince When the King had occasion for the liberality of his People he would be well inclined to hear and redress their Grievances and when they wanted ease from oppressions they would not fail with alacrity to supply the occasions of the Crown All this is certainly true and was the very reason why the two first Parliaments of his Majesties Reign of whose Loyalty and hearty affections to the Crown no man ever doubted setled part of the Revenue on his Majesty for his Life only that his Successor might be obliged by a regrant of it And the whole which they gave to this King was but equal to the constant and regular Expences of the Government as they designed it tho it is said it falls short of that too Now might things be thus carried as my Author tells us they were designed to be England would certainly be the happiest Nation in the World The King would be as rich as his People could make him and the People as happy as a tender and good King could make them But alas there is sprung up a new Generation of men who have taken such an Aversion for Monarchy and the just Prerogatives of the Crown that till these Grievances the greatest Grievances that ever can betide a free-born people be totally taken away they can find no gust in the removal of all those other petty Grievances of which our Ancestors complained so often and as often found redress There is also arisen a sort of sober Protestants as the Dissenters will needs be called who can neither agree one with another nor with the Religion that is Established and to them it is an intolerable Grievance to see Episcopacy a Liturgy and a few innocent Ceremonies which they call Popery established in the Church and till these are extirpated Root and Branch and every of their pious Whimsies setled successively in the place of them or tolerated at once they good men cannot be at ease neither These two have twisted their interests together with a third sort that have no Religion at all but have a damnable inclination to the Spoils of the Church and the Plunder of the Nation And they by Popular Arts have wheedled and deluded great numbers of the Freemen and Freeholders of the Nation into a strong belief that Popery is by our Governours designed to be set up in the Church and Arbitrary Government in the State things which these good men hate mightily as there is good reason for it but are very much abused by the Information and much more by being persuaded as they have been that the chusing discontented men to be their Representatives in the House of Commons was the only way to prevent these two dreadful things from falling upon them These men however have sometimes got to be the major part of that House and the Consequence hath ever been that the King could get no Supplies be his necessities what they could be unless he would grant such things as tended immediately to the ruine of the Church and Monarchy And if he were a little averse to it then he was presently Libelled to the Nation as a favourer of Popery and a designer of Arbitrary Government but if it were not safe to attack him then according to the method of the late Rebels the cry was raised against the Evil Counsellors or the Corrupt Ministers and nothing would do but the turning them out of their employments as treacherous Servants to the Kingdom for being too faithful to the King And because they can never effect these great things by other means they have always turned this excellent Constitution against it self and that which was intended to endear the King and his People each to others their mutual want of each others assistance hath been made a Steppal to mount the Throne and pluck down the Mitre So that his Majesty who knew how things went in his Father's days was not out when he told the Commons in his Speech March 1. 1661. as followeth Gentlemen I need not put you in mind of the miserable effects which have attended the wants and necessities of the Crown I need not tell you that there is a Republick Party still in the Kingdom which have the courage to promise themselves another Revolution and methinks I should as little need to tell you that the only way with Gods blessing to disappoint their hopes and desires and indeed to reduce them from those extravagant hopes and desires is to let them see that you have so provided for the Crown that it hath wherewithal to support it self and to secure you which I am sure is all I desire and desire only for you preservation Therefore I do conjure you by all the professions of affection you have made to me by all the kindness I know you have for me after all your deliberations betake your selves to some speedy resolutions and settle such a real and substantial Revenue upon me as may hold some proportion with the necessary Expences I am at for the Peace and Benefit and Honour of the Kingdom that they who look for troubles at home may despair of their wishes and that our Neighbours abroad by seeing that all is well at home may have that esteem and value of Us as may secure the Interest and Honour of the Nation and make the happiness of this Kingdom and of this CITY once more the Admiration and Envy of the World This Parliament understood things well and provided accordingly so that the nineteenth of May following the Lord Chancellor in a Speech made at their Prorogation told them They had wisely very wisely provided such a constant growing Revenue as may with Gods blessing preserve the Crown from those scandalous wants and necessities as have heretofore exposed it and the Kingdom to those dismal miseries from which they are but even now buoyed up for whatsoever other humane
things have been done but ought they therefore to be reacted As for his railing Accusations brought against his Royal Highness they deserve so much the less consideration because he treats the King at that abominable rate he doth of whose Clemency Justice and Compassion all Europe are Witnesses Having concluded there must be a War he saith Let it be under the Authority of Law let it be against a Banished Excluded Pretender There is no fear of the Consequence of such a War No true Englishman can joyn with him or countenance his Vsurpation after this Act and for his Popish and Forein Adherents they will neither be more provoked nor more powerful by the passing of it This man all along supposeth that neither the Duke nor the King have any natural Hereditary Right to the Crown but talketh as if it were meerly at the pleasure of the People and their Representatives to make what man they please King of England supposing that a Son of an Emperour of Germany or of a King of Poland were passed by or Excluded and should enter a War for the gaining of that Crown to which for want of an Election he had never any legal right he might be stiled a Pretender or an Usurper but in an Hereditary Kingdom it can never be so if according to the before cited opinion of K. James no Act of Parliament can extinguish the Dukes Right which God and Nature hath given him in case the King should die before his Royal Highness without lawful Issue tho it may prevent his obtaining it So that he can never be an Usurper or Pretender till the Monarchy of England is declared to be Elective And this may be thought to be one reason why his Majesty should never yield the point And as for my Authors confidence in the success of such a War it speaks nothing but his earnest desire of one rather than not to have his Will and I hope the Nation will have no occasion to prove him a false Prophet Nor will his Exclusion make it at all necessary to maintain a standing Force for preserving the Government and the peace of the Kingdom The whole People will be an Army for that purpose and every heart and hand will be prepared to maintain that so necessary so much desired Law If all this were true there would be no need of an Army indeed but then there would also be as little need of an Association too for I never heard of a Prince that was able to compel three whole Nations to submit to him against all their Wills and without Forein Aids But Sir the House of Commons thought the latter necessary or else they would never have desired that his Majesty would be likewise Graciously pleased to Assent to an Act whereby his Majesties Protestant Subjects may be enabled to Associate themselves for the defence of his Majesties Person the Protestant Religion and the security of your Kingdoms This was thought as necessary as the Bill of Exclusion and what kind of Association some men intended is well enough understood now by the whole Nation As to his Recrimination upon the Ministers for the two Armies and the Guards let him set his heart at rest for the World is very well satisfied the one were never intended to be kept up and it is hoped the other the Guards will be ever formidable to such Gentlemen as my Author who in kindness to the Queen of Scots Title and the Bill of Exclusion is like a good Protestant contented to insinuate that Queen Elizabeth was a Bastard though born in Matrimony For so she must be if what the Papists say of her having no other Right but only that of an Act of Parliament by which Mary Queen of Scots was Excluded be true In the next Paragraph my Author endeavours to face his Majesty down That nothing was intended by those other ways which were darkly and dubiously intimated in his Majesties Speech unto the Parliament at Oxford and repeated in the Declaration and he saith that his Majesty in his wisdom could not but know that they signified nothing Now this is a strange way of proceeding with Princes and would anger a private man The Regency signified nothing the distinction betwixt the Kings Personal and Politick Capacity was unfeasible the Pope might absolve him from all Oaths as he did King John and Henry III. and it would be more fatal to us when Religion is concerned which was not then in question His Confessor would excite him against us and he who has made use of all the Power he has been intrusted with hitherto for our destruction witness his Naval Wars against the Dutch would certainly Elude all Methods but the Bill of Exclusion and if it were otherwise there was no hopes of having any fruit of any Expedient without a War and to be obliged to swear Allegiance to a Popish Prince to own his Title to acknowledge him supreme Head of the Church and Defender of the Faith seems says my Author a strange way of entitling our selves to fight with him It doth so and therefore all those that are resolved on a War will I suppose never do it But are all these Titles annexed to the Crown as Protestant or as imperial and subject to none but God Did they belong to Henry VIII or did they not And supposing no Expedient should be used would not the Number Constancy and Resolution of the English Nation and Protestants in it preserve the Religion in one Prince's Reign tho of a different Religion without a War The Expedient propounded by his Majesty that if means could be found That in case of a Popish Successâ—r the Administration of the Government might remain in Protestant hands whether it be feasible or no shews an inclination in his Majesty to submit to any thing but what will ruine both him and his Brother as the Bill of Exclusion backed with such an Association as was lately found certainly will In short this Case is beset with so many and great difficulties that it baffles all humane wit and understanding to provide such an Expedient for it as may be secure and satisfie and therefore when all is done that can be done it must be left to God Almighty who only can and will determine it Having denied the charge in the Declaration That there was reason to believe that the Parliament would have passed further to attempt some other great and important changes even at present and according to his wont schooled the King and told the Ministers That they hate Parliaments because their Crimes are such that they have reason to fear them He relents a little and tells us if they the Ministers by that expression meant That the Parliament would have besought the King that the Duke might no longer have the Government in his hands This is a little hard to be understood the Duke not being then in England 2. That his Dependants those that had
voted against the Bill should no longer preside in His Councils no longer possess all the great Trusts and Offices in the Kingdom 3. That our Ports our Garrisons and our Fleets should be no longer governed by such as are at his devotion 4. That Characters of Honour and Favour should be no longer placed on men that the Wisdom of the Nation the House of Commons without the Lords for they have it seems lately got a Patent to Monopolize all the Wisdom of the Nation hath judged to be favourers of Popery or Pensioners of France These are great and important Changes but such as it becomes Englishmen to believe were designed by that Parliament and such as will be designed and prest by every Parliament and such as the People will ever pray may find success with the King without these Changes and the Association forgotten by my Author the Bill of Exclusion would only provoke not disarm our Enemies Nay the very money which we must have paid for it would have been made use of to secure and hasten the Duke's return upon us Now this was all perhaps was meant by that passage in the Declaration and the Consequences of these things are such that no beseeching will ever obtain them till his Majesty is weary of all he hath and therefore it well becomes all English men that do not design another Rebellion for time to come to design and pray and our Parliaments to press for some other things that may be fitter for them to ask and his Majesty to grant I conclude with the Wisemans Advice My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change Especially to such important changes We are now come to the consideration of that only fault which was peculiar to the Parliament at Oxford and that was their behaviour in relation to the business of Fitz-Harris the Declaration says He was impeached of High Treason by the Commons and they had cause to think his Treasons to be of such an extraordinary nature that they well deserved an examination in Parliament We shall by and by come to examine the reasons that made them think so and in the interim it is worth the while to recite the very words of the Declaration which are these The business of Fitz-Harris who was impeached by the House of Commons of High Treason and by the House of Lords referred to the ordinary course of Law was on the sudden carried on to that extremity by the Votes which the Commons passed on March 26. last that there was no possibility left of a Reconciliation The Votes are these Rosolved That it is the undoubted Right of the Commons in Parliament assembled to impeach before the Lords in Parliament any Peer or Commoner for Treason or any other Crime or Misdemeanor And that the refusal to proceed in Parliament upon such impeachment is a denial of Justice and a Violation of the Constitutions of Parliaments Resolved That in the case of Edward Fitz-Harris who by the Commons hath been impeached of High Treason before the Lords with a Declaration that in convenient time they would bring up the Articles against him for the Lords to Resolve that the said Fitz-Harris should be proceeded with according to the course of Common Law and not by way of impeachment at this time is a denial of Justice and a violation of the Constitutions of Parliaments and an Obstruction to the further discovery of the Popish Plot and of great danger to his Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion Resolved That for any inferiour Court to proceed against Edward Fitz-Harris or any other person lying under an impeachment in Parliament for the same Crimes he or they stand impeached is a high breach of the Priviledge of Parliament And now let us follow my Authors account of Fitz-Harris his business who he says truly was a known Irish Papist and it appeared by the Informations given in the House he was made use of by some very great persons to set up a Counterfeit Protestant Conspiracy and thereby not only to drown the noise of the Popish Plot but to take off the Heads of the most eminent of those who refused to bow their knees to Baal c. That this might look as unlike a Popish Design and be the better received by the people as was possible they framed a libel full of the most bitter invectives against Popery and the Duke of York it carried as much seeming zeal for the Protestant Religion as Colemans Declaration and as much care and concern for our Laws as the penners of this Declaration would seem to have But it was also filled with the most subtile insinuations and the sharpest expressions against his Majesty that could be invented and with direct and passionate incitements to Rebellion This Paper as it appears by the account of it which was given at Fitz-Harris his Trial was penn'd in the stile and just like the Libels the sober Protestants daily Print and perhaps not much unlike our modest Vindicator in the main but had some things in it which they whisper for the present because it is dangerous Printing of them And some other things plainly spoken which the other Party have a way to insinuate craftily so that it may be understood and yet not hazard their sweet lives This saith my Author was to be conveyed by unknown Messengers Oates says by the Penny Post to their hands who were to be betrayed and then they were to be seized upon and those Libels sound about them were to be a Confirmation of the truth of a Rebellion which they had provided Witnesses to swear was designed by the Protestants and had before prepared men to believe by Private Whispers And the credit of this Plot should no doubt have been soon confirmed by speedy Justice done upon the pretended Criminals And now it is time to give a little better account of this Libel than perhaps the Author has given it was penned by one Mr. Everard by the direction of Fitz-Harris he fearing he might be shamm'd and that it was designed so called in one Mr. Smith and Sir William Waller into the business that so he might clear himself of it and trappan Fitz-Harris These two Gentlemen heard Fitz-Harris dictate the heads of it to Everard and one of them heard him approve of it when it was delivered to him Mr. Everard was promised his reward for all this by the French Embassadour as Sir William Waller swears in the Trial he heard Fitz-Harris say and upon Sir William Wallers giving the King an account of it Fitz-Harris was taken with the Libel about him Being taken and committed to Newgate he was examined the tenth day of March by Sir Robert Clayton and Sir George Treby There he speaks not one word of the Author of the Libel But being thus imprisoned he found there was no way to save his life but to curry favour with those
that you would not let your Conscience in this passage give your Passion in all the rest the lie Now if I might interpret your meaning I should guess it to be this They that on the one hand pretend to maintain the Legal Monarchy but do really intend to advance it into an absolute form without any dependence upon Parliaments and they who pretend the same thing but design to throw off the Monarchy and put the whole Power into the hands of the People i. e. the Commonwealth Party are the men that have brought things into the disorder they are now in Whilst they who love the Legal Monarchy both out of Choice and Conscience amongst which persons I will subscribe my name when occasion requires are they who desire the frequent and successful meetings of the Great Coucil Now Sir here seems to be a little Justice in this for as it were a high and flagrant piece of injustice to say that all that made up the House of Commons in the two last Parliaments designed to ruine the Monarchy and set up another Parliamentary Commonwealth of England So it is the same notorious and base injustice in you to traduce the Ministers in general as you do throughout the whole Pamphlet when as it is apparent enough first That his Majesty never did intend to set up one Dram of Arbitrary Government Secondly That it is not possible for the Ministers to do it without his consent Thirdly That it is scarce possible for him and them to do it if they had designed to do it till there hath been another War Fourthly That never any considerable person or number of persons amongst the Ministers did ever yet make one step towards it For all those Acts that have been so basely traduced are fairly defensible Those that look worst the Transactions about 1671. and 72. not excepted one of which you your self have excused viz. the Postponing of all Payments to the Bankers out of the Exchequer And the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience though you stile it an Arbitrary Power assumed to suspend Penal Laws and say the whole Nation was justly alarmed upon it yet I believe should his Majesty do the same thing over again those that now make the greatest noise against Arbitrary Power without cause would willingly enough accept of it And yet there is no reason that the present Ministers should bear the blame of these things when they that promoted them are now Sir in your Interests And Sir that the meetings of the Great Council may be successful as well as frequent one of these things must be that either the People change the Members of the Lower House or that those Members change their Methods of Proceeding and till this be done these meetings how frequent soever can never be successful For if things be carried in the next Convention as they were in the late Parliaments neither can the King neither will the Nation endure it and for all our Threats you will find when you come to bring it into Act such difficulties as I car not to foretel tho I can foresee them As for the other sort of Peevish men of whom the Declaration gives us warning who are angry at the disappointment of their Ambitious Designs If these words are intended to reflect on those men of Honour and Conscience who being qualified for the highest imployments of State have either left or refused or be removed from them because they would not accept ro retain them at the Price of selling their Country and inslaving Posterity and who are content to sacrifice their Safety as well as their Interest for the Publick and expose themselves to the malice of the men in power and to the daily Plots Perjuries and Subornations of the Papists I say if these are the Ambitious Men spoken of the People will have consideration for what they say and therefore it will be wisdom to give such men as these no occasion to say they intend to lay aside the use of Parliaments This your Appeal to the People hath spoiled all the fine things you had said before for supposing all the rest had been true as it is notoriously false yet this making the People the Judges is a kind of attempt to separate them from their Governours and exasperate them against the Government from whence must spring as great inconveniences as those you pretend to avoid and therefore had I been one of these men I would never have appealed to them but to God and my own Conscience and have sate still till he had pronounced the Sentence in this World or that which is to come You know Sir the People are not able to examine any thing but being once put into a rage by such specious Harangues as these are rush into disorder and confusion and take all that endeavour to quiet them for Enemies and Papists and so the guilty escape and then innocent are cut in pieces And besides all this never was any disorder in a Government rectified by the People but by a greater and more fatal disorder as we had experience in the late times and very often before But let the Event be what it will you are resolved to stir up the People to the utmost to revenge your case upon the Government and to that purpose insinuate there is a design to lay aside the use of Parliaments as if you should have said Stand to your Arms Gentlemen against these Ministers for as they have laid us aside men of Honour and Conscience because we would not sell our Country and enslave Posterity so the next thing to be done is the laying aside Parliaments and you are the men that must by your consideration of us prevent this great mischief This was pretty well but the next is excellent In good earnest the behaviour of the Ministers of late gives but too just occasions to say that the use of Parliaments is already laid aside for tho the King has own'd in so many of his Speeches and Declarations the great Danger of the Kingdom and the necessity of the aid and counsel of Parliaments he hath nevertheless been prevailed upon to dissolve four in the space of twenty six months without making provision by their Advice suitable to our dangers or wants My Author was sensible that the People might think that the former hint proceeded from Passion or was not serious or at least the danger was not eminent and he comes now nearer to them and tells them in good earnest they had but too just occasions to say that Parliaments were already laid aside as to any use of them and he proved it too Four had been dissolved in twenty six months but three of them were called in that time And this is an odd sort of laying them aside to call as many in twenty six months as heretofore have been called in so many years Well but there was no provision made by their Advice suitable to our Dangers
sending away his Royal Highness the Duke of York to discern whether Protestant Religion and the peace of the Kingdom be as truly aimed at by others as they are really intended by me c. By which it appears the Union his Majesty here meant was not that Union that was afterwards set on foot in Parliament and I cannot but suspect these words were misrecited of purpose And did not he comand my Lord Chancellour to tell them That it was necessary to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole flock and them that only wander from it These words are indeed in the Lord Chancellors Speech but with this Preface Neither is there nor hath been these fifteen hundred years a purer Church than ours so 't is for the sake of this poor Church alone that the State hath been so much disturbed It is her Truth and Peace her Decency and Order which they the Plotters and Papists labour to undermine and pursue with so restless a malice and since they do so it will be necessary for us to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole Flock and them that only wander from it So that whatever distinction his Majesty intended to allow between the Popish and Protestant Recusants it must be such as was consistent with the Truth Peace Decency and Order of the Religion by Law established which I suspect the Project of Union set on foot was not much less the Vote of the tenth of January for the suspending the execution of all Penal Laws made against them as a weakening of the Protestant Interest an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom These things considered we should not think the Parliament went too far but rather that they did not follow his Majesties Zeal with an equal pace At this rate of concluding a man may draw any Conclusion from any premises if he hath a mind to it His Majesty would joyn with them in any course that might tend to the security of the Protestant Religion for the future so as the same extend not to the diminution of his own Prerogative nor to alter the descent of the Crown in the right Line nor to defeat the Succession Therefore when they brought in a Bill to disinherit his Majesties Brother against his expresly declared resolution they did not go too far but rather they did not follow his Majesties Zeal with an equal pace When his Majesty thought it necessary to distinguish betwixt Popish Recusants and Protestant Dissenters that is to favour the latter more than the former they were for taking away all those Laws at once that have distinguished betwixt the Dissenters and the Religion established and giving up this Pure Church into the hands of her bitter Enemies that had but just before bid fair for her ruine as if the only care had been that the Papists might not have had the honour of destroying her and yet we are not to believe they went too far in this neither The truth is if we observe the daily provocations of the Popish Faction whose rage and insolence were only increased by the discovery of the Plot so that they seemed to defie Parliaments as well as inferiour Courts of Justice under the Protection of the Duke their Publickly Avowed Head who still carried on their designs by new and more detestable methods than ever and were continually busie by Perjuries and Subornations to charge the best and most considerable Protestants in the Kingdom with Treasons as black as those of which themselves were guilty If we observe what vile Arts were used to hinder the further discovery what liberty was given to reproach the Discoverers what means used to destroy or corrupt them how the very Criminals were incouraged and allowed to be good Witnesses against their Accusers We should easily excuse an English Parliament thus beset if they had been carried to some little Excesses not justifiable by the Laws of Parliament or unbecoming the wisdom and gravity of an English Senate Now other men may possibly be of another mind and think that if the state of things had been but half so deplorable as they are here described the least Excess had been then inexcusable for there is never more need of gravity than in great and eminent dangers but what I shall say will it is like not be much regarded hear then what the Chancellour of England said The Considerations which are now to be laid before you are as Vrgent and as Weighty as were ever yet offered to any Parliament or indeed ever can be so great and so surprizing have been our Dangers at home so formidable are the appearances of danger from abroad that the most Vnited Counsels the most Sedate and the calmest Temper together with the most dutiful and zealous affections that a Parliament can shew are all become absolutely and indispensably necessary for our preservation So that little excesses are great crimes when men are beset with dangers tho they may be excused in times of Peace and Security if I rightly understand this wise and honourable person But if we come to search into the particulars here enumerated there may possibly arise better Arguments to excuse their Excesses The Popish Faction about that time having tried all other ways to clear themselves of the Plot without any good success fell at last upon another Project which was to start a New Plot. They knew there were in London some Clubbs and Coffee-house-Sets of Presbyterians Old Army Officers discontented Gentlemen and Republicans which had close Cabals and private Meetings and that the Court had a jealous eye upon them as indeed there was good cause for it and out of these materials they thought they might easily raise the structure of a Presbyterian Plot against the State but all the chief men of the Popish Faction being fled imprisoned or executed this grand Design fell into the hands of people of no great either parts or reputation to carry on so difficult an Undertaking and it was not likely neither to be easily believed if it had no other Witnesses but Papists to attest it And it was not possible for them to bring over any other of any reputation in the low estate their affairs then were so that the Contrivance miscarried and only tended to make the Papists more hated than they were before and this is called the Meal-Tub Plot which I should rather have ascribed to the rage and desperation of the Papists than to their Insolence which was then very well abated by the Execution of Coleman Staley the Murtherers of Sir Edmundbury Godfry and the Jesuits which had reduced them to too low a condition to defie the meanest Courts of Justice in the Nation and put them upon those mean and base thoughts of Perjuries and Subornations to avoid that ruine which they saw ready to overwhelm and destroy them But that which