to run so far back as the unhappy Wars in his Father's time of ever Blessed and Glorious Memory when the Church of England was ruined and a great many of the Members of it of all degrees and conditions exposed to the greatest miseries for their firm adherence to the Interest of the Crown Nor yet to speak of his Late Majesty King Charles the Second's happy Restauration it 's enough only to reflect upon our dutiful behaviour to King James himself both when Duke and King. Who were the great opposers of the Bill of Exclusion in Parliament both in the House of Lords and Commons and out of Parliament all the Kingdom over and preferred their standing fast to the Duke's Interest at that time to all their own Interest in the World What Reproaches Disgraces Insolencies nay Threats were cast upon and used towards us we very well remember Was there ever any King received by his People or proclaimed in all Places with greater Satisfaction Joy and Acclamations than he was For who then doubted of the Sincerity of King James the Just Who were they that so readily setled the Revenue of the Crown and gave larger supplies than the necessity of Affairs required Who were they that stood the Shock and ventured their Lives in suppressing of that dangerous Rebellion of Monmouth Were they not all Members of the Church of England who preserved the Crown for King James before he came to the possession of it by opposing the Bill of Exclusion and kept it upon his Head when he was possessed of it by suppressing Monmouth's Rebellion And this brings to my mind an Expression in the Oxford Reasons against signing the Address of their Bishop Dr. Parker for being told that their refusal of the Address would exasperate the King and move him to take rougher Methods against the Church their Answer was That if the remembrance of the Services of the Church to the Crown in those two Affairs of the Bill of Exclusion and Monmouth's Rebellion were not sufficient to secure the King's kindness to and protection of the Church of England and its Members the signing of such insignificant Addresses would never do it and truly I cannot tell what else could do it But the truth of it is the Papists have all along upon all occasions so ill requited the Fidelity of the Protestants to their Popish Princes as if they had a mind never more to be obliged in that nature I need not speak of the obligations put upon Queen Mary the Daughter of Henry the Eighth and the barbarous usage shewed them in a very little while after nor of former dealings of that kind in France the present King of France hath demonstrated this to the full he ows his possession of the Crown of France and consequently all his Glory he so proudly boasts of to the firm adherence of his Protestant Subjects to his Interest He hath several times publickly owned this and yet his Cruelty to them hath far surpassed all Heathen Barbarity And now I am very sorry that such a hearty Endeavour to subvert the Religion established in this Church which could not be without the ruine of those to whom the late King JAMES was so highly obliged hath given such another fresh Instance that Popery will not suffer Kings so much as to be grateful to their Subjects for by this means they have more than satisfied the World that it 's utterly unsafe for a Protestant Kingdom to be under the Government of a Popish Prince But since all men have neither that knowledge of nor that zeal for their Religion that it were heartily to be wished they had yet every man is very sensible when their Liberties and Properties and the Laws by which they are secured are invaded and lest the Endeavours to subvert Religion should not have been sufficient to have provoked the Nation there was added to this a plain Invasion of the Rights of the Subject and of the Laws upon which they are grounded to let the World know that there was no mistake in those men who affirmed that Popery could never be introduced into this Kingdom unless Slavery ushered it in It were endless to make instances of this the Master and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge are a sufficient proof of this who were deprived of their Freeholds by a most arbitrary Sentence of a Court that in the whole constitution of it was utterly illegal and in an Affair of this nature a Judge altogether incompetent where the Persons concerned were admitted to no legal Tryal before the competent Judges by a Jury of the Vicinage as in those Cases is the Law of the Nation but were removed by Persons who had no more right to disposess them of their Freeholds than the Persons receiving such an injurious Sentence had to dispossess their very Judges of theirs And it was no wonder that the general Cry of the Nation following that unjust and Arbitrary Sentence was All our Freeholds and Estates shake by this Sentence Another proof of this Invasion of our Rights and Estates was the most exorbitant and extravagant Fines put upon persons by the plain Arbitrary Will of the Judges as if they would declare to the World their design was rather to ruine the Delinquent than punish the Delinquency This was so frequent that every Term shewed how easily for very small faults men might be ruined in their Fortunes in a trice The invading the Rights of Corporations was more than sufficient proof that our Liberties Estates and Laws were in the greatest hazard The despoiling them of all their Ancient Privileges struck at the very Foundation of the Government it self the altering all the Ancient Prescriptions in choosing of persons for Representatives in Parliament struck at the very Fountain of our Laws both in being and to be made But above all things tending to the ruine of all our Security in our Laws Liberties and Properties none is more worthy of our serious consideration than that Hellow of Dispensing Power that would have devoured all at a morsel and swallowed all at one draught if need had been there was no Law no Privilege able to stand in the way of this Leviathan This was such a Power that once being yielded to in the full latitude it was claimed would have rendered all Laws in England not only uncertain and insecure but utterly needless nay altogether ridiculous For to what purpose should the Nation be put to so much trouble and charge to elect Representatives for the House of Commons or why should Persons who have either a natural Right as Noblemen or a deputed Right as Commoners go from all parts of the Kingdom to enact Laws for the good and profit of the Realm if the Sovereign Power can dispense with them whenever their backs are turned To what purpose is all this wast Or why should the Nation be fooled with Laws which when made promise us the greatest security in all things that are most valuable when in the
mean time at the mere will of the Prince in dispensing with these all our Security is turned into Despair and all our Expectations grounded on those Laws wholly frustrate and quite blown up The Imprisonment of the Seven Bishops who all deserve to have Statues erected to their Memories for so couragiously stemming that Tide of Oppression that was like to have sunk us into the deepest miseries both in our Religious and Civil Rights This Imprisonment I say tho it was dismal and gloomy yet blessed be God their Tryal that followed upon it occasioned the absolute baffling of that Dispensing Power by those learned and stout Gentlemen their Council who dared at such a time to vindicate our Laws from so much Violence and our Liberties from such Oppression But then if we add to all this That we were not so much as safe in our Persons and Families our Condition will appear the more deplorable How many were there who abandoned their Native Country upon the apprehension of those Dangers that Innocency it self was not able to secure them from Was not the Lord De La Mere exposed to the greatest danger by a false Accusation and pressed earnestly to acknowledg a Capital Crime of which in the end he was found innocent Was not the now Reverend Bishop of Salisbury forced to fly for his Life and could hardly obtain the liberty of breathing in a Foreign Air or the benefit of the Protection of Foreign States and Princes excepted in all Acts of Grace as the greatest Criminal And yet upon the strictest enquiry into the reason why Royal Power was so armed against this Person it will be hard to find any other than this that he was the Author of the History of the Reformation which will be a sufficient Monument for that Great Man when he is dead and for his undaunted Courage and Zeal for and great Abilities and Industry in defending a Religion his then Majesty had so great an aversion to Add to this the cruel Corporal Punishments inflicted upon several Persons both in City and Country In fine The unspeakable Oppression of the Souldiery by vertue of whose quartering at pleasure neither men's Families or Persons were secure from the greatest violence most of the Corporations of the Kingdom are too too able to give a sad and deplorable account of this who felt the Insolencies of Mercenary men permitted in all their Extravagant Mischiefs to inure the Nation by degrees to Slavery and Oppression I know that many will not be pleased with such a representation of our late Miseries But they must pardon us if we judg it fit to reflect upon them since they seem so extreamly desirous to involve us in them again For upon a review of these Particulars which are undeniable matters of Fact we cannot possibly think that a continuance in such a miserable Condition was or is or can be a desirable State tho it never advanced further much less can we think it tolerable when the whole Nation were more than satisfied that these were but the beginning of those Sorrows we had such a dismal Prospect and Apprehension of had the designs afoot made a further Progress And we would pray them to pardon us that we are not willing to be so treacherous to our selves and our Posterity as to throw our selves into that Misery from whence we have been so miraculously delivered Now tho I do not find any Man that will take upon him the impossible Task of justifying these Proceedings but rather all of force must acknowledg there were very many Male-administrations in the Government yet they strive to excuse them as much as may be I must tell them would the matter bear it we would be as willing to do it as they And we must let them know that our case is the more to be pitied because we were so like to be ruined and undone by a Prince whom no honest Man in the Nation did ever so much as desire should sall into those misfortunes that have overtaken him but upon the contrary were extreamly afflicted to see a â—atal necessity of the ruin of either King or Kingdom in a very short time and would most willingly have contributed our utmost to the preventing of it had it lain in our Power But this is the misery the more pains men take to palliate these things the more still it appears there was a wilful fixed and unmovable Resolution of driving these things to the height For while it 's said That the Late King being very zealous for his Religion and giving the Conduct of his Conscience to the guidance of men sworn to that interest we cannot wonder if their perpetual solicitations and unwearied importunities highly prevailed upon him to gratifie their desires in which he was withal satisfied that he was doing God singular good service this very excuse is our greatest Complaint For was it not easie to divine what a Protestant Nation had reason to expect from a Prince altogether guided by those who have sworn their destruction And the very taking of these men into his secretest Councils was an open declaration to the Three Kingdoms that their destruction was at no great distance for we know and all the World knows that such men as swarmed about Whitehall were employed in nothing more than in contriving and projecting the utter destruction of Heresie and Hereticks as they account us all to be And therefore had the late King James consulted either his own or his Peoples safety he would never have been so influenced by such men nor given the least suspicion that he was so But his making a Jesuit openly a great Minister of State whose very being in the Kingdom was Treason his entertaining openly a Nuntio from Rome the swarming of Priests both Regular and Secular of several Orders about him cannot but shew that their Assumption into such Privacy so destructive to his People was really a matter of his own mere choice And here let me add That the Priests and Jesuits in their management of Affairs in the late King's time were both the falsest and the foolishest men in the world tho they had the fairest game to play that ever men in their Circumstances could wish for before and fairer than I trust they will ever obtain again They were very false and treacherous to their great Patron and Benefactor for they consulted their own interest so much that they minded neither the Honour nor Safety of their King. For while he was driving so Jehu like it was their duty faithfully to have represented to him what was like to be the issue of such proceedings what dishonour the so frequent breach of his Word must be and how fatally dangerous the exasperating of three Kingdoms must be and therefore seriously to have advised him to slower and milder methods and to have declared their satisfaction that they had rather commit the great design its self to the Divine Providence in methods more agreeable to the
themselves but upon their Innocent Posterity For the Word is Now or Never and Now and Ever And that we may never feel the Mischiefs of the last part of this Sentence I hope we will take Care to Secure the first that because not now therefore they never shall prevail upon us I beseech you Gentlemen who seem to be so willing to bereave us of our present Tranquillity and to contribute what in you lies to bring a Deluge of Miseries upon us in which you your selves must certainly be overwhelmed if ever you be truly Zealous for and faithful to the Truth of God profest in this Nation I pray you to consider with your Selves that if your Desires should succeed and you should be aiding and assisting to it what late Repentance and Horror must seize upon you while you shall sadly then when it is to late reflect upon that Destruction you have brought upon your Country and Fellow-Country-Men and it 's not to be doubted but at last upon your Selves too But if Men will continue obstinate in Mischief and are resolved to use their utmost Endeavours to rush us again into Confusions and to set all in a Flame it 's to be hoped his Majesty will have such a special regard to the Welfare of these Nations in which that of his own and all the Protestant Branches of the Royal Family is so closely wrapt up that he will most diligently inspect into the wicked Practices and most villanous Designs of such ill-minded-Men and indeed they ought betimes to bethink themselves what the whole Kingdom must think those Men worthy of who are Haters of their Peace and Contrivers of their Destruction for what ever Eyes they look with and whatsoever Prospective-Glass they make use of they must pardon us who can see nothing but lasting Misery attending their Projects and Designs and therefore however they may hope his Majestys Clemency which by their undutiful Language bold and ungrateful Speeches and insolent Attempts in the Face of a Nation resolved to continue their Happiness by most constantly adhering to his Majesties Interests they have already too much tryed yet they are Fools to imagine his Majesty will suffer his innate Lenity and Gentleness to be the greatest Cruelty to his faithful Subjects by extending it to Persons obstinately bent upon his and their Ruin nor can they dream that a whole Nation now secured of all that 's dear to them will much longer bear the bantering Affronts and not only undutiful but even Treasonable Practices of such Men who so carry themselves as if they longed for nothing more than our Destruction And just as I was writing this came to my Hands that Paper pretended to be a Declaration from King James the Second to all his Loving Subjects in the Kingdom of England Perhaps there was never a greater piece of Insolence acted in any Nation than dispersing of these in a Kingdom where there is a King de facto upon the Throne and the Resentment the House of Commons has shewed is a sufficient proof of what I have just now said but for the Paper it self it carries all the Marks of Forgery that possibly can be for would ever the late King tell his Subjects of England of his kind usage to his Protestant Subjects in Ireland who are so infallibly convinc'd of the contrary For why should so many of the Bishops and Clergy so many People of all Conditions fly out of that Kingdom even since his arrival there and leave their Estates and Habitations and cast themselves upon the Charity of England for a present Subsistance if this Libel were true Why even at this very Time do they embrace all opportunities of Transporting themselves into this Island with great Joy and Thankfulness If Protestant Persons Fortunes Religion were in so much Safety what makes the Protestants of Londonderry c. rather venture their Lives in their own Defence and endure the Perils and hardship of a dangerous Siege if the Protestants there were in so great Security Surely the Forgers of this Libel imagine it possible to put out our very Eyes and to hood-wink us to Destruction Can we ever think that Protestants will ever be safe or apprehend themselves so where the French domineer at the rate they must certainly be presumed to do in Ireland For it 's very reasonable to conclude that seeing Men Ammunition Money and whatsoever is necessary for War cometh from the French that King will nay must rule the Roast We will therefore believe our own Intelligence much better then this piece of Forgery viz. that the very Papists of Ireland are so apprehensive of the French Tyranny that they begin to wish for the mild Government of Protestant England rather than ly under the insupportable Tyranny of Popish France As for the large Promises made to England upon a surrender these Forgerers invite us to I have said enough already that Popish Faith can never be more truned by Protestants and we are very well assured that if it were possible for the Host of Heaven to come down upon Earth to be Guarantee for the Fidelity of Papists to Protestants in any Treaties made with them relating to Religion they would notwithstanding upon the first safe Opportunity violate them and if these blessed Spirits should take upon them the Desence of the Guarantee and the Honour of it they would presently disown their Patronage and deprive them of the Honour of their being their Intercessors and charge them with being Favourers of the vilest Hereticks for we would desire but one Instance wherein ever Protestants were used kindly by Papists where ever it was in their Power to use them otherwise Go on then Great Sir in the perfecting of that which your Majesty hath so gloriously begun and so magnanimously undertaken and have had the assistance of the God of Truth to the Joy of these Nations to the Despair and Confusion of your Enemies to the Security of the Protestant World your Majestie hath the Hearts the Hands the Purses of your People at your Devotion you have a Parliament who having engaged whatsoever is worthy of Men of Honour of Fortune of Religion for your Assistance will never be wanting to enable you to compleat Yours Theirs Ours nay Europe's Happiness You have the greatest Security of the Protection of that God who is the Disposer of Kingdoms by whom Kings reign who hath hitherto blessed you with Success to a Miracle You have in fine the best and most Glorious Cause even the preserving of these Nations to which God and Nature and a General consent of your People have given you such a close Interest and near Relation from all the Calamities that could befall either the Souls Bodies or Fortunes of Us and our Posterity This I am sure is the hearty Prayer of all that are lovers either of our Civil or Religious Rights and our secure peaceable and lasting enjoyment of them that your Enemies may be clothed with shame but