humor of Swearing and Counter-swearing could be any other than the caprice of their new Head and Governor Now pray observe the slyness of this slur he puts upon Majesty He cunningly insinuates that Matter of Fact may not be Matter of Right and that when the Humor Caprice or Pleasure of a King influences the Votes of his Parliament to make it so Now upon concession of Mr. Lestranges opinion here 's a broad gate opened for a Rebellion for by his Argument 't is but disallowing the rightfulness of Hearth money and indeed almost all the rest of the Kings Revenues because the King generally askt the Parliament money first and so since the first spring of those grants were from the knowledge of the Kings pleasure to have it so 't is but Mr. L'estranges denying the matter of right in this case and so he makes the King a Tyrant to demand his own and thereupon encourages the Subject to the most impudent undutifulness and disloyalty in nature Now those cross Capers and contradictions as he calls them in declaring the same Persons one while Illegitimate and afterwards legitimate is one of the greatest Arguments that the conservation of a Nations Peace was held a greater piece of Conscience in that Age then the maintaining the right of Blood when Illegitimacy it self upon occasion could be restored to the power of Succession Neither was there any such Swearing or Counter-swearing or any such levity as he calls it in that grave Assembly for the Oath they enjoyn'd the People in fidelity to the Kings Heirs could have no other meaning than whilst they were Lawfully so and in all Justice the Obligation of it expired in course when the Law declared them no longer such Nor was it indeed any more than the Tenure of our present Oath of Allegiance in which we swear to be faithful to the King 's lawful Heirs and Successors which the Ignorance of some People has used as an Argument against the changing of Succession as thinking they have sworn fealty to the next of Blood whereas in reality there 's nothing in that Oath that binds them to the Person but the Thing to no particular Man any further than as he is Heir and Successor Lawfully so and no Man truly is either Heir or Successor til he Inherits and Succeeds and as 't is most ridiculous to think the intent of an Oath of Allegiance is to make a Man Swear Loyalty to a fellow Subject as as the greatest Heir apparent is no more whilst the King Lives so the duty of that part of the Oath cannot necessarily be understood to commence or take effect till the present Kings death and then if in the mean while the absolute Power of the Land the King Lords and Commons have constituted a new Heir and Successor the obligation of that Oath of Allegiance can have no other Aspect then to the Heir and Successor so constituted Mr. Lest fithly with Reverence to the utility and constitution of good and wholesome Laws it is not presently to Cite a statute and say there 's a precedent for those Laws that are repugnant to the Light of nature and Common Right are Nullities in themselves Now here 's one of the boldest Master strokes of the pen that ever came in print This point once gain'd all the Protestant Laws since the reformation and the whole fabrick of the present Government are totally subverted 'T is but a Popish Successors believing aud maintaining that all the Protestant Laws ever since Henry the 8ths perversion are against the light of nature and consequently Nullites in themselves So down goes the Protestant Church up start the old Statutes de Haeretico comburendo the old Smith field Fire-works whilst Popery comes in in the open face of day most triumphantly introduced even by the awful Divinity of Law and Justice for its Supporters So that after all Mr. Lestranges Vindication of the Honor Honesty Veneration of Oathes Performance of Laws and Preservation of the Protestant Religion in a Popish Successor he has very subtly sound him out an Evasion to be a greater Tyrant and Devil than the Author of the Character could paint him and that too with all the Innocence in the World and even without the least Blemish of Infidelity But to come a little nearer to him in the first Place these Acts for the settlement of the Crown were so far from being repugnant to the Light of nature that on the contrary 't is evidently manifest that the Law-Makers that made e'm mov'd by no other Guide or Light but that For since self Preservation is the first and greatest thing that the light of nature teaches all Mankind the very preamble to the Acts confirm us that the preservation of themselves and their Heirs in Peace and Tranquillity and to avoid the future Effusion of English Blood was the sole End and Design of those Acts. Secondly these Acts have nothing repugnant or destructive of common right For if by common right he implies a right to any possession or pretension derived from human Power and the Laws of Man then 't is plain by the Constitution of our Government where our Laws are not like these of the Medes and Persians that the Law-makers that gave can take and in that respect there 's no right so firm which the absolute Power of the Law lying in the three States in Parliament cannot shake But if by common right he means a right derived from the Laws or Commands of God and therefore those Acts of Parliament are nullities in themselves because repugnant to the Rules and Duty of Christianity Then he would do well to tell us when that Law of God was made or that Command given But that there is no such Law nor any such Rules of Christianity is plainly to be demonstrated from the most eminent precedents of holy writ where we find proximity of blood has been so far from challenging that unalterable Right of Empire that on the other side there have been several Changes of Kings made in that case even amongst Gods own People and that always by his Consent and sometimes by his special Order Besides if any such Law of God had been made and left us in holy Scripture 't is certain that Law ought to have no more obligation over one Christian Kingdom than another and then consequently Venice and Holland that have no Kings at all and Poland that always elect their Kings by Mr. Lestranges Inference live Age after Age in continual Violation of Common Right the Duty of Christians and the Laws of God I do confess I have heard of a Command of Christ that says Let every Soule be subject unto the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation and therefore if the higher Powers of England the King Lords and Commons are an Ordinance of God too it is
Iacob by Artifice and his Brothers borrowed Name had deceived the Father and extorted the Blessing we find the grant of his Inheritance though fraudulently obtain'd was so far from being retracted that the Fathers promise and word even to the Counterfeit Esau was more sacred then all the formidable ties of Blood and the inviolable Right of Succession Now I hope our wise Author will not quarrel with Isaacs Injustice and appeal to the Light of Nature and Common Right for the Redress of Esaus wrongs Perhaps it may be objected rhat Esau sold his Birth-right foolishly for a Mess of Pottage though that we find had no influence on Isaacs Determination yet if a Royal Birth-right could be sold or forfeited either by the Folly or Fault of the Heir where 's SUCCESSION and if in our present State of England we have an Heir of those corrupted Principles and that depraved Infatuation till he has prodigally forfeited his Fathers and his Grand-Fathers Blessings the one having sealed the Protestant Faith with his Blood and the other having particularly entayl'd a curse upon all his Progeny that should ever Apostatise from the Protestant Truth to the Popish Superstition if we have an Heir so bewitcht by the Charms of Rome which like the Syrens songs can convert Reason into Madness or rather like Circes Bowles transform Men into Swine why not the Prodigals fare the husks a more proper Reward from him than a Coronation Festival This I am certain if he had Esaus Fate the Blessing and Inheritance should go together I shall only instance one particular more out of holy Writt I hope his c. in the last Paragraph will allow the Iudges of Israel were a Kingly Power as well as the Patriarchal and that they may indeed appear so we find their Government the most agreeing with the present Monarchy of England for they had the Power of Life and Death Peace and War in their Prerogative but then as a Restriction against Absolute and Arbitrary power like our Common and Ecclesiastick Laws their Constitution of Government was limited and confined withing the establisht and recorded Mosaick Law which was the ultimate Verge of their Jurisdiction both Civil and Spiritual Now here in the case of Samuel Judge of Isreal we find him parting with his Royalty and conferring it upon his two Sons even in his own Life time after that we find the Israelites disgusted against their ill Government and asking for a King that is such a King as those of the Nations round about e'm viz. an Absolute Monarch And upon this Saul stept up into the Throne Now here we may observe there was so little Regard had to the Right of Succession that their lawful Judges even after possession were divested of their Royal Dignity and that too mark it not only upon the Peoples Request but even by a Command from the immediate Voice of God without the lest Reflection of the Duty of passive Obedience to Samuels Sons those corrupted Judges of Isreal And though it may be objected that God was angry with the Children of Israel for their desires of Change in that they had follow'd other Gods and that this asking for a King as we read look'd like rejecting of him that had brought e'm out of Egypt and deliver'd them from the Hands of their Enemies yet since God complyed with that desire no Man must say this Change was unlawful or the removal of their Royal Judges unjust But in Answer to all this our Masquerader will not want a Justification for the unalterable Right of Succession nay rather than stand out at a dead Lift hee 'll start you up a common Right and a Light of Nature that upon occasion shall supersede even the Records of Scripture and the very immediate Acts of God Nay we find after the Constitution of that more absolute Iewish Monarchy which began in Saul that his very next Successor was a Stranger to his Blood a Man of a quite different Family in so much that David the Man after Gods own heart a man so eminently beloved of the Almighty that from his Loyns the promis'd Messias should procceed was a Prince so far from owing his Crown to the Right of Birth and Blood that he was anointed King even in his Predecessors life in spight of the Greater sons of Saul those nearer and juster pretenders to the Crown had Birth-right given e'm title to it But so Early a sea-mark did God set up against that fatal Rock unalterable Succession and so timely a care did the great Founder of Empires the Divine Omnipotence take to show that the Dispensations of Majesty for his Peoples good and his own Glory were to be preferr'd before the Soveraignty of Birth that blinder gift of Chance But to come a little down to our own age even in all our latest Modern constitutions of Monarchy and that not only in England but all the Christian Kingdoms in Europe we find there is not altogether that infallibility in Birth right but that Fools and Mad-men notwithstanding their proximity of descent are excluded from Empire so that by Mr. Lestranges permission a Shallow Perecranium or an Addled one upon occasion shall put very good Royal veins out of play So that to make Monarchy go a little hand in hand with our new natural Philosophy some Criticks will tell you that the Life of it lyes more in the Head than the Heart that is in the Brain than the Blood And that I need not stray far for an Instance have we not had a late King of Portugal deposed as Delirious and Frantick and consequently render'd by Law uncapable of reighning and all this done by his own Subjects and those of his own Religion without the least Reflection of Treason or Rebellion or the Aspersion of lifting a hand against the Lords anointed Nay if truth might make bold in England there be those that dare honestly venture to say there must go so strong a Dose of Folly and Madness or indeed both together to make up the composition of a Popish Heir to the Protestant Crown of England especially an Heir that can be fond of the Gugaws Bawbles and Trumpery of the Romish Superstition as to hazard three Crowns for them and that too by an Apostacy from a native Hereditary Protestant Faith not only derived down to him but more signally sealed by a Royal Fathers Martyrdom a light which certainly would shine through all the mists and fogs the Iesuitish Magick has or can cast about him though thicker if possible then the Egyptian Darkness it self a Darkness to be felt were there not a Skull in the case more than strangely impenetrable and a Cerebellum if possibly more than supernaturally impedimented so that if in Truth he but fairly stood the Test of an old Statute we have already the Begging of his Reversion would be so feasible that it would be cross we won and pile he lost But to come yet a little nearer to the mark as it is most undoubtedly true that Soules are never Generate and consequently not always derived from the Father that Begets it sometimes so falls out by the Caprice of some ill natured planet or to come to a more Christian notion by the indisputable Will of Omnipotence that moulds the Clay as he pleases to make such infinite disproportions in the unequal distributing of those sparks of his own Celestial fires call'd soules that so much over rule the inferior Mass of Flesh and Blood and sometimes so far Estrange and alienated a Son from the Nature Temper and indeed almost every thing of the Father till it does worse then Bastardize even Legitimacy it self FINIS
they had a fair list for a Toleration And in case of such a Toleration in the next Kings Reign under a Popish Successor wha'rs that less than Sigismunds erecting of Popish Churches and with them no doubt placing Popish Governors in all Forts and Castles Popish Ministers in all offices of trust with Popish Generals and Popish Admirals upon occasion encouraging and countenancing no other perswasion and striving by all Acts imaginary of setting up the Romish Religion and all this dayly pusht forwards farther and farther higher and higher by Degrees Alas the Character never design'd to sham such a ridiculous impossible supposition on the world that the Persecuting fury of a Popish King shall falt down upon us like Fire from Heaven all of a suddain and no less miraculously or that Popery or Arbitrary Power should grow up like Ionas Goad in a Night Alas Smith field Stakes Lollards Towers and Inquisition Houses are the work of time and therefore where as yet open Hostility cannot march nor greater Conflagrations be attempted they must have redress to less Games in the mean while the use of smaller Fire-Brands and Foxes Tailes to tye 'em to In the next page he continues very smart upon the Character part of which to be better understood I must be forced to repeat Char. Speaking of a Popish successor executing the Laws A very pretty chimera which is as much as to make this Popish King the greatest Barbarian of the Creation a Barbarian that shall cherish and maintain the Dissenters from Truth and punish and condemn the pillars of Christianity and proselytes of Heaven which is no other than to speak him the Basest of men and little less then a Monster Besides at the same time that we suppose that King that dares not uphold nor encourage his own Religion we render him the most deplorable of Cowards a Coward so abject that he dares not be a champion even for his God And how consistent this is with the Glory of a Crown'd Head and what hope England has of such a Successor I leave all men of sense to Iudge Mr. Lestrange Behold here 's the upshot of his high flown paragraph A Popish Prince that puts the Laws in execution for the punishing of Papists and for the countenancing and protecting of Protestants is little less then the basest of monsters How comes it then that the Crown of France has not treated the Protestants there as this Pictur-drawer pronounces that a Popish Successor would treat his subjects here The Protestants have now and then been severely handled I know in France as the Papists upon some junctures have been in England and now of late wors then usuall All which hath been influenced as well by reasons of state as by impulse of Religion But shall we pronounce the most Christian King the greater monster for his better usage of us c. Now I dare defie the world to find me out that author that ever wrackt his Brains to labour out such mormoes as this a discourse soe intirely mal a Propos and altogether soe little to his purpose what can he intend or what would he argue from this is there any resemblance between the State of England and France is the French King as the character says bound to condemn the pillars of christianity and proselytes of Heaven or has he any Laws to put in execution against the Papists doe his Laws uphold no other Religion but the Protestant and in defence of that declare Popery Treason and oblige him to hang every Popish Priest in his Kingdom Is there therefore the least compulsion upon him to render him that Barbarian or Coward mentioned in the Character Nay on the quite contrary is not Popery there the Establisht Lord of the soyl and the Protestant Religion only an inmate by toleration Is there any more Hugonot Churches to that Great City Paris then one stragling one like our Pancras for all the Protestants in that Populous Town And now what if Mr. L'estrange would bring no less then 20. precedents of good natured French Kings that have not molested the Hugonots under them Has not their own Religion the ascendant of the Nation does it not flourish and triumph in Pomp State and Glory whilst the poor Hugonot perswasion only humbly truckles beneath it and what then if their Royal mercy does not persecute the Protestants is there any thing in that mercy so monstrous or so unnatural or is their any Laws Restrictions or Clogs upon the French King that can give such a shock to the soul of a Papist as the Protestant Laws of England I confess Mr. Lestrange in one clause before was much in the Right where he affirm'd the continuing a Protestant to the Eye of the World had been a means of gaining the point and 't is no less a truth that showing the Cards before the playing has often endanger'd the Game And indeed I have heard some smart sort of People a little Satyrical upon this Subject I remember a passage of this kind I read to'ther day being an invective against Machiavel for an unlucky Miscarriage in one of his great Designs which translated into our own English runs thus Oh! that our shallow thoughtless Machiavel should have so much zeal and so little Brains to manage it Such a Bigot such Principles such Resolution such Infatuation Impenetrable to all foolish effeminate thoughts of humanity a temper as rough and as brutal as a second Ajax untainted with remorse or pitty that hates all thoughts of gratitude friendship and fidelity as much as Rome loves greatness as deaf to a Kings interest and a Kingdoms Groans as Romes own wish could form him That excellent matchless engine for our work had not this only wretched ill conduct blasted all and crack't the whole foundation Had he but play'd the sly and wise Ulysses till under his disguise he had stoln their fatal Palladium and left their ruind Troynovant guardianless and defenseless our Glory had been compleat How might our great our adorable Machine have succeeded had not this unlucky Marr-al ruind it How might the reaking Gore of Butcher'd Infidels have fatten'd the Land and with the Steam perfumed the Skies and smelt sweet in the Nostrils of the Saints We had a time we had a day a favourable smiling Courting Hour the morning Dawn to our great Iubile But oh that dear that blest Minute 's gon A Curse of all unthinking greatness How might this mighty Hunter have pursued the glorious Game like the immortal Roman Tullia that drove her Chariot over her murder'd Fathers heart and Rod tryumphant o're the crackling Bones of Majesty had he not so rashly pull'd off the Vizard too soon thus senselesly turn'd up his Cask and show'd the fatal Face within it And by that only accurst unfortunate Act waken'd a whole alarum'd Nation to snatch the Reins from this bold Rider and cry stop Iehu Well but Mr. Lestrange through almost all his whole Pamphlet is still
accountable to the Pope for the least neglect or misdemeanor in his office of that kind so that the reestablishment of the Popes Supremacy here is setting up a new Kingly Power But by what Title None For granting his Supremacy of old was his right whilst he possest it yet considering that right has been lost above a Hundred years together by the Laws of Conquest 't is now wholly expired and he can lay no more claim or pretence to 't after so long an alienation then the Christians to Constantinople or the Danes or Saxons to England Now 't is a known Maxim in England that a King of himself cannot give sell or alienate all or part of his hereditary Soveraign Power neither can he any more restore the Pope out of a freak of conscience to his Supremacy or his Abby Lubbers to their old fat pastures then he can say to the Duke of Saxony Sir lay claim to half England and 't is yours and therefore land a colony in the West of England and Crown your self King there whilst I content my self with the Soveraignty of York-shire and two or three more Northern Counties about it Nay suppose a King should say so and this Saxon Prince upon that presumption should come and make a Seisure there 's never a Subject in England notwithstanding their Lawful Soveraigns special Gommand to them to yeeld Obedience to this usurping invading Saxon that may not justly and with a safe Conscience oppose this Invader and shoot him though the heart at the very first step he makes into England For whatever passive Obedience is due to our Native Prince we have none due to a Forreign Invader So likewise 't is a plain case that the Popes Supremacy entring into England is an Invading and Usurping Royalty For though we are bound to pay fealty to what ever Deputies Viceroys or Subministers the King shall Ordain or Institute under him yet the Popes Supremacy cannot come under that name for it ceases to be Supream if there be a Power above it So that whenever the King shall say to the Pope assume your Prerogative there 's never a Subject of England that may not by violence rescue an Heretick from a Stake that 's condemn'd by that Prerogative or any delegated Authority from the Usurped Supremacy of the Pope nay if they burn the very Tribunal about those Jesuitish Judges eares that pronounced that Hereticks Condemnation they may Iustify the Fact both to their King and their God The Papist in Masquerade draws now near to a Conclusion and gives the Characteriser a dead doing blow at last stroke by the Argument raised against the Characters position that Kings were made for the People and not the People for the Kings Though by the way the Characterisers assertion is not only one Drs. opinion for if he will allow King Iames to have as much sense as himself we shall find him if we may take his Royal word for 't a little leaning towards the Characters side witness this clause in one of his Speeches in Parliament Anno 1603. As I am a Head and Governor of all the People in my Dominions who are my natural Vassals and Subjects considering them in number and distinct Ranks so if we take the People as one Body and Mass then as the Head is ordeind for the Body and not the Body for the Head so must a righteous King know himself to be ordain'd for his People and not his People for him for though a King and his People be Relata yet can he be no King if he want People and Subjects but there be many People in the World that lack a Head c But no matter for all this Kings are but Men and this human Error of King Iames must not dare to oppose the more sacred Authority of Mr. Lestrange For to bafflle this gross Mistake of them both he continues But after all these Words to shew that Government originally was not popular I shall add a few more to prove the Institution of it to be purely Divine which Opinion in truth needs not any other support then the Authority of the holy Scriptures By me Kings reighn c. I have made the Earth the Man and the Beasts that are upon the Ground by my great Power and my Out-stretch'd Arm and have given it to whom it seem'd meet unto me Ier. 27th 5. Now I cannot find by this Text By me Kings raighn c. But that by me Subjects possess their lawful Inheritances might claim the same right For an Empire to a Monarch and a Lordship to a Subject a Naboths Vineyard or an Ahabs Kingdom are equally the Gift of God and by our Authors reasons may equally pretend to a Divine Iustitution Neither is there so much Support as he calls it in this holy Authority but I can match it with another as holy and as much to his purpose which tells us not a Sparrow falls to the Ground without the will of my Father c. Now if no King reighns without him and no Sparrow falls without him a Manmight ask him why the holy Authority of this last Text might not make the falling of a Sparrow have as much of divine Institution in it as the Enthroning of a Monarch Nor can I perceive that there lies so much stress in Gods giving the Government of the Earth Man and Beasts to whom it seem'd Meet to him as to Nebuchadnezar in the Text but that a MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARZIN written by the Almighties own hand against his impious Heir the sacrilegious Idolatrous Balshazar was as much the Word of God and had as much divine Institution in it as by me Kings raign But to proceed in our Authors argument Mr. L. That which we now call Kingly Government was at First called Paternal and after Patriarchal c. And we sind by the powers they excercised c. And so he advances in a Florid Descant upon this Subject till he lodges the first Paternal Kingly Government in Adam Here you may perceive he 's harping at the old Iure Divino but I shall wave that point of dispute and even with granting his supposition true out of his own opinion invalidate the chief argument of all his discourse and the Fundamental Design of his whole pamphlet viz Unalterable Right of Succession If then as he says the Patriarchall power was Kingly how comes it to pass that Esau forfeited his Royal Inheritance and Iacob his younger Brother got it from him nay the alienation of his Birthright as Regal and as Divine as our Masquerader would have it was transferd to the younger Brother even by God himself and that too as we read in Gods promis to the Mother before they were born Nay though the Father Isaac had no prejudice against Esau but resolved to make him his Heir and accordingly sent him for venison to cherish his heart that he might receive his Blessing and with it the Assurance of his Inheritance yet when
for them mean by Perswasion If the Popish perswasion then they justifie the severest Reflections in the whole Character and lay that unprincely and unchristian Disguise at his door of kneeling at our Altars and participating of our Sacraments with all the meanest and basest Hypocrisie imaginable little less than dipping in the Dish and drinking of the Cup and kissing where he betray'd But if they mean the Protestant perswasion of which Communion he then visibly was and they will be but so kind as to prove him a Protestant still I assure them the Author shall burn his Character and make a publick Recantation for his Mistake but at the same time they must give him leave to write another tentimes bitterer than the first For he that can suppose a Prince really and truly a Protestant that shall for so many years together withdraw from his own Communion and that too not onely so manifestly against his Interest but against the very Dictates of his Conscience the Duty of his Religion and the Glory of his God thereby to exasperate and embroil a whole Nation in Distractions to inflame and widen all our Divisions and in short to put out both his own Eyes to put out one of his Brothers and all this for just nothing except a meer Humour a letchery of doing Mischief for no other end or purpose but meer Mischiefs sake is a character of that unparallel'd Ingratitude and indeed all that 's ill together that I hope Earth nere bore nor Hell ere punisht for I should be sorry to think it possible there could be such a Creature in nature neither am I a little sorry to think there is a people in the world that can fancy there is such a one I confess the withdrawing from our Communion upon the change of Opinions may admit of some Apology and our ill circumstances under that Change are not altogether so wonderful Now after this Answerer has sum'd up all his matchless Virtues he tells you in short How improbable a thing it would be how contradictory to Reason and common Sence that the difference of a mans opinion about some few disputable matters of Faith and not very material Ceremonies of Divine Worship should on a sudden efface all those good Characters of Magnanimity and Iustice Generosity and Goodness not slightly traced but deeply engraved in his Breast Here the Reader may observe what a good Protestant the Author is and how prettily he states the little disparity betwixt the Protestant and Popish Faith differing onely in some few disputable matters of Faith and not very material Ceremonies of Divine Worship As for example The Deifying of Wafers the Idolizing of Images the Invocation of Saints and making the Milk of a Mary almost of as great vertue as the Bloud of a Iesus with twenty other Trifles and inconsiderable Ceremonies For my part I would not be he that at Cadice or Salamanca should make no more difference betwixt the Divine Worship of Holy Church and that of Heretick Dogs for fear the Lords of the Inquisition should make some material Ceremony with me and treat me with a Cauldron of scalding Oyl for my Entertainment But perhaps our Answerer durst say twice as much if he were there for no doubt but they know him so well that they 'd pardon his Railery and take it for but a copy of his Countenance But whatever our Author's Religion is his Memory is none of the best for within three leaves after this he quite forgets himself and unluckily compares the difference between the two Religions in haec Verba This Idolatrous Superstition has been so long worn off the minds of the People and the Reformation so deeply and so strongly rooted in the Reigns of four most religious and prudent Princes the Church of England so firmly establisht and that as much by the purity of its Doctrine the decency of its Discipline and the innocency of its Principles as by the Authority of the Publick and the Laws of the Land The Romish Church so detested both for the dangerous Innovations of its Doctrine and the Idolatry of its Ceremonies and so odious in the eyes of the People for its pernicious Principles express'd in the villanous practices of its Professors in Massacres and Plots c. But our Answerer's Ingenuity can answer all this and tell you What though their Ceremonies are so idolatrous their Innovations so dangerous their Principles so pernicious their Plots so odious their Massacres so barbarous and their Professors so villanous yet a Popish Heir presumptive professing the same Superstition shall be a Lamb a Dove a Saint amongst us upon occasion and that too for his Reasons above-said For as he told you before he is a person of Royal Bloud loves his Friend is a man of Courage and a Prince and has been an Admiral A thundering Demonstration of a peaceable Popish Innocence Three more such unconfutable Arguments are enough to convert the Turk and bring in the Jews But now from these infallible Morals in our Heir presumptive the great Bulwark against all our Fears this unknown Author concludes both our Protestant Religion and Laws secure under him that the present Constitution of Government and the present Church of England must and shall in spite of Fate continue unshaken If the Popish Priests are such Incendiaries says he and our most potent Enemies have we not Laws against them and then why are we in such fear What is left to any Monarch that succeeds but to execute the Laws be finds derived down to him to maintain and preserve together with his Crown and Dignity And though the Characterizer seems to be in so much dread of those swarms of Roman Emissaries that will infest us under the connivance and indulgence of a Popish Successour he tells you he is quite mistaken The Reign of a Popish King will be so far from advantageous that it will be rather destructive to all those Iesuitical Instruments and that it shall be so 't is in the power of every Subject in the three Kingdoms to be a defender of the Protestant Religion if it want it there being no Information no Conviction of Recusants no Administration of Tests or Oaths that shall be wanting and no diligence that shall be spared backt by the Laws of the Land which then more than ever will be wakened against them which can't be dispenc'd withal but must be effectual to the utter ruine of the whole Party Miracles and Prodiges And that there shall be nothing wanting on the Kings part to do all this this worthy Author is pleased to be his Guarrantee assuring us in his Name that he will take care to let the Laws have their due course And whatever his private Opinion may be whatever tenderness he may bear to the persons be shall punish yet he shall remember his Obligation to the publick so far as to give 'em up to the hands of Iustice with the same constancy of mind with the
upon the impossibility of Popery and Arbitrary Powers advance into England Page 82. he says take the matter as they suppose it a King upon a Throne that 's principled for Arbitrary Government and Popery but so clogg'd and shackled with Popular and Protestant Laws that if he had never so great a mind to 't there 's not one Subject in his Dominions that would dare to serve him in his Design Now the King of France we see has made himself absolute and that as I take it by the help of his Subjects and why English Men should not dare to do any thing that the French have done before them I cannot understand Neither do I find but a Popish King might not only have good Irish Hands out of his Dominions but good English ones too upon that occasion for besides his Popish Friends we have but too many of all Religions but more of no Religion at all whose desperate Fortunes would make their hearts leap at so pleasing a motion and push for a change at any rate to fish in troubled Waters and that too notwithstanding the hazard of their Necks upon a Scheame of Law which he proposes Pag. 40 to be form'd for that purpose Nay that Scheame of capital Laws should serve for an incentive to their Resolution and make 'em wade the deeper the more unsafe and dangerous it should be to retire In the foregoing Page he says Mr. Lest. that possibly there may be a Popish King that may not have the will to change the Government in respest of the immorality of inclinin to such a violation of his trust and word but most certainly not in regard of so manifest an inability to bring it to pass Now 't is evident the Plotters and Jesuites have not believed it such an impossible exploit and why may not a Prince of their own Opinion and their own Industry for Rome upon the presumption of whose principles and for whose sake their whole Machine moved with a Crown on his head and a Sword in his hand believe as they do So that were there a real inability in the case yet if the blindness of zeal and the over-sight of Ambition shall not distinguish that inability to be manifest till the event fatal success has proved it so what shall that hinder his endeavors in attempting and prosecuting it and then where 's the certainty of his will against it And these endeavors once prosecuted amidst all the violent Inrodes or subtle Attaques that shall be made for Popery and Slavery no God ha' mercy to his Kindness for 't it is none of his fault that he lays his Bones by the seige and does not live it out to put us to Storm And I need not insist how far the Peace Prosperity and Freedom of this once flourishing Kingdom will suffer under such a seige and how far they will be dayly harass'd and gall'd with so potent and so pressing an Enemy At best they must expect to have their Laws snapt asunder as often and as fast as Sampsons cords and their City gates in the scuffle twing'd off and if at last they play the Philistians and live to pick out both his Eyes for 't the end of all must terminat in Sampsons fate they 'll have an old heavy roof pull'd down both upon his head and theirs together The next thing Mr. L'estrange falls foule upon are the Acts of Parliament recited in the character and here he either tells the Reader they are nothing to the characters purpose or if they are he finds such flaws in the Law-makers that made them that they are unreasonable and consequently void in themselves as you shall hear anon And so he fairly trips up the heels of Kings Lords and Commons at once and makes their whole authority insignificant because their Laws are against Mr. L'estranges inclination First he 's very angry with the character for advancing the Popish Succesour first from the Possibility of a good man then from bad to wars and at last to a downright Traitor and that from a statute of Queen Elizabeth that declares every subject of England that shall take absolution from Rome or own the Popes supremacy or pay any Fealty to the See of Rome guilty of High Treason And then he answers this by saying there are two provisoes in the Act that makes the case somwhat different from what the Characteriser has Stated it viz. 1 Provided alway that for as much as the Queens Maiesty is otherwise sufficiently assured of the faith and loyalty of the temporal Lords of her high Court of Parliament Therefore this Act nor any thing therein contained shall not extend to compell any Temporal Person of or above the degrée of a Baron of this Realm to take or pronounce the Dath abovesaid viz. of Supremacy nor to incur any penalty limited by this Act for not taking or refusing the same c. 2. Provided also that if any Péer of this Realm shall hereafter offend contrary to this Act or any Branch or Article thereof that in that and all such case and cases they shall be Tryed by their Péers in such manner and form as in other cases of Treasons they haue used to be tryed and by no other means Now I would defie any impartial Reader to Judge if ever any thing was so weakly and so impertinently urged as these two Provisoes The first tells you that the Queen was so assured of the Loyalty of her Nobility that she would not put them to the trouble of Swearing to confirm it as the Law required from her Inferior Subjects but on the other side the second Proviso tells us that notwithstanding that if any of them offended against the Law or any Branch or Article of it they should find no more Mercy than the meanest Commoner in her Kingdom but be equally Tryed for High Treason Now what he drives at by this objection or what favor these Provisoes make for a Popish Heir I declare I cannot Imagine neither do I believe he knows himself Upon this he comes to a touch of Conscience and says It would be well if every man that presses with this unprecedented rigor upon the Person here in Question would lay his hand upon his Heart and say if the King has Pardoned me Ten Thousand times more than this comes to with what reason or Conscience can I Importune His Majesty thus bitterly against his Brother Ten Thousand times more than this comes to is a very great disproportion But thus much I am certain for the Heir of a Protestant Kingdom and the Son of a Protestant Martyr to be perverted to the Religion and Interest of Rome so notoriously destructive to the English Government and thereby to be the cause of all those Distractions in the Nation that tye up the Hearts and Hands of the Subject from their Duty to the best of Princes and weaken both his greatness at home and his Alliance abroad and not only this but to be
an Article of my Creed That he that denies their Authority and Power and not content with that only endeavors to perswade and seduce the rest of his fellow subjects to the same denial is not only a Traitor to his Country but from Christs own Sentence shall receive if possibly a double Portion of Damnation But now for his Sixth Observation on this Statute Mr. L. Lastly he brings instance here to prove that a Parliament may divert the succession but he shows withal that there can be no security even in that Exclusion showing that what one Parliament does another may undo so that now we are upon equall Tearms of security or hazard either in the exclusion of the successor or in restraining him for if he be tyed up by one Parliament another may set him at Liberty and if he be excluded by one Parliament another may take him in again Now certainly this is the most comical humor I ever met with to advise a Parliament to have a care of excluding a Papist for fear another Parliament restore him Perswade e'm to fear that once and make e'm Jealous of fancyes and Chimeras indeed But to dissipate all shadows of any such dangers there are some heads as wise as Mr. L'estranges no disparagment that are of opinion if one English Parliament once exclude a Popish successor we may safely defy Five Hundred Parliaments afterwards to restore him The disinheriting of a Popish successor being a kind of Limbus that if we have once got him into it 't is damnable odds that all the intrest of Rome with Ten Millions of Masses never get him out of it I must confess if we could have a Parliament of Mr. L'estranges particular choosing the Consistory of Cardinals for the House of Lords and St Omers Colledge for the House of Commons much might be but till then we are pretty safe in that point But amongst all Mr. L'estranges despicable thoughts of the Decrees and power of Parliaments in Henry the Eight's days he clearly forgets to answer that Act of Parliament of Queen Elizabeths mentioned in the Character in which 't was made Treason for any man to affirm that the disposal of the Imperial Crown of England lay not in the Queen and Parliament and indeed that Act comes so near the present face of the affairs in England that it was made upon the selfe same occasion that the Bill of Exclusion was endeavour'd by the late Parliaments viz. with an intention of putting by Mary Queen of Scots the then next Popish Heir from the Succession had not her Conspiracy against the Life of the Queen put an end to all farther care by the forefeiture of her head But these Six Objections with the help of Common Right and the Light of Nature may serve to answer both and truly Mr. L'estrange has given us the top of his Politicks and the utmost strength of his Reason for the defence of a Popish Successor in opposition even to the Supreme Authority of the Nation and against all the precedents of Laws and History But alas what signifies Supreme Authority Presidents Laws c. There 's nothing so sacred which stands in their way that the Champions of Rome must not endeavor to overthrow and when the Popish Interest cries Halloo they must Bark at least though they cannot Bite Now 't is plainly to be discovered at what Foundation he strikes by lessening and enfeebling the Legislative Power of the Nation and though he wisely lays the Scene at such distance as the remoter Age of Henry the 8th yet we understand where he aims the lash he gives and what Gall his Ink's made of But truly in his Remarks and Reflections upon the Capriches as he calls them of Henry the 8th with the weakness of his great Council the shallowness of their Debates and the invalidity of their decrees he chooses the safer Subject The Majesty he reviles and the Authority he ridicules being so long since inoffensive Dust and Ashes that he has this Reason for his Boldness and this shield for his Defence Nulli gravis est percussus Achilles But to answer those strait-laced Consciences that so vehemently maintain and assert Succession to be Iure Divino and cannot be alter'd by any human Laws I will put this instance Suppose a King has two Sons the eldest of which ambitious of a Crown and mislead by the ill Counsel of his Priests favourites or the like conspires to depose his Father and in Order thereunto confederates with some neighbouring Monarch who upon assurance given him by this Aspirer of resigning of some part of his Dominions to him or becoming tributary to him furnishes him with Money and Men by which assistance he flies out into an open Rebellion against his Father upon w ch the Father commissions his younger Son to fight this Rebel Prince who beats him and makes him fly out of his fathers Dominions to that confederate neighbours Protection upon which the King with the unanimous consent of his loyal Subjects passes an Act for a total Exclusion of the Elder son from the Crown and to place the Succession in the younger Now will any Man say that this is not warrantable and just both by the Laws of God and Man For if it be unwarantable and that this Rebel Prince must still suceeed then consider what follows Frst here 's a manifest obstructing of the distribution of the greatest Justice both human and divine For whilst this Prince continues safe by his Flight and his forreign Protection from any personal Sufferance for his Crimes and at the same time 't is granted he cannot suffer in his Birthright then this indispensable continuation of succession confers the greatest Earthly felicity and reward viz. a Diadem on the greatest of Criminals one Doubly a Traitor not only against the Lords anointed but even to the Fountain of his own Royal Blood and the Author of his being a Father Secondly it makes crown'd Heads the most miserable State of all man kind nay they are below the meanest Peasant in their Kingdoms For the vengeance of a Subject having the Power to disinherit shall persue a Rebel son even to the East Indies whilst a King who they say has or should have long hands shall notwith all his thunder reach the worst of rebels cross the next Sea or perhaps the next County So that where 's their boasting themselves to be Gods Vicegerents when they alone of all Men are most debarred that greatest Prerogative of a Diety REVENGE 3d By this means Majesty that should be most sacred and the person of it most religiously guarded and defended lies more exposed than all Mankind besides for if it be true that Filius ante diem patrios inquirit in annos And the lust of Inheritance makes the Blood of the Impatient Heir boil high for possession then 't is most true where the Inheritance is Greatest and the Temptation Strongest as in the case of a Crown that there the Blood