is in â—â—e mean time a member of the most persecuting and bloody Society that ever was cloathed with the name of a Church and whose cruelty towards Protestants he is careful not to arraign by fastning his offence at severity upon differences in smaller matters which he knows that those between Rome and us are not nor so accounted of by any of the papal Fellowship It were to be wished that the Dissenters would reflect and consider how when the late King had emitted a Declaration of Indulgence anno 1672. upon pretended motives of tenderness and compassion to his Protestant Subjects but in truth to keep all quiet at home when in conjunction with France he was engaging in an unjust war against a Reformed State abroad and in order to steal a liberty for the Papists to practice their Idolatries without incurring a suspition himself of being of the Romish Religion and in hope to wind up the prerogative to a paramount power over the law and how when the Parliament condemned the illegality of it and would have the Declaration recalled all his Kindness to Dissenters not only immediately vanished but turned into that Rage and fury that tho both that Parliament addressed for some favour to be shew'd them and another voted it a betraying of the Pretestant Religion to continue the execution of the penal laws upon them yet instead of their having any mercy or moderation exercised towards them they were thrown into a Furnace made seven times hotter than that wherein they had been scorched before And without pretending to be a Prophet I dare prognosticate and foretel that whensoever the present King hath compassed the Ends unto which this Declaration is designed to be subservient namely the placing the Papists both in the open exercise of their Religion and in all publick Offices and Trusts and the getting a power to be acknowledged vested in him over the Laws that then instead of the still voice calmly whispered from Whitehall they will both hear and feel the blasts of a mighty rushing wind and that upon pretended occasions arising from the abuse of this Indulgence or for some alledged crimes wherein they and all other Protestants are to be involved tho their supiness and excess of Loyalty continue to be their greatest offences this liberty will not only be withdrawn and the old Church of England severities revived but some of the new à là mode à France treatments come upon the stage and be pursued against them and all other perverse and obstinate British Hereticks The Declaration for liberty of Conscience being injurious to the Church of England and not proceeding from any inward and real good will to the Dissenters it will be worth our pains to inquire into and make a more ample deduction of the Reasons upon which it was granted that the grounds of emitting it being laid under every man's view they who have Addressed may come to be asham'd of their simplicity and folly they who have not may be farther confirmed both of the unlawfulness and inconveniency of doing it and that all who preserve any regard to the protestant Religion and the Laws of England may be quickned to the use of all legal and due means for preventing the mischievous effects which it is shapen for and which the Papists do promise themselves from it The motives upon which his Majesty published the Declaration may be reduced to three of which as I have already made some mention so I shall now place every one of them in its several and proper light and give such proofs and evidence of their being the great and sole inducements for the Emitting of it that no rational man shall be able henceforth to make a doubt of it The first is the Kings winding himself into a Supremacy and Absoluteness over the Law and the getting it acknowledged and calmly submitted unto and acquiesced in by the Subjects The Monarchies being legal and not Despotical bounded and regulat 〈…〉 by Laws and not to be exercised accoâ—ding to meer will and pleasure was th 〈…〉 which he could not digest the though 〈…〉 of when a Subject and had been hea 〈…〉 to say that he had rather Reign a day in th 〈…〉 absoluteness that the French King doth th 〈…〉 an Age tied up and restrained by Rules as 〈…〉 Brother did And therefore to persuade t 〈…〉 Prince of Orange to approve what He h 〈…〉 done in dispensing with the Laws and 〈…〉 obtain Him and the Princess to join wi 〈…〉 his Majesty and to employ their inter 〈…〉 in the Kingdom for the Repealing the T 〈…〉 Acts and the many other Statutes ma 〈…〉 against Roman Catholicks he used this Argâ—ment in a Message he sent to their Roy 〈…〉 Highnesses upon that errand that the ge 〈…〉 ting it done would be greatly to the aâ—vantage and for the increase of the prorog 〈…〉 tive but this these two noble Prince 〈…〉 of whose ascent to the Throne all Prâ—testants have so near and comfortable prospect were too generous as well 〈…〉 wise to be wheedled with as knowin 〈…〉 that the Authority of the Kings and Quee 〈…〉 of England is great enough by the Rul 〈…〉 of the Constitution without grasping at new prerogative power which as the La 〈…〉 have not vested in them so it would b 〈…〉 of no use but to inable them to do hur 〈…〉 And indeed it is more necessary both fo 〈…〉 the honor and safety of the Monarch an 〈…〉 for the freedom and security of the peopl 〈…〉 that the prerogative should be confined withi 〈…〉 its ancient and legal Channels than be left t 〈…〉 that illimited and unbounded latitude whic 〈…〉 the late King and his present Majesty have eâ—deavoured to advance and screw it up unto 〈…〉 That both the Declaration for liberty of Coâ—science in England and the Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland are calculated for raâ—sing the Soveraign Authority to a transceâ—dent Power over the Laws of the two Kingdoms may be demonstrated from the Papers themselves which lay the Dispensin 〈…〉 Power before us in terms that import n 〈…〉 less than his Majesties standing free an 〈…〉 solved from all ties and restraints and 〈◊〉 being cloathed with a Right of doing â—hatsoever he will. For if the Stile of 〈…〉 yal Pleasure to suspend the execution of 〈…〉 ch and such Laws and to forbid such 〈…〉 d such Oaths to be required to be taken 〈…〉 d this in the virtu ' of no Authority decla 〈…〉 d by the Laws to be resident in his Ma 〈…〉 sty but in the virtu ' of a certain vagrant 〈…〉 d indeterminate thing called Royal prero 〈…〉 tive as the power exercised in the English â—eclaration is worded and expressed be not 〈…〉 ough to enlighten us sufficiently in the 〈…〉 atter before us the Stile of Absolute Power â—hich all the Subjects are to obey without reâ—â—rve whereby the King is pleased to chalk â—efore us the Authority exerted in the
hath hitherto passed for an undoubted Maxim that eorum est tollere quorum est condere they can only abrogate Laws who have Power and Authority to make them and we have heretofore been made believe that the Legislative power was not in the King alone but that the two Houses of Parliament had at least a share in it whereas here by the disabling and suspending Laws for ever the whole legislative Power is challenged to be vested in the King and at one dash the Government of England is subverted and changed Tho it hath been much disputed whether the King had a liberty of Refusing to Assent to Bills relating to the benefit of the publick that had passed the two Houses and if there be any sense in those words of the Coronation Oath of his being bound to Govern according to the Laws quas vulgus Elegerit he had not yet none till now that his Majesty doth it had the impudence to affirm that he might abrogate Laws without the concurrence and assent of the Lords and Commons For to say that Oaths enjoined by Laws to be required to be taken shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken is a plain Cancelling and repealing of these Laws or nothing of this World ever was or is nor can the wisdom of the Nation in Parliament assembled find words more emphatical to declare their Abrogation without saying so which at this time it was necessary to forbear for fear of allarming the Kingdom too far before his Majesty be sufficiently provided against it For admitting them to continue still in being and force tho the King may promise for the nonexecution of them during his own time which is even a pretty bold undertaking yet he cannot assure us that the Oaths shall not be required to be taken at any time hereafter unless he have provided for an eternal Line of popish Successors which God will not be so unmerciful as to plague us with or have gotten a lease of a longer life than Methusalah's which is much more than the full Century of years wished him in a late Dedication by one that stiles himself an Irishman a thing he might have foreborn telling us because the Size of his understanding fully declares it However here is such a stroke and exercise of Absolute Power as dissolves the Government and brings us all into a State of Nature by discharging us from the ties which by vertue of fundamental Stipulations and Statute Laws we formerly lay under forasmuch as we know no King but a King by Law nor no Power he has but a legal Power Which thro disclaiming by a challenge that the whole legislative Authority does reside in himself he hath thrown the Gantles to three Kingdoms and provokes them to a trial whether he be ablest to maintain his Absoluteness or they to justify their being a free People And by virtu ' of the same Royal will and pleasure that he annulls which he calls Suspending the Laws enjoining the Tests and the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and commands that none of these Oaths and Declarations shall at any time hereafter be required to be taken he may in some following Royal Papers give us whitehall or Hampton Court Edicts conformable to those at Versailles which at all times hereafter we shall be bound to submitt unto and stand obliged to be Ruled by instead of the Common Law and Statutâ— Book Nor is the taking upon him to stamp us new Laws exclusively of Parliamentary concurrence in the virtu ' of his Royal prerogative any thing more uncouth ' in it self or more dissagreeable to the Rules of the Constitution and what we have been constantly accustomed unto than the cassing disabling and abrogating so many old ones which that absolute out of date as well as ill favoured thing upon Monarchs called a Parliament had a share in the Enacting of I will not say that our Addressers were conscious that the getting an Absolute Power in his Majesty to be owned and acknowledged was one of the Ends for which the late Declaration was calculated and emitted but I think I have sufficiently demonstrated both that such a power it issueth and flows from and that such a power is plainly exercised in it Which whether there coming now to be told and made acquainted with it may make them repent what they have done or at least prevent their being accessory to the support of this Power in other mischievous effects that are to be dreaded from it I must leave to time to make the discovery it being impossible to foretel what a People fallen into a phrenzie may do in their paroxism's of distraction and madness Nor was the Seruing himself into the possession of an Absolute power and the getting it to be owned by at least a part of the people the only Motive to the publishing the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland but a second inducement thaâ— sway'd unto it was the undermining an subverting the Protestant Religion and the opening a door for the introduction and establâ—â—hment of Popery Nor was it from any compassion to Dissenters that these two Royaâ— Papers were emitted but from his Majestieâ— tender love to Papists to whom as there arise many advantages for the present so the whole Benefit will be found to redound to them in the issue We are told a◠〈…〉 ave already mentioned that the King is â—esolved to convert England or to die a Martyr â—nd we may be sure that if he did not think â—he suspending the penal Laws and the disâ—ensing with requiring of the Tests and the â—ranting Liberty and Toleration to be means admirably adapted thereunto he would not have acted so inconsistently with himself nor in that opposition to his own designes as to have disabled these Laws and vouch sav'd the Freedom that results thereupon Especially when we are told by the Leige Iesuite that the King being sensible of his growing old finds himself thereby obliged â—o make the greater hast and to take the larger steps lest thro not living long enough to effect what he intends he should not only lose the glory of converting three Kingdoms but should leave the Papists in a worse condition than he found them His Highness the Prince of Orange very justly concludes this â—o be the thing aim'd at by the present Indulgence and therefore being desired to approve the Suspension of the Test Acts and to cooperate with his Majesty for the obtaining their being Repealed was pleased to Answer â—hat while he was as well as prosesseth himself a Protestant he would not Act so unworthily as â—o betray the Protestant Religion which he necessarily must if he should do as he was desired Her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange has likewise the same apprehension of the tendency of the Toleration and Indulgence and therefore was pleased to say to some Scotts Ministers that did themselves the honor
temper or upon his Religion they might now know hand gratuitam in tanta superbia comitatem that a person of his pride would not stoop to such flattery as his Letter to Mr. Alsop expresseth but in order to some design But what need other proof of the fallaciousness of the two Royal Papers and that no Protestants can reasonably depend upon the Royal Word there laid to pledg for the continuation of their Liberty but to look into these two Papers themselves where we shall meet expressions that may both detract from our belief of His Majesties sincerity and awaken us to a just jealousie that the Liberty and Toleration granted by them are intended to be of no long standing and duration For while He is pleased to tell us that the granting His Subjects the free use of their Religion for the time to come is an addition to the perfect enjoyment of their property which has never been invaded by His Majesty since his coming to the Crown he doth in effect say that His Fidelity Truth and Integrity in what he grants in reference to Religion is to be measured and judged by the verity that is in what He tells us as to the never having invaded our property And that I may borrow an expression from Mr. Alsop and to no less a person than to the King himself namely that tho we pretend to no refined intellectualls nor presume to philosophise upon Mysteries of Government yet we make some pretence to the sense of feeling and whatever our dulness be can discern between what is exacted of us according to Law and what we are rob'd of by an exercise of Arbitrary Power For not to sist upon the violent seisure of mens Goods by Officers as well as Souldiers in all parts of England which looks like an invasion upon the properties of the Subject nor to dwell upon his keeping an Army on foot in time of peace against the Authority as well as without the countenance of Law which our Ancestors would have stiled an Invasion upon the whole property of the Kingdom I would sain know by what name we are to call his levying the customs and the Additional Excise before they were granted unto him by the Parliament all the legal establishment of them upon the nation having been only during the late Kings life till the settlement of them upon the Crown was again renewed by Statute It were also worth his Majesties telling us what Titles are due to the suspending the vice Chancellor of Cambridg a beneficio and the turning the President of Maudlins in Oxford out of his Headship and the suspending Dr. Fairsax from his Fellowship if they be not an Invasion upon our property seeing every part of this is against all the known Laws of the Kingdom and hath been done by no legal Court but by a Set of mercinary villains armed with an Arbitrary Commission and who do as Arbitrarily Exercise it And as the End unto which that Inquisition Court was instituted was to robb us of ours Rights and Priviledges at the meer pleasure of the King so the very Institution of it is an Invasion both upon all our Laws and upon the whole property of the Nation and is one of the highest Exercises of Despotical Power that it is possible for the most Absolute and unlimited Monarch to exert Among all the Rights reserved unto the Subjects by the Rules of the Constitution and whereof they are secured by many repeated Laws and Statutes there are none that have been hithero less disputed and in reference to which our Kings have been farther from claiming any Power and Authority than those of levying money without the grant as well as the consent of Parliament and of Absolving and discharging Debtor from paying their Creditors and of acquitting 〈◊〉 from being sued and imprisoned in case of no 〈…〉 payment and yet in defiance of all Law and to the subverting the Rights of the peo 〈…〉 ple and the most essential Priviledg and I 〈…〉 risdiction of Parliaments and to a plain chan 〈…〉 ging the ancient legal Constition into an Absolute and Despotical Governing Power the King they say is assuming to himself a 〈…〉 Authority both of imposing a Tax of five pound per annum upon every Hackney Coach and of Releasing and discharging all Debtors of whom their Creditors cannot claim and demand above ten pound Sterling which as they will be signal Invasions upon property and leaâ—ing Cases for the raising money in what other instances he pleaseth by a Hampâ—on Courâ— or a Whitehall Edict without standing in need of a Parliament or being obliged to a dependance upon their Grant for all Taxes to be levied upon the Subjects as his Predecessors have heretofore been so they may serve fully to instruct us what little security either the Dissenters have as to being long in the possession of their present liberty or Protestants in general of having a freedom continued unto them of professing the Reformed Religion if we have nothing more to rely upon for preventing our being abridged and denyed the liberty of our Religion than we have had for preserving our Property from being Invaded and broken in upon We may subjoin to the Clause already mentioned that other Expression which occurs in the foresaid Declaration viz. that as he freely gives them leave to meet and serve God after their own may and manner so they are to take special care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways â—end to alienate the hearts of the people from his Majesty or his Government which words as they import the price at which the Dissenters are to purchase their freedom whereof we shall discourse anon so they admirably serve to furnish the King with a pretence of retrenching their liberty whensoever he pleaseth nor are they inserted there for any other End but thâ—◠〈…〉 on a plea of their having abused his Gra 〈…〉 us Indulgence to the alienating the hearts of 〈◊〉 his people from him they may be adjud 〈…〉 d to have thereby deservedly forfeited 〈…〉 th all the benefits of it and of his Royal 〈…〉 our Nor is it possible for a Protestant 〈…〉 nister to preach one Sermon which a 〈…〉 ish Critick or a Romish Bigot may not 〈…〉 ily misconstrue and pervert to be an 〈…〉 enation of the peoples hearts from the Kings 〈…〉 son and Government And of which as we 〈…〉 ve heard many late Examples in France so 〈◊〉 will be easie to draw them into president 〈…〉 d to imitate them in England I might add 〈…〉 e observation of the ingenious Author of 〈…〉 e Reflections on his Majesties Proclamation for 〈◊〉 Toleration in Scotland namely that where 〈…〉 s the King gives all assurance to his Scotts â—ubjects that he will not use invincible necessity â—gainst any man on the account of his perâ—uasion he does thereby leave himself at a liâ—erty of Dragooning torturing burning and â—oing the utmost violences all
the Laws of Christ when they are found to interfere with what is required by the King. But whether Gods Power or the Kings be superior and which of the two can cassate the others Laws and whose wrath is most terrible the judgment day will be able and sure to instruct them if all means in this world prove insufficient for it The Addressers know upon what conditions they hold their Liberty and they have not only observed how several of the National Clergy have been treated for preaching against Popery but they have heard how divers of the Reformed Ministers in France before the general suppression were dealt with for speaking against their Monarchs Religion and therefore they must be pardoned if they carry so as not to provoke his Majesty tho in the mean time thro their â—â—lence they both betray the Cause of their Lord and Master and are unfaithful to the Soules of those of whom they have taken upon them the spiritual guidance As for the Papers themselves that are stiled by the name of Addresses I shall not meddle with them being as to the greatest part of them fitter to be exposed and ridicul'd either for their dulness and pedantry or for the adulation and sycophancy with which they are fulsomly stuffâ— than to deserve any serious consideration or to merit reflections that may prove instructive to Mankind Only as that Address wherein his Majesty is thanked for his restoring God to his Empire over Conscience deserveth a rebuke for its blasphemy so that other which commends him for promising to force the Parliament to raâ—iâ—y his Declaration tho by the way all he says is that he does not doubt of their concurrence which yet his ill succ 〈…〉 upon the closetting of so many Member 〈…〉 and his since Dissolving that Parliament shews that there was some cause for the doub 〈…〉 ting of it I say that other Address merits severe Censure for its insolency against th 〈…〉 legislative Authority And the Authors of 〈◊〉 ought to be punished for their crime com 〈…〉 mitted against the Liberty and Freedom 〈◊〉 the two Houses and for encouraging th 〈…〉 King to invade and subvert their most essen 〈…〉 tial and fundamental Priviledges and withou 〈…〉 which they can neither be a Council Judi 〈…〉 cature nor Lawgivers After all I hope the Nation will be so in 〈…〉 genuous as not to impute the miscarriages 〈◊〉 some of the nonconformists to the whole part 〈…〉 much less to ascribe them to the principles o 〈…〉 Dissenters For as the points wherein the 〈…〉 differ from the Church of England are purel 〈…〉 of another Nature and which have no re 〈…〉 lation to Politicks so the influence that the 〈…〉 are adapted to have upon men as member 〈…〉 of Civil Societies is to make them in a specia 〈…〉 manner regardful of the Rights and Fran 〈…〉 chises of the Community But if some nei 〈…〉 ther understand the tendency of their ow 〈…〉 principles nor are true and faithful unto them these things are the personal faults of thos 〈…〉 men and are to be attributed to their ig 〈…〉 norance or to their dishonesty nor are thei 〈…〉 carriages to be counted the effects of thei 〈…〉 Religious Tenets much less are others of the party to be involved under the reproach an 〈…〉 guilt of their imprudent and ill conduct 〈…〉 Which there is the more cause to acknow 〈…〉 ledg because tho the Church of England ha 〈…〉 all the reason of the World to decline Addressing in that all her legal Foundation a 〈…〉 well as Security is shaken by the Declaration yet there are some of her Dignitaries and C 〈…〉 gy as well as divers of the Members of he 〈…〉 Communion who upon motives of Ambition Covetousness Fear or Courtship hav 〈…〉 enrolled themselves into the Liâ—â— of Addre 〈…〉 sers and under pretence of giving thanks 〈◊〉 the King for his promise of protecting 〈◊〉 Arch-Bishops Bishops and Clergy and a 〈…〉 〈…〉 erof the Church of England in the free Exer 〈…〉 of their Religion as by Law established 〈…〉 ve cut the throat of their Mother at 〈…〉 ose breasts they have suckt till they are 〈…〉 own fat both by acknowledging the usur 〈…〉 prerogative upon which the King assumes 〈◊〉 Right and Authority of Emitting the De 〈…〉 ration and by exchanging the legal standâ—â—g and Security of their Church into that 〈…〉 ecarious one of the Royal word which 〈…〉 ey fly unto as the bottom of her Subsistence 〈…〉 d trust to as the wall of her defence And 〈◊〉 most of the Members of the Separate So 〈…〉 ties are free from all accession to Ad 〈…〉 essing and the few that concurred were 〈…〉 eerly drawn in by the wheedle and impor 〈…〉 nity of their Preachers so they who are 〈◊〉 the chiefest Character and greatest repu 〈…〉 tion for Wisdom and Learning among 〈…〉 e Ministers have preserved themselves 〈…〉 om all folly and treachery of that kind The Apostle tells us that not many wise not â—any noble are called which as it is verified 〈◊〉 many of the Dissenting Addressers so it â—ay serve for some kind of Apology for their 〈…〉 ow and sneaking as well as for their in 〈…〉 iscret and imprudent behaviour in this matâ—er And it is the more venial in some of â—hem as being not only a means of ingra 〈…〉 iating themselves as they phansie with â—he King who heretofore had no very good â—pinion of them but as being both an easie â—nd compendious method of Attoning for Offences against the Crown of which they were strongly suspected and a cheap and expenceless way of purchasing the pardon of their Relations that had stood actually 〈…〉 ccused of high Treason Nor is it to be doubted but that as the King will retain very little favour and mercy for Fanaticks when once he has served his Ends upon them so they will preserve as little kindness for the Papists if they can but obtain relief in a legal way And as there is not a people in the Kingdom that will be more 〈…〉 oyal to Princes while they continue so to govern as that fealty by the Laws of God 〈…〉 or man remains due to them so there are none of what principles or communion soever upon whom the Kingdom it its whole interest come to ly at stake may more assuredly and with greater confidence depend than upon the generality of Dissenting Protestants and especially upon those that are not of the Pastoral Order The severities that the Dissenters lay under before and their deliverance from oppression and disturbance now seconded with the Kings expectation and demands of thanksgiving Addresses were strong temptations upon men void of generosity and greatness of spirit and who are withall of no great Political Wisdom nor of prospect into the Consequences of Councils and tricks of State to act as illegally in their thanks as His Majesty had done in his bounty So that whatsoever animadversion they may
peo 〈…〉 It will not be amiss to call over some 〈◊〉 his Majesties proceedings towards the 〈…〉 urch of England that from what hath 〈…〉 en already seen and felt both they and all 〈…〉 glish Protestants may the better know what they are to expect and look for hereafter Tho it be a method very unbecoming a Prince yet it shews a great deal of spleen to turn the former persecution of Dissenters so maliciously upon the Prelatical and conforming Clergy as his Majesty doth in his letter to Mr. Atsop in stiling them a party of Protestants who think the only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller matters Whereas the severity that the Fanaticks met with had much of its Original at Court where it was formed and designed upon motives of Popery and Arbitrariness and the resentment and revengful humour of some of the old Prelates and other Church men that had suffered in the late times was only laid hold of the better to justify and improve it And tho it be too true that many of the dignified Rank as well as of the little Levites were both extreamly fond of it and contentiously pleaded for it yet it is as true that most of them did it not upon principles of judgment and conscience but upon inducements of retaliation for conceived injuries and upon a belief of its being the most compendious method to the next preferment and benefice and the fairest way of standing recommended to the favour of the two Royal Brothers Nor is it unworthy of observation that some of the most virulent writers against liberty of conscience and others of the most fierce Instigators to the persecuting Dissenters among whom we may reckon Parker Bishop of Oxford and Cartwright Bishop of Chester are since Adressing for the Declaration of Indulgence became the means of being gracioully lookt upon at Whitthall turned foreward promoters of it tho their success in their Diocesses with their Clergy hath not answered their expectations and endeavoures For as these two Mytred Gentlemen will fall in with and justify whatsoever the King hath a mind to do if they may but keep their Seas and enjoy their Revenues which I dare say that rather than lose they will subscribe not only to the Tridentine Faith but to the Alcoran so it is most certain that they two as well as the Bishop of Durham have promised to turn Roman Catholicks and that as Crew hath been several times seen assisting at the celebration of the Mass and that as Cartwright payd a particular respect to the Nuncio at his solemn Entrance at Windsor which some Temporal Lords had so much conscience and honor as to scorn to do so the Author of the leige Letter tells us that Parker not only extreamly favours Popery but that he brands in a manner all such for Atheists who continue to plead for the Protestant Religion 'T is an Act of the same candor and good nature in the King with the former and another Royal effect of his Princely breeding as well as of his Gratitude when he endeavours to cast a farther odium upon the Church of England and to exasperate the Dissenters against her by saying in the forementioned letter to Mr. Alsop that the reason why the Dissenters enjoyed not liberty sooner is wholly owing to the sollicitation of the Conforming Clergy whereas many of the learned and sober men of the Church of England could have been contented that the Nonconforming Protestants should have had liberty long ago provided it had been granted in a legal way and the chief executioners of severity upon them were such of all ranks orders and stations as the Court both set on and rewarded for it 'T is not their Brethrens having liberty that displeaseth modest good men of the Church of England but 't is the having it in the virtu ' of an usurped prerogative over the Laws of the Land and to the shaking all the legal foundations of the Protestant Religion it self in the Kingdom And had the Declaration of Indulgence imported only an exemption of Dissenters and Papists from rigours and penalties I know very few that would have been displeased at it but the extending it to the removing all the Fences about the Reformed Doctrine and worship and laying us open both to the tyranny of papists and the being overflowed with a deluge of their superstitions and Idolatries as well as the designing it for a means to overthrow the established Chur 〈…〉 is that which no wise Dissenter no more t 〈…〉 a conformable man knows how to digest 〈◊〉 I am not of Sr. Roger l'Estranges mind w 〈…〉 after he hath been writing for many yea 〈…〉 against Dissenters with all the venom and m 〈…〉 lice imaginable and to disprove the wisdo 〈…〉 justice and convenience of granting th 〈…〉 liberty hath now the impudence 〈◊〉 publi 〈…〉 that whatsoever he formerly wrote bears an exact conformity to the present Resolutions of State in that the liberty now vouchsased is an Act of Grace issuing from the supream Magistrate an 〈…〉 not a claim of Right in the people And as to r 〈…〉 cited expressions of the King they are onl 〈…〉 a papal trick whereby to keep up heats an 〈…〉 animosities among Protestants when both th 〈…〉 inward heats of men are much allay'd and th 〈…〉 external Provocations to them are wholly removed and they are meerly Iesuitick method's by which our hatred of one another may b 〈…〉 maintained tho the Laws inabling one part 〈…〉 to persecure the other which was the chie 〈…〉 spring of all our mutual rancour and bitterness be suspended It would be the sport and glory of the Ignatian Order to be able to make the disabling of penal Laws as effectual to the supporting differences among Protestants a◠the Enacting and rigorous execution of them was to the first raising and the continuing them afterwards for many years And if the foregoing Topicks can furnish the King arguments whereby to reproach the Church of England when he thinks it seasonable and for the interest of Rome to be angry with them I dare affirm he will never want pretences of being discontented with of aspersing Fanaticks when he finds the doing so to be for the service of the papal cause And if the forementioned instances of his Majesties behaviour to the Church of England to which he stands so superlatively obliged be neither Testimonies of his ingenuity evidences of his Gratitude nor effects of common much less Royal justice yet what remains to be intimated do's carry more visible marks of 〈…〉 malice and design both against the le 〈…〉 established Church and our Religion For 〈…〉 ing satisfied with the suspension of all 〈◊〉 Laws by which Protestants and they 〈◊〉 the national Communion might seem to be 〈…〉 urious to Papists in their persons and E 〈…〉 tes such as the Laws which make those 〈…〉 ho shall be
found to have taken Orders in 〈…〉 e Church of Rome obnoxious to death or 〈…〉 ose other Statutes by which the King hath 〈…〉 ower Authority for levying two thirds of 〈…〉 eir Estates that shall be convicted of Recu 〈…〉 cy but by an usurped prerogative and an Absolute power he is pleased to suspend all 〈…〉 e Laws by which they were only disabled 〈…〉 rom hurting us thro standing precluded 〈…〉 rom places of power and trust in the Government So that the whole security we have in time to come for our Religion depends upon the temperate disposition and good nature of those Roman Catholicks that shall be advanced to Offices and Employments and does no longer bear upon the protection and support of the Law and I think we have not had that experience of grace and favour from Papists as may give us 〈…〉 just confidence of fair and candid treatment from them for the future Now that we may be the better convinced how little security we have from his Majesties promise in his Declaration of his protecting the Arch Bishops Bishops and Clergy and all other his subjects of the Church of England in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of their possessions without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever which is all the Tenour that is left us 't is not unworthy of observation how that beside the suspending the Bishop of London ab Officio and the Vice Chanceller of Cambridg both ab Officio and Beneficio and this not only for Actions which the Laws of God and the Kingdom make their duty but thro a sentence inflicted upon them by no legal Court of Judicature but by five or six mercinary persons supported by a Tyrannous and Arbitrary Commission his Majesty in his Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland â—earing date the 12. of February doth among many other Laws cass disable and dispense with the Law enjoining the Scots Test tho it was not only enacted by himself while he represented his Brother as his high Commissioner but hath been confirmed by him in Parliament since he came to the Crown Surely it is as easie to depart from a promise made in a Declaration as 't is to absolve and discharge himself from the obligation of a Law which he first concurred to the enacting of and gave the creating Fiat unto as the late Kings Commissioner and hath since ratified in Parliament after he was come to the Throne As there is no more infidelity dishonor and injustice so there is less of absolute power and illegality in doing the one than the other Nor is it possible for a rational man to place a confidence in his Majesties Royal word for the protection of our Religion and the Church of England men's enjoying their possessions seeing he hath not only departed from his promise made to the Council immediately after his Brothers death but hath violated his Faith given to the Parliament of England at their first Session which we might have thought would have been the more sacred and binding by reason of the grandure state and quality of the Assembly to which it was pledged If we consider how much protestants suffered what number of them was burnt at the stake as well as murderd in Goals beside the vast multitudes who to avoid the rage and power of their Enemies were forced to abandon their Countrey and seek for shelter in forraign parts and what endeavoures of all kinds were used for the Extirpation of our Religion under QueenMary we may gather and learn from thence what is to be dreaded from James the II. who is the next popish Prince to her that since the Reformation hath sat on the Throne of England For tho there be many things that administer grounds of hope that the Papists will not find it so easie a matter to bring us in shoals to the stake nor of that quick and easie dispatch to suppress the protestant Religion and set up Popery at this time as they found it then yer every thing that occurs to our thoughts or that can affect our understandings serves not only to persuade us into a belief that they will set upon and endeavour it but to work us up to an assurance that his Majesty would take it for a di 〈…〉 ution of his glory as well as reflection upon his zeal for the Church of Rome not to attempt what a woman had both the courage to undertake and the fortune to go thro with And there is withal a concurrence of so many things both abroad and at home at this juncture which if laid in the ballance with the motives to our hope of the papists miscarrying may justly raise our fears of their prospering to a very sad and uncomfortable height Whosoever shall compare these two Princes together will find that there was less danger to be apprehended from Mary and that not only upon the score of her Sex but by reason of a certain gentleness and goodness of nature which all Historians of judgment and credit ascribe unto her than is to be expected from the present King in whom a sourness of temper fierceness of disposition and pride joined with a peevishness of humour not to bear the having his will disputed or controlled are the principal ingredients into his Constitution and which are all strangely heightned and enflamed by contracted distempers of Body and thro furious principles of mind which he hath imbib'd from the Iesuites who of all men carry the obligations arising from the Doctrines of the popish Religion to the most outragious and inhumane excesses Nor can I forbear to add that whereas the cruelty which that Princess was hurried into even to the making her Cities common shambles and her streets Theatres of murder for innocent persons for which she became hated while she lived and her memory is rendred infamous to all Generations that come after was wholly and entirely owing to her Religion which not only proclaims it lawful but a necessary duty of Christianity and an act meriting a peculiar Crown of Glory in heaven to destroy Hereticks 't is to be feared there will be found in the present King a spice of revenge against us as we are Englishmen as well as a measu 〈…〉 heap't up and running over of furious 〈◊〉 zeal against us as we are Protestants 〈◊〉 the wrath he bears unto us for our depar 〈…〉 from the Communion of the Romish Chu 〈…〉 and our rebellion against the triple Crow 〈…〉 the war wherein many of the Kingdom wer 〈…〉 engaged against his Father and the issue of it in the execution of that Monarch is what he hath been heard to say that he hopes to revenge upon the Nation And all that the City of London underwent thro that dreadful conflagration 1666. of which he was the great Author and Promoter as well as the Rescuer and Protector of the Varlets that were apprehended in their spreading and
Scots â—roclamation for the stopping disabling and 〈…〉 spensing with such and such Laws as are 〈…〉 ere referred unto and for the granting 〈…〉 e toleration with the other liberties immuâ—â—ties and Rights there mentioned is more 〈…〉 an sufficient to set the point we are disâ—oursing beyond all possibility of rational â—ontrol As 't is one and the same Kind â—f Authority that is claimed over the Laws â—nd Subjects of both Kingdoms tho for some â—ertain reasons it be more modestly desigâ—ed and expressed in the Declaration for a â—iberty in England than it is in the Proclamaâ—ion for a Toleration in Scotland so the utmost that the Czar of Mosco the great Moâ—ull or the Turkish Sultan ever challenged over their respective Dominions amounts only to an Absolute Power which the King both owns the Exertion of and makes it the fountain of all the Royal Acts exercised in the forementioned Papers And as the improving this challenged Absolute Power into an obligation upon the Subjects to obey his Majesty without reserve is a paraphrase upon Despotical Dominion and an advancing it to 〈◊〉 pitch above what any of the ancient or modern Tyrants ever dream't of and beyond what the most servile part of Mankind was ever acquainted with till the present French King gave an instance of it in making his â—eer will and pleasure to be the ground and argument upon which his Reformed Subjects were to renounce their Religion and to turn Roman Catholicks so it is worth considering whether His Maj. who glories to imitate that forraign Monarch may not in a little time make the like application of this Absolute power which his Subjects are bound to obey without Reserve and whether in that case they who have Addressed to thank him for his Declaration and thereby justified the Claim of this Absolute power being that upon which the Declaration is superstructed and from which it emergeth can avoid paying the Obedience that is demanded as a Duty in the Subject inseparably annexed thereunto That which more confirms us that the English Declaration and the Scotts Proclamation are not only designed for the obtaining from the Subjects an acknowledgment of an Absolute power vested in the King but that no less than the Usurpation and exercise of such a power can warrant and support them are the many Laws and Rights which a jurisdiction is challenged over and exerted in reference unto in the Papers stiled by the forementioned Names All confess a Royal prerogative setled on the Crown and appertaining to the Royal Office nor can the Supream Magistrature be executed and discharged to the advantage and Safety of the Community without a power affixed unto it of superceding the Execution of some Laws at certain junctures nor without having an Authority over the Rights of particular men in some incident cases but then the received Customes of the respective Nations and the universal good preservation and safety of the People in general are the measures by which this prerogative in the Crown is to be regulated and beyond which to apply or exert it is an Usurpation and Tyranny in the Ruler All the Power belonging to the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland ariseth from an agreement and concession of the People wherein it is stipulated what Rights Liberties and Priviledges they Reserved unto themselves and what Authority and Jurisdiction they delegated and made over unto the Soveraign in order to his being in a condition to protect and defend them and that they may the better live in Peace Freedom and Safety which are the Ends for which they have chosen Kings to be over them and for the compassing whereof they originally submitted unto and pitched upon such a Form of Civil Administration Nor are the Opinions of particular men of what Rank or Order soever they be to be admitted as an exposition of the extent of this Prerogative seeing they thro their dependencies upon the King and their obnoxiousness to be influenced by selfish and personal Ends may enlarge it beyond what is for the benefit of the Community but the immemorial course of Administration with the sense of the whole Society signified by their Representatives in Parliament upon emerging occasions are to be taken for the sense paraphrase and declaration of the Limits of this Royal and prerogative Power and for any to determine the bounds of it from the Testimonies of Mercinary Lawyers or Sycophant Clergy-men in cases wherein the Parliament have by their Votes and Resolutions setled its boundaries is a crime that deserves the severest animadversion and which it is to be hop'd a true English Parliament will not let pass unpunished Now a Power arising from Royal prerogative to suspend and disable a great number of Laws at once and they of such a nature and tendency as the great security of the people consists in their being maintained and which the whole Community represented in Parliaments have often disallowed and made void Princes medling with so as to interrupt their execution and course is so far from being a Right inherent in the Crown that the very pretending unto it is a changing of the Government and an overthrowing of the Constitution Fortescue say's that Rex Angliae populum Gubernat non merâ potestate Regiâ sed politicâ quia populus iis legibus gubernatur quas ipse fert the King of England doth not so properly Govern by a power that is Regal at by a power that is pâ—litical in that he is bound to Rule by the Lawsâ— which the people themselves chuse and Enact Anâ— both Bracton and Fleta tell us that Rex Angliae habet superiores viz. legem per quam factus est Rex ac Comites Barones qui debent â—i fraenum ponere the King of England hath for Superiors both the Law by whi 〈…〉 he is constituted King and which is the measur 〈…〉 of his Governing Power and the Parliament whicâ— is to restrain him if he do amiss And thereupon we have not only that other saying of Bracton that nihil aliud potest Rex nisi id solum quod jure potest the King can do nothing but whaâ— he can do by law but we have that famous passage in our Parlament Rolls non est ulla Regis prerogativa quae ex justitiâ aequitate quicquam derogat that there is no prerogative belongs to the King by which he can decline from acting according to Law and justice So careful were our Ancestors both in England and Scotland to preserve their Laws from being invaded and superceded by their Kings that they have not only by divers Parliamentary Votes and Resolutions and by several St 〈…〉 tutes declared all dispensations by the King from Laws and enjoined Oaths to be null and void and not admittable by the Iudges or other Executors of Law and Justice but they have often impeached arraigned and condemned those to one penalty or another that have been found to have counselled and advised
Kings to an usurpation of Power over the Laws and to a violation of established and enacted Rules It would draw this Discourse to a length beyond what is intended should I mention the several Laws against Papists as well as against Dissenters that are suspended stopt disabled and dispensed with in the two fore-mentioned Royal Papers and it would be an extending it much more should I make the several Reflections that the matter is capable of and which a person of a very ordinary understanding cannot be greatly to seek for I shall therefore only take notice of two â—r three Efforts which occur there of this â—oyal prerogative and Absolute power which â—s they are very bold and ample exertions â—f them for the first time so should the â—ext exercises of them be proportionable 〈…〉 ere will be nothing left us of the Protestant â—eligion or of English Liberties and we must â—e contented to be Papists and Slaves or else 〈◊〉 stand adjudged to Tyburn and Smithfield One is the suspending the Laws which en 〈…〉 in the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy â—nd the prohibiting that these Oaths be at any 〈…〉 me hereafter required to be taken by which â—â—ngle Exercise of Royal prerogative and Absolute â—ower the two Kingdoms are not only aâ—ain subjected to a forraign Iurisdiction the miseries whereof they groaned under for several Ages but as the King is hereby deprived of the greatest security he had from â—is Subjects both to himself and the Government â—o the Crown is robb'd of one of its chiefest â—ewels namely an Authority over all the Subâ—ects which was thought so essential to Soveâ—aignty Royal Dignity that it was annexed to the Imperial Crown of England adjudged inherent in the Monarch before the Reformed Religion came to be received established And it concerns their Royal Highnesses of Orange to whom the Right of succeeding to the Crownâ— of Great Brittain unquestionably belongs to consider whether his Majesty may not by the same Authority whereby he alienates and gives away so considerable and inherent a Branch of the Royal Iurisdiction transferr the Succession it self and dispose the Inheritance of the Crown to whom he pleaseth Nor will they about him who thrust the last King out of the Throne to make room for his present Majesty much scruple to put a Protestant Successor by it if they can find another Papist as Bigotted as this to advance unto it However were they on the Throne to morrow here is both a Forraign Iurisdiction brought in and set up to Rivall and controll theirs and they are deprived of all means of being secured of the Loyalty and Fealty of a great number of their Subjects Nor will His Majesties certain knowledg and long experience whereof he boasts in the Scots Proclamation that the Catholicks as it is their principle to be good Christians so it is to be dutiful Subjects be enough for their Royal Highnesses to rely upon their Religion obliging them to the contrary towards Princes whom the Church of Rome hath adjudged to be Hereticks A second Instance wherein this pretended Royal Prerogative is exercised paramount to all Laws and which nothing but a claim of Absolute Power in his Majesty can support and an acknowledgment of it by the Subjâ—stâ— make them approve the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and the Proclamation for Toleration is the stopping disabling and suspending the Statutes whereby the Tests were enacted and thereby letting the Papists in to all Benefices Offices and Places of Trust whether Civil Military or Ecclesiastick I do not speak of Suspending the Execution of those Laws whereby the being Priests or taking Orders in the Church of Rome or the being Reconciled to that Church or the Papists meeting to celebrate Mass were in one degree or another made punishable tho the Kings dispensing with them by a challenged claim in the Crown be altogether illegal for as diverss of these Laws were never approved by many Protestants so nothing would have justified the making of them but the many Treasons and Conspiracies that they were from time to time found guilty of against the State. And as the Papists of all men have the least cause to complain of the injustice rigour and severity of them considering the many Laws more cruel and sanguinary that are in Force in most Popish Countries against Protestants and these enacted and executed meerly for their Opinions and Practices in the matters of God without their being chargeable with crimes and offences against the Civil Government under which they live so were it necessary from principles of Religion and Policy to relieve the Roman Catholicks from the forementioned Laws yet it ought not to be done but by the Legislative Authority of the Kingdoms and â—or the King to assume a power of doing it in the vertue of a pretended prerogative is both a high Usurpation over the Laws and a Violation of of his Coronation Oath Nor is it any commendation either of the humanity of the Papists or of the meekness and Truth of their Religion that while they elsewhere treat those who differ from them in Faith and Worship with that Barbarity they should so clamorously inveigh against the severities which in some Reformed States they are liable unto and which their Treasons gave the rise and provocation unto at first and have been at all times the motives to the infliction of But they alone would have the allowance to be cruel wherein they act consonantly to their own Tenets and I wish that some provision might be made for the future for the security of our Religion and our safety in the profession of it without the doing any thing that may unbecome the merciful principles of Christianity or be unsutable to the meek and generous temper of the English Nation and that the property of being Sanguinary may be left to the Church of Rome as its peculiar Priviledg and Glory and as a more distinguisting Character than all the other Marks which she pretends unto That which I am speaking of is the suspending the Execution of those Laws by which the Government was secured of the Fidelity of its Subjecte and by which they in whom it could not confide were meerly shut out from places of power and trust and were made liable to very small damages themselves and only hindred from getting into a condition of doing mischief to us All Governments have a Right to use means for their own preservation provided they be not such as are inconsistent with the Ends of Government and repugnant to the will and pleasure of the Supream Soveraign of mankind and it is in the power of every Legislative Assembly to declare who of the Community shall be capable or incapable of publick Imploys and of possessing Offices upon which the Peace Welfare and Security of the whole Politick Body does depend Without this n 〈…〉 Government could subsist nor the People b 〈…〉 in safety under it but the Constitution woul 〈…〉 be
subverting our Religion and also further to enlighten and confirm others in the just apprehensions they are possessed with of the design carrying on in Grear Brittain and Ireland for the extirpation of Protestancy and that the late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience is emitted in subserviency thereunto and calculated by the Court toward the paving and preparing the way for the more facile accomplishment of it And while Mercinary Sycophants by their Flatteries infect and corrupt Princes and by their Representing them to the World in Colours disagreable from their tempers and dispositions and in milder and fairer Characters than any thing observable in them either deserveth or correspondeth with do delude Subjects into such Opinions of them as beget a neglect of means for preserving themselves 't is become a necessary Duty and an indispensable Service to mankind to deal plainly and above board that so by describing Kings as they are and setting them in a true and just Light we may prevent the Peoples being further imposed upon or if through suffering themselves to be still deceived they come to fall under miseries and persecutions they may lay all their Distresses and Desolations at the door of their own folly in not having taken care how to avoid what they were not only threatned with but whereof they were warned and advertised For as I am not of Sr. Roger l'Estranges mind That if we cannot avoide being distrustful of our Safety yet it is extreamly vain foolish and extravagant to talk of it so I am very sensible how many of the French Ministers by painting forth their King more like a God than a Man and by possessing their people with a belief of Wisdom Justice Grace and Mercy in Him of which they knew him destitute they both emboldned him to attempt what he hath perpetrated and laid them under snares which they know not how to disentangle themselves from in order to escape it Nor would the King of England have acted with that neglect of the future Safety of the Papists nor have exposed them to the resentment and hereafter revenge of three Nations by the Arbitrary and Illegal steps he hath made in their favour if he intended any thing less than the putting Protestants for ever out of capacity and condition of calling them to a reckoning and exacting an account of them which neither He nor they about him can have the weakness to think they have sufficiently provided against without compelling us by an Order of à la mode France Missionaries to turn Catholicks or by adjudging us to Mines and Galleys according to the Versailles President for our Heretical Stubborness or which is the more expeditious way of converting three Kingdoms to cause murder the Protestant Inhabitants according to the pattern which his Loyal Irish Catholicks endeavoured to have set anno 1641. for the conversion of that Nation Had his Majesty been contented with the bare avowing and publishing himself to be of the Communion of the Church of Rome and of challenging a Liberty tho against Law for the Exercise of his Religion it might have awakened our Pity and Compassion to see him embrace a Religion where there are so many impediments of Salvation and in doing whereof he was become obnoxious unto the imprecation of his Grandfather who wished the curse of God to fall upon such of his Posterity as should at any time turn Papists but it would have raised no intemperated heats in the minds of any against him much less have alienated them from the Subjection and Obedience which are due unto their Soveraign by the Laws of the several Kingdoms and the Fundamental Rules of the respective Constitutions Or could he have been contented with waving the rigorous Execution of the Laws against Papists of whatsoever Quality Rank or Order they were and with the bestowing personal and private Favours upon those of his Religion it would have been so far from begetting rancor or discontent in his Protestant Subjects that they would not only have connived at and approved such a procedure and those little Benignities and Kindnesses but had the Papists quietly acquiesced in them and modestly improved them it might have been a means of reconciling the Nation to more lenity towa 〈…〉 them for the future and might have iâ— fluenced our Legislators when God sh 〈…〉 vouchsafe us a Protestant on the Throne 〈◊〉 moderate the Severities to which by thâ— Laws in being they are obnoxious and 〈◊〉 render their condition as easie and safe 〈◊〉 that of other Subjects and only to take car 〈…〉 for precluding them such places of poweâ— and trust as should prevent their being ab 〈…〉 to hurt us but could bring no damage or iâ— convenience upon themselves But thâ— King instead of terminating here anâ— allowing only such Graces and Immun 〈…〉 ties to the Popists as would have been 〈◊〉 nough for the placing them in the priva 〈…〉 Exercise of their Religion with Security 〈◊〉 them and without any threatning dangeâ— to us He hath not only suspended all thâ— penal Laws against Roman Catholicks but 〈◊〉 hath by an usurped Prerogative that is par 〈…〉 mount to the Rules of the Constitution and 〈◊〉 all Acts of Parliament dispensed with anâ— disabled the Laws that enjoin the Oath of A 〈…〉 legeance and Supremacy and which appoi 〈…〉 and prescribe the Tests that were the Fenceâ— which the Wisdom of the Nation ha 〈…〉 erected for preserving the Legislative A 〈…〉 thority securing the Government and keeping places of Power Magistracy and Offic 〈…〉 in the Hands of Protestants and thereby 〈◊〉 continuing the Protestant Religion and Engli 〈…〉 Liberties to our selves and the generation that shall come after us And as if this werâ— not sufficient to awaken us to a consideration of the danger we are sin of havinâ— our Religion supplanted and overthrown He hath not only advanced the most viole 〈…〉 Papists unto all places of Military comman 〈…〉 by Sea and Land but hath established many of them in the Chief Trusts and Offi 〈…〉 of Magistracy and Civil Judicature so th 〈…〉 there are scarce any continued in Poweâ— and Employment save they who have 〈◊〉 ther promised to turn Roman Catholicks 〈◊〉 who have engaged to concur and assist 〈◊〉 the subverting our Liberties and Religion uâ— der the Mask and disguise of Protestan 〈…〉 〈◊〉 is already evident that it is beyond the â—â—lp and relief of all Peaceable and Civil â—eans to preserve and uphold the Protestant â—eligion in Ireland and that nothing but force â—nd an intestine War can retrieve it unto â—nd reestablish it there in any degree of safe 〈…〉 Nor is it less apparent from the Arbiâ—â—ary and Tyrannous Oath ordained to be â—â—quired of His Majesties Protestant Subjects 〈◊〉 Scotland whereby they are to swear Oâ—â—dience to Him without Reserve that our Reâ—â—gion is held only precariously in that Kingâ—â—m and that whensoever he shall please to â—â—mmand the establishment of Popery and 〈◊〉 enjoin the
people to enter into the Comâ—union of the Church of Rome He expects 〈◊〉 have his Will immediately conformed â—nto and not to be disputed or controlled â—ut lest what we are to expect from the â—ing as to the extirpation of the Reformed â—eligion and the inflicting the utmost Seveâ—ties upon his Protestant Subjects that Papal â—ge armed with power can inable him unâ—â— may not so fully appear from what hath â—een already intimated as either to awaâ—en the Dissenters out of the Lethargy into which the late Delaration hath cast them or 〈◊〉 quicken those of the Church of England to â—hat zealous care vigilancy and use of all Lawful means for preserving themselves â—nd the Protestant Religion that the impenâ—ent danger wherewith they are threatned â—equires at their hands I shall give that farmer Confirmation of it from Topicks and motives of Credibility Moral Political and â—istorical as may serve to place it in the â—rightest light and fullest evidence that a â—atter future and yet to come which is onâ—â— the object of our prospect and dread and â—ot of our feeling and experience is capaâ—le of It ought to be of weight upon the minds â—f all English Protestants that the King of â—eat Brittain is not only an open and avowed â—apist but as most Apostates use to be a â—ery Bigot in the Romish Religion and who 〈◊〉 the Leige Letter from a Jesuite to a Broâ—â—er of the Order tells us is resolved either to convert England to Popery or to die a Martyr Nor were the Iewish zealots of whose rageful transports Iosephus gives us so ample an account nor the Dervises among the Turks and Indians of whose mad attempts so many Histories make mention more brutal in their fanatical Heats than a Popish Bigot useth to be when favoured with advantages of exerting his animosity against those who differ from him if he be not carefully watched against and restrained Beside the innumerable instances of the Tragical Effects of Romish Bigottry that are to be met with in Books of all kinds we need go no further for an evidence of it than to consult the Life of Dominick the great Instigator and Promoter of the Massacre of the Waldenses and the Founder of that Order which hath the Management of the bloody Inquisition together with the Life of Henry the third of France who contrary to the advice of Maximilian the Emperor and the repeated intreaties of the wisest of his own Councellors the Chancellor de l'Hospital and the President de Thou not only revived the War and Persecution against his Reformed Subjects after he had seen what Judgments the like proceedings had derived upon his Predecessors and how prejudicial they had proved to the Strength Glory and Interest of his Crown and Kingdom but he entred into a League with those that sought to depress abdicate and depose him and became the Head of a Faction for the destroying that part of his Subjects upon whom alone he could rely for the defence of his person and support of his Dignity Nor were the Furies of the Duke de Alva heretofore or the present Barbarities of Louis the Fourteenth so much the effects of their haughtie and furious tempers as of their Bigottry in their inhumane and sanguinary Religion That the King of England is second to none in a blind and rageful Popish Zeal his behaviour both while a Subject and since he arrived at the Crown doth not only place it beyond the limits of a bare suspition but affords us such evidences of it as that none in consistency with principles of wisdom and discretion can either question or contradict it To what else can we ascribe it but to an excessive Bigottry that when the Frigat wherein he was sailing to Scotland anno 1682. struck upon the Sands and was ready to sink he should prefer the Lives of one or two pittiful Priests to those of men of the greatest Quality and receive those mushrom's into the Boat in which himself escaped while at the same time he refused to admit not only his own Brother-in-Law but divers Noblemen of the Supreamest Rank and Character to the benefit of the same means of deliverance and suffered them to perish tho they had undertaken that Voyage out of pure respect to his person and to put an Honor upon him at a Season when he wanted not Enemies Nor can it proceed from any thing but a violent and furious Bigottry that he should not only disoblige and disgust the two Universities of whose Zeal to his service he hath received so many seasonable and effectual Testimonies but to the violation both of the Laws of God and the Kingdom offer force to their Consciences as well as to their Rights and Franchises and all this in favour of Father Francis whom he would illegally thrust into a Fellowship in Cambridg and of Mr. Farmer whom he would arbitrarily obtrude into the Headship of a Colledg in Oxford who as they are too despicable to be owned and stood for in competition against two famous Universities whose greatest crime hath been an excess of zeal for his person and interest when he was Duke of York and a measure of Loyalty and Obedience unto him since he came to the Crown beyond what either the Rules of Christianity or the Laws of the Kingdom exact from them so he hath way's enough of expressing kindness and bounty to those two little contemptable Creatures and that in methods as beneficial to them as the places into which he would thrust them can be supposed to amount unto and I am sure with less scandal to himself and less offence to all Protestants as well as without offering inj 〈…〉 to the Rights of the University or of coâ— pelling those learned grave and vene 〈…〉 ble men to perjure themselves and act 〈◊〉 gainst their Duties and Consciences T 〈…〉 late proceedings towards Dr. Burnet a 〈…〉 not only contrary to all the measures of Jâ— stice Law and Honor but argue a stran 〈…〉 and furious Bigottry in His Majesty for Po 〈…〉 ry there being nothing else into which 〈◊〉 man can resolve the whole tenor of his prâ— sent Actings against Him. Seeing setting 〈◊〉 side the Doctor 's being a Protestant and a Mâ— nister of the Church of England and his havinâ— vindicated the Reformation in England froâ— the Calumnies and slanders wherewith 〈◊〉 was aspersed by Sanders others of the Roman Communion and the approving himself in some other Writings worthy of thâ— Character of a Reformed Divine and of thaâ— esteem which the World entertains of him for knowledg in History and all other part 〈…〉 of good learning there hath nothing occurred in the whole tenor and trace of hiâ— Life but what instead of Rebuke and Censure hath merited acknowledgments and the Retributions of Favour and Prefermenâ— from the Court. Whosoever considers his constant Preaching up passive Obedience to such a degree and height as he hath done May very well be surprised at the whole method of
narrow power and intereâ—â— would extend It ought therefore to lay uâ— under a conviction what we are to expecâ— from His Majesty on the Throne when wâ— find the whole thread and series of his conduct while a Subject to have been a continued design against our Religion and an uninterrupted plot for the subversion of our Laws and Liberties 'T is sufficiently known how active he alway's was to keep up and inflame the differences among Protestants and how he was both a great Promoter of all the severe Laws made against Dissenters and a continual instigator to the rigorouâ— Execution of them So that his affirming it to have been ever his judgment that none ought to be oppressed and persecuted for matters of Religion nor to be hindred in Worshipping God according to their several perswasions serves only to inform us either with what little Honesty Honor and Conscience Hâ— acted in concurring to the making of the foresaid Laws or what small faith and credit is now to be given to his Declaration and to what he hath since the Emission of it repeated both in his Speech to Mr. Penn and in his Letter to Mr. Alsop And to omit many other Instances of his kindness and Benignity to the Fanaticks whom he now so much huggs and caresseth it may not be amiss to remember them and all other Protestants of that Barbarous and illegal Commission issued forth by the Council of Scotland while He as the late Kings High Commissioner had the management of the affaires of that Kingdom by which every Military Officer that had command over twelve men was impower'd to impannel Juries try condemn and cause to be put to death not only those who should be found to disclaim the Kings Authority but such as should refuse to acknowledg the Kings new modelled Supremacy over that Church in the pursuance and execution of which Commission some were shot to death others were hang'd or drowned and this not only during the conti 〈…〉 〈◊〉 oâ— the Reign of his late Majesty â—ut 〈◊〉 〈…〉 e a year and a half after the preâ—â—nt King came to the Crown But what â—eed is there of insisting upon such little parâ—â—culars wherein he was at all times ready 〈◊〉 express his malice to Protestants seeing 〈…〉 e have not only Dr. Oates's Testimony 〈…〉 d that of divers others but most authen 〈…〉 ck proofs from Mr. Coleman's Letters of 〈…〉 s having been in a Conspiracy several years 〈…〉 r the subversion of our Religion upon the 〈…〉 eritorious and sanctified Motive of extir 〈…〉 ating the Northern Heresie Of which be 〈…〉 de all the Evidence that four Successive â—arliaments arrived at I know several who 〈…〉 nce the Duke of York ascended the Throne have had it confirmed unto them by â—ivers forraign Papists that were less reâ—â—rved or more ingenuous than many of 〈…〉 hat Communion use to be To question 〈…〉 he Existence of that Plot and his present Majesties having been accessory unto and in 〈…〉 he head of it argues a strange effrontery and 〈…〉 mpudence thro casting an aspersion of weakness folly and injustice not only upon those three Parliaments that seem'd to have reâ—ained some zeal for English Liberties but by fastning the same imputations upon the 〈…〉 ong Parliament which had shew'd it self at all times more obsequious to the will of the Court than was either for their own Honor or the safety and Interest of the Kingdom and who had expressed a Veneration for the Royal Family that approached too much unto a degree of Idolatry Whosoever considers that Train of Councels wherein the King was many years engaged and whereof we felt the woful effects in the burning of London the frequent Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments the widening and exasperating Differences among Protestants the â—â—irring up and provoking Civil Magistrates and Ecclesiastical Courts to persecute Dissenters and the maintaining Correspondencies with the Pope and Catholick Princes abroad to the dishonor of the Nation and danger of our Laws and Religion cannot avoid being apprehensive what we are now to look for at his hands nor can he escape thinking that he esteems his Advancement to the Crown both a reward from heaven for what he hath done and plotted against these three Kingdoms and an opportunity and advantage administred unto him for the perfecting and accomplishment of all those Designes with which he hath been so long bigg and in travel for the destruction of our Religion the subversion of our Laws and the reestablishment of Popery in these Dominions The conduct and guidance under which His Majesty hath put himself and the fiery temper of that Order to whose Government he hath resigned his Conscience may greatly add to our fears and give us all the jealousie and dread that we are capable of being impressed with in reference to matters to come that there is nothing which can be fatal to our Religion or persons that we may not expect the being called to conflict with and suffer For tho most of the Popish Ecclesiasticks especially the Regulars bear an inveterate malice to Protestants and hold themselves under indispensable Obligations of eradicating whatsoever their Church stiles Heresie and have accordingly been alway's forward to stirr up and provoke Rulers to the use and application of force for the destruction of Protestants as a Company of perverse and obstinate Hereticks adjuged and condemned to the Stake and Gibbet by the infallible Chaire yet of all men in the Communion of the Romish Church and of their Religious Orders the Jesuites are they who do most hate us and whose Councels have been most sanguinary and alway's tending to influence those Monarchs whose Consciences they have had the guiding and conducting of to the utmost Cruelties and Barbarities towards us What our Brethern have had measured out to them in France thro Father de la Chaise's influence upon that King ' and thro the bewitching power and domination he hath over him in the quality of his Confessor and as having the direction of his Conscience may very well allarm and inform us what we ought to expect from His Majesty of Great Brittain who hath surrendred his Conscience to the guidance of Father Peters a person of the same Order and of the like mischievous and bloody disposition that the former is 'T is well observed by the Author of the Reasons against repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test that Cardinal Howard's being of such a meek and gentle temper that is able to withstand the Malignity of his Religion and to preserve him from concurring in those mischievous Councels which his purple might seem to oblige him unto is the reason of his being shut out from acquaintance with and interest in the English affaires transacted at Rome and that whatsoever his Majesty hath to do in that Court is managed by his Ambassador under the sole direction of the Jesuites So that it is not without cause that the Jesuite of Leige in his
I shall not mention would have taken so many bold wide and illegal stepps for the supplanting our Religion and Laws and for the introduction and establishment of Popery and Tyranny and this not only to the losing and disobliging his former Votaries and Partizans but to the strange allarming and disgusting most persons of honor quality and interest in the three Kingdoms were he not beside the being under the sway of his own Bigottry and the strong ballance of a large measure of ill nature bound by ties of implicite obedience to the Commands of that extravagant and furious Society to the promoting of whose passions and malice rather than his own safety and glory or the lasting benefit of the Roman Catholicks themselves the whole course of his Government hitherto seems to have been shapen and adapted The occasion and subject of the late contest between him and the Pope which hath made so great a noise not only at Rome but thro all Europe may serve to convince us both of the Extraordinary zeal he hath for the Society and of the transcendent power they have over him and that 't is no wonder he should exact an obedience without reserve from his Subjects in Scotland seeing he himself yields an obedience without reserve to the Iesuites 'T is known how that by the Rules of their Institution no Iesuite is capable of the Myter and that if the Ambition of any of them should tempt him to seek or accept the dignity of a Prelate he must for being capacitated thereunto renounce his Membership in the Order Yet so great is His Majesties passion for the Honor and Grandure of the Society and such is their domination and absolute power over him that no less will serve him neither would they allow him to insist upon less than that the Pope should dispense with Father Peters being made a Bishop without his ceasing to be a Iesuite or the being transplanted into another Order And this the old Gentleman at Rome hath been forced at last to comply with and to grant a Dispensation whereby Father Peters shall be capable of the Prelature notwithstanding his remaining in the Ignatian Order the Iesuites thro their Authority over the King not suffering him to recede from his demand and His Majesties zeal for the Society not permitting him to comply either with the prayers or the Conscience and Honour of the Supream Pontiff Not only the Kings unthankfulness unto but his illegal proceedings against and his arbitrary invading the Rights of those who stood by him in all his dangers and difficulties and who were the Instruments oâ— preventing his exclusion from the Crown and the Chief means both of his advanc 〈…〉 ment to the Throne and his being kept in are so many new evidences of the ill w 〈…〉 he bears to all Protestants and what they a to dread from him as occasions are admin 〈…〉 stred of injuring and oppressing them a 〈…〉 may serve to convince all impartial a 〈…〉 thinking people that his Popish malice to o 〈…〉 Religion is too strong for all principles of H 〈…〉 nor and Gratitude and able to cancel t 〈…〉 Obligations which Friendship for his pers 〈…〉 and service to his interest may be suppos 〈…〉 to have laid him under to any heretofor Had it not been for many of the Church 〈◊〉 England who stood up with a zeal and v 〈…〉 gour for preserving the succession in t 〈…〉 right line beyond what Religion co 〈…〉 science Reason or Interest could co 〈…〉 duct them unto he had never been able 〈◊〉 have out-wrestled the endeavours of thr 〈…〉 Parliaments for excluding him from the I 〈…〉 perial Crown of England and had it n 〈…〉 been for their abetting and standing by 〈◊〉 with their swords in their hands upon th 〈…〉 Duke of Monmouth's descent into the Kingdom anno 1685. he could nothave avoid 〈…〉 the being driven from the Throne and th 〈…〉 having the Scepter wrested out of his hanâ— Whosoever had the advantage of knowin 〈…〉 the temper and genius of the late King an 〈…〉 how affray'd he was of embarking into an 〈…〉 thing that might import a visible hazard t 〈…〉 the peace of his Government and dra 〈…〉 after it a general disgust of his person wi 〈…〉 be soon satisfied that if all his Protestant Subjects had united in their desires and coâ— curred in their endeavoures to have ha 〈…〉 the Duke of York debarred from the Crow 〈…〉 that his late Majesty would not have onâ— scrupled the complying with it and th 〈…〉 his Love to his dear Brother would havâ— given way to the apprehension and fear 〈◊〉 forfeiting a love for himself in the hear 〈…〉 of his people especially when what wa 〈…〉 required of him was not an invasion upoâ— the fundamentals of the constitution of th 〈…〉 English Monarchy nor dissonant from th 〈…〉 practice of the Nation in many repeated i 〈…〉 stances Nor can there be a greater evidence 〈◊〉 the present Kings ill nature Romish Bi 〈…〉 ry and prodigious ingratitude as well 〈◊〉 of the design he is carrying on against our 〈…〉 ligion and Laws than his carriage and be 〈…〉 viour towards the Church of England tho 〈◊〉 cannot but acknowledg it a righteous 〈…〉 gment upon them from God and a just 〈…〉 nishment for their being not only so un 〈…〉 ncerned for the preservation of our Reli 〈…〉 n and liberties in avoiding to close with 〈…〉 e only methods that were adapted there 〈…〉 to but for being so passionate and indu 〈…〉 ious to hasten the loss of them thro put 〈…〉 g the Government into ones hands who 〈…〉 s they might have foreseen would be 〈…〉 e to make a sacrifice of them to his belo 〈…〉 d Popery and to his inordinate lust after 〈…〉 spotical and arbitrary power And as the 〈…〉 ly example bearing any affinity to it is 〈…〉 t of Louis the 14 th who in recompence to 〈◊〉 Protestant Subjects for maintaining him 〈◊〉 the Throne when the late Prince of Con 〈…〉 assisted by Papists would have wrested the 〈…〉 own from him hath treated them with Barbarity whereof that of Aâ—â—iochus to 〈…〉 ards the Jews and that of Diocletian and 〈…〉 aximian towards the primitive Christians 〈…〉 ere but scanty and impersect draughts so 〈…〉 ere wants nothing for compleating the pa 〈…〉 lel between England and France but a little 〈…〉 ore time and a fortunate opportunity and 〈…〉 en the deluded Church men will find that 〈…〉 er Peters is no less skilful at Whitehall for 〈…〉 nsforming their acts of loyalty and merit 〈…〉 wards the King into crimes and motives 〈◊〉 their ruin than Pere de là Chaise hath shewn 〈…〉 mself at Versailles where by an Art peculiar 〈◊〉 the Iesuites he hath improved the loyalty 〈…〉 zeal of the Reformed in France for the house 〈◊〉 Bourbon into a reason of alienating that 〈…〉 onarch from them and into a ground of 〈◊〉 destroying that dutiful and obedient
are aware of and that having proceeded so far they have nothing left for their security from punishments because of crimes committed but to put us out of all capacity of doing our selves Right and them justice and he must be 〈…〉 ll who do's not know into what that must necessarily hurry them It being then as evident as a matter of this nature is capable of what we are to expect and dread from the King both as to our Religion and Laws we may do more than presume that the late Declaration for liberty of conscience and the Proclamation for a Toleration are not intended and designed for the benefit and advantage of the Reformed Religion and that whatsoever motives have influenced to the granting and emitting of them they do not in the least flow or proceed from any kindness and goodwill to Protestant Dissenters And tho many of those weak and easie people may flatter themselves with a belief of an interest in the Kings favour and suffer others to delude them into a perswasion of his bearing a gracious respect towards them yet it is certain that they are people in the world whom he most hates and who when things are ripe for it and that he hath abused their credulity into a serving his Ends as far as they can be prevailed upon and as long as the present Juggle can be of any advantage for promoting the papal cause will be sure not only to have an equal share in his displeasure with their Brethren of the Church of England but will be made to drink deepest in the cup of fury and wrath that is mingling and preparing for all Protestants No provocation from their present behaviour tho it is such as might warm a person of very cool temper much less offences of another complexion administred by any of them shall ever tempt me to say they deserve it or cause me to ravel into their former and past carriages so as to fasten a blott or imputation upon the party or body of them whatsoever I may be forced to do as to particular persons among them For as to the generality I do believe them to be as honest industrious useful and vertuous a people tho many of them be none of the wisest nor of the greatest pr 〈…〉 spect as any party of men in the Kingdo 〈…〉 and that wherein soever their carriage eve 〈…〉 abstracting from their differences with thei 〈…〉 fellow Protestants in matters of Religion hath varied from that of other Subjects they have been in the Right and have acte 〈…〉 most agreeably to the interest safety of th 〈…〉 Kingdom But it can be no reflection upo 〈…〉 them to recall into their memories tha 〈…〉 the whole tenor of the Kings actings towards them both when Duke of York and since he came to the Crown hath been such 〈◊〉 might render it beyond dispute that the 〈…〉 are so far from having any singular room i 〈…〉 his favour that he bears them neither pit 〈…〉 nor compassion but that they are the objects of his unchangeable indignation Fo 〈…〉 not to mention how the persecutions tha 〈…〉 were observed alway's to relent both upon his being at any distance from the late Kingâ— and upon the abatement of his influence 〈◊〉 any time into Counsels were constantl 〈…〉 revived upon his return to Court and wer 〈…〉 carried on in degrees of severity proportionable to the figure he made at Whitehall an 〈…〉 his Brothers disposedness and inclination t 〈…〉 hearken to him surely their memories can not be so weak and untenacious but the 〈…〉 must remember how their sufferings wer 〈…〉 never greater nor the Laws executed wit 〈…〉 more severity upon them than since hi 〈…〉 Majesty came to ascend the Throne As it is no 〈…〉 many years since he said publickly in Scotland that it were well if all that part of th 〈…〉 Kingdom which is above half of the Nation where the Dissenters were known t 〈…〉 be most numerous were turned into a hunti 〈…〉 field so none were favoured and promote 〈…〉 either there or in England but such as wer 〈…〉 taken to be the most fierce and violent of a 〈…〉 others against Fanaticks Nor were me preferred either in Church or State for the learning vertu ' or merit but for the passionate heats and brutal rigours to Dissenters And whereas the Papists from the ve 〈…〉 first day of his arrival at the Governmen 〈…〉 had beside many other marks of his Grac 〈…〉 〈…〉 s special Testimony of it of not having 〈…〉 e penal Statutes to which they stood liable 〈…〉 t in execution against them all the Laws 〈◊〉 which the Dissenters were obnoxious â—ere by his Majesties Orders to the Judges 〈…〉 stices of the peace and all other Officers 〈…〉 vil and Ecclesiastical most unmercifully exe 〈…〉 ted Nor was there the least talk of lenity Dissenters till the King found that he 〈…〉 uld not compass his Ends by the Church of 〈…〉 gland and prevail upon the Parliament 〈…〉 r Repealing the Tests and cancelling the 〈…〉 her Laws in force against Papists which if 〈…〉 ey could have been wrought over unto 〈…〉 e Fanaticks would not only have been left 〈…〉 ttiless and continued in the hands of the 〈…〉 rious Church-men to exercise their spleen 〈…〉 pon but would have been surrendred as a 〈…〉 crifice to new flames of wrath if they of 〈…〉 e prelatical Communion had retained 〈…〉 eir wonted animosity and thought it for 〈…〉 eir interest to exert it either in the old or 〈◊〉 fresh method's But that project not sucâ—eeding his Majesty is forced to shift hands 〈…〉 d to use the pretence of extending comâ—assion to Dissenting Protestants that he may â—he more plausibly and with the less hazard â—â—spend and disable the Laws against Papists â—nd make way for their admission into all â—ffices Civil and Military which is the first 〈…〉 ep and all that he is yet in a condition to 〈…〉 ke for the subversion of our Religion And â—ll the celebrated kindness to Fanaticks is â—nly to use them as the Catt's paw for â—ulling the Chesnut out of the fire to the Monkey and to make them stales under whose â—hroud and covert the Church of Rome may undermine and subvert all the legal foundations of our Religion which to suffer themselves to be instrumental in will not in the issue turn to the commendation of the Dissenters wisdom or their honesty Nor is there more truth in the Kings declaring it to have been his constant opinion that conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters of meer Religion than there is of justice in that malicious insinuation in his Letter to Mr. Alsop against the Church of England that should he see cause to change his Religion he should never be of that party of Protestants who think the only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller matters forasmuch as he
forefeiture of their lives to justice And as the imposing an Oath not warranted by Law is a high Act of Absolute Power and in the King an altering of the Constitution so if we look into the Oath it self we shall find this Absolute Power strangly manifested and displayed in all the parts and branches of it and the people required to swear themselves his Majesties most obedient Slaves and Vassalls By one Paragraph of it they are required to swear that it is unlawful for Subjects on any pretence or for any Cause whatsoever to rise in Arms against him or any Commissioned by him and that they shall never resist his power or Authority which as it may be intended for a foundation and means of keeping men quiet when he shall break in upon their Estates and overthrow their Religion so it may be designed as an encouragement to his Catholick Subjects to set upon the cutting Protestants throats when by this Oath their hands are tied up from hindring them It is but for the Papists to come Authorised with his Majesties Commission which will not be denied them for so meritorious a work and then there is no help nor remedy but we must stretch out our necks and open our breasts to their consecrated swords and sanctified daggers Nay if the King should transfer the Succession to the Crown from the Rightful Heir to some zealous Romanist or Alienat and dispose his Kingdoms in way of donation and gift to the Pope or to the Society of the Iesuites and for the better securing them in the possessioâ— hereafter should invest and place them iâ— the enjoyment of them while he lives thâ— Scotts are bound in the virtue of this Oatâ— tamely to look on and calmly to acquiescâ— in it Or should his Physitians advise him to 〈◊〉 nightly variety of Matron's and Maids as thâ— best remedy against his malignant and venemous heats all of that Kingdom are bounâ— to surrender their Wives and daughters to him with a du'tiful silence and a profound veneration And if by this Oath he can securâ— himself from the opposition of his dissenting Subjects in case thro recovery of their Reason a fit of ancient zeal should surprise them he is otherway's secured of an Asiatick tameness in his prelatical people by a principlâ— which they have lately imbib'd but neitheâ— learned from their Bibles nor the Statutes oâ— the Land. For the Clergy upon thinking that the wind would alway's blow out of one quarter and being resolved to make that a duty by their learning which their interest at that season made convenient have preached up the Doctrine of passive Obedience to such a boundless height that they have done what in them lyes to give up themselves and all that had the weakness to believe them fettered and bound for sacrifices to popish rage and Despotical Tyranny But for my self and I hope the like of many others I thank God I am not tainted with that slavish and adulatory doctrine as having alway's thought that the first duty of every member of a Body politick is to the Community for whose safety and good Governours are instituted and that it is only to Rulers as they are found to answer the main ends they are appointed for and to Act by the legal Rules that are Chalcks out unto them Whether it be from my dulness or that my understanding is of a perverser make than other mens I cannot tell but I could never yet be otherway's minded than that the Rules of the Constitution and the Laws of the Republick or Kingdom are to be the measures both of the Soveraigns Commands and of the Subjects obedience and that as we are not to invade what by concessions and stipulations belongs unto the Ruler so we may not only lawfully but we ought to defend what is reserved to our selves if it be invaded and broken in upon And as without such a Right in the Subjects all legal Governments and mixt Monarchies were but emptie names and ridiculous things so wheresoever the Constitution of a Nation is such there the Prince who strives to subvert the Laws of the Society is the Traitor and Rebel and not the people who endeavour to preserve and defend them There is yet another branch of the foresaid Oath that is of a much more unreasonable strain than the former which is that they shall to the utmost of their Power assist defend and maintain him in â—he exercise of this Absolute Power and Authority which being tack't to our Obeying without reserve make us the greatest Slaves that either are or ever were in the universe Our Kings were heretofore bound to Govern according to law and so is his present Majesty if a Coronation Oath and faith to Hereticks were not weaker than Sampson's cords proved to be but instead of that here is a new Oath imposed upon the Subjects by which they are bound to protect and defend the King in his Ruling Arbitrarily It had been more than enough to have required only a calm submitting to the exercise of Absolute Power but to be injoined to swear to assist and defend his Majesty and Successors in all things wherein they shall exert it is a plain destroying of all natural as well as Civil Liberty and a robbing us of that freedom that belongs unto us both as we are men and as we are born under a free and legal Government For by this we become bound to dragg our Brethren to the Stake to cutt their Throats plunder their Houses embrew our hands in the Blood of our Wives and Children if his Majesty please to make these the Instances wherein he will exert his Absolute Power and require us to assist him in the exercise of it As it was necessary to Cancell all other Oaths and Tests as being directly inconsistent with this so the requiring the Scotts to swear this Oath is the highest reveng he could take for their Solemn league and Covenant and for all other Oaths that lust after Arbitrariness and Popish Bigottry will pronounce to have been injurious to the Crown But no words are sufficient to express the mischiefs wrapt up in that new Oath or to declare the abhorrency that all who value the Rights and liberties of mankind ought to entertain for it nor to proclaim the villany of those who shall by Addresses give thanks for the Proclamation There may a fourth thing be added whereby it will appear that his Majesties assuming Absolute Power stands recorded in Capital Letters in his Declaration for liberty of Conscience For not being contented to omit the requiring the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and the Test Oaths to be taken nor being satisfied to suspend for a season the enjoining any to be demanded to take them he tells us that it is his Royal will and pleasure that the foresaid Oaths shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken which is a full and direct Repealing of the Laws in which they are Enacted It
and performed the duty that became them in going to wait upon her that She greatly commended their having â—o accession to the betraying of the Protestant Religion by their returning home to take the benefit of the Toleration What an indelible Reproach will it be to a Company of men that pretend to be set for the defence of the Gospel and who stile themselves Ministers of Iesus Christ to be found betraying Religion thro justifying the Suspension of so many Laws whereby it was established and supported and whereby the Kingdoms were Fenced about and guarded against Popery while these two Noble Princes to the neglect of their own Interest in His Majesties Favour and to the provoking him to do them all the prejudice he can in their Right of Succession to the Imperial Crowns of Great Brittain do signify their open dislike of that Act of the King and that not only upon the account of its illegality and Arbitrariness but by reason of its tendency to supplant and undermine the Reformed Religion And they are strangely blind that do not see how it powerfully operates and conduceth to the effecting of this and that in more way's and method's than are easie to be recounted For thereby our divisions are not only kept up at a time when the united Councels and strength of all Protestants is too little against the craft and power of Rome but they who have Addressed to thank the King for his Royal Papers are become a listed and enrolled Faction to abet and stand by the King in all that naturally follows to be done for the maintaining his Declaration and justifying of the usurped Authority from which it issues 'T is matter of a melancholy consideration and turns little to the credit of Dissenters that when they of the Church of England who had with so great indiscretion promoted things to that pass which an easie improvement of would produce what hath since ensued are thro being at last enlightned in the designes of the Court come so far to recover their witts as that they can no longer do the service they were wont and which was still expected from them there should be a new Tribe of men muster'd up to stand in their room and who by their vows and Promises made to the King in their Addresses have undertaken to perform what others have the Conscience and Honesty as well as the Wisdom to refuse and decline Nor are the Divisions among Protestants only hereby upheld and maintained but our Animosities and rancours are both continued and enflamed For while they of the Established way are provoked and exasperated to see all the legal Foundations both of the Protestant Religion and their Church subverted the Addressing-Dissenters are emboldned to revenge themselves upon the National Clergy in Terms of the utmost opprobry virulence and reproach for their accession to the sufferings which they had endured Surely it would have been not only more generous but much more Christian and becoming good as well as wise men to have made no other Retaliations but those of forgiveness and pardon for the injuries they had met with and to have offered all the assistances they could give to their conformable Brethren for the stemming and withstanding the deluge of Popery and Tyranny that is impetuously breaking in upon the Kingdoms And as this would have united all Protestants in bonds of forbearance and love not to be dissolved thro petty differences about Discipline Forms of Worship and a few Rites and Ceremonies so it would in the sense and judgment of all men have given them a more triumphant victory over those that had been their imprudent and peevish Enemies than if they were to enjoy the spoiles of the conformable Clergy by being put into possession of their Cures and Benefices The Relation I have stood in to the Dissenting party and the Kindness I retain for them above all other make me heartily bewail their losing the happiest opportunity that was ever put into their hands not only of improving the compassion which their calamities had raised for them in the hearts of the generality into friendship and kindness but of acquiring such a merit upon the Nation that the utmost favoures which a true English Protestant Parliament could hereafter have shewed them would have been accounted but slender as wel as just Recompences Nor can I forbear to say that I had rather have seen the Furnace of afflictions made hotter for them tho it should have been my own lot to be thrown into the most scorching flames than to have beheld them guilty of those excesses of folly towards themselves and of treachery to Religion and the Laws of their Countrey which their present ease and a shorâ— opportunity afforded them of acquiring gain have hurried and transported so many of them into It plainly appears with what aspect upon our Religion the Declaration for liberty of Conscience was emitted if we do but observe the advantages the Papists have already reapt by it How is the whole nation thereupon not only overflow'd with swarms of Loâ—â—sts and all places filled with Priests and Iesuites but the whole executive Power of the Government and all preferments of honor interest and profit are put into Roman Catholick hands So that we are not only exposed to the unwearied and restless importunities of Seducers but through the advancement of Papists to all Offices Civil and Military if not Ecclesiastick the covetous become brib'd the timorous threatned and the prophane are baited with temptations sutable to their lusts and they that stand resolved to continue honest are laid open not only to the bold affronts of Priests and Fryers the insolencies of petulant Popish Justices the chicaneries and oppressions of the Arbitrary Commission Court but to the rage of his Majesty and the danger of being attaqu'd by his Armed Squadrons To which may be added that by the same Prerogative and Absolute Power that his Majesty hath suspended the Laws made for the Protection of our Religion he may disable and dispense with all the Laws by which it is set up and established And as it will not be more illegal and Arbitrary to make void the Laws for Protestancy than to have suspended those against Popery so I do not see how the Adressers that have approved the one can disallow or condemn the other For the King having obtained an acknowledgment of his Absolute Power and of his Royal prerogative paramount to Laws on his exercising it in one Instance it now depends meerly upon his own will for any thing these Thanks-giving Gentlemen have to say against it whether he may not exert it in another wherein they are not likely to find so much of their ease and gain There is a third Inducement to the Emitting those Royal Papers which tho at the first â—iew it may seem wholly to regard Forraigâ—ers yet it ultimately terminates in the subâ—ersion of our Religion at home and in the Kings putting himself into a condition of
Papists in that case we may confidently believe that the King instead either of Assenting to such a Bill for separate favour to Protestants or persevering in his Compassion and Kindness of continuing the Suspension of the Laws against Dissenters he would from an inveterate enmity as well as from a new contracted resentment be stirred up and enraged to the putting the Laws in execution with greater rigor and severity than hath been seen or felt heretofore And all that the Addressers would then reap by the Declaration would be to undergo the furious effects of brutal rage in their Persecutors and to be unpittyed by the Kingdom and unlamented by their fellow Protestants Or should His Majesty in favour to his good Catholicks resolve against the meeting of a Parliament or to adjourn and prorogue them whensoever he shall find that instead of confirming what he hath done they shall make null his Declaration vote his pretended prerogative illegal and arbitrary and fall upon those mercinary and perjured Villains who have allowed him a power transcendent to Law yet even upon that supposal which is the best that can be made to support mens hopes in the continuance of the present Liberty the Protestant Dissenters would have but slender Security all the tenure they have for the duration of their Freedom being only precarious and depending meerly upon the Kings Word and promise which there is small ground to rely upon Nor can he be true to them without being false to his Religion which not only gives him leave to break his Faith with Hereticks but obligeth him to it and to destroy them to boot and that both under the pain of damnation and of forfeiting his Crown and losing his Dominions And how far the Promise and Royal Word of a Catholick Monarch is to be trusted unto and depended upon we have a modern proof and evidence in the behaviour of Louis de Grand towards his Reformed Subjects not only in repealing the many Edicts made and confirmed by himself as well as his Ancestors for the free exercise of their Religion but in the method's he hath alway's observed namely to promise them protection in the profession of their Faith and practiâ—â— of their Worship when he was most steâ— fastly resolved to subvert their Religion a 〈…〉 was about making some fresh advan 〈…〉 and taking some new step for its extirpatiâ—â— Thus when he had firmly purposed not 〈◊〉 suffer a Minister to continue a year in tâ—â— Kingdom he at the same time publishâ—â— an Edict requiring Ministers to serve b 〈…〉 three years in one place and not to returâ— to the Church where they had first officiateâ— till after the expiration of twentie years 〈◊〉 the same manner when he had resolveâ— to Repeal the Edict of Nantes and had givâ— injunction for the Draught by which it wâ—â— to be done he at the same season gave thâ— Protestants all assurances of Protection anâ— of the said Edicts being kept inviolablâ—â— To which may be added that shameful anâ— detestable Chicanery in passing his Sacreâ— and Royal Word that no violence shoulâ— be offered any for their Religion tho at thâ—â— very moment the Dragoons were upoâ— their march with orders of exercising a 〈…〉 manner of cruelties and barbarities upoâ— them So that His Majesty of Great Brit 〈…〉 tain hath a pattern lately set him anâ— that by the Illustrious Monarch whom hâ— so much admires and whom he makes iâ— his ambition and glory to imitate Noâ— are we without proofs already how insigni ficant the Kings promises are except to de lude and what little confidence ought tâ— be put in them The disabling and suspen ding the 13 th Statute of his late Parliameâ—â— in Scotland wherein the Test was confirmed and his departing from all his Promises Registred in his Letter as well as from those contained in the Speech made by the Lorâ— Commissioner pursuant to the Instructionâ— which he had undoubtedly received together with his having forgotten and recedeâ— from all his Promises made to the Church oâ— England both when Duke of York and since he came to the Crown are undeniable evidences that his Royal Word is no more Sacred nor binding than that of some other Monarchs and that whosoever of the 〈…〉 rotestants shall be so foolish as to rely â—pon it will find themselves as certainly â—isappointed and deceived as they of the 〈…〉 ormed Religion elsewhere have been 〈…〉 d while they of the established way find 〈◊〉 small security by the Laws which the â—ing is bound by his Coronation Oath to obâ—erve the Dissenters cannot expect very â—uch from a naked Promise which as it â—ath not a solemn Oath to enforce it so 't is â—oth illegal in the making and contrary to 〈…〉 he principles of his Religion to keep Nor is 〈◊〉 unworthy of observation that he hath â—ot only departed from his promises made â—o the Church of England but that we are told 〈◊〉 a late Popish Pamphlet Entitled A New Test 〈◊〉 the Church of Englands Loyalty published 〈…〉 as it self say's by Authority that they were 〈…〉 ll conditional to wit by vertue of some â—â—ntal Reservation in his Majesties breast â—nd that the Conformable Clergy having fai 〈…〉 ed in performing the Conditions upon which they were made the King is abâ—olved and discharged from all Obligaâ—ion of observing them The Church of England say's he must give his Majesty leave â—ot to nourish a Snake in his bosom but rather â—o withdraw his Royal protection which was proâ—ised upon the account of her constant fidelity Which as it is a plain threatning of all the Legal Clergy and a denunciation of the unâ—ust and hard measure thy are to look for So it shakes the Foundation upon which all credit unto and relyance upon his Majesties Word can be any way 's placed For tho Threatnings may have tacit Reserves because â—he right of executing them resides in the Threatner yet Promises are incapable of all â—atent conditions because every Promise vests 〈◊〉 Right in the Promise and that in the virâ—ue of the words in which it is made But 〈◊〉 is the less to be wondred at if His Majesty 〈…〉 y to Equivocations and Mental Reserves being â—oth under the conduct of that Order and a Member of the Society that first taught and â—racticed this treacherous piece of Chicaâ—erie However it may inform the Dissen 〈…〉 s that if they be not able to answer the End for which they are depended upon or be not willing in the manner and degree that is expected or if it be not for the interest of the Catholick cause to have them indulged in all these cases and many more the King may be pronounced acquitted and discharged from all the Promises he hath given them as having been meerly stipulatory and conditional And as he will be sure then finem facere ferendae alienae personae to lay aside the disguise that he hath now put on so if they would reflect either upon his
these being â—incible to a person of an ardent love to God â—nd of a lively faith in Jesus Christ and which accordingly many thousands have been â—riumphantly victorious over Nor is it likely that this new and uncouth phrase of â—ot using an invincible nec 〈…〉 would have found room in a Paper of that nature if it had not been first to counceal some malicious and mischievous design and then to justify the consistency of its execution with what is promised in the Proclamation Moreover were there that security intended by these two Royal Papers that protestant Dissenters might safely rely upon or did the King act with that sincerity which he would delude his people into a belief of there would then be a greater agreeableness than there is betwixt the Declaration for liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland The principle his Majesty pretends to act from that Conscience ought not to be constrained and that none ought to be persecuted for meer matters of Religion would obliege him to act uniformly and with an equal extention of favour to all his Subjects whose principles are the same and against whom he hath no exception but in matters meerly Religious Whereas the disparity of grace kindness and freedom that is exercised in the Declaration from that which is exerted in the Proclamation plainly shews that the whole is but a Trick of State and done in sâ—bserviency to an end which it is not yet seasonable to discover and avow For his circumscribing the Toleration in Scotland to such Presbyterians as he stiles moderate is not only a taking it off from its true bottom matters of meer Religion and a founding it upon an internal quality of the mind that is not discernable but it implyes the reserving a liberty to himself of withdrawing the benefits of it from all Scots Dissenters thro fastning upon them a contrary Character whensoever it shall be seasonable to revive persecution And even as it is now exerted to these moderate ones it is attended with Restrictions that his Indulgence in England is no ways clog'd with All that the Declaration requires from those that are indulged is that their Assemblies be peaceably openly and publickly held that all Persons be freely admitted to them that they signify and make known to some Justice of the peace what places they set apart for these uses and that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the bearâ—s of the people from the King or his Government whereas the Proclamation not only restrains the meetings of the Scots Presbyterians to private Houses without allowing them either to build meeting Houses or to use out-houses or Barns but it prohibits the hearing any Ministers save such as shall be willing to swear that they shall to the utmost of their Power assist defend and maintain the King in the exercise of his Absolute power against all deadly Nor is it difficult to assign the reason of the difformity that appears in His Majesties present Actings towards his dissenting Protestanâ— Subjects in those two Kingdoms For should there be no Restriction upon the Toleration in Scotland to hinder the greatest part of the Presbyterians from taking the advantage of it the Bishops and Conforming Clergy would be immediately forsaken by the generality if not all the people and so an â—ssue would not only be put to the division among Protestants in that Kingdom but they would become an united and thereupon a formidable Body against Popery which it is not for the interest of the Roman Catholicks to suffer or give way unto Whereas the more unbounded the Liberty is that is granted to Dissenters in England the more are our divisions not only kept up but increased and promoted especially thro this Freedom's arriving with them in an illegal way without both the Authority of the Legislative Power and the approbation of a great part of the People it being infallibly certain that there is a vast number of all ranks and conditions who do prefer the abiding in the Communion of the Church of England before the joining in fellowship with those of the Separate and dissenting Societies Upon the whole this different method of proceeding towards Dissenting Protestants in matters meerly Religious shews that all this Indulgence and Toleration is a Trick to serve a present juncture of Affairs and to advance a Popish and Arbitrary design and that the Dissenters have no security for the continuance of their Liberty but that when the Court and Jesuitick end is compassed and obtained there is another course to be steered towards them and instead of their hearing any longer of Liberty and Toleration they are to be told that it is the interest of the Government and the safety and honor of his Majesty to have but one Religion in his Dominions and that all must be Members of the Catholick Church and this because the King will have it so which is the Argument that hath been made use of in the making so many Converts in France They who now suffer themselves to be deluded into a confidence in the Royal word will not only come to understand what Mr. Coleman meant in his telling Pere de la Chaise that the Catholicks in England had a great work upon their hand being about the extirpation 〈◊〉 that Heresie which hath born sway so long 〈◊〉 this Northern part of the world but they wiâ—â— also see and feel how much of the desig 〈…〉 of Rome was represented in that passage 〈◊〉 the Popes Nuncio's Letter dated at Bruxel 〈…〉 Aug. 9. 1674. wherein upon the confidencâ— which they placed in the Duke of York whicâ— is not lessened since he came to the Crown he takes the confidence to write that theâ— hop'd speedily to see the total and final ruin 〈◊〉 the Protestant Party And as Protestant Dissenters have no secu rity by the Declaration and Proclamation foâ— the continuance of their Liberty so theâ— that have by way of thanksgiving Addresseâ— to the King for those Royal Papers have noâ— only acted very ill in reference both to the Laws and Rights of the Kingdoms and of Religion in general but they have carried very unwisely in relation to their own interest and the avoiding the effects of that resentment which most men are justly possessed with upon the illegal Emission of these Arbitrary and Prerogative Papers I shall not enter upon any long Discourse concerning this new practice of Addressing in general it having been done elsewhere some years ago but I shall only briefly intimate that it was never in fashion unless either under a weak and precarious Government or under one that took illegal courses and puâ—sued a different interest from that of the People and Community As he who Ruleth according to the standing Laws of a Countrey over which he is set needs not seek for an Approbation of his Actions from a part of his Subjects the Legality of his proceedings
deserve should they be proceeded against according to their demerit yet it is to be hoped that both they and the Addressers of the former stamp may all find room in an Act of Indemnity and that the Mercy of the Nation towards them will triump over and get the better of its Iustice. As it would argue a strange and judicial infatuation should they proceed to farther excesses and think to escape the punishment due to one Crime by comitting and taking Sanctuary in another thro improving their compliments into actions of treachery so all their hope of pardon as well as of lenity and moderation from a true Protestant and rightly constituted Authority depends upon their conduct and behaviour henceforward and their not suffering themselves to be hurried and deluded into a co-operation with the Court for the obtaining of a Popish Parliament All their endeavours of that kind would but more clearly detect and manifest their treachery to Religion and the Kingdom it not being in their power to ontvote the honest English part of the People so as to help the King to such a House of Commons as he desires and were it possible that thro their assistance in conjunction with violence and tricks used in Elections and Returns by the Court such a â—ouse of Commons might be obtained as would be serviceable to Arbitrary and papal Ends yet neither the King nor they would be the neâ—rer the compassing what is aimd at it being demonstrable that the Majority of the House of Lords are never to be wrought over to justify this illegal Declaration or to grant the King a Power of Suspending Laws at his pleasure nor to give their Assent to a Bill for Repealing the Test Acts and the Statutes that enjoin and require the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy And if they should be so far left of God and betrayd by those among themselves whom the Court hath gained as to become guilty of so enormous an Act of folly and villany and should the Election of the next Parliament be the happy juncture they wait for and the improving their interest as well as the giving their own votes for the Choice of Papists into the House of Commons be what they mean by an essential proof of their Loyalty and of the sincerity of their humble Addresses and that whereby they intend to demonstrate that the greatest thing they have promised is the least thing they will perform for his Majesties service and satisfation as in that case they will deserve to forfeit all hopes of bei 〈…〉 forgiven so it would be an infidelity to Go 〈…〉 and Men and a cruelty to our selves 〈◊〉 our Posterity not to abandon them as betray 〈…〉 of Religion expunge them out of the Roll 〈◊〉 Protestants strip them of all that where 〈…〉 free Subjects have a Legal Right and not 〈◊〉 condemn them to the utmost punishment 〈…〉 which the Laws of the Kingdom adjudg th 〈…〉 worst of Traitors and Malefactors unto There are some who thro hating of them do wish their miscarrying and offending t 〈…〉 so unpardouable a degree that they ma 〈…〉 hereafter be furnished with an advantage both of ruining them and the whole Diâ—senting party for their sakes But as the lov 〈…〉 that I bear unto them and the perswasio 〈…〉 and belief I have of the truth of their Religious principles do make me exceeding solic 〈…〉 tous to have them kept and prevented from being hurried and transported into so fata 〈…〉 and criminal a behaviour so I desire 〈◊〉 make no other excuse for my plain dealin 〈…〉 towards them but that of Solomon who tell us that faithful are the wounds of a friend whi 〈…〉 the kisses of an Enemy are deceitful and that h 〈…〉 who rebukes a man shall find more favour afterwards than he who flattereth with the tongu 〈…〉 POSTSCRIPT SInce the fore-going Sheets went to the press and while they were Printing off there is come to my hands a new Proclamation Dated at Windsor the 28. of Iune 1687. for granting further Liberty in Scotland and which was published there by an Order of the privy Council of that Kingdom bearing Date at Edinburgh the 5. of Iuly This Superâ—â—tation of one Proclamation after another in reference to the same thing is so apportioâ—ed and parallel to the late French method of Emitting Edicts in relation to those of the Reformed Religion in that Kingdom that they seem to proceed out of one mint to be calculated for the same End and to be designed for the compassing and obtaining the like effects For as soon as an Alarm was taken at the publishing of some unreasonable and rigorous Edict there used often to follow another of a milder strain which was pretended to be either for the moderating the severities of the former or to remove 〈…〉 d rectify what they were pleased to call 〈…〉 isconstructions unduly put upon it but 〈…〉 e true End whereof was only to stiffle and 〈…〉 tinguish the jealousies and apprehensions 〈…〉 at the other had begotten and excited and â—hich had they not been calmed and allayd 〈…〉 ight have awakened the Protestants there 〈◊〉 provide for their safety by a timely withâ—rawing into other Countries if they had â—ot been provoked to generous endeavoures â—f preventing the final suppression of their â—eligion and for obviating the ruin which 〈…〉 at Court had projected against them and â—as hastning to involve them under Nor 〈…〉 es my suspition of his Majesties pursuing â—e same design against Protestants which â—e great Louis glories to have accompli 〈…〉 ed proceed meerly from that conjun 〈…〉 ion of Counsels that all the world observes â—etween Whitehall and Versailles nor meerâ—â— from the Kings abandoning his Nephew â—nd Son in Law the Prince of Orange and not 〈◊〉 much as interposing to obtain satisfaction 〈◊〉 be given him for the many injuries dam 〈…〉 ages spoiles and robberies as well as 〈…〉 fronts done him by that haughty Monarch â—hen one vigorous application could not 〈…〉 il to effect it nor yet meerly from that â—greeableness in their procedures thro the â—ing of Englands imitating that forraign Po 〈…〉 ntate and making the whole course that 〈…〉 at h been taken in France the Pattern of 〈…〉 ll his actings in Great Brittain but I am â—uch confirmed in my fears and jealousies 〈…〉 y remembring a passage in one of Mr. Cole 〈…〉 ans Letters who as he very well knew what 〈…〉 e then Duke of York had been for many 〈…〉 ears ingaged in against our Religion and 〈…〉 ivil Liberties and under what Vows and 〈…〉 romises he was not to desist from prose 〈…〉 ting what had been resolved upon and un 〈…〉 ertaken so he had the confidence to say 〈…〉 at his Masters design and that of the King of 〈…〉 ance was one and the same and that this â—as no less as he farther informs us than 〈…〉 e exâ—â—â—pating the Northern Heresie Had the â—ing of England acted with
Loyal and faithful to himself save those who â—re willing to beâ—â—â—y their Countrey and be Rebells and Traitors against the Legal Constitution I say whosoever considers all this and a great deal more of the same Hue and complexion cannot imagine unless he be under a judicial blindness and a strange insatuation that any thing arriving from the King tho it may be a matter wherein they may find their present ease and advantage should proceed from compassion and good will to his Protestant Subjects but that it must be only in order to promote a distinct interest from that of his people and for the better and more easie accomplishing of some wicked and unjustifiable design And tho his Majesty would have us believe that the reasons moving him to the Emission of this 2â—â— Proclamation were the s 〈…〉 istruous Interpretations which either have or may be made of some Restrictions in his former yet it is not difficult even without being of his privy Council to assign a truer motive and a more real and effectual cause of it For as that of the 12 th of February came forth attended with so many limitations not casie to be digested by men of wisdom or honesty lest if it had been more unconfined and extensive and should have opened a Door for all Scotts Dissenters to have gone in and taken the benefit of it the generality of Protestants in that Kingdom abstracting from the Bishops Curaâ—es and a few others should have joined in the separate interest and thereby have become an united Body against popery but upon finding that hardly any would purchase their freedom from the penal laws at so dear a rate as to do things so unbecoming Men and Christians as the conforming to the Terms therein prescribed obliged them unto and that as they of the National Communion were alarm'd and disgusted so few or none of the Dissenting fellowships were pleased and that both were not only angry at the many illegal favours and threatning advantages bestowed upon the Papists but were grown so sensible of the design carrying on against the Protestant Religion and the liberties and priviledges of the Subject that tho they could not renounce their respective tenets in the matters wherein they differed yet they were willing to stifle their heats and animosities and to give that encouragement aid and assistance to one another as was necessary for their common safety upon these considerations his Majesty if he would have spoken sincerely ought to have said that he had published this new Proclamation in order to hinder Scots Protestants from uniting for their mutual defence against Turkish Tyranny and Romish Idolatry and in hopes thereby to continue and exasperate their undue and passionate heats and to keep them not only in divided and opposit interests but to make them contribute to the suppressing and ruining each other or at least to look on unconcernedly till he have ripened his designes against them both and be prepared for extirpating the Reformed Religion and for subverting the fundamental as well as Statute Laws and for bringing such to the stake and Gibbet as shall have the integrity to assert the one or the courage to plead for the other And yet in this last Proclamation wherein he grants a more illimited freedom than in the former and promiseth to Protect all in the exercise of Their Protestant Religion as he disdainfully and ignominiously calls it there is a clause that may discourage all honest men from owning their Liberty to the Authority that bestows it and from which it is derived and conveyed to them For not being satisfied to superstruct his pretended Right of Suspending S 〈…〉 pping and Disabling Laws upon his Soveraign Authority and Prerogative Royal but as knowing that these give no such pre-eminence and Iurisdiction over the Laws of the Kingdom he is pleased to challeng unto himself an Absolute Power as the source and spring of that exorbitant and Paramount Claim which he therein exerciseth and exerts And forasmuch as Absolute Power imports his Majesties being loose and free from all ties and restraints either by fundamental Stipulations or superadded Laws it is very natural to observe that he allows the Government under which we were born and to which we were sworn and stood bound to be hereby subverted and changed and that thereupon we are not only absolved and acquitted from the Allegiance and fealty we were formerly under to his Majesty but are indispensably obliged by the â—ies and engagements that are upon us of maintaining and defending the Constitution and Government to apply our selves to the use of all means and endeavours against him as an Enemy of the people and a subverter of the legal Government wherein all the interest he had or could lawfully claim was an official Trust and noâ— an Absolute 〈◊〉 or a despoâ—icat Dominion the first whereof he hath deposed aâ—d abdicated himself from by challenging and usurping the latter And should any Scots dissenter either in his entrance upon the Liberty granted by this Proclamation or in addressing by way of thankfulness for it take the least notice of this freedom's flowing from the King which cannot be done without Recognising this Absolute Power in his Majesty as the fountain of it he is to be lookt upon as the worst of Traitors and deserves to be proceeded against both for his aecession unto a 〈…〉 justifying the subversion of the Laws Libe 〈…〉 ties and Government of his Country anâ— for betraying the Rights of all free-borâ— men For those few Reflections in thâ— fore going Sheets which this New Proclamation may not only seem to render useless and frustrate the end whereunto they werâ— intended but may make the publishing anâ— animadversions upon that which the Kinâ— by departing from does himself Censure anâ— condemn be esteemed both a faileur iâ— in genuity and candor and a want of rega 〈…〉 to those Measures of Justice which oughâ— to be observed towards all men and morâ— especially towards Crowned Heads I shalâ— only say that as the Proclamation arrived wi 〈…〉 me too late to hinder and prevent the communication of them to the publick so I have this farther to add in justification oâ— their being published that it will thereby appear that what his Majesty stiles sinistruo 〈…〉 Interpretations made of some Restrictions mentioned in his former are no other than the just natural genuine and obvious constructions which they ly open unto and are capable of and which a man cannot avoid fastning upon them without renouncing all Sense and Reason And while the King continues to disparage and asperse all sober and judicious Reflections upon that Royal Paper by charging upon them the unjust and reproachful Character of sinistruous Interpretations it is necessary as well as equal that the whole matter should be plâ—iâ—ly and impartially represented to the World and that the 〈◊〉 â—be re 〈…〉 tted and lâ—â—t to the understanding and 〈…〉 ass ' 〈…〉 part of mankind who are the calumniators and Slanderers they who accuse the Proclamation of importing such principles consequences and tendencies or he and his Ministers who think they have avoided and answered the imputations fastned upon it when they have loaded them with hard and uncivil terms For tho he be pleased to assume to himself an Absolute Power which all are bound to obey without reserve and in the virtue of which 〈…〉 e Suspends Stops and Disables what Laws he â—leaseth yet I do not know but that his 〈…〉 ntellectuals being of the size of other mens 〈…〉 nd that seeing neither his Soveraignity 〈…〉 or Catholicalness have vested in him an 〈…〉 nerrability why we may not enter our 〈…〉 lea and demurr to the dictates of his Judgment tho we know not how to withstand the efforts of his Power Nor shall I sub 〈…〉 oin any more save that whereas his Ma 〈…〉 esty Declares so many Laws to be disabled to 〈…〉 ll Intents and purposes he ought to have remembred that beside other intents and purposes that several of them may hereafter serve unto as the Papists may possibly come to have experience there is one thing in reference to which he cannot even at present hinder prevent their usefulness and efficacy and that is not only their raising and exciting all just resentments in the minds of free-born and generous men for his challenging a Power to Suspend and Cassate them but their remaining and continuing Monuments of his Infidelity to the Trust reposed in him of his departure from all promises made at and since his entring upon the Government and of his invading and subverting all the Rules of the Constitution FINIS Pag. 4 col 2. lin 3. after Court put ibid. lin 41. r. knew P. 5. col 1. l. 3. r. account ibid. l. 30. r. inpemperate ibid. col 2. l. 35. r. in P. 6. col 2. l. 18. aiteâ— Order put P. 7. col 2. l 39. for anâ— as P. 11. col 1. l. 32. r. stirred up ibid. l. penult 1. judg P. 25. col 2. in the margin r. Rot. Parl. 7. Hen. 4. P. 31. col 2. l. 11. r. obsoleâ—e P. 40. col 1. l. 38. r. Promisee P. 47. col 1. l. 27. r. reverse Hist. of the Times Proef. to h 〈…〉 Hist. of th 〈…〉 Times p. 〈◊〉 De Laudib Leg. Angl. c. 9. Bract. lib. 〈…〉 cap. 16. Fle 〈…〉 lib. 1. c. 17. Lib. 3 〈…〉 cap. 9 〈…〉 Rol. Parl. 7. Hist. 4 Num. 59. See Mr. Alsops Speech to the King.