handle to pervert blast or invalidate any Parliaments Proceedings The last thing that I shall here mention of this nature is That His Majesty was so very cautious of endangering the Nation though by a temporary or occasional means of its preservation and of even giving umbrage of any such offence that after he had represented in a peculiar instance § 19. the failure or rather neglect of the then Evil Counsellors in not doing more to satisfy the many good Subjects of these Kingdoms or to put an end to their doubts He declares in very express terms § 21. that he brought over with him a force sufficient by the blessing of God to defend him from the violence only of those the then Evil Counsellors And further promiseth § 23. That as soon as the state of the Nation will admit of it he would send back all those Foreign Forces that he had brought along with him Not only so but in his additional Declaration we all may remember how occasion'd he most emphatically disclaims abhors and renounceth all suspicion of a wicked design of Conquering the Nation And as jealous for the People of their abandoning themselves altogether and their Deliverance too at last after such Instances given of their over-great and too easy Passiveness he yet further there minds them of the fatal Consequences of putting the Free People of England under a Force as that which would make void their own lawful Titles to their Honours Estates and Interests This as it shews His Majesty's great Wisdom and Goodness together so it serves to speak and make appear the Considerateness and sound Reasons of the late Parliaments Proceedings in relation to the Army and also strongly implies the Defectiveness of what is yet done therein which may not be unworthy your further Consideration For as it was one of the State-Policies calculated to serve the sinister Ends of the late Reigns to neglect discourage and discountenance The Militia of the Kingdom thereby to render it both contemptible and in a great measure useless in order to the superinducing in process of time and as time should serve A Standing Force so it appears but a reasonable Jealousy or Conjecture That notwithstanding what is already done in this matter if more do not follow and that the Militia of the Kingdom at least be not new-modell'd and better form'd than it can possibly be on the Foot it now stands it may yet prove for want of some ready disciplin'd domestick Power of one kind or another to withstand and oppose any Foreign Attempt but as a Postern-gate to let in at one time or other A Standing Force upon the Nation and then they that would have Honours Estates and Interests according to what goes before must have them there or no where Or if Gentlemen notwithstanding our present sure and happy Peace apprehend it requisite as an immediate Guard and Defence of the Nation to continue on foot for this one Year longer a certain Number of Men call them Regular Troops a Standing Force or Army or whatever else their Appellation be yet taking the real meaning to be That their Being shall determine with the Year it may nevertheless sure with Decency and good reason be expected not only that some special Reason be assigned why These must be continued This Year more than The Ensuing for a Perpetual Reason and a Yearly Expedient correspond not over-well and Perpetuity it self is made up and in some sort consists of One Year after Another But further I humbly presume it may moreover be expected that the same Gentlemen will rather chuse to move First than wait to Second any Motion for suitable Provisions for Futurity suppose one be for instance as before The new forming the Militia of the Kingdom that thus under the Cover of the foremention'd Expedient this at least may be gain'd that it be better settled Trained and become more and every way useful ◠upon this supposition still that as yet we want what is sufficient for the Safety Honour and Happiness of the Kingdom The glorious Ends His Sacred Majesty not only came hither for at first but which is all as he to his immortal Honour be it ever spoken continues gratiously to assure us in his late Speech to both Houses of Parliament he hath to ask After which I see not how it can any longer remain a doubt if any hitherto hath been but that an English Parliament will and without prejudice to any their more particular Engagements most carefully hold those general Engagements above-mentioned to the Safety Honour and Happiness of the Kingdom in all and every respect sacred or His Majesty is but too like to fail of the honourable Expectation he so graciously expresseth of the present Parliament And they will appear to come infinitely below the thoughts he entertain'd P. of O's Letter to the Officers of the Army even of the Officers of the late King James ' s Army who he had goodness enough to hope would not suffer themselves to be abused by a false notion of Honour but that they would in the first place consider what they owed to Almighty God to their Religion to their Country to themselves and to their Posterity which they as men of honour and it seems to hold much the same with all men of honour ought to prefer to all private Considerations and Engagements whatsoever but besides the force and extent of these Considerations yet even for the obtaining of the present supposed Point in issue a certain Land-Force for this one Year As such provisions and such concurrence by removing all Reasonable Jealousies and by that means inducing Men of somewhat other thoughts to quit their fears of this or any present Expedient that upon mature deliberation and debate shall be found occasionally necessary do both plainly and naturally tend to facilitate the End so they also help to make it easy for the time if not every way and altogether agreeable to those of such different Sentiments which with humble submission I take it His Majesty's late Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament is of more weight and better account than perhaps the bare carrying This or it may be any Other Point can in its self possibly be It being beyond all contradiction no less than self-evident That the flourishing of Trade the supporting of Credit and the quiet of Peoples minds at home will depend on the opinion they have of their Security I have been the freer to give some before-hinted Jealousies in this place the term of Reasonable because I observe That the raising and keeping a standing Army in time of Peace without consent of Parliament is assign'd in the Agreement of the House of Lords with the concurrence of the House of Commons as one of the Acts whereby the late King James did endeavour to subvert the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom and which together with all other the particulars therein enumerated
THE Plain Man's Essay FOR ENGLAND'S Prosperity More particularly REFERRED and SUBMITTED To the Consideration of the LORDS and COMMONS In Parliament Assembled 1698. LONDON Printed for A. Baldwin near the Oxford Arms in Warwick-Lane MDCXCVIII THE Plain Man's Essay FOR England's Prosperity c. THE Advantages of Religion and Government are of so Universal Influence and Concern that since every one in their respective Spheres must bear a part in both relations it will scarce be denied but they may nay ought to act one also according to their several Powers and Capacities This may Apologize for my thus casting a Mite into the Publick Treasury And while I but offer at preserving Your Honours in the distinguishing Characters and Consideration Your Ancestors and Predecessors have been eminent for and deservedly enjoyed beyond Us of a Lower and inferior Rank I presume to promise my self That my Attempt will not be held inconsistent with that branch of duty to our Neighbour The ordering my self lowly and reverently to all my Betters according as we are taught in our Church Catechism For though the Advantages are many and great which we have sensibly recovered by means of the late Happy Revolution yet the Nation was too long a dividing and corrupting and too far sunk with narrow mistaken Notions of Christian and Civil Liberty to be at once freed from all Danger and restor'd to that extensive Charity which beareth 1 Cor. 13. 7. all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things c. This makes me hope and willing to persuade my self That though mens Notions and Actings have seem'd in many respects very opposite and too too passionate and exasperating that this however hath proceeded from a mistaken first and then a misguided Zeal rather than from any inbred Malice of one towards another or ill-will at bottom to their Native Country For when our common Danger was grown to that heighth as became sensible and apparent to them we have seen men of the most suspected Pretensions strike in and close with under God the happy Instrument of our Deliverance Our present Gracious King in his glorious Expedition for Preserving of the Protestant Religion and for P. of O's Declarat Restoring the Laws and Liberties of England Scotland and Ireland But though I apprehend we may easily err and so judge amiss in imputing over-much to mens Wills and too little to our Sins and Misdoings the grievous Pressures the Nation was reduced to and which further threatned it yet it 's every one's duty to prevent what in him lies the pernicious Principles and Practices that brought both Church and State to such Extremities and which may again obstruct their Settlement so that there may be no more danger of the Nation 's falling at any Ibid. time hereafter under Arbitrary Government But as the watchman woketh but in vain except the Lord doth keep Psal 127. â— the city so altogether in vain is it to presume and expect that human Means should prosper for our preservation if we continue by our Sins to work our own destruction There are so many excellent Discourses full fraught with such cogent Reasons continually almost both preached and published shewing the indispensible necessity of a good Life and withal of a Reformation of Manners in the Age we live that I shall not pretend to insist on that part and indeed I think it altogether needless here especially For I do not observe that this bears any part in our Modern Controversies nor do I meet with any body that contradicts it in particular For which Reasons I chuse rather to hint one Occasion among many others it 's not improbable whence it comes that a matter so obvious in it self so universally acknowledg'd so strenuously enforced and in its own nature and consequence so beneficial to Mankind takes so little place That nothing in Religion seems near so like a contradiction as men are to themselves I am partly aware that in this licentious Age rather than of perfect Freedom the common cry goes so much of a rank Infidelity and gross Atheism that some will be ready to suggest mens Lives are not such a contradiction to their Sentiments as I here insinuate But under favour and in the words of a Reverend and Learned Prelate of our Church A Lord Bishop of Sarum's Pastoral Care Lord Bacon's Essays Learned or Contemplative Atheism is so hard a thing to be conceived that unless a man's powers are first strangely vitiated it is not easy to see how any one can bring himself to it and therefore 't is that God is observed as the Great Lord Bacon remarks never to have wrought a Miracle to convince Atheism because his Ordinary Works convince it But the truth seems rather to lie here as the same excellent Person further expresseth it Ibid. That all that impugn a Received Religion or Superstition are by the Adverse Party branded with the Name of Atheists so I remember it likewise noted by a Modern Author That in Germany an Atheist once signified a Person that medled with the Pope's Mitre or the Monks fat Bellies and thus nearer home in some past times It was little better to question the Divine Right of a special Form of Ecclesiastical or Civil Government exclusive of all others There are indeed but too too many who in a profligate way take it may be a sort of fantastical vain pride in talking after an Atheistical manner as well as in living so too which is what I with others deny not but bewail and because I look not on this as I said to proceed from a form'd and setled Judgment but as a prejudice they have imbib'd from men only I will now give some account whence I take both the one and the other in great part to arise and prevail so far Though no Human Authority in Religious Matters is decisive and absolutely binding among men no not where Infallibility is pretended much less with such who renounce a Claim so empty but withal so artificial yet in fact I incline to think it will be owned that nothing sways so much as the Authority and Example of Professors especially Superiors of all sorts it matters not to distinguish here any more than to instance particulars and that men for the most part even in the weightiest Concerns of this World and another judge more from what they see and hear than what they understand and consequently form and regulate their Speech and Actions more by Sense than true Knowledge Which made that Great and Good Man the late Archbishop Tillotson say That Fifth Vol. of his Sermons p. 118. he could not see how Christianity can ever gain much ground in the world till it be better adorned and recommended by the Professors of it Nor is it easy to conceive how in this state of Nature it can be otherwise since God in his wisdom hath constituted the make and frame of Mankind such That Speculative
sure a Foundation that there P. of O's Addit Declarat may be no danger of the Nations relapsing into the like Miseries at any time hereafter which we are abundantly assured was his Majesty's only design in that Undertaking It would be no hard matter to suggest divers Particulars that have a natural Tendency to compleat so Pious so Glorious an Enterprise and men are apt with a good and laudable Intention to instance in what occurs for that purpose according to their various Sentiments and Turns of Imaginations as among others in a General Naturalization and a Publick Registry c. But I shall content my self here to point at only in short some few of the many Instances particulariz'd in the forementioned Declarations as carrying with them both their own Evidence and Authority referring the rest to the more accurate able and discerning Considerations of those and such the Lords and Commons as upon the Agreement and Concurrence of both Houses having entire Confidence That his Highness the Prince of Orange would perfect the Deliverance so far advanced by him c. did resolve and declare the Prince and Princess of Orange King and Queen of England France and Ireland c. And did pray them to accept the Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdoms and Dominions accordingly The Particulars then that I shall here on this Head touch upon are in order as I find them there where the 10th Paragraph runs thus They have also invaded the Privileges and seized on the Charters of most of those Towns that have a Right to be represented by their Burgesses in Parliament and have procured Surrenders to be made of them by which the Magistrates in them have delivered up all their Rights and Privileges to be disposed of at the pleasure of those Evil Counsellors who have thereupon placed new Magistrates in those Towns such as they can most entirely confide in and in many of them they have put Popish Magistrates notwithstanding the Incapacities under which the Law has put them Again in the 18th Paragraph we have these words And contrary to the Charters and Privileges of those Boroughs that have a Right to send Burgesses to Parliament they have ordered such Regulations to be made as they thought fit and necessary for assuring themselves of all the Members that are to be chosen by those Corporations And in the 21st it 's declared That in order to the having a free and lawful Parliament assembled all the late Charters by which the Elections of Burgesses are limited contrary to the ancient customs shall be considered as null and of no force And likewise all Magistrates who have been unjustly turned out shall forthwith resume their former Employments as well as all the Boroughs of England shall return again to their ancient Prescriptions and Charters But whether the bare restoring these to their ancient Proprietors and their Successors especially after such bold presidents of manifest violations committed upon them be a sufficient security against a precarious Tenure in times to come I submit to your better and more deliberate Considerations and may it please your Honours to consider withal what His Majesty Prince-like adds in his concurring second Declaration That the seeming release from their great Oppressions offered to the City of London upon the hearing of his Preparations to assist the People was done only hoping thereby to quiet the People and to divert them from demanding a secure Re-establishment of their Religion and Laws And that such security might not in aftertimes prove fallacious His Highness out of his deep foresight and Princely Wisdom whose care of the People hath been all along transcendent at the same time subjoin'd That the defectiveness of the redress was apparent while they laid down nothing which they may not take up at pleasure and they reserved entire and not so much as mentioned their claims and pretences to an Arbitrary and Despotick Power which has been the Root of all their Oppression and of the total Subversion of the Government Hinc illae Lachrime His Majesty herein hath abundantly done his part the preceding Parliaments have gone a good way and 't is not to be doubted but Your Honours will proceed And that the good people of England will persevere and adhere to His Majesty his most Just and Gracious Declarations as also to the present Government founded thereupon and thereafter The next particular in course that follows and which also depends much on the preceding Article as the foregoing References do plainly intimate is the Being and Business of Parliaments concerning which the 18th Paragraph uncontroulably asserts That according to the Constitution of the English Government and immemorial Custom all Elections of Parliament-men ought to he made with an intire Liberty without any sort of force or the requiring the Electors to chuse such persons as shall be named to them And the persons thus freely Elected ought to give their Opinions freely upon all matters that are brought before them having the good of the Nation ever before their Eyes and following in all things the Dictates of their Conscience This manifestly relates as to the Freedom of Election of Members so also to the entire freedom of such Members acting afterwards Towards the former of these especially there have been some good things Enacted but yet the laying Penalties or Incapacities on Candidates may not probably be sufficient I say not to cure but to prevent the evil without laying the Electors themselves under like Penalties and Incapacities nor is there good reason why the former should be interdicted and not the latter In case it be said That if no body did Tempt no body would be Corrupted I reply if no body was to be or would be corrupted no body would tempt so that by this means there would at least be both less Temptation and less Corruption As to the other branch their Freedom of acting the name of the Pentioner Parliament is not so stale as to be forgotten nor of the nature of sowr Wines which by turning Vinegar come again in vogue God Almighty hath taught man that to be delivered from evil he must pray not to be led into temptation There is a Reverend and Worthy Class among you whose Predecessors lay some time since under the imputation of the dead Weight which yet was not owing so much to men's aversion or their objections to the Order it self however craftily it hath been given out and vulgarly taken as to their Dâ—pendencies and the effects that these have wrought in times past and if ever the like effects appear in the other House as the consequence would not be less fatal so the Parties themselves would not be less obnoxious It would be well therefore if such modest and reasonable provisions were herein timely made as consist with the publick service and that this Rock of Offence be so done away as that our Enemies may not at any time whatever have it or take it for a
was by them declared utterly and directly contrary to the known Laws and Freedom of this Realm whereupon followed the Abdication and Vacancy which made way for under God our present Gracious Deliverer and Sovereign to fill the Throne thereby to supply that Vacancy And that these words without Consent of Parliament stand part of this forecited Article takes not off the force thereof For besides the foreignness of the Supposition That a Free English Parliament would e're consent to raise or keep up an Army in time of peace without some imminent danger apparently impendent on the Nation and Government This only obviates the Exceptions and Offence that might be taken from the Ways and Means of coming by or of retaining such a Force but by no means provides against the many and great Dangers if no more immediate Evils naturally accruing and arising thence which is by far the greatest part of the difficulty as it is most evidently of the last and utmost Concern to a free People Now how any can think it if any do altogether unreasonable to be though but thus remotely jealous for His Majesty and our own sakes of any thing that had such a part in the late King James's Fate and the Nations Sufferings under him is beside I confess or it may be rather it surpasseth my small Capacity and Understanding which way soever the merits of the matter turns as to a Standing Land-Force being a present necessary Expedient for preserving the safety honour and happiness of the Kingdom And as to what consideration it may have Abroad His Majesty is also pleased in his before-mentioned late Speech so full of Wisdom and Grace to give us this fresh Information and Assurance That to preserve to England the weight and influence it has at present on the Councels and Affairs Abroad it will be requisite Europe should see we will not be wanting to our selves ☞ But as to this and indeed in what not His Majesty moreover had before acquitted himself in so solemnly declaring § 21. the design of his Expedition to be That so the Two Houses may concur in the preparing of such Laws as they upon full and free debate shall judge necessary and convenient both for the confirming and executing the Law concerning the Test and such other Laws as are necessary for the security and maintenance of the Protestant Religion as likewise for making such Laws as may establish a good Agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters as also for the covering and securing of all such who will live peaceably under the Government as becomes good Subjects from all persecution upon the account of their Religion even Papists themselves not excepted and for the doing all other things which the Two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the peace honour and safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nation 's falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government by which he fully refers to your Honours as he still continues to do And there in all humility I leave these Considerations at a Season which in many respects appears proper and adapted to such Cares and Endeavours For an end being put to the growing Expences and Hazards of a tedious War the time is come that the Nation by report at least and speech of People has been referr'd to The Time is also come that such as for distinction-sake have been call'd Whiggs are said to be more in play and have greater Parts and Interests in State-Affairs than formerly who have hitherto loudly call'd for a full Regulation and better Settlement in these Matters And God be thanked our Case is not at present so forlorn and past all remedy that it should seem to be with us as Bishop Sanderson on another occasion express'd himself as with decaying Merchants almost become desperate who when Creditors call fast upon them being hopeless of paying all grow careless of all and pay none And if These neglect their Opportunities which God and the King have and do put into their hands and more if they withstand them in so dishonouring their own Principles and sinning so much against knowledge and conviction they 'll endanger the rendring themselves contemptible and of becoming more a common scorn than I am willing to say for thus as Popish Policy sowed Divisions among us that we might do their work by in our turns devouring one another when they without our help were not sufficient to effect our Ruin so Tories as men have been distinguished might well laugh in their Sleeves nor scarce would they stop there if the Whiggs but through neglect or indiscretion suffer those Evils to overtake Posterity which the Others could not whether wittingly or unwittingly bring upon the present Generation and so it would be justified beyond dispute that though it would be hard perhaps nay next to impossible it may be to establish the Government altogether by Tories yet however that it 's also possible it may not be preserv'd with Whiggs Quod Deus avertat It were 't is confess'd to a high degree vain to imagine that so general a defection and corruption as well in Politicks as Manners as hath over-run the Nation since the very Remarkable Restauration of King Charles the Second should be wiped off corrected and set right in an instant but so your Faces my Lords and Gentlemen are but seen and observ'd to keep looking towards the peace and prosperity of our Jerusalem that we continue not still under a Government of Expedients the Nation it 's not to be doubted will repose themselves on you as their present best and ablest Physicians when to apply and how to proportion either Remedies or Preservatives and thus persisting you 'll still more ennoble your selves by giving more glory to God in doing more good to men and beyond any thing besides thereby also will you endear His Sacred Majesty whom God long preserve a publick Blessing to those Nations yet more and more to all His Subjects universally render His Reign happy and His Memory precious to all Posterity agreeable to the judicious Observation of a Wise and Experienc'd Gentleman now living That a King of England at the head of His Sir W. Temple in his Essays Parliament and People and in their hearts and interests can never fail of making what figure he pleases in the World nor of being safe and easy at home and may despise all the Designs of factious men who can only make themselves considered by seeming to be in the interest of the Nation when the Court seems to be out of it But in running on Councels contrary to the general humour and spirit of the People the King indeed may make his Ministers great Subjects but they can never make Him a great Prince Which notwithstanding in its true and genuine sense and signification concludes not but that at long run too the King 's is as truly and properly His Ministers