discourse managed with almost irresistable reason candour temper and Address be matter of exasperation and they turn again and are more hardned in their obstinacies and become more confirmed in their separating way nothing but their own thoughts and the consideration in what a desperate condition they have brought the Reformed Religion by their Separation will reclaim them But it is expected that Governments should be wise that they manage and controul the Follies and Weaknesses of those committed to their care that they may do the least mischief to themselves and others and by prudent and practicable methods amend and reform them The most froward weiward and stubborn Children give their Parents the most care and opportunities of exercising the most tender love for them though they can take no complacency in their awkerdness The Church of England is concerned to retain all her Children in her Family to shut out none by abdication that their numbers be not few and she be ashamed when she speaks with her Enemy in the Gate Not to provoke any of them to wrath lest they forsake her and turn against her when distresses shall come upon her She hath reason at this time sure to make her Discipline easie and to learn of the Church of Rome to be more comprehensive Their Doctrine of comprehension is so large that it destroys the Religion to increase the number of Professors but I mean no more than that positive and alterable institutions may give place to the peace security and preservation of Religion it self to whose service they were first fram'd and design'd It hath been heretofore of old it hath been said Mores Leges in potestatem pertraxerunt suam Plato formed an Idea to himself of a Common-wealth without respect to the manners of men but he writ another which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say accommodated and fitted to the manners of the people and such as they would bear Origen in his Book against Celsus applies to Moses the Answer of a famous Law-giver who asked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. whether those Laws he had given to his Citizens were the best the answer was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. not simply the best but the best they would bear And we all know what God permitted to the Jews in the matter of Divorce for the hardness of their Hearts When all is said People must be governed as they can But in the mean time it is pity any of our zeal and indignation should be mispent when we have use for it all against the Church of Rome the source whence all our Divisions spring To which we owe the first Separations that were made in our Church which appears by undeniable Records published by Dr. Stillingfleet in his Book called the Vnreasonableness of Separation How they have propagated multiplied exasperated and promoted our Divisions to tell you would make a Volume besides no Protestant is now to know it I have only this further to observe that the Church of Rome at first only designed by the Arts of dividing us and breaking us into several Communions to disgrace the Reformation to make our spiritual Governours Pastors and Teachers lose their Authority with the People To deprave our Religion with licentious opiniastre and absurd dogmatizing to load our departure from that Church with the mischief of innumerable Schisms and to make us reconcilable to the Tyranny and Impostures of that Church from the vain opinions and licentiousness of the Sectaries who have been seduced managed inflamed and made wild by their imposturous Arts and Deceits This I believe was only at first designed by the Priests but now they apparently design by the Dissenters to destroy the Church or by the Church to destroy the Dissenters that they more easily come to rights with her They imagine the Dissenters are very numerous and that the Nation is fallen into two great parts that the Dissenters numbers are vast But God be thanked they neither make our Grand Jury-men nor the common Halls of the City of London for chusing the Lord-Mayors or Sheriffs And I challenge any man to give me a List of all the Names of Dissenters that were of the House of Commons in our two last Parliaments I am sure they will not make a Number but they reckon the Numbers of Dissenters by the care they have taken to increase it They used great art to continue the Separation when His Majesty was restored Since Laws have been made to raise the Animosities of Dissenters but scarce ever executed for repressing them If for any reason of State the Laws here and there and for a spurt have been exacted secret comforts and supports have been given to their Preachers of greatest Authority with them And when they have seem'd to preach with the courage and zeal of Confessors to their Auditors they have not only been assured of indempnity but have received rewards How prosperously did the work of Separation go on by these Councils of our Achitophels by these means they concluded it would be heightned that it would admit of no terms of an accommodation How insolent were their Harangues more taking with their deluded Auditors while they apprehended them acted with an invincible zeal of Religion What Animations did their People receive to defy the Church and her Authority when their Preachers despised Fines and Imprisonment to their seeming out of pure zeal against her Order It is well known several of them were in Pension and no men have been better received by the D. than J. J. J. O. E. B. and W. P. c. Ringleaders of the Separation Besides that Popish Priests have been taken and executed for preaching in Field-meetings in Scotland They have raised there a sort of Enthusiasts more wild and mischievous than any we had amongst us in the times of licentiousness They have had notwithstanding great Lords that have patronized them who were always well received in their applications in their favour at St. James's and several of their Preachers who were not Priests have received Exhibition and Pensions for their encouragement It was necessary that the Fanaticism planted in Scotland should be very loathsome to make that Nation abate any of their zeal for the Protestant Religion or to neglect their fears and apprehensions of Popery or to make the least step towards it Awake you drowsie Sleepers open your eyes the Sun is risen there is light enough to fill your sight if you would look up and were willing to see Could any thing be conceived more apt to bring the Church of England into contempt and scorn with those of the Separation than to have Laws made in her favour penal Laws which are thought to be of her procurement and not executed Vain and ineffective anger is always returned with contumely scorn and hatred Cupide conculcatur nimis ante metitum And so it hath succeeded in this case nothing hath been more passable than the basest scurrility upon the
intendments How unreasonable therefore are the Tragical Exaggerations of the considerer making it the most heinous wickedness and the most crying Injustice to alter that which in its own nature is alterable and by an Act of the Government to exclude the D. from the Succession as a person unfit and unsafe to be entrusted with the Government though in the general order thereof he was thereto designed besides that he hath forfeited that kind of right that he had by that general appointment Is this saith he the way of establishing the Protestant Religion he saith this is exactly to follow the footsteps of that Monster of Ingratitude the wicked Jeroboam who after God of his infinite goodness had raised him from nothing and established him Monarch of the ten Tribes of Israel yet was he so mistrustful of Gods Power in preserving his Kingdom for the future that he thought nothing could secure it but his own accursed Policy Our Considerer seems to have a high value for Rule and Domination otherwise he would not have called the advancement of Jeroboam to rule by Usurpation an effect of the infinite goodness of God But these words were put in to make that story of Jeroboam parallel to our case and he intends thereby to remember us of the little power that the reformed Religion sometimes had perhaps in the time of Queen Mary and to charge upon the Protestant Religion and reproach it with a Revolt and unjustifiable Schismatical departure from the Church of Rome in the time of Queen Elizabeth and the acquiring and possessing it self of the Government And now behold the man now you know him and his Religion and how fit he is to offer Considerations for the D. against the Bill But shortly to destroy his parallel he may know that the Reformation did only assert and reassume the Rights of the Crown usurp'd by the Bishop of Rome We did reform the Religion of our Church to primitive Christianity from which the Church of Rome had seduced us but therein we used no other Power than what belongs to every Church to reform it self we were never of right and duty subject to the Church of Rome she never rightfully had any Authority over us and therefore we could not Schismatically revolt from her nor are parallel at all in this to Jeroboam though this man will compare us to him and thereby slily charge us with monstrous Ingratitude to God and accursed Policies because we will not again give up our Civil Rights to the Tyranny of Rome nor lose again the true Christian Religion in the Superstitions and corrupt Doctrines of that Church and because we will not forbear to use that power which is lawful to every Government Except this be his meaning and he himself a Papist he might with as much pertinency have told any other story of Jeroboam or of any other of the Kings of Israel and Judah in the Books of the Kings or Chronicles or of Belteshazzar or Nebuchadonozor Zenacherib Ahasuerus or Holofernes or Antiochus or any other King or Name in story Sacred or Prophane Of all these he could not have found out any thing more unlike to have compared with us to have remarked himself for a man of great Considerations For Jeroboam corrupted the true Worship of God to support an Usurped Crown but the design of the Bill against which he declaims is to support a Lawful Government and the best Religion by a legal Act of that Government So that we will invert that Wo which he pronounceth against us out of the Prophet Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong into a Wo against himself Wo unto him that putteth evil for good and darkness for light and casteth a stumbling-block before his neighbour But in what follows of this Writer of Considerations I doubt me whether he doth not act the part of a scorning Atheist for that he would perswade the World from all care and regard of Religion by telling us it is able to shift for it self it being the work of Gods own hand His Atheistical scorn and low valuation of the true Christian Religion is further very notorious and remarkable for that he makes the establishment thereof amongst us to be such a like work of the Almighty Hand of God that establish'd Jeroboam in the Kingdom of Israel O thou Insensatus Galata to return thy own Exclamation which thou usest against thy own honest and discerning Country-men upon thy stupid self For who I pray you but a senseless man would compare a providential permission of the revolt of the ten Tribes for the sins of David and the sins and oppressions of Solomon to which the People were prepared by the exactions oppressions and riotous Reign of Solomon and his Successor Rehoboam to the work of the Reformation which was the delivery and restoring to it self the Gospel of Christ and his true Religion which was spoiled and depraved by the Church of Rome for the benefit I doubt not of all the Ages of Mankind to the end of the World against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail and which we in despight of the Roman Successor shall see yet flourish in this Land But we must not expect though God did first plant his Church by Miracles in Nature and demonstrations of the Spirit of Power by the wonderful Gifts of the Holy Ghost and by the Spirit of Glory resting upon the Primitive Martyrs of the Holy Faith and did restore the purity of the Christian Faith by a Miraculous Providence and the Spirit of Martyrdom which we are now peacefully and Legally possessed of I say we have no reason to expect Wonders for our preservation when it seems to be in our own hands Nor ought we to subject the Professors of the True Religion again to Slaughters Fire and Faggot Tortures Inquisitions and Massacres Let us not think that our Government as it lies in History and our Laws in Books and Parliament-Rolls which will easily suffer an Index expurgatorius and make no complaint can defend us and it against the Instruments and Engines designed for its subversion in the Plot and the powers that have been long addressing to that purpose and are now at leisure to execute what we know is designed against us better than we can make out and discover This Expression I know would scarce pass for sense in any other Age or Matter but we live in an Age of Mystery and Prodigy producing things Monstrous and unnatural and our Language must be agreeable to the things we speak of The True Patriot proceeds and affirms That it is an unwarrantable Attempt and a point without example or president to Depose a Prince for not complying with his People in Religion I appeal to all that shall read him whether he appears to be a man of Reading enough to warrant him to pronounce a general Negative in this matter But by this time there is nothing so extravagant but
themselves and some there are so false and unjust as to suggest That the Argument for the Bishops Right was written to set off the Postscipt with some advantage and that the Author design'd to gain from the Argument a more pardonable liberty of inveighing against the Church-men in the Postscript If this had been the conceit of men of the Popish Faction only and not also of many Gentlemen whom I principally designed to serve and in them the Church of England thereby I should not have thought it worthy my notice For every man understands it is their business and design to divide the Church-men from the Interest of the Church to set the Church against her self To rob the sheep of their shepherds and the pastors of their flocks They know and true it is that no good and useful Constitution can ever be destroyed but by it self i. e. by ceasing to be so And that the people will never part from any thing wherein they find their benefit and advantage except they can deprave our Church they can never hope to destroy her They have corrupted some of our Church-men with Principles that subvert our Government and betray the Rights of our People They have debauched the Manners of our Church-men and lessened their Authority and Esteem with the people The Order is enslav'd by Collation of Preferments upon less worthy men Qui beneficium accepit libertatem vendidit They have raised a bitter zeal against that Separation that they themselves have contriv'd fomented and promoted And it is brought to pass that those are accounted Church-Fanaticks though Conformists that cannot contentedly see and endure the near approaches of ruine both of Church and State These are their fear and their hate The Sons of Anak the Giants of the Land that they they imagine so insuperable that they are for making themselves a Captain and returning back into Egypt Against these they exercise the keenness of their Wit and to supply themselves with matter of Raillery against them they lick up the Vomit of the Popish Priests and whatever is malitiously said by them against the first Reformers is daily repeated by our young Clerks out of the Pulpit with advantages of immodesty and indiscretion for the disservice and dishonour of their Order with the impudent Lies that the Papists have forg'd against Luther Beza and Calvin and other renowned instruments in the Reformation they disparage the Reformation of great service this to the Church of England and the Protestant Religion These young men like Dotterels Apes and Parrots who have no more understanding than those Animals are perpetually repeating any thing though never so destructive to Church and State that is suggested by any Popish Mercenary Writer if he hath but the cunning to bestow an idle Complement upon the Church or calls Rogue and Villain seemingly or in pretence for their sake especially if he can furnish to their young invention any Topicks of Raillery against an imaginary Presbytery and against Parliaments an essential part of our Government and the security of our Liberty A very fair capacity and recommendation this as they imagine to Preferment These are the Men I confess for whose sake I writ the Postscript And if it can conduce any thing either to reform them from their Errors or else to make them of no regard with the People That they be not hereafter taken to speak the sense of the Church of England and we ty'd down to certain ruine by her pretended Authority And especially that she may not hereafter suffer under the scandal of such forward and precocious youths I say if I can obtain by my endeavours any of these effects in any degree I reckon I have performed an agreeable service to the King and Kingdom We have a sort of young men that have left nothing behind them in the University but the taint of a bad example and brought no more Learning with them thence than what serves to make them more assured and more remarkable Coxcombs who will undertake to discourse continually of the Interest of Religion of which they have no manner of sense and of the Constitution of our Government of which they are utterly ignorant These take our degenerate Gentlemen to be the great Supporters of our Religion and Government whose Loyalty consists principally in Rounds of Brimmers and Huzzahs who have not so much leisure from their repeated Excesses and Debauches as to consider that they are not the wiser for their Cups In these Loyal Debauches too many of the young Clergy do most scandalously assist for the service of the Church and for maintaining the honour of their Order This if the Superiour Clergy do not in time redress they will betray our Religion and ruine the Government both in Church and State These degenerate Levites are magnifying perpetually the Priviledges of their Tribe extolling their Order yet in terms that disgrace it but by their Lives they vilifie it The most degenerate off-springs of Noble Families are the greatest Braggadocio's of their Discent Those boast most of their Ancestors who dishonour them by their Relation The Jews did not boast more of their Temple the Templum Domini the Templum Domini at that time when they had filled up the measure of their iniquity and the destruction both of their Temple and Nation was at the door their Temple had not one stone left upon another and they carried into Captivity than these Gentlemen do of the Church of England when Popery is like to be let in upon her by their wicked follies and indiscretions Popery I say which by some Doctrines undermines the very foundation and by others unroofs the Edifice and defaces the Walls of Christian Faith and leaves nothing thereof but Altar-stones for their Idolatrous Sacrifices what ever the fates will be that they are pulling down upon the Nation The Apostolicalness of their Order will not secure it if they do not fill up the duty of their Office no more than the Templum Domini did priviledge the Jewish Church and Nation from destruction A Temple without a Numen and an Undedicated Church are things common and profane They may remember there are Churches of Christ that do make a shift without their Order and Religion need not perish though the Order fail but may subsist much easier than Nations under Change of Governments which yet generally last longer than any one form Nothing can subsist longer or at least to any good purpose than it answers the ends of its Institution and if it do not it is much better that it should not continue than that it should subsist Grotius in his Book De Jure Summarum Potestatum circa Sacra assigns these Reasons for the Discontinuance of Episcopacy in some Churches viz. Longa atque inveterata jam plane Officii Episcopalis depravatio Nomen Eminentia Episcopalis eorum culpâ quibus obtigerat omnem sui reverentiam perdiderat in odium venerat plebis Non debent saith he
that to make Experiments and try Conclusions upon There is little reason to charge the Guilt of the unexpiable Murder of our late Excellent King for which at this day we are doing most severe penances upon Presbytery which was not thought of here in England till the War was begun The heats that produced that unhappy War were from other Causes and Reasons as every body may know But when that War was once begun as no War can be managed by fore-established Rules and Measures it did not stand within the reasons and first designs thereof but was prosecuted and managed by such means and measures as were necessary and possible This will always happen more especially in a Civil War wherein though both parties share in the Causes yet the Guilt to be sure belongs to the Rebels side The Parliament in the Course of the War in their distress prayed Aid of the Scotch Nation who was shortly before entered into the Covenant They refused them any Assistance except they would enter into that Covenant which they had passed upon their own people By this accident that part of the Nation that was engaged in that unnatural War of the Parliaments side were imposed upon by the Scotch Presbytery But after the Covenant was thus imposed they still retained the English Loyalty filled the Town with Protestations and Remonstrances against the Kings feared Murther declared out of their Pulpits against the Actors of that detestable Tragedy were continually contriving to restore our present King to the Government of his Kingdoms and of their instrumentality in his Restoration the King himself is very sensible I wish the Church too were made sensible of the extinction of that prejudice the Scotch Covenant created against her for though God be thanked she hath survived almost all of those deluded Covenanters yet the apprehension of the danger or the remembrance of the evil at least will return with the mention of that name and render it very displeasing I wish I say that prejudice was removed by their frank Declaration of their good liking of her Order in general and by their humble desires to be spared in the matters whereof they yet remain in doubt by the indulgence of the Church That we may not incur the danger of loosing our Religion and Government by the scandal that is given to the Church-men at the old remembrance of what hath been done here by some that were of the Presbyterian Name For this matter of Offence they of the Popish Faction do with mighty advantage to their Villainous design cultivate and improve They stigmatize all that oppose the Popish Plot with the Name of Presbyterians and thereby would denote them Enemies of our Church-Order By this means they have brought many too many Eminent men of our Church to at least a dead Neutrality as if things were come to this pass that they must perish either by that or the Popish Faction and had nothing left them to do but to chuse which way our Church shall be destroyed A cold comfort this would be that whatever way they should take they must assist to the destruction of their Order Upon this rock we are like to be split this makes our deliverance to stick in the birth and upon this hinge the fate of our Religion and Nation will turn Lord what a prodigious thing is this that is come to pass in our age Religion it self must be the devoted thing to the rage and folly of the Priests of that Religion Let them in the Name of God consider what iniquity it is to declame against the faults of others and not endure to hear of their own Crimes To hate one-another for those very proceedings that their own faults occasion where the fault is in both sides the fault is in neither so as they may justly accuse one another and yet they will both fall under a most severe Condemnation to be sure in the next world if they do not both miss their aims and be confounded with guilt and disappointment in this I wish it were considered that scarce any Nation ever yet perished that was so blinded in her own concerns that she had not discerning men enough to have preserved her from the destroying Evil if many good and wise men did not perswade themselves it was better to suffer it than to endeavour to prevent it and from the fears of one Party and the dislike they have conceived against the other determine with themselves to stand Neuters whilst they want Resolution to oppose the dangers that one side threatens and think the disorders of the discontents incorrigible It was a wise Law of Solon That if the Common-wealth at any time should be divided into Factions that the Neuters should be noted with infamy by which every man was obliged to take a side or Party and all the virtuous peaceable and modest were engaged to appear openly in the concernments of the Government he concluded assuredly that by this means Peace would be more easily restored and terms of an accommodation more readily invented and entertained the Factious Knaves of both sides turned out of Office their Evil Designs disappointed and the ruine of the Nation by the Extremities of wicked men prevented For the worst men are most forward in Factions and the greatest beautefeus most honoured by their respective contending Parties before the wise and good interpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Causes of the Differences would be better understood be rendred clear and conspicuous when the honest men such as can have no interest but the publick good whose Authority is more prevalent with the people than the clearest Reason do declare them and those that are mis-led and abused into Extreams would then unite and conspire against those who gave the first occasion to the Divisions and promote them As did the Factions of the Colonnois and the Vrsins who having discovered that Pope Alexander the Sixth set them still at discord and variance amongst themselves so by their Calamities and Falls to encrease the strength and power of his Son Borgia they fell to agreement among themselves and made head against him their common Enemy If all that are true Protestants and true lovers of our Government would declare themselves on the behalf of our Religion and Government in such terms as befit honest men and as the Exigency of our present state shall require we shall find the numbers of Addressers reduced to the Dukes Pensioners Creatures The number of Phanaticks made so few that the Papists would again become the Fautors and Defenders of Fanaticism as they were about ten years since lest the numbers of Fanaticks should not be big enough to make a Scare-crow for the Church of England or the Schism not considerable enough to disgrace her All discerning men see that the late Addresses have been obtain'd by application That the design therein was to make Voices for the discontinuance of Parliaments and for a Popish Succession If the people
are pleased with these things there is no wrong done them and if we affect a change of our Religion and Government it may be easily obtain'd The King hath no reason to consent to disinherit his Brother if the People rejoyce in the hopes of such a Successor or at least will acquiesce under that fate but if we would avoid it we must deprecate it in such applications to his Majesty as consists with true Loyalty and with such earnestness as the matter requires and at the same time represent the smalness of the numbers of Addressers and the inconsiderableness of their quality Thus his Majesty would understand better the Sense of his People especially when most of the Addressers themselves shall by joyning in such Applications shew what they meant by Lawful Successors in their Addresses And that when in the same Addresses they did engage to serve the King with their Lives and Fortunes they did not intend to subject themselves and all that they have to his Majesties absolute pleasure In that they thank his Majesty for his Promise of frequent Parliaments they desire them and when they thanked him for his promise to maintain the Protestant Religion they desired the continuance of it and such a Law as is absolutely necessary for its preservation Then it may appear that the Abhorrers themselves did not understand that the name of the Earl of Shaftsbury in the business of Abhorrence is but like the name of John a Styles and John an Oaks of Titius and Sempronius in putting a fictitious Case And that the onely Question askt was Who are the most damnable Plotters at this time the Protestants or Papists And that this was the Question intended to be put to the People in the Sollicitation of Addresses of Abhorrence is evident If we did dutifully represent to his Majesty these Proceedings as the Arts of our Enemies for dividing us and the Methods of our designed Ruine we should not be undone and there is nothing more than this necessary for the preventing of our Ruine since we have so gracious a King Our King is duly stiled Pater Patriae he will not suffer his People to be calamitous as no good Prince can suffer his to be from any cause whatsoever that is to be removed no not from their own Fears and Jealousies if they are innocent reasonable and probable The Affections of a Prince to his People supersede his Affection towards any private Relation So strong is the Tye of Duty upon him from his Office to prevent publick Calamities as no respect whatsoever no not of the Right Line can discharge nor will he himself ever think if duly addressed that it can By the Kingly Office he is taken up from amongst men and is made a God to us he is not to suffer the passions of a private man so as to be swayed by them In this high capacity In the matters of the Government nothing ought to determine him but the Common weal to which purpose all Governments are instituted Besides the excellent humanity of our King which hath made his Reign so clement doth dispose him to a tender Affection towards his People committed to his care and must powerfully incline and perswade him to do any thing that is necessary for preventing such Evils which as they are greater than can be supported by his People so if they come upon us we shall never be able to emerge or recover from under their pressures There wants nothing but a universal desire of being happy to make us so and nothing but a declaring our steady abhorrence of the Evils we cannot sustain is further necessary for preventing them Our Enemies will be destroyed meerly by our uniting they have no direct Strengths of their own all their hopes and confidence is in our Divisions We may evacuate their designe by making it impossible without a Conflict with any of the Evils fear'd We shall have no Enemies from that time we are at peace with our selves if we have courage enough to say we are not content to perish we are immediately safe Our Traytors would disappear if we had no Neuters and we cannot lose either our Religion or Government if we have a just concern for them If the Protestants would in time understand that the single Art and Stratagem they have to undo us is by dividing us we should not assist it by receiving false and hated Characters of the several Sects that are amongst us from the Popish Writers and represent them to our selves as more detestable than the Popish Traytors and alike Enemies to the Government It is no more agreeable to a scrupulous man about a Ceremony of the Church to depose and murder his lawful Prince than to a man of a nice Conscience to be impiously wicked Too true it is all Nations and Religions have been sometime or other stain'd with the horrid guilts of Deposing and Murdering Kings under a pretence of destroying Tyrants and vindicating their Country from Oppression The Bishops concur'd with the Temporal Lords in deposing the second Richard In an Address to that King they justifi'd themselves therein Ex Antiquo Statuto from the Constitutions of the Kingdom and Ex facto nuperrimè dolendo by which they meant the deposing of Edward the Second Knighton one of the Decem Scriptores published by Mr. Selden gives us the Address in terminis Until the Collectors of Dissenters Sayings can justifie the Bishops in this matter let them not trouble the world any more with the farrago of some of their wicked Sayings thereof to make a Character of a Dissenter for it belongs no more to him as such to be a Traytor or Rebel than it doth to the Character of the English Bishops to depose their King and cause his most Sacred Bloud to be shed and profan'd as a common thing But for removing the fears that our cautious Church-men have of Dissenters which hath cast them into a cold indifferency and inert neutrality at this time when if ever the Applications of an active Prudence are required from all honest men and lovers of their King Country and Religion I wish they would weigh and consider the mischiefs on either hand What the Popish Party designes and what the Dissenters would have What powers the Popish Party have what endeavours they use to force their Superstitions upon us and to change our Government That the Dissenters have neither Power nor Will to destroy our Religion or Government They are already of our Church and it is expected that they should be Petitioners to the Bishops for their intercession towards obtaining some Indulgence in some little matters that may bring them into an entire Communion with us It may easily be known who are for the preservation of our Government or dissolution of it by their Desires or Abhorrences of Parliaments and who desires Parliaments more than Dissenters which would preserve our ancient Government in Church and State and the true Religion establish'd among
King and Estates of Parliament is as antient as any thing can be remembred of the Nation The attempt of altering it in all Ages accounted Treason and the punishment thereof reserved to the Parliament by 25 Edw. 3. The conservancy of the Government being not safely to be lodg'd any where but with the Government it self Offences of this kind not pardonable by the King because it is not in his power to change it This is our Government and thus it is established and for Ages and immemorial time hath thus continued a long Succession of Kings have recognized it to be such And just now when we are under the dread of a Popish Successor some of our Clergy are illuminated into a mystery that hath been concealed from the beginning of Governments to this day from the wisdom of all Princes and Ministers of State That any authority in the Government not derived from the King and that is not to yeild to his absolute Will was rebellious and against the Divine Right and Authority of Kings in the Establishment against which no usuage or prescription to the contrary or in abatement of it is to be allowed That all Rights are ambulatory and depend for their continuance upon his pleasure So that though the Reformation was made here by the Government established by Law and hath acquired civil Rights not to be altered but by the King and the three Estates These men yet speak say you as if they envied the Rights of their own Religion and had a mind to reduce the Church back again into a state and condition of being persecuted and designed she should be stripped of her Legal Immunities and Defensatives and brought back to the deplorable helpless condition of Prayers and Tears do utterly abandon and neglect all the Provisions that God's providence hath made for her protection Nay by this their new Hypothesis they put it by Divine Right into the power of a Popish Successor when he pleaseth at once by a single indisputable and irresistable Edict to destroy our Religion and Government And these opinions you say they are the more inclined to entertain for that they believe no Plot but a Presbyterian Plot for of them they believe all ill and call whom they please by that hated name and boldly avow that Popery is more eligible than Presbytery for by that they shall have greater Revenues and more Authority and Rule over the Lay-men This is a heavy Charge if true but it is imputable I am sure but to a few and not so generally as some malevolent men of the Popish Faction are industriously busie to have it For if it were I confess it might choque the constancy Resolution and Zeal of the most addicted to the service of the Church-men and make them at least very indifferent in their Concerns For these mistakes are so gross and inexcusable that they ought if they could perish by themselves to be permitted to suffer the smart of their own follies and to be corrected by the evils they are drawing down upon themselves with their own hands They deserve to suffer as betrayers of their own Country To be prosecuted with greater shame and ignominy by all of the Reformed Religion than the Traditores were by the Antient Christians These their deserting of the true Christian Faith being much less excusable than their fault that deserved that name and of greater mischief as of deeper malignity How many of the Clergy-men are thus misled we know not but they seem many more than they are because they are most in view and come often under observation frequent publick houses and talk loud because they want the Complement of their Preferments But certainly Sir what you say to be the declared Opinions of some Clergy-men is the business now of the Papists to propagate Hoc Ithacus velit magno mercantur Atridae These are agreeable to and indeed make up the most modern Project and Scheme of the Popish Plot. Since the discovery of their first Design of killing the King and massacring of the Protestants they have taken such courage by observing how little power we have to prevent their Design that they have us in scorn and in the vilest contempt They now think that we are not worth destroying but by our own hands that we are not worthy of their trouble or the charge of Executioners of their providing How entertaining is it to his Holiness to find the Church of England the impregnable Bulwark of the Reformed Religion easily fall into his hands by the unpresidented folly of some of her Sons without the trouble of attacking her either by Force or Argument which have hitherto wanted success and such attempts always attended with dishonour and mischief to his See How pleasant will it be to him to see us perish and our destruction to be from our selves With this he will answer all the irrefragable Apologies of the Church of England for her departure from the Communion of the Romish Church Then he will say with triumph our Church destroyed her self and perished by a Divine Fate for her unwarrantable and Sacrilegious Schism for so he will call our Follies and impute them to Divine infatuations The manner of our destruction will be a better Argument and of more force against the Doctrine of the Reformation than all the Arguments of all the Doctors of that Church to this day For this purpose since the Discovery of the Popish Plot it is that Sir Robert Filmers Books were Re-printed together and recommended by the Title-page and the Publick Gazet to our reading Since the Discovery of the Plot we have had variety of Books Printed to the same purpose viz To prove that all Kings as Kings are absolute by Divine Right Since the Discovery of the Popish Plot we have had men imployed to search all our antient Records and Histories to find out something more antient than our Parliaments as now constituted that it may serve as a pretence to take them away Since the Discovery of the Popish Plot we have the memory of our late calamitous War revived to raise a Panick fear of another and to make the King believe that the genius of the Nation is Rebellious and that the Protestant Religion it self is to be apprehended by Kings It is difficult to tell how that late unhappy War began or how it came to issue so Tragically in the Death of the late King though we know how it ended viz. The Nation recovered within twelve years after the most deplorable Death of that excellent King into a renowned Loyalty and in spight of a great Armed Power never before foil'd ever victorious then kept on foot for the Interest of a very few men restored our present King may his Reign be long and happy to the Government of his Kingdoms without the least assistance of any of the Cavalier-party and oblig'd a wary General in the head of a factious and republican Army to Loyalty Nay within that time also
the Nation a Warrant so to do call all Fanaticks that oppose Popery desire Parliaments and expect they should use that power that is lodged in them to keep out Popery and preserve our Government and to bring to punishment those wicked men that have notoriously designed to destroy it The belief of the Popish Plot in the mean time is by scoffs and paltry Rhimes permitted publickly to be sung in the Streets put out of Countenance and those that believe it exposed as a sort of credulous Fools or designing Knaves Such a vile esteem the Papists now have of us that they prosecute us with their scorn and use us as if we were below their hate They think our divisions which they have made have already destroyed us and they now hire a sort of Scaramouchy Zaneys Merry Andrews and Jack-Puddings to insult over us and make a sport at our miseries These pleasant Knaves cry with one side of the Face and laugh with the other but in the mean time they cry in jest but laugh in good earnest He that had the art of imitating a grave Spaniard with one side of his body and a brisk French-man on the other side rendred both Nations ridiculous These vain fellows deprave every thing they meddle with and whatever they say of Church or State Religion or Policy is raillery and abuse and Pamphleting scurrility Lord under what seeming fatality do we labor that it can be thought to the Service of the Church or State to employ such Knaves We are used like Sampson bound and our Eyes put out and made sport for the Philistims By these py'd Pipers our young men are seduced and danc'd down a precipice though these merry Knaves have not skill enough to commend them for Rat-catchers if our City should be infested with that vermin as they say the Town of Hammel once was But the Daemon that appeared there a py'd Piper who destroy'd their Children as well as their Rats was not more mischievous to that Town than these motley Knaves are to the Kingdom and Nation It is an insufferable indignity That the tragical State of our Nation should become almost daily the matter of a Rascally Farce the very anguish and groans of the Nation turned into Laughter and Mockery such a barbarity was never used to a Nation It is an excess of Petulency to make abstract misery in the very form of it mimically represented matter of Mirth and Laughter These men were born out of time and were fit for no Age but that of Nero of whose consort they should have been when he played the Destruction of Troy to the Burning of Rome But I do not doubt but His Majesties Justice will e're long overtake the Incendiaries that are so pleasant at the embroilment of his Kingdom when it shall be duly represented to him what beautefeus they are and unmerciful deriders of the Calamities of his People which they occasion or promote Tho they think they may pass any thing of this kind upon the Nation made vain with trifling false wit and Buffoonery It is now Twenty years since our Nation was infected with this sort of wit and now we are to dye of the disease We have a Fiddle provided for us that have been bit with this venemous Tarantula to dance and frisk us to our destruction not to our cure and yet we pay the Fidler This thing Wit the greatest debauchment of this Age hath depraved not only the Manners but the Judgment and Understanding of the Nation too It hath been accounted the best accomplishment of men in place the best part of the Learning of this last Age It is not the reason of the Leviathan so much as the vanity of Wit that hath propagated Atheism and corrupted our Manners This hath made our Judgments insincere and trifling our determinate resolutions in matters of the greatest moment slight and Phantastical introduc't idleness and neglect of solid Learning which requires labour and application to obtain while this extemporary faculty has been accounted an admired accomplishment There is a sort of Wit very commendable which Tully calls celeritas in verbis and the Greek Epigram 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a pleasant entertainment in conversation and a commendable refreshment where our minds are tired with anxious and graver business and the troubles and cares of humane life but this ought to observe its times its proper subjects it ought to be confined to Table-talk an evening-compotation and the hours of mirth and the relaxation of our mind It may be used decently in a Comical Farce but it is not allowable in Satyr most undecent is the use of it in Tragedy But yet it hath insolently interposed in our Politicks governed publick Councels sometimes determined debates in Parliament hath made our Pulpits contemptible our Theology trifling It is admitted to resolve the greatest Questions and determine Cases of Conscience to establish and refix Church-Government hath usurped an authority to alter and pull down Governments and to render them tottering when they are as firmly establisht and fixt as a Rock That Wit that is abhorred by all men that are wise and honest is that versatile shifting squinting distorting of the Understanding that it views nothing truly and represents things not according to their true nature but under false Fantastical Schemes which they affix to them to abuse the judgments of others a man can never arrive to any perfection in this faculty until he is become false and lost his truth and modesty none but weak men are entertained with it and such who do not desire to understand truth but to serve a turn and love to be deceived and who deceive themselves for advantage It is in perfection in old Knaves and admired by young Coxcombs It is the Hypocrisie of the Tongue a plausible mode of lying and slandering and at best but a pleasant Knavery It will render ridiculous or culpable by false representations the most noble and heroical actions and put false colours upon most detestable Villanies It can discredit a man by honouring him and make a thing incredible by the very mode of believing it making a man ridiculous it concludes him at the same time unworthy and to confute the most avowed Truths there needs no more than to raise a sit of laughter upon it which has the same effect with the men of wit and their vain admirers as reducing a false proposition to an absurdity Thus the reason of this Age is governed by our risibility The Popish Writers have thus tickled us with their Wit that we are ready to dye and perish laughing and we know not nor care to consider or judge of what does truly concern our preservation And by improving the vanity of some youngsters they have drawn them to question the Truth of the Popish Plot and some can believe every hour of the day when they meet with a merry Popish Pamphlet that there is a Protestant Plot on foot though they
believe it I am sure not much longer than they are reading it I will not grudge my pains in furnishing a short Demonstration of the Popish Plot since it is of such importance to the saving of these men and the whole Nation which possibly may fix their minds notwithstanding so vain they be into a belief of it which I have made short that it may be the better remembred which I do in kindness to them since it was lately and may be so again shortly a criminal matter to bring the truth of it into question and they are by all honest men reckoned as Plotters themselves who doubt it The Plot has been declared by the Kings Proclamation and four Parliaments one of them consisting of Pensioners and Dependents on the Court which for eighteen years together were giving Demonstrations of their Loyalty to their Prince almost forgetting the publick Weal A solemn National Fast has been Indicted by the Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority of the Kingdom for averting the mischiefs thereby designed and solemnly Celebrated by the whole Nation in which certainly they did not mock God and deride his Providence Many unparallel'd Villanies have been committed for the stifling concealing and suppressing the discovery of it which however wicked the Papistical Sect of base false and degenerate Christians are we cannot without breach of Charity towards them think they would commit cheaply and without cause and to no purpose They have murdered a Minister of Justice because he had the knowledge of it and left nothing undone that they thought necessary to Assasinate another for strenuously opposing it They have attempted upon the Lives of our Witnesses By perjuries and forgeries they have endeavoured to charge them with the most infamous crimes to destroy them in their Lives and Reputations too in a form of Justice They have attempted by fears and rewards upon the integrity of all our Witnesses to draw them to retract their Testimony against the Plot for which some of their Agents have been judicially censured One Gentleman to the Pillory Fin'd 1000 l. and Condemned to a years imprisonment so evident and notorious was his offence and by the Court thought so heinous that it provoked the passion of the Court and they seemed to exceed the ordinary Rules of Justice for that they judged the Case to be of an exorbitant and transcendent nature The Plot of the Meal-Tub is a sublimated piece of wickedness the last accomplishment of villany it hath out-done all former and Will never be out-done in after-Ages The Papists by the Discovery of the first Plot became less hopeful in a Massacre and of effecting their purpose by force They dare not now kill the King for that the World would not now believe it to be done by Mr. Claypole and his feigned accomplices which must have born the blame from the Papists and he and they long since Executed as Traitors if that part of the Plot against the Kings Life had not been prevented by being detected I say the first design of the Plot being rendered less feasible by the discovery They keep the King alive with care as well for their avoiding the rage of the Nation as to lessen the credit of the Plot But contrive to destroy as many as they thought fit to be Massacred in form of a legal process and to charge them with a design of raising Rebellion against the King They had made a List of a great number of considerable persons whom they intended to charge principal Nobles and worthy Gentlemen about the Town had prepared witnesses to swear the charge against them and would certainly with more ease after the first Conviction and Execution have sworn all that they had a mind to destroy into the same guilt And thus all the truly Religious the Noble Good and Virtuous of our Nation that had courage enough to own assert and defend the true Christianity and our Government must to the eternal dishonour of our Nation and Religion have suffered the execrable death of Traitors We have reason to think them humane when they onely designed a Gun-powder Treason or a Massacre Our abhorrence of this usage dischargeth in us all reluctancy to Martyrdom Let them bring us to the Stake as Martyrs then we shall bear our Testimony to the truth of the best Religion and our Lives will not be cheaply lost but by this means we must be forced to dishonour this Religion by our deaths By a Massacre or a Gun-powder Plot the vileness cruelty and treachery of that Apostate Church had been declared to all the World and that false Religion as well as the professors of it had been rendered detestable for which end a good man would scarce refuse to dye But by this means they would have forced us to personate their own proper Crimes and Villanies and dishonour our own peaceable and holy Religion A man of Honour prefers his Honour to his Life and would redeem it by his Death But by this means we were though innocent to lose our Lives by dishonour and to fasten a stain upon our Memories by our death The Priests their impudent Lyes at their deaths in denying the matters of the Plot of which they were upon clear evidence Convicted and Sentenced must have past for truths and all our worthy men dying with protestations of their innocence must to the everlasting infamy of our Religion and Nation been accounted false and impious at their last breath There is no reason to be assign'd of the patience of God or Man towards such miscreants but that they may have time to add one impiety to another until an easie vengeance triumphs over them And though this last mentioned Plot is cleared beyond all exception their Faces are hardned and they are not yet ashamed but they have since contrived and suborned Witnesses to swear the very Discovery of the first Plot to be a false contrivance of a Plot against the Papists To this purpose they suborned a Son by perjury to commit parricide against his Father this the greatest Sin against Earth the other the greatest affront against Heaven What a Religion is this that must be thus supported Nay as if they did not fear or care to loose the favour of their most indulgent Prince which they have possest since he used Papists in making his escape at Worcester they have contrived these two last Plots with such Art as to bring them under his Majesties Observation and represented them as things fit for his encouragement Sure if they were not urged with the fears of a real guilt and a restless Conscience of the Plot they would never have adventured thus to have interested the honor of the King and to tempt him to abandon them to the publick Justice of the Nation which begins to grow impatient by the delays of it against this Hellish Plot. For we have had four Parliaments dissolved since the Discovery of it one a darling to the Crown The bringing into question the
patience declared it self to be of Heaven and of a divine Original according to the Prophesies on that behalf it took possession of the Empire Crowns and Scepters became submitted to the Cross The Christians acquired a civil right of Protection and Immunity which they ought not they cannot relinquish and abandon no more than they can destroy themselves or suffer Violence and Cruelty to destroy the Innocent Such as thus perish shall never wear a Martyrs Crown but perish in the next world for perishing in this This will be interpretatively Crucifying Christ afresh after he is received up into Glory i. e. after his Religion is exalted into Dignity and Honour and civil Authority If the Senate of Rome had been Christians they would never have given up the Government to a Pagan Augustus with a power to him and his Successors to make Laws for extirpating the Christian Faith What is said of the Christian Religion and Paganism holds between the Reformed Religion and Popery If any man is so vain as to say that an unalterable course of Succession to the Crown is established amongst us by Divine Right I say he is a man fitted to believe Transubstantiation and the infallibility of the Pope he is deeply lapsed into Fanaticism he dreams when he is awake and his Dreams are Dreams of phrensie There are some things so false that they cannot be disproved as some things are so evidently true that they cannot be proved This Proposition hath no colour to ground it self upon no medium to prove it no argument for it which is to be answered nor is there any thing more absurd than it self to reduce it to But if any shall adde that this Doctrine is the Doctrine of the Reformation and adventure to tell the people so they are the most impudent falsaries that ever any Age produced when there is scarce a Child but hath heard what was done said and maintained by the Clergie of England in the Case of Mary Queen of Scots a Popish Successor in the earliest time of our Reformation here in England Our Age is blessed with a Clergie renownedly Learned and Prudent By the Providence of God and the Piety of our Ancestors they possess good though not to be envyed Revenues and Honours It is scarce possible they should have many among them that can countenance a proposition so wickedly impious and sacrilegious That we cannot have new Laws for the preservation of our Religion but must lose the old at the pleasure of a Popish Successor against not their own interest and the Rights of the Church but against the Rights and Liberty of Religion it self For she is capable of Franchises and Immunities which ought above all things to be most zealously asserted and defended by her Ministers Can they themselves with their own hands ever pull down her Hedg and destroy her Defensatives and expose her helpless to the rage of her implacable Enemies and suspend all the Legal security she hath for her preservation upon the Life of our present King whom God long preserve If Kings be admitted to have a power to make Laws one Proclamation may establish the Popish Religion amongst us which the Papal Bulls so long as that See continues will never be able to effect Next to Religion her self the Revenues of the Church challenge their faithful care for they are at best but Usu-fructuary Trustees of her Endowments for the Succession which they will wretchedly betray to an Arbitrary Successor if they do not repress such Opinions that pretend to change the Government into an absolute jure Divinity Monarchy which will leave nothing jure divino but it self and the Popedom Kings for their so doing have the authority of Sir Robert Filmer who affirms in his Treatise called the Power of Kings Fol. 1. That the Laws Ordinances Letters Patents Priviledges and Grants of Princes have no force but during their Life if they be not ratified by the express consent or at least by the sufferance of the Prince following who had a knowledge thereof This is but the necessary consequence and result from the Doctrine of the absolute power of a Prince for in such Government the Concessions of a Predecessor can no more oblige the Successor than he can Govern when he is dead and the Successor must be absolute in his time as the Predecessors were in theirs But in vain is the Net spread in the sight of any Bird this deceit is of so gross a thread that it cannot pass with the common people much less upon our Clergy But I will not dissemble what may be the true reason of the seduction of some young good-natured Gentlemen of the Clergy It is thus they perswade themselves that if these principles and opinions of the Vnlimited Power of Kings had been received the late Wars had been prevented Not rightly considering that if such opinions had never been broached or Universally rejected that War could never have ensued and we should together with peace have enjoyed our ancient Government which our Ancestors transmitted to us without that miserable inter-regnum I would not be perversely understood by any man as if I went about to justify our late War This is all I say that every Government once established will continue for ever if all the parts of it would unalterably consent to preserve it to which their natural Allegiance doth oblige them And never any Prince endeavored to change the Government but where part of the people were first willing or content to have it so Those false flatterers that go about to remove the boundaries of power and change the Government are the greatest enemies to the quiet and happy Reigns of Kings and the peace and prosperity of Kingdoms And if they do adventure to call their fellow-Subjects by any opprobrious names of disloyalty because they will not joyn with them in such change they are as absurdly impious and insolent as any Prince or State would be who should challenge another as free and absolute as himself for his Tributary and Vassal and traduce him for a troubler of the World because he would not Compose the Quarrel thus injuriously sought with the surrender of his Crown and Dignity I desire these Gentlemen to consider that the happiness of a Nation is best supported with Truth and Justice This new Doctrine is not true and whosoever entertains a belief of it is not onely barely mistaken but will be led by the mistake into the most mischievous impious and sacrilegious injustice and treachery It is very agreeable to a good man to embrace a proposition with an easie belief that offers the least seeming probability of a security against the miseries of War by all means to be avoided But this Doctrine of the Divinity of Kings is most dangerous to the Peace of Kingdoms for it is pregnant with Wars Besides that it will give bad Princes which sometime hereafter may be Born into the World for such there have been now and then power to
and Laws design to make them though they do not always answer the good designments of the Government To what purpose then are these new Hypotheses fram'd and published Kings are exempted by their Office and the sacredness of their persons from all fears but the fears of Nature and these can never be discharged Those who do ill will fear ill eternally though their power were made little less than omnipotent for the frame of Humane Nature hath made it necessary to be so Besides God hath made one thing against another There is a divine Nemesis interwoven in the nature of things And God will always govern the World Omne sub regno duriore regnum The great Mogol at his Inauguration swears That his People shall be at peace at home and victorious abroad afflicted neither with Plague nor Famine but enjoy Health and Plenty all his days This seems extraordinary Pompous and Arrogant but it means no more than this that he will govern them so vertuously that Gods Providence shall be always propitious to his People and is no more in plain English than what our Church offers up in her publick Prayers for the King viz. That he may govern us in Wealth Peace and Godliness that he may live long and so govern us ought to be every honest mans Prayers But after all these vain Hypotheses contrived for making Kings Absolute it will be more easie for Kings to make their Reigns unquiet and turn their Kingdoms into Fields of blood But lastly to revive the ancient Zeal of the true Members of the Church of England against Popery To rectify the mistakes of some Gentlemen of the Clergy about the Dissenters And of our late Parliaments and their proceedings in reference to them Let it be considered how unreasonable their apprehensions are of any danger to the Church of England from the desires of the House of Commons of some indulgence or toleration in favour of the Dissenters at this time especially when the Protestant Religion is so shrewdly beset she hath reason now sure to take all such for her Friends that are heartily Enemies to Popery though not so skilful as they should be to ward off its assaults Since the Papists presume to call them Fanaticks though exactly conformable to the Church of England that will not assist to bring on the Popish Plot by dis-believing it and put us in fear of the Fanaticks by taking all the courses imaginable to provoke and exasperate them and to increase their discontents which they maliciously heighten and by falshood and forgeries misrepresent To graft thereupon a Pretence of a Protestant Plot for a pretext to extirpate Protestantism and introduce Popery which they impudently pretend to be of a more firm Allegiance to the Government than the Reformed Religion I pray let it be considered that that which is tolerated is put under disgrace even for that it is tolerated and that which tolerates even for that it tolerates hath the governing Authority and in so much as it indulgeth it obligeth to modesty and reason and if that indulgence should be abused it may and will be retracted It was never intended by the House of Commons that the Church of England should be altered or modelled to an agreeableness to any form or sect of the Separation or prescrib'd to by any of the Dissenters or that she should be made subject to any of their rules or opinions or her Liturgy laid aside for Directories or which is worse undervalued to the prophane way of extemporizing For as generally used and exercised it deserves no milder a stile That the Church should always govern by her own Wisdom in her own Province and in those things that appertain to her can never be deny'd her No man hath reason to say though he hath great cause to dislike the Separation and to have a bad opinion of the Dissenters that he had rather submit to Popery than to any form of the Separation for he need do neither except he pleaseth No man that thus expresseth himself but will be suspected to seek an occasion and pretence to become a Papist and to make a defection from the Church of England But if these Gentlemen have such a displeasure against Schism and Separation which certainly is the worst disease any Church can labour under and at this time threatens the destruction as well of the Protestant Religion it self as it doth to the Professors of all denominations let this sharpen their Zeal against Popery which by its unhallowed arts hath occasioned and exasperated our Schism and put them upon the use of all means to reconcile if possible the Schism that the Papists have already made and by all means endeavour to continue and take away if possible the occasion of it for the time to come And thus defeat the Arts of the Priests and Jesuits for supplanting our Church It is a most deplorable thing that our Church should be kept rent and divided in danger of being lost between Rituality and Scrupulosity Though the Scruples of the Nonconformists which I always thought and do still think groundless and unreasonable have often moved me into some passion against them yet upon consideration I think this their Scrupulosity may be of God and that some men are by him framed to it That he hath provided it as a bar and obstacle in the Natures and Complexions of some devout men against any Innovations whatsoever that dangerous ones may not steal upon the Church for the better maintaining the simplicity and purity of the Christian Religion and Worship But in saying this I have said nothing that is apt to give them a conceit of themselves but rather to humble them For the best men are not govern'd by their Temper and Constitution but correct them by their Reason and determine themselves by a clear and him Judgement What affrightment all this while either to Church or State from this weak and pityable Scrupulosity Where lyes the Treason or Sacriledge nay or so much as contumacy against our Ecclesiastical Governours which is so much upbraided to them The Christian Religion may be prejudiced by addition to as well as substraction from her rule The Church of Rome by her additions hath almost evacuated the Christian Faith Besides there may be a fineness in the outward mode of Religious Worship in it self very justifiable which may be not congenial to men of a course make The Worship of God will always favour of the manners of the people men of dull capacity can scarce admit of any Ceremonies without danger of falling into superstition or hardly escape being vext with endless and incurable scruples about them until for ease of their minds they throw them off But the wisdom of the best Law-makers hath considered in giving Laws what the people would bear and not what is best to be enjoyned and many things have been tolerated by them which they did not approve Ne majoribus malis detur occasio aut etiam
ne vilescant sine moribus leges There is nothing more exposeth the Authority of Government to contempt than a publick and an open neglect of its Injunctions But where obedience to Laws is exacted under severe penalties where it doth not greatly import the common good to have them observed that Government is unequal and useth its Authority unjustifiably Leges cupiunt ut jure regantur The consideration of the sad effects the Schism in our Church hath occasioned the contempt that it hath brought upon our Ecclesiastical Governours That Religion it self is thereby made the scorn of Atheists That the Papists are thereby furnished with matter of objection reproach and scandal to the Reformation That every Age since it begun hath heightned the malignity of the Schism That it seems now to despise the Cure of the greatest Cassanders These considerations I say make it infinitely desirable to have it utterly extinguished There seems to be now left but one way of accommodating our Divisions and that is that we do not hereafter make those things wherein we differ matter and reason of Division That the Children of the Light and Reformation be at length as wise in this matter as the Church of Rome which is at unity with it self under more and greater differences than those that have troubled the peace of our Church which is sufficiently known to all Learned men Had it not been happy that this Schism had been prevented by the use of the power of the Church in Ecclesiastical dispensations If no Law had been made touching the matters that gave the first occasion to the Schism it had been in the Power of the Church to have prevented it No good Bishop but would have relaxed the Canons that enjoyned these Ceremonies about whose lawfulness there hath been so much Zeal mispent and unwarrantable heat and contention raised for the sake of peace and preservation of the Unity of the Church to men peaceable and otherwise obedient to her injunctions So dangerous it is to make Laws in matters of Religion which takes the conduct of Religion in so much from the Guides of the Church The beginning of contention is like the breaking out of waters saith the wise man and they are assoon as begun more easily ended Before the Contenders have exasperated one another with mutual severities and contumelies which at every return increase until both sides lose either their Vertue or the Reputation of it Can any man imagine that any prejudice can accrew to the Church of England if she did enlarge her Communion by making the conditions of it more easie especially if this may be done without annulling any of her institutions which the better instructed Christians will always and the Weak may in time devoutly observe But till they can they may be received and retained of her Communion and not be rejected by her censures though they do not submit to all of them at present Will it be any prejudice that the Number of her Bishops be increased and that Suffragans be appointed or approved by the present Bishops in partem sollicitudinis as was enacted by the Statute 26 H. 8. cap. 14. Which Law was repealed by 1 2 P. M. and revived by 8 Eliz. cap. 1. These Suffragans were not intended to participate of their Honours or Revenues Had it not been much more eligible to have dispenced with invincible Scruples rather than a Schism should have been occasioned which the longer it continues will be more incurable and with greater difficulty accommodated as it grows likewise more mischievous Is it fit that the peace should be hazarded or the Nation put with reason or without reason in fear of it Or a Kingdom turned into a Shambles for a Ceremony or a Ritual in our publick Worship which if omitted would leave the exercise of it solemn and decent For no man knows the obstinacy of inveterate prejudices founded perhaps in the very Complexions and Natures of the Dissenters hardned also in their way by observing how little effect Laws have had for reducing their Numbers and also how unpracticable any Severity is in the present broken and distracted state of the Nation Why may not Standing at the Sacrament be tolerated though Kneeling is the devoutest gesture and to me most agreeable when it is a posture of Prayer enjoyned in the Primitive Church in their solemn Meetings for Divine Worship between the Feasts of Easter and Whitsontide Why may not the signing of the Cross in Baptism for the sake of Peace and Unity be dispensed with where desired when the Sacrament is entire without it Why may not our publick Liturgie be changed and altered though it may be defended as it is and as it is entertains the devotions of the best men meerly for this reason because it is not liked in some parts of it by some men yet truly devout Besides it is the wish of some excellent persons of the Church of England that our publick Offices were more and those we have not so long and that the Church had a greater Treasury of Prayers and by variety of Forms for the same Office were enlarged in her spirit of Prayer and her publick Devotions heightned Why may not the Rubrick be altered as general scruples shall arise by the Authority of the Church this would not lessen her Authority but advance the esteem of her Wisdom in the exercise of it when she useth it for edification It is much better sure to give place to an innocent opinion when entertained by considerable Numbers though a mistake than to keep up contention and strife Peace in the Church is better than precise and nice Orthodoxness and Union is to be preferred before unnecessary Truth which is of no more importance to our Salvation than one of Euclids Propositions though to be sure not so certain and of less use The business of the Church is not to make men great Clerks to improve us to the subtilty of the Schools but to build men up in the Faith and Love of God by which they may be instructed to every good Work Her aim is not to make men courtly in their behaviour in our Churches but truly devout and true devotion will never fail to make the Publick Worship solemn and advance it beyond a decent formality But I would not be mistaken it is not the Dissenters I intend to befriend but the Church of England for as for them I declare I have no liking to any thing they say or do and am especially dissatisfied with their very bad manners It is difficult to abstain from an invective but that I think it would be thrown away upon them and that they are at present incorrigible This is not the season for instructing their Wisdoms we must wait for the mollia tempora fandi I thus conclude since that excellent person the Dean of Pauls hath been treated by them with such petulancies and rude insults for his Sermon of the mischiefs of Separation If a
Church the Bishops and the Clergie The Atheist the impious and profane have listed themselves Fanaticks that they might have the greater Liberty of reviling Religion it self with impunity Consider how the Church of England is used which is truly the Bulwark of the Protestant Religion About ten years since they designed to slight her works and demolish her by a general Indulgence and Toleration And now they intend to destroy her Garrison those that can and will defend her against Popery By one of their Pamphleteers the Separation is called an Usurpation upon the Government and all the Dissenters as such only Rebels and Traiterous to the King The same Gentleman would perswade the world that the ready way to extirpate Popery is by rooting out of Fanaticism whether saith he the Fanaticks bring on the Jesuits Plot or the Jesuits the Fanaticks is not a farthing matter But in the mean time that the Papists have a Plot on foot needs no proof That any sort of Protestants are engaged in a Plot cannot be proved But all honest Protestants of the Church of England think it more righteous to punish the Deceivers and pity the Deceived and wish them only cut off that make Divisions It is one way of curing or rather of extinguishing the Disease to kill the Patient but no Prince did ever yet provide Cut throats for his People in epidemical Diseases instead of Physicians But if the Papists could arm other Protestants against Dissenters there would be the less work for Papists to do And they will be sure to requite them for this Favour with Polyphemus his Courtesie For to give the Devil his due they are not themselves so fond of Massacres and destruction of Hereticks as to envy that employment to any other that will undertake it They had rather any other party of men should do the drudgery for them Besides what one sort of Protestants shall execute upon another will give them better pretence and more hardiness if they wanted either Pretence or Resolution to destroy such as they call Hereticks to execute the like destruction upon the Church-Protestants who certainly differ more from the Papists than the Separatists do from our Church Surely there is good reason they should be more sharply treated by the Papists than they treated the Dissenters And if they are in such sort used they must lay their hands upon their mouths and be silent before their Persecutors and acknowledge the righteous Judgment of God in bringing such tribulation upon them from their Enemies wherewith they troubled their own Brethren But there are better ways sure of putting an end to the Popish Plot than by putting it in Execution for them That is to say By suppressing that contumacy that is grown so rife in the Dissenters against the Church of England by putting the revilers of her Establishment and Order under the severest Penalties By the Church her condescention and indulgences to those that are weak and scrupulous and the peaceable Dissenters such Condescention will not abate but magnifie her Authority The Church of England will not be by this means lost but her Governance preserv'd especially if the Relaxation that shall be made proceeds from her ex mero motu and is not imposed upon her by any secular Authority Nay she will become by this means more ample and venerable What Glories will then shine upon the heads of the Bishops We shall all rise up and call them blessed They will attain an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here and receive divine Honours while they live Their Order will be recovered into the highest Veneration and it will never be after a question in the English Church whether the Order of Bishops be Apostolical The Parliament will make all Laws yield and comply to such happy peaceable and gratious Intendments All the people will honour them as their common Saviours that shall thus snatch us from the very brink of Ruine and render the designs of the implacable Enemies of the Church ready to take effect to the destruction of our Religion and Nation utterly defeated But what punishments can we think too severe upon any that shall be guilty of such insolent Iniquity as not to allow that Liberty to the Church which they seek as a favour from her to themselves that will not let the Church escape their Censures when she graciously exempts them from her Censures and pities their Errors and Follies What Fines and Imprisonments Pillories and Scourgings do they deserve that persecute the Church with Revilings when they themselves are tolerated Their condemnation must be just whatever their doom be themselves being Judges They will suffer as evil doers and disturbers of the peace not for their Religion but for a most extravagant and intolerable unrighteousness They who will not tolerate others are themselves for that reason most intolerable Against these our Laws are to be sharpned and their iniquities to be punished by a Judge But the Statute of 35 Eliz. which punisheth dissatisfaction and peaceable withdrawings from the publick Worship with Exile and Death declares how odly the business of the Separation hath been managed and with what disadvantages to the Church as it doth also the impracticableness of Laws that make perhaps invincible prejudices and modest and peaceable dissatisfactions capitally criminal The execution of this Law is scarce possible It is by no means agreeable either to the Christian temper of our Church or his Majesties great Clemency of which he hath assured us in the general course of his Reign And especially for that that Law hath been very rarely proceeded upon A Gentleman that lay in Cambridge-Goal under the Judgment of that Law was reprieved by his Majesty with a great dislike expressed by him against that and such like severities Whatever extravagances of a few wild Fanaticks of that Age occasioned that Law the state of the Separation and of the Nation being quite altered from what it was then the execution of this Law now would be something like a Sheriffs serving a Writ out of date in another County which can have no effect but mischief to himself While our Dissenters are thus reasonably indulged and strictly obliged to their peaceable behaviour they can give no apprehensions to the Government either in Church or State This is all that is designed and all that they ought to have This certainly would be readily yielded them in this present juncture especially if the Evils of the late unhappy times did not stand upon their score But I perswade my self that as this course if it had been heretofore taken would have prevented one great cause of our late Troubles so it will in such measure prevent them from returning as the Separation can be accounted the cause of them As for the Sacriledge and Spoil which was then made upon our Church it could never have hapned but upon the dissolution of the Government nor can it even happen again That War would have been impossible if the Church-men
had not maintained the Doctrine that Monarchy was Jure Divino in such a sence that made the King absolute and they and the Church in consequence perished by it But God be thanked we see the Church again restored to her endowments grown wiser than to desire to hold that precariously and at pleasure she doth enjoy by an unmovable legal Right Of the three Estates of this Kingdom for to suspect any such thing of the King would be unpardonable Blasphemy there can be no reasonable suspition Though of the House of Commons it is become now lawful to suspect and say any thing that is evil But no man but the Villains that design by dishonouring them to change the Government hath reason to entertain such a thought The Members of the House of Commons in our latest Parliaments were all upon the matter entirely conformable to the Church of England They were persons of the best Estates Reputation and Honour in their Countries And they or such as they are like to make our succeeding Parliaments I have leave to put them under the imprecation of the severest Curse if ever they do sacrilegiously impair the Church of her Revenues And I desire it may be assisted with the hearty and passionate desires of all good Christians that so the Curse I now pronounce may operate upon them who shall incur it He that designs contrives or consents to spoil the Church of any of her Endowments May a secret Curse waste his Substance Let his Children be Vagabonds and beg their bread in desolate places Besides I know it is meditated and designed by many and the best men that use to be sent to Parliaments to redeem in part that infamous Sacriledge that was committed in the times of H. 8. Then Rectories appropriate to Religious Houses which had by Appropriations the cure of the Parish that ought after the dissolution of the Monasteries to be presented to were vested in the Crown whereby not only the Church was robbed but the People cheated of their Tythes which were theirs to give though not to retain their Proemium for the Priests Ministrations which are now often most slenderly and sometimes scandalously performed As also to disincumber her Revenue of the Charges and Impositions of First-fruits and Tenths which were imposed and exacted by the Pope upon his pretence of being the oecumenical Pastor and High-Priest of the Christian Church and at that time likewise conferred upon the Crown and are as unreasonably continued as any thing can be that hath a Law for a pretext But for this a Compensation may be given to the Crown and some way will be found out for augmentation of Vicaridges and re-indowment of Churches that lost all in that unparallel'd Sacriledge committed by the unsatiable Avarice of that haughty and luxurious Prince These designs employ the care of a great number of our principal Gentlemen to purge the sin and dishonour brought upon the Nation by that extraordinary King But if there were reason for any fear that the Nation could again incur the guilt of Sacriledge What warranty can this give to any of the Clergy of our Church to slack or abate the Zeal that is due for the purity of her Doctrine prudence of her Discipline and her commendable decent and intelligible Devotion Are they worthy to be named of her that are ready to dissert her out of fear of a remote possibility that she may not always have such Largesses to give as she now bestows upon her Sons Will they prefer the gift to the Altar and declare all their Godliness to be Gain To suffer Popery for such a consideration to be induced upon her is a far worse and more detestable Sacriledge than that they pretend to fear This is to make the Anathemata of the Temple to inserve to the dishonour of the Numen To desecrate the Altar for the sake of the gift And will by the just Judgment of God I fear bring the abomination of desolation again into our holy places Let none of her Sons for the obtaining a Dignity or a capacity for a double Benefice betray her by neglecting her interest thinking with themselves that she will otherwise be supported for this their doings is no less than the sin of Judas who took money to betray our Lord imagining that he would by a Miracle rescue himself from the hands of those to whom he sold and betrayed him The honest of our Clergy will have little satisfaction when that day comes When they shall be reduced to Prayers and Tears if they are failing in any thing that they may lawfully do to prevent that miserable state their Tears will be as water spilt upon the ground and their Prayers will never find acceptance with God nor be returned into their own bosom Disce Miser pigris non flecti numina vot is Praesentemque adhibe dum facis ipse Deum But above all those fine men are not to pass unreproved who are preparing pretences for their Revolt to the Roman Church They tell us that the Reformation is depraved and Popery it self is much amended since the Reformation that it is not so grosly superstitious though her Superstitions are still enough to stifle Religion nor so fabulous in her Legends she need make no new ones since she gives authority still to the old nor so imposturous in her cheats for her Priests have not been Hocus-pocusses of late used so many tricks of Legerdemain and presented their Puppet-plays of moving and squeaking Images since the Reformation as before But they may know that the reason why we have not maintained the dignity of the Reformation intire is this for that Popery hath not been utterly extirpated from amongst us though their frequent Treasons and their notorious seductions have deserved it By its continuance amongst us and the resorts of their Priests hither it hath created and fomented Divisions amongst us and corrupted her Children from their obedience to her guidance and instructions But she her self is still the same she was the Reformation of the Church is still intire She hath made good her departure from the Church of Rome her Adversaries have not been able to convict her of any fault therein and by an easie victory she hath triumphed over all their oppositions and contradictions And though Popery appear not altogether so deformed by her Priests artificial Dress and the Representations they make of her to seduce us and entice us to come again under her Yoke yet we know she hath more established her Tyranny by the Council of Trent and more corrupted her Morals by her modern Casuists since the Reformation and thereby hath rendred her self more detestable and for ever to be avoided But though it may be true that the Popish world is beholden to the Reformation and Popery it self is thereby amended in some overt things and reformed in those Countries that have not reformed from her For in the Light of the Reformation they have seen Light and have
been ashamed of some of their works of darkness and do not bring into present use some of their most gross Impostures and some worse than Pagan Superstitions Yet when this light is extinguish'd it will be a most dismal and eternal Night upon the Christian world If we return to her our Ears will be bored and we shall be irredeemably enslaved The spirit of Popery if it returns and possesseth us again that hath been walking in the reformed Countries as in dry places seeking rest and finding none and finds us thus swept and garnisht will bring with it seven Devils more wicked than it self and our last estate will be worse than the first The Pride Cruelty and Avarice Domination and Luxury of their Priesthood will be aggravated upon us and the minds of the Laity more lowly depressed by Superstition and Ignorance The Gospel of Cardinal Palavicini will be the Canon of the Christian Religion or it may be something worse for who can tell what will be the Religion that that Church will offer in process of time to the world under the Christian-Name When the Pope by his pretended infallibility may make the Christian Religion what he please by interpreting adding altering or detracting with an uncontroulable Authority For us therefore to become Papists to return to the Church of Rome acknowledge the Popes Infallibility there is no other way to become Papists is virtually to betray the Christian Faith to renounce our Allegiance to our Lord Christ to prefer the Bulls of a profane Pope to the holy Oracles of God and the Revelation of Jesus God blessed for ever With this Religion therefore we can never make an accommodation we may as well make a Covenant with Hell This as Dr. Jackson one of the glories of the Church of England in his Book called The Eternal Truth of Scriptures vehemently admonisheth us admits no terms of parley for any possible reconcilement whose following words to this purpose I shall here transcribe The natural separation of this Island from those Countries wherein this Doctrine is professed shall serve as an everlasting Emblem of the Inhabitants divided Hearts at least in this point of Religion And let them O Lord be cut off speedily from amongst us and their Posterity transported hence never to enjoy again the least good thing this Land affords Let no print of their Memory be extant so much as in a Tree or Stone within our Coast Or let their Names by such as remain here after them be never mentioned or always to their endless shame Who living here amongst us will not imprint these or the like wishes in their Hearts and daily mention them in their Prayers Littora Littoribus contraria fluctibus undas Imprecor arma armis pugnent ipsique Nepotes Which he thus renders Let our forein Coasts joyn Battel in the Main E're this foul Blasphemy Great Britain ever stain Where never let it come but floating in a Flood Of our our Nephews and their Childrens blood I shall only subjoyn my hearty Desires and Prayers that we may all fear God and be zealous for his true Religion Honour the King and firmly adhere to the Government and in our several places steadily oppose and resist those Villains that are given to change That by our Vnion we may defeat the crafty designs of our cruel and implacable Enemies who if they can continue those Divisions they have made amongst us by their wicked Arts will certainly at length destroy us who are bent upon our destruction though they themselves perish with us we cease to be a Nation and our Language be forgotten in a foreign Captivity Sir Now I have given you my Answer to your Reasons to disswade me from publishing the Argument for the Bishops by representing how few of the Clergy can with reason be thought guilty of Opinions so mischievous to the Church and State which you charge to have generally corrupted them and how easily and with little consideration they will be laid aside by them I will make no other Apologie for the publishing this than that I have communicated these thoughts to no Man alive either of the Church of England or any other denomination or consulted any mans advice about it That I can serve to design of no party of men herein nor any particular design of my own I wish they can be serviceable in the least degree to publick good I have had them by me a great while and have considered them under the several varieties of temper that our bodies are disposed to which induce different thoughts and various apprehensions in most things under the several passions that the fluctuation of publick affairs have occasioned under the Ebbs and Flows of Hopes and Fears in reference to the state of the Kingdom for some length of time And finding them to have the same appearance and to give me the same satisfaction in all their several postures and the views that I could take of them I assure my self I was sincere when I thought and that they result meerly from my Judgment such as it is uncorrupted That I am not perverted or biassed by any secret passion or desire of any sort which many times lurk and steal upon us deceive us unawares and undiscernedly abuse us Sir the sum of my Apologie is this that I know my self sincere of honest Intentions moved by nothing but a hearty love and affection to our King Religion and Country And for what any man shall think of me I am not Solicitous Yours T. H. The Great and Weighty CONSIDERATIONS Relating to the Duke of York OR Successor of the Crown Offered to the KING and both Houses of Parliament CONSIDERED WITH An ANSWER to a LETTER from a Gentleman of Quality in the Country to his Friend relating to the Point of Succession to the Crown Whereunto is added A short HISTORICAL COLLECTION touching the same LONDON Printed for the Author and are to be Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster 1682. TO THE READER I Have in the Postscript offered Reasons of the Lawfulness of an Act of Exclusion which to all true Protestants must needs be desirable if it can be lawfully obtained Yet for the farther satisfaction of unthinking people and Men of weak Minds who are never certain especially in great Matters where Men of Note are divided in their Opinions but for that very Reason where they have no direct Reason to guide them in forming their Judgment remain scrupulous if not doubtful and for that they doubt they must therefore conclude the Matter as to themselves at least unlawful I have Reprinted these Discourses that were Printed near three years since in Answer to two Books written by two Eminent Persons the first supposed to be writ by a great Secretary the other by a notable Lawyer thereto employed under promises and expectations of great Preferments This mans Book especially is highly applauded by the Ducal Party his very words made the stile of the
understanding to appear and come forth for the undeceiving and rectifying the Judgments of the most deceivable part of Mankind and with just ignominy and scorn to beat down the assumings and presumptions of such Pretenders and Smatterers in Letters especially in such a Weighty Matter as this when the poor people if mistaken must be mistaken to their Ruine and perish by the Deceit if deceived which I hope is scarce possible for very many to be by this frivolous Pretender and Offerer of Considerations which none but he that deserves our pity could think of but for that he dares to offer them publickly to the World and under the stile of Great and Weighty Considerations he most justly deserves our Indignation a private Scorn a publick Censure For that purpose we will now produce him HE begins his Considerations with a Consideration and Recommendation of himself and would fain prove his Honestly for he was with reason conscious that this undertaking would render him more than probably suspected He proves as well as any thing he undertakes and as well as it can be proved That he is an honest man This he would have the World believe because there is such a thing as sincerity in the World and for that there have been some men that have owned an afflictive Righteous Cause against self-interest and the displeasure of a prevailing Faction but we know the Cause that he Patronizes is the most unrighteous Cause that ever any man of Front espoused but that should not trouble us But that which afflicts us and is the heart-aking of all good men is That this Scribler with too much reason we know presumes that the Brave men whom he reviles for adhering to the only means of the saving of three Kingdoms with the Gross of the Nation are designed to be subdued by a party of men whose strength the King in his profound Knowledg and Wisdom best knows how to Calculate but certainly this Addresser imagines very great whatever he pretends and that he is well backed by force Otherwise he could not adventure publickly to despise the Interest of a House of Commons If this Considerer and his Fellow-Conspirators had not some secret reserves of Strength he would not advise the King as he doth to Adhere to and Govern with the House of Lords and his Privy-Council and to lop off the House of Commons from the Government as an unprofitable Branch In the next Paragraph he tells us The Chiefest Principle and Maxim of the true reformed Religion in this Kingdom is fully Epitomized in this excellent Precept Give to every one his due If there can be more nonsense spoken in so many words It is this Patriot must do it and you shall find him often performing what I have undertaken for him And sure after such demonstrations of his Honesty and proof of his Understanding you must take him for a True Patriot and a fit Addresser of GREAT and WEIGHTY Considerations In the next Paragraph he undertakes to commend and allow chide and disapprove our leading Men I believe he means of the House of Commons but we want his Name it 's fit he should discover himself before we can admit him to sit Judge of the Actions of the most excellent Persons of the late House of Commons I perswade my self he would blush however immodest he appears in his Address if he were drawn out and exposed to publick view under such a Character we might spare him the Pillory rotten Eggs and Turnep-tops which is due to infamous Libellers against Governours for he is a man of such fashion I believe that he would suffer too much of Shame and Confusion of Face if he were but known well enough to be pointed at after we have done with him In the fourth Paragraph he allows it is a glorious thing to establish the True Protestant Religion but he would not have it established upon Quick-sands neither would we because it is impossible it should be so established we would not have it depend upon loose accidents expos'd to Chance and Contingencies and expect it should be supported by rare events and morally impossible nor to be left at Six and Sevens a chance that is not upon the Die and hope that things should out of their Course and Nature unite and combine together for its support That which is Glorious is so because it is Excellent in it self and difficult to be atchieved and whatever is difficult is to be obtained by unusual and extraordinary means to deny or condemn the use of them when lawful is to deny us the end and is so far in truth from allowing it to be Glorious that he doth not allow it at all That it is made difficult to support the Protestant Religion we owe to the Popish Conspiracy and the design of this man is to make it impossible to that purpose he requires you to lay aside Humane Policy which is the same as true Prudence which is the onely Guide God hath given us and the onely Oracle he hath left us to consult in our Affairs and is never repugnant as he would have it but always conformable to the Laws of God and Nature lest we should be furnished with a Remedy against the designed mischiefs to us and our Religion To this commendable sort of Policy the design of the Bill will be made agreeable in the following Discourse That we may admit the absurd Doctrins of the Church of Rome we are required to abandon our Reason and that we may more easily again fall unto her we must if we will be ruled by the Considerer renounce our Prudence and those that will not must endure his slanderous Reproaches with which he goes on to revile the Promoters of the Bill of Exclusion whom he calls Hypocrites Factious Spirits of the Fanatical Leven that they make a Cloak of Religion to palliate black Designs fierce Zealots acting like the Rump-Parliament Guilty of Antichristian attempts repugnant to the Ordinance of God and to the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom a few turbulent Zealots assuming to themselves a Soveraign and despotical Power of Deposing the DVKE of YORK and says That they impudently affirm That this hath been the Ancient Custom of Parliaments to Depose Princes and dispose of Kingdoms whereas the Crown hath been always Haereditary and never depended upon the Suffrages of the Subject Since this bad man presumes to say so many bad words falsely of the Excellent Members of the late House of Commons reproches their Zeal for the publick Safety most Heroically exerted in the time of the greatest Need and most threatning Dangers calls their appearance for the support of the Protestant Religion established by Law Hypocrisie And the prosecuting the Discovery of the Hellish Plot and the best means of preventing the Plot from taking effect black Designs Since I say his Immodesty hath given him so much Licence I wonder he had no more Scurrilities especially since he is so impertinent as to call