from the Bishops than that they have in part retained in their Government and Ceremonies the Exteriors of that Religion should now themselves joyn to bring it intirely in But above all Who could have believed that the French Ministers who after having experimented all the Fury of Popery in France were at last banished rather than that they would subscribe to its Errors and Abuses And for this very cause fled into England that they might there more freely profess the Protestant Religion should now contribute to re-establish Popery in their new Country where they had been received by their Brethren with so singular a Charity Would you indeed Gentlemen see England once more submitted to the Tyranny of the Pope whose Yoke it so happily threw off in the last Age Would you there see all those monstrous Doctrines all those Superstitions and that horrible Idolatry which reigned there before the Reformation domineer once more in it Would you that the People should again hear the Pulpits and the Churches sounding out the Doctrins of Purgatory of Indulgences of the Sacrifice of the Mass c. and see the Image and Reliques of the Saints carried solemnly in Procession with a God formed by the hand of Man. And that in sine they should again publickly adore those vain Idols We are confident there is not â—… good Protestant in the World that would not startle â—… at the thought of it But this is not yet all The Declaration of which we speak does not only re-establish Popery with all its abominations but does moreover tend to the Ruine of the Reformation in England A Man need not to have any great Sagacity to be convinced of this And that as much as it seems to establish for ever the Protestant Religion in that Kingdom it does on the contrary destroy the very Foundations of it The ground upon which the Reformation is founded in England are the Laws which have been made at several times for the settlement of it and to abolish either the Tyranny of the Pope or the Popish Religion altogether And as these Laws have been made by the King and Parliament together so that the King has not the power to Repeal them without a Parliament they secure the Protestant Religion against the Enterprizes of such Kings as should ever think to Destroy it But now if this Declaration be executed we are no more to make any account of those Solemn Laws which have been passed in favour of the Reformation they become of no value and the Protestant Religion is intirely lest to the King's Pleasure This is what will clearly appear from what we are about to say The King not having been able to obtain of the last Parliament to consent to a Repeal of the Laws which had been made against the Nonconformists dissolved the Parliament it self Not long after without attending a new one he did that alone by his Declaration which the Parliament would not do conjunctly with him He granted a all Liberty of Conscience to the Nonconformists he freed them from the Penalties which had been appointed against them and dispensed with the Oaths to which the Laws obliged all those who were admitted to any Charges whether in the souldiery or in administration of Justice or of the Government In pursuance of these Declarations he threw the Protestants out of all Places of any great Importance to clap in Papists in their room and goes on without ceasing to the intire establishment of Popery Who does not see that if the Protestants approve these Declarations and themselves authorize such Enterprises the King will not stop here but that this will be only one step to carry him much further What can be did when he shall do the same thing with reference to those Laws which exclude the Papists out of the Parliament that he has done to those which shut them out of all Charges and Imploys and forbad them the Exercise of their Religion Does not the approbation of such Declarations as it overthrows these last carry with it before-hand the approbation of those which shall one day overthrow the former And if the King shall once give himself the Authority to bring Papists into the Parliament who shall hinder him from using Solicitations Promises Threatnings and a thousand other the like means to make up a Popish Parliament And who shall hinder him with the concurrence of that Parliament to repeal all the ancient Laws that had been passed against Popery and make new ones against the Protestants These are without doubt the natural Consequences of what the King at this time aims at These are the fruits which one ought to expect from it if instead of approving as some have done his Enterprises against the Laws they do not on the contrary with all imaginable Vigor oppose them Reflect a little on what we have here said and you will confess that we have reason to commend the Conduct of the Bishops who refused to publish the Declaration and to condemn those Dissentèrs who have made their Addresses of Thanks for it It is true that the Dissenters are to be pitied and that they have been treated hardly enough and we do not think it at all strange that they so earnestly sigh after Liberty of Conscience It is natural for Men under Oppression to seek for Relief and Liberty of Conscience considered only in it self is it may be the Thing of all the World the most precious and most desirable Would to God we were able to procure it for them by any lawful means and without such ill Consequences tho' it were at the peril of our Lives But we conjure them to consider how pernicious that Liberty of Conscience is which is offer'd to them as we have just now shewn On the one side it is inseparably linked with the Establishment of Popery and on the other it cannot be accepted without approving a terrible Breach which his Majesty thereby makes upon the Laws and which would be the ruine of the Reformation in his Kingdoms were not some Remedy brought to it And where is the Protestant who would buy Liberty of Conscience at so dear a rate and not rather chuse to continue deprived of it all his Life Should the private Interest of our Brechren the Dissenters blind them in such a manner that they have no regard to the general Interest of the Church Should they for enjoying a Liberty of Conscience so ill assured shut their Eyes to all other Considerations How much better would it be for them to re-unite themselves to the Bishops with whom they differ only in some Points of Discipline but especially at this time when their Conduct ought to have entirely defaced those unjust Suspicions which they had conceived against them But if they could not so readily dispose themselves to such a Re-union would it not be better for them to resolve still to continue without Liberty of Conscience and expect some more favourable time when they may by lawful
means attain it than to open themselves a Gite to Popery and to concur with it to the Ruine of the Protestant Religion You will it may be tell us that it looks ill in us who so much complain That we have been deprived of Liberty of Concience in France to sind fault with the King of England for granting it to his Subjects And that it is the least that can be allowed to a Soveraign to allow him the Right to permit the exercise of his own Religion in his own Kingdoms and to make use of the Service of such of his Subjects as himself shall think sit by putting them into Charges and Employs You will add That his Majesty does not go about neither to abrogate the ancient Laws nor to make new ones All he does being only to dispence with the Observation of certain Laws in such of his Subjects as he thinks fit and for as long time as he pleases and that the right of dispensing with and suspending of Laws is a Right insepably tied to his Person That for the rest the Protestant Religion does not run the least Risque There are Laws to shut the Papists out of Parliament and these Laws can neither be dispensed with nor suspended So that the Parliament partaking with the King in the Legislative Power and continuing still Protestant there is no cause to fear that any thing should be done contrary to the Protestant Religion Besides What probability is there that a King who appears so great an Enemy to Oppression in matters of Conscience and Religion should ever have a thought tho' he had the Power himself to oppress in this very matter the greatest part of his Subjects and take from them that Liberty of Conscience which he now grants to them and which he promises so â—… to observe for the time to come These are all the Objections that can with â—… appearance of Reason be made against what we have before said They may all be reduced â—… five which we shall examine in their order And we doubt not but we shall easily make it appear that they are all but meer Illusions 1. We do justly complain That they had taken from us our Liberty of Conscience in France because it was done contrary to the Laws And one may as justly complain that the K. of England does labour to re-estalish Popery in his Country because he cannot do it but contrary to the Laws Our Liberties in France were founded us on solemn Laws upon perpetual irrevocable and sacred Edicts and which could not be â—… without violating at once the Publick Faith the Royal Word and the Sacredness of an Oath And Popery has been banished out of England by Laws made by King and Parliament and which cannot be repealed but by the author of King and Parliament together so that the therefore there is just cause to complain that the King should go about to overthrow them himself alone by his Declaration 2. It is not true that a Soveraign has always the right to permit the Exercise of his own Religion in his Dominions and to make use of the â—… of such of his Subjects as he himself shall that fit that is to say by putting of them into â—… and Employs And in particular he has this right when the Laws of his Country contrary thereunto as they are in the â—… before us Every King is obliged to observe the fundamental Laws of his Kingdom And the King of England as well as his Subjects ought to observe the Laws which have been established by King and Parliament together 3. For the third the distinction between abrogation of a Law and the dispensing â—… and suspending of it cannot here be of use whether the King abrogates the Laws which have been made against Popery or whether without saying expressly that he does abrogate them he overthrows them by his Declarations under pretence of dispensing with suspending of them it is still in effect same thing And to what purpose is it the Laws are not abrogated if in the â—… time all sorts of Charges are given to Papists and Popery it self be re-established contrary to the tenor of the Laws The truth is if the King has such a power as this if this be â—… Right necessarily tied to his Person 't is in vain â—… the Parliament does partake with him in the Legislature This Authority of the Parliament is but a meer Name a Shadow a Phan â—… a Chimera and no more The King is still the absolute Master because he can alone and without his Parliament render useless by his Declarations the Laws which the Parliament shall have the most solemnly established together with him We confess the King has right of dispensing in certain Cases as if the concern be what belongs to his private Interest he may without doubt whenever he pleases depart from his own Rights 't is a Liberty which no body will pretend to contest with him But he has not the power to dispense to the Prejudice of the Rights of the people â—… by consequence put the Property the Liberty and the Lives of his Protestant Subjects into the hands of Papists 4. What we have now said in Answer to the third Objection will be more clear from the Answer we are to give to the fourth They should perswade the Protestants that their Religion is in safety because on the one side the King cannot make Laws without the Parliament and that on the other there being Laws which exclude Papists out of the two Houses it must necessarily follow That the Parliament shall continue to be Protestant But if the King has the power to break through the Laws under the pretence of dispensing with and suspending of them what Security shall the Protestants have that he will not dispense with the Papists the Observation of those Laws which do exclude them out of the Parliament as well as â—… has dispensed with those that should have kept them out of Charges and Imployments â—… Security shall they have that he will â—… at any time hereafter suspend the Execution of the former as he has already suspended the Execution of the latter Which being â—… what should hinder us from seeing in a little â—… a Popish Parliament who together with the King shall pass Laws contrary to the Protestant Religion What difference can be shewn between the one and the other of these Laws â—… the one should be liable to be dispensed with and suspended and the other not Were they not both established by the King and Parliament Were not both the one and the other made for the Security of the Protestant Religion and of those who profess it Are not the Rights of the people concerned in the one as well as in the other And whosoever suffers and approves the King in the violation of these Rights in some things does he not thereby authorize him to violate them in all If the King has power to put the Liberty and
making of Laws which shall Authorize the Deisying a bit of Bread the Worshipping of it for a God the Praying to it Idolatry Blasphemy any thing in the World for them that like it Now is not this a very fair Speech and does it not well become the mouths of Protestants I would fain press this home upon the Consciences both of those Dissenters who are hired and of those who are not hired to labour the Repeal of our Laws Do you fear the Informers more than God Will you for the sake of your little Conventicles do the greatest Evils which you know to be such You know in your very Hearts that the Worship of Images Crosses and of a Wafer is abominable Idolatry that the Half-Communion is Sacriledge and that many other Points of Popery are blasphemous Fables And will you set up this for one of your Religions as by Law Established Will you do all that hands can do to entail Idolatry upon the Nation not only Removendo prohibens as Divines distinguish by pulling down the Laws which hinder it but also Promovendo adjuvans by making a perpetual Magna Charta for it The Laws and Constitution of a Country do denominate that Country if Atheism were Authorized by Law this would be an Athiestical Nation and if Idolatry be set up by Law it is an Idolatrous Nation and all that have any hand in it make it the Sin of the Nation as well as their own Think therefore of these things in time before you have involved both your selves and your Country in a miserable Estate and remember poor Francis Spira who went against Light. But Secondly There is just as much Prudence as Conscience in these Proceedings for by Repealing the Laws against Popery you Reverse the Outlawry and take of those legal Disabilities which the Papists now lie under and which have hitherto tied their Hands from destroying Hereticks When Papists shall be right Justices and Sheriffs and not Counterseits when they shall be Probi legales homines and pass Muster in Law when they shall be both our legal Judges and our lawful Juries and when Protestants shall come to be Tryed by their Country that is to say by their Twelve Popish Godfathers they may easily know what sort of Blessing they are to expect The Papists want nothing but these Advantages to make a fair riddance of all Protestants for we see by several of their late Pamphlets that if any thing be said against Popery they have a great dexterity in laying it Treason Now this is a civil way of answering Arguments for which we are bound to thank them because it so plainly discovers what they would be at if it were in their Power But how comes it to be Treason to speak against a Religion which is itself High-Treason and is Proscribed by so many Laws Why their Medium is this That Popery is the King's Religion and therefore by an Inuendo what is said against that is meant against him But is there any Law of England that Popery shall be the King's Religion Or is it declared by any Law that Popery either is or can be his Religion On the other hand we are enabled by an Act in this very Reign to pronounce Popery to be a False Religion and to assert the Religion which is now professed in the Church of England and Established by the Laws of this Realm to be the True Christian Religion Act for building St. Ann's Church p. 133. But these Gentlemen it seems are for Hanging Men without Law or against Law or any how and therefore we thank them again for being thus plain with us before hand Now if they be thus insolent when they are so very abnoxious themselves and have Halters about their own Necks with what a Rod of Iron will they Rule us when they are our Masters What havock will they then make of the Nation when we already see Magdalen Colledge which was lately a flourishing Society of Protestants now made a Den of Jesuits and that done to in such a way as shakes all the Property in England Or who can be safe after our Laws are Repealed when Endeavours have been lately used to extract Sedition even out of Prayers and Tears and the Bishops Humble Petition was threatned to be made a Treasonable Libel But here the Dissenters have a plausible excuse for themselves for say they We have now an opportunity of getting the Laws which are against us Repealed which is clear gain and as for our refusing to Repeal the Laws against Popery there is nothing gotten by that either to us or to any body else for they are already as good as Repealed by the Dispensing Power and therefore such Discourse as this only advises us to stand in our own light without doing any good to the Nation at all for there will be Popish Justices Sheriffs Judges and Juries whether we will or no for whatsoever we refuse to do the Dispensing Power will supply To which I answer Do you keep your hands off from Repealing the Laws let who will contravene or Transgress them for then you are free from the Blood of all Men you have no share in the guilt of those Mischiefs which befal your Country which would sooner or later be a heavy burden and a dead weight upon the Conscience of any Protestant But besides let the Laws alone and they will defend both themselves and us too for if the Law says That a Papist shall not nor cannot have an Office then he shall not nor cannot for who can speak Louder than the Laws As for a Dispensing-Power inherent in the King which can set aside as many of the Laws of the Land as he pleases and Suspend the Force and Obligation of them which has been lately held forth by many False and Unlawful Pamphlets the Dissenters know very well that there is no such thing but that no body may pretend Ignorance I shall here prove in very few words That by the Established Laws of the Land the King cannot have such a Dispensing-Power unless Dispensing with the Laws and Executing the Laws be the same thing and unless both keeping the Laws himself and causing them to be kept by all others be the English of Dispensing with them For in the Statute of Provisors 25 Eaw 3. c. 25. we have this laid down for Law That the King is bound to Execute those Statutes which are Unrepealed and to cause them to be kept as the Law of this Realm The words are these speaking of a Statute made in the time of Edward the First Which Statute holdeth always his Force and was never Defeated or Annull'd in any point And by somuch our Sovereign Lord the King is bound by his Oath to do the same to be kept as the Law of this Realm although by Sufferance and Negligence it hath since been attempted to the contrary So that the Coronation Oath and the Dispensing-Power are here by King Edward the Third and his
to mind how it fared with those in King Charles the First 's Reign who read the Book of Sports as it was called and then preached against it To return then to our Argument if reading the Declaration in our Churches be in the nature of the Action in the intention of the Command in the opinion of the People an interpretative consent to it I think my self bound in conscience not to read it because I am bound in conscience not to approve it It is against the Constitution of the Church of England which is Established by Law and to which I have subscribed and thefore am bound in Conscience to Teach nothing contrary to it while this Obligation lasts It is to Teach an unlimited and universal Toleration which the Parliament in 72. Declared illegal and which has been condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages It is to teach my People that they need never come to Church more but have my free leave as they have the King 's to go to a Conventicle or to Mass It is to teach the dispensing Power which alters what has been formerly thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom which we dare not do till we have the Authority of Parliament for it It is to recommend to our People the choice of such persons to sit in Parliament as shall take away the Test and Penal-Laws which most of the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation have declared their judgment against It is to condemn all those great and worthy Patriots of their Country who forfeited the dearest thing in the World to them next a good Conscience viz. The Favour of their Prince and a great many honourable and profitable Employments with it rather than consent to that Proposal of taking away the Test and Penal Laws which they apprehend destructive to the Church of England and the Protestant Religion and he who can in Conscience do all this I think need scruple nothing For let us consider further what the effects and consequences of our reading the Declaration are likely to be and I think they are matter of Conscience too when they are evident and apparent This will certainly render our Persons and Ministry infinitely contemptible which is against that Apostolick Canon Let no man despise thee Titus 2. 15. That is so to behave himself in his Ministerial Office as not to fall under contempt and therefore this obliges the Conscience not to make our selves ridiculous nor to render our Ministry our Counsels Exhortations Preaching Writing of no effect which is a thousand times worse than being silenced Our Sufferings will Preach more effectually to the People when we cannot speak to them but he who for Fear or Cowardise or the Love of this World betrays his Church and Religion by undue compliances and will certainly be thought to do so may continue to Preach but to no purpose and when we have rendred our selves ridiculous and contemptible we shall then quickly fall and fall unpitied There is nothing will so effectually tend to the final ruine of the Church of England because our Reading the Declaration will discourage or provoke or misguide all the Friends the Church of England has can we blame any man for not preserving the Laws and the Religion of our Church and Nation when we our selves will venture nothing for it can we blame any man for consenting to Repeal the Test and Penal Laws when we recommend it to them by Reading the Declaration Have we not Reason to expect that the Nobility and Gentry who have already suffered in this Cause when they hear themselves condemned for it in all the Churches of England will think it time to mend such a fault and reconcile themselves to their Prince and if our Church fall this way is there any any reason to expect that it should ever rise again These Consequences are almost as evident as Demonstrations and let it be what it will in it self which I foreseee will destroy the Church of England and the Protestant Religion and Interest I think I ought to make as much conscience of doing it as of doing the most immoral Action in Nature To say that these mischievous consequences are not absolutely necessary and therefore do not affect the Conscience because we are not certain they will follow is a very mean Objection Moral Actions indeed have not such necessary consequences as natural causes have necessary effects because no moral causes act necessarily Reading the Declaration will not as necessarily destroy the Church of England as fire burns Wood but if the consequence be plain and evident the most likely thing that can happen if it be unreasonable to expect any other if it be what is plainly intended and designed either I must never have any regard to Moral Consequences of my Actions or if ever they are to be considered they are in this case Why are the Nobility and Gentry so extreamly averse to the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws why do they forfeit the King's Favour and their Honourable Stations rather than comply with it if you say that this tends to destroy the Church of England and the Protestant Religion I ask whether this be the necessary consequence of it whether the King cannot keep his promise to the Church of England if the Test and Penal Laws be Repealed We cannot say but this may be and yet the Nation does not think fit to try it and we commend those great men who deny it and if the same questions were put to us we think we ought in Conscience to deny them our selves and are there not as high probabilities that our Reading the Declaration will promote the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws as that such a Repeal will ruine our Constitution and bring in Popery upon us Is it not as probable that such a complyance in us will disoblige all the Nobility and Gentry who have hitherto been firm to us as that when the power of the Nation is put into Popish Hands by the Repeal of such Tests and Laws the Priests and Jesuits may find some salvo for the King's Conscience and perswade him to forget his Promise to the Church of England and if the probable ill consequences of Repealing the Test and Penal Laws be a good reason not to comply with it I cannot see but that the as probable ill consequences of Reading the Declaration is as good a reason not to read it The most material Objection is that the Dissenters whom we ought not to provoke will expound our not Reading it to be the effect of a Persecuting Spirit Now I wonder men should lay any weight on this who will not allow the most probable consequences of our Actions to have any influence upon Conscience for if we must compare consequences to disoblige all the Nobility and Gentry by Reading it is likely to be much more fatal than to anger the Dissenters and it is more likely and there is much more
apt to suspect that the best way to preserve Liberty of Conscience is to keep the Test and Penal Laws III. For Thirdly If there be any reasou to suspect any other design than Liberty of Conscience as suppose to promote Popery and by degrees to make it the Established Religion of the Nation which certainly is the Design unless you can imagine that Priests and Jesuits and one who hath given up his Understanding and Conscience to them can ever be without this Design You will easily be convinced that there is infinite hazzard in repealing the Test and the Penal Laws This sets Papists upon an equal level with Protestants and then the Favour of the Prince will set them above them and when the whole power of the Nation and the whole administration of Justice is in Popish hands there will need no Penal Laws to persecute Protestants If you say this is done in a great many instances now before such a Repeal I answer then you may certainly guess what will be done when those incapacitating Laws are repealed And yet the difference is very great For while they are under such a legal Incapacity the distrust of their power will make them more modest which is the only thing that can plead excuse hereafter but when they have legal authority they will shew their Nature without restraint Men who have any thing to lose will act cautiously in prospect of an After-reckoning or while these legal incapacities continue will be afraid to act but when the Legal Authority and Power is in their hands Protestant Subjects will quickly find what a Popish liberty of Conscience means While these Laws continue some professed Professed Protestants whose Consciences are govern'd by their Interest are afraid to declare and by these means Popery wants hands and numbers to do its work But when these Laws are removed hopes of preferment will prevail on some and fear on others and when this frozen Adder begins to grow warm and recover its blood and spirits it will find its sting too This would certainly overthrow the Constitution of the Church of England which is the most effectual way to let in Popery For when all Incapacities are removed Papists are as well qualified for Church-Preferments as Protestants and it will be an easie matter to find pretences to remove the best Men to make way for them We have four Catholick Bishops as they vainly call themselves already prepared to fill vacant Sees and if such Men have the impudence to publish their Pastoral Letter and make their publick Visitations while all the Laws against them are in force judge what they will do when they are repealed Thus our Parishes may be filled with Roman Priests and they indeed are the fittest to serve under Roman Bishops And if one Colledge be already seized into Popish hands and the Protestant possessors turned out of their Freehold when those Laws are Repealed we may quickly see more follow them and judge whether this be not a fair and easie step to Popery Nay I have heard some good Lawyers say that when the Penal Laws are repealed Popery is the Established Religion of the Nation That when a repealing Law is repealed the repealed Law revives I am not so good a Lawyer as to judge of this but I think it is worth your Considering But who knows when all the Ecclesiastical Laws are Repealed what the King's Supremacy and his Ecclesiastical Commission may do There have been great and big words said of it of late and I believe You had better keep your Penal Laws than fall under the lash of a Popish Supremacy I know there hath been a great talk of an Equivalent but I would gladly know what that Equivalent should be Shall it incapacitate all Papists for any Office either in Church or State That must not be for fear of depriving the King of the natural right he has to the service of his Subjects and then I am sure there can be no Equivalent for the repeal of the incapacitating Laws But you say there shall be a New Charter for the Church of England the Protestant Religion and Liberty of Conscience Now shall this be with a Penalty or without one If with a penalty then you do not repeal but only exchange your Penal Laws and if Penal Laws are not such Unchristian things but they may be allowed we cannot have better for the security of our Religion than we have and therefore we had best keep these Is there any other fault in our Penal Laws especially when they are not executed but that they are too great a security to the Church of England and the Protestant Interest And if this be a reason for Protestants at this time to repeal them I have done But if this new Establishment be without a penalty what is it good for When these Penal Laws are removed Papists are qualified to sit in both Houses of Parliament and who knows whether Closetting and Reforming of Corporations and such other Arts may not quickly make a Popish Parliament And then Good Night to your New Establishment and Liberty of Conscience These things I hope Sir You will consider in your Choice of Members for Parliament and not be cheated with the Popular cry of Liberty of Conscience into the vilest and most despicable Slavery both of Soul and Body I am SIR Your very Cordial Friend and faithful Monitor A Plain Account of the PERSECUTION laid to the Charge of the CHURCH of ENGLAND THE desire of Liberty to serve God in that way and manner which Men judge to be most acceptable to him is so Natural and Reasonable that they cannot but be extremely provoked against those who would force them to serve him in any other But the conceit withall which most men have that their way of serving God is the only acceptable way naturally inclines them when they have Power to use all means to constrain all others to serve him in that way only So that Liberty is not more desired by all at one time than it is denied by the very same Persons at another Put them into different Conditions and they are not of the same mind but have different inclinations in one state from what they have in another As will be apparent by a short view of what hath passed in these Churches and Kingdoms within our memory II. Before the late Civil Wars there were very grievous Complaints made of the Bishops that they pressed the Ceremonies so strictly as to inflict heavy Censures upon those called Puritans who could not in Conscience conform to them Now no sooner had those very Persons who thus complain'd got their liberty to do as they pleased but they took it quite away from the other and Sequestred all those who would not enter into their Holy League and Covenant for the Reforming all things according to the Model which they propounded Nay they were not willing to bear with Five Dissenting Brethren among themselves who could not
those who possess any Church-Lands or Goods who are still left under the sentence of Excommunication Toleti Instr. Sacord and his Explicatio casuum in Bulla canae Dni reserva From which considerations it's evident that it never was the design of the Pope to confirm the English Church Lands to the Lay-possessors but that he always urg'd the necessity of restoring of them to religious uses in order to which the Papists prevailed to have the statute of Mertmaln repealed for 20 Years In Queen Elizabeths Reign the factious Party that was manag'd wholy by Romish Amiffaries demanded to have Abbies and such religious Houses restored for their Use and A. D. 1585 in their Petition to the Parliament they set it down as a resolute Doctrine that things once dedicated to Sacred Uses ought so to remain by the Word of God for ever and ought not to be converted to any private use Bishop Bancrofts Sermon at p. c. A. D. 1588. p. 25. And that the Church of Rome is still gaping after these Lands is evident from many of their late Books as the Religion of M. Luther lately printed at Oxford p. 15. The Monks wrote Anathema upon the Registers and Donaticns belonging to Monasteries the weight and effect of which Curses are both felt and dreaded to this day To this end the Monasticon Anglicanum is so diligently preserved in the Vatican and other Libraries in Popish Countries and especially this appears from the obstlnate refusal of this present Pope to confirm these Alienations tho it be a matter so much controverted and which would be of that vast Use towards promoting their Religion in this Kingdom If therefore the Bishops of Rome did never confirm these Alienations of Church Lands but earnestly and strictly required their Restitution if they have declared in their Authentick Canons that they have no power to do it and both they and the last general Council pronounce an heavy Curse and Anathema against all such as detain them Then let every one that possesseth these Lands and yet owns either of these foreign Jurisdictions consider that here is nothing left to excuse him from Sacriledge and therefore with his Estate he must derive a curse to his Posterity There is scarcely any Papist but that is forward to accuse King Henry the 8th of Sacriledge and yet never reflects upon himself who quietly possesseth the Fruits of it without Restitution either set them not accuse him or else restore themselves Now whatever opinions the Papists may have of these things in the time of health yet I must desire to remember what the Jesuits proposed to Cardinal Pool in Doctor Pary's Days viz. That if he would encourage them in England they did not doubt but that by dealing with the Consciences of those who were dying they should soon recover the greatest part of the Goods of the Church Dr. Burnet's Hist. Vol. 2. p. 328. Not to mention that whensoever the Regulars shall grow numerous in England and by consequence butthensome to the few Nobility and Gentry of that Perswasion they will find it necessary for them to consent to a Restitution of their Lands that they may share the burthen among others For so vast are the Burthens and Payments that that Religion brings with it that it will be found at length an advantagious Bargain to part with all the Church Lands to indemnifie the rest And I am confident that the Gentry of England that are Papists have found greater Burthens and Payments since their Religion hath been allow'd than ever they did for the many years it was forbid and this charge must daily encrease so long as their Clergy daily grows more numerous and their few Converts are most of them of the meanest Rank and such as want to be provided for And that 's no easie matter to force Converts may appear from that excellent Observation of the great Emperor Charles the Fifth who told Queen Mary That by indeavouring to compel others to his own Religion i. e had tired and spent himself in vain and purchas'd nothing by it but his own dishonour Card. Pool in Heylins Hist. Ref. p. 217. And to conclude this Discourse had the Act of Pope Julius the Third by his Legate Cardinal Pool in confirming of the Alienation of Church Lands in England been as vallid as is by some pretended yet what shall secure us from an Act of Resumption That very Pope after that pretended Grant to Cardinal Pool published a Bull in which he excommunicated all that kept Abby Lands or Church Lands Burnets Hist. Vol. 2. p. 309. by which all former Grants had there been any were cancell'd His Successor Pope Paul the Fourth retrieved all the Goods and Ecclesiastical Revenues that had been alienated from the Church since the time of Julius the Second and the chief Reasons that are given why the Popes may not still proceed to an Act of Resumption of these Lands in England amount only to this That they may stay for a fair opportunity when it may be done without disturbing the Peace of the Kingdom From all which it 's evident that the detaining of Abby Lands and other Church Lands from the Monks and Friars is altogether inconsistent with the Doctrine and Principles of the Romish Religion The King's Power in Ecclesiastical Matters truly stated HIS present Majesty having erected an High-Commission Court to enquire of and make redress in Ecclesiastical Matters c. Q. Whether such a Commission as the Law now stands be good or not And I hold that the Commission is not good And to maintain my Opinion herein I shall in the first place briefly consider what Power the Crown of England had in Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Matters for I take them to be synonymous Terms before 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. And 2ly I shall particularly consider that Act of 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. And 3ly I shall consider 13 Car. 2. ca. 12. And by that time I have fully considered these three Acts of Parliament it will plainly appear That the Crown of England hath now no Power to erect such a Court. I must confess and do agree That by the common Law all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was lodged in the Crown and the Bishops and all Spiritual Persons derived their Jurisdiction from thence And I cannot find that there were any attempts by the Clergy to divest the Crown of it till William the First 's time in whose time and his Successors down to King John the Pope obtained four Points of Jurisdiction 1st Sending of Legates into England 2ly Drawing of Appeals to the Court of Rome 3ly Donation of Bishopricks and other Ecclesiastical Benefices And 4ly Exemption of Clerks from the secular Power Which four Points were gained within the space of an hundred and odd years but with all the opposition imaginable of the Kings and their People and the Kingdom never came to be absolutely inslaved to the Church of Rome till King John's time and then both King and People were
approve that of the Dissenters in separating from their Communion â—… we do confess they had some reason in the bottom for it and that the Ceremonies which they have refused to submit to are the Remains of Popery which we could rather wish might have been entirely abolished In this unhappy Schism which has so long time rent the Church of England we look upon it that both Parties have been equally defective in their Charity On the one side the Dissenters ought by no means to have separated themselves for the Form of Ecclesiastical Government nor for Ceremonies which do not at all concern the Fundamentals of Religion On the other side The Bishops should have had a greater Condescension to the Weakness of their Brethren And without doubt they would have â—… in a manner more agreeable to the Spirit of the Gospel if instead of treating them with so much rigour as they did they had left them the Liberty of serving God according to their Conscience till it should have pleased him to re-unite All under the same Discipline However the Conformity of Opinion between the Dissenters and Us ought to have prejudiced Us in their favour had we been capable of Partiality on this occasion There is also another thing which might have disposed us to judge less favourably of the Bishops than of them and that is the Yoke which they have imposed upon the French Ministers by óbliging them to receive a second Ordination before they could be permitted to Exercise their Ministry in the Church of England as if the Ordination they had received in France had not been sufficient But we must do Justice to all the World and bear Witness to the Truth We have already said and we must again repeat it It seems to us that on this last Occasion the Bishops have discharged their Duty and are most worthy of Praise whereas the Dissenters on the contrary are extreamly to be blamed And we will presently offer our Reasons wherefore we judge so of the one and of the other In the mean time most dear Brethren give us leave freely to tell you That if our Brethren the Dissenters of England who have Addressed to the King are to be blamed as we verily believe they are you certainly are much more to be condemned The Hardships under which they had lived for many years without Churches without Pastors without Assemblies made them think the Liberty of Conscience which was offered to them a great Ease Their Spirits soured and prejudiced by the ill Treatments they had received from the Church of England had not freedom enough to let them see that the Present which was made them was Empoison'd And therefore upon the sudden they received it with joy and thought themselves obliged to testifie their Acknowledgment of it But for you who never had any part in the Divisions of the Church of England and who by consequence were in a state to judge more soundly of things How is it that you should not have perceived the Poison that was hid under the Liberty of Conscience offered to them Or if you did not perceive it of your selves how is it that the Generous Refusal of the Bishops tho' at the peril of their Liberty and Estates to publish the Declaration in their Diocesses should not at least have open'd your eyes How have those Venerable Prelates now highly justified themselves from the Reproach that was laid upon them of being Popishly affected and of persecuting the Dissenters only but of a secret Hatred to the Reformation How well have they made it appear that these were only Calumnies invented by their Enemies to render them odious to the Protestants and that their hearts were truly fixed to the Reformed Religion and animated with a Zeal worthy Primitive Bishops Could you see those faithful Servants of God disobey the Order of their Soveraign expose themselves thereby to his Disgrace suffer Imprisonment and prepare themselves to suffer any thing rather than betray their Consciences and their Religion without admiring their Constancy and being touched with their Examples But above all could you resolve by your Conduct to condemn that of those generous Confessors Is this the Acknowledgment which you ought to have made to them for that Charity with which they had received and comforted you in your Exile Is this to Answer the Glorious Quality of Confessors of which you so much vaunt your selves Is this the Act of Faithful Ministers of Christ Give us leave to tell you most dear Brethren your Proceedings in this Affair appear so very strange to us that we cannot imagine how you were capable of so doing It seems to us to have even effaced all the Glory you had attained by your Sufferings to Reproach your Ministry and to be unworthy of True and Reformed Christians This is no rash judgment which we pass and to convince you that it is not we beseech you only to examine these things with us without Prejudice and Interest The Declaration of which we speak is designed for two purposes The one the re-establishment of Popery The other the extinction of the Reformed Religion in England The former of these designs appears openly in it The second is more concealed 't is a Mystery of Iniquity covered over with a specious appearance and of which the trace must be concealed till the time of manifestation comes We will say nothing of a third Design which is Of the Oppression of the Liberties of England for the Establishment of an absolute Authority but shall leave it to the Politicians to make their Reflexions upon it As for us if we sometimes touch upon it it shall be only with reference to Religion We will apply our selves chiefly to the two other Designs which they proposed to themselves who made that Declaration It cannot be deny'd but that by this Declaration there is a Liberty of Conscience granted differently to the Papists and to the Dissenters â—… comprehends both the one and the other under the Name of Nonconformists And we may with confidence affirm That they were the Papists especially whom the King had in his eye when he gave this Declaration And howsoever he may pretend to have been touched with the Oppressions which the Dissenters had suffered yet that his principal design was to re-establish Popery Behold here already a very great evil and such as all true Protestants are obliged with their â—… most power to oppose What shall we see Popery that abominable Religion that prodigioâ—â— heap of Filthiness and Impurity re-establish itself with all it honours in Kingdoms from which the Reformation had happily banished it And shall there be found in those Kingdoms Protestant who not only stand still without making any opposition to it but e'en favour its re-establishment and openly give it their Approbation Who could have thought that the Dissenters of England â—… who have always testified so great an aversion to the Roman Religion and who have no other pretence to separate
December 21. 1688. Licensed Fourteen Papers VIZ. I. A Letter from a Gentleman in Ireland to his Friend in London upon occasion of a Pamphlet Entituled A Vindication of the present Government of Ireland under his Excellency Richard Earl of Tyrconnel II. A Letter from a Freeholder to the rest of the Freeholders of England and all Others who have Votes in the Choice of Parliament-Men III. An Enquiry into the Reasons for Abrogating the Test imposed on all Members of Parliament Offered by Sa. Oxon. IV. Reflections on a Late Pamphlet Entituled Parliamentum Pacificum Licensed by the Earl of Sunderland and Printed at London in March 1688. V. A Letter to a Dissenter upon occasion of His Majesties late Gracious Declaration of Indulgence VI. The Anatomy of an Equivalent VII A Letter from a Clergy-man in the City to his Friend in the Country Containing his Reasons for not Reading the Declaration VIII An Answer to the City Minister's Letter from his Country Friend IX A Letter to a Dissenter from his Friend at the Hague concerning the Penal Laws and the Test shewing that the Popular Plea for Liberty of Conscience is not concerned in that Question X. A Plain Account of the Persecution said to the Charge of the Church of England XI Abby and other Church-Lands not yet assured to such Possessors as are Roman Catholicks Dedicated to the Nobility and Gentry of that Religion XII The King's Power in Ecclesiastical Matters truly stated XIII A Letter of several French Ministers fled into Germany upon the Account of the Persecution in France to such of their Brethren in England as approved the Kings Declaration touching Liberty of Conscience Translated from the Original in French. XIV Popish Treaties not to be rely'd on In a Letter from a Gentleman at York to his Friend in the Prince of Orange's Camp. Addressed to all Members of the next Parliament LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by Richard Baldwin ' near the BlackBull in the Old-Bailey 1689. A Letter from a Gentleman in Ireland to his Friend in London upon occasion of a Pamphlet Entituled A Vindication of the present Government of Ireland under his Excellency Richard Earl of Tyrconnel SIR AS soon as the Letter Entituled A Vindication of the present Government of Ireland c. came to my hands I set upon Answering it with the same expedition and plainness of Style as uses to accompany naked Truth which needs not the cloathing of sophistical Arguments or florid Expressions to recommend it to the unprejudic'd part of Mankind And indeed upon the very first reading of every Paragraph of it the slightness of the Arguing or the notorious Falshood of the Matter of Fact did so evidently appear that a man of ordinary capacity needs not put his Natural Talent on the Rack to resute them The very first Position of the Paper viz. That Ireland is in a better Way of Thriving under the Government of a Native than an Englishman by which I suppose you mean one not barely so by Birth but by Inclination Interest Education Religion c. is so false that it contradicts the Experience and Reason of Mankind and disgusts one so much in the front of the Letter that I was tempted to fling it away unread judging it not worth the loss of so much time if the rest should prove of the same kind as indeed I found it upon perusal but having ventured through it I looked upon myself obliged to say something by way of Answer since in the opinion of some sort of Men the not Answering though even the most trifling Pamphlet is given out to be the Inability of the Party to reply to the weight of such Arguments as are contained in it I will not insist much upon the constant Practice of all the Predecessours of our English Kings and their Counsellors ever since the Conquest of Ireland who made it an establisht Maxim in relation to that Kingdom That none but an Englishman should be Chief Governour insomuch that till within these two Years that Practice gave occasion to the common erronious opinion That a man born in Ireland however otherwise qualified was thereby incapacitated from being Lord Deputy It is certain that long before the Reformation when Matters of Religion made no distinction between the Natives of each Country this was the setled and unalter'd Rule Have we any reason then to alter it now that Religion is put into the Scale and become the additional weight which never fails giving the advantage to the side it espouses and adheres to or rashly to condemn the wise Proceedings of the Ancestours of our Kings and contrary to the Opinion of the World judge our Author's Irish Understanding better than all the English ones that have been heretofore Our Author will certainly allow Ireland to be a conquer'd Country and consequently that the Conquerours have right to establish Laws with such restrictions and limitations as shall seem fitting and convenient towards the keeping it in their hands and the welfare of the Inhabitants which are of two sorts the British Planters and the Natives I shall prove that it has been and still is the Advantage of both these that Ireland should be Govern'd by an Englishman By the way I would have it understood that I do not pretend to put these two Interests into any ballance I know the British Interest does so far outweigh the other that it were a wrong done it to bring them into any competition more than two parts of three of the Lands of Ireland being by the several Rebellions of the Irish in British hands and for the Quality Temper Industry c. there is no comparison besides that if one of two Parties is to be pleased tho' by the detriment of the other 't is but just that the Conquerours who have right to give Law should be indulg'd how much more when it is consistent with the welfare of the Irish themselves if they understood their own good I am convinc'd that whatever has been done in favour of the Natives is pure Grace and cannot be claimed as a just Debt any otherwise than since it has been confirmed by Our Laws and Acts of Parliament He that reflects on 1641 will readily assent to this which makes me admire at the pertness of our Author in Capitulating as if we stood upon even ground with them but 't is plain he considers the Interest but of one Party in that Kingdom and tho' he names Ireland often he means the Native Irish Papist only But I proceed To prove that it is the Interest of the British that Ireland should be Governed by an Englishman I need say no more than that they all ardently desire it and People are the best Judge of their own Necessities The common Maxim That Interest will not lye Holds good here to some purpose The ill effects the contrary method has had on their Persons and Estates is but too visible Whoever had seen Ireland four Years ago and
give them English Liberties let them dig down their Walls and let in the Sea let them begin with some of these Preliminaries before they think of Repealing the Laws against Popery and of letting loose such Consciences as these upon us To Conclude therefore It highly Concerns you in the Choice of Parliament-Men to decline all those Men who are willing to Consent to so Great and so Fatal a Revolution as the Repeal of so many Laws at once which would plainly expose the Protestant Religion to be swallowed up You want Men like their Ancestors who had the Courage and Resolution to declare in Parliament Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari We will not have the Laws of England altered Chuse such as will not Betray the Great ' Frust you repose in them The Writ for Elections says That you Impower your Representatives Tell them therefore for what you Impower them For the Maintenance and Presirvation of the Protestant Religion and of our good Laws and not for their Destruction And when you have done this and taken all the care you can you have done your Duties And I have nothing more to add but GOD speed your Elections An ENQIRY into the Reasons for Abrogating the TEST imposed on all Members of Parliament Offered by Sa. Oxon. WHEN the Cardinals in Rome go abroad without Fiocco's on their Horses heads it is understood that they will be then incognito and they expect nothing of that Respect which is payed them on other Occasions So since there is no Fiocco at the Head of this Discourse no Name nor Designation it seems the Writer offers himself to be examined without those nice regards that may be due to the Dignity he bears and indeed when a Man forgets what he is himself it is very natural for others to do itlikewise It is no wonder to see those of the Roman Communion bestir themselves so much as they do to be delivered from the Test and every thing else that is uneasie to them and though others may find it very reasonable to oppose themselves in all the Just and Legal Ways that agree with our Constitution to this Design yet it is so natural to all that are under any Pressure to desire to get free from it that at the same time that we cannot forbear to withstand them we cannot much condemn them But it raises Nature a little to see a Man that has been so long fatned with the Spoils of our Church and who has now got up to a degree so disproportioned to his Merit to turn so treacherously upon it If he is already weary of his comfortable importance and will give her into the bargain and declare himself no body will be surprized at the change of his Masque since he has taken much pains to convince the World that his Religion goes no deeper than his Habit yet though his Confidence is of a piece with all his other Vertues few thought it could have carried him so far I confess I am not surprized but rather wonder to see that others should be so for he has given sufficient Warning what he is capable of he has told the World what is the worst thing that Dr. Burnet can do pag. 50. but I am sure the Doctor cannot be quit with him to tell what is the worst thing that he can do it must needs be a very fruitful Fancy that can find out all the Degrees of Wickedness to which he can go and though this Pamphlet is a good Essay of his Talent that way yet that Terra Incognia is boundless In the Title Page it is said that this was first writ for the Author 's own Satisfaction and now Published for the Benefit of all others whom it may concern But the words are certainly wrong placed for the truth of the matter is That it was written for the Author 's own Benefit and that it is now Published for the Satisfaction of all others whom it may concern In some sence perhaps it was written for the Author 's own Satisfaction for so petulant and so depraved a mind as His is capable of being delighted with His Treachery and a poor Bishoprick with the addition of a Presidentship being too low a Prize for his Ambition and Avarice He resolved to assure Himself of the first great Bishoprick that falls the Litge Letter lets us see how far the Jesuites were assured of him and how much courted by him and that he said that none but Atheists supported the Protestant Religion now in England yet how many soever of these may be among us He is upon the point of lessening their number by one at least and he takes care to justifie the Hopes which these Father 's conceiv'd of him They are severe Masters and will not be put off with Secret Civilities Lewd Jests Entertainments and Healths drank to their good Success so now the Price of the Presidentship is to be paid so good a Morsel as this deserved that Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tillotson Dr. Burnet and some other Divines should be ill used and he to preserve the Character of Drawcansir which is as due to him as that of Bays falls upon the Articles of the Church and upon both Houses of Parliament It is Reproach enough to the House of Lords that he is of it but it is somewhat new and a Character becoming Sa. Oxon to arraign that House with all the Insolence to which he can raise his wanton Pen. Laws that are in being are treated with respect even by those who move for their Repcal but our Drawcansir scorns that modest strain He is not contented to arraign the Law but calls it Barbarous and says that nothing can be more Barbarous and Prophane then to make the renouncing of a Mistery so unanimously received a State Test p. 133. p. 64. But he ought to have avoided the word Prophane since it leads Men to remember that he had taxed the Praying for the King as under God and Christ as Crude not to say Prophane when in the Prospect he had then of a Bishoprick he raised the King above Christ but now another Prospect will make him sink him beneath the Pope who is but at best Christ's Vicar But this is not all there comes another Flower that is worthy of him he tells us That the TEST was the first born of Oats's Plot and brought sorth on purpose to give Credit and Reputation to the Perjury p. 5. and because this went in common between the two Houses he bestows a more particular mark of his Favour on the House of Lords and tells them That this was a Monument erected by themselves in honour of so gross an Imposture ibid. But after all the Royal Assent was added and here no doubt it itched somewhere for if it had not been for the manner of the late King's Death and the Papers published since his Death he would have wreaked his Malice upon his Memory for he will never forgive his not advancing him And the
and the King wanted Money then a new severe Law against the Dissenters was offered to the angry men of the Church-party as the price of it and this seldom sail'd to have its effect so that they were like the Jewels of the Crown pawned when the King needed Money but redeem'd at the next Prorogation A Reflection then that arises naturally out of the Proceedings in the Year 1660. is That if a Parliament should come that would copy after that pattern and repeal Laws and Tests The King's Offers of Liberty of Conscience as may indeed be supposed will bind him till after a short Session or two such a meritorious Parliament should be dissolved according to the precedent in the Year 1660. and that a new one were brought together by the same Methods of changing Charters and making Returns and then the Old Laws de Heretico Comburtedo might be again revived and it would be said that the Kings Inclinations are for keeping his Promise and Granting still a Liberty of Conscience yet he can deny nothing to a Loyal and Catholick Parliament III. We pay all possible respect to the King and have witnessed how much we depended on his promises in so signal a manner that after such real Evidence all words are superfluous But since the King has shewed so much zeal not only for his Religion in general but in particular for that Society which of all the other Bodies in it we know is animated the most against us we must crave leave to speak a little freely and not suffer our selves to be destroyed by a Complement The Extirpation of Hereticks and the Breach of Faith to them have been Decreed by two of their General Councils and by a Tradition of several Ages the Pope is possessed of a power of dissolving all Promises Contracts and Oaths not to mention the prviate Doctrines of that Society that is so much in favour of doing Ill that Good may come of it of using Equivocations and Reservations and of ordering the Intention Now these Opinions as they have never been renounced by the Body of that Church so indeed they cannot be unless they renounce their Infallibility which is their Basis at the same time Therefore though a Prince of that Communion may very sincerely resolve to maintain Liberty of Conscience and to keep his Word yet the blind Subjection into which he is brought by his Religion to his Church must force him to break through all that as soon as the Doctrine of his Church is opened to him and that Absolution is denied him or higher Threatnings are made him if he continues firm to his merciful Incliations So that supposing His Majesties Piety to be as great as the Jesuits Sermon on the Thirtieth of January lately printed carries it to the uttermost possibility of Flesh and Blood then our Fears must still grow upon us who know what are the Decrees of that Church and by consequence we may infer to what his Piety must needs carry him as soon as those things are fully opened to him which in respect to him we are bound to believe are now hid from him IV. It will further appear that these are not injust Inferences if we consider a little what has been the Observation of all the Promises made for Liberty of Conscience to Hereticks by Roman Catholick Princes ever since the Reformation The first was the Edict of Passaw in Germany procured chiefly by Ferdinand's means and maintained indeed religiously by his Son Maximilian the Second whose Inclinations to the Protestant Religion made him be suspected for one himself but the Jesuits insinuated themselves so far into his Younger Brother's Court that was Archduke of Grats that this was not only broken by that Family in their Share but though Rodolph and Mathias were Princes of great Gentleness and the latter of these was the Prorector of the States in the beginning of their War with K. Philip the Second yet the violence with which the House of Grats was possessed overturned all that so that the breaking off the Pacificatory Edicts was begun in Rodolph's time and was so far carried on in Mathias's time that they set both Bahemia and Hungary in a Flame and so begun that long War of Germany 2. The next Promise for Liberty of Conscience was made by Queen Mary of England but we know well enough how it was observed The Promises made by the Queen Regent of Scotland were observed with the same Fidelity after these came the Pacificatory Edicts in France which were scarce made when the Triumvirat was formed to break them The famous Massacre of Paris was an instance never to be forgot of the Religious Observance of a Treaty made on purpost to lay the Party asleep and to bring the whole Heads of it into the Net This was a much more dreadful St. Partholomew than that on which our Author beflows that Epithere pag. 15. and when all seemed setled by the famous Edict of Nantes we have seen how restless that Party and in particular the Society were till it was broken by a Prince that for thirty years together had shewed as great an aversion to the Shedding of Blood in his Government at home as any of his Neighbours can pretend to and who has done nothing in the whole Tragedy that he has acted but what is exactly conform to the Doctrine and Decrees of his Church so that it is not himself but his Religion that we must blame for all that has fallen out in that Kingdom I cannot leave this without taking notice of our Author's Sincerity who page 18. tells us of the Protestants entring into their League in France when it is well known that it was a League of Papists against a Protestant Successor which was afterwards applied to a Popish King only because he was not zealous enough against Hereticks But to end this List of Instances at a Countrey to which our Author bears so particular a kindness when the Dutchess of Parma granted the Edict of Pacification by which all that was past was buried and the Exercise of the Protestant Religion was to be connived at for the future King Philip the Second did not only ratifie this but expressed himself so fully upon it to the Count of Egmont who had been sunt over to him that the easie Count returned to Flanders so assured of the King's Sincerity that he endeavoured to perswade all others to rely as much on his Word as he himself did It is well known how fatal this Confidence was to him and see Mettren lib. 3. that two years after this that King sent over the Duke of Alva with that severe Commission which has been often Printed in which without any regard had to the former Pacification or Promises the King declared That the Provinces had forfeited all their Liberties and that every man in it had forfeited his Life and therefore he authorised that numerciful man to proceed with all possible rigor against them It is also
over as an Excess of Government that might be excusable though not justifiable this will by no means prove that Laws made to Secure us against that which we esteem the greatest of Evils may be suspended because Twelve Men in Scarlet have been tried or practised on to say so The Power of Pardoning is also unreasonably urged for justifying the Dispensing Power the one is a Grace to a particular Person for a Crime committed and the other is a Warrant to commit Crimes In short the one is a Power to save Men the other is a Power to destroy the Government But though they swagger it now with a Dispensing Power yet Rede Caper Vitem c. may come to be again in Season and a time may come in which the whole Party may have reason to wish that some hair-brain'd Jesuits had never been born who will not only expose them to the Resentments but even to the Justice of another Season in which as little regard will be had to the Dispensing Power as they have to the Laws at present VII Our Author's kindness to the States of Holland is very particular and returns often upon him and it is no wonder that a State settled upon two such hinges as the Protestant Religion and the Publick Liberty should be no small Eye-sore to those who intend to destroy both So that the slackning the Laws concerning Religion and the moderating that State by invading it seem to be terms that must always go together In the first War began the first slackning of them and after the Triple Alliance had laid the Dutch asleep when the Second War was resolved on it was begun with that Heroical Attempt on the Smyrna Fleet for our Author will not have the late King's Actions to be forgotten at the same time the famous Declaration for Suspending the Laws in 1672 came out And now again with another Declaration to the same purpose we see a return of the same good inclinations for the Dutch though none before our Author has ever ventur'd as in a Book Licensed by my Lord President of the Council to call their Constitution pag. 68 a Revolt that they made from their Lawful Prince and to raise his stile to a more sublime strain he says pag. 66. that their Common-wealth is nothing else but the result of an absolute Rebellion Revolt and Defection from their Prince and that the Laws that they have made were to prevent any casual return to their natural Allegiance and speaking of their obligation to Protect a Naturalized Subject he bestows this honour on them as to say p. 57. 58. Those that never yet dealt so fairly with Princes may be suspected for such a superfluous Faith to one that puts himself upon them for a Vassal Time will shew how far the States will resent these Injuries only it seems our Author thinks that a Soveraign's Faith to protect the Subject is a superfluous thing A Faith to Hereticks is another superfluous thing So that two Superfluities one upon another must be all that we are like to trust to But I must take Notice of the variety of Methods that these Gentlemen use in their Writings here in England we are always upbraided with a Revolt of the Dutch as a scandalous imputation on the Protestant Religion And yet in a late Paper Entituled An Answer to Pensionary Fagel's Letter the Services that the Roman Catholicks did in the beginning of the Common-wealth are highly extolled as Signal and Meritorious upon which the Writer makes great Complaints that the Pacification of Gaunt and the Union of Utrecht by which the free Exercise of Religion was to be continued to them was not observed in most of the Provinces But if he had but taken pains to examine the History of the States he would have found that soon after the Union made with Utrecht the Treaty of Collen was set on foot between the King of Spain and the States by the Emperour's Mediation in which the Spaniards studied to divide the Roman Catholicks in those Provinces from the Protestants by offering a Confirmation of all other Priviledges of those Provinces excepting only the Point of Religion which had so great an effect that the Party of the Male-contents was formed upon it and these did quickly Capitulate in the Walloon Provinces and after that not only Brabant and Flanders Capitulated but Reenenburg that was Governour of Groening declared for the King of Spain and by some places that he took both in Friesland and Over-Issel he put those Provinces under Contribution Not long after that both Daventer and Zutphen were betrayed by Popish Governours and the War was thus brought within the Seven Provinces that had been before kept at a greater distance from them Thus it did appear almost every where that the Hatred with which the Priests were inspiring the Roman Catholicks against the Protestants disposed them to Betray all again to the Spanish Tyranny The New War that Reenenburgh's Treachery had brought into these Provinces chang'd so the State of Affairs that no wonder if this produced a Change likewise with relation to the Religion since it appeared that these Revolts were catried on and justified upon the principles of the Church and the general Hatred under which these Revolts brought the Roman Catholicks in those Out-Provinces made the greater part of them to withdraw so that there were not left such numbers of them as to pretend to the Free-Exercise of their Religion But the War not having got into Holland and Utrecht and none of that Religion having Revolted in these Provinces Roman Catholicks continued still in the Countrey and though the ill inclinations that they shewed made it necessary for publick Safety to put them out of the Government yet they have still enjoyed the common Rights of the Countrey with the free Exercise of their Religion But it is plain that some men are only waiting an Opportunity to renew the Old Delenda est Carthago and that they think it to be no small step to it to possess all the World with the odious impressions of the Dutch as a Rebellious and a Persidious State and if it were possible they would make their own Roman Catholick Subjects fancy that they are persecuted by them But though men may be brought to believe Transubstantiation in spight of the Evidence of Sence to the contrary Yet those that feel themselves at Ease will hardly be brought to think that they are persecuted because that they are told so in an ill-writ Pamphlet And for their Rebellion the Prince that is only concerned in that sinds them now to be his best Allies and chief support as his Predecessors acknowledged them a Free State almost an Age ago And it being Consest by Historians on all sides That there was an Express Proviso in the Constitution of their Government That if their Prince broke such and such Limits they were no more bound to Obey him but might Resist him And it being no less certain
Men because it is presum'd that I neither do nor ought to read any thing in the Church which I do not in some degree approve Indeed let mens private opinions be what they will in the nature of the thing he that Reads such a Declaration to his People teaches them by it For is not Reading Teaching Suppose then I do not consent to what I read yet I consent to teach my People what I read and herein is the Evil of it for it may be it were no fault to consent to the Declaration but if I consent to teach my People what I do not consent to my self I am sure that is a great one And he who can distinguish between consenting to read the Declaration and consenting to teach the People by the Declaration when reading the Declaration is teaching it has a very subtile distinguishing-Conscience Now if consenting to read the Declaration be a consent to teach it my People then the natural Interpretation of Reading the Declaration is That he who Reads it in such a solemn teaching-manner Approves it If this be not so I desire to know why I may not read an Hornily for Transubstantiation or Invocation of Saints or the Worship of Images if the King sends me such good Catholick Homilies and commands me to read them And thus we may instruct our People in all the points of Popery and recommend it to them with all the Sophistry and artificial Insinuations in obedience to the King with a very good Conscience because without our consent If it he said this would be a contradiction to the Doctrine of our Church by Law Established so I take the Declaration to be And if we may read the Declaration contrary to Law because it does not imply our consent to it so we may Popish Homilies for the bare reading them will not imply our consent no more than the reading the Declaration does But whether I consent to the Doctrine or no it is certain I consent to teach my People this Doctrine and it is to be considered whether an honest man can do this Thirdly I suppose no man will doubt but the King intends that our Reading the Declaration should signifie to the Nation our Consent and Approbation of it for the Declaration does not want Publishing for it is sufficiently known already but our Reading it in our Churches must serve instead of Addresses of Thanks which the Clergy generally refused though it was only to Thank the King for His Gracious Promises renewed to the Church of England in His Declaration which was much more Innocent than to publish the Declaration it self in our Churches This would perswade one that the King thinks our reading the Declaration to signifie our Consent and that the People will think it to be so And he that can satisfie his Conscience to do an action without consent which the Nature of the Thing the Design and intention of the Command and the Sense of the People expound to be a Consent may I think as well satisfie himself with Equivocations and mental Reservations There are two things to be answered to this which must be considered I. That the People understand our Minds and see that this is matter of Force upon us and meer Obedience to the King. To which I answer 1. Possibly the People do understand that the matter of the Declaration is against our Principles But is this any excuse that we read that and by reading recommend that to them which is against our own Consciences and Judgments Reading the Declaration would be no Fault at all but our Duty when the King commands it did we approve of the matter of it but to consent to teach our People such Doctrines as we think contrary to the Laws of God or the Laws of the Land does not lessen but aggravate the Fault and People must be very good natured to think this an Excuse 2. It is not likely that all the people will be of a mind in this matter some may excuse it others and those it may be the most the best and the wisest Men will condemn us for it and then how shall we justifie our selves against their Censures when the World will be divided in their Opinions the plain way is certainly the best to do what we can justifie our selves and then let men judge as they please No men in England will be pleased with our Reading the Declaration but those who hope to make great advantage of it against us and against our Church and Religion others will severely condemn us for it and censure us as false to our Religion and as Betrayers both of Church and State and besides that it does not become a Minister of Religion to do any thing which in the opinion of the most charitable men can only be excused for what needs an excuse is either a fault or looks very like one besides this I say I will not trust mens Charity those who have suffered themselves in this Cause will not excuse us for sear of suffering those who are inclined to excuse us now will not do so when they consider the thing better and come to feel the ill consequences of it when our Enemies open their eyes and tell them what our Reading the Declaration signified which they will then tell us we cught to have seen before though they were not bound to see it for we are to guide and instruct them not they us II. Others therefore think that when we read the Declaration we should publickly profess that it is not our own Judgment but that we only Read it in obedience to the King and then our Reading it cannot imply our Consent to it Now this is only Protestatio contra factum which all people will laugh at and scorn us for for such a solemn Reading it in the time of Divine Service when all men ought to be most Grave and Serious and far from dissembling with God or Men does in the nature of the thing imply our Approbation and should we declare the contrary when we read it what shall we say to those who ask us why then do you read it But let those who have a mind try this way which for my part I take to be a greater and more unjustifiable provocation of the King than not to read it and I suppose those who do not read it will be thought plainer and honester men and will escape as well as those who read it and protest against it and yet nothing less than an express Protestation against it will salve this matter for only to say they read it meerly in obedience to the King does not express their dissent it signifies indeed that they would not have read it if the King had not commanded it but these words do not signifie that they disapprove of the Declaration when their reading it though only in Obedience to the King signifies their approbation of it as much as actions can signifie a consent let us call
Religion Rev. 13. 1 15 16. This Character they will make good to the very end of their Reign as they have fulfill'd it from the beginning They cannot alter their nature no more than the Ethiopean change his skin or the Leopard his spots It ever was since the rise of the Beast and it ever will be till its fall a bloody Church which can bear no contradiction to her Doctrine and Orders but will endeavour to root out all those that oppose her from the face of the Earth Witness the Barbarous Crusado's against the poor Albigenses in France in one of which alone Bellarmine himself saith not without Triumph there were killed no less than an hundred thousand Witness the horrible Butcheries committed in France in England and in the Low-countries in the Age before us and in Poland the Vallies of Piedmont and in Ireland in this Age upon those who had no other fault but this that they made the Holy Scriptures and the Roman Church the Rule of their Faith. IX But it you be ignorant of what hath been done and is doing abroad yet I hope you observe what they do here at home What do you think of the Declaration which was very lately imposed to be read in all our Churches Which when several Bishops and their Clergy most humbly represented they could not in Conscience publish to the People in time of Divine service this would not excuse them their Petition was receiv'd with indignation and look'd upon as a Libel the Bishops were prosecuted for it and Inquiry is now ordered to be made after those who did not read it as well as those that did that they may be punished by the High Commissioners Call you this Liberty of Conscience Or do you imagine you shall never have any thing imposed upon you to be read in your Congregations which you cannot comply withall Consider I beseech you what will become of you when that time shall come What 's the meaning of this that ever they are look'd upon as Offenders for following their Conscience whose Services have been acknowledged to be so great that they should never be forgotten It ought to teach Dissenters what they are to expect hereafter when they have served them so far by taking off the Tests and the Penal Laws as to enable them with safety to remember all their former pretended transgressions Let them assure themselves the services of the Church of England are not now more certainly forgotten than the Sins of Dissenters will hereafter when they have got power to punish them be most certainly remembred Be not drawn in then by deceitful words to help forward your own destruction If you will not be assistant to it they cannot do it alone and it will be very strange if you be perswaded to lend them your help when the deceit is so apparent For what are all the present pleas for Liberty but so many infamous Libels upon the Roman Church which denies all Men this Liberty While they declaim so loudly against Persecution they most notoriously reproach Popery which subsists by nothing but deceit and cruelty And who can think that they would suffer their Church to be so exposed and reviled as it is by such discourses but with a design to cheat heedless people into its obedience For this end they can hear it proved nay prove it themselves to be an Antichristian Church when they prove it is against Christianity nay against the Law of Nature and Common Reason to trouble any body for his opinion in Religion X. Once more then I beseech you be not deceived by good words if you love your Liberty and your Life Call to mind how our poor Brethren in France were lately deluded by the repeated Protestations which their King made he would observe the Edict of Nantes which was the foundation of their Liberty even then when he was about to overthrow it and by many assurances which were given them by those who came to torment them that the King intended to reform the Church of France as soon as he had united his Subjects What he had done already against the Court of Rome they told them was an instance of it and they should shortly see other matters Such ensraring words they heard there daily from the mouths of their armed Persecuters who were ready to fall upon them or had begun to oppress them And therefore they would be arrant fools here if they did not give good words when they have no power to hurt us But we shall be far greater fools if we believe they will keep their word when they have got that power the greatest of all fools if we give them that Power They have no other way but this to wheedle us out of our Laws and Liberties Do but surrender the one I mean our Laws they will soon take away the other our beloved Liberties Be not tempted to make such a dangerous Experiment but let the Laws stand as they are because they are against them as appears by their earnest endeavours to repeal them and be not used as tools to take them away because they have been grievous to you They never can be so again For can they who now Court you have the face to turn them again upon you after they have made all this noise for Liberty And the Church of England you may be assured will not any more trouble you but when a Protestant Prince shall come will joyn in the healing of all our breaches by removing all things out of the way which have long hindred that blessed work They cannot meet together in a body to give you this assurance how should they without the King's authority so to do but every particular person that I have discoursed withal which are not a few and you your selves would do well to ask them when you meet them profess that they see an absolute necessity of making an end of these Differences that have almost undone us and will no longer oontend to bring all men to one Uniformity but promote an Uniform Liberty Do not imagine I intend to give mere words I mean honestly such a regular Liberty as will be the beauty and honour not the blot and discredit of our Religion To such a temper the Archbishop of Canterbury with several other Bishops of his Province and their Clergy have openly declared they are willing to come And the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England have never been known to act deceitfully Our Religion will not at any time allow them to equivocate nor to give good words without a meaning much less at such a time as this when our Religion is in great danger and we have nothing to trust unto but Gods protection of sincere Persons Let Integrity and Uprightness preserve us is their constant Prayer They can hope for no help from Heaven if they should prevaricate with men God they know would desert them if they should go about to delude their Brethren
And they are not so void of common sense as to adventure to incur his most high displeasure when they have nothing to rely upon but his favour In short Trust to those who own you for their Brethren as you do them for tho' they have been angry Brethren yet there is hope of Reconciliation between such near Relations But put no Confidence in those who not only utterly disown any such Relation to you but have ever treated you with an implacable hatred as their most mortal Enemies unto whom it is impossible they should be reconciled Prov. 12. 19 20. The lips of Truth shall be established for ever but a lying Tongue is but for a moment Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord but they that deal truly are his delight Abby and other Church-Lands not yet assured to such Possessors as are Roman Catholicks Dedicated to the Nobility and Gentry of that Religion SInce it is universally agreed on that so great a matter as the total alienation of all the Abby-Lands c. in England can never be made legal and valid and such as vvill satisfie the reasonable doubts and scruples of a religious and conscienciousPerson except it be confirm'd by the supreme Authority in this Church its evident that the Protestants vvho assert the Church of England to be autokephalor and such as allows of no Foreign Jurisdiction or Appeals having had these Lands confirmed to them by the King as Head of the Church the Convocation as the Church representative and by the King and Parliament as the supreme Legislative Power in this Realm have these Alienations made as valid to them as any Power on Earth can make them but the Members of the Church of Rome who maintain a Foreign Superiour Jurisdiction either in a general Council or in the Bishop of Rome or both together cannot have these Alienations confirm'd to them without the consent of one or both of these Superiour Jurisdictions If therefore I shall make it appear that these Alienations in England were never confirm'd by either I do not see hovv any Roman-Catholick in England can without Sacriledge retain them and his Religion together As to the first of these since there hath been no Council from the first Alienation of Abby-Lands in England to this day that pretends to be general but that of Trent vve neeed only look into that for the satisfaction of such Roman Catholicks as esteem a general Council above the Bishop of Rome And I am sure that that Council is so far from confirming these Abby-Lands to the present Possessors that it expresly denounceth them accursed that detain them Sess. 22. Decret de Ref. Cap. 11. Si quem c. If Covetousness the root of all evil shall so far possess any Person whatsoever whether of the Clergy or Laity though he be an Emperour or a King as that by force fear or frand or any art or colour whatsoever he presume to convert to his own use usurp the Jurisdiction Goods Estates Fruits Profits or Emoluments whatsoever of any Church or any Benefice Secular or Regular Hospital or Religious House or shall hinder that the profits of the said Houses be not received by those to whom they do of right belong let him lie underan Anathema till the said Jurisdiction Goods Estates Rents and Profits which he hath possessed and invaded or which have come to him any manner of way be restored to the Church and after that have Absolution from the Bishop of Rome So great a Terrour did this strike into the English Papists that were possessors of Church-Lands against whom this Anathema seems particularly directed that many of the zealous papists began to think of Restitution and Sir William Peters notwithstanding his private Bull of Absolution from Pope Julius the Fourth was so much startled at it as that the very next year he endowed eight new Fellowships in Exeter Colledge in Oxford Again the same Council Sess. 25. Decret de Ref. c. 20. Cupiens Sancta Synodus c. Decreeth and commandeth that all the Holy Canons and general Councils and Apostolick Sanctions in savour of Ecclesiastical Persons and the Liberties of the Church and against those that violate them be exactly observed by every one and doth farther admonish the Emperor Kings Princes and all Persons of vvhat estate soever that they vvould observe the Rights of the Church as the commands of God and desend them by their particular Patronage nor suffer them to be invaded by any Lords or Gentlemen whatsoever but severely punish all those vvho hinder the Liberties Immunities and Jurisdictions of the Church and that they vvould imitate those excellent Princes who by their Authority and Bounty encreased the Revenues of the Church so far were they from suffering them to be invaded and in this let every one sedulously perform his part c. And now after so full and express Declaration of the Council of Trent I do not see hovv any of those Roman Catholicks who esteem a general Council to be the supreme Authority in the Church and receive the Trent Council as such can any way excuse themselves in point of Conscience from those heavy Curses that are there denounc'd against all those that detain Church-Lands especially since the Papists themselves vehemently accuse King Henry the Eighth for sacrilegiously robbing of religious Houses and seising of their Lands a great part of which Lands are to this very day possess'd by Papists Now though there may be some Plea for the Popes Authority in the interim of a general Council and in such things vvherein they have made no determination yet in this matter there is no colour for any such pretences since the Council of Trent was actually assembled within few years after these Alienations and expresly condemned the possessors of Abby-Lands and after all this was all confirm'd and ratified by the Pope himself in his Bulla Super conf gen Concil Trid. A. D. 1564. And tho' we have here the Judgment of the infallible See as to this matter in the Confirmation of the Trent Council yet because there be some that magnifie the Popes extravagant and unlimited power over the Church and pretend that he confirm'd the Abby-Lands in England to the Lay-possessors of them I shall shew Secondly That the Pope neither hath nor pretends to any such Povver nor did ever make use of it in this matter under debate only I shall premise that whereas some part of the Canon-Law seem to allow of such particular alienations as are made by the Clerks and members of the Church with the consent of the Bishop yet such free consent was never obtained in England and as to what was done by force fraud and violence is of so little moment as to giving a legal Title that even the alienations that were made by Charles Martell who is among the Papists themselves as infamous for Sacrilege as King Henry the Eighth yet even his Acts are said to be done by a Council
Jurisdiction Censure or Coertion which they might not by Law have done before the Year of our Lord 1639. 2 Nor to Abridge or Diminish the Kings Majesties Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters and Affairs nor to confirm the Canons made in the Year 1640. nor any of them nor any other Ecclesiastical Laws or Canons not formerly Confirmed Allowed or Enacted by Parliament or by the Established Laws of the Land as they stood in the Year of our Lord 1639. From the Title of the Act and the Act it self considered I gather First That it is an Explanatory Act of the 17. of Car. 1. as to one particular Branch of it and not introductive of any new Law. Secondly That the occasion of making it was not from any doubt that did arise Whether the High-Commission Court were taken away or Whether the Crown had power to Erect any such-like Court for the future but from a doubt that was made that all ordinary Power of Coertion and proceedings in Causes Ecclesiastical was taken away whereby Justice in Ecclesiastical Matters was obstructed and this doubt did arise from a Clause in 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. Sect. 4. herein mentioned to be recited in the said Act of 13 Car. 2. ca. 12. Thirdly That this Statute of 13 Car. 2. ca. 12. as appears upon the face of it was made to the intent the ordinary Jurisdiction which the Bishops and other Ecclesiastical persons had always exercised under the Crown might not be infringed but not to restore to the Crown the power of Delagating the Exercise of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction by Letters Patents to Lay persons or any others and as to this nothing can be plainer than the words of the Act it self Sect. 2. Whereby 17 Car. 1. is repealed but takes particular care to except what concerned the High-Commission Court or the new erection of some such Court by Commission Neither did the Law-makers think this Exception in that Statute of 13 Car. 2. ca. 12. Sect. 2. to be sufficient but to put the matter out of all doubt in the Third Section of the same Statute It is provided and Enacted That neither that Act nor any thing therein contained should extend or be construed to revive or give force to the Branch of 1 Eliz. 1. Sect. 18. but that the same Branch should stand absolutely Repealed And if so then the power of the Crown to delegate the Exercise of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction is wholly taken away for it was vested in the Crown by 1 Eliz. 1. and taken away by 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. and is in no manner restored by 13 Car. 2. 12. or any other But there may arise an Objection from the words in the Statute of 13 Car. 2. ca. 12. that saith That that Act shall not extend to abridge or diminish the Kings Majesties Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters and Affairs Whence some Men would gather That the same Power still remains in the Crown that was in it before 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. To which Objection I give this Answer That every Law is to be so constructed that it may not be Felo de se and that for the honour of the Legislators King Lords and Commons Now I would appeal to the Gentlemen themselves that assert this Doctrine Whether they can so construct the Act of 13 Car. 2. ca. 12. as they pretend to do without offering violence to their own Reason For when the 1 Car. 1. ca. 11. had absolutely Repealed the Branch of 1. Eliz. 1. that vested the power in the Crown of Delegating the Exercise of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Enacts That no such Commission shall be for the future and the Act of 13 Car. 2. ca. 12. Repeals the 17 Car. â—… ca. 12. except what relates to that particular Branch there can no more of the King's Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters and Affairs be saved by the saving in the 13 Car. 2. ca. â—… but what was left in the Crown by 17 Car. â—… ca. 11. And now I hope I have sufficiently evinced That all the Proceedings before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are CORAM NON â—… and therefore have sufficient Reason to â—… That the same would never have been set on â—… by his present Majesty who had always the Character of JAMES the Just and hath â—… upon his Royal Word That he will invade â—… Mans Property had he not been Advised there unto by them who are better versed in the Canon of the Church of ROME than in the Laws that relate to the CROWN and CHURCH of ENGLAND A LETTER of several French Ministers Fled into Germany upon the account of the PERSECUTION in France to such of their Brethren in England as approved the Kings Declaration touching Liberty of Conscience Translated from the Original in French. ALtho' in our present Dispersion most dear and honoured Brethren it has pleased the Providence of God to conduct us into places very distant from one another Yet that Union which ought always to continue betwixt us obliges us to declare our sense to one another with a Christian and Brotherly Freedom upon all occasions that may present themselves to us so to â—… 'T is this makes us hope that you will not take â—… amiss of us if at this time we deliver our Opinion to you touching the Affairs of England in matter of Religion and with reference to that Conduct which you have observed therein We ought not to conceal it from you â—… greatest part of the Protestants of Europe have been extreamly scandalized to understand that certain among you after the example of many of the Dissenters have Addressed to the King of England upon the account of his Declaration by which he â—… granted Liberty of Conscience to the No-nconformists And that some others who had already ranked themselves under the Episcopal Communion nevertheless published the said Declaration in their Churches and this at a time when almost all the Bishops themselves with so much Firmness â—… Courage refused to do it If we may be permitted to tell you freely what â—… Opinion is concerning the conduct of the Bishops and of the Dissenters in this conjuncture we shall make no difficulty to pronounce in favour of the former We look upon it that they have exceedingly well answered the Duty of their Charge whilst despising their own private Interest they have so worthily supported that of the Protestant Religion Whereas the others for want of considering these things as they ought to have done have given up the interest of their Religion to their own particular advantages It is not out of any complement to the Bishops which less out of any enmity to the Dissenters that we make such different judgments concerning them We know well enough how to commend â—… blame what seems to us to deserve our Praise â—… our Censure both in the one and in the other We do not at all approve the conduct of the Bishops towards the Dissenters under the last Reign And altho' we do not any more
property and Lives of his Protestant Subjects at the mercy of the Papists by placing them in Charges contrary to the Law why should he not have the power to raise the same Papists to the Authority of Legislators by declaring them capable of sitting in Parliament seeing that is but contrary to Law Do not deceive your selves the Laws are the Barrier which bound the Authority of the King and if this Barrier be once broken he will extend his Authority as far as he pleases And it will be impossible for you after that to set any bounds to it 5. In fine he must be very little acquainted with the Spirit of Popery who imagins that it will be content to re-establish it self in England without aiming to destroy the Protestant Religion Give it but Time and Opportunity to fortifie it self and you may then expect to see what it is In all places where it has got the power in its hands it will not only rule but rule alone and not suffer any other Religion besides it self and imploys the Sword and Fire to extirpate that which it calls Heresie Were not this a Truth confirmed by infinite Examples both ancient and modern which every one knows who has read any thing of History it would be too much evidenced by the Cruelties which it has so lately exercised against the Churches of Hungary of France and of the Vallies of Piemont And men ought not to be lulled asleep by the pretence of an Inclination which the King of England would be thought to have for Liberty of Conscience nor by the Promises which he makes to perserve it to all his Subjects without distinction Every one knows that persidiousness and breach of Faith are Characters of Popery no less essential to it than Cruelty Can you doubt of this Gentlemen you who so lately came from making a sad Experiment of it How often did our King promise us to preserve us in our Priviledges How many Declarations How many Edicts did he set out to that purpose How many Oaths were taken to confirm those Edicts Did not this very King Lewis XIV himself solemnly promise by several Edicts and Declarations to maintain us in all the Liberties which were granted to us by the Edict of Nantes And yet after all what scruple was there made to violate so many Laws so many Promises and so many Oaths The Protestants of England have themselves also sometimes likewise experimented the same Infidelity And not to alledge here any other Example let us desire them to remember only the Reign of Queen Mary what promises she made at her coming to the Crown not to make any change of Religion and yet what bloody Laws she afterwards passed to extinguish the Reformation as soon as she saw her self fast in the Throne And with that inhumanity she spilt the Blood of her most faithful Subjects to accomplish that design After such an instance as this a man must be very credulous indeed and willing to deceive himself that will put too much confidence in the promises of the King that now reigns Do we not know that there are neither Promises nor Oaths which the Pope does not pretend to have power to dispense with in those whom he employs for the Extirpation of Heresie And do we not also know that it is one of the great Maxims of Popery a Maxim authorized both by the Doctrine and Practice of the Council of Constance That they are not obliged to keep any Faith with Hereticks We ought not to believe that King James II. a Prince who has so much Zeal for Popery should be governed by any other Maxims than those of his Religion And whosoever will take the pains to examine his Conduct both before and since his coming to the Crown will find that he has more than once put 'em in practice And this Gentlemen we suppose may be sufficient to convince all reasonable persons that there is nothing more pernicious than that Declaration which you have approved whether by publishing it as some of you have done or by addressing to the King to thank him for it When you shall have reflected upon these things you will without doubt your selves confess that you have suffered your selves to be amused with some imaginary advantages which you hope to make by this Declaration In the mean time most dear Brethren you will pardon us if we have chanced to have let any thing slip that is not agreeable to you We had no Design to give the least Offence either to you or to our Brethren the Dissenters of England If we have spoken our Thoughts freely of your Conduct and â—… theirs we have at least spoken with no less liberty of that of the Bishops And God is our Witness that we have said nothing of the one or the other but in the sincerity of our Heart and out of a desire to contribute somewhat to his Glory and the good of his Church We are Most honoured Brethren Your most Humble most Obedient and most affectionate Brethren in Jesus Christ. N. â—… Popish Treaties not to be rely'd on In a Letter from a Genleman at York to his Friend in the Prince of ORANGEs Camp. Addressed to all Members of the next Parliament THE credulity and Superstition of Mankind hath given great Opportunities and Advantages to cunning Knaves to spread their Nets and lay â—… Traps in order to catch easie and unwary creatures these being led on by Ignorance or â—… they by Pride or Ambition or else a Vile and â—… Principle Therefore seeing we are in this state of Corruption bred up to believe Contradictions and Impossibilities led by the Nose with â—… State Monntebank and Mankish Jugler â—… like Puppets by Strings and Wires it seems â—… time to vindicate Humane Nature and to free â—… from these Shackles laid upon her in the very â—… for Man who ought to be a Free and â—… Animal in his present state is only an â—… and Machine contriv'd for the Vanity and â—… of Priests and Tyrants who claim to themselves â—… seem to Monopolize the Divine Stamp tho' we â—… all made of the same Materials by the same â—… and in the same Mould equal by Nature â—… together and link'd in Societies by mutual contracts plac'd by turns one above another and intrusted for some time with the Power of executing our own Laws and all by general consent for the Publick Good of the whole Community this is â—… genuine Shape and Figure of Primitive and â—… Government not distemper'd and fatally â—… with the monstruous Excrescencies of Arbitrary Power in one single Member above all the Laws of the whole Infallibility Divine Right c. â—… by Knaves and Sycophants bellev'd by Fools â—… scarce ever heard of the Greek and Roman Histories and never read their own I shall therefore give some Examples out of an infinite number of People ruin'd and utterly destroy'd by their â—… Credulity and good Nature matter of Fact â—… a stronger Proof
Consciences of the Church of England Men and â—… the Foundation of our State If Mr. Pen â—… his Disciples had condemn'd the unlawfulness the Declarations and the Dispensing Power â—… they wrote so fast for Liberty of Conscience they had then shew'd a generous zeal for a just freedom in Matters of Religion and at the same â—… a due veneration to the Legislative Power Kings Lords and Commons but the secret of the â—… was to maintain and Erect a Prerogative â—… all Acts of Parliament and consequently to produce upon that bottom Tyranny and Popery yet â—… all this uncontroulable Power and â—… of Grandeur an Easterly Wind and a Fleet Fly-Boats would cancel and undo all again Our â—… Historians relate of King John that being some distress he sent Sir Tho. Hardington and â—… Sir Ralph Fitz-Nichols Ambassadours to â—… the great Emperour of Morocco with â—… of his Kingdom to him upon Condition he should come and aid him and that if he prevail'd â—… would himself turn Mahometan and renounce â—… I will not insist upon the violations of Laws and Treaties in the Low Countries or the Spanish â—… over them because the Spaniards have got so much by that Persecution and Cruelty that they might be tempted to practise the like again for forcing the Netherlanders to take up Arms for their defence and by necessitating Queen Elizabeth â—… and preserve them they have set up a â—… and Glorious State as they themselves have call'd them in some Treaties that hath preserv'd â—… languishing Monarchy of Spain and the Liberty of Christendim The base and cowardly Massacre of that great â—… William Prince of Orange of the Renowned â—… Coligny and the Prince of Conde the many bloody Conspiracies for the Extirpation of the whole Race of the House of Orange The Murders â—… Henry the 2d and Henry the 4th are all Rewards and everlasting Monuments of Popish Barbarity What incredible Effusion of Blood hath been occasion'd by the frequent revolts of the Popes against the Emperours by he Image-Worship and the Holy Wars What Treachery in the Bohemian Transactions and Treaties What Inhumanity burning Jerome of Prague and John Hus when they had the Emperours Pass and all other â—… securities from the Council it self that put to â—… those two Good Men. The Reign of Queen Mary is another Scene of the Infidelity and Treachery of the Church of Rome what Oaths did she take what Promises and Protestations did she make to the Suffolk Men who had set the Crown upon her head and yet they were the first that felt the strokes of a Persecution from Her. Read her History in Fox's Martyrs and Doctor Burnet's History of the Reformation The many Conspiracies to destroy Queen Elizabeth and King James the Gunpowder Plot the Counsels carried on in Popish Countries to take off King Charles the First and the many late Popish Plots are a continued Series and Thred carried on by the Church of Rome to break thro' all Laws both of God and Man to erect an Universal Monarchy of Priest-Crast and to bring the whole World under their Yoke The Sweeds have taken an effectual and commendable way to keep Popish Priests and Jesuits those â—… and disturbers of Societies the declared Enemies to the Welfare of Mankind out of their â—… by Gelding them and consequently rendring them incapable of Sacerdotal Functions tho' the Priests have found out a Salvo and will say Mass and Consess if they can procure their Testicles again and carry them in their Pockets either preserv'd or in Powder In aethiopia China and Japan the Roman Priests have been so intolerably turbulent and such extravagant Incendiaries that they have been often Banished and put to Death so that now they disguise themselves all over the Eastern Nations under the Names and Characters of Mathematicians Mechanicks Physicians c. and dare not own their Mission to propagate a Faith which is grown ridiculous all over Asia The long and dreadful Civil Wars of France the many Massacres and Persecutions and lastly the Siege of Rochel are living Instances how far we may rely upon Engagements and Laws both as to the taking of that Bulwark and the promised relief from hence The Protestant Defenders of it refusing to rely any longer upon Paper Edicts and the Word of a Most Christian King had this City granted them as a Cautionary Town for their Security for before they had always been deluded out of their Advantages by fair promises insignificant Treaties and the word of a King yet Lewis the 13. following the vitious Examples of Treacherous Princes fell upon this Glorious City which upon the account of their Laws and Priviledges made a resistance and brave defence having never heard of Passive Obedience amongst their Pastors thinking it more lawful to defend their Rights than it was for Lewis to invade them As for the late and present Reign here in England they are too nice and tender things for me to touch whether the Transactions of them are consistent with the Coronation-Oaths the many Declarations Protestations publick and solemn Promises I am no fit Judge they are more proper for the Gravity of an Historian or the Authority of a Parliament to handle than for a private Gentleman in a Letter to his Friend The Bishops Papers and the P. of Orange's Declarations are the best Memoirs of them but they only begin where the two parts of the History of the growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government left off and how far we may trust to Catholick Stipulations Oaths and Treaties the facts of past and the present Age are the best Criterions and Rules to guide and determine us for what happens every day will in all probability happen to morrow the same Causes always produce the same Effects and the Church of Rome is still the same Church it was a hundred years ago that is a Mass of Treachery Barbarity Perjury and the highest Superstition a Machine without any principle or setled Law of Motion not to be mov'd or stopt with the weights of any private or publick Obligations a Monster that destroys all that is sacred both in Heaven and Earth so Ravenous that it is never content unless it gets the whole World into its Claws and tears all to pieces in order to Salvation a Preteus that turns it self into all shapes a Chamelion that puts on all Colours according to its present circumstances this day an Angel of Light to morrow a Beelzehub Amongst all the Courts of Christendom where I have conversed that of Holland is the freest from Tricks and Falshood and tho' I am naturally jealous and suspitious of the Conduct of Princes yet I could never discover the least Knavery within those Walls it appear'd to me another Athens of Philosophers and the only Seat of Justice and Vertue now left in the World as for the Character of the Prince of Orange it is so faithfully drawn by Sir Will. Temple Doctor Burnet and in a half sheet
lately printed that I who am so averse from Flattery that I can scarce speak a good word of any Body or think one good thought of my self will not write any further Panegyrick upon his Highness only that he is a very Honest Man a great Souldier and a Wise Prince upon whose Word the World may safely rely A late Pamphleteer reviles the Prince with breaking his Oath when he took the Statholder's Office upon him not considering that the Oath was impos'd upon his Highness in his Minority by a French Faction then jealous of the aspiring and true Grandeur â—… his Young Soul that the States themselves â—… whom the Obligation was made freed his Highness from the Bond and that the necessity of Affairs and the Importunities of the People forced that Dignity upon him which his Ancestors had enjoy'd and he so well deserv'd that he sav'd the sinking Common-wealth their Provinces being almost all surpriz'd and enslav'd by the French compared to the gasping State of Rome after the loss of Canne His Highness was no more pust up with this Success than he had been daunted with Hardships and Misfortunes always the same â—… Just Serene and Unchang'd under all Events and Argument of the vastness of his Mind whereas on the contrary Mutability sometimes Tyrant sometimes Father of a Country sometimes â—… other times Sneaking is oftentime a â—… of a Mean and Cowardly Soul vile and â—… born for Rapine and Destruction As for the Princess she may without any flattery be stiled the Honour and Glory of her Sex the most Knowing the most Virtuous the Fairest and yet the best Natur'd Princess in the World â—… and Admir'd by her Enemies never seen in any Passion always under a peculiar Sweetness of Temper extremely moderate in her Pleasures taking delight in Working and in Study Humble and Affable in her Conversation very percinent in â—… Questions Charitable to all Protestants and frequenting their Churches The Prince is often see with her at the Prayers of the Church of England and she with the Prince at the Devotion of â—… Church she dispenses with the use of the Surplice Bowing to the Altar and the Name of Jesus out â—… Compliance to a Country that adores her being more intent upon the Intrinsick and Substantial Parts of Religion Prayer and Good Works â—… speaks several Languages even to Perfection is entirely Obedient to the Prince and he extremely â—… to her in a word She is a Princess of many extraordinary Virtues and Excellencies without any appearance of vanity or the least mixture of â—… and upon whose promise the World may safely depend As for the many Plots and Conspiracies against this Royal Couple a short time may bring the all to light and faithful Historians publish them in the World Lastly We may observe that whereas it hath been the Maxim of several Kings both at home and abroad of late years to contend and outvie each other in preying upon and destroying not only their Neighbours but their own Protestant Subjects â—… all methods of Persidiousness and Cruelty the only way to establish Tyranny and to enslave the natural Freedom of Mankind being to introduce a general Ignorance Superstition and Idolatry For if once people can be perswaded that Statues and Idols are Divinities and adorable and that a Wafer is the infinite God after two or three ridiculous Words utter'd by a vile Impostor and Impudent Cheat then they may easily be brought to submit their necks to all the Yokes that a Tyrant and a Priest can invent and put upon them for if once they part with their Reason their Liberty will soon follow as we behold every day in the miserable enslav'd Countries where Popery domineers On the contrary it hath always been the steddy and immutable principle of the House of Orange to rescue Europe from its Oppressors and to resettle Governments upon the primitive and immortal Foundation of Liberty and Property a glorious Maxim taken from the old Roman Common-wealth that fought and conquer'd so many Nations only to set them free to restore them wholsome Laws their natural and civil Liberties a Design so generous and every way great that the East groaning under the Fetters and Oppressions of their Tyrants flew in to the Roman Eagles for Shelter and protection under whose Wings the several Nations liv'd free safe and happy till Traitors and Usurpers began to break in upon the Sacred Laws of that vertuous Constitution and to keep up Armies to defend that by Blood and Rapine which Justice would have thrown in their Face and punished them as they deserved the preservation and welfare of the People being in all Ages call'd the Supreme Law to which all the rest ought to tend From the foregoing Relation of matter of Fact it appears most plain that the Roman Catholicks are not to be ty'd by Laws Treaties Promises Oaths or any other bonds of Humane Society the sad experience of this and other Kingdoms declares to all Mankind the invalidity and insignificancy of all Contracts and Agreements with the Papists who notwithstanding all their Solemn Covenants with Hereticks do watch for all Advantages and Opportunities to destroy them being commanded thereunto by their Councils and the Principles of their Church and instigated by their Priests The History of the several Wars of the Barons of England in the Reigns of King John Henry the Third Edward the Second and Richard the Second in Defence of their Liberties and for redressing the many Grievances under which the Kingdom groan'd is a full representation of the Infidelity and Treachery of those Kings and of the Invalidity of Treaties with them how many Grants Amendments and fair Promises had they from those Princes and yet afterwards how many Ambuscades and Snares were laid to destroy those glorious Patricts of Liberty what Violations of Compacts and Agreements and what havock was made upon all Advantages and Opportunities that those false Kings could take Read their Histories in our several Chronicles FINIS â—…â—…