put the Nation on an Enquiry that nothing but necessity will drive them to For a Nation may be laid asleep and be a little cheated but when it is awakened and sees its danger it will not look on and see a Rape made on its Religion and Liberties without examining From whence have these Men this Authority They will hardly find that it is of Men and they will not believe that it is of God. But it is to be hoped that there will be no occasion given for this angry Question which is much easier made than answered VII If all that were now asked in favour of Popery were only some Gentleness towards the Papists there were some reason to entertain the Debate when the Demand were a little more modest If Men were to be attainted of Treason for being reconciled to the Church of Rome or for reconciling others to it If Priests were demanded to be hanged for taking Orders in the Church of Rome and if the two thirds of the Papists Estates were offered to be levied it were a very natural thing to see them uneasie and restless but now the matter is more barefaced they are not contented to live at ease and enjoy their Estates but they must carry all before them and F. Petre cannot be at quiet unless he makes as great a Figure in our Court as Pere de la Chaise does at Versailles A Cessation of all Severities against them is that to which the Nation would more easily submit but it is their Behaviour that must create them the continuance of the like Compassion in another Reign If a restless and a persecuting Spirit were not inherent in that Order that has now the Ascendant they would have behaved themselves so decently under their present Advantages as to have made our Divines that have charged them so heavily look a little out of countenance and this would have wrought more on the good Nature of the Nation and the Princely Nobleness of the Successors whom we have in view than those Arts of Craft and Violence to which we see their Tempers carry them even so early before it is yet time to shew themselves The Temper of the English Nation the Heroical Vertues of those whom we have in our Eyes but above all our most holy Religion which instead of Revenge and Cruelty inspires us with Charity and Mercy even for Enemies are all such things as may take from the Gentlemen of that Religion all sad Apprehensions unless they raise a Storm against themselves and provoke the Justice of the Nation to such a degree that the Successors may find it necessary to be just even when their own Inclinations would rather carry them to shew Mercy In short they need fear nothing but what they create to themselves so that all this stir that they keep for their own Safety looks too like the securing to themselves Pardons for the Crimes that they intend to commit VIII I know it is objected as no small Prejudice against these Laws That the very making of them discovered a particular Malignity against His Majesty and therefore it is ill Manners to speak for them The first had perhaps an Eye at his being then Admiral and the last was possibly levelled at him tho' when that was discovered he was excepted out of it by a special Proviso And as for that which past in 73 I hope it is not forgot that it was enacted by that Loyal Parliament that had setled both the Prerogative of the Crown and the Rites of the Church and that had given the King more Money than all the Parliaments of England had ever done in all former Times A Parliament that had indeed some Disputes with the King but upon the first Step that he made with relation to Religion or Safety they shewed how ready they were to forget all that was past as appeared by their Behaviour after the Triple Alliance And in 73 tho' they had great cause given them to dislike the Dutch War especially the strange beginning of it upon the Smyrna Fleet and the stopping the Exchequer the Declaration for Toleration and the Writs for the Members of the House were Matters of hard Digestion yet no sooner did the King give them this new Assurance for their Religion then tho' they had very great Reasons given them to be jealous of the War yet since the King was engaged they gave him 1200000 Pounds for carrying it on and they thought they had no ill Peniworths for their Money when they carried home with them to their Countries this new Security for their Religion which we are desired now to throw up and which the Reverend Judges have already thrown out as a Law out of date If this had carried in it any new piece of Severity their Complaints might be just but they are extream tender if they are so uneasie under a Law that only gives them Leisure and Opportunities to live at home And the last Test which was intended only for shutting them out from a share in the Legislative Body appears to be so just that one is rather amased to find that it was so long a doing than that it was done at last and since it is done it is a great presumption on our Understandings to think that we should be willing to part with it If it was not sooner done it was because there was not such cause given for Jealousie to work upon but what has appeared since that time and what has been printed in his late Majesty's Name shews the World now that the Jealousies which occasioned those Laws were not so ill grounded as some well-meaning Men perhaps then believed them to be But there are some Times in which all Mens Eyes come to be opened IX I am told some think it is very indecent to have a Test for our Parliaments in which the King's Religion is accused of Idolatry but if this Reason is good in this Particular it will be full as good against several of the Articles of our Church and many of the Homilies If the Church and Religion of this Nation is so formed by Law that the King's Religion is declared over and over again to be Idolatrous what help is there for it It is no other than it was when His Majesty was Crowned and Swore to maintain our Laws I hope none will be wanting in all possible Respect to His Sacred Person and as we ought to be infinitely sorry to find him engaged in a Religion which we must believe Idolatrous so we are far from the ill Manners of reflecting on his Person or calling him an Idolater for as every Man that reports a Lie is not for that to be called a Liar so tho' the ordering the Intention and the prejudice of a Mispersuasion are such Abatements that we will not rashly take on us to call every Man of the Church of Rome an Idolater yet on the other hand we can never lay down our Charge against the Church
forgotten among the rest for there is a scurvy Paragraph in it concerning Self-preservation that is capable of very unacceptable Glosses It is hard to tell what Section of the Law of Nature has mark'd out either such a Form of Government or such a Family for it And if his Majesty renounces his Pretensions to our Allegiance as founded on the Laws of England and betakes himself to this Law of Nature he will perhaps find the Counsel was a little too rash But to make the most of this that can be the Law of Nations or Nature does indeed allow the Governours of all Societies a Power to serve themselves of every Member of it in the cases of extream Danger but no Law of Nature that has been yet heard of will conclude that if by special Laws a sort of Men have been disabled from all Imployments that a Prince who at his Coronation swore to maintain those Laws may at his pleasure extinguish all these Disabilities X. At the end of the Declaration as in a Postscript His Majesty assures his Subjects that he will maintain them in their Properties as well in Church and Abby-Lands as other Lands But the Chief of all their Properties being the share that they have by their Representatives in the Legislative Power this Declaration which breaks thro' that is no great Evidence that the rest will be maintained And to speak plainly when a Coronation Oath is so little remembred other Promises must have a proportioned degree of Credit given to them As for the Abbey-Lands the keeping them from the Church is according to the Principles of that Religion Sacriledge and that is a Mortal Sin and there can no Absolution be given to any who continue in it And so this Promise being an Obligation to maintain men in a Mortal-Sin is null and void of it is self Church-Lands are also according to the Doctrine of their Canonists so immediately Gods Right that the Pope himself is only the Administrator and Dispenser but is not the Master of them he can indeed make a truck for God or let them so low that God shall be an easie Landlord but he cannot alter God's Property nor translate the Right that is in him to Sacrilegious Laymen and Hereticks XI One of the Effects of this Declaration will be the setting on foot a new run of Addresses over the Nation For there is nothing how impudent and base soever of which the abject Flattery of a slavish Spirit is not capable It must be confest to the Reproach of the Age that all those strains of Flattery among the Romans that Tacitus sets forth with so much just Scorn are modest things compared to what this Nation has produced within these seven Years only if our Flattery has come short of the Refinedness of the Romans it has exceeded theirs as much in its loathed Fulsomness The late King set out a Declaration in which he gave the most solemn Assurances possible of his adhering to the Church of England and to the Religion established by Law and of his Resolution to have frequent Parliaments upon which the whole Nation fell as it were into Raptures of Joy and Flattery But tho' he lived four Years after that he called no Parliament notwithstanding the Law for Triennial Parliaments and the manner of his Death and the Papers printed after his Death in his Name have sufficiently shewed that he was equally sincere in both those Assurances that he gave as well in that relating to Religion as in that other relating to frequent Parliaments yet upon his Death a new set of Addresses appeared in which all that Flattery could invent was brought forth in the Commendations of a Prince to whose Memory the greatest kindness can be done is to forget him And because his present Majesty upon his coming to the Throne gave some very general Promise of Maintaining the Church of England this was magnified in so extravagant a strain as if it had been a security greater than any that the Law could give tho' by the regard that the King has both to it and to the Laws it appears that he is resolved to maintain both equally Since then the Nation has already made it self sufficiently ridiculous both to the present and to all succeeding Ages it is time that at last men should grow weary and become ashamed of their Folly. XII The Nonconformists are now invited to set an Example to the rest and they who have valued themselves hitherto upon their Opposition to Popery and that have quarrelled with the Church of England for some small Approaches to it in a few Ceremonies are now sollicited to rejoyce because the Laws that secure us against it are all plucked up since they enjoy at present and during pleasure leave to meet together It is natural for all men to love to be set at ease especially in the matters of their Consciences but it is visible that those who allow them this favour do it with no other design but that under a pretence of a General Toleration they may introduce a Religion which must persecute all equally It is likewise apparent how much they are hated and how much they have been persecuted by the Instigation of those who now court them and who have now no Game that is more promising than the engaging them and the Church of England into new Quarrels And as for the Promises now made to them it cannot be supposed that they will be more lasting than those that were made some time ago to the Church of England who had both a better Title in Law and greater Merit upon the Crown to assure them that they should be well used than these can pretend to The Nation has scarce forgiven some of the Church of England the Persecution into which they have suffered themselves to be cousened tho' now that they see Popery barefac'd the Stand that they have made and the vigorous opposition that they have given to it is that which makes all men willing to forget what is past and raises again the Glory of a Church that was not a little stained by the Indiscretion and Weakness of those that were too apt to believe and hope and so suffered themselves to be made a Property to those who would now make them a Sacrifice The Sufferings of the Nonconformists and the Fury that the Popish Party expressed against them had recommended them so much to the Compassions of the Nation and had given them so just a Pretension to favour in a better time that it will look like a Curse of God upon them if a few men whom the Court has gained to betray them can have such an ill Influence upon them as to make them throw away all that Merit and those Compassions which their Sufferings have procured them and to go and court those who are only seemingly kind to them that they may destroy both them and us They must remember that as the Church of England is the only
Establishment that our Religion has by Law so it is the main body of the Nation and all the Sects are but small and stragling Parties and if the legal Settlement of the Church is dissolved and that Body is once broken these lesser Bodies will be all at mercy and it is an easie thing to define what the Mercies of the Church of Rome are XIII But tho' it must be confessed that the Nonconformists are still under some Temptations to receive every thing that gives them present ease with a little too much kindness since they lie exposed to many severe Laws of which they have of late felt the weight very heavily and as they are men and some of them as ill-natured men as other People so it is no wonder if upon the first Surprises of the Declaration they are a little delighted to see the Church of England after all its Services and Submissions to the Court so much mortified by it so that taking all together it will not be strange if they commit some Follies upon this occasion Yet on the other hand it passes all imagination to see some of the Church of England especially those whose Natures we know are so particularly sharpned in the point of Persecution chiefly when it is levelled against the Dissenters rejoyce at this Declaration and make Addresses upon it It is hard to think that they have attained to so high a pitch of Christian Charity as to thank those who do now despitefully use them and that as an earnest that within a little while they will persecute them This will be an Original and a Master-piece in Flattery which must needs draw the last degrees of Contempt on such as are capable of so abject and sordid a compliance and that not only from all the true Members of the Church of England but likewise from those of the Church of Rome it self for every man is apt to esteem an Enemy that is brave even in his Misfortunes as much as he despises those whose minds sink with their Condition For what is it that these men would thank the King Is it because he breaks those Laws that are made in their favour and for their Protection and is now striking at the Root of all the legal Settlement that they have for their Religion Or is it because that at the same time that the King professes a Religion that condemns his Supremacy yet he is not contented with the Exercise of it as it is warranted by Law but carries it so far as to erect a Court contrary to the express words of a Law that was so lately made That Court takes care to maintain a due proportion between their Constitution and all their Proceedings that so all may be of a piece and all equally contrary to Law. They have suspended one Bishop only because he would not do that which was not in his power to do for since there is no Extrajudiciary Authority in England a Bishop can no more proceed to a Sentence of Suspension against a Clergy man without a Trial and the hearing of Parties than a Judge can give a Sentence in his Chamber without an Indictment a Trial or a Jury and because one of the Greatest Bodies of England would not break their Oaths and obey a Mandate that plainly contradicted them we see to what a pitch this is like to be carried I will not anticipate upon this illegal Court to tell what Judgments are coming but without carrying our Jealousies too far one may safely conclude that they will never depart so far from their first Institution as to have any regard either to our Religion or our Laws or Liberties in any thing they do If all this were acted by avowed Papists as we are sure it is projected by such there were nothing extraordinary in it but that which carries our Indignation a little too far to be easily governed is to see some pretended Protestants and a few Bishops among those that are the fatal Instruments of pulling down the Church of England and that those Mercenaries sacrifice their Religion and their Church to their Ambition and Interests this has such peculiar Characters of Misfortune upon it that it seems it is not enough if we perish without Pity since we fall by that hand that we have so much supported and fortified but we must become the Scorn of all the World since we have produced such an unnatural Brood that even while they are pretending to be the Sons of the Church of England are cutting their Mother's Throat and not content with Judas's Crime of saying Hail Master and kissing him while they are betraying him into the hands of others these carry their Wickedness further and say Hail Mother and then they themselves Murther her If after all this we were called on to bear this as Christians and to suffer it as Subjects if we were required in Patience to possess our own Souls and to be in Charity with our Enemies and which is more to forgive our False-Brethren who add Treachery to their Hatred The Exhortation were seasonable and indeed a little necessary for human Nature cannot easily take down things of such a hard digestion but to tell us that We must make Addresses and offer Thanks for all this is to insult a little too much upon us in our Sufferings And he that can believe that a dry and cautiously worded Promise of maintaining the Church of England will be religiously observed after all that we have seen and is upon that carried so far out of his Wits as to Address and give Thanks and will believe still such a man has nothing to excuse him from believing Transubstantiation it self for it is plain that he can bring himself to believe even when the thing is contrary to the clearest Evidence that his Senses can give him Si populus hic vult decipi decipiatur POSCRIPT THese Reflections were writ soon after the Declaration came to my Hands but the Matter of them was so tender and the Conveyance of them to the Press was so uneasie that they appear now too late to have one Effect that was designed by them which was the diverting Men from making Addresses upon it yet if what is here proposed makes Men become so far wise as to be ashamed of what they have done and is a means to keep them from carrying their Courtship further than good Words this Paper will not come too late AN ANSWER TO Mr. HENRY PAYNE's LETTER Concerning His MAJESTY's DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE Writ to the Author of The LETTER to a DISSENTER Mr. PAYNE I Cannot hold asking you how much Money you had from the Writer of the Paper which you pretend to Answer For as you have the Character of a Man that deals with both Hands so this is writ in such a manner as to make one think you were hired to it by the Adverse Party But it has been indeed so ordinary to your Friends to write in this manner of late
with the King and what Hopes She gave the Party yet they did not so entirely espouse the King's cause but that they had likewise a flying Squadron in the Parliaments Army how boldly soever this may be denied by our Author for this I will give him a Proof that is beyond exception in a Declaration of that Kings sent to the Kingdom of Scotland bearing date the 21 of April 1643. which is printed over and over again and as an Author that writes the History of the late Wars has assured us the clean draught of it corrected in some places with the King 's own Hand is yet extant so that it cannot be pretended that this was only a bold Assertion of some of the Kings Ministers that might be ill affected to their Party In that Declaration the King studied to possess his Subjects of Scotland with the Justice of his Cause and among other things to clear himself of that Imputation that he had an Army of Papists about him after many things said on that head these words are added Great numbers of that Religion have been with great Alacrity entertained in that Rebellious Army against us and others have been seduced to whom we had formerly denied Imployments as appears by the Examination of many Prisoners of whom we have taken twenty and thirty at a time of one Troop or Company of that Religion I hope our Author will not have the Impudence to dispute the Credit that is due to this Testimony but no Discoveries how evident so ever they may be can affect some sort of Men that have a Secret against blushing V. Our Author exhorts us to change our Principles of Loyalty and to take example of our Catholick Neighbours how to behave our selves towards a Prince that is not of our Perswasion But would he have us learn of our Irish Neighbours to cut our Fellow-subjects Throats and rebel against our King because he is of another Religion For that is the freshest Example that any of our Catholick Neighbours have set us and therefore I do not look so far back as to the Gunpowder-Plot or the League of France in the last Age. He reproaches us for failing in our Fidelity to our King. But in this matter we appeal to God Angels and Men and in particular to His Majesty Let our Enemies shew any one point of our Duty in which we have failed for as we cannot be charged for having preach'd any seditious Doctrine so we are not wanting in the preaching of the Duties of Loyalty even when we see what they are like to cost us The Point which he singles out is That we have failed in that grateful Return that we owed His Majesty for his Promise of maintaining our Church as it is established by Law since upon that we ought to have repealed the Sanguinary Laws and the late impious Tests the former being enacted to maintain the Usurpation of Queen Elizabeth and the other being contrived to exclude the present King. We have not failed to pay all the Gratitude and Duty that was possible in return to His Majesties Promise which we have carried so far that we are become the Object even of our Enemies Scorn by it With all Humility be it said that if His Majesty had promised us a farther Degree of his Favour than that of which the Law had assured us it might have been expected that our return should have been a degree of Obedience beyond that which was required by Law so that the return of the Obedience injoined by Law answers a Promise of a Protection according to Law Yet we carried this matter further for as was set forth in the beginning of this Paper we went on in so high a pace of Compliance and Confidence that we drew the Censures of the whole Nation on us Nor could any Jealousies or Fears give us the least Apprehensions till we were so hard pressed in matters of Religion that we could be no longer silent The same Apostle that taught us to honour the King said likewise that we must obey God rather than man. Our Author knows the History of our Laws ill for besides what has been already said touching the Laws made by Queen Elizabeth the severest of all our Penal Laws and that which troubles him and his Friends most was past by K. James after the Gunpowder-Plot a Provocation that might have well justified even greater Severities But tho' our Author may hope to impose on an ignorant Reader who may be apt to believe implicitly what he says concerning the Laws of the last Age yet it was too bold for him to assert that the Tests which are so lately made were contrived to exclude the present King when there was not a Thought of Exclusion many years after the first was made and the Duke was excepted out of the Second by a special Proviso But these Gentlemen will do well never to mention the Exclusion for every time that it is named it will make People call to mind the Service that the Church of England did in that matter and that will carry with it a Reproach of Ingratitude that needs not be aggravated He also confounds the two Tests as if that for Publick Imployments contained in it a Declaration of the King 's being an Idolater or as he makes it a Pagan which is not at all in it but in the other for the Members of Parliament in which there is indeed a Declaration that the Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry which is done in general terms without applying it to His Majesty as our Author does Upon this he would infer That his Majesty is not safe till the Tests are taken away but we have given such Evidences of our Loyalty that we have plainly shewed this to be false since we do openly declare that our Duty to the King is not founded on his being of this or that Religion so that His Majesty has a full Security from our Principles tho' the Tests continue since there is no reason that we who did run the hazard of being ruined by the Excluders when the Tide was so strong against us would fail his Majesty now when our Interest and Duty are joyned together But if the Tests are taken away it is certain that we can have no Security any longer for we shall be then laid open to the Violence of such restless and ill-natured men as the Author of this Paper and his Brethren are VI. The same reason that made our Saviour refuse to throw himself down from the Roof of the Temple when the Devil tempted him to it in the vain Confidence that Angels must be assistant to him to preserve him holds good in our Case Our Saviour said Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And we dare not trust our selves to the Faith and to the Mercies of a Society that is but too well known to the World to pretend that we should pull down our Pales to let in such Wolves among us
in Mr. Fagel's Letter and how well that was received and how civilly it was answer'd all England saw It is true the Prince is very nearly related to the King but there are other Ties stronger than the Bonds of Flesh and Blood He owes more to the Protestant Religion and to the Nation than can be defaced by any other Relation whatsoever and if the faling in one Relation excuses the other then enough might be said to shew at what pains the Court of England has been to free the Prince from all other Engagements except those of Loving Enemies and doing good to those who despitefully use us for upon this account the Prince lies under all possible Obligations 11. The Reflector thinks that those who left Ireland were driven by a needless Fear but tho' he has no reason to apprehend much from the Irish Papists yet those who saw the last Bloody Massacre may be forgiven if they have no mind to see such another He faintly blames that great Change that was lately made in the whole Government of Ireland but he presently excuses it since it was natural for the King and his Friends to desire to be safe some where till they had fair Quarter in England they must make sure of Ireland but he adds that as soon as that was done the thing must have returned into its old Channel again This ought to be writ only to Irishmen for none of a higher size of Understanding can bear it if it can ever be shewed that Papists have yielded up any thing which they had once wrung out of the Hands of Protestants except when they were forced to it we may believe this and all the other gross things which are here imposed on us The plain Case was the Papists resolved to destroy us and to put themselves in case to do it as soon as was possible So they went about it immediately in Ireland only they have delay'd the giving the Signal for a new Massacre till Matters were ripe for it in England 12. The Reflector has reason to avoid the saying any thing to the Article of Scotland for even his Confidence could not support him in justifying the King's claiming an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and the Repealing of a great many Laws upon that Pretension this is too gross for Humane Nature and the Principles of all Religions whatsoever Our Author avoids speaking to it because he does not know the Extent of the Prerogative of that Crown But no Prerogative can go to an Obedience without Reserve nor can Absolute Power consist with any Legal Government 13. The Declaration had set forth that the Evil Counsellors had represented the Expedient offer'd by the Prince and Princess as offer'd on design to disturb the Quiet and Happiness of the Kingdom upon which the Reflector bestows this kind Remark on the Ministry And did they not say true as it happens Believe me some Folks think many of them are not often guilty of such forelight The Writer is angry that his Side is not uppermost and tho' he includes himself in the Ministry by saying Us when he speaks of them yet here tho' he was to censure the Party that is against him he distinguishes them by saying many of the Counsellors use not to have such foresight But perhaps they can object as much to his foresight and with as much reason But if the King comes up to Mr. Fagel's Letter why was it rejected with so much Scorn and answered with so much Insolence Now perhaps they would hearken to it when they have brought both themselves and the Nation to the brink of Ruin by their mad Councils But they ought to be forgiven since they have been true to the Principles and Dictates of their Religion 14. Our Reflector thinks a Free Parliament a Chimera and indeed he and his Friends have been at a great deal of pains to render it impossible But perhaps he may be quickly cured of his Error and a Free One is the sooner like to be chosen when he and such as he are set at a due distance from the Publick Councils If Members are sometimes chosen by Drinking and other Practices this is bad enough but still it is not so bad as the laying a Force upon the Electors and a Restraint upon the Election Nor is it very much to the King's Honour to remember how the last Parliament was chosen it was indeed a very disgusting Essay in the beginning of a Reign and gave a sad prospect of what might be look'd for but if one Violence was born with when the struggle of another Party seemed to excuse it this does not prove that a course of such Violences when the Design is become both more visible and less excusable ought to be endured If the Members of that Parliament proved Worthy Patriots I do not see why they ought not to be remembred with Honour tho' there is a great deal to be said upon their first elevation to that Character which they maintained indeed nobly so that if the first Conception of the Parliament was Irregular yet its End was Honourable since never a Parliament was dissolv'd upon a more Glorious Account 15. The Reflector sets up all his Sail when he enters upon the Article of the pretended Prince of Wales This was a Point by which he hoped to merit highly and upon that to gain ground on that Party of the Court on whom he had reflected with so much scorn Therefore here must the Prince be attack'd with all the malicious Force to which his Rhetorick could carry him and all those Men of Honour that went over to wait on him at the Hague and to represent to him the bleeding and desperate Condition of the Nation must be stigmatized as a lewd Crew of Renegadoes tho I must tell him that the common acceptation of Renegado is one that changes his Religion and by this he will find some near him to whom that Character belongs more justly He almost blames the King for the low Step he lately made to prove that Birth It was a low one indeed to make so much ado and to bring together such a Solemn Appearance to hear so slight a Proof produced which could have no other Effect but to make the Imposture so much the more visible when the utmost Attempts to support it appear to be now so feeble that as to the main Point of the Queen's bearing the Child there is not so much as a colour of a Proof produc'd And it is certain that if this had been a fair thing the Court would have so managed it that it should not have been in the Power of any Mortal to have called it in question And on the other hand they have so managed it that one must needs see in every step of it broad Marks of an Imposture It will not be half Proofs nor suborned Witnesses that will satisfy the Nation in so great a Point But I will
Dr. Burnet's PAPERS THere have been so many Papers given out for mine which are not that in order to the preventing of Mistakes of that kind I have given Directions for the Publishing of this COLLECTION which contains none but those that were writ by me in single Sheets and are now put together by my Order G. BURNET A COLLECTION OF EIGHTEEN PAPERS Relating to the AFFAIRS OF Church State During the Reign of King JAMES the Second Seventeen whereof written in Holland and first printed there By GILBERT BURNET D. D. Licensed and Entred according to Order Reprinted at London for John Starkey and Richard Chiswell 1689. THE CONTENTS Of the following PAPERS REasons against the repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test Humbly offered to the Consideration of the Members of both Houses at their next Meeting on the twenty eighth of April 1687. Pag. 1 Some Reflections on His Majesties Proclamation of the Twelfth of February 1686 / 7. for a Toleration in Scotland Together with the said Proclamation p. 10 A Letter containing some Reflections on His Majesties Declaration for Liberty of Conscience dated the Fourth of April 1687. p. 25 An Answer to Mr. Henry Payne's Letter concerning His Majesties Declaration of Indulgence writ to the Author of the Letter to a Dissenter p. 38. An Answer to a Paper printed with allowance entitled A New Test of the Church of England 's Loyalty p. 45 The Earl of Melfort's Letter to the Presbyterian Ministers in Scotland writ in His Majesties Name upon their Address Together with sowe Remarks upon it p. 56 Reflections on a Pamphlet entitled Parliamentum Pacificum licensed by the Earl of Sunderland and printed at London in March 1688. p. 65 An Apology for the Church of England with relation to the Spirit of Persecution for which she is accused p. 83 Some Extracts out of Mr. James Stewart's Letters which were communicated to Mijn Heer Fagal the States Pensioner of the Province of Holland Together with some References to Master Stewart's printed Letter p. 97 An Edict in the Roman Law in the twenty fifth Book of the Digests Title 4. Sect. 10. as concerning the visiting of a Big-bellied-Woman and the looking after what may be born by her p. 110 An Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority and of the Grounds upon which it may be lawful or necessary for Subjects to defend their Religion Lives and Liberties p. 119 A Review of the Reflections on the Prince of Orange's Declaration p. 133 The Citation of Gilbert Burnet D. D. to answer in Scotland on the Twenty seventh of June Old Stile for High Treason Together with his Answer And Three Letters writ by him upon that Subject to the Right Honourable the Earl of Middletoun His Majesty's Secretary of State. p. 145 Dr. Burnet's Vinication of himself from the Calumnies with which he is aspersed in a Pamphlet entitled Parliamentum Pacificum Licensed by the Earl of Sunderland and printed at London in March 1688. p. 172 A Letter containing some Remarks on the Two Papers writ by His late Majesty King Charles the Second concerning Religion p. 188 An Enquiry into the Reasons for abrogating the Test imposed on all Members of Parliament offered by Sa. Oxon. p. 200 A Second Part of the Enquiry into the Reasons offered by Sa. Oxon for abrogating the Test Or an Answer to his Plea for Transubstantiation and for acquitting the Church of Rome of Idolatry p. 215 A Continuation of the Second Part of the Enquiry into the Reasons offered by Sa. Oxon for the abrogating of the Test relating to the Idolatry of the Church of Rome p. 229 REASONS Against the Repealing the ACTS of PARLIAMENT Concerning the TEST Humbly offered to the Consideration of the MEMBERS of BOTH HOUSES at their next Meeting on the Twenty eighth of April 1687. I. IF the just Apprehensions of the Danger of Popery gave the Birth to the two Laws for the two Tests the one with relation to all Publick Employments in 73. and the other with relation to the Constitution of our Parliaments for the future in 78. the present Time and Conjuncture does not seem so proper for repealing them unless it can be imagined that the danger of Popery is now so much less than it was formerly that we need be no more on our guard against it We had a King when these Laws were enacted who as he declared himself to be of the Church of England by receiving the Sacrament four times a Year in it so in all his Speeches to his Parliaments and in all his Declarations to his Subjects he repeated the Assurances of his Firmness to the Protestant Religion so solemnly and frequently that if the saying a thing often gives just reason to believe it we had as much reason as ever People had to depend upon him and yet for all that it was thought necessary to fortifie those Assurances with Laws and it is not easie to imagine why we should throw away those when we have a Prince that is not only of another Religion himself but that has expressed so much steadiness in it and so much zeal for it that one would think we should rather now seek a further Security than throw away that which we already have II. Our King has given such Testimonies of his Zeal for his Religion that we see among all his other Royal Qualities there is none for which he desires and deserves to be so much admired Since even the Passion of Glory of making himself the Terrour of all Europe and the Arbiter of Christendom which as it is natural to all Princes so must it be most particularly so to one of his Martial and Noble Temper yields to his Zeal for his Church and that he in whom we might have hoped to see our Edward the Third or our Henry the Fifth revived chuses rather to merit the heightning his degree of Glory in another World than to acquire all the Lawrels and Conquests that this low and vile World can give him and that in stead of making himself a Terrour to all his Neighbours he is contented with the humble Glory of being a Terrour to his own People so that in stead of the great Figure which this Reign might make in the World all the News of England is now only concerning the Practices on some fearful Mercenaries These things shew that his Majesty is so possessed with his Religion that this cannot suffer us to think that there is at present no danger from Popery III. It does not appear by what we see either abroad or at home that Popery has so changed its nature that we have less reason to be afraid of it at present than we had in former times It might be thought ill nature to go so far back as to the Councils of the Lateran that decreed the Extirpation of Hereticks with severe Sanctions on those Princes that failed in their Duty of being the Hangmen of the Inquisitors or to
the Council of Constance that decreed That Princes were not bound to keep their Faith to Hereticks tho' it must be acknowledged that we have extraordinary Memories if we can forget such things and more extraordinary Understandings if we do not make some Inferences from them I will not stand upon such inconsiderable Trifles as the Gunpowder-Plot or the Massacre of Ireland but I will take the liberty to reflect a little on what that Church has done since those Laws were made to give us kinder and softer thoughts of them and to make us the less apprehensive of them We see before our eyes what they have done and are still doing in France and what feeble things Edicts Coronation Oaths Laws and Promises repeated over and over again prove to be where that Religion prevails and Louis le Grand makes not so contemptible a Figure in that Church or in our Court as to make us think that his Example may not be proposed as a Pattern as well as his Aid may be offered for an Encouragement to act the same things in England that he is now doing with so much applause in France and it may be perhaps the rather desired from hence to put him a little in countenance when so great a King as ours is willing to forget himself so far as to copy after him and to depend upon him so that as the Doctrine and Principles of that Church must be still the same in all Ages and Places since its chief pretention is that it is infallible it is no unreasonable thing for us to be afraid of those who will be easily induced to burn us a little here when they are told that such fervent Zeal will save them a more lasting burning hereafter and will perhaps quit all scores so entirely that they may hope scarce to endure a Singing in Purgatory for all their other Sins IV. If the severest Order of the Church of Rome that has breathed out nothing but Fire and Blood since its first formation and that is even decried at Rome it self for its Violence is in such credit here I do not see any inducement from thence to persuade us to look on the Councils that are directed by that Society as such harmless and inoffensive things that we need be no more on our guard against them I know not why we may not apprehend as much from Father Petre as the French have felt from Pere de la Chaise since all the difference that is observed to be between them is that the English Jesuit has much more Fire and Passion and much less Conduct and Judgment than the French has And when Rome has expressed so great a Jealousie of the Interest that that Order had in our Councils that F. Morgan who was thought to influence our Ambassadour was ordered to leave Rome I do not see why England should look so tamely on them No reason can be given why Card. Howard should be shut out of all their Councils unless it be that the Nobleness of his Birth and the Gentleness of his Temper are too hard even for his Religion and his Purple to be mastered by them And it is a Contradiction that nothing but a Belief capable of receiving Transubstantiation can reconcile to see Men pretend to observe Law and yet to find at the same time an Ambassadour from England at Rome when there are so many Laws in our Book of Statutes never yet repealed that have declared over and over again all Commerce with the Court and See of Rome to be High Treason V. The late famous Judgment of our Judges who knowing no other way to make their Names immortal have found an effectual one to preserve them from being ever forgot seems to call for another Method of Proceeding The President they have set must be fatal either to them or us For if twelve Men that get into Scarlet and Furs have an Authority to dissolve all our Laws the English Government is to be hereafter lookt at with as much scorn as it has hitherto drawn admiration That doubtful Words of Laws made so long ago that the Intention of the Lawgivers is not certainly known must be expounded by the Judges is not to be questioned but to infer from thence that the plain Words of a Law so lately made and that was so vigorously asserted by the present Parliament may be made void by a Decision of theirs after so much Practice upon them is just as reasonable a way of arguing as theirs is who because the Church of England acknowledges that the Chuurch has a Power in Matters of Rites and Ceremonies will from thence conclude that this Power must go so far that tho' Christ has said of the Cup Drink ye all of it we must obey the Church when she decrees that we shall not drink of it Our Judges for the greater part were Men that had past their Lives in so much Retirement that from thence one might have hoped that they had studied our Law well since the Bar had called them so seldom from their Studies and if Practice is thought often hurtful to Speculation as that which disorders and hurries the Judgment they who had practised so little in our Law had no byass on their Understandings and if the habit of taking Money as a Lawyer is a dangerous Preparation for one that is to be an incorrupt Judge they should have been incorruptible since it is not thought that the greater part of them got ever so much Money by their Profession as paid for their Furs In short we now see how they have merited their Preferment and they may yet expect a further Exaltation when the Justice and the Laws of England come to be in Hands that will be as careful to preserve them as they have been to destroy them But what an Infamy will it lay upon the Name of an English Parliament if instead of calling those Betrayers of their Country to an account they should go by an after-game to confirm what these Fellows have done VI. The late Conferences with so many Members of both Houses will give such an ill-natured piece of Jealousie against them that of all Persons living that are the most concern'd to take care how they give their Votes the World will believe that Threatnings and Promises had as large a share in those secret Conversations as Reasoning or Persuasion and it must be a more than ordinary degree of Zeal and Courage in them that must take off the Blot of being sent for and spoke to on such a Subject and in such a manner The worthy Behaviour of the Members in the last Session had made the Nation unwilling to remember the Errors committed in the first Election and it is to be hoped that they will not give any cause for the future to call that to mind For if a Parliament that had so many Flaws in its first Conception goes to repeal Laws that we are sure were made by Legal Parliaments it will
cannot so readily guess If a Standard had been given of Opinions or Practices then one could have known how this might have been distinguished but as it lies it will not be easie to make the Discrimination and the declaring them all Immoderate shuts them out quite VI. Another Foundation laid down for Repealing all Laws made against the Papists is That they were enacted in King James the Sixth's Minority with some harsh Expressions that are not to be insisted on since they shew more the Heat of the Penner than the Dignity of the Prince in whose Name they are given out but all these Laws were ratified over and over again by King James when he came to be of full Age and they have received many Confirmations by King Charles the First and King Charles the Second as well as by his present Majesty both when he represented his Brother in the Year 1681. and since He himself came to the Crown so that whatsoever may be said concerning the first Formation of those Laws they have received now for the course of a whole hundred Years that are lapsed since King James was of full Age so many Confirmations that if there is any thing certain in Humane Government we might depend upon them but this new coined Absolute Power must carry all before it VII It is also well known that the whole Settlement of the Church-Lands and Tythes with many other things and more particularly the Establishment of the Protestant Religion was likewise enacted in King James's Minority as well as those Penal Laws so that the Reason now made use of to annul the Penal Laws will serve full as well for another Act of this Absolute Power that shall abolish all those and if Maxims that unhinge all the Securities of Humane Society and all that is sacred in Government ought to be look'd on with the justest and deepest Prejudices possible one is tempted to lose the Respect that is due to every thing that carries a Royal Stamp upon it when he sees such Grounds made use of as must shake all Settlements whatsoever For if a Prescription of 120 Years and Confirmations reiterated over and over again these 100 Years past do not purge some Defects in the first Formation of those Laws what can make us secure But this looks so like a Fetch of the French Prerogative Law both in their Processes with relation to the Edict of Nantes and those concerning Dependences at Mets that this seems to be a Copy from that famous Original VIII It were too much ill Nature to look into the History of the last Age to examine on what Grounds those Characters of Pious and Blessed given to the Memory of Q. Mary are built but since King James's Memory has the Character of Glorious given to it if the Civility due to the Fair Sex makes one unwilling to look into the one yet the other may be a little dwelt on The peculiar Glory that belongs to King James's Memory is that he was a Prince of great Learning and that he employed it chiefly in writing for Religion Of the Volume in Folio in which we have his Works two thirds are against the Church of Rome one part of them is a Commentary on the Revelation proving that the Pope is Antichrist another part of them belonged more naturally to his Post and Dignity which is the Warning that he gave to all the Princes and States of Europe against the Treasonable and Bloody Doctrines of the Papacy The first Act he did when he came of Age was to swear in Person with all his Family and afterwards with all his People of Scotland a Covenant containing an Enumeration of all the Points of Popery and a most solemn Renunciation of them somewhat like our Parliament Test His first Speech to the Parliament of England was Copious on the same Subject and he left a Legacy of a Wish on such of his Posterity as should go over to that Religion which in good manners is suppressed It is known King James was no Conqueror and that he made more use of his Pen than his Sword so the Glory that is peculiar to his Memory must fall chiefly on his Learned and Immortal Writings and since there is such a Veneration expressed for him it agrees not ill with this to wish that his Works were more studied by those who offer such Incense to his Glorious Memory IX His Majesty assures his People of Scotland upon his certain Knowledge and long Experience that the Catholicks as they are good Christians so they are likewise dutiful Subjects But if we must believe both these equally then we must conclude severely against their being good Christians for we are sure they can never be good Subjects not only to a Heretical Prince but even to a Catholick Prince if he does not extirpate Hereticks for their beloved Council of the Lateran that decreed Transubstantiation has likewise decreed That if a Prince does not extirpate Hereticks out of his Dominions the Pope must depose him and declare his Subjects absolved from their Allegiance and give his Dominions to another So that even his Majesty how much soever he may be a Zealous Catholick yet cannot be assured of their Fidelity to him unless he has given them secret Assurances that he is resolved to extirpate Hereticks out of his Dominions and that all the Promises which he now makes to these poor Wretches are no other way to be kept than the Assurances which the Great Lewis gave to his Protestant Subjects of his observing still the Edict of Nantes even after he had resolved to break it and also his last Promise made in the Edict that repealed the Edict of Nantes by which he gave Assurances that no Violence should be used to any for their Religion in the very time that he was ordering all possible Violences to be put in execution against them X. His Majesty assures us that on all occasions the Papists have shewed themselves good and faithful Subjects to him and his Royal Predecessors but how Absolute soever the King's Power may be it seems his Knowledge of History is not so Absolute but it may be capable of some Improvement It will be hard to find out what Loyalty they shewed on the occasion of the Gunpowder Plot or during the whole Progress of the Rebellion of Ireland if the King will either take the Words of King James of Glorious Memory or King Charles the First that was indeed of Pious and Blessed Memory rather than the Word of the Penners of this Proclamation it will not be hard to find occasions where they were a little wanting in this their so much boasted Loyalty and we are sure that by the Principles of that Religion the King can never be assured of the Fidelity of those he calls his Catholick Subjects but by engaging to them to make his Heretical Subjects Sacrifices to their Rage XI The King declares them capable of all the Offices and Benefices which he
was in Scotland and the pretension to Absolute Power is so great a thing that since His Majesty thought fit once to claim it he is little beholden to those that make him fall so much in his Language especially since both these Declarations have appeared in our Gazettes so that as we see what is done in Scotland we know from hence what is in some Peoples Hearts and what we may expect in England II. His Majesty tells his People that the perfect Enjoyment of their Property has never been in any Case invaded by him since his coming to the Crown This is indeed matter of great Encouragement to all good Subjects for it lets them see that such Invasions as have been made on Property have been done without His Majesty's knowledge so that no doubt the continuing to levy the Customs and the Additional Excise which had been granted only during the late King's Life before the Parliament could meet to renew the Grant was done without His Majesty's knowledge the many Violences committed not only by Soldiers but Officers in all the Parts of England which are severe Invasions on Property have been all without his Majesty's knowledge and since the first Branch of Property is the Right that a Man has to his Life the strange Essay of Mahometan Government that was shewed at Taunton and the no less strange Proceedings of the present Lord Chancellor in his Circuit after the Rebellion which are very justly called His Campagne for it was an open Act of Hostility to all Law and for which and other Services of the like nature it is believed he has had the Reward of the Great Seal and the Executions of those who have left their Colours which being founded on no Law are no other than so many Murders all these I say are as we are sure Invasions on Property But since the King tells us that no such Invasions have been made since he came to the Crown we must conclude that all these things have fallen out without his Privity And if a Standing Army in time of Peace has been ever look'd on by this Nation as an Attempt upon the whole Property of the Nation in gross one must conclude that even this is done without His Majesty's knowledge III. His Majesty expresses his Charity for us in a kind Wish That we were all Members of the Catholick Church In return to which we offer up daily our most earnest Prayers for him That he may become a Member of the truly Catholick Church for Wishes and Prayers do no hurt on no side But His Majesty adds That it has ever been his Opinion that Conscience ought not to be constrained nor People forced in Matters of meer Religion We are very happy if this continues to be always his Sense but we are sure in this he is no obedient Member of that which he means by the Catholick Church for it has over and over again decreed the Extirpation of Hereticks It encourages Princes to it by the Offer of the Pardon of their Sins it threatens them to it by denouncing to them not only the Judgments of God but that which is more sensible the loss of their Dominions and it seems they intend to make us know that part of their Doctrine even before we come to feel it since tho' some of that Communion would take away the Horror which the Fourth Council of the Lateran gives us in which these things were decreed by denying it to be a General Council and rejecting the Authority of those Canons yea the most learned of all the Apostates that has fallen to them from our Church has so lately given up this Plea and has so formally acknowledged the Authority of that Council and of its Canons that it seems they think they are bound to this piece of fair dealing of warning us before hand of our Danger It is true Bellarmin says The Church does not always execute her Power of Deposing Heretical Princes tho' she always retains it one Reason that he assigns is Because she is not at all times able to put it in execution so the same Reason may perhaps make it appear unadvisable to extirpate Hereticks because that at present it connot be done but the Right remains entire and is put in execution in such an unrelenting manner in all Places where that Religion prevails that it has a very ill Grace to see any Member of that Church speak in this strain and when neither the Policy of France nor the Greatness of their Monarch nor yet the Interests of the Emperour joined to the Gentleness of his own Temper could withstand these Bloody Councils that are indeed parts of that Religion we can see no Reason to induce us to believe that a Toleration of Religion is proposed with any other Design but either to divide us or to lay us asleep till it is time to give the Alarm for destroying us IV. If all the Endeavours that have been used in the last four Reigns for bringing the Subjects of this Kingdom to a Unity in Religion have been ineffectual as His Majesty says we know to whom we owe both the first Beginnings and the Progress of the Divisions among our selves the Gentleness of Queen Elizabeth's Government and the numbers of those that adhered to the Church of Rome made it scarce possible to put an end to that Party during her Reign which has been ever since restless and has had credit enough at Court during the three last Reigns not only to support it self but to distract us and to divert us from apprehending the danger of being swallowed up by them by somenting our own Differences and by setting on either a Toleration or a Persecution as it has hapned to serve their Interests It is not so very long since that nothing was to be heard at Court but the supporting the Church of England and the extirpating all the Nonconformists and it were easie to name the Persons if it were decent that had this ever in their Mouths but now all is turned round again the Church of England is in disgrace and now the Encouragement of Trade the Quiet of the Nation and the Freedom of Conscience are again in vogue that were such odious things but a few years ago that the very mentioning of them was enough to load any Man with Suspicions as backward in the King's Service while such Methods are used and the Government is as in an Ague divided between hot and cold Fits no wonder if Laws so unsteadily executed have failed of their Effect V. There is a good Reserve here left for Severity when the proper Opportunity to set it on presents it self for His Majesty declares himself only against the forcing of Men in Matters of meer Religion so that whensoever Religion and Policy come to be so interwoven that meer Religion is not the Case and that Publick Safety may be pretended then this Declaration is to be no more claimed so that the fastning any thing
that the Censures upon it are divided both fall heavy Some suspect their Sincerity others accuse them for want of a right Understanding For tho' all are not of the pitch of the Irish Priests Reflections on the Bishop of Bath and Wells his Sermon which was indeed Irish double refined yet both in your Books of Controversie and Policy and even in your Poems you seem to have entred into such an Intermixture with the Irish that the Thred all over is Linsie-woolsie You acknowledge that the Gentleman whom you answer has a Polite Pen and that his Letter is an ingenious Paper and made up of well-composed Sentences and Periods Yet I believe he will hardly return you your Complement If it was well writ your Party wants either Men or Judgment extremely in allowing you this Province of answering it If the Paper did you some hurt you had better have let the Town be a little pleased with it for a while and have hoped that a little Time or some new Paper tho' one of its force is scarce to be expected should have worn it out than to give it a new Lustre by such an Answer The Time of the Dissenters Sufferings which you lengthen out to Twenty seven Years will hardly amount to Seven For the long Intervals it had in the last Reign are not forgot and those who animated the latest and severest of their Sufferings are sueh that in good manners you ought not to reflect on their Conduct Opium is as certain a Poyson tho' not so violent as Sublimate and if more corrosive Medicines did not work the Design is the same when soporiferous ones are used since the Patient is to be killed both ways and it seems that all that is in debate is which is the safer The accepting a present Ease when the ill intent with which it is offered is visible is just as wise an Action as to take Opium to lay a small Distemper when one may conclude from the Dose that he will never come out of the Sleep So that after all it is plain on which side the Madness lies The Dissenters for a little present ease to be enjoyed at mercy must concur to break down all our Hedges and to lay us open to that devouring Power before which nothing can stand that will not worship it All that for which you reproach the Church of England amounts to this that a few good Words could not persuade her to destroy her self and to sacrifice her Religion and the Laws to a Party that never has done nor ever can do the King half the Service that She has rendred him There are some sorts of Propositions that a Man does not know how to answer nor would he be thought ingrateful who after he had received some Civilities from a Person to whom he had done great Service could not be prevailed with by these so far as to spare him his Wife or his Daughter It must argue a peculiar degree of Confidence to ask things that are above the being either ask'd or granted Our Religion and our Government are Matters that are not to be parted with to shew our good Breeding and of all Men living you ought not to pretend to Good Manners who talk as you do of the Oppression of the last Reign When the King's Obligations to his Brother and the share that he had in his Councils are considered the reproaching his Government has so ill a grace that you are as indecent in your Flatteries as injurious in your Reflections And by this Gratitude of yours to the Memory of the late King the Church of England may easily infer how long all her Services would be remembred even if she had done all that was desired of her I would fain know which of the Brethren of the Dissenters in Foreign Countries sought their Relief from Rebellion The Germans Reformed by the Authority of their Princes so did the Swedes the Danes and likewise the Switzers In France they maintained the Princes of the Blood against the League and in Holland the Quarrel was for Civil Liberties Protestant and Papist concurring equally in it You mention Holland as an Instance that Liberty and Infallibility can dwell together since Papists there shew that they can be friendly Neighbours to those whom they think in the wrong It is very like they would be still so in England if they were under the Lash of the Law and so were upon their Good-behaviour the Government being still against them And this has so good an effect in Holland that I hope we shall never depart from the Dutch Pattern Some can be very Humble Servants that would prove Imperious Masters You say that Force is our only Supporter but tho' there is no Force of our Side at present it does not appear that we are in such a tottering condition as if we had no Supporter left us God and Truth are of our side and the indiscreet use of Force when set on by our Enemies has rather undermined than supported us But you have taken pains to make us grow wiser and to let us see our Errors which is perhaps the only Obligation that we owe you and we are so sensible of it that without examining what your Intentions may have been in it we heartily thank you for it I do not comprehend what your Quarrel is at the squinting Term of the next Heir as you call it tho' I do not wonder that squinting comes in your mind whensoever you think of HER for all People look asquint at that which troubles them and Her being the next Heir is no less the Delight of all Good Men than it is your Affliction All the pains that you take to represent Her dreadful to the Dissenters must needs find that credit with them that is due to the Insinuations of an Enemy It is very true that as She was bred up in our Church She adheres to it so eminently as to make Her to be now our chief Ornament as we hope She will be once our main Defence If by the strictest Form of our Church you mean an Exemplary Piety and a shining Conversation you have given Her true Character But your Design lies another way to make the Dissenters form strange Ideas of Her as if She thought all Indulgence to them Criminal But as the Gentleness of her Nature is such that none but those who are so guilty that all Mercy to them would be a Crime can apprehend any thing that is terrible from Her so as for the Dissenters Her going so constantly to the Dutch and French Churches shews that She can very well endure their Assemblies at the same time that She prefers ours She has also too often expressed her dislike at the heats that have been kept up among us concerning such inconsiderable Differences to pass for a Bigot or Persecutor in such Matters and She sees both the Mischief that the Protestant Religion has received from their Subdivisions and the happiness of granting
now to treat the Men of the Church of England with the same Brutal Excesses that he bestowed so lately and so liberally on the Dissenters as if his Design were to render himself equally odious to all Mankind III. The Church of England may justly expostulate when she is treated as Seditious after she has rendred the highest Services to the Civil Authority that any Church now on Earth has done She has beaten down all the Principles of Rebellion with more Force and Learning than any Body of men has ever yet done and has run the hazard of enraging her Enemies and losing her Friends even for those from whom the more Learned of her Members knew well what they might expect And since our Author likes the figure of a Snake in ones Bosome so well I could tell him that according to the Apologue we took up and sheltered an Interest that was almost dead and by that warmth gave it life which yet now with the Snake in the Bosome is like to bite us to death We do not say we are the only Church that has Principles of Loyalty but this we may say That we are the Church in the World that carries them the highest as we know a Church that of all others sinks them them the lowest We do not pretend that we are Inerrable in this Point but acknowledge that some of our Clergy miscarried in it upon King Edward's Death Yet at the same time others of our Communion adhered more steadily to their Loyalty in favour of Queen Mary than She did to the Promises that she made to them Upon this Subject our Author by his false Quotation of History forces me to set the Reader right which if it proves to the disadvantage of his Cause his Friends may thank him for it I will not enter into so tedious a Digression as the justifying Queen Elizabeth's being Legitimate and the throwing the Bastardy on Queen Mary must carry me to this I will only say That it was made out that according to the best sort of Arguments used by the Church of Rome I mean the constant Tradition of all Ages King Henry the VIII marrying with Queen Katherine was Incestuous and by Consequence Queen Mary was the Bastard and Queen Elizabeth was the Legitimate Issue But our Author not satisfied with defaming Queen Elizabeth tells us that the Church of England was no sooner set up by her than She Enacted those Bloody Cannibal Laws to Hang Draw and Quarter the Priests of the living God. But since these Laws disturb him so much What does he think of the Laws of Burning the poor Servants of the living God because they cannot give Divine Worship to that which they believe to be only a Piece of Bread The Representation he gives of this part of our History is so false that tho' upon Queen Elizabeth's coming to the Crown there were many Complaints exhibited of the illegal Violences that Bonner and other Butchers had committed yet all these were stifled and no Penal Laws were enacted against those of that Religion The Popish Clergy were indeed turned out but they were well used and had Pensions assigned them so ready was the Queen and our Church to forgive what was past and to shew all Gentleness for the future During the first thirteen years of her Reign matters went on calmly without any sort of Severity on the account of Religion But then the restless Spirit of that Party began to throw the Nation into violent Convulsions The Pope deposed the Queen and and one of the Party had the Impudence to post up the Bull in London upon this followed several Rebellions both in England and Ireland and the Papists of both Kingdoms entred into Confederacies with the King of Spain and the Court of Rome The Priests disposed all the People that depended on them to submit to the Pope's Authority in that Deposition and to reject the Queen's These Endeavours besides open Rebellions produced many secret Practices against her Life All these things gave the rise to the severe Laws which began not to be enacted before the twentieth year of her Reign A War was formed by the Bull of Deposition between the Queen and the Court of Rome so it was a necessary piece of Precaution to declare all those to be Traitors who were the Missionaries of that Authority which had stript the Queen of hers Yet those Laws were not executed upon some Secular Priests who had the Honesty to condemn the Deposing Doctrine As for the Unhappy Death of the Queen of Scotland it was brought on by the wicked Practices of her own Party who fatally involved her in some of them She was but a Subject here in England and if the Queen took a more violent way than was decent for her own Security here was no Disloyalty nor Rebellion in the Church of England which owed her no sort of Allegiance IV. I do not pretend that the Church of England has any great cause to value her self upon her Fidelity to King Charles the First tho' our Author would have it pass for the only thing of which She can boast for I confess the cause of the Church was so twisted with the King 's that Interest and Duty went together tho' I will not go so far as our Author who says that the Law of Nature dictates to every Individual to fight in his own Defence This is too bold a thing to be delivered so crudely at this time The Laws of Nature are perpetual and can never be cancelled by any special Law So if these Gentlemen own so freely that this is a Law of Nature they had best take care not to provoke Nature too much lest She fly to the Relief that this Law may give her unless she is restrained by the Loyalty of our Church Our Author values his Party much upon their Loyalty to King Charles the First But I must take the liberty to ask him of what Religion were the Irish Rebels and what sort of Loyalty was it that they shewed either in the first Massacre or in the Progress of that Rebellion Their Messages to the Pope to the Court of France and to the Duke of Lorrain offering themselves to any of these that would have undertaken to protect them are Acts of Loyalty which the Church of England is no way inclined to follow and the authentical Proofs of these things are ready to be produced Nor need I add to this the hard terms they offered to the King and their ill usage of those whom he imployed I could likewise repress the Insolence of this Writer by telling him of the slavish Submissions that their Party made to Cromwel both Father and Son. As for their adhering to King Charles the First there is a peculiar boldness in our Author's Assertion who says That they had no Hope nor Interest in that cause The State of that Court is not so quite forgot but that we do well remember what Credit the Queen had
mistaken Act concerning Waggons so the King in that case only declared the Inconvenience which made that Law to be of it self null because it was impracticable It is true the Parliament never questioned this a man would not be offended if another pulled a Flower in his Garden that yet would take it ill if he broke his Hedge and in Holland to which our Author's Pen leads him often when a River changes its course any man may break the Dike that was made to resist it yet that will be no warrant to go and break the Dike that resists the Current of the same River So if a dispensing Power when applied to smaller Offences has been passed over as an excess of Government that might be excusable tho' 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 superseded because twelve Men in Scarlet have been hired 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 whereas the other is a warrant to commit Crimes In short the one is a Power to save Men and the other is a Power to destroy the Government But tho' they swagger it out now with the Dispensing Power yet rode caper vitem may come to be again in season and a time may come in which the whole Party will have reason to wish that some hair-brained Jesuits had never been born who will rather expose them not only 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 then accept of reasonable Propositions 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 setled upon two such Hinges as the Protestant Religion and 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 invading that State 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 which began 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 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 tho' none before our Author has ever ventured in a Book licensed by my Lord President of the Council to call that 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 Commonwealth is only 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 pag. 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 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 the Revolt of the Dutch as a scandalous Imputation on the Protestant Religion and yet in a late Paper entituled An Answer to Pensioner Fagel's Letter the Services that the Roman Catholicks did in the beginning of that Commonwealth are highly extolled as signal and meritorious upon which the Writer makes great Complaints That the Pacification of Gaunt and the Union at Utrecht by which the free Exercise of their Religion was to be continued to them was not observed in most of the Provinces But if he had taken pains to examine the History of the States he would have found that soon after the Union made at Utrecht the Treaty at Collen was set on foot between the King of Spain and the States by the Emperor's Mediation in which the Spaniars studied to divide the Roman Catholicks of these Provinces from the Protestants by offering a Confirmation of all the other Priviledges of these Provinces excepting only the Point of Religion which had so great an Effect that the Party of the Malcontents was formed upon it and these did quickly capitulate in the Walloon Provinces and after that not only Barbant and Flanders capitulated but Reenenburgh that was Governour of Groening declared for the King of Spain and by some Places that he took both in Friseland and Over-Issel he put these 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 changed so the State of Affairs that no wonder if this produced a change likewise with relation to that Religion since it appeared that these Revolts were carried on and justified upon the Principles of that 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 those Provinces the Roman Catholicks continued still in the Country and tho' the ill Inclinations that they shewed made it necessary for the publick Safety to put them out of the Government yet they have still enjoyed the common Rights of the Country 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 is no small step to it to possess all the World with odious Impressions of the Dutch as a rebellious and perfidious State and if it were possible they would even make their own Roman Catholick Subjects fancy that they are persecuted by them But tho' men may be brought to believe
so familiar to them that they can no more be put out of countenance But it seems very strange to us that some who if they are to be believed are strict to the severest Forms and Sub-divisions of the Reformed Religion and who some Years ago were jealous of the smallest steps that the Court made when the danger was more remote and who cried out Popery and Persecution when the design was so mask'd that some well-meaning Men could not miss being deceived by the Promises that were made and the Disguises that were put on that I say these very Persons who were formerly so distrustful should now when the Mask is laid off and the Design is avowed of a sudden grow to be so believing as to throw off all Distrust and be so gulled as to betray all and to expose us to the Rage of those who must needs give some good words till they have gone the round and tried how effectually they can divide and deceive us that so they may destroy us the more easily this is indeed somewhat extraordinary They are not so ignorant as not to know that Popery cannot change its Nature and that Cruelty and Breach of Faith to Hereticks are as necessary parts of that Religion as Transubstantiation and the Pope's Supremacy are If Papists were not Fools they must give good Words and fair Promises till by these they have so far deluded the poor credulous Hereticks that they may put themselves in a posture to execute the Decrees of their Church against them and though we accuse that Religion as guilty both of Cruelty and Treachery yet we do not think them Fools so till their Party is stronger than God be thanked it is at present they can take no other method than that they take The Church of England was the Word among them somst Years ago Liberty of Conscieece is the Word at present and we have all possible reason to assure us that the Promises for maintaining the one will be as religiously kept as we see those are which were lately made with so great a profusion of Protestations and shews of Friendship for the supporting of the other III. It were great Injustice to charge all the Dissenters with the Impertinencies that have appeared in many Addresses of late or to take our measures of them from the impudent strains of an Alsop or a Care or from the more important and now more visible steps that some among them of a higher form are every day making and yet after all this it cannot be denied but the several Bodies of the Dissenters have behaved themselves of late like Men that understand too well the true Interest of the Protestant Religion and of the English Government to sacrifice the whole and themselves in Conclusion to their private Resentments I hope the same Justice will be allowed me in stating the matter relating to the so much decried Persecution set on by the Church of England and that I may be suffered to distinguish the Heats of some angry and deluded Men from the Doctrine of the Church and the Practices that have been authorized in it that so I may shew that there is no reason to infer from past Errors that we are incurable or that new Opportunities inviting us again into the same Severities are like to prevail over us to commit the same Follies over again I will first state what is past with the Sincerity that becomes one that would not lie for God that is not afraid nor ashamed to confess Faults that will neither aggravate nor extenuate them beyond what is just and that yet will avoid the saying of any thing that may give any cause of Offence to any Party in the Nation IV. I am very sorry that I must confess that all the Parties among us have shewed that as their turn came to be uppermost they have forgot the same Principles of Moderation and Liberty which they all claimed when they were oppressed If it should shew too much ill nature to examine what the Presbytery did in Scotland when the Covenant was in Dominion or what the Independents have done in New-England why may not I claim the same priviledg with relation to the Church of England if Severities have been committed by her while she bore Rule yet it were as easy as it would be invidious to shew that both Presbyterians and Independents have carried the Principle of Rigor in the point of Conscience much higher and have acted more implacably upon it than ever the Church of England has done even in its angriest fits so that none of them can much reproach another for their Excesses in those matters And as of all the Religions in the World the Church of Rome is the most persecuting and the most bound by her Principles to be unalterably cruel so the Church of England is the least persecuting in her Principles and the least obliged to repeat any Errors to which the Intrigues of Courts or the Passions incident to all Parties may have engaged her of any National Church in Europe It cannot be said to be any part of our Doctrine when we came out of one of the blackest Persecutions that is in History I mean Queen Mary's we shewed how little we retained of the Cruelty of that Church which had provoked us so severely when not only no Inquiries were made into the illegal Acts of Fury that were committed in that persecuting Reign but even the Persecutors themselves lived among us at Ease and in Peace and no Penal Law was made except against the publick Exercise of that Religion till a great many Rebellions and Treasons extorted them from us for our own Preservation This is an Instance of the Clemency of our Church that perhaps cannot be matched in History and why should it not be supposed that if God should again put us in the state in which we were of late that we should rather imitate so noble a Patern than return to those Mistakes of which we are now ashamed V. It is to be considered that upon the late King's Restauration the remembrance of the former War the ill usage that our Clergy had met with in their Sequestrations the angry Resentments of the Cavalier Party who were ruined by the War the Interest of the Court to have all those Principles condemned that had occasioned it the heat that all Parties that have been ill-used are apt to fall into upon a Revolution but above all the Practices of those who have still blown the Coals and set us one against another that so they might not only have a divided Force to deal with but might by turns make the Divisions among us serve their Ends All these I say concurred to make us lose the happy Opportunity that was offered in the Year 1660 to have healed all our Divisions and to have triumphed over all the Dissenters not by ruining them but by overcoming them with a Spirit of Love and Gentleness which is the only Victory that
a Generous and Christian Temper can desire In short unhappy Counsels were followed and severe Laws were made But after all it was the Court Party that carried it for rougher Methods Some considerable Accidents not necessary to be here mentioned as they stopped the Mouths of some that had formed a wiser Project so they gave a fatal Advantage to angry and crafty Men that to our misfortune had too great a stroak in the conduct of our Affairs at that Time. This Spirit of Severity was heightned by the Practices of the Papists who engaged the late King in December 1662 to give a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience Those who knew the Secret of his Religion as they saw that it aimed at the Introduction of Popery so they thought there was no way so effectual for the keeping out of Popery as the maintaining the Uniformity and the suppressing of all Designs for a Toleration But while those who managed this used a due reserve in not discovering the secret Motive that led them to it others flew into Severity as the Principle in vogue And thus all the slacknings of the rigour of the Laws during the first Dutch War that were set on upon the pretence of quieting the Nation and of encouraging Trade were resisted by the Instruments of an honest Minister of State who knew as well then as we do now what lay still at bottom when Liberty of Conscience was pretended VI. Upon that Minister's Disgrace some that saw but the half of the Secret perceiving in the Court a great inclination to Toleration and being willing to take Measures quite different from those of the former Ministry they entred into a Treaty for a Comprehension of some Dissenters and the tolerating of others And some Bishops and Clergy-men that were inferior to none of the Age in which they lived for true Worth and a right Judgment of Things engaged so far and with so much success into this Project that the Matter seemed done all things being concerted among some of the most considerable Men of the different Parties But the dislike of that Ministry and the Jealousy of the ill Designs of the Court gave so strong a Prejudice against this that the Proposition could not be so much as hearkned to by the House of Commons And then it appeared how much the whole Popish Party was allarmed at the Project It is well known with how much Detestation they speak of it to this day though we are now so fully satisfied of their Intentions to destroy us that the Zeal which they pretended for us in opposing that Design can no more pass upon us VII At last in the Year 1672. the Design for Popery discovering it self the End that the Court had in favouring a Toleration became more visible And when the Parliament met that condemned the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience the Members of the House of Commons that either were Dissenters or that favoured them behaved themselves so worthily in concurring with those of the Church of England for stifling that Toleration chusing rather to lose the benefit of it than to open a Breach at which Popery should come in that many of the Members that were of the Church of England promised to procure them a Bill of Ease for Protestant Dissenters But the Session was not long enough for bringing that to Perfection and all the Sessions of that Parliament after that were spent in such a continual struggle between the Court and Country-Party that there was never room given for calm and wise Consultations yet though the Party of the Church of England did not perform what had been promised by some leading Men to the Dissenters there was little or nothing done against them after that till the Year 1681 so that for about nine Years together they had their Meetings almost as publickly and as regularly as the Church of England had their Churches and in all that time whatsoover particular Hardships any of them might have met with in some corners of England it cannot be denied but they had the free Exercise of their Religion at least in most parts VIII In the Year 1678 things began to change their face it is known that upon the breaking out of the Popish Plot the Clergy did universally express a great desire for coming to some temper in the Points of Conformity all sorts and ranks of the Clergy seemed to be so well disposed towards it that if it had met with a sutable Entertainment matters might probably have been in a great measure composed But the Jealousy that those who managed the Civil Concerns of the Nation in the House of Commons took off all that was done at Court or proposed by it occasioned a fatal Breach in our Publick Councils in which division the Clergy by their Principles and Interests and their Disposition to believe well of the Court were determined to be of the King's side They thought it was a Sin to mistrust the late King's Word who assured them of his steadiness to the Protestant Religion so often that they firmly depended on it and his present Majesty gave them so many Assurances of his maintaining still the Church of England that they believed him likewise and so thought that the Exclusion of him from the Crown was a degree of Rigor to which they in Conscience could not consent upon which they were generally cried out on as the Betrayers of the Nation and of the Protestant Religion Those who demanded the Exclusion and some other Securities to which the Bishops would not consent in Parliament looked on them as the chief hinderance that was in their way and the License of the Press at that time was such that many Libels and some severe Discourses were published against them Nor can it be denied that many Church-men who understood not the Principles of Human Society and the Rules of our Government so well as other Points of Divinity writ several Treatises concerning the measures of Submission that were then as much censured as their Performances since against Popery have been deservedly admired All this gave such a Jealousy of them to the Nation that it must be confessed that the Spirit which was then in fermentation went very high against the Church of England as a Confederate at least to Popery and Tyranny Nor were several of the Nonconformists wanting to inflame this dislike all secret Propositions for accommodating our Differences were so coldly entertained that they were scarce hearkned to The Propositions which an Eminent Divine made even in his Books writ against Separation shewed that while we maintained the War in the way of Dispute yet we were still willing to treat for that great Man made not those Advances towards them without consulting with his Superiors Yet we were then fatally given up to a Spirit of Dissention and tho the Parliament in 1680 entred upon a project for healing our Differences in which great steps were made to the removing of all the occasions of
being above three Years since we had a Session that enacted any Law Methods have been taken and are daily a taking that render this impossible Parliaments ought to be chosen with an entire Liberty and without either Force or Preingagements whereas if all Men are required before-hand to enter into Engagements how they will vote if they are chosen themselves or how they will give their Voices in the electing of others This is plainly such a preparation to a Parliament as would indeed make it no Parliament but a Cabal if one were chosen after all that Corruption of Persons who had preingaged themselves and after the Threating and Turning out of all Persons out of Imployments who had refused to do it And if there are such daily Regulations made in the Towns that it is plain those who manage them intend at last to put such a number of Men in the Corporations as will certainly choose the Persons who are recommended to them But above all if there are such a number of Sheriffs and Mayors made over England by whom the Elections must be conducted and returned who are now under an Incapacity by Law and so are no legal Officers and by consequence those Elections that pass under their Authority are null and void If I say it is clear that things are brought to this then the Government is dissolved because it is impossible to have a Free and Legal Parliament in this state of things If then both the Authority of the Law and the Constitution of the Parliament are struck at and dissolved here is a plain Subversion of the whole Government But if we enter next into the particular Branches of the Government we will find the like Disorder among them all The Protestant Religion and the Church of England make a great Article of our Government the latter being secured not only of old by Magna Charta but by many special Laws made of late and there are particular Laws made in K. Charles the First and the late King's Time securing them from all Commissions that the King can raise for Judging or Censuring them If then in opposition to this a Court so condemned is erected which proceeds to judg and censure the Clergy and even to disseise them of their Free-holds without so much as the form of a Trial though this is the most indispensible Law of all those that secure the Property of England and if the King pretends that he can require the Clergy to publish all his Arbitrary Declarations and in particular one that strikes at their whole Settlement and has ordered Process to be begun against all that disobey'd this illegal Warrant and has treated so great a number of the Bishops as Criminals only for representing to him the Reasons of their not obeying him If likewise the King is not satisfied to profess his own Religion openly though even that is contrary to Law but has sent Ambassadors to Rome and received Nuncio's from thence which is plainly Treason by Law If likewise many Popish Churches and Chappels have been publickly opened if several Colledges of Jesuits have been set up in divers parts of the Nation and one of the Order has been made a Privy Counsellor and a principal Minister of State And if Papists and even those who turn to that Religion though declared Traitors by Law are brought into all the chief Imployments both Military and Civil then it is plain That all the Rights of the Church of England and the whole Establishment of the Protestant Religion are struck at and design'd to be overturn'd since all these Things as they are notoriously illegal so they evidently demonstrate That the great Design of them all is the rooting out of this Pestilent Heresy in their Stile I mean the Protestant Religion In the next place If in the whole course of Justice it is visible that there is a constant practising upon the Judges that they are turned out upon their varying from the Intentions of the Court and if Men of no Reputation nor Abilities are put in their places If an Army is kept up in time of Peace and Men who withdraw from that illegal Service are hanged up as Criminals without any colour of Law which by consequence are so many Murders and if the Souldiery are connived at and encouraged in the most enormous Crimes that so they may be thereby prepared to commit greater ones and from single Rapes and Murders proceed to a Rape upon all our Liberties and a Destruction of the Nation If I say all these things are true in Fact then it is plain that there is such a Dissolution of the Government made that there is not any one part of it left sound and entire And if all these things are done now it is easy to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares to Man and Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established Then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Beneviolences and all sorts of Illegal Taxes as from the other we may expect Burning Massacres and Inquisitions In what is doing in Scotland we may gather what is to be expected in England where if the King has over and over again declared that he is vested with an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and has upon that annulled almost all the Acts of Parliament that passed in K. James I. Minority though they were ratified by himself when he came to be of Age and were confirmed by all the subsequent Kings not excepting the present We must then conclude from thence what is resolved on here in England and what will be put in Execution as soon as it is thought that the Times can bear it When likewise the whole Settlement of Ireland is shaken and the Army that was raised and is maintained by Taxes that were given for an Army of English Protestants to secure them from a new Massacre by the Irish Papists is now all filled with Irish Papists as well as almost all the other Imployments it is plain that not only all the British Protestants inhabiting that Island are in daily danger of being butchered a second time but that the Crown of England is in danger of losing that Island it being now put wholly into the Hands and Power of the Native Irish who as they formerly offered themselves up sometimes to the Crown of Spain sometimes to the Pope and once to the Duke of Lorrain so are they perhaps at this present treating with another Court for the Sale and Surrender of the Island and for the Massacre of the English in it If thus all the several Branches of our Constitution are dissolved it might be at least expected that one part should be left entire and that is the Regal Dignity And yet even that is prostituted when we see a young Child put in the Reversion of it and pretended to be the Prince of Wales concerning whose being born of the Queen there appear