Substance and satisfying themselves with this Appearance to do their ordinary Work of giving Money and be gone and leave the Business of the Kingdom as they found it For it was proposed that whatsoever Security we were to receive should be both Conditional and Reversionable That is First We should not be put into Possession of this new Charter be it what it will till after the death of His Majesty who now is whereas such a Provision is desirable and indeed necessary for us for this only reason that when that unfortunate hour comes we might not be in that Confusion unprovided of a Calm Setled and Orderly as well as a Legal Way to keep out Popery Whereas otherwise if we be to take Possession in that Minute it must either miscarry or be gotten by a War if it be true that Possession be Nine Points of the Law in other Cases it is in this the whole Ten and I should be very unwilling in such a Distraction to have no Sanctuary to fly to but a piece of Parchment kept in the Pells and to have this too as well as other Advantages in the Power and Possession of him in whose prejudice it was made this had been almost as good an Expedient to keep out Popery as the Bill which was thrown out that Parliament which provided that in the Reign of a King that should be a Papist the Bishops should chuse one another upon Vacancies Those Counsellors who put my Lord Chancellor upon this Proposal were either very slender Politicians themselves or else thought the Parliament so If Magna Charta and The Petition of Right had not been to take place till after the Decease of those Princes who confirmed them neither had the Barons shed their Blood to so good purpose nor the Members of the Parliament in Tertio Caroli deserved so Glorious an Imprisonment after it was ended The other Condition in this renowned Proposal is That all Provision and Security which is given us to preserve our Religion shall cease immediately whenever the Prince shall take a certain Oath to be penned for that purpose and I leave it to all thinking men to determine what that will avail us when we shall have a King of that Profession over us who shall not have so much Zeal for his Religion as he who is now the next successor hath but shall possibly prefer his Ambition and his desire to get out of Wardship before the Scruples of his Confessor and yet may afterwards by getting Absolution for and Dispensation from such Oaths and Compliance employ the Power he gets himself and the Security he deprives us of to introduce violently what Worship and Faith he pleases This Gracious Offer had the fatality to disguist one of the best Parliaments that ever Sate and the most Loyal so that laying it aside they fell upon the Succession the only thing they had then left and were soon after Dissolved leaving the Kingdom in a more distracted Condition than they found it and this can no way be composed but by mending the Polity so that whoever is King cannot be he never so inclined to it introduce Popery or destroy whatever Religion shall be established as you see in the Example of the Dutchy of Hanover whose Prince some fourteen Years since was perverted to the Roman Church went to Rome to abjure Heresie as they call the truth return'd home where he lived and Governed as he did before without the least Animosity of his Subjects for his Change or any endeavour of his to Introduce any in his Government or People and dying this last Spring left the Peaceable and undisturbed Rule of his Subjects to the next Successor his Brother the Bishop of Osnaburg who is a Protestant and this because the Polity of that Dukedom has been conserved entire for many years and is upon a right Basis and if our Case were so we should not onely be out of danger to have our Religion altered as I said before whoever is King but should in other things be in a happy and flourishing condition But I have made a long and tedious digression to answer your demands Now 't is time you assist me to find the Natural Cure of all our Mischiefs Doct. Stay Sir I confess my self to be wonderfully Edified with your discourse hitherto but you have said nothing yet of the Duke of Monmouth Eng. Gent. I do not think you desire it though you were pleased to mention such a thing for I suppose you cannot think it possible that this Parliament which is now speedily to meet by his Majesties Gracious Proclamation can ever suffer such a thing to be so much as Debated amongst them Doct. Sir you have no reason to take that for granted when you see what Books are Printed what great and Honourable Persons frequent him in private and countenance him in publick what shoals of the middle sort of people have in his Progress this Summer met him before he came into any great Town and what Acclamations and Bon-fires have been made in places where he lodged Eng. Gent. These things I must confess shew how great a Distemper the People are in and the great reason we have to pray God of his Mercy to put an end to it by a happy Agreement in Parliament But certainly this proceeds only from the hatred they have to the next Successour and his Religion and from the compassion they have to the Duke of Monmouth who as they suppose hath suffered banishment and dis-favour at Court at his Instance and not from any hopes of expectations that the Parliament will countenance any pretence that can be made in his behalf to the Succession Doct. It may be when we have discoursed of it I shall be of your mind as indeed I am enclined already But yet nothing in War is more dangerous than to contemn an Enemy so in this Argumentation that we use to secure our Liberties we must leave nothing unanswered that may stand in the way of that especially the Duke of Monmouth's Claim which is pretended to confirm and fortifie them for say some Men if you set him up he will presently pass all Bills that shall concern the Safety and Interest of the People And so we shall be at rest for ever Eng. Gent. Well I see I must be more tedious than I intended First then the reasoning of these men you speak of does in my apprehension suppose a thing I cannot mention without horrour which is That this Person should be admitted immediately to the Possession of the Crown to do all these fine Matters for otherwise if he must stay till the Death of our Soveraign who now Reigns which I hope and pray will be many years possibly these delicate Bills may never pass nor he find hereafter the People in so good a humour to admit him to the Reversion which if it could be obtain'd as I think it impossible Politically yet the Possession must be kept by a standing Army
all of them the greatest horrour imaginable to think of doing any thing that may bring this poor Country into those Dangers and Uncertainties which then did threaten our Ruin and the rather for this Consideration that neither the Wisdom of some who were engaged in those Affairs which I must aver to have been very great nor the success of their Contest which ended in an absolute Victory could prevail so as to give this Kingdom any advantage nay not so much as any settlement in Satisfaction and Requital of all the Blood it had lost Mony it had spent and Hazzard it had run A clear Argument why we must totally exclude a Civil War from being any of the Remedies when we come to that point I must add further That as we have as loyal subjects as are any where to be found so we have as gracious and good a Prince I never having yet heard that he did or attempted to do any the least Act of Arbitrary Power in any publick Concern nor did ever take or endeavour to take from any particular person the benefit of the Law And for his only Brother although accidentally he cannot be denyed to be a great motive of the Peoples unquietness all men must acknowledge him to be a most Glorious and Honourable Prince one who has exposed his life several times for the Safety and Glory of this Nation one who pays justly and punctually his Debts and manages his own Fortune discreetly and yet keeps the best Court and Equipage of any Subject in Christendom is Courteous and Affable to all and in fine has nothing in his whole Conduct to be excepted against much less dreaded excepting that he is believed to be of a Religion contrary to the Honour of God and the Safety and interest of this People which gives them just Apprehensions of their Future Condition But of this matter we shall have occasion to Speculate hereafter in the mean time since we have such a Prince and such Subjects we must needs want the ordinary cause of Distrust and Division and therefore must seek higher to find out the Original of this turbulent posture we are in Doct. Truly you had need seek higher or lower to satisfie us for hitherto you have but enforced the Gentleman's Question and made us more admire what the Solution will be Eng. Gent. Gentlemen then I shall delay you no longer The Evil Counsellors the Pensioner-Parliament the Thorow-pac'd Iudges the Flattering Divines the Buisie and Designing Papists the French Counsels are not the Causes of our Misfortunes they are but the Effects as our present Distractions are of one Primary Cause which is the Breach and Ruin of our Government which having been decaying for near two hundred years is in our Age brought so near to Expiration that it lyes agonizing and can no longer perform the Functions of a Political Life nor carry on the work of Ordering and Preserving Mankind So that the Shifts that our Courtiers have within some years used are but so many Tricks or Conclusions which they are trying to hold Life and Soul together a while longer and have played Handy-Dandy with Parliaments and especially with the House of Commons the only part which is now left entire of the old Constitution by Adjourning and Proroguing and Dissolving them contrary to the true meaning of the Law as well in the Reign of our late King as during his Majestics that now is Whereas indeed our Counsellors perceiving the decay of the Foundation as they must if they can see but one Inch into the Politicks ought to have Addrest themselves to the King to call a Parliament the true Physician and to lay open the Distemper there and so have endeavour'd a Cure before it had been too late as I fear it now is I mean the piecing and patching up the Old Government It is true as the Divine Machiavil says That Diseases in Government are like a Marasmus in the Body Natural which is very hard to be discovered whilst it is Curable and after it comes to be easie to discern difficult if not impossible to be Remedy'd yet it is to be supposed that the Counsellors are or ought to be skilful Physicians and to foresee the Seeds of State-Distempers time enough to prevent the Death of the Patient else they ought in Conscience to excuse themselves from that sublime Employment and betake themselves to Callings more suitable to their Capacities So that although for this Reason the Ministers of State here are inexcusable and deserve all the Fury which must one time or other be let loose against them except they shall suddenly fly from the wrath to come by finding out in time and advising the true means of setting themselves to rights yet neither Prince nor People are in the mean time to be blamed for not being able to Conduct things better No more than the Waggoner is to answer for his ill guiding or the Oxon for their ill drawing the Waggon when it is with Age and ill usage broken and the Wheels unserviceable Or the Pilot and Marriners for not weathring out a Storm when the Ship hath sprung a planck And as in the body of Man sometimeâ— the Head and all the Members are in good Order nay the Vital Parts are sound and entire yet if there be a Considerable Putrifaction in the humors much more if the Blood which the Scripture calls the life be Impure and Corrupted the Patient ceases not to be in great Danger and oftentimes dies without some skillful Physician And in the mean time the Head and all the parts suffer and are unquiet full as much as if they were all immediately affected So it is in every respect with the Body Politick or Commonwealth when their Foundations are moulder'd And although in both these Cases the Patients cannot though the Distemper be in their own Bodies know what they ail but are forced to send for some Artist to tell them yet they cease not to be extreamly uneasie and impatient and lay hold oftentimes upon unsuitable Remedies and impute their Malady to wrong and ridiculous Causes As some people do here who think that the growth of Popery is our only Evil and that if we were secure against that our Peace and Settlement were obtain'd and that our Disease needed no other Cure But of this more when we come to the Cure Noble Ven. Against this Discourse certainly we have nothing to reply but must grant that when any Government is decay'd it must be mended or all will Ruine But now we must Request you to declare to us how the Government of England is decay'd and how it comes to be so For I am one of those Unskilful Persons that cannot discern a State Marasmus when the danger is so far off Eng. Gent. Then no man living can for your Government is this day the only School in the World that breeds such Physicians and you are esteemed one of the ablest amongst them And it would be
gate and therefore I conceive it not to be imaginable that either Christ or his Apostles did ever account that the true Religion should be planted in the World by the framing of Laws Catechisms or Creeds by the Soveraign Powers and Magistrates whether you call them Spiritual or Temporal but that it should have a Progress suitable to its beginning for it is visible that it had its Original from the Power and Spirit of God and came in against the stream not onely without a Numa Pompilius or a Mahomet to plant and establish it by humane Constitutions and Authority but had all the Laws of the World to oppose it and all the bloudy Tyrants of that age to persecute it and to inflict exquisite torments on the Professors of it In Nero's time which was very early the Christians were offered a Temple in Rome and in what other Cities they pleased to be built to Jesus Christ and that the Romans should receive him into the number of their gods but our Religion being then in its purity this was unanimously refused for that such a God must have no Companions nor needed no Temples but must be Worshipped in Spirit and Truth The Successors to these good Christians were not so scrupulous for within some Ages after the Priests to get Riches and Power and the Emperors to get and keep the Empire for by this time the Christians were grown numerous and powerful combined together to spoil our Holy Religion to make it fit for the Government of this World to introduce into it all the Ceremonious follies and Superstitions of the Heathen and which is worse the Power of Priests both over the Persons and Consciences of Men. I shall say no more of this but refer you to innumerable Authors who have treated of this Subject particularly to a French Minister who hath written a Book Entituled La Religion Catholique Apostolique Romaine instituee par Nume Pompile and to the incomparable Machiavel in his Posthume Letter Printed lately in our Language with the Translation of his Works But I have made a long digression and to come back again shall onely desire you to take notice when I say that anciently Popery was no inconvenience in this Kingdom I mean onely Politically as the Government then stood and do not speak at all of the prejudice which mens Souls did and will ever receive from the Belief of those impious Tenents and the want of having the True Gospel of Jesus Christ preached unto them but living in perpetual Superstition and Idolatry The consideration of these Matters is not so proper to my present purpose being to Discourse onely of Government Notwithstanding therefore as I said before that Popery might have suited well enough with our old Constitution yet as to the present Estate which inclines to Popularity it would be wholly as inconsistent with it and with the Power of the Keys and the Empire of Priests especially where there is a Forreign Jurisdiction in the case as with the Tyranny and Arbitrary Power of any Prince in the World I will add thus much in Confirmation of the Doctor 's Assertion That we ought to prevent the Growth of Popery since it is now grown a Dangerous Faction here against the State Noble Ven. How can that be I beseech you Sir Eng. Gent. Sir I will make you Judg of it your self I will say nothing of those foolish Writings that have been put forth by Mariana Emanuel Sa and some others about the lawfulness of destroying Princes and States in case of Heresie because I know all the conscientious and honest Papists of which I know there are great numbers in the World do not only not hold but even abhor such cursed Tenents and do believe that when the Pope by Excommunication hath cut off any Prince from the communion of the Church can go no further nor ought to pretend a Power to deprive him of his Crown or absolve his Subjects from their Oaths and Obedience But I shall confine my self to the present condition of our Papists here You know how dangerous it is for any Kingdom or State to have a considerable wealthy flourishing party amongst them whose interest it is to destroy the Polity and Government of the Country where they live and therefore if our Papists prove this Party you will not wonder why this People are so eager to depress them This is our Case for in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths reign there was an alteration of Religion in our Country which did sufficiently enrage the Holy Father at Rome to see that this good Cow would be Milked no longer He declares her an Heretick and a Bastard his Sanctity not having declared null that incestuous Marriage which her Father had contracted before with his Brothers Wife and which that King had dissolved to Marry her Mother and afterwards Excommunicated our Queen depriving her as much as in him lay of the Kingdom some of the Zealots of that Party having a greater terrour for those Thunder-bolts than I believe many have now began to Conspire against her and Plots grew at length so frequent and so dangerous that it was necessary as the Parliaments then thought to secure the Queen by making severe Laws against a People who did not believe themselves her Majesties Subjects but on the contrary many of them thought themselves in Conscience obliged to oppose and destroy her and although that Excommunication as also the pretended doubtfulness of the Title both died with that renowned Queen yet a new desperate Conspiracy against the King her Successor and the whole Parliament ensuing not long after her decease those rigorous Laws have been so far from being repealed that very many more and far severer have been since made and are yet in force Now these Laws make so great a distinction between Protestants and Papists that whereas the former are by our Government and Laws the freest People in the World the latter are little better than slaves are confined to such a distance from their Houses are not to come near the Court which being kept in the Capital City mostly deprives them from attending their necessary occasions they are to pay two third parts of their Estates annually to the King their Priests are to suffer as Traitors and they as Felons for harbouring them in fine one of us if he do not break the Municipal Laws for the good Government of the Country need not fear the King's Power whereas their being what they are is a breach of the Law and does put them into the Princes hands to ruine them when he pleases nay he is bound by Oath to do it and when he does it not is complained against by his People and Parliaments take it amiss Now judge you Sir whether it is not the interest of these People to desire and endeavour a change whilest they remain under these discouragements and whether they are not like to joyn with the Prince whose connivance at the inexecution of
those Laws is the onely means and hope of their preservation whenever he shall undertake any thing for the increase of his own Power and the depressing his Parliaments Noble Ven. What you say is very undeniable but then the Remedy is very easie and obvious as well as very just and honourable which is the taking away those cruel Laws and if that were done they would be one People with you and would have no necessity and by consequence no desire to engreaten the King against the Interest and Liberty of their own Country Eng. Gent. You speak very well and one of the Reasons amongst many which I have to desire a composure of all our troubles by a setled Government is that I may see these People who are very considerable most of them for Estates Birth and Breeding live quietly under our good Laws and increase our Trade and Wealth with their expences here at home whereas now the severity of our Laws against them makes them spend their Revenues abroad and inrich other Nations with the Stock of England but as long as the State here is so unsetled as it is our Parliaments will never consent to countenance a Party who by the least Favour and Indulgence may make themselves able to bring in their own Religion to be National and so ruine our Polity and Liberties Noble Ven. I wonder why you should think that possible Eng. Gent. First Sir for the Reason we First gave which is the craziness of our Polity there being nothing more certain than that both in the Natural and also the Politick Body any sinister accident that intervenes during a very Diseased habit may bring a dangerous alteration to the Patient An Insurrection in a decayed Government a thing otherwise very inconsiderable has proved very fatal as I knew a slight flesh-wound bring a lusty Man to his Grave in our Wars for that he being extreamly infected with the French Disease could never procure the Orifice to close so although the designs both at home and abroad for altering our Religion would be very little formidable to a well-founded Government yet in such an one as we have now it will require all our care to obviate such Machinations Another Reason is the little Zeal that is left amongst the ordinary Protestants which Zeal uses to be a great Instrument of preserving the Religion establish'd as it did here in Queen Elizabeths time I will add the little Credit the Church of England hath amongst the People most men being almost as angry with that Popery which is left amongst us in Surplices Copes Altars Cringings Bishops Ecclesiastical Courts and the whole Hierarchy besides an Infinite number of Useless Idle Superstitious Ceremonies and the Ignorance and Vitiousness of the Clergy in general as they are with those Dogma's that are abolished So that there is no hopes that Popery can be kept out but by a company of poor People called Fanaticks who are driven into Corners as the First Christians were and who only in truth Conserve the Purity of Christian Religion as it was planted by Christ and his Apostles and is contained in Scripture And this makes almost all sober men believe that the National Clergy besides all other good qualities have this too that they cannot hope to make their Hierarchy subsist long against the Scriptures the hatred of mankind and the Interest of this People but by Introducing the Roman Religion and getting a Foreign Head and Supporter which shall from time to time brave and hector the King and Paliament in their favour and behalf which yet would be of little advantage to them if we had as firm and wise a Government as you have at Venice Another Reason and the greatest why the Romish Religion ought to be very warily provided against at this time is That the Lawful and Undoubted Heir to the Crown if his Majesty should die without Legitimate Issue is more than suspected to Imbrace that Faith which if it should please God to call the King before there be any Remedy applied to our Distracted State would give a great opportunity by the Power he would have in Intervals of Parliament either to Introduce immediately that profession with the help of our Clergy and other English and Foreign Aids or else to make so fair a way for it that a little time would perfect the work â—nd this is the more formidable for that â—a very Zealous and Bigot 〈…〉 and therefore may be supposed to act any thing to that end although it should manifestly appear to be contrary to his own Interest and Quiet so apt are those who give up their Faith and the Conduct of their Lives to Priests who to get to themselves Empire promise them the highest Seats in Heaven if they will sacrifice their Lives Fortunes and Hopes for the Exaltation of their Holy Mother and preventing the Damnation of an innumerable company of Souls which are not yet born to be led away with such Erroneous and wild Fancies Whereas Philip the Second of Spain the House of Guise in France and other great Statesmen have always made their own greatness their first Aim and used their Zeal as an Instrument of that And instead of being cozen'd by Priests have cheated them and made them endeavour to Preach them up to the Empire of the World So I have done with the Growth of Popery and must conclude that if that should be stopt in such manner that there could not be one Papist left in England and yet our Polity left in the same disorder that now afflicts it we should not be one Scruple the better for it nor the more at quiet the Growth and Danger of Popery not being the Cause of our present Distemper but the Effect of it But as a good and setled Government would not be at all the nearer for the destruction of Popery so Popery and all the Dangers and Inconveniences of it would not only be further off but would wholly vanish at the sight of such a Reformation And so we begin at the wrong end when we begin with Religion before we heal our Breaches I will borrow one Similitude more with our Doctor 's favour from his Profession I knew once a man given over by the Physitians of an incurable Cachexia which they said proceeded from the ill Quality of the whole Mass of Blood from great Adustion and from an ill habit of the whole Body The Patient had very often painful Fits of the Chollick which they said proceeded from the sharpness of the humour which caused the Disease and amongst the rest had one Fit which tormented him to that degree that it was not expected he could out-live it yet the Doctors delivered him from it in a small time Notwithstanding soon after the man died of his first Distemper Whereas if their Art had arrived to have cured that which was the Cause of the other the Chollick had vanished of it self and the Patient recovered I need make no