hath given since to Europe had they been believed and hearkned unto But alas instead of taking that poor people into our protection and care or entring upon those Counsels with other Princes which the preserving the Peace of Europe and the securing unto the French Protestants the liberty of their Religion called for all the Intelligences we received were communicated to the French King upon which they became not only discouraged from placing any confidence in our Ministers for the future but one poor Gentleman who had ventur'd to treat with a certain person near his Majesty had the misfortune to be broken upon the Wheel and some others are forced upon the like account to live in perpetual Exile from their Country And yet even they by whom they were betray'd dare not say that ever they found them enclined to depart from their Allegiance unto their own King or to enter into any Confederacies unbecoming good Subjects and natural Frenchmen but that all which they aimed at and were willing to have transacted about was only that in preserving their Loyalty to their Prince they might not be suffered to be sacrificed and rooted out merely for their Religion Nor are the Stipulations of Kings or the established Laws of Kingdoms any security unto Protestants for their Lives or their Religion if once the Papists esteem themselves furnished with a sufficient Power and a seasonable Opportunity to subdue and extirpate it or them For as the Pope can Absolve all such Princes from the Promises and Oaths which they make to their Subjects so it is a known Principle of the Romish Church That no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks And where the Prince by not having the whole Legislation in himself is restrained from repealing Old and Enacting New Laws at his pleasure he will either mould and influence those who have a share with him in the Legislation to a compliance in what he designs or he will venture at the trampling upon all Laws and through the efficacy of the Principles of the Popish Religion will pursue the Extirpation of Heresie in defiance of all Boundaries prescribed unto him by the Law For what greater assurance could the Protestants in France have for the Liberty of their Religion and the preserving unto them all the Rights and Priviledges of Frenchmen than they enjoyed by that Edict of Henry the fourth commonly stiled the Edict of Nantes from the City where the King was when it was concluded and yet notwithstanding that Edict they are treated as if they were neither Christians nor Frenchmen being deprived of all that was therein granted unto them and brought to suffer every thing which that Edict was purposely made to defend them from For whereas by the said Edict they have a great number of Churches allowed unto them for the open exercise of their Religion and it is ordained that it shall be left free for any Papist to turn Protestant and that those of the Reformed Religion shall be as capable of enjoying publick Charges Honours Royalties and of exercising any Art or Trade as the Roman Catholicks themselves shall be and that there shall be no difference betwixt Protestants and Papists as to the security of their Lives the ways and means of their subsistence their authority over and freedom of educating and disposing their Childred yet through an implacable hatred which Popery inspireth men with against all that differ from them in Religion they are rob'd of all that was therein established in their favour and subjected to all the mischiefs which the fury of their malicious enemies and the power of a Prince guided by Father le Chaise the Jesuit can inflict upon them And as the Edict of Henry the fourth tho confirmed by Lewis the thirteenth proves no security to the French Protestants against the present Persecution which they are groaning and perishing under so it is to be feared that the Laws which the Protestants in other parts of the world do trust unto for the preservation of their Religion Lives and Legal Rights will be as insignificant to the securing these unto them in case they should fall under the power of a Popish Prince or that the Counsels of Ministers Popishly inclined should prevail as the Edict of Nantes hath been to the Hugonots For it is observable that as the Scots have at all times testified as much Zeal for the Reformed Religion as any people in Europe have done so they took care to establish the continuance of it to them and their Posterity by as good Laws as any Nation in the world could yet upon finding how useless such Laws as I shall name are unto the ends for which they were made and enacted there is a wonderful Jealousie possesseth the generality of that Kingdom That nothing can preserve them from being enslaved again to Popery but His Majesties outliving the Duke of York For it is Ordained by the Law of Scotland That no man is to James 6. p. 6. Act. 9. bear any publick Office within that Realm but such as profess the Protestant Religion And that none who shall not make profession James 6. p. 3. Act 47. of the said Religion shall be reputed a Loyal and Faithful Subject to the King but be punishable as a Rebel And that whoever shall at any time happen to Reign and bear Rule over that Realm shall at the time of his Coronation and the receipt of his Princely Authority make his faithful Promise James 6. p. 1. Act. 8. Charles I. p. 1. Act. 4. by Oath in the presence of the Eternal God That during the whole course of his life he shall serve the same Eternal God according to the uttermost of his power as he hath required in his most holy Word revealed and contain'd in the old and new Testaments and shall according to the same maintain the true Religion then professed and received within that Realm c. And therefore seeing these Laws have not been so observed but that one who doth not profess the Protestant Religion hath contrary unto them wrought himself into the chief administration of Affairs there under His Majesty hath presided daily in Council and sate as the Kings Commissioner in Parliament they begin to apprehend that other Laws may prove as ineffectual for the securing the Protestant Religion to the Nation as these have been to the excluding one from the highest Places of Authority and Trust under the King who hath not declared himself for the Protestant Religion as the foresaid Laws do require Besides it is not to be questioned but that the Protestants of this Kingdom in the time of Edward the sixth thought they had gotten their Religion so established by Laws that there was no fear of the reintroduction of Popery whoever should afterwards ascend the Throne and yet Queen Mary was no sooner come to the Crown than contrary to the Law of the Land as well as her promise to the Suffolk men who had espoused her
prejudice Nay they have been not only connived at in the reintroduction of the vvhole Popish Hierarchy into that Kingdom and allovved the holding a Publick Assembly of the Papal Clergy by a Commission from the Duke of Ormond in the year 1666. for their Sitting but they have equally vvith His Majesties Protestant Subjects been advanced to several places of Civil Power and Trust so that when the Plot was to have been executed in England Anno 1678. there were no fewer than fifteen Sheriffs in Ireland who were either professed and avowed Papists or such as bred and educated their Children in that Religion And yet while this Forbearance and Tenderness have been expressed to the Papists such of His Majesties Protestant Subjects as in that Kingdom dissent from the Established Rites and Ceremonies of the Church have fallen under the misfortune of having an express Law made against them and divers Loyal Subjects who profess the Protestant Religion in all its Doctrinal Articles have been prosecuted to Fine and Imprisonment upon it And as to the Papists in England they were so far for many years after His Majesties Restoration from having any new Laws made against them that they never felt the weight of the old ones For saving the open exercise of their Religion whereof they have been restrained they enjoyed the same safety as to their persons and estates which the Kings Protestant Liege people did Nay many of them besides their having the personal favour of the Prince equally with others they were admitted into Places and Employments of Profit and Trust And tho by their late Hellish Plot they are made liable to some Tests or to be disabled from sitting in Parliament and rendred uncapable of publick Trusts yet notwithstanding the provocation which the Nation might have justly conceived against them upon the account of that Damnable Conspiracy there hath not to this day been any new Laws made against them for their Religion nor can they with any truth and justice complain of the rigorous execution of those which had been enacted before Whereas notwithstanding the agreement that is between all His Majesties Protestant Subjects in the Fundamental points of Religion those that are called Protestant Dissenters have not only been prosecuted since His Majesties Restoration upon ancient Statutes which were purposely made intended against none but Popish Recusants as well as upon that of the 35 of Queen Elizabeth which being also made upon the dangers that the Kingdom was in from the Papists as appears by the Speeches and Debates of the greatest Statesmen who were in that Parliament seems to have been originally designed against none but them vide Townsend Historical Collect. but there have besides been no fewer in one kind and othet than five several new Laws and these none of the gentlest enacted against them And while the Papists have hardly felt the severity of the Laws which are in force against Popish Recusancy the Protestants have unconceivably suffered by virtue of the Laws made against Dissenters from the Government Discipline Rites and Liturgy of the Church and upon a Law for Regulating Corporations whereof the most material terms were judged inconvenient burdensome and grievous when intended to have been imposed upon others in the form and manner of a Test Now having suggested these things both in the fewest words I can and with all imaginable regard and attendance to Truth we shall in the next place with the like sincerity and briefness intimate and recount what Plots Conspiracies and Designs the Papists have of late years been engaged in and pursued to the subversion of our Religion and the destruction of our Lives and Liberties notwithstanding the tenderness of the Government towards them and the excellent Laws which we are provided with and enjoy both for the security of all these unto us and for our protection from the Machinations of all Popish Enemies And tho' the methods wherein they have acted and the steps they have taken have been so secret as well as various that it is impossible fully to trace and display them yet so much is obvious to all who do not wilfully shut their eyes that by relating only what we demonstratively know we may be able to form a judgment concerning their Councels and Actings which lye more concealed and hid It is to the influence which the Papists have had upon our Publick Ministers that we owe the Enacting of those Laws which as they were directly calculated to ruin many of His Majesties Protestant Subjects so they have weakned the whole Reformed Interest in these Kingdoms by encreasing our Differences and inflaming Jealousies Heats and Animosities amongst us And if it was not from some of our Councellors being under their Guidance and Conduct that we embarkt in a bloody and expensive War with our Protestant Neighbours Anno 1665 both to the weakning them and our selves and the giving opportunity to a Popish Prince to aspire to a formidable growth It was certainly from the Power and Interest which they had in some trusted with the manage of our Affairs that the Triple League came to be dissolved an Alliance contracted with the French and a Second War wherein we were abandoned and betrai'd by our new Confederate begun Anno 1672. against the Dutch I will not deny but the Grounds and Causes of our quarrelling then with them might be weighty and just yet seeing it appears since by the Declarations which the French King caused to be made by his Ambassadors to the Emperour and the Pope that his invading them at that time by agreement and concert with us Was to extirpate those Hereticks and destroy Heresie I suppose our Ministers may not only find reason to believe that Popish Councels did more influence our Resolves and Affairs of State than they were aware of but to wish they had not encouraged His Majesty to that War and rather to have sought to adjust differences betwixt them and us in an Amicable way And since our being through that ascendency which the Papists have over some great Persons near His Majesty engaged in a close and strong Conjunction with the French King It is not to be imagined what advancement the Papists have made to the ruining of the Protestant Interest through all Europe as well as in these three Nations For as the Popish Clergy do universally apply themselves to the promoting the Grandeur Empire and Soveraignty of France in hopes that he will enslave all those to their Religion whom he subdues to an Obedience to his Scepter so they have all along by the impressions which they make upon our Ministers been endeavouring to prevail over us not only to remain Neutral while he is pursuing his Conquests but to contribute to his Victories by aids of Men and Ammunition Nor is it an inconsiderable step and advance which by keeping us linkt to France the Papists have made to the ruin of these Nations in that they have hereby caused a wonderful misunderstanding
sort of people and very ignorant of the Transactions of their own as well as former days See the three great Questions concerning the Succession p. 19. otherwise they would not have the Impudence to affirm in Print That as there were but 277. that suffered in all Queen Maries Reign upon the pretence of Religion so above 200. of them were profligate Persons And that instead of the vast numbers alledged to have been massacred in the last Rebellion in Ireland There were slain on both sides during the whole Rebellion not above 36000. and this in a War set on foot for their Liberty and Estates not for Religion Whereas all men that are not wilfully ignorant know that the Irish never enjoyed more liberty as to their Religion or more security as to their Persons and Estates than immediately before they broke out into that horrid Rebellion wherein they perpetrated such salvage and bloody Cruelties as no part of the Pagan World could parallel Nor were the quiet and tranquility which they then possessed the fruits only of a Connivence from the Government but the effects of many Acts of Grace which had a little before past in favour of the Irish Papists And as that Rebellion sprung from no other cause but the obligations which those of the Roman Religion are under by virtue of the Doctrines and Principles of the Papal Faith to root out Hereticks so we are well assured from impartial Historians and authentick Records that they Murdered above Two hundred and fifty thousand in that Kingdom without any other provocation save that they were Protestants And instead of Two hundred seventy seven whereof above Two hundred are said to have been profligate persons that suffered during the reign of Queen Mary there were according to the truest account no fewer than 284. Honest and Conscientious Christians that in little above five years were burnt at the stake for the profession of the Gospel besides those that were driven into exile and such as dyed in prison meerly for being Protestants Nay the Author of the Preface to Bishop Ridley's Book de Caena Domini who is commonly supposed to have been Grindal that was afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury a person who by his circumstances and troubles in the time of that Bloody Reign and by his station and quality under Queen Elizabeth had as fair advantages as any of being informed concerning the number of those that suffered tells us that there were above Eight hundred put to most cruel kinds of death for Religion in the first two years of Queen Maries persecution Yea so pestilent and infectious a thing is Popery that when once it hath insinuated it self into and possest the minds of Princes it not only infatuates them to depopulate their Kingdoms by destroying and driving into banishment the best and most useful subjects of their dominions but it so far fascinates them as to make them forget their own protection and defence as well as to abandon the safety and preservation of those of their people that agree with them in the same belief and to chuse rather to expose their Crowns Territories and Subjects to be subdued and conquered by an Aspiring and Rival Monarch or to enforce their subjects pursuant to principles of self preservation to revolt and rebel than they will be persuaded and prevailed upon to exercise Indulgence Compassion and Forbearance to Protestants tho' at the same time they cannot but know that the people whom they persecute would sacrifice their Lives and Fortunes in the defence and service of their Persons and Dignities Thus the Second and Third Philips of Spain chose rather to embroil the Low-countreys in an expensive and bloody War and at last to lose the Obedience of Seven intire Provinces and see them shake off their dependency upon the Spanish Monarchy and establish themselves in an Independent and Soveraign Government than to allow and permit that People to differ and dissent in matter of Religion from the Church of Rome And as the Revolt of those Provinces which was occasioned meerly by the Persecution of Protestants proved at first the great obstacle to Spain's obtaining the Universal Monarchy which they were in a condition to have bidden fair for had not that War and the withdrawment of so many great and rich Countreys interposed so the expence of Wealth and Consumption of men which the Spaniards were at during those long and bloody troubles with the loss of the Provinces which renounced their Allegiance to Spain and erected themselves into a Free State hath laid the foundation of abridging the Interest of that Crown in Europe and is like to issue in the ruine and subversion of that Mighty and Large Monarchy Thus likewise the present Emperor notwithstanding the urgency of his Affairs through the impression which the French have made upon Germany rather than abate the persecution of his Protestant Hungarian subjects he hath hitherto chosen to venture the ruine both of the Empire and his own Hereditary Countreys And tho' that poor people have been always ready to render an intire obedience to his Imperial Majesty and strengthen and encrease his Armies with a brave and large Military Force to oppose and withstand his Enemies provided only that their Religion and Legal Rights might be secured unto them yet that Prince through the influence of the Popish Clergy and especially of the Jesuits hath preferred the exposing himself and all Germany to the Power and Ambition of France rather than gratifie the Requests of his Protestant subjects albeit the whole which they have demanded and insisted upon was stipulated unto them by the Oaths of his Ancestors And seeing his own Necessities and the sober Counsels of his best Friends have at last brought him to terms of Agreement with that people I shall only wish that they may not through the liberty which the Popish Religion giveth him of violating Promises made to Hereticks be departed from and forgotten as soon as the apprehension of the danger he is in from the French bloweth over and vanisheth I might also here add That there is a certain Gentleman in the world who tho' he have at present no other pretence to the Government of Affairs save what he enjoys by the Favour and Indulgence of his Prince yet through his being corrupted and infected with Popish Principles he seems to prefer the entangling Three Powerful and Opulent Kingdoms in Intestine Wars or the leaving them naked to the Invasion of a Mighty and Ambitious Neighbour than lose the opportunity of extirpating the Northern Heresie and reducing the Nations where his Counsels and Interest can prevail into a Vassalage to the Triple Crown And we may yet more fully satisfie our selves what we are to expect from Papists and what their Religion guides them unto and justifieth them in if we will but consider what the Sufferings of the Protestants in France at present are and what methods are pursued for the extirpating of them For as all the
persecution which they undergo is commenced against them for no other cause but barely that of their Religion so to give the French King his due he is so just as to acknowledg it and scorns to palliate the true cause of their Oppressions Banishment and Slaughter by pretending that they have conspired against his Person and Government and that their Assemblies for the Worship of God are intended for and employ'd in the stirring up Sedition He is so generous as not to mention the several Wars which those of the Reformed Religion undertook and managed for their own defence against Charles the Ninth Henry the Third and Lewis the Thirteenth but he tells them that they have been always very loyal to him and that he apprehends no trouble or danger from them on the account of their Principles only he is resolved not to suffer any in his Dominions who will not embrace the Popish Religion and that they must either renounce the Faith which they profess or submit to be destroyed It would require a Volume rather than a Paragraph to recount the many late Edicts which have been published against them and the several steps and methods which have been taken to ruine them without their being guilty of any other crime or provocation save their having withdrawn themselves from the Communion of the Church of Rome Thus the King hath not only demolished an infinite number of Churches and suppressed the exercise of Religion where it had for a long time been legally enjoyed but the Protestant Ministers are every where exposed to be proceeded against and punished whensoever any suborned wretch shall but depose that they delivered something in their Sermons that was scandalous upon the Church of Rome And they have not only ordered under great and severe Penalties That no Papist shall turn Protestant and that none who have forsaken the Protestant Religion tho' out of infirmity lightness or fear shall return to it again but they have also ordained That the Children of Protestants shall be admitted to abjure their Religion at seven years of Age and in case they have no mind afterwards to live with their Parents that their Fathers and Mothers shall be obliged to maintain them wherever they please to continue or be It were endless to recount the hardships which the Protestants in that Kingdom are under for besides their being turned out of all offices wherein they got a Subsistence for themselves and Families their Wives are not to be brought to bed but by Midwives or Chyrurgeons that are Papists nor their Children taught unless it be meerly to read and write save by Popish Schoolmasters Nay as if it were not enough to forbid them to be Stewards Bailiffs Solicitors Registers Clerks Notaries and to remove them from all Employments in the Affairs of the Finances or Customs and turn them out of all Military Commands by Sea and Land they have commanded all Chyrurgeons Apothecaries Watchmakers and divers other Artificers to shut up their shops which is in effect to require them either to turn Papists or to subject them to starve And to all the other miseries which that poor people are made liable unto for their Religion this is not the least that they will not suffer them to die in quiet but have enjoyned that when they are sick they shall suffer themselves to be visited by a Popish Magistrate in the presence of two Popish Witnesses without allowing any Protestants tho' their nearest Relations to be by And as we may easily apprehend that their errand is either to disturb them that they may not expire in quiet or by the utmost Cunning and Art to prevert them from departing in the same Faith which they had all their days professed so they think it not only a lawful but a meritorious Act to say that they died in the Faith of the Church of Rome tho' they know the contrary to be true And thereupon they take away all their Children to breed them in the Popish Religion and seize the Estate to preserve it as they pretend for the Children of such Catholick Parents In a word the sufferings and calamities of the Protestants in France are grown to such a height that many thousands have forsaken their native Country Relations Friends and Estates and the rest are ready to do the like were they not debarred all ways of departure and escape And as the severities exercised against those of the Reformed Religion in that Kingdom are but a Copy of what we in these Nations are to look for in case we should come under a Popish Prince so the time hath been that the Rulers of these Kingdoms and such as Minister at the helm of of publick Affairs would not have silently lookt on and suffered those of the same Faith with themselves to be thus oppressed and destroyed for no other Reason but meerly because they are Protestants Nor will it be hereafter to the Honour and Reputation of some people in the World That the first Edicts of any fatal Consequence to the Hugonets in France bore date in 1660. as if the French King had presumed upon the Connivence of his Neighbours and therefore adventured to begin the Persecution which hath been by several steps advanced all along since and is at last arrived at inexpressible as well unsupportable severities and rigours And I may say that it is not without grief and sorrow that they who love his Majesty are necessitated to observe how through the influence of ill men about him he hath suffered himself to be persuaded to neglect interposing so effectually in behalf of that people as was expected from a Prince professing the Protestant Religion and whose interest it is to show himself upon all occasions the Patron and Defender of all the Reformed Churches And whosoever they were that advised His Majesty to abandon the concerning himself in the favour of Protestants beyond the Seas they neither consulted the Glory and Honour of their Prince nor yet the Maxims which His Royal Father as well as others who have swayed the English Scepter were guided by And tho' no good subject can think of the Usurper Oliver Cromwell but with an abhorrency of the Crimes which he was guilty of towards the Royal Family and these Kingdoms yet all the World took notice and continues to acknowledg both with what Sympathy Courage and Zeal he appeared in behalf of the Protestants in Piedmont when their Prince the Duke of Savoy had employ'd Forces and given Orders to extirpate them and how by a Letter to the late French Cardinal he check'd and stem'd a Persecution which some Protestants in the South of France were likely to have fallen under The poor Hugonots did not only long ago foresee all that hath hitherto overtaken them but they likewise made some near His Majesty acquainted with it and were ready to have proposed such measures as would have been able to have prevented their own sufferings and the disturbance which the French Monarch
and juncture against Phanaticks it being so apparent a weakning of the whole Reformed Interest in these Kingdoms and a betraying all the Protestant party into the power and hands of their worst Enemies And seeing none but the Papists can reap any benefit or advantage by it it must be they and none else that were the first Authors and continue to be the promoters of such Councels And as some of these Laws were procured by the means of Sir Thom. Clifford Sir Thom. Strickland and others who have since appeared to be Papists so it is not unpleasant to observe how they have endeavoured to get them either suspended or executed according as this or that have lyen in an usefulness to their Designs Nor can we otherwise believe but that as some of our Ministers obtain'd them to be dispensed with 1672. in favour of the Papists so others pursue the having them put in execution in 1682. out of friendship to the same people Thus the Laws which were pretended at first to have been made for the preservation of the Church of England have been from time managed to set forward the concernments of the Church of Rome and advance the projections of the Papists Accordingly we have beheld them suspended for divers years when both most of the English Clergy were earnest to have had them executed and when the execution of them seemed to lye in a subserviency to support the grandess of the Church But now when neither the Church can be able to subsist nor are any means left to the preservation of the Protestant Religion unless Moderation and Lenity be exercised to Dissenters we are made daily and sad Spectators of Oppression Spoil and Havock brought upon a quiet industrious and useful people by the execution of these very Laws And we may be sure the Papists hug and solace themselves to find that through the Ascendency which they have over some Publick Persons who influence all our Counsels they can apply the Laws to the ruin of many Protestants and in revenge for their having escaped their murderous and bloody hands engage the Government and Authority of the Nation against them Nor is it less than a matter of Triumph to them to think that when the Commons of England in Parliament assembled had not only read and committed a Bill For the uniting His Majesties Protestant Subjects but Resolved it as the Opinion of that House That the prosecution of Protestant Dissenters upon the penal Laws is at this time grievous to the Subject a weakning to the Protestant Interest an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the peace of the Kingdom they should not only be able to alienate and exasperate us more from and against one another than ever we were but procure one Protestant to prosecute another upon the Penal Laws to the scorn and contempt of the Wisdom of Parliaments and the proclaiming to all the world of how little esteem and value their Counsel and Advice are What effect these proceedings upon the Penal Law against Dissenters may have upon others who are not Phanaticks is not easie to be throughly apprehended but it is certain that the English are naturally inclined to censure whatsoever is extremely rigorous and to compassionate such as suffer merely for Religion not for Crimes against the peace and safety of the Government How soon did the Nation grow dissatisfied with the Cruelties of Queen Mary and even they who had no Religion themselves came to abhor the seeing their Countreymen burnt for Principles which had no influence upon the subversion of Thrones and disturbance of Societies Yea tho her second Parliament revived the old Laws against Hereticks yet the minds of men were so much altered in a little time that the Commons in the third Parliament of that Queen would not pass a Bill which was brought in for incapacitating those from being Justices of the Peace that were suspected to have been remiss in prosecuting Hereticks And it is remarkable that not only our late Parliaments were for the mitigation of the Laws against Dissenters and for the uniting all His Majesties Protestant Subjects but even the Long Parliament which had been the Authors of all the new Laws against Phanaticks saw a necessity if they would preserve our Religion and the Lives of Protestants from the dangers which threatned them by means of the Papists to take other measures than they had acted by before and to recur to Methods of Lenity Accordingly the House of Commons in the Session that was held February 1672. sent up a Bill to the Lords in favour of Dissenters and about the Union of Protestants Nor is it to be imagined what jealousies it raiseth in the minds of most people concerning what they and all Protestants are to fear in case of a Popish Successor by seeing many of the soberest in the Nation and who agree with the present Church in all Doctrinals of Faith and Essentials of Worship so severely treated and prosecuted under a Protestant King only because of their differing from those of the established National way in some little and inconsiderable things And by how much all this rigor against Protestant Dissenters is thought to have its rise from the counsels and importunity of the Duke of York by so much are all thinking men possest with astonishing apprehensions of the Cruelties which they must expect to undergo if he come once to wear the Crown For being universally supposed and taken to be a Papist and thereupon of a Faith altogether opposite to ours so we are not now to learn that the very principles of his belief will oblige him to extirpate all that will not own the Tridentine Creed Yea such people as dare speak their thoughts do commonly say That the reason why the Duke adviseth His Majesty to courses so contrary to the Meekness and Compassion of his Royal Breast as well as the whole tenor of his Reign hitherto is that he may darken and eclipse the Glory of His hitherto merciful Government and by putting him upon austerities towards subjects who profess the same Religion that their Prince doth justifie himself hereafter in all the Slaughters and Barbarities which by virtue of the malicious ferment of Popery he may be inclined to perpetrate upon those whose Religion he so implacably abhors as he doth that of Protestants But would it not be worthy of the serious consideration of those at the Helm That it is not only the Dissenters who suffer by the Execution of the Penal Laws but the whole Nation which participates in the profits and advantages of their Industry More especially all they who have any relation unto or such as manage any Commerce with them do all bear a common share in their Calamities And besides the recentments which will spring up in the minds of men by seeing an innocent people harassed whose Lives tho they do not imitate yet they cannot but commend will it not be apt to impress their hearts with secret
pretensions to any such thing It is also remarkable and serves to discover their Falshood in what they swore against the Earl of Shaftsbury that they endeavoured to make themselves valuable and worthy to be trusted by great and wise men by pretending a knowledg of the Transactions of the world and affairs of Kingdoms which as they were never capable of attaining so they had but betrayed their Folly and Vanity in offering to discourse concerning such things to that knowing and sagacious Peer For to hear Hayn's depose That he gave my Lord Shaftsbury See Proceedings at the Old-Bayly p. 27. an account of all Transactions from King Charles the First 's Reign to this very day and that my Lord was mightily satisfied pleased and free with him finding that he was a Traveller Is as if he should have told all the world that what he Deposed against that great man was all Forgery and that he was only seeking to beget a credulity in the Court by a vain ostentation of his knowledg in Civil Affairs and his being qualified to be admitted into the secret and hazardous Counsels of the greatest Statesmen Alas an acquaintance with the Occurrences of Princes Reigns and a being able to declare the affairs of two Regencies in their dependence and order with the Causes and Reasons of a War which few can penetrate into the grounds of â—re not things agreeable to the way of Hayns's Education nor to be expected from one that is not wonderfully conversant in the Memoire and Registers of Civil matters and who hath enjoyed an intimate acquaintance with those that were interested in the management both of Civil and Military Concernments Their Malice and Perjury in this whole Affair are open and palpable by their indirect and evasive answers to plain and easie questions Such was Booth's reply to Mr. Papilion who having ask'd him whether he knew any of Proceed p. 36. the Fifty men which he had deposed were listed under Captain Wilkinson said He never directly knew or conversed with any of them And such also was Haynes's reply to the question which was put to him concerning his having given an Information to a Justice of Peace of a design against Ibid. p. 42 43. the Earl of Shaftsbury for as he wrigled to and fro a great while before he could be brought to acknowledg it the answer was neither full nor ingenuous Again Their not remembring times and seasons when such things which they swore should be spoken or when they gave in their Informations about them does proclaim the Witnesses to be Impostors and whatsoever they deposed to be nothing but Forgery For several of the things which they declared they could not remember were such as it is morally impossible they should forget them Thus Haynes could not tell the time when the Earl of Shaftsbury spake Ibid. 44. the Treasonable words about making the Duke of Buckingham King Nor could either Smith or Turberville tell when they gave in their Informations against my Lord nor whether it was before or p. 40. after his Commitment Nay Smith could not tell in what month he did it In a word the Demeanor of the Witnesses carrying things so as if they would hector people into a belief of what they swore and their answering the questions proposed unto them either with great difficulty or with great artifice and cunning proclaim to all impartial men that the Design upon which they appeared was very ill and that they were suborned perjured fellows There was not that modesty to be seen in their Behaviour nor that simplicity in their Evidence nor that plainness easiness and directness in their Answers which was agreeable to Truth but their whole carriage and the manner of their delivering themselves was starch't huffing artificial and full of trick But whereas there is a Paper stiled An Association pretended to be found among other Writings in the Earl of Shaftsbury's Closet that morning he was apprehended upon which great stress is laid towards the proving a Conspiracy of this Lord and other Protestants against His Majesty and the Government I shall therefore with all that modesty which becomes me in reference to persons in Authority and yet with all that freedom which the Innocency of Peers and Gentlemen unjustly accused doth require take this Paper a little into consideration and make some just and modest Reflections in reference unto it An Association for the preservation of the King and the Protestant Religion if it be duly drawn and contain nothing in it contrary to the Rights and Prerogatives of His Majesty the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties and Property of the People will neither be found so new nor so surprising a thing as that the Grand Juries of the several Counties should be influenced and perswaded to abhor it For our Ancestors in Queen Elizabeths time being apprehensive that the Queens Life the Peace of the Kingdom and the Protestant Religion were in danger from the Papists upon the hope they had of a Popish Successor in case of the Queens Death they thereupon entred into an Association for the preservation of her Majesties Life and the revenging her Death if she should have perished by violent hands which instead of being ridicul'd and declared against was not only unanimously subscribed by the most considerable persons in the Kingdom but both approved and ratified by an Act of the Parliament that next followed But whether it was that our Forefathers loved the Queen and were more zealous for their Religion than we love his present Majesty and are zealous for ours or whether they thought there was more danger to be feared from Mary Queen of Scots who was then the apparent Popish Successor than we think there is from a Gentleman of the same Principles with her that hath the same and more palpable pretences to the Crown I shall not take upon me to determine However it is not unknown that Two several late Parliaments being convinced of the dangers which His Majesties Life is in from the Papists that they may accelerate the ascent of one of their own Communion to the Throne did after mature Debate and as a Testimony of the greatest Loyalty they could pay His Majesty come to this Resolve Resolved That in defence of the Kings Person and Government and Protestant Religion the House doth declare That they will stand by His Majesty with their Lives and Fortunes and that if His Majesty should come to any violent Death which God forbid they will revenge it to the utmost on the Papists Yea the last Westminster Parliament being deeply sensible what Plots the Papists were embark'd in for the Destruction of the King the extirpation of the reformed Religion in these Kingdoms and the placing the Crown upon the head of a Popish Prince they ordered a Bill for an Association to be brought into the House And whereas Secretary Jenkins deposeth upon Oath That tho he heard of such a thing as