of Rome as guilty of Idolatry unless at the same time we part with our Religion X. Others give us a strange sort of Argument to persuade us to part with the Test they say The King must imploy his Popish Subjects for he can trust no other and he is so assured of their Fidelity to him that we need apprehend no Danger from them This is an odd Method to work on us to let in a sort of People to the Parliament and Government since the King cannot trust us but will depend on them so that as soon as this Law is repealed they must have all the Imployments and have the whole Power of the Nation lodged in their hands this seems a little too gross to impose even on Irishmen The King saw for many Years together with how much Zeal both the Clergy and many of the Gentry appeared for his Interests and if there is now a Melancholy Damp on their Spirits the King can dissipate it when he will and as the Church of England is a Body that will never rebel against him so any Sullenness under which the late Administration of Affairs has brought them would soon vanish if the King would be pleased to remember a little what he has so often promised not only in Publick but in Private and would be contented with the Exercise of his own Religion without embroiling his whole Affairs because F. Petre will have it so and it tempts Englishmen to more than ordinary degrees of Rage against a sort of Men who it seems can infuse in a Prince born with the highest sense of Honour possible Projects to which without doing some Violence to his own Royal Nature he could not so much as hearken to if his Religion did not so fatally muffle him up in a blind Obedience But if we are so unhappy that Priests can so disguise Matters as to mislead a Prince who without their ill Influences would be the most Glorious Monarch of all Europe and would soon reduce the Grand Louis to a much humbler Figure yet it is not to be so much as imagined that ever their Arts can be so unhappily successful as to impose on an English Parliament composed of Protestant Members SOME REFLECTIONS On His MAJESTY'S PROCLAMATION Of the Twelfth of February 1686 / 7. for a TOLERATION in Scotland Together with the said PROCLAMATION I. THe Preamble of a Proclamation is oft writ in haste and is the Flourish of some wanton Pen but one of such an Extraordinary nature as this is was probably more severely examined there is a new Designation of his Majesty's Authority here set forth of his Absolute Power which is so often repeated that it deserves to be a little searched into Prerogative Royal and Sovereign Authority are Terms already received and known but for this Absolute Power as it is a new Term so those who have coined it may make it signifie what they will. The Roman Law speaks of Princeps Legibus solutus and Absolute in its natural signification importing the being without all Ties and Restraints then the true meaning of this seems to be that there is an Inherent Power in the King which can neither be restrained by Laws Promises nor Oaths for nothing less than the being free from all these renders a Power Absolute II. If the former Term seemed to stretch our Allegiance that which comes after it is yet a step of another nature tho' one can hardly imagine what can go beyond Absolute Power and it is in these Words Which all our Subjects are to obey without reserve And this is the carrying Obedience many sizes beyond what the Grand Seigneur has ever yet claimed For all Princes even the most violent Pretenders to Absolute Power till Lewis the Great 's Time have thought it enough to oblige their Subjects to submit to their Power and to bear whatsoever they thought good to impose upon them but till the Days of the late Conversions by Dragoons it was never so much as pretended that Subjects were bound to obey their Prince without Reserve and to be of his Religion because he would have it so Which was the only Argument that those late Apostles made use of so it is probable this Qualification of the Duty of Subjects was put in here to prepare us for a terrible le Roy le veut and in that case we are told here that we must obey without reserve and when those severe Orders come the Privy-Council and all such as execute this Proclamation will be bound by this Declaration to shew themselves more forward than any others to obey without reserve and those poor Pretensions of Conscience Religion Honour and Reason will be then reckoned as Reserves upon their Obedience which are all now shut out III. These being the Grounds upon which this Proclamamation is founded we ought not only to consider what Consequences are now drawn from them but what may be drawn from them at any time hereafter for if they are of force to justifie that which is now inferred from them it will be full as just to draw from the same Premises an Abolition of the Protestant Religion of the Rights of the Subjects not only to Church-lands but to all Property whatsoever In a word it asserts a Power to be in the King to command what he will and an Obligation in the Subjects to obey whatsoever he shall command IV. There is also mention made in the Preamble of the Christian Love and Charity which his Majesty would have established among Neighbours but another dash of a Pen founded on this Absolute Power may declare us all Hereticks and then in wonderful Charity to us we must be told that we are either to obey without Reserve or to be burnt without Reserve We know the Charity of that Church pretty well It is indeed Fervent and Burning and if we have forgot what has been done in former Ages France Savoy and Hungary have set before our Eyes very fresh Instances of the Charity of that Religion While those Examples are so green it is a little too imposing on us to talk to us of Christian Love and Charity No doubt his Majesty means sincerely and his Exactness to all his Promises chiefly to those made since he came to the Crown will not suffer us to think an unbecoming Thought of his Royal Intentions but yet after all tho' it seems by this Proclamation that we are bound to obey without Reserve it is Hardship upon Hardship to be bound to Believe without Reserve V. There are a sort of People here tolerated that will be very hardly found out and these are the Moderate Presbyterians Now as some say that there are very few of those People in Scotland that deserve this Character so it is hard to tell what it amounts to and the calling any of them Immoderate cuts off all their share in this Grace Moderation is a Quality that lies in the Mind and how this will be found out I
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
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
to some Words in the Proclamation that it was thought necessary to set them near one another that the Reader may be able to judge whether he is deceived by any false Quotations or not BY THE KING A PROCLAMATION JAMES R. JAMES the Seventh by the Grace of God King of Scotland England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To all and sundry our good Subjects whom these Presents do or may concern Greeting We having taken into Our Royal Consideration the many and great Inconveniencies which have hapned to that Our Ancient Kingdom of Scotland of late Years through the different Persuasions in the Christian Religion and the great Heats and Animosities amongst the several Professors thereof to the ruine and decay of Trade wasting of Lands extinguishing of Charity contempt of the Royal Power and converting of true Religion and the Fear of GOD into Animosities Names Factions and sometimes into Sacriledge and Treason And being resolved as much as in us lies to unite the Hearts and Affections of Our Subjects to GOD in Religion to Us in Loyalty and to their Neighbours in Christian Love and Charity Have therefore thought fit to Grant and by Our Sovereign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power which all Our Subjects are to obey without Reserve do hereby give and grant Our Royal Toleration to the several Professors of the Christian Religion after-named with and under the several Conditions Restrictions and Limitations after mentioned In the first place We allow and tolerate the Moderate Presbyterians to Meet in their Private Houses and there to hear all such Ministers as either have or are willing to accept of Our Indulgence allanerly and none other and that there be not any thing said or done contrary to the Well and Peace of Our Reign Seditious or Treasonable under the highest Pains these Crimes will import nor are they to presume to Build Meeting Houses or to use Out-Houses or Barns but only to exercise in their Private Houses as said is In the mean time it is Our Royal Will and Pleasure that Field-Conventicles and such as Preach or Exercise at them or who shall any ways assist or connive at them shall be prosecuted according to the utmost Severity of our Laws made against them seeing from these Rendezvouses of Rebellion so much Disorder hath proceeded and so much Disturbance to the Government and for which after this Our Royal Indulgence for Tender Consciences there is no Excuse left In like manner We do hereby tolerate Quakers to meet and exercise in their Form in any Place or Places appointed for their Worship And considering the Severe and Cruel Laws made against Roman Catholicks therein called Papists in the Minority of Our Royal Grandfather of Glorious Memory without His Consent ☜ and contrary to the Duty of good Subjects by His Regents and other Enemies to their Lawful Sovereign Our Royal Great Grandmother Queen Mary of Blessed and Pious Memory wherein under the pretence of Religion they cloathed the worst of Treasons Factions and Usurpations and made these Laws not as against the Enemies of GOD but their own which Laws have still been continued of course without design of executing them or any of them ad terrorem only on Supposition that the Papists relying on an External Power were incapable of Duty and true Allegiance to their Natural Soveraigns and Rightful Monarchs We of Our certain Knowledge and long Experience knowing that the Catholicks as it is their Principle to be Good Christians so it is to be Dutiful Subjects and that they have likewise on all occasions shewn themselves Good and faithful Subjects to Us and Our Royal Predecessors by hazarding and many of them actually losing their Lives and Fortunes in their defence though of another Religion and the Maintenance of their Authority against the Violences and Treasons of the most violent Abettors of these Laws Do therefore with Advice and Consent of Our Privy Council by our Soveraign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power aforesaid suspend stop and disable all Laws or Acts of Parliament Customs or Constitutions made or executed against any of our Roman-Catholick Subjects in any time past to all Intents and Purposes making void all Prohibitions therein mentioned Pains or Penalties therein ordained to be inflicted so that they shall in all things be as free in all Respects as any of Our Protestant Subjects whatsoever not only to exercise their Religion but to enjoy all Offices Benefices and others which we shall think fit to bestow upon them in all time coming Nevertheless it is Our Will and Pleasure and we do hereby command all Catholicks at their highest pains only to exercise their Religious Worship in Houses or Chappels and that they presume not to Preach in the open Fields or to invade the Protestant Churches by force under the pains aforesaid to be inflicted upon the Offenders respectively nor shall they presume to make Publick Processions in the High-streets of any of Our Royal Burghs under the Pains above-mentioned And whereas the Obedience and Service of Our Good Subjects is due to Us by their Allegiance and Our Soveraignty and that no Law Custom or Constitution Difference in Religion or other Impediment whatsoever can exempt or discharge the Subjects from their Native Obligations and Duty to the Crown or hinder Us from Protecting and Employing them according to their several Capacities and Our Royal Pleasure nor Restrain Us from Conferring Heretable Rights and Priviledges upon them or vacuate or annul these Rights Heretable when they are made or conferred And likewise considering that some Oaths are capable of being wrested by Men of sinistrous Intentions a practice in that Kingdom fatal to Religion as it was to Loyalty Do therefore with Advice and Consent aforesaid cass annull and Discharge all Oaths whatsoever by which any of Our Subjects are incapacitated or disabled from holding Places or Offices in Our said Kingdom or enjoying their Hereditary Rights and Priviledges discharging the same to be taken or given in any time coming without our special Warrant and Consent under the pains due to the Contempt of Our Royal Commands and Authority And to this effect we do by Our Royal Authority aforesaid stop disable and dispense with all Laws enjoyning the said Oaths Tests or any of them particuarly the first Act of the first Session of the first Parliament of King Charles the Second the eleventh Act of the foresaid Session of the foresaid Parliament the sixth Act of the third Parliament of the said King Charles the twenty first and twenty fifth Acts of that Parliament and the thirteenth Act of the first Session of Our late Parliament ☜ in so far allanerly as concerns the taking the Oaths or Tests therein prescribed and all others as well not mentioned as mentioned and that in place of them all Our good Subjects or such of them as We or Our Privy Council shall require so to do shall take and swear the following Oath allanerly
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
Transubstantiation in spite of the Evidence of Sense to the contrary yet those that feel themselves at ease will hardly be brought to think that they are persecuted because they are told so in an ill-writ Pamphlet And for their Rebellion the Prince that is only concerned in that finds them now to be his best Allies and chief Supports as his Predecessors acknowledged them a Free State almost an Age ago And it being confessed by the Historians of all sides That there was an express Proviso in the Constitution of their Government That if their Prince broke such and such Limits they were no more bound to obey him but might resist him and it being no less certain that King Philip the Second authorised the the Duke of Alva to seise upon all their Priviledges their resisting him and maintaining their Priviledges was without all Dispute a justifiabble Action and was so esteemed by all the States of Europe and in particular here in England as appears by the Preambles of several Acts of Subsidy that were given the Queen in order to the assisting the States and as for their not dealing fairly with Princes when our Author can find such an Instance in their History as our Attempt upon their Smyrna Fleet was he may employ his Eloquence in setting it out and if notwithstanding all the Failures that they have felt from others they have still maintained the Publick Faith our Author's Rhetorick will hardly blemish them The Peace of Nimmegen and the abandoning of Luxemburgh are perhaps the single Instances in their History that need to be a little excused But as the vast Expence of the late War brought them into a Necessity that either knows no Law or at least will hearken to none so we who forced them to both and first sold the Triple Alliance and then let go Luxemburgh do with a very ill grace reproach the Dutch for these unhappy steps to which our Conduct drove them VIII If a strain of pert bolness runs thro this whole Pamphlet it appears no where more eminently than in the Reflections the Author makes on Mr. Fagel's Letter He calls it pag. 62. a pretended Piece and a Presumption not to be soon pardoned in prefixing to a surreptitious and unauthorised Pamphlet the Reverend Name of the Princess of Orange which in another place Page 72. he had reason to imagine was but a Counterfeit Coin and that those Venerable Characters were but politically feigned and a Sacred Title given to it without their Authority All this coming out with so solemn a License has made me take some pains to be rightly informed in this matter those whom I consulted tell me they have discoursed the Pensioner himself on this Subject who will very shortly take a sure Method to clear himself of those Imputations and to do that right to the Prince and Princess as to shew the World that in this matter he acted only by their Order For as Mr. Stewart's Letter drew the Pensioner's Answer from him so this Paper licensed as it is will now draw from him a particular Recital of the whole Progress of this Matter Mr. Albeville knows that the Princess explained her self so fully to him in the Month of May and June 1687. upon the Repeal of the Test that he himself has acknowledged to several Persons that though both the Prince and Princess were very stiff in that matter yet of the two he found the Princess more inflexible Afterwards when Mr. Stewart by many repeated Letters pressed his Friend to renew his Importunities to the Pensioner for an Answer he having also said in his Letters That he writ by the King's Order and Direction Upon this the Pensioner having consulted the Prince and Princess drew his Letter first in Dutch and communicated it to them and it being approved by them he turned it into Latine but because it was to be shewed to the King he thought it was fit to get it to be put in English that so their Highnesses might see that Translation of his Letter which was to be offered to His Majesty and they having approved of it he sent it with his own in Latine and it was delivered to the King. This Account was given me by my Friend who added that it would appear e're long in a more Authentical manner And by this I suppose the Impudence of those men does sufficiently appear who have the Brow to pubtish such Stuff of the Falshood of which they themselves are well assured And therefore I may well conclude that my Lord President 's License was granted by him with that Carelessness with which most Books are read and licensed Our Author pretends that he cannot believe that this Letter could flow from a Princess of so sweet a Temper pag. 62. and yet others find so much of the Sweetness of her Temper in it that for that very reason they believe it the more easily to have come from her No Passion or indiscreet Zeal appears in it and it expresses such an extended Charity and Nobleness of Temper that these Characters shew it comes from one that has neither a narrowness of Soul nor a sourness of Spirit In short She proposes nothing in it but to preserve that Religion which she believes the true one and that being secured she is willing that all others enjoy all the Liberties of Subjects and the Freedoms of Christians Here is Sweetness of Temper and Christian Charity in their fullest extent The other Reason is so mysteriously expressed that I will not wrong our Author by putting it in any other words than his own pag. 62. She is certainly as little pleased to promote any thing to the Disturbance of a State to which she still seems so nearly related She seems still are two significant Words and not set here for nothing She seems in his Opinion only related to the Crown that is She is not really so but there is something that these Gentlemen have in reserve to blow up this seeming Relation And She seems still imports that though this apparent Relation is suffered to pass at present yet it must have its Period for this seems still can have no other meaning But in what does She promote the Disturbance of the State or Patronise the Opposers of her Parents as he says afterwards ibid. Did She officiously interpose in this matter or was not her Sense asked And when it was asked must She not give it according to her Conscience She is too perfect a Pattern in all other things not to know well how great a Respect and Submission She owes her Father but She is too good a Christian not to know that her Duty to God must go first And therefore in matters of Religion when Her Mind was asked She could not avoid the giving it according to her Conscience and all the invidious Expressions which he fastens on this Letter and which he makes so many Arguments to shew that it could not flow from Her are all the
the Reflections that I have already mentioned To the second I said I could not be a Fugitive since I had come out of Scotland fourteen years ago and after eleven years stay in England had come out of it three years ago by the King's leave As for my being a Rebel I could answer nothing to that till I saw the Judgment that had passed upon me but I was now the Subject of the States and as I humbly claimed their Protection so I pretended to no Protection against Justice but offered my self to a Tryal if any thing was laid to my charge This being reported to the States of Holland they were so far satisfied with my Answer that the substance of it was put in the form of an Answer to the two Memorials The whole amounts to this that I was become their subject by being naturalized before this process was begun against me so that I am now under their Protection But if there is any thing to be objected to me that can bear a Tryal they will give order that full and speedy Justice shall be done upon it in the Court of Holland Upon this a 3d Memorial was given in to which the Articles of the Treaty between the King and the States were annexed relating to Fugitives and Rebels and it was said in it that the States were bound to execute these with relation to me without taking upon them to examine the grounds upon which the sentence was past And because here lies the strength of the whole matter I shall offer such Considerations upon it as will I hope satisfie all persons 1. No Sentence is either passed or produced against me for I am not declared by any Judgment either Rebel or Fugitive and by the 7th Article all Condemnations ought to be notified by publick and Authentical letters which must be understood of a Record of the sentence that ought to be produced whereas there is nothing shewed in my case but only a Memorial 2. All Treaties especially in the odious parts of them are to be understood according to the common acceptation of the terms contained in them and not according to the particular forms of any Courts of Justice the common acceptance of Fugitive is a man that flies away after a crime committed from the prosecution of Justice and a Rebel in the common acceptation is a man that has born Arms against his Prince since then I am not so much as charged with either of these I cannot be comprehended in the Article of the Treaty for this must be the only sense according to which the States are bound to deny harbour to Declared Rebels and Fugitives 3. That which puts an end to the whole matter is that before I writ that Letter upon which I am now prosecuted I was become a Subject of the States and by Consequence was no more in a Capacsty to be either the King's Rebel or Fugitive And the point of Naturalizing Strangers is now such an universal Practice that the right of granting it is inseperable from Soveraign Power so that either the States have this Right or they are no more a Free and Soveraign State. And the obligations of honour that all Soveraigns come under to protect those whom they naturalize against every thing but their own Justice is no dark point of Law but is that which every Prince knows and practices as oft as there is occasion for it The King of France has used all the Naturalized Srangers in the same manner that he has used his own subjects in the point of Religion and tho the French Protestants that are gone into England are according to the severity of the Edicts passed against them made Criminals for flying out of that Kingdom so that according to the Letter of those Edicts they are Fugitives yet the King has received them all owned them for his Subjects naturalised some and supplied others of them by a Bounty truly worthy of so great a Prince and if the King does this to those of another Religion that do fly out of the Dominions of a Prince with whom he is in peace The States could not with any colour of reason refuse to Naturalise me who am of their own Religion when after so long a stay among them it appeared that the King had nothing ro lay to my charge and they having Naturalised me if they should withdraw their Protection before I had forfeited it by any illegal Action of mine they should make a Breach upon the Publick Liberty upon which their Government is chiefly founded And it is to be observed that the Treaty between the King and them as to the Articles concerning Rebels and Fugitives is Reciprocal as all the Ancient Treaties between the Crown of England and the Princes of these Provinces before the formation of the Commonwealth ever were as to this particular so that they can be no more bound to the King by it than the King is bound to them Now let us suppose that the King Naturalises a Dutchman by which he is admitted to all the Priviledges of an Englishman if the Dutch should after that condemn this person as guilty of Rebellion the King could not upon the States demanding of him deliver him up or banish him at his pleasure since this cannot be done arbitrarily to any Englishman without a legal tryal by his Peers and therefore it is plain that my case does not at all fall within the Articles of the Treaty so that in this whole matter the States have acted as a free State that was careful to maintain its Honour and to assert its being an Independent Soveraignty and for my own part I can appeal to all the Members of the States of Holland if I made any applications to them as if I would value my self on my being supported in opposition to the Envoy's Memorial I staid at home while the thing was under consultation without making Addresses to any one of them as to my own particular It is true I would not withdraw of my own accord from my own house which I thought would have been a forsaking the Rights of the Countrey a mistrusting the Protection of my Soveraigns as well as my own Innocence and an abandoning of the post in which God by his Providence has placed me And I am resolved rather to run the risque of all that with which I am threatned than show the least unbecoming fear I thank God I make use of that common but Noble expression that I am neither afraid to dye nor ashamed to live I will not go further into dark thoughts tho I know enough of of the contrivances against me by an order of men whose souls are as black as their Habits Tho for a great while I thought that the meanness of my person was such that even success in any design against me could not have counterballanced the Infamy of it Thus I hope those hard words of high treason or Rebellion will make no impressions on
the Declaration it self pag. 9. for our Comedian maintains his Character still and scorns to speak of Establish'd Laws with any Decency here he puts in a paragraph as was formally marked which belonged to his Second Reason but it seems some of those to whom he has pawn'd himself thought he had not said enough on that head and therefore to save blottings he put it in here After that he tells the Gentry that Transubstantiation was a Notion belonging to the School-men and Metaphysitians and that he may bespeak their Favour he tells them in very soft words That their Learning was more polite and practicable in the Civil Affairs of Human Life to understand the Rules of Honour and the Laws of their Countrey the Practice of Martial Discipline and the Examples of Great Men in former Ages and by them to square their Actions in their respective Stations and the like But sure the Bishop is here without his Fiocco yet at least for Decency's sake he should have named Religion and Virtue among the proper Studies of the Gentry and if he dares not trust them with the reading the Scriptures yet at least they might read the Articles of our Church and hearken to the Homilies for tho it has been long one of the first Maxims that he has infused into all the Clergy that come near him that the People ought to be brought into an ignorance in matters of Religion that Preaching ought to be laid aside for a Preaching Church could not stand that in Sermons no points of Doctrine ought to be explained and that only the Rules of Human Life ought to be told the People yet after all they may read the short Articles and tho they were as blindly Implicit as he would wish them to be yet they would without more Enquiry find Transubstantiation to be condemned in them Next he Triumphs over the renouncing of it pag. 11. as too bold and too prophane an Affront to Almighty God when men Abjure a thing which it is morally impossible for them to understand And he appeals to the Members of both Houses whom in a fit of Respect he calls Honourable after he had Reproach'd them all he could if they have any distinct Idea or Notion in their minds of the thing they here so Solemnly Renounce I do verily believe none of them have any distinct Notion of Transubstantiation and that it is not only Morally but Physically impossible for them to understand it But one would think that this is enough for declaring that they do not Believe it since the TEST contains no declaration concerning Transubstantiation it self whether it is a True or a False Doctrine but only concerning the Belief of him that takes it And if one can have no distinct Notion of it so that it is morally impossible for him to understand it he may very well declare That he does not believe it After a Farce of a slight Story he concludes that there seems to be nothing but a Prophane Levity in the whole matter and a shameless abuse put upon God and Religion to carry on the Wicked Designs of a Rebel-Faction For he cannot for his heart abate an ace of his Insolence even when he makes the King Lords and Commons the subject of his Scorn Certainly whatever his Character is it ought not to be expected that a man who attacks all that is Sacred under God and Christ should not be treated as he deserves it were a feeble weakness to have so great a regard to a Character that is so prostituted by him He tells us pag 47. That all parties agree in the thing and that they differ only in the word and manner and here he makes a long excursion to shew his Learning in tacking a great many things together which passes with Ignorant Readers as a mark of his great Reading whereas in this as well as in all his other Books in which any shews of Learning appear those who have searched into the Fountains see that he does nothing but gather from the Collection of others only he spoils them with the Levities of his Buffoon Stilo and which is worse with his Dis-ingenuity I leave all these matters to be examined by those who have leisure for it and that think him worth their pains But as for Transubstantiation the words that I have cited from out of our Articles shew plainly that it is rejected in our Church so that he is bound either to renounce it or to renounce our Church therefore all that shew he makes with our History comes to nothing since whatever he may say with relation to Edward the Sixth's Reign it cannot be denied but they were Enacted by the Convocation in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and they have been ever since the Doctrine of our Church so that without going further this is now our Doctrine and since Sa. Oxon carries the Authority of the Convocation so high he will find the Original Record of these Articles in Corpus-Christi Colledg in Cambridge subscribed by the Members of both Houses in which there is a much more Positive Decision than is in the Prints not only against Transubstantiation but against any Corporal or Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament And if he will give himself scope to rail at those who suppressed this I leave him to his Liberty But here is the formal decision of this Church and the pretending that there was no Evidence of Cranmer's Opinion but in an unknown Manuscript or a Famous Invisible Manuscript p. 49 47. when there are two Books writ on this matter by Cranmer himself and when all the Disputes in Queen Mary's time besides those that were both in Oxford and Cambridge in King Edward's time shew so clearly That this was his Doctrine is a strain becoming his Sincerity that gives this among many other Essays of the Trust that is due to him But it seems he thought that Dr. Tillotson Dr. Stillingfleet and Dr. Burnet besides some others whom he does not Name had not Reputation enough in the World and therefore he intended to raise it by using them ill which is all the effect that his Malice can have He had set on one of his poor underworkmen some years ago to decry the Manuscript which Dr. Stillingfleet had in his keeping for above Twenty Years and which Dr. Burnet had in his Hands for many months and which they shewed to as many as desired to see it but that had turned so much to his Shame that first vented the Calumny that it seems he summoned Sa. Oxon to appear his second in the Slander and he whose Brow is of so peculiar a Composition will needs bring it here tho ever so impertinently But I forgive the Hatred that he bears both to that Manuscript and to those Doctors since nothing could be less to the satisfacton of those for whom he published his Book than to see the Mature and Regular Methods in which the Reformation
pure and Spiritual Essence they are easily disposed to embrace such notions of God as may live more peaceably with their vices and so they hope by a profusion of expence and honour or of fury and rage which they Imploy in the Worship of an Imaginary Deity to purchase their pardons and to compensate for their other crimes if not to authorise them These two principles that are so rooted in our frail and corrupt natures being wrought on by the craft and authority of ambitions and covetous men who are never wanting in all Ages and Nations have brought forth all that Idolatry that has appeared in so many different shapes up and down the World and has been diversified according to the various tempers accidents and Constitutions of the several Nations and Ages of the World. IX I now come to examine the beginnings of Idolatry as they are represented to us in the Scripture in which it will appear that our Authors account of it shews him guilty either of great Ignorance or of that which is worse He pretends that the first plain Intimation that we have of it in Palestine is when Jacob after his conversation with the Schichemites commanded his family to put away their Strange Gods. VVhereas we have an earlier and more particular account of those Strange Gods in the same Book of Genesis Chap. 31. where when Jacob fled away from Laban it is said Vers 19. that Rachel stole her fathers Images or Teraphim and these are afterwards called by Laban his Gods vers 30. and these very Images are called by Joshua 24.2 Strange Gods So that the Strange Gods from which Jacob cleansed his family Gen. 35.2 were no other than the Teraphim and that in the Teraphim we are to seek for the true Original of Idolatry and for the sense of the phrase of other Gods or Strange Gods which is indeed the true key to this whole matter These were little statues such as the Dii lares or Penates were afterwards among the Romans or the Pagods now in the East in which it was believed that there was such a divine vertue shut up that the Idolaters expected protection from them And as people in all times are apt to trust to Charms so those who pretended to chain down the Divine Influences to those Images had here a great occasion given them to deceive the world of this sort was the Palladium of Troy and the Ancelle of Rome And this gave the rise to all the cheats of Telesmes and Talismans that came afterwards These were of different figures and since our Author confesses p. 124. that Cherubim and Teraphim are sometimes used promiscuously for one another it is probable that the figure of both was the same and since it is plain from Ezekiel that the Cherubim resembled a Calf Compare Ezek. 1.10 with chap. 10.14 where what is called in the first the face of an Ox is called in the other the face of a Cherub from hence it is probable that the Teraphim or at least some of them were of the same figure In these it was also believed that there were different degrees of Charms some were believed stronger than others So that probably Pharaoh thought that Moses and Aaron had a Teraphim of greater virtue than his Magicians had which is the clearest account that I know of his hardening his heart against so many Miracles and this also seems to be the first occasion of the phrase of the Gods of the several Nations and of some being stronger than other that is the Teraphim of the one were believed to have a higher degree of enchantment in them than the others had This then leads us to the right Notion of Aaron's Golden Calf and of the terms of graven or carved Images in the Second Commandment and even of the other Gods in the first Commandment for we have seen that both in the Stile of Moses and Joshua the Images were those Teraphim which they also called strange Gods. When the Israelites thought that Moses had forsaken them they came to Aaron desiring him to make them gods that is Teraphims yet they prescribed no form to him but left that wholly to him and so the dream of their fondness of the Egyptian Idolatry vanishes for it was Aarons choice that made it a Calf perhaps he had seen the Divine Glory as a Cloud between the Cherubims when he went up into the Mountain Exod. 24.9 10. For a Pattern being shewed to Moses of the Tabernacle that he was to make it is probable Aaron saw that likewise and this might dispose him to give them a Seraphim in that Figure this is also the most probable account both of the Calves of Dan and Bethel set up by Jeroboam and also of the Israelites worshipping the Ephod that Gideon made Judg. 8.27 of the Idolatry of Micah and the Danites who robbed him Judg. 17.18 and of the Israelites offering Incense to the Brazen Serpent 2 Kings 18.4 which seemed to have all the Solemnities of a Teraphim in it so that it is plain the greatest part of the Idolatry under the Old Testament was the worship of the Teraphim X. But to compleat this Argument with relation to the present Point it is no less plain that the true Jehovah was Worshipped in those Teraphim To begin with the first It is clear that Laban in the Covenant that he made with Jacob appeals not only to the God of Abraham Gen. 31.53 but likewise to Jehovah v. 49. for tho that name was not then known yet Moses by using it on that occasion shews us plainly that Laban was a VVorshipper of the true God. Aaron shews the same by intimating that Feast which he appointed to Jehovah Exod. 32.5 which our Author thought not fit to mention the People also by calling these v. 4. the Gods that brought them out of Egypt shew that they had no thoughts of the Egyptian Idolatry but they believed that Moses had carried away the Teraphim in the vertue of which it seems they fancied that he had wrought his Miracles and that Aaron who they believed knew the Secret had made them new ones and this is the most probable account of their joy in celebrating that Feast And as for Jeroboam the case seems to be plainly the same he made the People believe that the Teraphim which he gave them in Dan and Bethel were as good as those that were at Jerusalem For as his design was no other than to hinder their going thither 1 Kings 12.27 so it is not likely that either he would or durst venture upon a total Change of their Religion or that it could have passed so easily with the People whereas the other had nothing extraordinary in it It is also plain that as Jeroboam called the Calves the Gods that brought them out of Egypt v. 28. so he still acknowledged the true Jehovah for the Prophets both true and false in his time prophesied in the name of Jehovah 1 Kings 13.2 18
I A. B. do acknowledge testifie and declare that JAMES the Seventh by the Grace of God King of Scotland England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c is rightful King and Supream Governour of these Realms and over all Persons therein and that it is unlawful for Subjects on any pretence or for any cause whatsoever to rise in Arms against Him or any Commissionated by Him and that I shall never so rise in Arms nor assist any who shall so do and that I shall never resist His Power or Authority nor ever oppose his Authority to his Person as I shall answer to God but shall to the utmost of my Power Assist Defend and Maintain Him His Heirs and lawful Successors in the exercise of their ABSOLUTE POWER and Authority against all Deadly So help me God. And seeing many of Our good Subjects have before Our Pleasure in these Matters was made publick incurred the Guilt appointed by the Acts of Parliament above mentioned or others We by Our Authority and Absolute Power and Prerogative Royal above-mentioned of Our certain Knowledge and innate Mercy Give Our ample and full Indemnity to all those of the Roman Catholick or Popish Religion for all things by them done contrary to Our Laws or Acts of Parliament made in any time past relating to their Religion the Worship and Exercise thereof or for being Papists Jesuits or Traffickers for hearing or saying of Mass concealing of Priests or Jesuits breeding their Children Catholicks at home or abroad or any other thing Rite or Doctrine said performed or maintained by them or any of them And likewise for holding or taking of Places Employments or Offices contrary to any Law or Constitution Advices given to Us or Our Council Actions done or generally any thing performed or said against the known Laws of that Our Ancient Kingdom Excepting always from this Our Royal Indemnity all Murders Assassinations Thefts and such like other Crimes which never used to be comprehended in Our General Acts of Indemnity And we command and require all Our Judges or others concerned to explain this in the most Ample Sense and Meaning Acts of Indemnity at any time have contained Declaring this shall be as good to every one concerned as if they had Our Royal Pardon and Remission under Our Great Seal of that Kingdom And likewise indemnifying Our Protestant Subjects from all Pains and Penalties due for hearing or Preaching in Houses Providing there be no Treasonable Speeches uttered in the said Conventicles by them in which case the Law is only to take place against the Guilty and none other present Providing also that they Reveal to any of our Gouncil the Guilt so committed As also excepting all Fines or Effects of Sentences already given And likewise indemnifying fully and freely all Quakers for their Meetings and Worship in all time past preceding the Publication of these Presents And we doubt not but Our Protestant Subjects will give their Assistance and Concourse hereunto on all occasions in their respective Capacities In consideration whereof and the ease those of Our Religion and others may have hereby and for the Encouragement of Our Protestant Bishops and the Regular Clergy and such as have hitherto lived orderly We think fit to declare that it never was Our Principle nor will We ever suffer violence to be offered to any Mans Conscience nor will We use force or Invincible Necessity against any Man on the Account of his Perswasion nor the Protestant Religion but will protect Our Bishops and other Ministers in their Functions Rights and Properties and all Our Protestant Subjects in the free Exercise of their Protestant Religion in the Churches And that We will and hereby Promise on Our Royal Word to maintain the Possessors of Church Lands formerly belonging to Abbeys or other Churches of the Catholick Religion in their full and free Possession and Right according to Our Laws and Acts of Parliament in that behalf in all time coming And We will employ indifferently all our Subjects of all Perswasions so as none shall meet with any Discouragement on the account of his Religion but be advanced and esteemed by Us according to their several Capacities and Qualifications so long as we find Charity and Unity maintained And if any Animosities shall arise as We hope in God there will not We will shew the severest Effects of Our Royal Displeasure against the Beginners or Fomenters thereof seeing thereby Our Subjects may be deprived of this general Ease and Satisfaction We intend to all of them whose Happiness Prosperity Wealth and Safety is so much Our Royal Care that we will leave nothing undone which may procure these Blessings for them And lastly to the End all Our good Subjects may have Notice of this Our Royal Will and Pleasure we do hereby command Our Lyon King at Arms and his Brethren Heraulds Macers Pursevants and Messengers at Arms to make Proclamation thereof at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh And besides the Printing and Publishing of this Our Royal Proclamation it is Our express Will and Pleasure that the same be past under the great Seal of that Our Kingdom per saltum ☞ without passing any other Seal or Register In Order whereunto this shall be to the Directors of Our Chancellary and their Deputies for writing the same and to Our Chancellor for causing Our Great Seal aforesaid to be appended thereunto a sufficient Warrand Given at Our Court at Whitehal the twelfth day of Febr. 1686 / 7. And of Our Reign the third year By His Majesties Command MELFORT GOD SAVE THE KING A LETTER Containing some REFLECTIONS On His MAJESTY's DECLARATION FOR LIBERTY of CONSCIENCE Dated the Fourth of April 1687. SIR I. I Thank you for the Favour of sending me the late Declaration that His Majesty has granted for Liberty of Conscience I confess I longed for it with great Impatience and was surprised to find it so different from the Scotch Pattern for I imagined that it was to be set to the Second Part of the same Tune nor can I see why the Penners of this have sunk so much in their Style for I suppose the same Men penned both I expected to have seen the Imperial Language of Absolute Power to which all the Subjects are to obey without Reserve and of the cassing annulling the stopping and disabling of Laws set forth in the Preamble and Body of this Declaration whereas those dreadful Words are not to be found here for in stead of repealing the Laws His Majesty pretends by this only to suspend them and tho' in effect this amounts to a Repeal yet it must be confessed that the Words are softer Now since the Absolute Power to which His Majesty pretends in Scotland is not founded on such poor things as Law for that would look as if it were the Gift of the People but on the Divine Authority which is supposed to be delegated to His Majesty this may be as well claimed in England as it
upon the Protestant Religion that is inconsistent with the Publick Peace will be pretended to shew that they are not persecuted for meer Religion In France when it was resolved to extirpate the Protestants all the Discourses that were written on that Subject were full of the Wars occasioned by those of the Religion in the last Age tho' as these were the happy Occasions of bringing the House of Bourbon to the Crown they had been ended above 80 Years ago and there had not been so much as the least Tumult raised by them these 50 Years past so that the French who have smarted under this Severity could not be charged with the least Infraction of the Law yet Stories of a hundred Years old were raised up to inspire into the King those Apprehensions of them which have produced the terrible Effects that are visible to all the World. There is another Expression in this Declaration which lets us likewise see with what caution the Offers of Favour are now worded that so there may be an Occasion given when the Time and Conjuncture shall be favourable to break thro' them all it is in these words So that they take especial Care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the Hearts of our People from us or our Government This in it self is very reasonable and could admit of no Exception if we had not to do with a set of Men who to our great Misfortune have so much Credit with his Majesty and who will be no sooner lodged in the Power to which they pretend than they will make every thing that is preached against Popery pass for that which may in some manner alienate the Subjects from the King. VI. His Majesty makes no doubt of the Concurrence of his two Houses of Parliament when he shall think it convenient for them to meet The Hearts of Kings are unsearchable so that it is a little too presumptuous to look into His Majesties secret Thoughts but according to the Judgments that we would make of other Mens Thoughts by their Actions one would be tempted to think that His Majesty made some doubt of it since his Affairs both at home and abroad could not go the worse if it appeared that there were a perfect Understanding between Him and His Parliament and that his People were supporting him with fresh Supplies and this House of Commons is so much at his devotion that all the World saw how ready they were to grant every thing that he could desire of them till he began to lay off the Masque with relation to the Test and since that time the frequent Prorogations the Closetting and the Pains that has been taken to gain Members by Promises made to some and the Disgraces of others would make one a little inclined to think that some doubt was made of their Concurrence But we must confess that the depth of His Majesty's Judgment is such that we cannot fathom it and therefore we cannot guess what his Doubts or his Assurances are It is true the words that come after unriddle the Mystery a little which are when His Majesty shall think it convenient for them to meet for the meaning of this seems plain that His Majesty is resolved that they shall never meet till he receives such Assurances in a new round of Closetting that he shall be put out of doubt concerning it VII I will not enter into the Dispute concerning Liberty of Conscience and the Reasons that may be offered for it to a Session of Parliament for there is scarce any one Point that either with relation to Religion or Politicks affords a greater variety of Matter for Reflection and I make no doubt to say that there is abundance of Reason to oblige a Parliament to review all the Penal Laws either with relation to Papists or to Dissenters but I will take the boldness to add one thing that the King 's suspending of Laws strikes at the root of this whole Government and subverts it quite for if there is any thing certain with relation to the English Government it is this that the Executive Power of the Law is entirely in the King and the Law to fortifie him in the Management of it has clothed him with a vast Prerogative and made it unlawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to resist him whereas on the other Hand the Legislative Power is not so entirely in the King but that the Lords and Commons have such a share in it that no Law can be either made repealed or which is all one suspended but by their Consent so that the placing this Legislative Power singly in the King is a Subversion of this whole Government since the Essence of all Governments consists in the Subjects of the Legislative Authority Acts of Violence or Injustice committed in the Executive part are such things that all Princes being subject to them the Peace of Mankind were very ill secured if it were not unlawful to resist upon any Pretence taken from any ill Administrations in which as the Law may be doubtful so the Facts may be uncertain and at worst the Publick Peace must always be more valued than any private Oppressions or Injuries whatsoever But the total Subversion of a Government being so contrary to the Trust that is given to the Prince who ought to execute it will put Men upon uneasie and dangerous Inquiries which will turn little to the Advantage of those who are driving Matters to such a doubtful and desperate Issue VIII If there is any thing in which the Exercise of the Legislative Power seems Indispensible it is in those Oaths of Allegiance and Tests that are thought necessary to qualifie Men either to be admitted to enjoy the Protection of the Law or to bear a Share in the Government for in these the Security of the Government is chiefly concerned and therefore the total extinction of these as it is not only a Suspension of them but a plain Repealing of them so it is a Subverting of the whole Foundation of our Government For the Regulation that King and Parliament had set both for the Subjects having the Protection of the State by the Oath of Allegiance and for a share in Places of Trust by the Tests is now pluckt up by the Roots when it is declared That these shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken or subscribed by any Persons whatsoever for it is plain that this is no Suspension of the Law but a formal Repeal of it in as plain Words as can be conceived IX His Majesty says that the Benefit of the Service of all his Subjects is by the Law of Nature inseparably annexed to and inherent in his Sacred Person It is somewhat strange that when so many Laws that we all know are suspended the Law of Nature which is so hard to be found out should be cited but the Penners of this Declaration had best let that Law lie
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
the Council of Scotland that Husbands should be fined for their Wives not going to Church tho' it was not founded on any Law. And of all Men living he ought to be the last that should speak of the taking away of Estates who got a very fair one during the present Reign by an Act of Parliament that attainted a Gentleman in a Method as new as his Stile is upon this ground that two Privy Counsellors declared they belived him guilty He will hardly find among all the Maxims of those Protestant persecuting Kings any one that will justifie this It seems the New Stile is not very copious in Words since Doctrine is three times repeated in so short a Letter He tells them that their Doctrine must tend to cause all the Subjects to walk obediently now by obediently in this Stile is to obey the Absolute Power without reserve for to obey according to Law would pass now for a Crime This being then his meaning it is probable that the Encouragements which are necessary to make His Majesty continue the happiness of his Subjects will not be so very great as to merit the perpetuating this Favour There is with this a heavy charge laid upon them as to their Practice that it must be such as shall be most pleasing to his Majesty for certainly that can only be by their turning Pastpis since a Prince that is so zealous for his Religion as His Majesty is cannot be so well pleased with any other thing as with this Their concurring with the King to remove the Penal Laws comes over again for tho' Repetitions are Impertinencies in the Common Stile they are Flowers in the new one In Conclusion he tells them That the King expects that they will continue their Prayers for him yet this does not agree too well with a Catholick Zeal for the Prayers of damned Hereticks cannot be worth the asking for the third time he tells them to look well to their Doctrine now this is a little ambiguous for it may either signifie that they should study the Controversies well so as to be able to defend their Doctrine solidly or that they should so mince it that nothing may fall from them in their Sermons against Popery this will be indeed a looking to their Doctrine but I do not know whether it will be thought a looking well to it or not He adds That their Example be influential I confess this hard new word frighted me I suppose the meaning of it is That their Practice may be such as that it may have an Influence on others yet there are both good and bad Influences a good Influence will be the animating the People to a Zeal for their Religion and a bad one will be the stackning and softning of that Zeal A little more clearness here had not been amiss As for the last Words of this Letter That all these are his Majesty's Commands it is very hard for me to bring my self to believe them For certainly he has more Piety for the Memory of the late Martyr and more regard both to himself to his Children and to his People than to have ever given any such Commands In order to the communicating this Piece of Elegance to the World I wish the translating it into French were recommended to Mr. d' Albeville that it may appear whether the Secretary-Stile will look better in his Irish-French than it does now in the Scotch-English of him who penned it REFLECTIONS ON A PAMPHLET Entitled PARLIAMENTUM PACIFICUM Licensed by the EARL of SVNDERLAND AND Printed at London in March 1688. I. PEace is a very desirable thing yet every State that is peaceable is not blindly to be courted An Apoplexy is the most peaceable State in which a Man's Body can be laid yet few would desire to pacifie the Humours of their Body at that rate An Implicite Faith and Absolute Slavery are the two peaceablest things that can be yet we confess we have no mind to try so dangerous an Experiment and while the Remedies are too strong we will chuse rather to bear our Disease than to venture on them The Instance that is proposed to the Imitation of the Nation is that Parliament which called in the late King and yet that cannot so much as be called a Parliament unless it be upon a Commonwealth Principle That the Sovereign Power is radically in the People For its being chosen without the King 's Writ was such an Essential Nullity that no subsequent Ratification could take it away For all People saw that they could not depend upon any Acts past by it and therefore it was quickly dissolved and ever since it has been called by all the Monarchical Party a Convention and not a Parliament But now in order to the courting the Common-wealth Party this is not only called a Parliament but is proposed as a Pattern to all others from the beginning to Page 19. II. But since this Author will send us back to that Time and since he takes it so ill that the Memory of the late King should be forgotten let us examine that Transaction a little and then we shall see whether it had not been more for His Honour to let it be forgotten The King did indeed in his Declaration from Breda promise Liberty of Conscience on which he insisted in a large and wise Declaration set out after he was setled on the Throne but after that he had got a Parliament chosen all of Creatures depending on himself who for many years granted him every thing that he desired a severe Act of Uniformity was passed and the King's Promise was carried off by this That the King could not refuse to comply with so Loyal a Parliament It is well enough known that those who were then secretly Papists and who disguised their Religion for many Years after this as the King himself did to the last animated the Chief Men of our Church to carry the Points of Uniformity as high as was possible and that both then and ever since all that proposed any Expedients for uniting us or as it was afterwards termed for Comprehending the Dissenters were represented as the Betrayers of the Church The Design was then clear to some that so by carrying the Terms of Conformity to a great rigidity there might be many Nonconformists and great occasion given for a Toleration under which Popery might insensibly creep in For if the Expedients that the King himself proposed in his Declaration had been stood to it is well known that of the Two thousand Consciencious Ministers as he calls them pag. 14. by an Affectation too gross to pass on them that were turned out above Seventeen hundred had staid in Their Practices had but too good Success on those who were then at the Head of our Church whose Spirits were too much soured by their ill usage during the War and whose Principles led them to so good an Opinion of all that the Court did that for a great while they
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
or in the way of War against their Neighbours to such a single Person or to such a Body of Men as they think fit to trust with this And in the management of this Civil Society great distinction is to be made between the Power of making Laws for the regulating the Conduct of it and the Power of executing those Laws The Supream Authority must still be supposed to be lodged with those who have the Legislative Power reserved to them but not with those who have only the Executive which is plainly a Trust when it is separated from the Legislative Power and all Trusts by their nature import that those to whom they are given are accountable even though that it should not be expresly specified in the words of the Trust it self IV. It cannot be supposed by the Principles of Natural Religion that God has authorised any one Form of Government any other way than as the general Rules of Order and of Justice oblige all Men not to subvert Constitutions nor disturb the Peace of Mankind or invade those Rights with which the Law may have vested some Persons for it is certain that as private Contracts lodg or translate private Rights so the Publick Laws can likewise lodg such Rights Prerogatives and Revenues in those under whose Protection they put themselves and in such a manner that they may come to have as good a Title to these as any private Person can have to his Property so that it becomes an Act of high Injustice and Violence to invade these which is so far a greater Sin than any such Actions would be against a private Person as the publick Peace and Order is preferrable to all private Considerations whatsoever So that in Truth the Principles of Natural Religion give those that are in Authority no Power at all but they do only secure them in the Possession of that which is theirs by Law. And as no Considerations of Religion can bind me to pay another more than I indeed owe him but do only bind me more strictly to pay what I owe so the Considerations of Religion do indeed bring Subjects under stricter Obligations to pay all due Allegiance and Submission to their Princes but they do not at all extend that Allegiance further than the Law carries it And though a Man has no Divine Right to his Property but has acquired it by human means such as Succession or Industry yet he has a Security for the Enjoyment of it from a Divine Right so tho Princes have no immediate Warrants from Heaven either for their Original Titles or for the extent of them yet they are secured in the Possession of them by the Principles and Rules of Natural Religion V. It is to be considered that as a private Person can bind himself to another Man's Service by different degrees either as an ordinary Servant for Wages or as one appropriate for a longer time as an Apprentice or by a total giving himself up to another as in the case of Slavery in all which cases the general Name of Master may be equally used yet the degrees of his Power are to be judged by the nature of the Contract so likewise Bodies of Men can give themselves up in different degrees to the Conduct of others and therefore though all those may carry the same Name of King yet every ones Power is to be taken from the measures of that Authority which is lodged in him and not from any general Speculations founded on some Equivocal Terms such as King Sovereign or Sapream VI. It is certain that God as the Creator and Governour of the World may set up whom he will to rule over other Men But this Declaration of his Will must be made evident by Prophets or other extraordinary Men sent of him who have some manifest Proofs of the Divine Authority that is committed to them on such occasions and upon such Persons declaring the Will of God in favour of any others that Declaration is to be submitted to and obeyed But this pretence of a Divine Delegation can be carried no further than to those who are thus expresly marked out and is unjustly claimed by those who can prove no such Declaration to have been ever made in favour of them or their Families Not does it appear reasonable to conclude from their being in Possession that it is the Will of God that it should be so this justifies all Usurpers when they are successful VII The measures of Power and by consequence of Obedience must be taken from the express Laws of any State or Body of Men from the Oaths that they swear or from immemorial Prescription and a long Possession which both give a Title and in a long Tract of Time make a bad one became good since Prescription when it passes the Memory of Man and is not disputed by any other Pretender gives by the common Sense of all Men a just and good Title so upon the whole matter the degrees of all Civil Authority are to be taken either from express Laws immemorial Customs or from particular Oaths which the Subjects swear to their Princes this being still to be laid down for a Principle that in all the Disputes between Power and Liberty Power must always be proved but Liberty proves it self the one being founded only upon a Positive Law and the other upon the Law of Nature VIII If from the general Principles of Human Society and Natural Religion we carry this matter to be examined by the Scriptures it is clear that all the Passages that are in the Old Testament are not to be made use of in this matter of â—â—ther side For as the Land of Canaan was given to the Jews by an immediate Grant from Heaven so God reserved still this to himself and to the Declarations that he should make from time to time either by his Prophets or by the Answers that came from the Cloud of Glory that was between the Cherubims to set up Judges or Kings over them and to pull them down again as he thought fit Here was an express Delegation made by God and therefore all that was done in that Dispensation either for or against Princes is not to be made use of in any other State that is founded on another Bottom and Constitution and all the Expressions in the Old Testament relating to Kings since they belong to Persons that were immediately designed by God are without any sort of Reason applied to those who can pretend to no such Designation neither for themselves nor for their Ancestors IX As for the New Testament it is plain that there are no Rules given in it neither for the Forms of Government in general nor for the degrees of any one Form in particular but the general Rules of Justice Order and Peace being established in it upon higher Motives and more binding Considerations than ever they were in any other Religion whatsoever we are most strictly bound by it to observe the Constitution
in which we are and it is plain that the Rules serve in the Gospel can be carried no further It is indeed clear from the New Testament that the Christian Religion as such gives us no grounds to defend or propagate it by force It is a Doctrine of the Cross and of Faith and Patience under it And if by the order of Divine Providence and of any Constitution of Government under which we are born we are brought under Sufferings for our professing of it we may indeed retire and fly out of any such Country if we can but if that is denied us we must then according to this Religion submit to those Sufferings under which we may be brought considering that God will be glorified by us in so doing and that he will both support us under our Suffering and gloriously reward us for them This was the State of the Christian Religion during the three first Centuries under Heathen Emperors and a Constitution in which Paganism was establish'd by Law. But if by the Laws of any Government the Christian Religion or any Form of it is become a part of the Subjects Property it then falls under another Consideration not as it is a Religion but as it is become one of the principal Rights of the Subjects to believe and profess it and then we must judg of the Invasions made on that as we do of any other Invasion that is made on our other Rights X. All the Passages in the New Testament that relate to Civil Government are to be expounded as they were truly meant in opposition to that false Notion of the Jews who believed themselves to be so immediately under the Divine Authority that they could not become the Subjects of any other Power particularly of one that was not of their Nation or of their Religion therefore they thought they could not be under the Roman Yoke nor bound to pay Tribute to Caesar but judged that they were only subject out of Fear by reason of the Force that lay on them but not for Conscience sake And so in all their Dispersion both at Rome and elsewhere they thought they were God's Freemen and made use of this pretended Liberty as a Cloak of Maliciousness In opposition to all which since in a course of many Years they had asked the Protection of the Roman Yoke and were come under their Authority our Saviour ordered them to continue in that by his saying Render to Cesar that which is Cesar 's and both St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans and St. Peter in his general Epistle have very positively condemned that pernicious Maxim but without any formal Declarations made of the Rules or Measures of Government And since both the People and Senate of Rome had acknowledged the Power that Augustus had indeed violently usurped it became Legal when it was thus submitted to and confirmed both by the Senate and People and it was established in his Family by a long Prescription when those Epistles were writ So that upon the whole matter all that is in the New Testament upon this Subject imports no more but that all Christians are bound to acquiesce in the Government and submit to it according to the Constitution that is setled by Law. XI We are then at last brought to the Constitution of our English Government So that no general Considerations from Speculations about Soveraign Power nor from any Passages either of the Old and New Testament ought to determine us in this Matter which must be fixed from the Laws and Regulations that have been made among us It is then certain that with Relation to the Executive part of the Government the Law has lodged that singly in the King so that the whole Administration of it is in him but the Legislative Power is lodged between the King and the two Houses of Parliament so that the Power of making and repealing Laws is not singly in the King but only so far as the two Houses concur with him It is also clear that the King has such a determined extent of Prerogative beyond which he has no Authority As for Instance If he levies Mony of his People without a Law impowring him to it he goes beyond the Limits of his Power and asks that to which he has no Right So that there lies no Obligation on the Subject to grant it and if any in his Name use Violence for the obtaining it they are to be looked on as so many Robbers that invade our Property and they being violent Aggressors the Principle of Self-Preservation seems here to take place and to warrant as violent a Resistance XII There is nothing more evident than that England is a Free Nation that has its Libertits and Properties reserved to it by many positive and express Laws If then we have a Right to our Property we must likewise be supposed to have a Right to preserve it for those Rights are by the Law secured against the Invasions of the Prerogative and by consequence we must have a Right to preserve them against those Invasions It is also evidently declared by our Law that all Orders and Warrants that are issued out in opposition to them are null of themselves and by consequence any that pretend to have Commissions from the King for those Ends are to be considered as if they had none at all since those Commissions being void of themselves are indeed no Commissions in the Construction of the Law and therefore those who act in virtue of them are still to be considered as private Persons who come to invade and disturb us It is also to be observed that there are some Points that are justly disputable and doubtful and others that are so manifest that it is plain that any Objections that can be made to them are rather forced Pretences than so much as plausible Colours It is true if the Case is doubtful the Interest of the publick Peace and Order ought to carry it but the Case is quite different when the Invasions that are made upon Liberty and Property are plain and visible to all that consider them XIII The main and great Difficulty here is that though our Government does indeed assert the Liberty of the Subject yet there are many express Laws made that lodg the Militia singly in the King that make it plainly unlawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King or any Commissioned by him And these Laws have been put in the Form of an Oath which all that have born any Employment either in Church or State have sworn and therefore those Laws for the assuring our Liberties do indeed bind the King's Conscience and may affect his Ministers yet since it is a Maxime of our Law that the King can do no Wrong these cannot be carried so far as to justify our taking Arms against him be the Transgressions of Laws ever so many and so manifest And since this has been the constant Doctrine of the Church of
Authority and Princely Power the Happiness Stabilitie and Quyetness of Our Subjects do depend Hes most perfidiously and treasonably presumed to commit and is guilty of the Crimes above mentioned in sua far as Archbald Campbel sometime Earl of Argyle James Stewart Sone to Sir James Stewart sometime Provost of Edinburgh Mr. Robert Ferguson sometime Chaplain to the late Earl of Shaftsbury Thomas Stewart of Cultness William Denholn sometime of Westsheils Master Robert Martin sometime Clerk to our Iustice-Court and several other Rebells and Traitors being most justy by our high Courts of Parliaments and Iustice Court Forfaulted for the Crimes of Treason and fled to our Kingdom of England and to Holland Flanders Geneva and several other places The said Doctor Gibert Burnet did upon the First Second and remanent days of the Month of January February and remainent Months of the Year one thousand six hundred eighty two one thousand six hundred eighty three one thousand six hundred eighty four or January February March or Aprile one thousand six hundred eighty five Converse Correspond and Intercommon with the said Archbald late Earl of Argyle a Forfaulted Traitor and that within the said Doctor Burnet his Dwelling-Hous in Lincolns-Inne Fields near the Plow-Inn in our City of London or Suburbs thereof or some other part or place within our Kingdom of England Defamed Sclandered and Reproached and Advisedlie spoke to the Disdain and Reproach of our Person Government and Authority wrote several Letters and receaved Answers thereto from the said Forfaulted Traitor when he was in Holland or elsewhere expressely contrary to his Duty and Allegeance to Vs his Soveraign Lord and King. And suklick upon the first second and third dayes of the Months of May June July August September October November and December one thousand six hundred eighty five and upon the first second and third dayes of the Moneths of January February and remanent Moneths of the Year one thousand six hundred eighty six and first second and third dayes of the Moneths of January February March one thousand six hundrd eighty seven or any or other of the dayes of any or other of the said Moneths or Years The said Doctor Gilbert Burnet did most treasonable Recept Supplied Aided Assisted Conversed and Intercomoned with and did Favours to the said James Stewart Mr. Robert Ferguson Thomas Stewart William Denholm and Mr. Robert Martyn forfaulted Traitors and Rebells in the Cityes of Rotterdam Amsterdam Leyden Breda Geneva or some other part or place within the Netherlands or elsewhere publickly and avowedly uttered several Speeches and Positions to the Disdain of our Person Authority and Government continues and persists in such undutiful and treasonable Practises against Vs and Our Government We being his Soveraign Lord and Prince expreslie contrair to his Allegeance and Duty By committing of the whilk Crimes above specifyed or either of them the said Doctor Burnet is guilty and culpable of the Crime of High Treason and is Art and Part thereof which being found be any Inquest he ought and should to suffer Forfaulture of Life Land and Goods to the Terror and Example of others to commit the like hereafter Our Will is theirfore and we charge you straitlie and Command that incontinent this our Letter seen yee pass and in our Name and Authority Command and Charge the said Doctor Gilbert Burnet above complained upon be sound of Trumpet with displayed Coat and using other Solemnities necessar to come and find sufficient Caution and Sovertie acted in our Books of Adjournal that he shall compeir before our Lords Iustice General Iustice Clerk and Commissioners of Iusticiary within the Tolbuith or Criminal Court-hous of Edinburgh the twentie sevinth day of June next to come in the hour of Caus there to underlie the Law for the Crymes above mentiond and that under the Paines contained in the new Acts of Parliament And that yee charge him personally if he can be apprehended and falizeing thereof at his dwelling-hous and be open Proclamation at the Mercat Cross of the head Burgh of the Shyre Stewartis Regalitie and other Iurisdiction where he dwells to come and find the said Sovertie acted in manner forsaid within six dayes if he be within this our Kingdom and if he be out with the Samyue that ye command and charge him in manner forsaid be open Proclamation at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh Peer and Shoar of Leith to come and find the said Sovertie within threescore dayes next after he is charged be you thereto under the Paine of Rebellion and putting of him to our Horne Whilst six and threescore dayes respectively being by-past and the said Sovertie not being found nor no Intimation made be him to you of the finding thereof that ye incontinent thereafter denunce him our Rebel and put him to our Horne Escheat and inbring all his moveable Goods and Geir to our use for his Contemption and Disobedience And if he come and find the said Sovertie Intimation alwayes being made be him to yow of the finding thereof that summond and Assyse hereto not exceeding the number of fourtie fyve Persons together with such Witnesses who best know the Veritie of the Premisses whose Names shall be given you in Roll subscribed by the said Complautor Ilk Person under the paine of one hundred Merks And that ye within fiftein dayes after his denunciation for not finding of Caution caus registrate thir Our Letters with your Executions thereof in Our Books of Adjournal conforme to the Act of Parliament made there-anent According to Iustice as ye will answer to Vs thereupon the whilk to doe Committs to yow conjunctly and severallie Our full Power be thir Our Letters delyvering them be yow duelie Execute and Indorsat again to the bearer Given under Our Signet at Edinburgh the nynteinth day of Aprile and of Our Reign the third Year 1678. Ex deliberatione Dominorum Commissionariorum Justiciarii sit subscribitur Signed 19. Apryle 1687. THO. GOFDONNE The Witnesses against Dr. Gilbert Burnet are Sir John Cochran of Ockiltree John Cochran of Wattersyd Mr. Robert West Lawyer Englishman Mr. Zachary Bourne Brewer Englishman Mr. William Carstaires Preacher Robert Baird Merchant in Holland Mr. Richard Baxter Preacher AN ANSWER TO THE Criminal Letters issued out against me I Look upon it as a particular Misfortune that I am forced to answer a Citation that is made in his Majesty's Name which will be ever so sacred with me that nothing but the sense of an Indispensable Duty could draw from me any thing that looks like a contending with that sublime Character I owe the Defence of my own Innocence and of my Reputation and Life to my self I owe also to all my Kindred and Friends to my Religion as I am a Christian and a Protestant and to my Profession as I am a Church-man and above all to His Majesty as I am his born Subject such a Vindication of my Loyalty and Integrity as may make it appear that my not
Author and some others have often given it out as if I had Betrayed a Master and I may expect the next time that they will say that I Murdered my Father for the one is as true as the other I never had a Master but the King for the whole course of my Life raised me above the serving of any Subject A design proposed to me by one that is now Dead and therefore shall not be named by me of bringing in an Army out of Scotland for the Spoiling and Subduing of England gave me a just horror at the Proposition and I did all I could to withstand it The same great Person did quickly take up such a Jealousy of me that he did all he could to ruin me tho His present Majesty who had then the Goodness for me to endeavour to Pacify him owned to me that he could see nothing in his hatred of me but a violent Passion Yet he was resolved to throw me in a Prison where very probably I had languished away the rest of my Life if the King that now is had not been so gracious to me as to warn me of my Danger which made me leave Scotland and after I had suffered near two years all that Wrath armed with Power could do to me at last while I was under one of the sharp effects of that great Minister's anger I told a Person of Honour that which I believed was one of the grounds of it The Gentleman set this so about that as he himself was a Member of the House of Commons so it was known to a great many others upon which I was sent for by the House I declined for four several times to say what had been proposed to me and at last being threatned to be prosecuted by the House of Commons as an Enemy to the Nation I was thus unwillingly brought to own it But that Great Man fell no sooner under an Eclipse of Favour then tho I had felt the weight of his Credit for seven years together I made not only all the steps necessary for a Reconciliation but I engaged some then in Favour so far into his Interests that he expressed a very thankful acknowledgment of it and a perfect Reconciliation with me Tho upon some Reasons of his own our Meeting was not thought convenient and his own Nephew who being now of the Roman Communion is a Witness to whom I may the more freely appeal brought me very kind Messages from him and signified them to me after his Death As for all the other things that can be objected to me I pass them over as things which can very little hurt me The Author it seems pities Varillas's defeated Condition who as my Friends from Paris write to me does not so much as pretend to justify himself of all those gross Errors of which I have discovered him Guilty but says he has received an Order from the King to insist no more in the Dispute in which he and I were engaged Our Author will be a very fit Person to succeed to that Despicable Writer who fancies that I contradict my self in setting forth Q. Maries Clemency in one place and yet shewing in another how Unmerciful she shewed her self towards those that were condemned of Heresy The best Natures in the World can be corrupted by a false Religion and they being once possessed with cruel Principles the more Pious they are they will be the more true to the Doctrines of their Church and by consequence they will execute all its severe Decrees with an unrelenting Rigour And we have clear Instances of this in the Age in which we live of Princes whose Inclinations to Clemency are as well known as the Severities to which the Credit of the Society has carried them are Deplorable There is another spiteful Insinuation with which I shall conclude my Apology This Author finding that the Matters of State of which he had accused me were not like to Blemish me much resolved to try what he could do in a Subject of another Nature which was indeed above him for tho it seems he is entertained to Scribble upon the Politicks yet the matters of Divinity probably do not lie within his Province but it seems he thought that any thing was to be ventured on that might Defame me He represents me as an Enemy to the Divinity of Jesus Christ because of the various readings of a verse in St. John's Epistle that I gave from some Ancient Manuscripts which I saw in my Travels And these men who have of late studied to make all the World either Deists or Socinians if they cannot make them Papists by representing that unless we believe the Infallibility of the Church we cannot upon good grounds believe either the Christian Religion or the Mysteries of it and this with so much Heat and Industry as if their design were to have us to be any thing rather than Protestants yet will accuse some of our Church of those Doctrines against which we have writ with greater force than any of our Calumniators For we have Accusers of the other side too All the Fathers that writ against the Arians believed those Mysteries tho they never cited that Passage from which it was reasonable to conclude that it was not in their Bibles otherwise it is not to be imagined that such Men as St. Athanase and St. Austin should not have mentioned it now the many other places of Scripture that determine me to believe the Divinity of the Saviour of the World are so clear that I believe it equally well whether this passage be acknowledged to be genuine or not But having for some years taken pleasure to compare Manuscripts those of the Holy Scriptures were naturally the most looked into by me and since a Man that has but a transcient View of M. SS cannot stay to examine them in many Passages that Passage being the most Important of all that are controverted I turned always to it and have given the account of what I saw sincerely both for it and against it For I have learned from Job not to lye for God since truth needs no support from falshood And I may well forgive those of a Church who have built so much upon Forgeries and Counterfeit Pieces to be angry with me for giving so sincere an account as I did of a Matter of Fact. But that Divine Saviour whom I adore daily as God equal with the Father knows the Injustice that is done me in this as well as in the other false Accusations with which my Enemies study to blacken me I can assure them that I have that Detestation of all Idolatry and of theirs in particular that I should never adore him as I do if I did not think him to be by Nature God over all blessed for ever And now to conclude if Men will not receive this Vindication of my self with the Justice that is due to me I humbly commit my Cause to him who judges righteously who
he gives to Church-men in his Epistles to Timotby and Titus reckon this of submitting to the directions of the Church for one which he could not have omitted if this be the true meaning of those disputed passages and yet he has not one word sounding that way which is very different from the directions which one possessed with the present view that the Church of Rome has of this matter must needs have given V. There are some things very expresly taught in the New Testament such as the rules of a Good Life the Use of the Sacraments the addressing our selves to God for Mercy and Grace through the Sacrifice that Christ offered for us on the Cross and the Worshipping him as God the Death Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ the Resurrection of our Bodies and Life Everlasting by which it is apparent that we are set beyond doubt in those matters if then there are other passages more obscure concerning other matters we must Conclude that these are not of that Consequence otherwise they would have been as plainly revealed as the others are but above all if the Authority of the Church is delivered to us in disputable terms that is a just prejudice against it since it is a thing of such Consequence that it ought to have been revealed in a way so very clear and past all dispute VI. If it is a presumption for particular persons to judge concerning Religion which must be still referred to the Priests and other Guides in sacred matters this is a good Argument to oblige all Nations to continue in the Established Religion whatever it may happen to be and above all others it was a convincing Argument in the mouths of the Jews against our Saviour He pretended to be the Messias and proved it both by the prophesies that were accomplished in him and by the Miracles that he wrought as for the Prophesies the Reasons urged by the Church of Rome will conclude much stronger that such dark Passages as those of the Prophets were ought not to be interpreted by Particular persons but that the Exposition of these must be referred to the Priests and Sanhedrin it being expresly provided in their law Deut. 17.8 That when controversies arose concerning any cause that was too intricate they were to go to the place which God should choose and to the Priests of the tribe of Levi and to the judge in those days and that they were to declare what was right and to their decision all were obliged to submit under pain of death so that by this it appears that the Priests in the Jewish Religion were authorized in so extraordinary a manner that I dare say the Church of Rome would not wish for a more formal Testimony on her behalf As for our Saviour's Miracles these were not sufficient neither unless his doctrine was first found to be good since Moses had expresly warned the People Deut. 13 1. That if a Prophet came and taught them to follow after other Gods they were not to obey him tho he wrought miracles to prove his Mission but were to put him to death So a Jew saying that Christ by making himself one with his father brought in the worship of another God might well pretend that he was not obliged to yield to the authority of our Saviour's Miracles without taking cognizance of his doctrine and of the Prophesies concerning the Messias and in a word of the whole matter So that if these Reasonings are now good against the Reformation they were as strong in the mouths of the Jews against our Saviour and from hence we see that the authority that seems to be given by Moses to the Priests must be understood with some Restrictions since we not only find the Prophets and Jeremy in particular opposing themselves to the whole body of them but we see likewise that for some considerable time before our Saviour's days not only many ill grounded traditions had got in among them by which the vigour of the moral law was much enervated but likewise they were also universally possessed with a false notion of their Messias so that even the Apostles themselves had not quite shaken off those Prejudices at the time of our Saviour's Ascension So that here a Church that was still the Church of God that had the appointed means of the Expiation of their sins by their Sacrifices and Washings as well as by their Circumcision was yet under great and fatal Errors from which particular persons had no way to extricate themselves but by examining the Doctrine and texts of Scripture and by judging of them according to the Evidence of Truth and the force and freedom of their Faculties VII It seems Evident that the passage Tell the Church belongs only to the Reconciling of Differences that of Binding and of Loosing according to the use of those terms among the Jews signifies only an Authority that was given to the Apostles of giving Precepts by which men were to be obliged to such Duties or set at liberty from them and the gates of Hell not prevailing against the Church J signifies only that the Christian Religion was never to come to an end or to perish and that of Christs being with the Apostles to the end of the world imports only a special Conduct and Protection which the Church may always expect but as the promise I will not leave thee nor forsake thee that belongs to every Christian does not import an infallibility no more does the other And for those passages concerning the spirit of God that searches all things it is plain that in them St. Paul is treating of the Divine inspiration by which the Christian Religion was then opened to the world which he sets in opposition to the wisdom or Philosophy of the Greeks so that as all those passages come far short of proving that for which they are alledged it must at least be acknowledged that they have not an evidence great enough to prove so important a truth as some would evince by them since 't is a matter of such vast consequence that the proofs for it must have an undeniable Evidence VIII In the matters of Religion two things are to be considered first The Account that we must give to God and the Rewards that we expect from him And in this every Man must answer for the sincerity of his Heart in examining Divine Matters and the following what upon the best enquiries that one could make appeared to be true and with Relation to this there is no need of a Judg for in that Great Day every one must answer to God according to the Talents that he had and all will be saved according to their Sincerity and with Relation to that Judgment there is no need of any other Judg but God. A second View of Religion is as it is a Body united together and by consequence brought under some Regulation And as in all States there are subaltern Judges in whose Decisions all
near the Age of the Apostles contrary Traditions touching the Observation of Easter from which we must conclude that either the Matter of Fact of one side or the other as it was handed down was not true or at least that it was not rightly understood A Tradition concerning the Use of the Sacraments being a visible thing is more likely to be exact than a Speculation concerning their Nature and yet we find a Tradition of giving Infants the Communion grounded on the indispensible necessity of the Sacrament continued a thousand years in the Church A Tradition on which the Christians founded their Joy and Hope is less like to be changed than a more remote Speculation and yet the first Writers of the Christian Religion had a Tradition handed down to them by those who saw the Apostles of the Reign of Christ for a thousand year upon Earth and if those who had Matters at the second hand from the Apostles could be thus mistaken it is more reasonable to apprehend greater Errors at such a distance A Tradition concerning the Book of the Scriptures is more like to be exact than the Exposition of some Passages in it and yet we find the Church did unanimously believe the Translation of the 70. Interpreters to have been the effect of a miraculous Inspiration till St. Jerome examined this Matter better and made a New Translation from the Hebrew Copies But which is more than all the rest it seems plain That the Fathers before the Council of Nice believed the Divinity of the Son of God to be in some sort Inferior to that of the Father and for some Ages after the Council of Nice they believed them indeed both equal but they consider these as two different Beings and only one in Essence as three Men have the same humane Nature in common among them and that as one Candle lights another so the one flowed from another and after the fifth Century the Doctrine of one individual Essence was received If you will be farther informed concerning this Father Petua will satisfy you as to the first Period before the Council of Nice and the Learned Dr. Cudworth as to the second In all which particulars it appears how variable a thing Tradition is And upon the whole Matter the examining Tradition thus is still a searching among Books and here is no living Judg. XII If then the Authority that must decide Controversies lies in the Body of the Pastors scattered over the World which is the last Retrenchment here as many and as great Scruples will arise as we found in any of the former Heads Two difficulties appear at first View the one is How can we be assured that the present Pastors of the Church are derived in a just Succession from the Apostles there are no Registers extant that prove this So that we have nothing for it but some Histories that are so carelesly writ that we find many mistakes in them in other Matters and they are so different in the very first links of that Chain that immediately succeded the Apostles that the utmost can be made of this is that here is a Historical Relation somewhat doubtful but here is nothing to found our Faith on So that if a Succession from the Apostles times is necessary to the Constitution of that Church to which we must submit our selves we know not where to find it besides that the Doctrine of the necessity of the Intention of the Minister to the Validity of a Sacrament throws us into inextricable difficulties I know they generally say That by the Intention they do not mean the inward Acts of the Minister of the Sacrament but only that it must appear by his outward Deportment that he is in earnest going about a Sacrament and not doing a thing in jest and this appeared so reasonable to me that I was sorry to find our Divines urge it too much till turning over the Rubricks that are at the beginning of the Missal I found upon the head of the Intention of the Minister that if a Priest has a number of Hosties before him to be consecrated and intends to Consecrate them all except one in that case that vagrant Exception falls upon them all it not being affixed to any one and it is defined that he Consecrates none at all Here it is plain that the secret Acts of a Priest can defeat the Sacrament so that this overthrows all certainty concerning a Succession But besides all this we are sure that the Greek Churches have a much more uncontested Succession than the Latins so that a Succession cannot direct us And if it is necessary to seek out the Doctrines that are universally received this is not possible for a private Man to know So that in ignorant Countries where there is little Study the People have no other certainty concerning their Religion but what they take from their Curate and Confessor since they cannot examine what is generally received So that it must be confessed that all the Arguments that are brought for the necessity of a constant Infallible Judg turn against all those of the Church of Rome that do not acknowledg the Infallibility of the Pope for if he is not Infallible they have no other Judg that can pretend to it It were also easy to shew That some Doctrines have been as universally received in some Ages as they have been rejected in others which shews that the Doctrine of the present Church is not always a sure measure For five Ages together the Doctrine of the Popes Power to depose Heretical Princes was received without the least Opposition and this cannot be doubted by any that knows what has been the State of the Church since the end of the Eleventh Century and yet I believe few Princes would allow this notwithstanding all the concurring Authority of so many Ages to fortify it I could carry this into a great many other Instances but I single out this because it is a Point in which Princes are naturally extream sensible Upon the whole Matter it can never enter into my mind that God who has made Man a Creature that naturally enquires and reasons and that feels as sensible a pleasure when he can give himself a good account of his Actions as one that sees does perceive in Comparison to a blind Man that is led about and that this God that has also made Religion on design to perfect this humane Nature and to raise it to the utmost height to which it can arrive has contrived it to be dark and to be so much beyond the Penetration of our Faculties that we cannot find out his mind in those things that are necessary for our Salvation and that the Scriptures that were writ by plain Men in a very familiar Stile and addrest without any Discrimination to the Vulgar should become such an unintelligible Book in these Ages that we must have an Infallible Judg to expound it and when I see not only Popes but even
and the Act was so little acceptable to him whom he calls its Author that he spake of it then with Contempt as a Trick of the Court to lay the Nation too soon asleep The Negotiations beyond Sea were too evidently proved to be denied and which is not yet generally known Mr. Coleman when Examined by the Committee of the House of Commons said plain enough to them that the Late King was concerned in them but the Committee would not look into that matter and so Mr. Sacheverill that was their Chair-man did not report it yet the thing was not so secret but that one to whom it was trusted gave the late King an Account of it who said That he had not heard of it any other way and was so fully convinced that the Nation had cause given them to be jealous that he himself set forward the Act and the rather because he saw that the E. of S. did not much like it The Parliament as long as it was known that the Religion was safe in the King 's Negative had not taken any great care of its own Constitution but it seemed the best Expedient that could be found for laying the Jealousies of His late Majesty and the apprehensions of the Successor to take so much care of the two Houses that so the Dangers with which men were then allarm'd might seem the less formidable upon so effectual a security and thus all the stir that he keeps with Perjury and Imposture ought to make no other impression but to shew the wantonness of his own Temper that meddles so boldly with things of which he knew so little the true Secret For here was a Law passed of which all made great use that opposed the Bill of Exclusion to Demonstrate to the Nation that there could be no danger of Popery even under a Prince of that Religion but as he would turn the matter it amounts to this That that Law might be of good use in that season to lay the Jealousies of the Nation till there were a Prince on the Throne of that Communion and then when the turn is served it must be thrown away to open the only door that is now shut upon the Re-establishment of that Religion This is but one hint among a great many more of the state of Affairs at the time that this Act of the TEST was made to shew that the Evidence given by the Witnesses had no other share in that matter but that it gave a rise to the other Discoveries and a fair Opportunity to those who knew the secret of the late King's Religion and the Negotiation at Dover to provide such an effectual Security as might both save the Crown and secure the Religion and this I am sure some of the Bishops knew who to their Honour were faithful to both The third Reason he gives for Repealing the Act is the Incompetent Authority of those who Enacted it for it was of an Ecclesiastical nature and here he stretches out his Wings to a Top-flight and charges it with nothing less than the Deposing of Christ from his Throne the disowning neglecting and affronting his Commission to his Catholick Church and entrenching upon this sacred Prerogative of his Holy Catholick Church and then that he might have occasion to feed his spleen with railing at the whole Order he makes a ridiculous objection of the Bishops being present in the House of Lords that he might shew his respect to them by telling in a Parenthesis that to their shame they had consented to it But has this Scaramuchio no shame left him Did the Parliament pretend by this Act to make any Decision in those two Points of Transubstantiation and Idolatry Had not the Convocation defined them both for above an Age before In the 28th Article of our Church these words are to be found Transubstantiation or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthrows the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many superstitions and for the Idolatry of the Church of Rome that was also declared very expresly in the same body of Articles since in the Article 35 the Homilies are declared to contain a godly and wholesom Doctrine necessary for those times and upon that it is judged that they should be read in the Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the People And the Second of these which is against the Peril of Idolatry aggravates the Idolatry of that Church in so many particulars and with such severe Expressions that those who at first made those Articles and all those who do now sign them or oblige others to sign 'em must either believe the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry or that the Church of England is the Impudentest Society that ever assumed the Name of a Church if she proposes such Homilies to the People in which this Charge is given so home and yet does not believe it her self A man must be of Bays's pitch to rise up to this degree of Impudence Upon the whole matter then these points have been already determined and were a part of our Doctrine enacted by Law All that the Parliament did was only to take these out of a great many more that by this Test it might appear whether they who came into either House were of that Religion or not and now let our Reasoner try what he can make out of this or how he can justify the Scandal that he so boldly throws upon his Order as if they had as much as in them lay destroyed the very being of a Christian Church and had profanely pawned the Bishop to the Lord and betrayed the Rights of the Church of England as by Law Established in particular as well as of the Church Catholick in general p. 8 9. All this shews to whom he has pawned both the Bishop and the Lord and something else too which is both Conscience and Honour if he has any left When one reflects on two of the Bishops that were of that Venerable Body while this Act passed whose Memory will be blessed in the present and following Ages those two great and good Men that filled the Sees of Chester and Oxford he must conclude that as the World was not worthy of them so certainly their Sees were nor worthy of them since they have been plagued with such Successors that because Bays delights in figures taken from the Roman Empire I must tell him that since Commodus succeeded to Marcus Aurillius I do not find a more incongrous Succession in History With what sensible regret must those who were so often edified with the Gravity the Piety the Generosity and Charity of the late Bishop of Oxford look on when they see such a Harleguin in his room His Fourth Reason is taken from the uncertainty and falsehood of the matters contained in