this King to be the mean time asleep or with all his Cardinal Virtues an Atheist for if he is not a Papist he has no pretence to any Religion having himself renounc't all Churches else Certainly he must be the first of these two if this power be assumed in his Reign without his permission and the last if with it For no man can be or pretend to be a Son of the Church of Rome that will not be obedient to all her principles and commands and will not maintain on all occasions to their utmost power her Cause and Interest He shall no sooner refuse or neglect to do this but he shall be exploded as the basest Coward and excommunicated as the vilest Heretick Besides there will be more danger for him to permit their punishments than any other Prince whatever for as their hopes in him has given them almost assurances of their utmost wishes so will their hatred and malice be greater to him when they shall find themselves more than frustrate of all their ambitious expectations And if an Atheist a man that believes no God no punishment for Vice nor no reward for Virtue to pretend to be of a Religion by which he has banisht himself his native Countrey lost the hearts of three Kingdoms and thrust himself for ever from a Throne he must be the greatest mad man or the most a Fool in the Creation and I think it not fit for either of these to wear a Crown or a Papist our English Diadem And prudently considering all this that exclusive Bill in Parliament was like the wise Fathers advice to rash Phaeton as much for his own good as the Kingdoms safety for no doubt but if ever he should ascend this Throne and hurried on by the furious conduct of his Romish Counsellors till he had set his Nation in a flame he himself at last will most certainly perish in his own fires Now our Answerer bids us consider the weight of a Coronation Oath with a Prince of any sense of Honour or Religion and he has promis'd upon this account pray Heaven he keeps his word a very smart argument which he makes out thus He has a double tye of Nature and Religion Those tyes indeed ought to be very strong but how strong the tyes of Nature and Gratitude to the best of Kings and Brothers are in him has been sufficiently experienced and largely treated of in the Popish Character but for Religion that has no tye at all upon him that loosens all other tyes contrary to the pride and interest of the Romish Church And though our Answerer has to a miracle confest that there is such a Doctrine in the Church of Rome as dispencing with and absolving Papists from all Oaths to Hereticks yet says he 't is a Doctrine never universally received aud that even they that do believe it do not preach it to all and therefore these with him are poor shifts and evasions Why should we fear it should be made use of against us for says he that Prince that would lose all his Honourable preferments rather than tell a lye against his conscience ought certainly to be believed when he shall make so solemn a protestation as his Coronation Oath But that Oath we have by sad experience found to be such a Juglers knot and has so often plaid fast and loose that if he were a Mahumetan and should swear by Alha we should have much more reason to believe him as Turk or Infidel than as a Roman Catholick for we know the bands of Nature Morality and Honour have been sacred to Heathens but never to Papists And besides I must tell my smart Gentleman Tho' we very well know that Dispensations are frequent things from Rome yet it would have been no less than a mortal sin and never to have been forgiven to have presumed in that case to have told a lye without the Popes permission tho' truly as some Papists have declared his Holiness was to blame not to dispense both with the Dukes receiving the Sacrament in the Protestant Church and their taking the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance for some time since they would have been no less sons of his Church nor no less true to his power and considering he might so easily have done it which would have prevented all their misfortunes and for ever have secured their Interests And next says our Scribler What if the King of France contrary to his Oath upon the Sacrament has invaded Flanders he is but one president and must all Princes of that Religion violate their Oaths because he has done so But for Q. Mary of Eng. violation of her Oaths Covenants and her Honor with all her barbarous recorded Cruelties let her pass 't is not at all pertinent to his purpose to take the least notice of her Besides for his Coronation Oath 't is an Oath upon compulsion and he has greater and more ambitious motives to make him take it tho' against his conscience than the French King had to take his Oath upon the Sacrament and break it for that was only a little to enlarge his Empire but this of our Popish Successors is to mount him on a Throne And since it is a like ambitious cause in both we very well know that ambitio multus mortales falsos fieri coegit He tells us now his first design was only to be of the defensive part But if comparisons of these times with those of the late Rebellion if railing at and accusing three Parliaments of a horrid Plot a Plot to ruin Monarchy ferment us into Civil Wars and make us cut our own throats be more than defensive the second page of his Pamphlet must tell him to his face he lies But now he is at the same thing again he must say something Well tho' he denies the possibility of introducing Popery because a great many as good Protestants as the Characterizer do both say so and believe it too yet certainly he thinks the Party very powerful to protect his notorious impudence against the King the Parliament and all the Judiciary power of the Nation who has with great wisdom and by strong proofs found out a most Hellish and Dangerous Plot a Plot against the Life of his Sacred Majesty the Protestant Religion and Government and with reason and thankfulness have acknowledged 't was only the especial Providence of God that has delivered us But he says 't is not only impossible to introduce Popery but 't is impossible for the Papists themselves to believe it could be done that is to say there has been no Plot on that side But what has he made all the Three Estates of England to be but a pack of Rascals and Villains to pretend a Plot where there was none and to set their hands to the confirmation of such a Falshood and to the delusion of the undiscerning multitude Nay he has a further charge against that great and honourable Council of Parliament who
him too since by his handling both these Arguments with so much convincing art and cunning he has proved good Wits are incident to ill memories But now he says 'T is plain tho' the Triple Mitre be struck at the three Crowns is their aim nor would they be so violent against Popery which they have no reason to fear but that they know 't is the charm to bring in the people to the ruine of Monarchy knowing the multitude to be not unlike Beasts or Cattel in a Ship which in any storm that is raised if they are made apprehensive of the Vessels sinking on the one side run immediately with such a violent panick fear to the other that they overset the Ship and quite overwhelm themselves and it in ruin And all this lyes again at the Parliaments door because they have endeavoured for the good of the Kingdom to disinherit a Popish Successor and have not supplied the King with moneys tho' at the same time they have declared if his Majesty will be graciously pleased to join with them and bar all the pretence of Papists to this English Diadem secure their fears by passing that one Bill against that Prince whose succession is the terror and distraction of this Nation an Act in which consists the peace the safety and the glory of three Kingdoms let him but be removed from all pretensions to this Crown which justly may be done by King and Parliament and they will open their purses so wide to Him give Him that Mass of Wealth as will make Him both fear'd abroad and beloved at home So vast a Treasure will they make Him as none of all His Royal Ancestors nor He Himself was ever Master of But should they have done 't without it would have betrayed the Nation ruin'd their own Priviledges and left all Grievances as unredressable as unredrest and then they might thank themselves for what would follow And next our Scribler thinks it very unreasonable that the Prince alone should not have the benefit of Liberty of Conscience which every subject in his dominions takes very ill to have denied to himself Truly 't is hard indeed but the circumstances of this Nation considered not at all to be wondred at for I believe all men of sense as well as Sir Poll as he calls him will take it for granted that if this Popish Heir comes to the Crown he will by the dictates of that Religion in spight of Vows and Covenants promote the Romish Interest with all the severity injustice and tyranny that most religious Cruelty can invent But whether or no he will condescend to make the least excuse for it as the Characterizer has supposed he might I cannot tell but our Answerer that laughs at the supposition 't is probable knows more of his mind than to think he will be guilty of so much curtesy as to make us an excuse for any thing he does against us If says a Critick in the Character these be the dangers of a Popish King why have we not such strong such potent Laws made before this Popish Heir comes to the Crown that it shall be impossible for him ever to set up Popery tho' he shou'd never so much endeavour it The Character answers To endeavour to do it by Law even with those Laws we have already against it is impossible But it is likewise as impossible for any man of sence to believe that he being a Papist and Vassal to the Pope either will or can put those Laws in execution But then a little after 't is confest he may be totally restrain'd from all power of introducing Popery by the force of such Laws as may be made to tye up his hands and put the execution of those Laws into the hands of the People and consequently those Laws must be such as must ruin his prerogative Well but granting thus much says our Answerer what you infer from this is doubly ridiculous first that no Monarch would thus intail such an effeminacy on a Crown as shall render the Imperial Majesty of England but a pageant a meer puppet upon a wire And what can you make more of a King that has no power no not so much as the meanest subject in his Dominions can have after these Laws are made to tye up his hands he cannot put an Officer in any place throughout his Kingdoms for fear he should be a Papist nor take one servant of that perswasion into his Court they being all liable then to the conviction and persecution of the people and when it is so far from him to defend them that 't is not in his power to favour in any case the dearest of his own party for may not his subjects or rather his Masters inspect into his actions and call him to account for every thing they think a misdemeanor having the Law in their own hands and when his prerogative is thus ruined is not this Prince more like a Pageant born upon mens shoulders than a King which when they are weary of they may throw him down and dash him all to pieces But these Laws says he that bind up a King so strictly suppose him to be a Popish King such only to be restrained this is not therefore an intailed effeminacy but a short eclipsing of the full splendor of a Crown which in the next Protestant Successor is to shine forth with greater luster But how will you assure us that the people after they have been once possest of such a glorious Power will ever give it back again Indeed I doubt it for we have not seen the English men so willing to part with any of their Magna Charta or the least of their Priviledges No I am rather afraid it will rather give them the itch of taking the Name as well as Power upon them and I believe 't is the only expedient to subvert this glorious Monarchy into a Commonwealth But to give us hopes that we may have a very good and merciful Popish King that will neither remember Petitions Protestings nor Association Votes he refers us to the consideration of his Royal Brothers Clemency which indeed has been so great that ingratitude it self cannot but acknowledg it but all this while he was a Protestant Prince and therefore that can be no Argument to make us think a Papist King will be as gracious for were his Nature an Original of Mercy he could not be the man he would be without the forfeiture both of his Conscience Religion and his Kingdoms for if an Emperor or a King says Parsons shows any favour to an Heretick for that he loseth his Kingdom Philopat p. 109. Becanus another of their Authors says If that Kings and Princes are negligent in rooting out of Hereticks they are to be excommunicated and deposed by the Pope Controv. Anglican p. 131. 132. And when the Papists tell us how many Virtues he is Master of and amongst the rest how noble and how strong his friendship is
then granting the truth of this his opposers has more reason to dread his Power for 't is a known Maxim The greatest and truest friend the most implacable and revengeful Enemy But for those Acts of Parliament which we find ordering and disposing of the Succession they make says he very little for the purpose for which they were produced Yes they prove that the Succession has been given by Act of Parliament where the King and the Parliament thought fit and upon those reasons they afterwards thought more weighty the Gift has been recalled and they have placed a Right elsewhere and who shall dare to say these Acts or any made by King and Parliament are unjust Indeed the King without his People or the People without their King cannot alter the Succession but with a joynt consent Those Acts of Parliament declare it has and may be done again and certainly there never was a Cause that did require the changing of the Succession half so much as we have now But he is drawn to an end and I thought nothing could have been more audacious than his Answer is throughout in notorious Accusations of all our Great and Honourable Parliaments but the dedicating his Libel to those very men with the same hand he writ it of them is a boldness that certainly has no president but is an Original of Impudence A REPLY TO Roger L' Estranges PAMPHLET WELL but now for our Second Masquerade who Begins just like his Brother and carries on the Argument of Forty one throughout every Paragraph of his whole Pamphlet to answer all that can be said against Popery with that He tells us The Character of a Popish Successor were an excellent piece in the kind if it had not too much Sublimate in it The truth of it is says he the Author has made the figure of his Successor too frightful and too enormous and then he finishes his Master-piece with a paradox by the supposal of a most excellent Prince and yet making him the greater Devil for his Virtues I cannot suppose it any Paradox to say the intoxication of Romish Principles and that Religious frenzy in the brains of Majesty will pervert all his Natural Virtues and make him imagine he does his God and his people good service and think he improves his Talent sevenfold when he puts the severest Roman Laws in force against us which is no less than the forfeiture of our Estates next the loss of our Liberties and our Lives in a very short time after Nor are we to suffer any death more merciful than burning alive which is the Popes own Law in these words Decerminus ut viva in conspectu hominum Comberatum De Hereticis 7 Decretat sect in consutilem Nay his obeying his Superior Ecclesiastick Power in executing these Laws shall be so far from making him or any other Papist else think him the greater Devil as he says that on the other side the Pope and all of that Church will tell him he has improved all his Virtues to that height that he deserves to be a Saint has merited that Heaven which they will give him But before I go any further says he let me recommend to the Reader one Remark as a thing worthy his attention That he cuts all the way upon the Successor as presupposing him to be a Papist and consequently dangerous and insufferable by reason of that perswasion and very magisterially gives his own bare word for the dangers of that perswasion why does he not rather tell us in particular terms These and these are the principles and then make his inference from those principles to the dangers that attend them I thought both the Principles of the Roman Church and the dangers that attend them had been too well experienced in England as well as other places not to be known to the most Vulgar person in it for what was Q. Maries Tyranny but an impulse of Conscience derived from those Popish Principles that told her that all Hereticks are all notorious Traytors Traytors against God himself and therefore guilty of the highest High Treason which they call Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divina and therefore they deserve that worse penalties should be inflicted for that than other High Treason And it is besides enacted by a General Decree That whatsoever King Bishop or Nobleman shall believe that the Decrees of the Roman Bishops may be or shall suffer them to be violated in any thing be accursed and shall remain for ever guilty before God as a betrayer of the Catholick Faith Caus. 25. 91. cap. 11. and therefore considering all this we cannot with reason think that such barbarous Cruelty could be the delight of naturally soft and tender hearted woman or that Majesty could be so perjured so ungrateful and so dishonourable for little or no advantage but she was a servant of the Church and Pope and durst not incur his curse that was to open her the Gates of Paradice and 't is impossible for any Papist to have such a Soveraign Power as hers and not to be the same Tyrant that she was Now in Answer to a paragraph which his Brother the wiser of the two skipt over concerning the barbarity of the known Doctrine of the Roman Church that pronounces damnation to all that differ from it in any one matter of faith and to justifie his Masters and his Religion from such a terrible Accusation as tearing up his Fathers Sacred Monument branding his blessed memory with the name of Heretick and the compleating the horrid Anathema of most impiously execrating the very Majesty that gave him being He says the Characterizer lays down a false supposition and then raises out of it a most uncharitahle consequence for the very position That there is no salvation out of that Church is yet qualified with an exception In case of an invinsible perswasion I think that case was plain in that Royal Martyr who sealed the invinsible perswasion of the Protestant Faith with his blood And next he says If this be so lewd a principle in one Religion why is it not so in another Which being admitted involves every individual member of the Church of Rome in the same condemnation So that he says in asserting this Doctrine the Characterizer himself damns all the Papists as well as he makes them damn all the Protestants Now as I never thought the Protestants in a more likely state of damnation for the Papists saying or believing so so I always thought it was the proof of Crimes and not the accusation that must condemn all men before so just a Judg as God Almighty and there are such proofs of that Hellish Doctrine that it bears witness against it self for 't is not the Protestants knowing and judging their principles but their believing and following them damns the Papists but he is a Protestant that holds the Romish Tenents as good as those of the Church of England and is of whether for a peny so that 't is
possible he may believe a man deserves to be hanged as much for being accused of burning a House or killing a man and think him as guilty as if he were taken in the fact nay with him a Protestant shall as justly deserve to be damn'd for saying this is a Popish Tenent which they themselves declare to be so as those Papists that believe it and we must have a special care of saying they do any thing ill lest we contribute more to their damning than they themselves And now let us see what this pretended Protestant Champion Mr. Le Strange says to an Oath of a Roman Catholick Prince Take that for granted once that there is no trusting to their Oaths and you cut all the ligaments of Society and Commerce there is an end of all Treaties and Alliunces amicable and mutual Offices betwixt Christian Princes and States nay says he 〈◊〉 but that Maxim and you turn all Europe into a Shambles and put Christendom into a state of War for where there is no trust there is no security Well I allow all this that these Politick Reasons of State may oblige Papist Princes to keep their Oaths with Foreign Princes nay with Heathens when they shall break them with their own subjects to usurp an Arbitrary Power in their own Kingdoms and to establish their own Religion amongst their own people where they can never be called to an account And as the Character says He has Religion to drive the Royal Jehu on Religion that from the beginning of the world through all ages has set all Nations in a flame yet never confessed it self in the wrong Mr. Le Strange says these are strange words to come from the mouth of a pretender to scruples and a Protestant Advocate his quarrel is not now so much to a Popish as a Religious Successor If he had said only the pretext of Religion he might have appealed to the clamours of his Brethren or his own papers Hold there honest Mr. Towzer follow not the scent so close 't is his Religion will drive the Royal Iehu on to our destruction and I am sure blind zeal as well as pretext has at some time or another set almost all Nations in a flame He has told us 'T was the pretended fear of Popery that brought a pious and a Protestant Prince to the block And tho' we all know this to be a sad truth yet that can be no Argument to us now who have the demonstration of evident Plots and an Heir an apparent Roman Catholick to bring in Popery and to establish Tyranny if it shall ever be in his power when that was but a pretence against his Royal Father which they made use of like those Rogues that went and pretended a Commission to search for Priests and Iesuits in Hatton-Garden and under that colour robbed a House and because they were Villains and had none must there be no further search made after those Traytors Must the Authority of all Constables be denied in that case because they came with a villanous cheat And must there be no Plot no danger in a Popish Successor nor no just fear of Popery now because for the late Rebellion they had only that pretence But his design is to divert our eyes from approaching Tyranny by bidding us look another way And tho' I am no Papist in Masquerade yet I must say this for that party he calls so notwithstanding all the Crimes he alledges against them which indeed tho' never so much deluded into or set on by the Papists will bear no excuse yet there is but that one president of horror against that party and we have no reason to suspect they would be at the same game again for being against a Popish Successor's coming to the Crown a Cause so much concerns the Nation To prove that Government was purely Divine he tells us It needs no other support than the authority of the Holy Scriptures By me Kings reign c. That which we call Kingly Government he says was at first Paternal and after that Patriarchal but to prove still that Kings were made for the people by the consent of God himself upon the request of the children of Israel the Chain of Kingly Succession has been broken and the same Divine Right invested in another as we may see in 1 Sam. 8. 1. where Samuels sons as Judges of Israel no doubt had as great a right of Kingly power as either Paternal or Patriarchal Government but they not walking in the ways of their Father c. 8. v. 3. God Almighty to satisfie his troubled complaining people did grant the dispossessing these men of their lawful Birthrights and command the crowning of Saul 1 Sam. 8 22. a man so remote from any pretence to that power that he was of another Tribe and after Saul David was anointed King tho' Saul had many Sons living at the same time yet who dares to say that Saul's or David's was an Usurpation or an unjust Power Now we see by this that the succession of Kingly Government has not been so sacred but upon some occasions it has been changed by Divine as well as lawful Authority and from his own Text of Scripture I have made the man the earth and the beast that are upon the ground and by my outstretched arm have given it to whom it seemed meet into me Jer. 27. 5. there is as much a Divine Right for the unmolested injoyment of five shillings per Annum by a subject as for the inheritance of three Kingdoms And for the Expedient offer'd at Oxford in Parliament in lieu of the Exclusive Bill where 't is proposed that his Children shall wear his Crown shows plainly 't is not malice against his person nor Forty one they aim at but the preservation of peace and safety in these Three Kingdoms And we have great reason to thank God and pray for a blessing on those men that struggle most against a Religion which from the effects of its Bloody Principles we can produce so many Records of Tyranny and Persecution I have been told That a Reply to the first Pamphlet would have sufficiently Answer'd both that and the Papist in Masquerade there being so little difference in the substance of their Arguments However I think I have particularly answered every material part of that and Mr. Le Strange's too FINIS