Kings to an usurpation of Power over the Laws and to a violation of established and enacted Rules It would draw this Discourse to a length beyond what is intended should I mention the several Laws against Papists as well as against Dissenters that are suspended stopt disabled and dispensed with in the two fore-mentioned Royal Papers and it would be an extending it much more should I make the several Reflections that the matter is capable of and which a person of a very ordinary understanding cannot be greatly to seek for I shall therefore only take notice of two â—r three Efforts which occur there of this â—oyal prerogative and Absolute power which â—s they are very bold and ample exertions â—f them for the first time so should the â—ext exercises of them be proportionable 〈…〉 ere will be nothing left us of the Protestant â—eligion or of English Liberties and we must â—e contented to be Papists and Slaves or else 〈◊〉 stand adjudged to Tyburn and Smithfield One is the suspending the Laws which en 〈…〉 in the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy â—nd the prohibiting that these Oaths be at any 〈…〉 me hereafter required to be taken by which â—â—ngle Exercise of Royal prerogative and Absolute â—ower the two Kingdoms are not only aâ—ain subjected to a forraign Iurisdiction the miseries whereof they groaned under for several Ages but as the King is hereby deprived of the greatest security he had from â—is Subjects both to himself and the Government â—o the Crown is robb'd of one of its chiefest â—ewels namely an Authority over all the Subâ—ects which was thought so essential to Soveâ—aignty Royal Dignity that it was annexed to the Imperial Crown of England adjudged inherent in the Monarch before the Reformed Religion came to be received established And it concerns their Royal Highnesses of Orange to whom the Right of succeeding to the Crownâ— of Great Brittain unquestionably belongs to consider whether his Majesty may not by the same Authority whereby he alienates and gives away so considerable and inherent a Branch of the Royal Iurisdiction transferr the Succession it self and dispose the Inheritance of the Crown to whom he pleaseth Nor will they about him who thrust the last King out of the Throne to make room for his present Majesty much scruple to put a Protestant Successor by it if they can find another Papist as Bigotted as this to advance unto it However were they on the Throne to morrow here is both a Forraign Iurisdiction brought in and set up to Rivall and controll theirs and they are deprived of all means of being secured of the Loyalty and Fealty of a great number of their Subjects Nor will His Majesties certain knowledg and long experience whereof he boasts in the Scots Proclamation that the Catholicks as it is their principle to be good Christians so it is to be dutiful Subjects be enough for their Royal Highnesses to rely upon their Religion obliging them to the contrary towards Princes whom the Church of Rome hath adjudged to be Hereticks A second Instance wherein this pretended Royal Prerogative is exercised paramount to all Laws and which nothing but a claim of Absolute Power in his Majesty can support and an acknowledgment of it by the Subjâ—stâ— make them approve the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and the Proclamation for Toleration is the stopping disabling and suspending the Statutes whereby the Tests were enacted and thereby letting the Papists in to all Benefices Offices and Places of Trust whether Civil Military or Ecclesiastick I do not speak of Suspending the Execution of those Laws whereby the being Priests or taking Orders in the Church of Rome or the being Reconciled to that Church or the Papists meeting to celebrate Mass were in one degree or another made punishable tho the Kings dispensing with them by a challenged claim in the Crown be altogether illegal for as diverss of these Laws were never approved by many Protestants so nothing would have justified the making of them but the many Treasons and Conspiracies that they were from time to time found guilty of against the State. And as the Papists of all men have the least cause to complain of the injustice rigour and severity of them considering the many Laws more cruel and sanguinary that are in Force in most Popish Countries against Protestants and these enacted and executed meerly for their Opinions and Practices in the matters of God without their being chargeable with crimes and offences against the Civil Government under which they live so were it necessary from principles of Religion and Policy to relieve the Roman Catholicks from the forementioned Laws yet it ought not to be done but by the Legislative Authority of the Kingdoms and â—or the King to assume a power of doing it in the vertue of a pretended prerogative is both a high Usurpation over the Laws and a Violation of of his Coronation Oath Nor is it any commendation either of the humanity of the Papists or of the meekness and Truth of their Religion that while they elsewhere treat those who differ from them in Faith and Worship with that Barbarity they should so clamorously inveigh against the severities which in some Reformed States they are liable unto and which their Treasons gave the rise and provocation unto at first and have been at all times the motives to the infliction of But they alone would have the allowance to be cruel wherein they act consonantly to their own Tenets and I wish that some provision might be made for the future for the security of our Religion and our safety in the profession of it without the doing any thing that may unbecome the merciful principles of Christianity or be unsutable to the meek and generous temper of the English Nation and that the property of being Sanguinary may be left to the Church of Rome as its peculiar Priviledg and Glory and as a more distinguisting Character than all the other Marks which she pretends unto That which I am speaking of is the suspending the Execution of those Laws by which the Government was secured of the Fidelity of its Subjecte and by which they in whom it could not confide were meerly shut out from places of power and trust and were made liable to very small damages themselves and only hindred from getting into a condition of doing mischief to us All Governments have a Right to use means for their own preservation provided they be not such as are inconsistent with the Ends of Government and repugnant to the will and pleasure of the Supream Soveraign of mankind and it is in the power of every Legislative Assembly to declare who of the Community shall be capable or incapable of publick Imploys and of possessing Offices upon which the Peace Welfare and Security of the whole Politick Body does depend Without this n 〈…〉 Government could subsist nor the People b 〈…〉 in safety under it but the Constitution woul 〈…〉 be
and performed the duty that became them in going to wait upon her that She greatly commended their having â—o accession to the betraying of the Protestant Religion by their returning home to take the benefit of the Toleration What an indelible Reproach will it be to a Company of men that pretend to be set for the defence of the Gospel and who stile themselves Ministers of Iesus Christ to be found betraying Religion thro justifying the Suspension of so many Laws whereby it was established and supported and whereby the Kingdoms were Fenced about and guarded against Popery while these two Noble Princes to the neglect of their own Interest in His Majesties Favour and to the provoking him to do them all the prejudice he can in their Right of Succession to the Imperial Crowns of Great Brittain do signify their open dislike of that Act of the King and that not only upon the account of its illegality and Arbitrariness but by reason of its tendency to supplant and undermine the Reformed Religion And they are strangely blind that do not see how it powerfully operates and conduceth to the effecting of this and that in more way's and method's than are easie to be recounted For thereby our divisions are not only kept up at a time when the united Councels and strength of all Protestants is too little against the craft and power of Rome but they who have Addressed to thank the King for his Royal Papers are become a listed and enrolled Faction to abet and stand by the King in all that naturally follows to be done for the maintaining his Declaration and justifying of the usurped Authority from which it issues 'T is matter of a melancholy consideration and turns little to the credit of Dissenters that when they of the Church of England who had with so great indiscretion promoted things to that pass which an easie improvement of would produce what hath since ensued are thro being at last enlightned in the designes of the Court come so far to recover their witts as that they can no longer do the service they were wont and which was still expected from them there should be a new Tribe of men muster'd up to stand in their room and who by their vows and Promises made to the King in their Addresses have undertaken to perform what others have the Conscience and Honesty as well as the Wisdom to refuse and decline Nor are the Divisions among Protestants only hereby upheld and maintained but our Animosities and rancours are both continued and enflamed For while they of the Established way are provoked and exasperated to see all the legal Foundations both of the Protestant Religion and their Church subverted the Addressing-Dissenters are emboldned to revenge themselves upon the National Clergy in Terms of the utmost opprobry virulence and reproach for their accession to the sufferings which they had endured Surely it would have been not only more generous but much more Christian and becoming good as well as wise men to have made no other Retaliations but those of forgiveness and pardon for the injuries they had met with and to have offered all the assistances they could give to their conformable Brethren for the stemming and withstanding the deluge of Popery and Tyranny that is impetuously breaking in upon the Kingdoms And as this would have united all Protestants in bonds of forbearance and love not to be dissolved thro petty differences about Discipline Forms of Worship and a few Rites and Ceremonies so it would in the sense and judgment of all men have given them a more triumphant victory over those that had been their imprudent and peevish Enemies than if they were to enjoy the spoiles of the conformable Clergy by being put into possession of their Cures and Benefices The Relation I have stood in to the Dissenting party and the Kindness I retain for them above all other make me heartily bewail their losing the happiest opportunity that was ever put into their hands not only of improving the compassion which their calamities had raised for them in the hearts of the generality into friendship and kindness but of acquiring such a merit upon the Nation that the utmost favoures which a true English Protestant Parliament could hereafter have shewed them would have been accounted but slender as wel as just Recompences Nor can I forbear to say that I had rather have seen the Furnace of afflictions made hotter for them tho it should have been my own lot to be thrown into the most scorching flames than to have beheld them guilty of those excesses of folly towards themselves and of treachery to Religion and the Laws of their Countrey which their present ease and a shorâ— opportunity afforded them of acquiring gain have hurried and transported so many of them into It plainly appears with what aspect upon our Religion the Declaration for liberty of Conscience was emitted if we do but observe the advantages the Papists have already reapt by it How is the whole nation thereupon not only overflow'd with swarms of Loâ—â—sts and all places filled with Priests and Iesuites but the whole executive Power of the Government and all preferments of honor interest and profit are put into Roman Catholick hands So that we are not only exposed to the unwearied and restless importunities of Seducers but through the advancement of Papists to all Offices Civil and Military if not Ecclesiastick the covetous become brib'd the timorous threatned and the prophane are baited with temptations sutable to their lusts and they that stand resolved to continue honest are laid open not only to the bold affronts of Priests and Fryers the insolencies of petulant Popish Justices the chicaneries and oppressions of the Arbitrary Commission Court but to the rage of his Majesty and the danger of being attaqu'd by his Armed Squadrons To which may be added that by the same Prerogative and Absolute Power that his Majesty hath suspended the Laws made for the Protection of our Religion he may disable and dispense with all the Laws by which it is set up and established And as it will not be more illegal and Arbitrary to make void the Laws for Protestancy than to have suspended those against Popery so I do not see how the Adressers that have approved the one can disallow or condemn the other For the King having obtained an acknowledgment of his Absolute Power and of his Royal prerogative paramount to Laws on his exercising it in one Instance it now depends meerly upon his own will for any thing these Thanks-giving Gentlemen have to say against it whether he may not exert it in another wherein they are not likely to find so much of their ease and gain There is a third Inducement to the Emitting those Royal Papers which tho at the first â—iew it may seem wholly to regard Forraigâ—ers yet it ultimately terminates in the subâ—ersion of our Religion at home and in the Kings putting himself into a condition of
narrow power and intereâ—â— would extend It ought therefore to lay uâ— under a conviction what we are to expecâ— from His Majesty on the Throne when wâ— find the whole thread and series of his conduct while a Subject to have been a continued design against our Religion and an uninterrupted plot for the subversion of our Laws and Liberties 'T is sufficiently known how active he alway's was to keep up and inflame the differences among Protestants and how he was both a great Promoter of all the severe Laws made against Dissenters and a continual instigator to the rigorouâ— Execution of them So that his affirming it to have been ever his judgment that none ought to be oppressed and persecuted for matters of Religion nor to be hindred in Worshipping God according to their several perswasions serves only to inform us either with what little Honesty Honor and Conscience Hâ— acted in concurring to the making of the foresaid Laws or what small faith and credit is now to be given to his Declaration and to what he hath since the Emission of it repeated both in his Speech to Mr. Penn and in his Letter to Mr. Alsop And to omit many other Instances of his kindness and Benignity to the Fanaticks whom he now so much huggs and caresseth it may not be amiss to remember them and all other Protestants of that Barbarous and illegal Commission issued forth by the Council of Scotland while He as the late Kings High Commissioner had the management of the affaires of that Kingdom by which every Military Officer that had command over twelve men was impower'd to impannel Juries try condemn and cause to be put to death not only those who should be found to disclaim the Kings Authority but such as should refuse to acknowledg the Kings new modelled Supremacy over that Church in the pursuance and execution of which Commission some were shot to death others were hang'd or drowned and this not only during the conti 〈…〉 〈◊〉 oâ— the Reign of his late Majesty â—ut 〈◊〉 〈…〉 e a year and a half after the preâ—â—nt King came to the Crown But what â—eed is there of insisting upon such little parâ—â—culars wherein he was at all times ready 〈◊〉 express his malice to Protestants seeing 〈…〉 e have not only Dr. Oates's Testimony 〈…〉 d that of divers others but most authen 〈…〉 ck proofs from Mr. Coleman's Letters of 〈…〉 s having been in a Conspiracy several years 〈…〉 r the subversion of our Religion upon the 〈…〉 eritorious and sanctified Motive of extir 〈…〉 ating the Northern Heresie Of which be 〈…〉 de all the Evidence that four Successive â—arliaments arrived at I know several who 〈…〉 nce the Duke of York ascended the Throne have had it confirmed unto them by â—ivers forraign Papists that were less reâ—â—rved or more ingenuous than many of 〈…〉 hat Communion use to be To question 〈…〉 he Existence of that Plot and his present Majesties having been accessory unto and in 〈…〉 he head of it argues a strange effrontery and 〈…〉 mpudence thro casting an aspersion of weakness folly and injustice not only upon those three Parliaments that seem'd to have reâ—ained some zeal for English Liberties but by fastning the same imputations upon the 〈…〉 ong Parliament which had shew'd it self at all times more obsequious to the will of the Court than was either for their own Honor or the safety and Interest of the Kingdom and who had expressed a Veneration for the Royal Family that approached too much unto a degree of Idolatry Whosoever considers that Train of Councels wherein the King was many years engaged and whereof we felt the woful effects in the burning of London the frequent Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments the widening and exasperating Differences among Protestants the â—â—irring up and provoking Civil Magistrates and Ecclesiastical Courts to persecute Dissenters and the maintaining Correspondencies with the Pope and Catholick Princes abroad to the dishonor of the Nation and danger of our Laws and Religion cannot avoid being apprehensive what we are now to look for at his hands nor can he escape thinking that he esteems his Advancement to the Crown both a reward from heaven for what he hath done and plotted against these three Kingdoms and an opportunity and advantage administred unto him for the perfecting and accomplishment of all those Designes with which he hath been so long bigg and in travel for the destruction of our Religion the subversion of our Laws and the reestablishment of Popery in these Dominions The conduct and guidance under which His Majesty hath put himself and the fiery temper of that Order to whose Government he hath resigned his Conscience may greatly add to our fears and give us all the jealousie and dread that we are capable of being impressed with in reference to matters to come that there is nothing which can be fatal to our Religion or persons that we may not expect the being called to conflict with and suffer For tho most of the Popish Ecclesiasticks especially the Regulars bear an inveterate malice to Protestants and hold themselves under indispensable Obligations of eradicating whatsoever their Church stiles Heresie and have accordingly been alway's forward to stirr up and provoke Rulers to the use and application of force for the destruction of Protestants as a Company of perverse and obstinate Hereticks adjuged and condemned to the Stake and Gibbet by the infallible Chaire yet of all men in the Communion of the Romish Church and of their Religious Orders the Jesuites are they who do most hate us and whose Councels have been most sanguinary and alway's tending to influence those Monarchs whose Consciences they have had the guiding and conducting of to the utmost Cruelties and Barbarities towards us What our Brethern have had measured out to them in France thro Father de la Chaise's influence upon that King ' and thro the bewitching power and domination he hath over him in the quality of his Confessor and as having the direction of his Conscience may very well allarm and inform us what we ought to expect from His Majesty of Great Brittain who hath surrendred his Conscience to the guidance of Father Peters a person of the same Order and of the like mischievous and bloody disposition that the former is 'T is well observed by the Author of the Reasons against repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test that Cardinal Howard's being of such a meek and gentle temper that is able to withstand the Malignity of his Religion and to preserve him from concurring in those mischievous Councels which his purple might seem to oblige him unto is the reason of his being shut out from acquaintance with and interest in the English affaires transacted at Rome and that whatsoever his Majesty hath to do in that Court is managed by his Ambassador under the sole direction of the Jesuites So that it is not without cause that the Jesuite of Leige in his
intercepted and lately printed Letter tells a Brother of the Order what a wonderful veneration the King hath for the Society and with what profound submission he receives those Reverend Fathers and hearkens to whatsoever they represent Nor is His Majesties being under the influence of the Iesuites thro having one of them for his Confessor and several of them for his Chief Councellors and principal Confidents the only thing in this matter that awakens our fear in what we are to expect from his armed power excited and stirred by that fiery Tribe but there is another ground why we ought more especially to dread him and that is his being entred and enrolled into the Order and become a Member of the Society whereby he is brought into a greater subjection and dependence upon them and stands bound by ties and engagements of being obedient to the Commands of the General of the Iesuites and that not only in Spirituals but in whatsoever they shall pretend to be subservient to the exaltation of the Church and for upholding the glory of the Triple Crown This is a Mystery which few are yet acquainted with and which both His Majesty and the Order judgd it their interest to have industriously concealed but whereof the World may ere long receive that convictive intelligence that there will be no room left for suspecting the truth of it and whereof a Jesuite in the late printed Letter from Liege hath given us already sufficient intimation both in telling us That the King of England stiles himself a Son of the Society and how that he wrote to Father de la Chaise that he would account every injury done to the Jesuites to be a wrong committed against himself Neither is it so surprising as it may seem at first view that the King should list himself a Member of the Order seeing there have been four other Crowned Heads of whose Entrance and matriculation into the Society there is all the evidence and assurance imaginable And tho one of them is acknowledged to have been in the Classis of the Directors while the other three are generally believed to have been in the Form of the Directed yet such was the power of the Society over them all that a great part of the Cruelty exercised towards Protestants both in the last age and in this is to be ascribed to that implicite and blind Obedience which they were bound to yield to the injunctions of the Order and to the Commands of the General Philip the Second of Spain who was the first King that entred into the Order and who did it upon motives of Policy in hopes by their means to have compassed the Universal Monarchy which he was aspiring after and who thro being in the Classis of Directors had advantages of using and improving and not of being in that degree of servitude unto them which the others have been yet to what barbarous Cruelties did they overrule and instigate him not only to the destruction of unconceivable numbers of his Subjects whose only Crime was that they could not believe as the Church of Rome doth which issued in the depopulating some of his Dominions and his being deposed from the Soveraignty in others but to the sacrificing his Son and Heir Prince Charles whom to gratify the Society he caused upon an Accusation of his favouring the Low Countrey Hereticks and the being himself tainted with Lutheranism to be murdered in is own Court and Palace Sigismond of Po 〈…〉 d who was the second crowned Head admitted into the Order thro complying with he Councels and serving the wrath rage â—nd passions of the Jesuites in endeavouring â—o suppress Religion in Swedland to which he was Heir and in striving to subvert their Civil Rights drew upon himself the resentment and wrath of that Nation to such a degree that they abdicated him and his Heirs from the Government and advanced another to the Throne Casimire who was also King of Poland is reckoned to be the â—hird Soveraign Prince that entred into the Society and he thro coming under the Domination of the Iesuites and being bound to follow their directions and to execute whatsoever the General of the Order thought fit to enjoin for the promotion and benefit of the Church became not only an Instrument of a severe persecution against all sort of Dissenters from the Romish Faith so that many were put to death and more driven to abandon their Countrey but through committing many things in the course of his Government that were prejudicial to the Rights and thereupon disgustful to the Polish Nobility they conceived such an aversion and hatred for him that to avoid the effects of their resentment and indignation he was forced to lay down his Crown and to chuse to end his day 's in France in no higher a Post and under no more glorious a Character than that of Abbot of Saint German There is a fourth Prince and who is yet in being that is generally believed to be enrolled into the Order and the persecution he hath carried on in Hungary contrary to his natural temper and to all the Rules of Interest and Policy and to the violation of his Promises and Oaths for continuing unto them the Liberty of their Religion is both too probable an evidence of it and a strong confirmation of the cruelties which the Iesuites instigate Princes unto over whom they have influence and whom they have wheedled into engagments of obeying their commands and pursuing their injunctions And as the desolating of Hungary thro a long and bloody War and the tempting the Turks to invade the Austrian Territories are some of the effects that have ensued upon the Emperor's complying with the fierce and heady Councels of the Iesuites so we have not seen all the mischiefs that the persecution which they have engaged him in against Protestants is like to issue in tho beside the disgusting several Electoral Princes and States in Germany and the furnishing the Ottoman Potentate with Encouragements of continuing the War there are wonderful advantages afforded by it to embolden the French King in his encroachments upon the Empire which otherway's he would not have dared to attempt and whereof the result at last may prove fatal to the Imperial Dignity and to the whole House of Austria Now what the Protestants in Great Brittain and Ireland ought to dread from the King upon his being entred into a Society that hath breathed nothing but fire and blood since its first Institution I leave to the serious consideration of all men who value their Lives Liberties and Estates and that do not think of renouncing their Religion and turning Papists Nor is it to be imagined that the King before he can be supposed well setled on the Throne and while under a declining state of Body as well as in an advanced age having the weight of four and fifty upon his shoulders beside something else that he is obliged to the Earl of Southesk for which
in the late King and his Brother of their giving no discouragement nor obstruction to so holy a design and thereupon as the first Edicts for infringing the liberty and weakning and oppressing Protestants in France and the persecution in Hungary commenced and bore date with the Restoration of the Royal Family and multiplied and encreased from year to year as they grew into farther assurance of the Royal Brothers approving as well as conniving at what was done so that for the abolition of the Edict of Nant's and the total suppression of the Reformed Religion in France was emitted upon his present Majesties being exalted to the Throne and the encouragement he gave them to a procedure which as he now justifies he will hereafter imitate It were to suppose English Protestants exceedingly unacquainted with the History of their own Nation to give a long deduction of what the Papists have attempted foâ— the extirpation of our Religion while we had Princes on the Throne whose belief and principles in Christianity led them to assert and defend the Reformation and who had courage as well as integrity to punish those that conspired against it Their many Conjurations against Queen Elizabeth's person and their repeated endeavours of bringing in Forraigners and of betraying the Nation to the Spaniards who were to convert the Kingdom as they had done the West-Indies by killing the Inhabitants are sufficiently known to all who have allowed themselves leasure to read or who have been careful to remember what they have been often told by those that have inspected the Memoires of those times The Gunpowder plot with the motives unto it and the extent of the mischief it was shapen for together with the insurrection they were prepared for in case it had succeeded and the forraign aid they had been solliciting and were promised and all for the extirpation of English Hereticks are things so modern and which we have had so many times related to us by our Fathers that it is enough barely to intimate them The Irish Massacre in which above two hundred thousand were murderd in cold blood and to which there was no provocation but that of hatred to our Religion and furious zeal to extirpate Hereticks ought at this time to be more particularly reflected upon as that which gives us a truè scheme of the manner of the Church of Rome's converting Protestant Kingdoms and being the Copy they have a mind to write after and that in such Characters and lines of blood as may be sure to answer the Original At the season when they both entred upon and executed that hellish conjuration they were in a quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the private exercise of their Religion yea had many publick meeting-places thro the means of the Queen and many great friends which they had at Court and were neither disturbed for not coming to Church nor suffered any severities upon the account of their profession but that â—ould not satisfie nor will any thing else 〈…〉 less they may be allowed to cut the 〈…〉 roats or make bonefires of all that will 〈…〉 ot join with them in a blind obedience to 〈…〉 e Sea of Rome and of worshipping St. Pa 〈…〉 ick The little harsh usarges which the Papists at any time met with there or in England they derived them upon themselves 〈…〉 y their Crimes against the State and for their Conspiracies against our Princes and their Protestant Subjects For till the Pope had â—aken upon him to depose Queen Elizabeth and absolve her Subjects from their Allegiance and till the Papists had so far approved that Act of his holiness as to raise Rebellions at home and enter into treasonable confedaracies abroad there were no Laws that could be stiled severe enacted in England against Papists and the making of them was the result of necessity in order to preserve our selves and not from an Inclination to hurt any for matters of meer Religion Such hath always been the moderation of our Ru 〈…〉 ers and so powerful are the incitements to lenity which the generality of Protestants through the influence and impression of their Religion especially they of a more generous education have been under towards those of the Roman Communion that nothing but their unwearied restlessness to disturb the Government and destroy Protestants hath been the cause either of enacting those Laws against them that are stiled rigorous or of their having been at any time put into execution And notwithstanding that some such Laws were enacted as might appear to savour of severity yet could they have but submitted to have dwelt peaceably in the land they would have found that their meer belief and the private practice of their worship would not have much prejudiced or endangered them and that tho the Laws had been continued unrepealed yet it was only as a Hedg about us for our protection and as Bonds of obligation upon them to their good behaviour To which may be added that more Protestants have suffered in one year by the Laws made against Dissenters and to the utmost height of the penalties which the violation of them imported and that by the instigation of Papis 〈…〉 and their influence over the late King and his present Majesty than there have Papists from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign to this very day tho there was a difference in the punishments they underwent However we may from their many and repeated attemps against us while we had Princes that both would and could chasten their insolencies and inflict upon them what the Law made them obnoxious unto for their outrages gather and conclude what we are now to expect upon their having obtained a King imbu'd with all the persecuting and bloody principles of Popery and perfectly baptised into all the Doctrines of the Councils of Lateran and Constance And it may strengthen our faith as well as increase our fear of what is purposed against and impends over us in that they cannot but think that the suffering our Religion to remain in a condition to be at any time hereafter the Religion of the State and of the universality of the people may not only prove a means of retrieving Protestancy in France and of assisting to revenge the barbarities perpetrated there upon a great and innocent people but may leave the Roman Catholiks in England exposed to the resentment of the Kingdom for what they have so foolishy and impudently acted both against our Civil Rights and Established Religion since James the II. came to the Crown and may also upon the Government 's falling into good hands and Magistrates coming to understand their true Interest which is for an English Prince to make himself the Head of the Protestant cause and to espouse their quarrel in all places give such a Revolution in Europe as will not only check the present Career of Rome but cause them repent the method's in which they have been ingaged These things we may be sure the Papists
several ports of England buâ— to the hindring the execution whereof somâ— unexpected and not foreseen accidents havâ— interposed And it is in subserviency not to be disquieted at home while he is carrying on this holy war abroad that the Declaratioâ— for liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland are granted and published 'T is well enough known how that after the French King had among many other severities exercised against Protestants made them uncapable of Employments and commands yet to avoid the consequences that might have ensued thereupon while he was engaged in war against the Emperor the King of Spain and the States of Holland and to have the aid ' of his Reformed Subjects he not only intermitted and abated in many other rigours towards them but in Anno 1674. restored them to a capacity of being employed and preferred And that this did not flow from any compassion tendernes or good will towards them his carriage since the issue of that war and the miserable condition he hath reduced them unto do's sufficiently testify and declare Nor can we forget how that the late King after a rigorous execution of the penal Laws for several years against Dissenters yet being to enter into an unjust â—ar against the united Provinces Anno 1672. â—ot only forbore all proceedings of that kind â—ut published a Declaration for suspending the â—xecution of all those Laws and for the alâ—owing them liberty of Assembling to worâ—hip God in their separate meetings withâ—ut being hindred or disturbed What â—rinciple that proceeded from and to what â—nd it was calculated appeared in his behaâ—iour to them afterwards when neither the â—anger the Nation was in from the Papists â—or the application of several Parliaments â—ould prevail for lenity towards them much less for a legal Repeal of those impoâ—itick and unreasonable Statutes Nor does â—he present Indulgence flow from any kindness to Fanaticks but it is only an artifice to stiffe their discontents and to procure their assistance for the destroying of a Forraign Protestant State. And it may not be unworthy of observation that as the Declaration of Indulgenct Anno 1672. bore date much about the same time with the Declaration of war against the Dutch so at the very season that his present Majesty emitted his Declaration for liberty of Conscience there were Commissions of Reprisal prepared and ready to be grantrd to the English East India Company against the Hollanders but which were suppressed upon the Courts finding that they whom the suspending the Execution of so many Laws and the granting such liberties Rights and immunities to the Papists had disgusted and provoked were far more numerous and their resentments more to be apprehended than they were whose murmurings and discontents they had silenced and allay'd by the liberty that was granted Now as it will be at this juncture when the Protestant Interest is so low in the World and the Reformed Religion in so great danger of being destroyed a most wicked as well as an imprudent Act to contribute help and aid to the subjugating a people that are the chief Protectors of the protestant Religion that are left and almost the only Asserters of the Rights and liberties of Mankind so it may fill the Addressers with confusion and shame that they should have not only justified an Act of his Majestys that is plainly designed to such a mischievous End but that they should by the promises and vows that they have made him have emboldned his Majesty to continue his purposes and Resolutions of a war against the Dutch. Which as it must be funestous and fatal to the Protestant Cause in case he should prosper and succeed so howsoever it should issue yet the Addressers who have done what in them lyes to give encouragement unto it will be held betrayers of the Protestant Religion both abroad and at home and judged guilty of all the blood of those of the same Faith with them that shall be shed in this Quarrel That Liberty ought to be allowed to men in matters of Religion is no Plea whereby the Kings giving it in an illegal and Arbitrary manner can be maintained and justified Since ever I was capable of Exercising any distinct and coherent Acts of Reason I have been alway's of that Mind that none ought to be persecuted for their Consciences towards God in matters of Faith and Worship Nor is it one of those things that lye under the power of the Soveraign and Legislative Authority to grant or not to grant but it is a Right setled upon mankind antecedent to all Civil Constitutions and Humane Laws having its foundation in the Law of Nature which no Prince or State can legitimately violate and infringe The Magistrate as a Civil Officer can pretend or claim no power over a people but what he either derives from the Divine Charter wherein God the Supream Instituter of Magistracy has chalk't out the duty of Rulers in general or what the people upon the first and original Stipulation are supposed to have given him in order to the protection peace and prosperity of the Society But as it does no where appear that God hath given any such power to Governors seeing all the Revelations in the Scripture as well as all the Dictates of Nature speak a contrary language so neither can the People upon their chusing such a one to be their Ruler be imagined to transferr and vest such a power in him for as much as they cannot divest themselves of a power no more than of a Right of believing things as they arrive with a credibility to their several and respective Understandings As it is in no mans power to believe as he will but only as he sees cause so it is the most irrational imagination in the world to think they should transferr a Right to him whom they have chosen to Govern them of punishing them for what it is not in their power to help Nor can any thing be plainer than that God has reserved the Empire over Conscience to himself and that he hath circumscribed the power of all humane Governore to things of a civil and inferior nature And had God convey'd a Right unto Magistrates of commanding men to be of this or that Religion and that because they are so and will have others to be of their mind it would follow that the People may conform to whatsoever they require tho by all the lights of sense Reason and Revelation they are convinced of the falsehood of it seeing whatsoever the Soveraign rightfully Commands the Subjects may lawfully obey But tho the persecuting people for matters of meer Religion be repugnant to the light of Nature inconsistent with the fundamental Maximes of Reason directly contrary to the temper and genious as well as to the Rules of the Gospel and not only against the safety and interest of Civil Societies but of a tendency to fill them with confusion and to arm Subjects
deserve should they be proceeded against according to their demerit yet it is to be hoped that both they and the Addressers of the former stamp may all find room in an Act of Indemnity and that the Mercy of the Nation towards them will triump over and get the better of its Iustice. As it would argue a strange and judicial infatuation should they proceed to farther excesses and think to escape the punishment due to one Crime by comitting and taking Sanctuary in another thro improving their compliments into actions of treachery so all their hope of pardon as well as of lenity and moderation from a true Protestant and rightly constituted Authority depends upon their conduct and behaviour henceforward and their not suffering themselves to be hurried and deluded into a co-operation with the Court for the obtaining of a Popish Parliament All their endeavours of that kind would but more clearly detect and manifest their treachery to Religion and the Kingdom it not being in their power to ontvote the honest English part of the People so as to help the King to such a House of Commons as he desires and were it possible that thro their assistance in conjunction with violence and tricks used in Elections and Returns by the Court such a â—ouse of Commons might be obtained as would be serviceable to Arbitrary and papal Ends yet neither the King nor they would be the neâ—rer the compassing what is aimd at it being demonstrable that the Majority of the House of Lords are never to be wrought over to justify this illegal Declaration or to grant the King a Power of Suspending Laws at his pleasure nor to give their Assent to a Bill for Repealing the Test Acts and the Statutes that enjoin and require the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy And if they should be so far left of God and betrayd by those among themselves whom the Court hath gained as to become guilty of so enormous an Act of folly and villany and should the Election of the next Parliament be the happy juncture they wait for and the improving their interest as well as the giving their own votes for the Choice of Papists into the House of Commons be what they mean by an essential proof of their Loyalty and of the sincerity of their humble Addresses and that whereby they intend to demonstrate that the greatest thing they have promised is the least thing they will perform for his Majesties service and satisfation as in that case they will deserve to forfeit all hopes of bei 〈…〉 forgiven so it would be an infidelity to Go 〈…〉 and Men and a cruelty to our selves 〈◊〉 our Posterity not to abandon them as betray 〈…〉 of Religion expunge them out of the Roll 〈◊〉 Protestants strip them of all that where 〈…〉 free Subjects have a Legal Right and not 〈◊〉 condemn them to the utmost punishment 〈…〉 which the Laws of the Kingdom adjudg th 〈…〉 worst of Traitors and Malefactors unto There are some who thro hating of them do wish their miscarrying and offending t 〈…〉 so unpardouable a degree that they ma 〈…〉 hereafter be furnished with an advantage both of ruining them and the whole Diâ—senting party for their sakes But as the lov 〈…〉 that I bear unto them and the perswasio 〈…〉 and belief I have of the truth of their Religious principles do make me exceeding solic 〈…〉 tous to have them kept and prevented from being hurried and transported into so fata 〈…〉 and criminal a behaviour so I desire 〈◊〉 make no other excuse for my plain dealin 〈…〉 towards them but that of Solomon who tell us that faithful are the wounds of a friend whi 〈…〉 the kisses of an Enemy are deceitful and that h 〈…〉 who rebukes a man shall find more favour afterwards than he who flattereth with the tongu 〈…〉 POSTSCRIPT SInce the fore-going Sheets went to the press and while they were Printing off there is come to my hands a new Proclamation Dated at Windsor the 28. of Iune 1687. for granting further Liberty in Scotland and which was published there by an Order of the privy Council of that Kingdom bearing Date at Edinburgh the 5. of Iuly This Superâ—â—tation of one Proclamation after another in reference to the same thing is so apportioâ—ed and parallel to the late French method of Emitting Edicts in relation to those of the Reformed Religion in that Kingdom that they seem to proceed out of one mint to be calculated for the same End and to be designed for the compassing and obtaining the like effects For as soon as an Alarm was taken at the publishing of some unreasonable and rigorous Edict there used often to follow another of a milder strain which was pretended to be either for the moderating the severities of the former or to remove 〈…〉 d rectify what they were pleased to call 〈…〉 isconstructions unduly put upon it but 〈…〉 e true End whereof was only to stiffle and 〈…〉 tinguish the jealousies and apprehensions 〈…〉 at the other had begotten and excited and â—hich had they not been calmed and allayd 〈…〉 ight have awakened the Protestants there 〈◊〉 provide for their safety by a timely withâ—rawing into other Countries if they had â—ot been provoked to generous endeavoures â—f preventing the final suppression of their â—eligion and for obviating the ruin which 〈…〉 at Court had projected against them and â—as hastning to involve them under Nor 〈…〉 es my suspition of his Majesties pursuing â—e same design against Protestants which â—e great Louis glories to have accompli 〈…〉 ed proceed meerly from that conjun 〈…〉 ion of Counsels that all the world observes â—etween Whitehall and Versailles nor meerâ—â— from the Kings abandoning his Nephew â—nd Son in Law the Prince of Orange and not 〈◊〉 much as interposing to obtain satisfaction 〈◊〉 be given him for the many injuries dam 〈…〉 ages spoiles and robberies as well as 〈…〉 fronts done him by that haughty Monarch â—hen one vigorous application could not 〈…〉 il to effect it nor yet meerly from that â—greeableness in their procedures thro the â—ing of Englands imitating that forraign Po 〈…〉 ntate and making the whole course that 〈…〉 at h been taken in France the Pattern of 〈…〉 ll his actings in Great Brittain but I am â—uch confirmed in my fears and jealousies 〈…〉 y remembring a passage in one of Mr. Cole 〈…〉 ans Letters who as he very well knew what 〈…〉 e then Duke of York had been for many 〈…〉 ears ingaged in against our Religion and 〈…〉 ivil Liberties and under what Vows and 〈…〉 romises he was not to desist from prose 〈…〉 ting what had been resolved upon and un 〈…〉 ertaken so he had the confidence to say 〈…〉 at his Masters design and that of the King of 〈…〉 ance was one and the same and that this â—as no less as he farther informs us than 〈…〉 e exâ—â—â—pating the Northern Heresie Had the â—ing of England acted with
that could be rationally desired for their Safety and Protection in the free and open profession and Practice of their Religion whereas by a violation of all that is Sacred among men of a binding vertu unto Princes except Chains and Fetters or that confer a Right Claim and Security unto Subjects the poor Protestants in those Places have been and still are persecuted with a rage and Barbarity which no age can parallel and for which it is difficult to find words proper and severe enough whereby to stamp a Character of infamy upon the treacherous cruel and savage Authors Promoters and Instruments of it Nor do's it proceed from a Malignancy of Nature peculiar to the Emperor the French King and the Duke of Savoy above what is in other Princes of the same Communion or that they are more regardless of Fame and less concerned how future generations will brand their Memories than other Papal Monarchs seem to be that they have suffered themselves to be prevailed upon to violate the Promises and Oaths they were bound by to their Protestant Subjects seeing the Emperour is character'd for a person of a meek and gentle temper and of the goodness of whose Nature thereremain some shadows interwoven with the bloody streaks of the Hungarian Persecution And the French King tho he stand not much commended for sweetness and Benignity of disposition is known to be unmeasurably Ambitious of having his name transmitted to Posterity in Letters of Greatness and Honor which his behaviour towards his Subjects of the Reformed Religion is no way 's adapted unto but calculated to make him hereafter listed with Nero and Julian As to the Duke of Savoy there seems by the whole course of his other Actions to be a certain Greatness of Mind in him not easily consisting with that savage and brutal temper which the Cruelties he hath exercised upon the Protestants in Piedmont would intimate and denote But it ariseth from the Mischievousness and Pestilency of their Religion their Bigottry in it and their having put themselves so entirely under the conduct of the Clergy particularly of the Jesuites who are for the most part a set of men especially the latter that through acting in the prospect of no other Ends but the Grandure Wealth and Domination of the Church of Rome do with an unlimited rage and a peculiar kind of Malice persecute all that have renounced Fellowship with it and care not if they Sacrifice the Honor Glory and Safety of Monarchs and bring their Kingdoms into contempt and desolation by rendring them weak poor and dispeopled provided they may wreck their spleen and revenge upon those whose Religion is not only dissonant from theirs but should it prevail to be the Religion of the Legislators and Rulers of Nations those springs of Wealth would be immediately dried up by which their Superior Clergy and all their Religious Orders are enriched and fed up in idleness And should the People come to be generally imbued with principles of Gospel Light and Liberty they would immediately shake off a blind and slavish Dependence upon Pope and Priests and thereby subvert the Foundation upon which the Monarchick Grandure of the Romish Church and their whole Religion is superstructed and destroy the Engine by which they are inabled to Lord it over the Bodies Estates and Consciences of men And if Protestants every where especially under Popish Rulers were not under a strange Infatuation they would look for no fairer Quarter from Papists than what their Brethren have met with in France and Piedmont nor would they rely upon the Faith of any King that stiles himself a Roman Catholick seeing Sacred Promises tremendous Oaths and the most Authentick Declarations are but Papal Arts and Tricks sanctified at Rome whereby to full Subjects into a Security and delude them into a neglect of all means for preserving themselves and their Religion till their Rulers can be in a condition of obeying the Decrees of the fourth Lateran Council that enjoins Kings to destroy and extirpate Hereticks under pain of Excommunication and of having both their Subjects absolved from Allegiance to them and their Territories given away to others and till without running any hazard they may comply with the Ordinance of the Council of Constance which not only releaseth them from all Obligation of keeping Faith to Hereticks but requires them to violate it and accordingly made Sigismond break his Faith to John Hus whom in dâ—fiance of the Security given him by that King they caused to be condemned and burnt Nor is the practice and late Example of the Great Louis designed for less than a pattern by which all Popish Princes are to act and his proceedings are to be the coppy Moddel which they who would merit the name of Zealous Catholicks and be esteemed dutiful Sons of the Church are to transcribe and limn out in lines of force violence and Blood and for the better corresponding with the Original to imploy Dragoons for Missionaries And tho I will not say but that there may be some Popish Princes who through an extraordinary measure of good Nature and from principles of Compassion woven into their Constitution previously to all notices of Revelation whether real or preâ—ended and who through Sentiments imâ—ib'd from a generous Education and their â—oming afterwards to be under the influence â—nd Management of wise and discret Counsellors may be able to resist the malignant â—mpressions of their Religion and so be preserved from the inhumanities towards â—hose of different perswasions from them in the things of God which their Priests would lay them under Obligations unto by the Doctrines of the Romish Faith yet there appears no reason why an understanding man should be induced to believe that the King of England is likely to prove a Prince of that great and noble temper there being more than enough both to raise a jealousie and beget a perswasion that there is not a Monarch among all those who are commonly stiled Catholicks from whom Protestants may justly dread greater Severities than from Him or look for worse and more Barbarous Treatments I am not ignorant with what candor we ought by the Rules of Charity and good manners to speak of all men whatsoever their Religion is nor am I unacquainted with what Veneration and Deference we are to Discourse of Crowned Heads but as I dare not give those flattering Titles unto any of which there are not a few in some of the late Addresses presented to the King by an inconsiderable and foolish sort of Dissenting Preachers so I should not know how to be accountable to God my own Conscience or the World should I not in my station as a Protestant and as a Lover of the Laws and Liberties of my Countrey offer something whereby both to undeceive that weak and short-sighted People whom their own being accommodated for a Season by the Declaration of Indulgence hath deluded into an Opinion that His Majesty cherisheth no thoughts of
subverting our Religion and also further to enlighten and confirm others in the just apprehensions they are possessed with of the design carrying on in Grear Brittain and Ireland for the extirpation of Protestancy and that the late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience is emitted in subserviency thereunto and calculated by the Court toward the paving and preparing the way for the more facile accomplishment of it And while Mercinary Sycophants by their Flatteries infect and corrupt Princes and by their Representing them to the World in Colours disagreable from their tempers and dispositions and in milder and fairer Characters than any thing observable in them either deserveth or correspondeth with do delude Subjects into such Opinions of them as beget a neglect of means for preserving themselves 't is become a necessary Duty and an indispensable Service to mankind to deal plainly and above board that so by describing Kings as they are and setting them in a true and just Light we may prevent the Peoples being further imposed upon or if through suffering themselves to be still deceived they come to fall under miseries and persecutions they may lay all their Distresses and Desolations at the door of their own folly in not having taken care how to avoid what they were not only threatned with but whereof they were warned and advertised For as I am not of Sr. Roger l'Estranges mind That if we cannot avoide being distrustful of our Safety yet it is extreamly vain foolish and extravagant to talk of it so I am very sensible how many of the French Ministers by painting forth their King more like a God than a Man and by possessing their people with a belief of Wisdom Justice Grace and Mercy in Him of which they knew him destitute they both emboldned him to attempt what he hath perpetrated and laid them under snares which they know not how to disentangle themselves from in order to escape it Nor would the King of England have acted with that neglect of the future Safety of the Papists nor have exposed them to the resentment and hereafter revenge of three Nations by the Arbitrary and Illegal steps he hath made in their favour if he intended any thing less than the putting Protestants for ever out of capacity and condition of calling them to a reckoning and exacting an account of them which neither He nor they about him can have the weakness to think they have sufficiently provided against without compelling us by an Order of à la mode France Missionaries to turn Catholicks or by adjudging us to Mines and Galleys according to the Versailles President for our Heretical Stubborness or which is the more expeditious way of converting three Kingdoms to cause murder the Protestant Inhabitants according to the pattern which his Loyal Irish Catholicks endeavoured to have set anno 1641. for the conversion of that Nation Had his Majesty been contented with the bare avowing and publishing himself to be of the Communion of the Church of Rome and of challenging a Liberty tho against Law for the Exercise of his Religion it might have awakened our Pity and Compassion to see him embrace a Religion where there are so many impediments of Salvation and in doing whereof he was become obnoxious unto the imprecation of his Grandfather who wished the curse of God to fall upon such of his Posterity as should at any time turn Papists but it would have raised no intemperated heats in the minds of any against him much less have alienated them from the Subjection and Obedience which are due unto their Soveraign by the Laws of the several Kingdoms and the Fundamental Rules of the respective Constitutions Or could he have been contented with waving the rigorous Execution of the Laws against Papists of whatsoever Quality Rank or Order they were and with the bestowing personal and private Favours upon those of his Religion it would have been so far from begetting rancor or discontent in his Protestant Subjects that they would not only have connived at and approved such a procedure and those little Benignities and Kindnesses but had the Papists quietly acquiesced in them and modestly improved them it might have been a means of reconciling the Nation to more lenity towa 〈…〉 them for the future and might have iâ— fluenced our Legislators when God sh 〈…〉 vouchsafe us a Protestant on the Throne 〈◊〉 moderate the Severities to which by thâ— Laws in being they are obnoxious and 〈◊〉 render their condition as easie and safe 〈◊〉 that of other Subjects and only to take car 〈…〉 for precluding them such places of poweâ— and trust as should prevent their being ab 〈…〉 to hurt us but could bring no damage or iâ— convenience upon themselves But thâ— King instead of terminating here anâ— allowing only such Graces and Immun 〈…〉 ties to the Popists as would have been 〈◊〉 nough for the placing them in the priva 〈…〉 Exercise of their Religion with Security 〈◊〉 them and without any threatning dangeâ— to us He hath not only suspended all thâ— penal Laws against Roman Catholicks but 〈◊〉 hath by an usurped Prerogative that is par 〈…〉 mount to the Rules of the Constitution and 〈◊〉 all Acts of Parliament dispensed with anâ— disabled the Laws that enjoin the Oath of A 〈…〉 legeance and Supremacy and which appoi 〈…〉 and prescribe the Tests that were the Fenceâ— which the Wisdom of the Nation ha 〈…〉 erected for preserving the Legislative A 〈…〉 thority securing the Government and keeping places of Power Magistracy and Offic 〈…〉 in the Hands of Protestants and thereby 〈◊〉 continuing the Protestant Religion and Engli 〈…〉 Liberties to our selves and the generation that shall come after us And as if this werâ— not sufficient to awaken us to a consideration of the danger we are sin of havinâ— our Religion supplanted and overthrown He hath not only advanced the most viole 〈…〉 Papists unto all places of Military comman 〈…〉 by Sea and Land but hath established many of them in the Chief Trusts and Offi 〈…〉 of Magistracy and Civil Judicature so th 〈…〉 there are scarce any continued in Poweâ— and Employment save they who have 〈◊〉 ther promised to turn Roman Catholicks 〈◊〉 who have engaged to concur and assist 〈◊〉 the subverting our Liberties and Religion uâ— der the Mask and disguise of Protestan 〈…〉 〈◊〉 is already evident that it is beyond the â—â—lp and relief of all Peaceable and Civil â—eans to preserve and uphold the Protestant â—eligion in Ireland and that nothing but force â—nd an intestine War can retrieve it unto â—nd reestablish it there in any degree of safe 〈…〉 Nor is it less apparent from the Arbiâ—â—ary and Tyrannous Oath ordained to be â—â—quired of His Majesties Protestant Subjects 〈◊〉 Scotland whereby they are to swear Oâ—â—dience to Him without Reserve that our Reâ—â—gion is held only precariously in that Kingâ—â—m and that whensoever he shall please to â—â—mmand the establishment of Popery and 〈◊〉 enjoin the
carrying on the fire is but earnest in respect of what is designed farther to be payd them for the having been the great supporters of that war both by continued Recruites of men and repeated Supplies of treasure Tho it was Queen Mary's misfortune and proved the misery of Protestants that she was under the influence of popish Bishops and of Religious of several Orders by whom she was whetted on and provoked to those barbarities where-with her Reign is stained and reproached yet she had no Iesuites about her to whom all the other Orders are but punies in the arts of wheedling and frighting Princes forward to cruelty The Society being then but in its infancy and the distance between its Institution which wasin the year 1540. and the time of her coming to the Crown which was anno 1553. not affording season enough for their spreading so far abroad as they have since done nor for the perfecting themselves to that degree in the methods of butchery and in the Topicks whereby to delude Monarchs to serve and promote their sanguinary passions as they have in process of time attained unto Nor have the Protestants now any security for their Religion whereby it or themselves may be preserved from the attempts of his Majesty for the extirpation of both but what our Predecessors in the same faith had in the like kind tho not to the same measure and degree when Queen Mary arrived at the Throne For tho our Religion was of late Fenced about with more Laws and we had Royal promises oftner repeated for the having 〈◊〉 preserved and our selves protected in the Profession of it yet it is certain that it had not only received a legal establishment under King Edward the VI but had the Royal Faith of Queen Mary laid to pledg in a promise made to the men of Suffolk that nothing should be done towards its subversion or whereby they might be hindred in the free exercise of it But as neither Law nor promise could prove restraints upon Mary to hinder her from subverting Religion and burning Protestants so the obligation of gratitude that she was under to the men of Suffolk for their coming in so seasonably to her assistance against the Duke of Northumberland who was in the field with an Army in the name of the lady Jean Gray whom the Council had proclaimed Queen could not excuse them from sharing in the severity that others met with it being observed that more of that County were burnt for Religion than of any other Shire in England And 't is greatly to be feared that this piece of her example will not escape being conformed unto by the King in his carriage towards those that eminently served him as well as all the rest of it in his behaviour towards Protestants in general Nor is it possible to conceive that the Papists living at that ease and quietness which they did under his late Majesty of whose being of their Religion they were not ignorant as appears by the proofs they have wouchsav'd the world of it since his death would have been in so many plots for destroying him and at last have hastned him to his Fathers as can be demonstrated whensoever it is seasonable had they not been assured of more to be attempted by his Successor for the extirpation of Protestants than Charles could be wrought up unto or prevailed upon to expose his person and Crown to the danger and hazard of For as 't is not meerly a Princes being a Papist and mild gentle and favorable to Catholicks that will content the fiery zealots of the Roman Clergy and the Regular Orders but he must both gratify their ambition in exalting them to a condition above all others and serve their inhuman lusts and brutal passions in not suffering any to live in his Dominions that will not renounce the Northern Heresie so it is not more i 〈…〉 edible that they should dispatch a Prince by an infusion in a cup of Tea or Chocolate whom tho they knew to be a Papist yet they found too cold slow in promoting their designs than that they should have murder'd another by a consecrated dagger in the hand of Ravailac the one being both more easie to be detected and likelier to derive an universal hatred and revenge upon them than the other And as the Kings being conscious of that parriciâ—â— committed upon his Brother plainly tells us that there is nothing so abominable and Barbarous which he hath not a conscience that will swallow and digest so the promotion of the Catholick cause being the motive to that horrid crime we may be sure that what is hitherto done in favour of Papists falls much short of what is intended there being something more meritorious than all this amounts unto needful to attone for so barbarous a villany which can be nothing else but the extripating the protestant Religion out of the three Kingdoms Nor is it probable that the present King who is represented for a person ambitious of Glory would lose the opportunities wherewith the present posture of affaires in the world presents him of being the Umpire and Arbiter of Christendom and of giving check to the grandure and usurpations of a neighbouring Monarch to whom all Europe is in danger of becoming enslaved if he were not swallowed up in the thoughts of a conquest over the Consciences Laws and liberties of his own people and of subjugating his Dominions to the Sea of Rome and had he not hopes and assurances of aid and assistance therein from that Monarch as he is emboldned and encouraged thereunto by his pattern and example What the Papists have all along been endeavouring for the subversion of our Religion during and under the Reigns of Protestans Princes may yet farther inform and confirm us what they will infallibly attempt upon their having gotten one into the Throne who is not only in all things of theâ—â—â—n faith but of an humour agreeable unto their desires and of a temper every way suited and adapted to their designes Tho the protestant Religion had obtained some entrance into several States and Kingdoms and had made some considerable spread in Europe before it came to be generally received and established upon foundations of Law in England yet they of other Countries were little able to defend themselves from the power and malice of the Church of Rome and of Popish Princes and many of them were very unsucceful in endeavours of that nature till England in Queen Elizabeths time by espousing their cause and undertaking their Quarrel not only wrought out their safety but made them flourish This the Court of Rome and the Priests grew immediately sensible of and have therefore moulded all their Counsels ever since against England as being both the Bulwark of the protestant Religion and the Ballance of Europe All the late attempts for the extirpation of the protestant Religion in France and elsewhere are much to be ascribed to the confidence the Papists had
are aware of and that having proceeded so far they have nothing left for their security from punishments because of crimes committed but to put us out of all capacity of doing our selves Right and them justice and he must be 〈…〉 ll who do's not know into what that must necessarily hurry them It being then as evident as a matter of this nature is capable of what we are to expect and dread from the King both as to our Religion and Laws we may do more than presume that the late Declaration for liberty of conscience and the Proclamation for a Toleration are not intended and designed for the benefit and advantage of the Reformed Religion and that whatsoever motives have influenced to the granting and emitting of them they do not in the least flow or proceed from any kindness and goodwill to Protestant Dissenters And tho many of those weak and easie people may flatter themselves with a belief of an interest in the Kings favour and suffer others to delude them into a perswasion of his bearing a gracious respect towards them yet it is certain that they are people in the world whom he most hates and who when things are ripe for it and that he hath abused their credulity into a serving his Ends as far as they can be prevailed upon and as long as the present Juggle can be of any advantage for promoting the papal cause will be sure not only to have an equal share in his displeasure with their Brethren of the Church of England but will be made to drink deepest in the cup of fury and wrath that is mingling and preparing for all Protestants No provocation from their present behaviour tho it is such as might warm a person of very cool temper much less offences of another complexion administred by any of them shall ever tempt me to say they deserve it or cause me to ravel into their former and past carriages so as to fasten a blott or imputation upon the party or body of them whatsoever I may be forced to do as to particular persons among them For as to the generality I do believe them to be as honest industrious useful and vertuous a people tho many of them be none of the wisest nor of the greatest pr 〈…〉 spect as any party of men in the Kingdo 〈…〉 and that wherein soever their carriage eve 〈…〉 abstracting from their differences with thei 〈…〉 fellow Protestants in matters of Religion hath varied from that of other Subjects they have been in the Right and have acte 〈…〉 most agreeably to the interest safety of th 〈…〉 Kingdom But it can be no reflection upo 〈…〉 them to recall into their memories tha 〈…〉 the whole tenor of the Kings actings towards them both when Duke of York and since he came to the Crown hath been such 〈◊〉 might render it beyond dispute that the 〈…〉 are so far from having any singular room i 〈…〉 his favour that he bears them neither pit 〈…〉 nor compassion but that they are the objects of his unchangeable indignation Fo 〈…〉 not to mention how the persecutions tha 〈…〉 were observed alway's to relent both upon his being at any distance from the late Kingâ— and upon the abatement of his influence 〈◊〉 any time into Counsels were constantl 〈…〉 revived upon his return to Court and wer 〈…〉 carried on in degrees of severity proportionable to the figure he made at Whitehall an 〈…〉 his Brothers disposedness and inclination t 〈…〉 hearken to him surely their memories can not be so weak and untenacious but the 〈…〉 must remember how their sufferings wer 〈…〉 never greater nor the Laws executed wit 〈…〉 more severity upon them than since hi 〈…〉 Majesty came to ascend the Throne As it is no 〈…〉 many years since he said publickly in Scotland that it were well if all that part of th 〈…〉 Kingdom which is above half of the Nation where the Dissenters were known t 〈…〉 be most numerous were turned into a hunti 〈…〉 field so none were favoured and promote 〈…〉 either there or in England but such as wer 〈…〉 taken to be the most fierce and violent of a 〈…〉 others against Fanaticks Nor were me preferred either in Church or State for the learning vertu ' or merit but for the passionate heats and brutal rigours to Dissenters And whereas the Papists from the ve 〈…〉 first day of his arrival at the Governmen 〈…〉 had beside many other marks of his Grac 〈…〉 〈…〉 s special Testimony of it of not having 〈…〉 e penal Statutes to which they stood liable 〈…〉 t in execution against them all the Laws 〈◊〉 which the Dissenters were obnoxious â—ere by his Majesties Orders to the Judges 〈…〉 stices of the peace and all other Officers 〈…〉 vil and Ecclesiastical most unmercifully exe 〈…〉 ted Nor was there the least talk of lenity Dissenters till the King found that he 〈…〉 uld not compass his Ends by the Church of 〈…〉 gland and prevail upon the Parliament 〈…〉 r Repealing the Tests and cancelling the 〈…〉 her Laws in force against Papists which if 〈…〉 ey could have been wrought over unto 〈…〉 e Fanaticks would not only have been left 〈…〉 ttiless and continued in the hands of the 〈…〉 rious Church-men to exercise their spleen 〈…〉 pon but would have been surrendred as a 〈…〉 crifice to new flames of wrath if they of 〈…〉 e prelatical Communion had retained 〈…〉 eir wonted animosity and thought it for 〈…〉 eir interest to exert it either in the old or 〈◊〉 fresh method's But that project not sucâ—eeding his Majesty is forced to shift hands 〈…〉 d to use the pretence of extending comâ—assion to Dissenting Protestants that he may â—he more plausibly and with the less hazard â—â—spend and disable the Laws against Papists â—nd make way for their admission into all â—ffices Civil and Military which is the first 〈…〉 ep and all that he is yet in a condition to 〈…〉 ke for the subversion of our Religion And â—ll the celebrated kindness to Fanaticks is â—nly to use them as the Catt's paw for â—ulling the Chesnut out of the fire to the Monkey and to make them stales under whose â—hroud and covert the Church of Rome may undermine and subvert all the legal foundations of our Religion which to suffer themselves to be instrumental in will not in the issue turn to the commendation of the Dissenters wisdom or their honesty Nor is there more truth in the Kings declaring it to have been his constant opinion that conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters of meer Religion than there is of justice in that malicious insinuation in his Letter to Mr. Alsop against the Church of England that should he see cause to change his Religion he should never be of that party of Protestants who think the only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller matters forasmuch as he
is in â—â—e mean time a member of the most persecuting and bloody Society that ever was cloathed with the name of a Church and whose cruelty towards Protestants he is careful not to arraign by fastning his offence at severity upon differences in smaller matters which he knows that those between Rome and us are not nor so accounted of by any of the papal Fellowship It were to be wished that the Dissenters would reflect and consider how when the late King had emitted a Declaration of Indulgence anno 1672. upon pretended motives of tenderness and compassion to his Protestant Subjects but in truth to keep all quiet at home when in conjunction with France he was engaging in an unjust war against a Reformed State abroad and in order to steal a liberty for the Papists to practice their Idolatries without incurring a suspition himself of being of the Romish Religion and in hope to wind up the prerogative to a paramount power over the law and how when the Parliament condemned the illegality of it and would have the Declaration recalled all his Kindness to Dissenters not only immediately vanished but turned into that Rage and fury that tho both that Parliament addressed for some favour to be shew'd them and another voted it a betraying of the Pretestant Religion to continue the execution of the penal laws upon them yet instead of their having any mercy or moderation exercised towards them they were thrown into a Furnace made seven times hotter than that wherein they had been scorched before And without pretending to be a Prophet I dare prognosticate and foretel that whensoever the present King hath compassed the Ends unto which this Declaration is designed to be subservient namely the placing the Papists both in the open exercise of their Religion and in all publick Offices and Trusts and the getting a power to be acknowledged vested in him over the Laws that then instead of the still voice calmly whispered from Whitehall they will both hear and feel the blasts of a mighty rushing wind and that upon pretended occasions arising from the abuse of this Indulgence or for some alledged crimes wherein they and all other Protestants are to be involved tho their supiness and excess of Loyalty continue to be their greatest offences this liberty will not only be withdrawn and the old Church of England severities revived but some of the new à là mode à France treatments come upon the stage and be pursued against them and all other perverse and obstinate British Hereticks The Declaration for liberty of Conscience being injurious to the Church of England and not proceeding from any inward and real good will to the Dissenters it will be worth our pains to inquire into and make a more ample deduction of the Reasons upon which it was granted that the grounds of emitting it being laid under every man's view they who have Addressed may come to be asham'd of their simplicity and folly they who have not may be farther confirmed both of the unlawfulness and inconveniency of doing it and that all who preserve any regard to the protestant Religion and the Laws of England may be quickned to the use of all legal and due means for preventing the mischievous effects which it is shapen for and which the Papists do promise themselves from it The motives upon which his Majesty published the Declaration may be reduced to three of which as I have already made some mention so I shall now place every one of them in its several and proper light and give such proofs and evidence of their being the great and sole inducements for the Emitting of it that no rational man shall be able henceforth to make a doubt of it The first is the Kings winding himself into a Supremacy and Absoluteness over the Law and the getting it acknowledged and calmly submitted unto and acquiesced in by the Subjects The Monarchies being legal and not Despotical bounded and regulat 〈…〉 by Laws and not to be exercised accoâ—ding to meer will and pleasure was th 〈…〉 which he could not digest the though 〈…〉 of when a Subject and had been hea 〈…〉 to say that he had rather Reign a day in th 〈…〉 absoluteness that the French King doth th 〈…〉 an Age tied up and restrained by Rules as 〈…〉 Brother did And therefore to persuade t 〈…〉 Prince of Orange to approve what He h 〈…〉 done in dispensing with the Laws and 〈…〉 obtain Him and the Princess to join wi 〈…〉 his Majesty and to employ their inter 〈…〉 in the Kingdom for the Repealing the T 〈…〉 Acts and the many other Statutes ma 〈…〉 against Roman Catholicks he used this Argâ—ment in a Message he sent to their Roy 〈…〉 Highnesses upon that errand that the ge 〈…〉 ting it done would be greatly to the aâ—vantage and for the increase of the prorog 〈…〉 tive but this these two noble Prince 〈…〉 of whose ascent to the Throne all Prâ—testants have so near and comfortable prospect were too generous as well 〈…〉 wise to be wheedled with as knowin 〈…〉 that the Authority of the Kings and Quee 〈…〉 of England is great enough by the Rul 〈…〉 of the Constitution without grasping at new prerogative power which as the La 〈…〉 have not vested in them so it would b 〈…〉 of no use but to inable them to do hur 〈…〉 And indeed it is more necessary both fo 〈…〉 the honor and safety of the Monarch an 〈…〉 for the freedom and security of the peopl 〈…〉 that the prerogative should be confined withi 〈…〉 its ancient and legal Channels than be left t 〈…〉 that illimited and unbounded latitude whic 〈…〉 the late King and his present Majesty have eâ—deavoured to advance and screw it up unto 〈…〉 That both the Declaration for liberty of Coâ—science in England and the Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland are calculated for raâ—sing the Soveraign Authority to a transceâ—dent Power over the Laws of the two Kingdoms may be demonstrated from the Papers themselves which lay the Dispensin 〈…〉 Power before us in terms that import n 〈…〉 less than his Majesties standing free an 〈…〉 solved from all ties and restraints and 〈◊〉 being cloathed with a Right of doing â—hatsoever he will. For if the Stile of 〈…〉 yal Pleasure to suspend the execution of 〈…〉 ch and such Laws and to forbid such 〈…〉 d such Oaths to be required to be taken 〈…〉 d this in the virtu ' of no Authority decla 〈…〉 d by the Laws to be resident in his Ma 〈…〉 sty but in the virtu ' of a certain vagrant 〈…〉 d indeterminate thing called Royal prero 〈…〉 tive as the power exercised in the English â—eclaration is worded and expressed be not 〈…〉 ough to enlighten us sufficiently in the 〈…〉 atter before us the Stile of Absolute Power â—hich all the Subjects are to obey without reâ—â—rve whereby the King is pleased to chalk â—efore us the Authority exerted in the
in constant danger of being subvertedâ— and the Priviledges Liberties and Religion of the Subjects laid open to be overthrown And should such a power in Legislators be upon weak suspitions and il 〈…〉 grounded jealousies carried at any timâ— too far and some prove to be debarreâ— from Trusts whose being imployed woulâ— import no hazard yet the worst of that would be only a disrepect shewn to individual persons who might deserve more favour and esteem but could be of no prejudice to the Society there being alway's 〈◊〉 sufficient number of others fit for the discharge of all Offices in whom an entire confidence may be reposed And 't is remarkable that the States General of the Uniteâ— Provinces who afford the greatest Liberty to all Religions that any known State iâ— Europe giveth yet they suffer no Papists to come into places of Authority and Iudicature nor to bear any Office in the Republick thaâ— may either put them into a condition oâ— lay them under a temptation of attempting any thing to the prejudice of Religion oâ— for the betraying the Liberty of the Provinces And as 't is lawful for any Government to preclude all such persons from publick Trusts of whose enmity and ill will to the Establishment in Church or State they have either a moral certainty or just grounds of suspition so 't is no less lawful to provide Tests for their discovery and detection thaâ— they may not be able to mask and vizoâ— themselves in order to getting into Offices and thereupon of promoting and accomplishing their mischievous and malicious intentions Nor is it possible in such a case but that the Tests they are to be tried by must relate to some of those principles by which they are most eminently distinguished from them of the National Settlement and in reference whereunto they think it most piacular to dissemble their Opinion Nor have the Papists cause to be offended that the Renouncing the Belief of Transubstantiaâ—â—on should be required as the distinguishing â—ark whereby upon their refusal they may â—e discerned when all the penalty upon their â—eing known is only to be excluded from a â—â—are in the Legislation and not to be admitted â—o Employments of Trust and profit seeing it â—ath been and still is their custome to require â—he belief of the Corporal presence in the Sacraâ—ent as that upon the not acknowledgment whereof we are to be accounted Hereticks â—nd to stand condemned to be burnt which is â—omewhat worse than the not being allowed â—o sit in the two Houses of Parliament or â—o be shut out from a Civil or Military â—ffice Neither are they required to Declare â—uch less to Swear that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false or that there is no 〈…〉 ch thing as Transubstantiation as is affirmed 〈…〉 n a scurrilous Paper written against the Loyalty of the Church of England but all â—hat is enjoined in the Test Acts is that 〈◊〉 A. B. do declare that I do believe that there 〈◊〉 not any Transubstantiation in the Sacrament 〈◊〉 the Lords Supper or in the Elements of Bread â—nd Wine at or after the Consecration thereof by â—ny Person whatsoever Tho the Parliament â—as willing to use all the care they could for â—he discovering Papists that the provision for â—ur security unto which those Acts were deâ—igned might be the more effectual yet â—hey were not so void of understanding as â—o prescribe a Method for it which would â—ave exposed them to the world for their â—olly 'T is much different to say swear or â—eclare that I do believe there is not any Transubâ—â—antiation and the saying or declaring that â—here is not a Transubstantiation the former â—eing only expressive of what my sentiment or opinion is and not at all affecting the Doctrine it self to make or unmake it other â—han what it is independently upon my judgment of it whereas the latter does primaâ—ily Affect the Object and the determination of its existence to such a mode as I conceive â—t and there are a thousand things which I can say that I do not believe but I dare not say that they are not Now as 't is the dispensing with these Laws that argues the Kings assuming an Absolute Power so the Addressing by way of thanks for the Declaration wherein this Power is exerted is no less than an owning and acknowledging of it and that it rightfully belongs to him There is a third thing which shame or fear would not suffer them to put into the Declaration for liberty of Conscience in England but which they have had the impudence to insert into the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland which as it carries Absolute Power written in forehead of it so it is such an unpresidented exercise of Despoticalness as hardly any of the Oriental Tyrants or even the French Leviathan would have ventured upon For having stop't disabled and suspended all Laws enjoining any Oaths whereby our Religion was secured and the preservation of it to us and our posterity was provided for he imposeth a new Oath upon his Scots Subjects whereby they are to be bound to defend and mantain Him his Heirs and Lawful Successors in the Exercise of their Absolute Power and Authority against all deadly The imposing an Oath upon Subjects hath been always look't upon as the highest Act of legislative Authority in that it affects their Consciences and requires the approbation or disapprobation of their Minds and Judgments in reference to whatsoever it is enjoined for whereas a Law that affects only mens Estates may be submitted unto tho in the mean time they think that which is exacted of them to be unreasonable and unjust And as it concerns both the wisdom and justice of Law-givers to be very tender in Ordaining Oaths that are to be taken by Subjects and that not only from a care that they may not prostitute the name of God to prophanation when the matter about which they are imposed is either light and trival or dubious and uncertain but because it is an exercise of Jurisdiction over the Souls of men which is more than if it were only exercised over their Goods Bodies and Priviledges so never any of our Kings pretended to a Right of enjoining and requiring an Oath that was not first Enacted and specified in some Law and it would have been heretofore accounted a good plea for refusing such or such an Oath to say there was no Statute that had required it It was one of the Articles of high Treason and the most material charged upon the Earl of Strafford that being Lord Deputy of Ireland he required an Oath of the Scotts who inhabited there which no Law had ordained or prescribed which may make those Councellors who have advised the King to impose this new Oath as well as all others that shal require it to be taken upon his Majesties bare Authority to be a little apprehensive whether it may not at some time rise in judgment against them and prove a
forefeiture of their lives to justice And as the imposing an Oath not warranted by Law is a high Act of Absolute Power and in the King an altering of the Constitution so if we look into the Oath it self we shall find this Absolute Power strangly manifested and displayed in all the parts and branches of it and the people required to swear themselves his Majesties most obedient Slaves and Vassalls By one Paragraph of it they are required to swear that it is unlawful for Subjects on any pretence or for any Cause whatsoever to rise in Arms against him or any Commissioned by him and that they shall never resist his power or Authority which as it may be intended for a foundation and means of keeping men quiet when he shall break in upon their Estates and overthrow their Religion so it may be designed as an encouragement to his Catholick Subjects to set upon the cutting Protestants throats when by this Oath their hands are tied up from hindring them It is but for the Papists to come Authorised with his Majesties Commission which will not be denied them for so meritorious a work and then there is no help nor remedy but we must stretch out our necks and open our breasts to their consecrated swords and sanctified daggers Nay if the King should transfer the Succession to the Crown from the Rightful Heir to some zealous Romanist or Alienat and dispose his Kingdoms in way of donation and gift to the Pope or to the Society of the Iesuites and for the better securing them in the possessioâ— hereafter should invest and place them iâ— the enjoyment of them while he lives thâ— Scotts are bound in the virtue of this Oatâ— tamely to look on and calmly to acquiescâ— in it Or should his Physitians advise him to 〈◊〉 nightly variety of Matron's and Maids as thâ— best remedy against his malignant and venemous heats all of that Kingdom are bounâ— to surrender their Wives and daughters to him with a du'tiful silence and a profound veneration And if by this Oath he can securâ— himself from the opposition of his dissenting Subjects in case thro recovery of their Reason a fit of ancient zeal should surprise them he is otherway's secured of an Asiatick tameness in his prelatical people by a principlâ— which they have lately imbib'd but neitheâ— learned from their Bibles nor the Statutes oâ— the Land. For the Clergy upon thinking that the wind would alway's blow out of one quarter and being resolved to make that a duty by their learning which their interest at that season made convenient have preached up the Doctrine of passive Obedience to such a boundless height that they have done what in them lyes to give up themselves and all that had the weakness to believe them fettered and bound for sacrifices to popish rage and Despotical Tyranny But for my self and I hope the like of many others I thank God I am not tainted with that slavish and adulatory doctrine as having alway's thought that the first duty of every member of a Body politick is to the Community for whose safety and good Governours are instituted and that it is only to Rulers as they are found to answer the main ends they are appointed for and to Act by the legal Rules that are Chalcks out unto them Whether it be from my dulness or that my understanding is of a perverser make than other mens I cannot tell but I could never yet be otherway's minded than that the Rules of the Constitution and the Laws of the Republick or Kingdom are to be the measures both of the Soveraigns Commands and of the Subjects obedience and that as we are not to invade what by concessions and stipulations belongs unto the Ruler so we may not only lawfully but we ought to defend what is reserved to our selves if it be invaded and broken in upon And as without such a Right in the Subjects all legal Governments and mixt Monarchies were but emptie names and ridiculous things so wheresoever the Constitution of a Nation is such there the Prince who strives to subvert the Laws of the Society is the Traitor and Rebel and not the people who endeavour to preserve and defend them There is yet another branch of the foresaid Oath that is of a much more unreasonable strain than the former which is that they shall to the utmost of their Power assist defend and maintain him in â—he exercise of this Absolute Power and Authority which being tack't to our Obeying without reserve make us the greatest Slaves that either are or ever were in the universe Our Kings were heretofore bound to Govern according to law and so is his present Majesty if a Coronation Oath and faith to Hereticks were not weaker than Sampson's cords proved to be but instead of that here is a new Oath imposed upon the Subjects by which they are bound to protect and defend the King in his Ruling Arbitrarily It had been more than enough to have required only a calm submitting to the exercise of Absolute Power but to be injoined to swear to assist and defend his Majesty and Successors in all things wherein they shall exert it is a plain destroying of all natural as well as Civil Liberty and a robbing us of that freedom that belongs unto us both as we are men and as we are born under a free and legal Government For by this we become bound to dragg our Brethren to the Stake to cutt their Throats plunder their Houses embrew our hands in the Blood of our Wives and Children if his Majesty please to make these the Instances wherein he will exert his Absolute Power and require us to assist him in the exercise of it As it was necessary to Cancell all other Oaths and Tests as being directly inconsistent with this so the requiring the Scotts to swear this Oath is the highest reveng he could take for their Solemn league and Covenant and for all other Oaths that lust after Arbitrariness and Popish Bigottry will pronounce to have been injurious to the Crown But no words are sufficient to express the mischiefs wrapt up in that new Oath or to declare the abhorrency that all who value the Rights and liberties of mankind ought to entertain for it nor to proclaim the villany of those who shall by Addresses give thanks for the Proclamation There may a fourth thing be added whereby it will appear that his Majesties assuming Absolute Power stands recorded in Capital Letters in his Declaration for liberty of Conscience For not being contented to omit the requiring the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and the Test Oaths to be taken nor being satisfied to suspend for a season the enjoining any to be demanded to take them he tells us that it is his Royal will and pleasure that the foresaid Oaths shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken which is a full and direct Repealing of the Laws in which they are Enacted It
hath hitherto passed for an undoubted Maxim that eorum est tollere quorum est condere they can only abrogate Laws who have Power and Authority to make them and we have heretofore been made believe that the Legislative power was not in the King alone but that the two Houses of Parliament had at least a share in it whereas here by the disabling and suspending Laws for ever the whole legislative Power is challenged to be vested in the King and at one dash the Government of England is subverted and changed Tho it hath been much disputed whether the King had a liberty of Refusing to Assent to Bills relating to the benefit of the publick that had passed the two Houses and if there be any sense in those words of the Coronation Oath of his being bound to Govern according to the Laws quas vulgus Elegerit he had not yet none till now that his Majesty doth it had the impudence to affirm that he might abrogate Laws without the concurrence and assent of the Lords and Commons For to say that Oaths enjoined by Laws to be required to be taken shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken is a plain Cancelling and repealing of these Laws or nothing of this World ever was or is nor can the wisdom of the Nation in Parliament assembled find words more emphatical to declare their Abrogation without saying so which at this time it was necessary to forbear for fear of allarming the Kingdom too far before his Majesty be sufficiently provided against it For admitting them to continue still in being and force tho the King may promise for the nonexecution of them during his own time which is even a pretty bold undertaking yet he cannot assure us that the Oaths shall not be required to be taken at any time hereafter unless he have provided for an eternal Line of popish Successors which God will not be so unmerciful as to plague us with or have gotten a lease of a longer life than Methusalah's which is much more than the full Century of years wished him in a late Dedication by one that stiles himself an Irishman a thing he might have foreborn telling us because the Size of his understanding fully declares it However here is such a stroke and exercise of Absolute Power as dissolves the Government and brings us all into a State of Nature by discharging us from the ties which by vertue of fundamental Stipulations and Statute Laws we formerly lay under forasmuch as we know no King but a King by Law nor no Power he has but a legal Power Which thro disclaiming by a challenge that the whole legislative Authority does reside in himself he hath thrown the Gantles to three Kingdoms and provokes them to a trial whether he be ablest to maintain his Absoluteness or they to justify their being a free People And by virtu ' of the same Royal will and pleasure that he annulls which he calls Suspending the Laws enjoining the Tests and the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and commands that none of these Oaths and Declarations shall at any time hereafter be required to be taken he may in some following Royal Papers give us whitehall or Hampton Court Edicts conformable to those at Versailles which at all times hereafter we shall be bound to submitt unto and stand obliged to be Ruled by instead of the Common Law and Statutâ— Book Nor is the taking upon him to stamp us new Laws exclusively of Parliamentary concurrence in the virtu ' of his Royal prerogative any thing more uncouth ' in it self or more dissagreeable to the Rules of the Constitution and what we have been constantly accustomed unto than the cassing disabling and abrogating so many old ones which that absolute out of date as well as ill favoured thing upon Monarchs called a Parliament had a share in the Enacting of I will not say that our Addressers were conscious that the getting an Absolute Power in his Majesty to be owned and acknowledged was one of the Ends for which the late Declaration was calculated and emitted but I think I have sufficiently demonstrated both that such a power it issueth and flows from and that such a power is plainly exercised in it Which whether there coming now to be told and made acquainted with it may make them repent what they have done or at least prevent their being accessory to the support of this Power in other mischievous effects that are to be dreaded from it I must leave to time to make the discovery it being impossible to foretel what a People fallen into a phrenzie may do in their paroxism's of distraction and madness Nor was the Seruing himself into the possession of an Absolute power and the getting it to be owned by at least a part of the people the only Motive to the publishing the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland but a second inducement thaâ— sway'd unto it was the undermining an subverting the Protestant Religion and the opening a door for the introduction and establâ—â—hment of Popery Nor was it from any compassion to Dissenters that these two Royaâ— Papers were emitted but from his Majestieâ— tender love to Papists to whom as there arise many advantages for the present so the whole Benefit will be found to redound to them in the issue We are told a◠〈…〉 ave already mentioned that the King is â—esolved to convert England or to die a Martyr â—nd we may be sure that if he did not think â—he suspending the penal Laws and the disâ—ensing with requiring of the Tests and the â—ranting Liberty and Toleration to be means admirably adapted thereunto he would not have acted so inconsistently with himself nor in that opposition to his own designes as to have disabled these Laws and vouch sav'd the Freedom that results thereupon Especially when we are told by the Leige Iesuite that the King being sensible of his growing old finds himself thereby obliged â—o make the greater hast and to take the larger steps lest thro not living long enough to effect what he intends he should not only lose the glory of converting three Kingdoms but should leave the Papists in a worse condition than he found them His Highness the Prince of Orange very justly concludes this â—o be the thing aim'd at by the present Indulgence and therefore being desired to approve the Suspension of the Test Acts and to cooperate with his Majesty for the obtaining their being Repealed was pleased to Answer â—hat while he was as well as prosesseth himself a Protestant he would not Act so unworthily as â—o betray the Protestant Religion which he necessarily must if he should do as he was desired Her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange has likewise the same apprehension of the tendency of the Toleration and Indulgence and therefore was pleased to say to some Scotts Ministers that did themselves the honor
â—xercising his Absolute Power in whatsoever Acts he pleaseth over his own Subjects wheâ—her after the French fashion in commanding them to turn Catholicks because he will â—ave it so or after the manner of the Grand â—eignior to require them to submit their Necks to the Bow string because he is jeaâ—ous of them or wants their Estates to pay â—is Janizaries The united Provinces are they whom he bore a particular spleen and indignation unto when he was a subject and upon whom he is now in the Throne he resolves not only to wreak all his old malice but by conquering and subduing them if he can to strengthen his Absoluteness over his own People and to pave his way for overthrowing the protestant Religion in great Brittain without lying open to the hazards that may otherwise attend and ensue upon the attempting of it And instead of expecting nothing from him but what may become a brave and generous Enemy they ought to remember the encouragement that he gave heretofore to two varlets to burn that part of their Fleet which belong'd to Amsterdam an action as ignominious as fraudulent and that might have been fatal to all the Provinces if thro a happy and seasonable detection and the apprehension of one of the miscreants it had not been prevented He knows that the States General are not only zealous assertors of the protestant Religion but alway's ready to afford a Sanctuary and a place of Refuge to those who being oppressed for the profession of it elsewhere are forced to forsake their own Countries and to seek for shelter and relief in other parts And as he is not unsensible how easie the withdrawment and flight is into these Provinces for such as are persecuted in his Dominions so he is aware that if multitudes and especially men of condition and Estates should for the avoiding his cruelty betake themselves thither that they would not be unthoughtful of all ways and means whereby they might Redeem their Country from Tyranny and restore themselves to the quiet enjoyment of their Estates and liberties at home But that which most enrages him is the Figure which the two Princes do make in that State of whose Succession to the Crown the Protestants in Brittain have so near a prospect and the Post which the Prince filleth in that Government so that he dare neither venture to difinherit Them nor impose upon them such Terms and Conditions as their Consciences will not suffer them to comply with while either these States remain Free or while such English and Scotts as retain a zeal for Religion and the ancient Laws and Rights of their respective Countries can retreat thither under hopes of Admission and Protection And so closely are the interests of all Protestants in England and Scotland woven and inlaid with the interest of the united Netherlands and such is the singular regard that both the one and the other bear to the Reformed Religion the liberty of Mankind and their several Civil Rights that it is impossible for his Majesty to embarque in a design against the One without resolving at the same time upon the ruin of the Other Neither will the One be able to subsist when once the Other is subdu'd and enslaved As Philip the II. of Spain saw no way so compendious for the restoring himself to the Soveraignty and Tyrannous Rule over the Dutch as the subjugating of England that hel'p to support and assist them which was the ground of rigging out his formidable Armado and of his design against England in 1588. so his Brittish Majesty thinks no method so expeditious for the enslaving his own People as the endeavouring first to subdue the Dutch. And as upon the one hand it would be of a threatning consequence to Holland could the King subjugate his own People extirpate the protestant Religion out of his Dominions and advance himself to a Despotical Power so upon the other hand could he conquer the Dutch we might with the greatest certainty Date the woful Fate of great Brittain and the loss of all that is valuable to them as men and Christians from the same moment and Period of time They are like the Twins we read of whose Destiny was to live and die together and which soever of the two is destroyed first all the hope and comfort that the other can pretend unto is to be last devoured Now after the advances which his Majesty hath made towards the enslaving his Subjects and the subverting the Reformed Religion in his Kingdoms he finds it necessary before he venture to give the last and fatal stroke at home and to enter upon the plenary exercise of his Absolute Power in laying Parliaments wholly aside in cancelling all Laws to make way for Royal Edicts or Declarations of the complexion of the former and in commanding us to turn Roman Catholicks or to be dragoon'd I say he thinks it needful before he proceed to these to try whether he can subdue and conquer the Dutch and thereby remove all hopes of shelter relief comfort and assistance from his own People when he shall afterwards fall upon them And how much soever the Court endeavoures to conceal its design and strives to compliment the States General into a confidence that all Alliances between them and the Crown of England shall be maintained and preserved yet they not only speak their intentions by several open and visible actions but some of them cannot forbear to tell it when their blood is heated and their heads warm'd with a liberal glass and a lusty proportion of wine Thence it was that a Governing Papist lately told a Gentleman after they two had drunk hard together that they had some Work in England that would employ them a little time but when that was over they would make the Dutch fly to the end of the World to find a resting place Delenda est Carthago is engraven upon their hearts as being that without which Rome cannot arrive at the universal Monarchy that it aspires after It was upon a formed design of a war against the united Provinces that the King hath for these two years stirr 〈…〉 up and incited as well as countenanced a 〈…〉 protected the Algerines in their Piracies th 〈…〉 thro their weakning and spoiling the Du 〈…〉 before hand it may be the more easie a maâ—ter for him to subdue them when he sh 〈…〉 think fit to begin his hostilities 'T is in oâ—der to this that he hath entred into neâ— and secret Alliances with other Princes thâ— purport of which is boldly talk't of in Loâ—don but whether believed at the Hague I caâ—not tell For as Monsr Barrillion and Monsâ— Bonrepos present Transactions at Whitehal relate to something else than meerly to the aâ—fair of Hudsons Bay so Prince Georges erranâ— to Denmark is of more importance than bare visite or a naked compliment to hiâ— Brother 'T is upon this design that all thaâ— great Marine preparation hath been so lonâ— making in the
Papists in that case we may confidently believe that the King instead either of Assenting to such a Bill for separate favour to Protestants or persevering in his Compassion and Kindness of continuing the Suspension of the Laws against Dissenters he would from an inveterate enmity as well as from a new contracted resentment be stirred up and enraged to the putting the Laws in execution with greater rigor and severity than hath been seen or felt heretofore And all that the Addressers would then reap by the Declaration would be to undergo the furious effects of brutal rage in their Persecutors and to be unpittyed by the Kingdom and unlamented by their fellow Protestants Or should His Majesty in favour to his good Catholicks resolve against the meeting of a Parliament or to adjourn and prorogue them whensoever he shall find that instead of confirming what he hath done they shall make null his Declaration vote his pretended prerogative illegal and arbitrary and fall upon those mercinary and perjured Villains who have allowed him a power transcendent to Law yet even upon that supposal which is the best that can be made to support mens hopes in the continuance of the present Liberty the Protestant Dissenters would have but slender Security all the tenure they have for the duration of their Freedom being only precarious and depending meerly upon the Kings Word and promise which there is small ground to rely upon Nor can he be true to them without being false to his Religion which not only gives him leave to break his Faith with Hereticks but obligeth him to it and to destroy them to boot and that both under the pain of damnation and of forfeiting his Crown and losing his Dominions And how far the Promise and Royal Word of a Catholick Monarch is to be trusted unto and depended upon we have a modern proof and evidence in the behaviour of Louis de Grand towards his Reformed Subjects not only in repealing the many Edicts made and confirmed by himself as well as his Ancestors for the free exercise of their Religion but in the method's he hath alway's observed namely to promise them protection in the profession of their Faith and practiâ—â— of their Worship when he was most steâ— fastly resolved to subvert their Religion a 〈…〉 was about making some fresh advan 〈…〉 and taking some new step for its extirpatiâ—â— Thus when he had firmly purposed not 〈◊〉 suffer a Minister to continue a year in tâ—â— Kingdom he at the same time publishâ—â— an Edict requiring Ministers to serve b 〈…〉 three years in one place and not to returâ— to the Church where they had first officiateâ— till after the expiration of twentie years 〈◊〉 the same manner when he had resolveâ— to Repeal the Edict of Nantes and had givâ— injunction for the Draught by which it wâ—â— to be done he at the same season gave thâ— Protestants all assurances of Protection anâ— of the said Edicts being kept inviolablâ—â— To which may be added that shameful anâ— detestable Chicanery in passing his Sacreâ— and Royal Word that no violence shoulâ— be offered any for their Religion tho at thâ—â— very moment the Dragoons were upoâ— their march with orders of exercising a 〈…〉 manner of cruelties and barbarities upoâ— them So that His Majesty of Great Brit 〈…〉 tain hath a pattern lately set him anâ— that by the Illustrious Monarch whom hâ— so much admires and whom he makes iâ— his ambition and glory to imitate Noâ— are we without proofs already how insigni ficant the Kings promises are except to de lude and what little confidence ought tâ— be put in them The disabling and suspen ding the 13 th Statute of his late Parliameâ—â— in Scotland wherein the Test was confirmed and his departing from all his Promises Registred in his Letter as well as from those contained in the Speech made by the Lorâ— Commissioner pursuant to the Instructionâ— which he had undoubtedly received together with his having forgotten and recedeâ— from all his Promises made to the Church oâ— England both when Duke of York and since he came to the Crown are undeniable evidences that his Royal Word is no more Sacred nor binding than that of some other Monarchs and that whosoever of the 〈…〉 rotestants shall be so foolish as to rely â—pon it will find themselves as certainly â—isappointed and deceived as they of the 〈…〉 ormed Religion elsewhere have been 〈…〉 d while they of the established way find 〈◊〉 small security by the Laws which the â—ing is bound by his Coronation Oath to obâ—erve the Dissenters cannot expect very â—uch from a naked Promise which as it â—ath not a solemn Oath to enforce it so 't is â—oth illegal in the making and contrary to 〈…〉 he principles of his Religion to keep Nor is 〈◊〉 unworthy of observation that he hath â—ot only departed from his promises made â—o the Church of England but that we are told 〈◊〉 a late Popish Pamphlet Entitled A New Test 〈◊〉 the Church of Englands Loyalty published 〈…〉 as it self say's by Authority that they were 〈…〉 ll conditional to wit by vertue of some â—â—ntal Reservation in his Majesties breast â—nd that the Conformable Clergy having fai 〈…〉 ed in performing the Conditions upon which they were made the King is abâ—olved and discharged from all Obligaâ—ion of observing them The Church of England say's he must give his Majesty leave â—ot to nourish a Snake in his bosom but rather â—o withdraw his Royal protection which was proâ—ised upon the account of her constant fidelity Which as it is a plain threatning of all the Legal Clergy and a denunciation of the unâ—ust and hard measure thy are to look for So it shakes the Foundation upon which all credit unto and relyance upon his Majesties Word can be any way 's placed For tho Threatnings may have tacit Reserves because â—he right of executing them resides in the Threatner yet Promises are incapable of all â—atent conditions because every Promise vests 〈◊〉 Right in the Promise and that in the virâ—ue of the words in which it is made But 〈◊〉 is the less to be wondred at if His Majesty 〈…〉 y to Equivocations and Mental Reserves being â—oth under the conduct of that Order and a Member of the Society that first taught and â—racticed this treacherous piece of Chicaâ—erie However it may inform the Dissen 〈…〉 s that if they be not able to answer the End for which they are depended upon or be not willing in the manner and degree that is expected or if it be not for the interest of the Catholick cause to have them indulged in all these cases and many more the King may be pronounced acquitted and discharged from all the Promises he hath given them as having been meerly stipulatory and conditional And as he will be sure then finem facere ferendae alienae personae to lay aside the disguise that he hath now put on so if they would reflect either upon his
temper or upon his Religion they might now know hand gratuitam in tanta superbia comitatem that a person of his pride would not stoop to such flattery as his Letter to Mr. Alsop expresseth but in order to some design But what need other proof of the fallaciousness of the two Royal Papers and that no Protestants can reasonably depend upon the Royal Word there laid to pledg for the continuation of their Liberty but to look into these two Papers themselves where we shall meet expressions that may both detract from our belief of His Majesties sincerity and awaken us to a just jealousie that the Liberty and Toleration granted by them are intended to be of no long standing and duration For while He is pleased to tell us that the granting His Subjects the free use of their Religion for the time to come is an addition to the perfect enjoyment of their property which has never been invaded by His Majesty since his coming to the Crown he doth in effect say that His Fidelity Truth and Integrity in what he grants in reference to Religion is to be measured and judged by the verity that is in what He tells us as to the never having invaded our property And that I may borrow an expression from Mr. Alsop and to no less a person than to the King himself namely that tho we pretend to no refined intellectualls nor presume to philosophise upon Mysteries of Government yet we make some pretence to the sense of feeling and whatever our dulness be can discern between what is exacted of us according to Law and what we are rob'd of by an exercise of Arbitrary Power For not to sist upon the violent seisure of mens Goods by Officers as well as Souldiers in all parts of England which looks like an invasion upon the properties of the Subject nor to dwell upon his keeping an Army on foot in time of peace against the Authority as well as without the countenance of Law which our Ancestors would have stiled an Invasion upon the whole property of the Kingdom I would sain know by what name we are to call his levying the customs and the Additional Excise before they were granted unto him by the Parliament all the legal establishment of them upon the nation having been only during the late Kings life till the settlement of them upon the Crown was again renewed by Statute It were also worth his Majesties telling us what Titles are due to the suspending the vice Chancellor of Cambridg a beneficio and the turning the President of Maudlins in Oxford out of his Headship and the suspending Dr. Fairsax from his Fellowship if they be not an Invasion upon our property seeing every part of this is against all the known Laws of the Kingdom and hath been done by no legal Court but by a Set of mercinary villains armed with an Arbitrary Commission and who do as Arbitrarily Exercise it And as the End unto which that Inquisition Court was instituted was to robb us of ours Rights and Priviledges at the meer pleasure of the King so the very Institution of it is an Invasion both upon all our Laws and upon the whole property of the Nation and is one of the highest Exercises of Despotical Power that it is possible for the most Absolute and unlimited Monarch to exert Among all the Rights reserved unto the Subjects by the Rules of the Constitution and whereof they are secured by many repeated Laws and Statutes there are none that have been hithero less disputed and in reference to which our Kings have been farther from claiming any Power and Authority than those of levying money without the grant as well as the consent of Parliament and of Absolving and discharging Debtor from paying their Creditors and of acquitting 〈◊〉 from being sued and imprisoned in case of no 〈…〉 payment and yet in defiance of all Law and to the subverting the Rights of the peo 〈…〉 ple and the most essential Priviledg and I 〈…〉 risdiction of Parliaments and to a plain chan 〈…〉 ging the ancient legal Constition into an Absolute and Despotical Governing Power the King they say is assuming to himself a 〈…〉 Authority both of imposing a Tax of five pound per annum upon every Hackney Coach and of Releasing and discharging all Debtors of whom their Creditors cannot claim and demand above ten pound Sterling which as they will be signal Invasions upon property and leaâ—ing Cases for the raising money in what other instances he pleaseth by a Hampâ—on Courâ— or a Whitehall Edict without standing in need of a Parliament or being obliged to a dependance upon their Grant for all Taxes to be levied upon the Subjects as his Predecessors have heretofore been so they may serve fully to instruct us what little security either the Dissenters have as to being long in the possession of their present liberty or Protestants in general of having a freedom continued unto them of professing the Reformed Religion if we have nothing more to rely upon for preventing our being abridged and denyed the liberty of our Religion than we have had for preserving our Property from being Invaded and broken in upon We may subjoin to the Clause already mentioned that other Expression which occurs in the foresaid Declaration viz. that as he freely gives them leave to meet and serve God after their own may and manner so they are to take special care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways â—end to alienate the hearts of the people from his Majesty or his Government which words as they import the price at which the Dissenters are to purchase their freedom whereof we shall discourse anon so they admirably serve to furnish the King with a pretence of retrenching their liberty whensoever he pleaseth nor are they inserted there for any other End but thâ—◠〈…〉 on a plea of their having abused his Gra 〈…〉 us Indulgence to the alienating the hearts of 〈◊〉 his people from him they may be adjud 〈…〉 d to have thereby deservedly forfeited 〈…〉 th all the benefits of it and of his Royal 〈…〉 our Nor is it possible for a Protestant 〈…〉 nister to preach one Sermon which a 〈…〉 ish Critick or a Romish Bigot may not 〈…〉 ily misconstrue and pervert to be an 〈…〉 enation of the peoples hearts from the Kings 〈…〉 son and Government And of which as we 〈…〉 ve heard many late Examples in France so 〈◊〉 will be easie to draw them into president 〈…〉 d to imitate them in England I might add 〈…〉 e observation of the ingenious Author of 〈…〉 e Reflections on his Majesties Proclamation for 〈◊〉 Toleration in Scotland namely that where 〈…〉 s the King gives all assurance to his Scotts â—ubjects that he will not use invincible necessity â—gainst any man on the account of his perâ—uasion he does thereby leave himself at a liâ—erty of Dragooning torturing burning and â—oing the utmost violences all
these being â—incible to a person of an ardent love to God â—nd of a lively faith in Jesus Christ and which accordingly many thousands have been â—riumphantly victorious over Nor is it likely that this new and uncouth phrase of â—ot using an invincible nec 〈…〉 would have found room in a Paper of that nature if it had not been first to counceal some malicious and mischievous design and then to justify the consistency of its execution with what is promised in the Proclamation Moreover were there that security intended by these two Royal Papers that protestant Dissenters might safely rely upon or did the King act with that sincerity which he would delude his people into a belief of there would then be a greater agreeableness than there is betwixt the Declaration for liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland The principle his Majesty pretends to act from that Conscience ought not to be constrained and that none ought to be persecuted for meer matters of Religion would obliege him to act uniformly and with an equal extention of favour to all his Subjects whose principles are the same and against whom he hath no exception but in matters meerly Religious Whereas the disparity of grace kindness and freedom that is exercised in the Declaration from that which is exerted in the Proclamation plainly shews that the whole is but a Trick of State and done in sâ—bserviency to an end which it is not yet seasonable to discover and avow For his circumscribing the Toleration in Scotland to such Presbyterians as he stiles moderate is not only a taking it off from its true bottom matters of meer Religion and a founding it upon an internal quality of the mind that is not discernable but it implyes the reserving a liberty to himself of withdrawing the benefits of it from all Scots Dissenters thro fastning upon them a contrary Character whensoever it shall be seasonable to revive persecution And even as it is now exerted to these moderate ones it is attended with Restrictions that his Indulgence in England is no ways clog'd with All that the Declaration requires from those that are indulged is that their Assemblies be peaceably openly and publickly held that all Persons be freely admitted to them that they signify and make known to some Justice of the peace what places they set apart for these uses and that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the bearâ—s of the people from the King or his Government whereas the Proclamation not only restrains the meetings of the Scots Presbyterians to private Houses without allowing them either to build meeting Houses or to use out-houses or Barns but it prohibits the hearing any Ministers save such as shall be willing to swear that they shall to the utmost of their Power assist defend and maintain the King in the exercise of his Absolute power against all deadly Nor is it difficult to assign the reason of the difformity that appears in His Majesties present Actings towards his dissenting Protestanâ— Subjects in those two Kingdoms For should there be no Restriction upon the Toleration in Scotland to hinder the greatest part of the Presbyterians from taking the advantage of it the Bishops and Conforming Clergy would be immediately forsaken by the generality if not all the people and so an â—ssue would not only be put to the division among Protestants in that Kingdom but they would become an united and thereupon a formidable Body against Popery which it is not for the interest of the Roman Catholicks to suffer or give way unto Whereas the more unbounded the Liberty is that is granted to Dissenters in England the more are our divisions not only kept up but increased and promoted especially thro this Freedom's arriving with them in an illegal way without both the Authority of the Legislative Power and the approbation of a great part of the People it being infallibly certain that there is a vast number of all ranks and conditions who do prefer the abiding in the Communion of the Church of England before the joining in fellowship with those of the Separate and dissenting Societies Upon the whole this different method of proceeding towards Dissenting Protestants in matters meerly Religious shews that all this Indulgence and Toleration is a Trick to serve a present juncture of Affairs and to advance a Popish and Arbitrary design and that the Dissenters have no security for the continuance of their Liberty but that when the Court and Jesuitick end is compassed and obtained there is another course to be steered towards them and instead of their hearing any longer of Liberty and Toleration they are to be told that it is the interest of the Government and the safety and honor of his Majesty to have but one Religion in his Dominions and that all must be Members of the Catholick Church and this because the King will have it so which is the Argument that hath been made use of in the making so many Converts in France They who now suffer themselves to be deluded into a confidence in the Royal word will not only come to understand what Mr. Coleman meant in his telling Pere de la Chaise that the Catholicks in England had a great work upon their hand being about the extirpation 〈◊〉 that Heresie which hath born sway so long 〈◊〉 this Northern part of the world but they wiâ—â— also see and feel how much of the desig 〈…〉 of Rome was represented in that passage 〈◊〉 the Popes Nuncio's Letter dated at Bruxel 〈…〉 Aug. 9. 1674. wherein upon the confidencâ— which they placed in the Duke of York whicâ— is not lessened since he came to the Crown he takes the confidence to write that theâ— hop'd speedily to see the total and final ruin 〈◊〉 the Protestant Party And as Protestant Dissenters have no secu rity by the Declaration and Proclamation foâ— the continuance of their Liberty so theâ— that have by way of thanksgiving Addresseâ— to the King for those Royal Papers have noâ— only acted very ill in reference both to the Laws and Rights of the Kingdoms and of Religion in general but they have carried very unwisely in relation to their own interest and the avoiding the effects of that resentment which most men are justly possessed with upon the illegal Emission of these Arbitrary and Prerogative Papers I shall not enter upon any long Discourse concerning this new practice of Addressing in general it having been done elsewhere some years ago but I shall only briefly intimate that it was never in fashion unless either under a weak and precarious Government or under one that took illegal courses and puâ—sued a different interest from that of the People and Community As he who Ruleth according to the standing Laws of a Countrey over which he is set needs not seek for an Approbation of his Actions from a part of his Subjects the Legality of his proceedings
could to give them relief in a legal way Where as if any thing enflame and exasperate t 〈…〉 Nation to revive their sufferings it wi 〈…〉 arise from a resentment of the unworth 〈…〉 and treacherous carriage of so many 〈◊〉 them in this critical and dangerous ju 〈…〉 cture But the Terms which thro their A 〈…〉 dressing they have owned the receivi 〈…〉 their Liberty and Indulgence upon does in peculiar manner enhance their guilt again 〈…〉 God and their Countrey and strangely ad 〈…〉 to the disgust and anger which lovers 〈◊〉 Religion and the Laws of the Nation hav 〈…〉 conceived against them For it is Hot onl 〈…〉 upon the acknowledgment of a preroga 〈…〉 in the King over the Laws that they hav 〈…〉 received and now hold their Liberty b 〈…〉 it is upon the condition that nothing be preach 〈…〉 or taught amongst them that may any ways tend 〈◊〉 alienate the hearts of the People from his Majesti 〈…〉 person and Government He must be of an u 〈…〉 derstanding very near allied unto and approaching to that of an Irish man who do 〈…〉 not know what the Court sense of that clau 〈…〉 is and that his Majesty thereby intends th 〈…〉 they are not to preach against Popery nor t 〈…〉 set forth the Doctrines of the Romish Church i 〈…〉 terms that may prevent the peoples being i 〈…〉 â—ected by them much less in colours th 〈…〉 may render them hated and abhorred T 〈…〉 accuse the Kings Religion of Idolatry or 〈◊〉 affirm the Church of Rome to be the Apoc 〈…〉 lyptick Babylon and to represent the Articl 〈…〉 of the Tridentine Faith as faithful Ministers 〈◊〉 Christ ought to do would be accounted a 〈…〉 alienating the hearts of their hearers from t 〈…〉 King and his Government which as they 〈◊〉 in the foresaid Clause required noâ— to do 〈◊〉 they have by their Addressing confessed t 〈…〉 Iustice of the Terms and have undertaken 〈◊〉 〈…〉 old their liberty by that Tenor. And to give 〈…〉 em their due they have been very faithful 〈…〉 itherto in conforming to what the King 〈…〉 xacts and in observing what themselves have 〈…〉 ented to the equity of For notwithstan 〈…〉 ing all the danger from popery that the Na 〈…〉 on is exposed unto and all the hazard that 〈…〉 e Souls of men are in of being poysoned 〈…〉 i th Romish principles yet instead of prea 〈…〉 ing or writing against any of the Doctrines of 〈…〉 e Church of Rome they have agreed among 〈…〉 emselves and with such of their Congre 〈…〉 ations as approve their procedure not so 〈…〉 uch as to mention them but to leave the 〈…〉 rovince of defending our Religion and of 〈…〉 etecting the falshood of papal Tenets to the 〈…〉 astors and Gentlemen of the Church of Eng 〈…〉 nd And being ask'd as I know some of 〈…〉 em that have been why they do not preach 〈…〉 gainst Antichrist and confuse the papal Do 〈…〉 rines they very gravely reply that by prea 〈…〉 ing Christ they preach against Antichrist 〈…〉 nd that by Teaching the Gospel they Re 〈…〉 te Popery which is such a piece of fraudu 〈…〉 ent and guilful subâ—erfuge that I want words 〈…〉 o express the knavery and criminalness of it What a reserve and change have I lived to see 〈…〉 n England from what I beheld a few years 〈…〉 go It was but the other day that the Con 〈…〉 rmable Clergy were represented by some of 〈…〉 he Dissenters not only as favourers of 〈…〉 opery but as endeavouring to hale it in upon 〈…〉 s by all the methods and ways that lay within 〈…〉 heir circle and yet now the whole defence of 〈…〉 e Reformed Religion must be entirely de 〈…〉 olved into their hands and when all the 〈…〉 ces are pulled up that had been made to 〈…〉 inder Popery from overflowing the Nation 〈…〉 ey must be left alone to stemm the inun 〈…〉 ation and prevent the deluge They among 〈…〉 e Fanaticks that boasted to be the most avo 〈…〉 ed and irreconcilable Enemies of the Church 〈…〉 f Rome are not only become altogether si 〈…〉 ent when they see the Kingdom pesterd with 〈◊〉 swarm of busie and seducing Emissaries but 〈…〉 e both turned Advocats for that Arbitrary 〈…〉 aper whereby we are surrendred as a prey 〈…〉 nto them and do make it their business to detract from the reputation and discourage the laboures of the National Ministers who with a zeal becoming their Office and a learning which deserves to be admired have set themselves in opposition to that croaking fry and have done enough by their excellent and unimitable Writings to save people from being deluded and perverted if either unanswerable consutations of Popery or demonstrative Defences of the Articles and Doctrines of the Reformed Religion can have any efficacy upon the minds of men Among other fulsom flatteries adorning a Speach made to his Majesty by an Addressing Dissenter I find this hypocritical and shameful adulation namely that if there should remain any seeds of disloyalty in any of his Subjects the transcendent goodness exerted in his Declaration would morâ—isie and kill them to which he might have added with more truth that the same transcendent goodness had almost destroyed all the seeds of their honesty and mortied their care and concernment for the interest of Iesus Christ and for the Reformed Religion Their old strain of zealous preaching against the Idolaâ—ry of Rome and concerning the coming out of Babylon my people are grown out of fashion with them in England and are only reserved and said by to recommend them to the kindness and acceptation of forraign Protestants when their occasions and conveniencies draw them over to Amsterdam Whosoever comes into their Assemblies would think for any thing that he there hears delivered from their pulpits that She which was the Whore of Babylon a few years ago were now become a chast Spouse and that what were heretofore the damnable Doctrines of Popery were of late turned innocent and Harmless opinions The Kings Declaration would seem to have brought some of them to a melius inquirendum and as they are already arrived to believe a Roman Catholick the best King that they may in a little time come to esteem Papists for the best Christians The keeping back nothing that is profitable to save such as hear them and the declaring the whole Counsel of God that are the Terms upon which they receiyed their Commission from Iesus Christ and wherein they have Pauls practice and example for a pattern would seem to be things under the Power of the Royal prerogative and that the King may supercede them by the same Authority by which he dispenses with the penal Statutes Which as it is very agreeable unto and imported in his Majesties Claim of being obeyed without reserve so the owning this Absolute Power with that annex of challenged obedience does acquit them from all obligations to
the Laws of Christ when they are found to interfere with what is required by the King. But whether Gods Power or the Kings be superior and which of the two can cassate the others Laws and whose wrath is most terrible the judgment day will be able and sure to instruct them if all means in this world prove insufficient for it The Addressers know upon what conditions they hold their Liberty and they have not only observed how several of the National Clergy have been treated for preaching against Popery but they have heard how divers of the Reformed Ministers in France before the general suppression were dealt with for speaking against their Monarchs Religion and therefore they must be pardoned if they carry so as not to provoke his Majesty tho in the mean time thro their â—â—lence they both betray the Cause of their Lord and Master and are unfaithful to the Soules of those of whom they have taken upon them the spiritual guidance As for the Papers themselves that are stiled by the name of Addresses I shall not meddle with them being as to the greatest part of them fitter to be exposed and ridicul'd either for their dulness and pedantry or for the adulation and sycophancy with which they are fulsomly stuffâ— than to deserve any serious consideration or to merit reflections that may prove instructive to Mankind Only as that Address wherein his Majesty is thanked for his restoring God to his Empire over Conscience deserveth a rebuke for its blasphemy so that other which commends him for promising to force the Parliament to raâ—iâ—y his Declaration tho by the way all he says is that he does not doubt of their concurrence which yet his ill succ 〈…〉 upon the closetting of so many Member 〈…〉 and his since Dissolving that Parliament shews that there was some cause for the doub 〈…〉 ting of it I say that other Address merits severe Censure for its insolency against th 〈…〉 legislative Authority And the Authors of 〈◊〉 ought to be punished for their crime com 〈…〉 mitted against the Liberty and Freedom 〈◊〉 the two Houses and for encouraging th 〈…〉 King to invade and subvert their most essen 〈…〉 tial and fundamental Priviledges and withou 〈…〉 which they can neither be a Council Judi 〈…〉 cature nor Lawgivers After all I hope the Nation will be so in 〈…〉 genuous as not to impute the miscarriages 〈◊〉 some of the nonconformists to the whole part 〈…〉 much less to ascribe them to the principles o 〈…〉 Dissenters For as the points wherein the 〈…〉 differ from the Church of England are purel 〈…〉 of another Nature and which have no re 〈…〉 lation to Politicks so the influence that the 〈…〉 are adapted to have upon men as member 〈…〉 of Civil Societies is to make them in a specia 〈…〉 manner regardful of the Rights and Fran 〈…〉 chises of the Community But if some nei 〈…〉 ther understand the tendency of their ow 〈…〉 principles nor are true and faithful unto them these things are the personal faults of thos 〈…〉 men and are to be attributed to their ig 〈…〉 norance or to their dishonesty nor are thei 〈…〉 carriages to be counted the effects of thei 〈…〉 Religious Tenets much less are others of the party to be involved under the reproach an 〈…〉 guilt of their imprudent and ill conduct 〈…〉 Which there is the more cause to acknow 〈…〉 ledg because tho the Church of England ha 〈…〉 all the reason of the World to decline Addressing in that all her legal Foundation a 〈…〉 well as Security is shaken by the Declaration yet there are some of her Dignitaries and C 〈…〉 gy as well as divers of the Members of he 〈…〉 Communion who upon motives of Ambition Covetousness Fear or Courtship hav 〈…〉 enrolled themselves into the Liâ—â— of Addre 〈…〉 sers and under pretence of giving thanks 〈◊〉 the King for his promise of protecting 〈◊〉 Arch-Bishops Bishops and Clergy and a 〈…〉 〈…〉 erof the Church of England in the free Exer 〈…〉 of their Religion as by Law established 〈…〉 ve cut the throat of their Mother at 〈…〉 ose breasts they have suckt till they are 〈…〉 own fat both by acknowledging the usur 〈…〉 prerogative upon which the King assumes 〈◊〉 Right and Authority of Emitting the De 〈…〉 ration and by exchanging the legal standâ—â—g and Security of their Church into that 〈…〉 ecarious one of the Royal word which 〈…〉 ey fly unto as the bottom of her Subsistence 〈…〉 d trust to as the wall of her defence And 〈◊〉 most of the Members of the Separate So 〈…〉 ties are free from all accession to Ad 〈…〉 essing and the few that concurred were 〈…〉 eerly drawn in by the wheedle and impor 〈…〉 nity of their Preachers so they who are 〈◊〉 the chiefest Character and greatest repu 〈…〉 tion for Wisdom and Learning among 〈…〉 e Ministers have preserved themselves 〈…〉 om all folly and treachery of that kind The Apostle tells us that not many wise not â—any noble are called which as it is verified 〈◊〉 many of the Dissenting Addressers so it â—ay serve for some kind of Apology for their 〈…〉 ow and sneaking as well as for their in 〈…〉 iscret and imprudent behaviour in this matâ—er And it is the more venial in some of â—hem as being not only a means of ingra 〈…〉 iating themselves as they phansie with â—he King who heretofore had no very good â—pinion of them but as being both an easie â—nd compendious method of Attoning for Offences against the Crown of which they were strongly suspected and a cheap and expenceless way of purchasing the pardon of their Relations that had stood actually 〈…〉 ccused of high Treason Nor is it to be doubted but that as the King will retain very little favour and mercy for Fanaticks when once he has served his Ends upon them so they will preserve as little kindness for the Papists if they can but obtain relief in a legal way And as there is not a people in the Kingdom that will be more 〈…〉 oyal to Princes while they continue so to govern as that fealty by the Laws of God 〈…〉 or man remains due to them so there are none of what principles or communion soever upon whom the Kingdom it its whole interest come to ly at stake may more assuredly and with greater confidence depend than upon the generality of Dissenting Protestants and especially upon those that are not of the Pastoral Order The severities that the Dissenters lay under before and their deliverance from oppression and disturbance now seconded with the Kings expectation and demands of thanksgiving Addresses were strong temptations upon men void of generosity and greatness of spirit and who are withall of no great Political Wisdom nor of prospect into the Consequences of Councils and tricks of State to act as illegally in their thanks as His Majesty had done in his bounty So that whatsoever animadversion they may
sincerity from 〈…〉 at noble principle that conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters of meer Religion as he would delude weak and easie people to believe and had not all his Arbitrary and illegal proceedings in granting Liberty to Dissenting Protestants been to subserve and promote other designes which it is not yet seasonable and convenient to discover and avow he would have then acted with that conformity to the Principle he professeth to be under the influence and Government of and with that consonancy and harmonious agreeableness in all the degrees of Indulgence vouchsased to those of the Reformed Religion in England and Scotland that differ from them of the established way that there would have needed no second Proclamation apporting new measures of Liberty and favour to Scotts Dissenters seeing they would have had it granted them at first in the same latitude and illimitedness that it was bestowed upon the English nonconformists But when Princes carry on and pursue mischievous designes under the palliations of Religion publick good and the Right of Mankind it comes often to pass thro adapting their methods to what they mean and intend and not to what they pretend and give out that their crafty projections by being not sufficiently accommodated to their purposes prove ineffectual to the compassing what was aim'd at and this forceth them to a new game of falsehood and subtilety but still under the old varnish and gloss and obligeth them to have recourse to means that may be more proportioned than the former were for their reaching the End that they ubtimately drive at Thence it is that those Rulers who are engaged in the prosecution of wicked and unjustifiable designes are necessitated not only to apply themselves to opposite Methods towards different parties and those such as must be suited and apportioned to their discrepant interests without the accommodating of which they can neither hope to mould them to that tame and servile compliance nor work them up to that active and vigorous abetting of their malicious and crasty projections as is necessary for the rendring them succesful but they are forced to vary their proceedings towards one and the same Party and that as well when the ways they have acted in towards them are found inadequate to the End unto which they were calculated as when the mischief hid under them comes to be too soon discovered This weak and short-sighted people fancy to arise from an uncertainty in Princes councels and from their being at no consistency with themselves but they who can penetrate into affairs and that do consider things more narrowly can easily discern that all this variation diversity and shifting of methods in Rulers actings proceed from other causes and that it is their stability and perseverance in an illegal and wicked design that compels them to those crooked and contrary Courses either for the gaining the unwary and ill applyed concurrence of their Subjects to the hastning distress and desolation upon themselves or for the throwing them into that lethargy and under that supiness as may hinder them from all endeavours of obstructing and diverting the evils that their Governours are seeking to bring upon them Nor is there a more certain indication of a Princes being engaged in a design contrary to the good and happiness of the Society over which he is set than his betaking himself to illegal ways upon pretence of promoting the ease and benefit of his people or according as he finds his Subjects to differ in their particular interests his applying himself to them in methods whereof the contrariety of the one to the other renders them the more proper and adapted to ensnare the divided factions thro accosting each of them with something that they are severally fond of Legal means are always sufficient to the pursuing and compassing legal Ends and whatsoever is for the general good of the Community may either be obtained by courses wherein the generallity find their united interest and common felicity or else by application to a Parliament freely and duly chosen which as it represents the whole politick Society so there may be expected most compassion and tenderness as well as wisdom and prudence for redressing the grievances easing the troubles and providing for the benefit and safety of all that are wrapt up in and represented by them And as every Prince who sincerely seeks and pursues the advantage of his People will so adjust and attemper all his actions towards them that his whole carriage shall be uniform and all the exercises of his Governing power meet in the benefit of the Community as so many lines from a circumserence uniting in their Centre so there needs no other proof that these two or three late Actions of His Majesty which a foolish sort of men are apt to interpret for favours and to account them effects of compassion and kindness are but to conceal his malice and to subserve as well as cover some fatal and pernicious design that he is carrying on against his Protestant Subjects than that while he is gratifying a few of them in one thing he is at the same time robbing all of them of many and that while he is indulging the Dissenters with a Freedom from the penal Laws for matters of Religion he is invading the properties and subverting the Civil Rights of the three Nations and changing the whole Constitution of the Government He that strips us of what belongs unto us as we are English and Scotts men cannot mean honestly in the savours he pretends to vouchsafe us as we are Christians nor can he that is endeavouring to enslave our persons and to subject our Estates to his Arbitrary lust and pleasure intend any thing else by this kindness granted to Fanaticks in matters of Religion than the dividing them from the rest of the People in what concerns the Civil Interest and external happiness of the Community and to render them an engaged Faction to assist and abet him in enthralling the Kingdoms Whosoever considers the whole Tenor of his Majesties other Actings in proroguing and dissolving Parliaments when he finds them uncompliant with his 〈…〉 pish and despotical Ends his keeping on 〈…〉 ot a formidable Arâ—â— against all the 〈…〉 aws of the Land and upon no other in 〈…〉 ention but to maintain him in his Usurpa 〈…〉 on s over our Rights and to awe us into 〈…〉 tame and servile submission to his Preroga 〈…〉 ve will His filling all places of Judicature â—ith weak as well as Treacherous persons who instead of administring Justice may be â—he Instruments of Tyranny his robbing men of their Estates by judicial forms and under â—retence that nullum tempus occurris Râ—gi after they have been quietly enjoyed by the Subjects for several hundred years his advanâ—ing none to Civil or Military Employs but whom he hath some confidence in as to the finding them ready to execute his despotical â—njunctions and his esteeming no persons