Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A26404
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The addresses importing an abhorrence of an association, pretended to have been seized in the E. of Shaftsbury's closet, laid open and detected, in a letter to a friend
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1682
(1682)
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Wing A569; ESTC R21222
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6,551
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4
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The Addresses Importing an ABHORRENCE OF An Association Pretended to have been seized in the E. of Shaftsbury's Closet Laid open and Detected In a Letter to a Friend SIR I Perceive by yours of March 4th that the Fermentation which the Nation is put into must be cherished by the same ways and methods that it was first occasioned and caused For should the heats and animosities among Protestants be once suffered to asswage and abate the Romish Designs against the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England would not only miscarry and prove abortive but they who have been wheedled to betray God and their Country by contributing ignorantly to the promotion and service of â—heir Ends would be the first to express their Indignation against the Papists both as an effect of their resentment for having been through their influence thrown into a Lunacy and Delirium and as an Evidence to the Kingdom that they are at last cured of their Distraction And therefore the Operation and Efficacy of the Declaration against the two last Parliaments being wholly spent I am not surprised to find an advantage taken from a pretended Paper importing an Unlawful Association against the Government for the perpetuating rancours amongst His Majesties Leige People and the casting those back again into a Feaver who were recovering their senses and coming to a sedate mind And as all men are worse upon Relapses than they were of their first Diseases so we are not to think it strange that people are more extravagant in their late Addresses than they were in the former But there being so many things to be said in return to your Letter and being by Command confined to represent my Thoughts in one Sheet I shall Preface no farther but apply my self to obey you in the most compendious manner I can Nor shall I pronounce that of the late Addresses which a Celebrated and Court-Author doth concerning those made to Oliver Cromwell namely That they were no other than Leagues Offensive and Defensive between him and the Faction â—emento 2d Edit p. 29. and that while his Care was for engaging one Party it was for destroying another For though some little Folk who officiously manage this affair may have such a Project yet it is impossible that His Majesty should either propose or countenance so base and destructive a Design Nor will I say That it had been but reasonable That they who do embark in new Addresses should have first seen the fruits and effect of their former For whereas they seek to justifie themselves in what they did by the Assurances which they suppose His Majesty gave them of having frequent Parliaments though he had Dissolved Two or Three without giving them time to perfect those Important Matters which the whole Nation apprehended they were called for so it would have been some Argument of the Candor and Sincerity of their intentions in what they did before if they had forborn their late Applications till they had found that they were not mistaken in the grounds upon which they think to vindicate themselves for what they then did Neither will I insist upon this That it had become them to be well assured that there was such a Paper stiled an Association found in my Lord Shaftsbury's Closet before they took upon them to talk so loudly of it and vent themselves in so strange and unaccountable expressions upon Mr Gwyns bare suggestion of such a thing For as it is most certain that it was not the foundation of my Lords Apprehension and Commitment seeing the Bag into which it was put when said to be seised in his Lordships Study was not opened till after his Confinement in the Tower for High Treason so it is not impossible but that they who had the confidence to impose other things upon this Noble Peer in the printed Relation of the proceedings at the Old-Bayly than were deposed by the Witnesses in Court might with the same liberty and for the same end forge and invent this Paper and ascribe it to his Lordship For whereas Smith upon giving his Evidence at the Bar said that the Earl of Shaftsbury told him he was sorry that the King saw not his danger c. They who undertook the communicating those proceediâ—gs to the World make Smith declare upon Oath that the said Earl told him he was glad the King saw not his danger Nor shall I insist upon this That it had been but congruous and what became English men to have testified their detestation of the many late Sham Plots whereby our Enemies have been endeavouring to destroy Loyal and innocent Protestants as well as their declaring an Abhorrency of a pretended Association against the Monarchy and the rather because the forging crimes for involving guiltless persons in danger hath been real whereas such an Association as the late Clamour is raised upon was for what yet appears only feigned and imaginary We have seen some of the best persons in the Kingdom cast into Prisons and arraigned in Courts upon malicious subornations and Popish Sham conspiracies but no man can produce so much as a Name subscribed to any Paper whereby to perswade himself or others of a combination against His Majesty and the Government Nor can they be thought to bear any great Loyalty to the King who have not some regard for the safety of his Protestant Subjects and the preservation of the Protestant Religion And therefore while some are so busie here and there to gather hands to Addresses of another Nature it were but a seasonable piece of service to the King and a duty which all Law both Divine and Humane will justifie for others to make an Address to His Majesty that we may have the benefit and protection of his Government and that our Lives and Estates may be defended from the malice of those who by hiring and suborning mercinary Villians to swear forged Crimes against us have been unweariedly designing our ruin And as it is not to be supposed that an application of this nature would be unacceptable to the King the end and aim of his Reign being not only to look after our obedience to his Law but to see that we are kept safe from the wrath and rage of our Enemies so it would tend to the honour of London to lead the way to others in so useful and at this time so necessary a duty Nor shall I do more but barely intimate that it looks ill and seems calculated for no good design to find Addresses for dissolving Parliaments and abhorring all Associations countenanced and promoted while Petitions for a Parliament were forbidden by Proclamation and the Petitioners publickly reprimanded For supposing that some one Paper bearing the Name of an Association was unduly fram'd and worded is this a justifiable ground to ridicule and Abhor every Association tho' never so well adapted for the preservation of His Majesties Person and Dignity and promoted in a Parliamentary way and not to take till
it receive the Royal stamp How strangely does it look in a well-governed State to find such a one as the Mayor of Gl. who was admitted into the freedom of that City for the good sevice which he did in fighting against Charles Steward at Worcester as the words inserted in their Town-Book bear to be hugg'd and embraced for advancing Addresses of one complection while in the mean time many Loyal Gentlemen who shed their Blood lost their Estates and underwent Imprisonment and Exile for the King are frown'd upon for offering to appear in applications of another figure Men of Principles act always uniformly whereas such as are sway'd by interest are ready to engage with the same heat in every thing that lyes in subserviency to their gain Some people think it not enough to attone for their former actions by their future Loyalty but they seek to expiate their Crimes on one side by running into illegal rigorous and mad excesses on the other And I heartily wish that an eminent Magistrate in the City of London may not hope to make a compensation for having been a Clerk to a Regiment in the War against the late King by complying with and pursuing whatsoever some men about the Court or such who are influenced by those that are put him upon But what is this age degenerated into that they who have served themselves of Dissenters in order to their getting into places of Trust by proclaiming what blessed opportunities they have enjoyed with that sort of men under this and that Nonconformist Minister should instead of expressing a concern for the Protestant Religion answerable to the are of it and the stations they are in not only abandon but from weakness fear or worse Principles submit to be Tools to accelerate its ruine However I am sure the Government hath no cause of apprehending danger either from Phanatick Preachers or Poeple seeing some of the most fam'd amongst them after having been a hundred times deceived and imposed upon are still ready to be brib'd by a dinner or a smile or wheedled by a fair word to co-operate with their enemies and become instrumental of their own destruction And therefore it is to be desired that some of the dissenting Ecclesiasticks would be contented with Grace which is the Talent that God hath given them and not pretend to Civil Wisdom seeing it is evident to all the world that the Great Dispenser hath withheld it from them These thing being briefly intimated it is now time to advance those Reflexions and Observations which we judg proper to be offered upon the occasion of the late Abhorring Addresses Nor will it be amiss in the first place to take notice how some mens opinions concerning these kind of Applications do alter and vary according to and in correspondence with the design and interests which men serve For the very person that is not only principally employ'd in framing the draughts which are remitted into the Countrey where Lieutennants Justices and Curates are commissioned to procure subscriptions to them but whose Province it is to publish their usefulness to the Government and to make the world believe what security the State receiveth from them in order to its support in the pursuance of present Councels I say this very Gentleman had different thoughts concerning Addresses some years ago when they came in sholes to Oliver Cromwell and with great multitudes of hands subjoined to them from what he now hath For says he Those numerous and pretended Applications as they were but an Artifice to piece up the Protectors broken Power as far as well it could be See Mr. L'Estranges Memento p. 30. so they were but false Glosses upon his Power and Cromwel was too wise to think them other For being gained by contrivement and force or at least by importunity half a score pitiful wretches stiled themselves the people of such or such a County and there was the Total of the reckoning But we may the less wonder at this change of Judgment in some men as to the significancy or insignificancy of Addresses if we consider how the opinion of the Papists is much altered from what it was 90 years ago as to the Right which the next in the Royal Line hath to inherit the Crown after the Ruling Prince For whereas we have nothing from them now but that it is an unpardonable Sin to exclude the Presumptive Heir be his Principles what they will and our danger from him in case he succeed never so visible they spake another kind of Language towards the end of Queen Elizabeths Reign when they foresaw that a Protestant was likely after her to ascend the Throne namely That Succession to Government is neither established by the Law of Nature See Doleman nor the Law of Revelation but only by Humane Sanctions which men may cancel and alter as their interest determines them For though they tell us now of the indispensable Obligations we are under of submitting quietly in case His Majesty should Die to the D. of Y. albeit we cannot but think the subversion of our Religion and the extirpation of our selves ready to ensue thereupon yet they were pleased to tell our Ancestors that no Free people were under Ties to the next of the Royal Line but that they ought to put the Scepter into such a ones hand under whom they might promise themselves to live with Safety and Honour But we may the more easily pardon the Papists for shifting Principles according to the posture which their affairs stand in if we will observe how the Protestants of this Age differ from those of the former in reference to the duty of submitting to or debarring a Popish Successor For whereas heretofore not only the whole Clergy but the Nobility and Gentry Courtiers as well as others derived their main Arguments against Mary Queen of Scots from the danger that the Protestant Religion would be in if being in their power she were suffered to survive Queen Elizabeth It is now come to pass that many of all Orders and Ranks who pretend themselves Protestants are not only contented that a Popish Prince may be dispensed with as to his Religion himself and live quietly amongst them but they seem uneasie in having a Protestant King and long to have one of Popish Principles to Rule over them See Bowes Journals How disagreeable as to a Popish Successor are the late Addresses from the Petitions Votes and Acts of Parliament and the carriage of the whole Kingdom in the 14 27 28 and 29 years of Queen Elizabeth Then an Association to Revenge the Death of the Queen upon the Papists in case she came to an untimely end was esteemed a piece of Loyalty and promoted by the Chief Ministers of State but now the Abhorring not only an ill-fram'd Paper bearing that Title but all kinds of Associations of this nature and tendency if His Majesty should fall by Popish hands is accounted the Character both of a