People and these being the two Pillars of the Throne the shaking and undermining of these must needs make it totter and be in danger of sinking both in its Interest abroad and its Power and Reputation at home I do not now write a bare supposition but plain matter of Fact both these particulars and such matter of Fact as hath in a thousand dismal Instances produced in this Nation from these Causes the most deplorable Effects Even the total Ruin of the whole Frame of the Government the subversion of the Monarchy the overthrow of the Established Religion the intire loss of our Magna Charta English Laws and Liberties the solemn Murther of a most Righteous just wise and Excellent King the slaughter of many thousands of Loyal Subjects of all degrees the banishment or imprisonment of others the Sacrilegious Robbing and irreligious defacing of Churches those Monuments of Piety Antiquity the Confiscations plundering Arbitrary Taxing and Spoiling of the Free-born People of their Legal Property in their Goods and Estates to such degrees as surpasseth the skill of the ablest Accomptants to make a true Estimate of and were it possible to state the accompt and take a perfect audit of all the Expences in the late wicked Rebellion the incredible Summs then profusely wasted would not only Exceed belief but every thing except the Crimes of thoses men who were the black contrivers of the occasion of those Expences and that irreparable Damage of the Nation and if as 't is usually observed the English Nation be such lovers of their Money and their Liberty one would think they might here find sufficient reason to detest and abhor these Factious men and Principles who have once robbed them of both these and have offered so fair to do it a second time be so wise for the future as never to suffer themselves to be imposed upon by such notorious Impostors and Pretences and that they may be enabled to do so it is to be observed That in order to the accomplishment of the first of these Designs the Distressing of the Crown the continual Address and Labour of the Faction hath been employed in these two things first to shorten the Prerogative and clip the wings of it in all its several Branches Secondly Either to deny those legal Aids of Money by Subsidies and other wayes absolutely necessary to support the Charges of the Government or to give them so sparingly as not to answer the unavoidable Expences of the Crown and this too out of pretended good Husbandry and Frugality for the Nation and with perpetual quarrelling at the publique Ministers and Eternal Complaints of the mis-mannagement of the Treasure when as in truth the real design of this popular Parsimony was to keep the Prince's Exchequer at low water mark and to have opportunity to barter with him for some part of his Prerogative and for every penny granted still to have some Jewel or other out of the Crown My narrow limits will not allow me to descend to particulars but whoever doubts the truth of this let them consult our Histories and they will presently receive satisfaction that since the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in whose latter years the Faction began to appear numerous troublesome the Prerogative has constantly diminished in proportion as the power and confidence of the turbulent Faction hath been augmented insomuch that that Queen in the 35th year of her Reign Anno 1592. sent Mr. Peter Wentworth an Sir Henry Bromely to the Tower where Wentworth dyed only for delivering a Petition to the Lord Keeper desiring the Lords to become Suppliants with them of the Lower House unto Her Majesty for Entailing the Succession of the Crown for which purpose there was a Bill ready drawn and Priviledge of Parliament did not then so much as once openly murmur against Prerogative whereas when King Charles the First upon an Impeachment of High Treason came in person and demanded Five Members of the Commons House the whole Nation was put into as great a flame and combustion with the Intrenching of Prerogative upon Priviledge as if the King had come with Fauxes dark Lanthorn to give Fire to a Mine which should have blown up that and all future Parliaments But though the Enemies of the Monarchy endeavoured to lessen the Power of the Crown in this particular of Prerogative yet this was nothing so dangerous as the withdrawing necessary Supplies of money For Treasure is the very Vital Spirit of the Government and according to the proportion which it enjoyes of that active metal the Pulse of the Government will certainly beat either full and strong or weak and languishing Sine vectigalibus nullum Imperium diu subsistere potest saith the Politick Historian And this the Blessed Son of God himself hath confirmed both by his Doctrine and Practice for tho' his Kingdom was not of this World yet he so well understood that the Government of the Kingdoms of this World were to be supported by Tributes and was so sensible of the necessity of Government for the common benefit of Mankind and that this Common benefit ought to be supported at a Common charge that for our Example he would not Exempt himself from paying Tribute but wrought a Miracle to furnish his Quota of the Tax imposed upon his Nation that so he might contribute his proportion to the maintaining of the Government and this tho' our Antimonarchical Demogogues know so well yet notwithstanding his positive Precept to render to Caesar the things that are Caesars he must work a greater Miracle to persuade them to comply with their Duty and his Command and if there were no better Christians or Subjects then the men of the Faction notwithstanding this indispensible Law and Precept the more obedient Fishes must bring their Miraclous Tribute and Subsidies to the Exchequer or else the Crown must starve and Fall or which is worse fall into their usurping hands My Lord Shaftsbury's infamous Speech to this purpose is still fresh in all mens memories and indeed I think it was so good a peice of Service in discovering the great Secret and the Design of the Faction that it ought never to be forgotten If you part with your Money c. the Nation is betrayed From whence it is Evident what stress his Lordship who was then the Oraculous Mouth of the Faction laid upon this matter of Supplies and granting money to the King For he and the next of his fellow Inspirators as is since discovered and was then by all knowing and honest men justly suspected were then busily complotting with Security to themselves how to overthrow this most admirable and ancient Monarchy and this they took to be the most certain Expedient to effect it It is probable that at that time he and his Associates were not advanced to those infatuated degrees and methods of desperation and madness to which the blasting of their Hopes and Designs by the Breath of Heaven and its Miraculous Providences
for 300000 l. per annum which was the utmost that ever the Ship-mony was computed to amount to they levied by Taxes Excise Publick Faith Contributions Sequestrations Free quarter and plunder a large sum above so many Millions in the year and yet then the stupid People could not be persuaded to believe but that their Arbitrary Tyrants and Illegal Oppressors were their great Friends and their lawful King and his Ministers their greatest Enemies and though the Faction exercised actually that Arbitrary Power which they only accused the King with designing yet the besotted People would still believe them innocent and suspect the King to be guilty There are two things of which all mankind are naturally most infinitely tender the Liberty of their Persons and the Property of their Estates and a third which all men pretend to be wonderfully Zealous for and that is their Religion though of late we have seen that they who have the least share of it and by their Actions the least value for it have made the most noise and clamour about the danger of losing it and in probability they did so too in former times but these are three things which the Faction have constantly endeavoured to possess the People with a belief that they were in the utmost danger of losing and that this danger proceeded from the ill Designs which the Government had against them and further that if the worthy Patriots of the Faction had not opposed the Court Popery and Arbitrary Power had long since robbed the Nation of whatever is most valuable in this world And it is incredible not only what Art and Industry hath been used to infuse this intoxicating Poison into the heads of the People thereby to inspire them with Fears Jealousies and hatred of the Government and to countenance the denial of Supplies which the People were made believe by the men of Shaftsbury if granted was but to contribute towards betraying their own Interest and Liberty and to enable the King and Government to impose upon them and their Posterity the Shackles and Manacles of future slavery but is also most wonderful what success the strong impressions of these Forgeries Falshoods and Calumnies have had amongst the People All the Tongues and the most virulent Pens of the Faction have for this forty years and upwards been continually employed in creating and infusing these Fears and Jealousies into the heads of the People and in improving them to raise in the People a distrust dislike and hatred against the King and Government This was the very method by which the late wicked Rebels debauched the minds of the People and withdrew them from their Affection Loyalty Duty and Allegiance to the King and having once prevailed with them to cancel those obligations they bewitched them still with new or repeated Fears and Jealousies into a most execrable Rebellion which was carried on by all the steps of Cruelty Injustice and Tyranny and consummated in the utter overthrow of the Established Government the destruction of the Church the subversion of the Crown and the most infamous and barbarous cutting off the Sacred Head that wore it And how far the modern Conspirators proceeded and advanced by the very same steps towards the accomplishment of the late damnable Conspiracy there are as many Witnesses as Subjects in the Nation who have taken any notice of the actions of the Faction which will therefore supersede the trouble of recounting Let it suffice to say in short that there hath nothing been left unsaid unwritten unprinted or undone from the Right Honourable and Right Worshipful to the meanest Whifflers of the Faction From the Lord Shaftsbury with his Speech of a Noble Peer to pitiful Care Curtis Smith and Harris with their Pacquets Appeals Intelligences and Vox Populis from the very Parliament House down to the Coffee-house from the City to the Country from the spawning and licentious Press the Conventicle Pulpit down even to the scolding blew Apron Rethorick which might be any ways thought conducive towards incensing the People of all Ranks and Degrees in the Nation against the King and the Government and to push them headlong into a second Rebellion And when all these ways failed the Ring-leaders of the Faction driven on by the Fury of their ill Destiny betook themselves to the desperate Refuge of raising Insurrections and that most Execrable design of Assassination of the King the Duke and all those who had in any measure rendred themselves conspicuous for their Loyalty in opposing the Attempts of the Faction and adhering to the Crown and Government in their distress By this time it is easie to see what it is that hath hurt us and it will then be no difficult matter to tell what it is that will help us For if these unreasonable Fears and Jealousies for our Liberty Property and Religion and the denying of necessary supplies of Mony to the Crown have been the Occasions of all those Disturbances and Dangers which have for these late years distracted this Nation then by undeniable consequence the taking off those Weights will immediately surcease those violent motions which have so disordered our affairs and restore Tranquility Peace and Happiness to the Nation All the difficulty rests in persuading the People to make use of these Expedients for though they may be convinced of the necessity and usefulness of the Medicine yet it is not without difficulty that they are to be induced to take Physick Especially this opening of the Mony Vein makes them shrink as much as if they were to part with as many drops of blood as they are to drop pence I cannot tell what effect the Experiment will have but I will endeavour to try if I can make it appear to be the true Interest of the Nation first to damm the sluice of these Fears and Jealousies and secondly to set open the Mony Gate and let in a Fresh Spring into the Exchequer For the first of these the exploding and for ever banishing those destructive Jealousies and disturbing Fears of the danger of Innovation in Religion and setting up of Arbitrary Government in the State I will not spin out a long and tedious discourse upon any of the Common Topiques made use of upon this subject but I will tell the Reader a story which if well applied will give a Supersedeas to any other Arguments When at the beginning of the late Rebellion there were some overtures of an accommodation to the King at Oxon the City of London sent a Petition by some of their Aldermen who being admitted into the Presence Alderman Garret undertook to be then Speaker and told the King that his Majesty had many times promised to secure their Religion Laws and Liberties and Sir said he could we but be secure and assured that you would do so we would soon make an end of the business At this pretty confidence of the Aldermans the whole Court had much to do to forbear laughing outright but the King according
to the accustomed goodness of his Nature with a gracious smile only made him this mild reply Mr. Alderman I know not how to make you confide in me but you shall do well to believe those that lie least Now to apply this passage I will beg the Readers Patience to enquire into these particulars and to examine who have spoke the greatest truth the Kings in their repeated promises to secure our Religion Properties and Laws or the Faction who have made such extraordinary promises to the Nation in all these particulars and have endeavoured by assuming to themselves all the glory of securing our Religion Laws and Liberties most invidiously to cast an Odium upon the Crown as intending to divert the People of them I do therefore in the first place peremptorily challenge the whole Faction to give one single Instance during the whole Reigns of King James King Charles the Martyr or his Illustrious Son our present Sovereign King Charles the Second wherein any mans Property to particulars or that of the English Nation in general hath been contrary to the known Laws of the Land invaded or to shew wherein the Monarchical Constitution hath governed Arbitrarily What life hath been taken away except in the just defensive War against the Rebels but according to the known Laws of the Land Who hath been outlawed or banished disseized of his Freehold imprisoned or any other ways damnified by the Kings or their Ministers but per legale Judicium Parium by the Common Law of England and by the Verdict of their Peers What mony hath been raised but by legal and Parliamentary ways What Force of armed Men hath been made use of to overawe the Nation how much necessity soever there hath appeared of more then ordinary Force both against Foreign dangers and intestine Rebels Certainly if there could have been found any Instances of this nature we should have had them soundly repeated in the Ears of the Nation and every man of the Faction would have been a Trumpeter to proclaim them for it is a maxim with them never to conceal any Action that may redound to the disparagement of the Government and rather to create falshoods where they fall short of truth And for want of particular Instances wherewith to charge the Government and fortifie their Calumnies the Faction have always been so well aware that in all their Clamorous and most virulent Pamphlets which have been stuffed out with so many bitter Invectives against the Government upon this Topique of Slavery and Arbitrary Power breaking in upon the Nation they have either charged the Government with Design and Intention only or else with Generals only cunningly foreseeing that if they had descended to give particular Instances they must have betrayed the weakness as well as falseness of their accusation and have exposed themselves and Cause to the View of the whole World as guilty of Forgery and Imposture and the two most remarkable Pamphlets of this kind intituled the first and second Part of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government the one written by Marvel sometime one of Oliver Cromwell's Latin Secretaries and die other by that notorious Traitor Ferguson the Independent Tubster the most daring and malicious of any thing of that Nature yet have strictly observed this Rule and have therefore indeavoured to impose upon the Credulous or those that were willing to be deceived by charging the Government with Generals and wresting the most innocent Actions and Words of the King and his Ministers to make them depose some extorted Sence tending towards introducing of Arbitrary Government in these Nations but from the one End to the other more cautiously then honestly avoiding the giving any particular Instances wherein the King or his Ministers have actually exceeded the Limits of the Laws Which is a Demonstration as clear as the Meridian Sun that they durst not adventure at what they knew there was no possibility of proving and consequently that the Government is clear and innocent of what they accuse it But now on the other hand notwithstanding all the horrible Outcries against the Government and all the smooth Pretensions which the Commonwealth Faction have made of securing the Nation against Arbitrary Power and Slavery there is not any one Branch of Liberty and Property which they have not violated and wherein there may not be a thousand dismal Instances given of their Exercising the most illegal tyrannical and exquisitely Arbitrary Power over the Lives Liberties and Estates not only of some particular Persons their Enemies or Opposers but of the whole English Scottish and Irish Nations Volumes will not contain the Murders Rapines Oppressions Sequestrations Decimations Imprisonments and what ever can be thought of that was Cruel illegal Unjust or Arbitrary which were exercised promiscuously over their Friends and Enemies by those Persons to whom the Gracious Act of Oblivion was granted at his Majesty's happy Restauration And who were these Arbitrary Tyrants but those who complained of the danger of that Bugbear from the Monarchy who fought with the King to secure the English Liberties as they pretended and who so often promised the People to ease them of their Grievances and defend their Liberties and Properties but the Liberty ended in the most absolute Slavery Nay I do positively averr that the Slavery of the English Nation under this usurping Republican Faction was in some measure greater then that which is exercised by the Turkish Sultan for where he Conquers he leaves the Vanquished at intire Liberty to keep their Religion Whereas when these English Turks had gotten the Victory over the King and the Royal Party though they tolerated all Sects Heresies and Schismaticks yet so far as they could they made it Unlawful and Criminal for the Loyal Subjects to Exercise even that Protestant Religion which by Laws unrepealed and the most solemn Oaths from which they could not be by any Power whatever dispensed with they were bound to perform So that they had no Choice left but Perjury or Punishment For during all the time of the late Usurpation the whole Body of the Clergy many of those who were the forwardest even from the Pulpit to promote Rebellion such as Barges Marshal Nye Case c. were under the Obligation of their own voluntary Oaths of Supremacy and Canonical Obedience to their Ordinaries the Bishops and the King as supreme Head and Governour of the Church and to his Majesties Ecclesiastical Laws and the whole Body of the Laiety of the Nation were obliged by the Act of 1. Eliz. for Uniformity and all those other Statutes made during hers and the Reign of King James for maintaining Episcopal Protestancy both against Papists and Schismaticks which then and to this present Day stand unrepealed Insomuch that by obliging the whole Nation to take the Solemn League and Covenant and thereby to Swear and Vow the utter Extirpation of Episcopacy the Liturgy and all the Ceremonies of Divine worship which were established
by Law and secured by most Sacred Oaths they necessarily and unavoidably forced the People into a manifest and damnable Perjury on the one hand or the other For if they took the Covenant as they compelled all Men so far as they were able to do all those who indeavoured the Extirpation of Episcopacy and the Common Prayer were guilty of the Breach of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and if they did not indeavour it they were by their Covenant perjured and forsworn So that here was Arbitrary Tyranny with a Vengeance not only over the Lives Liberties and Estates but over the Souls and Consciences of the People of these three Nations in general such an Arbitrary Power as the Devil himself could not have exceeded unless in that downright Traiterous and Damnable Engagement which they afterwards imposed point blank contrary to the Oath of Allegiance their Protestation and the Covenant too for maintaining the Priviledges of Parliament by which they obliged the Takers To be true to the Government as it was then Established without a King and House of Lords And now for their great pretence of securing the Nation against Popery what Advantage could that be to the People after they had done their uttermost Indeavours to Damn them Eternally by an Universal Perjury For my part I can see very little difference in the Case whether a Man goes to the Devil for Perjury or Popery and I believe such of them as have tried will find it comes all to a Reckoning But after all the Noise I do not find upon the matter that the Nation was ever a whit the more secured from Popery but on the contrary that Popish Principles every where gained ground upon the Nation and that Priests and Jesuits in the Dress of the several Sects were as busie as ever and that by the very force of the Argument of our Divisions and by the kind usage of those who were driven into Exile by these Protestants they made more Proselytes in twenty Years then they had done in a Hundred before It was a very notable Observation of Dr. Laud the suffering Archbishop of Canterbury in his Speech upon the Scaffold in the Year 1644. I pray God said that admirable Prelate who as he there tells us lost his Head upon the Popular Clamour of Venient Romani this Clamor of Venient Romani of which I have given no Cause hasten not to bring them in for the Pope never had such a Harvest in England since the Reformation as he hath now upon the Sects and Divisions that are among us And after all what did it signifie to keep out one Great Pope and let in a thousand little ones just as much as if Belzebub had been cast out and the whole Legion of lesser Devils left behind in him that was possessed For the plain Truth is they kept out the Pope but kept in Popery the rankest and most mischievous Doctrines and Practices of the worst of Men of that Religion What Mariana Allen Suarez and other traiterous Jesuits had writ concerning the Deposing and Murdering of Princes they Aced and from these Authors they borrowed Arguments to justifie their Rebellion and the blackest of Crimes And whereas the Papacy was by so many Laws driven out of England for Errors in Doctrine for Sedition Rebellion and Treason against the Monarchy and Government in Principles and Practices there was not one Error or Heresie in all the Romish Religion which was Treasonable by the Laws but what was put in practice by these Pope-Haters And for the other Errors of a lower Form what was wanting of Transubstantiation Purgatory Masses Prayers to the Saints c. was abundantly supplied by ten thousand other Errors and Heresies which were held maintained and propagated by the several Sects which were tolerated by them under the notion of Liberty for Tender Consciences and such Errors as were destructive not only of the Reformed but of all manner of Christian Religion Such as denying the Articles of the Creed the Divinity of Christ the Validity and Infallibility of the Scriptures the Obligation of the Moral Law the Immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the Body the Lawfulness of an Oath the Necessity of a Priesthood or Sacraments the Doctrine of the Trinity and innumerable others which were held and maintained by the several Schismaticks of the Nation and preached to the deluded People for saving Truths whereas they were indeed most damnable Heresies Thus did they secure the Nation from Popery and kept out the Whore of Babylon by letting in the Devil of Babel and letting open a hundred Gates to Hell under pretence of stopping up one Let the best Manager of the Faction now shew us where the Government hath since the first of Queen Eliz. made one single step towards a return to Rome or to any other of those damnable Errors and Heresies which are every whit as dangerous to the Peace and Quiet of the Nation and to the well-being and happiness of both the Souls Bodies and Societies of Mankind So that now to come to my Story again since it doth plainly appear in Fact that the King and the Government have never deceived us in their Promises to secure us against Popery and Arbitrary Power and that on the other side the Faction notwithstanding all their fair Pretences and repeated Covenants Engagements Vows Protestations and Promises have broken with us in every one of these particulars a thousand and a thousand times over we must be not only most stupidly besotted but infatuated and bewitched if either we believe such notorious Deceivers any longer or if for the future we do not repose an absolute and intire Confidence in the Goodness and Wisdom Justice and Honour of the King and Government when they give us such repeated Assurances and such undeniable Demonstration that they will protect us in the Enjoyment of our Laws Liberties Properties and Religion And if we could once get clear of ibis Rub which the Faction have always thrown as a stumbling Block in the Peoples Way we should with less difficulty get over the second For if the Nation as the wise Alderman said were but assured and secure and that they may be as much as of any thing in this World that under the Protection of the Government they should enjoy their Laws Liberty and Religion they would then certainly for their own Sakes be not only willing but forward to supply the Crown with Mony not only in a bare proportion to the necessity of the Charges which constantly attend the Government but also to provide such certain Supports as might secure the Crown against any incident and unforeseen Accidents and maintain the Honor and Dignity of it so as to make it sit easie upon the Royal Head All this is certainly the Duty as well as Interest of the People his Majesties loving Subjects of all degrees of this Nation for it is the highest Reason and Justice in the World that a common
and Crown as all the Dissenters in England notoriously are and it is as certain that the Dissenters never bestow their Regards but upon such as favour them nor ever indeavour to set up any person to be a Member of the Commons House but in expectancy and upon assurance from them that they will be serviceable to their Cause and Interest Secondly No such Persons nor their Descendants as have been actually ingaged in the late Rebellion who were themselves or whose Ancestors were possessed of any part of the Crown or Church Lands For Principles and aversion do descend to Posterity and for those who were actors in the War and sharers of the Booty they are not to be trusted unless they have given eminent testimonies of their Repentance otherwise assuredly they retain the same Antimonarchical Principles which overthrew the Government before they cannot forget the sweetness of that Arbitrary Power which they then exercised when a Colonel or a Captain domineer'd over a whole Country they look upon themselves as injured in the loss of those fair Estates of which in the times of Vsurpation they were the foolish purchasers and unjust possessors and upon all these accounts will not only do no good but all the hurt they can in hopes if the Government were but again overturned they might come into their Estates and Power again Thirdly No such as have been busie sticklers against granting Money no Exclusioners Associators spreaders of jealousies of the Designs of the Government to introduce Popery slavery and such abominable Calumnies against the King and his Ministers for all such if they have not been actually ingaged though it may be so secretly as to escape discovery in the late Conspiracy yet gave countenance and encouragement to the Conspirators and though the secret was not plainly communicated to them yet were such as the Conspirators assured themselves would certainly joyn them upon success Fourthly No such as have been Zealous promoters of branding or Tophamizing the best and most Loyal of his Maj sties Subjects as betrayers of the Nation Enemies to the King and Kingdom favourers of Popery no such as have been promoters of real Arbitrary imprisoning and punishing such of his Majesties good Subjects as in their several stations only did their Duty and discharged their Consciences in discountenancing tumultuary Petitioning and in opposing the violent courses and proceedings of the Faction For such Men are very unlikely to secure our Liberty and Property who have been such notorious invaders of them and can never be true Friends to the Crown and Government who have branded the most Loyal Subjects with the infamous character of Enemies to the King and Kingdom Fifthly None of those who have been for their being disaffected put out of the Commission of the Peace or Offices in the Militia or discarded from places of Profit Trust and Honour in the Government for they will think revenge better than Muscadine and Eggs and will study that more than to serve the Publick And for an even half dozen none of that wretched Generation of Trimmers those Janus-faced Protestants those State Otters neither Fish nor Flesh nor good red Herring Statesmen for it is a clear Case He that is not with us is against us and these pretended moderate Men are immoderately false and rotten at Core outside Friends inward and secret foes and by far more dangerous than open Enemies like Joab they kiss and stabb these if they can do no more will keep the head of the Faction above Water and in short they are too like the Devil to be trusted for like a true Trimmer where he can do no hurt as a Devil he will do it as an Angel but they are easily known the one as they say by his cloven foot and the other by his cloven tongue Put in the last place affirmatively Such Gentlemen are fit for the Publick Honour to serve their King and Country as its Representative in Parliament who have either heretofore in the late Rebellion or in these later times of disorder manifested their steady Loyalty to the King and hearty affection to the Government established in Church and State whose Reputations are not blemished by any suspicion of confederacy intimacy kindness or Correspondency either with such of the late Conspirators as are convicted or fled from the Justice of the Laws but who have given proofs of their fidelity to the Crown by opposing the Faction For these are the Men of Honour and integrity who equally detest Popery and Phanaticism Pickering's screwed Gun and Rumbolds unscrewed Blunderbusses who will really indeavour to secure the Protestant Religion and the Monarchy against their Enemies on both hands These and only such are the Men that are the true Patriots and Englishmen that will trust the King and therefore are fit to be trusted by the Country who will not only according to the Mode of the Faction make a loud clamour and Bawling of the danger of the Protestant Religion and the Kings person but apply such effectual remedies as may contribute to the real safety of both who will not only scorn to be Pensioners to France but will inable the King upon occasion to oppose the too near greatness of that Ambitious Monarchy and not like the Men of the Conspiracy cry out against French Pensioners and French Councils and yet themselves do the business of the French by tying the King of England's hands and tying up the Purse of England whose weight is only able to ballance France not amuse and incense the People with dismal stories of the danger of France and at the same time by keeping up the divisions of England augment those dangers and find the Government work enough to consult and take care of its own security at home so as neither to have Money nor leisure enough to look after or be able to prevent any dangers abroad in a word the Nation must have a new house of Commons if a new Parliament and a new Parliament if they expect any good and Peace of settlement either in Church and State at home or security and Honour abroad and therefore by clear consequence either not the Old Members with the Old Principles or the Old Principles with New Men. It is very probable however that the Dissenting Faction will not abandon all their hopes but being still in many places animated by the Principal Men of their Party and led by their ill Destiny to pull down vengeance upon their own heads it is possible they will struggle hard in some Elections to over vote the Loyalists and obtrude the same or Men of the same leaven upon the Nation Now though I know nothing that obliges me to give them good advice but pure Compassion yet I would desire them to look before they leap and if they have not forfeited all their share of Common discretion to see where their Interest lies Every man that hath but a grain of sence will consult his own advantage and before