of his Souldiers that cost him his Life and Empire But still that was not half so great an Incentive to his Revolting Subjects as the forementioned Barbarities of a popish Tyrant now For though he was so deeply stain'd in Royal Blood yet that was not so nearly felt by the people as a Romish Tyrants cutting his Subjects Throats would be by reason that Englishmen have ever a greater Tenderness of Themselves than their Princes Besides whatever Wrong he had done to the Royal Family never had Prince more endeared himself or endeavoured it at least than he to his people For Baker gives this Account of him That having gotten the Crown by pestilent Courses he sought to Establish it by Wholesome Laws for in no King's Reign were ever better Laws made for the Ease and Solace of the people or more Immunities granted to the Subject Nor was there any thing of Religious Difference in his Case Religion that the Character tells you sets all Nations in a Flame For Richard and his Souldiers were of One Church and so no part of the people's Hatred as in the Case of popery now nor any part of the Coals was blown up from that Wind. Yet if under no Danger to Religion and Liberties no Approach nor Apprehension of Tyranny and Slavery nevertheless his parricides alone outweighed all other Merits and their Hatred of Richard only on that Score could turn his Subjects Swords against his own Breast how much more violent an Aversion will the Hatred of a popish Tyrant both for his Religion and his Cause together produce being enough to exasperate the English Constitutions not only into Rebels but even into Savages too But for a farther Instance of Revolting Armies the History of Demetrius Emperour of Russia is a memorable Example This Demetrius the only Heir of the Empire was in his Infancy stoln away to be rescued from the Danger of his Life from the Cruelty of the Usurper Boritz Fedoritz then in possession of the Empire and another Body very like him was exposed Dead to the View of the people This Demetrius being brought up in Poland with the Palatine Sandomiâ— after he had travelled into Germany and Italy for the space of twenty years gave himself to be known for the Son of Bazil and Heir of Russia and by the Assistance of the Palatine the Jesuites and the Favour of the King himself entred into Muscovy well accompanied with Germanes Poles and Cossacks Against whom Boritz raised a puissant Army Nevertheless the Infidelity of his People who rose in Arms against him together with several Losses sustained deprived him both of Courage and Life and thereupon he dyed but left his Son to succeed him who was received indeed by some of his Faction But the City of Muscovy together with all the Country having joyn'd with Demetrius threw Boritz Son into Prison and Establish't Demetrius upon the Throne whose Coronation as 't is largely described in the History of the Iron Age was attended with such loud Transports of the People and such universal Acclamations of Joy as could scarce be exceeded Yet this very Prince had no sooner ascended the Throne and was scarce yet warm in the Seat but those very Subjects whose Hands and Swords had so chearfully and vigorously asserted the Justice of his Cause and Birthright and advanced him to the Empire nevertheless understanding that he had embraced the Romish Faith and acknowledged the Pope and that he had introduced the Jesuites as they apprehended to endeavour the Change of the Religion which in Russia is the Greek Church fell so totally off from their new Allegiance and entice into so sudden and so perfidious a Conspiracy against him that upon a General Uproar they fell upon the Poles and others as they were going to Court insomuch that they overpower'd all the Forreign Assistance he had brought with him and approach't so near to his Palace till the Emperour left his Queen and got away and upon persuit leapt down from a Tower through a Window at the Foot whereof being found alive he was forthwith dispatcht and the Cruelty of the barbarous Multitude continued upon his dead Body which they tore in pieces And so swift was the Change of popular Affections and so violent the Fury stirred up by the meer Alarum of altering the Religion that all this prodigious Revolution was wrought in a Month's Time after his Acquisition of the Crown And if the Imaginary Introduction of Popery as this was hitherto no more could raise so rapid a Torrent and so sudden a Turn of Tide from the Revolting Muscovites what miraculous Fidelity can a Romanist expect from Englishmen under as great an Abhorrence of the Religion and a more real Appearance of the aforenamed Tyrannous Effects of it But put the Case the best and most plausible way Viz. That a popish Successour as some people will fancy though really impossible could raise a whole Army of the same Stretching Conscience as the Character has raised him Officers a Crew of all Atheists and neither Principles nor Religion were any part of their Consideration and consequently plyable to any purpose whatever as a Pack of such Reprobates as shall obey their Prince and his Officers in so unjustifyable a Command and so unnatural a piece of Service as cutting the Protestant Throats or upholding those Arbittary Judges that shall do it what Faith shall he dare lodge in an Army so Qualified For what shall hinder them upon any Opportunity or Overture of greater advantage from turning as great Regâ—es against him as for him and truly with as little Guilt and as good Conscience on one side as ' tother For an Actual Obedience even to a Crown'd Head in the Execution of an Vnlawful Act especially so notorious as the Massacring of his Subjects and Destruction of the Government is as much against our Duty both as Christians and Subjects as downright to rebell against him And if this Army can stretch so far as to such horrid popish Outrages so much against the English Grain 't is very great Odds but they 'd much easier lean to their more Natural Byass on the other I need not insist much farther upon the manifest Inability of Popery's Advancement by Armies or Arbitrary Power when Arbitrary Power of it self alone without the other unweildy Clog of Popery at the heels of it has been ever adjudged so impracticable in England that the very Conquerour himself the Norman William thought not his Victory secure but by ingaging to adhere to William the Confessours Laws or at least to introduce no Noveltyes excepting such as Tryals by Juryes or the like and these to the Priviledge not Infringement of the Peoples Liberties And the long and Bloody Baron's Wars upon a less Invasion of Liberty are a sufficient Demonstration of the Vneasiness of Englishmen under any Yoke whatever Insomuch that a popish Successour under the undeniable Suspitions and at best but faint Affections of his People is so far from a
Capacity of Tyrannizing either with Armyes or without them that he has no other Support both of Himself and his whole Party but by following the forementiond Measures of Richard the Third and either to in dear himself by making of Wholesome Laws for the people's Freedom and Tranquility or at least by keeping within the Bounds of those wholesome Ones they have already made for their Security Now with all these Numerous and undeniable Blocks in his way why must a popish Successour be Able or indeed possest with so Enthusiastick a Presumption for nothing less than Supernatural Inspirations will do it as to Think himself able to accomplish that very Thing in England which was never done by Monarch before Nay to make the Presumption a little more prodigious this very Successour who of all the Kings since the Creation has the worst Tools for such an Atchievement must be the first and only person that is for undertaking it For as a National Slavery is always the work of Time and can get footing at best but by slow and subtle Encroachments and likewise if at all 〈◊〉 a thousand times more Feasible from a Prince that is the People's Darling than one that is the â—â—â—version How unfit a Prince will a popish Successour be for so hazardous an Attempt when the continual and united Jealousies of his Subjects will prevent the first part of the Danger by forewatching even the least Surprize or Arbitrary Encroachment upon them and next will never furnish him with half hands enough to perfect the Vndertaking Well but notwithstanding all this there are a sort of People in the World that shall make Answer that Arbitrary Power in a Papist is not a thing so new nor so unpracticable when the Government of the now French King is so manifest a Testimony to the Contrary And truly there are but too many Incendiaries in this Age that distract the Brainless part of Mankind with almost no other Gorgon Viz. That the French King's Standing-Armyes are to be the Pattern of a popish Successour's Government and the Persecution of his Hugonots the very Fate of the Protestants in England whil'st under the Rose Popery and Slavery are to Copy from no other Original As this is one of the main Pretensions of the Whig-Fears and indeed the Top-Demonstration of Popery and Arbitrary Power so when truly examined you 'll find it just such an Apparition as Otes's bloody Pilgrims the more terrible the more ridiculous For as 't is the common Fate of all popular Arguments on that Subject so much the more Formidable still so much the more Ayry the Phantom For first not to insist much upon the General Mistake of Mankind when possibly the French Arbitrary Power is infinitely magnifyed above what really it is for excepting the French King's now and then fleecing an Over-rich Cheating Courtier a little Arbitrarily and thereby in truth making but a Reprizal of his own I could never yet learn by those that know the French Government that any man's Meum or Tuum was Illegally taken away or any Man's Life or Fortune stood or fell but by the Judicial Process of the Laws of the Land 'T is true indeed his Wars have been Expensive but then his Revenues have been large to support them and not only that but his Forreign Depredations have supplyed the greatest part of the Expence Nevertheless whatever Arbitrary Taxes he may have raysed to the Injury of any particular aggrieved Subject or whatever Tyranny he may have exercised over the distrest and persecuted Hugonots if either of the two can be properly Arbitrary or Tyrannick when past into a Law and made a Decree enacted by parliament as both the Taxes and the present Hugonot Persecution are the French King 's Arbitrary Incroachments in France are no precedent for a popish Successour's Imitation in England and that because the State and Constitution of the Two Kingdoms are so extreamly different that there is not the least Ground for such a Foundation here as there For first as to the Nature and Genius of the People In France the Peasants ab Origine have not enjoyed half the Priviledges and Immunityes of the Freeborn people of England And therefore under that sordid Education as knowing no better and being in a manner inured to Slavery 't is no such great wonder to see the French Commonalty submitting to such Oppression as indeed why should they otherwise when they submit but to Law And if the French King has any greater Ascendance over his Parliaments than the Kings of England over Theirs to perform all this why should that be any Rarity when in reality they are of so different a Constitution from those of England that they are rather the settled Magistrrcy of the Nation than any thing like Our Parliaments and as Ours are of the peopl's Election Theirs in a manner only the King 's every Member of the French Parliaments holding his Office not only for Life but even to his Heirs unless alienated by the Prince upon a Forfeiture or any personal Dislike that in short as being the Creatures of the King they are truly more like a Turkish DIVAN than an English House of Commons But in fine to make a Parallel of our Dangers between the State of the two Nations which in truth is bringing North and South together BECAVSE a popish French King with the Majority of the Kingdom of his own Religion the Religion Established by Law and Flourishing in Glory by help of such vaste Armies too intirely of that Religion and thereby principled for his own Service can squeeze some particular of his Subjects Purses a little Arbitrarily and oppress and persecute the poor forlorn Hugonots a Party infinitely the Minority disabled too from all power and at highest but suffered by the Indulgence of the State and that even with the most favourable Aspect of the Government under that pittance of Encouragment that for Example to the whole Body of the Reformers inhabiting in that vaste and populous City of Paris there is tolerated but One Hugonot Church and that standing like our Pancras only more Miles out of Town because I say the French King under these Circumstances can do all this THEREFORE pray mark it a popish English King with his Diminitive Romish Party the most inconsiderable Handful of the Nation under not only the Censure of the Law but the utter Abhorrence of the People with the help of an Army if he has any of a quite contrary Religion and thereby wholly unprincipled for the Service intended shall vanquish and subject the Protestant Establish't Religion in all its Lustre and Strength upheld by all the Fortifications of Law and by Numbers even to a more than hundredfold Majority whil'st the English Protestants are not only to feel the French Hugonots Smart but if either the Fanatical Suggestions or the popish Character speaks Truth to groan under a hundred times Oh! Monstrum Horrendum more dismal Persecution and Slavery the
present French Arbitrary Stretch being little more than a Fleabiting to our total Abolition of our Laws Libertyes and Religion But to make this French Goblin more monstrous still there are some People that go a Bowes Shoot farther yet and will tell you that by the aforesaid almost Omnipotent Things called Standing-Armyes a popish Successour shall not only crush our Protestant Laws and Liberties to pieces Himself but likewise hectour our very parliaments to that degree as to force them to the giving up our very Birthrights to him nay to the very passing of at once both Popery and Slavery into Law it self and then Lord have Mercy upon poor lost England For alas the same Absolute uncontroulable Soveraignty that the French King has over his Parliaments is they 'll tell you the intended Scheme of a popish Dominion in England And then where Oh where is our Religion and Liberties when that black Day once comes Now in the Name of Lucifer what Infernal Impudence reigns in the World when such Rank such Nonsensical Stuff as this can be asserted by Rogues and credited by Fools For besides the most infamous Calumny that this execrable Imputation throws upon the whole Body of the Nation Viz. That Englishmen shall be such tame such abject such despicable Wretches and Cowards as out of any personal Fear whatever to yield up their Laws Rights and Religion to the Ruine of themselves and their Posterity and thereby offer as it were even their own Throats to the Slaughter What Relation has the present Management in France to that of Popery in England or the French King 's Parliamentary Influence to that of a popish Successour's For whatever extraordinary Obedience or Subjection the French Parliaments may yield to their King in the grant of any Oppressive Impositions upon the Subject to advance their King 's Exorbitant Power and Greatness are the French King 's Arbitrary Endeavours to root up the Foundations of his popish Laws and the Establish't Religion of France which vice versa is the Case in England so that if a popish Successour can hector our English Parliaments to no farther a Complyance than the French King does His the Devil an Inch of Ground will Popery get in England for as I take it the French Parliaments are all popish and as such are in so little danger of their Religion that truly their Prince in the other Extream is in the highest Extravagance of Advancing it So that unless we state the Parrallel between the two Kings Thus Viz. Supposing the French King a Hugonot which is but turning our Tables that then both his popish Armies and popish Parliaments would nevertheless be awed and bullyed into that intire Submission to him as to abolish the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and thereby subject themselves and all their Brethren Papists to the self same Persecution and Slavery under the Hugonots that the Hugonots suffer under Them without which Supposition his Tyranny is wholly alien to our popish Successour's and nothing but the most Villanous Phanatical Sophistry dares cant at this wretched rate to pretend to make the French Tyranny a Model for English Popery to work by But put the Case there were a French Hugonot King and that had the forementioned purpose in Agitation either by Armies or Parliaments as plyable as the French Genius is supposed to be his Ill Success in such an Exploit might be soon guest by the Difficulties and Obstructions of their Hugonot Henry the 4 th in his way to the Throne under but a suspition of inclining that way And consequently what worse Success would attend the like popish Changes in England under the manifest disproportion of the English Papists to the French Hugonots is past dispute However if neither English Armies nor English Parliaments can do the popish Feat there 's one last Expedient yet to vanquish all Obstacles and that I assure you if no small Authors may be believed a most puissant one Viz. If the popish Hands in England are too weak to enslave us this popish Successour shall borrow the Assistance of popish Neighbours to help out and so what cannot be done by Domestick Forces shall be perform'd by a Forreign Army call'd over on purpose This Expedient I confess is so much the more remarkable as it has some little Affinity to Bedlow's St. Jago Expedition and truly has sometimes had the Honour to be harangued upon even in a House of Commons as no small Danger from Popery But notwithstanding the Authority and Veracity this Projection may seem to arrogate from its Admission into an Honourable House of Parliament upon due Examination I am half afraid 't will prove but one of the Observator's downright Twangers For if this popish Successour be for setting up Popery by pitch't Battles and plain Conquest and that too by Outlandish Ayde in the first place he must have far more than tenfold as many Forreign popish Hands as he has of his own to pretend at least to a strength able to subdue England nay and in truth here 's one unlucky Circumstance attending that is if he can borrow popish Neighbours 't is odds but the protestants may borrow protestant Neighbours too upon occasion for Princes have as often lent Armies to succour opprest Subjects as to assist Oppressing Tyrants But let that pass But supposing the best face of the thing that there were some Chance for him in this bold Cast and that after his setting of Honour Life Empire all at a Throw upon the hazard of War there were only an even Lay of Keeping or loosing them a Caesar aut nullus 't were a little more pardonable Venture But as the Devil would have it there 's not one syllable of this in the Matter For if overthrown he 's so irrevocably lost that possibly not only his own Ruine but that of all his Royal Family and of Monarchy it self goes together But admitting he Conquers the Question is whether the Caesarship on the other side be so secure or no For truly what if the aforesaid tenfold Majority of Forreign Conquerours should make bold to pass a Civil Complement upon this Successour Militant and the rest of his popish Remnant and fairly keep the Victory when they have got it For I assure him little England is a pritty Parcel of Terra firma and 't were no small Temptation to popish or no popish Fingers to be a little tenacious with so fortunate a Prize And when those Triumphant Forreigners have tasted the sweet Air of so delicate a Spot as England 't is fourty to one whether They or at least the Crown'd Head that lends them will be overhasty of resigning so inviting a Trophy as the English Diadem and truly cosidering the Blackness of the Cause they came over to ingage in if any Forreign Prince can lend an Army for so Dishhonourable a Quarrel which indeed all Nations and all Religions must cry Shame against with much less Dishonour may he wear the Lawrel he wins
THE Present STATE OF ENGLAND In Relation to POPERY Manifesting the Absolute Impossibility of Introducing POPERY and ARBITRARY POWER into this Kingdom Being a Full Confutation of all Fears and Apprehensions of the Imagined Dangers from thence and particularly of a Certain Pamphlet Entituled The Character of a Popish Successor By E. SETTLE LONDON Printed by J. Gain for William Cademan at the Popes-Head in the Lower Walk of the New-Exchange in the Strand Anno MDCLXXXIV TO THE Loyal GENTRY OF KENT Gentlemen WRITERS set out in Print as Adventurers to Sea The happy Discovery of some extraordinary Fortunate Coast the first Voyage is an Invitation to attempt a Plantation there the next Such was the Temptation of a New-found GOLDEN WORLD whil'st the Sails of a CORTEZ were only swell'd by the Prosperity of a COLUMBVS The same Success and the same Attraction is my Loadstar whil'st the Honour of Dedicating my First Piece my Narrative to the Worthy Sir THOMAS TAYLOR has brought me like a Bolder Inmate amongst you resolved to plant my self and my whole Labours in no other Soyl. I confess indeed my own infinite Unworthiness makes my Intrusion wholly inexcusable However that Innate Goodness that ever attends the LOYAL and the BRAVE is no little Encouragement when I consider that whatever my past Faults have been yet Clemency and Forgiveness as being the brightest Emanations of GLORY from that inexhaustible Fountain of Mercy the Best of KINGS are ever the natural Borrow'd Beams to that Loyalty that shines from him A more particular Portion of which enlightning Brightness is so justly your own that a never shaken Loyalty and an unsullyed Fidelity are the very Claim even of your BIRTH RIGHTS For whatever weaker and less fortified Hearts the Growth and Progress of Faction may have subdued YOU challenge that Native Brittish Honour so much of the Heroe derived down from Ages to you that the Vindication of MONARCHY and the opposing and repelling all Republick Arts and Machinations against the ROYAL-CAUSE with the same Souls and Resolution that your Renowned Ancestors withstood the Norman Arms is but asserting your own Hereditary Glory of KENT that is of being INVINCIBLE The Assurance of which Generous Virtues born and bred with you that Illustrious Genius that runs in your very Veins gives me hopes not only of obtaining your Pardon for this Presumption but likewise your Patronage and Protection from the Slanders of my Enemies who endeavour to intercept all Favourable Thoughts of me and my Writings by alleadging that I have written so virulently and maliciously that I ought never to be trusted for a Convert The first part of their Accusation my own guilty part 't is true I own and submit to all the Load that Justice Reproach and Shame can lay upon me But alas am I the onely Libeller never to be Converted or never to be believed so when some of my own Faulty Predecessours the present Honour both of the PRESS and PULPIT under as blackning Circumstances have sometimes in their Lives play'd the very Panegyrists upon a Cromwel And though indeed a Submission to the Government of a Rebel might come under Self-Preservation yet publick Encomiums upon him are these Super-errogating Works of Affection and Applause both to the Traytor and the Regicide which no little Penitence could wash off Yet whil'st not only the present Generous Arms of a Pardoning COURT and the kindest Embraces of an Endearing CHURCH are those Royal Credentials of THEIR Plenary Conversion with what Eyes must the World look on Me either to find that unmalleable Impenitency in My Temper or that Hardness of Belief in their Own 'T is probable I confess that this following Discourse may give Distast to some of our late Members of Parliament written to convince the World that the Church of England and the Protestant Strength of this Kingdom stand upon a ROCK Immoveable whereas on the contrary the False Prognosticks of our laâ—e State-Wizards have Seated them on Bogs and Quicksands just tumbling and sinking However for my Justification I have this to say We live in a Kingdom where Thanks to GOD and our yet safe MONARCHICAL Constitution we are in that Temperate Region that unless now and then of late in the too sultry DOG-DAYS of Black-rod and Messenger Time we are only Govern'd by LAW And when I find no Statute nor one Letter of that LAW to make my Denyal of our Popish Dangers Criminal I think I may safely with Honesty and Justice in the open Face of Day aver that we are no more bound to believe any such Popish Dangers near us because this TRUE PROTESTANT Sham-Patriot or that PLOT-COMMITTEE has pronounced them Oraculous than we ought to stand up for the ALCORAN because this Mufti and that Mussullnam will dye for 't POPERY in England being that Goblin that is not seen by ALL Eyes and it being highly unreasonable because three Parts of the Kingdom have been troubled with the JAUNDIES and seen all things yellow that therefore every Man with SOUND HEALTH and BRAINS should do so too For my part I am of Opinion that no Man with three Grains in his Skull is any more obliged to believe OTES his Discovery because so Voted the PRESERVATION of the Kingdom than the Lending the King Money as Voted likewise had been the BETRAYING of it Nor can I possibly fancy a Bill of VNION because so adjudged that is the Incorporating of all sorts of SCHISMES down from the Presbyter to the Muggletonian into the Body of the CHURCH were the way to preserve Us from POPERY any more than the letting of Pickpockets Shoplifts and Ruffians INTO the House were the keeping of FELONS and BURGLARERS Out of it I confess I pay as great a Respect to every Resolve in Parliament that carries REASON HONOUR and LOYALTY along with it as every good Subject ought to pay But I profess if I should find Resolved by this HOUSE that his Majesties Life has been twice in Imminent Danger from a certain Screwd Gun most terribly charged once with all Bullets and no Powder and a second time with all Powder and no Bullets and therefore be it likewise Resolved as the only Expedient for the SAFETY of his Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion from the Danger of such bloody Popish Assassinates that an ADDRESS be made to his Majesty that all the MEN-WORTHY Papists in Masquerade be removed from all Offices of Trust and the True Protestant WORTHY-MEN be placed in their Room and that a Bill be likewise brought in for the Lodging the Militia for forty two days in Confiding Hands for the King and Kingdom 's DEFENCE Now I say if I should read this a thousand times over with an Imprimatur WI. WILLIAMS in Letters of Gold confirmed too by the Infallibility even of Nemine Contradicente it self hang me if I should find out either that Wondrous Danger to his Majesty in the first Resolve or that secure Preservation of him in the Last If ten thousand
to the Church of Rome are equally guilty of High Treason and to suffer as in Cases of Treason And a second Act of Henry the VIII In which the Refusal of the Oath of Henry's Supremacy in Renuntiation of the Pope was also made High Treason Now if every Papist in England without lifting a Hand uttering a Word or imagining the least disloyal Thought against his Lawful Soveraign his Crown and Dignity or against the Peace of the Nation where he 's a Subject yet nevertheless out of a point of Conscience and meer Matter of Faith cannot be induced to believe a Temporal Prince capable of being Head of a Church but is invincibly perswaded how erronious soever that the POPE is Peter's undoubted Successour and Christ's unquestioned Vicar upon Earth and cannot without hazard of his Soul so much as consent to acknowledge otherwise yet notwithstanding by the Protestant Laws of the Land this Invincible Perswasion without any other Crime is interpreted High-Treason and punish't as such Now I say in this Case what wondrous Difference is there between the Rigour of a Popish or a Protestant Constitution This that makes a Defection from Their Church-Establish't TREASON and the other from Theirs HERESY This that punishes an Apostate with Hanging and Quartering at Tiburn and the other with Burning at Smithfield 'T is true that Branch of Queen Elizabeth's Statute that concerns the Popish Layman's High-Treason was never yet put in Execution and I hope for the Glory of the Reformation Establish't by that Illustrious Princess as so extreamly Sanguinary was never intended to be being severe enough to give our Popish Enemies a Matter of Recrimination though Enacted but in Terrorem But here I beg the Reader to be assured that I urge not this Comparison in Disparagement of our Protestant Laws but only to satisfie the Mistaken Part of Mankind that all such Judicial Severities under the Government of both Religions have ever been introduced by the most Awful and Sacred Authority of the rightful Law-Makers of the Nations and consequently in the English Constitution not only the King 's but the Peoples Acts and Decrees and so to convince them of the unreasonableness of that senseless Surmise that upon the Admission of a Popish Successour all the forementioned Cruelties though without any such Induction of Law and consequently with all the Injustice Rapine and Cold-blooded Murder even to that formal Solemnity of Butchery that humane Imagination would tremble at must and shall be introduced For alas how ridiculously extravagant must those Fears be that can aâ—dlâ— Men's Senses into a Dread of that prodigious Stroke from Popery that was never given by it since the Creation What Magnifying Glasses therefore must the Popular Fears see through to behold such Stupendious Visions of Popery as that THAT shall be that NEVER was whil'st a Popish Crown'd Head in England must be the first nay only Royal Savage of a Papist that ever Reign'd However for once let us suppose the Devil and Pope as familiar together as ever they were painted at a Queen Elizabeth's Night and that this Gospel Propagation were really the Doctrine of his pretended Infallibility and this Bloody Mandate to a Popish Successour the special Edict of the whole CONSISTORY what would the Execution of that Mandate make towards the Growth or Advancement of Popery God knows so far from promoting the Romish Religion that possibly there wants but that One Attempt to shame it almost out of the World For in the first place 't is so far from a way or means to convert even one Soul in England that 't is the only Course to increase their Abhorrence and Execration of that Religion and bring the very THOVGHT of Popery even below Damnation 'T would no more make Converts to Rome than the old Heathen Caldrons and Gridirons to Paganisme For as the greatest Prejudice of Englishmen against Popery lyes in their Horrour of the Cruelties of it so consequently nothing can contribute to the Advancement of it but the Clemency and Mercy of its Professours to reconcile us even into meer Charity with them whil'st the Exercising of the formentioned unexampled Barbarities would make us fall from our present Ill Opinion of Popery as a Corrupted Church to believe it no Church at all but rather an Association of Monsters and a Den of Cannibals and Tygers and the greatest Operation such unprecedented Cruelty could meet were at best but to force the frighted People into a superficial counterfit Complyance and make them Temporize a little only to compound for their Lives yet that Temporizing under so Villanous a Persecution would be so far from a True Conversion or any thing like it that they 'd only play the Highest of Hypocrites come perhaps to Mass to mutter Curses instead of Ave-Mary's or be hunted into the Popish Fold only to pray for a favourable Opportunity of having a pull at the Throats of the Wolves that drive them thither And Secondly Besides the Impotent Effects 't is certain to find towards the Heretick Conversion the Pope's Command nay indeed Connivance at any such Arbitrary Tyrannick Stake-burning or Throat-cutting from a Popish Successour instead of advancing of Popery by so excentrick a Motion will be enough to stagger half the Popish Hearts in Christendom for as Implicit as the Faith of the Romish Zealots is and as intirely devoted as they are to their Peter's Chair and Mother-Church undoubtedly there are Thousands of them that notwithstanding they can disgest a Wafer for a GOD can never be wrought to believe the Transubstantiation of such visible Tyranny and Butchery into Righteousness and Christianity how Zealous soever they may be for the Conversion of so Heretical a Nation as England And that this would be the Infallible Consequence of all such Barbarous Popish Measures they that will but look back to the Annals of Queen Mary will find Historians telling us That nothing so much advanced the Reformation as the Mistaken Conduct of Queen Mary and her bloody Counsellors in that Point And Dr. Burnet expresly assures us That the whole Body of the Nation grew to dislike the Cruelty of Rome Abridg. Book the 3 d. Pag. 275. to that degree that the Popish Bishops for their Apology threw it off from Themselves and openly laid it on the King's and Queen's Commands insomuch that King Philip for his Excuse made his Confessour preach a Sermon at Court against the taking of Peoples Lives for their Opinions in Religion and inveighed against the Bishops for doing it By which means a stop was put to it for some time But nevertheless as the same Severity soon after return'd again he tells us all along That the Nations Dislike of it was Universal and the repeated Acclamations and universal Transports of Joy at the Proclaiming of Queen Elizabeth proceeded from the People's Hopes of better Days under Her Scepter than her Sister 's By which it appeared how weary the Nation was of the Cruel and weak Administration
Fires with the dragging of their Fathers their Wives their Children or their Kindred and possibly their own Turn next to a popish Stake will not equally if not more violently inflame them into as great or greater Outrages than the Gun-powder Plot could do But whether this certain Ruine should persue these Arbitrary popish Instruments either sooner or later and that it were really possible these or any other Illegal popish Measures might give us some Trouble and Disturbance during this popish Monarch's Reign How wretched a piece of Work must the Wisdom of the Pope and the whole Conclave undertake to make Popery and Arbitrary Power under a popish Successour those Feeble Serpents that shall but just bite our Heels to provoke our succeeding Vengeance to crush their Heads In the second year of Queen Mary after the Repeal of King Edward's Laws but before the Restoration of the Pope's Supremacy we are told in the History of the Reformation Abridg. B. 3. pag. 253. of a project proposed by the Spanish Ambassadour to the Queen of assuming the power of a Conquerour and ruling at pleasure by which she might restore both the Religion and the Abbey-Lands and be under no Restraint This she communicated to her Chancellour Gardiner and charged him to give her his Opinion of it sincerely as he would answer to God for it at the last day He read it carefully and told her it was a most pernicious Contrivance and begg'd her not to listen to such Platforms which might be brought her by base Sycophants Vpon that she burnt the Paper and charged the Ambassadour to bring her no more such proâ—ects This gave Gardiner great Apprehensions of the Mischiefs that Spanish Councils might bring upon the Nation and so he procured the Act to be made by which the Queen was bound by the Law as much as her Ancestors were Now if that Bloody popish Zealot Gardiner was so violently averse to the Thought of bringing Arbitrary power into England for what Service soever to the Romish Cause as in his Opinion so most pernicious when at the same time the Majority or Half of the Nation at least were of that perswasion And if popish Standing Armies could have done the Feat they were ten times easier to be rais'd for any Arbitrary popish purpose then especially too when the Queen lay in the Bosome of that potent Spanish Husband witness his Invincible Armada soon after against Queen Elizabeth that could have lent her a very considerable Helping Hand from Forreign Assistance to push on the project had her English Strength been Insufficient Now I say if nevertheless the Design was deem'd so pernicious then what popish State Councellours at this time of day will run their own and their Prince's Fingers so far in the Fire as to advise him to any such Arbitrary Projection now under so low a Wane of Popery that scarce the 200 th part of the Nation are of that Religion and therefore infinitely more pernicious than in Queen Mary's Case and consequently which nothing but the most abandon'd Lunacy can ever pretend to advise or attempt 'T is true indeed the popish Character lays down a most Expeditious Method of raising this dreadful Standing Army that are to accomplish the mighty Feat of Popery and Slavery under a Romish Successour which for the Reader 's Diversion take as follows To make the Pope Absolute there wants a Standing-Army and he shall have it For who shall hinder him Nay all his Commanders shall be qualify'd even by our present Protestant Test for the Employment He shall have enough Men of the Blade out of one half of the Gaming Houses in Town to Officer twice as many Forces as he shall want 'T is true they shall be Men of no Estates nor Principles But they shall fight as well as those that have Both. For people are ever as Valiant that have their Fortunes to raise as those that have them to defend Nay of the two they shall be the more Faithful For they have no Property to be concern'd for and will more zealously serve him by Reason their whole Interest and Estates lye in Him And that this Army may be more quietly raysed how many honourable Pretences may be found Perhaps the greatest and most important Preservation of his Kingdom shall call for it and then upon second Thoughts instead of defeating some Forreign Enemy they are opportunely ready to cut our Throats at Home c. This Projection I confess is the only passage through the whole Character that endeavours to make out the possibility of any part of the numerous popish Mischiefs denounced through the whole Pamphlet For all along it absolutely supposes the power of a popish Successour's doing whatever he pleases and after so fallacious a Petitio principii it leaps over all Mountains in the way and only labours to prove the Depravity of a popish Successour's Tyrannical Inclinations and give him the Will of putting that power into Execution But to examine the Depth of this Projection granting such a Set of Atheistick Officers could be found what then must their Army be Here 's a Forreign Invasion or some other Honourable Cause proposed and an Army raysed for that seeming Intent and Purpose an Army of papists they cannot be for there is not 40000 Men Women and Children of that perswasion in the whole Kingdom and consequently far short of 10000 Fighting Men amongst them all and possibly not one half of them neither such Foolhardy Desperadoes as to hazard their Lives so madly and so extravagantly in so unpromising a Cause so unaccomplishable a Design as Subjecting of England by the Hands of the papists So that an Army of Papists can be no part of a popish Successour's Thoughts And that the number of the papists in England is really no Greater The King's Indulgence formerly to those of that Religon in gratitude for their Loyal Endeavours at Worcester and indeed through all his Fathers Distresses has been so far from putting them to the Shifts of Disguises or Concealment of their Perswasions that before the late wakening of the Laws against them the papists were every where as visible and generally as distinguishable from the rest of Mankind as one Sex is from another insomuch that unless their Numbers have increased by Converts made since the popish Discovery and the Execution of the Statutes against them there 's scarce one papist in England that all his Neighbours round him cannot particularly point at And how thin sown those Papists are is notoriously manifest when in many and many a ten Parishes together in England there is not three Papists and the whole number computed through the Nation scarce the 200 th Man of that Perswasion Notwithstanding there have been many Fanatical Pretensions of wonderful popish Dispensations by vertue of which there are at least thirty or fourty thousand Church-papists as some old Oliverian Rebels shall tell you tolerated by the Pope to an Absolute Protestant Vniformity and ready
now This very King I say with so small a Party of Protestants could nevertheless lay the very Corner Stone that the whole Reformation was afterwards built upon and that too by Act of Parliament And why on the other side shall it be so impossible for a popish Prince with Henry the Eight's Courage and Conduct withal after not a hundred and fifty years Reign of the protestant Religion to be likewise able to do the same Favour for Popery and lay the very Basis of it even by Parliaments and Law And a protestant Parliament now as a popish one then be so managed or Influenced as to give a main Lift to the Work Besides why should the Change of the Religion be so wondrous or difficult a Deed under a popish Monarch now when upon every Change of the Prince's Faith since the Conquest the Establish't Religion of the Kingdom has been changed with it For Instance after Henry's good Stroke towards it Did not an Infant Prince Edward the Sixth in poor seven years time Establish the protestant Religion by Law And did not Mary his popish Successour subvert it again by Law and by Law restore the very Pope's Supremacy And lastly Did not the protestant Queen Elizabeth after her trample both Pope and Popery under Feet and confirm that very Protestant Religion that Reigns at this Day And why shall a Popish Successour now with as much Zeal and Industry as his Predecessours miscarry in that very work in which not one of them fail'd before him There is nothing that possibly passes for a more Authentick Confirmation of all our popish Dangers than this One Assertion so universally received for Currant Sterling by being only taken at a Lump upon Trust unweighed and unexamined But when considerately and throughly inspected all rational Men must blush to be deceived by so light and so drossy a Popular Tradition For to begin with Henry the Eighth In the first place here neither is nor can be the least Motive for the present Protestant People or their Representatives to make the least Change whatever in the present Church of England in any kind answerable to the several Inducements that wrought those Changes in Henry the Eighth's Time For first as no small Encouragement for the Reformation the People had then contracted a general and just Odium of the whole Clergy strangely occasion'd by the Murder of Hunn a Merchant of London in Prison This Hunn being sued in the Legates Court for Non-payment of a Mortuary to his Parish-Priest in return sued the Parish Priest in the Temporal Court for a Premunire for bringing the King's Subjects before a Forreign and Illegal Court This incensed the Clergy so much that they threw him into Prison for Heresy where having several Articles exhibited against him upon Confession of part of them and begging Mercy he was only enjoyn'd Penance But not being prevail'd upon to let fall his Suite in the Temporal Court the Bishop's Chancellour a Doctor and other of his Officers inhumanely Murdered him in Prison by breaking his Neck with an Iron Chain and other Wounds given him upon the Belly and then hanged him up in his own Girdle to possess the World that he hanged himself And what was yet worse upon a full Detection of the Truth of this Murder the Bishops of Durham and Lincoln to palliate the Guilt proceeded to charge him with new Heresies after Death and having sound a Wickliffs Bible in his House they condemn'd him as an Heretick and burnt his Body All which Proceedings being now looked upon as the Act of the whole Clergy they lost the Affections of the People to that degree that they could never recover them and nothing more disposed the People to the embracing of the New Preachers than the Resentment of so infamous a Murder committed and patronized by the whole Clergy Hist of Ref. pag. 14 and 15. And then for the Changes made in Parliament The Suppression of Monasteries one of their Acts was no more than what was design'd and begun in some Measure by Cardinal Woolsey and the Pope himself and that long before the Breach betwixt the King and Him who granted a Bull to destroy several of them to convert into Bishopricks Ref. pag. 22. the scandalous and lewd Lives of too many of the Monks and Fryars being obnoxious even to Rome it self Though 't is true the King and Parliament proceeded to a total Suppression of them afterwards for the same Intent of erecting new Episcopal Sees though indeed the vast profits arising from their Sale through the Extravagant Profuseness of Henry the Eighth were not wholly converted to that Use notwithstanding part of his Promise was performed Viz. In his constituting six new Bishopricks and making Allowance for fourteen Deanaryes and Prebendariships to fourteen Bishop's Sees But to gain the Parliament to the King's Party in the Destruction of Monasteries there was that which Governs the World Interest in the Case which was no small Wheel in the Machine For the King selling of the Lands at easie Rates to the Nobility and Gentry by this Policy the Parliament Members as Purchasers by the Temptation of such good penny-worths were ingaged to assist the King in the Maintenance of the Changes made Ref. pag. 223. And for another part of Henry the 8 th's Reformation Viz. The censuring and condemning of Bulls Indulgenses Shrines Pilgrimages and Relicks with the pulling down of Images the scandalous Impostures of several of them by the fraud of the Priests being publickly discovered Ref. p. 242. created no little aversion in the People But besides all that here could never be a more pleasing Change to them than so beneficial a part of Reformation Viz. The freeing them from all those Ecclesiastick Romish Dreins that had so long swallow'd almost half the Wealth of the Kingdom in which too many of them had been too great Sufferers not only through their own but also the deluded Superstition of their Bigotted Ancestors and by which no less than whole Families had been Impoverish't and Undone through the pious Frauds and continual Suckings of those Church Horse-leeches And lastly for the Exclusion of the Papal Supremacy the above cited penalty of Premunire incurred both by the whole Clergy and Layty of England in submitting to the Pope's Legantine Power contrary to Law as against the Act of Provisoes contributed no little matter both to the Clergy and Commons Submission to the King in the point of that Supremacy Besides to facilitate the Assumption of it it was plainly proved by that Provisoe Act and other Substantial Records that the Pope's Encroachments in England were but Vsurpation and the Supremacy in reality ab origine de jure inherent in the Crown and therefore the Resumption of it by the King no more than a Challange and Reprizal of his own Invaded Prerogative As these were all the Changes made by Henry the Eighth the Popish Religion being so far from abolish't by him that he rather strook
her Purpose So that nothing could make a greater Turn of Church Affairs in the Kingdom in those Days when under such a Total Alteration of the Clergy and all ready at hand to step into their Seats the whole Interest of the Adverse Religion through the forementioned Equality of Parties could not but be extreamly shaken and the Prevalence in Parliament be highly mov'd by no other Spring Besides the Act De Hereticis comburendis was then unabolish't and as the Determination of Heresy lay in the Breast of the Clergy here was an easie leap into all the foregoing Severities of Rome even by the Law it self Insomuch that either of the Religions could not properly be call'd by Law Establish't whil'st our Pastors and our Fold were in a manner at the Will of the Soveraign and there wanted but little more than the Royal Breath to drive us to the Right or the Left the Sheep or the Goats But all this is so prodigiously remote from the present State of England and the Religion now Establisb't that Light and Darkness can be scarce more dissonant For besides the infinite Disproportion of the Popish Numbers in Queen Mary's Reign to Ours enough of it self to silence all Dispute a popish Successours Removal of the present Protestant Clergy and the Introduction of Priests and Jesuits in their Room as Head of the Church is no more in his Prerogative than the Government of Transylvania The present Bishops and Clergy holding for Life and only to be displaced or silenced upon Crimes or Insufficiencies adjudged or condemned by the Protestant Censure and Sentence And all the popish Clergy so incapable of their Places that they are Aliens to the Nation under an attaint of Treason upon the very Assumption of their Sacerdotal Orders and so shut out from our Church-Ministry by Parliamentary Oaths Tests and Abjurations that nothing but the most Diabolical Papal Dispensation and a Conscience even Brimstone Proof could introduce them were there really Room for their Admission But alas considering in what Equilibrium Religion then hung whatever Concurrence the Prince could then obtain from his People in Parliament in favour of his own Perswasion The Genius of England is now quite another thing All our Parliaments for almost a hundred years last past have been so far from granting even the least Concession to the Crown in favour of popery that on the contrary all their Study Votings Labours and Endeavours even to a Nemine Contradicenâ—e have been levell'd at the very Root of it so far from countenancing of it that the very sound of it has made them fly out into the most rapid Torrent of Contradiction even beyond the Duty of Subjects and instead of Complimenting either Pope or Popery they have tyed up their very Hands even from the best of Protestant Crown'd Heads and in their highest Extremities denyed them their most reasonable Demands in the most pressing Necessities of the Crown and all for the Apprehension of popish Designs and for keeping the least String of their Purses from popish Fingers I need not instance what Load of Miseries attended the late Royal Martyr from this Fatal Original Neither do I urge this in Relation to those detestable Regicides the corrupted Limbs of that Exetrable Senate that under the Vizor of Religion were plotting the most Infernal of Mischiefs and so from the false Alarum of popery denyed their Soveraign All Things only to make him Nothing No as All Men are not Monsters and even in that Accursed Parliament there were some honest Men yet those very honest Men those that by the universal Delusion were inchanted into False Fears and so design'd nothing but Truly the Prevention of popery were yet under that Terrour so Jealous of their Prince so Deaf to his Interest and so inexorable even to his most Crying Wants and all for battring these fancy'd Ayry Castles that in the vehemence of their Zeal they contributed to the very Designs of his Murderers and how ignorantly soever heap'd together the very Coals to the universal Conflagration so far too that they had only Time to detect the Infernal Imposture and deplore the dire Effects of their miserable Mistake too late Besides to come a little nearer home What dismal Consequences were the late Malignant Conjunction of Fears and Iealousies in the same Fiery Trigon producing again What Demi-Gods and Nation-Saviours did the whole Vox populi nay the very sensible Men of the Nation make of those very Varlets which now their Opened Eyes and waken'd Senses I appeal to their own Consciences tell them are those flagitious unparallel'd Villains that would shame a Gibbet And yet the very Loyallest of all our late Members of Parliament for they were not all Shaftsburys nor all Sidneys neither such that were for Associating to Kill-Kings to keep out Popes nor answering of Filmers out of Buchanan's and Miltons nor seating the Good Old Cause at the Right Hand of GOD. Not those that made popery the pretence alone to manage their own Hellish Republick Machinations But only those that alas and well a day had been Beuk-Blawd a little out of their right Wits by the aforesaid Nation-Saviours and so were for combating of Popery possibly for the Real Preservation of the King and Kingdom Yet the very Loyallest of these Men I say were wrapt up to that height of perverseness that to use the gentlest Terms I can find they thought they could never do little enough even for that very King attested by their own unanimous reiterated Acknowledgments to be the very Isthinus that kept POPERY from Surrounding Us and on whose Only Thread of Life the whole FATE of the Protestant Religion depended I shall not trouble my self with the Repeating the Diversity of Statutes recited in the Character to instance the various Bandying of the Succession of the Crown in Henry the Eighth's Reign designed there as an Argument of Justice for a Parliamentary Bill of Exclusion against a Popish Heir For whatever different Settlements of the Descent of the Crown that King and his Parliaments were pleased to make occasioned by the Intricacy of his Daughter's Titles grounded upon that long controverted Point the Divorce of Queen Katherine the Mother of Queen Mary and therefore not at all enacted as an Exclusion but a Confirmation of the Right Heir However as far soever as a Parlimentary Power may pretend to extend in that Case all these Statutes make nothing to the purpose for Justification of an Exclusion for matter of Religion For had those Parliamentary Proceedings been a Warrant or Precedent for any such Exclusion never was a more urgent Necessity than in Queen Mary's Reign of laying hold of such a Pretension For considering the State of Religion in her Time when looking back to the two last King's Reigns so formidable a Progress had the Protestant Perswasion made and the Inclinations of the People lean'd so much towards the Reformation that the very Change of the Prince was enough to turn
Arbitrary Movements and Acquisitions of a Romish Prince as the Character it self affirms which indeed by Chance is the very Oracle of the Pamphlet will be totally crusht and destroyed under the next protestant Soveraign and all his popish Tools and Partizans nay the whole Romish Cause it self given up to the protestant Justice and Revenge that shall crush them to pieces so that in perfect Contradiction instead of inextricable Slavery universal protestant Ruine and a total Extirpation of Heresy prognosticated all along in the Character here 's at most but a Temporary Flourishing of Popery and so far from a real protestant Suppression either by Persecution or Massacres or the Devil knows what that we shall be strong enough to rise up under the next protestant Heir and to pluck up and demolish even Root and Foundation all the preceding Batteries and Machinations against our Religion and Liberties whil'st the True Ruine lies in fine not on the protestant but popish Side If so I say as the Character has unluckily started this undeniable Truth certainly we lye under no danger of a popish Successours ever attempting that irregular popish Atchievement and setting up that Short-liv'd Arbitrary popish Dagon which as has been proved before and is even confest here will be of so Calamitous a Consequence to the Interest and Safety even of his whole Party and Religion You see Reader what Incoherence Absurdities Contradictions and indeed Impossibilities the popish Character is fraught with and what notorious Stuff that is that Revenge and Malice obtrudes upon Mankind where popery is the Theme But truely 't is to be consider'd that that Pamphlet was written and publish't not for the Instruction of the Seven Wise Men but of the seven thousand Ill-natured Knaves and the seventy thousand credulous unreasoning Fools of that Age the REPRESENTATIVE Patron to whom that Libel was Dedicated not excepted from the Number that would have swallow'd every Syllable of it had it been ten times more lewdly ridiculous than ' t was Now as not only the Character but the unpondered and groundless Apprehensions of Men have so dreadfully predicted such a terrible bloody Revolution under a popish Successour without one Jota of proving or examining how that wondrous Change is possible to come to pass that the Reader may not be surprized at that weak sort of arguing in the one and that headlong Credulity in the other 't is remarkable that not one Pen that ever wrote upon Popery and Arbitrary-Power ever scribbled otherwise For as the HOW and WHICH WAY they can be introduced into England are not in posse those Essential Circumstances are always slubber'd over and nothing but a Huddle and Jingle of general Notions of Fire and Faggot Assassinations and Massacres Popes and Devils c. And a Declamatory Discant upon those Tragical Heads are ever the whole Contents of the Chapter and whil'st the peoples Fears are set a tingling by this sort of Din and Gibberish they are babled out of their Senses and transported into Frenzy it self without looking farther or searching deeper for the Grounds of their Fears For Example let us trace up the first Alarum of Popery and Arbitrary-power even to the Fountain Head In all the venemous Libels in the late blest Martyr's Reign for there were popish Character Writers in those Days too though in other Names in all the Licentiousness of that Villanous Age and the highest Encouragement of Rebellious Senates there were neither those Pens nor Tongues within the Parliament House or without it that could ever go further than to a bare general 〈…〉 and Outcry of Popery and Arbitrary Power for in all the hideous Roarings against popish 〈…〉 as 't is not the Councellers but the Councel put in Execution that can hurt us was there 〈◊〉 Man of them all that did or indeed pretended to particularize those popish Counsels or form the least Draught of any Dangerous popish Machinations whatever under the least probability of shaking our Laws Liberties or Religion 'T is true there were strange and wondrous popish Incendiaries represented at work but about doing of what The Devil a word they inform us Not all the Republick Rhetorick nor all the Eloquence even of counterfeit Fears and Jealousies could lay down one tolerable Demonstration of the fatal Compositions of those popish Fireballs those Incendiaries were to use or the Conbustableness of what they were to set on Fire Nay those very Devils that had Impudence enough not only to murder the best of Kings but to bring him to a Scaffold with a solemn Pageantry of Iustice were nevertheless so far from the Confidence of pretending the popish Strength or Numbers in England to have the least Shadow of Ability to erect their Romish Altars and subvert the Protestant Religion that to carry on the popular Fears by that Forged Sham of Popery and give Body and Bulk to the Gorgon they were forced to help out one damn'd Imposture by a Greater and bring in the very Church of England for Popish and Antichristian to joyn in the Plot. Nor were our later true Protestant Rome-dreaders much short of the same Artifice to crutch up the same Cripple Nay for want of any Substantial Pretext of the Introduction of any of the Real Fundamental Superstitions of Rome they were put to the wretched Shift of making the harmless Book of Sports licensed by Bishop Laud and an after-Service Game at Coyts or Stool-Ball no less than all over Rome and Antichrist yes and to push the Jest a little farther the old Kings tolerating half a score of Priests in Indulgence to his Queen to wear the Habit of their Order though in Reality an Object more for the Hooting of Boys than the Converting of Men was screwed up to no less than a Plot upon the whole Reformation Now as the Characterizing of such a Tyrannick popish Successour in England is but Mounting that Chimerical Jehu in the Chariot where neither his Wheels can move him nor the Ground will bear him and all the Pretensions of Fears from Popery are only Suppositions and Delusive nay and considering that those most violent Asserters of Romish Dangers in that very Age when they had this Advantage to help out Viz. To alledge the Old King was a Papist in Disguise by which Villanous Supposition they had ten times a fairer Field for the pretended Introduction of Popery than can be under a Visible popish Prince could nevertheless urge so little to the purpose and so weakly support the Cause of such Fears The Contradictions Noyse Rumble and Nonsense in the Character on the worse side of the Hedge are a little more Excusable Having I may with Confidence say fully answered and confuted all Appearances or Suppositions of Danger from a Popish Successour yet as the Minds of some People are so strangely possest and infatuated with those Brainsick Fancies and Visionary Specters of Popery and Slavery that scarce the most apparent Truth the most substantial Reason not Oracles nay