Unnderstanding betwixt his Majesty and his Two Houses can preserve this Kingdom Morally speaking from Irreparable Ruine And yet this is the Critical Juncture that the Libeller has made choice of for the blasting both of the Government and the Administration of it for the Violent Dissolution even of this most necessary Parliament for the sowing of Jealousies and alienating the Peoples Hearts from their Duty to their Sovereign Let the World now judge betwixt the Libeller and the pretended Conspiratours who are more probably the Pensioners of France those that are only Calumniated in the Dark and without any Proof or the least Colour of it or the Calumniators themselves I mean the Libeller and his Adherents who are doing all that is possible toward the Facilitating of the Work of France and the Putting of England out of Condition to defend it self What is it I beseech you that can now support us in this Exigent but the Wisdom and Reputation of a Parliament which they are at this very Instant labouring to defame and dissolve Distracting and Dividing the Nation at a Time when our best Union is little enough to preserve us and obstructing those Parliamentary supplys without which we must unavoidably perish For it is to this Session that the Libeller directs the Mock of Still giving Money toward their own Tragedy But sure we are not so mad yet as to take the Subverters of our Church and State for the Advocates of our Religion and Freedom I would know in the next place What any Man can say to excuse his Growth of Popery from being a Daring and a Spightful Libel against the King and his Government And I shall begin with the Liberties he takes with his Majesty sometime in direct Terms and otherwhile under the Blind of the Conspirators Speaking of the Shutting up of the Exchequer pag. 31. The Crown says he made Prize of the Subject and broke all Faith and Contract at Home in order to the breaking of them Abroad with more Advantage The Copy has in This Point outdone the Original for the Remonstrants were in Arms before they presum'd to word it at this Audacious height Take it in the Insolent Representation of the Fact the Malicious Construction and Presumption of the Inteut and to Both these add the Sordid Manner of Reflecting upon an Extraordinary thing done upon an Extraordinary Occasion and wherein the Subject has since receiv'd so Ample and Generous Satisfaction the Clamour is so foul as if an Aegyptian Plague were broken in upon us and the Frogs of Geneva crept into the King's Chambers And 't is much at the same Rate that he treats the King about his Declaration of Indulgence pag. 33. Hereby says he all the Penal Laws against Papists for which former Parliaments had given so many Supplyes and against Non-conformists for which this Parliament had pay'd more largely were at one Instant suspended in order to defrand the Nation of all that Religion which they had so dearly purchased c. Observe here how ungratefully he charges the Design of this Declaration to be The defrauding the Nation of their Religion which on the contrary was a Manifest Concession only to gratifie the restless Importunities of his own Gang. And see what Sport he makes but five or six Lines further with the very Reason of that Law which he takes here so hainously to be suspended It appears says he at the first Sight that Men ought to enjoy the same Propriety and Protection in their Consciences which they have in their Lives Liberties and Estates But that to take away these in Penalty for the other is meerly a more Legal and Gentile way of Padding upon the Road of Heaven and that it is onely for want of Money and for want of Religion that men take these desperate courses Now by his Favour there is a great Disparity betwixt a Pretence to Propriety and Protection in Consciences and a Pretence to them in Lives Liberties and Estates for the Latter are liable to Violence and may be taken away but the Other cannot And now he talks of Padding upon this Road the Remonstrants as I remember were very good at it that drove away from their Churches 85. Ministers of 97. within the Walls of London We 'll agree in the Matter with him That want of Money and want of Religion will put Men upon desperate Courses for my Charity perswades me he would never have written these Libels else He is a little positive methinks in Averring that a Great Lord lost his Place for defending the Protestant Religion pag. 44. But he has forgotten the Statute of his own Citing pag. 15. that makes it Incapacity for saying That the King is a Papist or an Introducer of Popery and that it was the King himself that remov'd his Lordship And what do you think of his Irony pag. 43. where he says that The Parliament by the Conspirators good Leave was admitted to sit again at the day appointed He tells us of another Affair too pag. 51 which being transmitted to his Majesty was easily chang'd into a Court intrigue And pag. 63. That the Conspiratours might so represent things to his Majesty as to incense him against the Parliament and distrusting all Parliamentary Advice to take Counsel from Themselves from France and from Necessity In this Disloyal and Irreverent Licence he drops you a word or two now and then before he is aware against the King himself and other whiles Discharges his Malice to the Government upon the Heads of Publick Ministers The Subject Matter of his Complaint is a Tendency of Counfels and Actions towards Tyranny and Popery But the King says he pag. 4. can do no wrong and so goes on nor can he receive wrong What is this but a Justification of all the Violences that were acted upon the late King even to the very Murther of him under that Mortal and Treasonous Distinction betwixt his AUTHORITY and his PERSON And an Allowance that the same Course may be taken with his Royal Successors The King can receive no wrong he says What does he mean by this Is not his Majesties Breath in his Nostrils Is he not Flesh and Bloud Is not his Body lyable to Wounds Distempers Emprisonment and Death He 'll tell you Yes but This is not the KING but the Man the PERSON But the KING all this while that is to say the Authority is Sacred and Invulnerable Now for Peace and Brevity sake let us suppose that this Charge of a Popish and Arbitrary Design does neither Intend nor Reflect any Imputation upon his Majesty his Religion and his Tenderness of Nature being Unquestionable It is yet a worse Libel another way Worse I say both as to the Drift and to the Scandal of it by how much Contempt is more dangerous to a Prince than Hatred For he employs his Utmost Skill to represent his Majesty only Passive in all his Administrations and so to lessen the Indubitable Fame of his Royal
you shall find the Pique to be as well Personal as Seditious and the VVork only of some Mercenary Pen to serve his principall's Animosity as well as his Ambition For a Man may see with half an Eye how he aggravates or extenuates disparages or commends reflects upon or passes over as well Actions as Men according to the various Aspects of Affections or Parties and without any regard to the Pulse or Truth of Publick Proceedings By his Vein of improving the Invective Humour it looks in some places as if he were Transprosing the First Painter only he has chang'd his Battery which is a Property peculiar to his Party constantly to hate those that are uppermost I was once a thinking to write a Just Reply upon the whole Relation and to lay open the falshood of many Passage in it in matter of Fact the Partiality of it in others how perverted and misapply'd it is throughout and to shew what Gappâ— and Maimes the Compiler of it has left in the Story purposely to divert the Reader from minding the Coherence of Actions and the reasonable Congruity of Counsels and Affairs VVhat uncharitable and illogical inferences he has drawn from matters as remote as Tenterdon Steeple from being the cause of Goodwin Sands This was the Method I had propounded to my self but upon second Thoughts I quitted it for these Reasons First It would have been ' too tedious for I must in Honesty have printed the Libel as well as the Reply which in Proportion would have amounted to near forty sheets of Paper Secondly It would have been superfluous for part of my Business being the Vindication of Truth from Calumny I find the thing already done to my Hand in the common Sentence that is passed upon it for a lew'd and shameless Imposture And Thirdly The Author himself you see has upon better consideration reduc'd his Pamphlet of 19 Sheets into another of Three as a more compendious Exposition of his Meaning I speak of that Libel which you sent me under the Name of A Seasonal le Argument to perswade all the Grand Iuries in England to Petition for a New Parliament or á List of the Principal Labourers in the great Design of Popery and Arbitrary Power c. So that my Task is only to make good in my Discourse the Paralel that I promis'd you in my Title and then to pass some Remarks upon the Scope and Venome of the Pamphlets themselves Now to the end that you may not take the Libels here in question for Originals let me assure you that these Notable Pieces are neither better nor worse than the Old Declarations of 40 and 41 only Turn'd and New trim'd The Contrivance the Positions and the Drift the very same and upon the whole Matter there is so near a resemblance betwixt them that one Egg is not liker another If you would have a full History of the Faction you may read it at large in Bancroft's Dangerous Positions or Hâ—ylin's AERIUS REDIVIVUS But my purpose is principally to compare the Project of 77. with that of 40. and 41. and by tracing the Foot-steps of that Rebellion from the Undeniable Fact of things passed to gather some probable conjecture at things to come To begin my Paralel with the Alarm of Popery and Arbitrary Government in 1677 take notice that it was likewise the Pretext and the very Foundation of the Rebellion in 41. A Malignant and Pernicious Design says the Remonstrance of December 15. 1641. of subverting the fundamental Laws and Principles of Government upon which the Religion and Iustice of this Kingdom is firmly establish'd Husband's Collections p. 4 and in the same Page he tells us of Such Counsellers and Courtiers as for Private Ends have engag'd themselves to further the Interest of some Foreign Princes or States to the Prejudice of His Majesty and the State at home Which Counsellers and Courtiers of those days are now translated into French Pensioners and Conspirators in 1677. But if you would see the Reformers in their Colours read the Declaration and Protestation of the Lords and Commons in Parliament as they stile it to the Kingdom and to the whole World where beside the Horrid Invocation of Almighty God to Countenance the Juggle the whole stress of the Quarrel is laid upon the Kings being Popishly Inclin'd and the War founded upon that Execrable Cheat. The Kings Counsels and Resolutions Say they are so engag'd to the Popish Party for the Suppression and Extirpation of the true Religion that all hopes of Peace and Protection are excluded and that it is fully intended to give Satisfaction to the Papists by Alteration of Religion c. And a little further they say that the King endeavour'd to keep off all Iealousies and Suspicions by many fearful Oaths and Imprecations of maintaining the Protestant Religion But what were all their Stories of Popish Plots Intercepted Letters Dark Conspiracies but only Artifices to gull the Credulous and Silly Vulgar For the King was so far from being Popishly affected that never any Prince purg'd himself of an Imputation by two more Credible and Dreadful Solemnities The First Publickly upon the Sacrament in Christ-Church Oxon. 1643 and afterward at his Death upon the Scaffold Now see the Harmony betwixt Those Remonstrants and Our Libeller in his Growth of Popery There has now for divers Years says he a Design been carried on to change the Lawful Government of England into an absolute Tyranny and to convert the establish'd Protestant Religion into down-right Popery p. 3. He begins in the Method of the Remonstrants with a General Charge upon Ill Ministers and he shall Advance with them too next step to an Attaque upon the King himself And not a Pin matter what is said on either side to the Contrary It is true says the Growth of Popery p. 155. that by his Majesty and the Churches Care under God's special Providence the Conspiracy hath received frequent disappointments c. And do not the Remonstrants on the other side say as much for the Late King That His Majesty indeed had past more Bills to the Advantage of the Subject than had been in many Ages pag. 16. But how comes our Libeller to be so kind to the Church all on a sodain From whose Pen there never fell any thing yet but poyson upon that Subject Can any thing be kinder than the Remonstrants were to the late King pag. 2 where they promised to Support His Royal Estate with Honour and Plenty at Home with Power and Reputation Abroad and by their Loyal Affections Obedience and Service to lay a sure and lasting Foundation of the Greatness and Prosperity of his Majesty and his Royal Posterity after him But what do you think rather of the pretended Loyalty of these People afterwards even in the state of an Actual Rebellion p. 663. We the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled do in the presence of Almighty God for the satisfaction of our Consciences
and the Discharge of that great Trust which lies upon us make this Protestation and Declaration to this Kingdom and Nation and to the Whole World that no private Passion or Respect no evil Intention to his Majesties Person no Design to the prejudice of his just Honour and Authority engag'd us to raise Forces and take up Arms against the Authors of this War wherewith the Kingdom is now enflam'd And does not our Libeller follow the Remonstrants in their Hypocrisy too This Book says he p. 156. though of an extraordinary Nature as the Case requir'd and however it may be calumniated by interressed Persons was written with no other Intent than of meer Fidelity and Service to his Majesty and God forbid that it should have any other Effect than that the mouth of all Iniquity and Flatterers may be stopped and that his Majesty having discerned the Disease may with his healing Touch apply the Remedy For so far is the Relator himself from any sinister Surmize against his Majesty or from suggesting it to others c. The Pamphlet I confess is as he calls it A Book of an Extraordinary Nature but why does he say As the Case requir'd Where 's the Importance of it unless he means that it was the very Nick of Time for him to embroyl the Nation And for the Interessed Persons who he says may Calumniate it they are only the King and His Ministers who are all of them the subject of his Scoptical and Malevolent Satyre Of his Intent we shall speak hereafter This is not the first time that we have heard of Words smoother than Oyl which yet are very Swords It is the very Stile that brought the Late King to the Block and the Saviour of the World was betray'd by a Hail Master and a kiss It is the very Crown of the Paralel betwixt 77 and 41. Now to proceed What was the Old Remonstrance but a Spiteful and Invidious Misrepresentation of the State of the Kingdom under the Notion of Declaring Common Grievances For His Majesty's Healing Touch too no doubt and is not that also the very Aim and Profession of these two Libels What is the Publication of This same Scandalous List but the Old Trick over again of Posting those Members for Staffordians that would not consent to the Death of the Earl of Strafford And is not their Tampering of the Grand juries to Petition for a New Parliament the Old Practice reviv'd of drawing and folliciting Petitions against Grievances of their own framing and menaging Affairs of State by Tumults Would not our Remonstratour of 77 rather than his Life be at the Old Sport again with a Kennel of Brutes at his Heels in full Cry with No Bishops No Popish Lords No Evil Counsellors No Rotten Members No Porters Lodge and at last No King too which was the very Fact in Consequence upon this Method So soon as the Remonstrants those Sons of 〈◊〉 had laid open their Father's nakedness with a Malicious Aggravation of all Errours and Misfortunes beside Falshoods innumerable to Irritate the Multitude against their Superiours their next Art was to draw that Party to themselves which they had now detached from the Government with an Oh! That we were made Judges in Israel Boasting what wonderful things they had the◠upon the Anvil for the Publick Good and not forgetting to arrogate all those Acts to themselves which his Majesty had passed of his proper Grace and Bounty Other things say they p. 15. of main Importance for the Good of this Kingdom are in Proposition as the Establishing and Ordering the King's Revenues that so the Abuse of Officers and Superfluity of Expences may be cut off and the necessary Disbursements for his Majesty's Honour the Defence and Government of the Kingdom may be mor◠certainly provided for the Regulating of Courts of Iustice and Abridging both the Delays and Charges of Law-Suits c. See now if our Reformer of 77. does not fish with the very same Bait. The House of Commons says he p. 63. took up again such Publick Bills as they had on foot in their former sitting and others that might either remedy present or prevent future Mischief As the Bill for Habeas Corpus That against sending Men prisoners beyond Seas That against Raising of Many without the Consent of Parliament That against Papists sitting in either House c. The Libels in sine of 77 are so exact a Counterpart of the others of 41 that two Tallies do not strike truer and undoubtedly such a Correspondence in Method cannot be without some Conformity also of Design There needs no other Argument to prove the Late Rebellion to have been originally a Conspiracy against the Government than the Proportion that appears betwixt the Means and the End and the orderly Connexion of proper Causes and Regular Effects For it was a Perfect Train of Artifice Hypocrisie and Imposture from one end of it to the other The Confederacy was form'd in a Cabal of Scotch and English Presbyterians as appears not only from their Correspondent Practices in both Nations but from his late Majesties Charge against the Five Members and likewise from the Care that was taken upon his Majesties Restauration to date the English Act of Indemnity from the beginning of the Scotch Tumults Jan. 1. 1637. which was three Years before the Meeting of the Long Parliament in November 1640. The two Ministers that stood in the Gap betwixt the Conspiracy and the Government and who were only cut off as appear'd by the Sequel to clear the passage to the King himself were the Earl of Strafford and Arch-Bishop Laud So that their First Attaque was upon the Earl and their next upon the Archbishop under the Notion of Evil Counsellors and upon the Common Charge of Popery and Arbitrary Proceeding their Impeachments were carried on by Tumults and these Brave Men were rather baited to Death by Beasts than Sentenc'd with any Colour of Law or Justice And as they liv'd so they dy'd the Resolute Assertors of the English Monarchy and Religion The Earl of Strafford in May 41 But the Archbishop was kept languishing in the Tower till Ian. 44. And their Crime was not in Truth their being Men of Arbitrary Principles themselves but for being the Opposers of those Principles in Others As the Remonstrants in 4◠for want of Papists in Practice and Profession directed their Spleen against the Kings Ministers only as Persons Popishly affected which in time came to be most Injuriously apply'd to his Majesty and his whole Party Just so does our Libeller in 1677. Were these Conspirators says he but avow'd Papists they were the more Honest the less dangerous and their Religion were Answerable for the Errours they might commit in Order to promote it But these are Men says he in the next pag. Obliged by all the most Sacred Ties of Malice and Ambition to advance the ruine of the King and Kingdom and qualify'd much better than Others under the Name of
Good Protestants to effect it As who shauld say Popery is to be brought in by some that pass for Good Protestants As Rebellion and Tyranny were brought in by the Remonstrants under the Profession of Loyalty and Duty to their Country A very Compendious way of making every Man that will not be a Traytor a Papist For who can say what any Man is or what he is not in his Heart From his Majesty's Yielding in the Business of the Earl of Strafford the Faction took their Measures how to deal with him in Other Cases and never left till by gradual Encroachments and Approaches they first stript him of his Friends Secondly of his Royal Authority Thirdly of his Revenue and Lastly of his Life Whereas had but this Pious and Unfortunate King follow'd the Advice of his Royal Father to Prince Henry he might upon cheaper Terms have preserv'd himself and his Three Kingdoms Take heed says King Iames to such Puritans very Pests in the Church and Common-weal whom no Deserts can Oblige neither Oaths or Promises Bind Breathing nothing but Sedition and Calumnies and making their own Imaginations without any warrant of the Word the square of their Conscience I protest before the Great God and since I am here as upon my Testament it is no place for me to ly in that ye shall never find with any Highlands or Border-Thieves greater Ingratitude and more Lyes and vile Perjuries than with these Phanatick Spirits King Iames his Works p. 305 and 160. Upon the Ripping up of Publick Grievances it was but matter of Course to follow their Complaints with Petitions for Redress and the Good King on the other hand to heap Coals of fire upon their Heads deny'd them nothing But the Two First Bills that his Majesty pass'd were Fatal to him That for the Attainder of the Earl of Strafford and the other for the Continuance of the Parliament They complain'd of the Star-Chamber High Commission Court Ship-Moneys Forrest-Laws Stannary-Courts Tonnage and Poundage c. and had every Point for the Asking Nay and as'an instance of his good Faith and Meaning his Majesty took some of their Principals even into his very Council But so soon as he had parted with so much as almost put it into their Power to take the Rest they began then to think of setting up for themselves see his Majesties Declaration of August 12. 1642. and nothing but a thorough Reformation they said would ever do the Work Now see the Gradation First The People must be Alarm'd with the Noise of Tyranny and Popery and the Evil Counsellors must be Remov'd that are Said not Prov'd to stand that was inclin'd His Majesty must be humbly Petition'd by Both Houses to Employ such Counsellors Ambassadours and other Ministers in managing his Business at Home and Abroad as the Parliament may have Cause to conside in c. Nay It may often fall out they say that the Commons may have just Cause to take Exceptions at some Men for being Counsellors and yet not charge those Men with Crimes for there be grounds of Diffidence which lie not in Proof there are Others which though they may be prov'd yet are not legally Criminal to be a Known Favourer of Papists or to have been very Forward in defending or Countenancing some great Offenders questioned in Parliament c. So that at first Dash all the King's Officers are but Tenants at the Will of the Faction The next Step is To fill the Places of those whom they cast out with Ministers and Officers of their Own Chusing as well Privy Counsellors as Iudges As in the 19 Propositions of Ian. 2. 42. Wherein they demand The Translation of the Power of Chusing Great Officers and Ministers of State from the King to the Two Houses Secondly All matters of Sate in the Interval of Parliaments to be debated and concluded by a Council so chosen and in Number not above 25 nor under 15 and no Publick Act esteem'd of any validity as proceeding from the Royal Authority vnless it be done by the Advice and Consent of the Major Part of that Covncil attested under their Hands and these also sworn to the Sence of Both Houses Thirdly The Lords and Commons must be intrusted with the Militia Fourthly His Majesty may appoint but the Two Houses or the Council in such manner as afore-said must approve of all Governours of Forts and Castles Lastly No Peers hereafter made must sit or vote in Parliament unless admitted thereunto by the Consent of Both Bouses By this time the Plot is Ripe for a Rebellion they Levy War Impose Oaths Seize the Revenues of the Church and Crown Kill Plunder and Emprison their Fellow-Subjects Depose and Murther their Sovereign under a Form of Publick Iustice by these Means advancing themselvs into That Arbitrary Power which they pretended to Fear Over-Turning the Government under the Colour of a Zeal to Support it and instead of Setting us Right in our Religious and Civil Liberties they left us neither Church nor Law nor King nor Parliament nor Properties nor Freedoms Behold the Blessed reformation and Remember that the Outcries against Tyranny Popery and Evil Counsellors were the Foundation of it What was their Covenant but a Blind to their Designs A Popular Sacrament of Religious Disobedience and only a Mark of Discrimination who were against the King and who for him Nay in the very Contemplation of their Purpose they knew before-hand That there was no gaining of their Point but by Rapine Sacrilege Perjury Treason and Bloud After these Notorious Violations of Faith Honour Humanity and Religion to the Common destruction of Prince Government and People and All upon the same Bottom with our Late Libels what can this Underminer of Parliamenns What can our Geneva-Faux find to say for himself Is not Mercury as good Poyson in 77 as it was in 41 Do we not strike Fire the same way Now that we did Then And may not a Spark in the Gun-Room do as much Mischief This Year as it did Thirty or Forty Years ago Are not the People as much Tinder now as they were Formerly and as apt to take Ill Impressions What if the same Method should work the same Confusion over again or in Truth what is there else to be expected For the same Cause acting at Liberty must eternally produce the same Effect There 's no Chance-medley or Misadventure in the Case but the Thing is manifestly done with Prepense Malice and on set Purpose to embroyl the State As upon Examination of the Matter will undeniably appear You cannot but take Notice That the Author of The Growth of Popery does upon the Main principally labour these Two things First To insinuate that the King is in some Cases Accomptable to his People of which hereafter And Secondly To provoke the People by suggesting that their Souls and their Liberties are at stake to make use of that Power From the former Proposition he passes into a Florid and
Prudence and Courage among his People You see Sir the Freedom he takes with the King and his Ministers the next Point will be to enquire how he stands affected to the Government it self The Subjects says he pag. 3. retain their Proportion in the Legislature In which saying he makes them Partners of the Sovereignty and turns the Monarchy of England into a Tripartite and Coordinate Government which is as well Destructive of Parliaments on the one hand as of Royalty on the other Upon the Admittance of this Coordination any Two of the Three may destroy the Third the Two Houses may destroy the King and the King with Either of the Houses may destroy the Other Which if it be so what Prince that is Imperial in the Intervals would ever hazard the Dethroning of himself by a Session The making of Laws is a Peculiar and Incommunicable Priviledge of the Supreme Power and the Office of the Two Houses in this Case is only Consultive or Preparatory but the Character of Power rests in the Final Sanction which is in the King And Effectually the Passing of a Bill is but the granting of a Request The Two Houses make the Bill 't is true but the King makes the Law and 't is the Stamp not the Matter that makes it Current Nor does the Subject any otherwise make Laws than the Petitioner makes Orders of Council It is a Suspicious and Ill-looking Passage that he has Pag. 14. As to matter of Government says he If to murther the King be as certainly it is a Fact so horrid he does not say how horrid how much more Hainous is it to Assassinate the Kingdom Here is First involv'd in this Clause the Deposing Position of 41 that the King is Singulis major Universis minor For it is clear that the Comparison was only made to draw on the Preference and to possess the People that they have a greater Prize at Stake in the hazard of their Religion than in the Tye of their Civil Obedience the very Translation still of 41. And for their further Encouragement he tells them pag. 4. that We have the same Right modestly understood in our Propriety that the Prince hath in his Regality which carries with it an Innuendo that the King may as well Forfeit his Crown as the Subject his Free-hold It cannot be imagin'd that all these Leading and Desperate Hints should fall from a Man of Brains and sense by Chance and you see the whole Tract takes the same Biass No King of England says he pag. 58. had ever so great a Treasure of his peoples Affections except what those ill men have as they have done all the rest consum'd whom but out of an Excess of Love to his Person the Kingdom would never for it never did formerly so long have suffer'd Here 's still the Crocodile of 41 nothing but Love and Reverence to his late Majesty too till his Head was off But let us Reason the Matter in a word These Ill men have no Names it seems so that any Man that 's near the King is by this Libeller set up for a Mark to the Outrage of the People And then he says The Kingdom would never have suffer'd them Who are they I pray that he calls the Kingdom but the Rabble still of 41 the Execrable Instruments of That Rebellion and the Hopes of Another But if the Kingdom would not suffer it what would he have them do to help themselves The Law is open in Case of any Legal Impeachment and 't is too Early Days yet for a Tumult In his Descant upon the Test he is wonderfully free of his Figures Never says he pag 59 was so much sence contain'd in so few words no Conveyancer could ever in more Compendious or Binding Terms have drawn a Dissetlement of the whole Birth-right of England This Test has made a great Noise and it will be worth the while to examine what is said against it The Form of it is as follows I A B. do declare that it is not lawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King and that I do abhor that Trayterous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commission'd by him in Pursuance of such Commission And I do swear that I will not at any time Endeavour the Alteration of the Government either in Church or State So help me God He says pag 57. That it was thrown out of the House in the Plague-year at Oxford for fear of a general Infection of the Vitals of this Kingdom whereas in truth it was brought into the House as an Antidote against that Poyson which had seiz'd the Vitals of this Kingdom already and amounts to no more than the Unswearing of That on the Behalf of the Government which had been formerly sworn for the Destruction of it The Author of A Letter from a Person of Quality c. calls it p. 1. A STATE-MASTER-PIECE and design'd to these Ends. First To make a Distinct Party from the rest of the Nation of the High Episcopal Man and the Old Cavalier Now I took it rather to be a Design of Uniting All Parties under one Common Bond of Duty and Obedience to the Government And where That could not be obtain'd to distinguish who were for the Government and who against it for the Late King was murther'd upon this very Distinction betwixt his Authority and his Person Nor is there any Government upon the Face of the Earth without some Obligation upon the Subject Equivalent to this Test. Next says he they design to have the Government of the Church sworn to as Unalterable and so Tacitely own'd to be of Divine Right This under favour is a Fallacy The Test does not concern it self whether the Government be Changeable or not but only provides that the State may be serv'd with Magistrates and Officers that stand well Affected to the Establishment Those that do so will never scruple the Oath and for those that do not it is the very Intent of it to discriminate and to exclude them And to encounter the Covenant by Virtue of which they dissolv'd the Late Government with an Oath never to endeavour any further Alteration in This. And certainly a Man may better swear the Maintaining of a Government According to the Law than the Alteration of it Against Law Thirdly says the Author of the Letter In Requital to the Crown they declare the Government Absolute and Arbitrary and allow Monarchy as well as Episcopacy to be Jure Divino and not to be bounded or limited by Humane Laws How This Test does either Declare or Pretend the Government to be Absolute and Arbitrary I cannot imagine But on the Contrary every Man is ty'd by it from Endeavouring to make it so if it be not so already in Swearing that he will not at any time endeavour the Alteration of it And then in his Explication of the meaning of Church and State in
the Test by Monarchy and Episcopacy in his Reflection upon it he has done us a greater Kindness than he was aware of for he has wholly Disappointed the Spight and the Intent of his next Clause And as he goes on to secure all this they resolve to take away the Power and Oppertunity of Parliaments to alter any thing in Church or State only leave them as an Instrument to raise Mony and to pass such Laws as the Court and Church shall have a mind to The Attempt of any other how Necessary soever must be no less a Crime than Perjury See now whether or no this be fair dealing It is by his own Confession the Form of Monarchy and the Order of Episcopacy the Government it self and not the Administration of it that is here in Question He would have it believ'd That by this Test Parliaments are barr'd upon Pain of Perjury from Attempting any Alteration IN Church or State whereas they are left at Liberty to debate what Alterations they please in the Parts of the Government provided they do not strike at the Root of the Government it self And the Deliberation and Result of the whole Matter is no more than This. Many of the People and all the Principles are yet Living that destroy'd the King and the Bishops in the last Rebellion Let us have a Care of the same Hands again and trust none of them in the Government but under an Oath not to endeavour the Alteration of it That is to say of the Monarchy into a Republique or of Episcopacy into Presbytery as they did before And this was the Clear Scope of the Test. The Author of the Growth of Popery discoursing upon this Subject There is nothing says he p. 57. more Portentous and of worse Omen than when such an Oath hangs over a Nation like a New Comet foreboding the Alteration of Religion or Government A word first to the Oath which for want of an Epithete to express the hainousness of it the Libeller so Emphatically calls SUCH an Oath It is an Oath founded upon the same Consideration with the Oath of Allegience and directed to the same End and every jot as Necessary under This King as That was under his Grand-Father The Iesuited Papists had invited the Spaniard to Invade England The Iesuited Protestants in the late Rebellion did in like manner apply themselves to the French The Former laid a Plot for the Blowing up of the Parliament The Other executed the Plot of Destroying Parliaments Changing the Government and murthering the King The People were misted in the One Case upon the Iesuitical Principle that a Prince being Excommunicate by the Pope the Subject is discharg'd of his Duty to him and they were seduc'd in the Other by a Persuasion that the Sacred Character of a King rests in the Authority and is separable from the Person which Authority they lodg'd in the Two Houses and so did their Business This Practice of the Iesuits occasion'd the Oath of Allegience in the Statute 30 Iacobi intitled An Act for the Discovering and Repressing of Popish Recusants In which Oath you have this Clause And I do further swear that I do from my Heart detest and abjure as Impious and Heretical this damnable Doctrine and Position That Princes which be Excommunicated or Deprived by the Pope may be Deposed or Murther'd by their Subjects or any other whatsoever Here was an Act for the Discovering and Repressing of Popish Recusants with an Oath under a Penalty and a Declaration against and an Abhorrence of that Impious Position whereupon the Treasons of those Times were founded And why not a Provision as well against those People that with premeditated Malice as well as Ambition over-turn'd the Late Government and against That Principle of Dividing his Majesties Authority from his Person which was the Countenance and Support of the late Rebellion Take it in short and the Test is but a Supplement to the Oath of Allegiance The Scottish Faction Impos'd upon the People that they might be true to the King though they Levy'd Arms against his Person and the end of this Oath is only to expound That Position to be Treasonous and to Secure the Government for the Future against Men of such Principles According to Equity and Conscience and to the Common Practice and according to the Prudence of all well Order'd States Is this the Oath now that he calls SUCH an Oath The Oath than which there is nothing more Portentous and of worse Omen to a Nation He has forgotten the Fore-boding and Portentous Omens of Forty One and the Dire Events of those Presages What do you think of a deliberate Design to spoil the Crown the Church and the Subject And all this in the Name of God for the Honour of the King and the Good of the People And then the Entitling of Providence to all the Advantages that the Faction got by the Ruine of Three Kingdoms Here 's the unrepented Guilt of Sacriledge Treason and Bloud to the Highest Degree and so Transcendent an Ingratitude that some of the very Men that were Pardon'd for One Rebellion are now the Advocates for Another If these Practises should be suffer'd there would be no need to consult the Stars for a Prognostick of Change of Government The Oaths says he pag. 58. in our Late King's time taught the Phanaticks because they could not swear yet to Covenant His Memory fails him I perceive for the Covenant was a Foot in Scotland before any Oaths complain'd of here by the Token that the Assembly at Glasgow in 1638 came to this Resolution upon the Point It is lawful for Subjects to Covenant and Combine without the King and enter into a Bond of mutual Defence against him Take notice next that the Oath commplain'd of was the Oath ex Officio which Oath was Abolish'd before any Covenanting in England And he is so much out again in saying that the Phanaticks Covenanted c. because they could not swear that in Truth they Covenanted because they car'd not what they swore Witness their Covenants Negative Oaths and Oath of Abjuration in Opposition to their Oaths of Allegiance and Canonical Obedience There was no Compounding no Living in their Quarters without Swearing There was an Oath given at a Communion at Fife obliging People not to take the King's Covenant And it was one Condition upon the Treaty at the Isle of Wight that his Majesty himself should give Assurance by Solemn Oath under his Hand and Seal for settling Religion according to the Covenant So that they made no Conscience you see either of Swearing or Forfwearing either of taking Oaths Themselves or of Forcing them upon Others for the Advancement of their Design He takes exception pag. 59. to the Two Declaratory Points of the Test. First That it is not lawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King And he reasons the Matter in these Words It were difficult to instance a Law either