and hereafter be more cautious how you deal with such subtil underminers of our Church and State To give you therefore full satisfaction concerning the Presbyterians unexemplary Loyalty I shall trace down the current of their Gospel from the very source and original of its being and will begin with their super illuminated Patriarch the famous Calvin sometimes Pope of Geneva who was inspired by the Spirit you know whom thus to speak of Temporal Sovereigns Earthly Princes do deprive themselves of all Power when they oppose God nay they are not worthy to be held in the number of men we must therefore rather spit in their faces than obey them In Dan. c. 6. v. 22 25. Neither is his worthy Darling Dr. Beza any thing behind in this point of whom Mr. Suttcliffe in his Answer to a certain Libel Supplicatory thus speaketh Beza in his Book De Jure Magistratus doth arm the Subject against the Prince and in effect overthroweth the Authority of Christian Kings and Magistrates Suttcliffe â—oco ciâ— writes in these words Noble-men saith Knox ought to reform Religion if the King will not If the Prince will not yield to his Nobles and People he armeth them with power to depose him Nay saith he further if Princes be Tyrants against God and his truth their Subjects are freed from their Oathes oâ— obedience With him accordeth Buchanan he saith The People is more excellent than the King and hath right to bestow the Crown at pleasure That the People may arraign the King That albeit St. Paul commanded obedience to Tyrants yet it was in respect of the times and the people that were weak and not able to take arms And Dr. Bancroft Archbishop of Canterbury in his Book of Dangerous Positions gives this general Censure of them all Such Divinity as this is not holden by Knox and Buchanan alone but generally for ought I can perceive by the chief Consistorians beyond the Seas He means Calvin Beza and the rest of the Genevesian Sanhedrim Now let any man be judge how well these Gospellary principles of our Presbyterians agree with the practise and Doctrine of the holy Apostles who as Dr. Bilson in his Christian Subject faith obey'd Tyrants that commanded all things against Religion And in those thing that were commanded against God they did submit themselves with meekness to endure the Magistrates pleasure but not to obey his will But we need not much admire that they differ so much from the blessed Apostles when we find the dregs of Christians the â—apists themselves in great number so far beyond them in teaching Allegiance and Fidelity to Secular Princes that as far as Protestants are beyond Papists in this particular so far are many Papists beyond the bigotted Presbyterians Subjects say the Rhemists in Rom. c 13. are bound in temporal things to obey even the Heathen being their lawful Kings and to be subject to them for conscience to observe their temporal Laws to pay them Tribute to pray for them and to perform all other Duties of natural Allegiance Nay so far were many Papists from holding this Antichristian Gospel of Knox and his Boutefous that they declared it absolutely erroneous and Heretical in any Christian to believe it as appeareth by their Council of Constance Sess 15. in these words The holy Synod has been lately informed that certain erroneous Opinions were held contrary to the peace and welfare of the Common-wealth viz. That a Tyrant may be lawfully and meritoriously taken away and killed by any Subject or Vassal of his notwithstanding any Oath of Fidelity or Allegiance that he had made to him Such Doctrine saith the Council is contrary both to Faith and Manners and whosoever shall hold it obstinately are Hereticks and as such to be proceeded against according to the Canons Now do but compare this Decree of a Popish Council to that Diabolical expression of Knox that Delphian Oracle of the Presbyterian Scottish Reformation in his History of Scotland page 372. where he declares That he could be content that there were publick rewards appointed for such Assassinates and Murderers of Tyrants as there are for such as kill Wolves And then I leave it to your Conscience to judge whether the Presbyterians be not the worst Subjects that ever own'd the name of Christ But let us proceed a little further and see what worthy fruit has this holy Gospel of theirs produced these hundred years past in this Island of great Britain and we shall find it very true Non potest arbor mala bonos fructus facere Matth. 7.18 Nay we shall find that the Papists themselves since the beginning of the Reformation in this Island were never convicted of half such wicked and diabolical practises against their Prince as the Presbyterians have undeniably committed against their undoubted Sovereign 'T is true many wicked Papists by their Plots and Conspiracies have often attempted in 〈◊〉 most inhumane manner to destroy our King and subvert our Government But the brave Presbyterians scorning to trust always to such pitiful contrivances under-hand have at several times publickly raised whole Armies in open Rebellion against their Prince and have not onely attempted but actually compleated the destruction of Kings and Kingdoms I do not wonder indeed how cruelly they dealt with our present Sovereigns Great Grand-mother Queen Mary of Scotland a profess'd Papist in dethroning and banishing her the Kingdom and allowing her no liberty of exercising her Religion either in private or publick of which unworthy usage King James of glorious memory speaking of those Puritan Hypocrites complaineth in these words How they used that poor Lady my Mother is not unknown and with grief I may remember it who desired onely a private Chappel wherein to serve God after her manner with some selected persons but could not obtain it at their hands In the sum of the Conference before his Majesty between the Bishops and others of the Clergy Anno 1604. page 81. I wonder not I say at these inhumane dealings against a Papist when we have so late an example of their unparallel'd cruelty in the Tragical and never to be forgotten murder not onely of a Protestant Prince but also of the most meek the most just and the most Religious of Princes King Charles the I. and this dismal Tragedy perpetrated not by any private Desperado's of that Faction as Popish contrivances for the most part have been but by the general Vote and consent of all and perpetrated not by any secret contrivances but which mainly aggravates the crime if possible by a publick formality of Justice and pretence of securing the true Faith and Worship of God For since it is manifest as the Roman Orator well observed that of all injustice none is more odious and abominable than where men act their Villanies under a vizard and pretence of good what crime can be more diabolical than for Subjects to Arraign their Sovereign and the best of Kings as a Tyrant subverting the
THE Cloak in its Colours OR THE Presbyterian Unmasked AND Proved as Dangerous as PAPISTS To the CHURCH of ENGLAND Together with a Brief and Seasonable ANSWER To their late Unseasonable QUERIES AND LIST of the Pensioners Humbly offer'd to all true PROTESTANT Conformists Beware of false Prophets which come to you in Sheeps Cloathing but inwardly they are Ravening Wolves Matth. 7.15 LONDON Printed for the Author ANNO DOM. 1679. THE Cloak in its Colours OR THE Presbyterians Vnmask'd SIRS IF ever we wanted Circumspection or Conduct if ever we had need of the Spirit of Discretion to discern between our feigned Friends and real Well-wishers between undermining Zealots and true Patriots this must be the time a time wherein our Religion our Lives our Liberties our Estates and in Fine our All lies at stake either to be settled and secured by our prudent proceedings in this grand Concern or we to be hopelesly fool'd of all by the subtilty and guile of our Adversaries a time wherein we are to steer our course between the two dangerous Gulfs of Scylla and Charybdis of Popery and Presbytery and therefore like wise Pilots must carefully endeavour as well to shun the one as avoid the other lest at any time it may be said of us Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdim The experience of so many years doth sufficiently tell us that Presbyterians and Papists do always design the subversion both of our Church and State and they are both assured that if they could but once suppress our Religion they might soon advance their own And therefore wise Statesmen do hold it an approved Maxim that the Church of England can never be more secure than when these two Sects are kept in even balance both being equally countenanced or equally suppress'd I remember to have read in the Ecclesiastical Histories how the Orthodox Christians of the Primitive Church always held it more dangerous to converse with Hereticks than with the most obstinate Heathens their reason was because Heathens were open enemies to the name of Christ and therefore all Christians from the greatest Divine to the meanest Peasant were sufficiently fore-warned not to believe them but Hereticks came in Sheeps cloathing and under the name of Christ laboured to destroy Christs Flock Whence the great Divine Gregory Nazianzen Tract de Fidei saith Nothing is more dangerous than these Hereticks who are upright and Orthodox in all the rest yet by one word as by a drop of poison do infect the true Faith I think we may now with as much reason make use of this prudent method as the Primitive Christians have done and thereupon no less if not more suspect our bigotted Presbyterians who under the name of Protestants and reformed Christians do endeavour to destroy our Church and State than the Superstitious Papists who openly profess themselves sworn enemies to our Reformation All the Protestants of England are so fully prepossessâ—d with the grossness of Popery that it 's altogether impossible they should ever believe such ridiculous Opinions But the Presbyterians with their pretended Zeal for the Protestant Religion do so work upon the well-meaning and short-sighted Vulgar that under the colour of drawing them from Popish Superstitions they poison them unwittingly with Pharisaical hypocrisie Papists do attempt by their private Plots and Conspiracies to destroy our King and Countrey but the Presbyterians first by their feignâ—d pretences of Religion do rob their King of the hearts of his Subjects and then dispose of his Life and Kingdom as they please The Papists did but attempt the former the Presbyterians have actually done the latter and if not timely prevented by the faithful Children of the Church of England I am afraid will endeavour once more to complete their wickedness How active and ready they are at present with their seditious Pamphlets to sow the seed of dissention between our Gracious King and his Loyal Subjects nay they scruple not to charge his Sacred Majesty with corrupting and bribing his Parliament Obstupescitecoeli supor hoc as the Prophet speaketh Jex 2.13 Be astonished O ye heavens both at the unparallelâ—d impudence of these Miscreants and at the extraordinary clemency of our Gracious Sovereign who suffers such Villains to live and enjoy their liberties who are not worthy to breath the common air For if ordinary Robbers deserve to receive their last reward at Tiburn what do they not deserve who not onely deprive their Fellow-subjects of their chiefest comfort and earthly happiness the gracious savour and benevolence of their King but do also 10l their Sovereign of his richest Treasures and greatest Strength the love of hiâ— Subjects For as the Learned Philosopher Seneca saith Vnum est Regi inexpugnabile munimentum amor civium All wise men have hitherto esteem'd the Interest of Prince and People to be one and the same individual Common-weal And it is a common Maxim in our own Laws Thesaurus Regis respicit Regem Regnum And again Census Regis estâ—aâ—ima Reipublicae firmamentum belli ornament um pacis apud Coke upon Littleton sect 153 pag. 106. What shall we say then of these sactious Spirits who labour to divide them and draw a partition between them Or what reason have the blind Zealots to think so ill of his Sacred Majesty Could they expect a Prince more meek more just or more loving to his People Or as the Prophet Samuel said Whose Ox or Ass has he taken whom has he defrauded or whom has he oppressed 1 Sam. 12.3 If we grumble at his Majesty like those foolish Members in the Fable who grudged that the Belly received so much of the fruit of their labours we shall at last like them find the 〈…〉 If our King the Father of our Countrey be suspected to sell us whom shall we trust to If God's Representative and lively Image upon Earth whom the All seeing Providence has miraculously restored to heal up the wounds of this bleeding Nation be thought to betray his Trust or that Government which God committed to his charge how can we have any assurance of our own Representatives fair dealings with us who these many years are Elected not by prudence or discretion but by favour and Faction and by people who must always see double before ever they begin their Election If we doubt of his Majesties Integrity and Fatherly love towards us he must of necessity doubt of our Loyalty towards him and then what a Hell it shall be for us to live under such a King and for such a King to rule over us Are we not much beholding to these infernal Emissaries who thus make it their business to deprive both Prince and People of all worldly felicities nay to create unto us a hell upon earth and draw the whole Kingdom into a Babylonian confusion that so themselves may fish in troubled Waters If these be not the proceedings of the Rump-Parliament let any man be judge Then the Presbyterians by their specious
hypocrisie perswaded the Kings Subjects not to comply with his Majesty in disbursing Money towards the necessary expences of the Crown and also the securing and fortifying the Kingdom against all Foreign Invasion though soon after through the just judgment of God they were forced to pay Oliver at least 60000 pounds a month and had no thanks for their pains Now the World knows how they insist upon the same terms and what the end shall be the Lord alone can tell but God send they be not for their obstinacy and perversness to so good a King left by the Divine Providence as a Prey to a Forreign as then they were to a Domestick Tyrant Then whosoever stood for the Church of England against those blind Religionaries was presently cried down for one Popishly inclined or disaffected to the Protestant Religion i. e. to the Genevesian Gospel Now they bring us a List of about 200 Members of the Parliament dissolved in January last as the Kings Pensioners and sworn Voters and consequently no great well-wishers of the new Gospel of John and his onely compleat Reformation warning us to choose no such persons again because like the Church of Laodicea Revel 3.15 they are neither hot nor cold neither Popish nor Reformed as Alexander Henderson a notorious Presbyterian disputing against our Royal Martyr scrupled not to say of the whole Church of England in the Book intituled Reliquiae Carolinae part 1. page 329. And surely we have reason enough not to choose these Gentlemen for our Representatives in Parliament since they are no Presbyterians and consequently no true Protestants which in our new found Logick now in fashion must be Synomyns or Termini convertibiles O temporâ— O mores Bloody Presbyterians must be entrusted with our Religion Lives Liberties and Estates and true-hearted Protestants excluded and rejected These 200 persons because no Presbyterians must be laid aside notwithstanding their eminent services both to the King and Kingdom for many years together in the late Parliament which are so numerous and 〈…〉 deserve so 〈◊〉 Pâ—â—â—â—rickâ— in praise both of their Loyalty to their King and fidelity to their Countrey Yet nevertheless we must use them now so John's new Gospel commands us as the Athenians and Lacedemonians used their Leading-men and greatest Hero's who most obliged them and best defended their Countrey for which they were paid with hatred and rewarded with ingratitude nay often persecuted as betraying that Countrey which several times they had saved from apparent ruine and destruction But awake my beloved Patriots and as you tender the welfare of your loving Mother the Church of England cast off this unseasonable slumber rub your eyes and look about you let us make it our business to secure in time our Church and State against those undermining Engineers and as the Apostle saith Dum tempus habemus operemur bonum Gal. 6.10 Let us make choice of those worthy persons who by their singular constancy in maintaining the Church of England against all Fanatical Opposers became thus formidable to these Pharisaical Incendiaries of our Countrey surely we cannot but have reason enough to love them since the Presbyterians do so vehemently hate them Let us use all possible endeavours that as Papists so Presbyterians and all Non-conformists may be for ever excluded from sitting in Parliament and let not their specious hypocrisie or plausible pretences of abolishing Popish Superstitions or maintaining the Protestant Religion work upon our credulity to countenance their contrivances or encourage them in the pernicious designs Now they will tell us how ready they are to combine with the Church of England to pull down Popery and that Scarlet Whore of Babylon but you must withall give them leave to root out all Popish Reliques and Rubbish and then good Bishops look to your selves your Gowns and Surplices You were lately like to be brought upon the Stage not onely as burthensome to the Nation but also as Popishly inclin'd nay countenancing the horrid Plot of the Papists And had not his Sacred Majesty like his glorious Father interpos'd himself and stood your Shield you might ere now most truly have said Fuimus Troes But if the Shepherds be thus threatned by these ravenous Wolves what kind usage can the Flock expect at their hands Yet as for my own particular I must confess I cannot handsomely excuse our Shepherds themselves or their unseasonable carelesness in this desperate juncture of Affairs for bearing in a great proportion the blame of all those dangers which are now apparently eminent both to themselves and their Flocks together when I consider how plainly they see with what pernicious contrivances the whole Church is menac'd by the fiery Presbyterians and yet they are so silent nay so dumb like those who by the Prophet are called canes muti non valentes latrare Isa 56.10 yet they dare not mutter against them nor make the People sensible how to prevent their wicked designs as easily they might if in their Sermons and Exhortations they would take so much pains as to perswade their Auditors to make choice of such and such select persons whom thâ—◠〈◊〉 coâ—â—ant and exact in observing the Rites and Religion of the Church of England and withall zealous to propagate her Doctrines and able and resolute to maintain it Had this I say been duely performed we might soon assure our selves of a firm settlement both of Church and State and never apprehend any danger from those Fanatical Sectaries who like Samson's Foxes are tied together by the tail of Sedition though otherwise divided to burn and destroy our whole Harvest Likewise they will tell us further they onely differ from the Church of England in some lesser points and small Ceremonies but to omit that hereby they acknowledge themselves wicked Schismaticks who upon so trivial a cause have departed from the Mother Church believe me had they but the upper hand be the differences never so small adieu to the Church of England as the Rump-Parliament has sufficiently informed us Wherefore my beloved Church-men and Countrey-men suffer not your selves to be gullâ—d by these blind excuses or frivolous pretences and do but seriously examine in your own judgments with what colour of truth can these super-sanctified Hypocrites affirm that they differ onely in such small punctilio's from the Church of England Or are they very Fundamentals of our Government such trivial matters in their Gospel It 's evident I suppose to all the world that Papists were never persecuted in this Kingdom for any Scholastical niceties or speculative subtilties of Christian Religion but were always abhorr'd and held unworthy of all humane Society for their pernicious Tenets concerning the Power and Authority of Secular Princes But what if I do here briefly demonstrate that the Presbyterians common doctrine and practise is altogether as pernicious if not far more destructive to Monarchical Government than the most desperate principles of the Papists will not you then more carefully look about you
Government and true Protestant Religion and under these specious pretences and that Usurped Title God with us not onely Sacrifice his Sacred Person to their Fury but also to multiply their Villany endeavour to destroy his Fame and Reputation for ever And though this execrable and unparallel'd Murder has been unexpectedly pardon'd through the excessive clemency of our present Sovereign which graciously extended it self not onely to the seduced Multitude but even to the sparing the unworthy lives of some of the grand Pilates themselves yet so far is this favour from working its due effects upon these ungrateful Miscreants that like Spiders which suck poison out of the finest Flowers they grow daily worse by his Majesty's gracious condescensions to them always watching an opportunity either by secret Contrivances and Conspiracies to subvert the Government as the Fanatical Rabble of Cromwel's Adherents in Ireland conspired in the year 1665 to murder his Majesties Lord Lieutenant there and surprize his Castle and City of Dublin or to draw whole Armies into the Field in open Rebellion against his Majesty as they have lately done in Scotland not onely in the year 1677 but also this last Summer immediately upon the Proroguing the Parliament here And to have their God propitious to their holy designs they zealously consecrated their Gospellary Rebellion with the most inhumane Butchery of the Right Reverend Father in God the Primate of that Kingdom and withall most arrogantly burnt his Majesties Laws and Statutes in the publick place of Execution And yet notwithstanding all these insufferable indignities we see the Presbyterians both here and there are still in vogue and in good hopes too by their expected Interest in the next Parliament ere long to lay a sure foundation for the Genevesian Gospel in these three Kingdoms and refine our imperfect Reformation and purge it from all those heaps of Popish Rubbish and Superstitions which their Patriarch Calvin Ep. 26. affirms are still remaining in the Church of England We see the intended Conspiracies of others is daily exaggerated by the Pens of Learned Men but the Presbyterians open Treacheries seal'd with the deepest silence And it 's very remarkable how the late horrid Plot was no sooner discovered in London but all the Papists of these three Kingdom were presently under a Cloud and as it were struck with a sudden damp and bereaved of all vital motions But the Presbyterians actual Rebellion in Scotland and that for Religion too as appears by their Declarations was so far from daunting the rest of that Faction here that they writ out several Pamphlets to extenuate their Brethren's wickedness and excuse their Insurrection But certainly had the Papists of this Kingdom been as evidently proved guilty of Justice Godfrey's Murder as the Presbyterians of Seotland have been undeniably criminal of the Bishop of St. Andrew's bloody Tragedy or could the former be as unquestionably proved to have conspired his Sacred Majesty's death or the subversion of the Government as the latter have undoubtedly designed both in their late execrable Rebellion as appeareth by their Declarations wherein Puritan-like they scruple not to charge his Sacred Majesty with perjury and violation of the Covenant together with several other Presbyterian expressions and besides their very Insurrection maketh it undeniable For as Dr. Bilson loco supra cit well observeth He that may fight may kill and war against the Prince and killing the Prince are of consequence inevitable Could these things I say be thus indisputably proved against the Papists surely all Protestants wouâ—d unanimously rise against such bloody Tygers and quite extirpate them root and branch out of this Island for ever How strangely then comes it to pass that Papists are so unfortunate in their wickedness as still to be exclaimed against for crimes in the judgment of many wise and judicious men not yet unexceptionably proved against them and the Presbyterians undeniable wickedness presently buried in oblivion Believe me Sirs the case is of a very dangerous consequence and it prognosticks no good to the Church of England it plainly sheweth how the dissembling Hypocrites by their plausible pretences have gained the hearts of the seduced people And we may be fully perswaded they could never 〈…〉 to write such seditious Pamphlets and presume to charge not onely the chief Bishop but also the whole Church of England with erroneous Doctrine and withall endeavour to justifie their own Schismatical separation from her Communion as plainly they do in several Libels and particularly in one by them called The Countrey 's Vindication had they not been sure of a strong party to second their attempts and justifie their proceedings Let us therefore beware in time and take heed lest while we are intentive to drive away the Wolf from our Flock the Fox may come in and destroy our Vineyard Fourty years are not yet expired since we were forced to make use even of the Papists themselves to defend our King and Countrey from the Rebellious Presbyterians God send we be not again through our stupid carelesness reduced to that extremity We see how continually active the restless Spirits are and what cunning stratagems they use to sow the seed of jealousie and division between the most true-hearted Children of the Church of England and how whomsoever they find couragious and resolute in maintaining the Rights of the Church and Prerogatives of the Crown presently as in the Long Parliament they exclaim against him as one of the King 's evil Counsellors or as a down-right Papist or at least Popishly inclin'd They bring us four and twenty Quaeries or so many Impertinencies in order to the choice of a new Parliament new indeed because if possible it must wholly consist of Presbyterians and other Fanatical Sectaries which but in the Rump-parliaments time was never seen in England In most of these Queries they tell us of the Papists cruelty I wish they had joyn'd the Presbyterians too for England has sufficiently tasted of the bloody contrivances of both parties If the Monument at London-bridge be a Memorandum of the Papists fiery Zeal what does Charing-cross speak of the Presbyterians bloody devotion We know full well which of the later have been either Actors or Abettors in murdering our King but we could never certainly find which of the former has been concerned in firing our City Yet the busie Spirits must cry Whore first and by thus crying so loud against the horrid Treacheries of the Papists they think to divert our eyes from discerning their own pernicious designs But we would gladly give them leave to spit their venom against the Papists and rail at them with all virulent invectives imaginable had themselves been so Loyal in their actions as not to surpass them in wickedness or so dutiful in their expressions as not to snarl at his Sacred Majesty nor with such arrogance openly censure his Princely wisdom in proroguing and Dissolving his Parliaments as if he design'd to encourage the Plotters to murder himself as though forsooth the blood-thirsty Presbyterians should wish his Majesty better than himself can do whereas it 's apparent to the World their main design is to tread the foot-steps of their Fathers and raise again the Cromwellian Gospel and Government To this end the Oliverian Presbyterians of Ireland having ill spent what they have worse acquired in that Kingdom do daily flock over hither in whole Swarms and under the colour of this late Popish Plot do leave no stone unremoved to bring that Nation again into intestine troubles thereby to leave that remnant of true Protestants which God has miraculoufly preserved in that Kingdom to the merciless mercy either of the cruel Papists or bloody Fanaticks Nay they make it their business to blow the Bellows of Rebellion here as lately they have done in Scotland though by God's providence to their own utter confusion Let us therefore dear Countrey-men beware in time of these hypocritical Religionaries and as we tender the peace and welfare nay the very being of our beloved Mother the Church of England let us use all our endeavours in this our choice of a new Parliament that no Presbyterian Papist or other Fanatick be ever admitted to sit in that Honourable House Let us not be so credulous as to believe that Schismatical Sectaries who daily undervalue the Laws of the Church will ever endeavour to make Laws to establish the Church We may as well believe that Wolves will make Folds to preserve the Flock from ravenous Beasts as that Presbyterians or other Fanaticks will ever pass any Laws for securing either Church or State against their own undermining contrivances I think the abomination of desolation which through your unlucky Election of treacherous Presbyterians for your Representatives in Parliament happened to the amazement of the World in the Year 48 speaks loud enough to disswade you from such desperate choice for the future Be wise therefore now and circumspective and while by one days prudent choice of faithful and true-hearted Representatives you can secure your Lives and Liberties and prevent all eminent dangers which threaten our Church and State make use of so fair an opportunity Believe me if you let it slip you may for ever lament but never be able to redress your losses Remember the old saying Post est occasio calva Therefore Principiis obsta sero medicina paratur Cummala per longas invaluere moras FINIS